Yeah, i have felt this for a long time now, sick and tired of spending talent points just to cling to things that were once baseline, a lot of the time there aren’t any real choices for someone that wants to hold onto things.
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Wow. Adding abilities with cast times like the returned version of Corruption won’t make people use the spell in question. It’ll either occupy a slot on the UI or not even be added to a player’s hotbar. This seems like a good case of Classic nostalgia infecting the game and in a bad way.
Does Blizzard not grasp that they can’t force people to play in a way that they want unless there is a solid pay off for doing it. An ability there for the sake of being there and having a 2 second cast time… Sweet merciful crap. Even in Classic Corruption was Instant after a few talents if my memory is right.
Even Preach completely disregarded Corruption which defeats the entire purpose of returning the ability. Most Warlocks will probably do the same with Curses as well, meaning Blizzard will just delete them down the road again.
Wish they’d use their development time intelligently. Classic was great because it was the only game on the market for years. Shadowlands turning the game into Classic again with competitors is disregarding 16 years of lessons and makes it clear to me that I should not even bother with my Warlock in Shadowlands.
Here’s a trend Blizzard.
MoP Priest was great.
MoP Lock was great.
MoP EVERYTHING was great.
Why? You had a great developer. Think about it.
Just keep specs defined as they were in Legion and give players the good stuff. This exploratory game-design is a waste of time and resources. Destro Warlock Players want Burning Embers and their visuals. I highly doubt they want Corruption.
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No, classic is great because as a warlock in classic I actually feel like a warlock.
Just because Blizzard is ruining the implementation, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be getting things such as curses and corruption back.
And why don’t we have CoE/CoS (or a combined versions) back?
It’s a matter of taste, I dislike classic and even in BFA I feel like a warlock. Some curses are useful but I disagree that now I feel more like a warlock because of corruption’s return, we asked for a lot of things and corruption, the worst doom version and a 6 seconds cast for summoning a pet are not some of them.
8 Likes
I’ll put on the hat of developer for a moment. Description at character creation: “Warlocks cast Fire or Shadow magic to damage, drain, or curse their enemy. They summon demons as servants.”
Normally as a character leveled up, they were exposed to baseline skills offering things that matched the general description of the class, while talenting into specialization (this was true in Classic, though in modern you really only saw the specialized versions for your specialization).
So baseline some fire and shadow spells - maybe even cross fire/shadow magic - drains and curses and demons.
- Curses - probably just Agony baseline. Tongues/Weakness likely won’t work in raids or on bosses (they can be very powerful - so they’d at best be diminished in power). They’re likely relegated to PVP talents (or if baseline, they’d make bosses immune or mostly immune to it). Elements was a powerful spell in PvE but it made Warlocks a “must have” for their debuff, which made it required to have other classes provide it (Shadow Priests).
- Drains - Definitely drain soul. Probably drain life too.
- Shadow magic damage - Shadow Bolt. Direct damage spell, and you often see warlock mobs cast it.
- Rain of Fire. Baseline area damage spell. Fire magic.
- Basic demons. Seriously get rid of the Voidwalker - the Burning Legion rank and file was the Felguard, just replace it and let the Felguard have a full interrupt. Felhunters were - in essence - animal demons used by higher demons, just remove them. Imp, Succubus, Felguard.
- Basic demon-related spells. Health funnel. Enslave demon. Banish. Eye of Kilrogg.
- Generic Warlock talents that are mostly there because they’ve always been in the class and offer unique-ish utility. Healthstone/Soulwell, Soulstone, Ritual of Summoning, Fear.
- Possibly some spells like “Shadowfury,” “Fel Flame,” “Shadowflame,” “Shadowburn” etc (but I could see these as “generic” talent options regardless of spec). Possibly things like Death Coil (whatever) and/or Horrify Effect on fear, or even (heavy forbid) Howl of Terror might find their way in.
- You could see immolate and/or corruption baseline, but the basic class description doesn’t call for a necessity of damage-over-time. Likewise neither really will play a role outside their primary specs. Wouldn’t matter much either way.
Modern offers spec descriptions - “Affliction: A master of shadow magic who specializes in drains and damage-over-time spells.”
- Agony/Corruption (it must be instant cast)/Siphon Life/UA/Haunt are all based around damage-over-time, but it DOES make the rotation awfully management heavy. It’s a legitimate problem. But throwing in Deathbolt, Summon Darkglare, and Phantom Singularity for bursts don’t help the situation. I get that they are all based on your damage-over-time damage, but at some point you’ve made a rotation that is unsustainable for actually using drains (which is supposed to be a part of the design focus) instead Shadow Bolt is the filler.
