Contrary to the popular opinion, I think locks (specifically destro) are fun!

[Jonny727272]

I'm seeing so much negativity towards warlocks and especially the neutering/pruning of destro. I mained destro all of HFC, was my first time playing a lock, and really appreciated the ability to adapt to every situation(FnB). I know we don't quite have that toggle anymore and I will surely miss FnB CBs, but after playing on live and reading some more guides, I think we are in a totally fine, and even better place!

Firstly, holy balls we have so many talent choices! It can be a bit overwhelming, but I prefer that and having to alter my playstyle. Destro can do aoe but it really requires using different spells in combination and I find that to be very fun and engaging! I'm also loving that it's worth it to keep my demon, no more GoSac by default. Opening rifts feels badass and I love seeing those health bars just melt >:)

We have many choices and blizz has done a good job of balancing most things imo. I can't wait to get some legendaries and further my artifact to really alter my playstyle. Legion looks like it'll be lots of fun with mixing up playstyles and adapting.

[Elise the Seeker]

You started playing a lock during HFC. So thats why you don't understand how we feel.

[xhisors]

You started playing a lock during HFC. So thats why you don't understand how we feel.

I've been playing lock since beginning of WoTLK, and I like the Destro a lot, been having lots of fun... though I still wish Shadowburn was baseline. I thought the whole mop style of affliction with soul swap was the most fun. Demonology COULD have been such a bad ass spec, but I don't feel its good to me. I don't have any real good suggestions that are well thought out but honestly demonology is pretty meh. Prefer it how it was in WotLK.

[CuchuCachu]

Nobody says we arent fun. Just that Mages (specifically) are considerable more well rounded. And they are our competition

[bio347]

Nobody says we arent fun.

Uhhh... have you LOOKED at this forum lately?

[Lisa Frank Succubus]

I've played warlock since vanilla, wasn't crazy about many of the changes but I am having fun now. I don't really care if mages are better in every way because playing mage bores me, I just want to play my warlock and maybe DH alt. I miss the old fire and brimstone along with dark soul but I really like wreak havoc and all the artifact weapons are awesome. I played around with demo, its a shame about the ramp up time and how its basically a tunneling spec that can't really do much in mythic+ because I wanted to level the skull first. Now I'm just doing destro but I wonder if I should start putting points into affliction..

Biggest complaint I have really is that all 3 of our specs have such radically different roles, like destro seems to be the raiding spec, affliction for mythic+ dungeons and demo does lots of damage if you don't have to move a lot? I don't know, but with fire mage you're pretty set with that spec, you can raid, do mythic+ dungeons, that's the only thing that really bothers me. Like right now I want to level but I'm scared of screwing myself over with the artifact, I don't know if I should just focus on one or start working on another..really I like something about all 3 specs. I just really like the warlock class. Maybe I'm broken or something. I tried fire mage, its ok, but just isn't as fun to me.

[benjaminandjen]

I started having a blast when I talented into cataclysm, it's so OP. Combing that with permanent infernal. Use meteor strike with cataclysm, just dang. I'm also leveling with shadowburn and everything dies SO fast, I have endless mobility, and I have full shards non-stop!

[transparent]

Nobody says we arent fun. Just that Mages (specifically) are considerable more well rounded. And they are our competition

They aren't just well rounded, they also took from us our visual appeal such as spheres and burning up.

Either way, Destruction's play style didn't change (its main issue is the crap damage that CB does now), nor did Affliction's really (UA replaced Haunt effectively), however Demonology is a former shell of it's glory days.

But yeah, as mentioned above, go to the official Warlock forum. We aren't as much fun as we used to be, Blizzard really didn't hold back on making Warlocks one of the least fun classes to play. Almost like they deliberately tried to do it.

[Deleted]

i love how shadowburn> chaos bolt now. id ont even cast chaos bolt anymore while leveling..

[Klingers]

Having played every iteration of the Warlock from February 2005 to today I can tell you the current warlock is significantly less fun than it was.

