BTW it is just Aff that gets double interrupt. Destro doesnt have access to Soul Harvester hero talents.
A fair way to fix it would be ensure spell lock and sac spell lock share the same cooldown. And fel dom is used for it's intended purpose to resummon pet when it is killed and deter killing the pet playstyle.
Some feedback regarding the newest iteration of Destruction Tree:
Dimension Ripper: either the proc rate is ultra low or not working at all. My suggestion is to change to “Chaos Bolt has a chance to tear open a Dimensional Rift or Immolate periodic damage has a chance to recharge Dimensional Rift if learned.” Having Immolate recharge (DF S3 bonus) feels much better than Incinerate recharge.
Reverse entropy is now not easily accessible without taking Flashpoint/Fire and Brimstone. Consider moving the node or make connection to Summon Infernal.
Shadowburn side of talent tree still not excited to path through compared to CDF side.
Wanted to give some more Feedback, this time on the class tree and all 3 specs in conjunction with their hero talent options.
Class Tree
I srongly feel like another iteration on our class tree is something the class would greatly profit from. I fully second Maginwls point about Warlocks “tanky caster” niche not being that much of a niche anymore with more and more defensive value added to other classes (that have mobility as well) and on top, while warlock has great raid utility, it’s 5man utility feels severely lacking.
Our Tree at this point in time doesnt feel very opened up and while i dont think adding circle in there was a mistake, i do think on the front of removing throughput from the tree the changes are somewhat lacking. I would love to see Sargerei Technique and Socrethar’s Guile to be removed and instead have some more utility suited towards dungeon content added instead (something like aoe curses).
Demonology
Demonology (as well as some of its hero talent options) still has some bugs to work on which makes fully testing everything somewhat difficult but i still think there is some points to adress.
First of all the capstone situation.
I do think that The Vilefiend and Dreadstalker path at the bottom is good and feels excting to build into.
Doom instead still feels like its not fully fleshed out, especially for single target encounters where its value drastically declines (it’s also somewhat bugged so its value might be higher than we think), as well as Doom Eternal feeling somewhat weird of a talent as of now. Maybe one of the Doom enhancing options could be geared towards making it an appealing choice on single target as well.
The right path that leads into Immutable Hatred and Guillotine feels very much not exciting to me right now. Especially Immutable Hatred currently has zero appeal to my eyes. If it is intended to be the passive choice for not too much of a gameplay change i can accept that but even then it has multiple issues: It scales with the demonic core economy, which was nerfed. It has no “cool” factor to it like a model change for the Felguard (e.g. to a fel lord) or some cool animation. And it might still end up being the choice if doom stays as an option more designated to multi target situations, at which point feeling forced into a talent with the cons of Immutable Hatred won’t feel good.
Other than that i mostly have minor gripes, like for example Umbral blaze still existing (it is a very boring talent without much value that feels like a tax more than anything).
For the hero talent options i gotta say i really like diabolist as it is thematically awesome for demonology and also feels good to play. Soul Harvester feels solid as well but still has bugs that makes it hard to fully evaluate. I am somewhat afraid of Soul harvester turning its speccs into “Shadowbolt the class” though, as it opens up weird builds that deal extreme amounts of damage with their filler (which then may lead to not excting gameplay).
Destruction
I think Destruction really got a massive glow up with the talent rework and overall feels pretty great. Decimation is really a highlight as it adds some excitement to the roation with reacting to proccs.
But there are still some issues i see with the current destruction tree.
First of all the rift section in the bottom right feels like something i’d never really path into except maybe rift itself for movement if i can spare the point (and even then it doesnt feel like a great movement tool). If rift is supposed to this movement tool i feel like its enhancements should play into that and, if it isnt, it needs some massive tuning to be considered worthwhile.
Second (kinda in conjunction with the rift issue) i feel like destruction is still the spec that suffers the most from mobility issues and losing out on damage while moving. With rift being such a middling option and no other real mobility tool in the tree, i do really think the spec could use something that is better than having to invest into rift (with rift staying like it is).
Third there are some concerns that we might be using rain of fire with inferno on a 2 target situation, even tho i think that havoc should be the clear choice there.
Lastly some pathing issues, like getting to Reverse Entropy/Internal Consumpotion feels a little iffy with Fire and Brimstone or Flashpoint being required while not offering much in a single target situation or having to overinvest in the first gate for Havoc (a path from Havoc to the left and right would feel amazing).
