An Open Letter to Blizzard: The State of Affliction Lock

[Hashbrowns]

Let me tell you a story. A long long time ago Drain Life used to do something. And fear didn't DR (or at least not until forever). The days of DoT, Drain, Fear, reapply DoT were glorious. And all was right in the world. Since then an evil force has taken over the minds of Blizzard. They have forgotten the dark arts of Corruption. They no longer care for the Warlock and will do everything in their power to destroy what was once a beautiful thing...

No but seriously what is going on? This isn't some mid exp patch that may of broken a few things. This is a completely new, stat squish expansion that promised "major changes" for Locks.

Why am I procing Nightfall at lvl 10?
Why is this shown? I don't have shards. Even if I did they don't do anything. Why is Nightfall procing for 10 levels before I can even use it? And even at 20, why are you giving me instant demons... this is not Demonology... I want something that feels like Affliction, that's why I chose this spec. All those shard enhanced spells, even at later levels are really lackluster.

Why are you going away from what made this spec great?
This is a dot spec, plain and simple. It's about applying dots and out lasting your opponent with health regen. Make Drain Life DO something. Give it a slow, make it tick for something that's worth while. We need something to prolong the fight. Dots need to tick WAY harder, everyone's dots. You should fear the dot and think about dispell. Not just blindly keep attacking and bandage through the damage.

Give us Soul Swap.
We need something, let us apply dots faster. Or consume dots for a small burst and reapply on new target.

Give us Howl of Terror and Soul Link back.
We need an AoE fear. We shouldn't have to juke everything to survive all the time. If you don't want to give us movement (since we are inverse Mages) then at least give us a chance to create some distance.

Make Curse of Agony baseline.
We should be able to Curse and Disease at 10. Thats pretty standard Afflication stuff.

Move Fear to Level 10.
If you can enter a Battleground you should be able to CC as DPS. You get to heal as a healer... All Tanks should have AoE damage before they enter a Dungeon too. I don't understand why they give some class abilities and others not. Everyone should have the tools to do their jobs at the level they are trying to do them.


This isn't meant to be a QQ, I'm generally sad that this is the best they could come up with for a "complete revamp" of Warlocks. Broken abilites, procs that do nothing, and just general lack of attention to what this spec is about...

What say you Locks?

 

[Neon]

I am pretty bummed I can't put 3 DoTs on everyone and make thier healers decide who is more important.

 

[Achmed]

I think you should post this on official forums with help of friend if you don't have p2p account.

I doubt Blizzard care about TI..

 

[yasueh]

Should just go back to drain damage + healing is boosted by number of targets with DoTs on.

 

[Denurd]

Even if he posted on official forums blizzard wouldnt care.

To the point. Most of the changes you mentioned are not needed at level 20(as we are talking in f2p discussion)
The only thing that would actually help warlock would be as you said, CoA and Haunt,that would give shards some usage other than instant resummon.
Which , actually is decent. Player with brain will murder your pet,and lets be honest that succub with seducing and steady dps is actually a huge part.

Also keep in mind that Soul Swap now requires 1 soul shard,therefore its not like in MoP where you just copypasta dots and hop around while abusing fear.
So yeah,multidotting is now NEEDED regardless if you'll get Soul Swap or not.

In short, say hello to your "shadow priest".

 

[TheFupaKing]

Fear > Bane of Doom > Unstable Affliction > Corruption > Shadow Bolt > Shadow Bolt > Soul Fire >Soulburn > Soul Fire > Soulburn > Drain Soul

Get melted.

Too bad Blizzard focuses more on higher levels...

 

[solvogero]

you're a level 20 warlock...shouldn't the letter just be 'state of locks'

 

[Hashbrowns]

I am pretty bummed I can't put 3 DoTs on everyone and make thier healers decide who is more important.

Yes, 10x this. That's what it should be.

 

[Junoo]

Let me tell you a story. A long long time ago Drain Life used to do something. And fear didn't DR (or at least not until forever). The days of DoT, Drain, Fear, reapply DoT were glorious. And all was right in the world. Since then an evil force has taken over the minds of Blizzard. They have forgotten the dark arts of Corruption. They no longer care for the Warlock and will do everything in their power to destroy what was once a beautiful thing...

No but seriously what is going on? This isn't some mid exp patch that may of broken a few things. This is a completely new, stat squish expansion that promised "major changes" for Locks.

Why am I procing Nightfall at lvl 10?
Why is this shown? I don't have shards. Even if I did they don't do anything. Why is Nightfall procing for 10 levels before I can even use it? And even at 20, why are you giving me instant demons... this is not Demonology... I want something that feels like Affliction, that's why I chose this spec. All those shard enhanced spells, even at later levels are really lackluster.

Why are you going away from what made this spec great?
This is a dot spec, plain and simple. It's about applying dots and out lasting your opponent with health regen. Make Drain Life DO something. Give it a slow, make it tick for something that's worth while. We need something to prolong the fight. Dots need to tick WAY harder, everyone's dots. You should fear the dot and think about dispell. Not just blindly keep attacking and bandage through the damage.

Give us Soul Swap.
We need something, let us apply dots faster. Or consume dots for a small burst and reapply on new target.

