Lol massive nerf to Decimating bolt

[Xanatas]

Warlock Discord is PvE oriented mostly and PvP part is an afterthought. Also it's hard to call what will be a thing both in PvE and certainly in PvP because tuning is still ongoing.

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As a whole, people here make a lot of claims, but we don't even have working simc for locks yet. The only thing one can safely claim so far is that Night Fae are certainly the weakest option now. Other 3 are a lot closer overall now, now that Necro was brought back to sanity, the fact there are deliberations now is a healthy sign.

I'd wish they did more for Night Fae and handled Necro F&B a bit differently.

Keep in mind that they seem to do tuning in waves per feature. A week ago it was conduits/soulbinds pass for all, this week it was covenant abilities, so I expect next weeks to be legendaries and finally classes. Only after that + with simc being up we might start seeing the actual picture, as opposed to various "feels" thrown around here.

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If we're all into reading the future - expect Wilfred legendary nerf. I am almost 100% positive they will drop it to 1s per shard down from 2s for Infernal CD.

My hopes for Destruction are that while they do that, they will also nerf Infernal a tad and move damage off it into our nukes. For example they certainly need to improve Chaos Bolt in some way, because it's simply underpowered now. Either drop cast time to 2.5s or buff it some 15-20% just to make it a bit more reasonable. And do something to make F&B not a dead pick for Necrolords, while at it.

thanks for the info dude

yes wilfred will be nerfed

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How is it in pvp with the abilities? I mean the soul binds of Venthyr are the strongest by far. Which should all caster go to venrhyr?

decimating bolt + 3 incinerate in a row (with conflagrate buff 30% fire damage) will be very strong

decimating bolt + 3 demonbolt in a row with legendary and right talents will be very very strong

fleshcraft is a shield castable pre-combat, 20% health. Door of shadow is shadow school with cast time

Soulbinds necrolord... i think ooz shield and ultimate form will be very interesting and powerful in pvp situation.

Why all caster go vampire? silence reduction 25% is very good but a double shield maybe is better in my opinion

[Uzkin]

Spamming the victim card has diminishing returns.

It is acceptable, laudable even, to complain about bad changes. This is how Blizzard can learn (or at least one hopes they learn) what does and does not please its customers.

The nerf to Decimating Bolt was incompetently executed, and thus critical feedback is warranted. Blizz said their one aim was to balance the F&B talent row for Necrolords, but they failed and managed to turn F&B into a dead talent instead (furthermore, since Necro was the only covenant for which F&B was somewhat competitive against Inferno in AoE scenarios, F&B is dead for every other covenant as well). F&B has been a dead talent for as long as F&B has been a talent (i.e. for two full expansions by now) so it's not unreasonable to expect it to be finally made useful.

And while I'm at it, I should note that GoSac has ALSO been a dead talent for as long as F&B. GoSac and F&B have just been sitting useless in their respective talent rows. Blizz should finally stop being negligent and fix them, it's been way too long already.

[Mashnakh]

Yeah but for Affliction Nexro isn't that good anymore. Even without Drain Soul. Sb is just to weak.

I will go in SL Affliction and use the inevitable demise talent. But NF is not good enough even with soul rot and Soul Shape mobili. Only positiv effect is nature school on cast if locked.

But venthyr for lock is so string with the silence reduce. Shields are also useful but if we get more def abilities we don't need them

[Calfredd]

It is acceptable, laudable even, to complain about bad changes. This is how Blizzard can learn (or at least one hopes they learn) what does and does not please its customers.

Being critical of bad changes is one thing but repeatedly saying things like warlocks should just be deleted from the game or warlocks are the most hated class in the game or Blizzard likes to spit on the faces of demonology warlocks doesn't really add to the conversation.

[Shandalar]

Being critical of bad changes is one thing but repeatedly saying things like warlocks should just be deleted from the game or warlocks are the most hated class in the game or Blizzard likes to spit on the faces of demonology warlocks doesn't really add to the conversation.

Well, Blizzard does. Demon is shameful. No single spec have its mechanical problems, not even Feral Druids.

[Gaidax]

It is acceptable, laudable even, to complain about bad changes. This is how Blizzard can learn (or at least one hopes they learn) what does and does not please its customers.

One thing is to give feedback, another thing is for years sitting here and riding absolute hyperbole train.

