Hi Blizzard,
It’s been a while since I last wrote to you back in 2018 (Warlock PvP Revamp) and I thought this would be a good time to catch up. I appreciated that you corrected some of the things I highlighted in the linked article, as oppose to nothing, such as adding demon armor, and reducing the mana cost of fear. I would have thought more PvP changes would have come sooner like nerfing “Focus Chaos,” changing or removing “Entrenched In Flames,” or actually giving soul link back to affliction locks, and buffing their unstable affliction dispel mechanic, but hey, we’re moving on to Shadow Lands!
I wanted to reach out to you today to discuss some potential issues that I see coming in Shadow Lands, specifically for Demonology PvP (player vs. player) combat. As a demonology player that hit gladiator this season (season 4 of Battle for Azeroth) I feel that I can contribute some constructive feedback moving into the next expansion. I am only going to be focusing on Demonology in this post because I haven’t touched affliction in 2 years and can’t identify with the destruction specialization. There are far better players than me that can speak to those two specializations and their problems.
The first concern I have, and probably the most oppressive change, going into Shadow Lands is the pet summoning situation. I don’t understand the logic behind the pet summoning comment that you made on 6/10/2020, “Summoning your pet shouldn’t be always easy, but sometimes you need a new pet in a pinch (https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-warlock-class-changes/490693).”
Making the pet summon a six second cast, instead of 2.5 seconds (which it is in Battle for Azeroth) is a terrible change, and you guys need to provide a better explanation on what your thought process is behind this. As it stands our pets get absolutely crushed in player vs. player combat. In Battle for Azeroth my pet summoning cast with full PvP gear (27% haste) is 1.9 seconds, and against most teams that is an eternity. Between the kicks, stuns, crowd controls such as polymorph and fear, grips, and knock backs, trying to get a 1.9 second cast off in PvP is difficult, but a six second cast is damn near impossible.
This is going to come across poorly in text, and I do not ask this in sarcasm, but do the people making this specific change actually play the class in all aspects of the game, including arena? Have they ever tried re-summoning a felguard against an Unholy Death Knight/Havoc Demon Hunter/Mistweaver Monk in 3v3 competition? If the answer is no, which I am betting it is based on that ludicrous statement made, “Summoning your pet shouldn’t be always easy,“ I am going to walk you through this.
In the event that your pet dies due to soul link damage/general cleave, you will need to avoid the following: Mind Freeze (4 second duration, 15 second cool down), Death Grip (25 second cool down), Shambling Rush (2 second duration, 30 second cool down), Asphyxiate (4 second duration, 45 second cool down), Gnaw (1 second duration, 1.5 minute cool down), Imprison (4 second duration, 45 second cool down), Disrupt (3 second duration, 15 second cooldown), Chaos Nova (2 second duration, 1 minute cool down), Fel Eruption (4 second duration, 30 second cool down), Paralysis (4 second duration, 45 second cool down), Leg Sweep (4 second duration, 1 minute cool down), and Ring of Peace (45 second cool down). All of these spells that I just listed are instant cast abilities, but you have the assumption that summoning a pet at 1.9 seconds is too easy?
I am sure that it was a collective group of people working on the Shadow Lands development that decided to make the blue post on 6/10/2020 regarding pet summons, but you just proved to your entire community how out of touch you are when it comes to this topic. If you had any doubt about warlocks summoning their pets in PvP environments before, read the laundry list of abilities that 1 team has available to them to stop a pet summon at 1.9 seconds, let alone a 6 second cast. This needs to be reverted before release. and frankly the folks that recommended the change need to get involved with PvP before making such an incredibly arrogant statement again.
Moving on I would like to discuss a few of the talents available to Demonology, a few core ability changes that should take place, and then later in this post pivot to the PvP talents. The primary demonology talents I take issue with currently is “Dreadlash,” “From the Shadows,” “Grimoire: Felguard,” “Sacrificed Souls,” and “Nether Portal.”
