The Warlock – The Kindness of Wrath

Even since the Wrath alpha information was being leaked out (perhaps even before that), there’s been a lot of fuss (at least from where I’m sitting) about what Wrath has given, and taken away in some cases, from the Warlock class. Now I don’t play any other class at least to the extent I play my warlock, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the situation is the same for other classes too. Even now, with patch 3.0.4 on the horizon, there are a lot of meddlers of the dark arts who are passionate about their class and what Blizzard has done and is doing to them.

What grinds my gears sometimes is the way in which many seem to tell Blizzard, via the class forums what they need to do to Warlocks. Not considering the fact that Blizzard have a depth of knowledge and understanding about Warlocks that surpasses any player in the community. Of course Blizzard respect and encourage the input from the player base, but I certainly don’t think these kind of threads are constructive. What I do think is constructive are the suggestions that some people come up with, even now that Wrath is live.

Read on after the split.

I think you’ll rarely see any posts in the class forums which will congratulate and praise Blizzard for the work that they have done. Even if there are you can be sure it’ll be far outweighed by the many who think Blizzard need to change this and that. Personally I think Blizzard have done a superb job so far with the Warlocks. We naturally do great DPS, both on single targets and AoE, and they’ve expanded upon the talents to give us a more improved and fresh playstyle, particularly in the destruction tree, which needed it badly.

Some of the criticism I have seen is about Affliction being “too complicated” and Destruction “no longer about shadow.” My argument for the latter is that if you think about what the word ‘Destruction’ means, I think of fire, and if you think of the word ‘Affliction’ or being ‘Afflicted’ you may think of an illness or disease, something whose cause isn’t necessarily a physical thing in the macro sense, but rather something that happens on the inside i.e the ‘Shadows’. Let me just stress now that I don’t think about these things on a regular basis! As for the former, I echo that opinion also and it just so happens that Blizzard will be addressing that hopefully in the not too distant.

In the Burning Crusade, I raided as affliction through Kara, Gruul, Maggy and some of SCC & TK. It was a lot of fun for sure, juggling cooldowns and dots and it certainly had its advantages, for instance on Void Reaver where there may be a fair bit of moving around because with dots ticking away, you’ll be doing damage on the move. Especially the way my guild did it, which I still believe wasn’t the best way to go about it but hey, it worked! As soon as I got my 2nd piece of T5 from Kalithresh, I then specced into demonology to raid with the Felguard and I never looked back. In case you’re not aware, it wasn’t advised to spec into Demonology until you had the 2 part tier 5 set bonus which healed your pet for 15% of the damage you dealt. Thankfully Blizzard put that mechanic into the new Demonology tree via a talent called ‘Fel Synergy’ and also gave all pets an 80% AoE avoidance boost. My guild got to the cusp of killing Kael’thas before patch 3.0, at which point we strolled in and pretty much one shotted him.

When it was announced that the destruction talent ‘Ruin’ would be moved up a tier to make it available alongside 51 point talents, I was beaming I must say. I thought that was great. And right now I’m currently using a felguard with Ruin in heroics. My guild will be getting into Naxx in January, coincidentally with the first run scheduled on my 21st birthday.

The only complaint I have regarding the Wrath changes to warlocks as a whole, is Metamorphosis. When I first read about it I was so excited. It sounded so awesome and certainly put warlocks high up in the class ‘coolness’ ladder. An ability that turns you into a demon, and gives you new demonic abilities! It still sounds great. But this was all thwarted by the fact (I say ‘fact’) that Metamorphosis, at least for PvE, is pretty darn rubbish. Blizzard have however made it a little bit better but I personally don’t believe it’s sorted. My fear is that it will turn out to be like Shadowfury, the 41 point talent in BC that no one bothered with. I guess it’s early days yet.

