Warlock History and Redesign Proposal

[Zagam 1,982]

Warlock has been the only class I've ever truly fallen in love with playing.  It's always had this uniqueness that had drawn me in, but over the years, to me, it's lost its flavor.  As class homogenization continues as well as a simplification of class design, I'm laying down my pipe dream of Warlock changes for 7.0 that would, in my opinion, keep Blizzard's model of simple gameplay while adding back flavor, uniqueness, and fun back into specializations.

 

Remember, this is my pipedream.  Feedback is welcome.  I've thought this out considerably and hope to maybe stimulate discussion of what Warlocks want in hopes that Blizzard catches wind and sees how we want to play.  Most of my ideas come from the core beliefs that resources should not be tied to RNG and talents shouldn't be chosen and left alone for an entire tier of content.  I also want Warlocks to use their demons.  Oh, and Fel Flame.  Note that no number tuning is done.  This is simply an attempt to make PLAYING the class and its specializations more interactive and engaging.

 

 

Class - Warlock

 

All Specializations

• Tier 1 Talents Soul Leech and Dark Regeneration have been left unchanged.
• Tier 2 Talents Howl of Terror and Shadowfury have been left unchanged.
• Tier 3 Talents Soul Link and Dark Bargain have been left unchanged.
• Tier 4 Talents Blood Horror, Burning Rush, and Unbound Will have been left unchanged.
• Tier 5 Talents Grimoire of Supremacy, Grimoire of Synergy (Demonology), and Grimoire of Service have been left unchanged.
• Tier 6 Talents Archimonde's Darkness and Mannoroth's Fury have been left unchanged
• Tier 7 Talents Charred Remains, Soulburn:Haunt, Demonbolt, Cataclysm, and Demonic Servitude have been left unchanged.
• Tier 1 Talent Searing Flames (Destruction) has been removed and replaced with Harvest Life.
• Tier 1 Talent Harvest Life (Affliction and Demonology) has been reworked to cause 2% of all damage done to heal the Warlock and its current demon.
• Tier 2 Talent Mortal Coil has been reworked to cause 40% of the healing done to targets immune to Horrify and Fear effects.
• Tier 3 Talent Sacrificial Pact has been removed and replaced with Nether Ward.  Nether Ward absorbs magic damage with a 30 second CD.  Upon taking magical damage of a school of magic, that school of magic's damage will be reduced by 30% for 8 seconds.  
• Tier 5 Talent Grimoire of Sacrifice (Affliction and Destruction) has been removed and replaced with Grimoire of Synergy.
• Tier 6 Talent Kil'jaeden's Cunning has been removed and replaced with Fel Flame.  Fel Flame deals 60% of the damage done by Shadow Bolt, costs 180% of the mana of Shadow Bolt, and is instant cast.
• Soul Shards are now the secondary resource of all Warlock specializations.  Soul Shards now regenerate 1 every 20 seconds with this effect being reduced by Haste.

DESTRUCTION

• Burning Embers have been removed and replaced with Soul Shards.
• Soul Fire has been added and costs 1 Soul Shard to cast.  
• Improved Soul Fire (passive) has been added.  Improved Soul Fire causes Soul Fire to increase all damage done by 8% for 15 seconds.
• Flamelicked (passive) has been added.  Flamelicked causes Incinerate to increase the critical strike chance against affected targets by 1% stacking up to 5 times lasting 20 seconds.
• Backlash (passive) has been added.  Backlash causes direct melee attacks to have a 25% chance to award and instant and free Incinerate.  This effect has a 6 second CD.
• Empowered Imp (passive) has been added.  Empowered Imp causes all critical strikes made by Fel Bolt to increase the critical strike chance of your next ability by 25%.  
• Fel Synergy (passive) has been added.  Fel Synergy causes your Imp's Fel Bolt to have an 8% chance to make your next Soul Fire instant cast and not cost a Soul Shard.
• Shadowburn has been reworked to also increase the critical strike chance against that target by 15% for 5 seconds.  
• Chaos Bolt now costs 35% of the Warlock's mana to cast.  
• Rain of Fire has been removed.

DEMONOLOGY

• Demonic Fury has been removed and replaced with Soul Shards.
• Dark Soul:Knowledge has been removed.  Its effects have been moved into Metamorphosis.
• Wild Imps and Imp Swarm have been removed.
• Doom has been removed and replaced with Immolate.
• Molten Core (passive) has been reworked.  Molten Core causes Immolate to have a 10% chance to increase the power of the next 3 Incinerates by 50% and reduce the cast time by 30%.  This effect can stack up to 15 times and lasts 30 seconds.
• Soul Fire has been removed and replaced with Incinerate.  Incinerate deals 80% of the damage of Shadow Bolt.  Incinerate deals 30% more damage against targets below 25%.
• Mana Feed (passive) has been added.  Mana Feed causes all pet critical strikes to replenish 2% of the Warlock's mana.
• Hand of Gul'dan has had its charge system removed and the ability reworked.  Hand of Gul'dan now costs 1 Soul Shard and applies Shadowflame in a 6 yard radius.  Shadowflame slows all targets by 30% and increases the critical strike chance of the Warlock by 10% for 6 seconds.  This ability can no longer be stacked.
• Metamorphosis stance has been removed and replaced with Metamorphosis.  Metamorphosis is a 30 second buff with a 180 second cooldown.  Metamorphosis increases all damage done by 40%.
• Impending Doom (passive) has been added.  Impending Doom causes Incinerate, Shadow Bolt, and Hand of Gul'dan to have a 15% chance of reducing the cooldown of Metamorphosis by 15 seconds.
• Ancient Grimoire (passive) has been added.  Ancient Grimoire adds 30 seconds to your Infernal and Doomguard summons.
• Demonic Rebirth (passive) has been added.  Demonic Rebirth reduces the cast time and mana cost of your next demon summon by 100% with a 2 minute cooldown.

AFFLICTION

• Soul Shards remain the secondary resource of Affliction Warlocks.  
• Haunt has been reworked to last for 15 seconds.  Haunt costs 1 Soul Shard.
• Drain Soul has been reworked to increase damage against targets below 25% by 200% and less damage than Shadow Bolt before 25%.  Drain Soul no longer duplicates DoT effects and regenerates 1 Soul Shard upon killing a target that awards honor or experience.
• Shadow Bolt has been added.
• Eradication (passive) has been added.  Eradication causes Corruption to have a 10% chance to increase Haste by 15% for 10 seconds.  
• Everlasting Pandemic (passive) has been added.  Everlasting Pandemic causes Drain Soul to increase the duration of Unstable Affliction and Corruption by 3 seconds per tick on targets below 25%.  
• Shadow Embrace (passive) has been added.  Shadow Embrace causes Felhunter melee attacks to increase damage-over-time effects on its target by 2% stacking up to 5 times for 10 seconds.  
• Soul Swap has been reworked to give it a 20 second CD, the ability to hold damage-over-time effects for 20 seconds, and has had its Soul Shard cost removed.  The cooldown for Soul Swap does not begin until inhaled damage-over-time effects have been exhaled.
• Shadow Trance (passive) has been added.  Shadow Trance enabled Unstable Affliction to have a 5% chance of granting a free, instant Shadow Bolt.
• Seed of Corruption now always spreads Corruption to targets hit by the explosion.  Soulburn:Seed of Corruption now applies Agony to all targets hit by the explosion.  

 

Destruction Reason and Gameplay Thoughts

 

The idea behind my proposed Destruction changes is that over time, the game has flowed more and more into Chaos Bolt.  None of the other spells matter - it's all about getting as many Chaos Bolts as possible.  Charred Remains has increased that push, and I'd like to see it slightly reversed.  

