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[TummyBoy]

Would be fine if they didn't fuck up the talent swapping system

Isn't this going to be all but irrelevant in raids? You just need to get some Tomes to change your skills up. I don't know how Mythic+ works but it seems like no real problem. Worst case scenario, you can just swap to Aff or Demo depending on the encounter.

Like, if we can do good AOE, good cleave, and good ST depending on our spec, we're completely set for progression. That's the system working as Blizzard indended.

[benjaminandjen]

I seriously don't think Blizz intends us to swap constantly, I could be wrong. That's just our workaround to their mess imo

[blackops2008]

too much drama. I'm not having issues to get in a mythic group. I did all mythics at second day of launch pugging.

[Gaidax]

Destruction is mostly fine, there are some small QoL problems, but really - it's solid.

I think the issue people are having with it mostly has to do with the fact that a couple of super specs exist which can burst the crap out of trash or general AoE with CDs and still do good in single target at the same time, which of course is annoying, but it's not the usual thing people try to paint it as - you have like 2-3 specs that shit on everyone like that, not only warlocks.

That said - I do think that having to pick 3 talents just to bring AoE up is a bit too much. If either one of these: Cata, GoSac or F&B would be baseline it would totally fix that and make Destruction pretty much perfect.


Demo is also not that bad actually, it requires some skill to pull out correctly in any situation besides railroad single target Patchwerk and that is the point of failure for many.

Affliction I did not play enough to comment, but I did some on Beta and in right situations it can be hilariously OP such as mass AoE or multi-target (Skorpyron, Nightmare Dragons come to mind from what I did). Especially Skorpyron, outright ridiculous, but that's like a perfect storm encounter for Affliction really.

[Deleted]

But they are the specs that directly compete with warlocks for the same role, one of the reasons for that is that they just don;t have to sacrifice everything else to be good at one thing via talents

Fire mage, they have one talent build that excels at everything and can be supreme if they minmax talents

A warlock has to talent everything and constantly apologise to the group for saying things like "hur sorry I am utterly useless at everything except single target but guys watch I can almost keep up with the mage's boss damage if I can tunnel it all the time"

Yes, people like to complain, but I don;t think I ever saw the forums here and on BattleNet be so filled with negativity and despair, it is very obvious that a hell of a lot of warlock players are just getting a really bad experience

I kind of admire your relentless optimism Gaidax, but really it boils down to this...if you're a warlock you are forced into playing destruction, and you have to comparatively work your arse off and piss about with talents all the time just to be "average"

Affliction is extremely niche, it has turned into the king of aoe but shit at everything else, which is kind of ironic. Outsid eof Mythics nothing live slong enough for the dots to rampup, you have the most ferociously binary talent build imaginable, Soul Effigy is a wonky, pain in the butt DOT multiplier and you still won;t keep up dps wise anyway and affliction's artifact talents are genuinely garbage since two of them are reliant on killing stuff so unless you have a constant supply of handy adds then those gold traits give you absolutely zero.

Ironically one of them is pure AOE, and it almost looks as though the original intent was to compensate for afflictions's traditional weakness in that department by giving us Soul Flame, but really AOE is that last place affliction needs help, one of the reasons it is so weak on single target is that it's Gold traits either do nothing, or rely on a stream of killable adds and the buff ranges from pitiful to usless (I mean, on a fight like Helya, the affliction Golds do close to zero)


PUG groups are simpyl not interested in warlocks, not even destruction ones, our "most viable" spec. No group wants a warlock, because we just don't bring anything that a fir emage, demon hunter, unholy dk, mm hunter etc dont; bring way more of

I'm the only guild lock left, I asked the other who switched to fire mage and she said it is ten times more fun, you have every tool you could wish for to excel and PUG groups welcome mages with open arms, there's never an issue getting an invite as a mage.

It's all very well to keep repeating how destruction is "solid" but we're basically back to precisely the situation we got in Draenor, where the devs absolutely slaughtered demonology because they didn;t like it being the go-to spec that left the others dead

What the hell are people supposed to do if they want to run affliction or demonology? I personally don;t think it;s reasonable for the player base to have to say OK I pay my subscription fee and just suck up the obvious class favouratisms and play a mage or suck up the horrifyingly bad design balance and play destruction even if I hate it because it's the only warlock spec that you stand a remote chance of getting invites with unless you're doign a guild run and they are happy to carry you.

It's like a candy company making three flavours, two of them are full of dead flies and rat droppings so you have to buy the flavour you hate because it's the only one that doesn't give you food poisoning.

