Warlock Metamorphisis

I know it’s like beating a dead horse and its old news, but SoD warlocks really go to show how tank warlocks would do great in retail. I have no idea why they didn’t just buff warlocks’ metamorphosis into a like- melee oriented demon hunter esk spec in legion while maintaining its identity (a bit how SoD has them running currently give or take, with some updates ofc they would need the love.) and make it a full fleshed out offensive tank class instead of stripping classes to make demon hunters semi-functional, and then abandoning them. Like I last remember warlocks still used demon charge the last time they had meta, even even warriors broke the mold of their charge (they were doing double time, leap and running two rushes to build rage while rooting down enemies, if not mistaken). they needed to upgrade the meta not turn it into a fully different class. demon charge is undoubtably A stage 1 classic like move they could have litterly given meta warlocks Vengeful retreat (for casting) then made it an option to have the slam or dash (for initiation and fast burst damage, or the slam and infernal rune to add more debuffs for agro hold) , in retail we have things flying all around that would, it was starting to go much faster then the pace of a lowly demon charge would keep up with.evereything would have fit the meta if only it was buffed and fit into its spec instead of completely stripped.

I really have tried playing demon hunters to get that fill and they feel just as half-baked as the intention behind them was. they could have made their job so much easier just giving Night Elves access to warlock and run a questline like dks in wrath keeping them locked in the demo spec until they leave and get the same results if not Moreso and have less the chaos of having more classes than we need (Even demon hunters are asking for a sorcerer\caster like off spec, like that’s because warlock should have been that median} , and the caring of all classes need spread way too thin. that seems like it would have been much an easier way to upkeep, balance. and generally, keep all players happy. Thoughts?

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I never really understood the counter for warlocks not getting metamorphosis or a “tank” spec because they would look similar. Warlocks are all about harnessing demon power and demon hunters themselves are demons. Why would it be such an issue of having a demon form if our whole class is commanding and controlling demons?

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I’d really like to see a meta (or dark apotheosis) tank spec for warlock, though personally would prefer less out of the current demon hunter kit. There’s almost nothing I’d really like out of it. I’d rather see damage in the form of shadow cleave and fel flame, and movement rooted in what warlocks currently have but modified.

Like, Demonic Circle. Go tank spec, you still cast the circle on the ground where you are but it lets you select a different location. You teleport there, and then can teleport back via Demonic Circle: Teleport. Still have fel rush, but its a quick boost forward akin to Hover and then works like normal increasing speed.

I’d also really like to see curses as part of the damage reduction rotation, like enemies (even bosses) affected by weakness do 15% less physical damage, and afflicted by tongues does 15% less magical damage.

If you go really crazy, I’d really like to see a ‘curse aura’ as well, but what it does is makes it so friendlies within the aura proc extra damage on their attacks that’s attributed to you. It should be a small amount of damage, but a huge amount of threat. So friendlies doing damage (with some sort of maintenance on the aura) becomes how you hold threat. BUT its moveable, so you can apply the aura to a co-tank and then THEY get the benefit of the extra damage/aggro. Then on taunt you yoink it back to yourself. Then its a form of tanking where managing that aura and when you move it to the other tank (in raids) is part of the experience. Should be easy-ish to keep it running, but non-trivial.

EDIT: Given the void theming of the expansion, personal preference as well is the transformed form is more void themed. Something void caller/void revenant/void wraith esque

Not to mention in SoD they have perma Meta, DH get temp Meta. Blizzard could definitely separate the two classes if they wanted, warlocks would absolutely need permanent uptime for their demon form, since they wear cloth much like druids who wear bear form while as they wear leather. the demon form gives armor (Not lifesteal and more hp) and new moves to help support tanking or melee again very much like druids in that respect not Demon hunters and it would be super neat to see morphs that operate like druids rather than making another warrior class and leaving the possible warlock tank in the dust, Demon hunters come with melee stock and just kinda amp up their game when they go meta as well as getting HP and Lifesteal, a minor amount of armor nothing else crazy happens with it. no new moves, no new function and no separation of when they’re not in it aside from the rampant healing honestly, they shouldn’t even have the move or it should be refurbished at best into something that’s not called metamorphosis and is treated more like paladins Avenging crusader. or the guardian of the forgotten queen someting that gives them alot of intangibility for a brief moment.

