Shadowlands Warlock Wishlist

[Vimpe]

Howl of Terror, Shadowflame (Cone of cold version) Fel Flame, Backlash! Whiplash!

[Baconeggcheese]

Unfortunately Holinka said in an interview that there will be no major class overhauls.

I mean, we'll see I guess. Its hard to say that and then also do things like bring back class identity over spec identity and make talents baseline again and bring back spells or make them class wide. May not be a complete from the ground up rework, but assuming they plan to deliver on any of that it'll require some hefty changes.

Same goes for them claiming that you should get something every level and it should be meaningful, if that's the case then there needs to be something for us to get. We'll see how it goes, what they do or don't do to classes determines whether or not I come back to the game. Haven't been subbed since Uldir pretty much because of how bad class design / itemization is and how much I haven't been enjoying the game because of them.

[brutal91j]

spot on
these covenant abilities are just glorified trinkets, an on use ability every 1-2 minute that doesn't change how any classes play

and one of the expansions 'features' was 'unpruning? bringing back some spells that once again don't change the feel and gameplay of a class plus are we meant to celebrate them bringing back something they took in the firstplace?

extremely dissappointing

[Lucrece]

I mean, we'll see I guess. Its hard to say that and then also do things like bring back class identity over spec identity and make talents baseline again and bring back spells or make them class wide. May not be a complete from the ground up rework, but assuming they plan to deliver on any of that it'll require some hefty changes.

Same goes for them claiming that you should get something every level and it should be meaningful, if that's the case then there needs to be something for us to get. We'll see how it goes, what they do or don't do to classes determines whether or not I come back to the game. Haven't been subbed since Uldir pretty much because of how bad class design / itemization is and how much I haven't been enjoying the game because of them.

Same. I'm really bitter actually that they made this expansion such a wet rag of class design that I've missed out on Azshara and N'Zoth. Only they could ruin my enjoyment of such a cool moment in Warcraft history.

Maybe Soulfire won't have the Vanilla mage pyroblast animation by the time Shadowlands releases, and even then it probably won't work with green fire just like Demonbolt.

[Gaidax]

Here's hoping that with all the "unpruning" they don't accidentally give us Cata Warlock again.

My thoughts exactly.

[shanitzer]

?? cata affliction was the best thing ever

[Schirmy]

Cata Affy generally felt pretty smooth and the rotation flowed well, but didn't you have to spec into Improved Soul Fire? Or is my memory messing with me lol. Either way Cata Affy wouldn't work in today's game. One of the biggest heresy's I see is UA stacking; just a God awful mechanic.

[PickleballAce]

All three specs initially had access to improved Soul Fire. I think it was eventually moved deeper into the Destro tree?

The problem with Cata Warlock as it relates to "unpruning" is that we had so many spells that were DPS increases back then that our priority lists for all three specs included everything but the kitchen sink. As a result, the specs were all awfully homogenized until the MoP pruning took away things like the ability for Destruction to cast Corruption (and was thus no longer "balanced" around using Corruption). An unpruning that gives DoTs back to Destruction would just lead us back to the same issue.

Which 4.3 spec am I?

- I maintain three dots, two of which are Corruption and Bane of Doom
- I have one short cooldown nuke, two if you include Shadowflame
- I primarily use the Felhunter for DPS
- Shadowbolt is my filler

[Gaidax]

?? cata affliction was the best thing ever

I do not know what Cata affliction was because I never gave a damn about that, but Destruction was a hot garbage filled with absolute soup of random ass abilities.

I certainly don't want clean Destro spec end up reverting to that nonsense.

Thankfully they seem to mostly unprune utility and flavor stuff so that should not be that bad.

[PickleballAce]

I actually loved (4.1?) Affliction when Drain Life briefly became the filler because of Mastery scaling...before they broke it.

But yeah, Demo and Destruction were a convoluted mess. At least the DoT-soup that all three specs became made some sort of sense for Aff. Destro - our "burst" spec - had no burst though.

[valky94]

dont rly think that demo needs drain soul because it alrdy has rly good soul shard generation and its not random (like with aff) or shard generation (like for destro), would rather have it as an execute mechnic for demo that generates a shard every Xsec (depending on whats the cast time of your shadowbolt)

im pretty happy with current warlock specs, except i would like for Fire and brimstone to make a return for destro as a baseline toggleable spell, just like it was in wod, and maybe make triple seed of corruption baseline or buff its dmg a bit, cuz atm aff aoe sucks ass

[shanitzer]

Cata Affy generally felt pretty smooth and the rotation flowed well, but didn't you have to spec into Improved Soul Fire? Or is my memory messing with me lol. Either way Cata Affy wouldn't work in today's game. One of the biggest heresy's I see is UA stacking; just a God awful mechanic.

yes, i hate ua stacking so much but it looks like it stays in 9.0

[Malikath]

MoP destro or they can start looking for new jobs.

