wow Warlock Changes and Explanations on the War Within Beta: June 18th

[Staff 1,488]

This week's War Within Beta build brings player feedback-based Warlock changes. Blizzard addressed Demonology and Destruction, making Doom a passive to reduce Demo action per minute requirements, as well as moving some talents around for Destro. There are also many changes to the Hero trees, as well as Affliction too! 

June 18 (Source)

Hello Warlocks.

This beta build contains several changes that have been implemented based off feedback we received over the past few weeks. Before we dive into those though, we wanted to thank you for the bug reports that have been sent in. We are continually working through those reports so expect fixes in this build and future builds.

Without further ado, let’s get into some of the changes you’ll see for Warlock in this beta build.

Demonology

We’ve redesigned Doom to be passive, like the seasons 3 and 4 tier set bonus in Dragonflight. The primary reason for this change is to reduce the increased number of actions per minute we observed during playtesting. Additionally, Demonology has a lot of plates to spin as it is, and it felt that adding an additional cooldown to watch was a bit much.

It is also because of this reasoning that we’ve removed the cooldown reduction for Power Siphon from Blood Invocation. Further, Blood Invocation caused a desync with most Demonology’s cooldowns.

Destruction

Summon Infernal has returned to the center of the Destruction tree to serve as a powerful cooldown for players to look forward to unlocking while leveling. We’ve returned Dimensional Rift to the third section as well with a new talent that adds cleave functionality to your rifts.

To retain accessible pathing through the center section of the Destruction tree, we’ve had to remove Infernal Brand and condense Crashing Chaos and Rain of Chaos into a choice node.

Thank you for the feedback and we will continue to keep an eye out for any further feedback and discussions.

And here are the full changes from the development notes:

Tuning (Source)

• WARLOCK
  • Hero Talents
    • Diabolist (Destruction/Demonology)
      • The cast time of Infernal Bolt has been increased to 2 seconds (was 1 second).
      • Ruination damage is now reduced beyond 8 targets.
      • Overlord, Mother of Chaos, and Pit Lord are now visible to other players at a reduced scale and will retain their original scale for the summoner.
      • Overlord now charges its target rather than leaps.
      • Mother of Chaos’ Chaos Salvo visual has been updated.
    • Hellcaller (Destruction/Affliction)
      • Seeds of Their Demise has been redesigned for Destruction – Blackened Soul damage increased by 30%. When Blackened Soul deals damage, you have a chance to gain 2 stacks of Flashpoint.
      • Zevrim’s Resilience healing increased by 90%.
    • Soul Harvester (Demonology/Affliction)
      • New Talent: Gorefiend’s Resolve – Targets resurrected with Soulstone resurrect with 40% additional health and 80% additional mana.
      • Spirited Away has been removed.
  • Affliction
    • Death’s Embrace has been redesigned – Increases Drain Life healing by 30% while your health is at or below 35% health. Damage done by your Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and Malefic Rapture is increased by 10% (was 5%) when your target is at or below 35% health (was 20%).
    • Malediction has been redesigned – Increases the critical strike chance of Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction by 10%.
    • Malign Omen has been moved to row 9.
    • Dark Harvest has been moved to row 10.
  • Demonology
    • Blood Invocation has been redesigned – Power Siphon increases the damage of Demonbolt by an additional 25%.
    • Doom is now passive and has been redesigned – When Demonbolt consumes a Demonic Core it inflicts impending doom upon the target, dealing Shadow damage to enemies within 10 yards of its target after 20 seconds. Damage is reduced beyond 8 targets. Consuming a Demonic Core reduces the duration of Doom by 2 seconds.
    • Impending Doom has been redesigned – Increases the damage of Doom by 30% and Doom summons 1 Wild Imp when it expires.
    • Doom Eternal has been redesigned – Demonic Cores reduce the duration of Doom by an additional 2 seconds.
    • Infernal Presence damage reduced by 50%.
  • Destruction
    • New Talent: Unstable Rifts – Bolts from Dimensional Rift deal 25% of damage dealt to nearby enemies as Fire damage.
    • Chaos Incarnate has been redesigned – Chaos Bolt, Rain of Fire, and Shadowburn always gain at least 70% of the maximum benefit from your Mastery: Chaotic Energies.
    • Dimension Ripper has been redesigned – Incinerate has a chance to tear open a Dimensional Rift or recharge Dimensional Rift if learned.
    • Raging Demonfire now extends Immolate by 0.5 seconds (was 0.2 seconds).
    • Summon Infernal has been moved to row 6.
    • Crashing Chaos has been moved to row 7.
    • Rain of Chaos has been moved to row 7.
    • Crashing Chaos and Rain of Chaos now share a node.
    • Ruin has been moved to row 8.
    • Dimensional Rift has been moved to row 9.
    • Diabolic Embers has been moved to row 9.
    • Improved Chaos Bolt has been moved to row 9.
    • Dimension Ripper has been moved row 10.
    • Infernal Brand has been removed.