currently in SoD for warlock tanks the rotation is basically keep agro with some insta cast agro hitting moves some taunts, to keep up buffs like a life steal that you put on an enemy’s and lifetap when you do run out of mana because you do run off of mana. and you can’t run out of mana as a tank. and they implemented in demon form that you get x% more mana per health in demon form so it’s a pretty neat thing to manage, you run off of mana naturally as a caster you go demon you functionally run off of your hp. and then there’s like mana regenerating executions like killing someone with drain soul and get x% amount of mana per second after the kill for so many seconds. which comes in handy to exclude the amount of life tapping you have to do which is a nice middle ground to dance between in demon form out of demon form, Hell a beautiful way to keep them absolutely different is have warlocks able to heavy stun groups to go caster for a few while everyone is heavily stunned keeping them busy like a tank should laying down heavy damage, then jump back into demon form dive in to tank some more it’d be so cool and fun to play as and for balancing reasons just make the stun cost health :stuck_out_tongue: .

then you have your hp regenerating abilities or outright healing abilities come into play to tank and just generally your resource to lifetap which would play more into just to keep your ebb and flow for lifetapping not so much just for sustainability but “this is your height of your healing use your life tap abilities now rather the overhealing” then you get brought back down to just basic sustainable healing. Ebb and flow. which that alone is separate from demon hunters they build up hatred and soul fragments then just use them to sustain themselves or hurt the enemy a bit like warriors as is what their resource is essentially, warlocks are picking and choosing whether it’s smart or not to take more hp for extra dmg or when they can afford to roost their mana, their health, to take more health to use abilities for agro. there’s been times I’ve peeled more health off than usual just to lay down more damage and I wasn’t limited by Cd’s like DH, most of my cds as a warlock tank are just upkeep to keep up dodge rate, healing rate etc. and that in itself is a wonderful separation from DH to warlock, warlocks are in control, DH are limited by what they can take but perform decently in their respective fields I’m sure a DH would burst life steal faster than a warlock can and likely have a more regular sustainable income while as warlocks would flux, and a warlock can just muster more damage than a DH can with enough opportunity build up and are generally much more flexable I.e Paladin (warlock) x Warrior (demon hunter) .

I definitely love the play on hp and I depend less on heals then I thought I’d need to while playing with health as a resource I feel the amount of healing I need is comparable to warriors while as it seems DH need healing alot more like Blood dks they can handle themselves as long as the pull threshold they have fits their heal threshold as warlocks it feels I can handle myself pretty well as long as I get my kills off and my lifesteal links on enemies with enough health. letting the healer focus more on the team or just topping me off, warlocks use the occasional rain of fire or something just to keep up mass agro and lay down some make up damage which is a clear divide from DH they don’t rain fire…or stun all the enemies, the closest comparison is there chaos nova, but that’s not meant to be upkept it’s a once in a while move that gives souls…then you don’t see it for 45 secs its absolutely different. warlocks are sustainable as its own tank spec separate to demon hunters, and I think it would be a pretty neat divide to see.

In theory they could separate a lock tank spec from a DH tank spec, just as the priest and paladin healing specs are different, but they probably wont because I would guess there is not enough $$ to be had from doing that for a single class.

They killed my favorite spec, MoP-WoD Demo, so that DHs could have uncontested aesthetic and gameplay space to exist, and even then Blizz could only squeeze two specs out of it.

It was absolutely the right call (for the stock-holders). DHs were major feature of Legion, and I’m sure much $$ was made.

