Hellcaller fantasy is wack.
Why would our hero spec be centered on four losers we beat thoroughly who barely did anything on a grand scale?
Xavius especially was beaten a half dozen times. He’s pathetic. By legion he was basically The Box Ghost from Danny Phantom
“I AM XAVIUS THE NIGHTMARE LORD OF SATYR DEMONS” boy shut up lmao
That’s Snozy, lol. He used to be a mage main and we had to deal with him over on the mage forums for the longest time. Then he went Shadow and now he’s a lock. You guys have my heartfelt sympathies for having to put up with him.
I clashed with him for months in the lead up to the removal of Rune of Power where he fought tooth and nail against the tide of discontent with that misbegotten ability and claimed it was wonderful and should never get removed, we all know how that ended. You’ve pegging him perfectly, btw: elitist attitude and absolutely nothing to back it up with. 
i…i don’t know i mean, there are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many references for locks to look at, you got achimone, kiljaiden, mannaroth, Guldan, sargeras, holly hell even the Sargeri who were eradar Onece, and there are a lot more ALOT of an example where you could refer a tree called HELLCALLER not a bunch of freaking randoms
So we’ve got more than 200 replies now, which I have read through, and it’s apparent that there is a massive disconnect between what players thought this tree would be and what ultimately emerged. Even those who like it (of which there aren’t many) go out of their way to point out that it does not touch on the Destruction fantasy at all and flag that as a major flaw. As it is Destruction feels completely left out of this new system whereas both Demonology and Affliction have hero trees steeped in their distinct lore and spec fantasy. Hell, Affliction even looks like it will get two equality viable choices.
I understand that this was all dropped in our laps on a Friday afternoon in the lead up to a holiday weekend of sorts but I really hope Blizzard will get around to addressing this in the coming days because it’s a massive miss on their part.
Did they state this somewhere, or is this purely your conjecture?
Crazy idea.
Replace the initial talent in the hero tree with:
Fel Flame
Deals (30% of SP) Shadowflame damage to an enemy and applies Wither.
40yd range. Instant cast.
Keep everything else as is.
Both keep their dot, both get a spell to press while moving, feels more Destro-y because you’re throwing a little green fireball at the target.
Its most quite literally because it doesnt say anything about soul shards in the preview tooltip. So not confirmable at all and incredibly unlikely to be true.
It does fit the satyr hellcallers fairly well though. I think a lot of people expected something different with the name “Hellcaller”, and that’s fine. But satyr hellcallers weren’t really calling in tons of infernals and doing chaos bolt nukes.
It would be nice if clarification about hero talent abilities interacting with all of what interacts with the replaced abilities and still generating resources etc was just included in notes along with the tree release. It would save 200 posts of people having to hedge feedback with “well it’s awful if it doesn’t interact with x, but surely it wouldn’t just make x a dead talent right?”
For aff I like Wither and the mechanic of it going “acute” quite a lot. Something that currently feels bad about aff is how most of your abilities are just meaningless icons you attach to the bad guy to make rapture hit harder, other than UA/Agony they have no interesting mechanics and don’t do much damage. I also like Malevolence despite it being an extra button on an already overloaded spec (hopefully it is off gcd), but it’s honestly a pity to waste a cool effect like this on one dot in a hero talent tree.
I echo the sentiment here that it doesn’t seem like destro is getting anything that matches its theme out of either of its talent trees and this one is far more boring for destro than the other one was. I don’t see how 1 dot with little interaction from the rest of the spec’s kit can compare to the other tree for destro unless you tune it comically high for a single dot just to give destro a vague feeling that it has two viable hero trees. Aff has many more talents that buff dots/buff corruption directly than destro has for immolate. Destro directly interacts with this tree for exactly 20 seconds every minute by pressing malevolence and adding an extra stack on one or two targets with chaos bolt while aff has ways to buff the dot all the time.
