Before The Storm
As I was RSS Reader-hopping this afternoon at work to make the day go by faster, I noticed a post on WoW Insider about the WotLK beta Patch Notes.
I have made an effort to wipe up the drool and copy for you here the part that pertains to Warlockery (any emphasis is mine):
Warlock
* Aftermath (Destruction) - Now a 2-point talent, down from 5.
* All demon abilities and spells will automatically be learned as pets gain levels. Demon Master trainers will be removed.
* Blood Pact now works raid-wide (not just in party).
* Cataclysm (Destruction) - Now also increases your chance to hit with Destruction spells by 1% per point.
* Curse of Recklessness will no longer prevent Fear effects, only prevent NPCs from fleeing (e.g. at low health).[Shastarian: boo! No more Fear-kiting in Instances!]
* Dark Pact: Tooltip updated to be more consistent with other similar effects.
* Demon Armor - Now increases healing done by spells and effects by 20%, but no longer has in-combat health regeneration.
* Demon Skin, Demon Armor and Fel Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.
* Fel Armor - Now increases your spell damage equal to 30% of your total Spirit, but no longer increases healing done by spells and effects by 20%.
* Fel Stamina (Demonology) has been merged with Fel Intellect into Fel Vitality.
* Howl of Terror now costs 15% of base mana.
* Improved Curse of Weakness (Affliction) is now “Frailty” - Increases the amount of attack power reduced by your Curse of Weakness spell by 10/20%, and increases the amount of armor reduced by your Curse of Recklessness by 10/20%.
* Improved Enslave Demon (Demonology) is now a Tier 5 talent, up from Tier 4.
* Improved Lash of Pain (Destruction) and Improved Firebolt (Destruction) have been merged into one talent, Demonic Power.
* Improved Shadow Bolt (Destruction) - Now increases damage by your next Shadow damage spells by 3/6/9/12/15%, down from 4/8/12/16/20%.
* Mana Feed: Tooltip updated to be more consistent with other similar effects.
* Master Demonologist – Felguard (Demonology) - Now increases all damage by 1/2/3/4/5%, and reduces all damage done to you by 1/2/3/4/5%.
* Master Demonologist – Imp (Demonology) - Now increases Fire damage by 1/2/3/4/5%, and critical hit chance with Fire spells by 1/2/3/4/5%.
* Master Demonologist – Succubus (Demonology) - Now increases Shadow damage by 1/2/3/4/5%, and critical hit chance with Shadow spells by 1/2/3/4/5%.
* Master Demonologist (Demonology) - Most effects have been altered.
* New Talent: Demonic Empowerment (Demonology) - Grants your Summoned Demon power for a short time.
* New Talent: Eradication (Affliction) - Your Corruption, Siphon Life and Curse of Agony ticks have a 5/10/15% chance to increase your spell haste by 20% for 8 sec. This effect has a 10 second cooldown.
* New Talent: Molten Core (Destruction) - Your Shadow spells and damage over time effects have a 5/10/15% chance to increase the damage of your Fire spells by 10% for 6 sec.
* Pyroclasm (Destruction) - Now also includes Conflagrate.
* Shadowfury (Destruction) - Can now be cast while moving. Stun duration increased to 3 seconds, up from 2.
* Soul Link (Demonology) is now an 11-point talent (used to be a 31-point talent), but the 5% bonus damage from this talent has been removed. In addition, the damage absorbed by Soul Link is now 15%, down from 20%.
* Soul Siphon (Affliction): Now also increases the damage of your Drain Soul.
* Suppression (Affliction) is now a 3-point talent, down from 5. Now increases your chance to hit with Affliction spells by 1/2/3%, down from 1/2/3/4/5%.
* Unstable Affliction (Affliction): Silence effect reduced to 3 seconds, down from 5.
And also:
The combat log now differentiates between a spell failure due to resistance and spell failure due to missing the target. Where once both events reported as a resist; a spell missing the target is now reported as a miss.
I really, really, REALLY want to get in on this beta!

July 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I am really not looking forward to many of the changes. One thing which especially concerns me is the new emphasis on Spirit - in my mind this is a totally useless stat for warlocks, unless their are intending on doing something to Life Tap.
Blood Pact raid wide will be good though (and end warlocks having to be lumped in with the tanks - although it looks like almost all buffs are going to be raid wide).
July 18th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I really, really, REALLY want to get in on this beta!
You and me both!
The increased reliance on Spirit is actually correcting problems with the stat that weren’t applied the way that devs wanted them back when the game was first released. A lot of classes and talents relied heavily on Spirit, which greatly buffed them beyond any hope of being balance. As a result, Spirit was reworked to affect mana regeneration, health regeneration, and specific talents in specific trees.
Since Spirit is my favorite stat (can a person have a favorite stat?), I’m actually looking forward to this change. For one, it’ll increase the viability of the Discipline tree for priests since that tends to have a few boosts centered around Spirit (especially Improved Divine Spirit). For another, I think they’re planning on reworking it so that all classes benefit more from it. However, it’ll make humans the race to roll for most caster classes since they have The Human Spirit.
I assume that warlocks will be picking up Demonic Embrace much, much less.