Why do so few people play locks?

[Mammon]

That's exactly what happened with empowered life tap.

Imo it needs to be some kind of CD, and what that does is up in the air. Just not something that's spammable or convoluted.

This brings the Soulburn to mind, limited use, some neat interactions (speed after portal, water walking, instant demon). I could see it being something similar. It can't be a simple damage boost or else it it would just be a new name for Demon Soul Dark Soul Soul Harvest.

I suppose a main problem is that mana as a resource in general has outlived its usefulness for DPS casters. While it makes sense for healers, every caster except for Arcane Mage and Warlock have gone the way of not caring about mana in any way, shape, or form for their DPS rotation. Secondary resources are a lot more interesting to play with, and it might just be time to scrap non-healer mana altogether. While it's true that you could turn mana into a utility resource for dispels and the like, you could also do that with cooldowns - if you're worried about PvP you can just put the relevant abilities on shared CD with charges, allowing you X uses of any utility ability within a given time. Heck that might even make PvP more interesting in terms of choices you make.

That's a better argument for the removal of mana than justifying life taps continued existence in this form.

Currently all mana does for dps specs is serve to limit utility spells. Which is a much better use for it in the current climate.

This is what I'm afraid of. Maybe I'm being too conservative, but it's an RPG and I wouldn't want to see mana go. If it's useless it could be reworked instead of scraped. Being a meaningful limit for handful of spells is way better than not being there at all.

[Biomega]

This is what I'm afraid of. Maybe I'm being too conservative, but it's an RPG and I wouldn't want to see mana go. If it's useless it could be reworked instead of scraped. Being a meaningful limit for handful of spells is way better than not being there at all.

Mana is still a very useful, and probably necessary, resource for healers. But for DPS, it's not that great a thing to have and leads to degenerate things in design; remember in Vanilla when SPriest came along and turned everything on its head because it restored mana to everyone? Cooldowns, procs, and secondary resources are a much more engaging way to moderate DPS than one generic resource bar across a number of classes. Heck even for healers that's boring but for them it's simply a necessary tool to balance healing (if heals were infinite, incoming damage would have to be absurd or everything would be outhealed with mass spam).

One of the main reasons is that mana is so uninteractive. It's just a bar that depletes, and you either gimp your DPS by holding back to conserve (which people do not like doing, like, really do not like) or you have some sort of contrived mechanic to restore it - which then in turn makes it an effectively meaningless resource because it's just infinite with extra steps. That's what Life Tap is, and it's not fun for anyone.

With secondary resources, you have reactive and/or cyclical gameplay with no limitations other than your own rotation (and perhaps RNG) - and certainly no "oops I'm all out guess I can't do anything now" moment like you would have going oom. In practice, that simply makes for much more interesting gameplay for a DPS class.

[Deleted]

I don't know if you've been around WoD but Destro didn't have Life Tap at that point. A passive that boosted Mana Regen rate for 650% was all sufficient to keep you sustained, while also forcing you to spend your burning embers at some point, since you couldn't maintain casting without weaving in ember-consuming spells. And for the "on the move" spell, I really liked Fel Flame back in cata. If Blizz decides to make it return while doing less damage, but retaining its signature effect, that will do.

I didn't play WoD destro, but I remember MoP destro. It was op and had tools for basically everything and that's why it worked, TBH. You can try to replicate infinite mana with Reverse Entropy, but that means your only answers to required movement (where you can't just stutterstep ofc) is havoc (not really a good idea most of the time), conflag and portals, using multiple conflags can lead to overcapping backdraft, although it can be avoided, using multiple portals is nonsense if you're wearing spacetime (which you should on ST at very least). You lose lots of 'empty' gcds that actually let you move, which is a shame.

[Deleted]

Not a lot of people play Warlock? At least the PvE community has realized that Affliction is a beast in raids and M+. Warlocks have a 9.5% DPS participation in all logged M+ runs (source: raider.io), only eclipsed by Mages (11.3%) and Hunters (11.9%).

