I agree 100%, and I’m hoping more people agree, then maybe Blizzard will change Implosion. Right now would be the best time for it.
5 Likes
Ritual of Ruin is unchanged. It has nothing to do with Inferno at all.
Inferno on the other hand no longer generates Soul Shards.
It’s still very easy to generate enough Soul Shards to place down several RoF at once, it’s just that we have to do a lot more than just spam RoF to get good dps.
Maybe you meant Infernal, which is a completely different word. RoR summoned a Blasphemy. You cannot summon more than one Blasphemy at a time. If one was already up, it just refreshed the duration.
Any shadowbolt other than what we have now.
4 Likes
General lock class tree still has too many 2 pointers, there’s very little flexibility with talent options, here are some examples:
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fel dom’s extension node fel pact is redundant , make fel dom 2 mins baseline.
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fiendish stride’s damage reduction could also be baked baseline into burning rush and replaced with spirited away (removed hero talent), spirited away was a very interesting talent option for enabling BR in pvp which is the only way it will ever be picked in that mode.
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wrathful minion, demonic inspiration , demonic embrace/fortitude basically do almost the same thing. Could be combined to free up some pathing options.
-amp curse and cdr node are too underwhelming, reduce amp curse cd baseline.
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same for lifeblood and accrued, make them 1 pointers and add previously removed inevitable demise here so drain life can get some use again.
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dark accord and resolute barrier should be merged into one stronger non rng cdr for UR , 3 mins cd on a 40% is far too long a cd compared to every other cd in the game. 25% dr on a 2.3m cd is comical.
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socrethar’s and sargerai are mandatory for all builds & still 2 pointers.
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shadowfury’s followup node is lackluster for both options. Cdr and radius on shadowfury is a joke , give us cast time reduction plz, everyone else’s cc is instant . Shadowflame isnt bad but it used to apply a dot and snares these days don’t provide as much traction as they used to.
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teachings of the black harvest is a horrible talent gatekeeping a potentially decent option (demonic resilience) but no one has 3 points to invest there.
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soul conduit 5% is too weak for a capstone.
-Affliction : cd misalignment on some abilities remain, phantom singularity/ oblivion still 45s cds when the cadence of our cds are now based on 30/60s cds, either reduce or increase these values to fit the cd cadence please (and balance the numbers accordingly).
- darkglare is outdated both thematically and functionally, please give us a cd that fits our true affliction class fantasy, dots! Something like the cata demon soul or the removed pvp talent rapid contagion would give so well.
8 Likes
you hit it out of park,
- Unending Resolve Cooldown and existing lackluster and punitive CDRs. What is up with 2.15 minute cooldown Unending Resolve?
- Strong defensives like Dark Pact, Soul Leech and 1 minute health stones but they don’t translate well in Arena. Makes them Super tanky in the first 2 minutes of the game and free road kill once dampening meaningfully kicks in.
- Baseline 2 minute Fel Dom.
- Bringing back “Spirited Away” in class tree.
- Bloated pet upgrades that could be combined.
- Dead talents like lifeblood and accrued vitality. On that topic, can we bring drain life into the TWW era? A casted/channeled spell that exposed our main school and hardly heals.
- Last 10 points of the class tree having 2 pointers for the sake of having 2 pointers and for no other reason
3 Likes
Agreed, old shadow bolt is far superior.
2 Likes
Also, applying Agony with Vail Taint and corruption with the seed of corruption feels slow, and after the dots are up we are left with only one shard to start rotation. Let us apply both dots with one spell. It didn’t feel bad when the seed of corruption was a spender, but now it does.
It might be better at 10+ keys when you have time to manually apply Agony, but on lower keys, it is not good gameplay, and when you do not have at least 3 shards before pull it doesn’t feel good to play.
And even on keys 10+ if you do not have shards ready, you are not able to do AOE DPS fast, when needed.
4 Likes
It’s already been said I’m sure, but there is no flexibility above the gate in the class tree.
Above the 20 point gate, you do not have a single spare point to take any of the following: Amplify Curse (or it’s improvement), Banish, Shadowfury (or it’s improvement), Nightmare/horrify, Fel domination; and that’s already assuming you don’t take Fel Armor, the demonic circle or healthstone stuff.
I’m not sure how to fix this because it’s not like you’re pathing through unwanted talents anywhere. Maybe Demon Skin / Fel Armor being 2 point nodes is too much, but that only frees up 1 point (because you wouldn’t take Fel Armor at it’s current cost, it’s too expensive to buy Mortal coil and it’s pathway). It seems silly that Banish requires a talent while mages get polymorph for free. Demonic Fortitude and Demonic Embrace are both strictly stamina increases required for survival, why are they 2 separate talents? Mandatory DPS nodes Socrethar’s Guile and Sargerei Technique being 2 pointers also hurts.
