As the title suggests, I am looking for feedback from Warlock players from Vanilla vs what we have seen in Forever so far.
I have been a druid main since 2004 and for the first time ever I am looking to change it up and main a Warlock. They are always in demand, there usually isn’t a ton of them, and I think the thematic of them is cool. I hate pet management which has always been my big hurdle, I am not a big fan of DoT gameplay but Destro seems sick.
Can I get some honest feedback from Warlock mains and what you think so far?
You can go affliction or destro and then go into the demonology tree to get the demonic sacrifice so you don’t have to use a pet. That’s still technically the same, but now the affliction tree looks amazing
It looks pretty good (or at least pretty similar to what I remember) at first glance. I played Affliction back in Vanilla/BA so I’ll be giving that a try in Beta. A lot will depend on the tuning and the changes they make during Beta.
Warlock honestly looks insane. Especially Destro. Already predicting that they and arcane mages will be the new Ele Shaman of this game when it comes to bursty, lethal damage. (Obviously this is from a PvP viewpoint)
To be honest, I’m very satisfied; they’ve solidly resolved the issues and contradictions that plagued all three talent trees in Vanilla.
Affliction looks truly fantastic; DoTs that can crit are a godsend, the talents are logically laid out and functional, and the concept of draining combined with DoT damage is really well emphasized.
I remain skeptical about the Drain Hope capstone, though—aside from the uninspired name for a spell that is essentially a callback to Malefic Grasp, it seems redundant given that we already have Drain Soul. Maybe it’ll have a cooldown? Still, it’s a really excellent talent tree
Demonology is now very robust and doesn’t rely solely on pet survivability and damage; in Vanilla, going deep into demonology left you feeling somewhat gimped as if the spec existed merely for sheer endurance.
A major contradiction in the tree was the mandatory Sacrifice talent required to reach Soul Link, which made illogical sense. This issue has been brilliantly resolved with the Demonic Pact capstone. Furthermore, PvP isn’t limited to just “drain-tanking” via Affliction; you can now opt for Destruction to pick up Shadowburn and Conflagrate… abilities that, when combined with Demonology’s Decimation, become truly impressive and awesome thematically
Destruction has certainly improved a lot; the Shadow and Flame synergy seems excellent to me in terms of concept. Havoc is back, and the talents that are really fun in PvP—like Pyroclasm and Aftermath—are still there.
I’m not thrilled about the Incinerate capstone; it will really have to be powerful to change my mind… It probably would have been huge to have Chaos Bolt on a cooldown but with the ability to pierce shields and immunities.
All in all, I can’t wait to play my Undead Warlock!
Warlocks are shaping up to be one of the best classes. For PVE Affliction or Destro are looking really promising with the change made to allow DoTs to crit and for Destro like the Shadow and Flame talent and the conflag talents look really really strong.
For PVP honestly warlocks are probably going to be busted as well since we can get both Soul-Link and Siphon Life and go Demo 30/Affliction 21
Playing with the talent calc and you can get something like:
Demo Tree:
30% Mitigation from Soul Link
10% Mitigation from Master Demonologist (Physical or Spell Dmg depending on Voidwalker vs Felhunter pet)
Plus whatever Armor Mitigation from Demon Skin
15% Stam from Demo Talent
Demonic Energies Talent which passively heals your pet when you do damage (means your soul-linked pet doesn’t die to attrition)
Fel Domination for an instant pet summon
Affliction Tree:
Instant Corruption
Improved Drain Life
Pandemic for 100% crit bonus to DOTs and Drain Life
Nightfall
Siphon Life
I do think this will likely end up with a Demo Tree nerf somewhere (probably to soul link or something but for now they will probably be unkillable 1v1 juggernauts in PvP)
Destro was already equal to or greater than ele sham burst in Classic Vanilla once they got gear. NF/Conflag was absolutely disgusting in skilled hands.
True, they’re even crazier now like you said. Despite losing elemental mastery I still can’t wait to try the rework. We did get a lot of new utility that will make them a lot stronger in a lot of other ways.
They should adjust Soul Link to 20% or 15% and simultaneously incentivize Demonic Pact by adding a 5% damage reduction. This would reduce the imbalance between the three specs. Additionally, Molten Skin should be raised to 3% per rank (for a 15% total) and moved to a lower row so that pure Destruction builds—or Affliction builds running Ruin and Shadowburn—can pick it up
In any case, for those of us who played back in Vanilla: remember that Warlocks lack teleports, shields, defensive cooldowns usable while stunned, and instant Howl of Terror; furthermore, Fear has a long cast time since Haste doesn’t exist yet. The only “emergency button” is Death Coil, which has a 2-minute cooldown, so even high damage reduction numbers don’t always guarantee a win
Yeah, I just read that Drain Hope becomes the filler and Drain Soul becomes the execute. That’s a really cool mechanic—it’s exactly how Retail Affliction Warlocks should be for me: powerful DoTs, draining, Drain Life, Drain Soul as an execute, effective life-stealing, a devastating instant Shadowbolt that boosts Shadow damage, Shadowburn +Ruin, molten skin, if you play full affliction and some in destro
