8.0 Warlock changes from Beta

[Baconeggcheese]

Thank god I fucking hate Drain Soul. I can't even say why, the spell just ticks me off the wrong way.

Drain soul definitely ticks people that's for sure.

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Absolutely no changes to Demo when they said it would be one of the few classes getting a major overhaul? It looks like Aff and Destru got more fucking work done on it than Demo.

Its the literal first build of the alpha, did you expect them to have that completely ironed out and ready to go already?

[Count Zero]

RIP Drain Life/Soul. Seems like most in here hated it but I loved it.

[itsDwindle]

Absolutely no changes to Demo when they said it would be one of the few classes getting a major overhaul? It looks like Aff and Destru got more fucking work done on it than Demo.

They may just not have the final changes for Demo done yet. It is only Alpha.

If Demonic Empowerment doesn't go - I will be very disappointed.

[Twilight Cultist]

Absolutely no changes to Demo when they said it would be one of the few classes getting a major overhaul? It looks like Aff and Destru got more fucking work done on it than Demo.

Dude. This is the first build and nothing has even been released. They don't just implement everything in the first build. Changes are usually pretty small in the beginning. If this was 1.5 - 2 months into the beta, then you would have a point. Be patient.

[Kirroth]

Soulfire should have been a demonology spell. Destro's hardest hitting spell should be chaosbolt, and it makes no sense to dilute their burst by introducing a spell that works just like chaosbolt but does 40% more spell damage, which means chaos bolt will have to be balanced around that output.

Soul Fire has been Destro's nuke before, in Cata and times earlier. Also, pay attention to the differences between the spells. Soul Fire does about 17% more damage, has a 4s cast time that may or may not be reduced by the Backdraft effect baked into Conflag baseline, only costs 1 SS instead of 2, and has a 45s cooldown. So it's being offered as a mega-nuke with a significant cooldown and an insane cast time for people who want to go all-in on nukes. For those who don't, there's the other two talent choices on the tier.

What I'm more curious about is the new role for Shadowburn. It doesn't look like a Conflag replacement anymore, but there's no cooldown listed, and I'm not quite sure what its role is supposed to be. It may not be in a finished state.

[xskarma]

RIP Drain Life/Soul. Seems like most in here hated it but I loved it.

I've always been on the Drain Train too. Prefered it over Shadowbolt.

But if they are going this way, then fine. Just make it fun to play and I don't care enough to bitch about it. Which is basically the same thing as when they changed it to Draining instead of casting.


Wild theory: Maybe they are removing shadowbolt from Demo and since they didn;t want to lose the ability, they gave it back to Affliction, along with the old shadowbolt related talents and abilities.

We'll see if this has any truth to it when the Demo changes come through more completely.

[digesspliff]

What I'm more curious about is the new role for Shadowburn. It doesn't look like a Conflag replacement anymore, but there's no cooldown listed, and I'm not quite sure what its role is supposed to be. It may not be in a finished state.

Fingers crossed for baseline shadowburn

[xskarma]

What I'm more curious about is the new role for Shadowburn. It doesn't look like a Conflag replacement anymore, but there's no cooldown listed, and I'm not quite sure what its role is supposed to be. It may not be in a finished state.

Maybe it;s going back to it;s old state too, like some other things have. Would not mind having Shadowburn sniping back in my life.

[Kithelle]

There are no changes at all to Demo when both other specs get new stuff...that is BS...they're able to make a ton of changes to Survival (one of the other *failed* specs) but not a damn thing to Demo?

[Count Zero]

I've always been on the Drain Train too. Prefered it over Shadowbolt.

But if they are going this way, then fine. Just make it fun to play and I don't care enough to bitch about it. Which is basically the same thing as when they changed it to Draining instead of casting.


Wild theory: Maybe they are removing shadowbolt from Demo and since they didn;t want to lose the ability, they gave it back to Affliction, along with the old shadowbolt related talents and abilities.

We'll see if this has any truth to it when the Demo changes come through more completely.

Yeah it's just the first build and who knows, they took away Drain before in some Alpha/Beta and then when they went on Final Boss or something on Twitch enough of us in the chat were talking about Drain that the hosts brought it up, and the devs (or CMs, or maybe one of each, I forgot who it was) seemed honestly surprised ... and then they did bring it back.

And even if it's finally gone again this time, it had a pretty damn good run.

[Sylar Hao]

RIP Drain Life/Soul. Seems like most in here hated it but I loved it.

I love it, but only for Affliction, never made any sense (to me) on the other two specs.


As for destro:
I, somehow, was really really really hoping that we'd get Cataclysm baseline as our AoE spender and Rain of Fire as the regular "weak" AoE. Deluted dreams .

I hope one of those missing talents is the Flame Rift from the artifact. God I love that animation and damage.

