Shadowlands Beta/PTR Compiled Feedback Thread

Classes Warlock
61

AFF:
Aff changes sound good. Moving it away from burst and a 3min cd damage profile is ideal imo. Need much more info on talents and everything to really dig in here.

DESTRO:
Destro is in a good place in 8.3, but they’re going to need to bake in FP and RH to keep it there in shadowlands. I suggest making FP a talent and RH an inherent function of Havoc.

Grim:Infernal needs to go baseline with its VoP cd, and I would love to see Crashing Chaos’ CB damage baked into CB itself; reworked slightly so that it instead ramps consecutive CB damage within a window or something. The goal being to shift some of the damage out of Infernal so the spec actually deals meaningful damage while we wait for the CD.

DEMO:
I agree with the devs to a degree, demo (and destro) aren’t in need of the drastic design shifts that aff needs (he says before suggesting a drastic rework ;p). I would even say demo is our best designed spec. Sure, we’re going to need some traits baked in (BI, EP’s haste baked in somewhere), but we’re in a good place design-wise.

That said, our talents need some serious work, and there is a ton of potential there.

Sac souls, for example, needs to either go baseline (as our new mastery perhaps) or rolled into another talent like Inner Demons or From the Shadows. It’s a cool mechanic that elegantly weaves theme and mechanics, making Demonology the in-between warlock (between dot damage via pets and nuke damage I mean).

Freeing up that talent slot introduced an opportunity for real build diversity. A horde build via Nether Portal (which should summon 1:1 based on shards spent and maybe lose the cast time or shard cost); a thalks build via Deacon; and a “stance” build via a new talent.

I suggest Summon Pitlord, or some other dope demon. Give him a base duration, but have him gradually consume more soul shards to increase his duration, with his rate of consumption eventually increasing faster than you can generate shards, despawning him. This gives us a semblance of the stance play style that meta gave us, while also fulfilling a long held community wish.

Other than that, Demonic Strength should probably change to a pet neutral ability (Demonwrath?), we’ll need something cool in place of Doom, and Master Summoner should be baseline. GFG is good damage, but it’s got some untapped potential thematically (perma 2nd pet?). Same for Vilefiend (remove cost or cast time).

Finally, baseline interrupt on the lock. For all specs. It’s been silly to have it on the FH since day one, and it’s arguably precluded us from participating in m+ this xpac.

8 Likes
62

Not sure if anyone else noticed this…but I believe Drain Soul will be baseline for Affliction.

Reason being, the Necrolord covenant ability seems to suggest that it affects each spec’s filler spell, listed as Incinerate, Drain Soul and Shadow Bolt.

There’s a chance they are listing Drain Soul simply because it’s the only spell that can also be a filler spell, and the listed Shadow Bolt is covering both baseline Affliction and Demonology, but my intuition tells me Drain Soul is baseline.

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63

i am willing to bet Drain is coming back as the default filler as well based on the wording they used + the order of fillers mentioned, HOWEVER, if they kept DS as a talent we can’t say they lied because they also mention SB in the decimating bolt description and could say it applied to both Demo and Aff and they wanted to clarify its interaction with drain soul should we choose to talent into it. fingers crossed drain is default tho

4 Likes
64

My thoughts exactly! I was pumped to see the class changes so I could start deciding which toon to focus on till Prepatch, but so much is vague that I have to wait till people are actually in the alpha and we can see spell books and talents for ourselves.

65

It’s better not being auto cast. Purging a hpal big heal and then kicking him feels great.

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66

Either its coming back for aff or as execute for all locks imho.

67

wouldnt work for demo or destro because they actively generate their shards whereas aff does so passively which allows them to have a bit more variation in filler since its not as builder-based

68

Let me live the dream for a moment xD

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69

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnupe. never.

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I was going to post my suggestions later, but you already talked about several topics that I want a change. Talents of felguard should get removed or reworked to be pet neutral, I like the idea of some kind of demonwrath. Tyrant and Vilefiend should be instant cast.

About Summon Pitlord (or other powerful demon), I love the suggestion, don’t know how it would work but seems sooo fun and would be another skill to spend soul shards (Spam shadowbolt/demonbolt to feed a demon looks awesome, love it xD)

Another topic, I’d like a return of grimoire of supremacy for demon or something in this direction, It’s time to warlocks get more options at least for demonology, that should get some talent like in wod making infernal/doomguard as pets or another greater demon, using imp as pet option nowadays is really strange for demonology.

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71

Agreed.

By now our pets should have options for looks.

Man most of our spells sorta seems ok. Good ol old hang of guldan spell. Dreadstalkers don’t even look that great.

The felhunters look much better or the ones with dogs with several faces on their head that get summon by our talent.

I degress though.

I would def hope for more demon options.

Summoning imps is just a tad asinine at this point of the story doesn’t seem like we are progressing as warlocks at all.

4 Likes
72

The demons should just follow your targets. So you switch targets your demons switch targets.

I just really hate the imp mother spec.
I think impswarm was nice in mist of pandaria. It was even nice that we can choose it from our major glyphs so it diddnt affect other abilities. I think imp swarm as a cd is better to have imps that way.

Hand of guldan-1.5 sec cast-cost 3 soul shards-calldown a meteor dealing damage and afflicting your targets with doom. A greater demon (max 1 of each) (Jailer,Fel lord,inquisitor) will also aid you for 12 second.

