Legion Warlock Class Changes

By Wowhead Updated: 2016/08/26

Class Guides

Affliction Guide | Demonology Guide | Destruction Guide | Leveling 1-20 Guide | User Guides

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Resources in Legion are Mana and Soul Shards for all specs--too confusing having so many different ones. There are several talents for Soul Shards.

Incentives to use greater variety of Demons, and some are stronger for each spec. Affliction favors Felhunters, Demonology Felguards, Destruction Imps.

Demonology is now a completely pet based specialization with a handful of new abilities and some old ones that got reworked.
During combat, you concentrate on summoning pets and increasing their damage with Demonic Empowerment.

Thal'kiel's Consumption is your new artifact ability that drains 10% health from all your pets and minions and deals equally much damage on the target.

Call Dreadstalkers summons 2 Dreadstalkers that fight 12 seconds for 2 Shards.

Hand of Gul'dan summons now 1 Imp for each Shard that you spend.

Demonic Empowerment increases the health and haste of your active demons by 50% for 12 seconds.

Demonwrath is castable while moving and brings your demons to crackle and deals around 6,000 damage in a 10 yards radius.

5 instead of 4 Shards.

We get a new ability called: Reap Souls.

Haunt became a talent and Unstable Affliction costs now 1 Shard.

is the new filler spell.

Dark Soul got removed and instead Doomguard's cooldown got decreased to 3 minutes.

Grimoire of Supremacy allows you now to use a permanent Doomguard instead of improved pets.

We get a new ability called: Dimensional Rift (3 charges, 45 seconds cooldown)

Conflagrate and critical strike ticks of Immolate gives us Soul Shards.

Chaos Bolt (2 Shards), Rain of Fire (3 Shards) and Summon Doomguard (1 Shard) are your Shard spender.

Dark Soul got removed and instead Summon Doomguard cooldown got decreased to 3 minutes.

Grimoire of Supremacy allows you now to use a permanent Summon Doomguard instead of improved pets.

Visual UpdatesLegion Spell Animations PlaylistTalentsLegion Talent CalculatorLegionLegionLegion

Dark Regeneration

Life Harvest

Soul Link - now Demonology Specialization

Sacrificial Pact

Dark Bargain

Blood Horror

Unbound Will

Archimonde’s Darkness

Kil’jaeden’s Cunning

Mannoroth’s Fury

Soulburn: Haunt

Charred Remains

PvP TalentsPvP Honor CalculatorAbilitiesNew

: Your Drain Life is massively empowered, dealing 200% increased damage (but not healing).

Changed

Agony

Seed of Corruption

New
Call Dreadstalkers: Summon 2 ferocious Dreadstalkers to attack the target for 12 sec.
Soul Link: Demonology ability, no longer a talent. 20% of all damage you take is taken by your demon pet instead. Soul Leech also heals you for 25% and your pet for 50% of the absorption it grants.
Demonic Empowerment: Empowers up to 3 of your active demons with dark energies, increasing their Haste and health by 50% for 12 sec.
Demonwrath: Causes your demons to crackle with demonic energy, dealing Shadow damage to all enemies within 10 yds of any of your demons over 3 sec. Castable while moving. Demonwrath damage has a 15% chance to generate 1 Soul Shard.
Shadow Bolt: 6% of base mana, up from 5.5%. No Demonic Fury cost. 2 sec cast, down from 2.5 sec. Demonology now generates 1 Soul Shard.

Changed
Hand of Gul'dan
Mastery: Master Demonologist
Summon Felguard
Doom

Removed
- now Core Ability
Health Funnel - now Core Ability
Life Tap - now Core Ability
Decimation - now gone
Demonic Fury - now gone
Demonic Leap - now gone
Demonic Tactics - now gone
Hellfire - now gone
Metamorphosis - now gone
Molten Core - now gone
Soul Fire - now gone
Wild Imps - now gone

Changed
Chaos Bolt
Conflagrate
Havoc
Immolate
Mastery: Chaotic Energies
Rain of Fire

Removed
Fire and Brimstone - now Talent
Backdraft - now Talent
Aftermath - now gone
Backdraft - now gone
Devastation - now gone
Ember Tap - now gone
Flames of Xoroth - now gone
Shadowburn - now Talent

New
: Drains life from the target, causing (150.3% of Spell power) Shadow damage, and restoring 18% of the caster's health over 6 sec.
Health Funnel: Requires level 19, up from 11.
Life Tap: Restores 30% of your maximum mana, at the cost of 10% of your maximum health.

