Once again it’s time to hear what Ghostcrawler and the rest of the development team have to say about the World of Warcraft classes moving forward. We’ve seen the Q&A feature for the Shaman, Mage and Death Knight in the past. Now it’s time for the Warlock Q&A.

warlock shadowbolt

In the mage Q&A, the devs mentioned that they’re planning to make mages and warlocks feel less similar and that since they’re happy with where mages stand right now from a design perspective, warlocks will be the class that would be drifting away. Ghostcrawler said that the soul shard system is the area they want to make a few changes to achieve this goal. Right now shards are more for maintenance and thus take a back seat to the actual warlock game play. Shards are used to summon the minions, healthstones, summoning portals and other things that are “cool” but necessarily totally needed. They want to change that. They want to make using shards a core mechanic and that using a shard would provide a combat boost instead of used for just minor things. They want shard usage to be a big deal! [maybe things like a trinket like ability costing a shard to increase spell power or things similar to that? That would be so cool if it were].

The devs also want to make pet usage and abilities more interesting. Some pet abilities just aren’t used that much anymore (imp fire shield) and some pets aren’t very interesting to use like the voidwalker. They want us to make interesting decisions when deciding which pet to use for a certain scenario. They also feel like it’s time to improve pet survivability especially in PvP. They said that they’re going to address this by slowly going to make pets scale with all stats, starting with spell penetration and resilience. Read more

I’ve recently been spending much of my non-raiding time in World of Warcraft leveling my warlock alt so I can get him to 80 as soon as possible. Some disappointment with my mage alt’s damage output has pushed me to level this warlock in hope that he’ll do better than my mage. Whether that’s going to happen or not has yet to be seen. In any case, I’ve had a lot of fun playing him again.

warlock 666 damage

He was around level 64 when I decided to play him more seriously again and he just hit 70 this morning, which I’m quite happy about. When I was level 68, I looked at my bonus damage at my character screen after getting a few gear upgrades and I was quite surprised at what I saw. Being a warlock, a magic user of the dark arts who also has a demon minion, it was quite amazing to find that my bonus damage was 666 thanks to my gear and the right abilities like fel armor and the demonology talents. For that short amount of time he was a warlock that was really true to his calling for the dark arts! Right now I have a lot more bonus damage than that because of the gear, fel armor rank upgrade, and level but that was really amazing that I caught that moment. Of course, in no way do I advocate what my warlock stands for but it’s cool for a little role playing.

Ever since the announcement that ammunition will no longer be consumed and that hunters will gaining their quiver/ammo pouch haste bonus through other means, freeing up a slot for another bag, warlocks have been wishing that they might get a similar treatment. They are indeed getting some help with their soul shards but it’s not in the form of removing the shards altogether or going to free up a bag slot either. Soul shard farming isn’t a thing of the past but it’s going to get a whole lot easier and faster.

Soul shards are getting easier to get and easier to manage with the following changes in patch 3.1:

* Drain Soul: Each time Drain Soul deals damage to a target which can grant experience, it now has a chance to generate a Soul Shard.

* Soul Shard: This item now has a maximum count of 32 in inventory.

The first change all fun, making it possible to get shards while wiping on boss fights and much easier to get shards in trash fights. It seems though like the second one isn’t great at all, especially if you’re used to running around with more shards than that. Ghostcrawler has an explanation and it’s all part of making shard management easier.

Drain Soul will produce enough shards that you should never be without them. Even if you are learning a boss through repeated wiping, you should be able to get the new shards you need each attempt.

In fact, it produces so many shards that we figured you’d end up having to delete them constantly, which would be annoying. The 32 limit will fill up your largest bag (which only holds shards anyway) without spilling over into the rest of your inventory. We figured very few locks carried around a lot more shards than that, and like I said, they are easy enough to replace now for those of you who do manage to go through them quickly. source

So basically warlocks will be getting shards out of their ears so it’s just best that they put a cap to it. they figure it’s more convenient to just grab the shards you need rather than having to get rid of the ones that could fill up all your bags. It’s a sound reasoning especially if your factor the minor glyph, glyph of drain soul which has a chance of giving you an extra shard! What I’m wondering though is that with this change, locks will have to cast drain soul even boss fights if you’re running low on shards so how will this practice affect their rotation? It might not be much of a big deal but it’s something that has to be asked.

the PTR patch notes for patch 3.1 listed in MMO Champion features a lot of changes for locks in all their talent trees. There are some cool changes and a lot nerfs in other areas. But right now I want to talk about the demonology talent Demonic Sacrifice because when the patch rolls in, we won’t see it anymore.

According to the patch notes, Demonic Sacrifice will be removed from the game. Obviously the patch notes are incomplete since we still don’t know what’s replacing it, even if some new talents have been revealed. This is sort of the same fate of the paladin talent Blessing of Kings (which will be made trainable in the patch) and still no announcement of what will take its place.

