Originally Posted by
crimsonhead
Why are you asking what are we willing to 'give up' to get basic quality of life changes to the spec(s)? Fine, I give up the 3 min CD for Infernal for even spread chaos bolt damage baked into the spell itself and not feel OMGAWDPOWER between 3 min windows. I would like the PvP talent (Focused Chaos) to be changed to 30% and baked into the class itself and am willing to give up the fact it cannot benefit from havoc (since that is the way the PvP talent operates). I would like Shadowburn execute to be brought back the way it was in MoP and am willing to give up...nothing. That should be baseline...sorry. I would like to have a better AoE spread mechanic and would like cataclysm be baseline and give up immolate damage.
I don't know why you are even asking what we are willing to give up. We literally have gotten NOTHING of note from Legion to BfA. We LOST tons of utility when our artifact weapon was tossed to the side. Would it be that hard for us to have Channel Demonfire replaced with Dimensional Rift? Or how about Unending Resolve dropped down to 1.5m instead of 3 minutes? Shit, even 2 minutes. Having a DCD on a 3m CD is ridiculous (especially since it's not even 100% damage reduction, just 40%, and ya it also makes us immune to interrupt / silence, make some tweaks reduce it's duration but on a 3m CD it's stupid). We finally got Demonic Circle baseline in Shadowlands, about damn time. Remember when we had Death Coil (oh wait, DKs stole that, "MORTAL COIL' now) baseline? That would be nice. Howl of Terror was also baseline at one point and we lost that too with nothing in return. Shadowfury for some reason has a cast time and can't be made insta for reasons.
I am not saying that there shouldn't be a middle-ground and while I can respect the fact that enh shamans got as royally fucked as warlocks, the fact is they are a hybrid class and we are pure (yes, I went there) and they can heal as resto or dps as ele also. All we have is DPS and when that power is being removed and our freedom of the specs is being encroached on with nothing in sight as compensation I do not really see why we need to give up anything. We have already given up so much, to ask us what we want to give up now to get basic QoL changes or some freeform to the spec is frankly a little irritating as this class is but a shadow of what it once was with all our bells and whistles. Being good in PvP doesn't change the fact that some serious modifications need to happen to make the class feel smooth and not clunky inbetween Infernal / Darkglare windows. Demo is just a hot mess.
To your point about Demonic Gateway...all I can do is laugh. If the only reason warlocks are brought is for a gimmicky spell like that and not for their actual damage / class abilities that they can offer (and 2 are needed to have dual gateways on both sides) then clearly this is more dire than it appears. Bringing a class just for one ability that helps cheese fights / makes it easier is not a good thing for the class though it may be "good" for everyone else.
Finally, once all the azerite traits are gone and the class is yet again reduced to rubble before the inevitable elliptic curve of growth after 7 months is not a way for us to feel "ok". Yes it happens because of wacky coefficients and numbers being turned in our favor - but is it really that much of a tall ask for a sense of even-keeled class consistency and abilities so that we don't have to wait until that kicks in? Why is that such a hard thing to ask for?