Warlock Class Changes for Shadowlands (Patch 9.0.2)

• New Ability: Fel Domination — Your next Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter, or Felguard Summon spell has its casting time reduced by 5.5 seconds. Fel Domination now also removes the Shard cost to summon your pet.
• New Ability: Ritual of Doom — Begins a ritual that sacrifices a random participant to summon a Doomguard. Requires the caster and 4 additional party members to complete the ritual.
• Demonic Circle is no longer a Talent is now learned by all Warlocks at level 41.
• Demonic Gateway no longer despawns when the caster dies. When the gateway is close to despawning, it begins dissolving out of view to warn the caster and allies that they may wish to replace it.
• Enslave Demon has been renamed to Subjugate Demon.
• Eye of Kilrogg can now be used in Arenas and Battlegrounds, can be killed by enemy players, and has 1% of the caster's health (was 100%).
• Summon Imp, Voidwalker, Felhunter, Felguard, and Succubus cast time is now 6 seconds (was 2.5 seconds).
• All Warlocks can now use the following abilities:
  • Curse of Tongues — Forces the target to speak Demonic, increasing the casting time of all spells by 30% for 30 seconds. A warlock can only have one Curse active per target.
  • Curse of Weakness — Increases the time between an enemy's attacks by 20% for 2 minutes.
  • Curse of Exhaustion — Reduces the target's movement speed for 8 seconds.
  • Curse of Exhaustion duration has been increased to 12 seconds (was 8 seconds).

• New Talent: Howl of Terror (replaces Demonic Circle) — Let loose a terifying howl, causing 5 enemies within 10 yards to flee in fear, disorienting them for 20 seconds. Damage may cancel the effect.
• Dark Pact now also provides additional health over 20 seconds.
• Darkfury now also increases Shadowfury radius by 2 yards.
• Players and enemies afflicted with Howl of Terror can now take more damage before the ability is cancelled.
• Dark Pact spell power bonus has been increased to 120% (was 40%).
• New PvP Talent: Amplify Curse — Your next Curse of Exhaustion, Curse of Tongues, or Curse of Weakness is amplified.
  • Curse of Exhaustion: Reduces the target's movement speed by an additional 20%.
  • Curse of Tongues: Increases casting time by an additional 30%.
  • Curse of Weakness: Enemy is unable to critically strike.
• Gateway Mastery is now available for all Warlocks — Increases the range of your Demonic Gateway by 20 yards and reduces the cast time by 30%. Reduces the time between how often players can take your Demonic Gateway by 15 seconds.
• Curse of Tongues is reduced to 15% effectiveness in PvP. This can be increased to 30% effectiveness with the Amplify Curse Talent.
• Curse of Fragility has been renamed to Bane of Fragility.
• Entrenched in Flame (PvP Talent) has been removed.

• Fear (Level 52) — You no longer suffer spell pushback when casting Fear.

Affliction Warlocks have undergone a substantial change moving from Battle for Azeroth into the Shadowlands. Unstable Affliction has moved from the default single target Soul Shard spender to the previous iteration of Damage over Time spell with no Soul Shard cost associated, albeit limited to only 1 target this time. In its stead a new more versatile spender has been introduced: Malefic Rapture, a spell that hit any target in line of sight, with damage scaling based on the number of periodic effect active on each target.

Another change, result of the "unpruning" is the reintroduction of Curses baseline for all the 3 specs: Curse of Tongues, Curse of Weakness, Curse of Exhaustion, which provide additional utility tools without impacting the gameplay much.

Last but not least there has been a talent tree shuffle, which you can view in details in Affliction Talents page, the introduction of Demonic Circle baseline and the return of Howl of Terror as talent option.

• New Ability: Malefic Rapture — Your damaging periodic effects erupt on all targets, causing Shadow damage per effect.
• Unstable Affliction duration is now 16 seconds (was 8 seconds), no longer costs a Soul Shard, and no longer stacks. The damage backlash when dispelled has been increased substantially.
• Sow the Seeds now embeds demon seeds into 2 additional enemies (was 1).
• Shadow Embrace is no longer a Talent and learned by all Affliction Warlocks in Shadowlands.
• Shadow Bolt damage has been increased by 13%.

