Best Designed Spec and a Covenant Question

[Santas]

Greetings,

so I'm kind of confused for probably the first time in 16 years with my lock, by that I mean the state of the class in general. Destruction is mostly Okay, it's visually impressive thanks to Chaos Bolt, but that's pretty much it, it's mind numbingly boring to play for a long period of time. Affliction, well, I don't hate it, but it's clearly not what Affliction should be about, it's just another spender spec -- which is fine for some, plus it has to be the most visually uninteresting spec in the game, we basically wave our hands and things happen. Demonology is interesting, but the fantasy isn't quite achieved either, I mean, summoning a bunch of expendable demons with long casts doesn't cut it for me. Not to mention that it's super undertuned, especially in PvP. Still, if I had to pick for the most well designed spec, it would probably be demo. What are your thoughts on the specs, which one is the most fun for you? (performance aside)

As for covenants, are there any Venthyr warlocks around at all? I hate the aesthetics of night fae with a passion, even though the synergy of soul rot is quite cool (I'd also argue that soulshape is almost mandatory for PvP *IF* one wants to do well) Necrolord I am fine with and it's the one I'm currently in (16 renown) as I thought that it would somehow help me become viable in PvP as demo. It didn't, it won't. Venthyr is my secret passion. Question is, could Venthyr work in the future for PvP? Clearly the impending catastrophe spell has zero synergy, so unless they buff it immensely it will remain bad, but what about soulbinds? I see some potential with the mad duke, that mastery buff looks nice, but I'm not sure how it works, unsure about the rest of the tree too, so I guess Nadjia is still the go-to, for that interrupt reduction. This turned out longer, good lord, but I would like to hear the thoughts of anyone that had the courage to read this. Cheers!

[shaqar]

'' Question is, could Venthyr work in the future for PvP?''

Unless they either buff it back to the dmg% it had before nerf, its still not good because 1: it's a hard cast and 2: you can apply curses instant instead. Also the aff leggo makes your corruption do the slow curse so.. They need to rework most of the covenants IMO, not only are they entirely lackluster except for decibolt, they hit quite poopoo compared to the 10-20k covenant abilties from other classes lol..

[Santas]

'' Question is, could Venthyr work in the future for PvP?''

Unless they either buff it back to the dmg% it had before nerf, its still not good because 1: it's a hard cast and 2: you can apply curses instant instead. Also the aff leggo makes your corruption do the slow curse so.. They need to rework most of the covenants IMO, not only are they entirely lackluster except for decibolt, they hit quite poopoo compared to the 10-20k covenant abilties from other classes lol..

And the thing is, look at Unholy Nova (priest) for example, it's instant cast.. AND has nice utility, it's a bit awkward because of the target cap but still. Why the hell is Castastrophe not instant again? Ah yes, because warlocks are supposed to sit in one place and tank shit, only.. we can't do that anymore, we practically get globaled unless we go Night Fae for some mobility. Shit design is shit. So much for "pick what you like, we're talking like 1% difference". So annoying.

[Uzkin]

As for covenants, are there any Venthyr warlocks around at all?

Not really. A while ago I made a poll, asking warlock players which covenant they would've chosen based on theme and aesthetics only:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/2581894

Unsurprisingly, Venthyr turned out to be the favorite. But when you look at the actual warlock covenant populations, you can see that Venthyr is the least played covenant by far, due to how weak and useless it generally is compared to the alternatives.

In fact, Blizzard couldn't have failed warlocks worse, when it comes to covenants. The most liked covenant became the least played one due to poor balancing. Furthermore, the second-most liked covenant is the second-least played. This shows how utterly out-of-touch Blizzard is in understanding the preferences of the warlock player-base -- they somehow managed to (again) achieve the exact opposite to what the players want! (Or maybe they are not out-of-touch but, instead, intentionally try to make playing warlock feel bad. In that case they have been quite successful.)

[Denso]

Big problem for Venthyr warlocks in PvP is that Door of Shadows is shadow school, so you risk ending up getting locked out of your CC/damage school, becoming even more of a sitting duck than warlocks are initially.

