Hellcaller is very fun for multi-target fights. You get an absurd amount of Rituals that feel very satisfying.
2 Likes
Overall loving the class changes so far. Some feedback for Demo and Destro below:
Demo
Please swap the Inner Demons and Rune of Shadows talents in the spec tree. I don’t want Inner Demons at all. I dislike the aesthetic it provides when out of combat for the same reason I hate having two pets as Beast Mastery: I feel crowded with two pets surrounding me. As it is now, I have to take Inner Demons to have access to Rune of Shadows, and Rune is much more important for making the spec function at a base level. These should be swapped.
Destruction
Dimensional Rift needs more help. It should cleave 25% of its damage to nearby targets baseline to be more generally appealing. Its followup talent, Dimension Ripper, should additionally add Flame Rift to the pool of possible portals. A visual as cool looking as Flame Rift deserves to be part of the spell.
7 Likes
Hero Talents that you feel are “required” for your spec in a type of content, such as raiding or Mythic+, or that push you towards picking a specific tree. This could be due to damage profile, utility, defensives, or something else.
- Within the Diabolist Hero Talent Tree, one of your choice nodes is Cruelty of Kerxan/Infernal Machine, two very similar abilities who in essence perform the same role, except, one of them (Infernal Machine) is drastically better than the other.
In essence, Infernal Machine will always result in a better Duration reduction effect and more Diabolic Rituals Triggered per minute as an additional -1s per valid action across 15s/30s is a lot better than a flat -3s.
- Curse of the Satyrs (Curse of Enfeeblement in essence) and Aura of Enfeeblements are effects who i would love to have in all warlocks, but sadly are locked behind Hellcaller and only acessible to affliction and destruction.
This is particularly sad becaue back in Mists of Pandaria Curse of Tongues and Curse of Weakness existed merged together as Curse of Enfeeblement baseline, and all 3 specs had ways to apply an aoe curses, Aura-like effects being Demonology method for it.
- This is a bit of speculation, but between Hellcaller and Diabolist for Destruction Warlocks, i could see a favorability in relation to Hellcaller as it offer Quality of Life (Instant Cast Wither instead of cast Immolate), Increased Shard Generation (Mark of Perotharn and Withe tick being baseline 2s vs Immolate 3s), Extra Rituals of Ruin (who summon additional Overfiends).
Hero Talent trees that you feel are either too strong or too weak in power level compared to other options.
- Zevrim’s Resilience Healing per second being Spellpower % based and not Max HP% based like in the Diabolist effects alongside the low spellpower % make it a very-subpar effect.
This grow worse in that, the effect only lasts while the shield is active, meaning in most cases you use Dark Pact you will never benefit of said healing in any meaningfull way.
- Illhoof’s Design is also another poor Defensive Hero Talent, Sacrificing 10% of your health to increase Soul Leech by 15% might look like a good deal (+5% EHP) but there are also consequences to it.
A - The 115% Soul Leech size is now calculated on a “90%” max hp (as you hp is 10% smaller).
B - Health can be healed by healers, Soul Leech can’t, meaning this EHP can be only a temporary bonus during fights and the Hero Talent does not increase Soul Leech Self regeneration to help in this regard.
C - Lower Health also means lower power on Health Scalling effects like Mortal Coil (Heal for 20% max hp), Dark Pact (Shield based on HP% consumed), Healthstones (45% max HP), Warrior Shout (+15% max hp), Priest Buff (+5% max hp) and many other effects.
- Spirited Away, the Burning Rush Upgrade, offers a lot of movement speed, but its 60s cooldown feels on the extreme side.
In a sense, the trade off between Burning Rush no longer dealing damage to you but now being a 60s Cooldown does not feel like a “fair trade” specially in raid and M+ enviroments where Burning Rush cost is off-set by the presence of Healers near you.
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Soul Etched Circles upgrade is not a very interesting/enticing Hero Talent when its linked towards the two specs with the highest soul shard generation per second, in addition, such effect isn’t required in a lot of situations.
