My coping mechanism is to think of warlock as the ultimate support class where we even gave our abilities away to our allies

love how storm grenades were originally a warlock thing and titans have the better version of it now

As someone who puts 95% of his playtime on Warlock, I've found that with each rework it's slowly gotten harder and harder to compete in the Crucible and it's gotten especially bad this season. My abilities require significantly more setup for less reward than what is offered on other classes, I'm the least agile class by far, and nearly everything good and unique about the Warlock Light subclasses has either been removed, nerfed into the ground, and/or given to other classes. I can still do decently well in the Crucible overall, but it often feels like I need to work twice as hard for half the reward.

You nailed it! The former Warlock unique abilities out weigh the new unique abilities. Blink, ionic traces (aka arc sharks), devour proc, healing nades, and I know there is more but they are no longer unique to Warlock. PvE if Well of Radiance didn’t exist Warlocks would be seen there either. Both classes have better DPS and add clear. Chaos Reach is laughable for DPS now.

Being a warlock main i STRONGLY FEEL anything that defined a warlock was stripped from them and given to all classes.... 3.0 classes were both a blessing and curse when it came to warlock because yes we got more customisation but warlocks lost any identity they had, When someone mentions the word warlock and identity in the same sentence i just say "What Identity??". P.S. Another issue with the warlock class is.... Warlocks always get the shaft in PVP and they never get any good PVP Exotics, the good PVP Exotics are always going to hunter and titan!

I stick with stasis exclusively now. I was flipping between void and stasis, but we've just lost the most out of any other class. Stasis is all that really remains unique.

As a warlock main you hit most of the pain points perfectly. I know me and my friends who play solar lock don't like heat rises as the buff it gives buggers up your jump much like amplified does, so in a way icarus dash being seperate is probably one of the more positive changes in most of my friend groups eyes. Just wish they didn't push every aspect to have some random healing component to it leaving bottom tree dawn still in the abyss. Idk why amplifed on arc doesn't give a transcendence like effect for our supers or up the strength of grenades as that seems like the perfect idea instead of making arclocks weak melee options better. Also amplified doesn't give you a speed boost in stormtrance which it really should do, or decrease the cost of the blink when arc staff has infinite dodge and very high damage resist when it does. I'm hoping they address the gutting of warlocks identities and shifting them to other classes (looking at you calibans) as I'm finding it harder and harder to find builds that I give a damn about that couldn't be done with another class but better :/

Honestly I think warlocks would massively benefit from a rift animation speed up. If not a cooldown reduction. I also think instead of restoration x2 a touch of flame healing made could be a healing turret

Bungie already stated that the air dodge is apart the warlock identity. Bungie should follow through and make it intrinsic to the warlock kit as a whole, not just dawnblade. We are way beyond the point where only hunters should master movement.

An idea that I had to buff warlocks is to only give them is a lingering effect when leaving the rift in PvP (you keep the overshield with healing, and you get 3 sec after leaving an empowered one) I always felt like warlocks are meant to be the "zoner" class, while hunters are "flankers" and titans are "disruption". This will give warlocks a reason to use their rift to "enhance" their location, but they don't feel like they have to be glued in it.

The Warlock fantasy for me I think is all about "energy transfer" kinda like an alchemist. The law of equivalent exchange and all that. You consume something from your kit to be able to use it better in a different way. That's why eating grenades and ionic traces felt like they fit. You're taking energy from one place and channeling it to another. You bring up a good point about the Warlock abilities being siphoned out and shared between everyone else. Warlocks feel like they're having an identity crisis right now. Hunters are agile and sneaky. Titans are bulky and defensive. Warlocks are... what, annoying and lazy? They lack properly exciting adjectives right now. Every time I play against a freeze-lock or arc-lock I kinda just groan like "ugh, time to get frozen a million times" or "ugh, he's using dead messenger with that melee."

As a warlock main, it sucks when you shoot a hunter and they fish flop invis, losing all sight of them before a shotgun hits us. Or Titans who just have to charge at you to win. Warlocks are the slowest class, our nades now suck, and the rift is too slow and pins you in one spot while everyone else is flying around the map at Mach 2.

Here’s to hoping the warlocks get more love for pvp.

As a former void main, here are the pros and cons I've found in void 3.0. Pros -Child of the old gods aspect -Devour working in nova warp Cons -Lost our best melee aka atomic breach, replaced with a weak and extremely inconsistent pocket singularity -Took our ability to proc devour from a grenade, then made an exotic that does that through a rift. -Chaos accelerant stealth nerfed, removing the bonus damage on charged grenades, compared to other grenade enhancing aspects it's worse in every catagory, it has only 1 fragment slot and still had this slow agonizing charge time without any extra benefits. -Handheld Supernova the only warlock 1-shot ability was completely neutered, it lost its ability to 1 hit kill in pvp and for what? 2 extra meters of range and a pushback that dosen't push back half the time?

The sheer size of buff warlocks would need overall now to be competitive is about 150% of their current strength. They are very weak right now,and as you mentioned, practically ever 3.0 verb was taken from warlocks and given to the other classes.

