My take on warlocks in MoP

[Deleted]

Because I'm special and need a topic to myself like everyone else :3


I'm personally looking forward to the way warlocks are heading in MoP.
All of our specs are looking rather amazing at present, with our talents appearing well thought out to suit their every need.

Affliction: primarily dot based, with a channeled filler to increase the dot tick speed, and the option to sacrifice your demon for extra damage.
This is what I've been hoping affliction would become for as long as I can remember, some will claim its basically shadow priest now, but who cares, that IS what affliction should be, if it's similar to another class, then so be it, but if you don't like it there's two other completely unique specs to play.

Demonology: loving the way this is playing out, they obviously want to turn this into a melee range caster, or a tank. The latter option, (as much as I'd love to see it happen, and would personally make me the happiest warlock in the world) most likely won't happen. We had a taunt in demon form back when they Introduced it, however have removed it. This is hinting they don't want us to tank, not to mention we don't have any mitigation, just large hp pools and flat %damage reduction. This would mean either we get eaten alive, or other tanks become obsolete as our hp would make us the superior tanks for content.
However the melee range caster option does seem genuinely amazing and could make the spec fun again, Instead of demo being just another stand and nuke spec with meta being a cd to line up with trinkets.

Destruction: holy crap. This is just looking better and better every time I check it out, as an avid believer of 7 years that warlocks should only be focused around dots, this has changed my opinion, I've seen people referring to this as a blood-mage play style, and it just seems so exciting... I genuinely think it will be the most fun spec to play in mists for any class, and that's coming from someone who nearly physically cried the last time he had to play destruction.

Pets: I personally don't think our specs should have demons outside of demonology to be honest, they are meant to be special servants brought from the nether world to aid us in combat. Not just any old thing that joe-warlock can conjure up like .
They just feel too common when every spec has access to them.

Talents: well thought out. There's a beneficial choice for each pvp and pve, however it's not so extreme that you will HAVE to take that option, so you can still feel like you have the choice without picking a cookiecutter set up, not to mention how you can swap these in/out like glyphs now, so you can choose abilities to aid the scenario.
*Tier 1- healing/survivability
HoT(50%/20sec)
Passive(15% of filler).
Burst/multi-target(4%sec/6secs)
*Tier 2- crowd control
AoE fear
Single target horror+25% heal
AoE stun
*Tier 3- survivability / shields
Pet takes all of your incoming damage.
Pet sacrifices 50%hp to give you 6x as much in a shield
Paladin shield, only you receive the damage taken as a dot afterwards
*Tier 4- self harm for survivability
10% hp for an Instant fear
5%/sec for 50% movement speed
25% hp near-enough pvp trinket.
*Tier 5- pet enhancements
Passive stronger pets with enhanced skills
On demand double pet
Sacrifice pet(15%dmg+10%hp)
Tier 6- cool new talent
Reflective shield, sextuple dmg return upon activation.
Casting while moving
Unfinished talent, no comment.

General/Quality of Life:
*Demon soul removed/replaced. Fucking hallelujah. Hated it.
Pet twisting was ridiculous.
*Dark Soul
Now we have our very own mini bloodlust
*? Fear removed.
Think I saw somewhere this was getting removed, wouldn't really surprise me to be honest, but it really does mean we have no escapes outside of our tier2 choice and portal within pvp. Would sound about right considering how many survivability options we are receiving as well.
*shadowflame becoming demonology only.
Felt a bit too much to add this in an affliction rotation, especially considering the melee requirement(hence e forcing the opinion demo=melee caster) however this was amazing in pvp when glyphed, absolutely loved it, guess its back to using coex before porting

Opinions:
*Too OP?: They're finally giving us some survivability, however I personally think they might be giving us too much, I don't want to see us become the new fotm and then get nerfed to the ground in 5.1 =/
For example, soul link. You would effectively have to kill 2 pets before you even touched the warlocks hp, to putthat into perspective, you would have to do roughly 400k damage to kill said warlock, and that's not taking into account a well timed fear followed by another hard casted pet summon, or whether he can drag out the fight long enough to get another Instant pet off.
*%Based skills: Another thing worrying me is how the majority of our talents appear to be % based, and not small numbers at that, it's going to make pvp a lot more twitch/reaction based. This however, could be paving the way to the much needed value-normalisation(scaling down all the numbers so making a choice between stats/items actually means something other than "hey! I just dinged and got 626haste, 824crit and 173 mastery! What's the hit cap value again now? 3672 ok I'll just go reforge to the nearest decimal point to maximise my dps, I might break 72490 if I keep at it." and so that you don't need to go consult askmrrobot or rawr/elitist jerks on which gives the slightly better statboost.
*Glyphs:Should be interesting to see what new glyphs get implemented likewise, with the new spec require nets on some abilities, it's going to leave holes in some "cookiecutter" set ups.
*Demonic tactics: reserving judgement until "more intelligently" is defined better, will they go back to attacking anything and we need this for them to assist us/not hit CC? Or is it literally every pet gives fel intellect and I'm reading too much into it.
*dark intent: whilst it's nice we can give this in any spec, it's still another bastarding button to press on every death on top of fel armour, soul link and unending breath(it's useful in some places glyphed!)
I just want to mount up and get back into the action, not stand at the graveyard for 30 seconds then spend another 10 buffing. (i would love it if any of these could persist through death, but I can't see it happening)
*Soul burn: it's nice we have soul burn curse, but can't see me using that over saving my shard for when my pet dies. Would be nice to see some other soulburn spells introduced though
*Gateway: blargh... Another skill which requires annoying preparation time and a high level of foresight and area knowledge hopefully everything else makes up for this lacklustre "new skill" that makes me feel more like a gigantic stone portal jockey.
*Curse of enfeeblement: omnomnom, going to love this.
*every spec getting "jinx": really nice been needed for a while.
*shadow embrace: still not a player buff /dissapointed.

sorry if the format is fucked up, typing off my phone at work, so cant be arsed with bbcoding it up to look pretty, Give beta now please <3

[Mcshiz]

Jesus dude i need a tl:dr breakdown for that! i kid i kid..

