The new details about Doomguard/Infernal....

[Zharradan]

if they do this, it will be either optimal or total fail, there's no real balance with this kind of talents. they all should be like cataclysm, active situational abilities.

[Tya]

if they do this, it will be either optimal or total fail, there's no real balance with this kind of talents. they all should be like cataclysm, active situational abilities.

And yet people still switch their talents constantly.

Hmm...

[Jessicka]

if they do this, it will be either optimal or total fail, there's no real balance with this kind of talents. they all should be like cataclysm, active situational abilities.

No, that is just the binary nature of players attitudes. So many look at stack ranks without thinking about how they actually play, but that's their problem when they perform worse because of it.

The problem specifically with sac is the Mastery scaling with pets, which they're looking at fixing anyway, but the difference isn't massively significant now and will be less post squish as well.

[login]

what i don't understand is that it seems like these new lvl100 talents will actually have a decent impact on a warlock's dps. isn't that going against the reasoning of why blizzard changed all the talents for everyone in the first place when MoP came out? I mean didn't they want talents to be pure playing style choices and not be too big of an impact on dps? So there wouldn't be "cookie cutter" specs. I know to some extent that it is impossible to get rid of that concept "cookie cutter" spec or whatever but it seems like to me they're taking a step back in their design philosophy

[Jessicka]

The change in talents was to get rid of picking between Shadowfury and 2% Crit. Picking between '5% DPS' and '5% DPS+ more compelling playstyle' is absolutely fine.

[Deleted]

A couple of things I'd be interested in seeing a bit further down the line:

-How being able to summon an infernal as a permanent pet (and also as a service pert works with its AOE burst/stun when it gets summoned now. If this isnt changed into a pet ability, akin to felstorm, this will promote pet twisting to get max aoe and would have to be balanced against cataclysm etc. Pet twisting to do this isn't something I'm actually against, but having that amount of AOE burst probably won't be balanced if you can then switch to doomguard and have decent single target passively for the rest of the fight.

-Saccing DG/infernal giving a larger buff sounds like a nightmare to me, how many times this expansion have blizz had to fiddle numbers (during progress) to balance out sac in its current form??

-Doomguard/infernal names

-Balancing of more complex playstyle talents agains the completely passive supremecy/servitude. Will they reward better use of abilities (service/chaotic energies) enough to make it a good choice over summon OP pet and afk?

+1 to having two infernals to ruin guild kill screenshots though

[Jessicka]

A couple of things I'd be interested in seeing a bit further down the line:

-How being able to summon an infernal as a permanent pet (and also as a service pert works with its AOE burst/stun when it gets summoned now. If this isnt changed into a pet ability, akin to felstorm, this will promote pet twisting to get max aoe and would have to be balanced against cataclysm etc. Pet twisting to do this isn't something I'm actually against, but having that amount of AOE burst probably won't be balanced if you can then switch to doomguard and have decent single target passively for the rest of the fight.

Sorry but this actually sounds like more like fun than it does a bad thing... :3

-Saccing DG/infernal giving a larger buff sounds like a nightmare to me, how many times this expansion have blizz had to fiddle numbers (during progress) to balance out sac in its current form??

They already said they were looking at ways to balance scaling between Sac and the alternative talents.

-Doomguard/infernal names

-Balancing of more complex playstyle talents agains the completely passive supremecy/servitude. Will they reward better use of abilities (service/chaotic energies) enough to make it a good choice over summon OP pet and afk?

I think this is more of an encounter thing. Patchwerk has Service/Supremacy really close, but encounters should usually offer you something to get a little extra from Service when used right.

+1 to having two infernals to ruin guild kill screenshots though

+Meta +Levitate

[Phoenexis]

Well looks like we won't have to worry about our new demons not having any CC since it's going to be mostly gutted for our pets. Spell Lock is going to get nerfed, and even Seduction will take a hit. I mean who the hell nerfs Seduction? It's literally the easiest CC to stop in the game. Sure it has great potential for cross-CC, but nobody seriously ever complained about it...
I think their worries over pet CC is more related to their pet AI when spells are on auto-cast making them completely annoying for players to face (e.g. Succubus spamming Seduction on every off-target in a fight). Cross-CCing two targets reliably with your pet and fears while killing something off takes a lot of effort and multi-tasking, the fact that their pet AI dumbs that down and turns it into an effortless nuisance shouldn't merit a damn nerf

[Deleted]

Again, this talent is an 'I don't want to bother with a pet' talent, which we have sacrifice for.

Why would we want an ability-less autoattack machine when we already have pets that do the same thing? How about just give us a talent that increases pet damage 10% and call it a day?

It's literally just a visual 'give up utility for slightly more damage' talent.

