Classic warlocks, of course you want tweaks/balance changes. OR DO YOU!?

[Deleted]

1. that would end up super clunky
2. again yeah this is not vanilla, if we change one thing why not a second, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth and a sixth, and a seventh, then it ends up nothing like vanilla.
3. the only downside is it then makes your inventory larger, meaning you are less likely to buy larger bags since you now no longer have need for the extra space.
4. making soul pouches different but be able to stack them, but hold the same amount of soulshards changes nothing but make stuff more confusing and weird, aswell as needesly changing vanilla.

1. Can't be more "clunky" than vanilla
2. If it's changes for the better, i'm all for it!
3. Ehm, i've got more than double bagslots now than i used to have in vanilla, and i still need bigger bags.. YOU ALWAYS NEED BIGGER BAGS!!!
4.

[Livnthedream]

Haven't posted enough to post links, but go look up the latest Naxx raid on Anathema. 7 warlocks vs 5 mages. Warlocks doing as much or more damage than mages and usually 3 warlocks in top 10, sometimes top 3 putting up equivalent numbers to every other dps class in the raid aside from the 1 mage that gets rolling ignites. How can they even kill Patchwerk let alone Kel'thuzad with all that dead weight in the raid.
Oh my god they're giving their first Atiesh to a warlock what a fucking waste new age min maxers won't even take warlocks to the raid with them being so shitty.

Also appears they don't have a shadow priest in that raid with 7 warlocks.

Please stop pointing to private servers as though they count in regards to vanilla. For the better part of Naxx/Aq40 there was both the battleshout and rolling ignite bugs which totally skews both memory and 'evidence'. Further, no one seems to be able to point to any sort of 'standard' with them. Which is clear every time you point to any sort of number crunching and people start retorting with dumb shit like 'bosses have 500% hp because [reasons]'. Until we figure out what build/s that Blizzard has access to, and what all bugs are going to be included (if any) the 'defense' is utterly moot.

[FertsBlert]

Whenever I tested SM/Ruin in raids I would have such huge aggro issues, instead of master demonologist/Ruin, I would have to hold back shadow bolts extremely often and the DPS ended up being no big difference.

It was a fucking amazing spec and PVP and for smaller groups, of this I am aware, but we're talking raids here only, at least I am.

Our class leader forced all the warlocks to go MD/ruin and if we didn't spec that we'd be left out.

Here's a clip of our guild killing Huhuran in AQ40: (dmg meters at 2:55 until end).


As you can see, our warlocks are very low with me being the top lock at the 13th place. This is where our warlocks were all through BWL, AQ40 and Naxx40. I looked on a bunch of our guilds other videos from EU firsts etc but couldn't see any other videos with the damage meters visible.

Now I was very well geared, and knew how to play (basically how to shadow bolt spam without over aggroing) and how to not die to mechanics. And still the DPS was so low. So what could I do different? Go SM/Ruin and over aggro? Learn to play better and spam shadow bolt better, really?

I'm just speaking from my own experience, I haven't mained warlock since vanilla and switched to shaman from BC on onwards.

Maybe me and the other warlocks in my guild were all braindead and couldn't cast shadow bolt correctly despite being in a top 3 EU guild at the time. Or maybe the class was gimped. I read the warlock class forums daily during those days and can say it was a very unanimous feeling among us back then that the class was gimped as far as raid DPS went. Again I repeat the class was amazing for soloing, PvP and smaller grp content. Also the class complaining on the forums doesn't prove anything but I'm just saying.

Maybe we had some of the best rogues and mages in the world too, yet again there's a lot of factors to be taken into account. I remember all our warlocks being competent and trying everything to boost our DPS but nothing prevailed. By Naxx time it was just depressing for us.

However I'll roll lock again in classic and hope to be proven wrong. I do love the class despite all it's shortcomings.

I think I don't really have anything more to add to the discussion so I'll bow out. Have a good one.

Huhuran is a really bad example, one you should be wearing resist gear with shitty stats, two 'locks were absolutely hands down the BEST soakers for Huhu so if you did any damage at all it was a bonus.

