Bring back Hellfire?

[Surfacin9]

So I decided to read about warlocks in TBCC just for the fun of it, not intending to play that version of the game, but I main a lock in retail. And among the abilities I noticed something that I forgot existed - Hellfire. May be it was in Classic to, but I didn't bother checking. Somewhere along the line, it was removed and I think its a good time to bring it back as a core ability for destro, not a talent.

Generally speaking, locks are less desired in m+. Of course if you have the ilvl and rio, you will get invites, but early during the season it can be a nightmare. I remember spending 2!!!! hours without getting a single invite, and I wasn't queueing for something my gear was low to handle.

Overall we perform well and are capable of doing +15s and higher, but classes like mage, boomkin, DK, hunter, monk are just more desired. ANd I think adding Hellfire will improve destro aoe toolkit and with proper tuning can make them one of the best at it. We already have inferno build, but that's not really enough or fun imo. Aff is getting sow the seeds spam, demo is ok-ish with FTS dogs build, destro only has cata/inferno and CDF (F&B is too bad to play it ever since they brought it back).

Furthermore, the fantasy of warlocks trading health for performance is still alive with burning rush, so blizzard is not completely against that idea.

We need something that will make us SHINE in aoe, to stick it to the mages (even though they were nerfed, which will make it even better), druids and the rest. Hellfire will give destro an always ready-to-use aoe spell that doesn't have to be talented to be worth using (like RoF without Inferno). It will hit for a good damage, and you will lose hp based on the amount of mobs hit and generate shards based on targets hit. Shards can be dumped into CBs or RoF. Inferno talent will need to be nerfed slightly either in dmg or shard generation for it not to be broken.

It will mean warlock will have to be in melee and suffer from things like storming, sanguine and be more vulnerable to grievous and bursting, but we have a great CD and healthstone to use, and will give warlocks the high-risk high-reward adrenaline rush gameplay. And just imagine, you in the heat (pun intended) of the fight burning everyone down together with your infernals.

Just wanna know what others think about this idea.

[Razion]

The reason Hellfire was removed was twofold - the health chunking made you a liability to healers on any threatening content. Two, having to move to melee was especially painful for a class with not only little mobility but also it was one of the only reasons you got into melee. As a caster, with hard cast spells, positioning to melee before you could AoE as well made you a liability next to other ranged who could do their AoE from far away.

If you could cast it at ranged, to an area or around a target, that'd be fine. But the melee limitation and health cost together make the Walock too much of a liability when trying to ranged dps.

[LordVargK]

The reason Hellfire was removed was twofold - the health chunking made you a liability to healers on any threatening content. Two, having to move to melee was especially painful for a class with not only little mobility but also it was one of the only reasons you got into melee. As a caster, with hard cast spells, positioning to melee before you could AoE as well made you a liability next to other ranged who could do their AoE from far away.

If you could cast it at ranged, to an area or around a target, that'd be fine. But the melee limitation and health cost together make the Walock too much of a liability when trying to ranged dps.

Just add the mannoroth's fury effect to it, problem solved! Also WLs once had shadowflame as a melee spell, which provided a decent dmg increase.

But hellfire is a really flavourful but also really boring ability. If it is worth casting then having to channel an ability to do DPS is pretty lame, especially if it does not interact with your toolkit in any way. And if it does not do decent dmg, then why bother? WL specs don't really have downtime in AoE, so we don't need a filler.

If it generates shards for destru, then it becomes a meele FnB. Rather than bringing hellfire back, FnB must be baseline.

[Razion]

Just add the mannoroth's fury effect to it, problem solved! Also WLs once had shadowflame as a melee spell, which provided a decent dmg increase.

But hellfire is a really flavourful but also really boring ability. If it is worth casting then having to channel an ability to do DPS is pretty lame, especially if it does not interact with your toolkit in any way. And if it does not do decent dmg, then why bother? WL specs don't really have downtime in AoE, so we don't need a filler.

If it generates shards for destru, then it becomes a meele FnB. Rather than bringing hellfire back, FnB must be baseline.

Increasing the area dramatically risks the case of ninja-pulling a ton of unnecessary things that otherwise wouldn't be in combat with you - like ye olde Starfall. Hellfire would have to be further adjusted to not strike targets you aren't in combat with. (And then continually adjusted as new mobs are introduced that get ninja-pulled by it.)

Think it'd be a much better solution to just make it a ranged drop down reticle ability.

As you note, the Channeled nature of the ability also doesn't allow the Warlock to engage with any other actions during it. So either it would need a very long CD so that "not doing anything while you Hellfire," doesn't become a staple of the core loop (or lack thereof). There's a reason a lot of classes went away from abilities like Channeled Blizzards and Channeled Hurricanes -- just sitting there holding the spell isn't involved and doesn't result in any decision making.

