Who should play a Warlock in Shadowlands?
And why?
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i will play warlock in shadowlands because i like warlock
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That i do understand, but can you also explain why you like warlock?
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actually as demonology main i have pretty much no reason to play warlock on shadowlands , main reason as pvper who love battlegrounds will play it for sake of checking TTK / time to kill if its still slow or high , if its still high were you die in 6 sec by braindead melee classes even before you reach to your teammate yeah i will quit my warlock for good and use mage stealth and blink and iceblock more effective than warlock class that suppose to be tanky which is not at all ,
it mainly comes down to test warlock on shadowland for example i plan to use curse that slows 50% for 8 sec to make my pets catch up with enemy and use lifesteal conduit and lifesteal legendary plus 25% damage reduction from life steal pvp talent and see how it will works by wasting more time and heal so other teammate in BG can peer to me easily ,all i wish they make serious rework to demonology even more compare to one they did to shadowpriest for how clunky and slow ramp up turret thing it becomes and lack of demon armor / neither plate hurt alot
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because its pure dps class, and its a big change one of those 3 specs will be really good for raiding + there arent many warlock around so i can find groups alot easier
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And how about M+
To me as a demonology main I’ll swap to spriest because I don’t want to be afk another entire xpac in arena because my spec is completely trash/useless/frustrating.
It’s sad but at some point I have no choice if I want to be competitive.
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i play a warlock because it offers a lot to you as a player, you have 3 different dps specs that all play differently and are useful in different situations, cant speak specifically to shadowlands here as it hasnt been properly balanced yet, but if you take BFA for example,
demo has been more of the dungeon spec, but can do some serious ST dps if you play it properly,
aff has also been very strong in ST and is generally very strong for just quickly clearly world content, and very safely.
destro is very strong for cleave, probly the best cleave spec in the game, aswell as being very good for AoE in raids for the primary target burst off of shard gen from secondary targets.
and each spec plays very differently overall, and you can also play differnt talent setups for some of the specs without losing too much which is getting improved in SL as well.
main reason i started playing lock is because of it having 3 specs that all played differently and that i enjoyed all 3 meaning i would be able to raid on which ever spec was “best” and still have fun
Necrolord Affy lock will be my alt.
Lock was my main from BC till Legion, then Blizzard butchered all 3 specs. But affy is looking viable, fun, and with some sort of skill ceiling to strive for in SL.
Thus far affy is looking like it will be viable in all content. Affy is getting Malefic Rapture for the burst AOE situation, and many people on alpha/beta said MR feels good to use. And affy’s ST looks like will be strong as well (I know tuning is yet to happen) because of Necrolord’s class ability.
Provided our damage numbers are good, Locks will be a desirable class to have in dungeons and raids because of cookies, portal, and summoning stone.
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same thing for m+ as for raiding, any spec (not only warlock specs) is capable of doing +15s or even way bigger keys, now if you want to push super high keys like 28 29 30 then yes u pick the top classes that are buffed at that moment
in shadowlands demonology will have a interrupt finally so lets praise the lord
i will stick with my warlock no matter what, its my main and i like the idea of having 1 special character
edit: i dont pvp ever so I cant say anything about that
For me it’s all about the classes performance in raiding:
On top of being a ranged dps specc that contributes big DPS Numbers in almost any circumstance but most importantly in desirable situations like spread cleave, here are some things ONLY warlocks bring to raids:
Gateways
- immensly useful if not downright required on the major final bosses in BFA and many more.
Pet utility
- infinite range interrupt (Mythrax and Ilgynoth)
- Imp-Dispell (Azshara)
Healthstones
Soulstones (avoiding long deathruns)
Summonstone
New with Shadowlands: Curses
Depending on covenent and specc choice we even get another desirable “niche” - Execute damage.
Objectively there is barely a DPS class that brings more to the table and is missed more when absent than warlock.
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Isnt Shadow priest and Aff warlock the same thing tho? 
side by side on SL theres really not alot splitting these two, and its likely given record… its quite likely that AFF will be stronger
Blizz recently decided to revamp shadow, i don’t know how good these changes are, but people seems to be happy.
Spriest are similar to Affy in the way that holy paladin is similar to holy priests. Some minor similarities, but they are still different in their own way.
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I switched to warlock in 8.3 because no serious Mythic guild wanted to recruit ret paladin (Going in a guild that struggled to kill Ashvane is nein for me) so I tried warlock assuming only affliction would be viable. Turns out I lost my bet since affliction didn’t scale that well.
So the only reason for me to play warlock is really selfish, in the way that I don’t want neither destro nor demon being viable, ie I just wanna play affliction.
That being said, demon feels good to play… Only with a load of haste that only comes from stacking expedients. Destro too. But that is the issue : Imo, those specs only have good flow if we’re reaching ridiculous amount of haste. Something has to be done so CB does not have a 3s cast timer. Regarding demon, I do think that only reverting legion is the solution.
Shadow does look good gameplay wise
it also looks like its gonna take a hefty Nerf also tho 
Hi, since Cata, I’ve mained Afflock. Until now, warlock has a uniqe design. Because of this, people who don’t like standart casters (like me) play warlock.
Probably, i’ll continue to play warlock in Shadowlands but I am quite dissapointed about the new Malefic Rapture based damage design. So I’ll go for DEMO I guess.
If I come to your question; I have some answers for you.
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Locks are open world and soloing friendly. You can do whatever you want in open world content. All specs are so suitable for solo gameplay.
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Three dps specs… One of them is generally good. So if you want to play a DPS spec, you can go with it.
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Unique design (sometimes not, SL affliction can be a failure although it’s strong). Playing with dots (
), hell and fel fire 
or demons are looking exciting and good. -
Arguably, more mobile than other casters feels good and smooth.
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Transmogs are really the best ones in clothes imo.
That’s why I’ll main warlock again and again.
I am not a super hard raider or M+ player. So I am not interested in the %1, %2 damage loss or gain at the hardest content.
I am playing my characters just because I enjoy playing them.
Also I like Frost DK and Feral Druid as alt characters. Probably, up to new expansion, if it’d be alt friendly I can give some chance to level and gear up for one or two of my alts.
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Im playing warlock on beta and I must say it feels good but in dungeons frustrating with 3 targets u cant dot all . If u finnishd the dots on 3 and want to do mr dots of first are alrdy gone. If they inscrease dots timers its perfect
Sounds like you should just use seed of Corruption and blow up enemies with malefic rapture, instead of trying to compulsively dot everything.
Yes but then you only have corruption on the targets and mr do low dmg then and seed do low dmg