My experience in Vanilla was up until Naxx I was untouchable on DPS and before you say our rogues, mages, hunters and warriors sucked, we killed C'Thun server first in Naxx we cut back to two warlocks only because something changed (probably the 'bug' of CoS taking resists negative that was 'fixed' even though it had been the case since release) and 'locks had a lot trouble competing with other DPS classes fucking ignite rolling mages especially.

[Kiri]

I played a Warlock back in Classic as one of my 2 mains:

Soul Shards were not that bad as people make them, you could farm them in Azshara or Burning steps, both were near Stormwind and Orgrimmar.
You didn't need an awefull lot of them all the time. You need one for your pet, one for your soulstone and that was the minimum.

It wasn't hard to get atleast 2 before the dungeon or raid started and then you woudl just farm them during the pve you did.

In PvP granted it was a bit more difficult.


The shard system is of course cluncy and needed changes, but it also was part of the class back in those days. A lot of classes had to manage some reagents somehow. Some were able to buy them, some needed to farm them. A Hunter had to travel to get his ammo and it was not cheap.

So while the mechanique was indeed cluncy it was part of what made a warlock a warlock and this is really something that, in my opinion, doesn't need a QoL change.

Two shards were enough on farm content, but usually not on progress. One of the worst memories I have of vanilla is progress on Vaelestrasz (or whatever the second boss in BWL was called). Few trash mobs, randomized fight and a short fight length. Soul stones were extremely important on tanks and needed to be up whenever possible, but there just was no way to farm new shards for most of the evening. Raid members had to be summoned every other try in order to repair. I remember having to farm a truckload of shards beforehand and still needing to spend raid break farming more outside, usually getting ganked by the opposite faction in the process.
There were other bosses, too, where you could not really farm more shards between or before tries. Farm nights were much easier since you rarely ever ran low.

Mind you, most people here seem to not be against farming soul shards as much as having to store them without them stacking.

[Deleted]

Two shards were enough on farm content, but usually not on progress. One of the worst memories I have of vanilla is progress on Vaelestrasz (or whatever the second boss in BWL was called). Few trash mobs, randomized fight and a short fight length. Soul stones were extremely important on tanks and needed to be up whenever possible, but there just was no way to farm new shards for most of the evening. Raid members had to be summoned every other try in order to repair. I remember having to farm a truckload of shards beforehand and still needing to spend raid break farming more outside, usually getting ganked by the opposite faction in the process.
There were other bosses, too, where you could not really farm more shards between or before tries. Farm nights were much easier since you rarely ever ran low.

Mind you, most people here seem to not be against farming soul shards as much as having to store them without them stacking.

This is simply not true.

Soulstones had a cooldown of 30 minutes. Even if you would raid 8h a day you would only need 16 Shards, you didn't even need one for your demon as you would probably summon an imp for the stamina buff.

There was no need to summon 40 people back every time they had to repair, they could have walked, it was just a way to support their lazyness.

I mean granted Shards were usefull, of course they were, but they didn't make or break a raid as people tend to make it, they were a bonus, not a necessity.
People were just so used to be carried and ported by warlocks that they created the pressure on them because of that.

[Deleted]

I also didn't have huge issues with soul shards to be honest. Just wanting to be the most prepared you could meant you'd bring all bags full of shards and this greatly limited inventory space and the managment was annoying as hell. Half the backpack was necessary items and every single remaining slot was shards when we did progress raids. But I could still live with that... What I'm saying is annoying yes, game breaking no.

One solution re the soulshard bags could be make them stack in soulshard bags only, say stacks of 5 or 10. Then you still have the vanilla experience of shards and farming etc, and the need for shard bags. Only difference is you can use the 3 remaining bags for other things instead .

[Nefastus]

I had two level 60s in vanilla, my main lock and an alt warrior (everybody did alt warriors back then it felt like).

- Soul shards: at least make them stack? Farming before every raid is really just beyond tedious, it's almost mean from the devs. Making the shards dissapear after logging out for more than 30 mins (iirc) is sadistic.

- DPS/aggro issue: Even with -20% threat from using imp with master demonologist, doing slightly more damage than the tanks and still holding back because almost pulling aggro is very frustrating and almost ruins the raiding experience. Tweak damage/aggro ratio?

- Life tap: Spending a good 30-40% of your global cooldown time (I pulled that % out of my arse) is bad design, IMO but probably objectively too. Tweak this?


