Hey everyone I typed everything up again but in essay format compiling arguments and diversity of suggestions. Please read through everything and tell me if it’s good to edit the main post, and please give more arguments for whichever point.
Summary of Feedback (both wants and needs)
Needs/Necessaries Feedback, or Quality of Life and Mechanics Concerns:
First the good: it is generally agreed that Curses returning is good, the new Sow the Seeds is good, the (perhaps unintentional) application of Darkfury Talent radius increasing for all specs is good, and the removal of Soul Shard cost for Unstable Affliction as well as extending its duration, is good. The damage increases for a number of Talents and baseline abilities is also good.
Regarding Curses:
Only one curse can be applied per target, but can only one curse of each time be used, i.e. can we put the same curse on multiple targets? This question leads to the ask of if we can have Curse of Enfeeblement (ie both Curse of Weakness and Curse of Tongues rolled into one) to reduce “bar bloat”.
Why isn’t Curse of Shadows returning?
The fact that Curse of Doom takes one whole minute to tick, and only summons a Doomguard if the target dies specifically from Curse of 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. Curse of 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%). Improved Doom Talent Removed and replaced with something else, perhaps an Azerite Trait that could be baseline.
Regarding Demons:
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 our only way to heal our pet is a channel that makes us lose health (sometimes significantly depending on how hard the demon is being hit). Historically also there was an expectation that warlocks could and should be able to switch demons depending on utility with a modicum of ease.
A recommendation here is to reduce the summoning cast time for demons back down, and to increase our demon’s (or at least, the Felguard and Voidwalker) “tankiness” back to a semblance of what it used to be.
Likewise a lot of feedback questions the exclusive presence of an interrupt on the Felhunter, especially with regards to Demonology where if we choose or need to use any demon besides Felguard/Wrathguard, then both Demonic Strength Talent and Soul Strike Talent become unusable.
A recommendation on this front was perhaps allow Demonology Warlocks to have two demons out, one main and one “lesser”, and another button Command (Lesser) Demon. Or alternatively have Call Felhunter from the PVP Talent list be baseline for Warlocks. Or a combination.
Regarding Azerite Traits
In general, a number of Azerite Traits are essential to spec functionality and some must be made baseline for the class to be functional by itself without Azerite Traits in Shadowlands. Which Azerite Traits will be baseline?
There is much disagreement between which Azerite Traits should be made baseline, but in general the few that appear to be agreed upon is Demonology’s Umbral Blaze (ie returning the Shadowflame DoT aspect to Hand of Gul’dan as baseline) and Affliction’s Pandemic Invocation (Refreshing DoTs with <5 seconds has an X% chance of granting a Soul Shard). For Destruction the disagreement is in which could/should be made baseline, but many are asking for any that either increase the spec’s “speed” (e.g. Flashpoint Trait increasing haste) or interaction between spells in rotation (e.g. Chaotic Inferno Trait that has a chance to make Incinerate instant).
Regarding Covenant Abilities
The Covenant Ability Decimating Bolt reads as strong enough to be the likely default choice for everyone in raiding/PVE/mythic, given the importance of execution phase when progressing. Looking forward to values/testing, but this is a concern.
Warlock Covenant Abilities don’t feel Warlocky. Why can mages turn into Liches and warlocks get a DoT? The fantasy isn’t there.
Likewise for every other class there is often integration of the ability more meaningfully into our rotation, engaging with their other spells. The same cannot be said for warlocks. Can there be greater interaction between the Covenant Ability and the actual rotation?
Regarding PVP
What PVP Talents will replace the Curses that are now baseline?
Tongue Tied reads as a PVP Talent, why is it in PVE Talents?
Similar to the earlier Demon survivability/mitigation issues, Fel Lord Talent demon is too easy to kill.
Removing the Silence/Interrupt prevention aspect of Unending Resolve, as well as reducing the damage reduction, doesn’t make sense if things like Corruption now have a cast time, Affliction is gaining a new Soul Shard spender that has a cast time, and other spells now have a cast time as well. Warlocks will be extremely easy to take down with the sum of these changes given reliance on channels and casting with zero baseline way to protect our cast.
The announced change to Dark Pact doesn’t make sense as it implies it’s an offensive CD when it’s a defensive CD. Do the devs mean to say that an SP-based multiplier will be applied to the health sacrificed for the shield?
