Shadowlands Beta/PTR Compiled Feedback Thread

Classes Warlock
1

NOTE: Crossed out text = concerns were either addressed to completely fixed
NOTE: I moved all crossed out text to the 4th post in this thread for ease of reading.

Official BETA Testing Closed Forum Thread (only Beta Testers can post):

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-warlock-class-changes/490693

Official PTR Testing Forum (anyone can post):

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/c/in-development/shadowlands-pre-patch-ptr/251

Official Covenant Abilities (last update April 16):

  • Scouring Tithe (Kyrian) - Deal Arcane damage instantly and additional Arcane damage over time. If the enemy dies while affected by Scouring Tithe, you generate additional Soul Shards. If they survive, Scouring Tithe’s cooldown is refreshed.
  • Impending Catastrophe (Venthyr) - Call forth a cloud of chaotic anima that travels to the target enemy, dealing Shadow damage to enemies within their path. When the anima reaches the target it explodes, inflicting a random Curse and dealing Shadow damage to all nearby enemies.
  • Decimating Bolt (Necrolord) - Hurl a bolt of shadow magic at your target, dealing Shadow damage and increasing the damage of your next Incinerates, Drain Souls, or Shadow Bolts. Decimation Bolt’s damage, and the bonus to Incinerate, Drain Soul, or Shadow Bolt both increase as your target’s health decreases.
  • Soul Rot (Night Fae) - Expend some of your health to wither away all life force from your current target and up to 3 additional targets nearby, causing them to suffer Nature damage over 8 seconds. Additionally, casting Drain Life will also hit any enemy affected by your Soul Rot .

Official Class Changes (last update April 7):

Datamined Changes (last update August 20)

Summary of Changes (last update July 15)
  • Felguard Axe Toss given interrupt capacity on Stun-Immune mobs
  • Fel Domination returned baseline, level 34 spell with a 3 min CD that reduces summoning cast time by 5.5 seconds, dev commentary “ Summoning your pet shouldn’t be always easy, but sometimes you need a new pet in a pinch.”
  • Curse of Tongues returned as baseline
  • Curse of Recklessness removed, will no longer be implemented returned as baseline
  • Curse of Weakness returned as baseline
  • Curse of Exhaustion returned as baseline
  • Doom returned as baseline for Demonology only, talent Improved Doom option remains as well (which makes now baseline Doom into current live Doom) wasn’t changed
  • Demonic Circle returned as baseline
  • The proposed new Talent Tongue Tied was scrapped entirely, replaced with Howl of Terror Talent being returned (1.5 sec cast, 40 sec CD)
  • Dark Pact now scales with Spell Power more
  • Dark Fury tweaked to make the area of effect greater for Shadowfury

Affliction changes:

  • Unstable Affliction now lasts longer, can no longer stack, does not consume a Soul Shard, CAN ONLY BE CAST ON ONE TARGET (was one per target June 10 build, now June 17 build reverted), no longer amplified damage
  • Shadow Embrace Talent is now baseline, Warlocks learn this ability at level 52
  • Malefic Rapture causes periodic spells to tick faster
  • New Talent: Sow the Seeds, additional two Seeds into nearby enemies
  • Azerite Trait Sudden Onset (Agony starts at 4 stacks) added to Talent Writhe in Agony.
  • Azerite Trait Inevitable Demise added as Talent to replace Death Bolt, Death Bolt is now a PVP Talent.
  • Shadow Embrace Talent replaced with Dark Caller, passive reducing CD of Darkglare by 1 minute.
  • Nightfall procs more with more Corruptions on more targets. The increase will not be linear, similar to how multitarget Agony doesn’t linearly proc more Soul Shards.

Demonology changes:

  • Want To Buy Demonology Changes
  • Call Dreadstacker Rank 2 at Level 54, reduces base cast time from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds (0.5 second cast reduction), and the dogs now RUN to your target when you switch targets (travel time negligible now)
  • Fel Firebolt Rank 2 (Wild Imps), “teaches your wild imps how to spend 20% less energy when casting fel firebolt”, meaning they’ll stay around for longer in theory, which is important because of the changes to Demonic Consumption
  • Summon Demonic Tyrant Rank 2 Level 52, BALEFUL INVOCATION MADE BASELINE, GENERATES 5 SHARDS UPON CAST
  • Demonic Calling Talent reworked: Call Dreadstalkers becomes FREE on proc instead of 1 Soul Shard
  • Demonic Consumption Talent reworked: power of the Tyrant/Commander now drains 15% of the life from all your demons available. This is important to note because of the Wild Imp energy change and also makes Vile Field and Grimoire: Felguard stronger since this may function like Legion’s Thalkiel’s Consumption
  • Power Siphon Talent reworked: the 2 demonic cores proc’d cause Demonbolt an additional 30% damage

Destruction changes:

  • Fire and Brimstone tweaked to generate 2 Soul Shard fragements for each additional enemy struck by the Warlock’s incinerate
  • Havoc lasts 2 seconds longer
  • Rain of Fire, Summon Infernal, Channel Demonfire, Shadowburn, and Soulfire all buffed
  • Cataclysm damage reduced by 20% (200% to 180%)
  • Grimoire of Supremacy Talent reworked to be Rain of Chaos Talent: while your initial infernal is active, every Soul Shard you spent has a 15% chance to summon an additional infernal that lasts 10 seconds
  • Infernal Combustion Talent now consumes 7 seconds max of your immolate (up from 5)
  • Roaring Blaze Talent reworked: now provides a 30% damage buff rather than a DoT
  • Shadowburn regained execute buff clause (1 soul shard if the target dies within 5 seconds of cast too), BUT no longer generates 3 soul shard fragments, only has 1 charge and costs 1 shard.
  • Soul Fire Talent reworked: generates 1 full soul shard, causes your next incinerate to become instant, cast time changed to 4 second cast with a 1 min CD

PVP changes:

  • New PVP Talent: Amplify Curse, which amplifies curses with a secondary effect on the target.
  • Death Bolt now a PVP Talent.
  • New PVP Talent NYI Malignant Affliction: UA no longer limited to 1 target but deals 10% less damage, but if dispelled grants you 15% haste (not clear if stacking)
  • Soulshatter reworked to grant a Soul Shard instead for each enemy hit

Summary of Feedback (both wants and needs)
  • Last Alpha Build taken into consideration: Build 35598, August 19
  • Last content update to feedback: August 19
  • Last wording edited: August 19
  • Last subjects to be updated from last Beta Build date: All the things

