Hey guys, this may be a worn out topic by now, but I think at this point in time I’d personally like to make a post about the state of warlock and the changes currently being made/ that have been made. This is me airing out my feelings as a long time warlock player having played every iteration of the spec since vanilla.
First off, I’ll just say it right away. Whoever, or whatever team is currently working on warlock needs to be moved to another portion of the game or removed from the team altogether. There has been almost ZERO communication with the community on what we actually would like to have done to warlock, and it seems like the people or person making these changes is completely out of touch. So out of touch, that they are actually doing the COMPLETE opposite of what the community actually wants. Which isn’t really surprising, but whatever. Why do we have to meet the devs half way on every… single… change…? Why can’t we just have demonic core procs? Faster pet summons? Some mobility? Why is soul shape gone?
This hasn’t been an issue since just the start of Dragonflight, it’s been an issue for a while. Warlock was gutted in WoD and has been a “good” performer, but a horribly designed spec ever since.
Take a look at MoP, find what made the class fun, and bring it back. Hint: IT ISN’T SHADOWBOLT…
Second, Class fantasy is good, but in all honesty. WHY do we have a 6 second pet summon??? It was literally faster to summon a pet in Cata? It’s 2024, get with the program. We shouldn’t have an extra button to press to make pet summons faster, oh wait, we did, it’s called Soulburn. It was put in the game during Cataclysm, why not just use that and make it a Soulshard spender to summon pets instantly instead of our 3 min CD that’s so punishing for no reason? Hunter summons are instant…C’mon now…
Now that that’s out of the way, lets get into the real meat of this post.
Communication: I believe that over the past expansion we’ve been met with maybe 10 posts… maybe? And none of them were received well. I do understand that some were necessary. Tyrant portal combo in season 2 was WILD and maybe a little too strong, in terms of burst dmg, but who cares… It was FUN. Just tune the numbers a tiny bit instead of making our class less mobile… removing core procs and destroying fun interaction between pets and tyrant isn’t the correct move. Then only for them to take half a step back after backlash, making us meet them “halfway” again… Very obviously you (the warlock developers) aren’t listening, or if you are, you aren’t acknowledging the feedback the community is giving. I know some of it is hostile, but at this point, the warlock players are fed up with the terrible decisions the team is making on behalf of our class, so it’s understandable. Me saying it’s understandable doesn’t mean that I don’t condone that behavior.
That said, here are some things I would like to see personally for warlock.
Affliction: I don’t even want to get started on this clown-show, but I will. I’m just going to tell you how to fix it. And it’s easy. Remove shadowbolt, poof, gone, done. Replace it with Malefic Grasp from MoP, bring back soul swap, bring back snapshotting, Allow UA on multiple targets. DON’T Make it a builders spender with RNG building. Just make it a rot class… That’s all it’s ever wanted to be. Allow us to spam seed. Allow us to drain multiple things with MG procs with nightfall (cuz it would be cool asf). Allow multiple UA’s and remove the spell that will not be named… Tell me that doesn’t sound fun… If you REALLY want us to use spenders, just make it UA and seed as spenders.
Destruction: Fire and brimstone from MoP. You’re welcome. Also fix the placement of like, every spell in the talent tree. And add something new, I know you can think of something fun and new, it’s possible. I believe. Oh, and while you’re at it, please change incinerate spell effect, it doesn’t feel good to press. Old one was better
Demonology: Why? Just why? do you want this spec to be so unfun? You basically nailed it in S1… You could honestly just bring it back and it’d be fine. NOBODY, and I mean it when I say “nobody”, wants to press shadowbolt more… Why do we have to be so immobile. Mages literally get casting while moving baseline next xpac. Give us back demonic core proc spam. IT’S FUN, at least a lot more fun than shadowbolt spam. Additionally I think that a good idea for the spec would be to make things like hounds more interesting/unique. All of the war within changes are passive damage bonuses, why not make pets do cool stuff? My main feedback for this spec is to not go the direction you’re going with it, or warlock will continue to die off. Aff is already the least played spec in the game. And we have been forced into Demo. With Destro already kinda trash to play, you might kill the class as a whole.
Conclusion: I know some of it is kinda doomer, but for me I’m just sick of the out of touch feedback AND changes from the Developers. Honestly I don’t think I’m overreacting at all in this post. People will stay “It’s still alpha” but in my mind, warlock has been in alpha testing since WoD. They don’t know what they’re doing and they don’t play the spec. There is zero percent chance the people developing warlock actually play it in the game, or play the game at all for that matter. That said, it’s really all I have to say.
PS. bring back Soulshape.