wow Demonology Warlock Class Changes and Explanation in War Within Alpha: May 14th

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Demonology is on the table in this Alpha build. Blizzard explain changes related to cooldowns, some talents moving around the tree, new Doom and Vilefiend talents, and the Hero tree Abyssal Dominion talent. 

Demonology (Source)

Greetings Warlocks.

Today’s Alpha update focuses on Demonology and addressing feedback received regarding how many talents were available within its specialization tree. You will see several talents removed as well as new talents being added. We’ve also reduced the number of available ranks across the talent tree.

Cooldown Alignment
We are removing all talents that reduce the cooldown of Demonology’s summon abilities and baking in those decreases baseline so that they align in a way that makes sense. These talents, along with the varying cooldowns, made playing Demonology more convoluted and difficult, especially for new players. This should free up some talent points and require less problem solving when it comes to trying to ensure your cooldowns align.

Demonic Tyrant
We are moving Summon Demonic Tyrant to the center of the Demonology tree to make it much easier to access. When we first set out to design the new talent trees, there was an idea that we could make Summon Demonic Tyrant an option against abilities such as Nether Portal. However, Summon Demonic Tyrant is so woven into the identity of Demonology and synergizes so well with other options on the tree – it’s difficult to have anything else compete.

Doom and Vilefiend
We are expanding upon Doom and Vilefiend by offering new talents to customize and upgrade these abilities. We want to ensure that these are competitive options with one another in both single- and multi-target situations so please provide feedback if one or the other isn’t quite hitting the mark. In terms of Immutable Hatred and the “Felguard portion” of the tree, we want to retain that as the passive damage opt-in for players who prefer that kind of damage profile.

Demonic Cores
Our goal with reining in the Demonic Core economy is to bring Demonology closer to Affliction and Destruction in terms of mobility. Warlocks provide powerful utility and have access to incredible survivability and mobility has usually been their weakness in exchange for those strengths. However, we are watching discussions happening across the community and thinking through feedback as it comes in.

Abyssal Dominion and What’s Ahead
In the Diabolist tree, we’ve redesigned Abyssal Dominion for both Demonology and Destruction, focusing on increasing the potency of both Demonic Tyrant and Infernal. We wanted to give a heads up that the Overfiend will reappear in the Destruction restructuring coming in a future build as the replacement for Avatar of Destruction. It will undergo a slight redesign, mainly to address some of the components that Avatar of Destruction provided and went missing with the inclusion of Decimating Bolt.

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We hope to have the Destruction tree restructured with the new alpha build so keep an eye out for that in the future. Following the Destruction tree, we’ll be revisiting the Affliction tree to address its overall structure and pathing. Lastly, we’ll continue to look at hero talent trees and make further adjustments as the dust settles from our work on the class and specialization trees.

Thank you again for the feedback and thoughts!

And here are the actual changes from the development notes:

Demonology (Source)

• Diabolist
  • Abyssal Dominion has been redesigned:
    • Demonology – Summon Demonic Tyrant becomes empowered, dealing 70% increased damage and increasing the damage of your demons by 20% while active.
    • Destruction – Summon Infernal becomes empowered, dealing 40% increased damage. When your Summon Infernal ends, it fragments into two smaller Infernals at 50% effectiveness that last 10 seconds.
• Demonology
  • The cooldown of Summon Vilefiend has been reduced to 30 seconds (was 45 seconds).
  • The cooldown of Summon Demonic Tyrant has been reduced to 1 minute (was 1 minute and 30 seconds).
  • Fel Invocation has been redesigned – Soul Strike deals 20% increased damage and generates a Soul Shard.
  • Pact of the Ered’ruin has been redesigned – When Doom expires, you summon a Doomguard that casts 5 Doom Bolts before departing. Each Doom Bolt deals Shadow damage.
  • Ferocity of F’harg has been renamed to Flametouched and has been redesigned – Increases the attack speed of your Dreadstalkers by 20% and their critical strike chance by 15%.
  • Mark of Shatug has been redesigned – Your Summon Vilefiend becomes Summon Gloomhound and learns the following ability:
    • Gloom Slash – Tooth and claw are drenched in malignant shadow magic, causing the Gloomhound’s melee attacks to deal Shadow damage over 6 seconds. If this effect is reapplied, any remaining damage will be added to the new Gloom Slash.
  • New Talent: Mark of F’harg – Your Summon Vilefiend becomes Summon Charhound and learns the following ability:
    • Infernal Presence – Cloaked in the ever-burning flames of the abyss, dealing Fire damage to enemies within 10 yards every 1 second.
  • New Talent: Shadowtouched – Wicked Maw causes the target to take 20% additional Shadow damage from your demons.
  • New Talent: Foul Mouth – Increases Vilefiend damage by 20% and your Vilefiend’s Bile Spit now applies Wicked Maw.
  • New Talent: The Houndmaster’s Gambit – Your Dreadstalkers deal 50% increased damage while your Vilefiend is active.
  • New Talent: Blood Invocation – The cooldown of Power Siphon is reduced by 5 seconds and Power Siphon increases the damage of Demonbolt by an additional 20%.
  • New Talent: Fiendish Oblation – Damage dealt by Grimoire: Felguard is increased by an additional 10% and you gain a Demonic Core when Grimoire: Felguard ends.
  • New Talent: Doom Eternal – Demonic Cores reduce the duration of Doom by an additional 2 seconds and when Doom is removed its cooldown is reset.
  • New Talent: Impending Doom – Increases the damage of Doom by 20% and Doom generates 1 Soul Shard upon expiration.
  • Implosion, Imp Gang Boss, and Inner Demons have moved to gate 1.
  • Summon Demonic Tyrant, Reign of Tyranny, The Expendables, and Annihilan Training have moved to gate 2.
  • Summon Vilefiend, Dread Calling, Improved Demonic Tactics, and Demonic Brutality have moved to gate 3.
  • The following talents are now 1 point:
    • Imp Gang Boss
    • Umbral Blaze
    • Pact of the Imp Mother
    • Dread Calling
    • Demonic Brutality
    • Flametouched
  • The following talents have been removed:
    • Fiendish Prowess
    • Shadow’s Bite
    • Infernal Command
    • Fel and Steel
    • Shadowcaster
    • Malefic Impact
    • Cavitation
    • Grand Warlock’s Design