Feedback: Warlock Updates
In this thread, we’ll be testing and talking about Warlocks in The War Within. Look here for posts from the development team as adjustments and bugfixes are made throughout the testing period.
Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.
Thank You
Before we continue testing The War Within, we’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who read and responded to the Hero Talent previews we posted over the last few months.
Looking to the Alpha
In this first Alpha build, every single class has at least one new Hero Talent tree available for testing, with the rest coming in the following weeks. We’re asking testers to initially keep several things in mind:
- There are UI elements on the talent panel that are placeholder, including things like talent icons, text, or final UI art.
- Some talents may not be functioning yet, or may be marked as not yet implemented (NYI)
- New spell visuals and audio for several new Hero Talent trees are still a work in progress. Many trees are using placeholder assets for now that will be updated over the course of Alpha.
- There are some talents that are not fully tuned yet. This is expected, and we will implement tuning adjustments throughout testing.
The combat design team has two big areas of focus right now that we are prioritizing over other concerns such as tuning or generic class updates/maintenance:
- Finish building the remainder of the Hero Talent trees that are not yet available.
- Fix bugs that are blocking testing of new talents.
With the Alpha build being playable and all of the discussion that will occur around the flood of data, we wanted to reiterate that the responses to our blog previews were highly valuable. The feedback we received allowed us to make some early improvements or revisions while we didn’t yet have a public test environment. It allowed us to take some big early swings on certain trees, and then react to early feedback quickly.
Going forward, we aren’t planning to publish any additional Hero Talent previews in blog form, since we’ll add the remaining classes to the Alpha as soon as they reach their ready-to-test state.
Working from Feedback
Several Hero Talent trees have received changes after reading feedback to the blog posts. Some of these were tuning changes to ensure that the Hero Talent tree felt competitive, while others were significant design changes. The feedback thus far has been of great benefit to us.
Going into Alpha, we feel good about the shape of the Hero Talent tree designs. Keeping a consistent number of utility and defensives nodes across all trees, having parity between number of choice nodes, and the overall structure of the trees are things we’re confident in.
We’re also working on tweaking some core class designs as well. In some cases, it was necessary to make adjustments to the class or specialization talent trees before significant work was done on a Hero Talent tree. In other cases, we did work seeking to improve base class talent tree designs.
Alpha Feedback
Now that we’re in Alpha, we’re looking for feedback on how it feels to playtest these trees. We’re specifically curious about:
- Hero Talents that you feel are “required” for your spec in a type of content, such as raiding or Mythic+, or that push you towards picking a specific tree.
- Hero Talents that create frustrating or unsatisfying gameplay or rotations for your spec.
- Hero Talents whose functionality is confusing, unclear, or difficult to track during gameplay.
Throughput comparisons of Hero Talent trees are helpful, but we’re more interested in gameplay, feel, and choice feedback at this stage. Also, when possible, we appreciate it when you focus posts or articles on a single spec and Hero Talent tree, rather than combining feedback about multiple issues.
Again, Thank You
We greatly appreciate all your feedback on Hero Talent trees and are very excited for you to see everything else we’re working on. Thank you!
– The World of Warcraft Combat Design Team
Greetings Warlocks.
Today’s Alpha build focuses on restructuring the Destruction specialization tree. We will provide context for some of these changes in this post.
Heads up! Some talents are not yet implemented but should be in a future build.
Soul Fire, Channel Demonfire, and Shadowburn
We’re pivoting away from Soul Fire becoming another execute spell as Shadowburn already fills this purpose. Instead, it will serve as a reward for high critical strike chance and will naturally become more available when Shadowburn benefits from a low health target.
Both Channel Demonfire and Shadowburn spells are retaining their current uses and identities; however, we are introducing new talents that should increase how valuable these spells are in Destruction’s toolkit. We look forward to hearing your feedback regarding the direction of each of these spells.
Summon Infernal
We’ve moved Summon Infernal to a more central location in the Destruction tree to provide an interesting and powerful spell to look forward to while leveling. Additionally, it’s an incredibly iconic spell for Destruction and by making it easier to get we can ensure that regardless of your build you have a longer cooldown to look forward to.
Tree Structure
In this alpha build you’ll see new pathing and a reduction of available talents and ranks to reduce the bloating the previous tree had. We’re interested in hearing feedback regarding if it’s too easy to get across the tree, too difficult, if a talent’s placement doesn’t make sense, or if a talent can be taken and it won’t provide any benefit unless another talent is taken.
As mentioned last week, we will have an update for Affliction in a future build and will be focusing on hero talents and polish after. We appreciate the discussions and look forward to further feedback.
FuenteGreetings Warlocks.
In today’s new build, we’re focusing on the Affliction and Destruction specialization trees. We’ve changed the structure and pathing of both trees and would like to provide context for some of the other changes you’ll see in this build.
Affliction
We’ve moved Darkglare upwards in the tree to make it much easier to get. We’ve shifted talents to the third section and added new talents to increase how many options are available. We’re evaluating how many two-point nodes are available and are looking to revise in a future build.
We’ve also looked at Haunt and increased the amount of damage it does baseline to make it feel more impactful upon cast. We’ve introduced Improved Haunt as well, which is a new talent that further expands upon Haunt. Lastly, we’ve moved Haunt to the second section of the tree to make it easier to pick given how much it adds to Affliction’s single-target toolkit.
Destruction
We’re trying something new and moving Dimensional Rift, a powerful tool that gives Destruction warlocks a bit more mobility, to the center of the tree and returning Infernal to the bottom section. Infernal serves as a powerful cooldown that leveling warlocks can look forward to unlocking, but during playtesting it felt that Dimensional Rift served as a much more impactful tool.
We’ve trimmed the number of talents available and moved around so that the second and third sections feel a bit closer in terms of the number of talents available.
We appreciate the feedback and will continue to watch for discussions as they happen.
Fuente