The removal of Demonic Sacrifice from the game is a bit of a toss-up for me. On one hand, a lot of Demo warlocks didn’t take the talent anymore since it seemed like having your demon up is nice even in dungeons because of the buffs from Master Demonologist and Demonic Empowerment. Keeping your pet up has been made easier by the new Fel Synergey talent which was moved to the first tier and has a 100% at max rank to heal your demon by 30% of damage you deal. It doesn’t help the cause that Destruction warlcoks like having their imp out because of the increased crit chance given by Empowered Imp.

On the other hand, Demonic Sacrifice was introduced to the game to allow warlocks put their demons to good use when they’re better off gone than there. As I stated above, perhaps this thinking is obsolete but there could be instances when it could still be useful. The most obvious one I could think of is the Heigan dance in Naxx where a pet could be at high risk of dying and thus be off no use to the raid, so a sacrificed demon would probably be better. Perhaps the Sapphiron fight is also another instance where it’s better to have a sacced pet because of the air phases where you need to get behind an iceblock or die.

Well no matter what you think about the talent, it’s no question that it was a cool concept while it lasted and I hope that it’s replacement will be something just as cool and hopefully something that could be an integral part of a demo build and others like destruction as well.

MMO Champion tells of a patch 3.09 that could be coming out this week. Since I haven’t tried checking the PTR or even if it’s up at all and the PTR forum is currently out for me, I can’t really check if this is really true. There isn’t even a patch 3.09 PTR notes so that makes the situation a bit worse. In any case, there’s something out there and it’s going to change a few things, even glyphs. Some of the change entries I’ve seen before as legit changes for the future so that might lend some credence to this. As always, you can find the latest PTR notes here so you can check it out if it eventually shows up.

Druid

* Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.

Hunter

* Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
* Serpent’s Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.

Pets

* Lava Breath now reduces the target’s casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
* Poison Spit now reduces the target’s casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
Read more

We just talked about part 1 of the class changes coming in patch 3.1 and then suddenly part two is here! This time around, druids, warriors and warlocks are getting their changes announced.

WARLOCK

# Improved Shadow Bolt – this talent now provides a 5% spell critical strike buff (similar to Improved Scorch).
# Improved Soul Leech – this talent now provides Replenishment (similar to shadow priests)
# Drain Soul now has a chance to produce Soul Shards even if the target doesn’t die.
# Siphon Life no longer as an active ability but the talent grants the old Siphon Life effect to Corruption.
# Curse of Recklessness and Curse of Weakness have been combined into one spell
# Consume Shadows – this Voidwalker ability is no longer channeled but has a cooldown.
# Several other warlock talents have had their ranks reduced, their effects changed or removed. This list includes but is not limited to Demonic Empathy, Shadow Embrace, Eradication, Suppression, and Pandemic.
# Additional new talents have been added.

DRUID

# Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done.
# Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation.
# Faerie Fire (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 5%. See Sunder Armor in the warrior update below for additional details.
# Thorns and Nature’s Grasp can be cast in Tree of Life form.
# Survival Instincts now works in Moonkin form.
# Replenish – to avoid confusion, this talent has been renamed “Revitalize.” It now also works with Wild Growth.
# We are also looking at increasing the sustained (not burst) damage of feral druids in cat form.

WARRIOR

# Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have 100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition, we may change the penalties associated with some stances.
# You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.
# Blood Frenzy now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
# Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.
# We are also adding increased damage to Arms, possibly through Overpower or Slam.
# We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries. source

Just like the changes for priests, rogues and shamans in the part one changes, it seems like the changes listed here are pretty much all buffs. There’s a lot of interesting changes announced that will make the three classes here very happy. The change to Improved shadowbolt for locks has been a long time coming and it’s actually really good now. Drain life having a chance to grant a shard even if the mob didn’t die is quite an interesting change. I’m wondering how making destruction warlocks a replenishment spec just like survival hunters, shadow priests ad ret pallies will change things. I’m thinking that shadow priests don’t have much of a niche going now that the other shadow damage class can be a mana battery.

Feral druids are looking stronger with the new savage defense passive ability for bears and the note that sustained kitty dps will be increased. For warriors, the most interesting change is that stance dancing is going to be easier to do now that you’ll only lose a maximum of 20 rage (untalented) doing it. This will benefit warriors of all specs as they will be able tank and dps better with more rage at their disposal. Another cool change is the one about absorbed damage giving the warrior rage, making things like power word shield a more viable option when healing warriors. Strangely enough, there’s no mention about this same mechanic for bear druids.

Now that part two is out so soon after part 1 came out, I think we can expect to see the final part out in a few hours or at least soon enough. I’m crossing my fingers that the last installment will see a lot of interesting changes as well.

