Please check out our new Hero Talents preview and let us know what you think in this thread.
2 Likes
Initial thoughts, now a bit elaborated:
Destruction
2/2 Destro trees that don’t really fit the Destruction fantasy - This is even more disappointing with this one because it’s in the name, HELLCALLER. We were expecting to see lots of direct damage and a smaller end on iteration with dots, and even the talent names pull on that end with Shadowflame damage, and yet… it’s all about dot management… at least Diabolist seems to be fun in concept and if these were the final choices, I would not go for Hellcaller as a Destruction player.
Affliction
Why is there ANOTHER BUTTON FOR AFFLICTION? Wither transforms Corruption, yes, but adding Malevolence as a short enough cooldown where you’d need to bind it just adds yet another button to another spec that is already filled to the brim with button bloat. Seeing Malefic Rapture mentioned made me shudder as it is (please please PLEASE rework this ability I beg), which likely means Affliction won’t be changing - which means we’re likely dealing with another expansion worth of an extremely bloated spec.
“oh, but you can get rid of some of the button bloat by speccing Absolute Corruption!” - Except if you do, with this iteration, you lose the benefit from Cull the Weak.
In General
Extremely disappointed to see 2 nodes being wasted with generic damage/critical strike chance increases. On other trees you don’t usually see more than 1.
Also not a fan of the Curse of Weakness/Tongues choice nodes - There are very few situations where a mob needs both curses. Mark of the Legashi seems to be dead on arrival, based on that.
Honestly, not a fan of this one.
40 Likes
Wither replaces corruption, so you shouldn’t have another dot to keep track of. Although there is the active ability cool down at the end of the tree, is that what you’re talking about?
Had another thread started with feedback, but in summary: I quite agree with the initial poster. Hellcaller, like Diabolist was for Demonology, seems like a tree designed for Affliction and Destruction was rather bolted on as an afterthought.
Managing a DoT is quite far from the Destruction fantasy of consistent, theoretically fast paced blasts of flame and chaos. Mechanically, the stacking part is rather generic but not inherently bad. However, even from a perspective of tying it into Destruction’s idea of ramping/overwhelming power and Shadowflame, that feels tenuous at absolute best as a thematic tie. Without a total revamp, I’m genuinely not sure how to save it from a Destro perspective – and it does admittedly fit Affliction quite well.
13 Likes
Clarification Please -
Is wither instant for both specs or does it have a cast time
Does Seed and Cataclysm apply Wither?
How will Hatefury Rituals and cull of the weak interact with the AC talent? one
shortens
duration and the other makes it perm.
Aura of enfeblement is that around the player model or around the target that you
apply the first curse to?
Quick Talent Feedback -more to come in another post.
Mark of Xavious feels lack luster and almost like a budget balance twin moons that has
a worse gameplay feedback loop. With cataclysm and Vile taint applying wither and
agony it feels like this talent needs rework.
Overall this feels like an Aff tree and has very little theme work to link it to Destro spells and themes. I think this could use a big rework to match the main spec more and thats coming from an aff lock.
3 Likes
Itll be very strong in keys but i have some questions.
- Does seed and cata apply wither?
- Does VT appling curse of weakness also apply curse of tounges?
- will absolute corruption make wither have infinite duration, and if so how will that be balanced around hatefury ritual?
2 Likes
Reposting my comment from the other thread:
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.
30 Likes
Okay. Can we get clarification on how Wither is actually supposed to work?
Is the “acute” phase a separate dot? This isn’t exactly clear and neither is how the stacks operate.
Also, since it replaces Corruption and Immolate have spell interactions been thought about? How would this affect Seed of Corruption and Cataclysm with spreading dots? Also what about talents like Absolute Corruption or Channel Demonfire?
As for other thoughts…having to double cast Wither to spread, via Mark of Xavius, does not sound fun at all. I’d rather have our other spells spread it somehow.
Also, thematically I get the idea of shadowflame corrupting and destroying things, and how it fits for both destro and affliction. But it would be nice to have more direct damage opportunities, like Haunt or Conflag causing an explosion that does AoE damage or opening fissures of shadowflame under targets.
4 Likes
I love the capstone since it is basically a mini dark soul (give us this back plz) but it is definitely missing the theme for destro and the name hellcaller. Rapture being mentioned is not a good feeling either. Mark of Xavius is not the way to fix our agony problem as aff. seems as if the dev is being reluctant to just give QoL for aff (hoping this is fixed with class changes). The 5 percent damage increase nodes are really bland to me. There are a lot of questions with this tree with how it interacts. Does wither and hatefury work with AC? Does cata and seed spread wither? is aura of enfeeblement around us or the enemy we cast it on? aff gets agony damage increases but destro gets wither increase, kinda confusing. Really hoping lock gets the class and spec changes a lot of us want and have stated in alpha/beta. A lot of people are looking for these changes to come in hero talents just wish we could have a list or date of when our class is gonna get looked at.
1 Like
My initial thoughts,
1). 0 Destruction Theme
2). DoT based
3). Brings bloat with the extra button.
4). More DoT Management
5). Aura for Curses
I think this tree fits more Affliction than Destruction by a long shot. There’s some aspects of the tree I do like which are Aura of Enfeeblement and Wither. But I really don’t enjoy more DoT management. I feel like extra DoT Management especially for Affliction feels even more bloated than it already is in it’s current state. If you choose Hatefury Rituals for Affliction it will create a 9 Second DoT Duration for Wither which is tough to manage in a multiple target setting. As for Mark of Xavius, I think it’s a rough design for Affliction and Destruction because you have to manage the “Combo Skill” effect with it’s stacks. For Affliction with Mark of Xavius, applying Agony feels rough if Vile Taint keeps it’s cooldown. As for Destruction with Mark of Xavius it feels rough as well because it will cause clunky gameplay in between Incinerate and and other GCD’s with Wither.
