Warlocks totally ignored during the Q&A

[Baconeggcheese]

Or they could scrape the entire thing and revamp it to something else. There's a reason that Prismatic Crystal was removed and somehow, we got an even worse version of it.

It's quite a bit different than prismatic crystal, frankly all it does is turn ST into 2 target which is something you *should* be really comfortable doing if you've any intention of playing aff.

Except that it's been said on this board that we play Warlocks. Not a Destro, not a Demo nor an Affliction, just Warlocks so that we should adapt to whatever spec is best for the appropriate situation.

While this was true in the past, the issue now is that you can't realistically have all 3 specs up to speed without tremendous luck and effort. It's not just a simple matter of AP, but relics and legendaries as well. My destruction weapon is 905 for instance, my aff weapon is 877, I have two destro berries and no aff one. Now I could have tried to split myself thin between the two specs, but that'd just mean I perform neither as well as I could have. This is also an issue because each individual spec isn't as far apart as they've been in the past, and any time that happens then the most well rounded spec becomes thee spec which you can't fix without homogenizing things which is something they're increasingly shying away from this xpac.

This xpac at least for now is very catered toward the type of player that identifies as an individual spec as opposed to a class. Which is where I imagine you find all the anger about individual specs like aff.

the glaring rotational issues with demo, in particular have still not been addressed.

I'm not sure what glaring rotational issues exist. I don't enjoy playing demo at all, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. It'd be perfectly fine staying this way for the rest of the xpac.

I imagine if we see any mechanical changes to demo it'll just be to make it more enjoyable to play, but not because there's anything truly wrong with it.

I dunno bro, in ursoc i am always in the middle as best of damage while my best friend who play a demon hunter and have the same ilvl i have is always toping in damage in almost all fights, the dragons of nightmare however is where the destro shine

The only class that's beating me on mythic ursoc is our spriest, and spriests are absolutely broken right now due to surrender.

[Dwill]

I dunno bro, in ursoc i am always in the middle as best of damage while my best friend who play a demon hunter and have the same ilvl i have is always toping in damage in almost all fights, the dragons of nightmare however is where the destro shine

If a Havoc Demon Hunter beats your other DPS in more than half the fights in EN, that's not a Warlock issue.

[Baconeggcheese]

Finally, some arguments here are really out of this world, things like mages having better defenses than Warlocks or Warlock sturdiness being useless for difficult content or Warlocks not having a place on high M+ - all of that is outright BS and people who keep parroting it will keep shooting their credibility down.

You can tell certain people don't actually push content ever when they say things like mages have better survivability.

[Sot4]

Only thing I surely know is that warlock has never been more boring to play than it is now.
I'm a warlock since tbc, never has it been this much boring to perform, I swear, never.
The top warlock Verdiisha even said, there is only 1 spec for warlocks in game atm - destruction.
Those who find demonology fun to play - I am sorry. I totally disagree with you as I played demonology for long long time now, and if u find it fun to play now, well...I guess u didn't play demo in cata with that sick, but fun rotation.
Destruction, master of rng, definitely doesn't feel as master of chaos with 300k chaos bolt and taking 2 of my soul shards for that silly dmg in 860ilvl.
Affliction, even bigger master of rng, will my artifact get the souls or not? Will I get the soul shard or not? Wait, where is my snapshotting? Oh right I can shapshot UA now, omg awesome I have procs...but, no soul shards? Oh well rip procs...How do I generate soul shards? Ah right I need to wait...still waiting, omg here is one lets cast UA! Ok my procs are off. Affliction is now master of doing world quests, yay......

All in all, extremely pissed off about this exp, expected much MUCH more, had much more fun last 5 exp's even without the artifacts.
It's at the point atm that they either change the class so much or people will be forced to reroll, or just leave the game until they figure out what to do with class they completely ruined.
I honesty can't figure out one good thing that we recived in Legion so far, can you?

[Dwill]

It's quite a bit different than prismatic crystal, frankly all it does is turn ST into 2 target which is something you *should* be really comfortable doing if you've any intention of playing aff.

Quite a few Affliction players' grip with Soul Effigy is not only the fact that you really have to multi-dot to ST (which is in my opinion a pants on head retarded concept no matter how good we are at multi-dotting), it's also the glaring issues with it (Running out of range and needing to waste your focus target on it). If that abomination would at least hover over the target and follow it constantly, it would at least help tremendously.

Multi-dot'ing should be used for situations that calls for it. These situations should not be invented just so that we could do some low single target damage. There are other ways for Affliction to do decent single target while not making multi dot'ing brokenly overpowered and also making it much more fun.

