mage is not a class for the weak-minded... that's why you play a warlock! ^^

@Sumanai:
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball
/cast fireball

Lies!!
While you blink away, hide in an icy block and munch on pink strudels, we sacrifice our life for delicious dark power and stand strong in the face of our enemies, while they scream in Fear!
Despair.. so delicious...
Wait, that was another guy that said it. But nvm! Mages are sissies!

@Sumanai - How's that Frost rotation go? . . . . Frostbolt, frostbolt, frostbolt, frostbolt, frostbolt . . .

Of course, you could always respec Arcane . . . . AB, AB, AB, AM, AB, AB, AB, AM . . .

More abilities does not a rotation make. Warlocks are fun, I will admit that. But bragging about your immensely complex rotation because it involves lots of abilities doesn't make any sense. "Is X up? No=cast X. Yes= is Y up? No=cast Y" ad infinitum. That's not a rotation. That's Q&A.

I still don't understand people saying Arcane is mindless--especially compared to Fire, which seems to fall in in "Is X up?" model, and frost, which seems to just be responding to procs.
With arcane, every cast is a decision. Do I have the mana to keep chain casting AB? If I try to keep full stacks up, will I lose them because the mob dies to early? Would it be better to cast AM at lower stacks because otherwise they'll time out? Is the mob at low enough health that an Arcane Barrage would be more efficient? Do I need to be moving? When should I move to keep those stacks up? Can this mob be slowed, and would it help? Can I steal anything? Is anyone cursed?

Arcane wouldn't get near as much "lol 1112 1112 1112" hate if it weren't such high DPS. The fact that it is VERY hard to beat by even the most complex of rotations (omg cat druids) is the only reason it gets so much flak.

@ Mr. Dunkerton:

The only warlock spec you described is affliction, which almost nobody would argue against you about. It's very mindless. However, to say that using Meta is simple a question of whether it's up or not is painfully ignorant. It's one of the mist complex abilities in the game, because it's usage varies on an almost fight to fight basis. The destruction rotation is based on abilities with fairly high cooldowns for a normal rotation that must be coordinated around a three cast haste buff and a DoT which all of your damage relies upon.

Fire mage is mostly keeping one DoT up and spamming fireball.
Frost mage is mostly frostbolt and a couple of cooldowns ad nauseum.
Arcane mage is, once again, just a couple of spells alternating, mostly based simply on the amount of time you have to cast those spells. Weaksauce.

The funny part is that your defense of the mage class only hurts you, not us warlocks. While it's true that at least the Demo and Destro warlocks have to scratch and claw to get the dps that you can get by spamming two buttons, you are the one that has to play a dreadfully boring class. It's the only class which hasn't really evolved since vanilla, with some tiny exceptions in the Arcane tree. You are stuck with a four year old damage paradigm while the dps around you gets all sorts of fun and complex toys to play with. You are like children who are happy they were given a spoon to play with whole everyone else got a firetruck, but then you insist that spoon is better anyway, no matter how insanely wrong you are.

I can't believe you guys took it personally and even started comparing rotations! LOL
I guess warlocks don't have a sense of humor... I understand, being all emo and all... ^^
(yes, this was another humorous attempt, chill out :P )

To be honest, I play classes more for flavor that power or even playstyle. My two mains are as different as can be--a mage and a prot/fury warrior, and I love them both. I like my affliction warlock as well--but again, mainly for the flavor. To me, I play a warlock because it's different from other classes--so I'll go with the spec that has a different focus from hunters and mages. Keep in mind, I'm still referring to flavor more than actual mechanics. I could care less about which classes are the most powerful--I don't do anything higher than heroics anyway.

I guess I've always liked the underdog and the sense of danger. As a mage, I'm relying totally on my intelligence to save me from things much stronger than I am. I don't "defend" myself as much as simply blast away, run away, and freeze them, hoping to just barely squeeze out victory. Lots of people don't like that feel--and lots of people don't like Frodo as much as Aragorn. That's just me though...

Even as a warrior, I still get that sense of peril. As fury, I'm not very defensive at all--I'm just wailing on things to shock-and-awe them to death before they can react. Even as prot, I'm running (read-intercepting) back and forth, desperately trying to keep the monsters away from my friends, without being able to rely on Holy, Natural, or Runic magic.