I think with current pathing in beta it’s not really necessary. You either have to take cata or pyrogenics. Pyrogenics is useless in a st setting so you would take cata anyways to get down to scalding flames to unlock the right side of the tree. So no real reason to have the overfiend also doing cata. From an aoe standpoint I could see it tho. You could spec into inferno and then have the overfiend do cata but at the cost of the funnel dmg but greatly boosting aoe once the ramp is rolling. But I think that concept would have worked better on the blasphemy drop and everything it hits is afflicted with immolate (it’s already doing immolation aura). So maybe a choice node between the blasphemy and overfiend.
That’s an interesting idea as well. However, Blasphemy had numerous problems over its lifespan: it was broken in Shadowlands (a tier set bonus at the time) when paired with Rain of Chaos, and in DF it had too many ups and downs. Blizz’s ultimate decision to remove it was a prudent one, but I do not think Destruction was appropriately compensated for its loss. In my view the Overfiend Cataclysm idea would remedy that deficiency. The spec, both functionally and thematically, needs more burst AoE. Cataclysm provides this but its CD is excessive and, in an active rotation like the one we have, it can be easy to forget to cast it in the thick of things. With Ruination from the Diabolist tree, I could see Blizz’s hesitation in making a Cataclysm Overfiend, but numbers tuning would negate that concern. It should not be forgotten, either, that Hellcaller will be a popular competitor.
Malediction and Contagion really need to not be two point nodes. The bloat in gate two of the Aff tree is real.
Nerf them if you have to, but spending four points for passive stat buffs feels awful.
6 Likes
Currently for destruction it seems like only Rain of Fire and Chaos Bolt increase stacks of Wither from the Blackened Soul talent. It says “Spending Soul Shards further corrupts enemies affected by your Wither, increasing its stack count by 1”
Rain of Fire and Chaos Bolt both properly increase stack count by 1 (sometimes 2 with Blackheart Tactics talent) but Shadowburn, Soulburn, and even Soul Rip in pvp all do not increase the stacks.
I understand not having Soulburn or Soul Rip activate it as they aren’t damaging spells, but I see no reason why Shadowburn shouldn’t work. Then update the tooltip to say “Spending Soul Shards ‘on damaging spells’ further corrupts enemies”
2 Likes
please revert the changes to Demonology and keep the nether portal a lot of this gameplay keeps the spec unique and fun if they are removed it will defeat the point of the spec if something is too strong nerf the power not the numbers as summoning demons is the whole point in this spec
2 Likes
Many of locks and even Kalamazi would disagree with you about Nether Portal. the rotation was awful
12 Likes
Affliction Darkglare Feedback
Currently both Hero Specs from DPS testing do better off in ST/AoE avoiding Darkglare. (Although I’m aware Tuning might change this.)
In all seriousness Soul Rot and its subsequent talents should be in position of Darkglare, both Hero specs need/use it in ST/AoE more so Soul Harvester making it 100% mandatory pick. So makes sense being more centred and easily accessible on the tree.
Darkglare on the other hand I’d rather see it moved further down the tree as a choice to opt into (perhaps has use in PvP?) or simply removed in favour or strengthening Soul Rot which will be chosen 100% regardless of content.
If anything I’m 100% sure all Affliction players would be happy to see Darkglares DoT extension moved into Soul Rot baseline and simply just making Soul Rot the main go to impactful cd (Currently it is).
I keep thinking even if Darkglare was tuned properly to be worthy of a 2min cd, it’s going to still be difficult to opt in sacrificing other talents to try and even pick it up.
Affliction is currently feeling great, what you’ve done is day and night compared to Affliction in Dragonflight, it’s great but I think Darkglare needs to be either reworked to be good as a 2 min cd or simply moved lower for a opt in choice or removed entirely and put greater focus in Soul Rot.
Edit: I’m aware Tuning is definitely an ongoing process but I keep thinking Darkglare just being moved into Soul Rot will be a simple solution that both Hero Spec will benefit greatly. Heck even make Soul Rot summon the Darkglare to do the DoT extension would feel better and keep its visual.
4 Likes
Just gotta say Decimation is INCREDIBLE for the mouthfeel of destro. PLEASE make this accessible in the final iteration of Destro ST.
8 Likes
Agreed, needs a PPM increase and bad luck protection.
Have you played fire mage? They just don’t have to cast. And are the top dogs right now. I’m ok with investing 3 talent points, if that would give more potent nightfall procs and a buff to Soul Harvester which it needs as of now.
Also, don’t forget they gatekeep the final 10 points of our talent tree.
And if you take these two, they open up all three nodes below.
Sure you can get to them via improved haunt or cull the weak, but they are optional (former) or situational (latter) and also cull the weak is a 2 pointer again.
100% behind making these 1 pointer nodes.
Malediction @ 10% might make it attractive for PVPers, @ 5% other choices are more lucrative. For once, would like to see crit make a difference in PVP for aff locks. But this one is just a personal wish.
