Now that the Hellcaller tree has been released, from a destruction warlock perspective both sets of hero talents seem fairly underwhelming. I’d venture to say it almost seems like each talent set was designed with Affliction or Demonology in mind and then Destruction was sort of tacked on last minute – which is rather odd given that Gul’dan, the most famous warlock in lore, is definitively Destruction.
Hellcaller centers around enhancing the Wither DoT effect. This is very classic affliction, but other than the tacked on Chaos Bolt effect has no real identity for Destro. Similarly summoning massive, powerful demons is iconic Demo but other than the Pit Lord/Annihilan has nothing really for Destro.
Is there significant ways to salvage either tree for Destruction class fantasy? Mechanically, Diabolist seems a little better but Hellcaller still leaves much to be desired.
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its a disaster from destro perspective that both destro hero talents lack " THE DESTRO PART OF IT" one of them focusing on only demons and the other one on dots WHAT THE HECK if like they don’t now what destro is about
also, the tree is called HELLCALLER a regular person expects fire everywhere massive fire blows and huge devastating cast and absolute ramping dmgs but nah we get a dot WHAT THE HECK
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Very disappointed in Hellcaller as a Destruction warlock. With a name like Hellcaller, I was expecting the Destruction side of the tree to enhance our longstanding playstyle of primarily direct damage Chaos/Fire spells. The last thing I was expecting was the whole tree to revolve around a single DoT which replaces Immolate. I agree that this tree feels more tailored to Affliction than Destruction. And with Diabolist being more tailored to Demonology, this leaves Destruction warlocks without a single Hero talent tree that truly feels like it fits the spec fantasy.
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It looks strong for m+ and add fights.
I posted my feedback on the official forum but there’s more I’d like to add here,
For Destruction’s final reveal of their Hero Talents it’s saddening that Destruction got more shadow and DoT management than any theming behind it’s identity as a fire/fel/chaos theme as a specialization. I hope it gets reworked if not then it’s going to be another expansion of playing Demo. Why do I say this? Well Demonology atleast for “Diabolist” got the Theme correct. Diabolist fit and it made Warlocks happy about it’s features. We have yet to see Soul Harvester and I hope they do it right and also rework Affliction itself before it’s announced. Anyways back to “Hellcaller”, This spec has nothing to do with anything revolved around the elements of fire that it brings and the passive nodes create more headaches for DoT management than wanting to throw massive chaos bolts and big fiery incinerates you want to do in your current form. I hope the feedback comes back like it did with Oracle priests and it gets completely redesigned.
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Everyone’s summarized the thematic issues thus far, but the mechanical weirdness of DoT management on Destruction is well-stated above.
I know from Blizzard’s point of view, designing this tree must be one of the more difficult. Affliction and Destruction are radically different, and Destruction is definitely in the top 3 of specs that need a whole top down rework. However, in light of the specs being so different I’d have figured there’d be something a little more neutral thematically and mechanically than just “Affliction: Hero Talent Edition”.
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no it’s not, it’s called HELLCALLER, you can put a bit less of aff in here and make it more destro theme, just give aff some sort of direct dmgs and some dot ramping but the majority of the tree should be around big nukes and thing exploding fel magic and burning stuff.
Do you want a tree more suited for aff? well there’s the soulflayer one similar to what they did with demo and destro, the demo tree fits more demo than destro but it is also nice for destro but does not suit the spec, that’s ok because it is called “DIABOLIST” but on the “HELLCALLER” tree no one is expecting aff to take the protagonist
Think of wither as the fuse, and then blackened souls as the bomb that goes off when you light it.
Thematically it seems fine for destruction.
Fine isn’t good enough when they are getting rid of immolate (no more green fire on your DoT, so actually LOSING customisation), most of the tree is thoughtless passives that could be done in a patch tomorrow, other specs get better implementation, and the actual description of the tree (which includes FEL) doesn’t actually match up with the actual content of the tree (relating to fel, only one ability interacting with Chaos Bolt outside of a passive).