[Aggressive]

I LOVE warlocks. Played one for 16+ years. But let me say, from my point of view, warlock gameplay feels stale as fuck. After warlords the class started to feel boring.

Could it be me tired of the class? Not sure honestly. But something is missing for sure. I have figured that by now Blizz would have introduced all classes to a 4th tree by now or something just to bring in some "NEW" flavor to the classes. But their is tooo much bitching and whining to make that happen. For example. Give a class one ability and then the so called class is now "OP", or at least in the eyes of people catching an ass whooping it is. So this circle of round and round is done where the class stays stale and boring and Blizz doing shitty rental powers to compensate on making the class exciting. Or at least thinking in their minds that warlocks are exciting.

As for the covenants Blizz has failed. Like really bad. If going for a viable covenant then the only one is Night Fae. There is no comparison to it. Kyrian gets a little close. But Venthur and Necrolord don't even come close at all. And I really wanted to play venthur or necrolord. But Blizz nerfed them both so bad that it makes no sense. Blizz is a company that seriously needs some training in how to balance shit. Laughable, honestly, cause people in this game really think that Blizz knows how to balance shit, when they don't. Nerfing shit by 80% is just ridiculous.

[Santas]

Big problem for Venthyr warlocks in PvP is that Door of Shadows is shadow school, so you risk ending up getting locked out of your CC/damage school, becoming even more of a sitting duck than warlocks are initially.

Yeah, I'm aware of that and let me say.. this is just dumb, they could have created a unique school for each covenant, call it "blood" for Venthyr, I don't care.. but they should have seen this coming.

Not really. A while ago I made a poll, asking warlock players which covenant they would've chosen based on theme and aesthetics only:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/2581894

Unsurprisingly, Venthyr turned out to be the favorite. But when you look at the actual warlock covenant populations, you can see that Venthyr is the least played covenant by far, due to how weak and useless it generally is compared to the alternatives.

In fact, Blizzard couldn't have failed warlocks worse, when it comes to covenants. The most liked covenant became the least played one due to poor balancing. Furthermore, the second-most liked covenant is the second-least played. This shows how utterly out-of-touch Blizzard is in understanding the preferences of the warlock player-base -- they somehow managed to (again) achieve the exact opposite to what the players want! (Or maybe they are not out-of-touch but, instead, intentionally try to make playing warlock feel bad. In that case they have been quite successful.)

I'll go with out of touch, it's not the first time.

Please guys, tweet at warcraftdevs these concerns, we have to do something. Might be coincidence, but a few things I have suggested/reported before were fixed quite soon and I exclusively use twitter, maybe it's wishful thinking, but still..

[burek]

Please guys, tweet at warcraftdevs these concerns, we have to do something. Might be coincidence, but a few things I have suggested/reported before were fixed quite soon and I exclusively use twitter, maybe it's wishful thinking, but still..

Or better not, it's too late now. Yes, it's idiotic that warlocks are with faeries and angels, but the worst thing they could do now is make us all switch covenants.

[Santas]

Or better not, it's too late now. Yes, it's idiotic that warlocks are with faeries and angels, but the worst thing they could do now is make us all switch covenants.

No one is going to make you switch covenants by making the rest viable, now I get it that they may overdo it and then some may feel forced, but that logic won't get us anywhere, I refuse to have a broken covenant for almost 2 years.

[Lodravel]

I LOVE warlocks. Played one for 16+ years. But let me say, from my point of view, warlock gameplay feels stale as fuck. After warlords the class started to feel boring.

You must've been playing Demo in WoD (because that was the best of times!). Affli was rather meh and Destro was downright anemic already, coming from the high that was MoP.

Covenants are super lame for WL. There are a few losers for covenant abilities, where it seems like little thought went into creating something that works well with the established gameplay and WL is among them. Also not a fan of the mage and DH abilities, but you guys surely have it worst.

[LordVargK]

You must've been playing Demo in WoD (because that was the best of times!). Affli was rather meh and Destro was downright anemic already, coming from the high that was MoP.

Covenants are super lame for WL. There are a few losers for covenant abilities, where it seems like little thought went into creating something that works well with the established gameplay and WL is among them. Also not a fan of the mage and DH abilities, but you guys surely have it worst.