Likewise if many classes are regaining a number of abilities that were baseline as baseline, is there a chance to gain back any of our damage mitigation abilities that were once baseline? For example Demon Armor, or Demon Skin, or a return of a previous iteration of Soul Leech, or a return of Soul Link? Likewise, could our Health Stone have a reduced cooldown and ability to be used multiple times within the same combat when used by the warlock exclusively, given Unending Resolve is losing its silence/interrupt protection and our Demons at the moment remain just as “squishy” while having an increased cast time? At least within a PVP setting for warlocks. The generalized concern is Warlocks lost a lot of our “Tankiness” between loss of baseline “Armors”, limitation of Health Stone, loss of Soul Link dynamics, and need to be returned.
Alternatively, if tankiness can only be returned partially, then our default CC and mobility toolkit could be returned. Mortal Coil could be baseline once more and Howl of Terror could be returned to Warlocks. There hasn’t been much talk regarding Demonic Gateway outside of its functionality for some Mythic groups and Raids and some PVP instances. Others also suggested reducing the CD and cast time for Shadowfury. Another suggestion is bring back Blood Horror.
Regarding Affliction
The revamped return of Malefic Grasp/Malefic Rapture is generally agreed to be good, especially its dependence on number of DoTs rather than interacting with ticks. In fact some are wondering if there’s a way to integrate some aspect of this with Deathbolt, since as it stands Deathbolt is difficult to line up.
There is currently debate among warlocks as to whether Shadow Bolt filler is better or Drain Soul filler, but many are leaning towards desiring a return of Drain Soul being the filler given the “return” of Malefic Rapture, so as to have a clear spell during encounters for execute phase while maintaining Corruption (has cast time), Agony (instant), Doom (instant), Unstable Affliction (has cast time), and Malefic Grasp (has cast time). A filler with a cast time while we have three of our primary spells have a cast time, and four if we spec into Haunt, is not good. Alternatively others prefer Shadow Bolt due to the nature of interrupts/silences in a PVP setting; this could be remedied however by baking into Nightfall changing the filler from Drain Soul to Shadowbolt
Affliction build up appears to be extremely long and maintenance unreasonable to allow for a castable filler baseline. Return Soul Swap in some capacity, rebuilding dots on a target is tedious and a big time sink especially if we’re also getting Doom back; alternatively return Soul Burn:Soul Swap from ye olden days in some capacity (we doubt both would be returned). Replace Shadowbolt filler with a Drain Soul filler, maybe if Soul Swap is returned make the talent spot be a “Empowered Soul Swap” and make it a CD that puts all our primary dots on the target.
Darkglare LOS’s itself sometimes and fails to extend the duration of the DoTs.
Affliction AOE remains problematic to many. A common suggestion is asking for Harvest Life (AOE Drain Life Talent) back. Alternatively, while the changes are a step forward, increase the numbers of Seeds to three and increase damage, given the resource cost and the lack of a direct way to gain that resource outside of RNG DoT ticks.
Having a majority of damage centered on burst via Darkglare for Affliction does not make sense. In addition considering that for maximum burst damage one is obligated to choose the Deathbolt Talent. The majority of Affliction’s damage should be on our DoTs and proper sustainment of them.
Affliction used to be centered on sustained damage, Destruction on burst damage, and Demonology as a sort of inbetween with now the added flavor of “master summoner”. At the moment Affliction’s damage is centered too much on burst.
Regarding Demonology
If both Infernal and Observer are instant cast, why isn’t Demonic Tyrant?
While there appears to be a datamined aura for a return of both Demonwrath (the AOE damage that radiated from our demons) that has a chance to generate a Soul Shard, this isn’t on the abilities list so far. Will this be returned? While the interaction between Implosion-Hand of Gul’dan-Power Siphon Talent is okay, Demonology really needs a baseline AOE again, and perhaps Demonwrath is the way to go. Alternatively others have suggested making Bilescourge Bombers baseline, and reworking the Talent to affect duration and/or radius of Bilescourge Bombers.
Yet others have suggested returning Hellfire as well as Demonwrath, at least for the sake of flavor for the class (even if realistically Hellfire wouldn’t be used over any of the other abilities, save for legacy and solo legacy runs).
