Hello ladies and gentlemen,
let me introduce you to THE worst class tree in recent history of WoW. Since the start of Dragonflight and the implementation of the new talent tree system, the warlock class tree barely got touched. After yesterdays alpha build, i wish this would have stayed that way. Beside Pact of Gluttony and despite a lot of negative feedback for that tree, nothing major has happened in TWW. One would think, the longer changes take to come to fruition, the better these changes will be… but sadly that is not the case here. I have not played the alpha yet, so you could say im talking out of my a**. But i still think i can allow myself a sketchy opinion on the matter. So here it is.
From 50 possible node options ( counting 2 point nodes as 2 options) in the current class tree, we went down to 40 possible options in the alpha. Things look even worse if you consider that we will be going to have 3 more talents to spent on max lvl. There are also changes like the splitting of Curses of Enfeeblement into the 2 curses, or the removal of the first row options to streamline your decision process. You can not opt out of Fel Domination for more defensivness in Fel Armor or Demon Skin anymore. Now you have to go through it to get the same things as you did before. You don’t lose anything you had before, beside your decision to do so. Not because of the removal of the first row options, but because of the lack of options further down in the tree. Only the mage class got a similar treatment so far. Time will tell, if that is the superior, more fun talent tree design. An Option Desert if you want to say so. But thats not all. If you compare the warlock class tree with lets say the warrior class tree, you will notice that there are almost non throughput or defensive nodes left. No Sargerei Technique, no Socrethar’s Guile, no Demonic Tactics, no Soul Conduit. Minor throughput, but still manditory nodes like Wrathful Minion or Demonic Inspiration are gone. Warriors on the other hand got a class tree packed with throughput, defensiv and even group-utility options. Even if the specc trees get stronger for compensation instead, one could ask what the meaning of this class tree is. What we got instead is more healing and shields for our pet. Exciting!
Before this alpha built, i wasn’t sure that this class tree can get even worse. But this is the pinnacle of hate developement in my opinion. Let’s all pray that this will get much better soon. Lets make our voices heard, that warlocks, after 2 dire expansions, deserve better than this abomination of a class tree.
Do you see it like me or am i just missing the good changes? Let me know. Bye.
In this first alpha iteration, there are several rather illogical things and mandatory talents that can be downright useless (for example, Fel Domination is useless or almost useless if you always want to play with sacrifice, Burning Rush is not a skill that is taken into consideration if you want to play Arenas)
However, there are some very useful talents, and despite it being a very confusing and somewhat illogical tree, it is possible to take several defensive abilities that are currently difficult to obtain without making compromises (Demonic Resilience is now practically always available). The capstones are still quite lacking; Soulburn would have been interesting to integrate passively into spells, and Teaching of the Black Harvest is still very weak and has become a capstone.
In short, I definitely expected better, but fortunately, since it is a first alpha iteration, there will certainly be some substantial changes as early as next week. Fingers crossed
The fact that you can have mortal coil+howl of terror in PvP is a very positive thing, since currently you can only take mortal coil or howl of terror, and the cast time shadowfury is absolutely no help when you are under pressure.
The worst thing, though, and the one I have very little faith in, are the capstones. We’ve been pointing out for years that they’re truly awful, uninspired, and we’ve offered various ideas for what could be included. There’s nothing we can do about it; they just keep bringing back the same ones, and the ones they introduce “new” are an old, underperforming talent (Black Harvest) and another decidedly bland AOE curse. We’ve given them hundreds of ideas, but nothing
The class tree can’t stay like that. The throughput is weird and we still have banish in the tree?
The forums have a host of ideas that they could use.
- Demonic Gateway - I like the change but we need to have more than 2 uses if it is going to be a movement ability for us.
- Abyss Walker - This should change demonic circle so we can pin point placement of it and make it instant
- Blight of Weakness - I see what they are trying to do, but just bring back impending catastrophe. That worked and is smart application.
- Foul Mouth - I like this talent. Odd placement. Should be higher up.
- Dark Intent - People have been asking for a party buff. Please add that.
- Fel Domination - This just needs to make a summon instant cast. It should not take us 6 secs to summon our demons.
Not sure why two of our curses are taking up nodes. Not sure whether place holders for something else.
We need to rally and unify and say we need KJC back as a capstone! The version where we can cast our filler spells on the move.
Also, update the visuals. Bring the others in line with the current visual definition. Soul Fire, DRifts, and the fel fire bolt from our main Imp is still out of date.
They need to change the structure of the warlock tree to organize it logically and integrate some talents as core spells.
For example, the left side of the tree is dedicated to self-healing, the middle to shields and absorption, the right to mobility, therefore teleport, and burning rush. Capstones then become a logical consequence: on the self-healing side, the capstone could be Pact of Gluttony, in the middle, Soul Link, on the right side, the talent for double gateway or, even better, MOP’s Kiljaedens Cunning to cast at least fillers on the move. Talents like Fel Synergy are placed at the bottom between self-healing and shields, extra stamina, and so on. CCs are placed between mobility and shields.
