Overspecialised specs, lack of utility and bad talent design are hurting Warlocks

[Grizelda]

That's the message you got from that?

I got fuck you go play with your garrison from that. And I actually like Bashiok.

[Deleted]

That's the message you got from that?

I got fuck you go play with your garrison from that. And I actually like Bashiok.

isnt that the usual message from blizard when it comes to locks now?

[Grizelda]

I think Celestalon has been in his office posting things from his computer.

[Karigg]

Would really like them to take another look at Immolation Aura damage, outside of MF; hasn't been looked at since the Siege nerf and stealth nerf.

Yeah that could be interesting. I'd love to see ToC buffed to see demo become a more viable movement spec. Keep it behind demonbolt for ST, but just to push it up a little bit. Don't think it'll happen though.

Also would like to see changes for Charred Remains that I posted about here http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/15700041181#1

[Roujeaux]

Some players see no issue with them, and apparently the devs don't either, but I for one don't like the current iteration of warlock class mechanics. Numbers are easily tuned, and are therefore a non-issue. I don't think it unreasonable at all to want our specs and abilities more fluid, intuitive, or engaging than what we have now, without being overpowered. Honestly the only things that should have changed about warlocks post MoP was a reasonable reduction in our excessive damage, then a fine tuning in our rough areas after a well thought out ability pruning. Alas, things didn't turn out exactly like that.

[Jessicka]

You play a Warlock; you don't play a Demonology or Destruction Warlock.

The precise opposite of this are the reasons we don't have tri-spec, our action bars aren't saved, and why we now have stat-specialisation abilities. Hell it's the very reason they want to balance all the DPS specs in the game better.

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This attitude of players has been the main reason for dumbing down every single thing about this game that used to be challenging and rewarding. Why dont we just give every class one instant cast spell that they spam every global to make sure every 5yr old who goes online on a 3 day basis can pull off the same dps as a min maxing competetive player ? Why introduce different difficulties for raids when every casual nowadays feels like he deserves to excel at the highest one without effort just because he pays a subscription fee ? If you want to get good at any game you have to give it your all and that includes optimising and respeccing for any given fight. You are mad because you cant have 3 speccs so your toolkit is adequate to EVERY encounter you play ? Have you even looked into the toolkit of other classes and asked yourself if being suboptimal at some fight is just a warlock problem ?

I think you're grossly under-estimating the skill delta across players by ability, it's just a ridiculous hyperbolic argument to slip into that frankly makes no sense.

Over the years, the game has shifted from fighting your class, to fighting bosses to the point where I think certainly during the Warlock experience in Cataclysm they actually realised compelling encounters are much more important, memorable, and more satisfying than overly-complex classes. That's why, as has been pointed out elsewhere on this forum, there's always been a bias toward Destruction as it's regarded as the 'easier' spec, even when Affliction was completely outstripping it. And why when Destruction and Demo were hard, and Affliction 'easier' but still perceived as hard by reputation; the Warlock population was completely decimated.

Have I looked at the toolkits of other classes? Well yeah, I've switched to Mage now, finally getting her up to speed, Fire goes from mediocre to good, to excellent as number of targets and movement increase; Arcane kinda does the opposite, and Frost is just all round decently respectable but hard to argue it's particularly overpowered anywhere. I don't feel like there's a really a spec there that I'd struggle to get away with - maybe Arcane on Tectus - but that's one fight. I don't mind switching for 1, maybe 2 fights a (full) tier to fulfil a specific role, or because that spec is just really super-awesome at that fight. That's not how it is, we only have 7 bosses right now and for Warlock, I'd be looking at swapping specs every other boss already without having that super-awesome shiny encounter as to validate it, as switching to Fire would be for Tectus if I was Arcane normally.

There is a simple rule to this that has been applicable to EVERY single patch of this game so far, and that is you simply CANT be 100% effective on EVERY encounter you face, all you have to do is make the best of it. The SoO times where you could basically play affliction on every fight and still rape everyone are over. Warlocks are absolutely 100% fine they are right now, just adjust to fights as much as you can and be done with it.
Where is the problem to drop either affliction or destruction while you progress tectus and simply cba and play what you like/have available once its on farm ?
At least you have the possibility to adjust to everything in some way ? This is actually bothering me more than it should.

I'm not asking to be 100% on every encounter with one spec, I don't think anyone is; it's entirely unreasonable and I was calling for Destruction's wings to be clipped during SoO because that's precisely what it did.

