Warlocks got a few mentions at this morning's WWI class panel, not only with confirmation of some previously mentioned spells in the form of Demon Form and the Demonic Circle, but in relation to the Mage, confirming the eternal struggle that seems to go on between the two classes. Still, what these mentioned changes do for the class, I believe, is mostly unclear.

Demon Form and Damage

Demon Form, otherwise known as Illidan form to the dev team, is something that a lot of Warlocks having been asking for for quite some time. Admittedly, it's pretty cool. Being able to morph into a Demon and gaining temporary access to a whole new skill set to devastate the enemy with? Yeah, I can't see that not being fun. But the question remains: How will it perform?

Been a while since we did a staff, and considering how badass (and just plain weird) this baby looks, why not this one?

Name: Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer (Wowhead, Allakahzam, Thottbot)
Type: Epic Staff
Damage/Speed: 145-323 / 3.20 (73.2 DPS)
Abilities:

• +70 Stamina, +47 Intellect, which makes it perfect for Warlocks, though really any caster would probably benefit
• Improves spell critical strike rating by 36, spell haste rating by 55, and increases damage and healing by 259. In other words, it rocks. Having a two-hand weapon limits you a bit, but this baby is your one stop shop for every stat important to a caster. Definitely a beautiful caster staff.
• And it's in the shape of a stretched-out Felhunter, or, depending on any conspiracy theories you may have about Blizzard continuity, a Zergling (more on that in a second). I couldn't find a video for you, but apparently it writhes and the mouth opens and closes as you hold it, too -- pretty weird and wacky.
• So about the Zergling thing -- Zerglings, as you may know, are the lower-rung units in the Zerg race of Starcraft, another Blizzard game. They look very similar to Felhunters in WoW, and it's true, this staff does look a little bit more like a Zergling than any other Felhunter we've seen in Azeroth. Plus, the name of the staff seems to be a reference to a Devouring One, another Zerg groupie. And it comes from Outland (a place out in the middle of space), and we have already seen Zergling noncombat pets in game.
• So I submit to you the conspiracy theory of all conspiracy theories: What if Warcraft and Starcraft are taking place in the same universe? And what if, depending on timelines, Zerglings are Felhunters and vice versa -- what if the Zerg is an evolved (or primitive) form of the Burning Legion? Just something to bend your mind a little bit on this Friday afternoon.

How to Get It: Drops from the marquee star of the last expansion, Illy Dan himself. Drops at a rate of somewhere between 10-20%, so not super rare, but unless you're seriously farming the guy and/or are a Warlock or high DPS-doer who really needs a nice staff, you might have to wait a bit.

But who doesn't want this thing, really? Put an "of the Devourer" after anything, and it becomes instantly more desirable. Tell me you wouldn't want a "Cupcake of the Devourer." Have you heard about that new Apple product, the "iPhone of the Devourer"? And dude, I'm so jealous -- my friend just got a "Nintendo Wii of the Devourer"!

Getting Rid of It: Sells for 18g 39s 48c to vendors, disenchants into a Void Crystal. You should keep it though -- if the Zerg do invade Azeroth, maybe you can hold it hostage or something.

Finally, some resto Shammy gear! Not only is this sweet helm statted out (yes, I just made that up), but it's named after someone you may have heard of in passing -- that other half of the Lich King.

Name: Shroud of Chieftain Ner'zhul (WoWDB, Wowhead, Thottbot)
Type: Epic Mail Head
Armor: 902
Abilities:

• In order to save space, I'm going to give you the lore behind this helm while I tell you its stats. So Ner'zhul was an old Chieftain/Shaman of the Orcs, and since this is Warcraft, he was powerhungry and it drove him to make deals with demons. Plus his helm had +48 Stamina and +41 Intellect, which actually made it nice for PvP as well.
• It also had a Yellow and Meta socket, and a socket bonus of 2 mp5. Ner'zhul didn't exactly knowingly make deals with demons, though -- he did what he thought was right, and aligned with Kil'jaeden, who he thought was actually a helpful "ancient ancestor."
• But realizing Kil'jaeden is evil is actually as obvious as the 33 spell haste rating and 13mp5 on this helm, and eventually Ner'zhul did. It was too late, though -- Gul'dan took over, and Ner'zhul only barely saved the Frostwolf Orcs from drinking Mannoroth's blood.
• Kil'jaeden wasn't thrilled with that, obviously, and stuck Ner'zhul in the Frozen Throne as the Lich King, until a young man named Arthas Menethil came along, shattered the Frozen Throne, and combined his bad self with Ner'zhul's in order to become a crazy powerful being (with lots of Wrath, which we'll see sooner or later).
• And oh yeah, the helm's got 134 healing and 45 spell damage on it. Ner'zhul was originally an Orc Chieftain and resto Shaman, so this helm came from back when he was still supposedly a good guy. But interestingly enough, he still kind of is -- both he and Arthas slaughtered a lot of people thinking they were doing the right thing, and both he and Arthas were corrupted by the deals they made for power. Maybe they belong in that Frozen Throne together.

