Warlock Raiding Fact Check

[Kalmakk]

So, come Classic, I plan to main warlock as a raiding character. I feel it's a class niche that will be less flocked to than the usual suspects for dps (mage, rogue and warrior).

However, I'd love to have some questions answered directly by people who played Warlock back then personally. I played Rogue back then and have virtually no memory of what Warlocks went through. I want to understand what kind of experience and requirements I'd be signing up for.

1;
Everything I've seen says that Warlocks start out raiding with less dps than the other Big Three classes, but that they start to scale extremely well later on. When do Locks actually start pulling ahead in dps (raid tier wise) and where do they actually land in the end on the overall dps totem pole at the end of the road?

2;
Raid composition. Generally speaking I know that raids required at the bare minimum one warlock for curse of elements, healthstones, summons, etc. But how many fights actually wanted more than this, for banish strats etc? Was it typical to see very few locks? Or more like 2-4?

3;
People like to be anecdotal about the "good ol' days". I hear horror stories about the Soul Shard farming pre-raids and that people spent 40 shards right from the get-go to make every member a healthstone... Then went back outside to grind even more shards for themselves. Was this actually true? Or is it just a fairy tale situation that very rarely occured?

4;
Warlock Epic Mount questline. I've heard that if you actually factored all of the reagents and steps involved in getting the class mount it actually ended up even more expensive than just getting normal epic riding in the first place? True, false, or dependent on server economy and pop?

5;
How difficult/expensive/time consuming was it to get geared for pre-raid as a lock? Any more or less than anyone else? Or about the same in general?

Thanks for reading, first-off. Any and all replies are appreciated. I value the opinions of people I can interract with and have dialog with vastly more than just videos and contradictory heresay. There's a lot said about Vanilla. It's hard to know what's worth paying attention to.

[Firebert]

I can answer question 2.

One lock = one tank for the rock elemental boss in MC, and you needed eight IIRC

[Wondercrab]

This is just based on what I can vaguely remember from 15 years ago, so take it with a pinch of salt, but I can probably provide some insight on #3 and #4.

Soul shard farming is probably only going to be a big deal in very demanding guilds (the sort that, as you mentioned, might demand 40 healthstones for everyone). In my experience it was a pain, but honestly not the biggest hassle in the world. Soul shard bags helped you stack up a lot. As long as you were fully stocked before starting a dungeon/raid you'd usually be alright. It mostly just depends on how much you like grinding mobs. It was the sort of thing you could often combine with farming item drops back when that was a thing.

Regarding the Warlock mount, I recall the general sentiment being that it was around 30% cheaper than getting a regular epic mount, although it was relatively late in vanilla when I got mine, so the AH prices for some of the items required might've dropped by then. Whether it's more or less expensive will probably depend on how server economies shape up on classic realms.

[Malacrass]

So, come Classic, I plan to main warlock as a raiding character. I feel it's a class niche that will be less flocked to than the usual suspects for dps (mage, rogue and warrior).

1;
Everything I've seen says that Warlocks start out raiding with less dps than the other Big Three classes, but that they start to scale extremely well later on. When do Locks actually start pulling ahead in dps (raid tier wise) and where do they actually land in the end on the overall dps totem pole at the end of the road?

On par with Rogues in Naxx. Equally "skilled" and geared Mages and Warriors will still do more damage than you, though.

2;
Raid composition. Generally speaking I know that raids required at the bare minimum one warlock for curse of elements, healthstones, summons, etc. But how many fights actually wanted more than this, for banish strats etc? Was it typical to see very few locks? Or more like 2-4?

Unless you're aiming for World first kills this isn't relevant at all. Sure you can get away with one Warlock, but that would be really inconvenient. You don't want that poor single Warlock to provide Healthstones, Soulstones and Summons for an entire 40 man raid.
That said, a healthy amount of Warlocks is 3+, more don't hurt. With that amount your party can have 3 different Healthstones at the same time (coordinate with the other Warlocks who talents into which rank) and you will have both curses up, Shadow and Elements. A talented Imp buff is also nice to have.

3;
People like to be anecdotal about the "good ol' days". I hear horror stories about the Soul Shard farming pre-raids and that people spent 40 shards right from the get-go to make every member a healthstone... Then went back outside to grind even more shards for themselves. Was this actually true? Or is it just a fairy tale situation that very rarely occured?