Sources of concepts:

  • Council of Black Harvest Discord (Lock One Stop Shop)
  • WoW Official Forums
  • MMOC Forums
  • Some Streamers/Guide-makers/Simcrafters on various Discords and Twitch stream (e.g. Council of Black Harvest Discord, folks like Kalamazi, Thdlock, as much as I have time for lol)
  • Rarely but sometimes Twitter and Reddit

Felplagued's MMOC Compilation Thread:

Kalamazi's Alpha feedback Google Doc

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Szn8PW_Pkb3ybnlpsdvsyzooxUcKdEm_mtuM6ViljFc/edit

Thdlock's Alpha feedback Google Docs

Demonology
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MXtru2Y3SFduIT_CzvRCQn7tXs3Us4jURm8CATar8vM/edit

Affliction:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oNiuaTCrF5yDLCCrvF0Fa7s7pRHf0qzoiz3VgCShmbM/edit

Destruction:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LM8_KgUWPxg8ltgtBTbDz5jkVmcTQvVTjhDuhndiG4c/edit

EU Warlock Forum Compilation Document, compiled by Thunrahion

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pxv5bLtj3Csu8E3gpxryjolzA6zFm_-b1xLWABr54aA/edit

WoWhead Demonology State on Shadowlands Alpha (July 14)

WoWhead Affliction State on Shadowlands Beta (July 31)

WoWhead Destruction State on Shadowlands Beta (August 5)

General PVE, PVP, Demons, etc.
  • Talents aren’t a free choice in any competitive PVE/PVP setting

Most of the time there is exactly one right answer per row, the rest being a guaranteed DPS loss. Only 2-3 possible feasible builds exist per spec.

Burning Rush, which comes at a health cost, being on the “defensive” talent row does not make much sense.

Soul Conduit being on Level 45 Talents for Demonology but Level 50 Talents for Affliction and Destruction also doesn’t make sense.

Grimoire of Sacrifice is incredibly useless. We understand the dimension of “Warlocks are a pet class”, but the notion of sacrificing our demon for self empowerment perfectly fits into our class fantasy. As it stands, it is always the worst talent to pick in that row; please just revert it to an iteration where it was a flat DPS increase (for specific abilities or in general), or a version of that where it’s a flat intellect increase or something.

Feedback on first row of talents for Affliction (the SB vs Drain Soul dilemma) in the Affliction section below

  • Corruption returning for all specs is irrelevant for Demonology and Destruction given the lack of interaction in rotation and its cast time for both.

We hope the devs are aware that it will not be used at all outside of Affliction. If the devs do not wish this then Corruption needs to become instant for all specs and interaction given for Demonology and Destruction. Suggestions include having corruption function like Cataclysm or Mists of Pandaria Doom/Bane of Doom where on tick or crit a Wild Imp would spawn; having a Wild Imp or random demon spawn would allow in the former for interaction with both mastery and Molten Core procs and in the latter for interaction with mastery. For Destruction some suggestions given are proc’ing Backdraft, or reduce Conflagrate recharge time.

  • Ritual of Doom, yikes

For “flavor” this has mixed reviews (we had this version of Ritual of Doom only Vanilla through Wrath ie 6 years, and we had CD or Talented Permanent Doomguard from Cata until BFA ie 8 years, but it’s an “iconic” spell for Classic Era players)

It is not feasible for Mythic (time constraint, 1 hr CD, death, and if it does meaningful damage than the warlock losing control mid-fight is too risky), Raid (same), PVP (same), and cannot be used for solo’ing content given it requires 5 people total.

The likely majority use for this spell as-is will be to grief low level players, and it only has meaningful interaction with Demonology via the Demon-health-based Demonic Consumption for Demonic Tyrant. It will not see much use during gameplay.

  • 6 second Pet summon is a mistake

Increasing Demon summoning cast time to 6 seconds does not make sense given:

  1. our demons remain extremely “squishy” due to a significant loss of damage mitigation/armor increases over the past few expansions, in particular for Felguard/Wrathguard and Voidwalker/Voidlord, and

  2. unlike Hunters that have two ways to heal their pet (Feed Pet, which is instant for 50% of the pet’s health with a 10 second CD, and Mend Pet that heals 25% over 10 seconds with a 10 second CD) our only way to heal our pet is Health Funnel that makes us lose health (sometimes significantly depending on how hard the demon is being hit that requires us to channel continuously). Historically also there was an expectation that warlocks could and should be able to switch demons depending on utility with a modicum of ease, ergo our lack of a baseline warlock interrupt.

  3. The current end-game reality of Mythic+ in combination with our utility tied to our pets does not allow for this to be functional

If 6 seconds is to remain, then certain changes have to also come from a quality of life and toolkit perspective. A recommendation here is to reduce the summoning cast time for demons back down, and/or to increase our demon’s (or at least, the Felguard and Voidwalker) “tankiness” back to a semblance of what it used to be. Alternatively, give us another ability (that is instant cast) to heal up our demon (sacrificing imps for health? “Blood Offering” or something).

Fel Domination has been unpruned as of June 10, so thank you, but a significant amount of the community (if not everyone) is in abject horror at the statement that “Summoning your demon shouldn’t always be easy”, given the current gaming reality of the speed/nature of Mythic+ where easy access to interrupt is a reality, the lack of DPS balance on our pets, as well as the fact our utility (unlike hunters) is substantially tied to our pet.

Regarding Fel Domination, a 3 minute CD is way too high for the same reasons we’ve mentioned regarding the current nature of WoW, please reduce this CD to 1 min (1.5 minutes at least) with a removal of the Soul Shard cost for the summon, as well as making it instant. Alternatively, make Fel Domination more like MOP’s Demonic Rebirth, where on an internal 2 min CD the cast time and cost of your next demon summoned is reduced by 100%.

As it stands, comparing to other classes, to drive home the point:

  • Unholy DK pet summon is a 30 second CD with no resource cost and can heal via Death Coil which is part of the natural rotation

  • Hunters have a 6 second revive for 35 Focus, can heal via Mend Pet (10 second CD instant for 25%), Feed Pet (bag item for 50% heal, also 10 second CD), one pet family has an instant rez, or a heal, with their Call Pet not being 6 seconds.

  • Frost Mages still have a 1.5 sec cast for 3k mana

Warlocks have an especially short stick when compared to other pet classes, especially Hunters (not to mention lack of stables but that’s probably a future dream). It doesn’t make sense for only Warlock pet summons to be 6 seconds whereas Hunters only got 6 seconds for their revive because they have two separate abilities for it. A middle ground should be reached between Live and 6 seconds that balances the fact Warlocks DON’T have two separate buttons for Summon Demon and Revive Demon.

