Nine Days Out: Warlocks

Ok, technically it's eight days at this point, but I'm a night-owl, so sorry.

Warlocks are probably the class to get the biggest overhaul in Mists, and that's for an expansion that's all about overhauling classes.

The biggest change is that Destruction and Demonology now have new, unique secondary resource systems. It looks as if the experiment of giving Paladins and Balance Druids their own special systems has made Blizzard bolder in playing around with more than just the standard old Mana. (Shadow Priests, for example, got Shadow Orbs, though those had existed before in a marginally different way.)

Anyway, at this point the three Warlock specs have very different feels to them, so I'll go down the line and talk about each separately.

Affliction: Affliction is probably the least changed of the three specs. It has kept both the Soul Shard mechanic and the three DOTs. You're still going to be putting up Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and Agony (which we used to know as Curse of Agony, and then Bane of Agony.) The two big changes are that Haunt is now burns a Soul Shard. This means you'll only be able to use it a limited number of times per fight (unless you use Drain Soul to recharge, but don't look at me, I'm not Elitist Jerks,) presumably saving it for when you need a big damage burst. The other thing is that rather that Shadow Bolt, you'll now use Malefic Grasp, which is a kind of clever way to make your Nuke function off of your DOTs. Affliction truly is the DOT spec of all DOT specs, as your one direct damage ability only works by making your DOTs go off more (so, kind of not even a direct damage ability.) Bonus: the visual for Malefic Grasp is very cool.

Demonology: Quick trivia question: what's the coolest thing about Demonolgy? If you answered anything other than turning into a giant demon, you're wrong (ok, granted, Felguards and Hand of Gul'dan are both pretty cool, but not as much.) The new Demonology is based all around Metamorphosis. Rather than just a damage-enhancing cooldown, the transformation is a regular part of your long-term rotation. You will be generating Demonic Fury as you and your demons do damage (unlike Rage/Runic Power, Demonic Fury sits idle at 200/1000.) The more fury you have, the more damage you do, but let's say you max it out, or you just want to deal more damage. Well, then you hit Metamorphosis and everything changes. Now, your damage goes way up, you constantly spit out a Shadow Bolt every second or so, and a lot of your abilities change. Oh, and everything now costs Demonic Fury, limiting Demon-form-time, but also letting your mana regenerate a bit. Demonology is now going to be a cycle of building Fury and then burning it off in Demon form. Oh, and did I mention that all this time you're going to be surrounded by a swarm of little imps? Seriously, like five tiny imps shooting off firebolts at all times.

Destruction: Destruction still has a lot of the same parts - Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagration, Chaos Bolt. The major difference is that you now build up Burning Embers as you cast Incinerate, and these power Chaos Bolt (and some other abilities.) Honestly, I haven't quite gotten the feel for the new Destruction as much, but my understanding is that it's supposed to feel frenetic and chaotic. You don't have Life Tap, but instead you get a 400% increase to mana regeneration. You'll run out quickly, but then you fire off some Ember-fueled Chaos Bolts, doing insanely high, always-critical damage and your tank is full again.

Warlocks, more than any other class, have felt the liberation of the new talent/spec system. Destruction only has one DOT to worry about, and Affliction, appropriately enough, gets to just focus on DOTs. And Demonlogy feels and looks incredible.

Another interesting note: in the Slaughtered Lamb (the Warlock trainer area in Stormwind) there is a book talking about a group of Warlocks who seem to have made the discoveries leading to these new techniques. Am I the only one who thinks we are long, long, long overdue for a Warlock faction, akin to the Kirin Tor for Mages, or the Argent Crusade for Paladins? (There should have been a Warlock faction in Burning Crusade, really.) I don't know where to find more about this group of Warlocks, but the Legacy of the Masters is certainly a tantalizing read.