Warlock = instant PUG kick

[Uzkin]

That's the reward for your and everyone's doomsaying. Warlocks will be kicked/benched has been repeated so often the community at large now believes warlocks are worthless. Good job, your doomsaying turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's not a problem with the class, and not always with the player either. It's a problem with the community.

That's a big fat lie. The average player does not follow, nor does (s)he care about, what's being written on the warlock forums. They base their opinion on their experiences of the warlocks they have met in pugs.

[Duckz0rs]

That's a big fat lie. The average player does not follow, nor does (s)he care about, what's being written on the warlock forums. They base their opinion on their experiences of the warlocks they have met in pugs.

Considering every forum loosely related to WoW is being flooded with people complaining that Warlocks are bad it is at least as related as the amount of warlocks people have encountered. Word of mouth and the trickle-down effect it causes are still a thing that doesn't just count for first-hand experience, but for everything.
Even if the average player doesn't follow or care about forums (this one, icy-veins', blizzards own official forums) they very certainly know some that does and has talked to them about things they've read there, particularly if something is being repeated very frequently. That kind of thing tends to stick.

[Spunt]

Just gotta wait till you massively overgear mythics before you run them! (except you can't get gear when people refuse to invite warlocks to mythics in the first place!)

Just spec destro and hope neither havoc nor shadowburn are nerfed anytime soon, since those are they only things propping that spec up enough to not be total dog shit right now.

[Uzkin]

Considering every forum loosely related to WoW is being flooded with people complaining that Warlocks are bad it is at least as related as the amount of warlocks people have encountered. Word of mouth and the trickle-down effect it causes are still a thing that doesn't just count for first-hand experience, but for everything.
Even if the average player doesn't follow or care about forums (this one, icy-veins', blizzards own official forums) they very certainly know some that does and has talked to them about things they've read there, particularly if something is being repeated very frequently. That kind of thing tends to stick.

Nope, I'm pretty sure the correct causal chain is

warlocks perform badly in instances (on average) --> warlocks start to get kicked/benched --> warlocks complain on the forums.

As many white-knighters here have stated time and again, *every* class forum is full of complaints about their class. If pugs were to shun a class/spec based on that then pretty much every class would get benched: fury warrs complain that they die in an instant and do zero damage; hunters complain that their class has been absolutely ruined, etc. etc. Yet those class/specs get happily accepted into pugs because they perform, on average, better than warlocks. It is silly to claim that the current warlock stigma results from forum behavior; no, first and foremost it stems from the actual performance of your average pug warlock (in comparison to the other classes in pugs).

As anecdotal evidence, my personal experience certainly supports this. Most warlocks (regardless of the spec they play) in my pugs have been dead last in total damage done, sometimes even behind tanks. Just a moment ago I pugged daily hc on my fury warr with a DH tank, UH dk, and affli warlock. The lock was way behind the rest of us, and this scenario is not an exception; it is the rule (thus far in my runs).

[unbound]

Today I got kicked several times from PUG groups. One group didn't even say anything, just kicked the moment the group formed

The other group the leader just said "we want a fast run, warlocks are shit so we are taking a mage"

I see the WoW playerbase remains as awesome as ever...

[Deleted]

Never had any problems as a new main warlock for this expansion. I do 200k+ on most mythic bosses without BL as destro with 842 ilvl. Im 90% of the time first on the meters. But sure, if people think that warlock blows and blizzard is wiling to listen and buff us, i know i wont complain .

[FraterN]

It's Destruction mastery working as intended. In addition to dealing a random amount of damage, we also have a chance to be randomly kicked from groups.

[Ifeanychukwu]

I've never seen anything like this in any group. Yet, I've been seeing these kinds of posts about multiple different classes all over the place. I've personally healed for groups with all these classes and none of them have been an issue. I feel like we're not getting the entire truth here.

[ThePhantombox]

Today I got kicked several times from PUG groups. One group didn't even say anything, just kicked the moment the group formed

The other group the leader just said "we want a fast run, warlocks are shit so we are taking a mage"

Huh, this seems like a weird topic.

Oh wait it's Nebiroth.

It all makes sense now.

[purebalance]

That's the reward for your and everyone's doomsaying. Warlocks will be kicked/benched has been repeated so often the community at large now believes warlocks are worthless. Good job, your doomsaying turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's not a problem with the class, and not always with the player either. It's a problem with the community.

Funny that this same thing happened with melee in Cata raids when melee were actually even better off than warlocks are now.

[Doomchicken]

itt: A scenario that never actually happened.

[FelPlague]

in all of my runs on boss, i have been top or 2nd on dps.... yeah no... why would a group invite you then go "we will invite mage instead" because if its a random group how will they choose to get a mage...?

[Cerus]

It's impossible to get kicked immediately.

