WARLOCK in WotLK Classic: Was It Any Good Though?

[Music] we started this journey in 2019 and with wrath of the lich king classic confirmed for 2022 it is time for another class retrospective series during vanilla we asked was it any good though in tbc we moved on to ask is it any better now and for wrath well it's no longer a question of asking if your class is good or not because every spec in the game is great at something so we're going to be looking at what is new to your class baseline the pve talent changes as well as raiding how well your class is expected to perform in raiding throughout the expansion pvp performance in the arena as well as taking a look at your tss and then through this hopefully we can give a proper answer to your class in wrath of the lich king classic just how broken is it now [Music] warlocks were one of the most highly anticipated to perform well classes throughout the duration of tbc gaining access to highly potent aoe from seed of corruption to round out their dps toolkit as well as the notorious slsl pvp spec allowing them to control the battlefield and gradually wear their opponents down and i would say overall that they met those expectations though whilst performing impressively the way they did it often left much to be desired moving on and upwards into northrend then they certainly have a lot to live up to in order to really improve on what they're already capable of but with a whole host of changes damage over time effects starting to scale a plethora of viable specs in all areas of content and rotational changes so you don't start to fall asleep midpole anymore let's just say they are in a pretty damn good spot oh and yes before you ask i am indeed going to main a warlock in wrath so no bias towards the class of course because they don't need bias to be amazing right so what's changed in your spell book and what new abilities have we got then we should begin with your demons because nearly all of them have changed to a certain degree first up and this goes for all pets now actually but warlock's demons specifically didn't have it in tbc and that is avoidance this means 90 less damage from aoe at all times meaning your demon doesn't just die to some random spam void walker's suffering ability now applies a 10 hit chance debuff and sacrifice only costs a small bit of your void walker's health instead of just outright killing it also for some reason consume shadows now greatly increases stealth detection for its duration the imps fireball has a new animation not that you're ever going to see it because it's never used but hey that's there for the suck soothing kiss now applies a 10 attack speed debuff and if you haven't played well in a while there is also a manly version of it as well yes really but fell hunters paranoia and tainted blood have been removed from the game and instead they gained shadow bite which does shadow damage scaling with how many damage over time effects are on the target and fell intelligence which is just a raid wide intellect and spirit buff in the affliction tree it's mainly reworks to the whole curse system curse of elements now includes nature damage which it didn't previously at all it took them three years to implement that i guess nature just wasn't an element before wrath of the lich king or something corruption is now instant cast baseline curse of tongues is now only a 30 percent cast speed increase down from 60 drone mana now does a percentage instead of a flat amount so you go from never casting it to really really never casting it curse of recklessness has been removed from the game the armor reduction effect it had before has been rolled into curse of weakness and finally drain soul has an execute modifier to do four times damage when a target is under 25 percent health and can also generate shards during the normal ticks this spell is the reason affliction locks get a reputation as a super strong execute class in wrath but demonology fire and spell stones change for the third time in a row in an attempt to get them to be useful outside of providing a magic dispel back in classic they were offhands and they were kind of never used in tbc they were ones and they were kind of never used and in wrath of the lich king they are now weapon enchants and yes they are used giving extra periodic damage and a nice chunk of spell haste these will replace your weapon oils so free stuff i guess nice demon armor now gives bonus healing in addition to armor and the shadow resistance has gone bell armor now gives cell damage scaling with spirit and a small percentage health heal every few seconds ritual of summoning now creates a portal which functions exactly like a meeting stone meaning you can summon faster and with less shards you can now recast spanish to remove the effect i wish that happened a few years ago and you can train dreadsteed at your trainer for a bit of gold instead of having to go and do the entire quest line a new ability for demonology is demonic circle it's actually two abilities i suppose you have demonic circles summon and teleport the first cast places a circle on the floor that lasts six minutes and then you can teleport and it will instantly take you back to that location as long as it's within 30 yards this is well as close to a warlock is to getting any mobility this is your reposition in pve to deal with a mechanic where you can set it up in advance this is your big escape tool in pvp super versatile ability and a very welcome addition to the warlocks toolkit finally in the destruction tree practically nothing has changed there's one new ability shadow flame this is a frontal cone aoe that applies a small damage over time effect it can be upgraded through glyphing to apply a slow which is useful in pvp and can also be consumed via conflagrate as we'll get onto later giving destruction some stuff they can do without having to hard cast those are the baseline changes time to take a look at some pve so for warlocks they have two specializations which should both see a lot of use and this