Warlock improvement idea

Classes Warlock
1

After some recent nerfs and changes Warlocks fell off and there is no Warlock spec performing really well at the moment. You can make them work but their performance is average at best.

I was thinking on few QoL changes that are actually rooted in old expansions.

Let’s start with Affliction. The main issue is casting UAs with the amount of interrupts and micro CC. Holy Priest being meta healer makes it even worse. So what’s the idea. Add a 2nd choice option for Soul Swap that removes CD but makes it cost a shard. This way you can spread or maintain dots easier. The shard cost would make you sacrifice burst for sustain damage and won’t ruin already existing PvE builds. 2nd and more controversial change is bringing back Soulburn + Soul Swap to apply all dots to the target (UA, Corruption and Agony). I’m not sure if this won’t make you do it every time and then hard casting UAs obsolete but I think it would expand the comp options for Affliction outside of Assassination/Affliction/H Pala.

The QoL for Destruction would be bringing back the option to Soulburn instant Soulfire. Since both spells cost shards you sacrifice Chaos Bolts for it so it’s not a big deal but have easier time buffing Incinerates with Soulfire.

For Demo - not sure if anyone plays Nether Portal in PvE but for me it feels that it’s too similar to Tyrant. Maybe bringing back Decimation Bolt but a bit weaker to enable Demon Bolt build again would be interesting. It has to be an alternative to the current builds and if it had fixed % of increased damage and 2 guaranteed Demon Bolt crits for 150 k it would be fine. Right now with all talents Demon Bolt hits around 120 k if it crits.

2 Likes
2

All 3 specs needs major rework,compared to other class design ours feels so much outdated,its weird how our class was better in previous expansions,its.like warlock is devolving ever since legion rework.

5 Likes
3

100%.

Given how quick Blizz are to nerf/buff the meta classes it’s strange just how much they neglect the glaring issues with Affliction.

2 Likes
4

Especially Affliction. From one of the most aconic specs pre-Legion to a meme for tryhards. It only proves what I said in the past. Legion reworks ruined a lot of specs and were a downgrade

2 Likes
5

You are asking for instant casts and that is correct. The problem however is deeper than that.

Warlock previously had 3 specs:

  1. Mobile affliction: you instant cast, but your damage is stretched/delayed.

  2. Burst destruction: long casts, high damage spikes.

  3. They do it for you demonology: strong demons (incl. the ones you can dominate only temporary) fight for you.

The cyborsporting of the game ruined all of them:

  1. Blizzard failed to balance unique affliction gameplay (for the top 0.001% of cybersportsmen), so they added Malefic Rupture, turning the spec into the regular caster, but worse.

  2. Blizzard decided the burst is too high for PvP, so they changed destruction to no destruction.

  3. Blizzard got lazy and decided that adding fun demons was too much work, so instead they copy-pasted tons of imps. Ah, also smart use of demons is not allowed, because fun is an exploit and has no place in this game.

2 Likes
6

I dont know how people are okey with demo? All we got is a dogs,rest we had them all,tyrant is like a doomguard.but in the process we lost so much,and we wont be getting it back anways since they baked our unique spells into DH class
Mop wod era was the peak for warlocks.
Anything less than that is mediocre at best

6 Likes
7

Blizzard has aboslutely no idea what they’re doign with Locks. It’s like as if nobody there cares about Warlock so they assigned some employees to create specs that look passing on a spreadsheet but upon any closer inspection you can see glaring issues.

For Destro they honestly need to do away with Charred remains. Chaos bolt turrent spec devalues chaos bolt and also makes it hard to balance.

  • Conflag, Incinerate and Immolate should be buffed, they should deal more damage to be more than just builders and should generate less shards.
  • This will allow Warlocks to utilize all their damaging spells to their full potential in their rotation, reducing overeliance on Chaos bolt
  • Chaos bolt in turn, shall be buffed singinficantly to be a nuke, however with reduced shard generation you won’t be able to press it as often. Therefore making it your powerful “ultimate” spell that you press when you know you want to kill.
  • Bring back old Aftermath, I get that Entrenched in flame was OP but Aftermath just dazzed enemies and would be nice for kiting.

Demo I’d just revert to old playstyle too. Demonology warlocks are powerful and therefore they have learned to balance the fine line of corruption. Therefore their new resource is going to be Demonic corruption (renamed Demonic fury with new visual). Also Soul shards are gone, Master demonologist is powerful enough to “skip the middle man” and doesn’t need to use them.

  • Warlock will aquire Corrupted form, which will look like Gul’dan in Nightold or at the very least like Dark apotheosis. You are no longer turning into Demon per se, just letting demonic energies corrupt your body in exchange for power

  • Spells

    • Inner Demons (Passive), you just periodically summon imps and other demons to you, your MotL DoT ticks and other abilities also have chance to summon a demon when you use them
    • Mark of the Legion (replaces corruption), instant, this will mark the target. This target will periodically recieve shadowflame damage from the twisting Nether. Generates Demonic corruption over time.
    • Shadowbolt, needs to introduction, generates a small ammount of Demonic Corruption
    • Hand of Gul’dan, instant, two charges, calls down a demonic meteor that deals damage, leaves a patch of shadowflame (this part could just be a PvP talent) on the ground and generates moderate ammount of demonic corruption.
    • Demonic Core + Demonbolt, works the same as in live. I think that it’s big improvement over MoP/WoD soulfire and should stay like it is.

