Demonology Warlock: Midnight Expansion Preview

Welcome to our Midnight expansion preview for Demonology Warlock, a resource page where you can find changes, Hero talent trees, and an initial assessment on the state of the spec.

The purpose of this page is to offer an up-to-date overview of how Demonology Warlock is changing in the forthcoming Midnight expansion. As such, it is not to be treated as a guide or a replacement, since the current state of tuning is not representative of what the final product will be.

Demonology Warlock received a complete talent restructuring for the class and the specialization trees alongside a fourth branch for each Hero Tree.

Below are the most notable changes:

• New Pact talents have been introduced, working essentially as stances that replace the baseline Curse of Weakness, with either Curse of Tongues and Curse of Exhaustion;
• A new talent Foul Mouth allows chosen curses to also affect any secondary target within 10 yards of the main target;
• Howl of Terror is on a choice node with Shadowfury;
• Demonic Gateway has been moved further down the tree and has a supporting talent that allows players to use it twice before incurring the cooldown;
• Blight of Weakness is a new AoE debuff effect that is mutually exclusive with any Curses, offering an empowered version on a cooldown.

Going into Midnight, the intention seems to offer the AoE Curses at the expense of less flexibility in what to choose from the start. That creates a situation where the default choice will most likely be Curse of Tongues , as the alternatives do not offer enough of an upside in a direct comparison, barred some very specific cases. Warlock's overall utility package seems to be still on the lower end of the spectrum, especially in Mythic+ scenarios. Howl of Terror has the potential to be used as a more reliable interrupt, but the target cap is still a bit of a problem.

Moving on to the Demonology side, the whole tree has been overhauled to lessen the reliance on addons and the need to track multiple effects. The layout is for the most part similar, progressing from a first gate almost devoid of choices towards the third gate which holds most of the options comparatively.

See below a list of the most transformative changes:

• Hand of Gul'dan can only be casted at 3 shards;
• Implosion is now a 30 seconds cooldown that will consume exactly 6 wild imps for full AoE damage on all targets, sharing a choice node with Power Siphon
• Blighted Maw is a new talent that causes Dreadbite to infect targets, dealing an additional 50% of the damage taken during 8 seconds as Plague Damage;
• Demonic Calling is now a 2 points talents that permanently reduce the cast time and shard cost of Summon Dreadstalkers by 50/100%;
• Soul Strike has been removed;
• Summon Demonic Tyrant does not extend pets duration innately, and now works with Summon Dreadstalkers exclusively when talenting Reign of Tyranny;
• Summon Demonic Tyrant damage still snapshot the amount of other pets present at the time of summoning for increased damage;
• Grimoire: Felguard has been removed in favour of a capstone choice node between Grimoire: Imp Lord and Grimoire: Fel Ravager;
• Doomguard has been reintroduced as a powerful, individual summon, whose cooldown can be reduced by consuming Demonic Cores;
• Vile Fiend and its upgrade in Mark of Shatug or Mark of F'harg have been appended to Call Dreadstalkers and cannot be casted on their own;
• The new Apex talent Dominion of Argus is themed around Nether Portal, offering another summon after casting a set amount of Hand of Gul'dan during its duration.

Midnight Demonology tree has been streamlined and simplified to a great extent, with thematic areas consolidated around the themes of Wild Imps, Felguard, and Dreadstalkers. Most effects/extra abilities have been integrated into the baseline rotational skills.

While the gameplay idea remains mostly the same in practical terms, most of the rotation has been simplified, Tyrant setups have been eased, and most short cooldowns have been either incorporated in existing rotational abilities or removed.

Wild Imp's behaviour has been reverted to also drain energy each cast, removing the issue of cooldown drifting associated with Wild Imp sets expiring close to when Tyrant was coming off cooldown. As a result returning issues are back, specifically associated with Line-of-sight shenanigans on the Z-axis (using stairs or level geometry to block line of sight in order to increase the wild imps count before tyrant summon)

Hand of Gul'dan being fixed at 3 shards is somewhat more limiting in its usage and optimization, creating a building block that does not allow to pool multiple shard spending events, outside of cooldowns, but equally help define the maximum amount of casts for a Tyrant setup.

Hero Trees have not been updated yet, with only the description of the fourth column being available.

The Diabolist Hero tree is themed around a sequence of Greater Demons that offer temporary effects such as damage amplification, shard generation or a high damage AoE ability before cycling toward the next one.

The playstyle, as such, is influenced by this cadence while not being an interference in the rotation at the same time. What changes the most is the damage profile instead, with Gloom of Nathreza directly buffing shard spenders, and higher burst capabilities thanks to Ruination or particularly in Tyrant windows, thanks to Abyssal Dominion.

Regarding defensive options and utility, Soul-Etched Circles offers a niche use case while Annihilan's Bellow drastically increases the frequency of use of Howl of Terror. Infernal Vitality and Infernal Bulwark also ties a sustain element to Unending Resolve which is definitely more enticing than what other Hero Tree currently seem to offer, albeit overall not great.

The Soul Harvester Hero tree takes a different approach, with a theme centered around shard cost reduction for spenders, direct damage increase, and additional damage over time in the form of Soul Anathema.

The synergy with Power Siphon through Necrolyte Teachings and Sataiel's Ambition while not being as transformative as it is in Affliction still offers a reliable direct damage increase, particularly with Shadow Bolt when talenting Rune of Shadows and Sacrificed Souls.

In AoE Mantle of the Harvester helps provide additional Demonic Core to fuel the damage.

In terms of defensive and utility options, again few improvements in terms of Gorebound Fortitude offering Soulburn Healthstones at no additional shard cost, and Friends In Dark Places giving an additional 25% to the baseline absorb value of Dark Pact. Eternal Servitude on the other hand enable a more frequent pet swapping/resummoning as a quality-of-life change, with the alternative of an improved combat res in Gorefiend's Resolve similar to other classes.

Season 1 Tier Set Bonuses for Demonology Warlock in Midnight are the following:

• Warlock Demonology 12.0 Class Set 2pc — Hand of Gul'dan damage increased by 15%.
• Warlock Demonology 12.0 Class Set 4pc — Your Summon Dreadstalkers deal 10% increased damage and last 3 additional sec.

Both set bonuses offer a talent-agnostic passive damage increase, as intended in their design, with neither suffering from target count or encounter timing, and instead offering consistency first and foremost.

The major benefit associated with 4p is the extended duration on Dreadstalkers, allowing for more Dreadbites and Blighted Maw coverage.

If tuned following the general goal of providing between 10 to 15% increase with the 2 and 4 pieces together, Demonology tier set has a wide practicality, and should perform well in any end-game situation.