  • Warlock Interrupt problems

Warlocks have been asking and needing for an interrupt for a while now. With the issue of 6 second pet resummon in the event of pet depth, this is exacerbated. Further still is the issue that Demonology by and large is “locked” into Felguard due to design reasons of Demonology that expect us to use him for all of WoW’s history.

With the Axe Toss stun-immune interrupt, it works like:

  • If mob is stunnable but on full DR, Axe Toss interrupts.
  • If mob is boss target and not stun immune, Axe Toss stuns.
  • If mob is boss target and stun immune, Axe Toss interrupts.

The six solutions apparent to the community are:

  • Give Warlocks an interrupt as a whole, on par perhaps with Axe Toss (ie 30 second CD) with a shorter counterspell duration.
  • Give an interrupt to Axe Toss.
  • Give an interrupt to Felguard.
  • Give Axe Toss the ability to interrupt always when a spell is being cast.
  • Give Demonology only, or even Warlocks as a whole “Call: Felhunter”/Grimorie: Felhunter baseline.
  • Give Demonology, the Master Summoner™ Class, two pets as Beastmaster does, but in our case only one of each type of Demon is possible, and give us a “Command Lesser Demon” button.
  • Rework Demonic Strength and Soul Strike to general demon talents.

Lots of possible solutions!

  • PVP talents

There’s a lot of possible things to unprune to make up for the loss of Curses from PVP talents

Regarding Covenant Abilities

Impending Catastrophe is neither amplified by Summon Darkglare nor “smart curses” (Curse of Tongues to casters, Curse of Weakness to melee), and thus does not interact with any of the specs in any unique way.

Scouring Tithe and Soul Rot both interact with Darkglare.

Scourging Tithe runs the risk of overcapping Soul Shards due to RNG.

At the moment Decimating Bolt is extremely strong and will be the go-to spell, especially given the way it interacts with Drain Soul ticks over Shadowbolt/Incinerate casts, thus making Affliction the likely go-to Warlock spec above the other two.

Regarding Affliction
  • Drain Soul > Shadow Bolt, especially in Shadowlands

Make Drain Soul baseline as the filler, bake Shadow Bolt filler change into Nightfall (so it changes Drain Soul to Shadow Bolt), and add a talent (Malefic Grasp from Mists through Legion?) that is a single target soul shard spender drain, either doing “double tick during drain” or “faster tick during drain”. This would solve the “gap” in terms of single target spender for Affliction that we presume was supposed to be “Soul Wrack”.

An alternate talent suggestion is replacing the Talent gap with something like Wrath of Consumption from Legion (x% damage increase per enemy killed for x seconds).

Drain Soul is especially strong given the strength of Decimating Bolt in how ticks interact with the buff.

Drain Soul also applied 3 stacks of Shadows Embrace over 3 seconds (1 stack per tick, full stacks in 1 cast) whereas shadowbolt takes anywhere 3 shadowbolt casts, so at least 4-5 seconds.

Drain Soul’s interaction with “shard sniping” also makes it particularly strong.

  • Inevitable Demise is too weak

Needs a buff probably but that’s tuning. Allowing Shadows Embrace interaction with Drain Life would also be good.

  • Sow the Seeds needs to be more functional

Suggestions here are varied. A flat damage buff would be good, but more interaction would be better, such as allowing Sow the Seeds to apply Corruption AND Agony. This would give a choice in playstyle between prioritizing multi-DOT’ing for AOE versus taking Vile Taint for “more” Malefic Raptures.

It’s currently faster to simply multidot than to use Seed of Corruption in the majority of trash pull instances, so this ability simply isn’t lucrative enough to make up for the “time”. Perhaps shorten to the detonation time?

  • Unstable Affliction needs to be able to be cast on multiple targets again

This was in a prior build that all the testers agreed was more fun and engaging and created a higher skill ceiling. Nobody understands why this universally agreed upon good change was reverted.

  • Level 45 Talents

Grimoire of Sacrifice is useless, but a more Aff-specific solution than above would be to replace it with some version of Soul Swap, to allow you to switch target priorities during encounters.

With the loss of multi-DOT UA, Dark Caller feels particularly absurd given its simply a flat CD reduction. It’s going to be the most taken ability given the strength in allowing us to use our CD Demon more anyways. Reverting the reversion to UA and allowing us to multi-dot-UA again would make this a uniquely strong choice for AOE/multitarget scenarios.

Haunt probably needs a damage increase buff to make it compete with Dark Caller if there’s meant to be any sort of competitive or free choice in the matter.

  • Level 50 Talents

Creeping Death makes playstyle more tedious since it isn’t a constant DoT-tick “haste” buff but also shortens DoT duration, forcing us to reapply more regularly.

Dark Soul: Misery is simply too strong above the clunkiness of Creeping Death and the RNG inconsistency on Soul Conduit isn’t engaging.

Regarding Demonology
  • Summon Vilefiend should have no cast time, Demonic Tyrant should have no cast time

It makes no sense for Demonology, which is the slowest spec to set up, to also have one of its most powerful talents and its main CD demon have a cast time. Demonology is the only warlock spec with a CD cast time, and as far as we are aware as warlocks the only CLASS with primary DPS CD with a cast time. Why? Please make them instant, it would be a huge quality of life change.

  • Nether Portal does not provide consistent damage, and is clunky

As it stands, how much damage you get from Nether Portal depends on how lucky you are in terms of demons you manage to summon.

This is further exacerbated by the fact we get 1 demon per shard spender we use, instead of 1 demon per shard spent. This forces us to always cast 1 Shadowbolt and 1-shard Hand of Gul’Dan back to back to get as many shard spenders out. Changing this to 1 demon per 1 shard spent allows us to negotiate and be smarter with shards and procs.

  • Demo suffers uniquely from the lack of Warlock interrupt problem

The “stun immune interrupt” is a clunky solution since it means it doesn’t interrupt on anything that isn’t a boss. Please just give Felguard a Pummel or make Axe Toss always interrupt if a spell is being cast if you really don’t want to give Warlocks Call: Felhunter baseline or equivalent or any of the other solutions (eg second utility demon, at least for Demonology).

  • Grimoire: Felguard CD should be reduced

The CD was 1.5 minutes until 48 hours before BFA launched. Please let this be 1.5 minutes so we have our CDs line up instead of what we’re doing already with waiting 2 minutes for everything to be lined up anyway.

