Can somebody explain what happened to Aff locks?

[lexonio]

I'm choosing an alt atm (getting tired of my rogue) and can't decide between a Paladin and a Warlock.

I know they are vastly different classes, yet what I'm looking for is an ability to play solo (i.e. queue for randoms and not depend on pocket healers and peelers) while still having a shot at organized PvP (2s and RBGs). I'm mostly a dps guy so prot/holy specs for a Paladin are not very beneficial to me.
Would appreciate any advice, thank you.

UPD: Sheesh. Wrong title. Lousy copy/paste skills I'm obviously choosing between Paladin and Warlock and asking your advice.

[bonewax]

I'm choosing an alt atm (getting tired of my rogue) and can't decide between a Paladin and a Warlock.

I know they are vastly different classes, yet what I'm looking for is an ability to play solo (i.e. queue for randoms and not depend on pocket healers and peelers) while still having a shot at organized PvP (2s and RBGs). I'm mostly a dps guy so prot/holy specs for a Paladin are not very beneficial to me.
Would appreciate any advice, thank you.

Not sure whats up with that misleading title since it suggests that something is wrong with affliction (yea other than it not be the first choice for pvp). You ask what you should choose between paladin and warlock and you want a dps class that doesnt need a pocket healer? LOL dont we all. If you want to dps and survive then roll a hybrid class like druid or monk. That being said if you want to choose between lock and pally i would say go destro since the new buffs do a lot for them in pvp and they're pretty tanky, demonology is also strong in pvp. As for pally you really on have retribution which isnt bad either.

[Underverse]

Both classes are very strong in PvP right now. Affliction is probably the weakest of the 6 specs (for both paladin and lock, including prot) - at least in 2v2. In 3s, you have plenty of choices either way.

[Thelxi]

Aff does very well both in 2s and in RBGs so you are good there. When it comes to random BGs, it is still pretty good but definitely not the most independent or survivable. You can put out good self-healing, but without an actual healer you will still get overwhelmed most of the time by melee. You have the mobility of a rock, and mobility is key atm for surviving due to the overall low healing and high burst. If you want independence as a soloqueuer you should look into more mobile and melee specs.

Edit: just saw you are also considering pala. Also a good class overall, with some nice trolling potential and burst in unrated pvp. Still not the most independent or survivable though, mobility is not the best.

[lexonio]

Sheesh. Wrong title. I'm obviously choosing between Paladin and Warlock and asking your advice.

[DirtyDotter]

I main holy paladin atm and it's actually a lot of fun, even more so when hit honor level 46 and get Avenging Crusader.

While world quests I won't die unless I get ganked by a very large group, and with avenging crusader I can still kill 1 or 2 of the gankers before I die myself. Without avenging crusader, I can usually live long enough to run away (w/ freedom + divine steed) from the gank and if I can pull 1 person away from the group I can still usually kill that person depending on what class it is. The classes I have trouble with so far are other healers, shadow priests, affliction locks and demon hunters (i'm completely clueless on what demon hunters do though).

In random bgs, survivability is high as long as I'm not getting chain cc'd or focused by an organized group of players. Holy paladin has decent damage with judgement -> holy shock -> crusader strike and you can also get 2 talents that make your holy light heal for 2x and deal 30% of the heal as damage to opponents near the person getting healed. So you can assist with kills very often and still sometimes single people out and kill them yourself. from my experience if I'm playing random bgs on my holy paladin I win 70%+ of my random bgs, if I play dps my win rate is much lower. So far in legion I'm sitting right at 70% win rate as holy, but haven't leveled up any dps yet.

I haven't found anyone to play arenas with yet, but judging from the ladders holy paladins seem very strong there too. Healing of course requires a slightly different mindset compared to dps and (from my past rated experiences) requires you to learn what every class can do and what you, as a healer, need to do to keep yourself and your team alive. It's also much, much easier to find good people to play with if you're a healer.