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Annihilan’s Bellow struggles with the design that exists on Howl of Terror and the sacrifices you make to pick it (losing Mortal Coil).*
The Increased Range offered by Annihilan’s Bellow to Howl of Terror is not very userfull as Howl of Terror is a Crowd Control limited by a target Cap (Meaning you won’t CC more targets with that range increase) and by being a Meelee-range CC (meaning you won’t be in a safer position to cast it).
Hero Talents whose functionality is confusing, unclear, or difficult to track during gameplay.
- Sataiel’s Ambition does not work like its tooltip describes.
Sataiel’s description says “Consuming Demonic Cores/Nightfall triggers a damage event” when the working is more like “Whenever you Gain a Demonic Core/Nightfall you receive a hidden aura buff who when consumed triggers a damage event, next time you consume a Demonic Core/Nightfall, consume this hidden aura and trigger the damage event…this hidden aura does not stack”.
This means, Power Siphon who gives you 2 Demonic Cores does not trigger Sataiel’s Ambition for both Demonbolts, only the first one; This also means if you accumulate 2 or more Demonic Cores/Nightfalls Before casting any of them only the first one will benefit of the Sataiel’s ambition.
There is also an issue in that not all sources of Nightfall trigger Sataiel’s Ambition hidden aura buff, neither Mantle of the Harvester or Ravenous Afflictions Nightfalls give you the hidden aura buff that makes Sataiels work.
- Demonic Soul Succulent Soul interactions with Hand of Guldan are confusing.
Hand of Guldan consumes 1 to 3 shards, causing it to deal 1x to 3x damage and summon 1 to 3 Wild Imps.
Demonic Soul says that it discounts the shard cost to 1, adds 1 imp and triggers a damage event.
Currently on Hand of Guldan it works like this.
Succulent Soul + 0 shards = Damage of 1-shard hand of guldan, summons 1 imp, only possible due to the shard discount
Succulent Soul +1 Shard = Damage of a 1-shard Hand of Guldan, Summon 2 imps, does not offer a shard discount.
Succulent Soul +2 Shards = Damage of a 2-shard Hand of Guldan, Summon 3 Imps, does not offer a shard discount.
Succulent Soul + 3 Shards = Damage of a 3-shard Hand of Guldan, Summons 3 Imps, offers a shard discount.
Additionally, Succulent Souls can proc from Soul Conduit Soul Shards refunds of the Hand Guldan, instantly transforming a non-succulent soul Hand of Guldan in a succulent Soul Hand of Guldan, in this case, a 3-shard HOG will summon 4 Imps, but it will not offer a shard discount.
I suspect the buff of succulent souls is consumed either to summon an additional imp or offer a discount whatever comes first.
Succulent Souls can also affect a Hand of Guldan who you already finished casting if you generate a soul shard quick enough (Soul Strike or Demonbolt) and that Shard procs a succulent soul while the hand of guldan is falling.
- Diabolist could have better visuals elements to indicate what Demon will be summoned next.
Its important to know what demon will be summoned next because Shivarras improve your filler to generate 3 shards, Pitlord makes your next spender free of cost and those can be a little disorienting to be caught out of surprise.
Hero Talent choice nodes that you feel could offer more meaningful choices.
I have already mentioned this above indirectly, but i believe both Diabolist Utility Choice Node, Diabolist Damage Choice Node and Hellcaller Defensive Choice Node could all offer better choices.
Diabolist Damage Choice Node offer 2 choices who does the same thing, but one is mathematically better than the other.
Diabolist Utility Node offers an effect who cost is absolutely insignificant for Demo/Destro vs an upgrade to a talent with extreme restrictions (melee range/target cap/is a choice node vs an amazing talent).
Hellcaller Defensive Choice Node Offer Defensives who effect is extremely limited or come at great costs to your own Defensiveness in other aspects.
