How is current warlock gameplay compared to what it was in BC?

[Last]

I raided as a affi lock in BC and liked it though I didnt care for pvp with a lock.
Im kind of wary now because of the 3 soul shards and crap like that, I never played destro or demo during BC so idk how gameplay was for them back then.

Does it suck without shadowbolt as a filler..and do you constantly have to channel a spell now as affi during downtime

[Harsesis]

The entire Warlock class was reworked in MoP over 2 years ago. If the last time you played was TBC then you would not come back to the anything close to the same class.

[Deleted]

None of the specs are really remotely like they were back in TBC, and affliction in particular I think has taken a nosedive in quality from it's TBC, but mostly WOTLK and Cata playstyles.

Certainly not a universal or objective stance, plenty of people apparently like the new affliction, but if you liked TBC affliction then what we currently have is nothing like it and probably not your cup of tea.

[Friendlyimmolation]

Affliction has only gotten worse as the xpacs went on. otherwise nothing is the same.

[gruxxar]

From a Raiding PoV it's gotten alot better though: from just spamming SB to an actual rotation ^^

[Deleted]

From a Raiding PoV it's gotten alot better though: from just spamming SB to an actual rotation ^^

Which, despite being such a popular thing to say it borders on memetic, wasn't how warlocks played for a decent chunk of TBC. Affliction never played like that (which is what the OP is talking about), and destruction SB spam didn't become viable until partway into the expansion iirc. I know I was affliction for most of what I can remember (Gruul, SSC, TK), was it one of the tier bonuses that made SB spam the go-to thing or just gear?

I think it wasn't until Hyjaal or BT that I finally felt forced into it, and even then I'm pretty sure I remember spamming SOC in Hyjaal while giggling at the results.
Either way, the topic of the thread (TBC affliction), wasn't too bad as far as class design went in TBC. I remember some things like Dark Pact feeling redundant, but it had solid building blocks going forward into WOTLK and Cata, which is more than you can say for a lot of specs.