Warlock - Cataclysm Preview Compilation

[Boubouille]

This is a compilation of the Cataclysm-related information released this week, including the official previews and important blue posts. I do realize that some of the class forums already have sticky topics, this topic is merely here to discuss this week's preview and changes and will eventually fall into the abyss of the class forums.

Official Class Preview

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, warlocks will receive changes to their class talents and abilities. Outlined below are some of these changes. Keep in mind that this is an early preview and that these modifications are still under development, so you may see further adjustments to the listed changes as we get closer to launch. That said, here is a first look at these new warlock spells and abilities!

New Warlock Spells

Fel Flame (level 81): Quick-hitting spell dealing Shadowfire damage. This is similar to the mage ability Frostfire Bolt, in that the lower of the two resistances (in this case shadow and fire) on your target will be used for calculating its damage. Additionally, Fel Flame refreshes the duration of Immolate and Unstable Affliction. Our goal for Fel Flame is to provide a spell that's good for mobility and for use by Destruction and Demonology specs. Also, did we mention it uses green fire? Yep. Instant cast.

Dark Intent (level 83): Increases the target's chance for a critical effect with periodic damage or healing spells by 3%. When the target lands a crit, you get a buff to your damage for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to three times.

Demon Soul (level 85): Fuses the warlock's soul with his or her demon. This provides warlocks with a self-burst cooldown to use. The specific effects granted by Demon Soul depend on the demon chosen. Demon Soul lasts for a certain number of charges or until it expires (around 20 seconds), depending on the demon used. 2-minute cooldown.

Soul Shard Overhaul

This major change regarding Soul Shards was previously announced at BlizzCon 2009. Soul Shards will no longer be inventory items, but instead a new UI resource mechanic. Warlocks will have 3 Soul Shards that can be used during a fight and will not be able to gain additional shards during combat. Soul Shards will not be required outside of combat. Soul Burn will consume a Soul Shard resource, thereby allowing you to use the secondary effects of some spells. Soul Burn has no mana or health costs and is off the global cooldown. Planned secondary effects are outlined here.

• Summon Demon + Soul Burn = summon the demon instantly.
• Drain Life + Soul Burn = Reduces cast speed by 60%.
• Demonic Circle + Soul Burn = Increases movement speed by 50% for 8 seconds after teleporting.
• Unstable Affliction + Soul Burn = Instantly deals damage equal to 30% of its effect.
• Soul Fire + Soul Burn = Instant cast.
• Healthstone + Soul Burn = Increases total health by 20% for 8 seconds.
• Searing Pain + Soul Burn = Increases the crit chance of Searing Pain by 100%, and subsequent Searing Pain spells by 50% for 6 seconds.

Next you will find a list of some of the warlock spell and talent changes for the release of Cataclysm. There will be further changes, but those revealed below should offer some insight into our goals.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

• All warlock damage-over-time (DoT) spells will benefit from crit and haste innately. Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoT's duration, but rather to add additional ticks. When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer "clip" the final tick. Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting Affliction currently works.
  
  
• Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom will be converted into Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom. Bane spells are considered magic instead of curses. This means you will be able to cast one Bane (e.g. Bane of Agony) and one Curse (e.g. Curse of Elements) on a single target.
  
  
• Hellfire will no longer deal damage to the warlock.
  
  
• Imps will lose Fire Shield, but will gain a new ability, Burning Ember, which is a stacking DoT.
  
  
• The succubus melee range will be increased. The succubus will no longer have Soothing Kiss, but will instead have Whiplash, which knocks back all enemies within 8 yards.
  
  
• Voidwalker Torment will do increased damage and generate a lot of area-of-effect (AoE) threat. Suffering will become a single-target taunt.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• Pandemic will now cause Drain Soul to refresh Unstable Affliction and Bane of Agony on targets below 25% health.
  
  
• The ability Fel Domination will be removed (because Soul Burn accomplishes the same effect).
  
  
• Demonology will gain a new direct-damage spell, Demon Bolt. Demon Bolt will add a debuff that improves the damage done by the demon to the target.
  
  
• We plan to add a new talent, Impending Doom, which will give certain spells a chance to reduce the cooldown on Metamorphosis and Curse of Doom.
  
  
• Metamorphosis will no longer be subject to demonic crowd control. Furthermore, abilities available only while under the effects of Metamorphosis will be altered to put more emphasis on the warlock's own spells.
  
  
• Shadowburn will now do additional damage to targets below 25% health.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Affliction
Spell Damage
Spell Crit
Shadow DoTs

Shadow DoTs: The damage caused by Shadow damage-over-time spells is increased.

Demonology
Spell Damage
Spell Haste
Demon Damage

Demon Damage: The damage caused by pets and Metamorphosis is increased.

Destruction
Spell Damage
Spell Critical Damage
Fire Direct Damage

Fire Direct Damage: The damage caused by Fire direct damage spells is increased.

Well that concludes this Cataclysm preview for the warlock class. The development of these changes will continue to evolve in the coming months. Please be sure to provide any feedback and thoughts you might have on what was covered here.

Additional Information

Generating shards in combat
On regenerating shards in combat, we will add a mechanic to regen shards if we find that we need to in order to handle variable combat length. We haven’t added one yet because we really want to emphasize locks using shards at the right time and not as fast as they can with then an Evocation-like spell to bring them back again. These are supposed to be special moments in a fight -- think Bloodlust perhaps -- and not used every 20 seconds on cooldown (or whatever the cooldown ends up being). (Source)

Hellfire
The intent for Hellfire is for it to be a specialty of Demonology warlocks. Affliction would use Seed of Corruption and Destruction would use Rain of Fire. (Source)

Demon Bolt
The Demon Bolt debuff will only affect the warlock's demon, not other demons. We wanted a Demo-themed nuke that made it feel like the pet was part of the damage. (Source)

Succubus changes
Whiplash works similar to Freeze on the mage’s Water Elemental. It requires a targeting reticule. It isn’t just a melee ability that the succubus uses at-will.

