Guest Post: The Demon Within
Today’s guest post is submitted by Shadowhold from “From The Ashes” guild on Arthas-Us. They seem to be recruiting one warlock right now so hop over there and apply!
All of the recent QQ by warlocks has dampened my spirits and made me seriously reconsider my motivation for playing my warlock, who has been my alter ego since the inception of WoW so many years ago… I have spent hours upon hours poring over preferred specs, gear itemization, and spell rotations and cross referencing all of it with other sources, and even running a few numbers myself, and after everything I’ve done I have come to a conclusion: warlocks need to be rebalanced.
I’m sure that’s an earth-shattering realization that you’re all reading for the first time in my post, and I’m equally certain that this is your first introduction to sarcasm. As far as PVP is concerned, warlocks are little more than a free kill and slightly less than a free kill that you have to earn. Regardless of your spec, albeit some are marginally worse than others, you are absolutely certain to be Rick Rolled by any comparatively geared player capable of targeting you who realized you’re a warlock, and promptly giving a LOL as he tears your head off. Your only real chance is if you’re fighting another warlock who has become so disillusioned that he PVPs with glasses over eyes and a wistful nostalgia for being a decent class.
In PVE you are doomed to a life of Soul Wells and Soul Stones, with little else to contribute to the raid. If you meet a comparatively geared DPS player, be prepared to use the irrefutable excuse of “Yeah, but I play a warlock” if they say anything about how they beat you on the DPS charts. It seems that warlocks have truly come full circle from the olden days of yore, aka Vanilla WoW, when we were useful for – you guessed it – Soul Stones, Health Stones, and Banishing the adds on Garr.
This return to less than mediocrity comes with a bitter sadness and resent after our days of glory in TBC. The dawn of Seed of Corruption which saw all warlocks rise to heights unimaginable, raw power coursing through our evil veins. It is with a slight hope, then, that I say that we warlocks must not lose heart; we must continue to QQ on all message boards and spitball ideas about how to fix our dismal and neglected class so that we may return to a spot of respectability in both PVP and PVE. We aren’t asking to rule on high like death knights or to be armed with a full arsenal of ridiculously OP stuns or Cloak of Shadows, we aren’t even asking to be able to kill 300 people in Bear Form and pop out and heal ourselves before killing another 300, we’re only asking to not be the new ret pally (pre-God Mode patch) in all of our specs.
Little things like soul shards can be forgotten in a time of crisis like this. We should all turn our attention to the bigger picture of awful damage output, laughable survivability, impotent fear and the fact that at level 80 I still can’t summon a Doom Guard who will permanently remain in my control even though I’m Demonology (I mean WTF? I’m level 80; let me have a Doom Guard for once…).
I am playing single-player games by now and will not return to WoW again. It is not only the sad state of the Warlock class, the game is getting old. Following the stone-old addiction principle of EverQuest. It needs new MMOs that take the genre to the next level.
As we all know we are hurting in pvp and pve. I have no suggestions for PvE, we are doomed to be substandard there….. but there is still hope for pvp believe it or not.
Ever since I switched to the seduction/destro build listed in an earlier post here I’ve been doing very well (compared to our QQ at least). 1v1 Mages, paladins(who don’t bubble and LoH), warriors, hunters, non healing-shamans, are all possible kills. Actually several of them are virtually always. Believe it or not, mages are a piece of cake with this build most of the time. Time your seductions, shadowfury, and deathcoil properly and most classes will be dazzled, unable to put much damage on you at all.
Most healing classes(save a shaman kill occasionally) will still be impossible and DK’s are LOL if they have a clue as to what they are doing…. But I highly recommend this build to pvp!! Post is surviving 3.0 destruction or something like that.
Here’s a link to the current build
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent.....qrMuAkAcot
good luck!
Hmm ive never heard of the guild “From the Ashes” and im on arthas. And no1 hop on over to our server! I MEAN IT! Its full to the brim right now so shush horns! 1k ques are NOT FUN!
Anywho warlocks are good in in pve imo but pvp is our problem.
“Believe it or not, mages are a piece of cake with this build most of the time.”
Sure, but let’s be honest– if mages aren’t auto-kills, your class is COMPLETELY broken.