I’ve always felt that Hunters have gadgets, Titans have strength and warlocks have space magic. As a warlock main, I feel the other classes have gotten upgrades to their core identities. I feel Bungie doesn’t want to lean hard into the space magic fantasy in PVP. I think the void subclass has the most space magic of the subclasses. While solar and arc both seemed to have more space magic before 3.0.

I think a fitting identity for us Warlocks would be consuming grenades for some sort of buff. I shed a tear when they removed the voidlock ability to nom on your grenade for heals. Same for dawn blade, having the option to use your grenade for healing was very nice + the overshield. I think we could also benefit for an increase in rift activation. Our class ability is the easiest to counter, and once it's activating you can't break out of the animation if you need to. Without WoR in PvE, Warlocks would be pretty useless. I remember the days when Slova Bomb did the most damage to bosses but no longer is at the top 😢

Stasis warlock is the only class imo that actually retains its identity. Void was exciting but I’d overall defer to truevanguard’s thoughts on it. Solar was a letdown for a variety of reasons, mainly because it was made to be the well subclass. It was stripped of its fiery death from above identity even though the subclass puts emphasis on aerial combat to which I thought personally was a mistake. I’ve seen better combat with the Valkyrie javelin than I have with daybreak. I was hoping for sword fighter rather than swordslinger. Arc is ok but it kinda relies on the exotics for it to be fun to play with. Im hoping strand doesn’t disappoint since our super is one’n’done from what I saw in the reveal. I have my criticisms of how 3.0 was implemented on warlock. The majority of them are for solar 3.0 because void and arc didn’t disappoint me that much and don’t get me wrong! I love my starfire build but it’s the only build that’s actually decent on solar atm.

I had to quit destiny to go play overwatch 2, I got tired of warlocks being so bad after every overhaul. The supportive identity for warlocks is boring too, I remember choosing warlock in D1 because they were promoted as the mage class with massive explosions.

100% agree. I've been saying this for months... warlocks need major buffs across the board. Rifts, super damage, exotics, abilities, movement, etc...

I find the use of verbs interesting. Titan (overshield) Hunter (invis) and warlock (devour). Hunters can dodge and roam around Invisible, Titans can place a wall and roam around with an overshield. Warlocks are the only ones that cant do that and we can't use our grenade to proc it now. We have to use an exotic to get devour with rift placement whereas titans and hunters can spam their verb abilities.

One of the thing's that hurts me as a warlock main, is the fact that titans and hunters have their abillities spam, and warlocks taking forever to call a healing rift.

I have been a Warlock main for many years now, and the subclass reworks infuriated me enough to stop playing. I logged on for 2 days of the Halloween event, which was just enough of a reminder at how bad Warlocks felt to make me stop playing again. They aren't fun, they don't have crazy unique abilities and builds, and they generally feel like an afterthought. Sharing devour annoyed me Sharing healing nades infuriated me Sharing Ionic traces was a nice slap in the face (with a follow up backhand by giving us an exotic to make them as good as they were before 3.0) Giving Titans enhanced Storm grenades just sent me over the edge Lets not forget that Warlocks STILL can't break stasis crystals without the use of a gun Hunters and Titans literally do anything Warlocks can do, but more efficiently and on the move. This game is all about mobility, and the Warlocks main asset now is a rift that takes forever to cast, and forces you to stay in one place, or abandon it quickly. It's nearly useless with how this game plays. What about supers? In PVP they're all pretty middle of the pack. In PVE you'll be pigeon holed in to a Well build with Starfire because it's the only thing we have. While its great, its only good because of the grenade spam. There isn't any good DPS options, it's all ad clear supers at a time when we have insane weapons more than capable of clearing mass amounts of ads. Bungie needs to do something quick, because Warlock mains are leaving in large numbers out of frustration. We've spent thousands of hours grinding guns, armor, exotics and stat rolls to build in to fun and unique builds - only to watch the vast majority become useless. They REALLY messed up and alienated a big portion of their player base, and in turn, made it even more restrictive by only seeing Titans and Hunters everywhere. Sadly, this has even impacted my hype for Lightfall. Strand sounds amazing, and its always awesome to have to subclasses to play with, but I can't stomach another instant Warlock nerf, while Hunters and Titans run around with broken kits for months at a time. If the blatant favoritism doesn't stop, this will be my last Destiny expansion.

In the end, the class usage split tells you everything you need to know about the impact of the 3.0 changes, and the Warlock state of play. Warlocks are 3rd world stuff compared to the other two classes at this point, with the exception of Shadebinder. Consider for a moment that Icarus dash was gutted from 2 dashes to one, meanwhile, Titans shoulder charge dash all over the map with reckless abandon. One hit abilities were meant to be a thing of the past to stop that sad sad feeling of insta death and oppression. Meanwhile, you can get one shot every match by a titan shoulder or slam, or charged melee, or a hunter knife. HHSN however, that wasn't ok, so it got basically deleted from the game. The sheer lack of balance when comparing Warlock to the other two classes is so obviously extreme that you can only assume it is intentional. Given how low the Warlock PvP player base is already, it make you wonder if it needs to drop to sub-5% for some action to actually be taken. And, yes, Warlock main since D1, yes I'm salty about the state of play. I do have have the other classes, but I am a warlock, so...🙁