 

The first objective is to get rid of Burning Embers and replacing with a static secondary resource that all Warlocks use, Soul Shards.  I wanted to bring back Improved Soul Fire to add another interesting nuke-style attack to the rotation and give a tool for excellent Warlocks to separate from slightly less skilled Warlocks.  Currently, Destruction is relatively bland in that you only have to monitor your Burning Embers and Immolate.  I would like to add an Improved Soul Fire effect to give some more flavor.  

 

Grimoire of Sacrifice has some lore in it, but a Warlock should always have a demon near him under his or her command.  Bringing back the Imp to actually be important to your rotation makes him better than just a summon and forget type spell.  

 

Removing Burning Embers puts a bind on the current Chaos Bolt design.  Instead of massively reworking it, I'd like to see Incinerate and Conflagrate generate 5% of a Warlock's mana and have Chaos Bolt consume 35%.  Charred Remains would increase the mana generated by Incinerate appropriately.  

 

I've also attempted to make Critical Strike more valuable than Mastery as Destruction seems to always go back to Mastery.  Adjusting Shadowburn's effects and causing Imp crits to increase your crits is a step in that direction.

 

Destruction Gameplay Things To Do

• Keep Immolate up
• Use Conflagrate while moving and to regenerate mana
• Use Incinerate to regenerate mana
• Use Chaos Bolt to consume mana
• Use Soul Fire with Soul Shards or Imp procs to keep up Improved Soul Fire buff
• Use Imp

 

Demonology Reasons and Gameplay Thoughts

 

Demonology is getting a rework - that is for certain.  How it will be done is up for great debate.  This is my proposal.  Getting rid of Wild Imps, Demonic Fury, HoG stacking, Doom, Soul Fire, and the Metamorphosis stance dancing will remove a great deal of complexity of the Demonology spec without losing really any feel for Demonology.  

 

Removing Demonic Fury and adding Soul Shards, which are only used for Hand of Gul'dan, removes a lot of the resource management that Demonology had to worry about before.  I also want to get rid of Doom and reintroduce Immolate to the Demonology toolkit.  I also want to get rid of Soul Fire, reintroduce Incinerate, and estbalish clearcut rules of when you should use Incinerate and when you should use Shadow Bolt.  The idea is that Molten Core grants 3 empowered Incinerate charges that you can bank up to 15 of.  Shadow Bolt deals 20% more damage than Incinerate but Incinerate gets a 50% buff under the effect of Molten Core making it the superior choice when you have procs.  The banking of the charges allows Demonology to bank charges and then burst on a target giving Demonology another powerful target switching mechanic.  

 

The biggest change would be removing Dark Soul and baking the effects into a Metamorphosis cooldown.  In Cataclysm, nothing was more frustrating than getting 5 Impending Doom procs and having to wait 15 seconds on Metamorphosis because you had to wait for Dark Soul, or vice versa.  This change makes it so as soon as Metamorphosis comes up, regardless of how many Impending Doom procs you get, you can immediately increase your power and go crazy on enemies.  

 

I've modified Demonology's execute mechanic to just make Molten Core's effect happen permanently under 25% making Shadow Bolt obsolete once you hit 25%.  Mana Feed was added to combat the number of Life Taps needed by Demonology.  Depending on the mana cost of Incinerate and Shadow Bolt, this can be adjusted.  

 

Finally, Ancient Grimoire and Demonic Rebirth were added because Demonology should have a higher command of demons than the other two specializations.

 

Demonology Gameplay Things To Do

• Keep up Immolate and Corruption
• Use Metamorphosis on CD
• Use Shadow Bolt unless you have empowered Incinerates
• Use Hand of Gul'dan with Soul Shards
• Manage Felguard

 

Affliction Reasons and Gameplay Thoughts

 

Affliction went from being very complex with snapshotting, multiple DoTs, and tracking DoTs on multiple targets to keeping 3 DoTs up and using a channeled drain spell.  Without snapshotting, reapplying DoTs is pretty basic.  

 

Haunt is important to Affliction's playstyle but Soul Shard starvation is a real thing and it needs not be.  Affliction usually gains the most benefit out of Haste, so stacking Haste would keep your supply of Soul Shards steady.  Getting to 50% Haste would ensure that you always had a Soul Shard every 15 seconds which covers my proposed Haunt debuff duration.  50% Haste is usually a value obtained via procs, so it's not a permanent overpowered thing, but Haunt uptime should be reasonably high.  Otherwise, it's something you shine with or look bad depending on your RNG relationship.  

 

Because Shadow Priests use Mind Flay a lot, I wasn't a big fan of Malefic Grasp when it was introduced.  When they removed Malefic Grasp and turned to Drain Soul being the only drain instead of having to choose between the two, I was sorely disappointed.  I want Shadow Bolt bought back as the filler and Shadow Trance to make a comeback.  One of Affliction's major downfalls is mobility and sustaining damage at this time.  Having DoTs increase in power, not be affected by Drain Soul, and having instant Shadow Bolt procs would help this tremendously.  

 

Affliction would also gain benefit from Haste procs, and my favorite Haste proc is none other than Eradication.  Not only does it have a badass name, it was fun to just magically get Haste procs during a fight not tied to a trinket.  Since Affliction loves Haste, why not a bonus proc that scales with gear?  

 

Another of Affliction's downfall is any kind of AoE, both sustained and burst.  My proposed Seed of Corruption change makes it so your precious Soul Shards get spent on Haunt for single target or AoE with Soulburn:SoC that applies Agony.  Since Agony lasts 24 seconds and you're guaranteed a Soul Shard every 20 seconds, before Haste, you should relatively easily be able to maintain Agony in your AoE rotation.  Because of how powerful Agony is, having the ramp up is a fair trade off.  

 

I also love the Felhunter and am sad that no one uses it anymore.  Warlocks often forget that they have an interrupt AND a dispel, both tied to their Felhunter.  Adding Shadow Embrace improves DoT damage on a single target while making it very difficult to maintain a 5 stack on 2 targets.  While doable, it would be frustrating, especially if targets weren't side by side.  Masters would find ways to maintain this buff while it wouldn't be too much of a penalty to not bother.  

 

To fix Affliction's execute button bloat, I want Drain Soul to extend the duration of Unstable Affliction and Corruption by 3 seconds per tick.  This makes it so you have to only manage Haunt and one DoT while channeling Drain Soul.  Nothing is worse than having DoTs about to run out when a boss is at 2% realizing if you don't reapply DoTs, your damage falls off and if you do, it feels like a waste of a global.  This is a quality of life change to execute for Affliction.  

The final quality of life change is Soul Swap getting a 20 second cooldown and its Soul Shard cost removed.  Overpowered was the days of no cooldown and no cost.  Underpowered are the days of the precious cost of a Soul Shard.  Affliction needs a low-cost method of swapping to a target fast.

 

Affliction Gameplay Things To Do

• Apply and maintain Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and Agony
• Use Haunt with Soul Shards
• Use Shadow Bolt and Shadow Trance procs above 25%
• Use Drain Soul below 25% and maintain only Agony
• Use Felhunter

 

I feel like most of these changes would be be beneficial to Warlocks and make the class more fun to play.  The homogenization of classes is creating distaste within classes, and I hope by just having you read and think about the class I love that you think about ways you agree, disagree, or want to apply similar changes to the class that you love.  

[Alkeir 1]

I am glad you have taken the time to think over some class redesign ideas and put them into a plan. However, I do believe, with respect, that your changes to demonology (removing wild imps, removing demonic fury, and removing Meta stance), take away from the feel of demonology as apposed to keeping it. Full disclosure, I've only played Warlock since MoP, but I've been in love with the way demonology works currently. I also feel that adding soul fire to destruction and adding immolate to demonology overly homogenizes them and makes them feel a little too similar. At that point, there is very little difference between the two specs. These are just my opinions.

