Sceau d’invocation supérieure de Wilfred – A legion favorite has returned to us in Shadowlands! This effect brings with it a 1 second reduction to your
Invocation de Regard-noir for each
Éclats d’âme you spend. While this effect is powerful, we already have the new
Invocation de Regard-noir trait which syncs our
Âme sombre : Misère ability to our
Invocation de Regard-noir. Taking into consideration that we are going to cast somewhere around 20-25
Extase maléfique every two minutes; this effect sadly does not seem extremely powerful.
Griffe d’Endereth – This effect does not have any kind of interaction with
Trépas inévitable or granting you any additional ticks of
Drain de vie. It simply does what it says it does, which is make your
Drain de vie channel twice as fast. It can lead to some very quick burst/self-healing in PVP potentially with a high stack of
Trépas inévitable, but I don't see it making much of an impact in PVE.
Relique de synergie démoniaque – This legendary grants
Extase maléfique a 10% chance to refund all
Éclats d’âme spent, which will always be 1. It is basically a weaker version of
Conducteur d’âme and feels a bit underwhelming. If the refund rate was increased to say 20% or so it might be a bit more impactful but currently feels lackluster.
Piliers de la Porte des ténèbres aka “Portal Pants” – Making your
Porte des démons instant cast and also giving it two charges is more impactful than it may seem. It can certainly be of use in PVP/arenas or similar settings but the real question is why play this over a damage based effect? It did see a good bit of play in Legion Mythic + when it came to traversing a large area quickly, but that was only due to gear swapping being a thing.
Agonie perpétuelle d’Azj’Aqir – Giving
Agonie a 20% increased chance to generate a
Éclats d’âme might seem like a powerful effect but when compared to the other legendaries that Affliction has and the RNG of an effect like this, I think we can do a bit better.
Courroux maléfique – This effect causes your
Extase maléfique to increase the damage of your
Trait de l'ombre and
Drain d’âme spells by 25%, stacking up to three times. If you pair this effect with
Trait de décimation and the
Drain d’âme talent, it truly becomes a powerhouse. Initial testing has shown
Drain d’âme to be nearly 60% of our damage output in execute when paired with said effects thus making Affliction Warlock execute damage extremely potent. Even outside of execute it causes you to alter your play style around 45 second
Drain d’âme (if selected) burst windows; which revolve around casting
Trait de décimation and maintaining a 3 stack of
Courroux maléfique.
Frappe noire de Sacrocingle – Another returning effect from Legion,
Frappe noire de Sacrocingle was one of the reasons Warlock was so strong in Mythic +. It has the same
Corruption damage increase from Legion but the slow effect has been reduced from 60% (Legion) to 15% in Shadowlands. I will say that the effect still currently applies the full 60% slow on Beta realms right now but I believe that will be changing soon. A 45% difference in the slow effect will certainly be noticeable but the question is, is just how noticeable?
Courroux de consomption – This effect is another iconic ability from Legion but with a slight difference; In Legion the effect stated that whenever you “kill a target” you received a bonus effect to your damage over time spells. In Shadowlands that target has to die with
Agonie applied to it but the effect also has a much larger bonus, 5% per stack and stacking up to 5 times. Affliction's toolkit has certainly changed a bit from Legion but you simply cannot deny the power level of
Courroux de consomption in certain settings.