As a warlock main I fully know pvp is not a good place for a warlock. Which is why it’s sad when I destroy people with a warlock. Hunters have better kits for pvp overall. But I’m a loyal warlock and will never stray. Warlock Gang! (And I do play hunter and titan) I’m not talking bad about them. #Warlocklivesmatter.

being a 6-7 year long warlock main (only owned 3 warlocks till they {Bungie} forced me to make a hunter and titan to level up); I personally don't mind the position we (warlocks) are in right now. I'll agree time and time again that most of our identity has been stripped and given to titans/hunters and that there is very little reason to play warlock (*cough cough* OBVIOUSLY statistics agree) BUT the reason I wouldn't want a change is just due to overall toxicity in the community. and if we are *BAD* overall toxicity towards warlock stays at a low. throughout the years I've noticed that warlocks can't have ANYTHING without it being a community issue. we were at the bottom of the barrel for 4-5 years through D1 and the beginning of D2 (legit if you bring up self res; just stop, 85% of people would get sniped right out of it) AND NOW that we get any sort of shine, it instantly gets met by complaining and the need for change coming from hunter/titan mains. hence why anything we DID have is now gone; because admittedly we WERE strong not but 1.5 years ago, but over the last two years? the community has managed to get warlocks to lose their viability once again. having said that, I don't want it to change. we are legitimately the most identity challenged class that exists with very little to no reason to play a warlock and some hunter/titan mains are still calling for an Ophidian Aspect nerf? yeah, I'd rather us not get buffed and get back any identity because personally, I'm tired of the unwarranted and useless toxicity that is throw in the direction of warlocks. there is no justifiable reason to hate on warlocks as much as a lot of people in the community do.

The issue is that we take all things Warlock and give better buffed versions of "Warlock identity" to the other characters. So we are stripping the identity of Warlocks, buffing the other characters and simultaneously nerfing Warlocks every 3.0 update :(

Warlock main here. for PVE, my class identity and power fantasy has been the vampire/Necromancer idea. I mained devourlock for years and now I use necrotic grip/osteo or thorn (depending on mods required) exclusively. it's the only unique class identity that can be made with the warlock. They took away our consuming grenade and gave devour to everyone else. They took away our healing nade (AND the tech that came with it) and gave it to everyone else. Gutted stormcaller and gave everyone else our entire arc kit and gave hunters our blink. Everyone has the ability to heal now, themselves or teammates; everyone gets access to devour, everyone gets arc ability energy back and we're stuck with the least useful class ability with the longest cooldown, and abilities that have the most setup and the lowest payoff. You hit the nail on the head with the exotics, ophidians and transversives are the only good exotics and they only affect the neutral game. Stasis remains our most preserved subclass and I hope it stays that way.

Honestly, I still feel like there needs to be a rebalancing in all classes. It doesn’t make sense to me to why grenade abilities are not exclusive anymore. For instance, Hunters and Titans are using Scatter Grenades and etc. Which were designed specifically for Warlocks.

I can not fathom why they removed consuming a nade to trigger devour. It removes all tactics from my playstyle. Instead of getting devour before engaging, or retreat to heal, I now have to stay and hope to God I get a kill with an ability, which is a tall order in pvp at the moment

When they got rid of the "Consuming the void Grenade to gain Devour" I thought they were going to do that for all the consume grenades. Bungie is always complaining about speed runners skipping encounters(all the eager edge nerfs), but they haven't seemed to realize that if a dawn blade can't consume a grenade to gain heat rises, you'd probably add a LOT of time on a lot of speedruns because a lot of those game-breaking techs wouldn't be possible. (not that that's good). My point is that with void, they got rid of the ability to consume, and then made it so that you could essentially have two trees in one. (Devour and Chaos Accelerant) but with Solar, they split up top tree dawn, and removed the Overcharge INSTEAD of the consume grenade. I would have bet money that we were going to have to "get precision final blows on scorched combatants to gain heat rises" or something to that effect. Same with Arc Soul. Imagine if getting a kill with an Arc Ability, (or Arc weapon while amplified) created an Arc soul at the combatants location. And then the Getaway Artist exotic let those Arc Souls float around like little ghosties, shooting everything. Titans and Hunters run around punching things. We'll summon the souls of our dead enemies to do it for us.

i think making warlock less clunky would do wonders for me as a hunter main. - option to hold spacebar to keep warlock glide and titan boost activated instead of a toggle, much more intuitive imo. - make dawnblade control like minecraft creative mode but with acceleration when heat rises is active. Hold icarus dash for a sort nitro boost. - when amplified, tapping jump will do the normal jump, holding jump will do the amplified jump.

Blink needs to be on the majority of Warlolck classes. Not just Void.

I hate to say it, but as a warlock main, I’ve stopped playing for.. these exact reasons. Frankly, we’ve been made obsolete. We have no really unique strengths, while the other classes have strengths that are so amazingly good that anything I can offer as a warlock is pretty much moot. It was the day I was asked to switch to a “better class” that I decided I’m done. I’m a warlock main, and if warlock isn’t needed, I’m not needed. Simple as that.

