Are warlocks heading towards dark times in WoD?

[Deleted]

I've got no intention to whine, i just want your opinion on this matter.

Seeing that we've been the dominant dps class this expansion, do you think we'll get punished hard for this in WoD?
I'd imagine that if we're not nerfed hard, people would just complain that once again warlocks are too powerful and therefore people will have to see a huge nerf to our class to actually believe that Blizzard has tried to fix the warlock issue.

Personally i don't really care about being the highest dps at all but i DO NOT want to be at the bottom of the meters either. I played a shadow priest as a main for MoP - i know what it's like being so underpowered and i don't feel like going through that again for another expansion.

By the end of MoP i got really into aoe grinding with potion of luck on my warlock and that's why i'm considering to play the warlock for WoD again.
But maining a warlock also means raiding in my case and that's why i'm worried that the warlock class are heading towards dark times. I don't want to feel as underpowered as a MoP shadow priest again.

so yeah, seeing that we've been the dominant dps class this expansion, do you think we'll get punished hard for this in WoD?

[Kanariya]

The developers seem very intent on nerfing Affliction and Destruction substantially, but they are really OP on live, so hopefully it won't be too bad.

Affliction is heading toward dark times though as it is about to become the most boring spec in the game. Dots > Channel > Channel > Channel > Haunt on proc > Channel > Channel > Channel > Channel.

[Deleted]

I tried them out (I know its too early in Beta to say anything) - But they did feel nerfed.. But I was still able to pull pretty much the same DPS as other classes.
I don´t believe that warlocks by any means are gonna be the lowest DPS class in WoD..

Seems to me they just balanced the field a bit, because they really are too OP on live, if you know how to play them correctly..

[kendro1200]

Blizzard's developers have a really bad habit of getting tunnel visioned into knee jerk reactions for 'balance' and missing the mark as to why imbalance occurred. Demo is a recent and perfect example of this. The biggest problem with Demo in ToT was UVLS, it was a cool trinket idea, but inherently an imbalanced design. All they had to do was nerf the trinket, instead they nerfed the trinket and the spec into, 'average'. Playing demo for a month after SoO came out, I can easily say that in no shape or fashion was demo left in the 'middle of the pack'. Maybe slightly below middle of the pack, but not a square middle. Top in the change and nerfing of mechanics that were needed for demo to do well in SoO, and it just further compounded the disaster.
The same thing appears to be happening to warlocks in WoD. Some very bad changes are being made across the board, for the sake of change, and because there is still some knee jerk reactions to issues in MoP. Rather than identify the actual problems and make sure they just don't show up again, entire mechanics are getting gutted into uselessness, or stripped away entirely.

Then for whatever reason all of the good and cool things that were added in (for a couple of classes) are being stripped away and given to hunters. I'm really not happy with the double standards currently in play with hunters vs everyone else. It's terribly reminiscent of warriors throughout TBC with their stunheralds.

[sugarfree]

PvE, I hardly doubt it. Mechanics, rotation and feel might be awful but they will balance the damage.

In PvP however, the class is heading down the gutter alongside all turret casters unless they fix the major discrepancy between caster vs. melee. I am not too hopeful with them balancing that though. They seem to favor melee a lot this expansion, seei g how their mechanics are untouched and their anti-mechanics got removed.

[Zharradan]

i'm not worried about pve, since they always fix things in the first patch of the xpac anyways, i don't pvp, but any1 can see they removed instant cast but didn't remove gap closers from melees, so they're in for a rude awakening

[Deleted]

I also feel that the changes to warlocks in WoD are a bit overkill.

Affliciton was too powerfull because of snapshotting, so they've removed snapshotting and disabled effective multi-dotting at the same time.
Giving a shard cost to soul swap and also reducing your ability to regain the shards via drain sould has totally killed the spec.
Even if the spec does acceptable single-target damage, I wonder why should anyone play it since it's the least flexible and fun spec to play in the whole game atm.

