Get an Early Look at Hero Talents in The War Within

Community General Discussion
245

For Priest and specifically Shadow Specialization, Ill share some ideas of the direction that can be taken…

Archon (Shadow)

  • Psychic Leaning theme
  • Non-Periodic damage focus

DPS Talents

  • Deaths Release
    Shadow Word: Death deals damage as if the target is below 20% health while under the effects of Dark Ascension.
  • Cycle of Death
    Your Shadow Word: Death cooldown is reduced by 50% while under the effects of Dark Ascension.
  • Deaths Reach
    Your Shadow Word: Death strikes 2 additional nearby targets while under the effects of Dark Ascension.
  • Echos of Death
    Your Shadow Word: Death triggers 2 additional times at 20% effectiveness.
  • Dark Embrace
    Your Non-Periodic damage critical strikes extend the duration of Dark Ascension by 1 second.
  • Maniac
    Mind Spike cast time is reduced by 50% after you critically strike with Mind Blast for the next 3 seconds.
  • Dark Archon
    Your Shadow Word: Pain periodic damage grants you Dark Archon [buff], increasing the damage of your next Shadow Word: Death by 10%. Stacking up to 5.
  • Blood Archon
    Your Vampiric Touch periodic damage grants you Blood Archon [buff] increasing the damage of your next Devouring Plague spell by 5% and heals your group for 20% of the damage dealt. Stacking up to 5.
  • Death Throes
    Your Mind Spells deal 10% more damage for 6 seconds when you critically strike with Shadow Word: Death. Stacking up to 3.
  • Tormented Wraith
    You have a 50% chance to spawn a Wraith when your Shadow Word: Death deals damage to a target below 20% health and 100% chance when you land a killing blow. Lasting for 6 seconds.
    • Tormented Wraiths charge at your enemies cleaving with Wraith Strike [cone attack] inflicting them with Reapers Mark. Reapers Mark increases the chance for your non-periodic damage to critically strike by 5% and your critical strike damage bonus by 10% for 10 seconds, stacking up to 3.

Archon (Holy/Shadow)

  • Psychic Leaning theme

Talents

  • Intertwining Fates
    Your Twist of fate increases your damage and healing done by an additional 10%.
  • Suppressive Words
    When your Holy Word spells heals a friendly target, the damage the target takes is reduced by 10% for 5 seconds.
    When your Shadow Word spells damage an enemy target, the damage the target inflicts is reduced by 10% for 5 seconds.
    (Choice)
  • Praying for Death
    When Prayer of Mending is bounced from Shadow Word: Death backlash damage, your damage and healing is increased by 10% for 8 seconds.
  • Psionic Energy
    • Holy: Healing done from your Holy Word spells generate a stack of Psionic Energy. Reaching 20 stacks fill you with power and causing you to erupt, dealing pulse healing to your allies within 20 yards every second for 3 seconds.
    • Shadow: Damage dealt by your Shadow Word spells generate a stack of Psionic Energy. Reaching 20 stacks causes the next target to receive damage from your Mind Spells to erupt, dealing pulsing damage to every enemy within 20 yards every second for 3 seconds.
  • Psionic Power
    When Psionic Energy erupts, your Psychic Link damage and healing increases by 5% for 30 seconds. Stacking up to 3.
  • Psionic Force
    Psionic Energy pulse deals 100% more damage and healing with each consecutive pulse.

Archon (Holy)

  • Psychic Leaning theme
  • Non-Periodic healing focus

Talents

  • Psychic Link
    Your single target Holy Word spells heal 25% of the healing done to targets affected by your Renew within 40 yards.
  • Psionic Focus
    Gaining a stack of Psionic Power increases the healing of your single target healing spells and reduces the mana cost by 10% per stack.
  • Shadow Reflection
    When an enemy strikes you or your group while your Renew is active, they become afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain, with the remaining duration left of the Renew.