For the hero talents i do think that they are pretty close in power but Hellcaller still feels like the tree to go for as it feels like it fits more seamlessly into Destructions gameplay. In Diabolist i don’t like gloom of Nathreza as it wants us to talent Havoc and maybe even use it in single target or, if not, provides zero value outside of Havoc situations (single target Havoc is not something i see fitting into the current Destruction gameplay).
Hellcaller still feels very good overall, but i do agree with Malykith that the Seeds of their Demise nerf, while neccessary, felt a little bit extreme and 2 stacks of Flashpoint are very low on the excitement scale.
Affliciton
Affliction gameplay is an odd one, as it feels like it is affected the most by the hero talent choice.
In general i do like the new tree.
Some minor issues i see are Infirmitys effect for Vile Taint being a little on the boring/weak side, Darkglare feeling a little whelming and Ravenous Afflicitons being a very cool concept that is hamstrung by a very low rppm chance. Also Absolute Corruption versus Siphon Life feels like a not very interesting choice, as the gain from Siphon Life feels too low for you to still having to manage Corruption.
I am a little confused to what the intent is behind the cooldown timings on Soul Rot vs Oblivion and Phantom Singularity. Up to now we would usually hold Phantom Singularity for Soul Rot to amplify our 1 minute window. But with Oblivion we now have a very strong spender that profits from Infirmity and might lead to some weird gameplay, where we try to overlap them in a way that we use Phantom Singularity with a little delay to gain the bonus on Oblivion but late enough to still hit an overlap with Soul Rot and extend it with Malign Omen.
I wanna point out the aoe gameplay as a positive tho, i think that feels very nice.
As i said Afflictions gameplay feels heavily warped by its hero talent choices.
Hellcaller gameplay i think feels really nice and has a good flow to it from managing your dots to using Nightfall or Tormented Crescendo proccs to the 1minute windows of spending shards with Soul Rot.
Soul Harvester instead feels very focussed on its filler and is often derailing into Shadow Bolt spam on the beta currently and while there are some bugs still, i dont know if the gameplay will change much if those are fixed. The Soul Rot windows do feel good but as i said the in between feels pretty dull with how much value there is on our filler.
In the end i want to thank the devs for their work through the alpha and beta so far and also wanna second that i am overall very happy and impressed with the reworks and how feedback was responded to and implemented.
I think I would prefer this, actually. I never liked Darkglare anyway. Just make Soul Rot our big cooldown, and be done with it.
I think this is a good point. During Dragonflight I was always advocating for more stat amplification instead of flat % damage increases to our major demons (look at Reign of Tyranny for demo for flat damage increases) as they are more impactful to the player instead of just the demon. For instance, I think having tyrant increase mastery by X% is better than a flat damage increase to all demons.
There’s something to be said about having impactful demons, but I think it kind of misses out on having a large impact on the class as a whole. Destruction and demo have largely solved this issue and don’t necessarily need a lot of rework in this regard, although I’d rather see Rain of Chaos transition into making infernal either a ramping critical strike amplification or a decreasing critical strike amp (reverse ramp – start high-end low). More infernals are cool, but they overcap the player on shards and is less impactful than it could be if it provided more direct damage increases. Honestly, if they moved in this direction, I think you could just eliminate the choice node for crashing chaos, and just make Infernal a stacking crit amp as it fills both choice nodes by making Infernal a stronger cooldown.
I think if we transitioned demons into keeping the current weight they have, but also added some form of stat amp on top of it (think old Dark Soul) it would make them even more appealing. If Darkglare increased haste by some % while it was out (like Dark Soul Misery), or increased dot tick rate instead of increasing dot length, I think it would have more usefulness; Affliction already suffers from slow ramp-up to some extent, so having a cd that either increases resources or reduces ramp seems to be a better solution than one that is exacerbated by having to set everything up first. It also reinforces dots instead of rapture. Darkglare wouldn’t feel as completely useless if you didn’t have time to set all your dots up, and instead just increased damage over time tick rate to increase shard gen, while also impacting both of our hero talent trees in positive ways – currently darkglare is impactful for hero talents, but to most people it seems exceedingly weak because of how unintuitive the strength is. I think a lot of newer and experienced affliction players have probably felt like they hit Darkglare at the wrong time and could’ve waited and set up more dots – a cooldown shouldn’t feel taxed in this regard.
In the past, you could use Darksoul as a way to reduce GCD to set up your dots, even though it was sub-optimal to do, something I wish Darkglare would end up mimicking.
CROSS POSTING FROM HERE - The class set feedback thread
WARLOCK
Affliction: I’ve never been a huge fan of randomness (truly random % proc chances, I know crit is random) in tier sets, I think affliction could use something similar to destruction where the 4pc interacts with the 2pc a bit more.