For me, and I think others like me this the question this time isn't about damage throughput or viability. They're... Fine. I guess. Sure, warlocks are... Mrrrr... Ok...

The question for me quite simple: Did all Blizzard's knob tweaking and spell pruning and two-plus years of frigging with my favourite class actually produce a warlock that is objectively more fun to play than the MoP or WoD warlock? Viscerally better?

What did I actually gain?

How the the class improve?

Are the new (old) resource system for destruction more interesting visually or thematically than being set on fire while I lob cones of flame at things and cauterize my own wounds?

If I've lost mobility and self-healing and on-demand AOE, what have I been given to justify what I've lost?

The TLDR is if you can't objectively show real genuine benefit for serious redesigns of a class that leaves them in a state deficient to what they were, why the fuck are you changing them in the first place?

It doesn't matter if they're... Ok. It matters that they used to be BETTER than just OK. Now they're not. That's just disappointing.

[Deleted]

Destro is really bland right now, feels ugly, clunky and slow as hell.

[Deleted]

I find it is pretty fun to play while leveling, it feels very mobile with Rifts, SBs, Conflags, Havoc.

[Deleted]

Fun is subjective, when there are spells changes/pruning, that can sometimes mean flavor change. Some like it and some do not. Its just that people in general are more eager to write a post about something the dont like rather than something that they enjoy.

The BIG paradox in this and every other forum though is all the viability talking and whining. If you look closely, you will see that the many raiders that actually play in top tier guilds (and there actually top performance of the spec really matters) do find a way for warlock to work for them and dont whine 24/7. At the same time 50% of the people who whine about no top raid perfomance are gonna just do up to LFR anyway. Ppl that that will do mythic +2 and/or are pvping at the 1700 brasket whining about the viability of the class is a joke and just spread doom and gloom missinformation. Eventually they are gonna reroll fire mage and do the same progression anyway.

People also like to blame it on the spec/class instead of themselfs. Fire mage is not gonna get you from LFR status to US first. Yes fmage and MM are more well rounded specs but dont kid yourselfs. If you are not getting a raid spot in your guild or dont get invited for mythics or whatever (and you are not in a top racing guild) its most likely because one of the following things:

1) Your raidleader just follows the forums meta and doesnt know better (and doesnt care to know better)
2) You are not as a good player as you think, or other players in your guild are just better (and before someone jumps in and says "amg i was top 3 dps all the time last expansion now i am 8th or 9th, all i have to say is that adaptation to changing mechanics is a trait of a good player too)

Are there gonna be warlocks in top mythic raiding guilds? YES, are there gonna be warlocks in mythic +over9000 groups? YES, are there gonna be Gladiator Warlocks? YES...Hell even in wod ppl were crying destruction is total garbage in pvp cause the tryed 1 or 2 arenas. Were there ppl at 3200 freaking rating playing only destruction? YES. Are all these gods?no, they are just very good players who put effort into getting better instead of whining. Is there gonna be a warlock in the world first roster? Why do you care so much if YOU are not competing for it?

Just my 2 cent.

to op :I am having a blast with warlock lvling too. I also like what the did with Zone system..it feels less linear. I tryed all 3 specs while lvling, everything seemed fast and fun.
About demo if you are feeling it kills slowly cause of ramp time, just gather many mobs with infernal (take also hand of doom and darkglaire) and spam demonwrath and implosion. Its really fast.

[Jessicka]

You started playing a lock during HFC. So thats why you don't understand how we feel.

Having mained Warlock for 10 years, I'm with this.

Fun is of course subjective, and I'm just not finding the game as fun with an Affliction Warlock as I do Frost Mage. Affliction feels cluttered with a lot of 'do nothing' spells, I think I have 6 buttons on my action bar that are instant casts and have no real visceral, notable impact. 2 of those are talents, Siphon Life for survivability and Mana Tap because so much multidotting. The rest: Agony, Corruption, Life Tap, Reap Souls, all feel much of a muchness and even Unstable Affliction feels underwhelming. The last is Drain Life, which I'm hardly casting and doesn't seem to make anything die any faster when I do - and I really miss the execute function of Drain Soul.

