Shadowlands Warlock Class Changes for June 17th - Improved Talent Choices for Demonology and Destruction

Shadowlands Posted 2020/06/17 at 7:11 PM by perculia

WarlockShadowlands

Demonic Gateway no longer despawns when the Warlock dies. Instead, it will slowly fade away once its close to despawning.

Affliction:
Unstable Affliction limit returned to 1 target, as the devs felt like spreading dots to multiple targets was difficult.

Haunt now also applies Shadow Embrace.

Demonology:

Summon Demonic Tyrant received a new rank at level 52, where it generates 5 Soul Shard when used.

Call Dreadstalkers received a new rank at level 54, with a reduced cast time and they can now charge towards their target.

Demonic Consumption now no longer sacrifices your active Imps, instead draining 15% of their current health and empowering itself based on the amount of health drained.

Destruction:

Grimoire of Supremacy is changed to Rain of Chaos - When your initial Infernal is active, each Soul Shard spent has a 15% to summon an additional Infernal with a 10-second

Roaring Blaze now causes Conflagrate to also increase all Fire damage dealt by the Warlock to be increased by 30% for 6 seconds.

Shadowburn is changed from a Shard generator to a Shard spender - Deals more damage for one Soul Shard. Has a high Critical Strike chance against low-health mobs.

Blizzard

For Warlock, we're focused on improving talent choices for Destruction and Demonology, as well as adding rewards for leveling up. In particular, we'd like there to be more viable builds for these specs to experiment with. This led to changes for the highly popular talents Demonic Consumption and . Please continue posting your feedback on these changes in this thread. Thank you!Warlock

Demonic Gateway no longer despawns when the caster dies. When the gateway is close to despawning, it begins dissolving out of view to warn the caster and allies that they may wish to replace it.

Developers' notes: We've heard feedback that the routine of replacing your Demonic Gateway for each boss attempt can be tedious to the point of irritating. We've made a change that allows the gateway to persist through death and we'll be listening for feedback on this change.

Affliction Warlock

Unstable Affliction reverted to Limit 1. Spell coefficient reverted to its previous amount.

Developers' notes: Even without picking talents like Siphon Life and Phantom Singularity, Affliction was unable to keep up with their dots being active on more than 3 targets. Unstable Affliction should now be used on your priority target, which causes Malefic Rapture to do increased damage to that target.

Talents

Haunt now applies Shadow Embrace.

PvP Talents

grants Soul Shards equal to the number of targets hit, instead of Haste.
Malignant Affliction is a new PvP talent. Unstable Affliction is no longer limited to 1 target, but deals 10% less damage. If your Unstable Affliction is dispelled, you instantly gain 15% haste for 10s.

Developers' notes: With Unstable Affliction now at limit 1, we want to provide an avenue for a Warlock to be able to protect their dots on multiple targets, particularly in battlegrounds.

Destruction Warlock

Summon Infernal (Rank 2) is learned at level 52. Infernal Awakening deals 150% increased damage on impact.
Havoc (Rank 2) is learned at level 54. Havoc duration is increased by 2 sec.
Rain of Fire (Rank 2) is learned at level 56. Rain of Fire damage is increased by 30%.

TalentsLevel 15 Row

Soulfire is now a 4 second cast. Damage increased from 100% spell power to 300% spell power. 1 minute cooldown. Causes your next Incinerate to be instant cast and generates 1 Soul Shard.

Developers' notes: This spell hadn't found a niche as an additional short cast time spell. It returns to a 4-second cast time, serving as a pre-pull opener spell to kick-start your damage.

Level 25 Row

Shadowburn is now a 1 shard spender. Damage increased to 130% spell power (was 60%), with a 12-second cooldown. Has 50% increased critical strike chance on low health targets, and generates 1 Soul Shard if the target dies within 5 seconds.

Developers' notes: Shadowburn as a generator was not exciting enough. Shadowburn now provides an alternative way to spend shards, especially while on the move, and also adds burst damage in an execute window, similar to its historic design.

Internal Combustion consumes up to 7 seconds of your Immolate (was 5 seconds).
Level 35 Row

Cataclysm damage decreased to 180% spell power (was 200% spell power).

Level 45 Row

renamed Rain of Chaos. While your initial Infernal is active, every Soul Shard you spend has a 15% chance to summon an additional Infernal that lasts 10 seconds.

Developers' notes: was too integral to Destruction's damage output, even without Vision of Perfection. It also created unhealthy gameplay in PvP. We want this talent to remain powerful and exciting, so instead of ramping Chaos Bolt damage, Warlocks can try to maximize the amounts of Infernals spawned. The goal is to provide the same fun gameplay, without being too reliant on getting a very high modifier on your Chaos Bolt.

Roaring Blaze redesigned, now causes the target to take 30% increased Fire damage from the Warlock for 6 seconds.

Developers' notes: This does not affect Chaos Bolt – only pure Fire damage spells. We want to try opening up other talent builds that can work with your Fire spells.

Level 50 Row

Channel Demonfire primary target damage increased by 10%.

Demonology Warlock

Soulbound Tyrant (Rank 2) is learned at level 52: Now generates 5 Soul Shards when cast.
Call Dreadstalkers (Rank 2) is learned at level 54. Call Dreadstalkers cast time is reduced by 0.5s, and they gain a Pursuit spell to close the gap when their target is greater than 10 yards away.
Wild Imps now spawn more immediately after Hand of Guldan, and 2-3 imps spawn in faster succession. In addition, if they path fail, they now teleport to the Warlock.

Developers' notes: This should both improve quality of life and help prevent purposely getting your imp stuck somewhere to prevent them from casting.

Wild Imps Rank 2 is learned at level 56. Imp energy cost on Fel Firebolt decreased by 20%.

