Hello,
I wanted to give feedback on the last Destruction changes link.
Posting here since I don’t have alpha access.
TL;DR
- Good changes and good direction.
- AoE mainly based on Rain of Fire is bad. Shift some damage to our other AoE spells or further expand on Rain of Fire to fix its problems.
- Havoc does not interact with our AoE spells and has room for improvement.
- Mobility is bad. Either get some tradeoff or improve it with some type of “cast while moving” or expand on current mobility spells.
- Lower part of the tree is bloated (10/19). Merge or remove some nodes, and move some options to the first two tiers.
- Some talents that have become 1-point nodes feel weak and need tuning.
Overall impression
The changes are good and pointed in the right direction.
Making Summon Infernal 2-minute baseline and moving it to the center of the tree is wonderful.
Improving and expanding current talents to make them good and enjoyable is also nice:
- Soul Fire playstyle beeing proc based is the way to go. There’s no scenario where you want to cast a 4-second spell.
- Shadowburn regaining its place as an execute spell is good if done right. It needs to be worth casting over Chaos Bolt.
- Channel Demonfire cast time reduction feels nice.
I want to point out some of the existing problems in the Destruction Warlock playstyle and provide possible solutions.
AoE Issue
It seems that our main source of damage (by a lot) in AoE scenarios will still be Rain of Fire. This is bad.
Basing our AoE on a static 8-second duration area spell means it will only feel good on 5+ target packs that stay alive for 15+ seconds and that don’t move. Conditions rarely meet.
AoE playstyle could highly benefit from shifting some damage from Rain of Fire to our other AoE spells and talents or by further expanding on Rain of Fire to fix its problems.
Suggestions
Shifting damage
Possible Talents: Cataclysm, Fire and Brimstone, Channel Demonfire, Unstable Rift, Avatar of Destruction.
- Cataclysm: Make it easy to access, or at least that doesn’t compete with any Rain of Fire related node. It’s already been pointed out how much we want this change because starting each pack by targeting and manually applying Immolate to each enemy feels horrible.
- Avatar of Destruction: Overfiend could cast volleys up to X targets instead of single Chaos Bolt.
Expanding on Rain of Fire
- Reduce the duration to 4-6 seconds.
- Slowly follow the nearest target.
- Be a debuff instead of an area that makes the fire fall around the target.
Havoc/Mayhem Issue
The main problem with Havoc is that it doesn’t interact with our “AoE spells” (Rain of Fire, Cataclysm, Channel Demonfire, Dimensional Rift). Using any of those while Havoc is active makes you feel like you are losing value.
Havoc has great potential to be expanded on, especially after the removal of the Pandemonium/Cry Havoc talent.
Suggestions
- Make Havoc transfer X amount of damage from our AoE spells to the target. This would make Havoc good to use in all AoE scenarios. A good funneling tool to add damage to a priority target in big packs.
- A way to apply more than one Havoc at the same time. Maybe by having charges or some form of area application similar to the PvP talent Bane of Havoc
Mayhem main problem is duration. Playing around 5 seconds is too low. Especially when you want to fit Chaos Bolt but you start casting and Mayhem falls before you end the cast.
There’s also the worst case scenario (that happens too much) where you have a priority target but you switch to other targets to apply Immolate and doing so procs Mayhem on the priority target, and now you are stuck for 5 seconds (praying it doesn’t proc again) or you switch to the priority target and lose Mayhem value.
Mobility Issue
Being the least mobile spec in the game is bad.
If Shadowburn and Dimensional Rift end up being viable, especially in ST builds, that would be a small improvement, but still, a tradeoff or an extra mobility “tool” would be highly appreciated.
Possible solutions may be any form of “cast while moving” or further expanding on current movement spells (Demonic Circle, Burning Rush)
Suggestions
Cast while moving
- Passive: Allow some spells from our kit to be cast while moving.
- Active: A spell that lets us cast while moving for X seconds (Kil’jaeden’s Cunning).
- Proc based: Possible talents are Backdraft or even better Burn to Ashes considering it’s on the lower part of the tree.
Expanding on current spells
- Demonic Circle: Be able to summon it in the designated place instead of our current location. Maybe via Soulburn.
- Burning Rush: Something in line with the current iterations of Fiendish Stride or the hero talent Spirited Away further increasing the movement speed.
Tree Structure
The global shape of the tree is fine and intuitive. Left side for ST, right side for AoE and Major CD and universal nodes in the center.
The lower part feels bloated. Only being able to spend 10 points on the 19 nodes is too few and could benefit from the merging and reorganization of some talents, moving more options to the first two tiers.
Also, some of the talents that have become 1-point nodes feel weak and may need some tuning.
Suggestions
Removed talents
- Pandemonium: if not expanding on Havoc, baseline duration could be 15 seconds.
Possible removals and merges
- Improved Conflagrate and Explosive Potential can be removed, merged into other spells, or become a choice node. Bring back old Flashpoint (Conflagrate generates 2 Backdraft charges).
- Pyrogenics can be removed and Rain of Fire, Cataclysm, Inferno rearranged.
- Fiendish Cruelty can be merged into Blistering Atrophy or removed.
- Infernal Brand can be merged into Summon Infernal.
- Channel Demonfire: Some of the mechanics of Raging Demonfire and Demonfire Mastery (for example, the Immolate extension) can be merged directly into Channel Demonfire and the rest can be merged into only one node.
- Devastation and Ruin can be merged.
- Dimensional Rift: has too many nodes. Unstable Rifts and Flame Rift can be merged into Dimensional Rift (preferable Unstable Rifts since Dimensional Rift it’s in the right “AoE” part of the tree").
- Master Ritualist can be merged into Ritual of Ruin.
- Chaos Incarnate and Power Overwhelming can become a choice node (both mastery-related).
Pathing, connections and miscellanea
- Backlash coming from Rain of Fire feels weird.
- Fire and Brimstone can be directly connected to Backlash (both Incinerate related).
- Rain of Chaos can be connected directly to Summon Infernal (where Eradication is) or connected to both Infernal Brand and Crashing Chaos.
- Improved Chaos Bolt can be placed in the middle of the tree next to Emberstorm and Eradication.
- Shadowburn critical strike gain starts at 20%, but Blistering Atrophy and Fiendish Cruelty start at 30%. Is this intended?
- Will Unstable Rifts interact with Fire and Brimstone?
Overall, good changes. Keep up the good work. ^-^