Believe it or not, but pets actually have higher (significantly higher on some) uptime on some bosses than the player. To be able to switch even more of that damage to the demon would be fun for some fights, like Nazgrim.

I for one would pick this talent if it wasn't nuked to the ground due to being "passive". Permanent infernal also seems awesome on some fights, I wonder if the casting time would be longer due to the stun when you summon it.

[jackvii]

Believe it or not, but pets actually have higher (significantly higher on some) uptime on some bosses than the player. To be able to switch even more of that damage to the demon would be fun for some fights, like Nazgrim.

I for one would pick this talent if it wasn't nuked to the ground due to being "passive". Permanent infernal also seems awesome on some fights, I wonder if the casting time would be longer due to the stun when you summon it.

That's why we have the original 5 pets to work with.

I don't see what choices this talent offers besides 'I don't want to manage/have pet utilities and I'm just going to always have a doomguard'. Unless they add abilities, it's simply promotes laziness and a lack of meaningful interaction as a pet class. You want a better pet, pick supremacy, you want to remove pet management, you play sacrifice. This lazy sort of 'semi-pet' you don't do anything with aside from summon after you die, kind of goes against the point of playing a pet class to begin with.

A better option would be to integrate the two abilities into a rotation by significantly lowering their cooldown and turn them into ghoul/service-like dps cooldowns that you have to be aware enough to utilize them properly without being massively penalized if you don't.

For those of you that think 'it'd be so cool', imagine instead the talent giving the Imp and Voidwalker an X% damage increase and you lose all of their abilities and the means to control them. Does it still sound awesome when you switch out the models?

[6kle]

I really dislike the idea that Doomguard and Infernal have no abilities at all. How lazy is that from designers? Makes them such boring choices. They basically said this is by design; a mindless pet for mindless players.

[Deleted]

Hmm as affli you have the choice between two boring talents which basically are just a flat single target dps buff and an quite underwhelming aoe that basically works like the crappy ae we already have yeah fun ...

[Gohzerlock]

I agree with a lot of other people servitude is just lazy design, maybe if they added more utility to infernal doomguard it'd be more interesting. Also, it should scale with sac... there should be no earlier talent that says "well I took this so I absolutely can't take this talent". Mannoroth's fury should scale with cataclysm as well, there should be more synchronicity with the talents.

[PuppetShowJustice]

This was my most anticipated Warlock talent and now knowing that the only "advantage" to having it is that I get to ignore my pet has ruined it for me. jackvii hit the nail on the head with this one. This is absolutely pathetic as it stands.

[Magpai]

Everyone should relax, I'm sure they'll address this talent's redundancy with the grimoire row.

[Xorn]

Hmm as affli you have the choice between two boring talents which basically are just a flat single target dps buff and an quite underwhelming aoe that basically works like the crappy ae we already have yeah fun ...

Underwhelming? Do you know how much damage Cataclysm does? A fucking lot. Enough that it will most likely be worth casting against one target.

[zoomgpally]

this sounds really AWSOME! but im gonna wait till i see some patch notes about it first before i get really excited though

Same, I also really want to know if they can be sacrificed, and if so, which abilities do you get?

hmm... Destro warlock with permanent immolation aura....

[Kathranis]

I personally hope they add a bit more depth to them than just making them permanent minion versions of the current guardians, if they want us to sideline our current minions to use them.

Infernal/Abyssal should be a melee tank pet with AoE DPS/tanking capabilities, a stun, and some survival abilities. (Hybrid Voidwalker/Felguard)

Doomguard/Terroguard should be a ranged DPS pet with single target DPS capabilities and added utility, like an AoE Fear and a Silence. (Hybrid Imp/Succubus/Felhunter)

[roahn the warlock]

the size of the Infernal makes this seem really clunky. Honestly, 90 and 100 both are so wonky, they shouldnt be based on a theme, but instead based on a aspect of playing (Like every other talent tree)

such as speed/ aoe/ dmg/ cc. out 90s and 100s are just a mess.

[Walterion]

They really need to think through what are they doing with the talent overall. We are kinda giving up a pet slot, and a cooldown, for another bigger pet that can only do damage.
In my own case, I tend to use my pet to support the raid in different tasks. Dispells and interrupts? Use the Felhunter. Dispelling? Imp out there. CC or a stun? Succubus or a Felguard in order. These two new guys? Brainless DPS with nothing else to give.
What might happen with the Doomguard/Terroguard is having their old spells back, such as Cripple, War stomp, Rain of Fire and Dispell, and the infernals getting something to complement their permanent immolation. Which is not terrible, but might be getting us somewhere.
Hell, I'd be impressed if this talent actually changes depending the active spec. I'd have a blast seeing what they can come up with.