New Expansion Warlock Speculation Thread

[Elise the Seeker]

I just made a thread for speculations on the new expansion for the warlock class.
I'm curious as to how they redesign demonology, and hope they remove the Drain Soul filler mechanic.

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Demonology Warlocks will be masters of summoning and controlling demons. Metamorphosis sort-of came to dominate the class, but the devs are refocusing the spec on demons. Affliction will continue to be about 'decay', and Destruction about 'bursts of fel fire'.

[zvvl]

HoG/Chaos Wave removed
Shadow Bolt and Soul Fire are the same
Meta is 2min CD
Let's you spam Soul Fire
Doom is automatically applied by Soul Fire

spec is now the most brain dead and terrible thing in the game

[hiramloram]

HoG/Chaos Wave removed
Shadow Bolt and Soul Fire are the same
Meta is 2min CD
Let's you spam Soul Fire
Doom is automatically applied by Soul Fire

spec is now the most brain dead and terrible thing in the game

Yes, but they will raise the skill cap by removing the ability to stand while casting.

[Deleted]

I really really wanna cast Shadowbolts again as Affliction.. spamming a channeled spell is so stupid.

[Deleted]

I really really wanna cast Shadowbolts again as Affliction.. spamming a channeled spell is so stupid.

except, spamming a direct dmg spell in a spec that revolved around DoT spells is even more stupid.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, but they will raise the skill cap by removing the ability to stand while casting.

nah, they will just make wanding the same as hunter auto attacks.

[Deleted]

no it's not, especially not when it buffs the dot dmg and debuffs the target in a debuff spec

[Deleted]

So much doom and gloom!

Personally I think removing Chaos Wave and merging Corruption and Doom would be enough to help newer players ease into the spec.

I'd then like to see Hand of Gul'dan become a higher damage source. Perhaps bring back the 3 stacks and proc chance and clarify the tooltip. Or perhaps more likely: make it a simple 1 charge cooldown with chance to reset akin to Colossus Smash. Would remove the difficulty (lol) of HoG stacking.

Also bake in the class trinket effect for Wild Imps.

Anything that makes the spec play smoother will likely fit Blizzard's design intent.

[Deleted]

Very quick pen to paper wishes:

I want 5.4 Demo back, rewarding enough to play and competitive. I do like the choice between the grimoire tier though. I really miss carrion swarm

Remove Chaotic Resources for destro to make it less braindead, bring back RoF ember generation so that it actually gets cast more than once an expansion. Give it a little more freedom with movement, maybe like a mage's blazing speed. Bring back

I actually don't mind Soulburn:Haunt for affliction, gives a little more interesting play to soul shard management, aside from that it is quite dull.

AD/KJC/MF tier needs a redesign. KJC shouldn't be on a tier with the other two, we should have a movement tier. MF needs applying to different spells or changing to make a few spells cleave for 10 sec or something.

Make healthstones the same as health pots again.

Oh, and demo tanking. That was super fun on the ptr.

[Deleted]

no it's not, especially not when it buffs the dot dmg and debuffs the target in a debuff spec

that wouldnt make it any less stupid tho and drain soul actually does that already and in an arguably more beneficial way.

we wont see any old version of demo, coz that is the version that was bad or rather complicated for new players, if anything they'll make it more streamlined and easy to play which will prolly mean that things like HoG, mc procs, corr/doom and meta will be changed, i could see them removing meta to make it a random occuring buff that turns you into a demon and changes shadow bolt into mc'd version of soul fire so that it functions like a burst mechanic for demo.

personally, i think they should remove charred remains and make the ember regen it provides baseline and then remove rof coz that isnt a spell of much use anymore and then make immolate castable while moving.

i like sb:haunt as well, but it doesnt really allow you to manage your shards, if anything it constrains your shard usage due to shard starvation essentially making any other use of soulburn useless. they have cut back shard generation and increased the shard usage way too much.

[Deleted]

I hope affliction looks more like WOTLK / Cata affliction, even TBC affliction.

I expect demonology to be changed. I hope they remove things like Chaos Wave and TOC that are needlessly tacked on and don't just neuter the spec in terms of brain function used to play by messing too much.

except, spamming a direct dmg spell in a spec that revolved around DoT spells is even more stupid.

It wasn't stupid for 4 expansions and I'd argue affliction was better designed for most of them.
I don't get why "channeled" is more DOT-y than shadows embrace was, leaving a debuff akin to your curses.
What is stupid is making affliction look similar to the ONLY other class it has ever had any worry of looking too similar to (which wasn't demonology), spriest.
And it killed Drain Soul.