8 Likes
in arena having to cast UA and having to click on all my spells on all 3 targets instead of 2 makes affi feel super bloated and all were going to be doing is putting up dots the whole match while being trained until we die. kicked/cs/stunned/ hunters avoiding dmg stunning gouging kick will never get any dots off without soulswap. and looking into the future having to wait until at least 2 targets are stacked to cast soulrot and you want soul rot to be the main thing. that ability is gonna be theoretically useless in pvp. so can you please give us our main ability back. i mean no soul swap is basically no affi locks… oh and not to mention dispels we get our dots on one target healer will dispel on other target and it will be a back in forth game… so please give it back it makes no sense in removing it. Also seed of corruption needs to be moved unless you guys want us to have to cast seed of corruption in pvp which we will never be able to get that off along with UA which is hard enough seed of corruption is only for pve. But if you guys don’t want to give us soulswap back then we will need something else. Like our dots not being dispellable or UA unkickable we need something else… giving us a lot of haste is not going to cut it. Also if you guys do give it back please for gods sake not make it a pvp talent cause that hurts us as well. it has to be baseline. Please and thank you
5 Likes
This feedback will be primarily for Destro.
I personally welcome having Dimensional Rift back, however, without it being able to aoe, it seems a little DOA. The worse part about Dimensional Rift is if you get a long duration rift and the target dies, it was a wasted charge. It should switch targets like other pets. I agree with the others too that Flame Rift should return, or at least the AOE from S3 of DF.
Soul Conduit being pruned from 10% to 5% feels awful.
Havoc now being capped at 12 seconds is not good. It has a GCD and then once you start casting chaos bolt, 3.5 seconds of 12 where eaten up with nothing interesting occurring until the cast actually goes off. Havoc should be baseline 15 seconds and a lower GCD. Also, havoc just for single target is a bit burdensome. The GCD, and damage window management seems really unrewarding. My suggestion is perhaps to make Rolling Havoc a choice node and share the choice with Cry Havoc.
Infernal Bolt could be a bit more rewarding visually. I think it actually needs a longer buff time too. I have tried to clear out enough shards to cast the spell without over capping shards and lost the buff.
Summoning a pet after a res seems to start diabolic ritual. It makes the cycle a little less predicable and it hurts to see the pit lord be cycled off before a pull would start because I lose ruination.
Rain of Fire. I do like the change of the Inferno talent. However, pyrogenics feels like a dead perk and RoF should not be a talent. If you insist it should be, at least do not make it gate 8 talents, especially talents that do not have anything to do with RoF
Demonic Circle being a talent feels weird when a Hero talent is based of a “choice” you can make in anther talent tree.
Im sure the Overfiend is broken right now. However, when the fix comes around, make it deal less damage but keep the pace of the chaos bolts the same. It looks so cool to see a chain gun pace of chaos bolts. More Chaos Bolts, More Good.
Lastly, the passive secondary stat and cast time reduction perks feel great. I love the passive crit and the cast time reductions to chaos bolt and incinerate. The spec now feels great from the beginning rather than needing to wait 2 seasons to get 30% or more haste to feel smooth.
9 Likes
Beta Feedback (bugs and design issues). This is predominantly Aff and Destro focused as I do not play Demo, and also includes Hero tree notes.
Warlock class tree:
-Soul Conduit should be 10%. 5% is bad, particularly for affliction which is still experiencing resource drought.
-2 point nodes force hard choices to get QOL improvement (50% reduced SS/stone cast), requires loss of BR improvement and 5% hp.
-Soulburning Demonic Healthstones does not grant the temporary 20% HP bonus.
Affliction Things:
-When talented into Drain Soul instead of Shadowbolt, and talented into Cunning Cruelty, consuming Nightfall procs is bugged, the channel time (almost as soon as the channel starts) gets reset to the beginning of the spell, thereby consuming the proc but not granting the full 50% hasted channel and damage. I actually was able to cast Drain Soul once (one hotkey press) and it continually reset its channel over and over again for a continuous channel that lasted long enough for all my dots to fall off, approximately 25 seconds. I tested this in both Soul Harvester and Hellcaller specs, and this is a consistent problem.
-Drain Soul does not proc Cunning Cruelty at all.
-6/11 edit: confirm untalenting Cunning Cruelty allows drain to channel correctly. So something is very bugged with Cunning Cruelty and Drain Soul.