[Kirroth]

And even if it's finally gone again this time, it had a pretty damn good run.

It at least looks like Drain Life is still baseline for all Warlock specs. It's just a pure "sacrifice DPS for self-healing" utility spell rather than being rotational filler for anyone. Which is good, we should absolutely have a self-heal like the hybrids do. I can't dispute the level of self-healing I have now is a bit insane.

Of course, it does raise PvP concerns. What doesn't? But I'm willing to be patient to see what that front brings.

[Count Zero]

It at least looks like Drain Life is still baseline for all Warlock specs. It's just a pure "sacrifice DPS for self-healing" utility spell rather than being rotational filler for anyone. Which is good, we should absolutely have a self-heal like the hybrids do. I can't dispute the level of self-healing I have now is a bit insane.

Of course, it does raise PvP concerns. What doesn't? But I'm willing to be patient to see what that front brings.

You know, I might have been misremembering somewhat - I'm not sure if what I'm thinking of was them removing Drain Soul as an execute or removing all Drain entirely, but either way, yeah, hopefully at least the old non-filler version of it remains, at worst. I wouldn't even be mad if Shadowbolt was baseline and you could talent into a Drain filler.

It would be neat if Nightfall could apply to Drain ... do all its ticks and all the copy-cat ticks of your dots it would have done instantly. That sounds hard to balance as a proc tho, but could be great as a moderate cd to aid in add burst. Maybe having to choose between that and soul swap for talents.

idk, just tossing wild thoughts in the air. First Alpha build after all.

[Illiterate]

They should give affliction fel flame back so we have something to kill those damn totems or stop flag caps with.

[Fenzha]

There are no changes at all to Demo when both other specs get new stuff...that is BS...they're able to make a ton of changes to Survival (one of the other *failed* specs) but not a damn thing to Demo?

Probably means they know where they want to go with Survival then. If they don't have a plan for Demo the changes aren't going to be there yet.

[Kirroth]

Also, I would like to caution everyone by telling a little story about Hearthstone.

Every time there's a Hearthstone expansion all the big streamers do videos where they rate and evaluate the cards in the new set. And every time, three months later there's a video compiling clips of them being absolutely hilariously wrong about some of the biggest cards. Even the people who play the game for a living and have do card evaluation videos for every set still can't overcome a fundamental flaw: they're comparing how each card in isolation would do in the current meta rather than what impact the entire set will have on the meta. A series of rapid hot takes just doesn't give them any ability to try to evaluate what effect the cards will all have in combination.

So the lesson is, don't trust in first reactions and don't seize on single isolated elements. It's almost impossible to predict how a spec will feel to play from reading a list of class changes. You need to get some hands on trials to really discover what the complete effect will be. Even just hitting some training dummies will reveal worlds more than reading a list of numbers. I thought I might roll with the new Demo in Legion, or if not fall back into my old Destro habits, and it wasn't until I hit the Open Beta to try them for myself that I discovered that Afflic was the hot shit of the expac.

Don't rage or panic over incomplete information. Have patience for actual play trials with a play-ready spec. We're still at least five months from launch, and the testing process hasn't even officially begun.

[fatgunn]

From WoWhead

I like it.

[Pensylvestor]

For the people freaking out about the lack of demo changes, they have specifically said in a previous Q&A that some specs, such as demo warlock, needed more significant overhauls than other specs. I'm going to assume that they haven't implemented much, if any of the intended demo changes in this build because they are very much still working on it and trying to figure out what to do with the spec moving forward.

Could be a few more builds before we see the demo changes.

[Kithelle]

Probably means they know where they want to go with Survival then. If they don't have a plan for Demo the changes aren't going to be there yet.

They've had a whole fucking expansion to make up plans for Demo since it was a epic fail from the start and they basically told people not to play it.

There is no excuse...are the Warlock devs really that worthless that they had a whole expansion to decide and have nothing to show for it?

[Lucrece]

Soul Fire has been Destro's nuke before, in Cata and times earlier. Also, pay attention to the differences between the spells. Soul Fire does about 17% more damage, has a 4s cast time that may or may not be reduced by the Backdraft effect baked into Conflag baseline, only costs 1 SS instead of 2, and has a 45s cooldown. So it's being offered as a mega-nuke with a significant cooldown and an insane cast time for people who want to go all-in on nukes. For those who don't, there's the other two talent choices on the tier.

What I'm more curious about is the new role for Shadowburn. It doesn't look like a Conflag replacement anymore, but there's no cooldown listed, and I'm not quite sure what its role is supposed to be. It may not be in a finished state.

It was also a nuke for demo in cata, so there's that. And god knows demo needs an actual nuke that's not some crappy dot in the form of a pet for a change, especially if it's losing TKC.