I don't have anything against Hellfire if you're casting it like FnB but you're instant-casting every pulse of Hellfire. Makes that more engaging. And arguably, this would be more active than FnB if it was on a GCD cast rather than a hard-casted Incinerate as well. The movement actually gives them something to do.

But, again, it'd have to be a ranged reticle ability. The lack of Warlock mobility still doesn't do this any favors, and the alternative method of making it like Starfall carries too much group wipe potential that would have to be reigned in constantly and fixed periodically like Starfall currently is. I think a ranged reticle Hellfire is, frankly, just a lot more usable. But, at that point, it's pretty comparable to Rain of Fire. If Hellfire is meant to be Demo or Destro is probably where this starts to question which it fits the fantasy better for. Arguably Destro should have it... as it's, y'know, fire.

[enigma77]

No thanks, warlock dmg is fine in M+, more than fine actually.

The bad thing about warlocks in m+ is we lack utility. Specifically utility that aids the tank.

I doubt they will do anything at this point, but Curse of Weakness should be 10% less dmg done, instead of this weird and bad 20% attack speed reduction, which does absolutely nothing against anything other than melee hits. Furthermore, we shouldn't have to be Venthyr to apply our curses to multiple targets at once. Amplify Curse should be a baseline ability not a pvp talent no one ever picks and have its functionality changed to apply curses in an aoe fashion with a 1 min cooldown.

[Keldion]

I doubt they will do anything at this point, but Curse of Weakness should be 10% less dmg done, instead of this weird and bad 20% attack speed reduction, which does absolutely nothing against anything other than melee hits.

Weakness also affects ranged attacks that aren't "spells" but use a cast bar. Try it on Forsworn Skirmishers in Spires and see how fast they can hurl spears. By that interpretation, they should also work on ranged auto attacks.

[enigma77]

Weakness also affects ranged attacks that aren't "spells" but use a cast bar. Try it on Forsworn Skirmishers in Spires and see how fast they can hurl spears. By that interpretation, they should also work on ranged auto attacks.

I've tested this repeatedly (not just on those mobs but on many others) and never noticed any difference.

Afaik uninterruptible casts are not affected by the atk speed reduction, only autoattacks are.

[LordVargK]

No thanks, warlock dmg is fine in M+, more than fine actually.

The bad thing about warlocks in m+ is we lack utility. Specifically utility that aids the tank.

I doubt they will do anything at this point, but Curse of Weakness should be 10% less dmg done, instead of this weird and bad 20% attack speed reduction, which does absolutely nothing against anything other than melee hits. Furthermore, we shouldn't have to be Venthyr to apply our curses to multiple targets at once. Amplify Curse should be a baseline ability not a pvp talent no one ever picks and have its functionality changed to apply curses in an aoe fashion with a 1 min cooldown.

Quite the contrary: If you're not Nightfae Affliction specifically your damage stinks compared to many other classes. It's decent enough, but you're not able to carry another similarly bad class.

But utility wise WLs are quite good. You have Healthstones, Gateway for skips (potentially saving your group invis pots), an AoE stun (granted, a shitty one, but still), fear and horror, 3 different curses, one giving the tank less dmg, one giving the group more time to kick and one for kiting, banish for first plaquefall boss, an interrupt, and an enemy dispel (destru, affli) or single target stun (demo). That's quite a lot compared to other classes.

[Gaidax]

Reason why Mages and Moonkins are meta because they have hugeass cooldown burst that works very well with gathering several packs and nuking them to dust fast before tank kicks the bucket.

Hellfire, effectively being a moderate low damage over time AoE would do nothing there.

Aside from that Destruction is pretty good as is in M+ anyway, it's not meta, but lets not pretend it has no AoE or something.

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But utility wise WLs are quite good. You have Healthstones, Gateway for skips (potentially saving your group invis pots), an AoE stun (granted, a shitty one, but still), fear and horror, 3 different curses, one giving the tank less dmg, one giving the group more time to kick and one for kiting, banish for first plaquefall boss, an interrupt, and an enemy dispel (destru, affli) or single target stun (demo). That's quite a lot compared to other classes.

Warlock utility in M+ is pretty shit. The only unique thing is Healthstone, which is mostly just a "nice to have" thing. Everything else - it's nothing other classes don't do already in M+ and often better at that.

People who start listing shopping list of CCs and fringe stuff are funny. As if a 3 sec AoE stun and 3 sec Horror are some sort of insane propositions, when you have plenty of classes that can do just that and more anyway.

