When you think of Warlocks in nearly any fantasy setting, it’s always a similar image: dark magicians wielding otherwordly powers, probably granted to them by demonic sources, to curse, hex, or otherwise hinder/murder their opposition.
World of Warcraft is no exception, with Warlocks bending the magic of the Void to summon demonic servants and cast spells that corrupt the life force of their enemies, or simply set them aflame. Curses fit into this category but were unfortunately taken out for a variety of reasons. Blizzard either didn’t like the system or felt that they were a bit too powerful and in their ongoing efforts to simplify and par down the classes, the developers chose to take them out to the displeasure of their player base.
Thankfully, Blizzard seems to have recognized this and intends to bring the abilities back for Shadowlands! Some of them were still in the game in a variety of ways, such as the curses of Tongues and Weakness still existing as PvP talents for PvP content, but they were missing from the game as a whole. Blizzard will be tweaking the few that still exist and adding some others in.
The following four curses will be in Shadowlands:
Curse of Tongues, which is currently still a PvP talent, will have full functionality. This curse causes the target to speak in Demonic, increasing the time it takes to cast a spell, which is incredibly effective against enemy mages or healers. Blizzard also added in the talent Tongue Tied, which causes spells to prevent the cursed target from being healed.
Curse of Recklessness is being added back in after being removed back in Wrath of the Lich King. This curse increases the attack power of the target, but also lowers their armor, causing them to be more susceptible to damage while they dish more out.
Curse of Weakness is a PvP talent that will be getting a full treatment again. This spell, as you might guess from the name, weakens the target and reduces their attack power for the duration.
Finally, Curse of Doom, which still lives on as a not-great Demonology talent called Doom, is being added back in. This curse deals periodical Shadow damage and has a chance to summon a Doomguard to fight as your ally with each tick of damage.
As the unpruning of classes continues throughout the development of Shadowlands, players are likely to see plenty of abilities they’ve missed adding back in. Warlocks are likely happy to see these abilities being added back in, though they might be the only ones!
