WoW Dragonflight is set to completely revamp the talent system for every single class. The old MMORPG class trees are back with a new lick of paint to prevent the problems of yesteryear reoccurring, doing away with the previous trio of reward options every five to ten levels. Warlocks have received numerous rounds of feedback on the Dragonflight alpha, and they’re set to receive another. Let’s run through the changes.
The overall aim of these changes is to reduce “button bloat” – the tendency for some classes to be overloaded with abilities that make their rotations unnecessarily complex. In the core tree, many of the throughput centric talents have been removed (like Devastating Bolt and Pact of the Eredar) and replaced them with utility talents such as Soul Armour, which improves Soul Link when you drop to low health; Demonic Resilience, which reduces crit strikes you take and reduces demon damage taken; and Fel Synergy, which causes Soul Leech to heal you and your pet.
In Affliction, the following spells have been removed: Deathbolt, Death Dealer, Pact of the Natherizim, and Malefic Wrath. They’re being replaced by talents like Dread Touch, which causes the target to take extra DoT damage when hit with enough Malefic Affliction; Grim Reach, which causes Darkglare to causes 50% of its damage to all enemies affected by your DoTs; and Doom Blossom, which gives Corruption a chance to deal an AoE to nearby enemies when Unstable Affliction is active on the target.
Demonology has relatively minor changes. Demonic Consumption will be replaced by Reign of Tyranny, which causes demons to grant stacks of Demonic Servitude, buffing the damage of Demonic Tyrant. Hold This For Me has been renamed to Guillotine, but is otherwise unchanged; and Ner’zhul’s Volition no longer increases the length of Nether Portal, but instead has a chance to summon an additional demon, scaling with Soul Shards.
Finally, Destruction also receives minor changes. Combusting Engine will be replaced by Explosive Potential, which reduces the cooldown of Conflagrate; Chaos Shards will be replaced by Scalding Flames, which increases the damage of Immolate; and Dimensional Rift is now in the tree, in a choice node with Chaos Incarnate.
You can read the full blue post on the forums. If you want to hop on the Warcraft bandwagon before the launch of Dragonflight, WoW Shadowlands is free until September 5th. Alternatively, you can improve your current experience with the best WoW addons from CurseForge, which can enhance your auction house, quest tracking, interface UI, and more.