“Dreadlash,” in comparison to “Bilescourge Bombers” and “Demonic Strength,” is a dead talent choice, seeing virtually no gameplay in both PvE and PvP. In order to make Dreadlash a competitive choice with its counter-picks, I would like to propose some synergy with another dead talent that is rarely used, “From the Shadows.” From a development stand point I don’t think it would be difficult to alter the “From the Shadows” debuff to be applicable towards your dreadstalker’s “Dreadbite,” and not the initial casted target. This change in theory could actually create some really dynamic builds that fit within the class fantasy, while being a competitive option with its counterparts in both PvE and PvP by applying the debuff to stacked targets.
Another critical problem I have with “From the Shadows” is the lack of synergy this talent contains with our shadowflame casting, massive cooldown, “Demonfire” dealing, Demonic Tyrant. In Battle For Azeroth the Demonic Tyrant’s “Demon Fire” attack is shadowflame damage, however he does not gain the 20% damage increase from “From the Shadows.” The debuff “From the Shadows” should include our pets, and not just “Hand of Gul’dan” and “Demonbolt.” This update should also include all of our shadowflame casting pets from “Inner Demons” and “Nether Portal” as well.
The next talent on this list that should be reviewed is the “Grimoire: Felguard.” This talent was a fundamental staple in the demonology kit for along time up until Battle for Azeroth. The reason for this was because it had a 1.5 minute cooldown in conjunction with our 1.5 minute cool down “Summon Demonic Tyrant.” The current iteration of the “Grimoire: Felguard,” does not flow with demonology’s kit, and hasn’t for quite some time. This should be reverted to the original 1.5 minute cooldown so that it could be aligned with the Tyrant. If a “damage per second” nerf is required to justify the cool down reduction on the grimoire, and align the timing with the Demonic Tyrant, then so be it. It was a ridiculous last minute change 2 years ago that these two abilities were de-synced, and it is ridiculous that the change was never reverted. The talent is out of place in its current state with the specialization. Speaking of status, the next talent I would like to discuss is Sacrificed Souls.
Sacrificed Souls in my opinion was nerfed too hard during patch 8.2 of Battle for Azeroth, but even more so was still missing something. Considering that shadow bolt hits like a wet noodle on a hot summer’s day (which I will get into later in this post), the “Shadow’s Bite” trait was nerfed, and the playstyle of the “Demonic Consumption” talent was introduced in 8.2, it’s no wonder why Sacrificed Souls is no longer competitive. Sacrificed Souls is one of those talents that should be reworked to include something more, in addition to its current state, such as including the “Shadow’s Bite” effect but the effect actually impacting the warlock’s shadow bolt damage, in addition to “Demonbolt” damage. This could be a lot of fun, provide a new playstyle while outside of the Tyrant window, and potentially fix (with tuning) demonology’s biggest issue, sustained damage.
The final talent I want to discuss is the dreaded “Nether Portal.” This talent has so much potential with a few minor tweaks, yet there has been no major changes made to this talent in the last two years. Why have there been no alterations to this? Guys and gals on the development team, I am flat out telling you now, no one uses this ability in its current state. If you have data proving otherwise, share it with the class because right now having a cast time on the portal, a soul shard cost to cast the portal, and then the portal not being based on our soul shard consumption is killing this talent. I don’t see dark soul with a cast time, so why does nether portal have one with a fee? I wouldn’t be so harsh about this, but its been over 2 years of not having significant changes and none listed in sight. Take the cast time off this ability, remove the shard cost, and for the love of all that is demonic, have nether portal match the soul shard consumption. If I spend 3 soul shards to get 3 imps from “Hand of Gul’dan”, “Nether Portal” should be popping out 3 demons, not 1. This talk about a significant cooldown having a cast time leads me into my next change, “Summon Demonic Tyrant.”
