One of our Warlock Writesr, Kalamazi, breaks down every aspect of these change the changes to Crashing Chaos, and Demonology’s sustain damage issues. If you’re wondering whether you should dust off your Warlock in 10.1.5, then look no further as we talk all things Destruction and Demonology.
Crashing Chaos and Dimensional Rift
-Crashing Chaos has been redesigned – Summon Infernal increases the damage of your next 8 casts of Chaos Bolts by 50% (10% in PvP combat) or your next 8 casts of Rain of Fire by 70% (15% in PvP combat).
-Dimensional Rift damage increased by 15%.
While Destruction may have only received a couple changes so far over the course of PTR, one of them is pretty impactful. That change is to Crashing Chaos, which also essentially adds value to Grand Warlock’s Design. Ever since the start of Dragonflight, Destruction Warlocks have been “stuck” playing with Summon Infernal as a 3-minute cooldown. While Grand Warlock’s Design has technically been an option since launch, it is a capstone talent that has been “locked” behind subpar talents in both the older version of Crashing Chaos and Infernal Brand. While these two abilities do synergize with your Infernal and Grand Warlock’s Design, they simply aren’t strong enough to justify playing over other options such as Chaos Incarnate or Diabolic Embers.
Destruction has been in an odd spot cooldown wise since 10.0. Our Summon Infernal has been very unimpactful due to the loss of cooldown reduction via Wilfred’s Sigil of Superior Summoning in Shadowlands. This has lead to Destruction having an exceptionally flat damage profile in single target, with Infernal amounting to a nearly unnoticeable amount of DPS when cast. While Destruction’s is one of the higher spec currently DPS wise, having impactful CD’s that you can allocate to certain points in a raid encounter, M+ or PVP, is very important. Up until Patch 10.1.5, Destruction has not been able to do that, but with Crashing Chaos now empowering our next 8 Chaos Bolt or Rain of Fire, this adds tremendous value to our Summon Infernal and also Grand Warlock’s Design. While your damage might not be as sustainable outside of CD’s as the current build in 10.1 is, being able to have impactful cooldowns and a 2-minute Infernal is incredibly exciting. This also means that Destruction becomes a much better Power Infusion target with CD’s potentially shifting to the 2-minute mark, and you also might now be able to play your class trinket, Neltharion’s Call to Dominance. This trinket (while very strong for Demonology and Affliction) has been very poor for Destruction due Infernal being a 3-minute cooldown, but that all is potentially changing in 10.1.5.
The other change that Destruction has received is a minor buff to Dimensional Rift. This talent shares a choice node with Chaos Incarnate and while I would like to say that the 15% buff to Rift is enough to push it ahead of Incarnate, it is sadly not. Having full Mastery value for every Chaos Bolt or Rain of Fire cast is exceptionally strong (even stronger with the Crashing Chaos changes) and while Dimensional Rift might help us a bit with mobility, it still needs additional buffs to be competitive with Chaos Incarnate. It would be exciting to see a world where Chaos Incarnate is your go-to choice in AOE/2 target cleave based settings and Dimensional Rift is your best option in single target, but that is currently not the case. With their being an assumed few weeks left of PTR however, there is still hope for that dream to become a reality.
Destruction Feedback
While Destruction might not have not received a whole lot of changes in Patch 10.1.5, the new version of Crashing Chaos may bring us back to the days of 2-minute Infernal, which I fully welcome. If I were to ask for one more change before this PTR testing cycle concludes, it would be adding a few additional seconds onto Madness of the Azj’Aqir. Destruction in its current form is incredibly immobile, only having Conflagrate as a spell that you can “cast” on the move. Madness’s current duration is 5 seconds, which was increased from 4 seconds in late Beta. The issue is that if there is movement present in an encounter, Destruction has a hard time maintaining Madness due to its short, unforgiving duration. Dread Touch is an Affliction ability of similar function (being a maintenance buff) that lasts 8 seconds, nearly twice as long as Madness. Dread Touch was also initially introduced in Beta as a 6 second buff, but was recently increased to 8 seconds, which was a massive quality of Life increase. I feel that Madness could easily be increased to 8 seconds without many issues, and Destruction Warlocks everywhere would rejoice.
Demonology Changes
Demonology has been a bit of a wild ride over the course of this PTR. In the first few weeks, Demonology Warlocks were initially told that both Demonic Knowledge and Ripped through the Portal were being removed in an effort to help increase our sustain damage. While Demonology’s sustain damage is certainly a valid concern, removing both abilities would have been a substantial hit to Demonology’s playstyle and a step back rotationally. Thankfully, Blizzard decided to alter some of their intended Demonology changes, keeping Demonic Knowledge and a few other abilities around.
-Ripped through the Portal, Demonic Meteor, and Fel Might have been removed.