You can either be good at this game and make the most out of what you have or play whatever you like and perform poorer than somebody who decided to put in the needed effort. Mythic raiding isnt for everyone, and thats the way it should be.

I don't disagree, but I've known plenty of players who've been excellent at their preferred spec and loath to swap unless absolutely necessary. Being able to tri-spec and being a good player are not one and the same thing, and again, it's not something expected of Hybrid players.

Remember snapshotting ? It was a really fun mechanic that raised the skillcap of many classes and just felt super rewarding if done right.
What happened to it " I'm a casual and tracking my proccs is too much of an effort for me , but i want to be able to just as much as good players do ... Remove that maybe ? " and now ? "Respeccing and optimising for some fights is too much of an effort for me ,but i want to just as much as good players do ... Fix it maybe ? "

/endrant

I remember snapshotting, it worked for some classes - Shadow and Fire especially imho - but it became utterly ridiculous for Affliction and caused wider problems in the game in respect of balancing DoT specs with DD specs. For the specs it worked well for, watching procs still works in much the same way for them largely because Blizzard actively tried to preserve some of the gameplay; Affliction they didn't and I agree that's a problem.

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Would really like them to take another look at Immolation Aura damage, outside of MF; hasn't been looked at since the Siege nerf and stealth nerf.

It has. They gave us Cataclysm, that's where we're balanced around now for AoE; lining up HoG stacks, MF, Cataclysm, IA and Felstorm. I said that was going to be a problem during Beta, you defended that ridiculous bloat and now here you are complaining that IA is too weak?

Sorry. But your defence is that we should be indifferent because as a class as a whole it's functional for a handful high-end raiders to get a job done. That is a world away from being functional and fun for everybody else who will generally aim to perform at a decent level with their preferred spec that their guy is.

[Zevoa]

It has. They gave us Cataclysm, that's where we're balanced around now for AoE; lining up HoG stacks, MF, Cataclysm, IA and Felstorm. I said that was going to be a problem during Beta, you defended that ridiculous bloat and now here you are complaining that IA is too weak?

Sorry. But your defence is that we should be indifferent because as a class as a whole it's functional for a handful high-end raiders to get a job done. That is a world away from being functional and fun for everybody else who will generally aim to perform at a decent level with their preferred spec that their guy is.

Good job taking what I said out of context.

[Jessicka]

Good job taking what I said out of context.

You said it wasn't looked at. It clearly was, and on Tectus where Demo can use all that AoE effectively, it's pretty good. How is that out of context?

[Deleted]

that doesnt mean that the other lock specs shouldnt or couldnt be tuned up a bit, in the world of casualcraft, you dont respec for every fight, you play the spec you want to play(which is what it should be tbh) and you have to admit, if you dont respec to the absolute optimal spec, whether its normal, heroic or mythic, then generally your dps will suck, so i can definately see that point of view, but i will also admit that if you do spec the right spec for the encounter, then your numbers are just fine, not good but definately not bad either and that is also part of the problems as i see it, no matter the spec, you're either bad or ok'ish but you never shine, locks need ways to shine.

Classes that "Shine" dps wise are usually broken and an absolute necessity for the respective encounter. Blizzard wants all dps classes to be close in terms of dps and being middle of the pack to top 4 dps is what can be called a balanced class. Just because some classes are too good on some fights doesnt mean that the others should be buffed ?!

Also guys, the obvious problem ( if there is any problem tbf) is not your class but simply the Highmaul instance. Cba to talk about hybrid vs pure again tbh.

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I think you're grossly under-estimating the skill delta across players by ability,

I was overexaggerating an obvious current trend regarding class mechanics. And tbf, whoever claims that the difficulty in wow lies in encounter management now has never raided Highmaul. Imo there has never been a full raid instance in wow that had less demanding mechanics than HM.

[Shiennar]

I was overexaggerating an obvious current trend regarding class mechanics. And tbf, whoever claims that the difficulty in wow lies in encounter management now has never raided Highmaul. Imo there has never been a full raid instance in wow that had less demanding mechanics than HM.

Trial of the Grand Crusader.

[Jessicka]

I was overexaggerating an obvious current trend regarding class mechanics. And tbf, whoever claims that the difficulty in wow lies in encounter management now has never raided Highmaul. Imo there has never been a full raid instance in wow that had less demanding mechanics than HM.

HM is a reaction to MSV being too much of a step up from Heroics in an expansion opening raid. Looking at the full tier, going into BRF, there's a lot more going on in there.