I am looking across the board against all other damage specializations, including destruction and affliction, and I can’t find a single Damage Per Second (DPS) specialization other than demonology that is required to cast their major offensive cool down, “Summon Demonic Tyrant.” Seriously, not a single class, other than Demonology, has a cast time on their big “nuke” button. Just a few examples of what I am referring to is below: Unholy Death Knights have Apocalypse, Havoc Demon Hunters have Metamorphosis, Balance and Feral Druids have Incarnation, Survival Hunters with Coordinated Assault, Marksmanship Hunters with Trueshot Aura, Beast Master Hunters have Beastial Wrath, Arcane Mages with Arcane Power, Fire Mage with Combustion, Frost Mage with Icy Veins, Wind Walker Monks have Touch of Death, Retribution Paladins are still rocking Avenging Wrath, Assassination Rogues with Vendetta, Subtlety Rogues with Shadow Blade, etc.… All instant cast, big damage abilities. To further back my point, and solidify that the “Summon Demonic Tyrant” should be an instant cast ability, we don’t even have to look at other classes, just use Affliction and Destruction as an example.
Demonology is the superior pet summoning specialization for warlocks; however, Demonology warlocks can’t summon their big damage demon instantly, but Destruction and Affliction warlocks can. If the “Summon Dark Glare” and “Summon Infernal” abilities are instant cast, and every other DPS class in the game has an instant cast big damage ability, then why in the hell is “Summon Demonic Tyrant” not instant cast also? The Demonic Tyrant should be an instant cast ability just like the Infernal, Dark Glare, and all the other instant cast damage boosters for DPS specializations I have previously listed.
Now if balance is the excuse you’re hiding behind to not make this change, then you’re mistaken. The balance comes from the Tyrant’s weak AI (which he still runs right on top of people and doesn’t shoot any “Demonfires,” I have that recorded), needing line of sight to hit his target, and is also susceptible to crowd control effects. When you think about it, it’s kind of ridiculous that enemy teams have two separate sets of diminishing returns to shut down a demonology warlock, plus, the almighty pillar! You can use the diminishing return windows against both the warlock, and the Demonic Tyrant for crowd control. There is absolutely no excuse that “Summon Demonic Tyrant” still has a cast time and should be made instant cast in Shadow Lands.
Next, I would like to touch on the PvP Demonology talents, and I am giving you fair warning right now this is a sore subject for me. I brought up a lot of these issues 2 years ago, and so far, I have seen 0 changes in a two-year span, despite the same problems still existing. For starters I am going to discuss our two mandatory PvP talents, “Master Summoner” and “Call Felhunter.”
With the new update to “Demonic Calling,” “Master Summoner” is not a guaranteed pick moving into Shadow Lands (which is good!), however it is mind blowing to me that “Call Felhunter” is still not baseline for Demonology Warlocks. This is a big problem in PvE, and is pretty much a punch to demonology warlocks in the face, guaranteeing that they will won’t be accepted for high end Mythic+ keys, even despite the axe toss change. This is a whole other article I could write about, but I digress, we aren’t here to talk about that, we are here to talk about PvP.
The issue with “Call Felhunter” not being baseline, and further proves my point that it should be baseline, is that this PvP talent is a mandatory pick. You can’t go into an arena match without a spell kick, unless you’re looking to get stomped on. The only way to have a spell kick outside of this talent choice is to whip out the felhunter (6 second cast of course), but this is discouraged with the current iteration of demonology. The whole spec is based around you playing your felguard, and with the proposed 6 second cast time, you have to stick with that 1 pet per fight. This also leads into other PvP talent issues that require the Succubus, or Imp out to gain value, instead of your felguard.
Blizzard, we are demonologists. Why do we have to have a specific pet out to gain the effect of a talent? The lore of a Demonology warlock is that they’re master summoners. Does this ring any bells for your warlock Shadow Lands Development Team? As a demonologist if I select the PvP talent “Singe Magic,” I should be able to summon a temporary imp to singe magic off of my allies, while keeping my felguard! Same can be said if I choose to use the PvP talent “Pleasure Through Pain,” I shouldn’t need a succubus out, instead of my felguard, to gain the damage bonus and cast reduction on shadow bolt.
