Warlock pets actually receive the same blessings that the Warlocks are getting. It suffers from some downsides compared to Hunter pets though, Destruction Warlocks will always want their pets sacrificed, Affliction Warlocks typically run with a phase shifted imp and being phase shifted makes the imp immune to getting buffs cast on it (Meaning you have to disable your imp's phase shift when buffs are going on or else it won't get buffed), while for Demonology Warlocks the buffs a Warlock get aren't really optimal for a felguard, as pets go it has much more use for might than it would have for wisdom.

The felguard actually recieveds Warrior buffs, which means after a wipe it will probably get the correct blessings, but if warriors didnt die or were ressed and buffed while your ran in you have to ask for buffs for it.

Usually I find out which pali is doing Might, which is doing Kings and druid is doing Pink paw and spam them (you can macro it) for buffs. Those and Fort are your Most Wanted.

The change in the Fel guard from + resistance to - damage via MD is going to be a bit different. We (my pet and I) were enjoying resisting Fears, and it was 1 part of Shadow Res gear I could skip for some Boss fights.

That's not really a new role. For being demo-tank myself, it's possible to make a gear not too expensive (but sadly not upgradable) and tank like a mid-karazhan drood (the demo-tanking is a lot like the drood tanking, the stuff is often the same). Plus, the spec allows to shift to a quasi-optimal raid dps, destrumonology (~ 0/39/22) with a dps REALLY competitive. (I was often first dps or second dps on TK/SSC boss, 3 or 4 months ago when I was raiding, and I was not raiding with casus)

If you look carefully and if you know the main lines of drood tanking, you'll see it's actually possible to do it. (though it's hard and requer a lot of optimisation to work)

Whether blizzard intended it or not... I don't know, I have the feeling that the warlock is meant to be a half-tanking class. (some tanking talents look like PvE-based for me) But well, I'm not really well-informed on blizzard thoughs, nor on wow background...

Being spec destrumonology, there's a few things I'm regretting and a few others I'm hoping on this topic :

- the loss of threat reduction on Imp mastering... I could switch easily to a total-threat-reduction mode, while helping my party in the process ; now I'll stick with my succub and... stop dps.

- the 5% damage reduction lost on soul link.... That is actually worsening the demotanking situation. (well it was predictable...) We were really lacking armor (considering that we are cloth-class, I think we can't really complain on having our "up to 65% reduc damage raid buffed if not more" armor nerfed... ), these 5%, even if they are not more than 2% in the final result, are really problematic. (well, I know that nobody gives a damn about the demotank, but... :] )

- The talent 51 in demonology, on the contrary, is really, really, really great. The thing is, I don't know the future evolution of armor/%mitig rating, nor the max base and max buffed armor accessible for a warlock in WotLK, so maybe it's not as useful as I think. (actually that would allow me to easily reach 75% and probably earn more dodge on the gear, so it would be really good) Well we don't know much on this talent, so wait and see. I'm pretty sure I'll pick it up, the metamorphosis in demon was already my dream in BC. (if the demon form looks like a VoidWalker, I'll pick ip up for sure <3 ) 45 sec every 5 minutes is really good imho.

- the circle... I've read somewhere it would give some protection effect if you're in, so I'm allowing myself to dream a little. It's a very interesting idea, very tactic, I think it will be great.

- the armors : that's great. My actual problem in BC was that each armor was good for one of the two effects... the Armor buff was great for tanking, but only on fights where healers had infinite manapool ; on others, the +838 armor was a little less effective than the +20% heal and +spell who allowed more threat generation. Now we'll have a good armor for DPS, and a good armor for tanking. Way better.

- fel synergy & love struck : the voidwalker was already a good tank for a pet, I can't imagine what it will be if I don't need to heal it and if he take 10% of my stamina and armor... As for the other pets, it's a very good thing for survivability... (the succub tends to die very quick, actually) The love struck will be great in instances, increasing survivability again. Too bad it's not acting on the voidwalker (I love him way more than my succub, though Why can't I be love strucked with my VW ? XD He's way prettier... <3)

- Demonic Empathy... A PvE solo talent... Not very useful, but well that's always the demonology problem...