You are spot on with everything wrong with warlocks. I really hope they get a massive rework and buff, otherwise just strip the remaining shit abilities and divvy them out to the hunter and titan to complete the class sterilization and then just delete the warlock from the entire game. Only two classes. Hunter and titan. Pretty much the only two classes being played anyway.

And yet the community is screaming to nerf Ophidians, hmmmmm.

Healing solar buddy would be so cool! To me void lock could potentially have two identities. The vampire/siphoning fantasy but also one that will be enhanced next season which is all about pushing and pulling opponents.

Solar 3.0 was really a spit in the face especially in PvP, since they want it to be the aerial class but at the same time we got aerial effectiveness making the subclass kinda mediocre.

I have retired my warlock very early in d2. It’s sad because i do identify as a warlock at heart because of their scholarly aesthetics, ikora and her hidden, intelligence and everything they stand for. In d1 i was a warlock and hunter but i loved stormcaller warlock. The way u can blitz people and shotgun melee so fast, arc web, range melee, pulsewave etc. It just hasn’t felt the same since so i have been a hunter because what i liked about them was being able to out play people by repositioning and playing smarter.

I love playing warlock, but its so true that they're outshined by the other classes in pvp. here are some thoughts (very unpopular, but we'll see how its recieved) that could change overall: 1) all warlock subclasses should have some form of icarus dash. void and arc could be like an aerial short distance blink for effects since icarus dash plays off the solar idealogy. would support the ideal that warlocks can be aggresive or passive on the aerial lateral plain. 2) all warlocks should have blink. thats the last remaining piece of identity that should work as an option for all classes. would be cool to see if you could pair well with above since it does work when you use your nova warp. but even if it doesnt end up being that useful to some, at least the option and the identity is solidified as there. 3) warlocks should be the only class with access to healing nades. 4) hunters should all have a dive mechanic like shadowdive or shatterdive. should be available at all times on a small cool down exactly like how shatter dive is (even if the melee isnt up you can still dive for the amination without the effect). i know this is about warlocks but i think all classes need good neutral movement to feel good. this would strengthen their position as the pvp class that should be able to play on vertical plains. 5) titans arc storm nades shouldnt track. i think it should keep the length of how long it persists but the tracking should go to warlocks or not exist at all. this gives warlocks their storm nade identity back but gives titan the nade launching fantasy that the devs wanted. 6) knockout shouldnt exist as an aspect, move that to the functionality of point cannon contact brace exotic that titans have since they're completely useless now. if titans want syntho length melee that should be moved to an exotic since there's nearly no trade off for it. maybe add in the lightning strikes to make it different than synthos, idk. but the proc requirements will be the same. 7) thrusters should reload your currently equipped weapon and should be accessible to all subclasses in the place of barrier. these are off the top of the head. i feel these would bring a stronger neutral and mobility game to all classes and rebalance some of the weird meta to where pvp can refocus a bit more on gunplay and mobility versus constant ability cheese/spam. and allow classes to be able to reliably counter rushers and outplay others in close combat. I think in the lieu of all this "aerial effectiveness" era the points above add some core gameplay back. let me know what yall think!

If you want to know how little identity warlock has, just look at the Voidwalker. First let’s talk about the new key word buffs added and their respective classes as well as the way they receive them through their class specific kits. - Titan: Seen as a tank or protector, Sentinel has three ways to activate Overshields as well an aspect that fully leans into giving the Titan a list of great buffs (one aspect which give it to everyone around them, and both melees which offer unique ways of getting OS) while OS is active, granting them benefits just for having it active while prolonging it’s duration. - Hunters: Given the role of rogue to dip in and out of sight, Nightstalkers have four ways of turning invisible (ALL through aspects, and one aspect giving two separate ways to turn yourself and everyone around you invisible). They also have ways of benefitting from being invisible apart from just being invisible. For example, they get energy when making themselves and their Allie’s invisible, and with another aspect they get a weakening melee whenever they turn invisible. - Warlocks: Voidwalkers - seen as explosive energy vampires - have ONE way of getting devour active. It is also the only class that requires a kill for it to become active (yes there are some that require kills on the other classes, but this is the ONLY way warlock has access to Devour in their class kit while hunter and Titan STILL have numerous ways of getting their buffs without kills). Warlocks also have ZERO ways of benefitting further from devour being active, meaning it’s the same ol devour that everyone else gets, and it’s only a small bit more accessible that what is offered on a fragment. Now what about the explosive part? Well bloom was just handed out to everyone on a silver platter in the form of a fragment (like most things that made warlock stand out, though mediocre at best) with little in return. Also, both variants of nova bomb are some of the lowest damaging one and done (boss damage) supers, and slowva in particular is awful since it is easily out ran or destroyed. For PvE vortex is less awful than it was before but even with the initial suck, bosses still walk out and enemies still stand stil, waiting outside of it. This being said, you’d think theyd lean into that energy vampire role, but no. Voidwalker essentially has the barebones kit for both other subclasses and nothing else. Hell a sentinel could play a better energy vampire, or even warlock for that matter. P.S. As a side note, both invis and OS were updated with new and flashy visuals to add some void spice to their respective subclass power fantasies. Devour got nothing. No void aura, no cool glow, not even some smoke or something lol. TLDR: Voidwalkers are the cornflakes of the Void subclass family

If 'locks had an additional class ability option or had their aspects refreshed across all classes that allowed them to proc various effects for them and their fire team (devour, restoration, DR, amplified), it would bring them up to speed (basically giving each subclass a new "spell"). Think like a better Phoenix dive for every subclass. The trade would be a cool down penalty depending on how powerful the effect is.

