Decreasing interest in raiding as warlocks?

[Danto]

were the least represented class in WoW. even more these days.

Rogues would like a word with you. They have been the least played class since WoTLK. Everyone has a rogue alt though.

[nocturnus]

Where the fuck have you been? Warlocks are top damage dealers. If you're not, you're doing shit. End of story. I'm doing the same DPS as our MM Hunter and our Boomkin (WITH the op 4-set bonus. And we're 6/13 HC) - sure, both of them beat me sometimes, sometimes I beat them. But we're all doing between 20 - 25k DPS in average, while our Spriests, Mages, DKS, FDruids are doing 15 - 17k.

Dude, you're too angry. Relax. Your spriests and moonkins are doing shitty dps, you made your point. That doesn't mean that their dps is generally lower. If you look at the collected data, both classes are actually above us on most fights. I'd have a chat with your 15-17k buddies if I were you.

Warlocks also, (still) suffer from horrible scaling;
- We rely too much on that 7th immolate tick to do competitive dps.
- Emp Imp doesn't directly scale with our stats.

These are the 2 main problems. Unfortunately we've got many more;
- Our dps being balanced from melee range
- Our dps being balanced with Havoc in the picture
- etc... etc...

Warlock mechanics are pretty broken at the moment. I don't think anyone can deny this.

[rhorle]

Rogues would like a word with you. They have been the least played class since WoTLK. Everyone has a rogue alt though.

Only cause its a pain to find a locksmith, or for ravenholdt rep lol

[Rakavys]

Warlocks are just really boring. I havnt logged into mine for weeks.

[Althre]

I love playing my warlock! Demo/afflic here, apparently not the optimal specs, but I have fun and do decent dps regardless

[kukki]

i get top dps over a mage and a spriest...only the ench shammy and me fight for 1st o_o
in my guild if im late and they pick up a boomkin the will kick them for me to replace lol

i think its just people cant pay attention, warlock is the only dps i've played at 85 and i think its hella easy but i dont know, i actually enjoy watching my timers...maybe im werid xD

and demo...lol...aoe i on H maloriak its like LOL MY DPS DYSTROYS YOURS MAWHAHAHAHAHA

[Yunru]

The problem with warlocks nowdays is that you need only 1---and just for healthstones.
2 of our guild locks reroled other classes when blizzard said they will limit soulstones.

[Robula]

Well after the DI nerf I'm sure we'll be seeing even less Warlocks as the Raid DPS brought through buffing a Moonkin or sPriest with DI would be a lot lower. That said, Priests do a lot more DPS on the PTR on HelterSkelter (Movement) fights than Affliction. However Affliction is apparently out performing Shadow on single target Patchwerk fight, as they should be.

But honestly, Warlocks need a buff to damage to compensate for Moonkins and Priests ability to multi-DoT and especially since Priests don't lose as much damage as Warlocks while moving. I wish they had a buff as I don't want to see them die out completely.

[Vayshan]

Generally anything a warlock can bring, a boomkin/spriest/mage can bring better, also the fact a warlock has a pet to also keep control of, i find its general level of play is alot more fiddly and annoying than any other caster class.
While all 3 specs are viable, warlock decline is only because other classes have become alot more viable and interesting,

I have to disagree. I top our sPriests, Boomkins and mages by a few K (and our gear is equal). Maybe they are not so good at their class or I'm just to good after playing my lock for nearly 5 years straight. Also pet control is a non-issue, if you have problems with your pet, you're a poor warlock.

I think the decline is mainly due to the nerfs being done to us (don't forget, the night is darkest before the dawn). Spell rotations may be a bit complex compared to most other classes, but they are easy to learn and master. But with so many things these days, ppl expect to be played instead of playing themselves.

[Mitak]

Playing a lock in destro (playing good) its like playing a piano, enjoying the end result as a symphony of spells and high dps, but complicated and you spend less time to enjoying the "music" than concentrating on the different spells and CDs.

In other words to do respectable dps you have to work twice as hard as lets say a Fmage.

[Speedo]

All the census tells you is that the majority or wow players are retarded and don't play the best class evar.

Been raiding on my lock forever. Currently our guild is 7/13H.

This is all idiocy. It's all about the player. A shitty player playing a mage is a shitty mage. I prefer to raid affliction (shits just fun); some classes are tailored to specific boss mechanics better (hunters on atrem.) but in general locks have some unique mechanics that can throw out some decent deeps if used properly.

This game is about change. Sometimes we're in a tough spot, sometimes we're sick nasty good in comparison to others; 4.1 will be a glorious day, 10% moar deeps, 10% less bitching about whose getting DI (for a net gain of 20% more awesome).