If all the 2 pointers before the gate were converted to 1 pointers this would only free up 3 “flex” points (because only Demon Skin and the 2 mentioned mandatory DPS nodes are currently taken) and allow a path to the right side of the tree that’s not hard locked into Fiendish stride.
Below the 20 point gate things are much better. While all the capstones feel really worth taking and 2 are mandatory, (Demonic Healthstone and Soul Conduit) they can all be taken with 2 points to spare.
It feels bad to have to use these 2 points to go back and buy things above the gate because no non-mandatory utility was affordable prior.
7 Likes
The Hero talents cannot differentiate on damage performance.
Hellcaller is so insanely strong because of wither/corruption (wither being better raw damage than corruption, and stacking, and absorbing all the corruption enhancements) that you simply can’t consider playing Soul Harvester no matter how cool it looks or how much you like the utility.
Even if Wither was nerfed 50% (so that it was basically corruption instead of twice as strong) the fact that it can proc stacks or do 50% more damage over a shorter timeframe would still make it grossly over perform Soul Harvester.
Hellcaller needs fixing. Wither is insanely overpowered and it’s utility nodes are terrible.
Hero trees should be flavor / utility choices, not “this tree is 10x’s stronger than all the other trees”.
1 Like
I think Soul Caller would be fine except for the fact that so much of it doesn’t scale with Aff mastery.
Shared Fate node is an easy toggle for adjusting AOE vs ST for that tree that if they made more of it scale with mastery I think they could both compete.
While yes, Hellcaller is basically turbo stacked into Wither, there isn’t alot more they can do with it without completely redesigning it (which they have already said they won’t do).
They could move more damage into blackened soul, but that is still Wither adjacent…
Why do Affliction locks need to spend a soul shard to DoT their targets with Seed or Vial Taint but Spriests get it for free with Shadowcrash?
12 Likes
People still use soc? In aff current form you dont even touch it. Its not worth the shard. Until blizz makes soc apply and renew all your dots on all your targets then its not worth using. The dmg isnt even accountable tbh.
Thank you for reminding me about soc, i added it to the list above!
I absolutely would use it in m+ for trash, especially if Aff continues to remain strong with Hellcaller/Wither.
To spread 1 dot with no dmg? No ty.
I ran a handful of dungeons as Affliction, and my only real pain point was that needing to cast both taint and seed each pack for dot spreading felt bad. Specifically, having two separate shard spenders to apply agony and corruption/wither feels awkward, especially as the spec with the least reliable shard gain.
Now that seed’s role is purely for applying corruption and not damage itself, it feels redundant with vile taint. VT not having a shard cost might be interesting to try, seeing as it applies our shard-generator, and it would cut back on requiring two shards before each pull.
4 Likes
Could just have a talent that applies one’s effect with the other. For example SoC also applies agony and does VT dmg, but you only have access to one at a time, and on a 15 sec cd. Button bloat is a HUGE issue and so any incorporation of effects is welcome.
2 Likes
I’m surprised a hero talent wasn’t tailored around the curse fantasy.
Curses have largely been unique to locks and quite thematic, bit too late now but kinda makes you wonder how that might’ve looked like.
1 Like
Personally I think the SH demon looks awful, but so does what they went with. The solution is obvious: Choices. Give us multiple demons to pick from. Add it to the Barbershop and we’re good.
Drain Soul is SO outdated in terms of VFX. Seriously need to update it.
Low VFX feels bad for sure. There are many avenues they could take to fix this. Right now they’re taking none.
They also need to up the potency on DrainLife. Ironically it has a great new VFX and they just nerfed into the ground. Aff Lock’s have always had a better self heal. They updated the VFX to celebrate that, and then nerfed it to oblivion.
Bottom line: Aff Locks deserve better even if they aren’t considered the meta spec anymore. Cause I’ll be damned if I’m gonna switch.
2 Likes
my apologies I meant avatar of destruction, which proc Blasphemy. Thank you for the correction!
As a warlock that will almost always beat an equally item leveled warlock in multitarget, Implosion is easily one of the most underutilized ability in demo’s kit. It is a fantastic way to milk value when you constantly have it in the back of your mind.
Likewise, who dosn’t love throwing 15 imps into a huge pack when you nail your rotation? Easily one of the best feeling buttons in the game when you nail it. Plus you get a few stacks of demonic core after the fact, and honestly, it’s just the best. I love Impolsion. Any one who dosn’t like recklessly destroying lesser demons to get a bit more damage, is missing a critical bit of warlock flavor imo.
I love my felbaby. So he dosn’t get thrown. The impskis? Naw man get in there bois, time to that parse.
3 Likes