Has MoP been the golden age of Warlocks?

[werdwitha3]

I think I had the most fun with Lock in Dragon Soul as Demo.. :|

I really miss that spec and how it worked, not this watered down crap we got now.

[Volitar]

I know Warlocks are insanely good but I just can't get into them anymore, So many iconic spells gone and dots do nothing...It's not the same class.

[Kanariya]

I had a gnome warlock with 698 shadow power. With Curse of Elements I was able one shot everyone with berserker. Unless you were Demonology for the resistance buff with the felhunter for pvp or twin emp tanking, Destruction was pretty damn good in vanilla. Just watch the old Drakedog videos.

Destruction was useless if you went past Ruin. There was no need to put more than 21 points into that tree. I really do miss SM/Ruin and DS/Ruin. Such great builds.

[Fenzha]

I know Warlocks are insanely good but I just can't get into them anymore, So many iconic spells gone and dots do nothing...It's not the same class.

I still main my warlock but haven't enjoyed it since they revamped the class.

[PickleballAce]

I'm guessing the complaints about DoTs being shit are PVP based?

[Werst]

I'm guessing the complaints about DoTs being shit are PVP based?

Pretty much. With dots "balanced" around the notion of 575-580ilvl and stacking procs going up to 300-500% of baseline in pve by the time you water it down to 522 (550ilvl come next patch) without the insane trinket/metagem/etc stacking it kind of just tickles the butt of the opponent. Especially when "pressure" isn't successful in pvp nearly so much as swifty macro burst specs/comps. That and casting not being possible in pvp while you get KJC uptime on MG in pve. By "not possible" I mean interrupts that never DR, stun/silence DR's, half a dozen other random instant CC's that stop casting, chargestun, etc and locks being unable to escape melee. Team peels that get used on the lock = a healer swap where the melee pop magic/fear immunes and can tunnel them to death while dots just don't do enough in the time it takes to faceroll your healer. You have to somehow get CC out and damage out for quite some time and hope your dps partner can land a kill while all it takes for someone to die on your team is the first CC that sticks to your healer...

If you want a more empirical comparison run a sim of a 522 ilvl warlock with no/few raid buffs on helter skelter and a bis afflock on patchwork with full raid buffs. The difference is actually even bigger than that but it should give you the broad strokes of it.

[SeriousPvP]

Pretty much. With dots "balanced" around the notion of 575-580ilvl and stacking procs going up to 300-500% of baseline in pve by the time you water it down to 522 (550ilvl come next patch) without the insane trinket/metagem/etc stacking it kind of just tickles the butt of the opponent. Especially when "pressure" isn't successful in pvp nearly so much as swifty macro burst specs/comps. That and casting not being possible in pvp while you get KJC uptime on MG in pve. By "not possible" I mean interrupts that never DR, stun/silence DR's, half a dozen other random instant CC's that stop casting, chargestun, etc and locks being unable to escape melee. Team peels that get used on the lock = a healer swap where the melee pop magic/fear immunes and can tunnel them to death while dots just don't do enough in the time it takes to faceroll your healer. You have to somehow get CC out and damage out for quite some time and hope your dps partner can land a kill while all it takes for someone to die on your team is the first CC that sticks to your healer...

If you want a more empirical comparison run a sim of a 522 ilvl warlock with no/few raid buffs on helter skelter and a bis afflock on patchwork with full raid buffs. The difference is actually even bigger than that but it should give you the broad strokes of it.

I agree about the current state of dot damage.
For anyone not aware...

In Cata, our dots ticked for 2k - 6k on targets with ~150k health.
In MoP, our dots tick for 4k - 8k on targets with ~500k health.

Our dot damage wasn't considered OP during Cata..

[Horrid Crow]

No, Burning Crusade was. In Vanilla they were pretty much unbeatable and often compared to a raid boss (there were threads with lengthy tactics on how you could beat a warlock). Everyone thought they would get balanced in Burning Crusade, but they got even stronger. Wasn't until late BC/WotLK that every class started to get on the same level in terms of balance.

[hyperlance]

I usually get top 3 in dps with my guild when raiding, which is the highest since I can remember. But either way I'll be sticking with destro even in the next patch.

[icedlight]

All an all I have been satisfied this expansion with the overall work with Warlocks. I would not call it the "golden age" but for many players (especially those that favor destruction) after Cata it may feel that way. I recall practicing my rotation in early Cata as Destro thinking ...well this rotation is a mess but maybe it will be like the feral druid treatment from Wrath! Not so much. My dps was not terrible but in all reality I recall using a full array of spells, timed usage in keeping up buffs timed with boss mechanics and presto amazing, well actually not amazing presto average!