-The loss of Seed/Sow as our AoE feels bad in play. We had a visually distinct spell with a travel animation and noteworthy explosion effect, now we just have MR doing MR things, its much less noticeable and impactful-feeling. I would personally prefer a return to Seed as AOE, SoW as the default in the use of Seed, and at minimum a 0.5s cast-time reduction in Seed as it takes a ridiculous amount of time to cast. Aff setup is already long enough. *6/12 edit: in further play I can get onboard the MR AOE, but make the hit/impact/explosion/whatever bigger/more noticeable. I want to feel like I’m actually hitting something.
-MR throughput is low, I hit harder in live on my 70 than I do on the template 80.
-Desync in CD between VT and SoulRot feels bad after experiencing them synced in S3/S4. *6/15 edit: this is still noticeable and bad, feels bad to play. really bad for Soul Harvester, which does very little damage outside of SR windows.
-Agony shard gen still feels bad even with 1.10x talent, still have frequent drought periods in ST. With the UA shard gen talent being removed the Agony talent should be returned to 1.25x. *6/9 edit, this is confirmed still bad in continued testing, need the 1.25x buff.
-Odd tree pathing for some AOE and ST talents. MR buffs on the right side (AOE side) as well as ST side, and multiple nodes that independently buff MR damage (should be combined to reduce node bloat and point cost).
-Cannot choose all buff talents for either AoE or ST direction (lack of points).
-Lack of point availability for capstones. 4 or 5 “required” 2-point nodes in the tree. Destruction and Demonology both have 0(!) 2 point nodes, and are far superior tree designs because of it. Demo and Destro have points for 3-4 capstones and build flexibility that is utterly unattainable for Aff as currently designed. Making a couple of these 2 point nodes into 1 point nodes in the second gate would drastically help.
-When Absolute Corruption is talented and the Hellcaller Capstone ‘Malevolence’ is actived, the Wither that was previously on the target is made acute, and then falls off the target, which the Absolute Corruption talent is meant to prevent.
-Losing Soul Swap hurts priority swaps badly (like BH totems, Nokhud first boss adds, etc). Nothing in our talents or kit helps with this. Are we just consigned to have no option? Just suck at this permanently?
-Not sure yet if the buff to Oblivion is enough to make it more worthwhile than rapturing twice. Regardless of that, reduce CD to 30 seconds. If we’re losing SoulSwap, give us a compelling option that replaces it and gives us a chance at least in a swap/funnel talent.
Destruction Things:
-Damage of CDF feels a little low relative to HP and other abilities, extra bolts and dmg amp talents should be combined into single talent.
-Raging Demonfire is not extending Immolate correctly.
-Wither sometimes will not permit Channel Demonfire to cast. Casting Cataclysm “unsticks” the problem and allows demonfire to cast again, once. Also letting Wither drop off the target, sometimes. Problem is inconsistent but breaks CDF when it occurs. Seems to be related to Withers becoming Acute. Once that has happened, CDF will not be castable.
-Rain needs dmg tuning due to lack of capacity for sufficient shard gen in large pulls, currently low damage and due to redesign cannot stack rains as before to compensate for low base damage.
-Rift should have Searing Rift from prior tier set built-in as one of the summoned rifts.
-Rift incinerate reset RNG feels too low percent-wise. I can go an entire 45 second charge cycle casting nothing but incinerates and not get a reset. This is not an anomaly. Revert to immolate or buff the RNG.
-Rift should be updated to use Overfiend target logic if possible, in that if the initial target dies, it swaps to another target to continue doing damage.
-Incinerate shard gen capstone "Diabolic Embers’ should not be a capstone, should just be baked into Incinerate as the default shard gen for Quality of Life improvement. Filler periods feel very bad without this talented. Removing this frees a point to gain SoulFire capstone or other flex-build options.
-Avatar/Overfiend capstone is very strong and gives good priority damage, the real win with this is it will swap targets if the initial target dies. As mentioned before, apply this logic to Rift if at all possible. If tuned, keep Bolt cast time as machine-gun CBs are visually appealing.
-Chaos Incarnate value nerf is hurting throughput, this needs to be buffed or its basically a dead hole and points get spent elsewhere.
-SoulFire Decimation proc should light-up/highlight SoulFire icon on bar to indicate a proc. QOL issue.
Soul Harvester specific:
-Soul Harvester talent "Spirited Away’ is worse than Paladin horsey. Terrible and should be replaced with something that would actually offer a choice in its node location. As designed will never be taken for any reason.