When it comes to raiding, Affliction is the most used spec in Mythic raiding by a mile (11.4% of all public parses the last 2 weeks). That's 13.676 more parses than the second highest on the list, Havoc DH (7.5%, 26.902 total). That gap is massive.
Even if we go by classes, Warlock is the second most played class in Mythic raiding, only 4.111 parses behind the ever so popular Mage.

[bio347]

I would imagine that any serious health-for-power ability, if it was ever implemented, would fare similarly - being ridiculously OP where it can be abused, and something you just never take when it can't be. I don't see a realistic way for it to ever be fair and balanced.

You know, I don't play rogue really at all, but the Outlaw artifact ability is literally a serious health-for-power ability. I know that the spec has mostly been more plagued with RNG issues re: RtB (and number issues in general re: the other two specs), but were there ever any real problems with Curse of the Dreadblades?

I suppose it runs into the idea that the health-for-power part is trivialized when a healer is around, but if the point is thematics I'm not really sure that matters. I'd much rather have the token life-spent-for-style-points be on something useful and powerful and not something maintenance-y.

[Biomega]

You know, I don't play rogue really at all, but the Outlaw artifact ability is literally a serious health-for-power ability. I know that the spec has mostly been more plagued with RNG issues re: RtB (and number issues in general re: the other two specs), but were there ever any real problems with Curse of the Dreadblades?

I suppose it runs into the idea that the health-for-power part is trivialized when a healer is around, but if the point is thematics I'm not really sure that matters. I'd much rather have the token life-spent-for-style-points be on something useful and powerful and not something maintenance-y.

That's what I mean by SERIOUS health-for-power - something that is an actual drawback and not completely negated by incoming heals the instant you use it. Curse of the Dreadblades is like that, it might as well not have a health cost because it's just completely irrelevant to your decision making (outside of solo play). Same with Life Tap - when was the last time the health loss actually mattered in any way? Maybe once every hundred fights your timings happen to line up so you'd want to Tap while at low HP with some sort of massive damage boss mechanic incoming, but even then you could have just used it earlier or use it later and it's likely irrelevant (considering you shouldn't wait until you're literally oom to Tap in the first place).

What I'm thinking of is some sort of design where you'd ACTUALLY have to worry - maybe paying 75% of your life and stopping all healing for 10 seconds, or something like that. Hence, SERIOUS health for power.

[bio347]

Okay, that's fair. I share your sentiments on how that would go, in that case - at least in terms of being a damaging ability. I suppose that if you wanted to stretch the definition of "power", I think you could argue that Burning Rush might fit the bill when under extended use, but that's certainly reaching and probably outside of what we're interested in anyway.

For myself, I would be cool with something having a token life cost for the flavour of it, seeing as that has been part of the warlock package since the very beginning. I think Life Tap as a core mana regen mechanic has to go, but, like, if it turned into a Dreadblades-like cooldown I think I'd be happy. OTOH, Life Tap has been so meh for so long that if they decided to go a different direction I'm not sure I could muster up a ton of outrage over it. Years ago, certainly, but not anymore. (Perhaps age is making me soft?)

[Bathory]

The play style seemed so disjointed in Legion. Lock is in retirement til I find it fun again.

[Zapporius]

TBC destro warlock was dynamic, and fun caster spec. Legion affl may do very well once decently geared, but man its boring as fuck. You are basically watching how long before agony drops off, redotting and spamming UA to get rid of shards. Boooooooring.

[Biomega]

I think you could argue that Burning Rush might fit the bill when under extended use

I actually tested this, and on most raid fights you can in fact just leave BR on full time with little to no appreciable detriment. Perhaps on tough progression fights it may be different, but even there you just heal so much automatically that it's almost never a problem.