It's worth Shadowbolting for 65-80% of the fight so that Drain Soul can actually be a tangible execute mechanic with a nice stark contrast to the filler as opposed to MG by another name.

[Deleted]

shadows embrace is only a debuff tho, if you're so hell bent on getting it back, then whats to stop it from being applied by say drain soul? shadows embrace made sense, having a direct dmg spell apply however did not, atleast not to me.

[Jaman]

It wasn't stupid for 4 expansions and I'd argue affliction was better designed for most of them.
I don't get why "channeled" is more DOT-y than shadows embrace was, leaving a debuff akin to your curses.
What is stupid is making affliction look similar to the ONLY other class it has ever had any worry of looking too similar to (which wasn't demonology), spriest.
And it killed Drain Soul.

It's worth Shadowbolting for 65-80% of the fight so that Drain Soul can actually be a tangible execute mechanic with a nice stark contrast to the filler as opposed to MG by another name.

While I personally preferred Shadowbolt as a filler, before the MoP revamp a lot of the feedback coming from Warlocks was about how much they hated using Shadowbolt and how they wanted a channeling spell. Granted a large part of it was due to how the talent trees were designed - Shadowbolt was a Destruction talent (and Destruction was the only spec that didn't use it). But there was also a lot of people that said they felt a channel spell was more appropriate. I have no idea what percentage prefers what - but there were a lot of warlocks who were happy to see Shadow Bolt get replaced by Malefic Grasp.

[xuros]

Will go either one of this way. WIll start off stupid OP then nerfed to oblivion or lame as all hell then buffed to OP levels!! Far as affliction goes, I kinda like the way drain soul works.

Blizzard never does a good job when they "rework" anything.

[Shifterstorm]

While I personally preferred Shadowbolt as a filler, before the MoP revamp a lot of the feedback coming from Warlocks was about how much they hated using Shadowbolt and how they wanted a channeling spell. Granted a large part of it was due to how the talent trees were designed - Shadowbolt was a Destruction talent (and Destruction was the only spec that didn't use it). But there was also a lot of people that said they felt a channel spell was more appropriate. I have no idea what percentage prefers what - but there were a lot of warlocks who were happy to see Shadow Bolt get replaced by Malefic Grasp.

Ya I LOVE drain soul. The biggest reason why I like Affliction so much (besides the dot upkeep, I'm one of the crazy ones that love that. Makes me feel like I'm constantly thinking of something other than spamming mindless buttons on cd.) and it looks SO COOL. Especially with the Soulburn: Haunt graphic up. Makes it look like I'm literally sucking the soul out of my victim and the soul pieces are swirling around me and slowly get turned into a shard to use for later use.

[Gaidax]

Metamorphosis removed and given to the upcoming Demon Hunters...

*hides*

[Baconeggcheese]

My speculation:

Meta will probably become a cooldown or something, because stance dancing is unintuitive.

CW will get nerfed back to being weaker and not usually worth using vs HoG

Touch of chaos will be removed if they decide to stick to this lack of mobility model.

[Noxate]

My speculation:

Meta will probably become a cooldown or something, because stance dancing is unintuitive.

CW will get nerfed back to being weaker and not usually worth using vs HoG

Touch of chaos will be removed if they decide to stick to this lack of mobility model.

This was basically the line I was going with as well except I think they will also remove Hellfire and Immolation Aura. I'm not 100% that they will remove the fury mechanic, I think they might just remove molten core and make soul fire only a meta ability. Then also remove pet fury gen and HoG dot stacking. Idk I would hope they keep the fury mechanic but it seems unlikely.

[Netherspark]

Rain of Fire will be removed. After significant outcry it will be redesigned and returned.

[evertonbelmontt]

SS is reworked to Cata version.
RoF is reworked to generate embers on only if >3 targets.
CW in and out of meta, HoG cutted. CW now GENERATES fury.
Dark Bargain reduced to 2min CD.
KJC reduced to 20 seconds CD.
MF totally reworked, Immolation cutted (see new skills).
The 0.5sec from our tier 18 2p will be baseline for CR, and it will have it's damage adjusted to be on the same level as the other 100 talents.

New skills:

Affliction gets Feast of Souls: Empowers your character with souls of the dead, giving you 2 soul shards. 1min CD.

Destro gets Searing Pain: You can cast while moving, costs half ember, does moderate damage (same as a conflag I'd say).

Demon gets Ignite Demon: Your demon gets empowered with fel energy and unleashes it on AoE damage every 0.5sec.

[Xandy]

I want Meta to be a permanent stance for Demo locks like Shadowform for Spriests, God that would make me so happy. It would remove much of the complication that comes from abilities changing between caster and Meta form, stance dance, etc. I can dream..