I have two friends that used to be PvP/PvE beasts with their warlocks, they’ve pretty much given up on it. Anytime I have dinner with them they’re always bitching about how their Warlock feels useless now.
lol, great pic though.
DOTAMONSTER
AKA: Darren
/quit
Time of crisis! wow, lmao, you guys are just a bunch of whiny B$#?%$, LEARN TO PLAY!! 10 man i top the DPS chart 1st or 2nd in overall DPS for the whole time i’m in the raid. 25 man I’m in the top 5 !! what are you complaining about ? I use and Hybrid build 0/41/30 and have no issues with DPS! PvP isn’t that hard either with a little effort. You guys should just quite playing wow and save us your lame excuses for your lack of talent!
What a great post to acompany my decision to quit warcraft.
Do not expect much in 3.0.8 and 3.1 is far away for a fresh disappointment. They might turn us warlocks back to playable in the next release but we are done for S5. Personally, I want instant buffed shadow bolts with no CD for all trees to get me back to the game right now: 8k should be enough.
Congratulations to Kalgan, Ghostcrawler, Vaneras and the rest for boosting the classes they play and shifting the game out of balance cos they want to win all the time.
Here are their baby classes that will never get nerfed:
Ghstocrawler: Druid, Rogue
Kalgan: Mage, Warrior
I am not sure who plays pally right now.
Also see: http://www.urbandictionary.com.....erm=kalgan
You made it in the dictionary.
Dear Jtedéfonce,
Regarding your post referencing the alleged “time of crisis” I wrote about and your irrefutable denial of it due to your position in such prestigious places on DPS meters: my statement is known as hyperbole… look it up. Writing devices are hard :’(
Yours Truly,
Shadowhold
ok ill give you the whole pvp thing cause i remember when i was able to smash priest, palis and mages faces in but all of a sudden they kill me without me even realizing it. certain builds can wreck a class. IE Affliction can kill any Shaman Priest or Pali simply because of unstable affliction cause they are Dumb enough to Cleanse that.
as for PVE i give you a thumbs down. our dps if done correctly can reach upwards of 4k-5k dps (on bosses). we are by far great dps in raids now, we beat out aoe classes (dk, pali and Huntard great thing volley is getting nerfd)
For S*** and giggles here out WWS report on our last Patchwerk fight all top 3 were locks with over 4k dps.
http://wowwebstats.com/jafofme.....186-337428
there should be no excuse on Warlocks that cant dps. we all miss the days of Demon sacrifice and spam Sbolt to gain the uber dps, but now we work a lil harder, but we will certainly be dominate over the mages that cant dps anymore.
I agree that if you play a warlock correctly and have solid gear that, in a raid environment, you can excel at damage output. I think that the paragraph on PVE that I wrote is misleading and easily misunderstood. I should have said that in PVE we have nothing that is truly unique anymore (in terms of raid necessity) like Curse of the Elements used to be. I know that the whole idea behind the new debuff system is to change grouping structure so that a certain class is not a necessity for a specific instance (like CC used to be in Heroic Magister’s Terrace). Also, as always, we tend to do better in some fights versus much worse in others. The real complaint that I have is firmly rooted in PVP.
Just today I was doing some good, old fashioned PVP and I had my face repeatedly wrecked for the duration of the battleground. Playing as Demonology, aka “the survivability spec” as far as PVP is concerned, I would have expected to be able to do much better. There are a number of things that I think could be changed to give us a slight buff in PVP (where I think we are really lacking). I won’t enumerate them all here, but I think we can agree that something needs to be done in terms of warlock PVP survivability.
I have been near the top of a lot of DPS meters too, so I agree that it’s completely ascertainable given the right player, spec, fight, etc. I suppose that, in short, I’m saying that the PVP problems we all know about are much more severe than the (debatable) PVE problems and I sincerely hope to see some changes to rectify our PVP status soon.
thats cuz your groups for raids are bad.
warriors are possibly even more broken than warlocks. they suck as of now.
Dinged 80 with my pally alt today. Guess what, he is now my main. Bye bye, dear lock. My only regrets is that I wasted the time to lvl you from 70 to 80 and actually tried to play you. See you in 4.0 when the pally sucks again.
Those who are living in hope, or denial as they case maybe, and are trying to get honor for when locks are ‘fixed’ are fighting an up hill battle. Battlegrounds are awful,
Here is a typical battleground scenario.