While this was true in the past, the issue now is that you can't realistically have all 3 specs up to speed without tremendous luck and effort. It's not just a simple matter of AP, but relics and legendaries as well. My destruction weapon is 905 for instance, my aff weapon is 877, I have two destro berries and no aff one. Now I could have tried to split myself thin between the two specs, but that'd just mean I perform neither as well as I could have. This is also an issue because each individual spec isn't as far apart as they've been in the past, and any time that happens then the most well rounded spec becomes thee spec which you can't fix without homogenizing things which is something they're increasingly shying away from this xpac.

While I agree with you, I find the reasoning of homogenization a terrible excuse to fall back on to leave some spec behind.There are multiple ways to fix affliction without making it look like Demo/Destro/Shadow Priest 2.0 in term of playstyle.

This xpac at least for now is very catered toward the type of player that identifies as an individual spec as opposed to a class. Which is where I imagine you find all the anger about individual specs like aff.

Again, agreed here.

You can tell certain people don't actually push content ever when they say things like mages have better survivability.

Of all the thing you could argue needs change, I dunno why some players are even remotely considering mages even stronger in survavibility. Dark Pact alone makes a case for that being without even bringing Soul Leech with Demon Skin in the picture. I wish that the other warlocks who have issued with the class would actually bring valid issues, not create non existent one.

[Gaidax]

To be honest, I can only raise an eyebrow when I see someone claiming to playing warlock in TBC and that it was never as boring as now in one sentence.

But really it all comes to me liking strawberry ice cream, while other guy not being able to stand it.

Fun wise, for me, Destruction is an improvement from WoD, Demo is improvement from WoD, but downgrade from WoTLK or Cata (arguably, I think it had too many spells in its priority list) and Affliction I am indifferent about because I just don't like the concept.

[FelPlague]

Let's be fair, if you wake up and use defensive cooldowns as a Warlock when you are at 100k HP, well then - Mage would be long dead under similar conditions, simply because to get to this 100k HP we need to chew through plenty of passive defenses we have and mage has not.

Yeah, popping Dark Pact at 100k HP left ain't gonna do much, but as one of my guildies says - it sounds like a "you" problem more than an actual issue.

Finally the part of HUUUGE DPS loss to survive is absolutely silly for two simple reasons, if you die it's a real YUUUGE DPS loss and Mages have to stop doing anything else to enjoy Ice Block as well, so I don't see how Warlock that channels drain to live is any more shafted than Mage that uses Ice Block.

I mean, come on, man? Warlock defenses are stellar compared to mages, it's silly it is even up for discussion.

also bear in mind people like to be idiots "sac 20% of your current health!" uhh.... most people use demons meaning they dont sac their own health >_> like i think ive only seen 1 warlock running sac, most run serv or supremecy

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To be honest, I can only raise an eyebrow when I see someone claiming to playing warlock in TBC and that it was never as boring as now in one sentence.

But really it all comes to me liking strawberry ice cream, while other guy not being able to stand it.

Fun wise, for me, Destruction is an improvement from WoD, Demo is improvement from WoD, but downgrade from WoTLK or Cata (arguably, I think it had too many spells in its priority list) and Affliction I am indifferent about because I just don't like the concept.

I KNOW RIGHT!?
https://youtu.be/yCZ6rQkQY1g?t=2m1s

"spell rotation"
shadowbolt
keep curse up 24/7

:P "dificult"

ps, i loved the demo for WotLK i would love it to return to that kinda system, as a support dps, but yeah...

[Dominus89]

Those who find demonology fun to play - I am sorry. I totally disagree with you as I played demonology for long long time now, and if u find it fun to play now, well...I guess u didn't play demo in cata with that sick, but fun rotation.

I did and I hated in, because I didnt feel like a warlock when I became a demon.
Yes I know that they made up som half arsed story from the green fire quest chain, but that didnt change what I felt about it.

Not really sure what was so fun about the old demo rotation either to be honest.

[Sot4]

To be honest, I can only raise an eyebrow when I see someone claiming to playing warlock in TBC and that it was never as boring as now in one sentence.

But really it all comes to me liking strawberry ice cream, while other guy not being able to stand it.

Fun wise, for me, Destruction is an improvement from WoD, Demo is improvement from WoD, but downgrade from WoTLK or Cata (arguably, I think it had too many spells in its priority list) and Affliction I am indifferent about because I just don't like the concept.

I can only raise an eyebrow when someone mentions Destruction and fun in same sentence as well.
But then again it depends what u find fun to play, since you are destruction warlock and u are enjoying it I can also recommend u to try MM hunter, I think it has even less abilities that get used in fights.
You are using 4 spells in encounters atm, on ST 2 of those 4 are the ones u will be spamming 80% of the fight.
Destruction has no skill cap whatsoever.