- Add Siphon Life a passive talent, competing with Nightfall, etc.
- Limit Unstable Affliction to one per target and Haunt to one period.
- Add “Darkglare” (terrible name - make it an Inquisitor) as a permanent pet.
- Add a “spread DoT” spell - “Shared Misery” as a temporary name. Offers AoE, spreads resource gain, but still ramp-based and not as effective as direct damage area.
- Promote drain life as “filler” (potentially refreshing DoTs, increased damage by DoTs, etc) and drain soul as an “execute.” Might be places where shadow bolt is needed for mobility (or a shadow embrace proc).
- Potentially add Demonic Circle (maybe as a talent) for a single-person teleport for movement utility.
- The class becomes more manageable in rotation, offers increased survival, and an execute for finishing fights. Focused on what defines the class - heavy damage over time and drains.
“Demonology: A commander of demons who twists the souls of his army into devastating power.”
- Focus on summoning demon-based attacks.
- Improve the top-tier permanent pet - seriously let us bind a Dreadlord. They can cast spells, can interrupt as our command ability, big enough to tank, and powerful enough to damage.
- Either summoning bilescourge or dreadstalkers to attack all hostile targets in an area for a period of time. Probably bilescourge. Literal NPCs.
- Pick the other one to attack a single target. Also actual NPCs. If the target dies, go to the next targets.
- Demonic Tyrant is a really dumb name, but the concept is fine - call it a Pit Lord. * Add an area Curse/Drain/whatever spell for resources. Think how Gul’dan’s fel magic destroyed life in Draenor but on a more localized scale. Call it a “Fel Pool” for all I care. Either way, resource management tool, because for this spec resource management is key.
- Shadow Bolt is the filler. Sorry, but ideal resource management between curse and demons should make up a lot of casts, but nukes/DoTs aren’t your focus.
- Demonic Gateway would seem to make more sense here - stronger connection to the twisting nether offering utility not just for you but your group/raid - albeit probably a talent
- Class focuses on bringing in demons to the fight.
“Destruction: A master of chaos who calls down fire to burn and demolish enemies.”
- Immolate, Conflagrate, and Chaos Bolt (really, why not Soul Fire? They’re not a master of chaos magic - even talent it to add a DoT and/or weaken the mob against future fire damage) work pretty well. Possibly talent into instant cast Soul Fire from conflagrate casts.
- Focus on adding passives/talents that increase fire damage done to your tagret after casting X.
- Rain of Fire is fine for AoE and keeping “adding immolate to targets hit” or “Fire and Brimstone” prevents Destruction from dominating AoE and burst. Maybe if incinerate only hit a second target for 40% it would be okay. Either way don’t make Rain of Fire like cataclysm where it’s better than single-target immolate (though I think the soul shard cost of Rain of Fire would do that).
- Leave in summon infernal - stun, has an area fire aura and weakens mobs against your fire, has a timer and health pool. It becomes a lot of the “burst” in Destruction.
- Keep burning rush as a potential talent.
- Focused on using chaotic fire to destroy enemies.
Every spec has some form of utility - though they vary, both on how they can be used, and how much they offer.
- Affliction has the weakest area damage. They requires ramp up on damage, then spreading it to other mobs, requiring ramp up there. Their burst is average, within four casts they’ve hit their DoTs, ramping up, with two pressed against the GCD, but their sustain is great.
- Demonology has the best area damage, summoning a number of demons to attack targets, doing a lot of damage, amplified by the Pit Lord. Their burst is weak, summoning demons is great, but they each hit the target doing damage which isn’t extreme. Their pet, while best in class, also isn’t burst-heavy. Their single-target sustain is average due to resource management.
- Destruction has average area damage. Rain of Fire is okay, and if it applies immolate great. Incinerate hitting multiple targets can also be okay. Both would be too much (surpassing Demonology in area damage). They are the most burst-heavy spec. Instant summon infernal, short-cast immolate, instant conflagrate, and then a Soul Fire (potentially instant on a proc) and you’ve wrecked a target. In contrast, they have the worst sustain. Infernal is CD-based, Soul Fire is is resource intensive and a longer cast.