  • Vile Fiend and Nether Portal demons and Inner Demons demons need to “rush” to the target

This “rush” capacity was added to our Call Dreadstalkers when target switching and it’d be a huge quality of life improvement for Demonology.

  • Demonology is too slow

It really takes anywhere from 20 to 30+ seconds to line things up properly to use one’s CDs in this spec. Baseline Baleful Invocation was good, but there has to be another way to make this spec faster. Would baseline Soul Conduit be that broken? Or increased Demonic Core proc changes for more shard generation? Or chance of Demonic Core with demon crits? Anything?

Destruction
  • Roaring Blaze should affect Chaos Bolt in some capacity

It allows for greater rotation engagement and interaction, lack of interaction just feels strange from a design and gameplay perspective (since you want to keep it up).

  • Soul Fire is clunky as hell

Having a spell uniquely designed for prepull alone just doesn’t feel good, since you’re not “expected” to cast it during the rest of your rotation. Having it only generate one soul shard even as a prepull-only spell also just feels extra tedious.

Suggestions here are to increase shards gained and to let Soul Fire be affected by Backdraft.

  • Shadowburn should be baseline

It just feels weird in its current iteration where it’s not giving double shards upon kill nor a guaranteed execute DPS increase.

  • Internal Combustion too dependent on haste levels

There needs to be interaction with some other stat, perhaps intellect. On Live it’s much stronger than on Beta due to haste scaling.

  • Fire and Brimstone should be a toggle

Lack of a toggle doesn’t seem particularly necessary, it just gives us the choice of situational control for our non-shard-spender abilities.

  • Inferno would be stronger with a larger radius
  • Rain of Chaos needs to be clearer

Can we get an explanation for how the “RNG Protection” works here? People are currently trying to mass-test to see if we can figure it out on our end but transparency would be appreciated so we can provide better feedback.

Currently on beta, each Infernal proc resets the CD on Rain of Chaos. We presume this is a bug.

  • Grimoire of Sacrifice sucks, see General
  • Level 50 Talents

Same as with Affliction, Soul Conduit just doesn’t feel too engaging, perhaps a positive change would be to allow another Azerite Trait to be turned into a talent and scrap this?

Regarding the F Word (Fun)

This is where The Great Unpruning could do some cool fun not-gameplay affecting work.

  • Demonbolt Green Fire animation? Will it ever come?
  • Please also return Glyph of Wrathguard’s giving the Wrathguard two 2-handed weapons. I believe the reason it was removed long ago was the Wrathguard was literally attacking twice rather than once.
  • Please give warlocks the ability to speak Demonic once more.
  • Glyphs for old spell animations (e.g. Chaos Bolt dragon animation, Shadowbolt skull animation, etc)
  • Let Dreadscar Rift Ritual of Doom be able to be solo’d or two-man please

Consider:

A copy of the Hunter Tame/Stable system, where either within the Dreadscar Rift (Class Order Hall, would breathe life into past content) and/or next to the Warlock Trainer in every major city, there would be a “Grimoire” that functions like the Warlock stables.

Enslave Subjugate Demon becomes like Tame Beast. Enslave Subjugate Demon simply is never used. Literally never used. Only time it has been used in recent memory was as a gimmick within the Class Order Hall (where we didn’t actually Enslave Subjugate the mob, we just cast the ability and was auto-controlled into releasing us) and the Warlock Green Fire Questline (the Pitlord, which nowadays is irrelevant given gear level and the “of the Black Harvest” title no longer exists) and one of the adds in the Arcway dungeon during Legion. One of the times it was useful was to banish one of the mini-bosses in Hellfire Citadel, but then that was nerfed.

Each current demon becomes a “slot”:

  • the Ranged DPS with Self-Dispell slot (Imp)
  • Tank and AOE slot (Voidwalker)
  • Melee DPS with CC slot (Succubus)
  • Melee DPS with Interrupt and Dispell (Felhunter)
  • Demonology Melee Cleave DPS with Tank and CC functions (Felguard)

Every time you Enslave Subjugate a demon it gets assigned a name you cannot change without dismissing that demon or Enslaving Subjugating the same mob again, following the same way all our default demons have assigned names and we have to pay to replace them. The only demons we could not “release” would be our default demons, maybe, I don’t know.

This would follow the logic that all demons are actually pre-existing beings. Our Wrathguard is an Eredar; he lived on Argus and had a family. They each have a “True Name”.

And canonically, knowing a demon’s true name gives you power over that demon:

Within the game there are already “families” of demons, and given the Voidwalker is a Void being ie aberrations families too. In fact, in the new Leveling Experience, we gain the ability to summon a Voidwalker by “completing” a ritual via a grimoire to summon a Voidwalker from the Void while a Void portal hurts us.

Infact, within the lore and earlier versions of WoW, grimoires were within the Warlock fantasy, whether was quest items where we enslave demons to learn them, or to empower some talents/spells:

Within the narrative, the only thing that prevents a warlock from Enslaving Subjugating a demon is our power. In Legion, we Enslaved Subjugated the Eredar Twins via a Bloodstone (which canonically is a fragment of Old God power), in the Legacy of the Masters questline (Green Fire quest), we Enslaved Subjugated a Pit Lord when fighting Kanrethad at the end scenario, and to begin with as it stands we already Enslaved Subjugated an imp, a succubus, a mo’arg (Felguard), eredar (Prince Malchezaar, Demonic Tyrant, Wrathguard), a darkglare, an observer, a shivarra, a fel imp, a voidwalker, a voidlord (separate from the Void Lords that in canon cannot manifest in reality), a felhunter, an infernal, and an abyssal, and a variety of other demons through the Demonology Talent Demonic Portal (including Ur’zuls, and Felbats, and more)

Furthermore we are now the Netherlord of Dreadscar Rift, First of the Black Harvest, with a small demonic army at our disposal.

In the case of Demonology, the way the spec could be “unique” with regards to this hypothetical system is while Affliction and Destruction can Enslave Subjugate Common demons and aberrations, Demonology as a spec can Enslave Subjugate Elite/Named Elite demons and aberrations. Perhaps with a singular Destruction exception of their being able to Enslave Subjugate Elite Demons for the Infernal CD, and Affliction being able to Enslave Subjugate Elite Demons (or Aberrations?) for their Darkglare CD. But Demonology could Enslave Subjugate Elites for whatever demon slot.

Note, this is my (OP’s) allocation of slots and isn’t a consensus by any means. Sources are Wowpedia’s Demon page and Aberration page.