Thankfully we have better channels and more appropriate people to give feedback, than this thing here.

Blizzard certainly is willing to listen to reasonable feedback and at times implement it, for example the requested addition of Demonbolt synergy to Decimating Bolt or Demonology interrupt as obvious examples.

Sitting here in mmo-c for years spamming some hyperbole though? That's just worthless, so no surprise people take him for what he is. /shrug

[JustaWarlock]

So decimating bolt just got another nerf - 40% less initial damage and the bonus damage to drain soul/sb has been halved!

[Kaeth]

So decimating bolt just got another nerf - 40% less initial damage and the bonus damage to drain soul/sb has been halved!

Hey, but it's not alone! They also absolutely gutted Impending Catastrophe.

[JustaWarlock]

Hey, but it's not alone! They also absolutely gutted Impending Catastrophe.

I choose to believe they added an extra 0 to that nerf, because as it stands the nerf is an actual catastrophe and renders the ability not worth casting unless you want to aoe curse of tongues/weakness a pack.

[Caerrona]

I choose to believe they added an extra 0 to that nerf, because as it stands the nerf is an actual catastrophe and renders the ability not worth casting unless you want to aoe curse of tongues/weakness a pack.

Well for affi its another dot for the vile taint rapture window. Seems good on affi for m+. The smart curse is insane, basically a 1 min cd ironbark for the tank.

[Mashnakh]

Now the NF ability looks a bit better, but only because the others got nerfed. They instead should have buffed Soul Rot. But still it is bad for destruction and demo. They need to change it that Destruction get to use CB on all targets and demo DB

[Orwell7]

How can they reduce a SP coefficient from 100% to 20%?!
How can one designer say "yes 100% is a good number" and then they decide that it needs to be nerfed to af raction of it?!? What kind of useless incompetent folks are working at Blizzard?

Like damn.. In my job I have to make sure that we have the necessary spare parts if one of our clients have a failure and we need to replace the hardware.
If I order 10 things instead of the necessary 2 needed, my boss will have a lengthy conversation with me IMMEDIATELY.

How can a freakin multi-billion dollar company gets away with slackers like this? Is this the definition of squandering?

[Gaidax]

Now the NF ability looks a bit better, but only because the others got nerfed. They instead should have buffed Soul Rot. But still it is bad for destruction and demo. They need to change it that Destruction get to use CB on all targets and demo DB

Demonology Decimating Bolt now affects Demonbolt.

Other than that - they brought these abilities closer together. Kyrian's Pelagos got an ok nerf too, now can only trigger capstone once per minute, while Emeni got a nice buff for Necros, finally giving them some extra DPS soulbind option.

Overall covenants are closer to each other now. My feels say that for raiding Kyrian looks to be better for 2 out of 3 specs, but the gap is much smaller now, while for M+ Vent is probably best.

[LordVargK]

So, for me without beta access, Impending Catastrophe always seemed like just another DoT for Affli. So its actual damage did not matter much.

We have the following situation now:
Demo:
Non of the covenant abilities matter, as non of them interact with the specs's toolkit. Maybe tithe, but 5 shards at once are not really something Demo desires.
Affli:
Scrouring tithe for ST, IC for AoE. Nothing really changed here. Soul Rot is a meme and Decimating bolt might be okay, but does not interact with the gameplay of the spec, since it does not provide a DoT. Shadowbolt will lose meaning as we get more mastery, so Decimating bolt won't be viable longterm.
Destru:
IC and Soul Rot are useless, as they don't interact with the spec at all. IC's viability depends on its scaling, but overall it's just a button to press that does not change the way you play this spec.
Tithe seems very interesting as a concept, 5 Shards can be powerful for Destru. Sadly Chaosbolt seems really undertuned right now, so maybe Tithe is more of a AoE choice to buff Rain of Chaos. Tithe also interacts with Havok, so that's something to keep in mind.
Decimating bolt seemed the most reasonable choice until last week as it worked well with the "fire destru"-build. Now, we'll have to wait for final tuning.

Overall I kinda like those nerfs. It makes the choice of covenant not as impactful as before, where it meant doing 20% damage more or less. The more damage comes from the core class and not borrowed power systems the more I like those borrowed powers. As long as the class keeps being viable of course.

[Gaidax]

Demo:
Non of the covenant abilities matter, as non of them interact with the specs's toolkit. Maybe tithe, but 5 shards at once are not really something Demo desires.