One specific thing I wanted to call out is Mark of Xavius. This seems suspiciously like a worse version of a Last Epoch Warlock skill passive: https://i.imgur.com/PKtwqqK.png. It’s not quite clear how it works from the wording of the WoW talent, but if you have to recast it on the same target to cleave onto one other (still 2gcds for 2 applications) as opposed to the 1st cast of Agony making the 2nd cast on a different target cleave (for a total of 3 applications from 2gcds) then it is worthless. It’s still not really fixing the high ramp time issue even if it works the second way because even saving a few gcds still has destro/aff spending a lot of time at the start of aoe combat casting debuffs just to be able to start to participate, and frequently that combat ends before you really get going unless you’re doing higher fort keys or everyone in your group is 20 ilvl undergeared. Please look at the immo/agony spam dot spread gameplay. Both of these specs need some sort of baseline help with this to shorten their ramp time, it should not be put in a hero tree.
For the love of god don’t force us into Internal Combustion via Wither mechanics. Even when that node is better on paper, it’s pretty widely hated. There’s enough short duration debuffs and dots to juggle for Destro without that disgusting node.
But to echo the other sentiments, this doesn’t feel like a Destro-type tree at all, instead with Destro tacked on at the end. I wanted some big booms.
Being honest? If Wither is just Immolate on a Instant Cast.
It’s would already be better than Fel Flame.
as Immolate deals 65% spellpower instantly either way.
???
I am baffled by your post.
First of all you’re making wild assumptions. I’ve been playing Destro all season and I played it mostly in SL when I cared more about M+.
I also said unfun not unviable. So why are we discussing things like handicaps? If I said I refuse to play the other specs then I’d your perspective. I even specified for lower keys to further emphasize that I am unconcerned with performance, but rotational satisfaction.
The entire point of this thread is to raise theoretical and potential issues we see. No? So by your Logic if I saw this being an absolute disaster I should just be like, oh well 2 more specs! Chalk this one up as dead!
Finally this:
It’s just wild. The leaps in logic you have to take to get there is astonishing.
In no regard is wanting a DPS spec to be fun in M+ the same as complaining about the core mechanics of the root class.
I disagree. I play Affliction because I don’t want to use pets. If anything Hellcaller should have had more support for GoSac in the tree.
let’s say it fits the satyr theme awesome but does not fit Destro at all, just rename the tree to Eradar or Sargeri or insert a “random big fel guy name here”.
look it’s simple to create a tree for aff and destro that it leans more to destro, just make the tree for aff resolve in big rupture /drain souls/haunts we had that before and it could fit the theme with destro that it’s more about burst and direct dmgs, keep the wither and malevolence I like them but replace everything else
What part of switching to the spec that doesn’t suffer as much in lower key levels due to ramp was hard for you to follow?
Why Hellcaller isn’t good for Current Affliction
[Wither] 18 Seconds Stacks onto itself after using [Malevolence] and casting [Malefic Rapture] will work like [Agony] works to get more [Wither] damage output to gain stacks with [Wither].
[Hatefury Rituals] (100% More Damage at 50% Duration) [Wither] becomes 9 Seconds.
Affliction’s Current Rotation: [Agony],[Siphon Life],[Soul Rot],[Haunt],[Vile Taint],[Haunt],[Corruption]( now [Wither],[Drain Soul] (Shadowy Embrace), [Malefic Rapture](Dread Touch). Add all this together you have 6 DoTs, 3 Debuffs to keep up on your target at once because [Malefic Rapture] is still in the game.
Mark of Xavius: Grants more [Agony] damage, not [Wither], doesn’t give Affliction more shard generation. A lazy way to not tab target to spread [Agony] to “nearby target” (No Info on yard range for this spell).
[Malevolence]: A nice 10% haste boost but adds another button to Affliction’s current bloated spec.
Summary of Affliction/Hellcaller Warlock: Since we know [Malefic Rapture] is still in the game we will still have the toolkit Affliction has (Which is currently overly bloated) this will create a 9 second dot duration if you play [Hatefury Rituals] to line up with your 6 DoTs, 3 Debuffs core rotation to boost [Malefic Raptures]'s damage output since our dots don’t nearly compare the damage output of [Malefic Rapture] brings. I think [Mark of Xavius] should be [Wither] instead for Affliction and grant shard generation in some form. Also I would like them to change [Agonizing Corruption] to apply [Agony] with [Seed of Corruption]. I would also like [Doom Bloosom]& [Dread Touch] to not be a choice node for capstone talents. This current form of Hellcaller would work well if Affliction was reworked to more of a hyrbid friendly spec since were locked to [Dread Touch],[Doom Blossom], and [Seed of Corruption] being a choice we can’t spend in any form of building with [Malefic Rapture] requiring [Vile Taint],[Haunt],[Soul Rot]**, and [Summon Darkglare]. Also no idea if [Absolute Corruption] will effect [Wither]. The theme of this spec reminds me of a Nightmare Lord/Satyr vibe.
