8.0 Warlock changes from Beta

[bio347]

Since they made it a Destro talent too, it'll be interesting to see what they're doing there.

[Lucrece]

Thank the lord, soulfire is back on demo.

Now if they could abandon the stupid demon spam idea. We will never be weaned off haste as an obscene stat unless they come up with a way to make crit and mastery compensate for the fact that our DPS entirely rotates around summoning demons with no throttle other than how fast we can cast.

Just abandon the demon spam crap and gives us nukes with 8-10 sec cd demon summons.

Drain life update is great, too bad they fucked us with shadowbolt.

Don't know what they hoped to achieve with half backdraft when it will still force you to spec into the second stack. It's not like it made destro OP.

I'm also not seeing what will make demo any less of a wretched turret spec with no mobility (and honestly, neither will destro with the removal of portals).

They either have to tune us to deal WoD end tier arcane mage levels of nuke damage to compensate for the lack of mobile DPS options, or something else needs to give like baseline demonic circle+ 45 sec cd instant cast demonic gateway.

[Xorn]

Since they made it a Destro talent too, it'll be interesting to see what they're doing there.

Speaking of Destro talents, I'm really hating the Hellfire row.

Only one of those talents does anything on single target, and it's Cataclysm. That seems... less than ideal.

[bio347]

Speaking of Destro talents, I'm really hating the Hellfire row.

Only one of those talents does anything on single target, and it's Cataclysm. That seems... less than ideal.

The AoE talent row is a good idea, I think, though we're really just trading Live's problem of "Soul Harvest is the only one worth taking if there's no/little AoE" with "Cataclysm is the only one worth taking if there's no/little AoE". I agree that there's some work to be done there, although I also rather like Cataclysm and would enjoy being able to cast it... like, ever.

A potentially larger issue I'm seeing, upon taking a step back and looking at the tree as a whole, is that there are a ton of Destro talents that are discrete abilities. You could make some sort of ridiculous frankenbuild that has Soul Fire, Shadowburn, Cataclysm, and Channel Demonfire. That's worse than Cata-era Destruction and a road I think we absolutely do not want to go down.

[Mammon]

Since they made it a Destro talent too, it'll be interesting to see what they're doing there.

I don't think that talent wil stay there much longer. I can't see a baseline spell for a spec being an impactful talent for another. Even its current version is a really lame talent, just a 45s cd nuke with nothing behind it... you can't play around procs with it, it doesn't line up with Dark Soul. You just cast it ASAP and that's it.

[Xorn]

The AoE talent row is a good idea, I think, though we're really just trading Live's problem of "Soul Harvest is the only one worth taking if there's no/little AoE" with "Cataclysm is the only one worth taking if there's no/little AoE". I agree that there's some work to be done there, although I also rather like Cataclysm and would enjoy being able to cast it... like, ever.

A potentially larger issue I'm seeing, upon taking a step back and looking at the tree as a whole, is that there are a ton of Destro talents that are discrete abilities. You could make some sort of ridiculous frankenbuild that has Soul Fire, Shadowburn, Cataclysm, and Channel Demonfire. That's worse than Cata-era Destruction and a road I think we absolutely do not want to go down.

I mean, at least it will make the "more abilities = more complex" crowd happy.

[Maleific]

Thank the lord, soulfire is back on demo.

Now if they could abandon the stupid demon spam idea. We will never be weaned off haste as an obscene stat unless they come up with a way to make crit and mastery compensate for the fact that our DPS entirely rotates around summoning demons with no throttle other than how fast we can cast.

Just abandon the demon spam crap and gives us nukes with 8-10 sec cd demon summons.

Drain life update is great, too bad they fucked us with shadowbolt.

Don't know what they hoped to achieve with half backdraft when it will still force you to spec into the second stack. It's not like it made destro OP.

I'm also not seeing what will make demo any less of a wretched turret spec with no mobility (and honestly, neither will destro with the removal of portals).

They either have to tune us to deal WoD end tier arcane mage levels of nuke damage to compensate for the lack of mobile DPS options, or something else needs to give like baseline demonic circle+ 45 sec cd instant cast demonic gateway.

I'm actually pretty glad they bought Soulfire back for demo, with Molten Core procs.

And there looks like there's some room to play with interesting talent combos too. Imp Swarm/ Power Siphon or Demonic Consumption.

Really happy we have atleast 1 option on most talent rows to bake damage back into the warlock. If they changed mastery to include caster damage, i'd be pretty damn happy with the spec.

Also not a fan of demon spam, I would like more things like Soulfire/ MC and fewer, larger demons. Which seems to be the way they're going thank god.

All in all, i'm cautiously optimistic about demo now lol.

Edit: Looks like our imps are back to using Energy. Wonder how many bolts from each imp now?

[bio347]

I mean, at least it will make the "more abilities = more complex" crowd happy.

