8.0 Warlock changes from Beta

[Shandalar]

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:
.

Dude its literally impossible to say anything about new demon.

Datamining is full of placeholders actually and is pretty obvious isnt full implemented yet. We can say nothing about it now.

You are even arguing about the removal of life tap rolf.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

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:
.

Soulfire's a placeholder, it's literally the exact same text.
Your concerns about movement are valid though. I'm fine with the removal of life tap and talenting of doom, but if they don't add something else to the rotation the instant soulfire talent will be mandatory in a lot of fights I reckon.
I like the ideas they've got though. Work is needed, but imps spawning around you is a great change. The spells feel so much more impactful when you can actually see what you've summoned.

[Avellon]

Is nobody here concerned with potentially loosing our amazing sustainability (unparalleled until DH Vengeance) with very tough targets (non-dungeon-raid env)?
Tough but that don't do unsustainable (via funnel or drain) amounts of damage to us or our pets... Sure to heal your pet and keep yourself alive reduces the dps drastically (as destro at least), but you don't die.
I mean, in decently hard hitting out doors content we can heal our pet consistently, we can drain life consistently, and we can regen our mana with some risk to ourselves (life tap).. now.
Come BFA it seems we'll have a set amount of sustain then we'll just run out of juice and die... because of zero mana regeneration mechanics (in exchange for dps at least).
I am not talking about dungeon/raid setting, but about out door content and such. (hard hitting, high hp elites/rares and such). But I have to wonder what sustainability the specs have in a raid/dungeon env with fights varying from 5 to 15 minutes. One would hope we don't run out of MP 5 times a fight.

Maybe I am not seeing the bigger picture and/or BFA is still very much just a glimpse of the final form of the specs.
I know it's barely an alpha, but I find it annoying that they so eagerly removed all mana management mechanics. (life tap at least)

Also I don't see a "natural mana regen" covering for the sustainability we had until now (past 13-14 years actually..).

[Inshabel]

Is nobody here concerned with potentially loosing our amazing sustainability (unparalleled until DH Vengeance) with very tough targets (non-dungeon-raid env)?
Tough but that don't do unsustainable (via funnel or drain) amounts of damage to us or our pets... Sure to heal your pet and keep yourself alive reduces the dps drastically (as destro at least), but you don't die.
I mean, in decently hard hitting out doors content we can heal our pet consistently, we can drain life consistently, and we can regen our mana with some risk to ourselves (life tap).. now.
Come BFA it seems we'll have a set amount of sustain then we'll just run out of juice and die... because of zero mana regeneration mechanics (in exchange for dps at least).
I am not talking about dungeon/raid setting, but about out door content and such. (hard hitting, high hp elites/rares and such). But I have to wonder what sustainability the specs have in a raid/dungeon env with fights varying from 5 to 15 minutes. One would hope we don't run out of MP 5 times a fight.

Maybe I am not seeing the bigger picture and/or BFA is still very much just a glimpse of the final form of the specs.
I know it's barely an alpha, but I find it annoying that they so eagerly removed all mana management mechanics. (life tap at least)

Also I don't see a "natural mana regen" covering for the sustainability we had until now (past 13-14 years actually..).

Mana is only the concern of Warlocks and Arcane Mages, Life Tap was kinda outdated, I trust Blizzard enough to believe that we wont be sitting on our hands for a lack of mana.

[Duckz0rs]

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.

Deathbolt's damage seems to be bugged at the moment, saw a video of it critting for 130k and 2-shotting a dungeon boss. The way it works at the moment is it takes all of AC's damage into it's blast instead of capping it at 16 seconds worth of damage. Additionally, and I'm not sure about this part, it also seems to count the damage of dots on all other targets, not just the target Deathbolt is cast on.

Edit: Damn, can't find the video anymore, it's burried someone in about 4000 posts on the warlock discord

[Elise the Seeker]

It only took us defeating the legion to feel like a proper demonology warlock...

[Demoros]

It only took us defeating the legion to feel like a proper demonology warlock...

Don't know man, after all what have they changed? Demonic empowerement remove (at last), summon demon guard/infernal remove (why?), demonwrath removed (can't find it anywhere), but wait add there sin'dorei spite and plufff you get "Demon Commander", it empowers your demons (nice) increase their dutarion (nice) does aoe (well nice) 2 seconds to cast (really?), has a duration (how long 15 seconds? doesn't matter 'cause is bad for me) and a 1.5 cd (bad?)! Doom now is a talent, soooooo lets see, no dots on more than 1 target, no demonwrath, pets still hit one target for their duration or target's death (pets that work like dots but in a dumb way again, pets-dumb-dots=peduts), where's our aoe???? the only thing that seems to be aoe are cds skills like the commander (remeber we need to cast him) and felstorm from felguard(but thank god now its cd can be reduce "with a talent"), my bad almost forgot Biliescourge Bombers (guess what another 1.5 seconds casted talent with 1.5 minutes cd), but remeber this is only first itiration!!!! So in the end we are still a dumb dot class that needs to cast each dot, if we don't consider swamp! The only good thing that i find to be happy is that there are changes at last, sooooo lets celebrate for this one!!!!!!!!

[Gungnir]

Deathbolt's damage seems to be bugged at the moment, saw a video of it critting for 130k and 2-shotting a dungeon boss. The way it works at the moment is it takes all of AC's damage into it's blast instead of capping it at 16 seconds worth of damage. Additionally, and I'm not sure about this part, it also seems to count the damage of dots on all other targets, not just the target Deathbolt is cast on.

