566 days, 10 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds

since the last post here.

Um, oops?

Well anyway, SE is dumb and keeps releasing anti-content, announcing non-content, and overall refusing to give us content. Blizzard, on the other hand, is announcing an entire new expansion, and all sorts of goodies. Among them, a rework of the talent system, because for the 3rd expansion in a row they have been forced to admit that the talent system really isn't working as intended, it's a maze that must be navigated by theorycrafters to find the best possible DPS / tanking / healing spec, and not any sort of character customization. So they're throwing out the whole system, baking everything into the raw spec choice, and leaving a whole... 6 choices in talents. 6 meaningful choices every 15 levels, though. I think they can make this work.

I play warlock, so here's what the first draft of Warlock looks like. Numbers may change, yada yada, everything is unbalanced.


Level 15: Seems to be the self-healing tier.

Dark Regeneration: instant cast, 3 minute recast.
Restores 50% of your max HP over 25 seconds.

Soul Leech: passive.
Shadowbolt, Incinerate, and Malefic Grasp heal you for 25% of their damage.

Harvest of Life: channeled.
AoE Drain Life. Drains the life from the target and all other targets within 20 yards, causing X shadow damage and restoring 2% of the caster's total health per target per second, lasts 3 seconds. Recasting this spell before it finishes boosts the duration by 3 seconds, up to 5 times.


The existence of this tier to begin with is odd, given warlock's already strong self-healing, makes me wonder if they'll be making other changes. But that said, Soul Leech is incredibly strong, by far the strongest source of raw healing in the tier. Harvest of Life has an interesting mechanic to it that I would love to see applied to more of warlock, and should be spectacular in places like Alterac Valley. Dark Regeneration is more arena oriented. This is also the first mention of Malefic Grasp, which I would assume is the new Demonology filler spell.

Level 30: Crowd Control

Howl of Terror: instant cast, 40 sec cooldown.
Unchanged from its current form, causes 5 enemies within 10 yards to flee in terror for 8 seconds, damage caused may interrupt.

Mortal Coil: instant cast, 45 sec cooldown.
Death Coil: The second. Causes target to run in terror for 3 seconds, restores 25% of the caster's HP.

Shadowfury: instant cast, 20 sec cooldown.
Also unchanged from its current form, stuns all enemies within 8 yards for 3 seconds.


Here again, we have something of the choice between battleground, arena, and raiding. Howl of Terror and Death / Mortal Coil are fairly useless outside of PvP but great inside, and Shadowfury being accessible to all warlock specs is a wonderful improvement.


Level 45: Damage mitigation

Hour of Twilight: passive.
When a damaging attack brings you below 20% of your maximum health, all damage is reduced by 50% for 10 seconds, cannot occur more than once every 90 seconds.

Soul Link: instant cast, buff.
When active, all damage and healing the Warlock takes is shared with her active demon.

Sacrificial Pact: instant cast, 5 minute cooldown.
Your demon sacrifices itself to prevent all damage you would take for 10 seconds.


So here, we have Soul Link, not Soul Link, and not Soul Link. Or that's what it looked like at first, but Soul Link has been changed to also share healing with the pet. It would really depend on the numbers, but that could be a huge change for what is otherwise a no-brainer source of passive damage reduction. Hour of Twilight is definitely a PvP talent, and Sacrificial Pact gives warlock a true bubble, instead of the fairly thin one that voidwalker can provide.


Level 60: Damage reduction.

Bloodstone: instant cast, 2 minute cooldown.
Instantly restores 44% of the warlock's base health and increases healing recieved by 50% for 10 seconds.

Spell Drain: instant cast, 20 sec cooldown.
The next single target spell aimed at you heals you for half the damage it would have otherwise dealt, lasts 4 seconds.

Nether Ward: instant cast, 30 sec cooldown.
Replaces Twilight Ward. Absorbs 3141 damage, lasts 30 seconds. When you absorb damage, you gain nether protection, reducing all damage from that spell school by 15% for 12 seconds.


All interesting things in this tier, for different reasons. The first, essentially a second, better Healthstone, is a nice addition to PvP, but I could see it in raiding too. The second, which turns a damaging spell into a healing spell, has all sorts of uses. And the third is worth mentioning for two reasons. 1: What's Twilight Ward? Nether Ward used to replace Shadow Ward. 2: Absorbs X damage. Not spell damage, just 'damage.' I suspect a typo, but then if Shadow Ward is being renamed, that would suggest they're making Twilight Ward apply to all spell damage in the first place, so Nether Ward reducing melee damage wouldn't be unreasonable.


Level 75: Mai needs new pants tier.

Grimoire of Supremacy: passive.
You command stronger demons, replacing your normal minions. These demons deal 10% more damage and have more powerful abilities.

Grimoire of Service: instant, 2 minute cooldown.
Instantly summon a second demon who fights for 30 seconds.

Grimoire of Sacrifice: instant, 2 minute cooldown.
You sacrifice your pet to gain increased damage and health, lasts for 3 minutes, summoning another pet cancels the effect.


This is obviously the pet tier. All 3 talents are great. The first is something warlocks have been asking for, the second is just plain cool and a nice addition to the 2-minute damage button, and the third is very interesting. For Supremacy, there's something to note. It lists 6 demons, but warlocks can only summon 5 types of demons right now, 7 if you count cooldown demons. So either way, the numbers don't line up. And for Sacrifice, you can keep it up constantly, does that mean the damage buff is strong enough to be worth giving up your demon for? I really don't know which of these I would pick, they're all so good.


Level 90: Mimic tier

Archimonde's Vengeance: instant cast, 1 minute cooldown.
Curse an enemy, inflicting 25% of all damage you take to also harm them, lasts 15 seconds.

Kil'jaeden's Cunning: passive.
You can cast and channel while moving, but doing so doubles the cast time or period of the spell.

Illidan's Guile: instant cast, 2 minute cooldown.
Shadowbolt, Incinerate, and Malefic Grasp deal splash damage to enemies within 10 yards of their target, lasts 30 seconds.


And for the highest tier of talents, there are 3 very different options. First is essentially a reverse soul link, I'm sure it'll be great in PvP. Second is the strongest mobility talent I think I've seen in this entire announcement, if it updates the cast time of spells automatically if you star moving halfway through. Third is a massively powerful AoE attack, if "splash" is full damage, because Shadowbolt does approximately 3 times the damage of my current AoE, Seed of Corruption, and Incinerate is equally comparable to Rain of Fire.


As the talents currently stand, and looking at this from the PvE Affliction angle, I would go something like: Soul Leech, Shadowfury, Soul Link, Nether Ward, Grimoire of Supremacy, Kil'jaeden's Cunning. But even then, I'm not sure. The other options look nice.

I've never thought that before about talents, they've never really felt like choices, and that makes me confident that Blizzard is truly heading in the right direction with this new talent system.