Why do so few people play locks?

[AwkwardSquirtle]

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?

People hate lack of mobility (which is less of a problem now with the power trip/shadowy inspiration build) and having to cast demonic empowerment every time you summon.
I actually really enjoy demo because of the fantasy, despite some design quirks. I'd say give it a go if you like the idea.

[Lucrece]

Demo is the longest ramp up spec in the game, the most immobile on top, and it isn't even the top ST DPS spec despite having abysmal cleave and aoe and no burst.

That's why people hate demo.

You get chosen for a mechanic while trying to line up your doomguard/felguard grimserv+10 imps+dreadstalker? Get fucked you just got screwed on an important thal'kiel window.

Everything about the spec is sitting still and hope the planets align around thal'kiel and that you're not interrupted from empowering the demons you just summoned because when they're not empowered they hit like wet noodles and for some reason empower has a cast time and can't be cast on the move despite being a spell you need to spam.

Even worse, demo is by far the most mana hungry of the warlock specs, you can and will run out of mana during a hero opener and have to waste important globals to life tap to continue your cast sequence during the heroism window, it's totally absurd.

On top of it all, haste is integral to the spec in a way few other specs depend. It's as bad if not worse than previous iterations of fire mage being so crit dependent to even function.

They then nerfed the demo legendary shoulders which were a significant improvement to the rotation and completely disrupted the flow they had created.

The fixes they said they were working on for 7.2.5 never came, it's the end of the xpac and demo is about as bad as it was since release. It's a totally disgraceful way to handle a spec.

[cafecito820]

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 like a BM hunter with twice as many buttons and zero mobility. Seriously, aside from Shadowbolt/Demonbolt, every spell the spec has is annoying in some way.

Casting a spell to have pets appear is really boring. It makes me feel like I'm doing nothing and have no control over the situation.
Then, having to cast another spell just to make those pets actually worthwhile is aggravating.
Your AoE only works if you have a bunch of the aforementioned pets summoned, and where you need them.
Your one DoT is the dumbest DoT in the game. It does nothing for ~15 seconds, then hits once, really hard. How stupid.
Your artifact ability does damage based on how many pets you have summoned, so you have to hit that really boring ability(ies) a lot of times to make your 45 second cooldown hit hard. Zzzz...

I dunno man, if you like it, more power to you. I just find everything about it irritating.

[nToxik]

Except Hunters and Rogues don't have to use those ability every after every 3rd spell cast as a part of their regular rotation. You completely missed the analogy.....

Well for hunters, their abilities are limited to the amount of focus you have so there is downtime where you cannot use any abilities. I think this downtime also translates over to Life Tap for warlocks to get mana back.

[Biomega]

Well for hunters, their abilities are limited to the amount of focus you have so there is downtime where you cannot use any abilities. I think this downtime also translates over to Life Tap for warlocks to get mana back.

It's been a while but isn't there literally zero downtime for MM, and virtually none for BM? (Survival doesn't matter because Survival.)

[exjay]

After getting my last legendary and my last artifact weap to 75, I decided to try give demo a try even though I read so much negativity about it. I ran through my guilds alt normal run and there only a few fights i felt i was competitive (garthi,vari,portalkeep).

Although I have only been playing it for a week, I just felt that alot of the fights, demo’s toolkit just does not support the ability to output damage in difference scenarios versus affliction. And this was on normal, where I could just stand still majority of the time and turret. I would not want to try it on mythic.

[Deleted]

After getting my last legendary and my last artifact weap to 75, I decided to try give demo a try even though I read so much negativity about it. I ran through my guilds alt normal run and there only a few fights i felt i was competitive (garthi,vari,portalkeep).

Although I have only been playing it for a week, I just felt that alot of the fights, demo’s toolkit just does not support the ability to output damage in difference scenarios versus affliction. And this was on normal, where I could just stand still majority of the time and turret. I would not want to try it on mythic.

Yep I have Demo @ lvl 66 or so and used Prydaz + DG ring with T20 2p + T21 4p. Sometimes the DPS output compared to my raid was fine (tunnel boss, ignore mechanics) but movement feels so horrid, it's unreal how bad it feels to move.

[woodydave44]

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.

Did you just claim that aff is a hard and engaging spec?


LOLOLOLOLOLOL.


Aff is joke mode easiest spec in the game to play. Not high enough level? This is coming from someone who has downed mythic bosses.

What say you now?

[Biomega]

Did you just claim that aff is a hard and engaging spec?


LOLOLOLOLOLOL.


Aff is joke mode easiest spec in the game to play. Not high enough level? This is coming from someone who has downed mythic bosses.

What say you now?

I say you are a troll, and a scoundrel.

Defend yourself, cur!

[nToxik]

It's been a while but isn't there literally zero downtime for MM, and virtually none for BM? (Survival doesn't matter because Survival.)

Correct, hunters try to cast something every GCD if they can but also need to manage focus which they are also limited by but also don't want to focus cap either. There are times when you are just auto-shotting waiting for focus to build back up so you cannot use any abilities. This downtime would be similar to Warlock requirement to Life Tap.

[MatadorMedia]

Because they trashed Destro and gave our Demonology spec to Shadow Priests. Warlock was shafted hard at the start of Legion; I had been maining a Lock for two expansions until this one. They corrected *some* of the issues in later patches but it's too little too late I'm not switching mains now. Maybe next expac... we'll see what they do with the Demo changes in Battle for Azeroth.

[Biomega]

Correct, hunters try to cast something every GCD if they can but also need to manage focus which they are also limited by but also don't want to focus cap either. There are times when you are just auto-shotting waiting for focus to build back up so you cannot use any abilities. This downtime would be similar to Warlock requirement to Life Tap.