Voidweaver (Shadow)

  • Voidform draining mechanic (optional)
  • Periodic Damage focus

DPS Talents

  • Surender to Madness
    Voidform increase your Shadow damage by 1% every second and no longer has a cooldown or duration limit but causes your Insanity to drain increasingly faster until it reaches 0 and Voidform ends.
    (Choice)
  • Glimpse of the Void
    Your Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch deal damage an additional time when Devouring Plague critically strikes.
  • Embrace the Void
    While Voidform is active, your spells generate 100% more Insanity and can be cast while moving.
    (Choice)
  • Mass Hysteria
    Your periodic damage is increased by 2% per second while under the effects of Voidform, up to 100%.
  • Festering Rot
    Devouring Plague can stack up to 5 times on a single target.
  • Dark Contagion
    Your Devouring Plague duration is increased by 1 second each time it’s periodic damage critically strikes.
  • Shattered Mind
    Your channeling spells deal damage 33% faster.
  • Abyssal Reflection
    You have a 20% chance to duplicate Shadowy Apparitions spawned by your spells.
  • Void Corruption
    Vampiric Touch radiates 10% of its damage to nearby enemy targets, Max (5).
  • Void Fiend
    Your Shadow Fiend replicates its damage to every target afflicted with your Shadow Word: Pain and increases the periodic damage they receive by 10%.
  • Void Bolt
    Sends a bolt of pure void energy at every enemy afflicted with Vampiric Touch and dealing 10% of the total Vampiric Touch damage with each bolt.
    (Choice)
  • Void Ray
    Your Mind Flay deals 5% more damage for each periodic damage effect on the target.
  • Void Eruption
    Releases an explosive blast of pure void energy causing Shadow damage to all enemies within 10 yards of your target.
    (Choice)
  • Black Hole (Perhaps a candidate to replace/compete with Shadow Crash)
    Create a Black Hole in a targeted area. Enemy targets are quickly pulled towards its center, dealing increasing damage the closer they get. Touching the center stuns the target for 1 seconds. Lasts for 10 seconds.

Voidweaver (Discipline/Shadow)

  • Mind spells and shielding/absorbing spells crossover

Talents

  • Dark Covenant
    • Discipline: Smite becomes Mind Flay during Shadow Covenant and chains up to 4 additional targets, dealing 20% more damage per linked target.
    • Shadow: You form a Void Covenant, causing Devouring Plague to pulse 30% of its periodic damage to nearby targets while under the effects of Voidform, Max (5).
  • Mind Meld
    Targets afflicted with your Shadow Word: Pain take 10% more damage from your Mind Spells.

Voidweaver (Discipline)

Talents

  • Power Word: Twilight
    Casting Power Word: Shield while under the effects of Shadow Covenant reduces the damage the target takes by 10%.
  • Twilight Equilibrium
    When your Shadow Word: Pain critically strikes, 50% of the damage done gets converted into a damage absorption shield for up to 15% of your total health for 10 seconds.

Class/spec/Hero Path agnostic Utility Talents

Talents

  • Horrifying Scream
    Your Psychic Scream now horrifies your targets, causing your enemies unable to break the fear effect but reducing the duration by 50%.
    (Choice)
  • Persisting Image
    Your Fade effects lasts 50% longer.
  • Touch the Void
    When cast on yourself, Your Power Word: Shield absorbs 100% more damage. You spawn Void Tendrils, rooting all targets within 8 yards when Power Word: Shield breaks from damage.
    (Choice)
  • Shadowmend
    Your Flash Heal becomes Shadowmend, increasing healing by 200% and mana cost by 100%.
  • Flirting with Death
    Shadow Word: Death backlash damage is reversed over 6 seconds, healing you for 100% of the damage dealt. Stacking up to 3.
    (Choice)
  • Vampiric Essence
    Your Vampiric Touch heals your group for 5% of the damage done and Vampiric Embrace provides up to 10% max health damage absorption shield for your party.

Link to the original feedback alongside more expanded amount of changes to Shadows primary talent tree.

246

San’Layn doesn’t sit right to me, I understand they are undead and so are DK’s, but San’layns are casters…DKs are not…Unless you give them a 4th spec… :thinking:

247

The Death Knight abilities look like a lot of fun and have an interesting theme that appears to work with both Unholy and Blood. Curious to see how tuning works. And very hopeful that we get a talent tree update/rework prior to this release as our talent trees in all Death Knight specs have felt a little stagnant with multiple dead nodes.

There is also an option in the choice node that concerns me, related to an old concern with the Death’s Reach talent.