 

I had been thinking about a demonology rework that would change the game entirely, although I've never fully fleshed it out, so heres a quick attempt at trying to layout the framework of my idea.

 

My idea for demonology is focused on the warlock using his abilities to become more powerful and eventually transform into a demon for a little while and do big damage. The idea is that there would be 4 phases of combat for demonology warlocks; caster, fel-imbued, void-touched, and Demon (metamorphasis). You would have 3 or 4 main spells that would change effects based on your current phase. My two ideas on how to get from phase to phase are as follows;

 

Phasing Idea One

1. 30 seconds in caster form
2. After 30 seconds, you transform into fel-imbued, lasting 30 seconds
3. After 30 seconds of fel-imbued, you transform into void-touched.
4. After 30 seconds of void-touched, you ascend to a demonic state, overcome by your raw power. Damage increases by xxx% (a big number, essentially) and you last for 15 seconds, after which, exhausted by your tremendous display of power, you fade back into caster form and repeat the cycle.
    

Obviously these numbers could be tweaked. The idea is that you will grow in power until you become a demon, exert tremendous power, and then fade back into caster form to repeat the cycle. The pros of having it timed is that it is more simple and you know exactly when your next phase is coming. The con of this is that it gives the player less control and could potentially screw over players planning for certain fight mechanics.

 

Phasing Idea Two (preface: player's filler spells would increase or decrease energy so they can control when they want to phase to the next stage)

1. Players in the caster form have a secondary resource called fiery hatred. When they reach full Fiery hatred at 1000 (the number is arbitrary, it could be 100, or whatever ends up being balanced with how much energy you increase/decrease with spells), they transform into a fire-imbued caster (visual details will have flames and spikes on them, indicating that they are slowly becoming a demon).
2. Fire imbued caster's have upgraded spells with a fiery theme or visual effects. Some of them may do different things (explained later on). The secondary resource for Fire imbued casters is Void Insanity. The idea is that as the Fire imbued players cast spells, they increase/decrease their sanity. (Lore: As the Warlocks lose themselves to the embers, they too hear the call of the void, echoing through their very souls.)
3. Void touched casters have sprouted ethereal demonic wings (akin to ye olde Glyph of Dark Apothesis visuals) and become very, very purple. Spikes protrude their body in a sick, twisted display of corruption. Their spells take on a void theme and they grow ever closer to the brink of power. Their energy at this stage is Demonic Calling, and when they reach the maximum, they metamorph into powerful Demons.
4. Demon players, in contrast to the previous secondary resources, start out at full Demonic Fury. Over time, it drains at a rate of x/per second (whatever ends up being balanced). This is basically when you do lots of damage, and your spells hit really hard. Perhaps there could be some spells or procs that increase the length of time you can stay in Demon form by a few seconds. When the Warlock reaches zero Demonic Fury, they fade back into their caster form.

​This idea is slightly inspired by Moonkins but thrown up to 11. The advantages is the player has better control over what phase they are in, and different phases do different types of damage more than others. Fire and Void would have increasingly better AoE, and Demon form would have good options for both AoE and ST.

 

The Spells

As I explained earlier, to keep some simplicity, I would like there to be 3-4 spells. These spells take on different effects depending on your phase. Also, they may augment your felguard in some way, or give you extra demons. I haven't thought the pet thing through the whole way, but it could do with some tweaking. Any mentions of energy are references to how they would behave in my 2nd phasing idea, where casters rely on secondary resources to advance to higher phases. Assume wild imps are gone as well, as a passive.

 

Caster

• Shadow Bolt - Does the same damage as Soul Fire, and decreases your Fiery Hatred.
• Soul Fire - Does the same Damage as Shadow bolt, but keeps its execute effect (more damage sub 25%). (Also assume Molten core charges aren't a thing anymore). Increases your Fiery Hatred.
• Corruption - Dot. Ticks increase your Fiery Hatred, and has a 20% (percentage up for debate) chance to proc Summoner's Gift (name could do with improving, haha).
• Summoner's Gift - this proc can stack charges, and lasts for a reasonable enough amount of time for you to make decisions with it. You can use them on either Fury of Gul'dan or Imp Swarm.
• Imp Swarm - you summon 5 imps that do damage which increases your Fiery hatred and gives you a buff called Impish Anger (or something imp-related, I dunno) that increases your Fury of Gul'dan Damage. 
• Fury of Gul'dan - a single-target meteor-looking spell with about a 2 second cast time that does lots of damage and has visuals akin to the live Hand of Gul'dan if the meteor were shot at the boss as a projectile.
• Your Felguard functions as normal.

Basically, keep up corruption, keep up Impish anger, and spend extra Summoner's Gift procs on Fury of Gul'dan. Use Soul Fire as a filler if you want to advance to Fire-imbued, and use Shadow Bolt if you wanna stay in Caster a little longer.

 

Fire-Imbued

• Fel Bolt- Replaces Shadow Bolt. Does the same damage as Void Bolt and Decreases your Void Insanity.
• Void Bolt - Replaces Soul Fire. Does the same damage as Fel Bolt, but does more damage sub 25%. Increases your Void Insanity.
• Immolate - replaces corruption (upon entering Fire-Imbued, any existing corruption Debuffs transform into Immolate Debuffs). The power imbued by you as a Demonology Warlock allows Immolate to become an instant cast, doing no instant damage but doing more dot damage. Can proc Burning Hatred.
• Burning Hatred - replaces Summoner's Gift. This proc can stack charges, and lasts for a reasonable enough amount of time for you to make decisions with it. You can use them on either Hand of Gul'dan, or FelFire Hound.
• FelFire Hound - replaces Imp Swarm. Any remaining imps before transitioning to Fire-imbued will remain until they finish casting, but they will not buff Hand of Gul'dan damage. FelFire Hound summons a Felhound imbued with the fires of the twisting Nether as an additional summon on top of your felguard. This familiar attacks the target you attack and provides a buff called Fiery Anger, which increases Hand of Gul'dan Damage. You can only have one FelFire Hound up at one time, and casting it again will refresh your Fiery Anger Buff and summon a replacement FelFire Hound (if the technology is there, it would instead hopefully just refresh the duration on the currently summoned FelFire Hound). 
• Hand of Gul'dan - replaces Fury of Gul'dan. Functions as the current Hand of Gul'dan, but does not stack debuffs. Made red (or green with green fire) instead of purple to fit the Fire-Imbued theme.
• Your Felguard bursts into a FelFire, empowering his Felstorm and granting bonus damage as it becomes FelFirestorm.

Rotation is the same as the previous, only with more powerful spells and the ability to cleave targets. Maybe this could use some revision to make it more different from Caster. FelFire Hounds remaining at the end of the phase will continue until their duration expires, but they will not buff Gaze of Gul'dan.