In an effort to help warlocks in their soul shard usage, one of the changes coming in the next patch has something to do with their Ritual of Summoning spell. In the pre-TBC days warlocks had to stockpile loads of soul shards to summon every member of the 40 man raids twho were not present. While the move to a smaller 25 man raid was a lot of help, what really made it easier for warlocks is shift to using meeting stones to summon people. This way any two members of the group could summon the whole party.

The new change coming to the Ritual of Summoning is in effect something from the pages of the Mage Ritual of Refreshment spell or the Warlock Ritual of Souls spell where a tangible object is summoned for the rest of the group to benefit. In the case of Ritual of Summoning, the warlock creates an object that acts like a meeting stone. For one shard, the warlock can summon the whole raid from anywhere where summoning is allowed. In fact, since it acts like a meeting stone the warlock doesn’t even need to be there. H e just creates the object and can leave the summoning to the rest of the group present.

Just like Ritual of Refreshment frees the mage from having to do the hard work of conjuring so much water and trading it to the party, this new change to Ritual of Summoning frees the warlock from having to do so much clicking to summon people.

OMG New Drain Animations! Or is it actually old? I don’t really know…

This is something I just noticed earlier when I was playing my warlock. It’s possible I never noticed it until today because I haven’t really been playing my warlock much. For some of you, this might not really be very new since I’ve seen videos of this as early as September from the beta and I’ve also read that it might have been implemented when Patch 3.02 came out. As for me, I never noticed it until today and I’m very fascinated by it since it looks awesome!

Instead of looking like a colored lasso connecting drainer to drainee, it actually looks like something could be getting drained there! The new twisting animation makes it look more classy and believable Drain Soul, Drain Mana, Drain Life or Health Funnel share this cool new animation with the appropriate color of course. Pardon me for being excited about this just now.

Below is a video of the animations in action.

As a warlock, the idea idea of turning yourself into a demon and gaining demonic powers just like your trusty minions seems like a dream come true. Unfortunately, the whole ability was not at all worth getting since it was too underwhelming for a very bottom of the tree talent. The nice thing about seeing talents like that in their beta stage is the fact that they are in no way final. Blizzard poster Ghostcrawler released some great ideas about Metamorphosis the design team are thinking about that would definitely lift the ability up to a status worthy of a real 51 point talent.

While this is not final and could absolutely change, here is what we’re thinking about for the new design:

You keep your pet.
You keep your spells.
It buffs spell damage (for that “blow your cooldowns” feel).
It buffs mitigation (you could even tank for a bit).
It provides the current snare reduction for PvP.
You’ll still get a few fun demon abilities, but you can just use your normal spells if you’d rather.

The most important thing about these changes for me is that you get to keep your pet. The whole Demonology tree is about you and your pet giving each other benefits. Aside from the occasional times when you use Demonic Sacrifice, Demonology is all about keeping your pet with you and the talents are all about exactly that. So the current design of metamorphosis doesn’t make sense at all since the whole duration you’re morphed all your other talents are worthless since your pet is not there.

The other problem I had with the very first version of the talent was that the cooldown was 5 mins. For a then underwhelming talent that was too long long especially for something that lasts just 45 seconds. The current 3 mins is much more sensible.

Being able to have your pet with you while having all your regular spells at your disposal and having increased spell damage, increased mitigation and snare reduction while morphed - that’s what I’m talking about when it comes to a 51 point talent and i didn’t even mention that you still get to have cool demon abilities. Now it feels like it’s a celebration of what the Demonology tree is all about. I really hope these changes make it to live and I know a lot of warlocks who would be happy to see them too.

The warlock community got excited ever since the announcement came out that affliction warlocks would get a similar treatment to the change shadow priests got that allowed mind flay to crit. I was a bit skeptical about allowing warlock DoT’s to crit because warlocks do so much damage already and they’re well off with their non-critting DoT’s. But the announceent was made that said a new affliction talent would be implemented and the keywords would be “Dot’s” and “Crit”. There was a lot of speculation exactly how this would be implemented and the affliction warlock inside of me (currently level 56) was hoping that at least the basic DoT’s would get even a small chance fixed to crit. To some extent, that’s what eventually happened.

The new talent is called Pandemic and it’s on the same tier as Unstable Affliction and also has UA as a prerequisite. basically what it does is that every time your Corruption and Unstable Affliction spells damage a target, it has a chance equal to your crit chance to deal 33%/66%/100% more damage. At max rank, every time this procs means it’s like actually critting. It’s one of those talents that’s nice to have and definitely has that coolness factor too see it go off especially since Corruption and UA are two of the hardest hitting DoT’s around. But it also is a poor reason to start stacking as much crit as say mages, in my opinion. Spell hit is still king for PvE affliction warlocks and Pandemic is just like an icing on the cake. I shudder to see this talent in action for PvP when UA gets dispelled. Whammo!