Yeah, it honestly seems like covenants were designed with only affliction in mind. Destru has only Kyrians synergizing with it's kit (well, a little bit) and Demo has nothing. Shame, since Demo is probably the most fun of the three specs. Hopefully there will be some additions in future patches, I can't imagine that the covenant feature is 9.0 only.

[iosdeveloper]

Destruction looks good, but is too dumb to provide fun
Affliction is fine, but doesn't feel like affliction anymore
Demonology is the worst spec in the game 100%, i don't feel anything except pain casting those long casts with no impact

[gaymer77]

And the thing is, look at Unholy Nova (priest) for example, it's instant cast

If you've ever tried it out on a priest you'd see that it does shit for damage at 5 or 1 target and heals very little. its a "click it and move on" spell.

Or better not, it's too late now. Yes, it's idiotic that warlocks are with faeries and angels, but the worst thing they could do now is make us all switch covenants.

Aff is the only ones going NF for everything. Destro goes Necro for raiding, Kryian for M+, and NF for TG. Demo goes NF for raiding or Necro for everything else.

[burek]

Aff is the only ones going NF for everything. Destro goes Necro for raiding, Kryian for M+, and NF for TG. Demo goes NF for raiding or Necro for everything else.

The other two specs don't go anywhere. 45k warlock parses, 43k affliction.

[Fuiking]

When i saw the recent buffs I kinda figured destro and demo will be left rotting this expansion.

[Amariw]

Im ok with all the speccs, but its nowhere near as awesome as MoP/Warlords. Demo hordes of demons amplified by commander is cool... Dest chaos bolt big numbers never gets old... Aff finally has a decebt aoe spender after bfa trainwreck, though it still needs some burst tools imo to feel smooth, even if its bad burst.

Back then all our speccs had some novel way to use resources for utility or burst instead of sustain dmg, creating ton of small but fun choice moments.

MoP Demo, possibly the coolest specc I've seen in an mmo, could shift into demon form whenever. To absolutely maximize dmg you wanted to use it for long periods of time during vulnerability phases, but it gave so much cool options to circumvent this. Filler becomes instant, main dot becomes a new mega long dot, you get all types of instant aoes... So much use cases and decisions, it was glorious. Demon hunters meta is laughable in comparison.

Aff had soulburn, a beautiful spell. You sacrificed soulshards for instant triple dotting, or bigger heal on drain life, or speed boost after circle port... Soo many options.

Even dest, by far the simplest specc, had self healing options with embers. It was just a different time, i wonder if whatever reason blizz pruned it for was worth it for them.

[Lodravel]

Im ok with all the speccs, but its nowhere near as awesome as MoP/Warlords. Demo hordes of demons amplified by commander is cool... Dest chaos bolt big numbers never gets old... Aff finally has a decebt aoe spender after bfa trainwreck, though it still needs some burst tools imo to feel smooth, even if its bad burst.

Back then all our speccs had some novel way to use resources for utility or burst instead of sustain dmg, creating ton of small but fun choice moments.

MoP Demo, possibly the coolest specc I've seen in an mmo, could shift into demon form whenever. To absolutely maximize dmg you wanted to use it for long periods of time during vulnerability phases, but it gave so much cool options to circumvent this. Filler becomes instant, main dot becomes a new mega long dot, you get all types of instant aoes... So much use cases and decisions, it was glorious. Demon hunters meta is laughable in comparison.

Aff had soulburn, a beautiful spell. You sacrificed soulshards for instant triple dotting, or bigger heal on drain life, or speed boost after circle port... Soo many options.

Even dest, by far the simplest specc, had self healing options with embers. It was just a different time, i wonder if whatever reason blizz pruned it for was worth it for them.

I think our opinions of class design are very similar. Kinda hoped they'd learned their lesson in class design over Legion and BfA, but SL seems like a small improvement instead of a return to glory in that regard.
Healing with embers was neat. Also exploding upon death, that was neat as well. Think they didn't even leave that it for more than a patch. Eh.

And I really wish they'd replace the boring Meta DHs have right now with the OG Meta. Despite their incredibly simple rotation, this would give DH players a way to apply themselves.