Give us Howl of Terror and Soul Link back.
We need an AoE fear. We shouldn't have to juke everything to survive all the time. If you don't want to give us movement (since we are inverse Mages) then at least give us a chance to create some distance.

Make Curse of Agony baseline.
We should be able to Curse and Disease at 10. Thats pretty standard Afflication stuff.

Move Fear to Level 10.
If you can enter a Battleground you should be able to CC as DPS. You get to heal as a healer... All Tanks should have AoE damage before they enter a Dungeon too. I don't understand why they give some class abilities and others not. Everyone should have the tools to do their jobs at the level they are trying to do them.


This isn't meant to be a QQ, I'm generally sad that this is the best they could come up with for a "complete revamp" of Warlocks. Broken abilites, procs that do nothing, and just general lack of attention to what this spec is about...

What say you Locks?

Open letter to blizzard, doesnt email nor post on official forums.

GL HF bud.

 

[Bakeyourface]

Since we are wishing here. I wish Blizzard you give Frost Mages Blizzard and Frost Armor at 20. Thank you have a nice day.

 

[Hashbrowns]

Open letter to blizzard, doesnt email nor post on official forums.

GL HF bud.

Sadly it doesn't really matter where it's posted... lol

 

[Tom Ganks]

I am pretty bummed I can't put 3 DoTs on everyone and make thier healers decide who is more important.

Gms actually visit the site and forums pretty often. I'm taking a design class with a current blizzard tech support guy. He mentioned how funny it is when a f2p thinks he can get away with bragging about tricking a gm on the forums. I would think its crucial for them to do this in case anyone actually manages to break or exploit something that other players in game wouldn't notice to report. But when it comes to players wishes, I'd recommend the battle net forums or in game suggestion feature under help

 

[Hashbrowns]

Since we are wishing here. I wish Blizzard you give Frost Mages Blizzard and Frost Armor at 20. Thank you have a nice day.

Mage is plenty viable. This was a discussion of what the class needs, not so much at 20, but just in general and where it has been in years past. It's about as equivalent as Blizzard making Frost Mages cast Fireball. It would be nice if they'd get back to their roots. And I think a few spells could really improve things. But maybe this is better posted on the WoW forums. Either way I'm going to roll the dice on Aff with a BoA staff. I'm itching to play this spec again...

 

[Neon]

Mages are total wet noodles atm, the only reason people play is for the cc.

 

[Swoops]

This is a completely new, stat squish expansion that promised "major changes" for Locks.

This isn't meant to be a QQ, I'm generally sad that this is the best they could come up with for a "complete revamp" of Warlocks. Broken abilites, procs that do nothing, and just general lack of attention to what this spec is about...

There wasn't a complete revamp of Warlocks, though. That happened with MoP. They actually said the complete opposite, planning few changes because of that revamp last expac.

Quote from the patch notes:

Warlocks received some polish but remain relatively unchanged. They saw the most change of any class in Mists of Pandaria, and so were in need of less revision this time around.

The Iron Tide: 6.0.2 Patch Notes - World of Warcraft


Really, the issues are an unfortunate side effect of playing the game at a random (and very early) stop in the leveling process.

By 25 you have Seed of Corruption, Drain Soul (which buffs dots since it was combined with Malefic Grasp) and a major glyph slot that you can use to significantly buff Drain Life. Howl of Terror is at 30, Agony at 36 and Soul Link at 45. These things are all in the game, and there's really no compelling argument that they're integral to the early leveling experience.

Nightfall probably shouldn't proc at 10, but it makes sense since it's baked into Corruption for Affliction. It's a minor annoyance for the few levels that you don't have Soul Shards but really not that big of a deal.

Soul Swap got nerfed into the ground at max level, so I can't see them expanding it's role .

Dots could probably use a buff, and they might even get one! Removing dot snapshotting at max level has definitely hurt Affliction, that's where most of their DPS came from. Affliction isn't looking super great at 100, there might be hope for some buffs.

Really though, Destro and Demo are both solid right now. Expecting every spec to be good/viable for semi-competitive PvP at every level is a but much. Every class is viable, and I'd say at least 20-25/31 specs can hold their own. That's pretty awesome considering the game's balanced around being capable of questing.

 

[TheFupaKing]

I just want my felgaurd back.

I'm demonology aren't I?

 

[Pooh]

They really fucked Afflilocks a lot, i was looking forward to Epic Heal Time with my good friend Soulburn with his cousin Drain life and his imaginary friend ,Harvest Life.

No more Soul Stealing with Drain Soul when that brings you more souls where you imprison in stones......

 

[LennywBT]

Demonology FTW!
Affliction would be cool to have more abilities at 20... would be very very cool, spaming dots around... --- top dps.

 

[Junoo]

Sadly it doesn't really matter where it's posted... lol

exactly, why put the effort in to making the thread and making it open to "blizzard" like they dont have access to the internet.

 

[Rollop]

You should post this on the forums, they listen occasionally. I think it has merit because what you've described sounds like a jumbled, mixed up class/spec starting out. Not just a case of being "incomplete" with more abilities down the road.