I was just looking online (https://www.wowhead.com/spells/pvp-talents) and realized the rather large PvP talent disparity that exists. Most DPS classes/specs have 10-12 PvP talents available with healing and tank specs having access to even more. Destro & Demo (which I play) have only 9 options. I am not saying make PvP talents simply for the sake of doing so, but considering Warlocks often suffer against melee, having a version of Nether Ward for them in PvP would be a huge quality of life improvement and give players an option depending on what they’re facing. The Warlock PvP talent list and toolkit are both heavily lacking in melee defense (particularly given healing reductions in TWW across the board for non-healers). My suggestion (and it is just an option):
Nether Armor: Surrounds the caster with a shield that lasts 3 sec, reflecting all harmful melee attacks against you.
Alternatively, make Nether Ward (as implemented) reflect all attacks for 3 sec, rather than just magic. This would provide a melee CD tool instead of the old PvP talent that just statically boosted Warlock armor. Both have their advantages, but I like the idea of a melee equivalent for Nether Ward.
For a quick comparison, I created the list below from the link above. Again, I’m not suggesting homogenization across the board, but if some DPS specs need 15 options for PvP talents (wow), surely those with 9 (not just Warlocks) could have gameplay gaps filled in.
Lock talent selection is heading in a bad direction after recent changes. Aff needs some love badly spec is just a mess overall even post-prepatch. At this point assuming they’ll take their first stab at fixing things during next expansion’s prepatch
Yeah they could…or they could also like not remove/gut viable talents just because
Sure, just pointing out that more doesn’t equal better. In fact I’d say Demo has more viable PvP talent options than a lot of specs. Things like Rot and Wither shouldn’t be considered as PvP talent options lol.
I’ve hated Aff and felt it’s been a mess since the removed UA stacking after Legion. Blizzard is honestly a terrible company and they may address specs that need love or just ignore them the entire expansion while giving others 3+ reworks and infinite attention. They honestly have zero respect for how much players care about their preferred spec.
I outlined right in my original post that I don’t suggest making PvP talents simply to make them, but rather there are gaps in the toolkit for Warlocks against melee, so a melee-focused option would be nice.
I also made the list to point out that some specs have far too many options and need to be pruned: Balance has 15 and I’m certain a handful could easily be removed. I think it was Shadowlands, though maybe before, where Blizzard did a sweep of PvP talents and lowered (some) spec options be removing unused options. We could probably use another round of that, though not only removing junk PvP talents but also giving more functional options.
I do agree that Demo has some pretty nice options, so that goes to your point that the number of PvP talents isn’t the end-all of gameplay. But, as Hellbraive said, variety is always appreciated with useful (that being a keyword) options.
It’s been mentioned here before but making a 4th pvp talent slot and the standard between 8–10 talents might be decent from a pvp perspective . There are still many dead talents or talents that have no real use outside extremely fringe situations
Again, I may have started this thread awkwardly, which is my fault. I know and acknowledge that there are a good amount of dead or useless PvP talents for many specs/classes, but on the other hand there are also gameplay gaps across specs that could be filled in with these, which is what I was aiming to point out.
I would not be opposed to a 4th PvP slot being implemented, but as others have stated in this and other threads, I would prefer having a good selection of useful options rather than just adding more slots.
For example, the Warlock PvP talents below are hardly ever taken in any type of match:
Bonds of Fel
Gateway Mastery
They both have potential to be great, but as they are the bonuses provided fall flat compared to other options, and are just plain bad. Replacing any of these with superior mobility or melee-counter possibilities would do wonders to add depth to Warlock PvP.
Unrelated, I think Bonds of Fel would be a phenomenal ability (though OP if an AoE effect) if it was kind of like a Shadowy Duel, removing enemy players from the field for a few seconds.
I really don’t think this is true. Warlock does a lot better into melee than most other specs given how tanky it is. Also, warlock has Impish insticts, which is INSANE and also gateway mastery, which is excellent into a lot of matchups (albeit worse than other ones).
I think warlock pvp talents are in a better slot than a lot of other classes.
Well, it could very well be true that Warlock PvP talents are “good” compared across all classes as a whole, I didn’t mean to imply that they weren’t. However, from those I play with myself and what I’ve seen on streams it is not uncommon for Warlocks to suffer against melee. Now does SPriest have it worse? Probably, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for new and more useful PvP talent options for Warlocks.
I honestly think Gateway Mastery is under utilized, especially since it’s basically a team wide QoL change and reduces the CD for everyone not just the lock iirc?
With the removal of Obelisk and nerf to Observer, this one may see a lot more play in the sun
We will have to see what the latest round of Destro buffs does for the spec at 80, Shadowburn got over a 100% damage buff as well as other spells. This won’t help your spell pushback issue, but it is a positive to keep in mind!
I hate shadowburn. Always have since they made it cost Soul Shards. It should just be an execute only castable when opponent is low like in MoP(Think SwD) Anyway I have a velf I could level very easily with the warbands ™ feature to eliminate that cast pushback issue, but I wasted my boost on that human lock
For Demo, this may become useful for sure. However, one of the perks was that Gateway Mastery reduces the cast time of Demonic Gateway. Now that Soulburn is back in the game (YAY) this part of the talent isn’t very appealing (imo). It does impact the whole team, but I would be hard pressed to find this all that useful in let’s say SS or Blitz, which I believe are the two most popular ranked PvP styles at present.
I don’t know about UA and Demo, but I’ve always locked in Bonds as Destro, I really enjoy that spell because you can punish a team for pillar humping which happens often on Destro coolies