Demons Common or Unnamed Elite Named Elite Proposed Slot
Annihilan (or pit lords) No Yes Infernal
Antaen No Yes Infernal
Bilescourge Yes Yes Felhunter
Aranasi Yes Yes Succubus
Demon Spiders Yes No Felhunter
Darkhound Yes Yes Felhunter
Doomguard Yes Yes Darkglare, Tyrant
Doomlord No Yes Infernal
Felbat Yes Yes Felhunter
Fel beast Yes Yes Felhunter
Felhound Yes No Felhunter
Felstalker Yes Yes Felhunter
Fiend (Terrorguard, Fear Fiend, Terrorfiend) Yes Yes Darkglare, Tyrant, Infernal
Imp and Fel Imp Yes Yes Imp
Imp mother No Yes Imp, Succubus
Infernal No Yes Infernal
Abyssal Yes Yes Infernal
Inquisitor Yes Yes Darkglare, Imp
Jailer Yes Yes Voidwalker, Succubus
Man’ari eredar Yes Yes Darkglare, Tyrant
Wrathguard Yes Yes Felguard
Gan’arg Yes Yes Imp, Felhunter
Mo’arg brute Yes Yes Infernal
Felguard Yes Yes Felguard
Fel lord Yes Yes Felguard
Nathrezim Yes Yes Darkglare, Tyrant
Felsteed Yes Yes Felhunter
Dreadsteed No No N/A
Observer Yes Yes Felhunter
Darkglare Yes Yes Darkglare
Overfiend Yes Yes Darkglare, Tyrant, infernal
Satyr Yes Yes Succubus
Succubus Yes Yes Succubus
Shivarra Yes Yes Succubus
Ur’zul Yes Yes Felhunter
Vilefiend Yes Yes Felhunter
Void terror Yes Yes Felhunter
Wyrmtongue Yes Yes Imp
Aberrations Common or Unnamed Elite Named Elite Proposed Slot
Void God Yes Yes Voidwalker
Voidlord Yes Yes Voidwalker
N’raqi (standard, C’thaxxi, K’thir) Yes Yes Voidwalker
Merciless One (Standard, Nazjatari) Yes Yes Voidwalker
Sha (Shaling, larger shaw, Prime Sha) Yes Yes Voidwalker
Void Revenant Yes Yes Voidwalker
Voidcaller Yes Yes Voidwalker
Voidwalker Yes Yes Voidwalker
Voidwraith Yes Yes Voidwalker
Wicker Constructs (Wickermen, Wicker Behemoths, Wickerbrutes) Yes Yes Voidwalker
Beastman Yes Yes Voidwalker
Beholder Yes Yes Felhunter
Fleshbeasts Yes Yes Felhunter
Haunt Yes Yes Felhunter
Psyfiend Yes Yes Voidwalker
Blood Abomination Yes Yes Voidwalker

That’s 41 demon families (if we count the 3 Fiend and 2 Imp subtypes separately), and 20 aberration families (if we count the subtypes of N’raqi, Sha, and non-animal Wicker Construct subtypes separately), totalling 61 families.

Each family has approximately 2-5 recolors, giving us an estimate of just over 200 demons/aberrations for each warlock to choose from!

Hunters have 76 families, which if we subdivided by each subtype, totals over 300 different families. Multiply that by all the ones that have recolors, and the number is super high.

IMO in an ideal, wish-granted scenario, it would play out as this:

  1. There is a Grimoire at Dreadscar Rift (class hall) and next to each Warlock trainer in each major city, five slots in the Grimoire interface, one for each demon as I mention.

(I would honestly 100% exclusively go back to Silvermoon as a Blood Elf Warlock to switch out demons in The Sanctum, the “warlock guild”)

  1. You go to where the Demon you want is. Enslave is a simple spell, you wrap them up in chains like on live.
  2. You must bring the Demon to Dreadscar Rift (class hall), specifically to the area used for the Ritual of Doom class hall ability where during the Class Hall Campaign we summoned the two Eredar Twins and enslaved them.
  3. There’s an altar thingy in the middle of the summoning circle in that area, clicking on the altar causes the demon you enslave to jump up to your level and aggro you again.
  4. You must defeat the demon, down to 1%, for them to tell you their “True Name”, and thus it is automatically added to your grimoire permanently, because you’ve enslaved the demon via contract using its true name.
  5. The Grimoire is just a list of demons that you can switch out with the assigned names. If you want to change a demon’s name, you MUST “sacrifice” the demon on the altar in Dreadscar Rift, and we enslave the same model. The only exception are the Named Demon NPCs, since those are presumably their true names.
    [/quote]

Enslave Subjugate Demon only sees relevance in niche or gimmicky moments every expansion, and even in Legion the spell was only really useful as a CC mechanic in some pulls (and even then, rarely; most notably its used in Xhul’horac was nerfed actually). This would be an amazing addition to the game, of equal if not superior level to the Green Fire Questline in MoP.

My personal list for what demons I would pick would be:

  • Felguard slot - General Xakal (Fel Lord), rare add

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  • Succubus slot - Sister Subversia (Shivarra), rare add

  • Imp slot - probaby just the fel imp model we already use, or get Gazakroth which is a purple recolor of the Fel Imp from Hex Lord Malacrass

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  • Felhunter - a Dark Devourer Felhound model

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  • Voidwalker - Soggoth the Slitherer faceless one

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Using the hashtag #WarlockStables on Twitter for this so feel free to join. Just started a daily tweet about it today (August 20).

Bump!

Preach Alpha Quick Look (April 11 pass)

Kalamazi Alpha Feedback Video (April 13 pass)

Kalamazi Alpha Torghast Feedback Video (last update April 20)

Bellular Warlock Video Round 2 (with much appreciated apology for his round 1 :D was nice) (May 7 pass)

Belullar Ranged DPS Roundup, Warlock Section (May 22)

Kalamazi June 11 post-June-10-changes feedback

Kalamazi June 13 post-June-10-changes feedback (more refined)

Dalaran Jaming June 14 Affliction Review

Kalamazi June 17 post-June-17-changes feedback (Destro/Demo centric)

Dalaran Gaming Warlock June 18 Legendary preview/review

Dalaran Gaming June 19 Destruction/Demo Review

Kalamazi June 20 post-June-17-changes feedback overhaul/updates

Tiqqle June 21 post June 17 feedback

Preach June 24 post June 17 feedback

Kalamazi July 9 post July 8 feedback

Kalamazi July 11 Datamined Legendaries Review

Kalamazi July 16 Feedback

Kalamazi July 19 Fire Warlock vs Chaos Warlock issue

Kalamazi July 26 Beta Updated Feedback Document Video

Kalamazi July 27, August 4, August 11 Beta Feedback Series:

Pt. 1 Demonology

Pt.2 Destruction

pt. 3 Affliction

Kalamazi July 30 Warlock Conduits Review

Dalaran Gaming August 8 Fire Destruction Build Review

Kalamazi August 20 Feedback

Kalamazi August 24 Overall NEEDS Feedback

Kalamazi August 28 Affliction MR nerfs explained

Kalamazi September 3 Aff/Demo buffs/nerfs explained

Kalamazi September 4 Demo From The Shadows build explained

Kalamazi September 21 Prepatch Overview

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they dont actually know what dark pact does.