Sadly this is not a fairy tale, and the reason why bringing only one Lock is simply too inconvient. You can also restock on Shards on trash though, so it's possible to leave a raid with a full bag of Shards by the end of it.

4;
Warlock Epic Mount questline. I've heard that if you actually factored all of the reagents and steps involved in getting the class mount it actually ended up even more expensive than just getting normal epic riding in the first place? True, false, or dependent on server economy and pop?

Both the Dreadsteed and the Paladin Charger have similiar cost compared to the normal epic riding, especially when you factor in the time to complete the quest. Not sure if you will want to wait for the Diremaul release though, since it won't be in phase 1.

5;
How difficult/expensive/time consuming was it to get geared for pre-raid as a lock? Any more or less than anyone else? Or about the same in general?

Same as everyone, but I don't know if it will be necessary to go hardcore on pre-bis anyway. Molten Core and Onyxia are really easy raids, except for Rag, so I wouldn't worry too much about being best in slot in every slot anyway. But if you do, I don't see why Warlocks would have a harder time than other classes.

[epLe]

1. Warlocks catch up and start to pull ahead when they get either full T2 or T2.5 sets.

2. Its actually 3 for curses (shadows, elements & recklesness), these are the only generic debuffs wanted, so no agony or imp bolts usually.

3. Soul shard farming can be tedious, but not nearly a common problem or demand, as there is usually enough trash around to get more than needed.

4. Most warlocks got it cheaper than other classes, by grouping up and sharing the price to just summon once.

5. The hard part of gearing as a warlock is that you have no +hit talents, so you are more dependant on getting as much you possible can from gear.

[Canield]

So, come Classic, I plan to main warlock as a raiding character. I feel it's a class niche that will be less flocked to than the usual suspects for dps (mage, rogue and warrior).

However, I'd love to have some questions answered directly by people who played Warlock back then personally. I played Rogue back then and have virtually no memory of what Warlocks went through. I want to understand what kind of experience and requirements I'd be signing up for.

1;
Everything I've seen says that Warlocks start out raiding with less dps than the other Big Three classes, but that they start to scale extremely well later on. When do Locks actually start pulling ahead in dps (raid tier wise) and where do they actually land in the end on the overall dps totem pole at the end of the road?

2;
Raid composition. Generally speaking I know that raids required at the bare minimum one warlock for curse of elements, healthstones, summons, etc. But how many fights actually wanted more than this, for banish strats etc? Was it typical to see very few locks? Or more like 2-4?

3;
People like to be anecdotal about the "good ol' days". I hear horror stories about the Soul Shard farming pre-raids and that people spent 40 shards right from the get-go to make every member a healthstone... Then went back outside to grind even more shards for themselves. Was this actually true? Or is it just a fairy tale situation that very rarely occured?

4;
Warlock Epic Mount questline. I've heard that if you actually factored all of the reagents and steps involved in getting the class mount it actually ended up even more expensive than just getting normal epic riding in the first place? True, false, or dependent on server economy and pop?

5;
How difficult/expensive/time consuming was it to get geared for pre-raid as a lock? Any more or less than anyone else? Or about the same in general?

Thanks for reading, first-off. Any and all replies are appreciated. I value the opinions of people I can interract with and have dialog with vastly more than just videos and contradictory heresay. There's a lot said about Vanilla. It's hard to know what's worth paying attention to.

1) Warlocks wont top out Rogue Warrior or Mage in Damage Dealt. You will get close in Naxx. Locks are more less brought for their meaningful debuffs/buffs.

2) You will want Warlocks to cover 3 debuff slots: Elements, Recklessness and Shadow. Likely only one lock will spec SM Ruin to provide Blood Pact to main tank group. Other locks will spec DS/Ruin for slight damage increase. You want 3. More is not optimal but not bad just not as efficient as Mages/Warriors.

3) Raid prep is rough on soul shard usage. But you should be good with 3 locks filling bags with soul shards. Other players can bring the warlock's consumes for them. Using drain soul on trash is important to replenish bags for long runs.

4) Depends on economy. Cheaper in my experience on private server but you have to wait to complete.

5) Harder to gear in the sense that Mages may be preferred for dungeons. If you have a group/guild its very easy. But not much hit gear early on.