No, this isn’t perfect by any stretch (and we can quibble about certain points, and of course damage numbers) - but it doesn’t neuter specs, it offers some baseline commonality (all of which eventually find homes within specs), allows specs to focus on their descriptions (why is affliction ever using shadow bolt as filler?!?) and even allows the class some unique utilities. It does all of this while still “feeling” like a Warlock and different types of Warlocks at that.
2 Likes
With you on everything except this.
Why, with the endless HD different palette different families of demon mobs, would you want to limit us even more on that front?
The Hunter Tame/Stable system should’ve been integrated with Warlocks a whole decade ago, or at least with Legion.
Not to mention Felguard AOE threat sustainment isn’t that great outside of Felstorm. He’s good with ST and Cleave but when Felstorm is on CD and you pulled a bunch of things accidentally? A mess.
Leave my Felpuppy alone! 
EDIT: Just check the Alpha Class threads and we are currently the third most viewed and second most responded to class. Kinda wild if you think about how we’re usually in the bottom 3 least played classes
2 Likes
Actually, I was a Warlock in Classic, and BC, and early Wrath. Made it to a solid rank as a Warlock in the PVP System too. I’ll say it again. Corruption only works as an instant cast in Destruction. Giving it a 2 second cast time as Preach already laid out, makes it sort of like Searing Pain was for a time.
A spell you disregard. It’s there, but useless.
Plus I thought Blizzard was getting away from Destro and Demo being DoT specs. I mean otherwise, what was all that wit about 2 expansions ago where they claimed Shadow Priest played too much like Affliction? You know, the asinine mentality behind deleting Shadow and making a new spec?
Sounds like they are re-adding abilities at random because they have no clue what to give us. They should as you said give us Curse of Shadow for Affliction, or Elements for Destruction. And maybe instead of Corruption they SHOULD give Warlocks Searing Pain, and make it castable on the move?
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Or make it so that immolate also applies corruption as well. There are just so many cool ideas, yet Blizz just really throws random things around without any second thought, it seems. It’s sad, and especially noticeable with warlock ever since Legion.
They really don’t care about this class.
2 Likes
This is what has shaped my perception that “You don’t matter at all if your not a Mage”. It’s not something I say with joy or happiness. It’s a grim reality that I’ve seen reinforced time and time and time again by developers who design in a very hostile fashion to every other class.
Frankly I believe part of their design vision is also heavily influenced and driven by a desire to convince players to buy Level Boosts from Blizzard also, which is the reason they pick winners and losers for classes every single expansion, instead of making all classes equally enjoyable.
“You think you want to play Priest / Warlock but you don’t. But you can fix that for $60.00.”
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While I can come to believe this sort of business strategy was adopted throughout the years, just looking at it I cant wrack my brain around it because in my mind why make more money when you can make all the money? Hear me out here, I don’t want to turn this thread into anything other than feedback and suggestions, and most likely I will not bring this up again or go into depth.
If it is indeed the goal of developers to persuade people with 60$ (or more depending on your countries currency) boosts to switch to a new class, than the devs have missed out on a key note either from the higher ups or they were never given a clear idea on the subject and was left to their own devices. If money was their goal than why not create a game to make money instead of persuading people with boosts? The first steps that should be taken would be getting the classes all sorted out before anything so they can last a long time without attention. So the they can spend more time developing content for the game and not have another wod/bfa.
Just thinking more on the matter is kinda giving me a headache because there is so much more involved but, I am not going to go any further.
3 Likes
Honestly, I’m with you. I don’t ‘like’ to think that, but when time and again each class I try to engage in be it Warlock, Priest, or another; gets fundamentally eviscerated and in a way that the previous version was clearly superior both in design, gameplay, and all in all a far more polished and enjoyable experience (like Burning Embers and the theme of them in MoP), I have to wonder.
I mean no one is sadder to have to feel that way, since I love Blizzard and have from their start. But at least from Cata on, I’ve felt an awful lot like a customer who has been burnt repeatedly. I stayed for love of the game and the Lore, but time and again; something happens which severely detriments the game experience.
Be it the Eternal Traveler Set incident, extreme delays on Zandalari / Kul’Tirans, Nazjatar above water, and other issues with BFA; there is always something. The shortest easiest route, rather than the route that delivers a solid experience is almost ALWAYS taken. These are just the latest disappointments, and what kills me is it doesn’t need to be this way.
5 Likes
I’m not a massive fan of scorch, i’d rather felflame or something like ‘in addition to cast speed increase backdraft allows incinerate to be castable on the move’. If i get a new button i’d rather it be impactful otherwise i lean more towards ‘doing more with less’.