How to Get It: This is an interesting piece of loot that supposedly comes from the Sunwell. As of this writing, it hasn't been in player hands yet, but it actually comes from another helm, the Cowl of Gul'dan, which reportedly drops from Kil'jaeden. Since Killy Jay hasn't been killed yet, we're not sure about this, but this is what an "ancient ancestor" told us.

Blizzard is trying something new with the Sunwell Loot -- if you don't like the loot you get or want to switch it out for another piece of gear, you can bring the old helm to a Transmuter, along with a Sunmote (that can be obtained from trash inside Sunwell Plateau), and they'll transmute the helm for you. So get the Cowl of Gul'dan (drop rate unknown), add a Sunmote in there, take it to the Transmuter, and voila, you've got (what's probably a replication of) the Shroud of Chieftain Ner'hzul. Cake, right?

Getting Rid of It: Oh, you won't, not for a while anyway. All of the non-raiders will be switching out their casual epics for greens at level 71, but a helm like this you'll hold on to for a while. It does disenchant into a Void Crystal, though -- at least we assume it does. The ancient ancestor was unclear about that one.

Warlocks who have always been a bit frustrated when they go into Shadow Labyrinth and see all those huge, delicious demons who refuse to be enslaved will get a kick out of this: It seems that a warlock on the PTR managed to enslave one of the biggest, baddest demons we've yet seen in the World of Warcraft: Brutallus, the pit lord boss in the Sunwell Plateau. Not only that, he then managed to get him out of the instance and set him loose on the docks, where he proceeded to smash up all the level 1 sightseers and the level 70 Adventurers alike and generally make a huge mess of things.

This is a bug that is almost sure to be fixed before the patch goes live, of course, and with good reason. It'd be a bit of a drag if life for the Shattered Sun Offensive was a constant stream of fighting off massively powerful pit lords unleashed by a stream of bored warlocks. But still, for one brief, shining moment, all you Demonologists can bask in the glow of true power, and know that you once caused one of the mightiest of the Burning Legion to bend to your whim. Yeah, that's right, it's good to be the Warlock. And your parents said studying the dark arts would never get you anywhere.

Thanks for the tip and the screen shots, Pamine!

It never really gets old speculating about what Blizzard has hidden away for the future, whether it be for the Sunwell Plateau, Wrath of the Lich King or something else entirely. The topic of Warlock pets comes up every now and then on the Wrath forums and while I don't play a Warlock, its an intriguing topic. Warlocks currently have six baseline demons, two of which have a slightly different summoning process. They can get another through being specced deep Demonology. If you count the Felguard as their level 70 addition in the Burning Crusade, they get one roughly every ten levels, so its safe to assume they have something coming in Wrath.

First thing to consider is what role the pet would play. Everything but healer has been done already, and I don't want to even think about a Warlock with a pet healer. The Felguard is essentially a direct upgrade to the Voidwalker, so something like that is more likely. Personally, I think a Shivarra would fit the next demon well, and act as a direct upgrade to the Succubus.

Second thing to consider is whether it would make sense from a lore point of view. As fun as it would be to summon a pet Pit Lord whenever you want, that seems unlikely. Same with the Nathrezim or the Eredar. Shivan or something we haven't seen yet seems the most likely choice.

... What would it be? As it is, warlocks already have a variety of demons for seemingly every occasion, yet in my mind's eye, I imagine warlocks being able to summon a much greater number than just 4 (or 5, depending on your talents). I close my eyes and envision a mad little gnome cackling as 5 or 10 minor demons come popping out of a portal he has just opened up. In fact, a demonology warlock in particular should be able to do everything he or she needed with the assistance of demons, is it not? It's true the Felguard is a nice pet -- but is he that nice?

So just for fun, let's play "imaginary abilities": what would you envision for walocks' evil little minions in the next expansion?

Yesterday, a player posted on the official WoW forum asking about the current state of the Doomguard and Infernal Warlock pets. It's a hassle to learn how to summon these demons, requiring the completion of multiple quests for each, and summoning them requires reagents, including the death of one of your party members (for the Doomguard at least). With all these requirements, one would think the pets would be worthwhile, but their cost and unpredictability (they have to be continually enslaved, which is on diminishing returns and may break at any time) make them worse than the normal Warlock pets.

