Warlock was my first serious class to level cap, back in Wrath. I’ve never understood why summoning required someone else. Magi are able to make a portal to anywhere, so why can’t Warlocks just bring anyone to them? (With that person’s agreement?)
Similarly, other MMOs have had ring sets which allow you to pair up with someone and similarly jump to where each other is. WoW has even allowed this when you invite a friend to the game!
So why can’t this outdated class mechanic be fixed?
That would be amazing actually. It’s even possible lore-wise. As our friendly artifact, the floating skull Thal’kiel, keeps teasing us as we drop a summon stone:
“You need help to complete a summoning ritual? You can’t do it by yourself? How pathetic!”
So the entire raid can sit in org and wait for the warlock to make their way there to summon them?
No thanks.
It’s basically that as it is already though? Except they wait for any 2 people to go to the meeting stone
You’re not wrong that some people are seriously lazy AF. (RIGHT?)
Nonetheless, I think it would be an improvement to the class. In any regular raid team, we all know who the lazy sunzabishes are. Hezzlocks is right: when it comes to a raid summons, what’s the diff between one and two?
And hey… look at Warlocks like an advance scout. You can’t fix some people. But you can make a class more fun to play. And really… why should Magi get such favoritism with a one-person ability, but not Warlocks?
As long as I could blacklist certain people from being able to be summoned by my stone, i’d be all for it 
Never gank a lock out in WPvP. They’ll summon their guild to come kill you for a month lol
That seems like a personal decision? Not a class issue. Seems like there are some good add-ons for tracking people. (There are [RARELY] a very few folks whom I refuse to help in the game.)
One dude ninja’ed loot from my wife in WotLK. And I was so popular on the realm (pugging alts into their raids) that he got booted from groups through Mists of Pandaria. Didn’t need an addon to keep track of him. He eventually changed his name, transferred realms, or quit the game.
People know I’m a generally nice/generous guy. So if I told someone they’d have to hoof it on their own, people would take notice.
Because things like PvP exist in this game, as does world PvP. We had this back in older expansions. It was a guild perk and it was called “Have Summon, Will Travel” or something like that. 1 hour CD, but anyone in the guild could use it. People abused the hell outa it and you would have 1 person make it into a city, and summon 7 raid groups of players into the city, dominate the city and kill every player for hours on end. People abuse whatever they can. They took it out the next expansion, but that happened for an entire expansion and while it is a game about War, Conflict and strive, but griefing people was something done regularly and is frowned upon by many people.
No, 90% of people are seriously lazy AF, not some, but most.
To add in, too, is that world PvP before this whole thing of opting in and out, you could not opt out of it. If you were on a PvP realm you were auto flagged at level 20 and could not unflag yourself without you being somewhere very neutral.
During this time you would have Rogues and Druids stealth sneak in to cities, go to somewhere like Org Ragefire Chasm or right in it, then use the ability to port players either into the dungeon or right in front of the dungeon. They would not do this for a single raid group, most of the time you had several full raid groups doing this. It was done by the Horde to the Alliance, too, with Stormwind and the Stockades, as well. Both sides were seriously griefing the other to the point people could not turn in quests, could not use the AH or do anything for literally hours on end. But yeah both sides messed with each other and abused it so the next expansion blizzard took the ability away.
So then, it might be arguable that Mage portals should require the assistance of someone else. At the very least, for the sake of class-parity.
I think I remember that back then. It was called, “Have Group, Will Travel.” And I was irritated that the Warlock ability still required others. (Summoning closets became almost 100% redundant and unused. I had someone in a raid group ask what the closet was, when we happened to drop one)
There was also some concern about “Have Group, Will Travel” concentrating the game population only in cities. But with Mage portals ONLY going to specific locations (almost exclusively cities), then that is directly contributing to the same concern.
I’ve rolled a mage (finally) this expansion. I’ve dinked around with one before, but this is the first time I’m being serious about it. I’ve got to say that teleporting/portaling is fun. But I’m all the more convinced that Mages (in addition to Paladins) are Blizzard’s favored children, compared to the other classes.
I like the idea, but I can see how some could abuse it. I think they’d have to boost the mana cost or give it a shard cost to make it work without the talent being abused.
Not a good idea. There used to be an ability called Have Group, Will Travel that allowed anyone to summon their entire raid with just one button, and it ruined the game back in Cataclysm when it existed. You’d have a rogue stealth past all the trash in a raid (or heroic dungeon) and summon everyone to the boss. Or, even worse, you’d have entire raid groups summoned in pvp realms to gank and troll cities.
Summoning 1 person at a time limits the damage you can cause by doing this, and requiring 3 prevents raids and dungeons from being all about finding skips.
They could make the summon cast faster if more people click on it, or they could make the summoning stone last for longer.
I’d be all for other classes being able to summon so we’re not always the ones doing the legwork to get to the raid.
Yeah warlocks are known for their ability to go invisible and sneak through mobs and players.