[Thunderball]

So, come Classic, I plan to main warlock as a raiding character. I feel it's a class niche that will be less flocked to than the usual suspects for dps (mage, rogue and warrior).

However, I'd love to have some questions answered directly by people who played Warlock back then personally. I played Rogue back then and have virtually no memory of what Warlocks went through. I want to understand what kind of experience and requirements I'd be signing up for.

1;
Everything I've seen says that Warlocks start out raiding with less dps than the other Big Three classes, but that they start to scale extremely well later on. When do Locks actually start pulling ahead in dps (raid tier wise) and where do they actually land in the end on the overall dps totem pole at the end of the road?

2;
Raid composition. Generally speaking I know that raids required at the bare minimum one warlock for curse of elements, healthstones, summons, etc. But how many fights actually wanted more than this, for banish strats etc? Was it typical to see very few locks? Or more like 2-4?

3;
People like to be anecdotal about the "good ol' days". I hear horror stories about the Soul Shard farming pre-raids and that people spent 40 shards right from the get-go to make every member a healthstone... Then went back outside to grind even more shards for themselves. Was this actually true? Or is it just a fairy tale situation that very rarely occured?

4;
Warlock Epic Mount questline. I've heard that if you actually factored all of the reagents and steps involved in getting the class mount it actually ended up even more expensive than just getting normal epic riding in the first place? True, false, or dependent on server economy and pop?

5;
How difficult/expensive/time consuming was it to get geared for pre-raid as a lock? Any more or less than anyone else? Or about the same in general?

Thanks for reading, first-off. Any and all replies are appreciated. I value the opinions of people I can interract with and have dialog with vastly more than just videos and contradictory heresay. There's a lot said about Vanilla. It's hard to know what's worth paying attention to.

1) No. Warlocks will likely start on par or stronger than mages, but will fall behind once mages go fire. Frost mages scale worse than warlocks, fire scales better.

2) Bare minimum is 1 warlock for CoR. Melee DPS is a lot stronger in vanilla on average. Healthstones are practically unusable due to how many slots you need to reserve for consumes, making it very hard for you to get enough shards to make enough. You would maybe make some for tanks and that's about it. Garr banish strat is not a thing anymore, you can easily just tank all adds with one tank and either kill them one by one by pulling them away with the other tank, or just AoE'ing all of them at the same time. So no, there are no fights were you want warlocks due to fight mechanics.

3) This is true. It's not going to happen anymore though. Shard farming is pretty annoying still, you need enough to use shadowburn.

4) Not true. Mats should be between 500-600g and the regular mount is 900g (20% discount possible) for skill and 10-90g for the mount. So yeah, should be always cheaper.

5) One of the easiest. Most of warlock preraid bis gear are of shadow wrath greens, which could be just bought from AH.

[Chaelexi]

So, come Classic, I plan to main warlock as a raiding character. I feel it's a class niche that will be less flocked to than the usual suspects for dps (mage, rogue and warrior).

However, I'd love to have some questions answered directly by people who played Warlock back then personally. I played Rogue back then and have virtually no memory of what Warlocks went through. I want to understand what kind of experience and requirements I'd be signing up for.

1;
Everything I've seen says that Warlocks start out raiding with less dps than the other Big Three classes, but that they start to scale extremely well later on. When do Locks actually start pulling ahead in dps (raid tier wise) and where do they actually land in the end on the overall dps totem pole at the end of the road?

2;
Raid composition. Generally speaking I know that raids required at the bare minimum one warlock for curse of elements, healthstones, summons, etc. But how many fights actually wanted more than this, for banish strats etc? Was it typical to see very few locks? Or more like 2-4?

3;
People like to be anecdotal about the "good ol' days". I hear horror stories about the Soul Shard farming pre-raids and that people spent 40 shards right from the get-go to make every member a healthstone... Then went back outside to grind even more shards for themselves. Was this actually true? Or is it just a fairy tale situation that very rarely occured?

4;
Warlock Epic Mount questline. I've heard that if you actually factored all of the reagents and steps involved in getting the class mount it actually ended up even more expensive than just getting normal epic riding in the first place? True, false, or dependent on server economy and pop?

5;
How difficult/expensive/time consuming was it to get geared for pre-raid as a lock? Any more or less than anyone else? Or about the same in general?