That's incorrect. Decimating Bolt interacts with Demonbolt now which might be good for Demonbolt nuke build, at least an option is there. Also Scouring Tithe conduit adds 10-24% damage to demons for 10s, if target dies.

Vent and Fae though have no interaction there indeed.

Destru:
IC and Soul Rot are useless, as they don't interact with the spec at all. IC's viability depends on its scaling, but overall it's just a button to press that does not change the way you play this spec.
Tithe seems very interesting as a concept, 5 Shards can be powerful for Destru. Sadly Chaosbolt seems really undertuned right now, so maybe Tithe is more of a AoE choice to buff Rain of Chaos. Tithe also interacts with Havok, so that's something to keep in mind.
Decimating bolt seemed the most reasonable choice until last week as it worked well with the "fire destru"-build. Now, we'll have to wait for final tuning.

Kyrian is probably the way to go for Destruction. Kyrian Pelagos soulbind is still pretty powerful even after nerf, the Havoc interaction with tithe in addition to conduit giving +10-24% CB damage on Tithe kill is pretty strong package overall. CB does not do 0 damage, it's overall weak, but it's weak by something like 20% imo and might get tuned up, it's not useless. Kyrian and Pelagos soulbind prop up CB quite a bit actually, even if mostly situationally.

That said, Necros might actually be pretty good too. Emeni soulbind got a big buff in DPS department this build, her capstone probably rivals Pelagos now, even if he still edges out with +5% vers for free (bet that's on a chopping block in a build or two). While F&B is worthless with Decimating Bolt now, something I hope will be adjusted, outside F&B - Incinerate is a pretty strong filler and its crits under Decimating Bolt still do more damage than Chaos Bolt in execute, especially if you go fire build, which might be a thing.

Overall I kinda like those nerfs. It makes the choice of covenant not as impactful as before, where it meant doing 20% damage more or less. The more damage comes from the core class and not borrowed power systems the more I like those borrowed powers. As long as the class keeps being viable of course.

I think the value in these nerfs is indeed reducing the gap between covenant choices. That said there are still definitely better covenant choices there still.

[LordVargK]

That's incorrect. Decimating Bolt interacts with Demonbolt now which might be good for Demonbolt nuke build, at least an option is there. Also Scouring Tithe conduit adds 10-24% damage to demons for 10s, if target dies.

Vent and Fae though have no interaction there indeed.

Interesting. Did not read the fine print there. Although having to take a specific conduit to make an ability interact with your spec at all does not seem very appealing to me. Also does it seem like there will be a Demonbolt build? In the last expansion that build overall was outshined by the tyrant build, which now got its own talent.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Interesting. Did not read the fine print there. Although having to take a specific conduit to make an ability interact with your spec at all does not seem very appealing to me. Also does it seem like there will be a Demonbolt build? In the last expansion that build overall was outshined by the tyrant build, which now got its own talent.

Yes. There are a few passives supporting it. There's a combination of effects where dogs can repeatedly apply a significant buff to your shadowflame damage which should result in DB hitting pretty hard. Tuning is still very much up in the air so it's not clear yet whether it will work, but there is support for it being added.

[LordVargK]

Yes. There are a few passives supporting it. There's a combination of effects where dogs can repeatedly apply a significant buff to your shadowflame damage which should result in DB hitting pretty hard. Tuning is still very much up in the air so it's not clear yet whether it will work, but there is support for it being added.

Well, then let's hope they don't forget to update the Necrolord conduit to reflect the change to Decimating bolt!

[Mashnakh]

The whole covenant system is garbage. They shouldn't be that impactful in m+, raids or pvp. So we can really chose just for story, tmogg or fitting the class/spec. i like to mention the scryers from tbc. That was also just a fanatasy pic.

[Gaidax]

Interesting. Did not read the fine print there. Although having to take a specific conduit to make an ability interact with your spec at all does not seem very appealing to me. Also does it seem like there will be a Demonbolt build? In the last expansion that build overall was outshined by the tyrant build, which now got its own talent.

Kyrian Scouring Tithe conduit is pretty special there and also pretty powerful too. It's more situational than the rest, because if it's a pure ST fight then you don't benefit, although somewhat offset by Scouring Tithe being a strong ST option to begin with.