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I did and I hated in, because I didnt feel like a warlock when I became a demon.
Yes I know that they made up som half arsed story from the green fire quest chain, but that didnt change what I felt about it.

Not really sure what was so fun about the old demo rotation either to be honest.

Idk it's just my honest opinion, I really enjoyed demonology in cata because it had a lot of spells in the priority list, and it wasn't really hard to do it properly, but there were still big differences betwen solid and good warlock.

[Gaidax]

I can only raise an eyebrow when someone mentions Destruction and fun in same sentence as well.
But then again it depends what u find fun to play, since you are destruction warlock and u are enjoying it I can also recommend u to try MM hunter, I think it has even less abilities that get used in fights.
You are using 4 spells in encounters atm, on ST 2 of those 4 are the ones u will be spamming 80% of the fight.
Destruction has no skill cap whatsoever.

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Idk it's just my honest opinion, I really enjoyed demonology in cata because it had a lot of spells in the priority list, and it wasn't really hard to do it properly, but there were still big differences betwen solid and good warlock.

Sounds like a "you" problem. You like having a lot of buttons to push, cool, I guess? It's your preference, but then it goes completely against your TBC remark where you literally had 1 spell for single target and 1 spell for AoE in raids.

Kinda hard trying to sound all cool and skillful when you believe that warlocks in TBC were more engaging than now.

[Dominus89]

Idk it's just my honest opinion, I really enjoyed demonology in cata because it had a lot of spells in the priority list, and it wasn't really hard to do it properly, but there were still big differences betwen solid and good warlock.

Many buttons to press is not always the same as fun to play. Thats all up to the player.
I prefer this demo over the old one, but that doesnt mean I think that demo in legion is perfect.

The difference between a decent demo warlock and a good demo warlock is still very big.

[Dwill]

You are using 4 spells in encounters atm, on ST 2 of those 4 are the ones u will be spamming 80% of the fight.
Destruction has no skill cap whatsoever.

Both of those statements are factually untrue, not matter how unfun you find Destruction.

[Baconeggcheese]

Multi-dot'ing should be used for situations that calls for it. These situations should not be invented just so that we could do some low single target damage. There are other ways for Affliction to do decent single target while not making multi dot'ing brokenly overpowered and also making it much more fun.

I actually think it a genius way to solve one of affs oldest balance issues. If aff is tuned for strong ST then its multi-target becomes OP, and if its tuned to keep its multi-target in line then its ST suffers hard. They tried to solve this issue with haunt over the years, but that's never ended up in a good place.

Soul effigy is basically just another version of haunt, it's just one that plays off of aff's niche and allows them to easily tune single target to wherever they want it without affecting multi-target. It's actually a perfect knob they gave themselves to tune aff single target. I'd hope that someone who loves aff enough to make it their spec of choice enjoys multi-dotting things since that's what aff's always been about. Making you multi-dot always doesn't sound like something that someone who loves aff would be against.

Now why they chose to make aff's ST that weak is beyond me. Soul effigy was 50% for most of alpha and beta, I have no idea why they chose to bring it down to 35% but it was clearly intentional.

While I agree with you, I find the reasoning of homogenization a terrible excuse to fall back on to leave some spec behind.There are multiple ways to fix affliction without making it look like Demo/Destro/Shadow Priest 2.0 in term of playstyle.

I think it an odd xpac to have both the philosophy of moving away from homogenization while simultaneously locking people into individual specs and have spec identity > class identity. The two are very at odds, and now I'm curious how they'll handle it moving forward since they can't just do the huge balance and mechanics swings they've done in the past.

As watcher mentioned when talking about frost mages, they can't just up and dramatically overhaul or buff a spec so that it ends up beating out the most popular spec as that would piss off a hell of a lot more people than the current number of people pissed off that their preferred spec isn't top. Leaves us in a situation where they pretty much need to keep every spec the same relative to each other unless they wanna piss off their entire community for the sake of making a few people happy.

And that's before considering that aff is arguably the hardest spec to play of our 3 right now, and if you push the average player to play it then its going to go as well if not worse as when they were all pushed into demo and then couldn't wrap their heads around it.

[Sot4]

Sounds like a "you" problem. You like having a lot of buttons to push, cool, I guess? It's your preference, but then it goes completely against your TBC remark where you literally had 1 spell for single target and 1 spell for AoE in raids.

Kinda hard trying to sound all cool and skillful when you believe that warlocks in TBC were more engaging than now.