Changed
Banish
Command Demon
Corruption
Create Healthstone
Create Soulwell
Demonic Circle
Subjugate Demon
Fear
Ritual of Summoning
Summon Imp
Summon Voidwalker
Summon Succubus
Summon Felhunter
Summon Infernal
Summon Doomguard

Removed

Blood Pact - now gone
Dark Intent - now gone
Shadow Bolt - now Demonology
Soul Harvest - now gone, different talent with its name
Soulshatter - now gone
Unending Resolve - now gone

Artifact Weapons and Traits

Affliction Ulthalesh Calculator | Demonology Skull of the Man'ari Calculator | Destruction Scepter of Sargeras Calculator

Our Artifact Calculators, linked above, let you browse traits, relics, and appearances in the modelviewer.

Our class guides have recommendations on how to spend Artifact Power and choose Relics.

The comprehensive Artifact Weapon guide covers the following:
All artifacts by spec: any hidden abilities like Gaze of the Val'kyr, and flavor effects like Xal'atath, Blade of the Black Empire whispering you.
Traits: their perks, costs, how to acquire traits, and max level bonus traits.
Relics: how they increase ilvl, how they modify traits, and how to acquire them.
Acquiring artifacts: your first one and later ones for offspecs.
Artifact Knowledge: how this increases the rate at which you acquire Artifact Power, how to increase your AK level, how much extra AK you get at each rank.
Artifact Appearances: Every appearance organized by spec, how to get them, and modelviewer and video links.
Artifact Lore, Wowhead's Art Interview on Artifacts, and FAQ.

Tier Sets

Warlocks have class-specific sets from Raiding and PvP, as well as from the Order Hall. Dressing Room links and more armor sets are found in the Legion Armor Guide.

Cosmetic Abilities

Major glyphs have been removed in Legion and cosmetic effects have either been converted to minor glyphs, toys, or class books sold on vendors.

Class Fantasy and Gameplay Blog

The following information has been taken from Blizzard's Legion Class Preview Series: Warlocks blog.

Affliction warlocks are masters of shadow-touched powers, but unlike shadow priests—deadliest when pushed to the brink of insanity—these warlocks delight in using fel forces to cause intense pain and suffering in others. They revel in corrupting minds and agonizing souls, leaving enemies in a state of torment that would see them undone in due time. Even the most battle-hardened warriors can be deceived, landing blow after blow against the warlock, only to succumb to their suffering as their very vitality is siphoned away by the dark spellcaster. GameplayAffliction Warlocks’ gameplay has always aligned well with their character, but in terms of abilities, we want to avoid the feeling that DoTs are amplifiers for your channeled single-target damage. Applying spells that do damage over time is very core to Affliction, so we want to reinforce these spells as the primary source of damage, with other “filler” spells feeling more secondary. We’re adjusting the Affliction rotation so that DoTs are stronger, and your focus is more on figuring out how best to juggle those DoTs to maximize damage output.Mechanically, we’re altering how Soul Shards are generated and spent, in part to better deliver on the more DoT-driven damage. Soul Shards are now generated by each Agony you have up on your targets, instead of only by your most recent Corruption cast, to favor placing DoTs on several targets rapidly (multi-dotting). You’ll then spend Soul Shards on an extremely strong DoT in Unstable Affliction, reinforcing the focus on DoTs.Finally, in keeping with the Affliction theme, Drain Life serves as the main filler spell, instead of Malefic Grasp or Drain Soul. This better matches the Affliction identity because its damage stays secondary to the DoTs, which should be the primary focus of damage, instead of dwarfing them. It also adds significant self-healing, further playing to the Affliction motif.

