Warlock Idle Casting Stance - Still waiting on it

Classes Warlock
1

(Updated to Midnight. - To keep this thread alive, it needs both likes AND comments.)

Ever since the beta for BfA, there were new animations to come out for Warlocks because they got the short end of the stick in Legion. When BfA beta came out, everything was eventually updated up to the release of the live 8.0 patch… except the IdleReadyCast animation.

This animation still exists in the files to this day. It’s made, but it’s data-mined and unused.
LocReadySpellCast: https://gyazo.com/b78d912a92dad0b649eed4935d88b00c

For the longest time, both Mages and Warlocks share the same animation.

Model viewer - MageReadySpellCast
https://gyazo.com/dff31a1386435d9c940e5404258c6089
Current: - In game warlock animation
https://gyazo.com/dff31a1386435d9c940e5404258c6089 - (Same as above).
He looks WAY too calm to be casting destructive Fel magics, commanding hoards of demons and agonizing curses.

This is a thread back from July in 2018 regarding the ready cast animation:

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/2412557-Warlock-Ready-Animation-Still-Missing

Fast forward to 8.2, I came across something suspiciously familiar. You know the quest “Recharging Rustbolt” in Mechagon way back when? When you killed a robot, the channeling has an animation. The WARLOCK animation.

https://gyazo.com/729299aa5bd3f8f944ed254c21fb7011

An animation that was supposed to be used for Warlocks has instead been dumped on a daily quest. Despite this now being in the live game, we STILL have Mage’s.

To put salt in the wound, the class selection screen got an update some time ago for class identity.

Mages show this animation:
https://gyazo.com/cbd0ae385cf783602e1130afdc02af09
And warlocks show this one:
https://gyazo.com/26c55fa1c168d4ecb9cf9ee7d782b762

Why is this not reflected for in-game? The animation CLEARLY exists but isn’t used.
We are now in 10.2.6 and the idle stance still has not changed whatsoever. Why is there no attention to this?

New edit as of 8/21/2024:
Utilizing LocReadyCast animation is done once again. Only this time its used for the recently released “Get Your Warcraft Story from Xal’atath”. The menacing expression and forward-leaning pose is the SAME one as LocReadyCast.

New edit as of 10/13/2024:
https://gyazo.com/3715f22eae58a99f643db93a7de1cc14
Thanks to Nuulan’s observation, she’s right. When Dalaran crashes, a bunch of warlocks can be found with the IdleCast animation being used. The same one from the class selection screen.

New edit as of 3/9/2025:
At TomTom coordinates 29.12, 27.04 in the sewer, there is a vendor named “Brix the Bloody”. If you buy an item called “Fighting Guide: Grappling Combat”, it gives you that 15-minute no cooldown idle stance only used inside the low blow in Undermine, which is a small space in the back end of the city.
A stance that was supposed to be for Warlocks has instead been dumped on a highly area-restricted item and is NOT a fix to the problem.

New edit as of 2/26/2026:
https://gyazo.com/d143268d81256c51ce8fc43fe74e7109
During the quest “Rats Can Bite” Midnight’s Silvermoon, an NPC you tag along with, uses the Warlock animation for his idle stance. This leads me to believe Blizzard is well aware of the animation use but still refuses to either acknowledge this thread or talk about it. This annoys me to no end. GIVE US THE DAMN ANIMATION!

New edit as of 3/6/2026:
https://gyazo.com/d7545fcc2bdf3b0991d25c515a72edcd
Avoiding to show as much quest spoiler as possible, during the quest “Lady of the Pit”, the IdleCastingStance is used again when you challenge the needed NPC.
https://gyazo.com/079601d178aa7c7c8e02afeb17190a5e
Additionally, towards the end of the quest after you chase the NPC. After using the object you need, another datamined Warlock animation is used here. This one, called as “LocSummon”, was supposedly meant to be used for summoning your demons.

New edit as of 3/8/2026:
https://gyazo.com/e2b6bb859bd02daf38bbbb9dd9969e4d
At the quest giver of “O Lonely Star”, a half-formed shade is seen using the LocReadyCast animation. A shade meant to look menacing is using a Warlock animation. GO FIGURE, BLIZZARD.