Also, I am not sure if you were aware, but you successfully broke the “Singe Magic” talent for the fel imp. I am not referencing the singe magic bug that was recently fixed a few weeks ago (which it was the right thing to do) but in the process you completely disregarded the “Singe Magic” talent choice for the fel imp. If you try playing the talent “Singe Magic” with a fel imp (created by the imp glyph) right now, the singe magic cooldown is consumed and nothing happens. It’s things like this you need to be accountable for when you make a change. This is also a perfect transition into two PvP talents that also haven’t been touched in 1 full expansion, Call Fel Lord, and Call Observer.
I knew writing about these two talents was going to upset me, but truth is, after two years of no changes, you deserve the feedback. Battle for Azeroth neutered quite possibly one of the coolest abilities in the history of demonology, “Call Fel Lord.” The tool tip for this ability reads as followed, “Summon a fel lord to guard the location for 15 seconds. Any enemy that comes within 6 yards will suffer up to 5% of their maximum health in damage, and players struck will be stunned for 1 second.” This tooltip is very deceiving in that the Call Fel Lord does not do 5% of an enemies HP, because the hits are affected by armor, which is even more embarrassing! The cost for casting this instant cast ability is 2 soul shards, and in addition to that, your sanity if you knew what this ability once was. The current iteration of Cal Fel Lord is far different than the Call Fel Lord we had in Legion for all the wrong reasons.
The Fel Lord needs to be reverted back to what it was, “Summon a fel lord to guard the location for 30 seconds. Any enemy that comes within 6 yards will suffer high damage and be stunned for 1 second.” I am going to emphasis this again, “suffer high damage and be stunned.” Right now, the fel lord will hit someone for maybe 1% of their HP, and then die because its health pool hasn’t been updated for 2 years, and its damage impacted by armor! It is not right, by any stretch of the imagination, that a monk statue, which is on a 30 second cool down, take far less damage, and have 160k more HP than the Fel Lord on a 1.5 minute cool down or Call Observer.
I am truly astonished that the hit point pools for both the Fel Lord and the Call Observer have not been updated for 2 years, and takes 100% area of effect damage. I play with a 474 item level score on my way to Gladiator and my Call Fel Lord has 43k hit points. The last arena match I was in, a warrior’s white melee attacks hit for 21k each. This translates to my 1.5 minute cooldown dying to a warrior that does not use any buttons but auto swing, in 3 swings, it isn’t right. You should also see what happens when a Fel Lord stands in front of a Death Knight that has dots, a Wind Walker monk that has fist of fury every 22 seconds, or a Demon Hunter’s Trail of Ruin. Same can be said for call observer that dies damn near instantly, clocking in at 56k hit points. These talents need to be reviewed and updated.
The last item I wanted to touch on in this lengthy post is shadow bolt and it’s cast time. Right now, in Battle for Azeroth shadow bolt has a 2 second cast time, and generates 1 soul shard. I would highly recommend that the baseline shadow bolt cast be reviewed and reduced to 1.5 seconds, similar to a mage’s scorch ability. The thought process behind this is that scorch, much like shadow bolt, simply provides small damage, and a resource (Hot Streak). What shadow bolt does not do is provide a utility slow, like it’s counterpart on a 2 second cast time, frostbolt. My shadow bolts hit for 8,811, on targets that have 550k HP, effectively removing 1.6% of a player’s health per cast. This small tweak can be a huge upgrade in PvP, along with PvE, and improve the flow of the demonology specialization to build an army of demons, as intended.
I know I have covered a lot today in this post but these are things I feel need to be addressed moving into Shadow Lands. If you don’t agree with my examples, communicate why you don’t agree with it. Let’s have an open discussion and help the community understand your thought process instead of being the person in the relationship expecting their partner to be a mind reader. I will try and keep this posted for as long as I can, and look forward to seeing your responses.
Sincerely,
Chameetri