Are Warlocks Still 'Fun' In Beta?

[Debased]

Movement aside I'm more concerned about utility. Apparently Celest thinks Demonic Gateway is an impressive all encompassing utility spell, while in-fact it will essentially never be absolutely necessary but perhaps crucial on a handful of fights throughout the whole expansion. Unless warlocks have great numbers (doubtful) I cannot see why any serious mythic group would ever bring more than one at this point.

[Asiel]

The problem, as I see it, with Affliction and Destruction (haven't tested Demonology) is that they changed systems that directly affect warlock gameplay without then changing the rotations to compensate. For instance, without DoT snapshotting, Affliction loses a lot of its gameplay. Without many instants and no cast-on-the-move spells, Destruction is too turret-y. That leads to Demonology which I personally didn't like in MoP due to its relative complexity and I feel that I shouldn't have to play a spec that I don't enjoy to have both an interesting rotation and at least SOME movement outside of a rotational ability best left on cooldown.

With regards to whether or not I'd bring a warlock to a raid, utility in all forms is nice to have. My guild does not currently have a dedicated warlock and we lose out on some nice perks that come with them (extra Brez, Healthstones, Gateway). Whether or not they're used is beside the point. Having the option would still be great.

[Jessicka]

Movement aside I'm more concerned about utility. Apparently Celest thinks Demonic Gateway is an impressive all encompassing utility spell, while in-fact it will essentially never be absolutely necessary but perhaps crucial on a handful of fights throughout the whole expansion. Unless warlocks have great numbers (doubtful) I cannot see why any serious mythic group would ever bring more than one at this point.

As with mobility, they've based feedback on external perceptions and broken things.

Gateways break 2-3 encounters a tier, people notice that, they notice because they have to click on this great big doodad, screen changes colour, and get catapulted across the map, which is quite a rarity given it's once or twice a tier, a novelty even, perception is therefore that Gateway is awesome. Because these things make it memorable.

People don't notice so much when Stampeding Roar happens to get everyone stacked on X quickly so they don't get blown up by AoE Explosion, nor do they notice so much when the entire raid teams' health is brought back from 30% to 100% by healing cooldowns. They don't notice because there's no flashy graphic and they did nothing to make it happen. They don't realise they only went to 30% health rather than die because Devotion Aura was up. They therefore take these things for granted because they're not interactive, they're not hugely noticable with flashy graphics, and it's something that happens on Every. Single. Fight.

What's irking me as much right now is the precipitation of the idea that Demo is "super mobile", based on a fact confirmed by Celestalon that Demonology's tuning is way off, and that Touch of Chaos is hitting for vastly more than it should be relative to Soul Fire. So people are going around, spamming ToC, thinking 'hey this mobility is wonderful' because they're doing this, still doing great damage, ignoring that actually in Meta you want to be planted and spamming Demonbolts/Cataclysms and Soul Fires. To do that, you need Fury, which you won't have if you pissed it all away while moving to spam ToC.

Please tell me how mobile you actually feel when you're doing as you should be, casting 2.5s base filler in caster and 2s cast fillers in Meta?

[Baconeggcheese]

What's irking me as much right now is the precipitation of the idea that Demo is "super mobile", based on a fact confirmed by Celestalon that Demonology's tuning is way off

That's pretty irrelevant, as long as the spec has something that it can spam while moving a la fel flame it is "super mobile" akin to a fire mage or something. If I NEED to move for X seconds straight I have something that can fill that entire movement gap need be in said spec assuming everything preferable to it was not available. It fills exactly the role we want fel flame back for.

Which is what celestalon was responding to...

His overvaluing of gateway as our raid utility is silly to me though, I haven't done a single encounter where I found it even useful so far in testing and I regularly got made fun of on progression this xpac for finding uses for it all the time. The nerfed range is frankly too short for it to really be useful on much of anything.

[pokeadott]

Gateway is one of those spells they should just disinvent at this point. It's clunky, it's borderline useless, it's not fun to place (and replace as it despawns), etc. I'd rather have the spell stripped entirely and be balanced (mainly pvp) around its absence.

Also 100% agree on the underrated utility of stampeding roar and how it TROUCNES gate in every way imagineable.

[lunchbox2042]

It feels like they want all of the Warlocks to reroll Mage.

[Jessicka]

That's pretty irrelevant, as long as the spec has something that it can spam while moving a la fel flame it is "super mobile" akin to a fire mage or something. If I NEED to move for X seconds straight I have something that can fill that entire movement gap need be in said spec assuming everything preferable to it was not available. It fills exactly the role we want fel flame back for.

It isn't even close to a Fire Mage. Fire Mage is just untouchable for mobility, it really, really takes the piss that people talk about "reducing caster mobility" then I go play on this thing and lose basically nothing from movement because Blink alone, nevermind the plethora of instants available; Scorch + Scorch Perk is just icing, it really is. On top of that you can even spec Ice Floes as a nice Cherry you'll never touch for fuck sake.

[Nazmina]

It isn't even close to a Fire Mage. Fire Mage is just untouchable for mobility, it really, really takes the piss that people talk about "reducing caster mobility" then I go play on this thing and lose basically nothing from movement because Blink alone, nevermind the plethora of instants available; Scorch + Scorch Perk is just icing, it really is. On top of that you can even spec Ice Floes as a nice Cherry you'll never touch for fuck sake.