[Jessicka]

Yes, people like to complain, but I don;t think I ever saw the forums here and on BattleNet be so filled with negativity and despair, it is very obvious that a hell of a lot of warlock players are just getting a really bad experience.

Probably on par with the start of Cataclysm. We saw the same then. I'm not liking these stories of being insta-kicked for being a Warlock either, before even starting on the first trash pack - I can remember that happening to me a couple of times in Cataclysm too.

I've only done like one dungeon, so it's hardly a good metric to go on, but unless you're in a premade you're just not going to be given time to switch talents between trash and boss - it doesn't happen, it never has happened and it's unrealistic to expect it to change. The main thing I noticed though, is even with a bunch of undergeared nabs (myself included!) who'd never been in the dungeon before, the bosses still don't last long enough to actually start to play (Affliction) properly, making the most of Compounding Horror; you're probably still ramping up when the boss dies, after you've used your first two Shards on Service and Doomguard and waiting for the next Shard and/or Soul to appear. It's not a great experience.

As for trash, don't forget to take Sow the Seeds; it's everything. That's pretty fucking stupid to roll everything into that that way. Phantom Singularity is the new Barrage/Starfall, it doesn't seem very well appreciated.

[Deleted]

Yeah, it's one thing that needs a nerf - rangewise. Otherwise it pulls seemingly half the instance.

Liek I said, it is extremely wearing that warlocks are designed around talent swapping which they then made a pain in the ass, and other classes - fir emage and MM hunter say hi - can stick with one build and never change

For example, mages get a massive AOE courtesy of their artifact, I mean, three charges of a whopping great instant cast, lol

[Deleted]

Yes, people like to complain, but I don;t think I ever saw the forums here and on BattleNet be so filled with negativity and despair, it is very obvious that a hell of a lot of warlock players are just getting a really bad experience

I kind of admire your relentless optimism Gaidax, but really it boils down to this...if you're a warlock you are forced into playing destruction, and you have to comparatively work your arse off and piss about with talents all the time just to be "average"

I dont know if most people get this. Its not just about "relentless optimism" or trying to convince others that warlock are in a good spot. You/we can whine all day and make one million threads with whining and cursing dhs, hunters, mages, blizzard and what not..it wont change anything neither does it matter much. In the end it comes doewn in 2 things. You either reroll if you are not happy with warlock, or you get what you have and try to get better results. The point of this forum should be about the second choice.

There are warlock that are doing fine in the current content. You wanna blame it that they are "ok" and their teammates are trash so thats why they do good? fine. Ppl can find to many reasons for everything as long as it results supporting their opinion. And these people that come here just to whine and call themselfs "hardcore players" are laughable.

Someone should just merge all these threads tbh, put a link to the blizzard forums and lock them. It would be better at least for the people that come here to look for information instead of drama reading

[klogaroth]

The issue I think a lot of people are having in 5 mans is that our general use specs aren't as general as some other classes, leaving us wanting on either the trash or the bosses. Never excelling at both like some do.
Once we're in raids and we can spec per encounter or in mythic+ where trash becomes much more of a thing then we'll be able to spec for the fight in front of us or get past the initial ramp up time of some specs a lot easier.

[Deleted]

I dont know if most people get this. Its not just about "relentless optimism" or trying to convince others that warlock are in a good spot. You/we can whine all day and make one million threads with whining and cursing dhs, hunters, mages, blizzard and what not..it wont change anything neither does it matter much. In the end it comes doewn in 2 things. You either reroll if you are not happy with warlock, or you get what you have and try to get better results. The point of this forum should be about the second choice.

There are warlock that are doing fine in the current content. You wanna blame it that they are "ok" and their teammates are trash so thats why they do good? fine. Ppl can find to many reasons for everything as long as it results supporting their opinion. And these people that come here just to whine and call themselfs "hardcore players" are laughable.

Someone should just merge all these threads tbh, put a link to the blizzard forums and lock them. It would be better at least for the people that come here to look for information instead of drama reading

As others have mentioned before, Cataclysm + GoSac for dungeons should provide you all the AoE you need as Destruction. Save your artifact ability for bosses, pick up Shadowburn for mobility (The other two talents in that row suck hard anyway), and artifact traits should focus on improving GoSac / imp, immolate crit + Lord of Flames, then go straight for improved Conflagrate. You still won't be able to get near the best DPS in single target or AoE, but you can certainly pull your weight if you play it properly, without having to shift talents all the time.

