Has anyone been having... You know... Fun with locks?

[Jessicka]

and were for months on Beta.

I'm not going to blame Blizzard entirely for this. I am in fact going to lay much of that blame squarely at the feet of Beta testers. There was a lot of peacocking and 'git gud' attitude when trying to discuss things like issues Effigy; because it was offering a clear advantage, and the testers seemed to be picked from a pool who focused on min-maxing rather than the functionality of what was put in front of them.

There was also a very solid preference toward Destruction from most of those testers, either because they just preferred it for gameplay, or preferred it functionally, both of which led to a lack of testing and feedback for Affliction and Demonology. It wasn't just Blizzard ignoring them; the play testers did so themselves.

Sure, there were concerns raised, but largely in echo chambers and based on second hand information. I don't really blame Blizzard for not listening too hard to that, when the people in the testing themselves weren't overly vocal themselves and defending some of the problems that were being brought up - even if those defences were built on foundation of fear of losing numbers to changes. I wasn't in Beta this time around, and probably wouldn't and couldn't have tested much even if I was; but I've been in a few over the years and there has always been a strong defence of terrible mechanics in there when said mechanics have conferred considerable numbers advantages. People don't want to be nerfed - and by and large, for the people in Beta, the really hardcore players, ultimately it all comes down to numbers.

[Deleted]

From the point of view of an ex mythic raider/officer who has just come back after 1-2 years on other games if anyone is interested :

30% of my spells have disapeared. My Bartender feels really empty. I call this the opposite of fun. I liked the complexitiy (but understand others don't).
Your bars are now also a graveyard of talents that you need to keep there in case you switch talent picks
Artifact Weapons - This just feels like the talent trees they scrapped because they said they provided uninituitive hidden mechanics. This is exactly the same thing. So I take this as a victory that they recognized that was great.
I'm still not sure how I feel about everyone in your class having the same weapon. I think I don't like it.
Having to level your weapon 3 times, once for each spec, seems ridiculous for a pure class, but then I think about hybrids and think it's even worse.

Scaling system seems good. Professions look good.
I want a HS to my class halls though.

[Jessicka]

I'm still not sure how I feel about everyone in your class having the same weapon. I think I don't like it.

It's not so bad in the Warlock halls, there's actually a bit of a mix between the three specs, and so it's not hugely noticeable; it's actually quite nice to have the visual of specs that way. It does get pretty ridiculous in the Mage halls though with the fiery orbs surrounding about 90% of players.

[Deleted]

I'm not going to blame Blizzard entirely for this. I am in fact going to lay much of that blame squarely at the feet of Beta testers. There was a lot of peacocking and 'git gud' attitude when trying to discuss things like issues Effigy; because it was offering a clear advantage, and the testers seemed to be picked from a pool who focused on min-maxing rather than the functionality of what was put in front of them.

There was also a very solid preference toward Destruction from most of those testers, either because they just preferred it for gameplay, or preferred it functionally, both of which led to a lack of testing and feedback for Affliction and Demonology. It wasn't just Blizzard ignoring them; the play testers did so themselves.

Sure, there were concerns raised, but largely in echo chambers and based on second hand information. I don't really blame Blizzard for not listening too hard to that, when the people in the testing themselves weren't overly vocal themselves and defending some of the problems that were being brought up - even if those defences were built on foundation of fear of losing numbers to changes. I wasn't in Beta this time around, and probably wouldn't and couldn't have tested much even if I was; but I've been in a few over the years and there has always been a strong defence of terrible mechanics in there when said mechanics have conferred considerable numbers advantages. People don't want to be nerfed - and by and large, for the people in Beta, the really hardcore players, ultimately it all comes down to numbers.

This simply isn't true. The forums were filled with players who were disappointed with a bunch of things, most notably:

1. No baseline interrupt.
2. Too much swapping between talents (They specifically mentioned in a blue post that a talent like Fire and Brimstone was problematic. They didn't change it at all).
3. Demonic Empowerment being used after every summon.
4. Healthstones not healing as much as healing potions.
5. Shard cost on our DPS cooldowns, as well as the DPS cooldowns themselves not fitting the spec when not demonology.
6. Mobility for Demonology, pet AI for demonology, Target swapping for demonology, and generally a lot of complaints about demonology (Not numbers, mechanics).

Those are just off the top of my head, there was a huge amount of feedback and almost nothing got changed for the better. Affliction artifact souls got changed (Arguably even worse now), Lord of Flames was linked to infernal instead of Rain of Fire (Which was a good change, the other version was retarded), and... Soul Harvest was changed into a wonky DPS cooldown, even though having 5 shards on demand on a low CD was frankly better (Should just be baseline, having 5 shards out of combat instead of 1, since none of our nukes are that strong anyway).

