I was pleased to see the volume of warlock info but: - Malefic Grasp replaces Shadow Bolt for Affliction. It is a channelled nuke which increases the damage of your DoTs on the target by increasing their tick rate by 100%.

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Yeahhhh....I don't think I like that. I don't like a channeled nuke. I miss the affliction mobility of earlier expansions. So; if it increases tick rate by 100% will dots complete quick enough to where most of my time is spent re casting curses? Or in the case of corruption and unstable affliction; re cast the applicable spell that refreshes that dot.

I hope there are changes or actual play is cooler than I think it is and it's cool. Or I could just "get over it" as I've been doing since Vanilla. ;-)

I just feel this is something in response to a vocal minority of recent warlocks who inexplicably like to use Drain Life as filler 100% of the time.

I am not sorry they would put a stop to or abate pet twisting. I hated that.

They'd better not lose soul swap. I enjoy that ability.

I am looking forward to the different demons available. Very much.

The description of Malefic Grasp is a tad vague. It's unclear as to whether the 100% increase will cause the DOTs to finish faster or if it will cause your DOTs to tick twice as much over their normal duration. So how would a 30 second DOT that ticks once every 3 seconds behave under Malefic Grasp? Would it tick every 1.5 for 15 total seconds or would it tick every 1.5 for thirty seconds?

Most likely the former, as the latter would be broken in PvP, but the latter would make Affliction feel less spammy in PvE.

By 'increases tick rate' I read that as meaning that if Corruption ticks every three seconds over 18 seconds normally (which, barring haste, it does) while channeling Malefic Grasp it will tick every second and a half over 18 seconds.

It's kinda brilliant; you still need to keep all your dots up for it to do its job, which is cool for affliction. It does mean that you'll probably be a little less mobile, or at least moving will be a bigger DPS loss, since if Shadow Bolt spam matched your dot damage you might never bother with the dots outside of movement phases. Finally, a filler that matches affliction.

Speaking of Malefic Grasp and mobility... how does that interact with the DPS-while moving talent?

You can expect a focus on moving towards Bane of Agony instead of Doom; between the tweaks to keep from losing DoT ticks if you overwrite within the last six seconds and the idea of having to channel Malefic Grasp at either the right time or long enough to get extra Doom ticks.

How would that be broken? It's a channeled spell, which makes you interrupt bait. Worse, you're immobile interrupt bait. Maybe I'm confused, but I don't get the impression that PvP Affliction is known for its shadowbolt spam.