-Shadowflame Acolyte and Fel Covenant have been removed.
-Demonic Knowledge has been re-added and is now located where Shadowflame Acolyte was.
-Shadow’s Bite has been re-added is now located where Fel Covenant was.
-Hand of Gul’dan damage increased by 25%.
-Implosion damage increased by 15%.
-Dreadstalker damage increased by 15%.
-Demonbolt damage increased by 20%.
-Bilescourge Bombers’ Soul Shard cost has been reduced to 0 (was 2).
-Umbral Blaze now has a 15/30% chance of occurring (was 8/15%).
-Umbral Blaze now retains remaining damage when reapplied.
-New Talent: Heavy Handed – Increases your primary Felguard’s critical strike chance by 10%.
-New Talent: Cavitation – Your primary Felguard’s damaging critical strikes deal 10/20% increased damage.
-New Talent: Imp-erator – Increases the critical strike chance of your Wild Imp’s Fel Firebolt by 5/10%.
-New Talent: Malefic Impact – Hand of Gul’dan deals 8/15% increased damage and the critical strike chance of Hand of Gul’dan is increased by 8/15%.
-Dread Calling is now 2 ranks (was 1 rank).
-Demonic Calling is now 1 rank (was 2 ranks).
-Inner Demons is now 1 rank (was 2 ranks).
Losing Ripped Through the Portal
There is certainly a lot to digest here but at the same time, Demonology is still Demonology. The loss of Ripped through the Portal aka our “Third Dog” is certainly a sad one, but if given the choice between it or Demonic Knowledge going, I feel you certainly keep Demonic Knowledge around for rotational fluidity, mobility and what it does for the spec. While you will now only have 2 Demonic Core procs when your Call Dreadstalkers expire, in testing, it has been nearly unnoticeable rotationally, thanks to retaining Demonic Knowledge. While there is a bit or RNG behind Knowledge and Demonic Core generation, I do agree that Demonology’s Demonic Core generation can likely be tuned down a tad, and still function in nearly the same manner. However, at the same time, losing our third Dreadstalker does mean that Demonology’s AOE will be taking a hit damage wise, which is why Blizzard has buffed both baseline Dreadstalker damage and Implosion by 15%.
Addressing Demonology’s Sustain
One of the major reasons that Demonology is receiving such large changes in Patch 10.1.5 is due to its current damage profile. This iteration of Demonology is one of the highest burst based damage specs the game has ever seen, when paired with external resources. When casting Nether Portal, Demonology can burst in excess of 1 million DPS when paired with Power Infusion and Neltharion’s Call to Dominance. Outside of that burst window however, Demonology does less than tank damage. This has lead to a very large discrepancy in logs for Demonology Warlocks based on fight timings and cooldown allocation. If a boss dies right after your Nether Portal value expires, your damage will look incredible, but if the fight dies 45 seconds after your Nether Portal, you are left wondering what went wrong.
While these extreme damage profiles are sought after at times in certain scenarios (like Kel’Thuzad in SoD), they can also be a curse. Thankfully, Blizzard has caught on to our lack of sustain damage and is attempting to address the issue by adding a handful of new abilities such as Cavitation, Imp-erator, Malefic Impact and Heavy Handed. While not incredibly exciting abilities (being all passive), they will indeed help with sustain damage, if they end up being worthwhile choices. Talents such as Demonic Calling, Inner Demons, Umbral Blaze and Bilescourge Bombers have also received a bit of attention. The shard cost reduction to Bombers will not make it a better choice than Demonic Strength, but it is a start. If the ability receives further buffs to its damage, it would be a welcome addition to Demonology’s toolkit, while also helping a bit more with sustained AOE than Demonic Strength. The talent point reduction changes to both Demonic Calling and Inner Demons are welcome ones, as we merely spent 1 point in each of those talents when they had 2 ranks, simply for their effects. The same can also be said for the buffs to Call Dreadstalkers, Demonbolt and Hand of Gul’dan, all welcome changes.
While we still aren’t sure just how much these buffs bring up our sustain damage, nearly the exact same amount of burst is still present in both Nether Portal and Gul’dan’s Ambition. This means that in its current form, Demonology will still likely burst nearly as high, but now sustain more damage outside of those CD’s, which makes me assume that more tuning is likely to come. In the end, when you are able to pair Nether Portal, Gul’dan’s Ambition, Reign of Tyranny, Power Infusion, Neltharion’s Call to Dominance and Irideus Fragment all together (not including Potion and Bloodlust), it is not hard to see why Demonology has such massive disparity in its damage profile.
About the Author
Hello! My name is Kalamazi, and I am a Warlock content creator focused mainly on PVE content. I recently joined Liquid and have previously cast multiple Race to World First events. If you have any questions feel free to stop by my Twitch and ask! You can also find me on Youtube, Twitter or in my Discord.
