Honestly the worst class that ever that existed in any expansion.
The survivability is non-existant. You - literally - are dead in a single stun or less. Any significant ability has a long cast time and require serious lead up time.
Chaos Bolt? The once well feared decimating ability is now no more than a barely noticable fart.
I do not understand the reasons why ? Dealing 32 dmg with Agony , 1k crit haunt and 4k chaos bolt crits seems fine with me , when every melee with their 6 gap closers, 2 stuns and almost perma school lock deals 6 to 12k crits.
Seriously though , casters in PvP (healers aside) have no chance, all school locks are not even in global CD, the cool down is just too low for what they do , range is not existent in pvp since melees have like 6 ways to get you and stick on you( fun fact : they all get 10 yards + instant stuns so ) and be honest : there is absolutely no reason to cast a 2-3 second spell to deal less damage than any melee does with instant uninterruptible skills.
I tried like 3 BGs every single melee would stun and decimate me within 2-3 seconds and I could not begin to cast before I got instant lockdown from people that did not even target me ( add ons making life easier ? ) While the one lock I came across (he was desto) I just completely utterly ignored, as chaos bolts were doing like 4k dmg on me.
I play affliction tried out my full rotation of dots + haunt + 3 malefic raptures against friends in duels , that is approximately 7,5 SECONDS of free casting ( good luck doing that in PvP if you do not have 5 people peeling for you) and the max dmg was 50% of their HP. (seriously check dmg of curse of agony man)
Paladins deal 5k instant dmg , hell auto attacks deal 500 to 2k my haunt crits for ~1k.
Casters in PvP were (IMO) UP to Wotlk with minor exceptions to that rule (did not play panda land however , been told casters were good).
Edit : Interrupts locking down your entire school for 5+ seconds and not the spell you are casting is beyond ludicrous and should not be a thing after wrath , makes no sense specially with the amount of CC around and melees never have to worry about anything and just roll head on keyboard.
Or they should just add a freaking DR to interrupts already…
Or just give every class and every caster a 3s disarm with a 15s CD and NO DR.
Let melees feel what we do if they tunnel us. Equality for all.
Warlocks need a 10-15% soul link and a faster way to apply our dots.
A PvP talent that causes UA to also apply Corruption or Agony would be amazing since we’re super global starved in arenas.
Just redesign Rot and Decay, what a god damn garbage talent.
I don’t understand why a class like warriors are able to sit in a passive 25% shield wall(Defensive stance) and warlocks are just meant to flop instantly to anything.
I have 4 warlocks since forever, the class feels an empty husk of its former glory…Affli dots do zero dmg, survivability is non existent for all 3 specs
, destro is designed really really bad with the term : “get embers = zero dmg, consume em, zero chaaaaos bolt dmg.”
Demo is literally a joke, felguard hits like my 2 week’s kitten on its toy ball , pets aint got unique spells anymore , lock is literally the most destroyed of its fantasy as a class e v e r … in everything. What it needs is a FULL re - design on all of its 3 specs.
About melees vs locks, its literally a clown fiesta. What i really laugh alot about is the casting time on shadowfury. This is the most ridiculous trollish design on us ever. Imagine having a Dh or a rogue on you, and you gotta cast a SF 1.5 s cast. Kekw.
Pruuuuning, keep the pruuuning blizzard.
Keep destroying the classes.
I think my chaos bolt hits for about 5k.
Last night, I was on my rogue(because, well if you cant beat them join them), and I got hit by a rising kick that crit me for 17k. No extra buffs nothing. And even more of a fun fact, he was not even targetting me.
I dream of the days that a chaos bolt will hit for 10k, never mind 17k.
Please tell me how on earth this game can be balanced if melees are able to hit for 17k instant cast, but we have to cast for 2 odd seconds to hit for 5k?
Cast time on SF. Cast time on Portal. Its a joke.
Shadowlands has killed the Warlock class.
RIP.
No. The Legion pruning did. That was also the xpac that nerfed Shadowfury from an instant cast 30s CD stun to the casttime abomination with 1m CD that it is now.
?
Interrupts have a cd twice longer than your refresh.
If you miss an interrupt you’re dead meat.
But I do understand.
Well you guys had fun no-braining one shotting everyone in BfA, sorry, it’s their turn now.
Just can’t really be sympathetic.
It was destro, yep it was broken, but what about Affli or Demo, these two specs didn’t had a fun time during BFA
Warlock is an outdated class
It still casts
@Gannash
What are you talking about ?
