WARLOCK in Cataclysm Classic: Was It Any Good Though?

from summoning demons to straight up becoming one warlock is a pure DPS class that can either deal tons of damage through their minions or with the targets down with damage overtime effects in cataclysm this is one of the classes that under goes one of the largest Baseline class reworks though I would say it Still Remains pretty similar to the class we know so well there's plenty more Choice your preferred race in warlock 2 as both new races in Morgan and Goblin can roll as this class as can dwarf on Alliance and troll on horde but there'll be plenty to get through today so let's make a start on the Warlock in cataclysm and see how good they were back then let's begin as always with the Baseline class changes which we have so first up Soul shards as a physical item in your bag are no longer a thing you now have up to three shards as a resource and they are displayed just below your character panel Soul shards are now used for certain powerful spells as well as the new spell soulburn more on this in a moment I have to say as somebody who's played lock for the vast majority of classic as thematic as shards are when you began doing more difficult PVE encounters you could legitimately begin to run out of shards because you were spending more than you could recover during a wipe and in this scenario they did start to get somewhat annoying also PVE doesn't exactly start to get easier in CER or anything so no doubt this issue would have been exacerbated as time went on in the affliction tree a life tap now converts 15% of your max Health to 120% of that value in Mana curses have now been split into curses and Banes curses are utility spells such as weakness tongues elements and so on and Banes are focused around dealing damage such as Agony or Doom this means of course you can now have one of each active at the same time Doom now ticks once per 15 seconds with a chance to summon a demon each tick and its cool down has been removed and drain Soul now generates three shards if the target dies whilst being drained new Affliction is Dark Intent so you and a Target gain 3% haste when either one crits the Warlock gains 3% to periodic healing and damage and the target gains 1% stacking three times so overall when it's stacked up you're looking at a 3% haste buff and 9% periodic damage for the lock and 3% haste as well as 3% periodic damage Andor healing for the time Target pretty important buff and your casters are going to be fighting over who gets this out of the three lock specs demonology has the most changes you now have one button where you can summon all your demons from instead of them being separate spells and your demons will automatically train spells as you level instead of you needing to go back and buy them grimo there's also been a few General changes to the pet commands UI including pet assist where your pet will just attack what you are and move to instead of stay so you can command your pet to go to a location your imp has flea which instantly moves it to the warlock's position as well as singe magic which is just a dispel magic void Walkers consume Shadows now gain stealth detection whilst it's active succubus has Whiplash which is an AOE that knocks back enemies by a small amount fell Hunters fell intelligence now causes targets to regenerate Mana every 5 Seconds instead of increasing spirit and summon dunard and Inferno are now major cooldowns for all warlock specs that show a 10-minute cool down both of them will last 45 seconds and will attack enemies affected by your Bane spells infernals more for AOE and doom guard for single Target Soul link is now a baseline ability diverting 20% damage taken to your demon and soul Stones can be used to revive targets similar to how rebirth Works in addition to their previous use however Inc combat reses are limited to one per fight in 10 and three in 25 F armor no longer scales with spirit and soul Sha doesn't use a Shard anymore new for demonology is soulburn so this will consume one of your soul shards to empower your next spell cast with a whole variety of effects you can soulburn to reduce the cast time of drain Life by 50% summon a demon instantly gain a 50% move speed buff after using demonic circle make your soul fire instant give searing pain bonus crit chance and causing your health stone to increase Max Health by 20% for 8 seconds you also have soul Harvest which generates three shards and heals 45% of your health over 9 seconds you pre-cast this when you need shards before fights and it's good in PvP to heal up a bit you also get Demon Soul a new 2minute DPS Focus cool down this empowers the Warlock depending on your active demon lasting 20 seconds your imp will improve Critical Strike chance of all casted destruction spells by 30% void Walker will transfer all threat generated by the Warlock to the void Walker succubus will improve Shadow bolt damage by 10% Fel Hunter improves periodic damage by 20% and felg guard increases spell haste by 15% as well as fire and Shadow damage by 10% last we have destruction not too many changes here for a change soulfire will no longer use a Shard and Shadow flame actually does some damage Now new for Destruction is Fel flame this deals a small amount of damage and increases the duration of imilate or unstable Affliction by six seconds but not beyond the original cap this is good for when you're on the move and you need a button to press really let's check out some of the new talance now when you pick the Affliction tree you get unstable Affliction which is unchanged it does damage over time as well as heavy damage and silences if dispelled you gain 30% Shadow damage and your Mastery simply increases the damage on periodic spells Jinx is a new talent that makes sure cursive elements also affect up to 15 targets within 4 40 yard of the target it's on this makes it so if you're missing this debuff you have an easy way to apply it to multiple targets Soul swap is another new and iconic Edition for affliction locks this one deals damage to a Target and removes your active dots from them and