improved-corruption
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Choose my Adventure: Insert funny title about being level 25 here
WoW.com readers, it's up to you to decide the fate of Turpen the Gnome Warlock with Choose My Adventure. Help test the site's new features by participating in this event, casting your vote toward the many aspects of Turpen and following his exploits on Alex Ziebart's WoW.com profile!Well, you guys wanted me to run Deadmines. As you can see, I ran Deadmines. Many thanks go to Urse (Healer), Child (Tank), and Sneafoo (Noob Rogue of Doom) for 4-manning the thing with me. Urse was pretty overleveled for the place so healing was hilariously easy, but Sneafoo made up for it by starting the run at level 12 and aggroing Gruul from the pirate ship.I went further than that, too. I didn't stop at Deadmines, I did Wailing Caverns, Blackfathom Deeps and Shadowfang Keep as well. I was kicking around the idea as soon as someone suggested Deadmines, but I didn't think I would manage to land a group for either of them. When I went out to the Barrens to get my Succubus (Angva) at level 20, that sealed the deal for me. I picked up the quest The Orb of Soran'ruk, and despite the fact that its quest rewards sucked, it gave me more reason to try and get the groups together. I put out a call to all of the various resources I knew, LFG and community chat channels (your server probably has a few good ones) and all of that, and managed to score a few groups.
Blood Pact: Affliction and Demonology in Patch 3.0.2
It's easy to be disappointed with Warlocks, really. The best tree we have right now is Affliction, and is just really fun to play while dealing incredible damage. This is sad news for a lot of players who enjoyed playing Demonology or liked pressing their Shadow Bolt button with a dead Succubus. For one thing, going deep Demonology nets us a half-baked 51-point talent (more on that later) and killing off your Succubus for 10% more Shadow damage doesn't seem as compelling anymore.To top it all off, we're simply squishier than ever in PvP. We've lost Stamina, lowered survivability, and need to make major sacrifices in PvP if we're to pursue deep Affliction or Destruction. Thankfully, Blizzard recognized this and -- according to Ghostcrawler -- will be making an important change to Soul Link by increasing the damage absorbed to 20%. It will still be inacessible if we take 51-point talents at Level 70, but it should be alright by Level 80. Unfortunately, when we finally get there, we'll be sharing gear with lowlife Mages and Priests. I mean that literally -- those guys simply used to have lower life totals.
[EDITED] Patch 3.0.2 primer for Warlocks
First things first. Things will be changing this Tuesday for all of us. One sobering fact that we must all face is that from that day forward, we're going to be just a little bit squishier. Demonology, in particular, has taken some hits in survivability with the rework to Demonic Embrace (Stamina increase reduced to 10% from 15%, but Spirit penalty removed) and Soul Link (15% damage transfer, down from 20%). General homogenization of cloth items also means that we will no longer be getting more Stamina than other squishies in gear past Level 70. Stamina stacking from gear is about as good as it gets at Level 70, so enjoy it while it lasts. On a good note, Soul Link has been moved up to an 11-point talent, giving us some very interesting choices to make when considering going deep into Affliction or Destruction. In fact, out of all the 11-point talents, Soul Link is the only one that should give us any pause for thought. Considering that for about a month, we can only allocate up to 10 points in another tree if we choose to get a 51-point talent. Anyway, Patch 3.0.2. What's in store for Warlocks? An overview of the talent trees after the jump.
Warlock changes in Beta build 8982
Mostly good things for Warlocks today. Well, since yesterday, I mean. In the latest Beta build, Haunt has been thankfully buffed to heal you for 200% of the damage it did, up from a measly 20%. This is massive. Did I say massive? I mean gargantuan. Godzilla-like. This is the pure awesome that you can only ask for in Beta. Except... it actually doesn't heal for 200%. In fact, I think it still heals for 20%. Koraa has popped over to the Warlock Beta forums to say a couple of things about this: one, that "it should be more than 20%" and two, that they'll fix it. That should be comforting. Although it's Koraa talking, so... light your Doomsday Candles now and start chanting.Metamorphosis cooldown has been reduced to 3 minutes instead of 5, which feels a little more useful. Although to balance this out, it lasts 30 seconds (down from 45) and increases damage by 20% instead of 40%. It's a nerf to total DPS, but still not a bad change, as a shorter cooldown allows more flexibility in the use of the ability. The real problem with Metamorphosis right now is that the demon abilities are just... all wrong. Demon form actually merits it's own post, so I'll write about that some other time, but I'll leave you with this one to chew on: Challenging Howl. Yeah, just in case you're one of those cuckoohead Warlocks who've always dreamed of tanking, you've got your wish. You weirdo.
Instant Corruption and other infernal joys
Hot on the heels of Blizzard asking Warlocks for feedback on Metamorphosis, the Wrath development team shows how amazingly fast they work and how they actually listen to players. Koraa and Ghostcrawler materialized into the Warlock Beta forums to announce -- simultaneously on separate threads -- that Metamorphosis was going to change significantly in an upcoming Beta build, with the changes happily incorporating most of the feedback that players threw in.First of all, Metamorphosis will no longer replace a summoned demon -- a no-brainer feature that should have been there from the start considering that most talents in the tree buff up the Warlock's demon! It will also now increase armor by 600%, up from 360%, a coefficient that scales better with a Warlock's base armor of... cloth. Significantly, the demon form will now also increases all damage by 40%, after players realized that turning into a demon with many melee abilities and being cut off from normal spells actually reduced their DPS. Speaking of normal spells, Warlocks in demon form can now cast those, too. These changes come in addition to a few others that Blizzard is working on such as a few demon form-exclusive abilities -- and it seems like Demonology will finally be truly, diabolically fun. [EDIT: In my excitement I forgot to mention that the spell was reverted to a 5-minute cooldown and the form lasts 45 seconds. Still awesome!]I griped about this on the last Blood Pact along with a throng of other Warlocks, and it seems like Blizzard has heard us -- Corruption will now be baseline instant cast! It's a change that has been a long time coming, and it's finally turning real. Improved Corruption will instead increase the damage of Corruption by up to 20%, effectively negating Empowered Corruption and hopefully freeing up space for a new, exciting talent or at least more points to use in an already bloated tree.
New Warlock glyphs found in Wrath Beta build 8820
As Inscription is slowly built into a viable trade skill, Blizzard sneaks more and more glyph data onto the Beta server, even if none of it is directly available thus far. This build, MMO Champion discovered a nice selection of Warlock glyphs, and I have to say that most of them look pretty sweet. Of course, it's hard to say for sure on how good some of them are until we know for sure if PvE damage rotations besides Shadow Bolt spam will be viable in Wrath's endgame, but I'll assume they will be, for the most part. Let's check them out after the break.