No it isn't.

[Screwtape]

I was watching Toweliee stream today and there was a good 10 minute warlock dump party. So word has gotten around somehow. It's too soon to be pessimistic, though. There are too many factors at play.

[anon5123]

It's impossible to get kicked immediately.

^This

OP is lying.

[Deleted]

If OP is talking about LFD pugs then he's definitely lying. If its about being declined via the LFG toolkit then its quite "normal" to be declined from the ignorant mass - in fact ww says hi.

It was merely a matter of time before class discrimination got to the warlock class.

[Onizuka]

Locks have been actually way stronger in instances that I expected them to be. Just go cleave spec and keep up your cleave at all times. Instances are great for destro.

I'll also add that Affli can be very good also.
I've started doing Heroics yesterday and I got amazed on Affli's performance (did all of them).
Although I was doing more than ok in normal dungeons (almost every time was 2nd in dps), I was under the impression that my dps will be laughable and no match against MM Hunter, FMage etc.
Instead of that, I found out that not only I could compete with them, but in the end my overall dmg was very close to them and sometimes even just a slight better.

I sure very well know that Heroic dungeons are not on par with Mythic+ and on an entirely different scale from raids, but it's not even close to what the vast majority is describing locks to be so far.
I'm not saying that we are rocking or topping the dps charts, but we are not the last train wagon either.

[Duckz0rs]

Nope, I'm pretty sure the correct causal chain is

warlocks perform badly in instances (on average) --> warlocks start to get kicked/benched --> warlocks complain on the forums.

As many white-knighters here have stated time and again, *every* class forum is full of complaints about their class. If pugs were to shun a class/spec based on that then pretty much every class would get benched: fury warrs complain that they die in an instant and do zero damage; hunters complain that their class has been absolutely ruined, etc. etc. Yet those class/specs get happily accepted into pugs because they perform, on average, better than warlocks. It is silly to claim that the current warlock stigma results from forum behavior; no, first and foremost it stems from the actual performance of your average pug warlock (in comparison to the other classes in pugs).

As anecdotal evidence, my personal experience certainly supports this. Most warlocks (regardless of the spec they play) in my pugs have been dead last in total damage done, sometimes even behind tanks. Just a moment ago I pugged daily hc on my fury warr with a DH tank, UH dk, and affli warlock. The lock was way behind the rest of us, and this scenario is not an exception; it is the rule (thus far in my runs).

If I have to explain a basic concept like word of mouth or a trickle-down effect I'll simply bow out of this discussion instead. You didn't refute a single of my arguments (I said that both bad performing locks AND forum whining are causes, not one or the other). Yeah, all classes are complaining, but it's pretty obvious it's much more prevalent for Warlocks.
Anecdotal evidence also doesn't count. Here's my anecdotal evidence: I haven't seen a single mage, warrior or uh dk that can top my dps as destro. That's not even exaggerated but still doesn't count for anything at all.

Oh wait, sorry you're right. I should've known better than to argue on the internet with someone.

[Lifetapper]

I play a Destro warlock and I don't have problems getting into mythics. I usually aim for the lower ilvl ones, as those are usually not the wannabe elitists. Aim for the 825-830 groups and you won't get kicked. It has nothing to do with your class. The kicks are usually because you don't severely overpower the run with aoe spec for padding meters.


As for the warlocks who suck:
I don't even spec aoe.. I focus on where it matters, single target DPS, and usually do 180-220k on the fights that matter. Bosses. I am not even using cleave to get those numbers. Yes, some people are pulling 700k+ on trash. But, 9 times out of 10, that same person will do sub 100k on the bosses, because they are being tards and spec aoe and cleave, and not being very helpful on the fights that count. This actually applies to all classes.

[Uzkin]

If I have to explain a basic concept like word of mouth or a trickle-down effect I'll simply bow out of this discussion instead. You didn't refute a single of my arguments (I said that both bad performing locks AND forum whining are causes, not one or the other). Yeah, all classes are complaining, but it's pretty obvious it's much more prevalent for Warlocks.
Anecdotal evidence also doesn't count. Here's my anecdotal evidence: I haven't seen a single mage, warrior or uh dk that can top my dps as destro. That's not even exaggerated but still doesn't count for anything at all.

Oh wait, sorry you're right. I should've known better than to argue on the internet with someone.

Lol. Do I have to quote your first post in this thread? You said the community was the problem, not the class. You said it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. That was a load of crap but I'm glad you at least now recognize the correct origin of the warlock stigma: the general poor performance of the average warlock in pugs. It is this fact on which the follow-up phenomena get built on. It is a "positive-feedback" system for sure but the origin of it is in the class, not in the community. Doom-saying can be found on every class forum but it does not catch fire unless there's an actual in-game reason for it.