3 Likes
Class Tree
Probably highest priority would be improving Warlock M+ utility. Warlock has always had good raid utility, but among the worst M+ utility. AOE curses would improve that utility and quality of life. Lots of ways to do that, could be added to amplify curse, soul burn, or bring back Impending Catastrophe (ventyr ability) and have its damage turned from a dot to a small direct damage hit or removed even.
Fiendish Stride should likely be buffed in termed of dmg reduction because otherwise it isn’t worth taking. I get the dmg/movement trade-off but likely at least 25% would still be valuable while making it a decision about whether and when to use burning rush.
Overall the class tree probably needs another update pass to improve never taken talents and improve pathing
Affliction Feedback
Spec Tree
- Drain soul probably needs a buff to come to parity with shadowbolt so they both have niches. DS should be the execute and shard sniping choice, shadow bolt should be the movement room-in-the-rotation choice.
- Ravenous Afflictions Proc rate too low - could have really interesting Soul Harvester synergy as well as incentivize critical strike for that spec. Either needs higher ppm or just a proc rate on crit.
- Middle of the tree is crowded with strong talents and many 2 point nodes, it often means skipping dark glare or not spending 10 points in the final section, which is really unsatisfactory. I would love to see more situational nodes, that you might take in particular fights or with particular hero talents (there’s some good examples like Ravenous Afflictions (when proc rate is fixed) or sacrolash, which each fit a different hero talent). What we have now are all throughput nodes that will be picked via sims, rather than used to adapt affliction a specific type of fight.
- Improved Haunt is almost purely just improved Quality of Life, and as something that Haunt did for a long time, feels bad taking as a talent - could be baked in to make pathing in the middle easier.
- Some of the new talents in the final gate are quite weak, unworthy of a final gate pick such as Perpetual Instabilty, Death’s embrace (esp for Soul Harvester), even relinquished (due to a nerf, that now that the agony tick rate in hellcaller is gone doesn’t seem necessary, and x1.25 seems reasonable)
Things that I love about the tree:
- Volatile Agony: such a great way to make agony refreshes feel good, has to do good dmg or it will feel like nothing.
- Cunning Cruelty: shadow bolt volley! Probably a little too strong on single target - but shouldn’t be nerfed so that it is useless in ST (talents that are completely dead in ST are what has made aff in the past do such bad ST when specced into AOE).
- Cull the Weak: just great idea that adds nice funnel to aff’s kit.
Hero Talents
Soul Harvester
- Really like the theme and interactions of this tree. Likely Soul Anathema & Demonic Soul’s dmg is too low, especially as this is its main contribution to AOE from the tree. The other AOE comes from nightfall procs that can cleave via shared fate, which I also really like, but the nerf to shared fate as well reduced the cleave effectiveness.
- With Soul Harvester, I am also concerned with the effectiveness of Affliction’s mastery - it doesn’t impact any of the SH main dmg sources or the Shadowbolt/drain souls that SH buffs. I would love to see some of SH abilities added to mastery, most particularly soul anathema, otherwise I think it will not keep up with Hellcaller in stat scaling. I think there could also just generally be more integration into affliction’s kit with Soul Harvester, not only is Soul Anathema and Shared fate not effected by mastery, they aren’t extended by dot extenders like Malign Omen, or count as a DOT for Malefic rapture, nor are they affected by Death’s Embrace. It makes it feel like the ability aren’t an integrated part of the kit.
Hellcaller
- Likely could use some of its dmg moved into blackened soul - which is a really fun interactive mechanic, that right now isn’t really rewarding you for playing towards it. This tree feels really integrated into aff’s talent tree, which is great. The defensive and utility nodes need another look, right now they provide extremely low value.
5 Likes
Friendly Reminder
- Graphics. We still REALLY want new graphics for shadow bolt, Rapture, etc…
- Button Bloat is an huge issue!
- Darkglare needs looked at.
- Doomguard’s dmg needs looked at.
- Dmg tweaks on probably a couple dozen talents need done.
- Dmg tweaks on hero talents def need done.
- Implosion and its position needs looked at.
Edit! - Seed of corruption. It def needs addressed. Its current position leaves it not even being worth the shard. It needs to apply all dots to all targets its explosions hit. Make it a 10 sec cd.
Yes i know dmg tuning is still happening which is why i am drawing attention to these things.
11 Likes
I agree. It can hit for a million damage by itself if it crits. It needs to be moved up on the tree (even just 1 node), because I don’t like that I’m forced to pick a talent I don’t think is meaningful so that I can take these 2 talents that are exceptional.
2 Likes
I’ve seen several people mention Implosion, which made me curious. What is everyone’s opinion of Implosion? Do people like it, hate it, wish it would get slightly changed, or drastically changed, or straight up removed, or give us options, etc?
I figure if there was ever going to be a time that Blizzard MIGHT change that spell, it would be at the beginning a new expansion.
Since it’s going to now be a “have to take cause of where it is on the talent tree” talent then it’d be nice if it had some use in ST.
Agreed. Gameplay aside, the theme of this tree is off the charts.
