wow Upcoming Demonology Warlock 8.1 Changes

[Stan 5,240]

In an upcoming 8.1 build, Nether Portal's duration will be decreased to 15 seconds and the damage of demons that come from the portal will be increased by 25%.

Blizzard (Source)

In the current build up on the PTR (Public Test Realm), a few changes were made to the Demonic Consumption level 100 talent:

• - Any imp that the Demonic Tyrant consumes now has a chance to grant you the Demonic Core buff. If your Tyrant consumes six imps when summoned, you have six individual chances to get a Demonic Core buff applied to you.
  - The damage buff to the Demonic Tyrant from consuming the Wild Imps is now much higher.

One additional note about the Demonic Tyrant: 

• - In an upcoming build, the Demonic Tyrant will also extend the duration of any demons summoned from the Nether Portal level 100 talent.

Can you clarify something? Will it only extend the duration when Tyrant is cast? As in we need to portal, summon as many as possible, and then Tyrant for it to have any effect? Or can we Tyrant, Nether Portal, and chain summon with the extended duration kicking in as they are summoned? I'm presuming it's the former and not the latter.

The Demonic Tyrant extends the summon duration of all demons that are currently active when the Demonic Tyrant is summoned. Demons summoned after the Demonic Tyrant has been cast do not get the duration extension.  

All demons, regardless of whether they were active before the Demonic Tyrant summon, or if they were summoned afterwards, should still benefit from the area damage buff (currently 15%) that the Demonic Tyrant provides while the Demonic Tyrant is still active.

A few more changes you will see in an upcoming PTR build:

On the current live version, there is an issue where pets are gaining bonus Energy regeneration from the Warlock's Haste stat at twice the expected value. This is already fixed in the 8.1.0 PTR build and has been for many weeks now. We have made some adjustments to keep the relative value of your pet similar to what it is on the live version:

• - Felguard, Felhunter, Succubus, and Voidwalker pets have had their damage scaling from the Warlock's Spell Power increased by 15%.
  - Imps have had their spell power scaling from the Warlock's Spell Power increased by 25%.

Another recent change we made was to reduce the duration of the Nether Portal talent from 20 seconds, down to 15 seconds. In an upcoming build, the damage of all demons that can come from the Nether Portal has been increased by 25%.

[Lampanelli 75]

I still don't think the portal will be that interesting, as it's still clunky. If they just made it so that you got a demon for every shard cast, rather than being everytime you used shards, it might finally work.

[dakattack 4]

4 hours ago, Lampanelli said:

I still don't think the portal will be that interesting, as it's still clunky. If they just made it so that you got a demon for every shard cast, rather than being everytime you used shards, it might finally work.

If this was the case, then it wouldn't be an interesting ability. It would just be another generic cooldown like summon demonic tyrant, but instead of casting it after you have a bunch of summons out, you cast it before. I like the current design because it actually forces you to change up your rotation when it's off CD, increasing the skill cap of demo locks (the class feels very easy as it stands).

[Skayan 52]

But... that's destruction warlock in the picture...

[Syktris 36]

We still have no reason at all to drop Sacrified Souls for the other two talents, if they want us to use that, make SS baseline already. 

[PatrickHenry 293]

I dont play one, but I honestly love the way theyre taking Demo.  The variety and sheer numbers of demons is interesting mechanic. 

Much closer to what I'd expect a necromancer to play like than the more closely probably related UH DK. 

Which to me is just really meh playstyle.