[Biomega]

Hellfire was shit.

Having ranged go into melee screws with a ton of mechanics, and is never something anyone appreciates.

And health-penalty mechanics have been traditionally quite awful as well, to the point where they're either unusable because they get you killed, or the HP penalty is so negligible it might not even exist. Neither is particularly fun.

[Tradu]

No thanks, warlock dmg is fine in M+, more than fine actually.

The bad thing about warlocks in m+ is we lack utility. Specifically utility that aids the tank.

I doubt they will do anything at this point, but Curse of Weakness should be 10% less dmg done, instead of this weird and bad 20% attack speed reduction, which does absolutely nothing against anything other than melee hits. Furthermore, we shouldn't have to be Venthyr to apply our curses to multiple targets at once. Amplify Curse should be a baseline ability not a pvp talent no one ever picks and have its functionality changed to apply curses in an aoe fashion with a 1 min cooldown.

That would be completely broken. 10% less damage is an absurd amount. Just think about it, PW:Barrier is 25% less damage for 10 seconds every 3 minutes. You're proposing 10% permanently, and without the positioning requirement. Devotion Aura is 3% damage reduction permanently.

[iamsobored26]

Bring back mana tap while you’re at it. Maybe the original doom spell that hits after 45 sec would be another awesome addition. It does seem like the game is too fast nowadays, so bringing back terrible spells that should never have existed in the first place is going to make everyone excited for this game again. /s

[UndedoKoleda]

But if they bring it back will they rename it to "Mawfire"?

[enigma77]

That would be completely broken. 10% less damage is an absurd amount. Just think about it, PW:Barrier is 25% less damage for 10 seconds every 3 minutes. You're proposing 10% permanently, and without the positioning requirement. Devotion Aura is 3% damage reduction permanently.

If that's what it takes to make warlocks desirable in m+ I fail to see the problem. (Mythic) raids are designed under the assumption you have at least one warlock, so it's w/e. And hey if a demonhunter can make most of the raid deal 5% more dmg simply by being present, why can't Warlocks make the raid take less dmg ? =)

They could also make it only 5% or simply just work against abilities that only affect the tank, rather than all raid wide damage. If I remember correctly back in the day Curse of Weakness reduced the attack power of the target, which should exclude virtually all raid/environment damage.

[Tradu]

If that's what it takes to make warlocks desirable in m+ I fail to see the problem. (Mythic) raids are designed under the assumption you have at least one warlock, so it's w/e.

You said it should be 10% less damage done, you didn't say anything about it only being to the tank. And even if it's "only" on the tank, 10% damage reduction permanently vs Ironbark (20% for 12 seconds every 1.5 min), Pain Suppression(40% for 8 seconds every 3 min) etc should make it pretty clear that that's also absurd.

[enigma77]

You said it should be 10% less damage done, you didn't say anything about it only being to the tank. And even if it's "only" on the tank, 10% damage reduction permanently vs Ironbark (20% for 12 seconds every 1.5 min), Pain Suppression(40% for 8 seconds every 3 min) etc should make it pretty clear that that's also absurd.

I disagree that it would make it absurd. The existence of externals doesn't mean Curse of Weakness can't be powerful.

But as I said, 10% is a value I came up with, if Blizzard feels like it's too op, make it 5%. Anything but this worthless attack speed reduction, that can only be applied to a single target at at time. You don't even bother with this nonsense, while classes like Boomy and Ele have great utility for tanks.

[hzjf]

Reason why Mages and Moonkins are meta because they have hugeass cooldown burst that works very well with gathering several packs and nuking them to dust fast before tank kicks the bucket.

Hellfire, effectively being a moderate low damage over time AoE would do nothing there.

Aside from that Destruction is pretty good as is in M+ anyway, it's not meta, but lets not pretend it has no AoE or something.

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Warlock utility in M+ is pretty shit. The only unique thing is Healthstone, which is mostly just a "nice to have" thing. Everything else - it's nothing other classes don't do already in M+ and often better at that.

People who start listing shopping list of CCs and fringe stuff are funny. As if a 3 sec AoE stun and 3 sec Horror are some sort of insane propositions, when you have plenty of classes that can do just that and more anyway.

Gateway
summon
healthstone
banish
fear
horror
stun
interrupt

IS NOT SHIT and way more than others have... so spare us your Bullshit

[Tradu]

I disagree that it would make it absurd. The existence of externals doesn't mean Curse of Weakness can't be powerful.

But as I said, 10% is a value I came up with, if Blizzard feels like it's too op, make it 5%. Anything but this worthless attack speed reduction, that can only be applied to a single target at at time. You don't even bother with this nonsense, while classes like Boomy and Ele have great utility for tanks.