[tmtb]

You play a Warlock; you don't play a Demonology or Destruction Warlock.

No, i definately used to play a destruction warlock, since the days of being forced to go SL/SL that i have this strong opinion that affliction should go die in a green fire.

As for demonology, i never cared much for the pet part of the class.

[Kashii]

You play a Warlock; you don't play a Demonology or Destruction Warlock.

Honestly I'd have no problem with this mentality (along with switching talents per fight) IF changing specializations wasn't burdened so much by the fact that optimal stats for Destro don't translate well to Demo and certainly not Affliction. It's pretty disheartening when faced with realization that you should probably be playing Aff. on Twins and then OH CRAP I HAVE LIKE NO HASTE!!!!

Sure, go ahead and tell me that secondary stats are so close now that it doesn't matter - - I can tell you that 7% haste blows when coupled with the fact that you're trying to gear up with all the other casters in your raid group.

I actually think that a good warlock should be able to play all three specs - skill wise....and I enjoyed playing all three at various times in MoP. Maybe I'm trying too hard -- we raid Mythic but we're not exactly cutting edge....but I always...always want to play at my personal best...ALWAYS.

Maybe it will be different when we start getting tier set bonuses and a given spec starts to shine more than the others for the rest of the tier.

[Leyl]

Honestly I'd have no problem with this mentality (along with switching talents per fight) IF changing specializations wasn't burdened so much by the fact that optimal stats for Destro don't translate well to Demo and certainly not Affliction. It's pretty disheartening when faced with realization that you should probably be playing Aff. on Twins and then OH CRAP I HAVE LIKE NO HASTE!!!!

Sure, go ahead and tell me that secondary stats are so close now that it doesn't matter - - I can tell you that 7% haste blows when coupled with the fact that you're trying to gear up with all the other casters in your raid group.

I actually think that a good warlock should be able to play all three specs - skill wise....and I enjoyed playing all three at various times in MoP. Maybe I'm trying too hard -- we raid Mythic but we're not exactly cutting edge....but I always...always want to play at my personal best...ALWAYS.

Maybe it will be different when we start getting tier set bonuses and a given spec starts to shine more than the others for the rest of the tier.

And there in lay the problem: swapping specs is good to do. But low haste, low stats, and very bad secondary stats on gear is kind of hamstringing a large portion of the population. Some are like "get good gear and shut up" but it becomes a chicken/egg scenario. How to get the gear to do the damage on a particular fight, when you don't have the secondaries to do the fight? I suppose one answer is to "simply do better at the spec you do have the secondaries for" but if your progression guild judges you pretty roughly, where is the line? Spend 500,000 gold on gear? Get funneled loot like some? I dunno. Final thought: when you do start taking off-spec gear, and someone stops you and goes "Hey, you don't need haste as Destro, what are you doing?" occurs, what do you say to object? "Oh sorry bud, I need all my specs to be tip-top on secondaries. L2Deal." Lol.

[Deleted]

And there in lay the problem: swapping specs is good to do. But low haste, low stats, and very bad secondary stats on gear is kind of hamstringing a large portion of the population. Some are like "get good gear and shut up" but it becomes a chicken/egg scenario. How to get the gear to do the damage on a particular fight, when you don't have the secondaries to do the fight? I suppose one answer is to "simply do better at the spec you do have the secondaries for" but if your progression guild judges you pretty roughly, where is the line? Spend 500,000 gold on gear? Get funneled loot like some? I dunno. Final thought: when you do start taking off-spec gear, and someone stops you and goes "Hey, you don't need haste as Destro, what are you doing?" occurs, what do you say to object? "Oh sorry bud, I need all my specs to be tip-top on secondaries. L2Deal." Lol.

i wholeheartedly agree, there should be a middle way, there should still be an optimal spec and then the other specs shouldnt suck to the degree that they do atm. it is really the elitist way of the hardcore raider that they want every1 that does mythic to play, problem is, there are far more guilds that have a more casual approach to raiding but they get all this forced down their throats, there should be a way to have 2 of our specs be atleast "fine" and our 3rd spec be good instead of having 2 specs being crap and the 3rd being "fine" on the various encounters that way the ppl can play their favorite spec without dragging the raid down and if you want to do the absolute maximum dps on the encounter you have that choice too. i dont know about other ppl but for me its about having fun and about having choices, and atm locks have too few choices, atleast if you are doing mythic progression and doesnt want to hinder your raid even if it is the casual way and that is bad class design imo.