Eyonix answers the original poster, saying that the devs are concerned about these pets and will buff them sometime in the future. That "future" may be the next expansion, but this is a better answer than the class has received on the subject in a long time. To the best of my knowledge, previous answers were something along the line of "These spells may have situational uses and will not be changed from that role". Now there is once again hope that these cool and iconic (watch the original WoW cinematic, if you don't recall) Warlock pets will become more than simple novelties.

Upper Deck has dropped three nice previews of their upcoming card set for the WoW TCG, entitled March of the Legion, set to hit store shelves in late November. The first preview is a look at how they're finally going to use those damage attributes on each card-- playing certain damage types will help open up new abilities on some card. The second preview looks at staff and dagger weapons for casters, and how UDE is bringing more of the online game abilities into the card game. And finally, the last preview looks at the addition of the Aldor and Scryer factions to the card game, as well as how Demons will enter into play. If you're a TCG player, are a must-read to find out how the new set is going to change the game.

And Boubouille at MMO Champion has even more word on the three loot cards that will be released with the set. UD hasn't officially announced what they are (though not for lacking of trying on our part-- WoW Insider is doing our best to get an official announcement on what loot cards will be available), but it looks like, according to code in the game client, that those items we originally thought were more toys for engineers are actually the loot items-- a dragon kite, a robot chicken, and a paper gyrocopter. Bou even discovered a spell for the dragon kite that says "Upper Deck" right there on it, so this is about as sure a confirmation as they come. March of the Legion, and the new loot cards, all drop on November 17th.

Update: Well there you go. Upper Deck apparently didn't like the leaks, and went ahead and confirmed all three loot cards. Look for a dragon kite, a paper airplane card, and a robotic homing chicken in a new deck near you.

Hard to believe that this friendly soul over to the right stabbing what appears to be an entire planet was once not just a good guy, but indeed, the goodest of the good guys, huh? (Goodest of the good guys? What, am I a drunken five year old all of a sudden? Sheesh, that's just horrible.) But it's true: the ultimate big bad guy in the Warcraft Universe, the ultimate evil, the guy who comes up with plans that involve possessing babies was once the champion of the Titans themselves, before he started stabbing planets and possessing babies.

I guess there's no evil, be it big or small, that Sargeras won't engage in personally. He's a real hands on villain.

So what's the deal with Sargeras, exactly? How did he go bad? Why did he assemble the Burning Legion in the first place? And what's he up to nowadays? With the Legion running around being killed for loot and Marks of Sargeras in Outland (seriously, what is the big plan for Outland, exactly? So far all the Legion seems to be doing is being mad at Illidan because he promised to be Kil'Jaeden's BFF and then went back on it. Did they pinky swear? I bet they pinky swore. That seems like the kind of thing Kil'Jaeden would do) you'd think ol' Sargy would be in the thick of it, but instead his sidekicks are running the show and he's nowhere to be found. Why?

It doesn't help that some of Sargeras' history has changed in the telling. (Hey, I like the Draenei a lot, but you guys really changed the lore around.)

Well, you may have a hard time believing this, but it turns out that his whole baby possession scheme wasn't such a good idea after all. I know, I know, how could picking on an infant have gone so horribly wrong? But rather than dwelling on that, why don't we start talking about Sargeras' early days.

As we all know, Kazzak has gone through the dark portal and left his lieutenant, Kruul, in his stead. It looks like Kruul got tired of hanging around the Blasted Lands and wanted to come see the cities of the world -- I've heard about Kruul sightings in at least Stormwind, Booty Bay, and Ironforge today. So I flew into Stormwind to try to get his autograph, but he seems to have accidentally one-shotted me with his Void Bolt volley. About six times.

Hello, mod fans! Back again with a simple, should-be-in-the-default-UI fix for all you Warlocks in the crowd. This one's been around for quite some time, though it seems to have been continued by a new author for the new patch.

Do you have a Warlock? Frustrated with the unnecessarily clunky book-buying interface on the demon trainers? Look no further! Demon Trainer (Continued) converts the demon trainer interface to look just like all the other trainers! What's more, it memorizes which spells your demonic pals already know, so there's no duplicate purchases or hunting through page after page to try and figure out which spells are next. Harnessing the dark energies has never been easy, so why not make this part of your every-even-level ritual a little easier: try Demon Trainer (Continued) today!

P.S. Nerf Warlocks. (But not really.)

Download at Curse

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