I really really love the whole Aura Idea I feel it fits warlocks perfectly especially the whole demon aesthetic I personally want to stray away from needing demonic circle and lean more into like… the demon form or whatever they’d offer to a warlock tanking spec, but that also is where they’d have so much more room to work with giving warlocks a tanking spec instead of just having a separate class DH. warlocks are by nature casters and can-do things like portals, rituals… and they can also be demons, summon demons, so it gives both functions. and I know I depend pretty heavily on curses in SoD while tanking going back to how genius curse aura’s are. it fits the role way too well and its why I made this forum I just feel like there’s way too much that we’re being neglected of by not giving warlocks a tanking spec. instead we get Demon hunters not able to grow any further because then they’d tread into warlock territory. and there’s only so much they’re Ganna be able to take until they start having two unfinished classes.

I was actually surprise they did not add this to any of the Hero specs… Then again I think they did add something similar with Hellcaller… I really love to use that with my Warlock on Destro!

Love this new Fel Void animation with the Purple and green glow (Man I love to change all my flames to look like that!)… we just missing the Wings! :sweat_smile:

Maybe if they expand the Hero Specs we might get it… but I do wonder if Blizz will go as far as SoD were you could almost tank with the Dark Apotheosis Meta.

Hope for warlock tank died with the introduction of DHs.

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Honestly I’d be pretty happy with a hero spec meta, not too crazy, nothing too class altering. let’s us have some melee kit and what not as meta always has, and just give us enough durability to feel like we can take a healthy amount of damage…maybe not tank (which I’d much rather have the tankability, but when I’m running shammys I’m happy just saving a wipe with stone elemental and just some snazzy healing so I’m sure a off tank meta would be decent ^^) though I’m looking at hellcaller it looks pretty durable and cool (I’m admittedly a xpac behind, life and stuff) so yeah, I have hopes that wow will come around and offer us some form of meta realizing its honestly very different from DH and they’ve had their time in the sun. and they need to go back to the basics kinda like when they fixed DKS from their very jank state. Kinda like how priest and Dk’s share vampiric embrace, and Blood DKs can do dmg now rather then somewhere in MOP where they just wouldn’t die but couldn’t hit x3 maybe in the new xpac they’ll clean up everyone’s wants.

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controlling demons and being a demon are very different class fantasies is why

Which Warlocks had for 4 expansions.

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Another cliff note that came to me, and it doesn’t matter too much in this time of age for wow. but warlocks had access to physical (debatably, currently in SoD I deal an efficient amount of physical I’m sure it molded or started as shadow in retail because by time it was released the gameplay sped up alot making caster things more caster and element not matter as much completely removing auto attack. but in the grand scheme of things, I’m sure they could have fit physical into their kit if they kept an open mind and updated somethings as well as given locks meta more physical dmg options kinda like titans grip but for locks dualwielding one handed swords) dmg , shadow, fel and fire. while as DH only have access to Fire and fel ( chaos ) and limited shadow (the physical part really gets drowned out by the whole rotation, so it feeds into DK’s anti magic shield and things like fel shield for locks pvp talent) I’m not entirely sure if nether ward does it, but I know back in Shadowlands it did it. I also know Blizzards reputation on simplifying and removing things though…

going back to I feel they really unnecessarily cut a class in half and broke it into two weaker parts. now locks can’t deal in physical ( outside of fel guard ) and DH borderline can’t deal in shadow like they can fire Selectively I know they have some kit but take classic where infernals are immune to fire, I had enough of a shadow kit in SoD to fight it while-as Most the DH start up is fire or fel (chaos) so they’d outright be resisted with little peppers of shadow dmg, I unno call me an old soul (I’m pretty young still in my 20’s but x3 ) I loved those kind of mechanics that got you to get out of your chair and be like “oh fire is immune to fire, makes sense” and if someone like warlocks Fel shield or something of the like was my target I’m essentially getting resisted like there’s no way for A DH to shift gears where A meta warlock could always change the way they play to adapt to the enemy, so take a death knight if meta warlock was kept adaptable and updated meta locks would have been able to give DK’s a run for their money likely having a small pure melee kit like some of the demons more steel, physical like capabilities (vs a clustered Fel/Fire with a small shadow kit all revolving around each other/DH retail) as apposed to a death knight popping anti magic shield and just overwhelming a lock with Brain freeze, Asphyxiation,

