For the third Expansion in the row, Nether portal is aimed to be extremely useless because of its deeply flawed mechanics. And for those who doesn’t understand how it works, let me explain:
It is a three minute CD spell that would open a portal that would exist for 15 seconds, and during that time, every time you spend a soul shard, a demon would be summoned. And without Ner’Zhul’s volition talent, you always summon a 1 demon per any amount of soul shards consumed. This is something the tooltip won’t tell you.
So, in order to summon demons you need to stay for 15 seconds and perform a rotation.
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No other ability that comes from the talent in the game forces you into such a workout.
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No other ability in game on 3 Min CD requires player to play like that!
This is not a Special Flair, not a great design - It is a redundant design.
Army of the Dead summons undead just like that, Metamorphosis just transforms Illidari into a demon without any additional mechanics, Infernal just falls and does his stuff, dragon rage is just a button to press, deep breath as well.
Why Nether portal must be designed so stupidly like that?
Possible Solution:
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1 - Make Warlock Immune to stuns and Interrupts for the duration of the Nether portal.
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2 - Rework Nether portal to summon Demons on its own, over the 15 seconds duration, not forcing warlock to swap rotation.
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3 - Make All shard spending abilities cheap and Instant during the Nether portal.
The whole mechanic of Nether portal is not rewarding to play. Yes, the end result in the damage meter may be ok, but it is outdated, especially in comparison to the new classes.
Another problem is that Nether portal is a 3 min CD spell, with demons being active only 15 seconds on their own. With the same CD:
- Infernal is active for 30 seconds - 3min cd, and can be lowered,
- dark glare is active for 20 seconds - 3 min CD, and can be lowered,
- Metamorphosis is active for 24 seconds and can be extended by the demonic several times, prolonging its time being active to ~45 seconds.
- Army of the Dead is active for 30 seconds - CD 8 mins and can be lowered.
- Apocalypse undead is active for 15 seconds - yet Apocalypse has 1.5 min CD and easier mechanics than Nether portal, and CD can be lowered.
But the Nether portal demons last only 15 seconds.
Solution:
- Increase the basic lifespan of the demons too 30 seconds in case if mechanics of Nether portal still would force warlock to perform a ramp up mechanic
- Remain the same lifespan of the demons, but lower the CD to 1.5 mins.