 

Void-Touched

• Void-Touched Bolt (needs better name :\) - replaces Fel Bolt. Does the same damage as Demonic Bolt, decreases Demonic Calling.
• Demonic Bolt - (not to be confused with Demonbolt) Does the same damage as Void-Touched Bolt. Deals more damage sub-25%. Increases Demonic Calling.
• Malefic Visions - (I hope this isn't already a spell in the game!) replaces immolate. Dot. has a 20% chance to spread to two nearby enemies. Can proc Immeasurable Hatred.
• Immeasurable Hatred - replaces Burning Hatred. This proc can stack charges, and lasts for a reasonable enough amount of time for you to make decisions with it. You can use them on either Gaze of Gul'dan, or Voidcaller.
• VoidCaller - replaces FelFire Hound. Any remaining FelFire Hounds before transitioning to Void-Touched will remain until they expire, but they will not buff Hand of Gul'dan damage. Voidcaller summons a Voidcaller imbued with the darkness of the twisting Nether as an additional summon on top of your felguard. This familiar attacks the target you attack and provides a buff called Overwhelming Anger, which increases Gaze of Gul'dan Damage. You can only have one Voidcaller up at one time, and casting it again will refresh your Overwhelming Anger Buff and summon a replacement Voidcaller.
• Gaze of Gul'dan - replaces Hand of Gul'dan. Effect TBD. Some kind of good AoE.
• Your Felguard becomes mad with visions of the void, forgoing his Felstorm but dealing constant cleave and granting the player an absorb shield based on a small percentage of damage done. (stacks with soul leech)

Demon

• Touch of Chaos - Replaces Void-Touched Bolt.
• Demon Fire - replaces Demonic Bolt. Sub-25%, it deals bonus damage and has a chance to increase your Demonic Fury by about 10% (whatever is balanced but also rewarding).
• Doom - replaces Malefic Visions. Dot; does not need to be refreshed (fades into corruption once the player fades into Caster). Critical ticks summon Soulbound Eredar, which cast shadow bolt on the target until they expire. Each tick will spread to nearby enemies. Can proc Demonic Hatred.
• Demonic Hatred - replaces Immeasurable Hatred. This proc can stack charges, and lasts for a reasonable enough amount of time for you to make decisions with it. You can use them on either Chaos Wave, or Echoes of Kanrethad.
• Echoes of Kanrethad - replaces Voidcaller. Any remaining Voidcallers before transitioning to Demon will remain until they expire, but they will not buff Chaos Wave's damage. Echoes of Kanrethad summons an ethereal copy of Kanrethad Ebonlock, imbued with the madness of the twisting Nether as an additional summon on top of your felguard. This familiar casts Soul Fire at the target you attack and provides a buff called Demonic Vengeance, which increases Chaos Wave's Damage. You can only have two Echoes of Kanrethad up at one time, and casting it again will refresh your Demonic Vengeance Buff and summon a replacement Echo of Kanrethad.
• Chaos Wave - Replaces Gaze of Gul'dan. Deals hella damage.
• Your felguard becomes imbued with Fel, Void, and Demonic essence, Felstorming constantly in a tornado of hellish energy. (deals a little less damage than regular felstorm to compensate for its 100% uptime). At the end of Demon, the felguard explodes for 10 yards a percentage of all damage done while it was in Demon (does not hit friendlies, obviously ).

This is the stage that you do the most damage. Because you're on the clock, you want to do as much as you can in this brief period of catastrophic power. When your Demonic Fury reaches 0, you fade back into caster form and repeat the cycle.

 

If you read to the end of this post, wow. I didn't really intend for it to be this long but a lot of ideas fired off while I was writing it. Obviously some talents would need to be changed and glyphs looked at. I think that phase-shifting becoming a faster process would be a cool execute mechanic too. Also to note would be that I don't know that I would include Dark Soul in this model. Honestly, a lot of these ideas could be played around with a lot, and the only ideas in this model I'm super heavily attached to are the ideas of having 4 phases with 3-4 spells which change effects based on your current phase. Let me know what you think, and I hope I didn't murder your eyes with this wall of text

Edited July 17, 2015 by Alkeir

[Zagam 1,982]

So kind of like the Rogue thing where they get a green buff, then a yellow buff, then a red buff?  Bandit's Guile, I think?  Interesting concept.  

 

My argument to removing Demonic Fury is that it adds to the decisions needed to be made in Demonology, so the suggestion was made to coincide with Blizzard's desire to be able to play specs without addons or guides.

 

My argument to removing Wild Imps is they are simply passive, do nothing exciting, and can be completely made up for in small tuning adjustments and you'd never notice them gone.

 

My argument to removing Metamorphosis mirros that of Demonic Fury - another decision to make where players can go wrong.

 

I wanted Soul Fire to go into Destruction for the buff, but it could have just been any spell.  It's actually NOT homogenized because I've removed it from Demonology so only one spec has it.  Incinerate going to Demonology was to give a familiar feel to a spell such as Soul Fire while not being Soul Fire.  I'm also favored towards Cata's Demonology style which mirrored that layout.

[Alkeir 1]

So kind of like the Rogue thing where they get a green buff, then a yellow buff, then a red buff?  Bandit's Guile, I think?  Interesting concept.  

 

My argument to removing Demonic Fury is that it adds to the decisions needed to be made in Demonology, so the suggestion was made to coincide with Blizzard's desire to be able to play specs without addons or guides.

 

My argument to removing Wild Imps is they are simply passive, do nothing exciting, and can be completely made up for in small tuning adjustments and you'd never notice them gone.

 

My argument to removing Metamorphosis mirros that of Demonic Fury - another decision to make where players can go wrong.

 

I wanted Soul Fire to go into Destruction for the buff, but it could have just been any spell.  It's actually NOT homogenized because I've removed it from Demonology so only one spec has it.  Incinerate going to Demonology was to give a familiar feel to a spell such as Soul Fire while not being Soul Fire.  I'm also favored towards Cata's Demonology style which mirrored that layout.

I see. The only thing I disagree with, then is making Metamorphasis a cooldown again. I know a lot of people like that, but I really love being able to control when I become a demon. Decisions like that are what makes the spec as it is currently stands out, and it gives way for players to express themselves in the way they play. Obviously it gets to a point where very few decisions are the right decisions, but still. I like that the decision is there. And being a demon is fucking awesome. :)

[MrDeathbat21 0]

I love this pipedream of yours. The Warlock (along with a lot of other stuff) has been WAY oversimplified as time has taken its course and this seems like a pretty good representation of what the class could be. I love the flavor. I also like how it makes your demon choice relevant again, instead of everyone choosing the same one because its "the best." Bravo, my friend.

[RethulUrNo 2]

You should have put in a trigger warning for ISF!  This will be a bit boring since, for the most part, I really enjoy the way the specs play now since the MoP revamp.  Most of this is pretty minor.

 

 

All Specializations:

 

 

• Grimoire of Synergy removed.  Grimoire of Supremacy, Service, and Sacrifice are now all available to all three specs again.
• Chaotic Resources re-worked for all three specs.  Instead, Chaotic Resources would function as a proc that allows free consumption of Soul Shards/Demonic Fury/Burning Embers for a limited time.
• Fel Flame returned to all three specs.

 

 

Commentary:

 

I like Sacrifice, I really, really do.  One of Service/Synergy had to go for me, and I picked Synergy to get the boot since we're already watching for plenty of procs, especially with the propsed changes to Chaotic Resources.  I don't care for the way that the current iteration of Chaotic Resources affects each spec, so changes had to be made here.

 

Fel Flame is necessary for Affliction and Destruction and should never have been removed in the first place.

 

 

 

Affliction:

 

• Drain Life becomes the new filler.  Healing decreased to an acceptable level but can be boosted by burning a Soul Shard.
• Drain Soul remains the execute ability.  Channelling for a sufficient amount of time would produce a shard on demand as it once did, but it would not be advised to use this above execute range.
• Soul Swap no longer costs a Soul Shard but instead operates on a charging CD system akin to Conflagrate and Hand of Guldan.
• Agony, Corruption and Unstable Affliction retain their current functionality.
• Haunt retains its current functionality.

 

 

TL;DR Affliction Priority List:

 

Maintain Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction.

Cast Haunt during procs and cooldowns.

Drain Soul during execute phase (or if you desperately need a Soul Shard).

