Great point I complete forgot about that functionality. It would likely make things easier as you said.
3 Likes
Having not played the Alpha, like many of us here, my feedback is quite limited. Iām just going to comment on what Iāve observed and what I perceive about Warlocks going in to Shadowlands.
I play Affliction or Destruction most of the time. I at least try Demonology out every expansion to see if I like it, and most of the time itās just not my preference.
I will leave a couple general thoughts about Warlock specs first.
Corruption for All Specs
I remember at the start of Cataclysm a common thing expressed about Warlocks was that every spec felt like it prioritized DoTs and that didnāt necessarily fulfill the āfantasyā of playing a Demonology or Destruction Warlock. Correct me if Iām wrong here and just remembering Destruction specifically, but I know that was a comment sentiment about Destruction at least.
Point being, with the return of Doom and Corruption to other specs, I feel like this is circling back. I know itās probably in part due to having different class developers now and they may not realize this was once a point of contention among Warlocks.
When unpruning was proposed, I really hoped for mechanics like copying DoTs with Soul Swap to make a return, abilities like Fel Flame or returning things like Soul Link to other specs. It is nice to see Curse utility being brought back, but generally I fail to see the point in all specs being able to cast Corruption.
When I played Destruction in Wrath of the Lich King, I could cast Corruption, but I rarely did because it was often better to use that global/cast time for other spells. Immolate served the need to have a DoT, and was much more useful than Corruption.
Anyway, perhaps it will be different this time around but I feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities with unpruning.
Teleport
The return of Demonic Teleport as a baseline ability is nice, though. Having to choose between that and Mortal Coil was a pretty poor design move, especially with the existence of super mobile classes like Monk and Demon Hunter in the game. Warlocks had less mobility than they did in Cataclysm for a long time. It didnāt make much sense. Technically we still do without Soulburn, but at least there has been progress.
Talent Changesā¦ Or lack thereof
The lack of talent changes is puzzling. I donāt know if there is more to come, but I certainly hope so. I found myself changing my talents a lot more in Legion and previous expansions than I have in BfA, and after seeing that a majority of a talents have been unchanged along with Ion mentioning they had internal issues keeping up with talents while they were working on Azerite traits and Essences, I just hope that some changes are in the works.
There are a lot of talents that just donāt fit the bill, and some that are nearly 100% pick rate because of their strength. Yes, this has been the case before in the game. But I feel like there is a need to point out that current talents deserve a good, hard look from the devs.
I can think of two great examples - Demon Skin and Grimoire of Supremacy (Destruction). There are others, but it would take too much time to get into that.
Currently there is little reason to pick anything other than Demon Skin in any situation. The benefit from it is just so good, for both the Warlock and pet. With pet summons getting a 6 second cast time in Shadowlands, it solidifies it as a pick even more.
But at the same time, nerfing/removing Demon Skin would hurt Warlocks quite a bit. I would recommend just buffing Soul Leech to be the Demon Skin version and giving Warlocks a more meaningful selection of choices in that row. I try to conform to leaving feedback about how things feel as a player instead of recommending changes - I know no developer likes to see that, but in this case I think the only move here is to just make it baseline. That is, of course, if there is any desire to promote healthy options in the talent tree.
There isnāt much to say about Grimoire of Supremacy other than it is just such a strong talent it is difficult to pass up. I have heard of some Warlocks using Roaring Blaze but personally I havenāt witnessed it in BfA.
Affliction
UA stacking removal is a great change at least from a PVP perspective. I donāt feel it ever belonged, but I am glad to see it gone.
Malefic Rapture looks like a pretty strong ability for multi-target and AoE situations, which appears to be the focus of Affliction going into Shadowlands. As of now it looks like this will be nearly all of our damage. We have a lot of DoTs to manage, even without UA stacking, but DoTs are just a means to an end.
I like DoTs, or I would not play Affliction, but it sort of looks like there might be too many DoTs. I have seen 6-7 being used on single targets.