  • In Corrupted form

    • Shadowbolt - > Touch of Chaos. Melee range, spammable chaos damage, refreshes the Legion Mark, consumes Demonic corruption.
    • Hand of Gul’dan - > Chaos wave, deals damage, slows enemies, gets small damage bonus for each demon that’s out (Sacrificed souls baked into the spell), consumes larger ammount of Demonic corruption

We could also have demons showing up as cooldowns to keep bit of the summoner vibe, also I’d like option to either choose Felguard or Succubus with each giving their enough bonuses in the talent tree specifically for Demo. Demonic strenght should also do unique thing based on which demon you have out, not just Felguard.

5 Likes
8

Affliction needs the UA build again, but with MR as the stacking dot.
Drain Soul should be our filler not Shadowbolt, nobody plays it anyway.
Malefic Grasp needs to return,combining Drain Soul and Drain Life into one channel.
Absolute Corruption and Syphon Life should be baseline since they introduced those spells. But Syphon Life should be passive on all damage.
Instead Affliction gets Dark Bargain, which allows to stand still and cast instead of running away all the time.

1 Like
9

Anything making affliction immobile should be removed.

I am ok with casting UA as dot protection, and an occasional haunt for single target burst, but that’s it.

10

Haunt and soulburn used to be shard spender in the past,i loved that playstyle.

11

They should center Affliction more around dots than around casting MR.

4 Likes
12

They should do alot of things but we ain’t getting s hit as far i can tell, numbers are there but playstyle is s hit.

1 Like
13

Playstyle is ok for me, a lot of buttons. Worst thing is stuff lie AMS and Spell warding preventing me from applying dots, ofc they should deal 0 damage but at least let me apply them.

Then dispel protection, fade shouldn’t stop the damage. Then if you are immun you can’t dispel.

14

There are loads of ways to improve warlock, but reducing soul shard generation is definitely not one of them.

Let’s be honest here, the only reason why you would want this is because you wanna one shot people in pvp.

The problem is, low shard gen is terrible gameplay.

What they should actually do it this:

1: Revert the changes they did for demo.
2: Grand warlock design in the class tree
3: Main demon cds, baseline
4: Cataclysm in place of pyrogenics
5: Channel demonfire castable while moving, and generates 1 soul shard fragment for each main bolt, not the cleave damage.
6: Soul fire insta cast, chance to reset it’s cd on immolate ticks. Or on incinerate casts
7: Haunt removed, functionality added to unstable affliction
8: Doom blossom/dread touch are too polarized, you either aoe or st, no in between. It’s frankly terrible.
9: Add back shadowlands affliction tier set, malefic rapture dot extension is awesome.
10: Darkglare should have a soul shard generation component, so it doesn’t feel irrelevant for gameplay, and you can actually see, and feel and effect on your rotation.
11: tyrant should generate soul shards progressively, and not all at once, to avoid wasting them.

And that’s about it, ill add more if it comes to mind. I haven’t got many ideas for demo. Aside reverting the awful changes they did.

12: Madness is a boring talent, strong, but boring, it would be best to rework it into something a little more interesting. No idea what though.

13: Vile taint cd shouldn’t be longer than 25 seconds baseline, better if it was 20.

14: remove agony stacking mechanic. Why is this even a thing?

On a different note, i was under the impression that channel demonfire would only increase the duration of dots on targets hit directly by the bolt, it seems that the cleave works too, it’s just that without cataclysm immolate will run out eventually, and you’re gonna have to re cast it on all targets, unless you have crazy levels of haste.

15

Incinerate castable while moving with 60% ms like it was in the past,cdf while.move.is not necessary (,you wont be playing it next tier)
Cata & vail taint and soc&ROF needs to be baseline.
And they need to decide state off affliction cuz we aint dot class

16

I disagree, malefic rapture has to be removed completely, not patched.

2 Likes
17

Well i disagree with your disagreement.

Affliction already has enough stuff to keep track of, especially dots, if anything, siphon life should be removed.

And rapture is actually pretty cool. Especially with dot extension.

Oh but affliction is about dots, look, they have unstable, corruption, agony, siphon life, vile taint, drain life, drain soul, i think that’s about enough.

The majority of the toolkit is dots, with some direct damage with rapture.

18

I remeber the time when affliction was about 2 dots and CoA had no stacks (SL/SL build). The spec was as mobile as a beastmastery hunter back then.

They added tons of stuff, you mentioned, later over the years.

With just 2 dots warlocks had a very high damage per cast (potential dps on unlimited targets), so devs began “fixing” it, until they ruined all mobility and turned the warlock into a regular standing caster.

1 Like
19

I liked the tbc/wrath(only because of haunt). Both expansion are completely only about Agony, Corruption and Unstable Affliction.

Haunt was added as a Shard spender. And did only gave 10% increased damage and heal us for 100%. If I remember it correct.

1 Like
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