The real problem I have with Metamorphosis is actually the point of it, the usefulness and the particular new demon abilities it gives you. In a recent video interview with Ghostcrawler, he explained how the old ethos with talent trees was that you’d have a tree (or trees) for PvE and another for PvP (it was something like that). This was certainly true for warlocks in BC with the wonderful SL/SL build that was unmatched and used to great effect in the Warrior, Lock, Druid (WLD) trio that was seen at the Blizzcon world 3v3 arena championships. But now Blizzard have got rid of the old ethos and have attempted to make all trees viable for both PvE and PvP. That’s cool, I like that. But, still, what’s up with these Metamorphosis abilities? In the early stages we had a demonic leap ability which got removed, why I don’t know. I can understand how it could be abused in PvP but surely the answer to that would be to put a cooldown on it? The abilities all tend towards a melee role of some kind. You have a taunt, a charge (useful in PvP), a shadow cleave (laughable), and an Immolation Aura, which actually does a giant amount of damage, but with it comes a lot of aggro. Even with a 600% armor boost you’re likely to get cut down quickly, at least if you use it in the wrong situation. Ghostcrawler said it may come in handy (in a novel way) if your tank dies in a 5 man. If it’s a heroic, and you have even 2 mobs on you, I’m quite sure you’d go down lack a sack of potatos. And if you use taunt, and immolation aura, Metamorphosis only lasts 30 seconds. So after 30 seconds you’ll return to your regular fragile clothy form, at which point the mobs will flick you with their finger and you’ll be sent flying (or crushed underfoot, whatever).

The initial outcry was that these few abilities weren’t enough. The response to that was you’d be able to use your regular abilities as well as the new demonic abilities whilst in this form. The problem with that is, all of the regular abilities are of ranged use mostly, certainly those abilities that have a cast time. If you’re in melee range you’re just going to get pushback and in PvP for example, the warrior will be unleashing their titans grip on you whilst running circles to avoid you facing them. Even the changes to spell pushback wouldn’t be enough for that, and the melee abilities themselves too weak to dish out the required damage. Immolation Aura on the other hand could be your saviour. I have heard some good things about Metamorphosis in PvP, bar your vulnerability to CC of all things. But I’m predominantly a PvE guy and I’m just not convinced that Metamorphosis is worth that talent point. I think the talent point itself, and the others required to get to it, are better spent elsewhere. It’s certainly better than it was, except for demonic leap perhaps, but I’m still not convinced it’s enough (when compared to 51 point talents across other classes), which to me, is a shame because I love demonology and was really excited at the prospect of a demon form, but has turned out to many to be a bit of a disappointment. Still, it’s early days yet and I like to be a positive person

Much of that positivity is actually in the rest of the Demonology tree. Funny that. I love that there are many abilities that buff your pet, particularly the damage of the Felguard, and Demonic Empowerment, and Master Conjuror. Wonderful, I’m still really pleased overall, just disappointed in Metamorphosis. I will certainly give it another try, but I think I’ll miss the talent points I currently have in place of them. That said, when it comes raiding time I may well have to rework things to give myself the 3% hit chance increase I imagine I will probably need.

As for Destruction, well I didn’t even give it a second thought in BC, one button mashing didn’t seem very appealing to me at all. I’ve yet to try the revamped version though, it sounds like a lot of fun. I had a go on the 3.0 PTR (I didn’t get into the beta unfortunately) and it seems similar to affliction in some respects, except it involves bigger numbers flashing at you.

My guild is built on a casual raiding platform, everyone is at least 18 years old, and the vast majority with families, jobs and commitments. However, there are the few (like me) who play a lot more than most (because I’m a student of course). I’ve seen a fair few heroics so far and have got myself a few epics already. We’re about 3 weeks into the expansion and I feel I’ve already done a lot, but I know there’s so much more to do and experience. More quests (I haven’t finished Icecrown yet!), dailies, achievements, raids, talents. Blizzard have created an absolutely sublime expansion, with the epicness I’ve always wanted to see.

And for Warlocks in particular, they’ve done a damn fine job. And there’s much more to come.