New edit as of 3/15/2026:
https://gyazo.com/1bc5925b9e8a96f391da18f85718465c
During a side-quest chain called "And Carve New Shapes in the Voidstorm, the shown npc in this gif uses the LocReadyCast animation. Quit shooting Warlocks in the foot, BLIZZARD.

BLIZZARD. I am hell-bent on making threads like these lively and they won’t die until a proper response is given. I don’t have the loudest voice, but us Warlocks are well known to be increasingly stubborn.

Community. I’m only just one person and getting their attention can’t be done by me alone. If we want this implemented or given a proper response from Blizz, awareness needs to be spread.

Post more about this on the forums. Send out @s over on X/Twitter. Replies to this thread. Send out direct feedback. Help any way you can to grab attention and gain a reply. Be sure to mention this thread so they know the full scale of this topic.

101 Likes
Warlock stance question
If You Could Ask Blizzard For Just One Thing In Game
2

I didn’t even know this was a thing, but I support your efforts. It is odd that they would use the animation on the character creation screen but not in game.

Now that I think about it, I’m surprised that blizzard hasn’t given players the ability to choose animations like these. Even just like 3-4 different options would be a nice addition to character customization.

25 Likes
3

Their animations are toast. We had a whole tier set for Destro based about Dimensional Rift but they broke the animation when 10.2 dropped and it’s still broken lmao

I grabbed some random dude’s video (he mentions he wants it to have a cleave effect, homie is actually a prophet lmao) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WZBd7PBBJ4
You see how when he casts it, he lift his weapon and it stays there? It should do that for staffs too.

Right now on live, you just hold your fist up. Sometimes, if your appearance is modified with a toy or similar effect, you can see it lift your weapon up briefly before it snaps to your back.

I went off-base a bit here, and I like your suggestion to implement that, I’m just not optimistic.

5 Likes
4

Posting links in order just to help a fellow Lock out :smiling_face:

7 Likes
5

Thanks for that!

2 Likes
6

I need this glowy hands purple casting animation yesterday!

7 Likes
7

Bumping for traction.

1 Like
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I don’t know if this happened to anyone else but over last few weeks I noticed sometimes my lock is holding his staff while casting instant spells.

Especially when casting Shadowburn he would hold the staff in the right hand and thrust it in the air when you hit the spell.

Not sure if it was a bug but it looked pretty dope to be honest.

Also yes we need more and new animations for this stuff.

Let us choose to hold the staff while casting cuz it just looked soo dope.

2 Likes
9

I believe it’s a known bug so hopefully it’s fixed when season 4 comes out.

This idle casting animation isn’t necessarily new. It’s used ingame already and for entirely different things. It still boggles me that we’re sharing animations from Mages, like the idle cast and Soul Fire (Mage’s pvp pyroblast).

1 Like
10

I had no idea this was even a thing, quite impressed to see someone put it all together!

2 Likes
11

Yeah, not many seem to know about it, which is why I used to on and off go on the forums about it. I’d like for this attempt to gain more traction though.

5 Likes
12

So many years I see this type of post here and blizzard does nothing :frowning:

5 Likes
13

Maybe you should put those samples together and make a tweet so that it doesn’t go unnoticed, I seriously doubt that they are active in the class forums.

1 Like
14

Yup tweeting is the way to go. Or having some content creator throw them a hint through it as well.

Most of the foruns seems largely ignored.

9 Likes
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Unfortunately, no luck when contacting their customer support over on twitter. I didn’t know who else to reach out to over there.

I’m not even sure who to reach out that has internal connections to Blizz.

1 Like
16

I don’t think that you should try reaching their customer support team, this might be better directed to their art team or art director. This reminds me of that one time when Tracer was changed because her pose was out of character, and it seems exactly like the same type of argument to be made about the warlock class; there is an existing pose that was designed for warlocks and the one that we currently have is out of character.

2 Likes
17

I’ve seen so many posts about this in the past that I cant avoid thinking they already know about it, but want to ignore it.

4 Likes
18

Unfortunately, yes.
I’m sparking this thread back to life for some fraction of a chance it gets noticed.

2 Likes
19

I noticed it and I agree!

I wonder if it has an issue with management not liking how it made some races look while standing. ie. Tauren, lol.

I really want that casting stance, though.

2 Likes
20

Same. Seems like a lot of people do and it doesn’t make sense for the class selection screen to have it but not the live game.

2 Likes