time around things are going to be very different gone are the days of pressing shadow bolts as your entire rotation i mean you still will be pressing shadowbolt don't you worry about that just not nearly as much with both specializations gaining a number of effects to track and snapshotting to consider now snapshotting is one of those things that it's worth talking a little bit more about for warlocks in particular anyone can do it with any spell in the game but warlock's damage over time effects do a lot more damage than most people's do and you have certain ways to extend them beyond their normal duration the moment when you place the debuff or buff the game will take a snapshot of some of your buffs and some of the target's debuffs certain stats will continue to be applied when the spell is refreshed whilst others are reset to what your character has at the time of the refresh we expect with the game being on patch 3.3.5 to extend buffs such as percentage damage for example from tricks of the trade as well as crit modifiers such as mages focus magic but to not extend things like spell damage effects as in trinket procs or haste effects from the likes of heroism this kind of stuff can get really min maxi but i thought i'd just give it a quick mention here because i want to take a look at the talent trees let's make a start with affliction this spec gets mega buffed from tbc to where it's a niche utility spec to arguably being one of the most consistently high dps specs from day one of wrath of the lich king all the way to the very end improved corruption has changed to both various spells instead of reducing the cast time soul siphon also now works for drain soul which is going to be a big deal when we tally up the total execute on this ability you could miss putting points into foul concentration and have them an improved agony and amplify curse instead but spell knockback is just super nice to have for general use syphon life has been removed from the game now corruption will instead heal a small amount as well as certain spells just get a flat buff shadow's embrace has now been reworked increasing shadow periodic damage taken and reducing periodic healing improve fel hunter buffs your pet of choice a little bit so it doesn't go oom all the time and is a little bit better though on some fights they may be so short you don't even bother using a fel hunter at all shadow mastery has bought from 10 to 15 bonus damage and now also applies to your fell hunter's shadow bite eradication is brand new to the tree giving you a six percent chance to get a 20 casting speed after a corruption tick which is a pretty huge buff albeit quite rmg heavy male addiction is reworked to just buff the power of some of your spells deaths embraces another new talent to give you more execute damage because hey why not pandemic is a massive buff allowing both corruption and unstable affliction the ability to crit everlasting affliction increases your flat damage by a little bit more and makes it so filler spells refresh corruption this talent is why you care about snapshotting corruption with a high crit and flat damage modifiers active because you can keep it running forever and finally the bottom of the tree is horned a single target nuke that increases damage over time by a further 20 percent you just have this up all the time on your main target over in the destruction tree improved shadow belt has been reworked to apply a 5 spell crit debuff on the target and the other talents here are just above shadow bolts damage as it's your main filler outside of execute overall affliction has been buffed super hard damage over time effects that crit the ability to snapshot very strong single target damage bell hunter's your go-to pets you have an interrupt and one of the best execute phases in the entire game with an insane modifier on drain soul damage flexion locks use glyphs such as haunts to add a little bit more flat damage quick to cave to fish for more nightfall and eradication procs and life tap for some flat spell damage games but wait to there's more your guild will also want to bring a demonology warlock as well aside from solid single target damage with good cooldowns and powerful aoe their unique selling point is a buff called demonic pact right at the bottom of the town tree which we may as well start with talking about this makes it so after your demon crits your entire raid gets 10 of the warlocks spell damage for 45 seconds needless to say this changes how demonology is played and geared you want the largest amount of spell damage you can possibly obtain before you send in your demon to score a crit and then you don't really want to refresh that buff as it will overwrite the old spell power effect until you really have to meaning you're gonna have to play a pretty macro heavy playstyle if you're really trying to min max the buff as much as you can or you just leave your pet on the target all of the time either way you want to demo lock in your raid every single raid back at the top of the tree fell synergy means your demon doesn't diet some random aoe anymore as it's constantly being healed demonic brutality boss your voidwalker but now also increases your fel guard's attack speed buff soul link has been moved way up the demonology tree and is now only a 20 damage reduction between you and your demon more on that in pvp though master kundra makes your summoning of spell or firestone's quite a bit stronger mana feed makes it so your demon never goes um but generally speaking mana problems have themselves now there's a whole host of raid wide buffs that solve it molten core is another new talent that makes it so immolate ticks have a chance to buff either your next three incinerates or soul fires which gives you a bit of a mix up in your rotation additionally demoloks also get a different execute rotation as well and whilst not as powerful as affliction locks it makes this spell useful for the first time in pve since well forever and that spell is soul fire specifically the decimation talent