[xpose]

Nobody says we arent fun. Just that Mages (specifically) are considerable more well rounded. And they are our competition

That's because blizzard loves mages and this expansion is made for warlocks but blizzard can't show bias so they put us in the garbage can

[Deleted]

Each spec aren't in any better spot than they've been in the past. I can't fathom some of the changes to Destruction in particular.
Between the 2 resource systems we've had, Ember and Soul Shards, there is literally no question that everything surrounding the ember resource was just infinitely better, unless you like RNG. The mastery talent is an additional layer of RNG, oh the absolute joy. Chaos Bolt will never be as juicy as it was back in MoP unless they change the cost to like 3+. By juicy, I mean that whenever you cast a chaos bolt YOU CAN FEEL IT. Fucking 1 million crits back in MoP was extremely satisfying. Seeing that big green bolt of death which you've spend the last 30 seconds building up to and planned ahead for.

Then you have these weak and frequent 2 SS costing chaos bolts. Chaos Bolts is one of those spells I feel like Blizzard has progressively raped through the newer iterations. Charred Remains, and now this.

Affliction I'm more inclined to like these days outside of the visuals. I just didn't see the appeal of Affliction when our damage wasn't really baked into our DoTs. I do think that Blizzard made a mistake by adding a cost to Soul Swap simultaneously with the removal of snapshotting. Snapshotting and strong trinkets were the only reason that Soul Swap was ever considered obscene. Also R.I.P Haunt. I don't think we'll ever see it outside of questing to be honest.

Demo I don't even want to speak of. Cool Artifact though.

[Jessicka]

That's because blizzard loves mages and this expansion is made for warlocks but blizzard can't show bias so they put us in the garbage can

With Khadgar and Alodi taking the lead with the Kirin Tor; the focus on Karazhan and Guardians of Tirisfall; I'd contest that this is the Mage expansion, definitely feels much more at the forefront with my Mage. There are plenty of Warlock NPCs involved with the Kirin Tor as well - who are well respected and sought, not seen as the enemy - so I'm also seeing a lot of Warlock action with her too. Yet, with my Warlock, I'm exiled to another planet to do my work...

[Deleted]

Destruction just needs a few tweaks to make it worthwhile. The random damage needs to go and Mana Tap needs to either be replaced (preferable) or the competing talents buffed to where Mana Tap is never the single best choice, in any situation.

[Cainium]

I'm playing my lock sicne mid cata, had a break mid WoD to give my feral a try, and now i'm back to lock.

My main spec has always been affliction, and to be honest, aside from some small issue (phantom singularity disappearing when target dies and such stuff, soul effigy occupying my focus slot, no baseline kick) i'm having tons of fun with that spec, more than in WoD, less than in MoP (but only slightly since MoP was primary exploiting trinkets with snapshotting). And it feels like affli is a little bit undertuned, but i'll wait with complains about that until I have reached 110, have a meaningful number of artifact traits and some gear with haste/mastery.

Just the thing with seeing the souls of killed enemys and consuming them with reap soul to increase my own power.... niiiiice I don't need big visuals that show "oh, there is an affli lock dot on the enemy".

[Finnigast]

I think, as someone else mentioned, that this thread shows how subjective this whole "fun" issue is. I started with Destro, and while I am not at 110 yet, I think the spec is fun. I just wish the CD on the rifts was lower. I would be willing to sacrifice a bit of damage on them for a faster recharge, however given that the effect you get from them is a random choice of 3, I think simply lowering the CD would go a long way toward addressing some of the dps concerns, as well as the fun concerns.

I get what they seem to be going for with Destro. Masters of Chaos, chaotic energy being random, random mastery, random damage, random procs. I get it. However I think the "randomness" should be an aesthetic thing, not a mechanics thing. Everyone hates RNG.