[Warlock] Affliction and Demonology hotfixes and newly introduced in-game bugs

[millanzarreta]

As of April 27 and April 28, 2026, Blizzard released several Warlock hotfixes. While some issues were fixed, a few new bugs were also introduced.

• Demonology
  • Blizzard fixed the Fel Armaments bug that reduced the cooldown of Felstorm (from Felguard pet) from 30 seconds to 10 seconds (instead to the expected 20 seconds), and if the talent was selected and then deselected, the cooldown would drop to 20 seconds instead of returning to the og 30 seconds (at least until the pet died). These bugs are now fixed in-game and SimC has been updated accordingly. The temporary custom option warlock.fel_armaments_extra_effect_bug, which had been added to control aspects of this bug, has also been removed. It is worth noting that some players may still have their Felguard in a bugged state if they were affected before the hotfix. However, once their Felguard dies or loses its auras in some way, it gets fixed; so we believe the issue will eventually resolve itself for everyone.
• Affliction
  • Blizzard fixed the issue where Shared Agony would stop functioning after casting a Curse. This game bug was not implemented in SimC, so no changes are needed.
  • Hellcaller: Blizzard fixed the issue where Xalan’s Cruelty would not increase the critical strike chance of Wrath of Nathreza. A new effect with the spell whitelisted has been added, so the parse_effects system already picks it up automatically from spell data.
  • Blizzard fixed the issue where periodic damage caused by Malefic Grasp was unaffected by Death’s Embrace. It has been verified that Blizzard fixed partial ticks of UA / Agony / Wither / Corruption, which now correctly scale with Death’s Embrace. However, the actual Malefic Grasp ticks still do not scale with Death’s Embrace, which we believe is a bug, since Drain Soul and Shadow Bolt do.
  • Soul Harvester: Blizzard fixed the issue where consuming Nightfall with Malefic Grasp would not activate Wicked Reaping. This hotfix has been verified in-game, and Malefic Grasp now correctly triggers Wicked Reaping when consuming Nightfall.
  • Blizzard fixed the issue where Agony start with 1 less stack than intended when using 4p MID1 tier set without the Sudden Onset talent. This hotfix has been verified in-game and now works correctly again.
  • Blizzard fixed the issue where Unstable Affliction applied through Fatal Echoes would consume Shard Instability. Although this specific interaction is now working correctly in-game and Fatal Echoes no longer consumes Shard Instability, the hotfix introduced several new bugs and side effects. All of them have been implemented in SimC to match current in-game behavior:
    • If a Shard Instability buff proc is gained during the cast of Unstable Affliction, that UA cast benefits from the cost reduction but does not consume the effect. Previously, in this situation, the Shard Instability buff would be consumed, while the UA cast would still benefit from the cost reduction.
    • Casting Unstable Affliction consumes all Shard Instability stacks at once. This is clearly a bug.
    • A Fatal Echoes proc consumes one Soul Shard (and cannot proc if the player has 0 Soul Shards). This proc is supposed to automatically trigger an instant, cost-free UA, so this is also clearly a bug.