I think Mages in WoD are getting the warkock MoP treatment. A lot of cool new toys and changes to fix many gripe mages had for a while without really having the foresight to see how it will turn out later in the game. I feel like we'll see alll the complaint we saw about warlocks over mop being applied to mages. (good dps high mobility high survivability and some raid utility, stackable even)

[Baconeggcheese]

For the sake of not starting a debate about mages in the warlock section...

I definitely feel super mobile as a demo lock even when ToC isn't overtuned. The spec absolutely lends itself well to mobility.

[Kashii]

I copied over my destro lock, pretty much find myself using the same rotation i used most of the time in MoP. Just no curse or fel flame for mobility. Killing most stuff with simple spells and 1 shotting other things with chaos bolt. Really don't see where all this not the same or really sucks is coming from. I mean its immolate, conflag x2, if its still alive incinerate till dead. Next target, I have chaos bolts, 1 shot, dead. move to next target, either 1 shot with another chaos bolt or startover first rotation.

So the sum total of your evaluation of Warlocks in WoD is based on a character copy and the fact that you can quickly kill a few quest mobs. How is that even a reasonable basis for a conclusion?

[sugarfree]

ALL classes have fewer buttons and feel slower and "boring" right now. It's not exclusive to warlocks.

I can see that without playing beta. They're like aiming to make the game like Diablo or DotA. Didn't they realize those buttons are what sets this game apart from everything else? Yes, they could've taken 2-3 on average for all classes, but it's a massacre what they've done. I could see pruning working for Balance Druids since they have shitloads, and probably warlocks, but getting rid of a lot of things...damn.

[Deleted]

I also think demo is super mobile and fun to play. Its not that complex stancedance - shadowflameweaving, dotsnapshotting, 2 Resources management it was in MoP, and Iam a bit sorry about that, but its ok. Its fast paced, its smooth, makes ok dmg (ok didn't test the nerfs from yesterday) and it has tools for large chunks of movement in the WoD encounters (will test a bit around on the next 6 mythic Bosses). If you know when it will come demo is perfekt for movement heavy fights. and even if ToC is tuned down, its exactly what many of you wantet from Fel Flame only with a little bit of planing ahead.

State of Affli / Destro on the other side.. don't get me started on them. *sadface*

[justjm]

I also think demo is super mobile and fun to play. Its not that complex stancedance - shadowflameweaving, dotsnapshotting, 2 Resources management it was in MoP, and Iam a bit sorry about that, but its ok. Its fast paced, its smooth, makes ok dmg (ok didn't test the nerfs from yesterday) and it has tools for large chunks of movement in the WoD encounters (will test a bit around on the next 6 mythic Bosses). If you know when it will come demo is perfekt for movement heavy fights. and even if ToC is tuned down, its exactly what many of you wantet from Fel Flame only with a little bit of planing ahead.

State of Affli / Destro on the other side.. don't get me started on them. *sadface*

For demo; what's your level 100 talent load out?

[Odyseas]

I bet that as soon as the warlock community starts bitching about how shitty their class is in every aspect, blizzard will say that the class state will eventually improve with time because "warlocks have very good gear scaling". Then when that doesn't work out they will implement a crapton of changes during the first major patch which will either be completely ineffective or will make the class insanely OP. Its pretty much the same tactic for every broken class every new expansion.

[Nerraw]

I bet that as soon as the warlock community starts bitching about how shitty their class is in every aspect, blizzard will say that the class state will eventually improve with time because "warlocks have very good gear scaling". Then when that doesn't work out they will implement a crapton of changes during the first major patch which will either be completely ineffective or will make the class insanely OP. Its pretty much the same tactic for every broken class every new expansion.

Sounds like 4.2.

[Debased]

It feels like they want all of the Warlocks to reroll Mage.

Well I'm about 75% sure my warlock won't be my mythic main at this point. It's a tossup between mage and moonkin. For me it comes down to specs. Affliction sounds boring without snapshotting. Destro is ALWAYS boring. Demo sounds fun on beta but I can guarantee you it's going to get hit hard in the next few weeks. That being said I can't imagine balance, fire, or frost are much more engaging lol.

- - - Updated - - -

Gateway is one of those spells they should just disinvent at this point. It's clunky, it's borderline useless, it's not fun to place (and replace as it despawns), etc. I'd rather have the spell stripped entirely and be balanced (mainly pvp) around its absence.

Also 100% agree on the underrated utility of stampeding roar and how it TROUCNES gate in every way imagineable.

Roar aside. I absolutely agree Gateway should have been replaced. It's cluncky, it's boring, it's borderline useless even in PvP now (LOL 40 yards, derp three steps, charge derp). I wish we had stampede in some form.

[Tya]

Roar aside. I absolutely agree Gateway should have been replaced. It's cluncky, it's boring, it's borderline useless even in PvP now (LOL 40 yards, derp three steps, charge derp). I wish we had stampede in some form.

Just making gateway instant and giving it an unreasonable cooldown (120 sec?) or a charge-up time (10 sec?) to stop it from being used as a blink, would fix any PvP issues.