Hi everyone,
Now that the beta has officially wrapped up and we have a couple of weeks to breathe before the November 4th launch, I wanted to share my feedback on the current state of the Warlock. Since it’s the spooky season, it’s great to see that Warlock remains the ultimate spooky class. Fundamentally, it still feels exactly like a Warlock should, but there are a few areas of praise, clunk, and missed opportunity worth discussing.
Here is my breakdown of the core class and specs based purely on the beta data:
Core Class & Pets
- The Good: The updates to curses and banes landed really well. Seeing the summoning closet in the trainer’s spell log is a massive win. Additionally, having Fear get its range back through Grim Reach is a 10/10, and DoTs being able to crit is another absolute 10/10.
- The Soulstone Grind: While the summoning closet is great, we desperately need a Soulwell added to the game. Having to create and hand out individual healthstones and soulstones one at a time to an entire 20 or 40-man raid group is just awful. A communal well would be a massive quality-of-life fix for launch.
- Pets: Overall, pets are in a great spot. I know some players are asking for a blanket talent that buffs all pets, but I actually prefer specializing in and mastering whichever specific pet I’m using. However, the Imp’s DPS feels pretty sad right now and definitely needs a buff.
- Spellstone Utility: I am perfectly fine with Spellstone losing its shield utility, but it feels like Nether Ward should be brought in to compensate for that loss.
Specializations
Affliction
Everything feels good with this spec until you hit the very bottom. The early tree issue with Shadow Mastery (SM) feeling undervalued has been fixed, and it now properly feels like a solid, second-to-the-bottom talent. The spec leans heavily into DoTs and drains, which opens up fantastic build variety (like a PvP Drain build or an SM/Ruin setup).
However, Wrack is currently in a very awkward spot for both throughput and playstyle:
- It needs multiple ranks to bring its base damage up so it can actually compete with spells like Shadowbolt.
- The 10% damage bonus it provides to other Shadow DoTs while channeling is simply too low.
- It feels bad that the moment you stop channeling to refresh your DoTs, they lose that multiplier. While I see why the team chose a drain over Haunt to keep the meters DoT-heavy rather than nuke-heavy, Haunt honestly feels like it would have been the easier, spookier solution.
Demonology
- The Flavor Miss: Not having a talent centered around our different Warlock stones feels like a major missed opportunity, especially since they are such a core, flavorful part of our identity.
- Tuning & Threat: Everything else feels good, but the Succubus build needs to be tuned down. The easiest fix would be to significantly increase the threat generated through the shadow portion of Demonic Brand (especially since the Succubus herself can reduce her threat).
Destruction
- Buff Management: Shadow and Flame should just be condensed into one single buff that both abilities provide. Destruction is already going to be a very busy spec; there is no need to make us maintain two separate buffs for it.
- Spell Choices: Skipping Chaos Bolt in favor of Incinerate is a 10/10 decision—it feels like an awesome, upgraded Searing Pain. Ignore the community chatter about “weaving” shadow and fire spells; it’s clear the design goal is simply to encourage us to use more of our baseline toolkit (fire spells/nukes alongside shadow DoTs with a stronger filler). Side note: I’d love Shadowfury, but I know that’s way too OP to actually happen!
- Tree Mechanical Issues:
- Improved Shadowbolt is simply too strong for a spell that is already inherently powerful.
- Molten Skin is incredibly strong for being so low in the tree.
- Aftermath feels bad as a 5-point investment and should probably be reduced to a 2 or 3-point talent.
Conclusion
Warlock is obviously OP in 1v1 duels right now, but tournaments aside, the class feels highly functional for actual endgame gameplay like raids, dungeons, questing, and BGs. If we can get a bit of tuning on Wrack, Destro buff management, the Imp’s baseline damage, and a solution to the raid item-handout chore, we’ll be in an amazing spot for November 4th.
Curious to hear your thoughts on these specific points!