Drain Life filler above execute range.

 

Commentary:

 

Drain Life Aff in 4.1 was my favorite iteration of the spec, even if it was short lived.  I miss watching kill videos where you start seeing the Drain Soul beams as the bosses were about to die, and I'd love to see that return.  Drain Life, visually, gives us some separation over Mind Flaying Spriests in a way that Malefic Grasp never could.  While Drain Soul would not be the primary way to recharge Shards above execute range, it can at least be used so that our resource is less random.

 

Affliction AoE needs some work but I'm not sure how it would go.  Do we see a potential return of Harvest Life for the spec?

 

 

 

Demonology:

 

• Doom removed.
• Immolate returned to Demonology, and would have no interaction with Metamorphosis.
• Corruption remains for Demonology and now has no interaction with Metamorphosis.
• Soul Fire and Molten Core retain their current functionality, though Molten Core will now gain charges based on Immolate ticks.
• Imp Swarm's effects are merged with Hand of Guldan.  Hand of Guldan deals splash damage and summons four Wild Imps to attack enemy targets.
• Hand of Guldan now has no interaction with Metamorphosis (later, Chaos Wave).
• Drain Life removed from Demonology.
• Shadow Ward returned to Demonology.  While in Metamorphosis, Shadow Ward becomes Fury Ward.  Fury Ward consumes a set amount of Demonic Fury and absorbs damage from any school.
• Hellfire would now be channelled on any target, including the caster.  No longer deals damage to the Warlock.
• Shadow Bolt becomes Shadow Bolt Volley when the player is in Metamorphosis and becomes the Fury-consuming Meta AoE nuke.
• Fel Flame becomes Touch of Chaos when the player is in Metamorphosis and becomes a Fury-consuming Meta Single Target nuke.
• Mana regeneration is significantly increased while in Metamorphosis.

 

 

TL;DR Demonology Priority List:

 

(Single Target)
Maintain Immolate
Maintain Corruption
Hand of Guldan on CD
Shadow Bolt/Soul Fire as your caster filler.
Dump Fury with Soul Fire/Touch of Chaos.

(AoE)
Hand of Guldan on CD
Hellfire as your caster filler to generate Fury.
Dump Fury with Shadow Bolt Volley.

 

 

Commentary:

 

Demonology gets a bit simpler here.  The big changes would be the reduction of spell-morphing when dancing in and out of Metamorphosis.  Immolate, Corruption, and Hand of Guldan can be cast in any form and would gain no benefit in Meta. 

 

With Hellfire being cast-on-target, Demonologists are now totally free to AoE from range.  Shadow Bolt Volley would give us the Fury-dumping AoE nuke that we've missed since Void Ray was removed.

 

I like the idea of Immolate returning to Demo, and retaining Soul Fire as a nuke, as a way to preserve the "Shadowflame" nature of Demonology. 

 

With Shadow Ward/Fury Ward, Demonology has means of using resources to improve survivability in a way that is different from the other two specs.

 

 

 

Destruction:

 

• Rain of Fire now generates Emberbits, but only when striking at least three targets.
• Health Funnel returned to Destruction.
• Fel Spark is a new proc based on Immolate ticks that empowers your next two Fel Flame casts, causing them to deal bonus damage and automatically crit.

 

Commentary:

 

Obviously not much as changed here.  Rain of Fire is now useful again and Destruction gains a minor proc.  With no more Charred Remains, we are back to using Chaos Bolt in a more nuanced manner.

Edited July 19, 2015 by RethulUrNo

[Scythe95 0]

Warlock has been the only class I've ever truly fallen in love with playing.  It's always had this uniqueness that had drawn me in, but over the years, to me, it's lost its flavor.  As class homogenization continues as well as a simplification of class design, I'm laying down my pipe dream of Warlock changes for 7.0 that would, in my opinion, keep Blizzard's model of simple gameplay while adding back flavor, uniqueness, and fun back into specializations.

 

Remember, this is my pipedream.  Feedback is welcome.  I've thought this out considerably and hope to maybe stimulate discussion of what Warlocks want in hopes that Blizzard catches wind and sees how we want to play.  Most of my ideas come from the core beliefs that resources should not be tied to RNG and talents shouldn't be chosen and left alone for an entire tier of content.  I also want Warlocks to use their demons.  Oh, and Fel Flame.  Note that no number tuning is done.  This is simply an attempt to make PLAYING the class and its specializations more interactive and engaging.

 

 

Class - Warlock

 

All Specializations

• Tier 1 Talents Soul Leech and Dark Regeneration have been left unchanged.
• Tier 2 Talents Howl of Terror and Shadowfury have been left unchanged.
• Tier 3 Talents Soul Link and Dark Bargain have been left unchanged.
• Tier 4 Talents Blood Horror, Burning Rush, and Unbound Will have been left unchanged.
• Tier 5 Talents Grimoire of Supremacy, Grimoire of Synergy (Demonology), and Grimoire of Service have been left unchanged.
• Tier 6 Talents Archimonde's Darkness and Mannoroth's Fury have been left unchanged
• Tier 7 Talents Charred Remains, Soulburn:Haunt, Demonbolt, Cataclysm, and Demonic Servitude have been left unchanged.
• Tier 1 Talent Searing Flames (Destruction) has been removed and replaced with Harvest Life.
• Tier 1 Talent Harvest Life (Affliction and Demonology) has been reworked to cause 2% of all damage done to heal the Warlock and its current demon.
• Tier 2 Talent Mortal Coil has been reworked to cause 40% of the healing done to targets immune to Horrify and Fear effects.
• Tier 3 Talent Sacrificial Pact has been removed and replaced with Nether Ward.  Nether Ward absorbs magic damage with a 30 second CD.  Upon taking magical damage of a school of magic, that school of magic's damage will be reduced by 30% for 8 seconds.  
• Tier 5 Talent Grimoire of Sacrifice (Affliction and Destruction) has been removed and replaced with Grimoire of Synergy.
• Tier 6 Talent Kil'jaeden's Cunning has been removed and replaced with Fel Flame.  Fel Flame deals 60% of the damage done by Shadow Bolt, costs 180% of the mana of Shadow Bolt, and is instant cast.
• Soul Shards are now the secondary resource of all Warlock specializations.  Soul Shards now regenerate 1 every 20 seconds with this effect being reduced by Haste.

DESTRUCTION

• Burning Embers have been removed and replaced with Soul Shards.
• Soul Fire has been added and costs 1 Soul Shard to cast.  
• Improved Soul Fire (passive) has been added.  Improved Soul Fire causes Soul Fire to increase all damage done by 8% for 15 seconds.
• Flamelicked (passive) has been added.  Flamelicked causes Incinerate to increase the critical strike chance against affected targets by 1% stacking up to 5 times lasting 20 seconds.
• Backlash (passive) has been added.  Backlash causes direct melee attacks to have a 25% chance to award and instant and free Incinerate.  This effect has a 6 second CD.
• Empowered Imp (passive) has been added.  Empowered Imp causes all critical strikes made by Fel Bolt to increase the critical strike chance of your next ability by 25%.  
• Fel Synergy (passive) has been added.  Fel Synergy causes your Imp's Fel Bolt to have an 8% chance to make your next Soul Fire instant cast and not cost a Soul Shard.
• Shadowburn has been reworked to also increase the critical strike chance against that target by 15% for 5 seconds.  
• Chaos Bolt now costs 35% of the Warlock's mana to cast.  
• Rain of Fire has been removed.

