Feedback: Warlocks

#1 - June 5, 2024, 7:08 p.m.

In this thread, we’ll be testing and talking about Warlocks in The War Within. Look here for posts from the development team as adjustments and bugfixes are made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

The War Within Beta

All classes’ Hero Talent trees are available for testing. Please keep in mind that this is a Beta environment:

• There may be UI elements on the talent panel that are placeholder, including things like talent icons, text, or final UI art.
• Some talents may not be functioning yet, or may be marked as not yet implemented (NYI).
• Some new spell visuals and audio may still be a work in progress.
• There are some talents that are not fully tuned yet. This is expected, and we will implement tuning adjustments throughout testing.

The combat design team has two big areas of focus at this time:

• Finish work on changes to talents, especially wherever Hero Talents still need adjustments.
• Fix bugs that are blocking testing of new talents.

Working from Feedback

Alpha feedback thus far has been of great benefit to us.

Now that we are entering Beta, our focus on Hero Talent trees is shifting away from reworks and design changes and towards tuning and refining. We want to thank you so much for all the forum posts, videos, and discussions all over the internet. Your feedback and impressions have been invaluable for bringing their identities to life and making them fit into what you love about the classes you play.

We are looking forward to hearing from more of you as you get a chance to try Hero Talents for yourself. We are specifically interested in feedback or impressions on these topics:

• Hero Talents that you feel are “required” for your spec in a type of content, such as raiding or Mythic+, or that push you towards picking a specific tree. This could be due to damage profile, utility, defensives, or something else.
• Hero Talent trees that you feel are either too strong or too weak in power level compared to other options.
• Hero Talents whose functionality is confusing, unclear, or difficult to track during gameplay.
• Hero Talent choice nodes that you feel could offer more meaningful choices.

Again, Thank You

Feedback throughout the Alpha test was highly impactful on our design of the game, and we look forward to refining every class with you in the Beta. Thank you!

– The World of Warcraft Combat Design Team

#110 - June 19, 2024, 12:32 a.m.

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.

#676 - July 30, 2024, 10:33 p.m.

We’d like to call your attention to adjustments we’re making in the next Beta build.

• WARLOCK
  • Fixed an issue where Lifeblood was giving Leech higher than the intended amount.
  • Hero Talents
    • Diabolist (Destruction/Demonology)
      • Felseeker damage increased by 360%.
      • Chaos Salvo damage increased by 420%.
      • Wicked Cleave damage increased by 830%.
      • Ruination damage increased by 70%.
      • Infernal Bolt damage increased by 70%.
      • Destruction
        • The duration of Diabolic Ritual is now 14 seconds (was 20 seconds).
    • Hellcaller (Destruction/Affliction)
      • Wither damage increased by 15%.
      • Affliction
        • Wither damage increased by 35%.
        • Fixed an issue where Wither was benefitting from the Destruction effects of Socrethar’s Guile and Mark of Xavius.
      • Destruction
        • Blackened Soul damage increased by 45%.
    • Soul Harvester (Demonology/Affliction)
      • Soul Anathema damage increased by 35%.
      • Demonic Soul damage increased by 35%.
      • Wicked Reaping damage increased by 50%.
      • Fixed an issue where Succulent Soul would persist after changing specializations.
      • Fixed an issue where Feast of Souls would not grant a Succulent Soul when granting a Soul Shard.
  • Affliction
    • Unstable Affliction damage increased by 45%.
    • Darkglare damage increased by 55%.
    • Fixed an issue where Phantom Singularity was not correctly applying Infirmity to secondary targets.
  • Demonology
    • Wild Imp damage increased by 15%.
    • Demonbolt damage increased by 55%.
    • Demonic Core now has a 50% chance to grant a Demonic Core when your summoned Dreadstalkers fade away (was 35%).
    • Fixed an issue where Shadowtouched did not benefit Felseeker, Implosion, Gloom Slash, or Guillotine.
    • Fixed an issue where Demonic Brutality would not increase the critical strike damage of your demons.
  • Destruction
    • Chaos Bolt damage increased by 20%.
    • Shadowburn damage increased by 25%.
    • Conflagrate damage increased by 25%.
    • Incinerate damage increased by 15%.
    • Ritual of Ruin now activates after spending 20 Soul Shards (was 15).
    • Fixed an issue where Rain of Fire could damage enemies through walls.

#753 - Aug. 3, 2024, 12:10 a.m.

Greetings Destruction Warlocks.

Due to an increase in the Soul Shard generation available to Destruction, we are seeing that Rain of Fire is overtaking the role of Chaos Bolt as the primary damaging ability in single-target encounters. To address this, we have deployed the following changes to Beta:

Destruction

• Pyrogenics now increases damage taken from your Fire spells by 3% (was 5%).
• Avatar of Destruction now generates 1 Soul Shard Fragment every 1 second (was 0.5 seconds).
• Summon Infernal now generates 1 Soul Shard Fragment every 1 second (was 0.5 seconds).

Diabolist

• Destruction
  • Infernal Bolt now generates 2 Soul Shards (was 3 Soul Shards).

We will continue to watch and test and make further adjustments if needed.

Thank you for the feedback!