And hey, it might help your healers rank

[Algorath]

Walrocks are evil )

[Deleted]

TBC destro warlock was dynamic, and fun caster spec. Legion affl may do very well once decently geared, but man its boring as fuck. You are basically watching how long before agony drops off, redotting and spamming UA to get rid of shards. Boooooooring.

Your calling Legion Aff boring but on the same sentence TBC destro dynamic and fun??? You literally cast 2 spells..............lol.

As a baseline spec affliction is quite boring i will agree, but when you begin to master the spec, especially with malefic grasp and reap usage the spec becomes very very dynamic if you want to parse high.

I'll warrant that if you think the spec is boring you are not playing it a decent enough level to take into account all the nuances that make the spec hard and engaging to play in the 90% parse range. No offence either mate, its just that the spec is very different depending on the level that you are playing at.

Easy to learn hard to master is basically what i'm getting at.

[bio347]

I actually tested this, and on most raid fights you can in fact just leave BR on full time with little to no appreciable detriment. Perhaps on tough progression fights it may be different, but even there you just heal so much automatically that it's almost never a problem.

And hey, it might help your healers rank

Ha. I bow to the science. And... I do have healers complaining about their healing ranks...

[ydraw]

Your calling Legion Aff boring but on the same sentence TBC destro dynamic and fun??? You literally cast 2 spells..............lol.

3 If you count the curse you had to cast once a minute.

Curse of Doom
Shadowboltx9
Life tap x 3

Repeat

So dynamic!

Truth is Warlock has always been one of the least played classes. The reasons are mostly flavour. Certainly not related to power as Warlock has been one of the best soloing and most powerful raiding classes in the game since The Burning Crusade. The whining about how "bad" all the specs are is common to every spec of expansion though

[Biomega]

The whining about how "bad" all the specs are is common to every spec of expansion though

That's kinda true.

You seldom see posts like "You know what, nothing's wrong, we're in the best spot we've ever been. Good job, I'm enjoying myself."

Then again, that's probably sample bias - people who have a bone to pick about something are approximately 100,000% more likely to complain than people who don't have a problem are to post an affirming message.

[bri134]

3 If you count the curse you had to cast once a minute.

Curse of Doom
Shadowboltx9
Life tap x 3

Repeat

So dynamic!

Truth is Warlock has always been one of the least played classes. The reasons are mostly flavour. Certainly not related to power as Warlock has been one of the best soloing and most powerful raiding classes in the game since The Burning Crusade. The whining about how "bad" all the specs are is common to every spec of expansion though

Dont forget Soulshatter when you inevitably rip aggro from the tank... Supa engaging!

[Deleted]

They are slow and boring to play. They need time to get DPS up so many things are already dead before you get started. Also in pvp I felt like a walking punch bag for everyone. I felt really useless playing as a warlock.

They are fine for solo though, even slightly fun. but other than that they are one of my least favorite classes.

[Biomega]

They are slow and boring to play. They need time to get DPS up so many things are already dead before you get started.

That just means you're doing trivial content

Both in raids and in higher M+ keys Warlocks are very, very good, and quite engaging to play to their maximum potential. You really need to be on your toes.

[Deleted]

So as someone who was thinking of switching to demo lock (I love the idea and class fantasy of summoning a shitload of demons to blow up my enemies), this thread is kinda disheartening. Everyone seems to be against demo? Why? What is wrong with the spec exactly?

[Biomega]

So as someone who was thinking of switching to demo lock (I love the idea and class fantasy of summoning a shitload of demons to blow up my enemies), this thread is kinda disheartening. Everyone seems to be against demo? Why? What is wrong with the spec exactly?

It's needlessly complicated, and it's not very good at anything other than zero-movement strictly-single-target damage. While Affliction zip-zap-zoops all over the place, laughing, and is competitive in anything from ST, to cleave, to AoE.

Also many people don't enjoy the way Demo presents itself as basically replacing spell projectiles with demons. The idea of just throwing imps at people until they're dead is not what most associate with a powerful commander of demons.