Ok lets start slowly : what do you think is easier , to land a interrupt that has no GCD , is instant and lasts for 5 seconds with NO DR , or “fake cast” and pray your opponent does not wait till your spell is at least 75% ready to fake cast.
lets say you do fake cast successfully on 75% of the cast, all this time I am doing 0 dmg , every warrior is pummeling me non stop with uninterruptible instant skills that hit harder than chaos bolt (3 sec cast) who do you think wins the dps race ?
lets say for arguments sake that our damage per second is ~ the same, AND I do fake cast successfully , and for some reason you have no stun… then what ? what do I cast to kill you ? lets take the strongest spell there is : chaos bolt : I hit you for 5k crit after 3 seconds (lets , for aguments sake again, say that I have 0 interruption from your attacks) , then what ?
what on earth are you talking about BFA warlocks one shoting people ? when did that happen ? cause every single time I was perma trained by everyone and their mother in every single pvp instance I can think of , and yes interrupted / school locked for people not even targeting me with NO DR , how on earth were warlocks NOT turrets / training dummies in BFA?
I do not think you know what you are talking about and no , missing your interrupt does not make you “Dead meat” , 1) cause everyone , and I mean EVERYONE deals more damage, faster than locks , 2) you have instant 5 second stun that does not break on dmg and of course it is not melee but 10yards range and even it was ranged you have what ? 4 ? gap closers?
I am certain that guy is brain damaged. Also to tons of locks, micro interrupts (any knocback effect), stuns, insta soft CC, sh*tton of magic invurnabilities you forget things like spell reflect… casts requires insane setup, especially with current super slow casting speed, they should do way more dmg than melee abilities and yet it is other way around. Look at my 0.8 sec 50 yard the hunt critting for 18k (16k dmg, + 2k first dot tick at same time). And that’s not above average, rogues can do worse same as retribution paladins. Considering 5k chaos bolt requiring extra resources to be viable is straight down braindead in current meta.
This. Theres no discussion really, these are easily observable facts.
Whoever OK’d the Warlock design for Shadowlands is an abhorrent person and should be fired.
I can admit that fake-casting is hard, whoever doable.
But trying to stay that it was nonsense about Chaos Bolt doing INSANE DAMAGE and rooting people was ok?
Are you inbred?
Yes because it is not just about fake casting, you face cast and everyone can still: Use soft CC to interupt, use spell reflect, use defensives, without root simply los, because that’s how long it takes, use stun to interrupt… even if you successfuly fake cast you are absolutely nowhere against player that isn’t like you, nub, apparently mouse clicking action bars you can’t make it from failed interrupt to stun ability. Also your rating and stat history says it all, stop embarrassing yourself.
I didn’t talk about CD, but DR. 2 very different things. Kicks have no DR. If I get kicked I can be kicked again for the same duration immediately.
Makes it stupid the more melees stack on someone.
Kicks would be fine if pseudo-interrupts weren’t a thing as well. A spec that has to hardcast everything is just punished for that very fact. Every stun, every incap, every form of disruption just nullifies THE WHOLE TIME YOU CAST. You literally do NOTHING during that time.
It’s ridiculous how much downtime this causes, all the while melees don’t really suffer anymore from being melee… they have so many gap closers that if they choose so, they can basically have 100% uptime on most specs, and definitely on those specs that need to hardcast like demo and destro.
Even moreso, melees get rewarded for literally just existing. Why do auto hits still exist? I’m not kidding. Think about it for a sec. There is no reason for it to still exist, even less so if it does 1st or 2nd place of your damage. It’s free dmg for which you have to do exactly NOTHING. The only exception here is Rogues with Slice and Dice, that’s it.
Autohits and autoshots hit regularly for 800-1300 upwards. Thats the same or more damage than freaking 1.5s casttime Incinerate. Let that sink in.
I didn’t have the luxury of playing my warlock in bfa or legion but it’s fun being back again. Warlock class has always seemed like a high skill cap class which is why i find it interesting. With dark soul i can do around 8-12k chaos bolts using focused chaos, but then again i am decently geared.
Current state of Shadowlands looks really unbalanced, my feral druid friend can dual oneshot two players with the fae ability, and i saw a rogue 2v2 arena skirmish that killed the opponents so fast i thought they quit with 52k damage, shadowstrike etc, literally in seconds. I asked the rogue what the heck he did to them and he replied “I went all balance on them.” haha.
Sorry for bothering and for going off-topic, but do you fellas know of any good interrupt tracking addons or weakarua strings that could help my fake casting? Thanks. 
Warlock and havoc DH were punished of “being too good” in BFA. The best two though - rog and mage remained untouched.