Affliction needs an entire rework in the same vein some specs got during DF. If your intention is to just leave it as is and hope that this or the other Hero Talent trees somehow salvage affliction into being fun to play, then you’re gravely mistaken.
Redo affliction, then we’ll talk.
3 Likes
Something like the Lake of Fire rune from SoD would have been cool thematically for destro if you made it apply from Rain of Fire and Chaos Bolt. If you’re dipping into demon stuff, a permanent Infernal pet of some sort would be cool too. I’m not all that excited for this tree.
Firstly my thoughts on this as a Destruction warlock is that it looks like it’ll bring a few QoL improvements and synergise well with a handful of our talents, but it does not feel like a “Hellcaller” whatsoever having our damage profile baked into a DoT. Between this and Diabolist it feels like we’ve lost our spec fantasy and identity, and are becoming Affdestro and Demodestro, as opposed to Destro. I want hard hitting chaos bolts, soul fires that feel rewarding having sat through the entire 4 second cast time, etc. Destro is about building up shards and then nuking our target, not having a DoT ramping up and down, or summoning additional demons…
Also I know you guys are looking for feedback in this thread as opposed to other channels, but if you took a look at the Destruction channel in the Warlock Discord server it’s pretty clear that nobody understands how half of the talents are going to work. The wording on many of them is unclear and causes confusion.
Blackened Soul: Does this apply a new debuff to the target that then stacks up on it’s own, and then procs and starts dealing damage, or does Wither just stack like Agony and then the stacks decrease as it “becomes acute”? Because Mark of Peroth’arn makes it sound like Blackened Soul is it’s own seperate ability, dealing 5% increased damage, while Wither deals its own damage 10% faster. Otherwise if “Blackened Soul deals 5% increased damage” just means Acute Wither deals 5% increased damage, then that synergises with itself for Destro, but not for Affliciton, having Agony dealing damage faster instead.
Blackened Soul: Does “damaging abilities” that increase its stack count by 1 mean every time we cast an ability, or every time we deal damage?
Hatefury Rituals: Does this mean we have to cast it every 9 seconds to be able to maintain it? Because that’s going to really suck in terms of Destro spec fantasy even more if so. Just refreshing the DoT over and over and over.
Mark of Xavius: What is a combo skill? Does that mean that if you cast Wither on 1 target and then cast Wither again within 2 seconds onto a 2nd target it’ll also apply to a 3rd target? Otherwise it seems like a pointless ability only making it so you don’t need to tab target to multi-dot anymore. If it does mean it applies to a 3rd, does the 2 seconds then renew after that 2nd Wither, meaning a 3rd application onto a 4th target will apply to a 5th, or does it reset each time, going 1-2-1-2-1-2?
Cull the Weak: Does casting Wither directly cause Wither to gain 3 stacks or does casting Wither directly with less than 4 sec remaining cause wither to gain 3 stacks? And if it’s the latter how does casting it directly with less than 4 secs remaining differentiate from refreshing it with 4 seconds remaining?
Also Illhoof’s Design is just a bad talent, as it works out to be a net loss compared to baseline considering how many of our abilities are based on our max HP. If you have 1000 HP and a 150 HP shield from Soul Leech you have an EHP of 1150. If you take Illhoof’s Design you then have 900 HP and a 270 HP shield, giving an EHP of 1170. You literally gain an effective increase of 20 HP with max health and full shield over baseline, at the cost of Mortal Coil and Healthstones healing for less, Dark Pact giving a smaller shield, Demon Skin ticks being less effective in terms of building Soul Leech, etc. Nobody will take that talent, ever, unless they’re bad.
4 Likes
I want to say thank you to the devs who have worked on the warlock hero trees. My feedback will be purely for PVE. I do not PVP.
When I saw Diabolist Hero tree, and saw the “demonology” flavor to it - I was expecting a destro flavored Hellcaller tree and an affliction flavored Soul Harvester tree. Looking at this Hellcaller tree now - I wonder - was this supposed to be Soul Harvester? Spoiler alert - thematically I do not think it fits for Hellcaller. I was expecting some hell raising - and do not feel that with this tree.