Why this could be good for Destruction in a way:
[Wither] lasting 18 Seconds, can be extended with 2/2 [Improved Immolate] equalling to 24 Seconds uptime. 12 seconds with [Hatefury Rituals].
Roaring Blaze Talent: [Conflagrate] will boost [Wither]'s Damage to an extra 25% after using [Conflagrate] and will make it feel more powerful than [Immolate].
Cataclysm: Since we know it will apply [Wither] it will grant more shard generation when combined with [Hatefury Rituals] in an AoE setting.
Mark of Xavius: Still a lazy way to not tab target spread [Wither] but when combined with [Havoc] & [Rolling Havoc] will reward extra damage output, and faster manual [Wither] spread.
[Malevolence]: A good cooldown for Destruction, also allows more stackable [Wither] spread when using [Chaos Bolt] and an extra 10% Haste Buff.
Summary of Hellcaller/Destruction Warlock: While [Cataclysm],[Channel Demonfire],[Summon Infernal] remain talent locked make this spec feel bad with Hellcaller. I believe this spec will allow faster shard generation with [Wither] stacking itself like [Agony] does for Affliction and will make it feel much better for DoT management than using the stock [Immolate]. I do believe with Hellcaller this helps Destruction’s Single Target and AoE much more and I think Blizzard should change [Malevolence] to also affect [Rain of Fire]. My overall thoughts of this build isn’t negative but mostly postive looking at it over some time and breaking things down and I don’t believe this fits the theme of a Destruction warlock.
I think it’s very strange destro has no hero tree. I thought each spec would have a hero tree based on the spec, that can also be used by 1 other spec for variety. But there’s no destro tree? Hellcaller as it is is not destro.
When people hear hellcaller, they think of summing hellflame meteors from the sky that crash into enemies and become infernals which then attack… just like the warlock in the tbc cinematic. Not good at all. Look at my name; bring him back… I also think it’s weird how you talk about spec flavor and identity yet get rid of burning embers… I make my shards orange in my weakaura just to feel like I have them still : (
I went with verdant spheres personally with green fire. Since it’s the closest I’ll ever get to chaos incarnate. Had hopes for hell caller. Mechanisms aside I can honestly probably get behind. But theme is king. Needs to be shadow or fel flame. Either one plays into the duality of upfront and then lingering agony for AFF.
…Why do people keep saying this? Wither is literally a shadowflame DoT. If you google Satyr Hellcaller (The creature the tree is based on) it says that they are "arcanists who, rather than summon demons, manipulate the entropic fire of fel power." Sounds pretty Destro to me. 
Also, did you read Wither’s tooltip?
“Bestows a vile malediction upon the target, burning the sinew and muscle of it’s host”.
Sounds like it’s going to cover targets in even more over the top fire effects than Immolate. That just sounds metal as hell. Someone had fun writing that, I’m sure.
I think the conundrum is that the name “Wither”, and the specific wording of sinews and muscles don’t imply an over the top fire effect at all. It sounds much more like an internal degradation effect (or an affliction if you will) that happens to deal shadowflame damage. On top of that, as many people have pointed out, other effects in the tree reference traditionally more curse or affliction based themes (Xavius, et al) alongside Soul damaging effects (which, as one might surmise from the Affliction artifact weapon, is a much more affliction based theme).
I -do- think if the initial spell was called something more along the lines of “Hellflame” with a tooltip reading: “Evolves your Corruption or Immolate into Hellflame, engulfing your target in searing shadowflame” and had more Destruction evocative effects (like more interactions beyond the capstone and a piddly Chaos bolt buff) it’d be a great deal more well received thematically. As people have stated, it’ll probably be fairly strong (if quite boring) mechanically. But I think when most people read something like Wither, and references to sinew and muscles (again, things which are on the inside of creatures) it doesn’t conjure images of “over the top fire effects”. It might for you, and if so that’s awesome! But I think it does not do so for the majority.