Maybe Iām oldschool, but I always felt like Haunt + Agony/Corruption/UA/Siphon Life with Drain Soul execute was fine, and generally felt pretty fluid. Right now, the spec doesnāt look very cohesive.
Management and multitasking are two things about Affliction I enjoy but I think there is a point where it leans too much in one direction. The beginning of Legion is an example. We had Soul Effigy and UA stacking, and it was just āmoar dotsā all day every day with drains being largely ineffective.
I felt like there was a reason this was reworked. I also feel like we are going down the same path again. Maybe itās just me.
I really enjoyed when Haunt was a spender and Affliction had an obvious multi-dotting mechanic in Soul Swap DoT copying. I donāt really know why thatās too much to ask for.
Malefic Rapture looks fun, but I would like to see the spec flow like it used to and have playstyles that make sense rather than capitalizing on āmoar dots.ā
Affliction Survivability
I could be wrong, too, but it looks like Affliction doesnāt have a solid self-healing option like in BfA and Legion. In BfA, we have Inevitable Demise and in Legion there was strong healing from Drain Soul.
The problem I sense here isnāt the need to have self heals, but rather that Affliction had good self heals in lieu of the damage reduction it didnāt have that Destruction and Demonology both possess in the form of Mastery or Soul Link.
If there isnāt going to be a good drain healing mechanic for Affliction, I believe the damage reduction should be revisited. If Afflictionās Drain Life is just going to be the same as the other two specs it is just not going to hold up. Affliction just doesnāt have the utility or defense the other two specs do.
Itās not fun wanting to have the playstyle of Affliction but being a glass cannon compared to the other Warlock specs.
6 Likes
So apparently the Horde leveling is released for alpha in the next few weeks. Assuming that means less than a month, lets say three weeks, and weāve had three weeks for the Horde leveling, and theyāre also doing three weeks per zone, Iām assuming this Alpha goes into early summer, maybe July at some point, or August.
Given Shadowlands is Spooky, Iām going to assume theyāre going to tie Shadowlands to Halloween/Day of the Dead, either slightly before or slightly after. Maybe prepatch late October and release early November. Usually prepatch is a two week period, more or less.
So that gives us at least 3 more months of Alpha and probably 2 months of Beta, assuming Iām right in my guesstimates and Blizzard being corny re: Spooky Xpac with Spooky IRL Holiday.
You know what? Iāve changed my focus here. Iāve decided I just want achievements/rep/skips/keys/etc made account-wide. Then I can switch my main to whatever I want and not care as much about all the things I accomplished on my main.
Or even better, let them decide to do the apparent goal and get rid of the Warlock class entirely. Merge it with the Demon Hunter class and just make what we now consider āwarlocksā as a spec in there. We donāt fit the narrative anymore as constructed.
Demon Hunters gain a third spec that can summon, enslave, and banish demons and rely on shadow and fel magic. Destruction goes away and basically is replaced by fire mages. Melee Demon Hunters already can turn into Demons. As a caster itāll be a change of pace for that class giving them a melee, ranged, and tank. Then itās just about different armor types - and to be honest, you can just make Demon Hunters have a passive that for melee specs they can use leather, but the caster has to use cloth. Bam. Done. And now Blizzard doesnāt have to worry about those pesky evil warlocks that they want to destroy completely.
Iāve given up.
7 Likes
NGL I feel like thatās where weāre going in terms of future āclass bloatā as blizzard jumps the playable-race diversification train. Reducing the numer of classes while expanding the numer of races/player customization seems a likely conclusion.
Easier to chop up Affliction and divide it among Shadow Priests and Unholy DKs (give more of a Lich/Summoner feel to them), chop up Destro and divide it among Fire Mage and Hypothetical Ranged Demon Hunter Summoner Class, and just use Demonology (both Legion-BFA Imp Mother + MoP/WoD Pseudo Demon Hunter Caster) as the basis for the Hypothetical Ranged Demon Hunter Summoner Class.
Weāre really just stuck at an impasse in terms of design, playstyle, and lore.