Thanks for reading, first-off. Any and all replies are appreciated. I value the opinions of people I can interract with and have dialog with vastly more than just videos and contradictory heresay. There's a lot said about Vanilla. It's hard to know what's worth paying attention to.

I will start this off by saying I was a warlock in a world top 5 guild in vanilla and have raided on lock as a main or alt ever since and still do
1. You start out decent in MC close to on par but fall behind after MC. The big 3 are the big three, locks are part of the next 2 group and lead that group of Warlocks and Hunters.
2. In the end tier progression focused raiding there were 2 main comps the 2 warlock comps(For COE and COR and you did not get a curse of shadows) or the 4+ warlock comps where you get COS and Shadow weaving from a shadow or more likely disc/shadow priest that healed and maintained the debuff.
3. Yes this is true, you would try to make it double duty though by farming fire or earth elementals for protection pots/gold. I would go into a raid with 60-100 shards regularly
4. It was about the same cost but once you completed it you could resell the ability to do the quest for about a 100 gold to other locks. I made close to 10000 gold off doing this alone
5. I played from launch and the only "expensive" thing could be the epic robes if you made them but straight out farming gear is also a viable strat. You will end up running instances repeatedly as you do not get much gear from them.

if you have any questions let me know.

[Kalmakk]

These have been awesome replies, thanks guys/gals! Seems like pretty consistant reports too which is what I was hoping for.

If I think of any follow up questions I'll be sure to reach out again!

For now here's a curiosity question; of you who played lock back in the day... How many of you are gonna do it a 2nd time in Classic? Reasoning?

[Azezeil]

Mages start out doing more DPS at 60 just because Frost is loaded with hit and crit. Warlocks get shafted pretty hard in this department. Mages get like 6% hit and 10% crit for free, while Warlocks get 0% hit and 5% crit. You'll start catching up to Mages after farming BWL for a bit and ZG releases. A fully BWL/ZG geared Warlock will be on par, and probably slightly better than an equally geared Frost Mage. The kick in the balls is that once you're at this point AQ40 will be on the horizon and there's no class in the game that scales as well as a Fire Mage in AQ40 and beyond.

I won't be playing Warlock again, because I think if you took into account all classes talent trees as a whole (so all 3), Warlocks it the worst designed. All specs play incredibly similar to one another in PvP, and in PvE all viable specs play exactly the same.

[Mahogany]

Alot of classes have poorly designed talent trees, not just warlocks - What concerns me more is if I'll enjoy playing Warlock or Mage by just hitting the same key over & over, or if I should play Rogue and have somewhat of a "rotation"

[Razzako]

Both the Dreadsteed and the Paladin Charger have similiar cost compared to the normal epic riding, especially when you factor in the time to complete the quest. Not sure if you will want to wait for the Diremaul release though, since it won't be in phase 1.

IIRC you can save money on the Dreadsteed by trading some of the mats with another Warlock that already did the quest.

[Irian]

#1 I wasn't really knowledgeable about the game enough at the time, but I can say that in the content I did do (up to BWL) I was always at least competitive with the mages.

#3, it was true and it wasn't. People like to dramatize it but if you had enough pocket change to grab a good shard bag you shouldn't really need to worry about it that much. It's a resource but since shards were mostly just used for out-of-combat utility (barring soulfire and shadowburn, which aren't really efficient to use often in combat) you didn't really tend to run out unless you were using them pointlessly if you stocked up well before the raid.

For #4, Whether it was more expensive depended on when you bought it. A lot of people incorrectly say it was more expensive because that was the case as of the pre-BC patch, but that's really irrelevant for classic.

IIRC it costed about 700-800 gold total, but since it also came with the mount it was discounted a bit more. That being said, the ending of the quest where you actually obtain the dreadsteed can be cheated by getting a warlock to do the reagent part of the Helnurath fight for you, reducing the cost to about 500 gold if I remember right.
I will say though that the quest is a bit involved so it may be more sensible just to buy the normal riding. It wasn't that rare for me to see warlock alts and maybe even some mains say "fuck it" to the whole Helnurath quest and just get the training. No quests, no dungeons, no bullshit basically.

[Drosul]

So, come Classic, I plan to main warlock as a raiding character. I feel it's a class niche that will be less flocked to than the usual suspects for dps (mage, rogue and warrior).