-Soul and Anathema damage is very low, procs from Sataiel and Quietus do not seem to be happening or working correctly.
-As mentioned in Aff section, SR needs to be 30s. its bad in general but particularly noticeably bad for SH builds.
Hellcaller specific:
-Malevolence needs to be off the GCD; this is particularly needed for Affliction, which has a very long setup time, and to lose a GCD for that, and then another popping Glare (all the while our dots/VT/SR are ticking and losing value), before we can start the actual dmg burst…feels bad.
-Zevrim’s resilience: hilariously low healing value. Needs buffed substantially.
-Illhoof’s Design: mathematically bad trade for almost all conceivable content.
-Mark of Xavius: reduced value for destro if not specced Cataclysm. Would add 5-10% increased Rain of Fire damage to talent to cover both tree options. For Affliction, increases desync between VT and SR, effectively. Similarly to destro, reduced value if choosing Phantom Singularity instead of Vile Taint. *changed in new beta build 6/11/24
-Have seen intermittent cases of Wither stacks above 20. Per tree tooltips it should stack up to 8 times before becoming acute then roll back to 1. 20+ should not be possible per design, tooltip error or bug?
Diabolist specific:
-For Destro: Secrets of the Coven can just RNG overcap your shards, not the end of the world, better too many shards than not enough. Damage of demon spawned is low and should be buffed.
-For destro, Diabolist feels somewhat slow in comparison to Hellcaller, I believe due to the slower nature of how we spend shards due to cast times of CB and cost of RoF. Increasing ritual time reduction for destro specifically could help with this feel?
-Infernal Machine is the default choice without question. You’d need to buff Cruelty to 6 or 8 seconds to be a compelling option.
-Gloom of Nath is an odd one, intending us to use a spell meant for cleave to bolster ST damage. Does it interact at all with Mayhem talented?
-Ruination: nice damage on proc, summoned Diabolic Imp does low damage, unsure if needs tuning overall as do not have working meters, tbd.
*edit to add loss of Soul Swap to Aff
*edit 6/9 for thoughts on Illhoof’s Design, Diabolist, Aff seed, rapture throughput, CDF bug, drain soul/nightfall bug.
*edit 6/10 for drain soul/cunning cruelty bug
*edit 6/11 for more info on drain soul/cunning cruelty bug
*edit 6/12 for Malevolence GCD ask, more Diabolist and Destro thoughts, build change strikeouts, more MR thoughts for Aff, Oblivion.
*edit 6/15 for emphasis on CD reduction for Soul Rot. this needs to be 30s baseline. Also Sataiel and Quietus buffs/bugfixes needed.
7 Likes
Aff insta fb: (aoe)
I struggled to find identity with this. Is aff now all about SB cleave procs? Is the spec about large and consistent rapture dmg and procs? Is the spec still a doc spec, but in the annoying way that you stop the flow of combat to renew dots? Or is the spec all about trying to line up cds for burst, and if so, if it sb or rapture doing the dmg?
What we need to know is the design expectations of the spec in aoe scenarios so we know what to expect.
If the spec is designed to be sb heavy for aoe, then why doesnt cleave sbs apply shadow embrace on their targets?
Is the talents that increase the time of your dots intended to keep players from not taking talents that make corruption permanent on your targets?
We know that the bottom left side of the talent tree is for ST, and bottom right is for aoe, but what about the middle? Because, imo, the center is almost exclusively single target.
Now, one of the BIGGEST disappointments i had about aff aoe was the ZERO talents or attention towards seed of corruption. Seed is like the cornerstone of aff aoe, and during rotation i found myself barely touching it. Why? Seed’s explosion, plus with the old multi-seed talent talent causing multiple explosions, was the MOST satisfying thing while playing aff. The same goes for living bomb with fire mages. Why take that away from us?
I would rather use soc instead of purple poop in aoe situations. In fact, if you did turn soc into a 20 sec cd with cd reduction talents and have it act like living bomb, just as an example, using it would not only be satisfying but also increase its importance so it has a place in the aoe rotation. Only getting to use it once in awhile during aoe situations is extremely disappointing and depressing.