I just started leveling up a horde paladin as ret, just to try the spec out, and plan on going holy once I hit 110. I'm only 102 right, but compared to playing my holy paladin I feel really weak overall even though it does kill things slightly faster. It's fun though in the sense that I'm constantly having to look all over the screen to watch my health, holy power, procs, when abilities come off cd, what the mobs are doing, etc... and when I play holy paladin I don't have to do that probably cause I'm just used to playing it.

I know you said you weren't really interested in playing a holy paladin, but if you invest a little bit of time into it it's a really, really rewarding experience overall and you can still kill most classes 1v1 and even through ganks w/ avenging crusader when you get it. Another benefit to playing a healer as an alt, it gives you perspective on things you do wrong as dps such as peeling at proper times, pushing in for a kill at the wrong time, general positioning overall and it gives you another outlet to meet people that you normally wouldn't meet ("oh this healer is you're alt? Maybe we can play a few games with you on your dps class").

As to answer your question, if you're truly stuck on being dps then pick ret pally. If you're not used to playing a caster then as lock you'll have to learn how to get around LOS-issues (people pillar humping), fake casting to avoid kicks (that would apply if you were to play healer as well though), and peels to help get out cc or to keep you alive when you're low. If you've watched the recent arena regionals on twitch you'll know that ret has a lot of mongo survivability atm with auto-bubble and freedom+divine steed to pillar when auto-bubble is on cooldown.

[edit: to give perspective on where I'm coming from]
I mained holy plaladin in vanilla, tbc, wod, and now legion. I also played lock in tbc, mop and the start of wod. I didn't play at all in wotlk or cata. I also stopped playing after wod season 1 and just came back about 3 weeks ago. In wod I gave a semi-serious arena push in 2s (lol 2s right?) with my paladin playing with a longtime friend on his arms warrior and kept hitting a wall @1950. I decided to level up a second holy paladin (on the same server, different racial choice lol .. because I wanted to main paladin to push exclusively with my warrior friend) and hit 2k really easy with randoms through the group finder while being under geared (still had 4 or 5 pieces of blue honor gear at the time.) I'm pretty sure I could have pushed to 2.2k+ if I really wanted to. I had some of those randoms invite me for me serious glad pushes in 3s for wod season 2, but I quit playing wow after getting interested in another game (ark: survival evolved) and just came back now after getting bored with that game. Like i said, just telling you this stuff to give you some perspective on where my post is coming from. I'm semi-accomplished, yet not amazing.

[Deleted]

Affliction got deleted from the game, don't bother.

[Sunlighthell]

Blizzard not even hide their hate towards affliction. So don't bother.

[Illiterate]

Locks (especially aff) are literally the most boring class in legion. With the 7.1 nerfs and all the melee running areound, they are garbage.

[bonewax]

Locks (especially aff) are literally the most boring class in legion. With the 7.1 nerfs and all the melee running areound, they are garbage.

What? Destro just got HUGE mobility buffs that made the class awesome again. You can do cremation/shadowburn or chaos bolt spec both of which put locks back on the pvp radar. Might want to read some patch notes before writing off a class.

[Thirstblood]

Hotlinka... That....
Hotlinka..... THAT!

[Deleted]

Affliction is quite good in (grouped) Legion PvP, but very boring to play. Demo is very durable, even against melee, but got a big hit to its burst with the recent hotfixes. Not sure if the damage will still be good enough. Destro got huge buffs with 7.1 and now has 2 quite different talent builds that are promising. You can go for Shadowburn spec which has lower burst but high sustained damage and basically everything is instant cast. Sustained damage might even be comparable to Affliction if you do it right. You can also go for Chaos Bolt spec and be able to kill almost anyone in 3 Chaos Bolts without heals.

Destro seems the most interesting currently. Demo playstyle is quite special and not for everyone. It is also not as strong as before. Affliction is just boring currently imo (and this comes from someone who basically played Affliction exclusively since vanilla).