" * Bloody Fortitude: Icebound Fortitude reduces all damage you take by up to an additional 30% based on your missing health. Killing enemies that grant honor or experience reduces the cooldown of Icebound Fortitude by 3 sec."

The fact that “Killing enemies grants…” only procs off of YOUR killing blows makes this line feel like it has 0 impact in almost every content. It is very rare that a Blood or Unholy DK gets the killing blow in most combat making this feel like a cosmetic line at best. I’d prefer this changed to be less time on the CD reduction and be something like this: “Enemies tagged by you that die within 30yards, that grant honor or experience, reduces the cooldown of Icebound Fortitude by 0.5 sec”

248

Really wish hunters didn’t have TWO elf themes, would appreciate some more variety. Also hard to see the lore connection for basically any non-elf to sentinels or dark rangers without weakening the existing lore surrounding those groups (sentinels seriously going to admit/train orcs? Lightforged Draenei going to become a dark ranger?)

249

I don’t have much to add for these classes, but I’m really hoping they change Arcane Mage’s hero talent from Spellslinger to Arcanist or Magister/Magistrix, with thematic nods to elven magic.

In the same way that Night Elves are deeply entrenched within the Druid identity, the Nightborne and Blood Elves are entwined with the use of arcane magic.

Obviously we don’t know what the thematic intention for Spellslinger is, but the name alone leaves a pretty poor first impression. Spellslinger? What is this, the Wild West?

They stated class fantasy for the San’layn Death Knight is that they’re merely incorporating the vampiric blood/shadow techniques the Darkfallen use.

The original San’layn were a creation of Arthas, so I suppose it’s fitting that Death Knights could be adept at Darkfallen magic, even though they’re not spellcasters themselves.

250

I honestly would love to see them create a San’layn Heroic ability that does something similar to the CHARM ability that is used by Blood Queen in Icecrown - Uncontrollable Frenzy

It could be setup so that it has a maximum number of enemies that can be under its effects at any given time with it being permanent on NPC’s within a given zone or instance if they are charmed under its effects until they die. As an example it might only effect a maximum of 2 or 3 NPC’s at any given time and the charm can be cancelled by the DK at anytime by either cancelling the Aura on the NPC or for example that attack the charmed NPC etc otherwise it will last until that NPC dies or the DK changes zones like leaving an instance etc. In terms of the ability the DK would not have any direct control over what abilities the charmed NPC’s actively use etc. this would be done essentially by something similar to how the Priests Mind Control works when they opt out of the active control and set it to be more passive.

In terms of PvP or against other players this ability might be limited to only one at a time but would have a larger duration that other forms of charm in PvP (for example 15 to 20 seconds) and have some kind of built in dispel protection; for example when dispelled it causes a significant amount of damage upon the charmed player and the player who dispelled them. Alternatively it could do damage to the dispelled player but have a high chance to cause the dispeller to fall under effects of the charm effects. This would force the charmed individuals allies to either try to CC them or even potentially kill them and if they try to dispel or remove the charmed effect and if they do they will face severe consequences that could be disastrous for the charmed player and the player trying to dispel them. Again like the NPC version the DK has no control over what abilities the charmed player uses etc. as this is all passive the only control would be aligned with pet attack, pet stay, pet move here abilities only.

This might be based on a chance linked to the number of times a target has been hit by Vampiric Strikes that increases for each hit; for example its is 10% for hit Vampiric Strike up to a maximum of 50% normally. However, when the DK is under the effects of Vampiric Blood (or Dancing Rune Weapon if they change it) or Dark Transformation this percentage is doubled making it 20% per strike up to 100%. This would have a likely drastic effect in PvP especially as it would make enemy players wary of the DK at anytime but extremely wary in the windows where the DK is under the effects of Dark Transformation/Vampiric Blood or Dancing Rune Weapon (If swapped)

It would add a very interesting additional PET concept to the San’layn Heroic DK for both Blood and Unholy and could add some very interesting PvP flavor with other players and classes with be wary of and fear.

Just an idea not sure what others think

251

I can’t wait to see what surprises you have in store for priests!

252

These are honestly boring. They’re just regular talents. Why not just make the existing trees longer instead of selling us some BS fantasy about “hero talents” FFS.

Also:

Blademasters just wouldn’t be Blademasters without abilities like Wind Walk and Mirror Image , but those abilities don’t fit in a warrior’s toolkit.