As a clarification, we are removing Soothing Kiss, not Seduction. Soothing Kiss increased the chance the target would attack something else. Seduction is the crowd control more commonly associated with the Succubus, and it’s not going anywhere. (Source)

Infernal / Doomguard
We did mean to cover doomguards and infernals, but they didn't make it into our preview. Our plan is that you can summon a doomguard or infernal as a cooldown-based pet, much like the shaman elementals, without having to give up your current, permanent demon. If we add a new demon it will likely be one of these cooldown-based ones, and not a permanent pet like the imp, voidwalker, succubus, felguard or felhunter. We’re just not convinced there is a niche for a new permanent demon (and perhaps not even a temporary one). (Source)

Flying mount / Female Metamorphosis models
Flying mounts and female Metamorphosis forms are great ideas and something we’ve had on the wish list for a long time. We can only create so many new creatures during a single expansion, and getting one of these might mean fewer new creatures in outdoor worlds or dungeons. It’s just a trade-off and sometimes you have to make hard calls. We’ll keep them on the list though. (Source)

DoT clipping
Preventing dot clipping is something we want to do in general. It obviously benefits Shadow priests just as much as warlocks. (Source)

Adding a new demon?
Demon lovers, we haven’t ruled out adding a new demon, but we want to be very careful here. We’ve had a hard enough time finding niches for some of the current ones. So we first want to make sure existing demons are cool before we’re faced with Q&A several months from now asking why the new demon either isn’t cool enough, or why warlocks no longer use, say, their felhunter because of the new demon. (Source)

Demon customization
We do like the idea of allowing warlocks to re-skin their demons and have been talking about possible ways to implement this. I have no concrete information for you at this time beyond that. (Source)

Naming demons
When it comes to naming demons, this has always been one of those sacred cows, where the hunter gets to name their pet because he loves his pet bear, but the warlock considers the demon to be something disposable -- a tool. (Source)

Shards bag
For Soul Shard bags, we will probably do something like remove all the shards, reduce the bag size (a little) and convert it to a normal bag. This would be a one-time conversion. We'll probably get rid of the recipes, as we wouldn't want other classes to go out and get shard bags just to get a free bag. (Source)

[Lythryl]

I cant wait for Cataclysm!

[Sesshomaru]

I cant wait for Cataclysm!

x2!

[Skullmaster]

Same! I love the look of the new Soul Shard system, it'll be an absolute joy after levelling with the bag hogging conventional ones >.

[cronix]

I am really happy about the changes to the shard system. I think it will help put a much bigger strategic emphasis and drive a wedge between skilled players and simple 'facerollers'. Also i think they have hit two birds with one stone by solving the shard farming problem with also giving warlocks cooldown abilities which should help us scale better. I am however a bit concerned about only 3 shards... i thought that was a very simplistic design and was hoping for a more dk like design, i.e shadowshards, fireshards ect but oh well i still think its a great change overall

[Deleted]

I'd like the whole demo part myself, over the shard system. Obvious new skins, female metamorph, flying mount and hellfire ;3

[Harthmut]

Bad thing is, that i still have my very first soul shard i've ever drained on my bank...
I don't want blizzard to take it away from me :-\

[Verazh]

Cant wait for the specifics on Demon Soul

[Korv]

I am so glad it it looks like they're not going to let us rename our demons, it would totally destroy my lore-driven lock :P

[Marique]

Good, they talked about infernals and doomguards!
I want.

[Deleted]

I would love that mistress of pain (Lord Jaxx, Totc10/25) as a minion whatever it is temp. or perm.

[Clonzil]

;D omg omg we're getting a cooldown to pop omg omg ;D

[Zonas]

WTB flamin demon flyin mount fer locks

/eat popcorn

/drool

[nward32]

Looks promising. Although I would have liked to see Demonology turn into a 'tank' tree or make shamans get a tank tree (I don't think any other class is viable for such a thing). This game seems short on tanks always. Otherwise Cataclysm is looking very nice.

[Baaadum]

I'm so glad they're removing dot-clipping!! ;D

[Kieron]

Looks promising. Although I would have liked to see Demonology turn into a 'tank' tree or make shamans get a tank tree (I don't think any other class is viable for such a thing). This game seems short on tanks always. Otherwise Cataclysm is looking very nice.

They're supposed to be fixing this by allowing Fury and Arms Warriors, Ret Pallies, and Unholy and Frost DK's tank for 5 man normals and heroics by just switching to Defensive Stance/Frost Presence/Righteous Fury

[Simpo]

They're supposed to be fixing this by allowing Fury and Arms Warriors, Ret Pallies, and Unholy and Frost DK's tank for 5 man normals and heroics by just switching to Defensive Stance/Frost Presence/Righteous Fury

Chance that might end up causing more confusion and whining from those classes. Means they have no real excuse not to tank, but if they want to DPS they might be excluded then?

[toletthemdecide]

All sounds good. Obviously a little concerned for the length of the soul shard regen in combat, cause I tend to eat up soul shards without even knowing it :P.


make that flying mount for locks plx

[Malchezaar]

Why don't they just cut the shit and admit that warlocks aren't getting a flying mount, a new demon, or a female metamorphosis form?

[Deadly]

yay! no more Soul Shards! It was just a harassive inventory item that you couldn't buy from a vendor : /. Also, (depending on the way the new demon looks) i would totally take a summonable flying mount over a new demon, and the only reason i say that is because the last new class-mount blizzard designed turned out to be a meatless chicken, and i'm afraid they would f-it up