Warlock (Updated)
Warlocks received a number of cut abilities (see Ability Pruning above), but remain relatively unchanged. They saw the most change of any class in Mists of Pandaria, and so were in need of less revision this time around.
We felt that Warlocks brought too much unique Raid utility, so decided to tone down Healthstones and Demonic Gateway. We moved Healing Potions and Healthstones into a cooldown of their own, and made them usable once per combat.
- Demonic Gateways no longer have charges (up from being limited to 5 charges). Every Party or Raid member can use them once every 90 seconds (up from 45 seconds). The maximum distance apart they can be placed is now 40 yards (down from 70 yards).
- Healthstone's cooldown will now not reset until the player leaves combat. Healing from this ability can no longer be a Critical Effect.
For Affliction, we're happy with their rotation. But, Drain Soul was causing them to be too strong in situations where they had a steady supply of small creatures to kill. We reduced the effectiveness of its on-kill effect in order to solve this.
- Drain Soul now creates 1 Soul Shard (down from 4 Soul Shards) when the target dies.
Kil'jaeden's Cunning was a problematic talent. We've reduced the ability for ranged damage dealers to deal damage while moving in Warlords. Kil'jaeden's Cunning became much stronger relative to other casters. We redesigned how the ability works to be more powerful in bursts instead of always affecting only some spells.
- Kil’jaeden’s Cunning has been redesigned. Kil'jaeden's Cunning calls upon the cunning of Kil'jaeden to permit movement while casting Warlock spells. This spell may be cast while casting other spells and lasts 15 seconds with a 2-minute cooldown.
Finally, there are a couple of miscellaneous changes. For Drain Life, we reduced the base healing somewhat, but massively increased the effectiveness of the Glyph which increases its healing, so as to help open up more potential Drain Life use in ideal situations. And lastly, we simplified Shadowburn a bit.
- Drain Life now heals for 30% less than before.
- Shadowburn no longer generates any mana.
- Glyph of Drain Life now increases the healing of Drain Life by 100% (up from 30%).