I was just talking about it to my friend the other day. Warlocks are underwhelming, Bungie literally messed it up. This video needs more reach.

Void= ability vampire Solar= damage stacking (long dps phases) + over shield buff Arc = quick burst of damage (significant damage but not as high as a long dps phase) +ad clear Stasis = controlling battlefield + sustained damage over time Honestly ever since they gutted self rez, this isn’t a surprise for all 3.0 classes for warlock, yeah self rez broke the game, but at least warlocks had identity, which they don’t now, bungie just hates warlock imo (Warlock main since D1 beta)

You did a great job exploring this interesting subject. Thanks for posting!

The reason I dont play Stasis Warlock is the melee, ever since the first nerf its felt near impossible to use against anyone with more than 1 braincell for movement.

Hunter Main here. Used Stasis Warlock the other day and I tried really hard to make it work but other than the super, it just feels like Shadebinder doesn't do anything in PvP. Yeah the melee is CQC can be annoying to fight against but it only lasts for the smallest window. I have never really liked Rifts as an ability as they always seem to get killed more than save me and. the grenades are all just slow related except for wall which is a good defensive options but then you lose one more offensive option in the process. It just feels really hard to do anything with the subclass IMO.

Actually a great discussion. As a warlock one trick, all of this felt on the spot. Like, it got so bad it's kinds the reason I quit the game. I lost hope that Bungie would ever do something cool for warlocks

Thank God someone finally said something. I've been a Warlock main since before this game even came out. In middle school talking about it I always wanted to be a Warlock. And yeah we are definitely given the short end of the stick here when it comes to our overall stance in PVP.

As a warlock main since destiny 1, i couldn't ignore the constant nerf and sterilising the warlock class. It was always in small dozes, but since sub classes 3.0 bungie cut the cord for that class. Got striped from identity, got rid of the unique and mistery for good, and left an empty shell of a class. Bungie had always favoured hunters in PvP, hunters rain supreme, although titans got alot of love since 3.0 . I hope for a big overhaul for warlocks, but i doubt bungie will do it.

Maybe Bungie should've left 1 grenade specific to each class to help maintain identity, healing for Warlocks, suppression for Titans and tripmines for Hunters. Also, they nerfed Warlocks solar double air dash, yet now give Titans almost unlimited shoulder dash and now even a hunter style dodge/shift.

One of the shortcomings of the 3.0 reworks is definitely the limit to 3 Aspects on release and the loss of some exotic interactions. We're probably going to have to wait a long time for new Aspects that give subclasses like Nightstalker and Dawnblade more playstyle variety. Back in D1, it felt like Warlocks wielded the Light in a much more raw and elemental kind of way like that. Chucking Nova Bombs, channeling the Storm with Stormtrance, or tapping into the chorus of Solar Light with Radiance. Not to mention the number of enhanced grenades we could chuck. Hunters had more of the propensity to wield the Light as a tool, putting it into objects and using it technical ways. Titans wielded the Light even more a blunt force back then, shielding with Void, striking with Arc, and bombarding with Solar. As the volume of abilities has increased and the sandbox has evolved, this dynamic has skewed greatly with everyone getting access to crazy ability engines. Specifically giving other classes access to the battery components of Devour and Ionic Traces is a major factor there in the 3.0 system. The result to me is that even in PvE, I feel like the Solar and Arc abilities for Warlocks don't really click together. Do get me wrong, I don't think we're WEAK, but I do think our Solar and Arc 3.0 kits have major design flaws. With the Voidwalker, you can combine Devour and Child of the Old Gods, Devour and Chaos Accelerant, or even go Child with Chaos Accelerant (and pick up Devour with Starvation or Secant Filaments). You have some options in your Aspects. With Solar and Arc... I feel boxed in. I don't want to always run Heat Rises but that's where the main "battery" component for ability cycling is but despite this income, I still find I struggle to make any of the previous "Battle Cleric" type builds I used to use function. Electrostatic Mind is the Arc Warlock's battery effect similar to Devour, so they pair with either Arc Soul or Lightning Surge well, but neither of those Aspects have any natural synergy with each other, unlike the Voidwalker. Not to even talk about the Storm grenade situation discussed in the video. Bungie seems to have tried to counteract the democratizing of our abilities by giving more Warlock subclasses "Familiars" to join Arc Soul. Stasis has Bleak Watcher and Void has the Void Soul. But comparing the utility of Void Soul or even Bleak Watcher to the raw damage of Arc Soul, it's clear to see which comes out on top even with how much supplementary damage it can provide. It only plays off of Amplified and doesn't interact with other keywords. I think Solar Soul that could heal and/or make allies radiant would help the Dawnblades create a more supportive build (especially if it came with its own refund effect like Child). But beyond that I'm not sure what else could solidify our purpose. They kind of flubbed things with Voidwalker having such consistent weaken uptime between Void Soul and Undermining when they stated Nightstalker is supposed to be the weaken specialist. And with Solar, Titans have a startling amount of healing, which they need to fill the Fighter range of tropes. I still with they keyworded Sunspots and made that a Titan specialty. That way we have a bit more delineation with the Cure/Restoration specialty for Dawnblade. Maybe Stormcaller could pick up some more blind or something if the other two classes aren't going to focus on it.

