World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

As most of you may have heard, the test realms are open for patch 3.2.0.  There are some major changes in the works.  If you’re looking for overall possible changes and discussion you can check out a general overview of the possible changes in Medeor’s Overpull Report for 6/22/09.  But, if you’re looking for Warlock possible changes you’ve come to the right place.  I’m going to inform you on what Blizzard has posted on their public test realm patch notes page and give you a little rundown.

Your Felsteed will be learnable at level 20, down from 30 and your Dreadsteed will be learnable at level 40, down from 50.  If you’re still a low level, good for you, this is an unbelievable treat.

Now when you have a target banished and cast banish on that target again, it will break that banish.  This is something that should have been added way back during classic WoW.  How awesome would this have been in Molten Core?

Your soulshatter cooldown will be reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.  I know a lot of you probably think this isn’t that great…and…well, you’re right.  It may sound like a great decrease in cooldown but will you really need to use this twice in one fight anyways?

Now that we have some basic changes under our belts, lets move on to some talent changes.  There’s nothing completely major happening here just a few nurfs and a few buffs. 

Affliction-
Pandemic will now also increase the critical damage bonus of Haunt.

Demonology-
The cooldown of Fel Domination is being reduced from 15 minutes to 3 minutes.

Destruction-
Empowered Imp will no longer increase your Imps damage by 5/10/15%. 

The increased damage from Chaos Bolt and Incinerate on targets inflicted with Immolate is decreased from 3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10%.

In conclusion, destruction warlocks are losing 5% damage from their 2 main abilities and 15% less damage from their pet.  After some thorough research and comparison my DPS dropped 150-250 every fight as a Destruction Warlock.  Other than that, it’s all good news for you guys.  Demonology Warlocks get a 4 second pet cast every 3 minutes and Affliction Warlocks get their DPS increased without having to worry about changing how they do it!

Keep in mind these are only possible changes.  They are still being tested on the Public Test Realms.