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Recall in WOD when we had a Dark Pact line in your Talent page ?

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Gonna use this post to copy paste what is removed from the above post

This is highly niche and specific but quite a number of Warlocks are going OOM in 8.3, especially after the addition of the Corruption vendor where it’s generally recommended the Expedient Corruptions (+x% haste form all sources) is the “safest” and best Corruption for all three specs. It can be assumed then that this may become a recurring problem. Returning Life Tap for this end-game haste overload reality would be cool, albeit otherwise useless.

or instant resummon our demon on a CD, such as the Flames of Xoroth ability (1 min CD, instant resummon), Demonic Rebirth (2 min CD, 20 second aura reducing cast time by 50%), or Fel Domination (3 min CD with a 5.5 second cast time reduction).

At the same time, with the recent Deathbolt nerf, and the changes to the spec in Shadowlands clearly moving Affliction away from “burst”, maybe Deathbolt should be removed, especially given it’s power now is drastically reduced with the removal of UA stacking + Darkglare extension combination. The loss of UA stacking also makes the Darkglare significantly weaker as well . Deathbolt is now a PVP Talent.

There is a disconnect between Malefic Rupture’s awesomeness and it’s graphics/visuals. Can this be changed at all? Make it look as powerful as it feels? Maybe shadowy-blood explosions? Anything really?

As it stands with Writhe In Agony, Agony takes 30 seconds to stack .

Limiting Unstable Affliction to being only castable on one target when the stacking aspect has been removed feels too limiting. Is the intent here to remove the cleave aspect to Affliction, as it used to be where Aff was more single target, Demo more AOE, and Destro cleave-centric?

Regarding Haunt, while Malefic Rupture is welcome and many are excited, there doesn’t seem to be a big differentiation between Haunt and Unstable Affliction. It has been proposed to increase the damage % increase and the CD on Haunt and simply make it a DoT to make it more meaningful and different from UA, or alternatively remove the damage % increase on UA and buff the damage, to balance against Malefic Rapture as both are spenders and orient MR to AOE and UA to ST.

UA problems addressed, UA can now be cast on multiple targets and damage % increase removed on UA.

Demonic Strength and Soul Strike Talents are popular talents, but really seals us into Felguard/Wrathguard. This in turn affects the aforementioned lack of a baseline interrupt. Could DS and SS Talents be altered slightly to give an ability to other Demons of equal DPS so we can have more functional utility as Demonology Warlocks, rather than being forced to sacrifice our choice in talents or our DPS for the sake of an interrupt?

Alternatively rework Demonic Strength and Soul Strike so they apply to any demon (e.g. Demonic Strength could simply be a sort of Immolation Aura on the pet, Soul Strike can just be “demon strikes the targets soul”).

Regarding the particular and specific problems of Demonology not having a baseline interrupt given the way 2 of our Talents are Felguard specific, the primary solutions being articulated are:

* Give Warlocks an interrupt as a whole, on par perhaps with Axe Toss (ie 30 second CD) with a shorter counterspell duration. Pros: Freedom. Cons: Goes against historical design, which Blizzard has For Very Important Reasons Unknown To Us Players™ or something.

* Give an interrupt to Axe Toss or an interrupt to Felguard. Pros: Ability is already there. Cons: baking both abilities into the same CC that is our historic Stun affects us negatively wrt diminishing returns.

* Give Demonology only, or even Warlocks as a whole “Call: Felhunter”/Grimorie: Felhunter baseline; we’re Master Summoners right? Cons: Clearly affects PVP Talents dynamic.

* Give Demonology, the Master Summoner™ Class, two pets as Beastmaster does, but in our case only one of each type of Demon is possible, and give us a “Command Lesser Demon” button. Pros: would be cool, simple as, fits the fantasy, breathes life into the spec. Cons: Probably way more Dev Time.

* Rework Demonic Strength and Soul Strike to general demon talents. Pros: Frees us from DPS loss for an interrupt whether by no-Felguard the entire fight or summoning for 6 seconds in the fight. Cons: Again, Dev Time, and also particularly affects the Class-Fantasy-Legacy-vs-Design dynamic as Felguard is historically the Demo demon.

Alpha testing has shown that neither Felstorm nor Implosion is affected by the new target cap equation for many other AOE. Is that intentional or was it just not implemented for warlocks yet?

Hand of Gul’dan’s imps are staggered when they spawn rather than spawn at the same time, which affects timing when summoning Tyrant. If you wait for all three to spawn, the first one is about to despawn or does when you finally get the Tyrant cast off.

Doom damage on Alpha is worse than on live, on top of the variety of issues already mentioned at the beginning. A suggestion here given Doom was Demo-only for two expansions as revert it to MoP/WoD design, with tick rate of 15 seconds, spawning one imp each tick.

The fact that Doom takes one whole minute to tick, and only summons a Doomguard if the target dies specifically from Doom, and a 5% chance even if that occurs, AND this Doomguard now needs to be enslaved regardless unless one picks the Improved Doom Talent specifically as demonology, doesn’t make sense and feels extremely gimmicky. Doom should be returned to a max 45-60 second duration with a 30-ish second tick that summons an already enslaved Doomguard on an X% chance (more than 5%).

Additionally, if we use Enslave Demon on the Doomguard, it will presumably replace the demon we have out, which in turn means the loss of our Felguard if Demo and possibly the loss of an interrupt if it is needed. What abilities does this enslaved Doomguard have? Will it have an interrupt? Guaranteed DPS increase, or at least equal to the other demons? Will it interact with the Demonology Talents that depend on having a Felguard to even function at all?