However, I'd love to have some questions answered directly by people who played Warlock back then personally. I played Rogue back then and have virtually no memory of what Warlocks went through. I want to understand what kind of experience and requirements I'd be signing up for.

1;
Everything I've seen says that Warlocks start out raiding with less dps than the other Big Three classes, but that they start to scale extremely well later on. When do Locks actually start pulling ahead in dps (raid tier wise) and where do they actually land in the end on the overall dps totem pole at the end of the road?

2;
Raid composition. Generally speaking I know that raids required at the bare minimum one warlock for curse of elements, healthstones, summons, etc. But how many fights actually wanted more than this, for banish strats etc? Was it typical to see very few locks? Or more like 2-4?

3;
People like to be anecdotal about the "good ol' days". I hear horror stories about the Soul Shard farming pre-raids and that people spent 40 shards right from the get-go to make every member a healthstone... Then went back outside to grind even more shards for themselves. Was this actually true? Or is it just a fairy tale situation that very rarely occured?

4;
Warlock Epic Mount questline. I've heard that if you actually factored all of the reagents and steps involved in getting the class mount it actually ended up even more expensive than just getting normal epic riding in the first place? True, false, or dependent on server economy and pop?

5;
How difficult/expensive/time consuming was it to get geared for pre-raid as a lock? Any more or less than anyone else? Or about the same in general?

Thanks for reading, first-off. Any and all replies are appreciated. I value the opinions of people I can interract with and have dialog with vastly more than just videos and contradictory heresay. There's a lot said about Vanilla. It's hard to know what's worth paying attention to.

1. Locks will always be behind the big 3 (mage, rogue, warrior). Elemental makes a decent case for catching up in Naxx era via superior scaling as well. You will surpass hunters (who don't scale particularly well), however, in the BWL-AQ40 tiers. In most raids you will end up after Rogues/Warriors and maybe on the lower end of where mages sit, depending on the mage spec.

2. Depends on raid comp, you want a minimum of 2 warlocks for CoElements and CoRecklessness (armor debuff that boosts physical dps)... 3 Warlocks tends to be more standard, since it could enable you to get all 3 ranks of improved healthstone (0,1,2). The benefit there is that a player can hold one stone of each rank in their inventory (they still share a cd, but you won't have to trade stones to a guy mid fight).... That said, Locks, while not one of the top 3 dps, are still a very good ranged dps overall and having 4-5 won't really hurt your raid in any way, beyond maybe necessitating CoShadows (which goes up by warlock #3), and a shadowpriest for shadow weaving.

3. Not in my guild. My guild in vanilla would basically have warlocks head out ~15 minutes early to the raid's meetup location with full bags. I got off work with 30 minutes to hit that mark, on a commute that could take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, so I had to just fill my bags the night before, and typically get a summon myself upon logging in. Summons where reserved for people not at the raid on time... and the warlocks had a tendency to /random 100 and decide whether you lived or died if we had to summon you at all (at least in BrMountain raids, where we could summon you off a ledge).... People learned quickly to show up on time. Health Stones where available to anyone after summons if they opened trade but melee got priority. Beyond that every raid had at least a few trash mobs and warlocks where EXPECTED to be drain souling every single one of those mobs. TL: DR pre-raid shard farming was kind of true, but way overblown.... Filling your bags with shards was like 5-10minutes of farming from empty... the more important factor was training your raid members to not waste shards on summons and show up on their own.

4. Cheaper than a real mount, but in that same ballpark... If you pvp you will still want a "real" mount as well (getting kicked on a lock mount summon locked out shadow, and the flaming horse made you an easier focus target for warriors in group pvp, which was a death sentence). If you get your mount quest done quickly, you can use the items from the quest to sell carries to other warlocks (the items are reusable and expensive, so you save other locks money by selling a carry for it, and make yourself some nice gold in return). It does involve running DM:W a ton though which gets boring. Even so, pretty solid gold maker.