Why not? Literally it’s your job to make it fit / make it make sense. You can name them different things / make them do different things. Mage’s Fireball and Warlock’s Shadow Bolt are just different colored balls of fire…it’s theme, aesthetic, and effects that make the abilities different than just X healing ability, or Y damage ability, or Z cooldown.

Blademaster’s Mirror Image could simply be summoning two Warrior friends from the class hall to mirror what the Warrior does or just do a % of damage. Warrior’s Windwalk could be different, too.

Ya’ll were the same ones who gave Death Coil to locks AND DKs / removed things from Warlock to give to Demon Hunters, etc. If you can’t think of something interesting or want to be creative, then hire people who will.

6 Likes
253

I play a lot of hpal and prot and I think the current iteration of light smith sounds extremely clunky. A much better idea in my opinion would be to make the armaments function like beacon. I don’t want to be weaving armaments into my rotation. I would much rather just play my character and select the players to wield my armaments. Maybe tie empowering them to wings or something so on your 1m cds armament wielded by allies are empowered for 20 seconds or length of wings. Ground targeted armaments sounds like painge

254

Oh and of course the paladins themselves would always have both buffs as long as a friendly did. It would even be interesting to have the beacon choice node where you could have perma uptime on two or a cd on giving the whole party light infused armor and weapon for a shorter period of time. That would actually be sick

255

Better yet, give us a glyph for classic shadowform. I play a shadow priest and the spec is fun but I still hate the look of modern shadowform.

As for the hero talents, I really wish they’d change some of their names to be less race-specific. I find the idea of a blood elf mountain thane absurd. As well as (like someone mentioned above) a lightforged draenei dark ranger.

256

Imagine if they made it so anyone standing in your Consecration will get an armament and Wings will empower the armaments people are currently holding.

257

Some neat ideas in the hero talents, would be interesting to see how others shape out.

However, you working on these new hero talents should not mean you would abandon basic specs and trees. They still need a lot of work, sometimes even the ones you already “reworked”:

  • Abilities that have little to no purpose. Shamans rarely if ever use Primal Strike, non-Fire Mages have little to no usage for Fire Blast and so on. Such abilities should get a niche and actual usecase, maybe even right through hero talents.
  • Dead talent nodes, some of which were not addressed by even a rework. Prime examples are Frost’s Fractured Frost and Cold Front - they have not been picked whole expansion and if buffed would be harmful for playstyle, they should be entirely replaced.
  • Some trees have not seen much work whole expansion - Windwalker Monk’s, Elemental Shaman’s and so on. They might not need a whole redesign, since specs are playable, but they have their own issues that should be looked at and fixed / improved, just like other specs that already got them.
1 Like
258

From what I have seen so far you are walking a perilous course towards creating a god-comp very like S2 in DF. Stop making classes buff other players beyond generic (AP/SP, Fort, Aspect of the Wild). Too many buffs means too much to balance, means forcing certain comps and with the absolute dumpster fire you created by introducing augmentation you are creating multiplicative problems for yourself when trying to tune content.
Example - Lightsmith Prot Paladin dropping armaments for whichever Melee spec is currently OP (because you’ve just reworked it) and also getting PI from a Disc Priest and being buffed by an Augmentation Evoker. You’re going to break content either because this meta makes it trivial, or because anyone not in this meta can’t do it.
Go back to keeping class buffs self-contained and for the sake of everyone that plays this game remove Augmentation and Power Infusion.

1 Like
259

But when PVP’ing people will get all confused and stuff. According to Blizzard.

260

looking at it with Diablo 4 design that never works, don’t make talents that ask players to do 2nd step on of top of a step.

Pal

  • Solidarity - might works fine in pvp but that’s an inconvenient for raid when all chaos are happening everywhere.
261

Chronowarden is at least interesting, but San’Layn already seems like an utter disappointment. Dare I say even a disaster. How is this THE vampire talent tree lol? No real vampire bite except for… what… vampiric strike? What even is this lol?

What is with just a 10% movement speed increase with that one talent, and why do I feel like rider of the apocalypse will absolutely make this look like garbage? WoW vampires should be able to BOOK IT as fast as a horse. I’d say it should be like, first second of deaths advance or wraith walk should look like DH’s Fel Rush.