(sorry for the poor english, as my profile (don't) say it, I'm french)

All that was in the alpha files(yes it was in the alpha) is what is displayed in the original post. There was no addition effects for standing in the circle. However that doesn't mean that effect won't be added. Quite frankly I think it is an awesome spell that is more useful than blink in raiding without any extra perks.

What astounds me most of all about demonic circle is the versatility:

Cost to recall yourself for one. At 100mana it's next to zero. Granted, summoning one takes plenty more, but 6m duration should see one last a whole bossfight or at worst need one refresh alone.

Cost to create a fresh one. OK, we agreed it's plenty expensive, but 0.5sec cast is not exactly "taxing". Neither is 30s CD on re-casting another one, in fact it's quite damn handy from the looks of it.

Imp survivability is genuinely an issue, I'll agree, and the circle granting at least some additional resilience to the little bastard makes a lot of sense; it's already been said he's the only ranged pet, thus uniquely in a good position to be planted on the circle at a good distance to both dps the target and blood-pact the group.

The only thing I wonder about imp is sustainability, aside from the obvious death issue that is.

Even with BoW an imp will eventually run himself dry, and unless 2/3 mana tap will keep him well-fed enough to stave-off starvation perhaps one of his talents should allow him percentage of mana back per crit (as his whole build revolves around him critting) or either "gains % of master's mp5 while casting" or passive 30% of his own regen while casting. For all intents and purposes, giving the imp this will have 0 effect on any spec that's not using the imp as a machine-gun turret, as an imp that's not shooting is regening at full anyway. Perhaps a book for it is in order at the demo trainer.

As for Demon Armor I actually wonder why Shadow Resistance is removed. For example Ice Armor provides Armor, Resistance (Frost) and special effect (slows attackers) In our case Demon Armor special effect was ridiculously useless health regeneration, but I'd still like Shadow Resistance there, or maybe even all resistances

As for Fel Armor they are homogenizing classes too much. I'd gladly trade that mana regeneration while casting to mana restoration equal to percentage of damage done, that one is at least warlockish.


Decimate is obviously another PVP-oriented Destruction talent. And while Destruction survivavilty has been mentioned, we can't forget that Soul Link is no longer exclusive with end-tier talents. Obviously entire class stays Soul-Link dependant in PVP, except that now it's not that restricting in talent choices.

Molten Core doesn't look great, assuming Corruption and Immolate it will have 40% uptime ignoring refreshes so a net gain will average 4%. I don't think it's worth watching it all the time and somehow switching between Fire and Shadow, so 2 DOTs ticking 2 times every 3 seconds is pretty much it.

Kindling Soul is something that works against classic class mechanics.

Backdraft is ripoff of Improved Searing Pain affecting spells that are generally not spammed. While it's horrible for PVE (in fact in PVE listed spells will probably be cast once in a boss fight and only one of them), for PVP it might be more useful (read below), but still it feels slightly weak.

Torture is totally weird.

Eternal Flames completely waste PVE usefulness of Improved Immolate - Conflagrate - Backdraft chain. Getting critical damage to 220% (or to 230% with live-kind bugged implementation) is also welcome both for PVE (damage never hurts) and PVP (crits will actually make difference against high-Resilience targets)


Though overall PVE DS/Destruction 0/21/50 seems to stay viable. What they do to gear however is stupid. All kinds of token exchanges have been absolutely great, but now for some weird reason they would like to make minimum number of different items. If this continues by next expansion attack power, bonus spell damage and bonus healing will be unified in one super-stat, and probably differences between armor types (cloth/leather/mail/plate) will be eliminated and some classes will just get huge % armor bonuses.

Quick note since I haven't seen it mentioned here before:

Devestate (as currently written) will not affect rogues with Cloak of Shadows up, I think.

When we try to hit a rogue with CoS, we actually "miss" them, because they increase chance to miss by 90%. Enough spell hit gear, and we would not miss them. This is not the same thing as our spells being actually resisted. It's the difference between (for melee) a dodge and a miss.

Unless of course they mean that Devastate ALSO adds 100% to hit on our spells. Then a lvl 60 warlock using Devastate would be guaranteed to hit a lvl 82 target, which I doubt.