5. Easier to get pre-raid in some aspects... Shadowweave shoulders are bis, for example and easily crafted. Robe of the void is also bis pre-raid and solo-craftable.... Later Bloodvine set for 300 tailors is bis basically into Naxx. Back to pre-raid talk though, the difficulty comes in finding choice "shadow wrath" pieces pre-raid, which will be much tougher... Like a "Green Lens of Shadow Wrath" is probably going to cost an arm and a leg. Overall I'd say it's an easier to gear class. Below is a website that has bis gear for most of the class/spec/faction combos.

http://www.wowclassicbis.com/

[WashedUpRaider]

So, come Classic, I plan to main warlock as a raiding character. I feel it's a class niche that will be less flocked to than the usual suspects for dps (mage, rogue and warrior).

However, I'd love to have some questions answered directly by people who played Warlock back then personally. I played Rogue back then and have virtually no memory of what Warlocks went through. I want to understand what kind of experience and requirements I'd be signing up for.

1;
Everything I've seen says that Warlocks start out raiding with less dps than the other Big Three classes, but that they start to scale extremely well later on. When do Locks actually start pulling ahead in dps (raid tier wise) and where do they actually land in the end on the overall dps totem pole at the end of the road?

2;
Raid composition. Generally speaking I know that raids required at the bare minimum one warlock for curse of elements, healthstones, summons, etc. But how many fights actually wanted more than this, for banish strats etc? Was it typical to see very few locks? Or more like 2-4?

3;
People like to be anecdotal about the "good ol' days". I hear horror stories about the Soul Shard farming pre-raids and that people spent 40 shards right from the get-go to make every member a healthstone... Then went back outside to grind even more shards for themselves. Was this actually true? Or is it just a fairy tale situation that very rarely occured?

4;
Warlock Epic Mount questline. I've heard that if you actually factored all of the reagents and steps involved in getting the class mount it actually ended up even more expensive than just getting normal epic riding in the first place? True, false, or dependent on server economy and pop?

5;
How difficult/expensive/time consuming was it to get geared for pre-raid as a lock? Any more or less than anyone else? Or about the same in general?

Thanks for reading, first-off. Any and all replies are appreciated. I value the opinions of people I can interract with and have dialog with vastly more than just videos and contradictory heresay. There's a lot said about Vanilla. It's hard to know what's worth paying attention to.

1) Warlocks CAN start to keep up with the big dogs as early as BWL if they get to run corr, but realistically in AQ. By naxx - Warlocks are right there with warriors, and the only mage that should beat you is the one carrying ignite.

2) Most guilds will run 3-4 - That gets you CoE, CoS, and CoR, with 3 of em running DS/Ruin and 1 running SM/Ruin to give imp buff to tanks.

3) It can be, it depends on how you play... It's rarely as bad as described.

4) It is not more expensive, and if you buy all the reagants, you can actually MAKE money by selling the uses to warlocks trying to finish the quest for a discount of the cost ( I typically sold it for 50% of the vendor cost... Saves other warlocks money, and I get a return on my investment. )

5) No more and no less than anyone else. You compete with mages, and to some extent healers, but most healers want MP5 gear while mages and locks want SP/Hit/Crit gear.

[Kudos]

1. SM/ Ruin was always competitive from my personal experience. MD / Ruin was awesome when you could sac your succubus and then res it with jumper cables for a double buff. People who play on private servers might tell more recent stories though.

2. It's odd that the posts you see on MMO-C seem to think that guilds will have super stringent raid compositions and min-max classes for optimal results. Screw that. The Classic raids aren't hard. Any guild that is going to mandate class compositions isn't worth being in unless you plan to burn through the content and quit. It's Vanilla. It's not like there will be any new content coming later. Though, I can imagine there will be no shortage of guilds who will want to push server firsts.

3. Shard farming was time consuming. It wasn't just 1 healthstone some people wanted. As you could downrank your spells, I often had tanks asking for multiple ranks of healthstones. If you take a profession like Tailoring, then just make sure you farm mobs that drop cloth. I would always farm Satyrs in Azshara as they would drop Runecloth and occasionally Fel Cloth. Nice and close to Org too, if you're a Horde player.

4. The mount was expensive. If you get it early though, you can always do what I did and sell Diremaul runs. Once you clear the instance and complete the quest, you could invite new players to come in and interact with the Dreadsteed up until it despawns. It was quite profitable for me.

5. Not really harder than any other class.

[Echocho]

People like to be anecdotal about the "good ol' days". I hear horror stories about the Soul Shard farming pre-raids and that people spent 40 shards right from the get-go to make every member a healthstone... Then went back outside to grind even more shards for themselves. Was this actually true? Or is it just a fairy tale situation that very rarely occured?