• Corruption (Level 54) — Corruption now instantly deals some damage.
• Unstable Affliction (Level 56) — Unstable Affliction's duration is increased by 5 seconds.
• Shadow Embrace (Level 58 Passive) — Shadow Bolt and Haunt apply Shadow Embrace, increasing your damage dealt to the target by 3% for 12 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

• New Talent Inevitable Demise (replaces Deathbolt) — Damaging an enemy with Agony increases the damage of your next Drain Life by 15%. This effect stacks up to 50 times and can no longer be dispelled.
• New Talent: Dark Caller (replaces Shadow Embrace) — Reduces Summon Dargklare's cooldown by 1 minute.
• Nightfall now procs more often as Corruption spreads to more targets.
• Writhe in Agony now causes Agony's damage to start at 4 stacks and may now ramp up to 18 stacks (was 15).
• Deathbolt has been removed and is now a PvP Talent.
• Haunt duration is now 18 seconds (was 15 seconds).
• Dark Soul: Misery no longer has a global cooldown.
• New PvP Talent: Rapid Contagion — For the next 15 seconds, all of your periodic effects occur 50% more often. Instant cast, costs 3 Soul Shards.
• New PvP Talent: Rampant Afflictions —
• Unstable Affliction can now be applied to up to 3 targets.
• New PvP Talent: Deathbolt — Launches a bolt of death at the target, dealing 60% of the total remaining damage of your damage over time effects on the target. With Absolute Corruption Talent, counts up to 14 seconds of your Corruption's damage. Costs 3 Soul Shards.
• Soulshatter (PvP Talent) now consumes all of your Corruption effects on the nearest enemies instead of damage over time effects, and you no longer gain Haste for each enemy hit by Soulshatter.
• Curse of Shadows has been renamed to Bane of Shadows.
• Demon Armor for Affliction Warlocks now increases armor by 150% (was 90%).

Below is the current talent tree for Affliction Warlocks.

• Level 15 Talents: Nightfall / Inevitable Demise / Drain Soul;
• Level 25 Talents: Writhe in Agony / Absolute Corruption / Siphon Life;
• Level 30 Talents: Demon Skin / Burning Rush / Dark Pact;
• Level 35 Talents: Sow the Seeds / Phantom Singularity / Vile Taint;
• Level 40 Talents: Darkfury / Mortal Coil / Howl of Terror;
• Level 45 Talents: Dark Caller / Haunt / Grimoire of Sacrifice;
• Level 50 Talents: Soul Conduit / Creeping Death / Dark Soul: Misery.

Demonology Warlocks have transitioned from Battle for Azeroth with very few changes, with the exception of some talent buffs aimed at bringing back to life unused options like Power Siphon and From the Shadows.

In addition, several bugs or unintended behaviours have been fixed, among which the ability to stack Wild Imps on different terrain elevation. Demonic Consumption has also been altered to absorb 15% of every Demon HP and return 10% of that value as bonus damage, instead of flat out consuming every single Wild Imp.

Another change, a result of the "unpruning", is the reintroduction of Curses as a baseline for all the 3 specs: Curse of Tongues, Curse of Weakness, Curse of Exhaustion. They provide additional utility tools without impacting the gameplay much.

Last but not least Demonic Circle is now baseline and Howl of Terror returns as talent option.

• Wild Imps now spawn more immediately after Hand of Gul'dan, and 2-3 imps spawn in faster succession. Additionally, if they path fail, they teleport back to the Warlock.
• Axe Toss now interrupts stun immune targets, such as dungeon or raid bosses. This does not affect PvP combat. Axe Toss now stuns and interrupts the target.
• Felguard's Felstorm now capped at 8 targets.
• Shadow Bolt damage has been increased by 13%.
• Call Dreadstalkers's attack power has been increased by 20%. Dreadstalker's Dreadbite and Dreadlash damage has been reduced by 10%.

• Call Dreadstalkers (Level 54) — Reduces the cast time of Call Dreadstalkers how to pursue targets faster.
• Fel Firebolt (Level 56) — Teaches your Wild Imps how to spend 20% less energy when casting Fel Firebolt.
• Summon Demonic Tyrant (Level 58) — Summoning your Summon Demonic Tyrant instantly generates 5 Soul Shards.