By their very nature, demons are leeches on the living universe—but the demonologist has mastered harnessing the power of these malefic beings on the field of battle. Warlocks harvest the souls of their defeated enemies; those specialized in the ways of demonology use this life essence to tap into the Void, pulling all manner of abomination from the chaos of the Twisting Nether. While such a practice is often considered by outsiders to be wicked and reckless, the demonologist maintains absolute control over the summoned creatures. These malignant entities are fully beholden to—and empowered by—the will of the warlock, until banished to the realm from whence they came. GameplayWhile all Warlocks maintain the power to summon demons, Demonology is distinguished by the ability to call forth waves of demons to overwhelm the opposition, and also to further empower the demons they summon. Over the years we strayed too far from this design, to the extent that Demonology gameplay was defined more by the Warlock becoming a demon. Legion provides a fitting opportunity for us to realign the spec around its core function of mastering control of demons, not transforming into them.We also recognize that Demonology had a large array of intertwined mechanics that weren’t intuitive, and they’ve undergone a greater degree of redesign as a result. For those who played Demonology during Warlords of Draenor, the gameplay will feel quite different in Legion. Beta test feedback will be essential in helping us to ensure that the new spec feels strong and enjoyable and that we’ve accomplished our goal of returning Demonology to its foundations.

Warlocks who command the power of destruction favor incantations of pure chaos and aggression in battle. In this regard, they’d find a stronger kinship with fire mages than warlocks of other disciplines—if not for their propensity to make use of magic deemed detestable by all mage orders. The destruction warlock is well-versed in discharging a dizzying array of shadow, fel, fire, and chaos magics upon opponents that rattle souls and conflagrate bodies. They require little motivation for the havoc they wreak, happy to revel in the destruction they cause—thrilled at any opportunity to watch the world erupt in discord around them. "Warlocks who command the power of destruction favor incantations of pure chaos and aggression" GameplayDestruction mechanics are in a solid place overall and are already a good match thematically, so we’re taking the opportunity in Legion to provide additional polish on existing gameplay. While resource mechanic functionality isn’t being drastically overhauled, we’ve changed Burning Embers back to Soul Shards. Not only does this return consistency across all Warlock specs, it also reestablishes the Soul Shard as the iconic source of Warlock power.

Warlocks are the most volatile and insatiable of spellcasters. Though they often pledge themselves to the service of noble causes and are not innately evil, their desire to understand darker magics and exercise unwavering command over demonic forces breeds mistrust among even their closest allies.Warlocks peer into the Void without hesitation, leveraging the chaos they glimpse within to devastating ends in battle—their greatest abilities are fueled by the souls they’ve harvested from their victims. They exploit powerful Shadow magic to manipulate and degrade the minds and bodies of their enemies. They employ Fire magic, dropping hellish rain from the sky, to immolate the opposition. They summon and command indomitable demons from the Twisting Nether to do their bidding, or even to be sacrificed as the Warlock sees fit, empowering and protecting the dark caster from harm.The foundation of the Warlock class has been long and well established in Warcraft lore. However, while Affliction and Destruction Warlocks have maintained consistent, distinguished fantasies, the core identity of the Demonology Warlock has strayed too far from its roots in recent years. A primary goal for Warlocks in Legion is to accentuate the existing motifs for Affliction and Destruction, while returning Demonology back to its roots of summoning, utilizing, and empowering demons.Warlock resources have also become too cumbersome, causing confusion that outweighed their depth. To this end, we’re going to once again standardize Warlocks on their most class-defining resources: Mana and Soul Shards. Finally, demons have always served various utility purposes, but most of them are very niche, while the same one or two demons see the vast majority of limelight. We want to re-incentivize demon variety, strengthening the various utilities that each demon supplies, and causing some demons to be favored based on the Warlock’s spec.

Blue Tweets

Blizzard has lately been very active on Twitter, posting clarifications on Legion developments in response to user questions. We track all of the significant tweets with our Blue Tweet Tracker, which lets you filter conversations by class and role.

These class tweets are grouped by month and topic--some of the earlier tweets are included for archival purposes, but may reflect outdated design choices.

All January 2016 Tweets (Click to view)

All November 2015 Tweets (Click to view)

Affliction

Demonology

Destruction

General

Datamining Updates

Links to major datamining updates:
22201 on July 12
22133 on July 5
22053 on June 28
22018 on June 23
21996 on June 21
21952 on June 14
21874 on June 8
21846 on June 2
21796 on May 26
21737 on May 19
21691 on May 9
21655 on May 5
21570 on April 27
21531 on April 21
21491 on April 13
21414 on April 6
21375 on March 30
21287 on March 17
21249 on Mar 9
21215 on Mar 3
21134 on Feb 23
21108 on Feb 18
21063 on Feb 10
20979 on Jan 27
20914 on Jan 13
20810 on Dec 15
20773 on Dec 2
20740 on Nov 20

Share your comments about this guide in our Warlock forum!

Tags: PvE