Destruction was in a fine position, doing steady dps, being capable of nice burst when needed and also quite mobile.
Blizzard decided to "tune down" movement dps abilities for all casters. This translates to ele shammy and warlock. Seems there are no other casters since there is no other caster movement balance involved.
For warlocks, this meant not only changing KJC into another active cd to track and press (didn't they say they want to reduce the number of buttons to press?), but also removing fel flame at the same time, just to make sure there's absolutely nothing to press if you don't take KJC or if your KJC is on cooldown (which is with current KJC uptime in 85+ % cases).

Demonology was a fine spec until UVLS appeared. This of course made Blizzard nerf both the trinket and Demonology as spec. Since playing demonology at an optimal level required a lot of planning and thinking before, Blizzard decided to put into WoD another spell for Demonology warlock with clumsy mechanics, just to make you think about your execution just that bit more.

Overall, I'm not happy with the changes to warlocks in WoD. I think the class was very well designed in MoP and didn't need any playstyle-changes at all with the exception of snapshotting that was causing balance problems. I think that it was quite obvious that the MoP warlock redesign was thoroughly discussed with top warlock players like Shinafae from Blood Legion or Sparkuggz since the specs were easy to learn, hard to master and - most of all - fun to play.

The new talents added for warlock are also so uninspired that you have to ask:
Did they thought about the class at all?
Did they discuss any of the changes with some actuall warlock players?

Please, let me know if you know about some warlock feedback that actually got some kind of positive response from Blizzard in regard to the WoD changes.

Have a nice day and see you around, Gore

[Cempa]

I've been watching videos of level 100 arena and can safely say very little had changed in output...affi is a monster just like 90 and destro is fun...though nit sure how demo will be for most but in the hands of really skilled players it is a beast in arena...

[oathy]

Most of my WOW time was PVP. I say was because the first time in 9 years Ive actually decided wow isn't for me anymore I didn't want to do some Emo Quit then crawl back in a week. I've requested a refund on WOD (don't know if they will) but my sub runs out in 3 days. I started on a lock never got bored even when my friends all left WOW. I always managed to find something to do but after playing Beta within an hour I was bored senseless the lock class is very special a lot of players "don't get it".
Sadly I think that's now the case of the devs. I actually feel from playing a shadow priest this entire notion of button bloat and ability pruning is just for certain classes.
If things change I will be back like a shot but as it stands Id rather walk away with good memories than just emo rage Quit on WOD launching

[Viradiance]

Hopefully yes, and they'll deserve every bit of it.

[durrtygoodz]

Seeing that we've been the dominant dps class this expansion, do you think we'll get punished hard for this in WoD?

Hopefully.

[Gihelle]

I love how those people that don't play Warlock come to our forums to badmouth us.

It's just a game, people... you win some, you lose some.

[Chaosturn]

Yes. Reroll.
(I'm implying all warlocks are fotm rerollers)



Infracted.

[Krommm]

If by dark times, you mean not grossly overpowered, yes. Maybe they will be weak, but from "unbalanced" beta so far they seem at least on par with the rest.

[Grizelda]

We have 3 specs. At least one will be fine in PvE.

But yes. We have been hit hard with the nerf bat and it will take a long time, serous lobbying by big brained well spoken warlocks, and underrepresentation in PvP and PvE for us to get a foothold again.

It seems some very stubborn Devs are digging in their heels regarding the direction of the game and we got the shit end of the stick.

[Tramzh]

The level 100 affliction rotation in WoD is probably as interesting as the level 12 rotation in vanilla. It's a huge disappointment. I couldn't care less about what damage you do as long as it requires some sort of brain to min-max it.

[Grizelda]

The other classes coming to gloat in these forums wouldn't be so happy if things were going fine for us.

[Baconeggcheese]

If you go back to the forums pre-MoP we were totally gonna be nerfed to shit in MoP as well.

Funny how that worked out.

[Grizelda]

Truth. I keep that in mind and hope for the best.

The difference then was we had Xelnaths sympathetic ear. For at least a little while.

[Biruta]

I've been watching videos of level 100 arena and can safely say very little had changed in output...affi is a monster just like 90 and destro is fun...though nit sure how demo will be for most but in the hands of really skilled players it is a beast in arena...

I've been watching videos of level 100 arena too... warrior + warlock affliction versus other comps: warrior is outputting 3x ( I said 3x) more damage than affliction in arenas.