One of the few things I disagree with only because it has been instant for so long when it was a destro-only talent.
Instant Shadowfury acted as a spell-casting stop that could be used “around” pillars. When Spell Lock was on CD. It stopped melee closing gap and stopped near-death targets running away, or being rooted by a mage or boomie and preventing them from out-ranging your Fear/Coil. Instant Shadowfury could be used BEHIND you (while on a mount). It could be used to weave nukes e.g Immolate, Fear, Chaos Bolt, Incinerate, Conflagrate (breaks fear), Shadowfury, Fear.
Giving it a cast-time was a heavy nerf. Along with making Shadowflame a choice… again to keep melee off you so you could Fear or port.
The reason devs don’t waste time on these forums is because they are filled with misinformation and low quality posts like yours.
“I join random BGs in PVE mythic gear with 7% versatility and one shot people 80 ilvl below me. This class is so busted in PVP.”
Shadowfury having a cast time is a good, or even great thing for us as warlocks.
If it was instant we would have less time to do anything after it lands due to the gcd, unless it was also off the gcd which would be quite powerful. If it gets kicked we still have shadowflame school as demo or aff, or fire and Chaos if destruction.
You do need to lead people a bit sometimes and need to press it before you are already dead if using it to peel, but it’s not really so bad having a cast time. Pretty rare to miss, and it wins me plenty of games as it currently is.
We have a really powerful snare, good cc, gate which is pretty decent and port with Impish instincts for cdr which is actually kind of insane. We aren’t mages, but it’s not so bad. Warriors are pretty good into lock and affliction is struggling a bit for sure, but the demon armor buffs will help slightly and it’s not impossible to win right now especially depending on your partner(s)/comp or the lobby.
I think two things are going on here. You may be thinking of PVE for warlock. Others may be thinking Affliction specifically.
Demo was actually pretty good in WoD PVP. You are thinking about the pve focused quote.
Early BFA aff was squishy. inevitable demise oneshot tho. Later demo and destro were OP.
Early Shadowlands lock died too. Squishier than mage with less mobility. Later we were OP (all specs)
Not that it really matters. Destro is pretty good right now and Demo isn’t bad either.
As the xpac goes along, we start to out-scale others with equal gear (and maybe some class tuning). People always look back at: “remember how warlocks used to global people in [insert expansion]”
The whole thing about the class getting better with gear just simply shouldn’t be a thing. Warlock toolkits is just bad and has been left multiple xpacs back. UA backlash is a joke, dot dmg is a joke. Hellcaller affy has a chance to bring back that rot aspect to affy but blizz refuses to do anything about it. Locks need a ton of work to not only their talents (normal and pvp) but the class design in general. Its all very bad.