Looking ahead to the Shadowlands patch cycle

Classes Warlock
#1

Warlock changes have been fairly light over the past couple of beta builds, so let’s start the conversation of what we would like to see in terms of potential changes during Shadowlands(9.1/9.2/9.3 etc). Here’s my list:

1)A rework of Ritual of Doom that keeps the flavor but is significantly changed to make sense for modern WoW
2)A second attempt at Soul Wrack or another similar single target focused soul shard spender
3)Warlock stables

Core class balancing/changes need to be a part of the Shadowlands patch cycle, as they were all but abandoned throughout BfA(not counting azerite updates), and are a critical aspect of nearly all MMO’s.

What’s on your list? Try to focus on bigger picture or longer term rather than just repeating unanswered beta feedback

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#2

Rapid Contagion [Instant, 3 Soul Shards, 15s CD]
For the next 15 sec, all of your periodic effects occur 30% more often.

What is everyone’s thought on getting that or a version of that for PVE. Is that too optimistic?

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#3

I’m going to rework my Shadowlands Alpha/Beta Compiled Feedback Thread into a Shadowlands Live Feedback thread once prepatch hits

But to your points.

There’s no way to rework this without making it a CD or a Permanent doomguard.

We had this version of Ritual of Doom for 6 years (Vanilla to Wrath)

We had a CD or Permanent Doomguard for 8 years (Cata to Legion).

Honestly just give us a doomguard. We’re a powerful warlock who single handedly conquered a Legion world and has a small army of demons, and I can’t summon a measly Doomguard?

“Flavor”

God yes.

  1. Make Drain Soul Baseline
  2. Bake Shadowbolt into Nightfall so it has the proc effect but also changes your filler to SB
  3. Put Malefic Grasp as a Talent Soul Shard spender, either double tick during channel or faster tick during channel, 1 soul shard per tick.

Just give us Malefic Grasp again, Affliction is supposed to be a “Channel and Drain” spec >_>

Support #WarlockStables!

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#4

Agreed on perm doomguard - if they can’t figure out a better option, worst case scenario they could return this but require 4 other people(or npc’s in our class hall) to help summon. But RoD certainly can’t stay as-is.

I really wish they would’ve given us Soul Wrack even just for a couple weeks in early Alpha. We could’ve provided feedback even if they had no intention of keeping it, but would still be helpful towards the potential development of a similar ability in the future

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#5

I wouldn’t mind MG either.

If they did bring back MG, how would you like them to implement the shadow embrace debuff?

  • Keep it as is with SB/DS so that we cast a SB/DS alongside MG in our rotation?
  • Add the debuff property to MG and relegating DS to legendary buffed drain/execute/sniping?

I feel (no clue really about balance / difficulty of play / etc) that if they bring back a drain it shouldn’t compete with another drain.

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#6

2 drains probably wouldn’t be too hard though(especially if one is a spender) and could add to the skill cap

#7

Yeah in my ideal world SE would just be on Drain Soul/Shadowbolt.

Impending Catastrophe gives you another non-spender but heavy mana-cost burst option, Malefic Grasp gives you a single target spender option, and Nightfall just changes your filler.

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#8

The only thing I’m still mulling over w/ this idea - what do you do with the execute on DS? Do you have to move it to MG? Seems like balancing MG vs DS in execute could be tricky

#9

They should replace SB with MG and leave DS as a talent. Then we could use DS in the execute phase (since it has the damage ramp up for low heal targets) and SS sniping. Make Decimating Bolt interaction work with MG or DS. Then for a single target spender, just have us have a buff “Soul Wrack” that we can activate and your next MG cast in 10 seconds procs the extra DoT ticks twice each time costing 2 shards per use. That alone, to me, would make it super fun and fascinating and give me back my favorite affliction ability this game has ever had (MG!). It also makes us feel like we are doing something to a single target.

Cause from what I’ve tested on PTR, MR feels kind of cool to use on AoE pulls (given the massive burst of numbers on the screen) but that’s it.

Just feels like a button I push that doesn’t do anything on single target (mainly cause the animation is so unnoticeable).

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#10

I think many share your sentiment when using MR is a single target situation. It may be perfectly viable from a performance standpoint, but it still feels like you should be using a different ability

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#11

Nah same as anything else: dump shards in MG and when you’re out of shards switch to DS until you have more shards

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#12

Ok great Blizz go ahead and get MG implemented for next week’s build.

It has been awhile since we’ve gotten any significant affliction changes(not counting the last blue post introducing RoD and moving the pushback portion of fear). Perhaps something is still in the pipeline though we’re quickly running out of time for anything beyond tuning

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#13

UA being limited to a single target and the conduit that makes UA increase rapture damage already does everything that soul wrack would do while also letting you get free cleave damage when killing a target.

Do you just want an extra ability to keybind? A new animation to look at?

You’re right about RoD though. It needs a huge change or to be removed outright.

#14

Ehh that really isn’t the same thing as MG as a spender, and I really think they need to get away from using expansion systems to fill core class holes. It’s just a band aid, and to be honest, the MR conduit is kind of a lazy solution IMO

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