1) run around for a bit
2) get one shotted
3) res at grave yard
4) go back to 1)
I used to play battlegrounds endlessly. I just stopped bothering. Im also waiting for the time when you need an arena rating of 2000 to start raiding.
I didnt read all the comments above - sry I dont have time, but I wanna say that:
Every single warlock QQin about PvE - Needs to L2P!!!
Yeah, We suck in PvP. But warlocks have highest damage output in raids. And if You’re only used for SSs and HSs, blame yourself and reroll Mario!
If you’re doing that well in raids…then the guys you’re running with suck.
I hate to tell you this…but that’s total crap dps on patchwork. Once again, locks topping the dps chart basically means that the rest of the raid needs to do a serious gear check or learn how to play.
everyone is evenly geared t7 and up and its about skill at this point. we wreck naxx 25man (the entire raid) in less than 4 hours.
lets all go to blizz con and show blizzard how mean warlocks are
i cant even bring myself to level my lvl 70 lock because i roll demon and its very uneventful. i hope blizz will fix this tree, i really hoping for access to new demons
Amen. I do 5.1k on PW as a *hybrid* spec for Pete’s sake, and I’m using 3 bits of 10 man gear. I cast 3 dots and spam incinerate. It’s stupidly easy for the DPS it does, tho still harder than my mage was lol with zero dots and 1 spam cast.
PVE is not remotely broken with 4 specs able to top the meters with varying skill required. Blizz are not stupid, they know we are pretty much ok in PVE, so stop the QQ or the real issues we have will be ignored.
the only issue i see and it covers pve and pvp is you have to go destro for everything. I thought blizzard tried to “brake” this pattern of one tree for pve and one tree for pvp. It looks like they put everything in one tree though and it is far away from what the warlock is meant to do; shadow damage.
I have heroics and some epics. I am demo with 2k spell power and i was beaten by a mage with 1240 spell power who just dinged 80! This is outrageous. I had 1240 when I was level 70 ffs!!
I mean beaten in DPS (see above)
As stated below, 5.1k DPS on patch as hybrid. I’d link it but as usual WWS is down/lagged. Admittedly I couldn’t beat the hunter. Plenty of aff doing 5.5k so please don’t tell me we’re broken for PVE. Yes we aren’t the meter dominating SWP OP class anymore, get over it.
I disagree.. It might be different for destro but for afflication, i have 7 lich king epics.. 1800 spell power and i can barely keep up with anyone. Like I say destruction might well be different but affliction is a nightmare.
For affliction you cast 7 dots all on different timers, and put the occasional shadowbolt as a filler.
As for Blizzard being stupid thats a matter of opinion.
Well, I know at least 3 valuable specs that beat s**t out of raid bosses:
1. Deep Affliction
2. Deep Destruction
3. 0/31/40
And 0/31/40 is VERY easy, as Bish sayed u cast 3 Dots and then Inicarnate… I respec for this (with little bit modifications for PvP) when I want to BG/HC/Raid at the same time or Im on low-fps machine. Yeah, im sometimes pwnd on dps on this spec but Im constantly in top 5.
On the other hand, with my Raidind Spec (Affli), I beat EVERYONE in raids… I beat full valor SPs, full valor Furys, full valor warlocks (!! that want easyer raids and go with felguard)…
So guyz, if You have balls - go for Affli, and You will be #1. But if You think its complicated, go to deeep destro or the 0/31/40, You’ll be in top 5 if You keep with (easy) rotations.
And yeah, I dont have any valor yet
http://eu.wowarmory.com/charac.....amp;n=Saeríth
Skill is just as important as gear, if not more so. My affliction warlock has not a single level 80 epic item, but she can do the same or higher DPS as compared to better geared players.
Also, it seems like deep demonology (Metamorphosis) is not an optimal spec for PvE. Most of the successful warlocks I see are either deep affliction or felguard/emberstorm.
Affliction DPS is a beautiful thing if you have a decent dot timer. In general warlock PVE dps isn’t too horrid but the affliction ‘rotation’ could use some smoothing out especially since most other classes I play seem to have much simpler rotations.