OT: I really like how it all SOUNDS but until it is in place I'm going to have to go with undecided.

[Aldrahan]

After seeing the first round of talents I immediately broke out my warlock who has been untouched since BC in preparation. Though Shaman, my current main, is now looking fun in this second round of changes Warlock still catches my attention and I look forward to possibly switching my main come MoP.

[smegdawg]

I like the direction we are heading for many of the reasons you mentioned.

Just hope we don't get distracted along the way and end up broken.

[Pud'n]

I'm touching my lock again after months of it being unrequited. I just love the general direction locks (Demo in particular) are heading. So I'm definitively looking forward to rolling my lock come MOP.

[Danynav]

5 second cast on team port makes me lol...

[mitbrandir]

I dont like pvp , so no i dont like this direction

[Deleted]

I dont like pvp , so no i dont like this direction

Destruction being overhauled into a completely unique play-style orientated around mainly PvE damage a lá bright-wizard, and demonology being changed into actually focusing around demons and pets rather than just giving you an extra cooldown to pop, and that's not the slight bit interesting for pve?

[Shiekyerbooty]

oops, i accidentally voted yes, I meant to vote no....

there are a few of things I do Like, I like the firey imps and the soulfire crit..... I really like the talent choice for more powerfull Demons

but the rest of demonolgy is crap

[Deleted]

*shadow embrace: still not a player buff /dissapointed.

isn't that getting completly removed?
the new fillerspell for affliction(malefic grasp) already fulfills the purpose SE had: stopping multidotimng from being OP

and yes, i looooove the direction blizz i staking with the new skills/talents ^^

edit: checked it, SE is not to be found in the mop-skillspreview

[Deleted]

Can't wait for MoP for each and every reason you posted. Really like the way they are heading with the specs, just hope we're not ending up being way OP, then nerfed to the ground.

[Deleted]

Hell yeah! Even going to make a second Demo Lock if we get more character slots, just for the Meta at low level.

"You're a caster, get back here!" Just heard that one again. If Demonic Slash really becomes a melee attack, which I suppose it is, I'll be laughing even more at the fools who'll be saying that :P

[Deleted]

ignore this,says curses my mistake

[Postaldude]

*Soul burn: it's nice we have soul burn curse, but can't see me using that over saving my shard for when my pet dies. Would be nice to see some other soulburn spells introduced though

wrong.this is a nerf to soul burn soc,now spreads agony instead of corrupt.and how can you say "i cant see me using this over when my pet dies" when you sacrifice your pet for increased % dmg ?

Watch the talents again, you can still soulburn: SoC for corruption spread

[ComputerNerd]

Soulburn Curse it appears will not trigger the soulburn cooldown, at least not the 15 seconds before you can soulburn something else.
Therefore following it up with a soulburn SoC as stated by the above you will still have 1 shard left for a pet summmon.
It may have a 1 minute cooldown before you can soulburn another curse however.

[Deleted]

Soulburn Curse it appears will not trigger the soulburn cooldown, at least not the 15 seconds before you can soulburn something else.
Therefore following it up with a soulburn SoC as stated by the above you will still have 1 shard left for a pet summmon.
It may have a 1 minute cooldown before you can soulburn another curse however.

You would only spend 1 Shard on that combo, seeing as SoC returns the used shard if the detonation is succesful. So he would have 2 shards for pet summons
But the AoE for each of the specs seems insane.

[miguelito]

Finally, my loyalty to my lock gets rewarded. (I'm obviously leaving the periods where we were completely OP out of my mind).

[ComputerNerd]

You would only spend 1 Shard on that combo, seeing as SoC returns the used shard if the detonation is succesful. So he would have 2 shards for pet summons
But the AoE for each of the specs seems insane.

True enough forgot about the refund.
Am I missing something about the AoE curse application for destruction though.
I can see the SB:Curse for affliction and Metamorphosis: Cursed Auras for demonoloogy but am completely missing something for destruction, or is it just me being blind ?

[Shiekyerbooty]

The people that voted yes must either work for Blizz's PR Dept or be high on crack

Demo Alone :
reduced to 2 DOT"s
can no longer cast Immolation Aura and Channel hellfire at same time
only way to pop meta is demonleap
Forced into a Rage/combo-point mechanic to build " demonic fury "

really ?

[Sockmaster]

The people that voted yes must either work for Blizz's PR Dept or be high on crack

Demo Alone :
reduced to 2 DOT"s
can no longer cast Immolation Aura and Channel hellfire at same time
only way to pop meta is demonleap
Forced into a Rage/combo-point mechanic to build " demonic fury "

really ?

I'm sad about there being only two dots (one for other targets), but multi-dotting was never demo's strong point.

No longer being able to use immo aura and hellfire simultaneously is also sadface, but hopefully hellfire will be brought up a tad as to not leave us behind in aoe.

Well that's just wrong. Leap pops meta automatically so that you don't have go "OH CRAP GOTTA MOVE /CAST METAMORPHOSIS /CAST DEMON LEAP" and can skip right to leap. Blizzard basically just macro'd the two spells together. But you can also just use meta by itself.

Well... I like the idea of having our own secondary resource. Similar to rage/runic power, but much more specialized in its purpose. It's not like we really had to manage mana before.