Posts with tag Shadowflame

Every warlock has at least one damage over time effect to take care of. Destruction has Immolate. Demonologists flip between Corruption and Doom (Metamorphosis), though I suppose you could count Shadowflame off Hand of Gul'dan as one. Affliction is the "DoT spec," starring Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, with appearances of Haunt.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket, for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right, Blood Pact welcomes you and invites you to take a seat.

Demonology is a curious spec. When Metamorphosis first came out, I panned the talent for having abilities that clearly push the warlock to engage in melee. It didn't make any sense to have a squishy caster have abilities like Shadow Cleave, Demon Charge, or even -- gasp -- Challenging Howl. The latter spell has thankfully been expunged from the data repositories of Wowhead, but some of you may remember it as a spell that taunts nearby enemies for 6 seconds. An AoE taunt. For a clothie. Never mind that Metamorphosis pumped up warlock armor to tank-like levels or that it reduced damage ... I always questioned the wisdom of having an AoE taunt followed by high-damage (and consequently high-threat) abilities while in a form that would shortly, inevitably expire.

Two years later, the developers finally scrapped all the seriously dumb (but strangely cool) abilities and replaced them with Demon Leap. It serves pretty much the same purpose as Demon Charge, but it looks a lot more awesome and it can save your butt from falling to your death. The stun component has a shorter duration but is now an AoE effect, which is great because it works even better in PvE situations. Metamorphosis retained Immolation Aura, which was probably the best spell among the bunch, so the form wasn't totally stripped of special abilities. The idea is the same -- demonology is a warlock spec that deals its best damage up close. That makes it play completely differently from the other two specs, and there's a whole lot of required mobility.

Patch 3.0.3 isn't a hefty patch by any means, but it did bring some pretty nice changes for Warlocks. Some were simple bug fixes but others were outright improvements. As we reported, the Dreadsteed spell will become trainable to all Warlocks at Level 61. Players no longer need to do the quest line, which opens up at Level 60. The character must have Journeyman riding skill and the Felsteed spell learned.

Despite this welcome change, I implore all Warlocks to do the quest. It is one of the best and most flavor-rich quest lines in the game, and any Warlock worth her salt will have fun keeping up the Bell, the Wheel, and the Candle. The cost of materials are trivial in the new economy, so there really shouldn't be any excuse not to do the quest now. High level friends can and should (we're Warlocks, after all) be bribed to chaperone Level 60 Warlocks with the Dire Maul Achievement.

[UPDATE: Thanks to our industrious readers, I needed to change my shorts (I'm sending you my dry cleaning bill, Augustus) when I read about this change... the coefficients to Corruption and Immolate were significantly buffed to 20%. That's just... wait, let me change my shorts again (blast you, Augustus!). Oh, and apparently Ritual of Doom is actually cool now. It no longer kills a party member, the Doom Guard lasts for 15 minutes and just disappears afterwards like a zit to Oxy afterwards. How polite. So wow, yeah. Bdew, you can split my dry cleaning bill with Augustus.]