The current warlock state is entirely on Blizzard. They had sooo much feedback, and they decided not to do much about it.

[Jessicka]

This simply isn't true. The forums were filled with players who were disappointed with a bunch of things, most notably:

1. No baseline interrupt.

But we do get a choice of "'that kind' of ability.

2. Too much swapping between talents (They specifically mentioned in a blue post that a talent like Fire and Brimstone was problematic. They didn't change it at all).

I don't remember that blue, but I've seen plenty of people defending that design as "choice". It's a matter of differing opinions, and we're actually not unique in having those AoE Vs ST choices to make.

3. Demonic Empowerment being used after every summon.

Agree, I've seen plenty of negative feedback against this one.

4. Healthstones not healing as much as healing potions.

Again, not really a problem, there's nothing that stops us using Pots, and providing Healthstones wouldn't guarantee us a raid spot anyway - I can recall being in pugs where someone just logged a Warlock alt for Healthstones.

5. Shard cost on our DPS cooldowns, as well as the DPS cooldowns themselves not fitting the spec when not demonology.

I agree the shard cost makes them clunky, I can't agree that those cooldowns aren't fitting of the non-demo specs. Traditionally Warlocks were always a mash up of all three specs rather than being focused entirely on one tree like Mages, and that set us apart. I actually worry about moving too far away from that 'bit of everything' quest for power.

6. Mobility for Demonology, pet AI for demonology, Target swapping for demonology, and generally a lot of complaints about demonology (Not numbers, mechanics).

Can't disagree, but actually they were issues raised as far back as MoP's Alpha during the first iterations of Demo as a pet centric spec. It was canned then, but clearly someone decided this was no longer going to be a 'problem' so much as a 'feature'. It was never going to be changed.

Those are just off the top of my head, there was a huge amount of feedback and almost nothing got changed for the better. Affliction artifact souls got changed (Arguably even worse now), Lord of Flames was linked to infernal instead of Rain of Fire (Which was a good change, the other version was retarded), and... Soul Harvest was changed into a wonky DPS cooldown, even though having 5 shards on demand on a low CD was frankly better (Should just be baseline, having 5 shards out of combat instead of 1, since none of our nukes are that strong anyway).

The current warlock state is entirely on Blizzard. They had sooo much feedback, and they decided not to do much about it.

That's fair criticism that they only fixed the absolute bonkers designs and replaced them which much less thought provoked abilities. Doesn't change some of vitriol I saw for daring to challenge things like Effigy and the version of Reap Souls we got - that apparently was exactly what some Beta testers asked for.

[Sencha]

Destro is oversimplified and boring. Don't know about the other 2.

[CactusDisco]

I've made a video to show off some AOE griding as affliction. Not too bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdHAc2IC5mg

[Nevalus]

I was quite bummed out when this version of warlock was released in the prepatch, but after playing destruction after release I'm not dissapointed. The fact that we have either aoe or ST is problematic, and shard costs on cd's is clunky, but other than that I do enjoy the spec.

[unkiwii]

Before anything I have to say I don't care about numbers, I care about playstyle.

My main is a warlock. I have other toons, one of each other classes. I like the "caster" role but when I want something different I have it there just in case. I'm pretty happy playing my warlock. Before Legion I was going back and forth between affliction and demonology, but now I'm ALL in demonology, boy that's fun

I have a few points (all are just my personal taste):

1. I never liked destruction, just throwing "fire" at my enemies felt too much like a fire mage. In my head I'm not a warlock.
2. Demonology lack of movement: I really don't care. If you are on PVP maybe that can be a NO for you. But I felt like I can take tons of damage and kill my oponent before any need of movement is required by me. Affliction has great movement, if you like to be able to move more.
3. Major CD with shards: I've never been out of shards with demonology so no problem there, with affliction I had some issues but now I understand it more and I was be able to overcome that so again, I have shards when I need them.
4. Above all I LOVE demonology: Killing things with an army of 10+ demons that I control is AWESOME!

[Deleted]

No I'm not.

Warlocks were needlessly nerfed when they were doing fine in the pre-patch, now they're garbage.

No dmg, no cc, no survivability, no nothing. This class is dead.

I'd also like to mention that I'm amazed that they thought it'd be a good idea to force us to either deal aoe dmg or single target dmg with our only (barely) viable spec. A-m-a-z-i-n-g.

Unsubbing until they fix our class, as I'm not remotely interested in other classes.

[Deleted]

The issue I have with the talent sis not so much that you have to switch - which potentially adds interest and variety - but the fact that other classes simply don;t have to.