Suggestion: Improved Doom Talent removed, make Doom tick faster and the Doomguard chance either increased and turned into an auto-enslaved guardian or removed outright (thus more easily balancing the DoT, honestly probably better to axe the Doomguard), and replaced with something else, perhaps an Azerite Trait that could become a Talent. Another more radical opinion is to remove Doom outright entirely 100% axe it.

Making Baleful Invocation at least partially baseline (3 shards?) would go a long way to improving Demonology’s “quality of life” gameplay dimension. Even if it meant a proportionate damage reduction of Tyrant.

There is a general complaint of clunkiness in AOE for Destruction, particularly due to a lack of control. A common ask is allowing Fire And Brimstone Talent to go back to being a controllable toggle, if not a baseline toggle, where F&B Immolate would AOE apply immolate, of course taking into account tuning. Another suggestion has been to grant Cataclysm as a baseline Soul Shard spender instead. In both cases Rain of Fire would remain but perhaps would have to be tuned accordingly. Some have also suggested returning Hellfire not just for Demonology but maybe even baseline for all specs, or at least Demo and Destro, both for the sake of flavor and for the diversification/extended support of Warlock AOE.

The speed of the rotation and the interaction between spells is also a point of concern, as gestured to in the Azerite feedback. A suggestion is to bring back Backdraft affecting 3 Incinerates or 1 Chaos Bolt once more, also to give us more control and flexibility in our rotation. Another ask is to perhaps have an option to have “mini infernals” spawn again, perhaps as a smaller proc when Infernal is on CD. Regarding Infernal CD, maintaining a 3 minute CD remains excessive given that it signifies that the balance between During-Infernal damage and Outside-of-Infernal damage is significantly large. Reducing the CD and/or buffing the primary toolkit (and perhaps reducing Infernal damage) seems necessary, similarly to the needs of Affliction.

Internal Combustion Talent being triggered by a spell with travel time has negative consequences. Can the Chaos Bolt Consume the target’s Immolate when the spell is cast rather than when it lands?

There is currently a predominant tendency to feel obligated to spec into Grimoire of Supremacy Talent. It is apparent to many that Destruction is balanced around this tendency, due to it being so powerful. Could the damage produced by this Talent instead be returned to our spells, to both allow for greater freedom of Talent Choice and to bring power back into the spec itself? As it stands, as another warlock expressed it, “the skill floor is low but the ceiling is all RNG”. Keeping the damage within that Infernal window means we’ll do bad damage outside of that window by design necessity. Likewise reduce the Infernal AOE so Destro can have stronger AOE once more.

Destruction is the least mobile spec of Warlocks; perhaps return Shadowburn for execute and as a mobile part of our toolkit as well as return Fel Flame, both in line with unpruning as well as the former allowing for a space in our Talents to address the needs aforementioned.

Additionally, rather than Havoc copying any spell within a certain timeframe (thus forcing the spec to be played a certain way in lining certain cooldowns up along with being forced into certain talents), could it instead just copy a certain number of spells as it was before?

Previous version of above post here:

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I really don’t see Destruction or Demonology holding their ground in Shadowlands. Majority of classes are getting so many baseline abilities and updates, it just doesn’t look even.

I know it’s early development, but I hope more changes. I’m not thrilled.

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correct that was my first guess, but it says it does more damage. it doesnt do damage. its not an offensive ability. it is worded awfully

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what would you like to see returned specifically?

I’m hoping for some Glyphs returned, and for Hellfire to come back

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For Destro, what we do not have is made up for with DPS.

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Demo NEEDS an instant cast targeted interrupt, like other pure dps classes have, a la rogue kick. That would make many of us very happy. Not shadowfury, not axe toss stun. Without that, the spec will suffer all expansion again from that weakness, regardless of what good or bad they do to it numbers wise.

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added

10char

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I haven’t put that much thought into it, but I just can’t see the ramp up playstyle being viable in shadowlands. It kinda looks like classes and combat will be fast paced, like in previous xpacs.

As for Demo, they need more on-demand abilities. Outside of Tyrant and using Demonic Strength the spec is complete garbage in any scenario you put them in.

For Destruction, I may be too pessimistic. They will probably be fine with minimal changes, such as bringing curses and utility back.

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Welp…I’m whelmed. Not overwhelmed or underwhelmed…just whelmed so far.

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Hopeful for Affy!! This looks good so far!!
I’m kinda torn about Destro, in one way the minimal at first changes show the spec is actually decently designed? And as one AP said, we make up for “cool tricks” in raw DPS, but it’s like, we have numerous talent rows that are one sided, spells/talents (Shadowburn and Soulfire) that are not used at all, and just a very boring playstyle, I hope they at least give Shadowburn and Soulfire a actual chance to compete in Shadowlands.

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I’d like to see more damage and usefulness outside of “Big Bolts”. Maybe bringing back a great execute in Shadowburn would be the start of that.

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Every other class got its execute back, I thought warlocks would get shadowburn back too =/

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Wanna know why this is? Because Backdraft is just so essential to the functioning of the spec, and it used to be baseline. But no, like every other talent we HAVE to pick which was taken away from us. It’s aggravating on so many levels.

Don’t even get me started on design choices like making Shadowfury have a 1.5s cast time alongside nerfing its CD from 30s to 1minute… its a dispellable stun. Laughable.

I’d like some actual tools baseline… not just some flavorful curses, which are neat, yes, but as it goes: Things like Demonic Circle for example.

And change our mechanic back to Burning Embers, and give us a smaller heal through ember tap back again, too. But not as ridiculous as it was in MoP or WoD.

Then they absolutely have to give Backlash back to make Incinerate instant cast every 8s when we’re hit by melee, on top of increasing our damage of Conflagrate, Incinerate and Shadowburn, and nerfing our reliance on the 3min Infernal CD window and Chaos Bolt.

Chaos Bolt hits for far too weak outside of these CDs, and when we lose our haste generating borrowed powers, the spec will truly feel awful again.

Additionally, give us Howl of Terror or Blood Horror baseline back, to regain control over those pesky melees. In turn, they can make us more squishy again.

Remove the stupid CD nerf on Health Stone for warlocks only. It’s a slap in the face that one of our major defensives can only be used ONCE per in-combat phase. It works like potions ever since BfA, and in PvP, this is a horrible design decision when a class like Rogue has Crimson Vial, a 30% HoT on a 30s CD…

To round it up, give us the WotLK/Cata version of Shadowflame back. A cone Dragons Breath-like abiility on a 15s CD that does quick Shadowflame damage and slows the target for 70% for 5s.