It definitely doesn't sound like a "you" problem if top warlocks (no, with 4/7M in 880ilvl u are definitely not one of them) are saying same things as I do, mr all knowing one.
But I guess u do like putting words into another persons mouth which has previously been proved by your posts and replies from other ppl Cba answering your taunting posts anymore tho, came here to discuss or learn, sadly I can't learn anything (good) from you, and discussion with you makes me wonder why am I losing my time writing here with you

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Many buttons to press is not always the same as fun to play. Thats all up to the player.
I prefer this demo over the old one, but that doesnt mean I think that demo in legion is perfect.

The difference between a decent demo warlock and a good demo warlock is still very big.

This statement is true, even tho I was talking about destruction. But then again it depends, what legendary u have, what trinkets u have, what relics u have, how many AP did u put in your wep, so its not really debatable.

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Both of those statements are factually untrue, not matter how unfun you find Destruction.

Maybe you should look at destrucion only mythic EN logs then, and try to tell me precisely where can I see skill beat the rng. If you do that I will buy you an airplane.

[Gaidax]

It definitely doesn't sound like a "you" problem if top warlocks (no, with 4/7M in 880ilvl u are definitely not one of them) are saying same things as I do, mr all knowing one.
But I guess u do like putting words into another persons mouth which has previously been proved by your posts and replies from other ppl Cba answering your taunting posts anymore tho, came here to discuss or learn, sadly I can't learn anything (good) from you, and discussion with you makes me wonder why am I losing my time writing here with you

Unlike you I am not hiding, I am content with my progress and your attempt to somehow call me out on that as your retort only proves you have no credible arguments at your disposal, Mr. Nobody.

Top warlocks are saying that Destruction consists of 4 skills only and is less skillful than TBC? Okay, buddy, whatever you say.

[Dwill]

Maybe you should look at destrucion only mythic EN logs then, and try to tell me precisely where can I see skill beat the rng. If you do that I will buy you an airplane.

Immolate, Chaos Bolt , Conflagrate, Rifts, Incinerate. Hey look, more than 4 spells!

It's clear you're not here to actually have discussion with anyone, you're just here to belittle everyone who thinks any different than you and as such, is a waste of time to keep replying to.

I actually think it a genius way to solve one of affs oldest balance issues. If aff is tuned for strong ST then its multi-target becomes OP, and if its tuned to keep its multi-target in line then its ST suffers hard. They tried to solve this issue with haunt over the years, but that's never ended up in a good place.

Soul effigy is basically just another version of haunt, it's just one that plays off of aff's niche and allows them to easily tune single target to wherever they want it without affecting multi-target. It's actually a perfect knob they gave themselves to tune aff single target. I'd hope that someone who loves aff enough to make it their spec of choice enjoys multi-dotting things since that's what aff's always been about. Making you multi-dot always doesn't sound like something that someone who loves aff would be against.

Now why they chose to make aff's ST that weak is beyond me. Soul effigy was 50% for most of alpha and beta, I have no idea why they chose to bring it down to 35% but it was clearly intentional.

The problem with old-Wotlk Haunt was not the concept, it was a number issue. I fail to see which issue Soul Effigy solves that Wotlk's Haunt couldn't. It ddeals with the exact same issue (Single target without affecting multi-dot'ing) with none of Effigy's drawback.

I think it an odd xpac to have both the philosophy of moving away from homogenization while simultaneously locking people into individual specs and have spec identity > class identity. The two are very at odds, and now I'm curious how they'll handle it moving forward since they can't just do the huge balance and mechanics swings they've done in the past.

Very much so and there need to be a middle ground which clearly isn't being reached right now.

As watcher mentioned when talking about frost mages, they can't just up and dramatically overhaul or buff a spec so that it ends up beating out the most popular spec as that would piss off a hell of a lot more people than the current number of people pissed off that their preferred spec isn't top. Leaves us in a situation where they pretty much need to keep every spec the same relative to each other unless they wanna piss off their entire community for the sake of making a few people happy.

I agree and I'm not in here vouching for tremendous buff. I just want glaring issues with the spec I enjoy be fixed so that I can actually be competitive with the other specs of my class.

And that's before considering that aff is arguably the hardest spec to play of our 3 right now, and if you push the average player to play it then its going to go as well if not worse as when they were all pushed into demo and then couldn't wrap their heads around it.

Agreed but then again even if Affliction was to be fixed, Destro and Demo are in pretty good spot so people could decide what to play and enjoy their favorite spec and not be forced to level one that they clearly do not enjoy.