Edit: Damn, can't find the video anymore, it's burried someone in about 4000 posts on the warlock discord

It didn't two-shot a boss, it did around 25% of the bosses health after a lot of setup.
https://clips.twitch.tv/TemperedAnnoyingLardJKanStyle

Also, for the people worrying about running out of mana, you do realize that any and all mana issues were removed with the removal of Life Tap?
Thank god for that aswell because it is such an archaic and absolute fucking shit ability.

[Duckz0rs]

It didn't two-shot a boss, it did around 25% of the bosses health after a lot of setup.
https://clips.twitch.tv/TemperedAnnoyingLardJKanStyle

Thanks for linking the vid! Ah, memory exaggerated it, but still pretty obviously bugged regardless of the amount of setup.

[Ooshraxa]

Is nobody here concerned with potentially loosing our amazing sustainability (unparalleled until DH Vengeance) with very tough targets (non-dungeon-raid env)?
Tough but that don't do unsustainable (via funnel or drain) amounts of damage to us or our pets... Sure to heal your pet and keep yourself alive reduces the dps drastically (as destro at least), but you don't die.
I mean, in decently hard hitting out doors content we can heal our pet consistently, we can drain life consistently, and we can regen our mana with some risk to ourselves (life tap).. now.
Come BFA it seems we'll have a set amount of sustain then we'll just run out of juice and die...

Like others have said, mana is a non-issue in BfA.

But - come BfA, it looks like Demo and Affliction (with Siphon Life) will be sharing the over the "most durable warlock spec" crown.
Demo due to Soul Link - it is, AFAIK, the only spec where you get free healing from your rotation without speccing into said healing.

It is, however, only 2% of the damage you deal as healing (25% of the 8% from Soul Leech).
Does it work with demon skin? If so, it should be 25% of 0.5% max health per second = 0.125% max hp per second. Not exactly earthshattering.

Destruction will take less damage than affliction due to mastery, but I don't see any rotational healing spells.

[Deleted]

I don't get why Demo locks won't have Infernals/Doomguards. Such iconic demons. And if any spec should have these it'd be the "Master of Demons" spec, right?

Would look so cool
Demon commander, swarm of Imps, Fel Puppies, Felfiend (new talent demon dog thing) and an Infernal to top it off.

I want to see my enemies get torn apart by the swarm.

[Netherspark]

Each of the specs should have their own major summon. Destruction has Infernal, that's cool. Demonology should have a proper, melee Doomguad. And Affliction should have a Dreadlord that casts dots and shadow bolts.

[evertonbelmontt]

Dreadlord with an aura like old curse of elements, efectivelly giving you (ONLY you) +20% damage as a major cooldown (3 minutes it's a lot after all) shooting shadowbolts would do.

Think of it as an improved Doomguard from legion.

[Rhaxus]

I don't get why Demo locks won't have Infernals/Doomguards. Such iconic demons. And if any spec should have these it'd be the "Master of Demons" spec, right?

.

my guess would be: they want demos to keep using their iconic Felguard, if Doomguard/infernal were an option, then people would either complain about not being able to use their Felguard or about them being undertuned.

[cafecito820]

Each of the specs should have their own major summon. Destruction has Infernal, that's cool. Demonology should have a proper, melee Doomguad. And Affliction should have a Dreadlord that casts dots and shadow bolts.

I like this, but it also begs the question - why can any of these specs summon Felhunters, Voidwalkers, and Succubi? Sure, there are niche uses for them here and there, but they seem like such pointless accessories when a spec's damage is tied to a particular demon. I would like to be able to use a succubus without feeling like I'm losing out on DPS because my artifact buffs my imps and infernals, for example.

[oathy]

Still don't understand if a player goes Demo Spec why they can be like a hunter
and "tame" any demon they want. It makes perfect sense and would give the spec
a huge nudge from just the Generic demons destruct/affliction can summon

[EnigmaVII]

They need to bring back Grimoire of Supremacy! I am sick and tired of having a felguard for all these years...WTB a Fel Lord!

[rhorle]

Still don't understand if a player goes Demo Spec why they can be like a hunter
and "tame" any demon they want. It makes perfect sense and would give the spec
a huge nudge from just the Generic demons destruct/affliction can summon

This is really what needs to happen with Warlock demons in order to offer some variety to the class. It shouldn't be a demonology only thing but act like hunters where certain Demons can only be enslaved by Demonology Warlocks.

[Baconeggcheese]

Thanks for linking the vid! Ah, memory exaggerated it, but still pretty obviously bugged regardless of the amount of setup.

IIRC I was still able to get shenanigan numbers even taking off AC.

I think the entire concept just shouldn't exist for aff as long as Spammable UA exists.

[Deleted]

I think the entire concept just shouldn't exist for aff as long as Spammable UA exists.

Me too, this is going to just result in sitting on shards waiting for procs and doing massive burst by re-dotting 4xUA>DB, build shards back during DB cd and rinse repeat.

That's how destruction should be playing, not affliction, especially going by what they said in their watercooler.

So what that affliction has never been good at priority adds or short term burst, it has still remained one of the top tier raiding builds for every expansion regardless as it strengths lie elsewhere.

Anyone who has half a brain can see how much this talent will be broken scaling wise for affliction as the more gear you will get.