Warlocks - What Next?

It's going to be difficult to know for sure what the final product for this class will be until probably a month after the expansion. A wave of adjustments for all classes will be in quickly. (I hope)

At this point however, I'm not sure what the viable PVP spec is going to be for locks. And even then, I think we're going to see a distinct separation, not only in PVE/PVP, but BG/Arena.

Why? The affliction tree is really very awesome, both in utility, and damage. The cons found in NO survivability will be washed out by having effective teammates in a pre-made. That's why I'm giving two thumbs up for affliction in BGs.

Arenas - Blizz really gimped Soul Link (and Fel Stamina). Despite my early excitement with this buff because of the bump to 3rd tier, I find myself wanting more. The buzz right now is full demonology. Metamorphosis? 51 point talent, lasts ONLY 45 seconds, and has a 3 minute cool-down? I feel like locks are being forced into it for Arena since there are no alternatives if you want to live longer than 15 seconds. I've had mages and ret pallies beat me down in 5-6 seconds (I have 500 resil, 13k life). The smushyness (lol) is overwhelming.

Just some food for thought,

Heden

Yea I don't know whats up with the warlock class but right now I'm full Afflic with 5 in Bane... I like it so far but like you said it doesn't have enough of survivability...
I was SL/SL pre patch and I wish it stayed like that since I was so OP = D...
In the end Blizz needs to do a few touch ups on warlock survivability and I'm sure we will be just fine.

I've tried quite a few different specs.

UA/SL

The latest patch left SL/SL feeling broken and obsolete. The fastest "quick-fix" to this was Metamorphosis [ie Demon Form]. It really was a response to being roflstomped so quickly all of a sudden with you standard SL/SL approach. However, the notes for the next patch suggest Soul Link survivability is being restored. I'm sticking with this in good faith.

Now that the tier of Soul Link was bumped to the 3 spot, the new angle is UA/SL. Some new key components:

*Instant Howl of Terror
Instant AoE fears in Arena/BG are epic win, promise. This IS slight compensation for the survivability nerf.
*UA
This is going to make playing with other locks/spriests a lot more fun in 2s and 3s.

The utility of UA/SL is always going to be better than the Demon Form spec too.


Destro

In all honesty I struggled a ton with this spec in arena. The smushy factor of locks at the present is forcing us to run away from our opponents. NOT complimentary to a stationary spec. In BGs though it performed MUCH better. Hell, I'm full PVE spec at the time of this post and that's actually working out fairly well in BGs.

Had to post something while the server is down ^ ^

Heden