Unlike you I am not hiding, I am content with my progress and your attempt to somehow call me out on that as your retort only proves you have no credible arguments at your disposal, Mr. Nobody.

Top warlocks are saying that Destruction consists of 4 skills only and is less skillful than TBC? Okay, buddy, whatever you say.

Keeping CoE up and spamming Shadow Bolt was engaging!!

[Lucrece]

I dunno bro, in ursoc i am always in the middle as best of damage while my best friend who play a demon hunter and have the same ilvl i have is always toping in damage in almost all fights, the dragons of nightmare however is where the destro shine

If you're losing to demonhunters, one of the worst single target specs in the game, on Ursoc, you should go back to LFR where you belong.

I actually think it a genius way to solve one of affs oldest balance issues. If aff is tuned for strong ST then its multi-target becomes OP, and if its tuned to keep its multi-target in line then its ST suffers hard. They tried to solve this issue with haunt over the years, but that's never ended up in a good place.

Soul effigy is basically just another version of haunt, it's just one that plays off of aff's niche and allows them to easily tune single target to wherever they want it without affecting multi-target. It's actually a perfect knob they gave themselves to tune aff single target. I'd hope that someone who loves aff enough to make it their spec of choice enjoys multi-dotting things since that's what aff's always been about. Making you multi-dot always doesn't sound like something that someone who loves aff would be against.

Don't forget malefic grasp, it fulfilled that function just fine without the awful side effects of prismatic crystal Lite.

Let's be honest here, Blizzard has been revamping demo/affliction just like balance druids rather needlessly over the past xpacs, and it's been a rather unenjoyable ride.

Affliction warlocks are also the unique dot class that got shit on with this single target weakness dilemma. Feral druids do strong single target and cleave that damage onto targets just as well.

Shadow priests have stronger single target than affliction even without surrender to madness. They got their signature strong cleave.

Unholy DK has upper middle pack single target whole having really good aoe/cleave.

Hell, soul effigy need not exist at all for the simple reason that they already got a tuning knob for single target:

Unstable Affliction. Shard limited short duration dot that you probably want to stack on your priority target.

Soul Effigy exists not because of class mechanics, but because warlock talents were a mess.

[Baconeggcheese]

The top warlock Verdiisha even said,

Hi I'm bacoñ

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/10#class=Warlock

Feel free to quote me as well, though I'll tend to disagree with you.

[Cainium]

Affliction, even bigger master of rng, will my artifact get the souls or not? Will I get the soul shard or not? Wait, where is my snapshotting? Oh right I can shapshot UA now, omg awesome I have procs...but, no soul shards? Oh well rip procs...How do I generate soul shards? Ah right I need to wait...still waiting, omg here is one lets cast UA! Ok my procs are off. Affliction is now master of doing world quests, yay......

I have no issues getting Reap+UA together, nor reacting to my ChronoShard procs.

Aside from that there aren't any really useful proc trinkets for aff right now. You have to think about it differently. If you have one shard and 5 sec of reap ready and you could activate reap and cast UA, for whatever reason would you do that if you know you have other procs that could line up?

The uptime of UA (if Contagion specced) and Reap Soul remains the same, no matter if you use them at 1 shard and 1 soul or at 3 shards and 6 souls. So if you have trouble lining things up than its a l2p issue. Yes, it's a lot RNG and yes, that could be lowered. But at least Aff doesn't seem to be as easy as it was in MoP, if I read all the posts from people who doesn't get it running right.

Aff does not have mechanical issues, except for high ramp up but thats OK (for me!, and maybe outdated life tap) 'cause in higher level content you have that time. ST damage is a bit low, and could be upped by a good margin, and then aff would be in a decent spot. All the complains will lead to more or less idiotic fixes (see PTR builds) for things which doesn't need a fix, and leave the real problems untouched.

For example I would really like it if I could use Reap Soul while casting. If I want to react to a 5 stack CH, start casting UA and have to interupt it 'cause a soul procs mid-cast, that annoys me the most.

[Baconeggcheese]

I just want glaring issues with the spec I enjoy be fixed so that I can actually be competitive with the other specs of my class.

Agreed but then again even if Affliction was to be fixed, Destro and Demo are in pretty good spot so people could decide what to play and enjoy their favorite spec and not be forced to level one that they clearly do not enjoy.

So, the problem is more fundamental spec design than anything else at this point. If you make all 3 specs equal (they're honestly pretty damned close) then you'll always see destro dominance because of destro's niches and the way that destro deals damage. You would either need to fundamentally move affliction away from being a dot spec, or overtune it to the point where we couldn't not take it. Because again if all 3 specs are close to equal, which they are, then you see the current situation.