As weāve repeatedly stated in an ideal situation:
Affliction:
- Lorewise = centered on use of Shadow/Void and Decay/Death but with control, attacking the body and soul of the target (vs Unholy DK that attacks body, SPriest that attacks mind)
- Playstyle = High Single Target, Low AOE, Okay Cleave, Sustain > Burst; can sacrifice Demon for own gain/empowerment, a quick channeled filler
Destruction
- Lorewise = āpureā Fel/Chaos and/or Chaotic Fire center
- Playstyle = fast paced, extremely fast, Burst > Sustain, Okay Single Target, Low AOE, High Cleave; permanent infernal or some sort of flashy mechanic
Demonology
- Lorewise = use of fel energy for self empowerment, use of demon souls, use of wide variety of demons
- Playstyle = High AOE, Okay Single Target, Low Cleave; return the ācapacitor specā playstyle by Xelnath, Burst and Sustain damage capacities are equal, variety of summoned demons and more fun in that regard, god forbid we get a demon tame system
Instead we are: Offbrand Shadow Priest, Offbrand Fire mage, Offbrand Caster Demon Hunter
6 Likes
Also would like to point out that I donāt understand why every spec has to feel like it relies on the same exact mechanics to do damage, just with different themes.
Every spec has Soul Shards, which primarily exist to fuel damage spenders.
Going into SL, every spec now has multiple DoTs to maintain.
Every specās ābig cooldownā is a demon summon.
All of the rotations feel like they merely do filler levels of damage until you use your demon cooldown in BfA. Essences like Vision of Perfection and Memory of Lucid Dreams generally make things more exciting I would say but those are obviously not going to work in Shadowlands.
Donāt get me wrong, I donāt think the basic concept of building and spending shards is necessarily bad. It has been this way for awhile now. I would like to see more utility-based spenders for shards like we used to have though. I think the main culprit here is the demon summoning cooldowns and how much damage is packed into them.
I feel like the specs lack personality. Itās weird because they are clearly supposed to have personality, right? Affliction uses DoTs and drains, Destruction is direct damage spells, and Demonology is all about maintaining demon summons.
But since BfA happened, every spec is played around a cooldown that summons a demon. Summon a Darkglare and do lots of damage. Summon an Infernal and do lots of damage. Summon a Tyrant and do lots of damage.
Since weāre obviously (unfortunately) not going back to Wrath or MoP in terms of design style for classes, Iāll use Legion as an example, especially since it is a more āmodernā WoW expansion. Each spec had the concept of building and spending, but at least they played differently and had personality. The things artifacts had to offer felt great in my opinion.
4 Likes
IMO I think itās possible to go back to MoP/WoD Affliction (ie Drain Soul/Malefic Grasp channel filler, sustained single target damage spec center, damage CD is self empowerment) and Destruction (ie bursty cleave spec center, maybe keep the Infernal bit).
Demo is frustrating.
6 Likes
Demo is indeed frustrating. The person(s) in charge of making decisions has no clue what to do with the spec and are just using the necromancers popularity from diablo 3 to design it. Whether that person alone; which I donāt believe is the real culprit, there is most likely a few people responsible for its short comings. Ion may be the lead dev for the warcraft team and cant fully be held responsible because he has a lot more on his plate, but those under himā¦Iām not here to call out those people but merely want them to start listening to the mountains of feedback.
I still canāt believe out of all the abilities they brought back to warlocks I have a feeling that they chose everything based off of classic and the outrage from demonic circle, and threw in one new thing to spice things up. Well they did have to come up with something to replace demonic circles talent slot. I wonder what abilities we would have gotten if classic was not released.
Edit: With all the criticism in this thread either from my myself or others it is getting dam well hard to offer up suggestions and feedback, because they are not communicating with anyone.
3 Likes
It is possible for sure, but my line of thinking is more that they wonāt do it. A lot of the devs that work on the game now are different than the ones from back then and I think thatās part of the reason weāve seen drastic design changes.
It is sad because Iād love to go back to old iterations of Affliction. It truly is a bad feeling when you watch a spec you really enjoy get dismantled and changed into something that doesnāt even make sense.