DEMONOLOGY

• Demonic Fury has been removed and replaced with Soul Shards.
• Dark Soul:Knowledge has been removed.  Its effects have been moved into Metamorphosis.
• Wild Imps and Imp Swarm have been removed.
• Doom has been removed and replaced with Immolate.
• Molten Core (passive) has been reworked.  Molten Core causes Immolate to have a 10% chance to increase the power of the next 3 Incinerates by 50% and reduce the cast time by 30%.  This effect can stack up to 15 times and lasts 30 seconds.
• Soul Fire has been removed and replaced with Incinerate.  Incinerate deals 80% of the damage of Shadow Bolt.  Incinerate deals 30% more damage against targets below 25%.
• Mana Feed (passive) has been added.  Mana Feed causes all pet critical strikes to replenish 2% of the Warlock's mana.
• Hand of Gul'dan has had its charge system removed and the ability reworked.  Hand of Gul'dan now costs 1 Soul Shard and applies Shadowflame in a 6 yard radius.  Shadowflame slows all targets by 30% and increases the critical strike chance of the Warlock by 10% for 6 seconds.  This ability can no longer be stacked.
• Metamorphosis stance has been removed and replaced with Metamorphosis.  Metamorphosis is a 30 second buff with a 180 second cooldown.  Metamorphosis increases all damage done by 40%.
• Impending Doom (passive) has been added.  Impending Doom causes Incinerate, Shadow Bolt, and Hand of Gul'dan to have a 15% chance of reducing the cooldown of Metamorphosis by 15 seconds.
• Ancient Grimoire (passive) has been added.  Ancient Grimoire adds 30 seconds to your Infernal and Doomguard summons.
• Demonic Rebirth (passive) has been added.  Demonic Rebirth reduces the cast time and mana cost of your next demon summon by 100% with a 2 minute cooldown.

AFFLICTION

• Soul Shards remain the secondary resource of Affliction Warlocks.  
• Haunt has been reworked to last for 15 seconds.  Haunt costs 1 Soul Shard.
• Drain Soul has been reworked to increase damage against targets below 25% by 200% and less damage than Shadow Bolt before 25%.  Drain Soul no longer duplicates DoT effects and regenerates 1 Soul Shard upon killing a target that awards honor or experience.
• Shadow Bolt has been added.
• Eradication (passive) has been added.  Eradication causes Corruption to have a 10% chance to increase Haste by 15% for 10 seconds.  
• Everlasting Pandemic (passive) has been added.  Everlasting Pandemic causes Drain Soul to increase the duration of Unstable Affliction and Corruption by 3 seconds per tick on targets below 25%.  
• Shadow Embrace (passive) has been added.  Shadow Embrace causes Felhunter melee attacks to increase damage-over-time effects on its target by 2% stacking up to 5 times for 10 seconds.  
• Soul Swap has been reworked to give it a 20 second CD, the ability to hold damage-over-time effects for 20 seconds, and has had its Soul Shard cost removed.  The cooldown for Soul Swap does not begin until inhaled damage-over-time effects have been exhaled.
• Shadow Trance (passive) has been added.  Shadow Trance enabled Unstable Affliction to have a 5% chance of granting a free, instant Shadow Bolt.
• Seed of Corruption now always spreads Corruption to targets hit by the explosion.  Soulburn:Seed of Corruption now applies Agony to all targets hit by the explosion.  

 

Destruction Reason and Gameplay Thoughts

 

The idea behind my proposed Destruction changes is that over time, the game has flowed more and more into Chaos Bolt.  None of the other spells matter - it's all about getting as many Chaos Bolts as possible.  Charred Remains has increased that push, and I'd like to see it slightly reversed.  

 

The first objective is to get rid of Burning Embers and replacing with a static secondary resource that all Warlocks use, Soul Shards.  I wanted to bring back Improved Soul Fire to add another interesting nuke-style attack to the rotation and give a tool for excellent Warlocks to separate from slightly less skilled Warlocks.  Currently, Destruction is relatively bland in that you only have to monitor your Burning Embers and Immolate.  I would like to add an Improved Soul Fire effect to give some more flavor.  

 

Grimoire of Sacrifice has some lore in it, but a Warlock should always have a demon near him under his or her command.  Bringing back the Imp to actually be important to your rotation makes him better than just a summon and forget type spell.  

 

Removing Burning Embers puts a bind on the current Chaos Bolt design.  Instead of massively reworking it, I'd like to see Incinerate and Conflagrate generate 5% of a Warlock's mana and have Chaos Bolt consume 35%.  Charred Remains would increase the mana generated by Incinerate appropriately.  

 

I've also attempted to make Critical Strike more valuable than Mastery as Destruction seems to always go back to Mastery.  Adjusting Shadowburn's effects and causing Imp crits to increase your crits is a step in that direction.

 

Destruction Gameplay Things To Do

• Keep Immolate up
• Use Conflagrate while moving and to regenerate mana
• Use Incinerate to regenerate mana
• Use Chaos Bolt to consume mana
• Use Soul Fire with Soul Shards or Imp procs to keep up Improved Soul Fire buff
• Use Imp

 

Demonology Reasons and Gameplay Thoughts

 

Demonology is getting a rework - that is for certain.  How it will be done is up for great debate.  This is my proposal.  Getting rid of Wild Imps, Demonic Fury, HoG stacking, Doom, Soul Fire, and the Metamorphosis stance dancing will remove a great deal of complexity of the Demonology spec without losing really any feel for Demonology.  

 

Removing Demonic Fury and adding Soul Shards, which are only used for Hand of Gul'dan, removes a lot of the resource management that Demonology had to worry about before.  I also want to get rid of Doom and reintroduce Immolate to the Demonology toolkit.  I also want to get rid of Soul Fire, reintroduce Incinerate, and estbalish clearcut rules of when you should use Incinerate and when you should use Shadow Bolt.  The idea is that Molten Core grants 3 empowered Incinerate charges that you can bank up to 15 of.  Shadow Bolt deals 20% more damage than Incinerate but Incinerate gets a 50% buff under the effect of Molten Core making it the superior choice when you have procs.  The banking of the charges allows Demonology to bank charges and then burst on a target giving Demonology another powerful target switching mechanic.  

 

The biggest change would be removing Dark Soul and baking the effects into a Metamorphosis cooldown.  In Cataclysm, nothing was more frustrating than getting 5 Impending Doom procs and having to wait 15 seconds on Metamorphosis because you had to wait for Dark Soul, or vice versa.  This change makes it so as soon as Metamorphosis comes up, regardless of how many Impending Doom procs you get, you can immediately increase your power and go crazy on enemies.  

 

I've modified Demonology's execute mechanic to just make Molten Core's effect happen permanently under 25% making Shadow Bolt obsolete once you hit 25%.  Mana Feed was added to combat the number of Life Taps needed by Demonology.  Depending on the mana cost of Incinerate and Shadow Bolt, this can be adjusted.  

 

Finally, Ancient Grimoire and Demonic Rebirth were added because Demonology should have a higher command of demons than the other two specializations.

 

Demonology Gameplay Things To Do

• Keep up Immolate and Corruption
• Use Metamorphosis on CD
• Use Shadow Bolt unless you have empowered Incinerates
• Use Hand of Gul'dan with Soul Shards
• Manage Felguard

 

Affliction Reasons and Gameplay Thoughts

 

Affliction went from being very complex with snapshotting, multiple DoTs, and tracking DoTs on multiple targets to keeping 3 DoTs up and using a channeled drain spell.  Without snapshotting, reapplying DoTs is pretty basic.  

 

Haunt is important to Affliction's playstyle but Soul Shard starvation is a real thing and it needs not be.  Affliction usually gains the most benefit out of Haste, so stacking Haste would keep your supply of Soul Shards steady.  Getting to 50% Haste would ensure that you always had a Soul Shard every 15 seconds which covers my proposed Haunt debuff duration.  50% Haste is usually a value obtained via procs, so it's not a permanent overpowered thing, but Haunt uptime should be reasonably high.  Otherwise, it's something you shine with or look bad depending on your RNG relationship.  

