WoW TWW 11.1 Development Notes - Warlock Changes
We will go over all of the latest class changes for World of Warcraft The War Within.
With 11.0.7 now live, Blizzard is steadily working on the next major patch for World of Warcraft The War Within. Given that 11.1 will mark the start of Season 2, we can expect some massive overhauls to gear, class philosophy and overall PvE and PvP balancing.
Having said that, we will go over the Warlock changes in the recent The War Within 11.1 PTR Development Notes. Keep in mind that these changes are subject to change as more players provide feedback to the dev team.
Table of Contents
Warlock PvE Changes
- Drain Life damage increased by 100%.
Affliction
Developers’ notes: Soul Rot provides Affliction with a burst damage window that focuses on casting Malefic Rapture in quick succession. While the Drain Life functionality of Soul Rot is unique and has some niche uses, it goes largely unused and can be confusing to newer players as to what they should be doing while Soul Rot is active. To address this, we are updating Soul Rot to heal its caster for a percentage of the damage dealt. This retains some of Soul Rot’s identity as an Affliction spell while providing a benefit that doesn’t clash with throughput.
Demonology
Developers’ notes: In Undermine(d), the duration of Doom is now reduced for each Soul Shard spent on Hand of Gul’dan. Our goal with this change is to provide more control over when Doom explodes since its application is dependent on randomly receiving a Demonic Core. In addition, Doom Eternal wasn’t attractive enough to warrant a talent point but still felt missed as it made Doom feel incomplete since its duration reduction wasn’t maximized. Considering this, we’ve redesigned Doom Eternal to increase the uptime of Doom and provide a slight nudge to the Demonic Core economy.
- Doom has been updated – Consuming a Demonic Core no longer reduces the duration of Doom. The duration of Doom is now reduced by 1 second per Soul Shard spent on Hand of Gul’dan.
- Doom Eternal has been redesigned – When Doom expires, you have a 30% chance to generate a Demonic Core.
- Demonic Calling now has a 20% chance to make your next Call Dreadstalkers cost 2 fewer Soul Shards and have no cast time (was 10%).
Destruction
Developers’ notes: War Within introduced a lot of new spells to Destruction’s kit, increasing its complexity considerably compared to prior versions of the specialization. In Undermine(d), we are adding passive versions of Dimensional Rift and Channel Demonfire as well as adding the ability to change Rain of Fire’s targeting to an enemy target rather than a reticle. These changes are aimed at providing more options for players to customize their gameplay to fit their preferred level of complexity when it comes to playing Destruction.
- New Talent: Demonfire Infusion – Periodic damage from Immolate/Wither has a 4% chance to fire a Demonfire bolt at 100% increased effectiveness. Incinerate has a 25% chance to fire a Demonfire bolt at 100% increased effectiveness.
- Dimension Ripper has been redesigned – Periodic damage dealt by Immolate/Wither has a 5% chance to tear open a Dimensional Rift. Now a choice against Dimensional Rift.
- Havoc duration is now 15 seconds (was 12 seconds).
- Mayhem now has a 35% chance to activate (was 25%).
- Decimation will now highlight Soul Fire while active.
- Diabolic Embers has been moved to row 10.
- Rain of Fire is now a choice node that can be used to change the targeting from reticle to your current target.
Warlock PvP Changes
- New PvP Talent: Bloodstones – Your Healthstones are replaced with Bloodstones which increase their user’s Haste by 20% for 12 seconds instead of healing.
- Call Observer (PvP Talent) has been removed.
Destruction
- Bonds of Fel (PvP Talent) damage increased by 40%.
And that covers all of the changes posted so far for World of Warcraft The War Within 11.1. Once Blizzard releases the PTR patch for players to test, we might see even more updates to the class balancing. You can check out the official development notes, here.