In general I am excited for hero talents, but come on… you can’t do all of the above and then the other alternative is Diabloist. You can’t deliberately shaft an entire spec, especially with percentage tuning that can be easily turned up and down on a weekly basis. You can’t sell players the idea that their boon for the next expansion is a permeant tuning pass of 10% increased damage, because if you then lower damage of chaos bolt by 15% you are even worse off than without the hero talents. There needs to be more nuance than just scaling things up and cutting out 20 year old abilities… I mean, come on…
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I might be more inclined to believe you if destro didn’t vote for their S1 set back. More buttons just isn’t a thing they want.
Diabolist is Ritual of Ruin 2.0 and yet people still believe it’s somehow demo-focused.
Hellcaller is a single dot that lets you cash out more damage after hitting it with enough of your other spells.
Not really seeing how destro is ‘shafted’ by any of this.
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Referring to destro in the third person means you aren’t one, and shouldn’t talk about whether destros feel shafted or not
I was going to say, that seems like a rather odd strawman the previous poster was setting up and defeating. The vast majority of Destruction players I know, myself included, badly think the spec needs more to it than Chaos bolt simulator and a spec titled Hellcaller seemed like the perfect place to flesh it out. Diabolist can remain as the mostly passive hero talent spec .
As an aside, I agree that Ritual of Ruin is not a great fit thematically for Destro. I loathed that Destro was so totally shackled to its infernal CD in BFA and SL, a playstyle which I believe was popular among a louder niche than among the players as a whole. Criticisms for Hellcaller as a Destro are largely twofold. The first being the lack of theme, which is obvious. Someone in the main tree pointed out that this hero talent spec could very well have been Soul Harvester for all the soul references. The second is that, outside of the minute (and unhealthy) Wither spreading and an additional micro CD it might as well be all passives for Destro. It fails thematically and is uninteresting mechanically.
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Please get rid of malefic rapture.
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By all means, don’t let me interrupt the pity party.
I just think the tree perfectly fits the idea of burning things alive with hellish fire. Maybe replace some of the passives with explosions somewhere.
Nothing really implies fire, hellish or otherwise. The primary ability is shadowflame damage, but it’s called “Wither”. That brings to mind much different imagery than burning something with fire. The ability name fits in really well with affliction’s naming conventions like agony and corruption, not so much with destruction’s which are things like incinerate, immolate, and conflagrate.
And that’s pretty much all the hero tree gives you, a DoT called Wither. The vast majority of the rest is just passive damage buffs. Even the cool down Malevolence doesn’t really invoke any sort of burning/fire imagery.
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The name is less important than the visual. Would be nice if we got a preview of what wither and blackened soul look like.
Wither is clearly the aff-inspired portion of the tree, but blackened soul definitely draws some inspiration from destro. Wither just serves the same function as immolate. It’s a thing you keep up.
But with blackened soul, you’re building up to a finisher by using your direct damage spells. It might fit better for destro if blackened soul just happens in one go for them, and the slow burn is left for affliction.
Do we have to pick a hero talent tree? I would really rather stay pure destruction.
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Same.
I just wanna burn stuff and bring about destruction, give us something to enhance that fantasy.
This is a valid point to touch on for allot of hero talents and the whole system. What if neither talent option fits the theme of the spec you previously identified. Being forced into one or the other is gonna feel terrible as a long time player of that spec.
Right. I don’t really want to be a hybrid spec. From a psudo role-playing perspective I’ve always liked to view my lock as a fire mage that took things to far and became obsessed with fel fire and chaos energy, only begrudgingly dealing with demons in order to get better access to the fel. If i could change the void walker into a fel flame elemental I would feel happiness on a level I haven’t in years. The hellcaller just feels like enhanced affliction which is fine for affliction locks but not what I want. I don’t want to wither things, I want to set things on fire and make them explode. It would be awesome if you could use the talent points you get to fill out more of the pure destruction tree and still remain competitive.