As for aff hero talents, i will refrain from detailed feedback, but what i can say is that, similiar to the demo and destro hero talents, the middle talents were not only disappointing and copy/pasted from previous removed talents, but also incredibly underpowered and the choice nodes were just annoying rather than impactful.
1 Like
PVP - Need a flat 10-20% damage nerf to every spec similar to how udk needs a nerf, and again to no one’s surprise, healing/dark pact being 4 mil+ shield for 30 seconds needs a change.
1 Like
Locks in PVP are the best healer tank and dps all in one spec. Glad to have pvp as a mini game in WoW
For affliction, I really wish you would just toss Malefic Rapture out on it’s hind end. Please get rid of that spell or just make it single target like malefic grasp was in mop, we already have seed for aoe.
make shadow bolt and drain soul generate shards for affliction, RNG resource generation is absolute trash and has been since legion, no matter how generous it is, if there is potential to famine, it will do so and it will feel bad. It’s just button bloat. Haunt for single target and seed for aoe could fill the same roll as spenders.
Soul harvester for affliction just feels icky to play. it really feels famine/feast in it’s play and way more famine than feast.
in Hellcaller, seems relatively the same as a standard rotation but I do NOT like that Malevolence is an active ability. We already have so many abilities and our rotation is full as affliction.
1 Like
On demonology new talents, spell “summon demonic tyrant” prolong the existence of vilefiend but not prolong Gloomhound or Charhound if talent “Mark of F’harg” or “Mark of Shatug”selected. Hounds are transformed from vilefiend so it should be buffed too or its a BUG
Usually i wait between my posts or make an edit to my previous post, but this issue feels like it deserves its own post doe to its complexity.
Its a mixture of "Hero Talent that you feel are “required”/ feel are too stronger and a bit of a bug report.
Currently, Destruction have a very broken hyper-synergistic combination of Hero Talent [ Hellcaller] and Talent Combination (Ritual of Ruin, Avatar of Destruction and the Seeds of Demise Hero Talent) alongside small “bugs” (Overfiends benefit from Chaos Bolt talent upgrades and buffs) who lead to a very broken combo.
By utilizing Hellcaller’s Seed’s of Demise to obtain Ritual of Ruins(Spec Talent) to summon Overfiend(Another Spec Talent) you will create this cyclical effect where.
Overfiend Casts Chaos Bolt> Overfiend Chaos Bolt gives Wither Stacks > Wither Stacks eventually triggers and is consumed who have a chance to proc Seeds of Demise giving you Ritual of Ruin> Ritual of Ruin summons new Overfiends.
This is amplified because Overfiend Chaos Bolts benefit of any effect who reduces cast time of the Warlock Chaos bolt but does not consume them, including new Ritual of Ruins and Backdraft.
This combination also gives an considerable generation of Soul Shards to the Warlock, allowing it to cast more of its own chaos bolts and summon more Overfiends from Ritual of Ruin natural talent.
I believe this issue is mostly caused by.
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The Ability of Overfiend Chaos Bolts to concede Blackened Soul Stacks meaning Overfiends feed more Overfiends by the way of Ritual of Ruins from Seeds of Demise.
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The Interactions between Overfiends and Backdraft/Ritual of Ruin who result in Overfiends casting even more Chaos Bolts within their duration than intended (and as such giving more stacks/more chance for Seed of Demise Procs per overfiend)
4 Likes
This post is supposed to give a perspective on the Hero talents from a destruction standpoint.
Let me preface this by saying that currently some interactions make some assessments more difficult to do like the Overfiend bug Malykith mentioned that makes hellcaller scale way out of control, so i will try to give a first round of feedback diregarding that talent for now.
Hero talents i feel are “required” or push me towards a specific tree
In general i feel like the Hellcaller tree is just as a package more desireable as of right now as it feels like it gives alot more qol and “nice things”, ranging from an instant immolate over more ritual of ruin proccs (which are fun) to a 1min cd that amps up your gameplay.