You're only thinking of M+, I guess. Consider raids where you usually have 1 boss that's hitting your tanks the entire time, or PvP. Permanently reducing the tank's damage intake by 10% is a massive difference.
And the attack speed reduction already has its uses, it just isn't universally applicable (which is a good spot for utility to be in).

[enigma77]

Gateway
summon
healthstone
banish
fear
horror
stun
interrupt

IS NOT SHIT and way more than others have... so spare us your Bullshit

You're just kidding yourself.

Gateway: Useless. Anything it can do other classes can do better or just as well. Its sole niche use is to skip certain trash packs, which can be done by multiple other classes. Outside of that it's utterly worthless and m+ boss encounters to not have the kind of movement required where gateway is useful, like in raiding.
Summon: Useless, there is a summon stone outside of the dungeon. The only time you use this inside a m+ is if someone accidentally released instead of getting rezzed by the healer, woo.
Healthstone: Useful.
Banish: Extremely limited usefulness. Does not work against the vast majority of enemies.
Fear: Useless CC, pulls other mobs. Never use Fear unless you are prepared to wipe the group. The one use it has if for some reason your whole group is too stupid to interrupt you can use Fear as a pseudo interrupt.
Horror (Mortail Coil?): Pseudo interrupt against a single target, useful but utterly outclassed by things like Dragon's Breath or Typhoon which do the same but against all nearby targets.
Stun: Useful.
Interrupt: Really? Name the dps class that doesn't have one.

You have to be deluded to think Warlock utility in m+ is anything but bottom tier. We are hopelessly outclassed by the meta classes. You forgot the ability to battlerezz by the way, but that's alright, because guess what? Better classes bring a battlerezz. You can't look at Warlock abilities in a vacuum, list a few of them and go: Great! Look at all the stuff we have! Warlock does not exist in a vacuuum, everything we do other classes do better, including even Healthstone, because Ele Shamans and Boomies bring considerably more off-healing to their group than a lousy healthstone.

Please, take an honest look at the toolkits of mages, ele shamans, boomies, hell even hunters. Warlock utility is virtually non existent compared to those classes/specs. Or you can just take one look at the raider.io class representation graph and realize how utterly worthless Warlock is in m+. Sorry man, but you're full of shit.

Muh utility can't make up for the fact that we're the second least played class after rogues, which are god damn awful in terms of damage right now, while Locks actually do great damage, yes even in Mythic + ! But damage isn't everything, if you offer no utility that makes the run smoother and easier for everybody else, or simply provide 5% more damage to all fellow casters!

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You're only thinking of M+, I guess. Consider raids where you usually have 1 boss that's hitting your tanks the entire time, or PvP. Permanently reducing the tank's damage intake by 10% is a massive difference.
And the attack speed reduction already has its uses, it just isn't universally applicable (which is a good spot for utility to be in).

The problem is that Warlock utility is bad as it is in M+ and Curse of Weakness could be the thing that makes us desirable in M+, if tuned more competitively. But it's as you said, it's extremely niche at best. So without any changes, the only reason to bring a Warlock to m+ is if Lock is just tuned to be the best dps. Which I think is just bad game design.

[Crysis]

You're just kidding yourself.

Gateway: Useless. Anything it can do other classes can do better or just as well.
Summon: Useless, there is a summon stone outside of the dungeon. The only time you use this inside a m+ is if someone accidentally released instead of getting rezzed by the healer, woo.
Healthstone: Useful.
Banish: Extremely limited usefulness. Does not work against the vast majority of enemies.
Fear: Useless CC, pulls other mobs. Never use Fear unless you are prepared to wipe the group. The one use it has if for some reason your whole group is too stupid to interrupt you can use Fear as a pseudo interrupt.
Horror (Mortail Coil?): Pseudo interrupt against a single target, useful but utterly outclassed by things like Dragon's Breath or Typhoon which do the same but against all nearby targets.
Stun: Useful.
Interrupt: Really? Name the dps class that doesn't have one.

You have to be deluded to think Warlock utility in m+ is anything but bottom tier. We are hopelessly outclassed by the meta classes. You forgot the ability to battlerezz by the way, but that's alright, because guess what? Better classes bring a battlerezz.

Please, take an honest look at the toolkits of mages, ele shamans, boomies, hell even hunters. Warlock utility is virtually non existent compared to those classes/specs.

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The problem is that Warlock utility is bad as it is in M+ and Curse of Weakness could be the thing that makes us desirable in M+, if tuned more competitively. But it's as you said, it's extremely niche at best.

So what you're saying is you are the worst warlock player out there. Got it.