As for PVP… we’re too squishy with no escape mechanisms and our pets inherit our squishiness and that’s pretty much where that ends. Can’t do much if you have to blow all your cooldowns just to get away from a melee… let alone do damage to it. Mage armor strikes me as a little too efficient against warlocks too but maybe thats just me.
Overall I decided to bench my warlock at 80 and play something that doesn’t require as much concentration as my current afflock (but I do play him regularly).
Beyond that… pro warlock or con warlock no one can deny that the arena representation of warlocks is practically non-existent and that warlock has lost a lot of popularity since wrath release.
So something is amiss… and saying l2p or I’m doing fine won’t change that one iota no matter how knowledgeable you think you may be.
Its not only Affliction that has descent dps…
And its not that I know more than others.
Main problem is, Warlocks arent one skill DPSPWNAH class, and ppl miss it…
Sites like this are the problem with the blogosphere.
You shouldn’t be writing articles about the warlock class if you are really this uninformed.
I enjoy PvP at the moment, and Blizzard has already announced several times that the class is getting some talent reviews in a three trees.
The world 7th 2v2 team at the time of posting this is a warlock/druid comp.
Affliction DPS is the highest caster DPS in the game.
Destruction DPS is only 10-15% behind affliction and is recieving buffs today in the form of CB base dmg increase, conflag dmg increase, and the change to the conflagrate glyph.
Skilled warlock players praise changes to the class that increase the amount of skill required to play the class to it’s peak effectiveness.
This list has been steadily increasing as the season has progressed, and will continue to do so as warlocks scale better with resilience than many other classes do (rogues for example):
http://www.arenajunkies.com/rankings/2v2/Warlock/
sites like this allow people to express their voice without being banned, and quieted by having threads deleted. If you want to go trolling try the wow forums.
Well, tbh I like this site very much. But there’s just one detail - this site is PvP orienter
Authors are experienced in pvp and they do well with writing great topics, but this guest topic QQin even goes for PvE, and thats wrong!
yesterday i pugged some 10mans with my (0/30/41) pvp burstdamage build. i had 3.5 dps without BL and 4.3 with BL… it was 3 dot and 1 dd spell rotation - EASY!
so… warlock is best at PvE/raid dps.
dont have much experience in pvp / arena but im having fun with pve gear on BGs
<3 Big Numbers 
@Mageborn did Blizz pay you for that comment? When everybody complains about locks you come and say things are ok? LOL@U
You claim warlocks are doing ok in arena by showing one team? That’s retarded.
Check this out: http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/player/
How many locks you see there … 1% ?!?! Compared to 33% paladins ?!?!
And you can still claim locks are fine?
Use the same site to check the SK-100 most popular setups … Ooops no lock there, damn…
Then you claim lock affliction does good pve dps… But where? On Patchwerk? And where else? Did you even try the /wrist rotation on some other boss?
You should do a harder encounter like Sartharion +3 drakes and then give your opinion on how “fun” it was to play as affliction.
Some people might wanna see the fight from time to time not just dot timers!
Maybe you pull out some damage on fights where you just nuke but a mage will do the same dps by pushing a lot less buttons.
And yet at the end of your comment another silly affirmation … “locks scale better with resilience than many other classes”
How the hell would locks scale better? Why? Share with us this hidden mechanics we’ve never experience before…
And why would I care about resilience since a melee class can nuke a lock in 5 seconds without any criticals. And the lock spends those seconds in a beautiful stun-lock phase.
They are not payed by blizzard. They are simply noob warlocks who go into the forums and say the curses are useless replace them or the death coil is useless replace it.
I still use all curses and death coil is awsome.
These are destro raiders who stand still and nuke. I have in many situations saved bad pulls using curses and the death coil.
And I agree on the 1% warlocks vs 33% pallies.
Noobs get real and stop posting PLEASE!
you are contributing in messing up the class go roll mage or something
Well I dont know if i was part of “this noobs” xD
But I repeat myself - Yeah, PvP is broken, and I cant talk much about that, cuz Im not PvP player.
But in PvE only full Valor Fury does more damage than me!! And thats on ALL fights!! ALL! incl sarth3D…
I think the issue here is that most EU warlocks are badly armored for PvE. You will spend hours in the LFG saying I got 2k spell damage that much hit rate but nobody will invite you. I myself hit level 80 in early december but managed to get my T7 robe last night.