These issues are related to raiding, and I understand that warlocks being a utility class (Blood pact, health stones, summoning, curse of shadow/elements, banish etc...) damage isn't the main focus maybe. However mages, hunters and rogues all bring utility too, maybe not as much, but don't seem to suffer the same issues. Warlocks SHOULD imo be able to do a bit more damage, and have a bit less threat generation.

Otherwise for PvP, leveling and dungeons the class was absolutely fantastic and perfectly balanced, IMO!

What do my fellow vanilla locks have to say?

Classic with no changes. Want to farm my shards again and want ALL my curses back. Plus being able to use rain of fire and hellfire. WoW of nowadays is like a MOBA, you use like 4 skills only.

[wholol]

I had two level 60s in vanilla, my main lock and an alt warrior (everybody did alt warriors back then it felt like).

- Soul shards: at least make them stack? Farming before every raid is really just beyond tedious, it's almost mean from the devs. Making the shards dissapear after logging out for more than 30 mins (iirc) is sadistic.

- DPS/aggro issue: Even with -20% threat from using imp with master demonologist, doing slightly more damage than the tanks and still holding back because almost pulling aggro is very frustrating and almost ruins the raiding experience. Tweak damage/aggro ratio?

- Life tap: Spending a good 30-40% of your global cooldown time (I pulled that % out of my arse) is bad design, IMO but probably objectively too. Tweak this?


These issues are related to raiding, and I understand that warlocks being a utility class (Blood pact, health stones, summoning, curse of shadow/elements, banish etc...) damage isn't the main focus maybe. However mages, hunters and rogues all bring utility too, maybe not as much, but don't seem to suffer the same issues. Warlocks SHOULD imo be able to do a bit more damage, and have a bit less threat generation.

Otherwise for PvP, leveling and dungeons the class was absolutely fantastic and perfectly balanced, IMO!

What do my fellow vanilla locks have to say?

Soul shard farming was tedious but that was part of the class flavor, like how a mage was expected to make food and water for everyone, albeit farming shards is a bit more of a grind, but back then everything was so it wasn't much of an issue if that makes sense.

But I cannot understand your point on dps, warlocks were one of the top dps classes back then for pve, to be fair the fact that they were a pure dps class meant they were going to out dps most classes , only other classes that were competitive with locks were rogues, mages and warriors, anything else couldn't smell ur feet on the meters unless you were severely undergeared and/or bad ( which wasn't uncommon back then ).

Life tap is part of the warlock class, so much so that it survived all the class redesigns that locks went through over the expansions, it's still alive to this day and you think they are going to change it in a CLASSIC server ? that's borderline delusional friend.

[Kiri]

This is simply not true.

Soulstones had a cooldown of 30 minutes. Even if you would raid 8h a day you would only need 16 Shards, you didn't even need one for your demon as you would probably summon an imp for the stamina buff.

There was no need to summon 40 people back every time they had to repair, they could have walked, it was just a way to support their lazyness.

I mean granted Shards were usefull, of course they were, but they didn't make or break a raid as people tend to make it, they were a bonus, not a necessity.
People were just so used to be carried and ported by warlocks that they created the pressure on them because of that.

Soulstone was only one of the things, haha. I think I was running a Felhunter as the general pet of choice back then, especially on Vael where you needed all the easy damage you could get.
But yeah, the summoning game was strong back then. Raid leaders did not want to lose a lot of time between wipes, so they always wanted warlock portals. And given that people on certain fights tended to die over and over, repair needs differed wildly. I was playing on a PVP realm where the other faction usually had a lot more members, so they tended to camp the entrances to dungeons, adding to the run time.

[xcoatsyx]

I suspect that people want to play WL until they realise the torment of doing all of this CONSTANTLY. #Warriorlife.

[BuckSparkles]

Soul shard farming was tedious but that was part of the class flavor, like how a mage was expected to make food and water for everyone

Yep. Soul shards are part of locks. Much like mages are vending machines and hunters needing to sacrifice a bag slow for arrors /bullets.

It should stay that way. No changes.

[Kanariya]

Warlock DPS was actually really good once your Tanks learned how to actually generate threat. AQ40/Naxx-geared Locks could easily have their Shadow Bolts crit for 4k+ with Consumables and Debuffs.