[nocturnus]

I'm sure everyone is owning the spriests, mages, hunters and moonkins in their guild, but that doesn't make YOU good, or the class balanced. It makes THEM incompetent:

http://stateofdps.com/

[Instinctz]

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php

Warlock is the lowest played class atm according to the census^
In fact they've been one of the least played classes for the longest time, only time they ever started to rise in numbers was back during BC for the sac/sb spam spec since it was easy mode.

if by longest time you mean Late Wrath when rogues finally passed you. yes, longest time.

[Speedo]

I'm sure everyone is owning the spriests, mages, hunters and moonkins in their guild, but that doesn't make YOU good, or the class balanced. It makes THEM incompetent:

What are you talking about? It makes me awesome.

Don't know if you've ever played a fire mage, but there's a lot of variance involved. Also that overall damage total is inflated from them spell stealing shit on omnitron.

Shadow priests and boomkins are balanced around NOT having DI (while we are balanced around having the buff); essentially you're adding about 9% to 90% and 60% respectively. Theoretically the game's balanced almost perfectly. It's shit like DI, PIs and such that inflate everything, especially for the boomkins and spriests.

stateofdps.com is a great website, and if you actually looked at it you'd see purple all over the top.

If you're not 2% better than you're guilds priests and boomkins give your buff to a resto druid and see that helps.

[Priority]

My main for years was a mage. I rolled a lock on horde for fun and never turned back. I am not a big complainer about nerfs, my raid spec is affliction ( which most say is less dps than destro, I disagree! There are not many fights that you can just stand and cast. ), I am top or in the top 3 depending on the fight. Usually our marks hunter does well, sometimes our dk, but any fight that I can really use soul swap I do very very well. I love my warlock, our guild healers rarely have to hit me. Even with high dps our threat is very manageable, lock ports are great, and we blow stuff up on burn phases. If there is a ele shammy in the group we become godlike. Kill all these adds now, ie: Maloriak, drop a Infernal, soul burn SoC, rain of fire, gg.

[Bacon Grease]

Not surprised to see the QQ'ing here. Warlocks are used to being the best or nearly the best caster class in both PVE and PVP since BC. But of course, merely being viable is not enough.... Warlocks have had the LEAST to complain about for as long as I can remember, it's only natural that the lock population, however small it may actually be, would be spoiled.

Oh good heavens we only have 3 viable specs, QQ Blizz!

[Jessicka]

Not surprised to see the QQ'ing here. Warlocks are used to being the best or nearly the best caster class in both PVE and PVP since BC. But of course, merely being viable is not enough.... Warlocks have had the LEAST to complain about for as long as I can remember, it's only natural that the lock population, however small it may actually be, would be spoiled.

Oh good heavens we only have 3 viable specs, QQ Blizz!

We cry and say we're bad to put people off playing the class so we can feel special.

[Instinctz]

Not surprised to see the QQ'ing here. Warlocks are used to being the best or nearly the best caster class in both PVE and PVP since BC. But of course, merely being viable is not enough.... Warlocks have had the LEAST to complain about for as long as I can remember, it's only natural that the lock population, however small it may actually be, would be spoiled.

Oh good heavens we only have 3 viable specs, QQ Blizz!

considering mages DOMINATED all of Wrath im clueless as to what you mean by Dominating casters. Sure they did good idn BC but since than Mages have reigned supreme.

[bayi]

Hey all, ( a shadow priest main, alt lock here, raiding with both )

Warlocks were always the least represented class in wow ... yea classic included too.

Now for the others:
- Warlock is fun to play. Destro locks are - IMHO - the most complicated dps class/spec to play.
- Destro has good aoe, sure demo is better
- Demo is fun to play too and is very unique ( have a hunter too ).
- Im always topping charts or im in the first 5 ( our last alt raid: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/x6x00itnwaylnfbc/ , look for 'Lariran' )

I never tried PvP with my lock ( with my other chars either ), so i cant say a word to that, but i think warlocks are fun to play and i dont understand why they are under represented.

[Slumdarse]

I have played a lock since vanilla (affl preferred) and also started playing a SPriest as of the last expansion and currently am 12/12 with a few heroic modes between all my toons. My dps on both toons is very competitive and I am usually on top or very close to it on both the warlock & SP. I won't argue dps numbers since players vary from guild to guild with some playing their classes better or worse depending (for all I know I'm bad and my mates are just worse). With that being said I find the ability to reach those dps results easier on my SP. I find the SP being a more forgiving class to play when it comes to priorities and the ability to offer great utility to the raid (hymns, spot healing...etc).

I have no plans to change my main (Lock) to the SP but this was the first expansion I actually gave it some thought (also because OS gear makes farm content more bearable). I'm just really looking forward to the next patch to go back to affliction as I absolutely hate the feel of keeping the ISF buff up and the heavy reliance of BoH. The spec just seems kind of clunky at times and right now I get more enjoyment out of the fluidity of the SP play style.

That’s just my opinion sorry for the rambling post.