I feel bad for people that main Demo. They just canāt decide what they want to do with it and it really seems like they are just afraid of it resembling Demon Hunter at all, which is kinda sad because it came first.
5 Likes
Unpopular opinion, Demo is great. It could use a few QOL buffs like Implosion working like Spirit Bomb, baseline Soul Strike, and a kick, but overall itās quite a fun spec to play.
Overall Iām fine with 1 of our specs being super burst oriented, but all three being tied to a big demon cooldown is too much. Iād like to see Darkglare removed entirely and the dot extension built into Misery, which would also make the gcd it triggers feel better.
You enjoy being an imp mother with two dogs and having two of our talents tied to using our Felguard such that if we want to use an interrupt we are by necessity sacrificing one to two DPS CDs? You are looking forward to a Talent choice in a row in Shadowlands dedicated to Doom in order to make it vaguely more functional up from being not functional at al? Absolutely zero interaction of Corruption in Demo (and Destruction) in Shadowlands is great? You donāt think we need any of the Azerite traits that make Demo bearable in live to be baseline?
Have you tried using a practice dummy without the Heart of Azeroth to see how it feels? It sucks. Bad.
Cāmon now. There are glaring issues.
2 Likes
Yes. There are a ton of specs that have a pet. Demo feels nice summoning an army of them.
If you had read what I wrote you would know that I want a usable kick.
Demo and Destro arenāt using Corruption. I have no idea why everyone thinks that an ability that does negligible damage, has no interactions with the specs, and has a 2 second cast time will be used. It exists because theyāre revamping the leveling process and they want sub level 10 warlocks to have another button to use. This so so glaringly obvious I donāt even know what to say.
All three specs are fine without essences. Iām going to miss Inevitable Demise and Baleful Invocation and a few others, but overall weāre fine.
In Shadowlands itās baseline. Itās dumb to return something baseline and not have any interactions. Itās of course going to be a technical DPS increase to maintain it and something that will be expected of us in order to make DPS numbers given Blizzard will likely tune our damage on the assumption/expectation we use the ability. So yes, we will have to use it.
I have no idea why you enjoy being an Imp Mother when the alleged fantasy is Master Summoner Who Took Down The Legion And Repeatedly Defeated Or Tricked Legion Generals Including Dreadlords but okay sure.
lol
2 Likes
Weāre suppose to be warlocks not necromancers.
3 Likes
Corruption deals 78.75% spellpower.
Shadowbolt does 34.5%.
Imp does 25%*5
Incinerate does 64.1%
For Demo it comes at the cost of a Shadowbolt, which means that it also comes at the cost of an imp, so thereās literally 0 chance Demo stands there hardcasting it outside of wild circumstances. Even more so when we want to implode or run DC.
Destro is closer, but I really struggle to believe that the fragments we get from Incinerate arenāt worth the damage difference. Especially when Havoc is up, or when we start getting some more crit.
You obviously have hated this spec for the past 4 years, and given itās not getting a significant rework it looks like youāre going to hate it another 2. I love the fantasy of Demo. Itās much more unique than ālol TWO pets!ā
lol
Good thing itās an army of demons.
Iām fine with being a summoner but for the love of God add diversity to the summons.
Gonna bookmark this so you can eat your words later lmao
Edit: Decimating got a nerf, which means I guess they listened to the ONE feedback about it being too strong
updating the OP now
Good. I look forward to it.
Decimating Bolt balance/nerf, still no update to āsmart cursingā on Impending Catastrophe, Scouring Tithe is still hard cast and is the only one with any meaningful class-dynamic interaction (the soulshards), Soul Rot still has a health cost.
New PVP Talent (okay I guess)
2 Likes
An army of weak pathetic demons. I canāt blame you too much for not understanding what warlocks should have been. I have personally mained a warlock since vanilla and the direction that all the various devs have taken over the last few years really shows how bad its gotten.
2 Likes
Ahh yes, Iāve only played a lock since BC so Iām not a real warlock. Got it.
Sure, if we could go back to MoP destro Iād be over the moon. WoD Demo was good too, but that doesnāt make the current iteration not fun.