1 Like
We have coil, fear, axe stun and shadowfury.
Tbh hitting someone into a Coil, Shadowfury, Fear, Axe stun is really satisfying.
If you want a kick then use call felhunter.
tfw we used to have both 
We had Scorch before mages had Scorch (Searing Pain), we had Dragon Breath or whatever first (Shadowflame), we had Invocation first (Soul Harvest iirc), we had Improved Pyroblast first (Soul Fire) etc
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I was mostly talking about it in the BFA context, i’m not sure if i really want a situational filler spell.
Also i thought that scorch and searing pain were both vanilla, Dragons breath was tbc compared to shadowflame (wotlk), invocation was vanilla compared to soul harvest (cata) and hotstreak was wotlk and i think we got instant soulfire in cata.
If anything we have just been copying mages and i’d prefer that if we get something castable on the move that it work a little differently than what mages can do.
1 Like
Yeah. And now we have Shadow Orbs from Priest too. People wonder why I’m salty about Mages and rerolled one? This trend is the reason for that. Got tired of having my class repeatedly torn apart so another class could excel.
4 Likes
I 100% agree in concept with the tame idea for demons. There are three issues though with it - just from a simplicity point of view. First you have to set up the ability to tame demons and for demons to be tameable. I don’t know enough of the underlying code to know how difficult it is, but it shouldn’t be a major problem. Just remember tame was a built-in feature, so from start, mobs had to be built around it. This would have to be an added feature.
More arduous though would be setting up “tamed demon skillsets.” Assuming each demon has a “flag” for what the base model is - which I would think they do - and we used each basic demon model to set up the skill sets, I don’t know how many different demon models there are. There’s probably a couple dozen I suspect (and I’m not talking reskins, I mean actual base models). More?
You’d also likely have to look into which mobs are listed as demons but shouldn’t be - and which aren’t listed as demons but should be - but this is likely something you can hotfix over time if it’s an actual issue.
The last issue I think that arises is that you’d want to separate Demonology from the other two specs. BM does this with two pets, but straight copying that would be very blah. By description Demonology would do it with demon quality, which means flagging demon NPCs for which ones can be tamed by all, and which ones are demonology only.
There might be a simple way (say, Demonologists can tame Rare Elites and not within instances, whereas everything under rare elite-quality - there’s <100 of them according to Wowhead though I can’t speak to the accuracy - is fair game). These “demonology-only” minions though would need “improved skillsets.” That’s likely more than just making their base abilities hit harder, but also including new skills.
I’m definitely NOT saying this shouldn’t be done - it’s way overdue. But tame was a built in mechanism. Building in a similar mechanism would require, at the very least, a lot of mob updating. I’m not sure whether the underlying nature of applying flags to mobs is object-based or database-driven, but either way it’s a lot of hours. I just don’t expect to see it done, and I’d much rather see the giant gaping holes in the class itself (that seem to be getting worse instead of better) fixed.
3 Likes
I wish more of this content was ported to the alpha forum. I’m not in alpha so… I can’t post there. But large amounts of this is philosophical of the warlock class, not “specific numbers” based.
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For simplicity it could just be use two demons and all warlocks can tame/enslave any demon. That way labor is reduced. Doing the whole Special Demo Only Demons is a lot of work. Or maybe to be more sweeping, have it be Elite Demons/Aberrations are Demo only and leave it at that.
Given we can enslave all demons save for some NPCs/Bosses, I’d wager that mechanism already exists within the mob code and would have to somehow replace the “Enslaveable Code” with “Tameable Code”. But same, don’t know enough about WoW code architecture to know for a fact.
Warlocks would simply have access to Demons and Aberrations (given Voidwalker/Voidlord).
I think what a lot of us feel we need is another class overhaul or return to a previous iteration with minor adjustments.
What a lot of us are okay with “settling” for is having some Azerite Traits be baseline and more abilities (e.g. Hellfire or Demonwrath baseline, or Searing Pain, or removing the Healthstone CD for self heal, or baseline Fel/Demon Armor) returned.
What I think is a meaningful change with relatively minimal effort (ie doesn’t require inter-class balance considerations) is Demon/Aberration Tame System. Yeah it’s a distraction, like eating a tub of ice cream after a breakup, but it certainly makes you feel better.
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The devs could use all this philosophical info for the next expansion, because hopefully there will be new people working on the team and some of these suggestions might get book marked for future use that they can use.
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