then you can recast Soul swap on another Target and this will reapply all the dots you just removed from the first Target this is of course a great way to Target swap really fast but you can also glyph this to have a 30second cool down and to leave your dots on the main target which makes multi- dotting way easier soulburn seed of corruption makes seed apply corruption to all nearby Targets when it detonates this scales up super well with Nightfall and Glyph of corruption both of which make it so when your corruption ticks your next Shadow bolt has a chance to be instant pandemic has been changed and now reduces the global cooldown on all curse and Bane spells by half a second and your drained Soul also refreshes unstable Affliction on targets below 25% Everlasting Affliction also causes horn and drain spells to refresh corruption too so when you're getting into that execute phase you have to worry much less about your other dots finally we have haunt which is pretty similar to how it was in Wrath a casted ability which increases all periodic damage effects you deal to the Target Affliction considers Prime glths such as haunt to boost its damage amp up a bit corruption for more Nightfall procs and unstable Affliction to reduce its cast last time when you pick the demonology talent Tre you gain summon fard however it's got a few new tricks now in cataclysm cleave has been replaced by Legion strike which applies a mortal strike type effect and splits its damage between enemy targets axos is a 4C stun intercept has been replaced by Pursuit which is just a move speed increase and of course you have Fel storm which is basically wor he's blad storm but on your demon oh and just in case you're wondering transmogging your FG guard's weapon through glyphs was a thing in mop not cater so you're going to have to hold on to that corrupted ashbringer for a while longer you also get 15% bonus fire and Shadow damage as demon algae and your Mastery increases all Damage Done by demons including yourself when you're in Metamorphosis in your talent spell domination is gone and you now have demonic rebirth that gives you a 10-second window to resummon your demon after it dies once per 2 minutes impending doom is new increasing the chance that bane of Doom will will summon a demon by 30% as well as giving a bunch of spells a chance to reduce the cool down on meta Molton core is still there giving imator chance to buff your next three incinerate cast and hand of Gan is a brand new ability for your rotation this calls down a meteor to deal damage to a Target and increases their chance to be crit by any warlock demon by 10% ancient grimoire increases the duration of both infernal and doomguard and decimation makes soulfire into your executability Inferno is new and enables you to channel Hellfire whilst moving chromation adds a further 30% damage to Hellfire and it will cause hand of Gordan to refresh imilate on your main target demonic pacta has been changed to just give raid Members Plus 10% spell power instead of a value scaling with the warlock's own spell power and finally we still have metamorphosis in cata we've got a while yet before demon Hunters come along and steal it but in Kata it's pretty similar to Raph the only big difference is demonic charge has been replaced with demonic leap which is just heroic leap really other than that it's just really about imulation Aura and the Damage amp it gives you through your Mastery demonology would consider Prime glyphs such as imilate and incinerate just for some more damage on these important abilities as well as metamorphosis to increase your big cooldowns duration so how are we expecting the Warlock to Fair during c classic I expect them to have two very viable PVE specs and and then the other one destruction I reckon destruction will be in a similar position to where it is in Wrath where it's actually a good spec it can do respectable damage and beat plenty of other DPS classes but the question is when Affliction exists and is better on multi-target and demonology exists and is better on single Target why would you destruction still doesn't have any special debuff either that aren't likely to be covered by another class and at the end of the day if you want to be brought to a raid you do need to bring something to the raid yourself still I'm sure there are people out there who will look to play it but I just don't believe it will be a meta picking CER and we'll talk more about destruction when we get on to PVP Affliction was the goto warlock spec that was stacked for much of Rafa the Lich King but now it definitely has some competition Affliction should be playable but it's somewhat more dependent on fights where you can get high value from things such as AOE corruption from seed of corruption Nightfall procs Glyph of Soul Swap and well just multi-d doting stuff basically Affliction still does fine enough on single Target and has a strong execute phase too so if you enjoyed Affliction in Wrath it's a pretty similar play style and hitting multiple targets is just straight up easier then again I wouldn't expect to be as consistently high on the damage meters as you were in Wrath the big meta shift quite literally this expansion will be with the demonology Warlock becoming what I believe will be the most popular spec with felg guard updated to have a lot more power a Mastery buff to all demons including the Warlock when transformed and doomguard becoming a significant single Target DPS cool down the demol locks stand to gain a lot in cataclysm they have one of the best opening burst phases when you send all your big cooldowns in at once and the AOE burst is also very good you can combine imulation or a Hellfire on the move and fell storm all at the same time I reckon warlocks will start off strongest early in the expansion though and don't scale quite as well as some other casters notably the fire Mage but nevertheless they'll remain a strong pick for K if you are after a pure DPS class let's move on to PVP and talk a bit about destruction first so when you pick destruction you gain con flag rates which is