For Void Warlocks, Controverse Hold used to enable the Overcharge Grenade ability and caused those grenades to be more deadly, last longer, and recharged them from DOT. Now, We have to use a Aspect to do the same thing and it only gives ONE fragment slot and EVERYONE can make their void grenades last longer, so those gauntlets got a huge nerf. Warlocks just do not have the movement options the other classes have, which makes them less desirable because the game is based on movement. Which is why Hunters are so popular and why and Titans use their charged melees to move and cause damage. Warlocks can float in the air and doge, maybe, and that is why in the Crucible, I chose blink to try and even out the playing field, but now Hunters can blink as well....(side note: the Hunter blinks still feels better than the Warlock blink for some reason. maybe it is because Astrocyte Verse is taken into account by Bungie and has to feel worse in order to feel better when using the Exotic. That is stupid. Sorry, not sorry.) I do enjoy running Statis Warlock in Crucible, but turrets are mandatory and I cannot do a freezing rift and have my grenades chain to players.

Also we can already get healing buddies through the warlock glaive and the exotic legs that make rifts affects seek out allies. If we got a solar buddy I would hope it applied scorch and worked similar to those fire sentries in the arms dealer strike

As much as I hate the current meta I still won’t be changing from a warlock as I have been a warlock since d1 and in all honesty I definitely do lose fight to players who are worse then me sometimes just cause there subclasses are just better but kinda just makes feel even better when you dunk on that scummy gyrefalcons hunters or the annoying storm nade spam titans really sucks what they have done to us but I’m sure they will make changes and we’ll be back on top soon enough but I was a sidearm main before the sidearm buff so atleast I had a head start on everyone by quite a bit

Just generally I feel like the only thing you want a warlock to your team for is only 2 things: Well of Radiance and Stasis turrets. If you gave Well to Titans and turrets to hunter you could probably just delete warlocks and no content with pve or pvp will be any harder without them. Although I doubt you need them now…

Personally, I didn't have a problem with things like devour and heal nades being given to other classes as someone who literally only plays warlock, but the problem is when other classes use warlock abilities and grenades better than warlocks do. Warlocks need more niches for the neutral kit. The entire point of a warlock in my eyes should be lots of abilities they can use, but they don't even use abilities as well as titans anymore. I wanna be a space wizard!

I gave void warlock a try today, had some fun plays with it. 🎉

As a void warlock main I miss being able to take the grenade and turn it into devour. I wish that the option still remained so that way you could have multiple ways of devour. Then having to kill to proc it. Just like how you can have multiple ways of being charged with light. I wish that they made blink better. Because the only way people would use it is if we have a certain helmet. Otherwise, blink is still unusable. They've nerfed warlocks really into the ground and most of the time I'll see a stasis warlock or one that uses well of radiance but that's it. And as much as I hate both solar and arc because of their dominance and not even in the worst way possible but because it added more variety to classes. Which doesn't seem to exist anymore unless you're a hunter or Titan

EXOTIC that causes the rift to slowly follow you around. Slower than your sprint speed (maybe walking speed) so you can't be fully mobile with the rift effect, but so that at least you can reposition in small ways and still have your class ability doin work

Great video and I really enjoyed the gameplay!

Warlock is in a rough spot but I don't see Bungie doing anything about it until Lightfall at the earliest, if not later. Even the TWAB talking about ability changes made no mention of the sorry state that Phoenix Dive and Dawnblade are in, and the adjustment of Chaos Reach's tier is not the problem with that super so the effect will be practically nonexistent. Not to mention Arc's lack of viability in endgame and healiing taking away your grenade ability. Those that main Warlock are just going to be in a rough spot for a while, and I see the population continuing to die down as more switch to Hunter and Titan just because those two classes are in better positions to compete, especially in PVP. We're still mandatory in endgame PVE thanks to Well, but if that is nerfed then Warlocks no longer really have a place in a fireteam. Stasis for Master Raids and GMs maybe? Hunter and Titan can do everything a Warlock can do equally if not better.

I used to consider myself a warlock main that also played a lot of hunter. Now I just play hunter. I share the same sentiment as a lot of other players, warlocks identity has been stripped from the class. Dawnblade is still really good in pvp, but it gets boring when it’s all you use.

I can't even get myself to play on my warlock nowadays when it was my most played class. It feels just incomplete. I know they wanted to have each class be good at certain things over the others but you can't say the warlock does this one thing better than the others. For example with sol. Outside of healing I pretty much never see ignitions. Ignitions can really only happen in a small few ways. Guns or exotics. Both gloves. Either the one that lets you cover the field with sun nades (however that requires a melee kill to trigger) or the gloves that gives double melee. Hell or just do cammy's method. Heat rises, finger snap, then dive. But then you are basically using all of your abilities at once for a single ignition. It is way too costly compared to hunters with explosive knives and their exotic or say a titan just running in and slamming down. Warlock has to sacrifice everything if they want to be accessing the ignitions verb which is just too much.

