Agree with your points, add:
There is also a radius question. We don’t control where the minions stand, unless the radius is very large there will be lots of times it will miss targets. But if the radius is too large it will agro things. So, it needs to be a very large AE that only hits targets you are in combat with.
I think there is a pretty straight forward way to fix it, only requiring a few changes
Change target to newest ghoul
No longer consumes ghoul
AE is very large, only targeting things already in combat with DK.
Effected ghoul cannot be CCed
Maybe. We wont know if it will or wont be until we have final numbers. The numbers could be insignificant enough that it is not worth trying to track. We will have to wait and see.
I hope it is (and think it likely will be), because currently there is no way to track it.
All that said, I like Putrefy as a concept. I do think there are potential issues. But, I think the issues can be fixed. I am overall very happy with the class so far.
I feel like this causes problems in PVP specifically, (or that putrify will be an additional headache in pvp). Friendly mage polymorphs healer, bozo DK breaks it cause they pressed putrify on CD
Fair point. Solutions would probably be to just include CC in targets it ignores.
Been a while since I did anything with Balance. But I was pretty sure Starfall at least used to function that way. So, it is something that could be done.
Since we don’t have control of minion positioning and it is not a targeted AE, unless it is a large radius it is going to be a problem.
If lesser ghoul damage doesnt do enough then why would you ever want your lesser ghouls to last 4 seconds longer from Outnumber? If your lesser ghouls dont do enough damage then 150% increased damage will be barely anything. If Putrefy damage is big then you will never want to delay that damage another 2 seconds for bad damage being increased by 150% and some attack speed.
If all that is the case then just bring back corpse explosion on the oldest lesser ghoul with a CD.
Ghoul damage kind of has to be good for some of these design decisions and talents to be worth it. This is before you get into Outbreak gameplay where you might want to use Outbreak on an almost dead target to put Dread Plague on it for Rapid Variant eruption if that damage is good enough (this would be for adds and aoe).
Sounds like there are more things to track and plates to spin now than there was pre 11.2.
The Felspike ability on the Legion Remix artifact weapon is a preview of Putrefy. Even with a 30 yard explosion range + instant explosion on the Felspike, there has been a few times where the Dreadlord is too far away and the ability misses, it is completely out of the player’s control.
Putrefy likely won’t have a 30 yard explosion range, and along with the explosion delay, it will likely feel worse than Empowered Rune Weapon’s travel-time issue.
Blizzard can mitigate some Putrefy issues by programming the Ghoul to be completely invulnerable, leap at the target, and exploding with no delay, and adjust the explosion damage to be something like: Base Damage + (a Ghoul’s theoretical DPS) * (remaining time on the Ghoul). Then just outright remove the “Lesser Ghouls do not expire while decaying”.
Just a quick clarification here. They’re removing the extra range on Scourge strike. Now the talent that used to give it range now has it interact with our dots instead.
Overall the vibe is still very necromancer, but we won’t have as much ranged capability as we used to.
I havent used that artifact line yet but the artifact line I have been using hasnt had any issues with it as far as I can tell.
What putrefy seems to be emulating somewhat at least is Corpse Explosion when used on your ghoul back in the day. There was a delay and then it would burst and it was very easy to miss to the point where no one ever took it that was serious about doing consistent damage. Sure it was cool, but cool doesnt matter when its effectiveness sucks.
Though it sounds like the lesser ghouls will keep on attacking somewhat until the explosion or at least move. But with how tanks handle things, unless the ghoul like latches itself to your target, then there is going to be a lot of missed putrefies.
Honestly, after reading more and seeing videos on how this works, I really hope they change how this entire process works. It feels like wounds at first glance, but harder to track since there will be no weak auras, and no real way to track when you should putrefy your ghoul for maximum effectiveness.
Def a step in the right direction, but has a lot of work still. Especially at the cap stones imo.
It seems like they’re trying to design the classes to naturally incentivize proper play. For instance, Demonology warlock. Their hand of guldan changes to single target when you get over 6 imps. This naturally incentivizing you to use implosion at 6 to maintain AoE effectiveness. Implosion being a spell they want you to use in AoE along side HoG
While I haven’t got my hands on unholy in the alpha I suspect they will intend for the natural flow of the rotation to, when properly played, putrefy at effective times.
If this isn’t the case we should report it. Because having to track minion timings goes against their new intended design philosophy.
Not sure why they felt a 30 second CD was more appropriate than a 15. My understanding is that this is our main spender, not a modifier like Tigers fury or shadow crash.
Nothing in those notes says to press it when the CD is up. You will still want to track for when your ghoul is about to expire to use it. Think of the lesser ghouls as dots… would you want to detonate your dot if the damage of the dot isnt accounted for in the detonation? Absolutely not because you are losing out on that dots damage.
There is nothing here saying that the remaining ghoul damage is rolled into putrefy so in order for you to get the most out of your ghoul, you will want to Putrefy like a second or 2 prior to it expiring.
The only thing they fixed is what was pointed out by me and a few others. The responsiveness of the ability and it being easy to miss due to its delay in detonation.
It leaps to the target, does a strike and then explodes. This doesnt incentivize pressing Putrefy asap.
Festering Strike is getting more and more convoluted. It modifies Scourge Strike, it is Plaguebringer, and now it is also a combo ability. Blizzard needs to outright replace Festering Strike with Festering Scythe and give it a more defining role.