Warlock Class Fantasy

I’m not sure whether this is the right place, but here we go…

The Warlocks in WoW lore are some of the most powerful casters in the world. Mainly, they can open gateways to other places and even other worlds. Your average NPC warlock can do that. Why can’t we? All we can do is a gateway from point A to B on a 90s cooldown (that’s another issues, but multiple posts have covered that).

Update Warlocks. Add a bit of fantasy. Allow Warlocks to open demonic gateways to cities and other planets. It can be the dark streets, the underbelly of the city, and doesn’t have to be the local inn.

Also, make it so the Warlock can summon the closet, but still needs another person to help summon the party. Requiring 3 people to summon the thing is outdated. And while we’re inhaling the copium have the option to summon all party members. People are lazy and always expect a summon.

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In addition to what you rightly said, with different abilities that for unknown reasons have remained almost unchanged in dynamics despite 20 years having passed, the greater problem is that the fantasy class of the warlock was totally altered at a certain point, and unfortunately the warlocks themselves have made their own the wrong concepts that the developers have created.

I am referring to the concept of the “tanky caster” and that almost all warlocks repeat continuously, after having convinced themselves that it is so. In reality, at least for those who have played the warlock from its origins, the warlock was not tanky at all.

Affliction was very fragile and mobile and was supported by active and passive self healing.

Destrucion was the prototype of the glass cannon, with an emphasis on direct damage and very low defenses and decent mobility.

Demonology was instead the true tank, with a soul link that initially worked at 50% damage reduction (and with 5 talent points in master demonologist and using the voidwalker you had an additional 10% physical damage reduction) with more modest damage than the other two specializations.

What do we have now?

Affliction has lost all active and passive self healing, drains are almost non-existent, dots no longer apply pressure, and malefic rapture is a spell that patch after patch becomes more and more dominant.

Destruction is a chaosbolt-centric spec where the rest of the abilities produce really poor damage compared to the past (conflagrate has only served as a buff haste for years, but in the past it was truly devastating), shadowburn is a piece of cake, immolate would still have cast time if there wasn’t hellcaller (hero talent abomination in destruction optics). In 2025. A second and a half. Without dispel protection. With all the destruction synergies revolving around immolate.

Demonology is the one that comes out best, leaving aside the age-old issue of metamorphosis. Only then the absurd emphasis they often put on classes makes it an exaggerated spec in the number of demons summoned, but that many accept because “demonology is master summoner”. Which does not mean anywhere that to work it must summon 75 demons, but now the equation “master summoners = many demons” has been created. As if a “blade master” rogue had to walk around with 1378 knives. I would prefer “few but good”.

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Look at the video https://youtu.be/ots5wXMw4SI?si=8ubK9ZX0nPKn8cQA

This video focuses on our utility and what Warlocks bring to the table. I think it’s spot on and addresses the issue that others seem to enjoy gaslighting us to think there isn’t one…“Oh, Warlocks have great utility”

That would make them too much like Mages. With that said even changing the visuals of certain spells could help. Like a summoned demon coming out of a gate or something.

Apologies, do you mean us being able to create gateways to Capital Cities?

What’s wrong with that?! It’s very thematic and warlocks do it all the time. Let’s not restrict ourselves because of other classes have something similar.

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It is thematic, but not unique. You’ll just be mages in a different flavour, which in turn will not help the standardization of classes that WoW is suffering from.

Fair point from both of you. I just think it’s a nice to have and would show us as the anthesis of mages.

UPDATE: I miss Soul Shape. Just running around Ardenweald and it was such a good ability. I’ve seen post about a Warlock version.

Soulshape is the reason why I hated the developers more than usual XD, turning into a blue shining fox is a horrible thing for a lock…

Ok, it was useful, but the Door of Shadow instant would have been fantastic. I was one of the few warlocks during Shadowlands who played Necrolord even when it sucked at the beginning of the expansion just to avoid having little flowers, foxes, fairies

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