Sorry to dissapoint you, but im not sittin in LFG
Im in raiding guild. Only thing left for us is sarth3d and maly heroic… so we gettin fun clearing insts and gearin ppl, and workin with skills for Ulduar
on the time other than raiding I level alt or playin BGs with PvE gear, believe me, thats FUN! xD
I dont call myself pvp player, I even played Arena for the first time 2 weeks ago
and one more thing - I Do 2.5+kdps OVERALL (~1k more on bosses) damage in 10MANs W/o BL (little less in 5manHCs) with my gear and my (PvPlike) build i have. without breakin my hands
I say one more time!
PvP is broken a bit (or a much, im not an expert!)
but PvE PWNS!
if u want easy times like good old sb spam > reroll Mage!
Well the other problem here is that destro is jack for all trades in pve and pvp. I had the impression that they tried to break the pattern of demo is pvp and destro is pve and affli is pointles so that all trees will work. It looks like they only managed to break the class into pieces and the most demanding pvp suffers. I personally like demo and I will not respec
Following the latest 3.0.8 joke may I ask all warlocks to not topup their accounts please?
Affliction is pointless?..
or I didnt got it right?..
Well, U may hate me, but for some reason I always thought that Demo was PvP style xDD
Btw - they really deserve all Warlock acc cancels!!
and Wtf with 2 min cd on Summon?? And where the hell is Summon Summoning Stone?.. Nothing at trainer…
But Ele Shamans got boosted
Affliction was pointless in tbc from my point of view. Now its quite strong cos people are stupid enough to dispell haunt.
And yes please all warlocks stop playing. Not only shammies got boosted but even rogues. My friend who is a rogue rushed to tell me when I signed in: I am a beast!! come over I will make you kneel! Something twisted in my brain. FU Kalgan.
“I had the impression that they tried to break the pattern of demo is pvp and destro is pve and affli is pointles so that all trees will work.”
what on earth are you talking about?
Affliction is by far the PVP spec of choice, meta being a far second.
I’ve already posted this, but here it is again:
http://www.arenajunkies.com/rankings/2v2/Warlock/
7% of those teams are 0/51/20, and the rest are Haunt spec.
The 3.08 changes are severely underrated by terrible locks. Getting 2000+ rating is now significantly easier due to 3.08.
Added resilience (shoulder and leg chant).
Snare break on teleport.
Demon armor vs rogue teams is a significant improvement.
Personally I hope that they don’t make any significant class changes, all I want is what they’ve promised:
some cleanup of useless talents and abilites, the soulshard system change, and maybe some demo pve/pvp love. Haunt will likely remain the spec of choice for heal+dps comps, even after 3.1.
“How the hell would locks scale better? Why? Share with us this hidden mechanics we’ve never experience before…”
Affliction locks continue to be based around tanking DPS and the benefit of self heals from SiL, Fel Armor and Haunt provide greater benefit, when more damage mitigation is added.
This is the same principle as disc priests scaling better with resilience than holy paladins do.
Disc priests currently are based around tanking to survive, while paladins can bubble (and have plate).
There’s a reason why holy paladins are stacking like 350-450 resilience at 2200 rating and disc priests are stacking like 800-900.
Look closer at AJ statistics.
“You claim warlocks are doing ok in arena by showing one team?”
Clearly you didn’t even click my link.
I showed 100 teams, which is AJ’s limit on a page of sorted 2v2 teams.
Here’s the link again:
http://www.arenajunkies.com/rankings/2v2/Warlock/
Expect the ratings on that list to grow significantly over the next few weeks, as more locks attain 1000+ resilience (the 3.08 patch brought me to almost 1000).
You mention “33% paladins”, lock/pally counters every paladin comp I can think of, counters all DK comps, and it’s only weakness really are rogue comps, at least that was the case pre 3.08.
With resilience, the potency of the shaman/lock comp grows every day.
After the 3.08 changes, rogue teams are significantly easier to beat.
Warlock vs Rogue duels for example, are significantly easier than they’ve ever been due to demonic circle in 3.08 and demon armor.
Also keep in mind that NO ONE is near the resilience cap yet. (The cap being over 1300 res, the res limit from gear+chants currently being in the neighborhood of 1050 resilience.)