[Schirmy]

I do not know what Cata affliction was because I never gave a damn about that, but Destruction was a hot garbage filled with absolute soup of random ass abilities.

I certainly don't want clean Destro spec end up reverting to that nonsense.

Thankfully they seem to mostly unprune utility and flavor stuff so that should not be that bad.

Destro was a clusterfuck in Cata for sure. Maintaining like 3 DoTs and ISF made it play so bad. Chaos Bolt on a cooldown was frustrating and I think MoP redesign helped a lot of players realize that.

MoP destro or they can start looking for new jobs.

Essentially this. I think the devs could reflect on their MoP design of Destro and exhume a lot of great mechanics. Shadowburn and Fel Flame would help Destro just be a bit more fun and increase the skill cap; maybe not Fel Flame, but an immobile spec with limited mobile damage is disgusting. Saving a Conflag charge for movement is so fucking terrible. Fire N' Brimstone should be baseline as a toggle ability again, too.

With regard to Affy, I have never enjoyed two specific core functions: Shards being a resource for damage and a channeled filler throttling DoTs. MoP had Haunt be the Shard spender and even with ridiculous amounts of haste, you couldn't have 100% up time. Now we're dealing UA being a Shard spender AND being stackable, what a fucking clown fiesta of a design. Second, Malefic Grasp/Drain Soul whatever throttling DoTs is also shit.

[Liarparadox]

I just want affliction to be a spec with consistent damage instead of this bursty cooldown horseshit

hahahah i agree. I want some abilities back, like howl. but ya i want consistent dmg for AFF back. When locks were bitching about "why don't we have CDS to push like every other class" i thought, omg stfu you have no clue what you're asking...blizz is gonna fuk it all up. And i think they did; i don't want burst windows with affliction. Heck, same with destro. have you played that spec? it's boooooooring outside of its burst window.

[Terongor]

Cunning of KJ back, Mop Chaosbolts back and Mop Grimoire of sacrifice back.

[Mehrunes]

Out of the things announced already, I hope they do something more interesting with Curses this time and aren't just reintroducing 5 min debuffs for the sake of it.

All three specs initially had access to improved Soul Fire. I think it was eventually moved deeper into the Destro tree?

You remember correctly. The start of Cata was super fun times for Aff with ISF.

I actually loved (4.1?) Affliction when Drain Life briefly became the filler because of Mastery scaling...before they broke it.

But yeah, Demo and Destruction were a convoluted mess. At least the DoT-soup that all three specs became made some sort of sense for Aff. Destro - our "burst" spec - had no burst though.

Demo had it moments for me. And yeah, Drain Life filler Aff was awesome.

[Lucrece]

Personally, I liked Cata demo. Far better than the awful imp mother spec and piece of shit implosion aoe shenanigans we're dealing with right now.

Warlocks, particularly demonology, were all about shadowflame magic. Demo symbolized the compromise between the extremes of destro and affliction. Now it just summons a boring swarm of imps and some tiny puny dogs with the occasional demonic tyrant every so often.

A whole damn expansion dedicated to demons and the assets they gave us was the lamest demons possible. The felguard doesn't even use the updated animation of bladestorm despite felstorm being a copy of it.

[Baconeggcheese]

Cata Affy generally felt pretty smooth and the rotation flowed well, but didn't you have to spec into Improved Soul Fire? Or is my memory messing with me lol. Either way Cata Affy wouldn't work in today's game. One of the biggest heresy's I see is UA stacking; just a God awful mechanic.

Yeah, cata aff minus a couple things like improved soulfire is probably the peak of that spec at least from my experience with lock.

Cata destro was an absolute mess though. It pretty much just felt like a bunch of random spells from across the class slapped together.

Same. I'm really bitter actually that they made this expansion such a wet rag of class design that I've missed out on Azshara and N'Zoth. Only they could ruin my enjoyment of such a cool moment in Warcraft history.

Maybe Soulfire won't have the Vanilla mage pyroblast animation by the time Shadowlands releases, and even then it probably won't work with green fire just like Demonbolt.

So I finally got to listen to the panel with holinka and it sounds like they're not planning on starting from scratch, instead they're adding on top of the current base. That doesn't mean that there wouldn't be significant change between bringing things back and adding new things.. just that the base isn't going to change. That likely kills any chance of me wanting to continue to play lock if I came back, which is sad but yknow. I can't deal with having 3 sustained single target specs 2 of which revolve around 3 minute CD's. Its just not for me anymore if these bases are continuing into the future.

Maybe I'll try a warrior or something, I actually thought they made out pretty great in legion / bfa.

[Schirmy]

@Baconeggcheese your dps hinging on a pendulum swinging every 3 minutes is not fun. To quote Ion, "it doesn't feel great to not feel great."