 

Because Shadow Priests use Mind Flay a lot, I wasn't a big fan of Malefic Grasp when it was introduced.  When they removed Malefic Grasp and turned to Drain Soul being the only drain instead of having to choose between the two, I was sorely disappointed.  I want Shadow Bolt bought back as the filler and Shadow Trance to make a comeback.  One of Affliction's major downfalls is mobility and sustaining damage at this time.  Having DoTs increase in power, not be affected by Drain Soul, and having instant Shadow Bolt procs would help this tremendously.  

 

Affliction would also gain benefit from Haste procs, and my favorite Haste proc is none other than Eradication.  Not only does it have a badass name, it was fun to just magically get Haste procs during a fight not tied to a trinket.  Since Affliction loves Haste, why not a bonus proc that scales with gear?  

 

Another of Affliction's downfall is any kind of AoE, both sustained and burst.  My proposed Seed of Corruption change makes it so your precious Soul Shards get spent on Haunt for single target or AoE with Soulburn:SoC that applies Agony.  Since Agony lasts 24 seconds and you're guaranteed a Soul Shard every 20 seconds, before Haste, you should relatively easily be able to maintain Agony in your AoE rotation.  Because of how powerful Agony is, having the ramp up is a fair trade off.  

 

I also love the Felhunter and am sad that no one uses it anymore.  Warlocks often forget that they have an interrupt AND a dispel, both tied to their Felhunter.  Adding Shadow Embrace improves DoT damage on a single target while making it very difficult to maintain a 5 stack on 2 targets.  While doable, it would be frustrating, especially if targets weren't side by side.  Masters would find ways to maintain this buff while it wouldn't be too much of a penalty to not bother.  

 

To fix Affliction's execute button bloat, I want Drain Soul to extend the duration of Unstable Affliction and Corruption by 3 seconds per tick.  This makes it so you have to only manage Haunt and one DoT while channeling Drain Soul.  Nothing is worse than having DoTs about to run out when a boss is at 2% realizing if you don't reapply DoTs, your damage falls off and if you do, it feels like a waste of a global.  This is a quality of life change to execute for Affliction.  

The final quality of life change is Soul Swap getting a 20 second cooldown and its Soul Shard cost removed.  Overpowered was the days of no cooldown and no cost.  Underpowered are the days of the precious cost of a Soul Shard.  Affliction needs a low-cost method of swapping to a target fast.

 

Affliction Gameplay Things To Do

• Apply and maintain Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and Agony
• Use Haunt with Soul Shards
• Use Shadow Bolt and Shadow Trance procs above 25%
• Use Drain Soul below 25% and maintain only Agony
• Use Felhunter

 

I feel like most of these changes would be be beneficial to Warlocks and make the class more fun to play.  The homogenization of classes is creating distaste within classes, and I hope by just having you read and think about the class I love that you think about ways you agree, disagree, or want to apply similar changes to the class that you love.  

I can't explain how much I love these changes! I wouldn't mind if this were the next patch notes. Would only miss my Wild Imps though. It would really bring back the glory Warlocks had during Wrath of the Lich King. I main a Warlock since WotLK and really fell in love with the class. I would sent these notes to Blizzard if I were you. I fully support every single detail and this would really bring back the fun to each specialization.

You have my vote.

[Liarparadox 5]

I love the ideas; they seem pretty down to earth and reasonable. One thought I had, which probably doesn't fit bliss's design goals would be to either have Meta either, not quite randomly happen for some amount of time, say 45seconds, with some internal cd to make it less random, or have it on a fixed timer once in combat, every min. or whatever, have the lock forced into meta. 

 

This need not be some spikey damage. You can change abilities, even if it's just a few different ones, maybe even mostly utility if this is difficult to balance, maybe more instants or different schools of magic, but regardless, without crippling locks in caster form, which i've always hated. This sorta makes Demonologists "cursed", like a werewolf where they are forced into Meta. That's what I'd love to see, this obsession with demonology sorta overtake warlocks as a side effect. But again, I don't want this being something that happens and then locks have this insane dps/burst or whatever. I've never been a fan of design of doing lame dps until some GRAND CD and then dmg spikes up. Then waiting again for the CD to come up. This is to add flavour, and perhaps some nice utility.

 

Edit: just read second post. Similar idea; I just don't like the "growing in power part". I don't want to feel lame outside of demonform or phase 3-4. 

Edited July 23, 2015 by Liarparadox

[Agahnim 0]

Hi Zagam. First off, thanks for all of your work in the Warlock community! Been playing Warlock since the game was released, occasionally it hasn't been my main but I've always played it as my second main at the very least.

I like the majority of the changes you've put here, many of them I feel would be very beneficial to the class. There are a few things you propose that I'm not particularly fond of nor do I think have a place in the current game - plus I'd like to give you some thoughts of my own! :D

Before I get into the rhetoric, I want to establish here that I am not fond of your removal of demonic fury or burning embers. That being said, yea, lets start!

The changes you have set to Affliction are rather simple but hugely effective and drastically important. I think this would fix pretty much all the issues the class currently has and these ideas need to be implemented immediately lol. 

Destruction I think is a little less black and white. I deeply agree with you that we need to push away from Chaos Bolt being our only spell that does something with the current best builds being what they are. I don't think having spells that you actively cast that restore mana is an answer to that problem. Personally, I think the burning embers mechanic is fine the way it is, especially because it adds more diversity, flavor, and variation among Warlocks. We shouldn't take that away from ourselves! We just need more than four spells in our rotation really. 
I love the idea about making the imp the primary pet for this spec. I've missed using him ever since TBC when you could just siphon his mana at the very least...
If you keep burning embers the way they are, I think making Soul Fire work similarly to Frostfire Bolt for Frost Mages would help. IE: small chance to proc on most spells, larger chance to proc on Chaos Bolt. Something along those lines but with more creativity lol...

Demonology - my baby. I've played demo as long as I've played this damn game. lol. As I said above, I like soul shards being an Affliction exclusive thing - but that doesn't mean I like demonic fury. I have the most to say about this spec, but with Legion upcoming, we honestly don't know what the hell is going to happen here. I really can't see them keeping metamorphosis in the game for us, but I can't imagine playing this spec without it. I hope it maintains it's uniqueness and doesn't simply just become a BM Hunter-esque spec if they remove it.

Unrelated words ---

Something that needs to be addressed is the lack of diversity in our demons. Five or more years ago, I felt like there was diversity. Now, not so much. I basically have three pets: Doomguard, Felhunter, and Voidwalker. Sometimes there's this Felguard thing, but I don't even know where he comes from. I'd like to see our pets to either become more unique for each class (ex: Imp works best for Destro, Succubus best for Affliction, Felhunter exclusively for pvp, etc.)and/or have them become increasingly unique and diverse for Demo locks. 
Also, how do you feel about Grimoire: Sacrifice being exclusive to Demo locks? This would provide stark contrast to Hunters, while making Demo more unique among all trees. The demon spec without a demon. Sounds quirky and fun to me. This would probably require Metamorphosis to still exist, or something similar. Having multiple demon forms to shapeshift into sounds also really cool, but way too cool and different to ever happen. That, or remove all pets from Warlock and just turn it into a demonic druid. Meh. 