as A death knight player I really have no issue with really any casters because they just can’t get away fast enough to hurt me, and I simply beat them to death to heal myself all while negating most their attacks or outright blocking them it so tyranical and fun, but I’d have more fun watching a lock bounce out at me as a demon and when I pop anti magic shield they just barrage me with physical non-dot moves then when the shield fades they start hitting me with dots, the games just gotten so simple now its singular kit vs kit with a few classes still retaining some creativity like druids… imagine if we got Wardens instead centered more around anti fel and cleansing and maybe even lore in that whole function on anti fel which i think that divide is imporant, druids, dks, warriors retained that creative kit because there truely unique Dh’s fall so short of that and would have stayed more healthy connected to Locks, if they took druids cat form and bear form turned them into a class named shapeshifter then replaced that whole with “night warrior” i promise both classes will die like locks and DHs.

rewatching the WoW movie and just playing legion it reminds me there’s like a anti fel the blue stuff that seems way too effective on demons and like fel, like the tainted orcs. that would have been received pretty well and actually have a longer lifetime not step on anyones toes and maybe add in more of a cleansing punishing class to fit itself in the merry balance that we had and nicely stand beside rouges not stripping them, (I know its not talked about but I was also playing combat rouge at the time, they took… a nice amount of things from them and turned it into a pirate class that have very slowly been given back in its own form just to iterate I do mean classe"s" ) rather than them stripping a viable pseudo DH class (Warlocks meta) and a few other classes to make a half baked DH class. I know alot of people wanted wardens at the time of legions release and ive heard out crys for caster punishing plate wearer (and not dks, dks are dks… unholy wielders of death magic, im talking someone who punishes them too, just outright spell, caster magic user punishers) , which sounds like wardens… but instead we have DHs and no more story to introduce wardens ever again… and demo locks wanting there meta, not all but enough that i think blizzard really should have played there cards differently, I think there’s more than enough difference with the warden classes then every other class that they could have set the line for (Much more then they have for Demo lock and DH’s the most they got going for them as … one summons…one doesn’t, but for arguement sake its because one doesn’t wanna the other does…the lines so thin it may as well be the same class split among two different characters given to one race for…some reason when it can be all the races that dabble in demon magic/locks, as Illidan wasn’t too much further from a lock that had meta) and it may have even centered the whole story with the wardens, I honestly felt pretty disconnected to everything in legion on multiple classes adding wardens would have given legion that wotlk touch but instead of creating monsters (Deathknights) it would have been noble wardens resisting the fels temptation, and in all honesty it feels like the way they did it felt a reboot of wrath just poorly done DH style the city being like ew… then saying okay. atleast the warden way would have been different, more honored with some underhand and temptation that can be done to all classes. the wardens would have offered more than A demon hunter class using a one class only warglave weapon, the wardens glaves could probably have been shared among other classes as we already have warden glave replicas for those classes (rouges and warriors) all while wardens would retain their own identity.

Because debatably warglaves from DH are more attuned to their class, where as Meta warlocks could have gotten them in the way they make weapons more focused on Meta locks. (so maybe a int/agility sword more specialized toward locks then tank pallys I guess giving them a fancy buff for their demon form, but like might fit a pally if its an upgrade it’s not like they can’t just go mog it if they dont like the style given them grey text but decent stats where meta locks gain it, and giving everyone something rather then just outright being like glaves are only for DH’s only, some people like myself like to cosplay other classes cus its fun, the most a warrior can do is go fish for the warglaves of azz to do that. then again I know they made loot not local anymore around that time. so I guess it matters little aside from giving the creators and developers more work on creating weapons for one singular class that visually looks like warglaves, then designing warglaves for meta locks but can be used as cosmetics for most all classes that can use a sword.