Maybe make it so that each time Rapture critically strikes it increases your dot damage by X% and stacks but does not refresh. It’s simple, but also makes the increased critical strike chance make more sense, while also incentivizing rapture windows!
example:
You could make it be all dots by X% for Xs if it makes it feel any better.
(before people complain that this makes damage have an exceedingly high variance during rapture windows, since you might not crit and somebody else might, it will average out over time IMO)
EDIT: adding more info after reading the first blue post
No, warlocks summon demons. I don’t want to lose more demons when they just pruned our cool Soul Keeper model from Legion and then our Avatar of Destruction from SL and all we have now is a lame green firelord recolor (seriously, a model that should be for shamans?).
I feel like demo could do with a choice node on implosion or an optional branch close by. Make implosion a passive that when our imps energy expires they kamikaze themselves in there.
This would do a couple of things. It would leave implosion play intact, and it would be the skill expression play. But for people who don’t want to implosion their imps this gives them a bit of an out, and it gives another option for easier play. Obviously the dmg coefficient would have to be lowered for the passive play but it gives options because I to do not like sacrificing my imps.
I really just want drain life back… if feels undertuned to useless now
Demonology warlocks summon demons. I kill them off for power.
I’ve no interest in weak, pointless pets that can’t even justify their own existence. Darkglare was never cool.
I think that he Doom change was a major step in the wrong direction. Sure, the old version did mean that sometimes you had to snipe 5 low hp mobs as a pack was dying. But I have been playing strictly demo and strictly beta since it launced. It was a ton of fun.
Having the option to snipe mobs when it’s not tied to a super important proc like demonic core was sweet. It made warlock feel very fresh in a way that the “new” doom will never do. The season 3/4 set bonus was neat i guess. But is it really so good that it aught to be core?
I don’t think so.
Gonna name drop Kalamazi because I don’t actually know of a single instance where he has gotten something like this wrong, but he seems to be in the same camp, and I know he’s been playing a ton of beta too.
Just my thoughts. If you didn’t play with the previous version, I don’t think you’re gonna be able to appreciate how awesome it felt. Even if it did bad damage, i’d still take the previous version.
Say it again for the people in the back
Exactly. I am destruction. I don’t rely on my pet to do damage for me. Sacrifice the demon to make me stronger. I don’t need it unlike those weak demo locks that have to spawn a bunch of minions to do everything for them.
Few quick notes:
I agree with your post… it is too bad that the entire PTR is playtesting against static and predictable mobs or targetdummies… there is no need to try to recover from stuns, gap closers, polymorph, fear, or any other normal PVP activity which completely changes the nerfs and buffs. There remains Global Cool Downs linked to everything while other classes have few to no globals, almost unlimited CC breakers (Rogues, DH, Warriors, mages), and few classes have the “strong vs class X, Y, Z; weak versus class A, B, C” builds that made pvp what is was, but not now what it is. Warlock remains awesome and about the only class that reveices no nerfs and buffs from season to season except when Warlock is doing very well, then they nerf it to not balance the game, not to punish the players, but to elevate the favorite classes of the expac so hack mods are easier to develop. Overall, i am glad Warlock is in a good place but we all know that it won’t last… There are highly vindictive people out there and they are not all players.
Having had the chance to test the new talent arrangement of Destruction, the spec is in a very good place. However, I would like to make a few suggestions, one of which has been echoed above (from the perspective of a more Mythic+ player):
1.) I absolutely love Dimensional Rift (DR) and am overjoyed it is here to stay. At the moment, though, it feels considerably undertuned. Currently in DF (with the four set) Immolate has a chance to refresh a charge of DR, which occurs often when more than one target is dotted with Immolate. In the beta the refresh condition is tied to casts of Incinerate, which, in the majority of beta Destruction builds I have tried, is (comparatively speaking) infrequently used, thereby greatly lowering the probability of a DR charge refresh. The easy solution to this problem is simply to let Immolate instead have a chance to reset a DR charge. This would also sync very well with Unstable Rifts, since, of course, the more rifts one has, the higher the AoE damage. As has been noted above, Dimension Ripper is either bugged or has a freakishly low proc rate, as it has not activated for me even once. Immolate should replace Incinerate here in the capacity of refreshing a DR charge.