But above all: please avoid having to take curses to access abilities that have nothing to do with them, like teleport, and include them as core spells and modernize them (example: Curse of Tongue reduces the cast time of three spells by 30%, and has a CD)
To me that makes perfect sense. It is early stages of Alpha and hopefully they read feedback. Look at Malefic Rapture…that’s gone.
We need an choice node for our interrupt. Either on the caster or the fel puppy.
I think you guys got some good points. The Keystones are definitely a big problem right now. KJC would be nice and i’d love to see Dark Intent or atleast a stronger Soul Link there. But the amount of very niche nodes like Foul Mouth, Abyss Walker or Frequent Traveler for example, combined with the lack of real alternatives make the middle third of the tree especially, very lackluster and boring. Having to choose between 2 curses , banish and Improved Mortal Coil (which could be buffed 10 fold and still be only ok’ish) feels too niche and therefor bad. But you want to take atleast 2 to 3 of these because of pathing and again, because of the lack of alternatives.
The better pathing for Demonic Resilience is very welcome for PVP, but if you see this class tree through the eyes of a raider, you can’t find any nodes you want to pick instead. I also don’t know how to feel about Gorefiend’s Avariance. It might lead to degenerate playstyles in PvP. But it’s almost the best new node we got, since it is actually throughput in a way. So the biggest Problems for me are the lack of alternatives in the middle of the tree and the terrible niche keystones like Teaching of Black Harvest and Blight of Weakness.
The problem with drain life is that, being a channeling spell, even though it’s sped up by the Gorefiend Avarice talent (a placeholder name, on a talent that’s already had its name incomprehensibly changed several times), it’s been usable for years primarily against casters and without mortal strike.
And it’s yet another situation where you’re giving something that doesn’t help against those who should be helping. The solution would be simple: using talents, make the spell instant and with a CD. You could include it in the Affliction mastery to make it more powerful for the drain tank spec. Anyway, let’s see, every first alpha is truly something incredibly susceptible to very drastic changes. Fingers crossed
So you basicaly want the SoD runed version of Drain life. I like that solution for PvP. With the Dragonflight version of Drainlife you had a very good offensive and defensive Drain life with full stacks, but the problem was, that you would never use it defensively, cause the enemy would just wait for it with interupt and therefor make it useless. On the other hand it was too good offensivly in combination with Soul Rot and basicaly useless outside of high stacks. Your approach solves a lot of those problems. But i see problems in m+ and raid with your version. If its instant, with a cd, it might become another dps CD in your rotation instead of a defensiv tool. Also it violates the gimmick of being a tanky wheelchair class. You no longer need to make the decision of running or healing, you just do both. Maybe just giving it an interupt immunity, either with high stacks or on a cd, but keeping it as a channeled spell is the best solution for all 3 Pillars of the game.
Can we finally remove soul shards from affly and maybe from destro too .
Why does every single spec has to be a builder spender .
I don’t want to play a rogue with combo points . I chose to play a warlock because I liked the straightforward , non combo point system .
I think the class tree is better than current one in TWW, could be even better by removing certain talents and replacing them with some actual damage talent node.
The ones that are 100% useless are
- Shared vitality
- Abyss walker
- Infernal beneficiary
- Teachings of the Black Harvest
- Demonic Resiliance
- Improved Mortal Coil
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Our pets dont need healing nor DR, they are already tanky as a melee class, we also have dark soul + health funnel if we really wanted them to be tanky and heal them.
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Abyss walker is such a niche talent and almost 0 use except for like 1 boss fight every expansion. What they should replace the talent with is the pvp talent “Shadow rift” that way we have more of the very much needed group utility/cc we are missing.
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I think they need to add back some damage spells if not give us more damage reductions to us, sure resiliance reduces the crit chance on us but i would rather take a 4% DR every day of the week.
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Improved coil only give us 1% hp aborb, if we would look over a fight that might contribute to 5-10% of total hp over the cource of a 5 min boss fight.
In other words, literally nothing, it would be better if it reduced the coil cd by 5 seconds even. -
Teachings should at least make so our axe toss (demonology specific) is on a 24 cd and not a 30. Maybe even make so it stuns, and remove the normal stun that is on the current axe toss.
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Replace infernal beneficiary with a buff to dark pact that make it reduce magic damage taken while shield holds. Kinda like mages arcane barrier.
Also why is shadowfury still not a instant cast?!
It would be enough for it to be a DOT with Cd or perhaps one that uses soul shards, maximum 3, with healing based on the number of shards similar. The damage must not be higher than spells that use shards, and in this way it does not have to be included in the rotation. It would effectively become a HOT that would allow healing against classes that do not allow channeling.
For destruction I would prefer the return to ember tap, use of resources to have healing
“Improved mortal coil” could be modified as follows: Increase range by 5 yards and decrease CD by 5 or 10 seconds
But my dream is the return of Fel Flame as a spell
I’d like that talent to be a binary choice… either get more healing/shielding (more than 1% lol) from it or reduce cd and increase range. To your Drain life solution, the shard consumption would defenitly be necessary to make that passive healing style work but it overall sounds to be better than what we got now, atleast in pvp scenarios.