it really helps not box in a class while allowing for more creative powers to design, now anytime they design a warglave its purely DH only. any time they design anything for any class now it’s like their dropping goodies into each class, back then each xpack added so much to all classes, and thats what really had me excited not a new class but a new everything, for death knights that was pretty cool, for monks that was cool but that’s because they were an entirely new class and entirely their own thing introduced in an entirely new world even dracthyr were sorta cool I feel they might have been poorly received because they were a singular class/race combo, DH were just released and now we got two class/race combos that can glide it just wasn’t as unique and impressive, new classes should be a more endearing game design decision should not just introduce any new kit as a class and then kinda abandon the class, what DH’s were is what deathknights were but how it was for every class each Xpac now its like classes get little to nothing other than a very underwhelming rework honestly Dh’s was the first mistake of game design shift, it should have been locks demon spec rework (And not as profound as it was a demon zoo, just demo tanking and having a more perma meta option with like demons grip for dual wielding warglaves, which honestly sounds so much better as were dealing with the legion… who gave illidan his powers… and warlocks can now get meta on the level of illidan like bam. not we had them all imprisoned and now there were letting dh’s free into the wild to go play while demo locks can now summon a unnautal zoo of demons that would have them normally executed for working with the legion. Wardens are so much more complimenting then booting current Demo locks and remodling the whole house) wardens fill that new class role if they insisted on a new class so bad, OR just upgrade every class dodge the new warden class give demo locks what they had and promote them to full time tanks, and give every class some love they deserve from the titans… or the legion instead of starving everyone and giving legion artifacts that got scrapped at the end of the xpac so there was honestly no gain and a tumor of a class DH’s. and now sometimes we get another class dropped in not knowing its about to be starved and reworked to high hell before it see’s any new development or growth I was honestly suprised to see Attunement for dracthyr I thought blizzard was running on so many fumes it could only muster two specs a class, blizzard is really shooting themselves in the foot with half the game choices theyve made since Legion. and I think that hero talents is supposed to be some sort of life saver to that issue… but theres only so much they can add to it before its another talent tree within a talent tree… thats controlled, rather then allowing dual specing… and making there job easier just managing three talent trees and not… 6? each class, 3 of which fall under a new name that’s not talents and is likely get neglected or just scrapped in the next two xpacs giving it the benfit of the doubt.

Blizzard really just put so much weight onto themselves when they could have more expertly appealed to the audience, added to their game and kept things simple enough to balance and grow I didn’t mind the talent tree’s growing allowing new ways to spec, Specs themselves being able to be mix and matched, some things on talent tree’s becoming natural born abilities while adding new talents in there sted having new story to transverse.

all the idea’s I push forth would have fit perfectly into things while fitting the story and not branching out so far fetched like at this point warglaves should be a bit more rare because…were not in legion, were not fighting the legion… and were not fighting demon hunters, its almost indie to see warglaves drop from enemies just because we have demon hunters which by the way… can only be wield by…Demon hunters even though we just fought persay a ton of things that shouldn’t have warglaves because there not demon hunters, and maybe they’d have lil’ easter eggs with camps of DH or like stray DH …or like even demons where you kill them (kinda like those rare enemies) and they have warglaves for cosmetics and just a decent item for Lock metas or pally tanks that could use it as a temp replacement. they tried so so hard to make DH there own class, to make them so independent theyve become the tumor version of Dk’s not quite making it up to their light, Dk’s are so glorious in story, origin and just game design, power design. that they killed off what was arthas retconned the whole lore and still I love to reroll A dk I love playing it, it just plays so well even as blizzard tries to change it and rework it, because its a good damn class thats really hard to change, just like locks still lock, but rn Dh’s are just some…overrated version of what they should have been, even know they play as if a spec had a class… it just feels so bad playing it and some people who main them think the same, if I hadn’t fallen in love with wrath and dk’s i’d be maining a DH and complaining for more kit, more reworks for some life vest to save the class, even the hero talents are like a spec of a spec its sooooo bad and I try soooo hard to make it not bad but its just as hard as it was for blizzard to convince themselves to leave demo where it belongs with locks, and just adding more to them, and allowing nelves to have the lock class. ( kinda ran on a tangent there but I feel it all fits, so just placing this here for viewing and opinions I’ve proof read it a couple times, but if anyone wants to tell me where I should look back at and edit more or just fix because its too hard to understand I’ll happily go back and fix anything. x3 <3 )