I want to dive into each node:
Wither
First of all, Having an instant cast ability for Destro is a win. I think the spec being more mobile is a win, otherwise it is hard for it to be relevant in mythic progression or even mythic plus (unless you do insane big mdi pulls that make destro look good).
How is this going to interact with Absolute Corruption for affliction? Need to know about this interaction. Having Seed of Corruption and Cataclysm apply wither is amazing. Would love to know how this interacts with Sow the Seeds - will anything change there?.
Xalan’s Ferocity
Whatever. Just a bland damage increase. Wish these types of nodes didn’t exist. Damage will be tuned so this is like a waste of a spot. Give me a cast while moving node.
Mark of the Legashi / Aura of Enfeeblement
Mark of the Legashi is ok - will be good for dungeons. Might be used in some situations in raid. Aura of Enfeeblement is very interesting IF it is an aura around the player, if it is then I love it, if not then it is whatever.
Mark of Xavious
Very interesting, Destro is continuing with wither whereas affliction switches the focus to Agony… Why?
Both Destro and Affliction have ways to spread wither through cataclysm and seed respectively. I ask then why do we need this node. I can already apply agony/wither to another target without this node at all - perhaps I am missing the point of this node but I do not like it at all. I think this node needs to be reworked all together.
Blackened Soul
Interesting. I would love to know how dots interact with wither’s stack count, for example - do dot ticks add stacks?. Destro has Channel Demonfire which will increase stack count fast which is nice. If affliction’s dots increase the stack count per tick of dot then I am intrigued and very interested. I think this is a cool concept for a DOT.
The “acute” concept is very interesting too. I like it. Need to see how it plays but from first read it is okay. I am interested to see the interaction with Seed of Corruption spamming.
Hatefury Rituals / Bleakheart Tactics
Not sure if I like this node or hate this node. Ultimately people will play whatever sims higher so there is no choice here - unless they sim very close then people will choose the second option because who wants to play with a 9 second maintenance buff? If the argument is that you need skill to play with the 9 second maintenance buff then it should be higher damage output - but then again - where is the choice. Interesting node. Not sure how I feel about it. It is okay. Maybe we
Cull the Weak
so since wither is instant cast, I can just keep casting it to apply 3 stacks or refresh when it has 4 seconds left? What happens to my current stack count when wither is “refreshed”? interesting node - need more information on this node because it is unclear what the difference between refreshing wither >4 and <4 seconds.
Xalan’s Cruelty
Generic crit chance increase… bland. Wish this was something else. Perhaps… casting while moving?
Zevrim’s Resilience / Ilhoof’s Design
Hmm. References to souls, not in the soul harvester tree. Again, was this supposed to be soul harvester? Node is weak defensively. Would like to see an improvement here after seeing mage’s tree.
Mark of Peroth’arn
Weird node for me because you can only go up to 8 stacks maximum and then you lose stacks rapidly while hoping RNG blesses you with stacks during your “acute” window to keep acute up for as long as possible… Do not like the RNG element of this node since the concept is to gain stacks to then lose stacks but this node wants you to not lose stacks or have good RNG. It is whatever. Also, weird that affliction is agony and not wither? Why?
Malevolence
Hmm. More soul references. Are we sure this is not soul harvester? Not sure if I like another button to press for affliction. However, affliction and destro both need a cooldown. Their current cooldowns (Eye / Infernal) are very weak cooldowns - I would hardly call them cooldowns. Therefore, a 1 minute cooldown for these specs is very welcomed - LOVE that.
Summary
I would of liked to see something like this for Soul Harvester tree. I would of liked to see a tree that is more destro thematically. I wanted to read a tree and really felt like I was going to raise some hell. I do not feel that. Thematically I do not think it hit. On the contrary, the skills, interactions, and gameplay I think are going to be great - just give me a rework to Mark of Xavius and some kind of cast while moving enablement and I am good.