A fire mage can sit forever on an all-rounder spec and excel at literally everything, and this is a massive advantage because most encounters are a mix of things, not pure AOE or single target.

As a warlock the talents force you to choose at being bad at one or the other, and a fire mage can be good at both, and if they decide for some reason to minmax they can be supremelygood at one or the other and still be good at the rest.

A hell of a lot of affliction's issues could be addressed by buffing Soul Effigy considerably, it's a DOT multiplier intended to fix the ages-old conundrum of "if we make DOTs competetive on single target they become increasingly overpowered on multiple ones" - but frankly it's about the clunkiest version of Drain Soul/Haunt (which did the same thing) ever.

Soul Effigy actually got nerfed, god knows why since affliction wasn't beating people's pants off anyway.

PVP is not an issue since everything can be subject to modifiers

I'm th eonly warlock leftin my guild, the others quit or rerolled, the one who went fire mage says it;s ten times a smuch fun, you have a simple yet dynamic rotation that provides everything you need to excel and it puts out much bigger numbers for way less micromanaging - ans she never changes talents

[Life-Binder]

I kinda shelved my lock, but from what Im seeing so far Id simply rather play tanks or MM/BM or melee DPS (not just leather .. almost any of them) over pretty much any caster DPS right now


the only exception would be Fire mage and even then only in groups - not soloing

[Jessicka]

@Nebiroth99 Soul Effigy is too contentious, and it needs to be balanced against the alternatives. Buffing it absolutely isn't the answer because it's not existing in a vacuum.

I don't know about damage yet, the ramp up is too obscene to really get a measure from dungeons - you simply cannot play the spec properly (that in itself is a pretty collosal problem right there; very likely the real problem), and playing with a random mix of people who've done them all week and some literally just out of questing makes it hard to compare against others.

[Deleted]

Just change SoulEffigy to a single-target dot you don;t have to maintain

"but that's too easy and requires no skill"

To which I reply, well, you need less effort and skill to get more dps out of a mage, so wtf cares? Plainly Blizzard don't, they have never rewarded harder to play classes with higher rewards, often the opposite.

How about

Soul Effigy: you create an effigy of your Soul, which fixates on one target and periodcally copies your own spell casts, applying them to that target . Can only be used against one target, ten minute cooldown (resets on wipes). Spells cast by your Soul do 50% less damage.

It's a sort of mirror image thing, basically a reduced damage toon of yourself, and a sort of single target DOT. There are plenty of encounters that create player "clones" and apply damage or ability modifiers to them, so technically it's obvously possible

But just buffing effigy would help, two of our Gold traits barely help at all with lots of encounters

[Deleted]

Well the demonology artifact quest was fun(+ny) and the idea of it actually summoning an army of demons is not bad either.

[xpose]

People saying Warlocks are fine are delusional and don't understand the other classes are probably doing the same amount of DPS with much lower ilvl and worst gameplay.

The fact we have to be perfect in our rotations to even compete while other classes can faceroll is pretty insulting.

[Deleted]

The fact we have to be perfect in our rotations to even compete while other classes can faceroll is pretty insulting.

I've just come back after a very long break and this makes me smile. Some things never change, this sentence has held true for the past what, 3 expansions? 4?

[Uzkin]

Fun? I guess it's fun(ny) that out of the first 12 destro artifact trait points, 6 (= 50%) get wasted on traits that are LITERALLY useless for 99% of the current content (and almost useless for the remaining 1%). And there's so much more. For example, the first level of the talent tree, the one-button demonic circle, the RNG mastery, the redesigned RoF/AoE mechanics, the removal of pet ability (e.g. interrupt) from GoSac, the removal of a plethora of funny gimmicks (flame aura at high embers, flame trail/waterwalk of dreadsteed, soul shatter, high baseline mana reg, accelerated GCD, ...) etc. etc. are simply hilarious. Wouldn't be nearly as amusing, though, if I was still maining a warlock...

[Varlak]

I dunno what blizzard have done to the lock class but my sister in law who played a lock since BC and never cared about performance she quited his toon and now play a mage.

She never anjoyed aff but she always had fun with either dstro or demo and with all the hate I hear from lock I guess that sometimes went wrong in legion lol

[Deleted]

I dunno what blizzard have done to the lock class but my sister in law who played a lock since BC and never cared about performance she quited his toon and now play a mage.

She never anjoyed aff but she always had fun with either dstro or demo and with all the hate I hear from lock I guess that sometimes went wrong in legion lol

So everyone just seems to have a sister in law that happens to play wow and they all reroll fire mage?

Funny I see this kind of message in each class discussion forum