I'll agree that demon armor has reasonable claim to have Shadow resistance, and that it's hp5 element is useless, but I will not agree with two points you put forward: You have no reasonable excuse to gain all-res on any of your armors. Up to now you had the ultimate in all-res in the form of MD-dog which we assume will only be equalled by a mage talent in 3.0 and surpassed by that and a mage armor.

Homogenizing gear is a welcome addition as far as I'm concerned. Making hybrids wear healing gear with equal effects negates a number of problems: Healers will gain crit, professions won't need a million different BoP sets (LW would have to have a feral/rogue, Oomkin, Tree, Restoshaman, Eleshaman, Hunter/Enhshaman set... A little too many) and we'll avoid idiotic and random itemization like the confused shite from SWP which some gear has both Haste and Spirit, one is only relevant to arcane spec and the other is very badly itemized in the same spec.

Percentage of damage dealt as regen would be quite un-hninged as mana regen, unless we're talking about 1-2%. Think, even now at 2k DPS you're looking at 20 mana per second, or 100mp5 which is quite decent and very likely more than you'd have with 30% while casting. And that's only at 1%. Maintain that while damage output scales quite a lot during play, raw stats do not. Also take into account, any "damage done = mana" will mean you'll shit yourself whenever you AoE. I'm not going to elaborate much further than this, as someone inevitably will go "but SPs will have AoE too" but we don't know how expensive SP AoE is and whether it'll regen enough to make it sustainable or indeed, positive in mana return.

Bismar: Spells don't have a "miss" mechanics, they only have two different "resist" mechanics.


Pintofbrew: To reduce number of different gears removing different armor types would be best solution. Just passive armor bonuses to some classes and suddenly number of different gears is reduced to about 4-6 even in current model.
As for healers they don't really need crit except Paladins.
Professions can have recipes teach several crafts.
As for idiotic and random itemization like SWP, we won't lose it, we will actually get more of it. For example quality of Life Tap is so high that either Warlocks will end up speccing Kindling Soul and go whining about needing more Spirit, or instead Kindling Soul won't be sufficiently powerful and the same Warlocks will go whine that they want less Spirit and more of something useful. If the goal is to let the same gear be usable by multiple specs white stats need a good deal of revision to make all of them actually useful, for example convert mentioned Spirit into primary customizable stat so it gives people what they need based on spec or even players can customize their Spirit returns like talents. If the goal is to reduce the number of different items Cloth and Leather should be merged as well as Mail and Plate providing different mechanics to provide classic Leather and Plate wearers with higher armor without having them wear Leather and Plate.

I agree that maybe returning percentage of damage done isn't best idea, but keeping Spirit-less state would actually be great. It can be based on any stat really. Stamina- or Intellect-based regeneration would work well. Something as simple as mana cost reduction could work as well. Paladin-style mana gain when you get healed could also work.

I don't see a problem with putting spirit on all gear. With the coming changes we will benefit from spirit as much as spriests/mages if not more. Granted items without spirit would probably still be better for us but a small hit in itemization value for us is worth the ability to use all drops effectively in the future. Trying to get something like brutallus pants 1/7 chance once a week that 6-10 of your 25 raid slots want is pretty bs atm.

Fel Armor + Demonic Aegis 3/3 should = 39% regen while casting, I believe? More than any non-Arcane mage has, in fact, although adding Clearcasting would more than compensate for that. Seems like Spirit will be at least as valuable for Warlocks as it is for Mages, and more so depending on specs.

Which kind of makes me think that they'll change Lifetap in some way or another, probably nerfing it a bit.

That might not be the question, if itemization changes wholesale and there's no way to *avoid* DPS cloth gear with Spirit on it; think about the recent realignment of Feral Druids with Rogues via HotW; rather than HotW increasing STR by 20% in Cat Form (which caused Feral Druids to require manifestly different sorts of DPS leather from Rogues), it was changed to increase AP by 10%; this change essentially reduced the Feral Druid's reliance on pure basic stats and raised the value of "Rogue" leather for their cat form. As a result, items like [Trousers of the Scryers' Retainer] have roughly equal value to both classes, and there's no need for an equivalent pair of Feral Legs with +52 STR instead of +104 AP.