• Power Siphon now also adds 30% damage to your next 2 Demonbolt casts.
• Demonic Calling reduces shard cost of Call Dreadstalkers by 2.
• Doom no longer has a small chance to summon a Doomguard when it kills the target.
• From the Shadows is now triggered by Dreadbite (was Call Dreadstalkers).
• Inner Demons random demons summoned attack power increased by 21%.
• Nether Portal demons summoned attack power increased by 21%.
• Demonic Consumption no longer sacrifices imps. Now instead drains 15% health of all active demons, empowering itself based on health consumed.
• Minions spawned from Nether Portal have had their attack power increased by 15%. Additionally, Vicious Hellhounds, Void Terrors, Wrathguards and Darkhounds spawned from Nether Portal can now charge to enemies.

Below is the current talent tree for Demonology Warlocks.

• Level 15 Talents: Dreadlash / Bilescourge Bombers / Bilescourge Bombers;
• Level 25 Talents: Demonic Calling / Power Siphon / Doom;
• Level 30 Talents: Demon Skin / Burning Rush / Dark Pact;
• Level 35 Talents: From the Shadows / Soul Strike / Summon Vilefiend;
• Level 40 Talents: Darkfury / Mortal Coil / Howl of Terror;
• Level 45 Talents: Soul Conduit / Inner Demons / Grimoire: Felguard;
• Level 50 Talents: Sacrificed Souls / Demonic Consumption / Nether Portal.

Transitioning from Battle for Azeroth into the Shadowlands, Destruction Warlocks did not face many changes beside some talents adjustments. In particular, Soul Fire has been reworked into a fixed 45-second cooldown nuke that also applies Immolate on the target and Rain of Chaos has taken the place of the previous Grimoire of Supremacy, shifting towards a more versatile option, scaling better in multi-target situations.

Another change, a result of the "unpruning", is the reintroduction of Curses as baseline for all the 3 specs: Curse of Tongues, Curse of Weakness, Curse of Exhaustion, which provide additional utility tools without impacting the gameplay much.

Last but not least Demonic Circle is now baseline and Howl of Terror has replaced it as talent option.

No specialization-specific ability changes are coming for Destruction Warlocks.

• Havoc (Level 54) — Havoc lasts 2 seconds longer.
• Rain of Fire (Level 56) — Rain of Fire deals 10% additional damage.
• Summon Infernal (Level 58) — Your Infernal Awakening delay 100% additional damage on impact.

• Soul Fire now generates 1 Soul Shard (was 4 Soul Shard Fragments), applies Immolate, has a 3.5-second cast time (was 1.5 seconds), and a 45-second cooldown (was 20 seconds).
• Shadowburn now costs a Soul Shard, has 50% critical strike chance on targets that have 20% or less health, and its cooldown is now reduced by Haste.
• Fire and Brimstone now generates 2 Soul Shard Fragments (was 1).
• Inferno now also increases Rain of Fire damage by 20%.
• Grimoire of Supremacy renamed to Rain of Chaos and now every Soul Shard you spend has a 20% chance to summon an additional Infernal that lasts 10 seconds (was increase Chaos Bolt damage by 8%).
• Roaring Blaze has been redesigned — Conflagrate increases your Soul Fire, Channel Demonfire, Immolate, Incinerate, and Conflagrate damage to the target by 30% for 8 seconds.
• Channel Demonfire primary target damage increased by 10%.
• Dark Soul: Instability no longer has a global cooldown.

Below is the current talent tree for Destruction Warlocks.

• Level 15 Talents: Flashover / Eradication / Soul Fire;
• Level 25 Talents: Reverse Entropy / Internal Combustion / Shadowburn;
• Level 30 Talents: Demon Skin / Burning Rush / Dark Pact;
• Level 35 Talents: Inferno / Fire and Brimstone / Cataclysm;
• Level 40 Talents: Darkfury / Mortal Coil / Howl of Terror;
• Level 45 Talents: Roaring Blaze / Rain of Chaos / Grimoire of Sacrifice;
• Level 50 Talents: Soul Conduit / Channel Demonfire / Dark Soul: Instability.

You can find other Patch 9.0.1 class changes linked below.