I really hope the inner demon gets some voice lines in the future, kinda like Thal’kiel had in Legion. You can’t have a tree revolving around the idea of stealing “succulent” souls and feeding them to a demon, and not have him speak.
3 Likes
If I could glyph into the 2004 version of shadow bolt, I would.
7 Likes
please bring avatar of destruction back it felt fun and impactful, removing it doesn’t make inferno feel any better. It just feels bad, the aesthetic of multiple inferno feels amazing and looks incredible.
Blasphemy was fun when it procs
1 Like
Most lock players hate implosion due to having to sacrifice your pets for damage, which is quite the opposite of the " have a plethora of pets running around" summoner fantasy.
The way it is placed in the tree gives us no choice but to path through it, same for seeds with aff (although i’d rather seeds over malefic rapture gameplay anyday).
Overall there are a lot of alternatives to implosion that are overlooked simply due to implosion being center field for aoe though if it wasn’t the case i doubt anyone would pick it up ,let alone look at it.
PS: i see no one mention bilscourge, did everyone forget it exists? If it wasn’t a stationary aoe but followed a specific target it would probably become far more appealing ( with some tuning ofc).
1 Like
First, I wanted to express how much I love the new direction for all 3 spec trees, they feel much improved and unique with better emphasis on the core gameplay. Kudos to the devs, please keep up the good work!
For the purpose of this post, I want to touch more on the class tree feedback though:
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With Dragonflight, the class tree did feel a bit rigid with the number of “required” talent nodes, like the multiple throughput nodes. And while these “mandatory” points did take away from the choices, it still had some free points that could be used situationally to a degree.
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In The War Within, I was very excited to learn your initial goals; having the capstones feel more interesting and exciting, reducing the number of throughput points available and freeing up more utility choices.
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While the number of throughput points got reduced, the addition of a new throughput node (Demonic Tactics), making Demonic Circle cost a point, and increasing Soul Link cost to 2 points didn’t make the tree feel gaining much freed points from the culled throughput nodes, rather as a result it feels even more rigid in that regard after filling all the “mandatory” points.
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The addition of Pact of Gluttony is a good node, thank you for that, but in my opinion Soul Conduit isn’t an exciting or interesting capstone. It wasn’t a capstone before, while it also had 10% chance. Now it feels even less exciting with only 5% chance. I would love to see a different utility node added as a capstone instead and have Soul Conduit moved back to row 9.
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There are still too many throughput nodes in my opinion, for example Sargerei Technique and Socrethar’s Guile in my opinion can be removed in favor of having more utility options, or at least be made 1-point nodes. These don’t warrant being 2-point nodes, which was also a goal for the tree, to reduce the number of ranks for multiple nodes that don’t warrant multiple ranks.
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Warlocks have great unique raid utility, but it still feels lacking in 5-man utility department, especially non-exclusive ones. This is an area where I feel Warlocks can benefit greatly from having a couple of options added that would help in group-sized content (aka mythic+).
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To reiterate what some fellow Warlocks have posted earlier, with the plethora of defensives available to almost every other caster, the “tanky caster” archetype for Warlock feels less pronounced, while also not being as mobile.
While we’re on the topic of non-throughput feedback, I wanted to touch on some points regarding Affliction, and Hellcaller in that regard. This is not specific spec or hero tree feedback, just some related points to the above ones:
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For Hellcaller hero tree, the choice between Zevrim’s Resilience and Illhoof’s Design isn’t really an interesting one:
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Zevrim’s Resilience will always feel wasted; you either take a lower hit than the shield, and the heal isn’t really needed in that cast (no matter how big the heal is), or get a bigger than the shield hit, and in that case the healing is instantly lost. In either case the healing isn’t really helpful. Unless the goal is to encourage the use of Dark Pact at lower health, which in that case it becomes much less effective as preventing damage will always trump healing it, and for not even much healing gain.
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Illhoof’s Design has other problems as well, as with the rate of how fast Soul Leech is generated, it only adds up to ~2% effective health gained, and that even can’t always be guaranteed in fights with constant damage taken, while also nerfing every effect that heals/shields based on health (Dark Pact, Healthstone, Sweet Souls, Demon Skin, etc…).
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Coupling Aura of Enfeeblement to a personal defensive button as Unending Resolve makes the bonus not very exciting, as the use case for both can be very different. I hope this can be revised and perhaps have its own CD button instead (I know adding more buttons is something you cautiously do, but I believe it fits in this case).
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For Affliction, having Curse of Exhaustion applied by Vile Taint replace manually applied curses like Curse of Weakness or Curse of Tongues doesn’t feel good, as mostly we apply the curses at the start of a pull, and having to re-cast these globals again during the ramp up and damage windows is not a good experience. I suggest having Vile Taint only apply Curse of Exhaustion to enemies that don’t currently have a curse active.
These are my feedback points for now, and I would love to see what other changes there are in the coming builds, as so far, all 3 specs feel very good to play with much improved (and greatly needed) gameplay feels.
7 Likes