When 12 second is up a charge resets.

Now for talents
:black_small_square:︎hand of doom-gain a forth charge to summon a pitlord and doom has a 5%(100% if it kills the tsrget) chance when it deals damage to summon a doomguard to aid you for 10 seconds.

On the other hand
:black_small_square:︎impswarm-instant-summon 5 imps to aid you for 20 seconds. 45 second cd.
Talent for impswarm
:black_small_square:︎imp swarm also summons an imp mother to aid you that increases the damage of all imps by 15%.

It seems much cooler this way. I would feel much more of a summoner this way. The current version seems so weak and boring.

Id also like to see those eye of guldan or the vision of n’zoth version eye of chaos come into play as a spell. It can work out with charges on hand of guldan.

Eye of guldan-cost 3 soul shards-summon 3 eyes of guldan that will aid you for 15 seconds. 15 second cd.

Talent-after 15 seconds your eyes of guldan fuse into an empowered eye of guldan that will gain there stats and deal 3x the damage to the target for 10 seconds. While your empowered eye of guldan is active you gain 15% haste.( bam azerite trait on a demon)

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73

I’m just here still waiting hopefully for meta back for demo. I wont hold my breathe. :frowning:

4 Likes
74

Honestly, that is the only change i really want the most. I played with that since we got it just to lose it in legion. It was the best for pvp and pve gave us the boost in damage we needed to comeout ontop with the right amount of haste.

I understand that we have demonic Tyrant to increase our demon damage but it was nothing compared to the power we gained with meta. Thar 600% armor, the chance to be crited reduced, and the damage we gained in the form with chaos waves was amazing. Not to mention we got sleep which did not dr with stun and fear. So we could stun, fear, demo sleep, and back to stun. It was fun and was my favorite time in wow. Even if they brought it back as a talent i will always pick it whether it was big on damage or not because it was fun and the playstyle i loved. Perhaos they should have a glyph

Glyph of Demonic Empowerment-when you activate demonic Dyrant you become a demon benefitting from your demonic tyrants damage and altering your abilities.

Hand of guldan-hand of chaos
:black_small_square:︎Cost no shards.
Shadowbolt-chaos wave
:black_small_square:︎deal significant damage to all targets infront you in a cone shape-this spell cannot be avoided by anything.
Doom-bane of doom
:black_small_square:︎when doom deals damage it summons a doomguard to aid you.

2 Likes
75

Yes, and glyph of falling meteor was my guilty pleasure. Loved it all. That burst of damage. And I wasnt aware of many people playing it at the time. Made me feel unique.

2 Likes
76

For sure but like what? I was thinking a baseline CD that interacts with Soul Shard generation. Either 1 Life Tap on a 30 second CD = 1 full Soul Shard, or 1 Life Tap on a 30 second CD = X% Sacrificed Health for X% increased soul shard generation for X seconds

As a major DPS CD? In the spirit of Ye Olde Infernal/Doomguard CD? Or as a permanent summon that replaces Felguard, or even all other Demons?

I see what you’re saying now, combining the two asks. Do you want Demonwrath in place of current Implosion dynamics or in addition to? Like what is your dream/ideal Demo Lock AOE toolkit? Consider that others are asking for Bilescurge Bombers to be baseline.

For me personally, my dream Demo AOE Toolkit is: Bilescourge Bombers baseline, Demonwrath returned, and I’m on the fence about Implosion (honestly never made sense in terms of flavor or aesthetics for me); obviously including Felguard’s Felstorm in the toolkit.

Repeating what everyone is saying: it appears Drain Soul is our filler for Shadowlands, and reminder that the “extra DoT ticks” was originally from the Malefic Grasp spell, which appears to be returning via Malefic Rapture. My money is on Drain Soul generates Soul Shards over X ticks and will be our Execute Filler, whereas Malefic Grasp is for when we have just spent Soul Shards, or perhaps costs a Soul Shard to cast. But this is all speculation.

Yeah agreed, but alternatively, I don’t know if anyone remembers but Soul Burn: Soul Swap actually applied all of our DoTs on a target back in the day. Do you think both mechanics are necessary or just one or the other?

You mean Harvest Life? As a talent or as a toggle? Personally I think the new Seed of Corruption in combination with Harvest Life would fix Affliction AOE. Malefic Grasp IS returning tho, technically.

Agreed but between the two, which would you rather ideally? Soul Swap Returning vs Increasing DoT Power (ie centralizing our DPS on DoTs; remember to consider PVP). See what I wrote in this post above also.

Valid! Adding in a bit

This isn’t happening and you know it lol, I’ll settle for a Glyph of Metamorphosis where getting to 5 Soul Shards gives us Demon Wings/Horns/Fel Hands for X seconds just for the fun of it.

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77

Was thinking as like an empowered HoG cd, regular hog summons imps, empowered hog can summon a temp pit lord that makes it rain pain on your enemies.

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78

A lot of folks are asking for mechanisms like “empowered spells” tbh, which we used to have via Soul Burn mechanics I think in MoP. How would the empowerment work if you had deciding power? Like what resources, what justification, would you replace something else with it, etc

79

That sounds awesome.

I would love a an empowered hand of guldan cooldown to summon a more powerful demon.

80

Had a thought and I’d like to see the fel gaurd go core as the melee dps pet for all 3 specs and have demonology summon a new demon out of the Plethora of demons in this game to replace it.

1 Like