Another example would be the harmonization of DPS plate with Physical stats only; despite the fact that Seal of Command still scales with SP, not AP, Retribution Paladins simply don't have the option to gear for SP as they used to, even though they might like to.

I think the question Blizzard is intent on answering when they harmonize itemization is not "Can we make a unique item for each class and spec?" but rather "How do we make as many class and specs want the same item?"

As a result, I think you'll probably find that your Spirit Regen is going to be quite good in WotLK.

Yes, my primary concern about Spirit is Life Tap. When I calculated Cataclysm effect on reduction of Life Tap overhead I've come to a conclusion that in unlimited mana we have with Life Tap viable mana cost reduction to provide a decent DPS increase is along the lines of 40%. Another thing is that Life Tap to come extent forces us to get higher Stamina than other cloth wearers (which is where Spirit budgets are being transferred). Also there is Haste, which speeds up mana burnout and consequently would require more mana regen to keep up mana over same duration. Life Tap scales with Haste, mana regeneration doesn't.

So as I say we either will be at risk of being one-shotted by boss abilities after Life Taps, or won't care about Spirit, will stick to Demonic Embrace and will ignore Kindling Soul.


Another issue is that we have 3 cloth classes, each capable of doing spell damage. Are we actually going to have them all share the same gear? ~7-9 people in 25-man raid or ~3-4 people in 10-man raid wanting the same items? Isn't it too many? And it will happen mostly for random drops that drop for 1 guild out of 3.

Does it matter how good spirit is relatively to lifetap? You most likely are not gonna have a choice as to whether you are sacrificing stats because all items will have spirit. As stated before, a small itemization hit is worth not having two gear types anymore.


I don't see any reason why you can't have both. No matter how good spirit is 5% spirit isn't gonna be in the same league as 15% stamina. There is no reason for a destro lock not to get kindling soul it is free damage/regen and the only other alternatives are utility talents like nether prot, soul leech, and aftermath.

OK, so Kindling Soul gets a role of a filler. Why am I not impressed? On top of that I'm not just about Demonic Embrace, I'm about possibility of ending up with a lot of cloths without Stamina bonuses or with very small values of it. When I find myself at around 30-50% higher health buffed than some Mages/Priests I'm afraid it's not all thanks to having 15% extra Stamina from talent. Itemization hit may be too hard.

Well we still have +15% stam and slightly higher base than them, a +3% health talent as well. So even if we are in the exact same gear as them we should have 1 lifetap more hp than them at least. We will probably still have higher stamina tier pieces, though I would expect the gap won't be as big as it used to be. Realistically in bt/hyjal gear we had too much stamina.. maybe it will swing so far as to us not having enough stamina but I certainly didn't need to be at almost 14k buffed no imp at one point.

Hopefully around 1/5th or more of itemization ends up being caster dps.. I assume they aren't just going to remove the non-spirit loot from loot tables and not increase the caster itemization ratio.

Consider also that shadow priests and Moonkins will be able to quite happily take healing gear to DPS in. All in all, more classes are able to go for a wider veriety of gear. The net effect should mean guilds can gear up faster as less loot is wasted.

It depends if the 20% damage from healing is also applied on damage and healing loot. KJ healing mace would become 292 32haste and a socket with the talent which is around sunflare levels, but would sunflare go to being 350dmg 30crit 23 haste? If damage and healing gets an extra 20% then in most cases +dmg gear would be better still.

Personally I don't think there should be any +dmg leather after this change however(aside from token loot). Moonkin should be able to get by on healing leather, and dmg or healing cloth.

Aye, the advantage of Spirit regen is it doesn't interrupt DPS. If you can life tap 25% less, how much of a DPS increase is that, and is it enough to be worth the spirit?

The change to Soul Link is there because Death Knight will be taking over Warlock's Caster tanking role, and to shake up PvP balance.

The change to Life Tap is so 3 dps cloth wearers would be happy using the same gear and SPriests will be able to use Healing gear (not as bad as all melee dps prefer using Leather).


Regarding pets getting Pally buffs, the Felhunter and Imp count as Warlocks, the Voidwalker counts as a Paladin, and Felhunter count as a Warrior (forgot what the Succubus counts as, likely a Warrior).

Warlock