My question is Wither a cast time for Destruction? Is Wither instant for Affliction? This tree needs more clarity.
I really feel the theme for for Destruction’s final Hero Talent reveal is a letdown for the Destruction community. I feel Destruction could be more “Hellcaller” based if it was more fel/fire based around Chaos Bolts, Immolates, and Incinerates since it’s a fire based spec.
18 Likes
Man this just sucks. So I can either be a SUMMON BIG DEMONS YEAH destro warlock or a WITHER THEM WITH A SPOOKY SHADOWY DOT destro warlock. Can you see what’s wrong? I want to be a BURN THEM WITH FIRE AND CHAOS BOLTS DESTRO WARLOCK. We want xelnath’s destro back, not to keep getting ripped away from our fantasy god dammit
31 Likes
Am I understanding this right?
Mark of Xavius:
*Agony damage increased 10%. Agony is now a combo skill (Affliction). Directly recasting Agony within 2 seconds applies Agony to 1 other nearby enemy. *
Wither damage increased 10%. Wither is now a combo skill. Directly recasting Wither within 2 seconds applies Wither to 1 other nearby enemy (Destruction).
Does that mean with a pack of 5 mobs, if you just spam the same button in a row - you apply the dot to all targets? I guess thats a QoL thing? But kind of bad gameplay?
2 Likes
IT NEEDS TO BE REWORK, there’s 0 ZERO null non-existence nowhere to be found, lacking of, it’s hiding out of that tree the DESTRUCTION aspect in there, there are 2 trees already for destro non of them fits the “DESTRO THEME” and everyone and their mom thought that well the diabolist talent tree its more demo oriented that’s fine but the HELLCALLER ONE ITS GONNA BE DESTRO RIGHT? nooooooooooooooooooo man not at all It is all aff flavored what the heck we gotta sit destro for another expa? do you guys know what distro is about?
when you see the word HELLCALLER you would think about big nukes flames everyone my house on fire and everything burning but nah we get dots, not even fire dots nah just straight roting WHAT THE HECK why do you refuse so much on giving destro a proper
treatment
17 Likes
I might be in the minority, but I’m not hating the design of Hellcaller. Do I wish there was more of a destruction feel and theme to it? Absolutely. But mechanically I’m not against some of the ideas and things presented. I do however have a couple of concerns about how some of the mechanics might play out.
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How will Wither interact with shard/shard fragment generation since that works differently for the specs? Will they just retain the stats of whichever ability it replaces? What will the cast time be since one spell is instant and the other has a cast time?
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Casting/refreshing Wither can help apply it to other targets, but I’m wondering if we will get trapped into constantly refreshing it due to how Hatefury Rituals and Culling the Weak may interact. Sure, we could get a large damage bonus, but that would seriously cut into generating soul shard fragments gained by Incinerate/Conflagrate if we have to recast that every 6-8 seconds.
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How smart with the combo strike be? If I double cast Wither on a target, would it take priority to apply it to an enemy that doesn’t have it at all? What about if all mobs were affected by Wither? Would it refresh the one with the lowest duration or would it just choose randomly?
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Some nodes buff Wither for destruction because that would be our only DoT, but why does it buff Agony for affliction? Is that purely a numbers balance thing?
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Would Cataclysm or Seed of Corruption spread Wither?
If you were to take away destruction from this and use this as an affliction only spec, I don’t think anyone would bat an eye. I’m not against the stacking debuff mechanic, but it does feel much more thematic to affliction because they have already had similar things.
Even though Diabolist seemed to learn more towards demonology than destruction, at least it borrowed the Ritual of Ruin/Rain of Chaos mechanics from the destruction tree. I don’t really see anything here in this setup that borrows from the destruction playstyle.
Tl;dr: I think this spec could work mechanically and that it fits affliction thematically but I don’t see much of anything taken from destruction.
13 Likes
yup you got it, thats how it works you just spam on the main target over and over and it spreads each spam.
I agree this is bad gameplay for sure. Its basically the same gameplay loop that we have now just removing the tab target or the mouse over or macro targeting.
why not just a cd reduction on cata and vile taint assuming that they apply wither.
From what I gather, Wither is cast on the target and then starts dealing damage. Using other spells will cause Wither to gain stacks (or refreshing when it has a low duration due to Culling the Weak). There is a chance when Wither gains a stack to become acute and deal damage faster while draining stacks until it returns to a single stack. The process then repeats.
1 Like
That just feels unnecessarily cumbersome. I’d rather just have immolate and corruption apply a Wither debuff and have like soulshard spenders add stacks. At 8 let it explode in shadowflame and then apply a dot.
Maybe let the debuff be spreadable via Conflag for destro and Haunt +Agony procs for aff. Then let aoe abilities like Rain of Fire and Seed of Corruption add those 8 stacks in an aoe scenario.
I want this to add a layer to our gameplay, not change our currently gameplay entirely
8 Likes
RIP destro. Both trees clearly designed for the other spec.
That was one of my first questions too.
12 Likes
Nothing to comment on the tree itself, but can you change the name? The spec being about Satyr curses is cool, but what does that have to do with Hell? Call it Corruptor or Nightmare Lord or something.
Also agreed that it really fits Affliction much more than Destro.
5 Likes
Maybe I’m huffing too much copium, maybe I’m too jaded. But between the name having nothing to do with the abilities and the predictable backlash, I almost think this is a ruse. Something they never intend to go live that they can swap out with the real spec in a show of goodwill. A “look we’re listening and responding to feedback” easy W.
2 Likes