Developers' notes: As a result, they can cast one additional Fel Firebolt before despawning.

Talents

Demonic Consumption no longer sacrifices imps. Now instead drains 15% health of all active demons, empowering itself based on HP consumed.

Developers' notes: This is a fusion between modern Demonic Consumption and Thalkiel's Consumption from Legion. The goal is to give the Warlock more incentive to care about summoning other demons, and to allow for Implosion and Power Siphon to have their unique flavor be sacrificing imps.

Power Siphon now also adds 30% damage to your next 2 casts Demonbolt.
Nether Portal demons summoned attack power increased by 21%.
Demonic Calling reduces shard cost of Call Dreadstalkers by 2.
Inner Demons random demons summoned attack power increased by 21%.

12 3 4

Comment by HundezoGOODBYE GRIMOIRE HELLO HAPPY TIMESComment by Nurutikithese are actually.... some really good changes they madeComment by Belial230Yes yes yes yes yes yes!Comment by SaracaliaWhy not just allow Destruction Warlocks to have Infernal back as a pernament pet option in the Talent Row. At the moment, without Vision of Perfection, our spells is just a throwing fish slap outside GoS and Infernal CD.Comment by InnuendoSo let me get this straight, someone who takes Soulfire is using an entire talent pick for an ability you are going to cast once per boss fight due to its cast time?

For 300% spell power?

Blizzard?Comment by terryhintzid like if nether portal was either baseline or not on the same row as demonic consumption because id really like to have both at the same time. would give me a legion-level power trip that ive missed dearlyComment by terryhintzSo let me get this straight, someone who takes Soulfire is using an entire talent pick for an ability you are going to cast once per boss fight due to its cast time?

For 300% spell power?

Blizzard?Comment by UltimaAvalonSweet Jesus I love the idea of not having to wait 1.5 seconds for the third Imp to come out before casting Implosion or TyrantComment by calmboarEveryone who is impacted by the Infernal changes and no Grimoire and know how $%^& they are: "This is bad". Everyone who's raiding casual content (above W300 or so): "Yup, it's fine! Awesome."Comment by KageJasonStill no interupt unless pet switching and with the 6 second cast time too. OofComment by saffronbrickIs that Soulfire change real? Come on, i will not spend an entire talent row just to do %300 spell power damage at prepull in a 5-10 minute boss fight.

Channel Demonfire primary target damage increased by 10%. This is not even all targets just primary, i don't think this buff is enough to make people select this talent.Comment by DestrarionSo let me get this straight, someone who takes Soulfire is using an entire talent pick for an ability you are going to cast once per boss fight due to its cast time?

For 300% spell power?

Blizzard?Comment by OldburyHear hear! Some decent warlock changes! Still a ways to go for both Destro and Demon IMO, but a good start. Not sure about that Soulfire though, yikes.Comment by ControladoMajor issues:

Demo doesn't have an interrupt to this day
Destro is still locked in the 3 min cd Infernal to do most of it's damage, reducing the cooldown (just like they did with Darkglare talent on Afflic) would improve it's quality both in dgs and raids.

Minor issues:

Nether Portal should be changed. ''Summon 1 demon per cast of an ability that uses a shard'' isn't good and is counter intuitive for how the Demo rotation works. Should be ''Summon a demon for each shard spent''. I suggest just making a ''cast and forget'' spell, very similar to the Monk venthyr covenant ability that summons stuff from a mirror. It's good to see demon being summoned but fees terrible to play with.
Doom is a pretty terrible spell even with the changes. I personally think it should receive a buff on how it works because is useless in any other scenario that isn't raiding, and even in there is still bad compared to other talents in its row and other spells (or Dots) from casters.

Overall I really like the changes so far. If they did changed the things I just adressed I think more people would play Warlocks, instead of going to Mages or even melees.

Btw this is for PvE only. I don't play PvP but I think the changes would be good for both.Comment by KfcmasterLOVE these changes! I have a couple of items on my Demonology wishlist I'd still like to see though. Change Grimoire: Felguard to make the second Felguard be a permanent minion like BM Hunters and UH DK. I know this one is kind of a long shot, but I'd love to see Sacrificed Souls become baseline and have the talent slot be replaced by a Grimoire of Supremacy style talent that makes your Demonic Tyrant also summon 2 Doomguards as well for the duration.Comment by selkie47gross. is THAT what happened to soulshatter? it became a pvp talent and changed completely?

ok can we get an aggro dropper back then? or make VWs not worthless for destro? :(Comment by KaggTake CDF off the talent tree make it part of destro two target cleave. Last I checked corruption was still on destro.. get rid of it. OH and do something about grim of sac.Comment by BigNaturalsI think Destruction could use some more flair. Playing it currently live and played it in Legion. Perhaps making Cataclysm baseline and adding another AOE talent in it's place. It's single target still seems somewhat bland. Would love to see the 5 cost soul shard spender for Affliction they talked about early in Alpha. Would round out the spec (which seems to be the most complete of the 3).Comment by YocoEveryone who is impacted by the Infernal changes and no Grimoire and know how $%^& they are: "This is bad". Everyone who's raiding casual content (above W300 or so): "Yup, it's fine! Awesome."Comment by Triet"Unhealthy gameplay in PVP."

Ok then, it's time to go back to Roaring Blaze + Cremation + Entrenched. We did high damage with instant casts, and on the rare moments we were kicked on Cataclysm, we threw in a bolt. I personally think never casting anything as a destro warlock is more unhealthy than us deleting players who don't kick a single bolt over a 25 second infernal. Destro damage is so easy to avoid, and I know this because I play against a lot of other destro warlocks.

12 3 4