pretty similar to how it's always been in that it instantly deals damage but it doesn't consume emulate or Shadow flame at all now you get cataclysm which is 25% bonus fire spell damage and your Mastery increases your fire damage even more in the talent tree improved Soul fire is new and increases fire and Shadow damage dealt by 8% for 20 seconds after having used soulfire remember you can Soul burn now for an instant Soul fire so this is an extra bit of burst that destruction can put into their kit Shadow burn is still there of course and no longer costs A Shard anymore thankfully and you can also glyph it so if it fails to kill a Target its cool down is reset and then it's put on a 6C cool down so in other words you can do it twice in a row a backdraft has been updated to include chaos bolt allowing destruction to put out even more bursts in a short space of time burning embers adds a DOT from your imp's Firebolt and your soulfire and nether Ward is also changed so that shadow Ward will instead absorb all spell damage now you also get nether protection which gives a 30% damage reduction against any spell score when you absorb damage through any means and finally is chaos bolt which is still the same as it is in Wrath except it's going to be hitting a bunch more thanks to it benefiting from your Mastery we have a few things worth mentioning in the demonology tree here as well such as extra stamina from demonic Embrace healing your demon through F Synergy and being able to Res your pet instantly for free once per 2 minutes destruction though is in a somewhat similar state to Wrath if you let it sit there and cast spells they are going to absolutely demolish people but it is more vulnerable to getting trained down and hard focused warlocks do have soul link by default now but other than that your defensives are nether W death coil Shadow Fury and demonic Circle I've no doubt there are people out there who will make this work but I think it's a bit higher skill cap purely through how well you need to know matchups and how you need to understand trading cooldowns because when you make a mistake it could be super punishing Affliction is of course also a strong Contender for arena in cataclysm as well and there aren't too many changes from the PVE build here notable inclusions are cursive exhaustion for a movement speed debuff and improved how of Terror for that AOE fear effect Affliction can be somewhat vulnerable if trained down as well but where it shines over destruction is just in the amount of damage you're putting out this spec goes Super well into damage overtime heavy pressure comps where you aim to overwhelm the enemy team the longer the game goes on Soul swapping bya the glyph from one fully dotted Target to another is just a massive amount of pressure that comes out of nowhere and locks can do this once per 30 seconds the fact that curses and Banes are different things is also big in PvP as you can have a ban of Agony running for damage whilst also annoying enemies by spamming curs of tongues on them skill deflection locks will make this class look super unfair but beginners will probably get clapped by physical damage Cleaves it's a very strong spare but it needs to be well piloted let's check out some tier sets we'll start with tier 11 the shadowflame regalia the two set reduces of the cast time of chaos bolt hand of Gan and haunt by 10% and the foret gives periodic damage from imilate and unstable Affliction a chance to cause your next two F flame abilities to do 300% more damage so overall some more damage and a decent proc on one of your new spells to make it deal some proper damage now and again tier 12 is the Bale spiders burning vestment from the fireand the two set gives your damage a chance to spawn a fiery imp to assist you in combat for 15 seconds quite a few DPS specs have this kind of proc on their two set and it's just a bit of bonus damage on a 45 second internal cool down the foret gives your main filler or execute spells a 5% chance to increase all fire and Shadow damage dealt for 8 seconds a pretty small proc chance but when it happens this is a huge bonus and one you'll want to be tracking for sure finally we have the vestment of the faceless shroud from dragon soul the two set on this is massive increasing the duration of Doom gard and infernal by 30 seconds and reducing their cool down by 4 minutes that's going to put them up to a baseline duration of 1 minute and 15 seconds and a 6 Minute cool down so if you're on a longer boss fight you're going to get more than one use out of them the force that makes it so soulburn gives 10% spell power for 10 seconds after it's cast and causes soulfire to refund A Shard so in other words you get an instant cast soulfire once per 10 seconds and you get a permanent 10% damage buff for doing so pretty amazing set overall especially for demonology and that is the Warlock in cat classic a class that I reckon I'm going to be spending a good amount of time on with a number of viable PVP and PVE specs good damage outputs and an even better demonology spec there's a lot to look forwards to here warlock should very much remain a valued and wanted pick heading into C so let me know what you think about this class in the expansion and whether there are any other big points you would have mentioned in the comments down below and as always thank you all so much for watching and listening in and I'll see you on the next one very soon [Music] [Music]

Channel: WillE

Views: 57,931

Keywords: cataclysm classic, cataclysm, cata classic, wille, tier 11, tier 11 guide, tier 11 heroic, cata dps, cata heal, wotlk best dps, cata pve, cata leveling guide, cata leveling, cata pvp, dk, death knight, paladin, warrior, warlock, mage, priest, rogue, druid, hunter, shaman, dragonflight, wow, warcraft, mmorpg, mmo, best mmo, free mmo 2024, best mmorpg, best free mmorpg, best mmo 2024, mmo 2024, osrs, ashes of creation, riot mmo, role playing game, rpg, dungeons and dragons, tabletop, gaming, pc

Id: v7IKtw8QEHE

Length: 18min 12sec (1092 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 20 2024