While on the topic of warcraft vampire mobility, why is there no talent that pops wings out of your back to glide with, like dh and voker?? Not only are bat wing mutations appropriate for death knights in general, but its DEFINITELY a thing for real San’Layn. And if they don’t have bat wings? Guess what. Real San’Layn have slow fall. So why is Wraith Walk not modified with at LEAST a slow fall effect, esp given the CD of the spell?

Sure, lemme just drop to my death with little to no reliable self sustainable options to slow my fall. Yup, definitely feelin like a vampire now! /sarcasm. Might as well go roll a mage. Or, hell, a shadow priest would be a better vampire than this…

Extremely underwhelming talents for such a captivating fantasy of THE playable WoW vampire. At this rate, I don’t accept this and will continue waiting for a real San’Layn allied race or something along those lines.

To make matters worse, I felt like this should have been given to frost, not unhole. Unless ofc there were bat wings present, to contribute towards plague mutation.

Not pleased with this at all. If it stays like this. I’m totally skipping death knight in The War Within.

1 Like
262

I’m okay not having a bite, being wow vampiric themed rather than a full on wow vampire.

What San’layn does that?

This would be sweet.

Only Lana’thel and that one in Violet Hold which used her model had them, none of the others do.

???

This would be awesome

263

I want this system to be 99% thematic. This feels like Covenants 2.0, where there will always be a right choice based on performance or utility. This should be a system for fantasy class flavor. If you want to stop people from picking something based on numbers, remove the numbers!

After Blizzcon, I thought that the DK Hero talents would put a new coat of paint on my DK. Having the same abilities on a technical level, but change the look of my DK to feel more Vampiric in this case. And maybe, just maybe, add very little numbers to the point that its meaningless which one you pick numbers wise. But having talents like the execute damage one, or the Brez one. will make it an optimal build for Raiding.

Make changes to the core talent system, and make these Hero talents feel more thematic. Because as of right now, they don’t feel very special at all. They’re too game changing numbers wise, and not thematic enough. If this is too much of a nightmare to balance, then just remove numbers! Make this strictly thematic.

4 Likes
264

Ooohh, goody. A forum user who picks apart a post with 15 different quotes. You lot are always fun to reply to. Here we go!

Soooo… your VERY hot take on it, is that it’s supposed to be more of a vampire costume dress up party than an actual vampire tree? Here’s my hot take: It’s supposed to constitute THE vampire class kit for DK’s, for vampires, because beyond this what else would they get and when?

To that end I’d prefer a bite animation and visual transference of life force from target to dk to go along with it, but I’d be fine with at least a visual animation similar to cat form’s ferocious bite. But how do I know vampiric strike has something like that? By releasing info like this via trickle feed without any visuals whatsoever, well. For all I know, it probably doesn’t look much different from death strike. Not a real wow bite spell, then.

Uh. Like all of them? Hahah. It’s a vampire. Not a snail… how do you expect them to catch victims? They’re literally described in some places as ambush creatures that jumpscare you and quickly drag you into the woods to be eaten.

Especially if we get “Nerubian” DK’s, finally representing the Nerub side of the Ebon Blade? Then yes. It would be very sweet.

Pretty sure if the Lich King’s horse can be given bat wings, then any San’Layn that ain’t the Queen or her daughter, could as well. Especially given that demon hunters get temporary wings with fel. A thing that didn’t need to happen, but did cause of class fantasy.

Those characters are basically hero units. And these talents are called hero talents. For power progression and I quote ‐- greater class fantasy, which in case of DK means mini scourge leader hero unit. At least that’s what Blizzard said. But it doesn’t feel very heroic with poor San’Layn here.

I’m sorry, but… ??? Yeah. It’s… a vampire? Not a sack or rocks, lol. If Keleseth wanted bats to elegantly slow his rate of fall, then he can have his bats. But at the very least? Considerably lower fall damage reduction is the very bottom of the barrel of what is acceptable. Anything less for any scourge vampire is just simply absurd.

Honestly I’d prefer an actual vampire class, considering Blood Elves are not the only vampires in the game. But, since an extremely bad version of what I want is coming in the form of a talent tree, and is named after vampire elves, then I’d prefer an allied race over this talent tree Fail’Layn pretty much always. LMK