4 Likes
When it comes to RBGs, can someone clarify how these new abilities will increase my rank on the damage meters when triple Monks press Revival every 30 seconds with no backlash? 
Nerf Monk’s Peaceweaver PvP Talent
1 Like
How does Wither interact with Absolute Corruption?
2 Likes
This doesn’t even help Destruction’s toolkit and theme as a spec. We will still have to talent into Cataclysm. if it’s not baseline.
Affliction has way more problems even if you wanted to play Hellcaller with managing Wither stacks, Still having to talent into Vile Taint and Siphon Life for Malefic Rapture. Hatefury Rituals (100% More Damage at 50% short duration) will not be played because of a 9 second Wither DoT to manage with Malefic Rapture with Dread Touch. This will still not allow Absolute Corruption to be played even if Wither becomes permanent (Which we still need clarity on) because Malefic Rapture is still in the game. Mark of Xavius adds another headache for Affliction to manage alone. Affliction needs help there’s been Forums screaming about it for all of Dragonflight.
Destruction really needs more fire based themes and pure fire synergy gameplay to feel like Chaos Bolt, Incinerate, Conflagrate, and Immolate to feel good using with Infernal cooldown to feel like a Destruction Warlock.
I like Aura of Enfeeblement I think it’s creative and adds more use of these curses and makes them more relevant being off the GCD.
This button for affliction just adds to an already over-bloated rotation.
5 Likes
Another note, why does the aura of enfeeblement need reduced effectiveness? It has built in counterplay with its short range and it basically just saves GCDs.
Very disappointed as a Destruction warlock player.
Hellcaller? Really?
2 Likes
Legit question does Chaos Bolt benefit from the Fire DMG increase nodes? Because if not… I mean it’s chaos bolt for all that’s good it should feel impacted by the trees supporting it
Having played all three warlock specs in dragonflight, I was already of the opinion that both affliction and destruction spec trees would need a significant overhaul to be competitive with demonology (outside of just being tuned higher) because of how much the specs give up trying to go into a more single target or AOE profile which demonology really solves with 2 points that are placed on the upper half of the tree. The class tree could also needs an overhaul. Compare warlock class tree with what mage gets in theirs.
My initial questions when I saw the diabolist tree were ‘are some current talents being made baseline to support the auto picks based on diabolist hero tree’ and I find myself asking the same question here reading the ‘hellcaller’ talents. I am very concerned because that question still has not been addressed and yet we see confirmations for other classes so I feel like the answer to my question is no and we are going to be locked into mandatory talents if we want to play specific warlock hero talent trees.
1 Like
gonna be the same as roaring blaze
Thanks for the new tree, but first I hope both specs receive some rework for new expansion. Destruction needs some changes in the middle of tree spec and affliction deserves a bigger rework.
Wither - An instant skill is always cool, specially for destruction and maybe will promote a cool aoe rotation together with Cataclysm and Channel demonfire talents.
Aura of Enfeeblement - Awesome, one of the things I have been asking for, thx for it.
Malevolence - New version of Darksouls, cool!
For affliction - New dot maybe will make Absolute Corruption shine again and finally kill Siphon Life that many players dislike nowadays and looks like a cool dot to have as a option in our kit, but that is it… nothing new or exciting to make us want to play as affliction or to choose this hero tree.
I expected more of the Hellcaller tree. New dot is cool, but don’t bring anything too impactful. I feel many talents were wasted just for Wither to work or have any mechanic to interact with the spec.
**Could Mark of Xavius apply the dot to more than 1 target? Maybe 3? **
1 nearby enemy looks too slow
For destruction basically all talents interact just with Wither gameplay, for affliction at least some talents interact with Agony.
For a spec called Hellcaller destruction could get some options affecting other fire skills: Incinerate, Fire and Brimstone, Channel demonfire, Rain of fire, even Infernal.
Diabolist mixed better the fantasy with gameplay. It affected Caosbolt, Rain of fire, incinerate, havoc, cataclysm. So I feel too many nodes went just to one skill. From the 10 talents of Hellcaller: 2 are utility/defensive nodes, 2 are generic buffs and the other 6 are about Wither/blackened soul gameplay. I feel Destruction needs more changes to make this tree shine.