[Gnar 26]

Also, how do you feel about Grimoire: Sacrifice being exclusive to Demo locks? This would provide stark contrast to Hunters, while making Demo more unique among all trees. The demon spec without a demon. Sounds quirky and fun to me. This would probably require Metamorphosis to still exist, or something similar. Having multiple demon forms to shapeshift into sounds also really cool, but way too cool and different to ever happen. That, or remove all pets from Warlock and just turn it into a demonic druid. Meh. 

 

Like you said before, demo will prolly lose meta.  This means Blizz probably realized locks were never suppose to shapeshift but they did it anyway to make a spec fun and diverse.  This really only leaves the possibility of the BM warlock spec which has basically been stated in notes when they talked about changing it to a pet heavy class (common knowledge now so not gonna reference). On the note of Sac exclusive to demo, Blizz already removed it once saying it wasn't the demo style to not have a pet out and I don't seeing it make its way back in. Aff has a better chance of getting shadow bolt back first as it at least isn't totally removed from their "style".

[Agahnim 0]

 

Also, how do you feel about Grimoire: Sacrifice being exclusive to Demo locks? This would provide stark contrast to Hunters, while making Demo more unique among all trees. The demon spec without a demon. Sounds quirky and fun to me. This would probably require Metamorphosis to still exist, or something similar. Having multiple demon forms to shapeshift into sounds also really cool, but way too cool and different to ever happen. That, or remove all pets from Warlock and just turn it into a demonic druid. Meh. 

 

Like you said before, demo will prolly lose meta.  This means Blizz probably realized locks were never suppose to shapeshift but they did it anyway to make a spec fun and diverse.  This really only leaves the possibility of the BM warlock spec which has basically been stated in notes when they talked about changing it to a pet heavy class (common knowledge now so not gonna reference). On the note of Sac exclusive to demo, Blizz already removed it once saying it wasn't the demo style to not have a pet out and I don't seeing it make its way back in. Aff has a better chance of getting shadow bolt back first as it at least isn't totally removed from their "style".

 

 

Yea, you're right. Now that you say it, it all completely comes back to me lol. 

Nonetheless, I was just spitting something out because at this point I reaaally don't wanna be a BM Hunter. Wasn't really throwing out serious ideas...just saying almost anything is better really than becoming a Hunter. 

[Gnar 26]

Yea, you're right. Now that you say it, it all completely comes back to me lol. 

Nonetheless, I was just spitting something out because at this point I reaaally don't wanna be a BM Hunter. Wasn't really throwing out serious ideas...just saying almost anything is better really than becoming a Hunter. 

 

 

We all feel the same....

[Drkdragon 9]

I am honestly hoping for more of a "diablo necormancer" type style to it. Let me summon a bunch of little demons and control my own little army.

[Gnar 26]

I am honestly hoping for more of a "diablo necormancer" type style to it. Let me summon a bunch of little demons and control my own little army.

This sounds 0% clunky which we all know is not the current state of demo...

[Liquidsteel 279]

Lots of Demons IS clunky though. You won't have direct control of them, so it will be a case of lagging behind on target switches and weird pathing / AI.

 

Think how slow fel imps can be at switching sometimes, even worse when they finally all switch only for the mob to die with 10+ little fel bolts still in the air.

[Gnar 26]

Lots of Demons IS clunky though. You won't have direct control of them, so it will be a case of lagging behind on target switches and weird pathing / AI.

 

Think how slow fel imps can be at switching sometimes, even worse when they finally all switch only for the mob to die with 10+ little fel bolts still in the air.

 Sarcasm brah

[Liquidsteel 279]

 

Lots of Demons IS clunky though. You won't have direct control of them, so it will be a case of lagging behind on target switches and weird pathing / AI.

 

Think how slow fel imps can be at switching sometimes, even worse when they finally all switch only for the mob to die with 10+ little fel bolts still in the air.

 Sarcasm brah

 

I thought your sarcasm was along the lines of "this wouldn't be clunky; therefore Blizz would never implement it for Demonology" (because it's infamous for being 'clunky')

[Gnar 26]

It was more like "look at this clunky idea Blizz has to make their clunkiest class less clunky" type deal where absolutely nothing is solved.  It also hinted that I don't find demo clunky which goes for most people who give it a raid tier to grasp...

[Drkdragon 9]

Lots of Demons IS clunky though. You won't have direct control of them, so it will be a case of lagging behind on target switches and weird pathing / AI.

 

Think how slow fel imps can be at switching sometimes, even worse when they finally all switch only for the mob to die with 10+ little fel bolts still in the air.

Yeah there would have to be some tools added to make it work. Like if you wanted all your demons to focus on something to switch targets you could place a debuff on one target and that would be the focus of all your demons. If no target has the debuff the demons use their own AI.

 

You guys are spot on that it probably wouldn't work. I just like the idea in my head lol.

[Alkeir 1]

Haven't replied to this post in a while but I'm quite disappointed (saddened, even) that they are taking away Metamorphasis. I know that most people believe that demonology should be more about demons, but popping demon form and going ham was the reason I rolled demonology when I started playing the game, and it's always been what the spec meant to me. It makes me even more sour to think that they are taking the good things about demonology and just putting it on a new class. I hope blizzard finds a way to salvage it and make it fun instead of "keep pets out, shadowbolt." If we do just become a pet-damage spec, then I will probably be rerolling. It's sad because I've always loved warlock, but destruction just gets old and there's very little going on with affliction. The way demonology played was always the best part of the class to me. Shame to see it go.

[Liarparadox 5]

Curious to know if anything Blizz has said so far has got some locks who have recently quit to reconsider coming back. Or if it's wait and see. Or if it's: no never.

[Alkeir 1]

Curious to know if anything Blizz has said so far has got some locks who have recently quit to reconsider coming back. Or if it's wait and see. Or if it's: no never.

I don't feel like "hey we're giving your spec's mechanics away to a new class" would be very conducive to getting people excited for their class again.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Has there been any actual official confirmation we're losing meta yet?

[Liarparadox 5]

Has there been any actual official confirmation we're losing meta yet?

 

 

I didn't think there was confirmation yet. 

 

 

 

Curious to know if anything Blizz has said so far has got some locks who have recently quit to reconsider coming back. Or if it's wait and see. Or if it's: no never.

I don't feel like "hey we're giving your spec's mechanics away to a new class" would be very conducive to getting people excited for their class again.

 

 

Sure, I get some people might be upset over some abilities that might be lost; but others might not care so much, especially if demo in its current state isn't really their thing. I mean some people probably left the game because of lock quality of life, lack of inspiration, clunkiness, gutting of abilities. So these "losses" might be the very things that get people excited (though I don't even know what's officially "lost" yet).

 

But beyond demo, more broadly speaking, if there's something(s) that has some locks thinking maybe worth coming back for (I know it's insanely early, so maybe just peaked interests).

[Lockybalboa 618]

I don't think Blizzard gives a rat's ass about getting people back.

 

http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/27/call-of-duty-publisher-activision-blizzard-joins-the-sp-500/

 

Basically what the story says is that the combined company Activsion|Bizzard is going to be joining a VERY important stock market index soon. The index, the S&P, is the top 500 American companies and is generally used as a barometer for the health of the US economy. Since most of the world's economy is still reliant or at least reactive to the US economy it can be argued that the S&P is also a fair barometer for the world as whole also.

 

This is huge from an economic and business stand point. Currently EA is the only other entertainment software company on the S&P 500, so for Activsion|Bizzard to be the second one is a fairly big deal.

 

I wrote a really long post about what this means and why it means it and I had sources and everything, then I looked at it and saw that I wrote almost 2500 words on the topic. And...that is just to many words to post.

 

 

 

TL;DR: Activsion|Bizzard is doing AMAZING as a company. They need NEW players, not old players to return. They will use the movie + new xpack to do this. They do not care about trying to get old players to return.