3.3 Complete. Where do locks stand really?

I'm sorry, but I find a lot of this to be QQ. "I can't top the meters, so it must be my class that's to blame. Now my raid is going to sit me." If you're playing a warlock and your raid is seriously considering sitting you just because you're a warlock, you need to spend some more time doing Internet research. If your raid is considering sitting you because of your personal performance issues, I would also suggest doing some more research.

If you look at some of the PTR parses, there are fights (or at least certain individuals) who are topping the damage meters as Affliction. At the same time, we're not very worried that Destruction is going to somehow vanish. I suspect Demonology's dps is still a little low, but because of their buff they are still going to be somewhat popular in PvE. To be clear, that's not an ideal design and the kind of thing we're trying to move away from, but it's better than Demonology being a dead spec. (By comparison, Subtlety is largely dead in progression-focused raiding, which we consider a much bigger failure.)

And I don't at all mean that there aren't aspects of the warlock class that need improving, and we have already announced some of them coming up for Catalcysm. But all of this "Locks are going to be Sunwelled" is a little overblown. Let's try and focus more on actual mechanic discussions and less "I read that I was bad."

We don't put a ton of faith into highest dps ever ranks or simulation output unless it is very carefully analyzed. Sadly it almost never is. Usually it is just linked or someone says "Simulationcraft shows us as the lowest, etc.")

If you really love analyzing highest dps contests, I would recommend doing something like going to World of Logs and looking at the highest damage done on Heroic 25 Northrend beasts. I suspect you will find a lot of locks high on that list. If you find a few rogues above the locks, or you think there are more rogues overall, I'm not sure that means "locks always lose." I'm also not sure you could get a lot of meaningful data out of looking at 25 normal, given how on farm that is for so many guilds.

Now if you look at something like Yogg, warlocks will be all over that list. We've seen locks high on the PTR runs, but of course the sample size is small and the PTR tends to select either for very progression-oriented guilds and for players just messing around who want to see the content. We'll have better numbers once the sample size is in the thousands.

But again, interpret those lists in context. You can't directly translate "Who was ever able to do the highest dps on a given fight" as "My guild would benefit from swapping me out with another mage." If you aren't doing 8000 dps on Northrend Beasts (and very few of you are, especially heroic) then I don't know how relevant it is that the best hunter in the world does more damage on that fight than the best warlock in the world.

P.S. Those players talking about specific mechanics or concerns they have about the class are doing the kind of thing we want to see in these forums. I don't have the bandwidth to answer every question but I try and hit some of them when I can. If your post pretty much says "We're terrible and Blizzard doesn't care," then that's QQ, and that's not really what we (and I suspect most readers) want to see here.

Q u o t e:
I really don't like the direction you just pushed the thread here, now everyone is over on World of Logs trying to discredit what you're saying about numbers again instead of discussing mechanics. Not much you can do I guess, I just find irony in telling people who link PVP sites like AJ not to do it because mechanics and gameplay (not statistics) are what you want to talk about. At least you didn't post a direct link or I'd have to close this thread. I can do that ya'know?

I knew it was a risk. I was just trying to push players into actually talking and analyzing the numbers instead of just posting them as "true dps." I make the analogy a lot of the thermometer. If you go outside and read a thermometer nailed to the side of your house, it's a pretty safe bet that you now know the actual temperature outside and you only need a value more accurate and precise than that if you are a meteorologist or something. You can't in the same way go to Wow Meters Online or World of logs or Simcraft and accept that number as what your class does or more specifically how you perform individually. That is not to disparage those sites or tools at all. You just have to interpret the data in context and I fear too often players approach the forums with a preconceived conclusion and a desire to have the data support what they want it to support.

Q u o t e:
The OP had a good list of questions, and the thread would have been more productive had GC actually answered more of them. Instead we get derailed into arguments about theorycraft and statistical relevance.

The OP wasn't bad, so I started reading more of the thread. Then I had to go through several pages with gems like the following. By page 3 or so, the thread was just various locks high fiving each other over how terrible their class is performing. You can still learn a little bit from wading through a thread like this and hitting the occasional good post, but contrary to some belief, I don't have unlimited time to browse the forums. It just makes me want to stop reading and move on to the next thread, which is probably not the response you want. I thought in this case I would point out my point of view in hopes that it might spur some actual discussion.

Remember, these are not personal emails to Blizzard. Other players come here to participate in the forums. Please don't make the signal to noise ratio so bad for them. :(

Q u o t e:
warlocks will be standing outside the gates of ICC crying about the sunwell or some such nonsense

Locks needed some help in 3.3, changes like this won't help. If the T10 goes live as poorly itemized as it is, it looks pretty depressing.

I've been disappointed with my locks performance for all of 3.2, and don't expect to see much change in 3.3. Being beat by other pures (mages, hunters, etc) is bad enough, but I am also owned by hybrids in terms of performance, mobility, and utility.

I think I'll just shelve my lock and stick to my ret pally, or level up my mage, until I can see what changes Cataclysm has with regard to the soul shard mechanics and overall class balance.

Warlock changes for 3.3 are in the same fantasy land that the Hunter changes are.

I'm already being sat for 25 man heroic Anub: