As I love doing so every now and again, come with me my dear reader who may or may not still be that warlock from many years ago, and travel with me back to late 2010 when Cataclysm launched.
/cast Reverse Time
It was an exciting time, the first time in fact that we could do anything relevant such as...earn exp in the newly shattered world. There were many new zones and dungeons to be explored and we leveled our merry way to 85. Then something happened. Class changes were put through, raiding got more serious and everyone got a lot more competitive. Warlocks still held their own as formidable dealers of chaotic damage but something just felt wrong. Our spells were awkward, and the felguard was no longer the optimal pet.
I thought I was burnt out, or that I was doing something completely wrong, or that I had to just accept the fact that either Demonology was ultra clunky feeling with disjointed mechanics, or that I HAD TO KEEP ISF UP AND CHAOS BOLT HIT LIKE A WET TOWEL. Fun and enjoyment in the class itself had been lost. I defaulted to my hunter who could dish out just as much damage with a great feel to their class and had a great bond with his pet. I tried to keep my warlock relevant up till T13, running the occasional LFR until she was FULL 384 and pretty much abandoned her by the inscription trainer until further notice.
It was sad, yet there was nothing I could do.
--Begin: Rave on Destruction Warlocks--
Then MoP Beta was released, and having read of the complete overhaul for the warlock class, the first character I copied over was Truny. I tried out all the specs and found that:
1. Demonology: OMG teh demonz!
2. Destruction: Chaos Bolt just EATS everything up!
3. Affliction: Nice! Malefic Grasp!
The potential was HUGE, and having had a taste of this delicious malefic fruit I would at least log into my warlock once a week (we still sucked) to make a glyph or whatever, in the spirit of looking forward to the changes to come. I also embarked on a journey across Azeroth to collect ALL the shiny 2-handers that my future Wrathguard could wield. I believe he has a heroic Kiril, Fury of the Beasts that nobody wanted.
After the talent change revamp hit near the very end of DS, I gave my warlock a spin in Dragon Soul and just as I had predicted, the potential in the new changes was amazing. No longer did we have to spend MORE time juggling dots and managing buffs than we did paying attention to the fight and maximizing our "rotation", but instead we were just destructive powerhouses. Once again in my full 384 gear I was performing at and beyond what everyone else who was in full regular to heroic DS gear. (I know, this isn't Diablo where gear matters but that's a lot of missing stats).
What Changed
First and most importantly was that Chaos Bolt was actually WORTH casting. At level 85, if anyone even remembers, or if they had even cast this spell...what did it hit for? 30k crit? How much did incinerates crit for? 40k? Yeah. Now it is a GURANTEED crit, with even more damage based on how high your crit chance is and hits for over 100k, and sometimes 300k.
We are once again pretty useful when it comes to trash mobs. You gotta love this:
1. Spread immolate on EVERYTHING.
2. Rain of Fire - Which is now cast it and does not require channeling
3. Havoc 2 mobs, you can either incinerate or DOUBLE chaos bolt them.
4. Pick off weak mobs using Soulburn, which hits ALMOST as hard as chaos bolt, but can be cast indefinitely as long as you have embers, which you get back if you land a killing blow.
Oh, another note on Havoc. This spell actually duplicates the next spell you cast to another target rather than just apply the damage done. In otherwords, you get TWO physical chaos bolts, or six incinerates while this buff is up. DOUBLE DRAGON!
Essentially, even with trash we have a very powerful "execute" that can be used on EVERY SINGLE mob as long as you catch the killing blow. Go try it out and giggle with glee as you chain cast 150-300k on 7 mobs. GO do it now.
Though when I first tested out destruction, the "rotation" felt kinda....non-existent. I would put on my curse, use my one dot, use conflagrate up and spam incinerates until my ember meter filled up. That's it. The rest is managing how to spend those embers throughout a fight by maintaining a balance of chaos bolt usage vs saving up for execute. There isn't much going on, which one may find that the class has become too over-simplified. This could be the cast for single target fights where you really can't do anything else, and your old brain is just twitching to keep some buff up or looking for some other complication.
My thought was to add just a SLIGHT tiny smidgen of RNG into our nukes, perhaps we have a chance to proc 3 mini-chaos bolts. Maybe? Perhaps we auto-cackle when we cast chaos bolt?
I am definitely not complaining, we've got it all. A flaming mount that can cross water, a VERY powerful execute, a very satisfying nuke, NO mana management, and we set ourselves on fire as each fight goes on.
On dailies, my warlock does not worry about doing dailies because she is so efficient at doing them. Since I had levelled my druid to 90 first, and he had such a huge head-start on rep, I felt obliged to get him to revered/exalted just because all this rep would have gone to waste if I abandoned my druid. Being a boomkin sucks. Well, not really. Having multiple dots and self heals is nice, but.......it's very slow. As a warlock with very solid voidwalker tank, I could pull multiple mobs and kill them withing 3 globals all the while continuing to pull multiple mobs. So much more efficient.
Now we have news that we can embark on a quest for green fire, and can cast Cataclysm....what else is missing? Are we not allowed to ask for more? I say we stop complaining....
What about Warlock demon flying mounts?
Truny the Warlock
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