changes soulfire to be spammable on targets on 35 or below demonic sacrifice is finally removed from the game you know that talently you had to spend like 20 points in the demonology tree buffing your demons only to then end up sacrificing it for a 15 shadow damage buff yeah that one in fact if you're a main pve ear wrap of the lich king will be the first time you're actually going to have to use a demon in raids and i'm borderline not even counting imp because it would just auto die if you ever tried to actually use it for combat anyways instead there is now demonic empowerment which well just empowers your current demon in a variety of ways you'll be using on your felguard for the attack speed buff though improved demonic tactics now gives your demon a bit of extra crit and nemesis reduces the cooldown on all of your big spells by a huge 30 percent and finally at the bottom of the tree has to be one of the most iconic warlock spells ever that blizzard totally stole from warlocks and gave to demon hunters anyways at least in wrath you get to have metamorphosis transform into a powerful demon for 30 seconds gaining a substantial amount of offensive and defensive stats as well as gaining several new abilities such as a charge a cleave and aoe taunt and most importantly an immolation aura this is your big cool down your burst window and the reason demology lock aoe is so powerful glyph wise demonology locks are quite similar to affliction also wanting quick decay and life tap but opting for felguard for more damage on that demon with the talent trees and baseline changes out of the way then how do we reckon the warlock is going to perform throughout the duration of the expansion well no surprise to say pretty damn well affliction is full on expected to be one of the most consistently high dps classes from day one to the end of the expansion there will be fights where people beat them out with cleave damage they will be outscaled eventually in icc by the likes of warriors mages and rogues but they are just always up there in terms of performance if you enjoy a damage over time playstyle and seeing a big execute phase it's hard not to recommend picking up an afloc also they are one of the few dps we expect to be stacked in raids where you're aiming to push performance a little bit more so they should be in pretty high demand despite being a dps class however let's just say the fan server side of things have a habit of buffing content and as things stand at the moment we are not getting buffed content in wrath classic or even pre-nerf content for that matter this means bosses ads and so on are just gonna have way less health less health means less execute and less execute up times means less damage for the affliction lock who really benefits from a prolonged period of time here demonology warlocks fill that utility role and are largely seen as a you need one but only ever one type of spec yet early on in the expansion they do kind of pop off dps wise demo locks love a short fight and early in tier seven fights are gonna be short this is so they can maximize their uptime on meta and heroism many raids will seek to prioritize caster gear to the demo lock as an upgrade for them directly translates to a buff for every single other class that cares about spell damage it's kind of like how the survival hunter was in tbc but even better we expect demologs to fall off in dps when compared to affliction over the course of the expansion as they don't scale quite as well but they're still very much wanted both specializations have tracking damage over time they care about procs they care about snapshotting and have a different execute phase i think it comes down to how much you care about your own dps as opposed to playing what is more of a supportive role so in pve things are looking good for warlocks how is pvp then yeah it's also very very good once again there are two fully viable specs both of which play completely differently and fit into different comps which is the kind of flexibility not many pure dps classes have but warlocks they can either play affliction in pvp or destruction now off the back of talking about affliction in pve let's cover that again there's not a huge amount of other changes which we haven't already mentioned of course you pick up improved howl of terror to make that an instant cast and over in the demonology tree now that soul link is way further up in the tree you're always going to be getting that you'll also pick up fell domination and master summoner so you can get your second pen out near instantly after your first one dies which you will certainly want to do because warlocks are way more squishy in wrath improved fear is another new talent that applies a brief slow after the effect ends and curse of exhaustion is of course taken in pvp to give you that little bit of extra utility lift wise quick decay is taken once again on top of corruption which doubles the effect of nightfall and shadowflame which applies a pretty big 70 percent slow on top of its damage over time effect affliction locks in raph arena play that classic multi-dot high pressure playstyle unstable affliction applies a huge risk of trying to dispel your other periodic effects and between that you're trying to play around pillars kiting throwing out utility curses and if drain soul ever takes on something under 25 health it's gonna hurt them real bad affliction locks often pair up with other dot focus classes such as shadow priests or unholy dks what we haven't talked about at all so far is destruction so i guess this is really the big change for the warlock in wrath the lich king this spec has always been the shadowbolt throwing pve spec since vanilla now it's entirely different focusing much more around fire damage and dealing devastating burst damage that can remove entire health bars in a single global the demonology tree is quite standard and pretty much the same as when we looked at the affliction tree a moment ago though destruction in battlegrounds or maybe more skirmish smaller scale