I'm sure this happened, I would've rather bought 40 major healing potions off the AH and handed them out than create 40 health stones. Today people are responsible for their own consumables, any guild asking their warlocks to supply them with health stones will probably be told to go fuck themselves.

[Boricha]

1: Their damage starts out poor due to lack of hit chance and threat reduction, but scales well once you get the crafted set from Zul'Gurub. You won't beat warriors, but you can compete with rogues and the non-ignite mages. This is assuming equally skilled players of course, if your group's mages and warriors suck then you may beat them all. Keep in mind that all the raids in classic can be 15-20 manned, so it's really not a big deal unless you're doing speed runs.

2: You need at least three warlocks for curse of elements, shadow, and recklessness. You also need them for healthstones, summons, sometimes banish. They tank on twin emps as well.

3: You'll have to spend a good half-hour before raids to farm. TBH, only the tanks really need healthstones, but if you've got several warlocks then making sure the healers and even dps have them doesn't hurt. It's really not necessary on farm though.

4: Warlock Epic Mount questline. It's expensive, but you can skip some of the mats with help from people who have already done it. Dire Maul is coming in phase 2, so you'll probably want to buy an epic mount anyway if you don't want to be stuck with a 60%-er for some time while others have their epics.

5: In general it's the same as most people. Warlocks aren't super desired in dungeons AFAIK, so if the community does turn out to be really elitist then you may have some issues there, but I doubt it. If you're in on that initial wave of people hitting 60, then I think people will be especially accepting on weaker classes due to a lack of people to choose from.

[Malacrass]

5: In general it's the same as most people. Warlocks aren't super desired in dungeons AFAIK, so if the community does turn out to be really elitist then you may have some issues there, but I doubt it. If you're in on that initial wave of people hitting 60, then I think people will be especially accepting on weaker classes due to a lack of people to choose from.

I assume clothies in general will have an easier time getting into dungeon groups at 60, since usually Warriors form the group and they will naturally want to avoid competition. Armor class > viability.
Also maybe I'm biased, but if I could I would always try to get one Warlock in my group. Soulstones can save so much time and Summons even more (in the case of someone quitting the group halfway and you need a replacement).

[Roxyfoxy]

a lot of people that have no actual experience playing warlocks commenting on this thread.

1: Warlocks start out badly, once they can get decent amount of hit it gets a lot better. with ZG and BWL gear, you will really start to become a beast, at which point, the biggest limit to your dps is how well a tank can keep agro. With a great tank, your dps can be better than mages and rogues and equal to warriors, however, if you dont got a good tank, it will hurt your dps a lot.

2: raid composition depends a lot on the guild leadership, do you create a guild that wants to maximize dps in MC and BWL, you will see very few warlocks, but if you got a leader who wants to build a raid for AQ and naxx, warlocks will have many raid spots.
The Shadow priest, buffs warlocks a lot, but to make it worth having a shadow priest in your raid, you need 3-4 warlocks just to make up for the loss of damage from bringing the priest. 5-6 warlocks are perfect.
A important factor many people forget, is that it is clever to bring a diverse composition, to better split up gear drops, while mages and warlocks use very similar gear, there are still a few pieces that differ, so if you bring too many mages or warlocks, you wont take advantage of the gear you get well enough, unless you are very unlucky with caster loot in general.
a 5 locks and 5 mages are good, plus one spot for either of those.

3: Soul shard farming can be bad, if you play stupid, but it not so bad, if you prepare well, and dont use your soulshards recklessly. they can easily be farmed during raids, there is only 1 boss in the entire game that require you to hand out healthstones to the entire raid (Loatheb), other than that boss, you will hand them out to tanks, or others only if you have plenty shards available.

4: If you do the entire quest chain by yourself, it is equally expensive as a normal epic mount, however, one part, which cost 250g only one warlock needs to complete, and he can summon the boss for any other warlock, so if you and your warlock buddies split the tab, if will not cost more than around 50 gold each, and then you can do sell runs to quickly earn back the money.

5: Warlock is one of the easiest classes to pre raid gear, a lot of the best pieces are crafted items with not that much material costs (felcloth set)
You still need to farm dungeons, but a lot less than other classes.