Why are we comparing focus to mana? Focus/Energy are quick resources, spent rapidly but also replenished swiftly.

Compare across mana classes. Where every other DPS except Arcane Mage has infinite mana and only worries about the secondary resource, while Warlocks for some reason need to worry about both.

[Gangresnake]

No mobility, meh CCs, pet management, and the class was absolute trash at legion release.

Logs are just logs, I dont think people put much importance into to it to pick their mains, and I think they're absolutely right.

[Deleted]

Did you just claim that aff is a hard and engaging spec?


LOLOLOLOLOLOL.


Aff is joke mode easiest spec in the game to play. Not high enough level? This is coming from someone who has downed mythic bosses.

What say you now?

I say just downing mythic bosses means fuck all in terms of your skill level as a warlock, also doing a few bosses on mythic doesn't give you a metric of how well you are playing the spec, bearing in mind content is tuned around the 75% parse mark for the relevant ilvl, for all we know you are being carried, dieing on fights on parsing low...............logs are what define your skill level.

So following that, care to provide some of your logs for your claimed mythic kills at 90-95% plus parses for every fight as affliction? Then your argument may hold some weight.

I can wait.......

[Krixooks]

I have PvP'd as a warlock main for years but quit this expac for shaman

they broke a bunch of warlock abilities such as demonic circle
grimoire and demon gate are super clumsy
there STILL exist in/out combat bugs with a number of things including the afflic staff
no mobility whatsoever

so glad I made the switch, warlock was driving me crazy in Legion

[Gaaz]

It has nothing noteworthy to offer. You're not summoning a "shitload of demons", it's a handful of imps and it's about as visually exciting as watching paint dry in slow motion. The damage is mediocre at best and if you don't remain completely stationary, your DPS will tank hard. Not to mention the insane ramp up time just to deal said mediocre damage and to make matters worse you're constantly being forced to spam Life Tap because you will run out of mana almost instantly. Which is funny because no other class/specialization has this issue but Blizzard's excuse for it is that it's an "iconic" part of the class yet they had no problem taking away Metamorphosis, Drain Mana, Soul Shards in a bag, the demon and mount quests, etc. all of which are infinitely more "iconic" than Life Tap.

Careful what you wish for. Health drain imposed by Life Tap is something that greatly contributes to Blizzard's decision to give warlocks so much survival and self healing in general. Sure, it gets in the way of Demonology play style, but that is due to bad gameplay design in general, not because it is a redundant component. Given a choice of limitless mana, almost zero shields and self heals (mage style) vs life tap + 20% health shield buffer + heal from damage, personally, I would chose the second option every time. Insane self healing is something that made warlocks (affliction in particular) very attractive to me in the first place. Mage just did not cut it, as often I participate in PUG content where relying on healers is not the best course of action. Trying mythic ToS with pugs was infuriating as a hunter (at one point I even decided to wear healing pants and helm) and as a mage. Warlock fit there perfectly. Even in organized content, raids that have many warlocks (and SPs) fare better in my experience, suffering less from sudden deaths due to mistakes and bad RNG.
Basically, since I started playing warlock in Legion, I never regretted that decision. Hunter and mage are not up to par for me in terms of gameplay abilities, compared to warlocks. But I guess I can see a point made by some people about certain limitations in the game style. Mages can be very reactive to a situation with blinks, Ice Block and excellent burst. There are benefits to that. Warlocks are more active pre-planning, which is sometimes more difficult to do and more prone to bad RNG scenarios. But that does not bother me if I look at other advantages the class provides.

[Hashtronaut]

i dont play one because dont feel like having a pet.

It can kind of be a pain in the ass.

[Deleted]

I just dont like the way they went with affliction & destruction.

[adamzz]

It's one of my main alts that I play but I'm sure it's because:

A) It has no tank or heal spec... so why not just play priest and take advantage of healing queues
B) Afflic (top raid spec) ramp up time is frustrating when doing world content or low level mythics. Like literally useless when farming sub +10's where warriors just bladestorm + cleave everything in seconds

Very fun for raiding and progress mythics though

You suggest playing shadow priest so you have the option to take advantage of healing queues, then you proceed to say that Affli is useless in sub +10's :thinking:

Shadow is useless in any mythic+ so why would anyone play shadow?

[rullarn]

It's one of my main alts that I play but I'm sure it's because:

A) It has no tank or heal spec... so why not just play priest and take advantage of healing queues
B) Afflic (top raid spec) ramp up time is frustrating when doing world content or low level mythics. Like literally useless when farming sub +10's where warriors just bladestorm + cleave everything in seconds

Very fun for raiding and progress mythics though

I can agree that the ramp up time is something that makes you question your existence in a m+, but sPriest has it to, no doubt.

However, I've shot myself in the foot with loving demo. So if you've ever felt useless in a low key m+ as Affi, try demo
But what i've done is pretty much given up on the "trash" in lower keys, as a Demo I won't do as much as a arms or fury. So I stay ST-specc, get it out on bosses.

Same for this week when it comes to Tyra. affix, I stay ST, cause if the trash at higher keys stay alive for longer, the more damage I get out on the trash even in my ST specc.
And when it then comes to bosses I put out the best possible, which ends up in favor of the group in the end
On Fortified, I go for a more hybrid, and that gives me a decent amount of trash AoE.

So Id say it's all about playing to your strength and weaknesses.

I was sure I was gonna get kicked from higher keys once they saw I was demo, but most enjoyed me being there for the longer "timed" pulls and bossfights.
So I'll happily continue with my demo and affi for when I just want to SoC everything in sight.