Especially in aoe i feel like Hellcaller sounds like the way more inviting option at first glance as it pushes you more to cataclysm (which is a fun spell in aoe) and also allows for a more turbocharged gameplay with the interactions of many withers + seeds of their demise, which makes your shard generation go hamwhire and tops it off with ritual of ruin proccs to keep the rain going.
In contrast to that the diabolist tree wants manual immolate in aoe (something that is not as fun) and pushes you more towards inferno, which allows for the rain to keep going decently but doesnt seem to offer as much of a feedback loop as hellcaller potentially does. What entices me the most to go for Diabolist as a destruciton warlock currently is probably “rancorras touch”, as the chaos bolts from it feel to me like what a cchaos bolt should feel like (Ruination comes in as a close second as it is a really fun ability as destro as well).
Hero Talent trees that you feel are either too strong or too weak in power level compared to other options.
I actually feel like both trees are pretty close in powerlevel, tho the current state of avatar of destrucitons makes this assessment kinda hard. In mass aoe i havea feeling of Hellcaller having the potential of being way stronger but that is to be seen after we get avatar fixed as the extra proccs from Helcaller are of course currently way better than anything Diabolist offers.
Hero Talent choice nodes that you feel could offer more meaningful choices.
As was already mentioned before the choice node of Infernal Machine in the Diabolist tree feels like a no brainer currently as Infernal Machine just looks to be way better.
Some general notes
I feel like both hero trees currently offer a massive amount of shard generation and i fear that this might have negative consequences for the tuning of our spenders. As it stands right now i am casting more chaos bolts than incinerates on average and if that is the goal i wonder what the tuning goal for chaos bolt that has the fantasy of being this really hard hitting spell is supposed to be.
In this context i feel like i am almost never compelled to press dimensional rift (except maybe on movement) right now which might be the goal but its kind taunting having this ability and then almost never press it. Also rift is an ability with 45s charges (with potential resets but we are not really casting alot of incinerates right now), and for that i feel like its tuning is somewhat low (also they have no use in cleave/aoe settings currently).
In a high shard world i really really like rancorras touch as it gives you somewhat infrequent big chaos bolts that really manage to capture that feeling of watching the bolt fly and giddily wating for it to hit and a big number to pop up.
Following the development in the alpha (wasnt able to test it), i felt like incinrates with fire and brimstone were to maybe play a bigger role again in aoe scenarios from offering rift resets to being able to easily pick up fire and brimstone in the new tree. Also when testing it in the beta felt like it was actually doing decent damage with both trees, but i fear that with the amplified shard generation/discount on spending both trees provide there might be no room for it in the end.
1 Like
While happy to see destruction get a significant talent rework, in my testing i felt that not only was dimensional rift feeling forced in a st build, it felt out of place. cdf also felt meh, but ive never really loved that ability. however, i think it’d be more at home in the rift slots and perhaps just bake in the demonfire mastery third talent. as far as hero talents that felt required, in the diabolist tree, the talent that makes you havoc target take 5% more dmg from single target abilities seems like it would encourage placing havoc on a single target then… dpsing it. this is not only counter to havoc’s purpose, but feels like an extra step button that doesnt really feel good. overall, i was a bit disappointed that the soulfire/decimation talents werent realistically going to be part of a st rotation, as they cost several important nodes, but even if i could reach them, combined with cdf, rift, and malevolence would result in massive button bloat. destro has always felt like the last remaining spec i could play effectively as everything else was either too bloated or melee which is too fast. a single target build with soulfire/decimation and cdf that maintained all the other stuff lost to path that direction (basically replacing rift with soulfire or something) would be awesome.
1 Like
Before i forget, i really do think ALL of the lock specs need indicators for their buttons dictating durations, stacks, etc… i have seen mutliple specs have them and i remember 1 talent in demo that now has it. It is definitely a qol priority.
2 Likes
Fully agree with this. I hate implosion and I want to summon pets, not kill them and resummon them.
4 Likes
So for destruction there are a few things. first off im not sure if its just the tuning for beta or what but the damage from chaos bolts seems a bit underwhelmng. they are hitting for the same amount of damage as they do in retail even though we have 30k more intel at a 607 ilvl.
