Yeah, they’re failing to comprehend the lore & the class at its core: Which are practitioners of magics that are considered dangerous, forbidden, volatile and the practices of which the study of is considered to be a vehement risk – whether it be fel, void or … otherwise.
Heck, even in WoD they had a quest called ‘Secrets of Soulbinding’ – Where Darion Mograine, the Death Knight, on behalf of the Ebon Blade, is trying to learn more about undeath: THROUGH WARLOCKS! —
“We have reviewed Ner’zhul’s notes, which you brought to us previously. Though we are closer to understanding how these warlocks have learned to bind souls and control the undead, the picture is incomplete.”
Yes, but the helm was only created because they couldn’t control the undead - Because they suddenly desired to meet their own ambitions & goals, thus they created the Helm of Domination to create order from and for their chaos of undeath.
Later on there was a weird retcon (a drop in the sea of retcons that Shadowlands unleashed) — That the Dreadlords saw the free-willed undead as an opportunity to bring the Helm of Domination into the fold, to further their goals for Denathrius & the Jailor.
Ultimately however, the point is that the Legion introduced undead into its ranks before the creation of the helm lol
Warlocks fit the necromancer title more than Death Knights do. lol
Death Knights use the same cosmology power, but they’re hardly the classification of necromancers. Otherwise you may as well call priests ‘Paladins’ and vise-versa, lol
On that note – As mentioned per above, priests and pallies use the same power of the light - You don’t see people stamping their foot down saying:
“Paladins are melee! They use holy light! Priests are cloth spell-casters, they shouldn’t be able to use the light — It’s too close to paladins!”
nor demanding priests to be removed from the game due to such, lol
Well ok Felron, doesn’t change the fact that the Burning Legion controlled the Scourge during the Third War. Dreadlords were Scourge heroes in Warcraft 3, could summon infernals and controlled the Plaguelands before Sylvanas took over.
During the ~20 years of WoW, have warlocks had anything remotely close to Fear Undead, Control Undead, Shackle Undead, etc? To my knowledge, the only thing was they included a Greater Banish talent that rolled several other creature types including undead into Banish. That wasn’t around for long though.
When have warlock players in WoW been able to interact with undead in any meaningful way besides killing it?
In Scholomance and the Plaguelands, do you see necromancers with undead minions and think “oh that’s a warlock!”? No, I’d say that’s unlikely.
So I’d say that undead minions are not at all what we as warlock players would really have access to. Adding a glyph just for that would take some pretty odd justifications given what we can actually do in game.
Not really. Affliction already skirts the edge of necromancy.
Destro and demo focus on demon magic and demons themselves but affliction is focused on assaulting the enemies body and soul. Devouring the soul in the end.
The only thing really linking affliction to demon magic is their minion. Remove that and everything left could be seen as necromancy.
Corruption
Agony
Drain life
Soul rot
Drain soul
The list goes on. Afflictions ties to demonic magic and demons are far looser than the other two specs, and there’s definitely a lot of overlap with necromancy
But yet again, when have we ever had meaningful interactions with undead creature types? We’ve never been able to fear them, control them, shackle them, or cc them in any way outside of a talent that nobody took and was only around for a limited time. Warlock players in WoW have never showcased any type of mastery or control over the undead.
Priests on the other hand actually interact with undead creature types and they can even bring people back from the dead which can be considered a type of necromancy. They interact with the undead, warlocks do not.
Because all those CCs are from the light. Undead do not feel fear or horror. They’re only deterred by the light which we do not wield.
Our cc not working on them makes sense, but the basis is there. Affliction deals primarily with attacking, manipulating, binding and devouring the soul. One step into learning to bind the souls to dead bodies and you’ve got a full blown Necromancer.
Another fun fact that lends credence to the argument is that affliction only has a shadow school of magic. They don’t use flame or shadowflame. It’s all shadow magic, which is primarily the realm of necromancy.
Death Knights can CC them without the power of the light. In fact, they can actually dominate and control them as well as summon undead minions of their own. We cannot.
Warlock players have never had the ability to control, minipulate, dominate, summon, or interact with undead in any way. So why would warlocks be able to summon them all of a sudden due to a glyph?
And just because necromancy is shadow magic, doesn’t mean that shadow magic is necromancy. Again, you’d never walk into Scholomance or Stratholme and see necromancers and say “oh, those are warlocks”.
Please show me in the game where a warlock has summoned or controlled undead. It hasn’t happened, so why would we be able to?
Where in the lore could all undead priests use holy magic? There might be 1-2 undead in all of wow lore who are able to do that. And yet every priest in game does it constantly. But you’re going to say warlocks shouldn’t be able to use necromancy despite a warlock being responsible for necromancy on Azeroth?
Are you trying to compare player characters to legendary NPCs? If so, I hate to tell you that they can do many things that are far outside the scope of what players can do. NPCs, particularly ones along the lines of Jaina, Khadgar, Thrall, Bolvar, etc can do many things that we cannot even though we share base classes with them.
Here’s an example. Jaina froze a huge chunk of open water in the raid Battle of Dazar’alor. Will mage players every be able to accomplish that? No, not in a million years. Mage players will never come close to that power level.
Now, if a legendary warlock NPC brought necromancy to Azeroth, is it likely that we can somehow summon undead? It really seems unlikely considering that warlock players have never been given anything even slightly similar. Sure, there is a chance I guess, but what in the last ~20 years of WoW has given the impression that warlocks will get the ability to summon undead?
My point still stands. Every undead player character has the ability to cast holy spells. That should harm them. There are only a few instances of someone being so devout to the light during their life that it let them cast holy spells even in undeath. To say that is fine but someone who delves into shadow magic shouldn’t have necromancer cosmetic skins is silly.
There isn’t any rule saying a warlock couldn’t also be a necromancer. But holy magic does in fact hurt undead characters. So that goes against all the lore for every undead priest to be able to do that.
Actually there’s a reason for this, game balance. The game would be broken if Forsaken weren’t able to be healed by holy magic. Did you know that before launch there was a time when Forsaken were actually classified as Undead? It was fitting lore wise but it was incredibly OP as it made them immune to most forms of CC, so it was changed before the game launched for the sake of balance.
So as far as game mechanics and content within the game, what has been included that ties warlock players to necromancy? Nothing, absolutely nothing. There are plenty of necromancers in the game and even player classes that can summon, control, and manipulate undead. Absolutely none of it is tied to warlocks.
On that note – As mentioned per above, priests and pallies use the same power of the light - You don’t see people stamping their foot down saying: