Bad WarlocksFollow

Ok so yesterday the first thing I did when I got home was to get on my lock (71) and run a reg UK to test out my UI and spec (destro). I was very pleased as I pulled 1100 dps and 31% of the total damage (beating a fresh 80 dk dps in the process) and replaced my first bc epic with the blue dagger off first boss. After this I healed H UK on my druid with a very good group save one person who got beat by the tank in dps. The ele shaman pulled about 2600 dps and the ret pally was doing well over 3k. However, the lock (demo specced) was only pulling 1000 on bosses...less than my lock of 9 levels lower was doing. Now I understand that my lock is fully epicced in t4/t5 with enchants and that this lock was a fresh 80 in mostly blues/crafted epics with no enchants. I also understand that destro is good in pve and demo is not the best choice for pve except with a very skilled player and good spec. However, we are talking about a 9 level difference! Any 80 should be able to pull at least 1.5k dps regardless of gear.

My point is, it seems that right now all locks are either really good or really bad. For example, I have seen two really good locks lately. One guy in my guild named Echoclaw does not have the best gear but he knows how to play and is always top 2 or 3 in dps no matter what we are raiding. Another lock on my server named Jasonn just recently got the Gladiator title last arena season. Yea that's right, a lock got the gladiator title. He is always dueling outside of Org and I have yet to see him lose. He is simply amazing. But then there are the bad locks...no idea of a rotation, never putting up soulstones, don't carry enough shards, have imp attack during boss fights and get killed in 5 seconds, don't give out healthstones, never use fire/spellstones, etc. I guess this is a QQ post, but whatever rate me down if it makes you feel better, I don't really care.

No, if you read my post at all you would notice that I did not say anything close to that. I was just saying that for most other classes you can be bad but still do fairly well with decent gear. Warlocks are completely different. I have to say that this is my best class in PvE. My best PvP class is easily druid as feral or resto. I am actually quite bad at PvP with a lock and rarely win 1v1. Did you not read the part where I pointed out 2 of the many very good warlocks I know (of)? Never did I say that "IM GRATE! EVERYONE ELSE SUCKS!" I actually said quite the contrary. 1.2k dps is probably much lower than what I should be pulling given my gear level, considering locks in my same gear pulled nearly 2k during BC. All that I was saying is that there seems to be fewer people in the middle with locks. Everyone I see is either really bad or really good.

I was kind of enjoying reading your posts before now, but now I can see why you have nearly 10k posts and still have a decent rating. I'm sorry that I am the last one to hop on the "ohmikeghod is a jackass" train.

I've noticed this as well since WotLK came out. One problem was in BC you could spam shadowbolts and do stupid amounts of damage so many locks forgot how to play. Going from a year of basically hitting the same button over and over again to 3.0's affliction spec, so drastically different it's insane.

However, I think the main reason is that many warlocks don't understand the specs they are using. Why if haunt or shadow's embrace falls of the target you fail, why they see other locks draining soul for so much of a boss fight, why this glyph is better than the other, why this good looking talent is crap and this so-so looking talent is a beast. Many just see a bunch of spells and go with the tried and true never let a dot fall off method instead of the priority system that is in place now.

But in the end it comes down to those that want to learn and understand why and how the different specs work and actually use that knowledge in the game will be the good locks, those that don't will be the sub-par locks, and those that master it will be the locks everybody is being compared to as being normal. I only wish I could master it like some of the very few locks I've seen that have, it's a thing of beauty.

I think you misunderstood me. If your imp is out in a raid, it should be on passive. If it is on passive, it is not attacking, and it is phase shifted (and therefore not dying so that your raid maintains blood pact). With the demonic synergy talent (or w/e it's called), you can keep just about any pet up though I can't really see why you would use anything other than your imp unless demo specced. Anyways sorry for the misunderstanding...I probably should have been more clear but I really did mean having the imp actually attacking the boss rather than just sitting at your side phased like it should be.

Destro is heavily buffed by the imp, if you actually read the talents you'll see that the imps attacks actually buff you for a decent amount. And fyi, WotLK was scaled down, the patch in BC that nerfed every boss in BT and Sunwell was actually blizzard adjusting the game mechanics so that when they released WotLK it was tuned to the average pug. WotLK Beta was easier then the content that hit Live, which is why we saw the nerfs to such bosses as ignis and Xt-002 because they did not turn out the way blizzard had wanted, the entire expansion has been based around a PuG being able to step into a raid and kill bosses without hitting a wipefest wall at the first boss.

The pet you should use depends on your spec. Demon should obviously use felguard, destro should use the imp due to the talents in the destruction tree boost the imps damage and give you a boost, and affliction should use the doomguard whenever possible, when on cool-down use the imp/succubus depending on the fight/group make-up. All specs should throw down an infernal to boost damage for a minute.

Keeping your imp on passive is a bad idea for almost every fight however. While the imp doesn't do incredible damage, it does do damage. To say it's not important would be the same thing as saying enchants or gems aren't important, it's only +5 damage for a blue gem compared to a green, but it all adds up.

The difference is in BC, aside from demonology and even then it was usually fire and forget, pets were pointless. The best raiding spec made you sacrifice your minion and affliction wanted the imp on passive so he could be the mana battery. However now the Dark Pact talent is a waste because life-tap/haunt gives you more mana per global cooldown and the imp is an integral part to destruction. In WotLK people forgot how to keep them alive.

Even though they have an aoe reduction you still want to pull your pet away from the boss in many cases. Due to the imp being stationary if someone standing by him gets a void zone you need to move your imp out of it or he'll die. You almost always want your pet attacking you just got to remember to take care of him now compared to BC when many Warlocks never worried about their minions at all.