I think in all reality the true golden age died around ...sometime in Wrath, not sure at what point but they removed so many epic things about becoming and enjoying being a Warlock sometime around the middle or perhaps end of Wrath. The mount quest was great fun and that is long gone, getting your Doomguard and Infernal also lost forever, having multiple "Doom" spells was fun one being a dot that turned the affected mob into a doomguard and one that you used to wreak havoc (and nearly kill one member in your summoning group lol).

[Last Starfighter]

have you even played BC or wotlk?

3.3 was the only shining moment for locks in Wrath. And Sunwell in BC. MoP Warlocks have been consisntently OP.

[tilatequila]

I didnt play all of mop and majority of cata and i just rejoined now.. dont tell me warlocks were OP all expansion -_- half the reason i quit in cata is because the overhall ruined warlocks.

But the best time for locks (particulary destro) was early WOTLK. I remember when destro was a really good pvp spec too (better than mages at the time)

- - - Updated - - -

Destruction was useless if you went past Ruin. There was no need to put more than 21 points into that tree. I really do miss SM/Ruin and DS/Ruin. Such great builds.

OMG remember when we had to store soul shards in our bags.. HAHAHA oh man nostalgia kicking in

[Deleted]

Excluding Demonology, Warlocks are utterly boring at the moment. Both PvP and PvE wise.

Destro PvE: Rotation is super boring.
Destro PvP: Atleast Chaos Bolts hits now if you are let to cast it. See Cataclysm Chaos Bolts which hit like 8k

Affli PvE: Remove MG
Affli PvP: Remove MG and Increase Dot damage! They hit almost same amount as they did in Cataclysm if you are not channeling MG.

Blizzard has this weird philosophy:

If it's not broken, break it and then let it be broken for whole next expansion.

[Khiyone]

I didnt play all of mop and majority of cata and i just rejoined now.. dont tell me warlocks were OP all expansion -_- half the reason i quit in cata is because the overhall ruined warlocks.

But the best time for locks (particulary destro) was early WOTLK. I remember when destro was a really good pvp spec too (better than mages at the time)

- - - Updated - - -



OMG remember when we had to store soul shards in our bags.. HAHAHA oh man nostalgia kicking in

We have been OP all expansion :P

And no, Wrath and Cataclysm were a pretty bad time for warlocks in general .

[Illiterate]

In Cata, our dots ticked for 2k - 6k on targets with ~150k health.
In MoP, our dots tick for 4k - 8k on targets with ~500k health.

Our dot damage wasn't considered OP during Cata..

There's a problem when deep wounds ticks for more than all our dots combined.

[Nerfarien]

Golden Age is I think a bit of an overstatement, but I did love the state they have had throughout the entire expansion, even when you consider the fact that they had the most useless level 90 talents in the entire first tier of MoP.
Sadly I only started playing a lock in BC, but I loved it since then except for Cata, where you had to do very complex rotations of mediocre dps ( hai Destruction...), it was hell, not to mention DS, where on CERTAIN fights ( *cough* Spine *cough*) locks were not even considered viable unless you were the best of the best.

[Deleted]

In terms of PvE raw power? Yes. In terms of playstyle? Not in my opinion, I'd give WoTLK the edge there for the smoothness of play.

[Deleted]

if you think locks were great in vanilla in pve then you either didnt play in vanilla or you played with some pretty craptastic ppl coz a lot of guilds only brought 1 lock and that was for coe.

Yea sure... you know that Vanilla had 40man raids? And Shadowpriests, Elemental Shamans, Boomkins, etc were not really playable back then... do you really think people played with 10 Mages and 7 Hunters to fill the ranged slots? Moreover back then you also needed Curse of Shadows and Curse of Recklessness.
In the end Warlocks maybe weren't OP in classic but they were decent and even in better guilds back then bring the player not the class was way more important than it is today.

TBC: Warlock OP from beginning to end.
WotLK: Always very good but never really OP iirc.
Cata: Destruction was OP at the start, then Affli shined for some time and throughout the remaining Xpac Demo was OP.
MoP: OP whole addon.

[justandulas]

Tbc was the golden age for us locks. It was incredibly gratifying to be the guilds warlock tank on illidan, kael, and other bosses. Warlocks were at their highest place in the food chain in tbc. When we needed warlock tanks and other warlock dps for the curses

[limitbreak]

Words of fel gold right there!

This n***a.

The second most fun I've ever had in the game was playing affliction at the start of TBC. Crafting shadow damage gear, stacking the crap out of it and ridiculously outdamaging every single spec in the game with one of the most rewarding playstyles there's ever been (UA -> CoA -> Immo -> SL -> SB SB SB LIFETAP).

Then in SSC/TK you sadly realize that spec doesn't scale with other stats so you've gotta SB spam. So I rerolled a rogue and had the most fun I've ever had in the game with dual glaives and windfury.

However, I will never forget getting a top 10 Vashj kill on my affliction warlock. Once in a while I log onto my lock and try to like it again, but it's just not hitting that early tbc affliction spot for me, now even worse than ever