Feedback for Hellcaller as a warlock main since TBC and player since Vanilla. (Also general feedback for design going into TWW)
I didn’t bother leaving feedback for Diabolist because other than being a huge flavor win the tree was very boring and tedious mechanically. It coasted 100% on flavor.
For Hellcaller, I like the idea overall, and giving destro a bit more movement is great, especially since we are clearly never getting a dedicated class dev again so something like killjaeden’s cunning is permanently off the table.
The Xalan and Peroth’arn nodes are boring damage boosts, but having knobs to turn for tuning that don’t affect the more active skills is great and every tree should have a few.
Blackened soul, along with most of the tree, doesn’t mix up gameplay much but as long as wither hits hard it can at least succeed at making your dots feel a bit beefier. The execute clause is interesting but seems to overlap a bit with Malevolence, since your withers are already acute during that time. I think it’s probably for the best to take some of the heavy lifting off the cd though.
I’m already of the opinion that modern wow is way too cooldown heavy. I think most players would prefer to feel strong consistently, not hit really hard for 20 seconds then wack mobs with a nerf bat for the other 100-160.
The curse choice node feels odd. There aren’t a lot of enemies that you will get much value for casting both weakness and tongues on, certainly not enough to make it worth taking over the aura.
I don’t like the idea of being forced to play in melee as a caster, especially on destro which is already one of the least mobile specs in the game. I think most players are going to resent being expected to pick aura of enfeeblement. If you really want to give players a way to cast curses in an aoe, either give us an ability like the venthyr spell from shadowlands, or make the node give us aoe curses at an even more reduced effectiveness. All you are doing by pressuring casters into melee (and annoying the actual melee in the process) is reminding us how you took away meta tanking.
The idea between Zevrim’s and Ilhoof’s seems to be consistent damage vs burst damage mitigation, which is tedious in both concept and execution. There is very little content nowadays that isn’t pulsing constant aoe damage of some kind. Sacrificing 10% max health on an absorb shield that will never be able to build back up after being knocked down the first time doesn’t sound fun.
Ilhoof’s also has anti-synergy with Dark Pact and it’s not clear if Ilhoof’s 15% soul leech is calculated before or after losing 10% health. Based on the wording I assume it’s after which makes it even more “feel bad” to take.
There are definitely some fights were you can take advantage of this but swapping between the two every fight seems tedious. On fights with constant outgoing damage where you can never use the extra 15% soul leech, Zevrim’s won’t even feel good because you can only use a healthstone once per fight. It’s interesting that both nodes feel a bit like noob traps in different ways. Neither are exactly bad, but they won’t feel good either.
Mark of Xavius is my least favorite node in the tree because it lies to players about being quality of life when it’s actually a promise to abandon quality of life. Mark looks like a node to make multidotting less tedious, but what it actually means is that vile taint will never be a proper aoe dot refresh like shadow crash. Cataclysm isn’t exactly the same but it still makes it feel like you’re getting less bang for your buck. Is letting vile taint refresh agony ever time, like shadow crash can with priest, really too much to ask.
I understand that Priest has an actual class dev and warlock doesn’t, but it’s still frustrating to see every other class constantly get better versions of what warlock has. Watching my favorite class go downhill in class design since WoD is demoralizing, even if I love plenty of other classes and sometimes play them more than warlock.
Warlock class design was the worst it has ever been at the start of DF. I’m happy to say it’s gotten better with every patch and I’m optimistic that it will keep trending upward, but when I watch mage’s dev take spells like blizzard or flamestrike out of the tree and give it to them default, it makes me feel like warlocks are living in a world of outdated class design.
We are heading towards the Worldsoul Saga. Why has class design gone backwards? Why are new players not getting their iconic skills until 11 when getting them at 10 when you select your specialization has worked and felt good since Cata?
Why do we have to dedicate talent points to being either basically competent in aoe or single target when classes have been allowed to do both for years to great effect? I don’t mind taking talents to excel in one or the other, but having to dedicate 3-4 points to do more than tickle a pack of enemies doesn’t feel good.
Why is every class required to juggle a million annoying maintenance buffs and effects instead of just being fun to play? Why does it feel like almost every dps spec needs to have a weakaura set up to track all their procs and buffs and debuffs?
Removing blizzard and flamestrike from the mage trees was a great idea. Do that for everyone. In fact, stop making us dedicate 10 points into passives and abilities that used to be baked into the leveling process. Please just design talent trees that feel good to invest in, that shouldn’t be a big ask for what is still the most successful mmo out there.
Removing the godawful dread touch stacking was a great idea. Please do that for every spec’s terrible tedious upkeep abilities.
Removing rune of power was a great idea, please do that for every ability that inexplicably makes specs less fun to play.
Class design has been getting better across the board since the start of DF, please keep it up. Please don’t stop now that you have momentum built up. I’m cautiously optimistic for the direction the game is taking in TWW, as are many players that don’t spend their time wishing the devs harm on reddit.
Delves could accomplish what was fumbled with thorghast and so much more. The new faster patch cycle could mean pulling of a Suramar style story with the nerubians without the kneecapping of painfully long timegates and rep grinds. Warbands could be the precursor to an instancing system in Midnight that people don’t start finding tedious a week into the expansion like with WoD. Even I can’t figure out how you can salvage the ruination of professions that happened in DF but I’m holding out hope.
PS: For the love of god take shadowdance out of the rogue class tree. You might as well put mutilate or blade flurry in there if iconic subclass abilities are just being stuffed into class trees to limit certain specs’ options