Thursday, September 25, 2008

WotLK Warlock changes lackluster

With my main being a warlock I've been keeping a finger on the pulse of the warlock community, the changes to come to wotlk and I've even been keeping an eye on the warlock beta forums even though I usually avoid wow forums like the plague.

And while some of the changes to the warlock seem interesting for PVE affliction overall the changes are extremely underwhelming. Whilst most classes get significant new talents that will change the course of the game for them (for better or for worse) the new warlock talents are 'more of the same' at best and 'bloody boring' at worst.

The overall opinion of fellow warlocks on the warlock boards is one of general dismay. The feeling of not getting any talents worth their salt and very few changes to the overall gameplay leaves most of them wondering if they shouldn't just re-roll to a deathknight which seems to be the new warlock archetype.

The primary problems in PVP of a warlock have not been adressed in that they will remain easy HK's for melee and while Metamorphosis looks interesting on paper at a 5 minute cooldown and a 45s duration warlocks will literally have nothing 90% of the time to peel melee off themselves.
With the overall power curve increasing and more classes being equipped with anti-fear/anti dot capacity the warlock will once again find themselves pidgeonholed into one or two cookie cutter specs for PVP and will find themselves at a great disadvantage to classes that were previously easy targets.

To top things off the beta forums of the warlock community seem completely devoid of developers. Whilst some forums are literally brimming with developer posts the warlocks have been left in the dust leaving even the most well-phrased intelligent posts untouched.

For some obscure reason the demonology tree is now filled with crit increasing abilities that have absolutely 0 effect in pvp and do not change the average warlock DPS in the slightest and the complaints for both demonology and destruction are myriad (even when you just ignore the QQ ones).

All in all the only real improvements are in the affliction tree, an area that was never seen as a problem by the warlock community as a whole. We will retain our ability to solo pve and be decent in pve in general as affliction but woe to the warlock who would like to see the inside of the arena or a bg as anything more than an easy kill.

With the news being at chaos bolt, haunt and metamorphosis I am afraid the novelty for playing a warlock in Northrend will wear off fairly quick.

It's sad to see such a grand class lose so much of it's uniqueness without gaining anything significant in return.

I'd like to think that this is not QQ although it does sound like it a lot. It is most definitely the current state of affairs as gouged by the warlock communities all over the web...

Since I am affliction and am solo PVE oriented the changes for me are looking good and I will remain faithful to the class towards the bitter end but I will think twice before I enter my lock into an arena come wrath unless I feel like being sat on or feel like humping terrain obstructions.

I am not one to accuse a class of being overpowered of underpowerd, because I really don't care that much. I want a class to be fun, exciting and unique and it seems that the warlock is losing a lot of it's uniqueness come wrath and will not be nearly as exciting as many of the other classes I play.

Maybe the death knight is the new warlock, maybe the warlock will turn out better than the math and the current talents suggest, but to me it's not about power, I really don't feel like I should be able to 'pwn' everything I come across. But an expansion is supposed to be new and exciting and the warlock changes do not reflect this in the slightest. It'll be the same old warlock in a brave new world.

(On the plus side if all the warlocks re-roll I'll be the only warlock at 80 come wrath which is an interesting prospect hehe)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was really excited when I first heard about the demon form spell....then I tried it on the ptr. Oh my, what a buggy p.o.s. and besides that, the "extra" armor is barely noticeable, I still got tore thru by melee. And if that didn't happen I either got banished by another warlock, or feared by a pally. IMO the form is way underpowered...either buff it some, or remove the cooldown so we can do some "form-dancing" and make it useful. I'm just afraid they're spending way too much time balancing the classes around their glorified duels (arenas), and taking the fun factor right out.

Once upon a time the classes were rather un-balanced, but I was willing to live with always getting killed by "X" class because I knew I could usually kill "Y". Many people would go onto the forums and complain about it -- "They have no skill, but their class is OP vs. mine so they killed me!!" -- The developers' response was: (not an exact quote, but I saw it all the time) "The game isn't balanced around 1v1 combat, or even 2v2 for that matter...it's balanced around battleground group pvp" Hmmmm....

Anonymous said...

I was also really excited about the new lock specs but i was sadly let down when i first logged on and used my talents. I first went into full destro and went to IF and was messing with it but to my disbeliefe i wasnt hitting as us locks are refered to as a "cannon". I thought maybe it was just my gear so i talked to a friend who has a main lock and he said he wasnt either. So instead of giving up i just went and droped the gold to respec to all demonology, which was awsome because of the +stam and +intel for me and my pet but the whole demon form is way to ambelished. it would be great if it was just like a druid form and we could switch back and forth. So yet again i went back and respeced full afflic and i like it, not 2 steps outside SW i used my soul thing on a squirle and it crit hit so it crit healed me which sounds likke it could be usefull in pvp with a bunch of horde sittin around and you hidding. If you dot'em and throw a soul at them you could eaisily be back at full and the with instant cast howwel you can limp away.

All in all i think the locks are now the struggeling class, still fun but one must rethink how he/she plays her character. I will also be a hardcore lock player to the max but i might exparament with others but i will always come back to the best..

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