About PvE, you seem to be focusing on my comment about affliction, and forgetting that I also said that destro is within 10% of aff dps, with 3.08 buffs coming.
Play destro.
The DPS is comparable to other top DPS classes, with destro locks breaking 5000dps on patchwerk now, and bringing unique raid utility, which no other class can bring (soulstones, healthstones, summoning portals).
I think it’s important to keep in mind, that there are NUMEROUS blue posts stating plainly that they intend to review warlock abilities over the next patch(es), and that the 3.08 changes are minor changes in the big scheme of what they are planning.
Changes take time, and there’s no point in joining in on a big cryfest on someone’s blog, when blizzard is already clearly making positive changes to the warlock class.
Do warlocks need buffs? Sure.
Has blue stated that the buffs are coming? YES.
Is complaining about it here going to help after blizzard has already acknowledged that the class needs some work?NO.
Sigh.
Affliction does good dps, and while I enjoy actually having to focus on the rotation, PvE is still boring as fuck to me, so it doesn’t matter.
To the absolute fuckwits who seem to think PvP as a warlock is good:
You’re wrong. It isn’t even fun anymore. The fact is as 54/17 I work my ass off and normally come in the top 3 of the boards [if I really try I can consistently top, but it's fucking hard for no real reward] unless there are a lot of arcane mages in which case I will do well up until the point where I randomly get 6k AB critted, impacted, then silenced and killed during that time as my Devour Magic got resisted.
It’s so much more fun to play a class with basically the same mechanics except with less CC and range. Actually, scratch that, my frost DK has retarded ranged burst. And Hungering Cold is actually more reliable than Fear, sadly enough. … I digress.
The point is, that warlocks are no longer fun. Without any OH SHIT buttons you are literally the most RNG-fucked class, and with the ridiculous amount of burst coming out you might as well kill yourself anyway. So I’m going to play a more enjoyable -and- stronger class, and learn to melee instead of learning to kite.
Having played destruction and afflication in raiding, I think the destruction spec where you spam incinerate is a little too simplistic. On the other hand, I like afflication but its a little bit too demanding from a micro management point of view.
I stopped PvP, and only PvE now, dissapointing really but a required step to stop me putting my fist through the monitor.. I have to say I like some of the raid fights. However, I have only been doing it two weeks and I am in full epics already. I do like the 3 drake fight, that was a fun fight.
The only problem is I seem to always be behind people on the dps.
I have played a DK and they do seem to have it much better than us. Everything is instant cast, they have range. on several abilities AND. two pets.
But its not all bad fellas buy yourself the uber Glyph of unending breath and have a beach party.
I was in the top 30% of dps every raid in blues, so eh, it was enough.
well my guild is almost fully kitted out in T7..
you must be playing with noobs..
and of course i am referring to 25 man naxx
These are all very vague references to lock DPS in Naxx-25.
Destruction does ~5100dps on patchwerk.
Affliction does ~5600dps on patchwerk.
Hope that helps.
There are some basic balance rules that blizzard have neglected.
From the looks of it, they’ve tried to make every single class do roughly the same amount of DPS in raids (given the same level of equipment and playing skill), so that all classes have a chance of being top DPSER.
2 problems I see with that:
1) The essential point of a clothie is we’re sacrificing survivability for more DPS. So naturally, we DESERVE to do more damage than heavier armoured classes.
2) Equal DPS also means we are completely and utterly @$$raped in PVP thanks to that same survivability difference. I’m talking mainly about plate classes here. Equal damage means cloth armour loses. Add spell knockback to that and our dps is definetely lower. DOTs? They’re nerfed (Thanks resilience). I hear you cry we have CC! …but they have stuns/spell unterrupt/Fear immunity (berserker’s rage? CoS? Anti-magic shell? BM? berserk? deathwish? and many many more + a trinket) In another words, we may as well not waste our already short lifetime with CC.
Another crime is that range classes ought to have some time to do some damage while the melee class runs up to them. WTF with Charge, intercept, victory rush, shadowstep, sprint, death grip, repentance.
Other point: our pets need more love - being one-shots as they are is not useful
My solution is NERF melee DPS esp those plate wearing classes. Either that or warlocks need a Cloak of Shadows melee version - (Gives 90% physical damage reduction, removes all poisons and bleed effects)