fights could consider using a succubus and specking into improving it in the demonology tree which makes the juice about a 0.5 second cast for the most part though you'll just use fel hunter it's too good the destruction tree has a ton of changes to amp up the power of this spec molten skin is just a flat six percent damage reduction now aftermath increases the damage of your emulate and adds a guaranteed slow to conflagration now the protection has been reworked and now be a 30 chance to gain a 30 damage reduction against any spell school that hits you conflag now deals some of its damage instantly and then a doctor thanked afterwards it can also be consumed by shadow flame if you need to the pyroclasm talent has been reworked but it's not taken here it's a decent damage increase but not from spells you'll be casting too much backdraft is new and is such an important talent for your entire burst toolkit following a con flag your gcd and casting time of your next three destruction spells is reduced by thirty percent the uptime on this is also really good due to conflict having a super short cooldown add a heroism on top of this and destroy locks can send a good three spells in the air towards someone before they even know what's hit them shadow fury said it's cast removed nothing really to add on that great quality of life change empowered imp is actually such a good talent and i think it was intended for pve destruction because unfortunately your imp is just way too fragile to use in pvp fire and brimstone just adds a bunch more damage against targets with immolate and some extra crit chance and the final talent another iconic i know i say this word a lot but it totally is wrath is full of talents that have become the centerpiece of class identity anyways another iconic talent chaos bolt though in wrath it probably works differently from how you remember in recent expansions it's just been a 100 percent crit chance nuke that is not the case here instead it cannot be resisted and pierces through all absorption effects local shadows on the rogue no problem power word shield active doesn't matter chaos bolt is one of the ultimate big satisfying single target nuke spells did i even mention it looks awesome as well destruction uses glyphs like shadow flame immolate to boost their damage and conflagrate so you don't have to constantly be reapplying immolate destro locks are most often found in comps where they want to land some cross cc and then remove somebody from existence often alongside elemental shamans or frost mages let's finish up on some tier sets that the warlock gets access to tier 7 the plague heart garb it's solid on appearance as per the usual with a tier 3 copy paste the two set makes corruption and immolate have a chance to increase the crit chance of your next shadow bolt or incinerate by 10 for 10 seconds though i had to go and have a look at the proc chance and apparently it's 15 so yeah not exactly great the four set makes casting lifetime give you 300 spirit for 10 seconds this looks like a meme but it's actually really good glyph of life tap already means spirit is bonus spell power and fel armor also turns spirit into spell power so it's just a lot of free bonus spell power tier 8 is the death bringer garb from ulduar this set will always stand out as the one that's used in the wrathgate cinematic and looks really cool the two sets twenty percent extra damage from unstable affliction and ten percent more from emulate which is not half bad the four sets five percent more crit on shadow bolt and incinerate again it's functional but just not very exciting tier nine from trailer the crusader is either gul'dan or kel'thuzad to regalia the two sets ten percent more crits from your pet and the four set is ten percent more damage on a bunch of your dots again it will scale well with more gear becoming available but it's not much of a game changer nothing to really say here tier 10 from icc is the dark covens regalia i have to say it looks good but not quite as good as the old war set did two set is five percent more crit on a bunch more spells and the four set is probably the only interesting tier locks get this expansion from a gameplay perspective but dark ticks have a chance to give you 10 more damage for 10 seconds which can impact things such as snap shotting or just general cooldown usage so with all that said now we've checked out the changes to the talents pve pvp and everything in between can we give an answer too warlock in wrath of the lich king classic how broken is it now somehow this class goes from being pretty top tier at everything in tbc do even more top tier at everything in wrath of the lich king warlock is a clash you will see represented across all raiding content and arenas it's got multiple viable specs in pvp and pve content a wide range of utility more interesting rotations pretty much all a jank from tbc has been worked out and left us with a class in a really strong state look i know i'm saying this is a warlock player but i would have rolled them anyway i just like the class it certainly helps though when they're in a super good spot for the expansion and that's about everything i have to say about the warlock let me know if you're thinking of giving it a go or whether you played it back in the day as always guys thank you all so much for watching and listening in and i shall see you in the next one very soon [Music] you

Channel: WillE

Views: 199,999

Keywords: wille, classic wow, wotlk, wotlk classic, wotlk release, wotlk tier list, wotlk dps tier list, wotlk pvp tier list, was it any good wotlk, aff, destro, demo, wotlk pve, wotlk pvp, dk, death knight, wotlk dps, paladin, mage, warlock, priest, druid, rogue, hunter, shaman, warrior, naxx25, ulduar, icc, dragonflight, best mmo, free mmo 2022, best mmorpg, best free mmorpg, best mmo 2022, mmo 2022, eso, gw2, ff14, osrs, riot mmo, ashes of creation, dungeons and dragons, gaming, pc

Id: 1sAizN0B5wM

Length: 22min 13sec (1333 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 29 2022