Blech. I mean... I would prefer it not to, but I guess there's no theoretical harm in "piano spec" existing for people who want to play that way. It's just that when it becomes the simulational maximum, the community effects suck badly.

[PickleballAce]

I'd like to thank everyone that complained about how incinerate looked bad on alpha, thank you very much...now it really does look like shit.

Nice job.

http://www.wowhead.com/news=281574/u...-spell-effects

Aweeesome...

???

It did look like shit and now it looks a little better.

[Lulbalance]

In general.. this a good start imo for the class overall imo.

[Rukario]

???

It did look like shit and now it looks a little better.

It has less movement, less particle effecs and less detail in the animation...but hey, it runs on the ground now.
Great improvement!

[Avikur]

Really, really happy with the direction they're taking Warlocks, it genuinely seems like they have listened and taken on board the feedback/complaints from Legion.


So happy life tap has gone!

[Xanatas]

happy for the new demonology talents, happy for molten core proc and soulfire, happy with powerful felguard and happy with new demons... but too many imps and rotation (ok is an alpha ) sound very very complicated.

i hope they change mastery and delete DE..... this is the focus point

shadowflame miss... is a good talent for shard gen in pvp situation

[Gaidax]

I hope they won't do same mistake with Demonology like in past where they threw it way too many different mechanics and made it a salad that had to be gutted.

Molten Core and additional generator seem to be a step into that unfortunate direction. Just hope they will know when to stop this time.

[Deleted]

happy for the new demonology talents, happy for molten core proc and soulfire, happy with powerful felguard and happy with new demons... but too many imps and rotation (ok is a alpha ) sound very very complicated.

shadowflame miss... is a good talent for shard gen in pvp situation

The one good thing about Imps is they are many. I mean they are tiny little fuckers that would not have a place in our rotation compared to a felguard.

[Deleted]

I hope they won't do same mistake with Demonology like in past where they threw it way too many different mechanics and made it a salad that had to be gutted.

Molten Core and additional generator seem to be a step into that unfortunate direction. Just hope they will know when to stop this time.

i think it is a step in the right direction, it definately gives you some options, and tbh it wont add anymore weirdness than old metamorphosis where you had to go in and out of meta for the opener which felt really weird until you got used to it and i think atm it looks too overwhelming until we give it a try ourselves, i can definately see some potential in it like decent burst dps/aoe but ofc ultimately that comes down to how they balance it as we dont know how much dmg many of the abilities does or how much abilities like demonic consumption buffs your commander's shadow bolt volley or etc. but i do like that they are giving demo atleast a few options for mobility through talents like power siphon and overloaded which is already a HUGE improvement over legion, it does sadden me to see that demonic empowerment is still there and has a cast time.

[Maleific]

I hope they won't do same mistake with Demonology like in past where they threw it way too many different mechanics and made it a salad that had to be gutted.

Molten Core and additional generator seem to be a step into that unfortunate direction. Just hope they will know when to stop this time.

Honestly, i'd like it as an alternate spender to dogs. But I don't see them doing that, it would require a bit of a talent/ spell shuffle to accomodate.

[Deleted]

i am a bit surprised they buffed death bolt for afflic as it was already critting for around 40k+ sometimes, with this buff crits could potentially reach 160k+ during execute(ballpark number with napkin math based on numbers ive seen so take it with a grain of salt) which is quite a lot when dots tick for around 500ish a tick, i am expecting it to get nerfed.

[Inshabel]

Honestly, i'd like it as an alternate spender to dogs. But I don't see them doing that, it would require a bit of a talent/ spell shuffle to accomodate.

Right now your spenders are still dogs and HoG, generator is still Shadowbolt. But you can use Swarm to get some more on demand imps which meshes nicely with the Demon Commander and some talents, I must say I'm pretty anxious to try, it seems a lot of stuff still has casttimes though, Demon Commander, Nether Portal. I guess Demon Commander is good if you can plan it right before movement.

[Orwell7]

Honestly, i'd like it as an alternate spender to dogs. But I don't see them doing that, it would require a bit of a talent/ spell shuffle to accomodate.

Please look at the big picture about Demonology, and don't be fooled by shiny "new" spells!

The main change is that Demo no longer has multidot, and Doom, even if talented, does not generate Soul Shards.
To "counter" the loss of Shards, they re-introduced Molten Core procs, based on how many Wild Imps you can summon and RNG, MC procs give you a 4 SS-HoG disuised as Soulfire. Nothing more.

Looking at the talents, they neither generate nor spend Soul Shards (except Vile dogs). They have CD's and you press them. The only interaction is with the Commander, which buffs all pets AND increase their duration.

Again, don't be fooled: this iteration is NOT an improvement in the slightest!
Everything has a cast-time, movement tools are the same as now, EXCEPT we don't have Life Tap, so our core gameplay doesn't even have a few GCD's of movement. Only stand-still casting.

Let's talk about utility:
.