It is strange that Soul Conduit remains on Tier 6 Talents for Demonology while remaining Tier 7 for both Affliction and Destruction. There is a general consensus that in terms of interplay between Shadowbolt filler and summons, it would be good for Sacrificed Souls to be baseline; this would allow Soul Conduit to be on Tier 7 like the other two specs.
Please diversify the demons summoned by Hand of Gul’dan so that we may not feel like Imp Mothers. Being surrounded by a dozen imps and two dogs isn’t as powerful as perhaps others expect when one is in theory a master summoner that has as of now taken down the whole Burning Legion with our own personal pocket world/dimension with an army of demons literally at our disposal.
Regarding Destruction
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.
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 General Needs, or Questions
Most talents are actually a free choice between eachother in a competitive PVE/PVP setting. Burning Rush being on our “Defensive” Talent Row when it comes at a heavy health loss does not make sense, for example. The fact Soul Conduit is not on the last row for Demonology is also strange.
There is a desire to bring back a previous iteration of Grimoire of Supremacy being a permanent Doomguard or Infernal.
While it’s great flavorwise that Corruption has returned for all specs, at the moment it only has meaningful interaction with Affliction’s rotation specifically via Malefic Rapture or with regards to the Nightfall Talent. There needs to be some mechanism of interaction for Corruption (Curse of Doom at least possibly summons a demon).
There appears to be a datamined aura for Shadowflame (originally a conal Shadowflame breath that disoriented our enemies, now appears to be an instant spell with 2 charges that generates a Soul Shard, which is from Legion), will that be in fact returned? Would be extremely good.
A repeat of an earlier point: A warlock interrupt is long overdue outside of Felhunter. We are the only class with a pet-dependent interrupt, which if we are Demonology comes often at an inability to use one or two Talents. Alternatively give the Felguard/Wrathguard an interrupt.
Regarding the F Word (Fun)
In general for pets, given the wide variety of models for demons and void-based creatures now in the game, why can’t warlocks be given a “grimoire” system that operates like Hunter stables, with Enslave Demon reworked to operate like a Tame, and we can collect Demons for our grimoires and have to slot specific demons within the given summoning slots?
Allow us to Enslave either Faceless in place of Voidwalker, or Pit Lords in place of Infernals, or other Felguard and Shivarra and etc models for those respective Demon Categories. Enslave 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). This would be an amazing addition to the game, of equal if not superior level to the Green Fire Questline in MoP.
Alternatively perhaps allow us greater variety for pets via glyphs, perhaps either via a glyph that randomizes the skin of your demon via “families”, or glyphs to replace a given demon with another skin as it currently is, but maybe include more diversity of aberrations (eg replace Voidwalker with other Void creatures or maybe Faceless).
On a similar note, more Glyphs to allow us to return to older graphics for certain spells, e.g. a glyph to return Demonbolt to being Soul Fire animation.
On a related note: Demonbolt Green Fire animation? Will it ever come?
A very niche, very small impact ask, but having the Challenge Mode animation tied to /roar is annoying, would be cool if it was triggered via soul shard spending.
Return or make baseline Glyph of Falling Meteor (reworked, fun gimmick), Glyph of Verdant Spheres (for fun, aesthetics), Glyph of Eye of Kilrogg (Eye can cast demonic circle), Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion , a reworked Glyph of Ember Tap (maybe a CD where 1 or more soul shard = X health), Glyph of Fear (ie not have feared targets run), Glyph of Hand of Gul’dan (ie make HoG targetable at a location), Glyph of Nightmares (yes the mount equipment makes this pointless but would be fun to have a glyph that allows our Felsteed, Dreadsteed, and Netherlord’s Dreadsteed to have a trail of corresponding fire (ie Fel, Red, or Shadow fire), Glyph of Shadowbolt (fun gimmick).
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.
We accept that Demonology is never getting Metamorphosis back, but maybe return the fel glow aesthetics of Demonology and Destruction warlocks, perhaps as a Glyph. Maybe have it be so that if a Demonology Warlock gains five soul shards, we sprout the ye olde Dark Apotheosis horns and demon wings. And the Destruction Glyph would operate via us once again being consumed by Fel Fire in the same manner.