Oh and yes, Fel flame would be neat as well. Or give a talent that makes Immolate instant cast, this was actually a very fun playstyle in mid Legion when they gave us that possibility for a short amount of time…

There’s just SO MUCH they have to do… I mainly speak from the PvP PoV, but rest assured that all our design flaws also trickle down to PvE aswell.

Cataclysm’s talent should not give us cataclysm, Cata needs to be BASELINE, and the talent should make it instant cast and its CD reduced by 15s. FnB can stay like that, or they could make it a toggle again like in MoP, which was just so flavorful and unique in its playstyle…

Same with CDF (Channel Demonfire), this should also be baseline tbh. But I can’t ask for everything, just something. Please.

Finally, my biggest gripe especially for M+ design is Rain of Fire. Why not change it so it is a debuff applied to a targetted mob, which it follows around, to circumvent the old problem of our entire AoE damage being negated because most mobs have to be constantly kited around by the tanks…

My list would be even longer if I had a clearer thought process right now, but it is what it is. I’m lucky if my ADHD brain manages some coherent thought so I’ll leave this one for now.

Context about me for anyone that cares: I play on EU, here’s my profile: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/character/eu/blackmoore/archimitros

I only play destruction. Since 2008. I have almost 730 days /played on this toon, and I do a LOT of content, both PvE and PvP, but mainly more PvP focussed. So you can be assured that I know at least what I’m talking about.

Our current playstyle is just frustrating and very dumbed down. It’s frustrating to play, and frustrating for others to play against. It absolutely needs to change.

Here’s hoping for enough like-minded people to really push the feedback, regardless. True warlock veterans know all too well that our feedback will probably not be heard, but we absolutely must not give up.

Okay, I have to add a second finally just to highlight a bit more my gripes especially with the gameplay, and to highlight what we truly lost. Have a look at this recording of a BG I did back in MoP, and please excuse my very cringey character name. I was 16 at the time…

Coincidentally, we have the exact same HP pools now as back then. Have a close look at the damage numbers and just try to reflect on the insanity compared to how our spec is structured nowadays… especially the damage of our filler spells.

They want to give players back agency? Start with classes that have none by their design. Destro is the best example of this. If you really think about it, we have no real agency anymore. We are an immobile turret that has to rely on their team mates to set things up, and we are boned if enemies know our weaknesses.

We are only passive. Passive tankiness through Soul Leech… but NOTHING about our kit is active. That’s why I can’t stop bringing the subject of instant cast Shadowfury up, time and time again. I repeated it 7 times already here on the forums and reddit. In PvP, everything is fast paced and reactional. If your one and only stun isn’t even instant cast, what does that feel like, exactly? Mortal Coil is the only thing that is instant cast, and it doesn’t even come without drawbacks.

Players that lost arena matches due to coiling their kill target just perfectly around the pillar know exactly what I’m talking about here…

Again, please DONT confuse this with our current raw strength. I won’t deny that destro is quite strong in PvP right now, but people really don’t see the bigger picture here. We aren’t strong if we don’t have the supporting team mates, as we can almost never rely on ourselves only. Everything we do that is dangerous is hard-cast. Mortal Coil is the only thing that gives us this, but enemies that know how to play around it absolutely can and will.

If you’re unsure of what I mean, again, I really urge you to watch my clips and try to understand that saying we’re OP now just pales in comparison how truly OP we actually were, once.

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Dest IS in a pretty good place atm. Especially compared to the other 2 specs. Good in raids, good in mythics, great in pvp.

Personally I’m begging blizzard for at least a proper interrupt for demonology (I mean… c’mon) and wincing when I saw unstable affliction mentioned in relation to affliction which I think isn’t in a great place atm. Way too many minor dots instead of a few big ones. AoE is a shadow of what it once was in Legion. Okay in raids - almost unplayable in high keys and rated pvp.

If I had a side-wish, I’d really like demonology in particular to not be so tied to a single pet. Imagine them creating a hunter spec and saying ‘yeah… it has to be played with a boar…’ -.-

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Changes I had hoped for in SL

  • Bring back permanent Infernal.
  • Being on fire
  • Have F&B also work for Immolate.
  • Make Focused Chaos a normal talent choice.
  • Remove the 3 min burst from all specs and make them a talent choice.
  • Ember Tap as the Destro heal.
  • Life Tap so we can get our survivability back.

With none of these happening I don’t see myself playing lock for yet another expansion. :pleading_face:

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About focussed chaos, no. Just remove that st*** talent, tune CB right this time and not f*** it up again and be done with it.

People don’t even realize how utterly disgusting it feels to nerf yourself by wasting a PvP talent slot to get your baseline CB damage back, and in turn having to ALSO sacrifice it’s ability to be split by Havoc so much it’s ridiculous.

And yes, I am a bit over-exagerating here. I’m aware of the fact that Havoc and CB was always an issue to balance, but then again, it truly isn’t. Remember, Havoc used to split 100% of our damage to the second target. It’s at 65% now. Just use that idea to tune it down a bit, and you’re good.

But it is what it is… warlock ever since Legion. Pruned to death, and if you just want even a little bit back, you have to pick the talents for it. Zero choice.

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Here are some things to consider; regarding Demonology.

If Demo really is the master of demon summoning, why are we pigeon-holed into a single pet?

Introduction

  • Pet utility should never have been a thing. I think there should be a talent row that has the following; Imp Dispel, Silence, and an Absorb shield (Dark Pact perhaps, filling in the VoidWalker special) - No need for seduce since it is practically the same as Fear (DR-wise, at least)

  • Replace the Mortal Coil, Darkfury, Demonic Circle row with these spells and make Mortal Coil baseline,

  • Replace the pet utility with strong-damage/defensive cooldowns, Succubus has a melee dps increase, Fel Hunter does more damage based on the target’s mana remaining, imp has it’s own chaos bolt (something similar to it), Voidwalker has a massive damage reduction or an absorb shield.

On-demand damage

  • Make Vilefiend baseline, and instant cast.

  • Dreadstalkers should be a shorter cast, maybe 1 second at most.

  • Summoning Imps shouldn’t come from Hand of Gul’dan, instead make it a cooldown and have it instant (Like Summoning 5 Imps, Cooldown is around 15 seconds)

Filler

  • Have DemonBolt and Shadowbolt do 2% more damage per demon that’s active (replace that talent in the last row with something much more interesting - Like Empowering your pet for a short duration, enhancing it’s abilities)

I kinda ran out of ideas after this, maybe i’ll post more later.

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