You hit the main points of warlocks (even tho every class lost some identity in terms of just abilities) but the lower number of warlocks has just been amplified by the weapon sandbox in my opinion and most of the decent to good weapons are more favourable to be invisible or similar and because those abilities can be gotten easier by either hunter or titan people moved over to using one of those classes

I've pretty much strictly played warlock ever since I started playing in late 2019. I mainly played the solar class up until the 3.0 subclass system came out. When void was first changed I didn't think too harshly on the other classes getting our grenades or devour. Infact it excited me for solar 3.0 because I found void to be a lot more powerful than it originally was. I mainly played bottom tree dawnblade, so you could imagine that I was extremely disappointed to see that just about everything that the branch had was gone. Not to mention Phoenix dive getting it's 5 second cooldown brought up to rift cooldowns. I still find that an outrageous cooldown for a small utility ability that is Phoenix dive, especially comparing it to shatterdive, the sheer amount of things that hunter dodge can do, and how often you can do it. And seeing what was given out with arc, I strongly feel like the 3.0 system hurt warlocks in a way that can't be fixed. Those handouts are there to stay. I had a pvp build revolving around middle tree dawnblade supporting, buffing teammates, and getting my abilities back in seconds to continue to support my teammates. I used a frozen orbit with high impact reserves to one tap the body at any resilience tier since Lumina wasn't a good handcannon overall at the time. That build is now a shell of what it use to be and ruined my pvp playstyle for me. Sure, the build was overpowered. But throughout my time using it and even before, I never saw another warlock use a support build like mine in pvp. It was a hidden gem that I thought for sure would be brought to the spotlight in the 3.0 system, but now it's hidden value has become worthless compared to the titan and hunter builds we have now.

Warlock main here. The only class that’s super strong in pvp right now is Shadebinder. It might be the strongest subclass in the game period. But, it’s very high skill ceiling, and high skill floor. You have to dedicate to learning it, and it’s a steep curve, but it dominates. Ophidians are the only good play for exotics

I'm a bit late to this video coming out but hopefully you see this. Some notes I've had in my head regarding Warlocks' strengths (as a Warlock main): Titan barricades are so strong because at a base level (no exotics, aspects, fragments, synergies), you're punished for walking through a Barricade. Hunters can make their dodge offensive in a similar way, but they need to use Gemini Jester. Warlock rifts DO NOT punish you at all for invading their space. In fact, I'd say that it actually puts Warlocks at a disadvantage because it makes them a stationary target. Arc Souls are an option but they're pretty slow firing and are just their to mop up kills. You can't direct what they even fire at; also you only get them on the Arc subclass, all Titan barricades have their damage feature. Additionally, Warlocks have next to no movement options. Solar has an air dodge; quite frankly, Icarus Dash should be a feature of all Warlock subclasses intrinsically, to combat our god-awful jump options.

MY MIDDLE TREE DAWN WAS AXED AND BOTTOM TREE IS JUST. GONE.

Keep up the great and entertaining content Watts! 🙏♥️

Base warlock movement is by far the worst for PvP. Where warlocks have always had the worst movement, they could fight in air and have more hang time. Aerial effectiveness changes have stripped that advantage from their glide, while still leaving it in the position of being the worst movement. The rift animation is far too long and punishable in the current sandbox of destiny. The rift animation time was devised for a vanilla D2 sandbox of no primaries or crazy movement abilities. The base rift animation needs to speed up. Where warlocks have always had the worst movement, they had the strongest abilities. With 3.0 they arguably have the weakest. If abilities across classes are going to be “equal but different”, movement across classes needs to also be equal but different. Right now there is a huge disparity between warlock glide and Hunter/Titan movement.

If they gave warlocks exotics that synergized better with specific abilities like devour or radiant that would be a good start.

I've been saying it since witch queen all these 3.0 reworks are just titan and hunter getting bites out of the warlock kit.

The one thing we can do is lean in on the fact that Void Walker can Leech health and have overshields increase the options to turn invisible so we can be on equal footing with void Hunters. If you want void identity, we can warp between the material plane and the void plane and instantly warp behind people. As for solar instead of using a fire sword for a super, why not a big rain of fire or something chaotic and explosive?

One thing that I didn't like about the Solar 3.0 was phoenix dive being made a class ability :( before the change I'd run it fairly regularly with empower rift however now I it just feels kinda weak

I have been enjoying stasis lock with glaives, Necrotics, and ice turrets. Been probably the most fun I have had on warlock for a while. Although solar buddy wouldn't be a bad idea.

only way warlocks are meta is with wave frame + the blink lighting melee thingy… I can’t get a wave frame launcher tho… might start looking at titan for pvp hnstly.. lmk what u guys think what’s the best pub stomp class

I used to see solar warlock as a human fighter jet. Double Icarus dash and the roaming supers both top and bottom versions were AMAZING. Icarus dash seems slower now as well.

As a warlock main, (mainly just PvE) I'm so sad that they took away benevolent dawn from Well of Radiance 😭

🤍Amazing video Watts! Appreciate the topic, as it highlights an issue not being talked about enough within the Desitny community.

