Opinion: The Legion Warlock is no fun
With Legion about to drop, did Blizzard ruin the fun of playing as a Warlock?
The following article was contributed to KSI News by KSI Firefist 7, Kynigos Guild Master of Infinite Kaos – Zula??Jin Horde.
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The Warlock community is in an uproar about how the Warlock class is being stripped of almost everything that made them feel powerful and appealing.
One of the biggest things changed was their mobility. For as long as I can remember, Warlocks always relied on their personal demonic circle which will teleport them to wherever they placed it in an instant.
Blizzard took it away from them, but gave it back to them in form of a talent. Why take something away, then dangle it above them as a talent? They left them with their demonic gateway which is stationary, so to use you have to run to it and on top of that it has a 2 minute recharge time.
Better talents could have been made for that tier of talents instead of forcing Warlocks to choose between the ability they have already had for years or give up on the portal to take the strong defensive CD or the speed boost which harms you for 4 percent health every second when you activate it.
The first example I noticed is how pathetic the visual effects for Warlocks are now. Back in Mist of Pandaria when building burning embers, you were engulfed with flames as you continued to build up. Also as Demonology you grew horns showing your demonic transformation.
I remember how cool the Soulburn: Haunt buff looked for affliction.
A fellow Warlock started a topic which has gained tremendous support from the community about all the flaws he/she has found about the Warlock class.
Many Warlocks joined in to voice their opinions that a second topic had to be made because the post cap was reached. The first topic is here, and the second topic is here.
Ornyx, a community manager for Blizzard, increased the post limit for the second topic. Many players have made strong a valid statements while there have been those who just want to be buffed, but do not offer ways to do so.
One of the issues I agree with is the new Demonology specialization. When it was first announced, I was very excited; I thought I would be summoning more than one demon and just swarm my enemies with demons.
When I finally watched a YouTube video on the Demonology Warlock, it was very underwhelming. When I was finally able to try them out on the PTR, I was just highly upset.
I summoned a Felguard, two pathetic Deadstalkers, and even more pathetic little imps. If I specialize into the talent, I get a Darkglare, which is an awesome looking demon, but it’s not permanent nor is it the optimal choice for single target builds.
Why not make it a permanent demon to use as a second demon similar to the new Death Knight unholy Talent and the Beast Master Hunter artifact perk?
Also the mechanic of having to keep empowering my demons every time I bring a new one out or if the measly 12 second buff falls off any of my demons is just plain annoying and not fun. Nothing outstanding visually happens when you use it and its not like you could see your tiny demons attacking the boss because of everyone cluttering in melee.
If Blizzard wants to use this mechanic, why not make it tied to the Warlock itself as a buff you will cast maybe every 20 to 30 seconds and every time a new demon was you would see a cool Fel energy visual effect shoot towards the new demon showing them empowered.
Maybe they could even mutate them to the stronger version of themselves to help the distinction between the demonology demons versus the Affliction and destruction demons.
The changes to both Destruction and Affliction are rough. The RNG surrounding their specializations are just out of control.
Blizzard created a talent that helps with the RNG of soul shards, which adds even more RNG to the spec, being the talent Soul Conduit which gives a 20 percent chance to refund a shard use. Why not make that part of the specialization itself to improve game play and make the talents something you choose for fun like they are suppose to be instead of picking what will actually let the specialization be playable?
With Legion so close, there is almost no time left to do changes and have them ready for the launch of legion on August 30.
What I mentioned above is only scratching the surface of what is wrong with Warlocks in legion. The Warlock community can only hope their voices are being heard and changes happen during legion so that they may have fun once more, as we enjoy all the new amazing content Legion is bringing.