2 Likes
AGREED. They just want us all to play Demonology.
2 Likes
Some thoughts from a multi-glad and Cutting Edge warlock:
The theme of Hellcaller seems to be more focused on summoning hell flames and a DoT oriented specialty. Honestly I’m kind of on board with that, though I was hoping that since Diabolist had more of a Demo summoning theme, that Hellcaller would have more of a Destruction and Chaos Bolt, Soul Fire, or even Dimensional Rift theme to it.
Some things that I really like about this tree:
-Immolate/Wither is now instant cast for destruction and Cata/Seed apply the new Wither DoT. This is more of a nice QoL change but it also has some gameplay tie ins to Internal Combustion for Destruction.
-The return of Dark Soul, now called malevolence, on a 1 minute cooldown for 10% haste and amplifying your wither/blackened soul.
-Faster resource generation for aff and destro from Mark of Peroth’arn.
-Passive Chaos Bolt buffs I guess?
Some things I dislike:
-Zevrim’s is an okay passive, but Healthstone can only be used once during a raid encounter and is hard to reset during PVP.
-Illhoof’s is a small sum gain for your soul leech pool. Maybe this could be buffed to take less health away or give more soul leech.
-Mark of Legashi doesn’t really do much for you. Tongues/Weakness are rarely needed on the same target. Maybe change this so that Tongues/Weakness also apply Exhaustion?
-Aura of Enfeeblement has the same problem as Mark of Legashi, why not just make Tongues/Weakness also apply a damage reduction modifier so the target does less damage to you or your party.
-No flavor for things like, Rain of Fire, Cataclysm, Soul Fire, or Chaos Bolt.
-No utility flavor for “burning/shadowflame” spells such as Shadowfury, Shadowflame, or Burning Rush.
-No other utility for Dark Pact, Demonic Circle/Gateway, Mortal Coil,
General Changes:
-Bring some theming in for Destruction. Maybe Malevolence could also casting a Flame Rift or Soul Fire at your target when cast? Also possibly change the haste to crit, mastery, or just raw damage for destruction. For a fire themed specialty, Hellcaller just doesn’t give any OOMPH to fire/chaos spells in the destro tree.
-Bring in better utility for shadowflame spells. Perhaps a choice node between instant shadowflame and giving shadowflame itself a root effect follwed by the slow or even a knockback component.
-Rework the curse choice nodes. There is potential here to do some cool things like give cast while moving to burning rush or give us 5 seconds of burning rush when we dark pact without the health loss component of burning rush being active during that time.
Internal Combustion:
There are a lot of passive talents in this tree alongside destruction’s own tree that could pigeonhole destro into always playing IC over Reverse Entropy. Some care needs to be taken by the devs to ensure tuning is right. The dot juggling and risk/reward of your Wither falling while using IC should be challenging and rewarding. It should be fun and it should be a big boost to your “burst” when chaos bolting the target and maintaining wither.
8 Likes
Massively agree with all the complaints that there’s no destro flavor. Hellcaller should mean devastating blasts of hellfire, not a dinky little dot that stacks up over time
11 Likes
I hadn’t realized it until you pointed it out, but you’re spot on. This does feel like what I’d have imagined a Soul Harvester tree to be like complete with Xavius and soul withering thematics.
3 Likes
I think it’s fair to say that Destro got the short end of the stick when it comes to Heroic talents as neither Diabolist and, surprisingly, Hellcaller align all that well with their core fantasy.
Here’s hoping Blizzard change Hellcaller (as they did with the Paladin tree) and focus more on the nuking fiery damage of Desto that, perhaps, spreads out as splash damage that, maybe, could be extended by Aff (so, basically, Desto does the bigger burst but Aff can keep it going for longer).
2 Likes
Does internal combustion take 5sec of each stack of wither or only from the first stack. cause if it take from each stack it has potential for big dmg there.
Not a big fan of the tree but like the instant dot instead of casting immolation
1 Like