Not a Warlock main but I thought it was kinda weird to give all the classes access to the other classes' grenades? Like I get that everyone got all the grenades for Stasis, but Stasis is new and only has three grenades; it's always felt like a weird decision to homogenize the classes like this, to make each one a little less unique. Not the biggest fan of that decision. As far as Warlocks specifically go, I honestly think they should be the only ones with healing nades (and should float with them!). That was a part of their identity and I'm sad that it's not theirs anymore.

Bungie hasn't even acknowledge this yet and thus I've stopped playing destiny. I only play on one character so now it's no longer worth my time

icarus dash was the most important Mobility for warlocks ever. But bungie decided to Nerf it.

They could bring back light beyond nemesis, that sweet sweet heavenly looking helmet. Looks and quick saving your whole team that’s a warlock right there

I'm glad your back miss 5000 I enjoy your content very much. They should give warlock hunter jumps.

ive been feeling the same thing, the whole identity of the warlock has been stripped... theres nothing in the game right now that makes us feel like something. for me i just dont feel unique as a warlock. anything we can do, titans and hunters can just. do. better. theres nothing defining us... i remember in season 15 for example, where transversive steps and top-tree solar was the best setup you have. that was all you needed. now you just... dont. you play another class. it just saddens me that bungie hasnt addressed this kind of thing and it really bums me out. i hope they do a re-work on the sub-classes to make them more appealing not just a buff to nova bomb or chaos reach. a new exotic might be helpful since theres nothing good anymore. heres to hoping for the best for my favorite class.

as a warlock main, my biggest gripe is the movement. Warlocks have 1 form of additional secondary movement being icarus dash. Blink and glide both have a higher skill gap than the other classes. Titans can instantly rise up to the ceiling and so can hunters. For warlocks, you are limited to a slow float up and only 1 glide makes icarus dash on par with a titan shoulder charge. When I play on titan or hunter i always feel like i can get a better control of my surroundings whereas on warlock i feel grounded, despite being the class that’s supposed to be airborne. The worst part is, I don’t even have a suggestion or an idea that could fix this, there’s no way in hell bungie would ever redefine warlock movement

My not intuitive bottom line is: Warlock is not as fun in PVP as the other classes. I started on warlock a little over a year ago but started trying hunter and titan as 3.0 subclasses released and found that titan and hunter are just more fun in PVP. Not sure what the fix is (ability rework, new/retuned exotics?) but that's my hot-take.

interesting points you bring up and i agree on most stuff. but (as a voidlock main) i also think that using ur rift for child and then stepping out of it isnt as bad, heck i use my rift for 3 peeking often, also imo pocket singularity is the single greatest asset to void 3.0

It mostly comes down to (with the exception of solar warlock) that the other classes have access to powerful effects before they even start fighting. devour doesnt do anything until after one fight is over and cant be proc'd before a fight like invis and overshield can be. solar warlock is the saving grace of warlock in that icarus dash is still the best movement ability in the game and having buffed healing grenades or heat rises for off angles are both very good effects. However, void titan can do these things similarly well in that shield bash functions like a slightly worse icarus dash that also has added utility, pre fight overshield is very strong and their supers do the exact same thing, locking down a zone for free on the fastest super cooldown. I'm not sure what they can do to improve warlocks identity/ distiction from the other classes. Invis exotics (keprii's, omni and gyfalcon's) all need hard looks to make them more fair and maybe some tunining to invisibility itself. Void overshield also needs a look at, its too powerful to go into a fight with bonus hp because someone cast a wall.

We are really really good at putting a circle on the ground so everyone knows where to put their grenades.

Apparently some people want ophidians nerfed even though they've existed since D1. It's a shame really

ok wait so i ammm kind of confused about amplified hurting warlock movement - is that just because you have more vertical movement with jumping when amplified and it’s harder to get the forward momentum when gliding?

i'm so so so happy you're back :D

Shadebinder is amazing, it can deal with most if not all other classes when played correctly

i will always stay loyal to my warlock. ever since arc came out i’ve become a stasis main.

Warlocks outside of stasis might suck in PvP currently but PvE is an entirely different story

I agree with all of these. Especially with the loss of identity. It just seems that warlocks don’t have much that stands out to me anymore. I used to be a hardcore Warlock main, for both PvP and PvE. But as we got all the Light 3.0 updates came, I just found myself having more fun on Hunter and Titan. And eventually I just forgot all about my Warlock. Idk quite how to say it…but it’s almost like they don’t specialize in anything anymore to me. Outside of shadebinder and Well shenanigans of course…but that ain’t enough imo

Titans just do everything that the other two classes do and do it better now. They have the fastest mobility with their melee, they can make healing rifts with sun spots, they have excellent ability recharge rates and they can grant over shields. They literally have the hunter's class ability now only it's better because it's tired to resilience. What can't they do? Blink? 😂

Actually, the last Idea was pretty good, Titans have that, but in Bad, now let's make that good. Boot Exotic: Exotic perk: Replaces your Rift with either a healing or empowering aura that covers your body. Changes Animation and reduces duration. Solves both Problems of casting it and it being stationary.