I give up on Warlocks

Classes Warlock
1

Will finish AOTC as a carry (Raz) and retire my Lock. Maybe I’ll call the fight, but I won’t be in it.

During DF, I’ve become accustomed losing on the raid meters all nite to several melee classes parsing literally 30-40 percentage points below me. This is new to DF for me, but no one wants to hear about how well you parsed during progression, they just want to see results on the meters and mathematically Lock just can’t deliver right now.

I had high hopes that the buffed Affy might keep me in the game for ST fights, but it came in underwhelming and other classes got more, and better, buffs in 10.0.5 that pushed Lock even further down the ladder.

36 Likes
2

Well it got nerfed, so…

11 Likes
3

Soul Swap is trash. Why doesn’t it copy all DoTs?
Inquisitors Gaze has a super low proc rate.
The overall performance of Aff and Destro is below average.

Think i’m done with my lock.

29 Likes
4

Lock are very utility and in a lot of m+ groups. You may not be topping the dps charts but if youre using your skills well youre almost mandatory for some dungeons. From the battle res to the lock rocks to using amplify curses to effect the dungeon bosses. Personally i played a lock back in legion and im enjoying it much more in Shadowlands and Dragonflight. May not top dps but i find the class enjoyable and very playable.

5 Likes
5

Lol.

While the three specs could definitely use a bit more tuning to be more equal in power, Warlocks are hardly a carry.

Group utility is massive

3 Likes
6

Our utility is overblown and even varies based on spec

  • cookies are decent
  • gate is extremely niche in M+
  • curses are situationally strong, but widely unused (in 20+ keys, you’ll see them a little more)
  • magic dispel is also niche and not available for demo without significant dps loss, this dispel also means we have no interrupt
  • a purge effect, valuable in specific dungeons if you don’t have anyone else with one and also not available for demo without significant dps loss
  • destro can bring a strong AoE stun profile that varies in value from dungeon to dungeon, pack to pack
  • a non-instant brez (although precasting it is situationally good)

We bring no group buff, lust, cleanse (disease, poison, curse), soothe, etc.

If we look at potential ‘showstoppers’ in a M+ group:
Lust
brez
cleanses for specific dungeons (no decurse on TJS, no poison removal in AA, etc.)
soothe for specific dungeons (and all dungeons on raging week)

Then we look at ‘very nice to have’ things in an M+ group:
buffs that empower the group (fort, AI, shout, mark, rogue poison, etc)
debuffs that help damage output (monk for phys, DH for magic)
group CDs (AMZ, Darkness, AG, VE, etc.)

You ideally want to bring the best possible DPS that have as many of the above as possible, such as Druid (soothe, decurse/poison removal, brez, mark) or priest (fort, AoE purge, mass dispel, VE, even niche MC) or monk (disease/poison removal, mystic touch, RoP), or even hunter (purge, soothe, lust).

Any outlier choices MUST bring either game-changing abilities, such as rogue (shroud, poisons, best single target CC in the game), overwhelming damage (also rogue xd), or some extremely niche item for a group.

When you start comparing warlock to other ranged dps, we’re completely outmatched in utility. Your best bet is aiming for groups without a brez, TJS keys if you’re not a demo player and the group has no other secondary dispel for the final boss (and even then, only on high Tyr keys), or being a bait buddy because you’re tanky (mostly relevant for the last two bosses in the easiest dungeons, SMBG and CoS).

Our dps in keys is competitive with most other ranged except maybe boomkin, but not utility. I don’t think we’re awful, although movement will screw us harder than anyone else. I’m just saying if I’m putting together a group (that I wasn’t present in), I’d shy away from warlock most of the time unless their damage was practically broken (like in SL S4).

19 Likes
7

Come to classic wrath, where warlocks are OP lol

10 Likes
8

You know you dont need to be a parse kid sweatlord to play a game or class you like, right?

14 Likes
9

Then post on your warlock …

1 Like
10

Locks are a carry on a couple of fights in the raid.

11

Unfortunately, everyone is staring at the same “Overall Damage Done” at the end of every run and at every boss wipe.

It’s literally the only metric that everyone is default presented with (assuming they have the addon, which i’d assume 99% of people do).

When you’re lower on the metric that everyone is presented with, everyone immediately thinks your trash. It’s just how it works.

7 Likes
12

This, 100%.

It’s made worse by Blizz implementing so many DPS checks into bosses. Take Raz for example…there are about 4 DPS checks (that I can think of) where a failure to kill an add or break a shield in a certain amount of time results in a wipe.

When these wipes occur, the DPS meter is the only thing anyone cares about.

8 Likes
13

As Demo, Raz has been painful due to all the movement. I went Affliction last night was able to increase my dps by about 10k on the boss.

Problem with both is when I get to the add phase, my dps dropped drastically. Tried some cleave builds for both demo and aff but seemed my dps was better if I stayed pure ST on boss and let every one else deal with the adds.

I rerolled Mage to Lock in SL and I’m starting to feel the same way about my lock that I did about my mage unfortunately.

Was hoping the Demo Single target “buff” to RoT would actually be a buff … but should have known it was just another case of the devs applying their limited knowledge of how classes, specs, and talents actually work and it would turn out to be another red herring.

5 Likes
14

I had better luck with doing the opposite.

I can run the M+ Implosion build and absolutely destroy the platforms which pads my overall numbers to a point where they look very decent to anyone not paying close attention.

Problem is that padding is all it is. When it comes time for the shield or the P3 ST adds, I’m hitting like a wet noodle and the overall is trash.

All that said, it’s not just warlocks. Many guilds are finding that “sitting ranged” provides significantly better results in progression. Arcane being the outlier.

5 Likes
15

Unfortunately you’re 100% correct.
My main (warlock) is at 3/8M (including Terros)…and I certainly felt like a drag on the group the entire time.

When the mechanics force movement - but the movement doesn’t force melee to lose an ounce of uptime…whereas ranged obviously lose a ton of uptime…but range/melee sims nearly the same - we have issues.

I’m not looking forward to Sennarth.

5 Likes
16

The friends and family guild this toon is in got AOTC this week…by sitting ranged. 3 ranged vs 10 melee after the “progression cut”.

One of the 3 ranged was a Warlock, but was effectively a carry for gates and stones. Parsed purple but still did 20% less damage than the melee leaders.

How do you argue for your spot with data like this? You simply can’t defend your presence if you care about the greater-good of guild progress. Reroll or sit. Those are your choices.

2 Likes
17

I don’t know if I believe that warlocks are getting carry in Rasza H.

Like, we are weak in this first raid tier for sure, but last night my guild manage to drop her life to 14% and, in that try, I finish with a pretty ok’ish DPS.

Nothing amazing, I began to play warlock this expansion so I’m still kinda of a noob, but 65k is not that low.

Don’t know if we can post links on this forum:
h ttps://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/LDvrYbV27zMyQHRj/#fight=8&type=damage-done

And my “Call Dreadstalkers” won’t count to my logs for some reason, you can see they at the 17° place with 3,3k DPS. lol :rofl:

18

Terros and Sennarth are bosses that I REALLY feel that I’m being carry, even in Heroic…
Sennarth even with good purple logs as Destro I’m like in the botton of Details lmao.

19

For real, some fair weather locks in here.

2 Likes
20

Definitely. I’m one.

I greatly prefer Warlock to all other classes, but I refuse to pay for the “pleasure” of bugs and general underperformance.

3 Likes