The revamped return of Malefic Rupture 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.
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.
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?
Malefic Rupture is unaffected by mastery, to mastery’s “weight” will go down.
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 Rupture, so as to have a clear spell during encounters for execute phase while maintaining Corruption (instant), Agony (instant), Doom (instant), Unstable Affliction (has cast time), and Malefic Grasp (has cast time). A filler with a cast time while we have two of our primary spells (Unstable Affliction and Malefic Rapture) have a cast time, and three if we spec into Haunt, four if we spec into Vile Taint or Phantom Singularity, and if we spec into Siphon Life (all of which is probable given Malefic Rupture interaction with number of DoTs) spring us to a total of eight spells of which three have a cast time, is not good. That’s a lot of GCDs in addition to the cast times of Unstable Affliction, Vile Taint (which is now superior in many instances against Phantom Singularity), and the Malefic Rupture spender.
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. Doing so would open up a Talent slot which could easily be an Azerite Trait that affects our rotation, such as Inevitable Demise making Drain Life a part of our rotation, but perhaps in a less strong way. Maybe Malefic Grasp visual could return to differentiate Normal Drain Life from Inevitable Demise Talent Malefic Grasp.
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.
As it stands with Writhe In Agony, Agony takes 30 seconds to stack.
Affliction AOE remains problematic. 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. There are also qualms about Seed of Corruption casting time remaining too long as well. Also there’s a concern that the new Sow the Seeds is bad because it makes the baseline ability worse.
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. In general Darkglare is not popular, both from a fantasy perspective (Affliction was historically never centered on demons per se, and fit somewhere inbetween the Void-centric fantasy of Shadow Priests and the Shadow/Death-centric fantasy of Unholy Death Knights once they came out) and from a gameplay perspective for this reasons. A suggestion is to remove Darkglare all together, and perhaps make Dark Soul baseline once more. Alternatively, not having a baseline DPS cooldown (or at least not such an extreme one) and returning power to the sustainment of our DoTs. Similarly the loss of UA stacking also makes Death Bolt significantly weaker.
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, and too centered on the obligation of taking certain talents due their being DoTs on CDs.
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?
Additionally the healing provided by Drain Life and Siphon Life simply does not feel significant. Can this be buffed?
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.
There is zero interaction with Shadowbolt and the rest of the rotation. Some are under the impression we are the only class whose filler has no interaction.
Any chance of Malefic Grasp, even as a visual, returning?
Regarding Demonology
If both Infernal and Observer are instant cast, why isn’t Demonic Tyrant?
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.
While there appears to be a datamined aura for a return of both Demonwrath (the AOE damage that radiated from our demons) and Demonic Breath 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).
Inner Demons as a Talent doesn’t scale with haste on a 1:1 level, while the other two talents in the row do, given that the Inner Demons timer doesn’t scale by haste. Demonic Consumption Talent is too incentivized given Hand of Gul’dan and Implosion tuning. From The Shadows Talent only affects Hand of Gul’dan and Demonbolt, doesn’t affect Dreadlash. Inner Demons Talent’s demons aren’t energy based, which means they lose DPS running to the target; make them energy based.
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. Doom problems are expressed at length in the Regarding Curses section.
Alterntively given Corruption has zero interaction with both Demonology and Destruction, maybe Demo’s nuance to Corruption is x% chance to spawn an imp per tick.
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. In this case, given T6 Inner Demons is about summoning demons adn Grimoire Felguard is about summoning a demon, whereas T7 Demonic Consumption is Tyrant-centric, move Nether Portal to T6 Talents and add Azerite Traits as Talents, such as the much-asked-for Baleful Invocation, that deeply helps with Demonology feel.
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.
Nether Portal Talent has been a lot of fun, both in terms of flavor and gameplay, both for PVE and PVP, but is there a way to rework it slightly to make the summoning aspect more efficient? For example, 1 demon per soul shard rather than per spell that spends soul shards. Additionally in some PVP scenarios the Nether Portal gets LoS’d and doesn’t summon anything.
Demonic Strength and Soul Strike Talents are likewise 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. 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.
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.
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, 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?
Eradication and Internal Combustion aren’t good enough to be picked over the other two talents that drastically affect quality of life and rotation feel.
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?
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.
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; 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.
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 Demon becomes like Tame Beast. Enslave Demon simply is never used. Literally never used. Only time it has been used was as a gimmick within the Class Order Hall (where we didn’t actually enslave 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).
Each current demon becomes a “slot”:
- the Ranged DPS slot (Imp)
- Tank and AOE slot (Voidwalker)
- Melee DPS with CC slot (Succubus)
- Melee DPS with Interrupt slot (Felhunter)
- Demonology Melee Cleave DPS with Tank and CC functions (Felguard)
Every time you enslave a demon it gets assigned a name you cannot change without dismissing that demon or enslaving the same mob again, following the same way all our default demons have assigned named 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.
Within the game there are already “families” of demons, and given the Voidwalker is a Void being ie aberrations families too.
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 Common demons and aberrations, Demonology as a spec can enslave Elite/Named Elite demons and aberrations. Perhaps with a singular Destruction exception of their being able to Enslave/Tame Elite Demons for the Infernal CD, and Affliction being able to Enslave/Tame Elite Demons (or Aberrations?) for their Darkglare CD. But Demonology could enslave 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 pageand 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 |
| 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) |
No |
Yes |
Darkglare, Tyrant, Infernal |
| Imp and Fel Imp |
Yes |
Yes |
Imp |
| Imp mother |
No |
Yes |
Imp |
| Infernal |
No |
Yes |
Infernal |
| Abyssal |
Yes |
Yes |
Infernal |
| Inquisitor |
Yes |
Yes |
Darkglare, Imp |
| Jailer |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| 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/Void Lord |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| N’raqi/Faceless |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| Merciless One |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| Sha |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| Void Revenant |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| Void Caller |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| Voidwalker |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| Voidwraith |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| Wicker Constructs |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| Beastman |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
| Beholder |
Yes |
Yes |
Felhunter |
| Fleshbeasts |
Yes |
Yes |
Felhunter |
| Haunt |
Yes |
Yes |
Felhunter |
| Psyfiend |
Yes |
Yes |
Voidwalker |
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).
Felplagued's MMOC Compilation Thread:
`https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/2544306-YOUR-Warlock-changes-coming-Shadowlands/
Kalamazi Alpha Feedback Video (April 13 pass)