2.) I personally believe it is both a tragedy and a mistake not to reimplement Flame Rift into the talent tree. It is very iconic for Destruction and quite powerful. It should be baseline to Dimension Rift itself, albeit with a lower occurrence rate compared to the other three types of rift (as it works now and as it did in Legion). I do not see any reason why it should not carry over into TTW and beyond. Another strategy for its reimplementation could be making Dimension Ripper baseline to the Dimensional Rift talent itself and replacing it with Flame Rift as a capstone. I was disappointed to see it added to the tree and then removed again, seemingly without justification.
3.) Avatar of Destruction is a superb talent that adds a lot of power and flavour to the spec. It seems more geared to single target, though it is certainly useful in AoE (helping to generate Soul Shards for more Rain of Fire casts). In order to further diversify and expand Destruction’s AoE toolkit, however, I would really like to see it put on a choice node that summons a different demon (or the same one, with perhaps a different color scheme) that casts Cataclysms on its primary target. Such a choice node would mirror that seen in the Demonology tree between Mark of Shatug and Mark of F’harg, the fundamental distinction between which is clearly one of ST vs AoE, respectively. Cataclysm as a talent, I fear, will not see much use (outside of ST, since we are forced to choose it to get to Scalding Flames and Channel Demonfire) in TWW, unless one is playing the Hellcaller hero talent tree (though, even then, it has a frustrating 30 sec CD). I recall reading in the Alpha stage that Blizz had planned to make Cataclysm a more attractive choice, but not much was done to that end, in my opinion (Inferno is still stronger in most cases). Having an Overfiend cast Cataclysm regularly when Ritual of Doom triggers would allow for consistent, efficient multi-dotting of mobs, which can otherwise be achieved less efficiently only through one-by-one dotting or Cataclysm on an inconvenient 30 sec CD. This would help alleviate the burden on Hellcaller Destruction warlocks to keep Immolate (Wither) on as many targets as possible (and make Channel Demonfire even more potent and relevant, as it can sometimes feel out-of-the-way). If talented, Dimensional Rift and Unstable Rifts would likewise gain a major bonus from this, since numerous active Immolates would reliably generate DR charge refreshes. Rain of Fire is strong, but continuously pressing it again and again without the burst of Cataclysm doesn’t feel that great. Cataclysm is one of my favourite abilities, and feeling as though I cannot pick it (especially when playing Diabolist) is a bummer.
Concerns in regards to Ravenous Affliction
Ravenous Affliction is a new capstone talent for affliction who allows critical strike hits of corruption, agony and unstable affliction to grant a Nightfall proc.
The system currently exists on a PPM system at 0.4 procs per minute, meaning that as long as you fully saturate the number of events per minute you should be seeing 1 proc of Nightfall every 2.5 minutes.
This brings me a few concerns.
If the player does not have enoug critical strike chance you won’t be having enough crit events per minute to saturate the effect resulting in a lower than intended PPM (lower than 0.4) .
This also makes me wonder what is the objective to tie the PPM limited around only critical strikes chances, as this introduce the risk mentioned above but does not offer an increase of PPM with increase critical strike chance. (as the system caps at the intended PPM).
The 0.4 procs per minute look awfully low for such an effect in the capstone, it ends up being a worse version of Nightfall talent, i could understand if it was meant to be 0.4 procs per minute per dot but that is not how it currently works.
At the same time, i worry that introducing too many sources of Nightfall procs can lead to an dilution of its effect post-balancing, where you now need to invest 3~ talent points to an effect who before only required 1.
Personally I think the cata cd is fine with cdf extensions working properly, maintaining immolates isn’t much of an issue. So leaving the overfiend as it stands provides excellent funnel damage in aoe which destro currently does not have in retail which is needed to help burn down a prio target as well as provide extra st damage. Swapping the overfiend to cast cata we lose that funnel/st dmg functionality for a spell we already have in our tool kit
I certainly take and appreciate your point, but Cataclysm, although not as strong as Chaos Bolt in ST, still deals respectable ST damage (since it is sometimes used in ST rotations), and could, in a way, provide “funnelling” damage. I am not proposing that Cataclysm replace Chaos Bolt as the Overfiend’s ability; rather, I mean that there should be a choice node allowing one to switch between Chaos Bolt Overfiend and Cataclysm Overfiend with the same secondary talent functionality (i.e., both nodes would offer equivalent Soul Shard Fragment generation).
From a hellcaller setting you don’t really cast many incinerates because of the shard regen with cata, and with fire and brimstone it adds more to the regen so you end up hitting rof more often. Fnb doesn’t do anything for funnel dmg. You would use incinerate for a filler spell regardless. So the target you’re casting on would take the same amount of incin dmg. It doesn’t provide any additional funnel dmg.