CDF with raging demon fire is not extending the duration of withers and sometimes becomes uncastable. CDF isnt even worth the talent point unless you take atleast 2 of the 3 nodes and feels like that could be condensed.Rifts are not worth taking in an aoe setting and also feels like those nodes could be condensed. There is a lot of capstone bloat as well. but condensing some of those above mentioned nodes could help with that. Inferno sadly isnt really playable in comparison to cata with how strong withers are and losing out on the shard regen hurts.
As for the overfiend thematically it feels more like a demo talent than anything else. although it is super cool to see waves of chaos bolts coming out and it does provide shard gen which is very important, destro was never one to rely on a demon to do its damage, but more relying on its own power or using the demon to further bolster the caster (ie the infernal). Destro has always more felt like the fallen fire mage that sought after more power, doing what it could to increase the power of its spells and delving into fel energy or sacrificing its demon to give it more power.
Just like how grim sac used to be by giving us a straight damage percent increase when sacrificed. it feels like summoners embrace and grim sac are backwards but if they were to be flipped then embrace would need further buffed to make up for the demons dmg output.
on top of swapping the blasphemy to the overfiend, we lose the stun. so we lose group utility, taking away group damage reduction and interupts. I recommend to atleast reduce the cd of shadowfury and make it an instant cast, as well as reducing the timer of spell lock to help with the lost utility. there are many classes with instant stuns on a shorter cd and shorter interupts than what a warlock can provide.
For Shadowburn to be relevent it has do output dmg comparable to what chaos bolt does or else its simply just not worth casting or even taking the talent.
For unending resolve it feels the cd is far too long, 3 minutes for only a 40% dmg reduction. atleast a 2 min timer would feel alot better and make the defensive more often used.
for movement destro is a sentry gun. it needs to be planted to unload. moving around literally kills us because of burning rush. we used to have kiljaedens cunning that allowed us to cast incinerate while having to move. extremely useful especially on long movements and would allow to continue to generate shards while shifting. because of destros current movement state on fights that require heavy movement its damage drops off significantly which forces play to demo or aff that arent really affected as much by those mechanics.
For the hero trees themselves. nothing really cries destro. hellcaller buffs dots, diabolist summons mass demons. due to how hellcaller works with wither it does seem to force play with cata and be the forced choice to play in dungeons
My last recommendation for now. give warlocks access to purple fire. Purple has been the iconic color of warlocks since the beginning and would be very aesthetically pleasing, especially for destruction.
2 Likes
New soulfire proc doesnt even give a button glow. To add to the list of things.
3 Likes
Firstly - purely cosmetic thing. How, in the year of our lord(s) 2024 are we still forced into a single demon choice for demonology? With a grand total of a few quick recolours and another, older, model? When the main thing is antiquated and first appeared in the Hellfire patch 9 years ago? Given the updates we’ve had to druids, paladins, etc? This seems pretty harsh.
Phew.
Anyway. Re the specs. Manly tried affliction and Destruction. Both felt like an improvement to live but destro in particular felt buggy with dots not applying, etc. Fun thought! Much faster and less forced into just single target or AOE like they are on live.
Few grumbles:
- Soulfire - if you want us to use it you need more of a visual clue it’s proc’d otherwise we’re forced to use WA. If frost mage can have visual clues? I kind of figure more specs should have these built in.
- Shadowburn isn’t a thing, even after the reworks. I doubt it will ever be a thing. I can’t see anyone touching this outside pvp - where it would make far more sense being a finisher glyph.
- Rift might be a thing but is the kind of ability I forget about. Useful for movement fights but not much else.
- Way too many finishing capstones for both trees, many of which don’t feel as impactful as others.
- Affliction still suffers from button bloat, especially compared to Destro.
And lastly? Hellcaller is WAY too good. Or… it’s just better than the other options due to its starting ability turning a hard cast into an instant (yay! don’t change this!) and a generally good set of abilities with no weak ones. I can’t imagine people taking soul caller etc when this is available.
5 Likes
Would love to see a glyph to teach warlocks a spell to give the old metamorphosis model back to be toggled in or off when we want, and jyst rename it. Or a glyph for malevolence to be the metamorphosis model.
Currently the visual is weird and goopy and doesnt feel impactful
2 Likes