My fear is the following. It needs to be ensured that its still strong enough to heal a lot, because its a cd now. But still not too strong to make healing unnecessary in pve (escpecially with soulburn Drain life combo), while having a relativly high cd (30-45 sec or more i think). So you got another def cd next to shield and Unending Resolve and Stone, even though they are trying to eliminate them right now. It will just result in what we had with healers in TWW, an unbalanceable juggling of def (healing) cds. The end result will be a weak Drain Life on a cd, so Essence Drain will become extremly useless in pvp awell. Maybe an interupt immunity for pvp would still be the best solution for it after all.
One solution might be to reintroduce the casting circle to provide immunity during casting. When this talent is taken, the immunity component of unending resolve is eliminated to compensate. However, I saw a video where they tested drain life with the two points of the Gorefiend’s Avarice talent, and the casting was always very slow and the healing was always very poor. It really seemed like the talent was bugged
We need to rally and unify and say we need KJC back as a capstone!
Amen-… er, by Sargeras’s will let it be done.
Agree though. Stick a cost onto it in whatever terms, and bring it back. Hate the changes to Shadowburn and Decimation as well. Almost all of it is a step backwards. I agree with your remaining points too. Compared to mage, where I am seeing feedback from class writers being taken into account, with destro the approach seems to be all over the place.
Todays Update had pretty strong changes for the class tree. Good Job. The middle third was buffed with a vast amount of new Talents, mostly throughput. I also like the bundle of self sustain talents on the right side. We didn’t get the nice to have choice node for Improved Mortal Coil, but atleast now it looks like a real Talent.
One of 2 things I don’t like in the middle(*ish) third now is the pathing for Demonic Resilience to get to Pact of the Annihilan. Maybe Pact of the Satyr and Pact of the Annihilan should switch position with Demonic Resilience and Demonic Embrace.
And secondly I don’t like the position of Foul Mouth. There are scenarios where I dont want to aoe Curse, but rather pick out certain Mobs/ Players to give them an indiviual debuff. By having it all the time it makes it hard to not overwrite one curse. I’d much rather like to have more choices of Curses in the middle of the tree and then choose aoe or single target cursing. So I can use Blight of Weakness as a single target spell or aoe every curse if I want to. Maybe having a choice node of having it permanently as an aoe curse or as an on-use aoe curse ( a new Amplify Curse? ) would be the best solution. Please change Foul Mouth with Fortified Soul ( something I’d want to have any time) and we should be fine.
But one other thing is still foul though. The Keystones Pact of Gluttony and Soulburn are not bad, but having Blight of Weakness there feels wrong. It should be higher up in the tree and instead we should get a rly good Keystone. Maybe Dark Intent ? Pls?
The new class tree is definitely a bit more organized and less confusing than the first alpha, as expected and hoped. I was very positively surprised by the buffs to various defensive abilities, shields, and self-healing. The two-point soul link returns to 10% damage reduction.
There are still some illogical things, like having to take Teaching of the Black Harvester to access a talent like Dark Pact. I hope either the stance is changed or it’s finally revisited as a talent that also functions as a Grimoire of Sacrifice (increased damage or proc percentage).
For PvP, the Mortal Coil with its 10-yard increase is huge. Finally, a powerful life drain that also generates soul leech! Soul leech at 15% is pretty good.
I still don’t like the curse system. I’ve seen that they now go on the bar as “stances,” but I’d like them to be more effective and perhaps with a CD.
I’d like to remove soulburn and integrate it directly in the spells.
Side note: the talent to reduce the CD of howl od terror by 10 seconds and increase the number of targets hit honestly becomes total overkill with the hero talent diabolist annihilan’s bellow 
In my opinion they should combine Curse of Tongues and Blight of Weakness into something like Curses of Enfeeblement. And then do the same with Curse of Exhaustion and Curse of the Elements ( +1% Spell dmg taken or something similar to a raidbuff) on the other side of the tree. Then we got room for Dark Intent in the bottom and with cleaning up the 3 weird pathings (Demonic Resilience , Techings of the Black harvest, Foul Mouth) we should have a good class tree…finaly.
I really like the idea of ​​Pacts, and it would be extremely interesting if you could select one of those to grant a Pact of your choice to party members and raid members within 40 yards. Or maybe, a random Pact for each one!!
That way we’d have the classic two birds with one stone, and the warlock would be even more welcome in mythic plus.
It would be interesting if the Natrezim Pact granted versatility instead of the leech
I don’t understand the point of Empowered Healthstone considering Pact of Gluttony.
I mean: the healthstone with Pact of Gluttony heals 25% + 35% over time and has 3 charges, Empowered Healthstone gives you an extra charge and heals the warlock by 30%.
So basically, by taking the two talents together, what happens? It heals you by 30% instantly instead of 25% and you will have 4 charges instead of 3?