After a few Weeks of 11.1 i wanted to give some feedback and perspective from the PvE side of things.
Class Tree
I want to start this with linking to this excellent post Malacath did already: Warlock Class Tree Is Underwhelming.
I fully agree with the perspective he is giving here about our general class tree and echo the need of a look at it, as well as a general look at the 5 man utility we bring.
This is another season in m+ where it looks like we do good damage (really competititve with other good/meta classes) but are probably not near meta because all we bring is healthstones more or less.
Another point i wanted to bring up is the mobility of warlock that is still lacking but at the same time our defensiveness is not on the level of where i feel like this is justified (tanky but slow caster fantasy vs the reality of it being neither really at the higher end while other classes feel like they are allowed to be both). This could be an opportunity to replace our not very interesting capstone in soul conduit with a cool and interesting mobilty one.
With this out of the way i want to go over our 3 specs and talk about what i enjoy and where i feel like improvement is needed.
Demonology
Let’s start with the in my opinion most well done spec Warlock has to offer right now design wise. Demonology feels really good to play right now to me and i enjoy the gameplay it offers between:
- 1 minute Tyrant ramps
- the mini rotation Doom offers in aoe
- the tier set enabling a dreadstalker focussed build
- the way it deals its damage in dungeons constantly without being super reliant how tanks pull iun dungeons
- the general building and spending loop being quite satisfying
- the new pets we got this expansion still feel cool (vilefiend variations)
Now i still feel like there are some improvements to be had, especially:
- While i really like the tier set the way things are right now imploding imps only becomes worth at 3 targets (without the tier set) and at 4 targets with the set. Implosion is one of the most fun buttons to press in aoe and i dislike seeing it being diminished like this
- The right capstone side of our talent tree is basically dead as it stands right now and never worth to invest in limiting our choices there
- Now this is a little weird of a point to make because i enjoy how it feels currently but the Demo cooldown flow is extremely scripted and locked in. Meaning that you want to send your vilefiend or your dreadstalkers on cooldown even if its value would be extremely low just to send it because you dont want to delay your 1 minute tyrant ever also it means that the ramp timings can feel very tight (which i personally like).
- While we have some cool pets i still would love to see more models added to the spec (demon stables pretty please?) and i wanted to ask what happened to the teasered Nether Protal rework for a later time from the beta
Affliction
Oh boy. I want to start with saying that i think the current iteration of affliciton is porbbaly the best one that utilises Malefic Rapture that I played yet and i dont wanna make this come down to a MR vs other spenders discussion because i feel like both can work and be fun and there are good points for both so i will leave this aside for this thread. So let;s start with what i enjoy:
- As i said the current gameplay of rapture is probably the most fun iteration of it i played so far, i really enjoy the 1min loop affliction has (between small and big with our darkglare)
- The hero talents acutally give some diversity in how aff feels with soul harvester making it focus more on the MR part and hellcaller making it feel more pushed in the direction of your dots
- the talent tree feels like it has some options in there between what you want to achieve/the situation you are in
Now aff has quite a few issues in my eyes that i feel like could need improvement:
- The first point is one i feel like the current raid highlights quite well. Affliction feels like it might have been pushed too much into the funnel niche as it has alot of options for this which makes it single target suffer. The current tier set also transformed our premier single target tuning knob into a cleave knob as well which makes it more awkward (even though it is pretty strong for the current raid)
- While i like the 1 minute windows of affliction it feels like it is too hard locked to them, which is especially felt in dungeons. If the tank decides to not pull with your 1 minute CDs in mind you can quickly feel like you deal no damage as outside of those your only hope is to get a tier set proc for okayish damage.
- In conjunction with this point i am actually of the opinion that afflicitons static shard generation (and the pace of it) doesnt quite fit it. while it feels good to pool and spend at times it can be really awkward with not wanting to spend your ressources even tho damage might be needed (soul harvester is handling this a little bit better as you gain 3 shards for casting your soul rot CD), but especially in dungeons this can feel quite bad.
- Phantom Singularity having a 45 second cd feels more than awkward and usually you hold it for your 1 minute window, at the same time it being hasted in its duration (more haste means it will last shorter) works actively against its improvement in infirmity.
- QOL can feel lacking especially in terms of agony management in aoe pulls. While i get (and am in favor) of why vile taint doesnt line up with agony in aoe pulls refreshing agony doesnt feel good still and just feels like upkeep you have to do to actually deal damage instead of being satisfying to press. Also the setup time for affliction feels kinda slow at times in dungeons.
- Oblivion is still terrible and makes me wonder if it is in failed talent territory at this point or if tuning can just save it
- While i didnt rly want to make this about it at times i still feel like some gameplay component hat is more about enhancing dots instead of profiting from them could be cool (blackened soul kinda scratches that itch)
- some furhter out there point i could make is that i feel like the soul theme of affliction feels kinda unexplored so far (we got drain soul and soul shards basically). I feel like there could be alot of cool abilities lurking in that space.
Destruction
Now i will admit that i am biased against the current iterations of Destrunction as in my eyes it all comes down to resource generation and all the effects tied to spending that heavily diminished spenders feeling good to press. But alas let me start again with what i like about destruction:
- I like the way shaodwburn feels right now and how it gave destro some much needed mobility. (especially breaking its more limites usage in execute where you can almost spam it at times, note its only exciting because that isnt always the case)
- I like hellcaller as a hero talent and how it enhances your spenders (or gives you a big as ruination) for some exciting moments
- The aoe rotation with a build with shadowburn and channel demonfire actually feels engaging at lower target counts because you have some variation in what you press.
- Soul Fire still feels great and the overfiend is still cool.
Now the points i would like to see improved (my bias will be showing):
- Let’s start with my biased point of destructions resource generation being too high. it still feels like we are giving out Chaos Bolts like candy which means that they are not reeally feeling special anymore. At the same time so much power is in spending (just spending) nowadays that it feels like you are mostly pressing chaos bolt to fuel these mechanics (like ritual or ruin/demonic ritual/blackened soul etc.) instead of it being a big hitter.
- Hellcallers damage profile also ties into this as it is basically making destruction feel like a destruction coated dot spec as you are mostly spending to amp up your blackened soul damage instead of destruction doing damage with its own spells.
- In bigger aoe pulls destructions passive resource generation still goes into very degenerate levels and you are still just mashing rain of fire and it loses any engagement in its rotation. I wonder at this point if giving immolate the formula agony has in aoe where it doesnt generate much more resources after 5 targets more or less.
- Rifts still havent found their role i think (also dimensional ripper is still bugged to not be usable anywhere and acitve rifts are just bad)
- I am personally not a fan of rain of fire as our main aoe spender as its current desig just doesnt feel very destro to me as you just spam it out to deal damage instead of having it being high value per cast and it makes things dependant on the tank not kiting out of it.
- While not as bad as affliciton destruction in dungeons can also feel very dependant on tanks pulling good in dungeons as a commited cataclysm on a pack into the tank pulling more monsters just feel bad as you are so reliant on wither for your damage
- I am not sure how i feel about mayhem being better than havoc in so many situations when it was announced as a talent that should not be better than havoc but just an ease of play one.
- Our current tier set 2p feels very underwhelming at this point as it was repeatedly nerfed for its bugs on the ptr and then those bugs got fixed (luckily the 4p is very strong)
I hope that this feedback reaches some ears and while i dont expect everything from this to be done i’d love to see some action on some of the points i brought up here and would like to see more warlocks come in and engage with the points i made here