Affliction single target is currently terrible, and Demonology is very difficult to play well and can get screwed by things like having to move or being stunned / knockbacked / interrupted.

Affliction and Destruction are also pretty boring at the moment, not having any procs or anything that makes you react makes the specs feel very dull. You can make a mediocre performance, and that should be fine to do the current content. Let's just hope they make some changes to us eventually, sooner rather than later.

(This post is not directed at you by the way)

[Deleted]

They need to revert the class to its Mists of Pandaria state.

Completely ditch everything they've done since then, it has not been an improvement.

Destruction, while bearable, is a shadow of its former self. Affliction and Demo are just sad.

Why is it that they managed to screw Warlocks over completely, I mean they had over 2 years worth of time to figure something out?

You mean you want warlocks to be op? Because MOP warlocks (especially destro) where fucking retarded even gameplay wise

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, it's one thing that needs a nerf - rangewise. Otherwise it pulls seemingly half the instance.

Liek I said, it is extremely wearing that warlocks are designed around talent swapping which they then made a pain in the ass, and other classes - fir emage and MM hunter say hi - can stick with one build and never change

For example, mages get a massive AOE courtesy of their artifact, I mean, three charges of a whopping great instant cast, lol

Its actually a very bad thing for MM hunters to have a "go to talent choice", it makes the playstyle so boring and negates any other talent there. I would much rather prefer to switch talents for different fights than playing the same all the time.

[Neevs]

The issue I think a lot of people are having in 5 mans is that our general use specs aren't as general as some other classes, leaving us wanting on either the trash or the bosses. Never excelling at both like some do.
Once we're in raids and we can spec per encounter or in mythic+ where trash becomes much more of a thing then we'll be able to spec for the fight in front of us or get past the initial ramp up time of some specs a lot easier.

As i mentioned earlier, with the talent setup roaring blaze / Cata / demon skin / Soul harvest / burning rush / GoS / Channel doomfire(can also go with wreck havoc) , we've got pretty decent AoE and ST, which works quite well for dungeons.. While as you said we're not preforming up to the standards of rogues, Mages, Hunters it doesn't men that We're not in a good enough spot for it to being an issue.. And tbh as long as we're in a good place for Raids, im not to fused about it.. I agree we could really use some buffs, but that some people (not you) are going crazy with calling us tottaly under powered and talking about us not being valid, is really annoying..But as i keep saying, and from what I've seen Gaidax as well, is even tho we could really use some buffs, we're fine as it is in the sence that we're still a very valid option to bring to raids.. (not to speak on your behalf Gaidax)

You mean you want warlocks to be op? Because MOP warlocks (especially destro) where fucking retarded even gameplay wise

- - - Updated - - -





Its actually a very bad thing for MM hunters to have a "go to talent choice", it makes the playstyle so boring and negates any other talent there. I would much rather prefer to switch talents for different fights than playing the same all the time.

I love that some people goes with the "oh you just wanne be OP like in MoP" when ever some people talk about us needing a buff.
I'd hate to be OP, imo it's just as bad as being very underpowered.. Back in MoP when ever i did that bit "extra" to get a higher damage output, people just went with the usual line of "oh warlocks are just so OP" which tottaly diminishing the work i'd put into improving..
Personally i like the spot to be just below the top when it comes to preformance, the spot where we need to work to get to the top.. But I still like to be in the ballpark of reaching the top..

[klogaroth]

I know there have been a few dungeon I've been in where it's been with a couple of great aoe burst DPS, but it's not been so terrible as to warrant a kicking.
The other thing that does help is just plain being good.

If you can go into Vault of the Wardens and say "I'm doing the light" and do the light flawlessly it doesn't matter if you do 5 dps. People will want you in their group so they don't have to deal with someone doing 500k fucking it up.

[DustWolf]

Isn't this going to be all but irrelevant in raids? You just need to get some Tomes to change your skills up. I don't know how Mythic+ works but it seems like no real problem. Worst case scenario, you can just swap to Aff or Demo depending on the encounter.

Like, if we can do good AOE, good cleave, and good ST depending on our spec, we're completely set for progression. That's the system working as Blizzard indended.

I don't mind talents that actually have meaning, I mind that it only seems that we are actually gimped with these choices.
If every spec and every class had to prepare for an encounter/trashpull as much as we have to, I wouldn't mind at all. However, as it stands now, most of the other classes with all their specs are just well-rounded and outperform us on every situation, regardless if they're specced for it or not.