[Maudib]

Locks are just fun to play. Seems reason enough many were rolled in Vanilla and BC...

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

"You think you want it, but you don't"

Oh man...let the feast of crow begin.

Classic means classic, the end.

[Trollhammer]

Warrior tanks and Mages need nerfing.

[Molis]

Oh geez the shard farming before MC.

But really it is what it is.

It was a pain but that is the experience after all.

DPS is competitive and you have to balance that with threat.
Honestly the TBC version of shadowbolt spam was worse. Great DPS but you would pull a boss at least once a raid.

[jackofwind]

I had two level 60s in vanilla, my main lock and an alt warrior (everybody did alt warriors back then it felt like).

- Soul shards: at least make them stack? Farming before every raid is really just beyond tedious, it's almost mean from the devs. Making the shards dissapear after logging out for more than 30 mins (iirc) is sadistic.

- DPS/aggro issue: Even with -20% threat from using imp with master demonologist, doing slightly more damage than the tanks and still holding back because almost pulling aggro is very frustrating and almost ruins the raiding experience. Tweak damage/aggro ratio?

- Life tap: Spending a good 30-40% of your global cooldown time (I pulled that % out of my arse) is bad design, IMO but probably objectively too. Tweak this?


These issues are related to raiding, and I understand that warlocks being a utility class (Blood pact, health stones, summoning, curse of shadow/elements, banish etc...) damage isn't the main focus maybe. However mages, hunters and rogues all bring utility too, maybe not as much, but don't seem to suffer the same issues. Warlocks SHOULD imo be able to do a bit more damage, and have a bit less threat generation.

Otherwise for PvP, leveling and dungeons the class was absolutely fantastic and perfectly balanced, IMO!

What do my fellow vanilla locks have to say?

Vanilla lock here, I don't want any changes. We're already top tier post AQ, if we had any of these QoL changes we'd be unrealistically powerful.

I also never understood why people had such issues with Soul Shards, I never had an issue with them. Having them stack would be convenient but not necessary. Also they didn't fucking despawn when you logged out, stop saying that they did. Soulstones, Firestones, Spellstones, and Healthstones did - because they were conjured items like Mage water - and those things still despawn. Soul Shards were easy to farm and didn't disappear.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, I understand that was the past. I just question whether the past needs to be the future as well.

The future is BfA though. Classic servers re-releasing the original game are an intentional trip back to the past.

[Deleted]

We had to stop DPS and WAND the effing bosses to not pull agro. Sweet lord and you think we did good DPS? In Naxx I could cast 3 bolts before needing to Life tap because of the insane mana cost.

Shees, people obviously never raided as warlocks.

Had to step in here.

First off. If we're talking about prior to Zul'Gurub we sure did horrible dps but after with all the spell hit coming into picture spellcasters did become way better from earlier tiers where Rogues, Hunters, Dps warrs had many ways to gather hit from and more or less being over softcap with hit. Out of the spellcasters frostmages was the lucky spellcaster with 6% from talents to have a glance in the dps war.

If we're checking in various of fights with high movements or a typical dps race such as Patchwork you can clearly see a true potential of what a Warlock can succeed with.

Patchwork aka root yourself and nuke AF:



Heigan with high movement during fight:


Gluth aka add fight:


So in short. They ain't that good in early vanilla but a beast when you get hit-gear.

[Warrax]

dont discuss changes on this forum, you will only be bombarded by "purists" and jerks that says "THEN ITS NO VANILLA, YOU DIDNT EVEN PLAY CLASSIC OR WANT THE SERVER". the only issue i had was with the soulshards, but guess we will have to live with it!

Well as you can see each individuel wants his own change in classic, this will cause a snowball effect if dev start listening to suggestions like that, that's why the NO CHANGES, it's better to not change a thing, otherwise they will change everything. Hell, most of the suggestion are actually bad like changing threat...I mean as a Fury Warrior I was an aggro magnet, that doesn't mean I want threat to be easy to manage again, threat being hard to manage and having a tank that know how to do threat is actually fun and hehe yup: part of vanilla!

[Akka]

However mages, hunters and rogues all bring utility too, maybe not as much, but don't seem to suffer the same issues.

Mages, sure (water and portals).
But hunters and rogues ? Wut ?

(also, mage had the exact same aggro problem)