[xpose]

I already asked one of my guild officers if there was another range I can play for raiding. Currently I'm the only warlock and its probably out of pity. I'm leveling up my Monk this week because we currently have none on the roster (smaller guild) and except for brewmaster they seem to be in a pretty good state compared to us.


Here are some changes I'm looking for

Affliction - Revamping the 2 "on kill" gold traits so it actually is beneficial to us without something needing to die.

Affliction - Reworking our last talent choices because they are all complete garbage

Affliction - Give us Haunt as a base skill again because we currently have no other skills to us outside Agony, Corruption and Drain life spam if we don't get Siphon Life. (yet I recognize UA, see below)

Affliction - If not giving us haunt at least re-work the shard generation because its terribly slow to generate enough shards to make UA do anything but a tickle. Compared to Destro and Demo the affliction shard generation is painful and makes the overall playstyle extremely boring because all we are doing is spamming drain life between dot refreshes.

[urdasergiu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFBMWOBORWY Locks ain't that bad ,wasn't even that focused there. Even on pure st fight if i change build i can pull decent numbers.

[Height]

I don't want to raid destruction otherwise I'd play a mage, so I'm doing demonology. I'm hoping they make changes and soon, otherwise I'm just going to level my druid and heal.

I wish DE was castable on the move, demons lasted a bit longer, and there was a way to eliminate the ramp up time. Like maybe at the end of the fight you can contain your demons and send them back out at the start of the next fight immediately without going through twelve buttons. It just makes dungeons really aggravating.

[Slybak]

The sturm and drang about damage is overstated. In terms of mechanics each spec isn't solid, but they're workable under the right circumstances. The problem, fundamentally, is that each spec and its associated talent options have been so pigeon-holed that the demand for constant spec/talent swapping is making peoples' heads spin. This is a justifiable complaint; given the expectations placed on other classes, playing a Warlock currently feels like you have to do twice as much work as anyone else for the same payoff, and that breeds resentment.

Whats getting less attention is the utter failure of the work Blizzard has done on the aesthetics of the class (and the mechanical issues are, in many cases, the direct result of this failure). Soul Shards are not an interesting resource system to begin - they never were - but their attempts to make each spec's mechanics fit this system because its "iconic" is a laughable failure. Why do Immolate and Agony ticks generate Soul Shards? Why do Shadow Bolt / Demonbolt strikes?

From a purely aesthetic perspective its incomprehensible. You might as well call them "Purple Polkadots" for all the class fantasy they provide, and the mechanical issues they cause just makes it all the more frustrating. A slow-building, non-dilineable resource is bad enough. A slow-building, non-dilineable resource that doesn't provide the fantasy its supposed to is far worse.

[vaeevictiss]

Playing around as Destro, it's okay, but it's still awful compared to my Fire Mage.

Can't get into any Mythic runs though. Sitting at 830 ilvl, but since I don't have a guild, my run attempts right now look like this:

Instant declined
Get invited, someone writes "Warlocks are shit, kick and find X"
Try to make a group, ppl see Lock, ppl leave.

It's frustrating as hell to have to deal with this absurd bias lol

Same here. I can tolerate destro...tolerate. But i had a similar experience this weekend. LFG, looking for DPS 820+. Ok cool im 830...declined. 3 times in a row, 3 different groups. Only possible reason would be cause im a lock. I can see if the people knew me and didnt like me for some reason but these were totally random servers lol. Finally i think my guild felt bad and we did some runs together. I kept up fairly well. Dunno if that speaks well for me or bad for them. On two target stuff i just destro...yed them (i know lame).

Its really annoying to just be brushed off for your class. Especially when you have so many people saying "warlocks are fine stop complaining" then those same people are "...but yea we dont want you in group cause warlocks suck".

Either way i got my demon hunter ready to go. Leveled him right after my lock. Actually got my DH to 110 before most people got 1 character to 110 lol.


the only thing i really dont like about destro is how slow it feels. Honestly, they could cut the incin and CB damage in half but cut cast time in half as well and id be much happier. same dps but it would just "feel" faster.

My fave is aff but its in a bad place and i really liked where demo was going but its honestly too much to do and maintain and im someone who wants more complexity...demo isnt even complex, its just a mess.

[xpose]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFBMWOBORWY Locks ain't that bad ,wasn't even that focused there. Even on pure st fight if i change build i can pull decent numbers.

Go play the other specs and let us know if "locks aint that bad"