Lol massive nerf to Decimating bolt

[Liarparadox]

Well deserved nerf. But don't jump to too many conclusions. More adjustments are coming all over the place.

[Leinhart]

Well deserved nerf. But don't jump to too many conclusions. More adjustments are coming all over the place.

Problem is, they nerfed it too hard imo. They should at least have tried taking it from 3 to 2 and seen what the results would have been.

[Malekius]

Problem is, they nerfed it too hard imo. They should at least have tried taking it from 3 to 2 and seen what the results would have been.

They could've, but admittedly it still would've been stronger than anything else. Now it's so "balanced" that another covenant showed up that might be viable. I get that Venthyr was already a contender, at least for m+ and AoE, but having a 2nd option means they've balanced it. I agree too that the nerf was too hard, but that's also only because the ability itself was too strong to begin with.
Can you imagine getting lucky with the conduit that lets you keep a charge, and maybe have 5 Drain Souls non-stop at execute range? That would be a bit ridiculous and not necessarily fun, because the extra charges are rng.

I dread the idea of Kyrian, but I agree that we still have to wait and see. I think too the necrolord ability is still better suited for some raid shenanigans, but we have to see.

[Fenzha]

More appropriate nerf would probably have been to the damage amp rather than the number of drains.

[Uzkin]

Blizzard thought Fire&Brimstone had too much synergy with Decimating Bolt, when compared to the other two talents in that row, and said they wanted to bring its synergy closer to the other two in order to balance the row.

Now, as it stands, no one will use Fire&Brimstone with Decimating Bolt in any competitive content ever again since F&B now REDUCES ST dps w.r.t. no talent at all. Perfectly balanced, eh, Blizzard?

[Flc]

They could've, but admittedly it still would've been stronger than anything else. Now it's so "balanced" that another covenant showed up that might be viable. I get that Venthyr was already a contender, at least for m+ and AoE, but having a 2nd option means they've balanced it. I agree too that the nerf was too hard, but that's also only because the ability itself was too strong to begin with.
Can you imagine getting lucky with the conduit that lets you keep a charge, and maybe have 5 Drain Souls non-stop at execute range? That would be a bit ridiculous and not necessarily fun, because the extra charges are rng.

I dread the idea of Kyrian, but I agree that we still have to wait and see. I think too the necrolord ability is still better suited for some raid shenanigans, but we have to see.

Warlock discord and theorycrafters have said Kyrian is now best for both affliction and destruction, pvpers are already going Venthyr or Night Fae, and no one is touching necrolords anymore aside from the hold out "I'm a necromancer!" RPers.

So you and I clearly have different definitions of "balanced."

[ketsui]

how does an ability get 'nerfed' when its a beta? you think overtuned things are finalized on a beta?

[Xanatas]

Warlock discord and theorycrafters have said Kyrian is now best for both affliction and destruction, pvpers are already going Venthyr or Night Fae, and no one is touching necrolords anymore aside from the hold out "I'm a necromancer!" RPers.

So you and I clearly have different definitions of "balanced."

i don't understand discord warlock... in pvp fleshcraft is a good shield and actually for destro decimating bolt single target is very very good... 3X incinerate in a row with the conflagrate buff and the conflagrate bonus +30% fire damage = insane!

For demo (yes, i go demo in pvp maybe ) is very very interesting decimating bolt + 3Xdemonbolt in a row and the conduits are good (the shield 20% under 50% health, and the fear istant under 20% health).

Bonus decimating for Affliction is nerfed to the ground, ok, but in pvp inevitable demise is the talent to pick, not drain soul.

Door of shadow is a good ability, but you need to cast under pressure melee = interrupt = affliction lock death.

[Malekius]

Warlock discord and theorycrafters have said Kyrian is now best for both affliction and destruction, pvpers are already going Venthyr or Night Fae, and no one is touching necrolords anymore aside from the hold out "I'm a necromancer!" RPers.

So you and I clearly have different definitions of "balanced."

By balanced I mean that before it was being picked above anything else, even Venthyr that was an ok ability was miles behind it, at least in single target. Now that other options appear as viable too, it might not truly balanced, but it's a clear sign that it was vastly overpowered before, no matter how much I loved the absurdity of it, and now it's "balanced" enough to be considered on par with others.

I'll probably stick to necro anyway, but I'm easing myself into the fact that I might need to swap.

[Shandalar]

Picking Decimating Bolt has become a DPS loss for Afflicion and Destro, so the defenders of balance like @Gaidax should be very happy. In the same way they are happy for Demon being a mechanics abomination and the worst dps of the game.

[Calfredd]

Picking Decimating Bolt has become a DPS loss for Afflicion and Destro, so the defenders of balance like @Gaidax should be very happy. In the same way they are happy for Demon being a mechanics abomination and the worst dps of the game.

Spamming the victim card has diminishing returns.

[FelPlague]

I really hope they leave that, putting it on the right targets to get 5 shards AND a reset feels so rewarding.

also open for insane exploiting and abuse, which coudl cause it to be insanelyfucking broken on tons of fights. so no i doubt it iwll stay this way.

[Arkura]

To be honest I'm almost happy this happened. It would have been cool to play with the hard hitting drain souls, but it does feel better that we dont have 1 insanly strong covenant over the 3 others to me. Now the change doesnt "matter" that much what you do, wich is imo the only way it should be for every class.

[JustaWarlock]

To be honest I'm almost happy this happened. It would have been cool to play with the hard hitting drain souls, but it does feel better that we dont have 1 insanly strong covenant over the 3 others to me.

Well we do, it's just Kyrian now. Until they nerf that.

[Malekius]

Well we do, it's just Kyrian now. Until they nerf that.

In the logs that Kalamazi posted, there were a couple warlocks with decimating bolt that out dps him in the council of blood fight. It's hard to say if them doing better is a matter of rng, practice, or maybe how used they are with the skills, but necro still seems like a viable option, even if kyrian does seem to outperform it.

It could be a matter of a high skill cap, the same way that currently you can havoc two targets, have one die to get 5 shards and let the other one live to reset the kyrian dot. Both skills being on a really short cd (even though kyrian is clearly faster, less than half of necro), there's a chance it could do well still. Maybe it's just denial still, but I'm still willing to try necro.

[JustaWarlock]

In the logs that Kalamazi posted, there were a couple warlocks with decimating bolt that out dps him in the council of blood fight. It's hard to say if them doing better is a matter of rng, practice, or maybe how used they are with the skills, but necro still seems like a viable option, even if kyrian does seem to outperform it.

Based on my experience, Kyrian is still generally better. Much more so for destro with havoc cleave, but even for aff it's basically an additional permadot that hits for similar amounts to UA and buffs MR.
After that, Venthyr is quite good. I think it might be a better all-round choice as it's very good for M+ as that + seed + MR spam is very good for multi target, and it's still OK in raids.

I wouldn't call necro's trash by any means, I just think the other 2 are better. Night Fae, now that's some hot trash right there :P

[Malekius]

Based on my experience, Kyrian is still generally better. Much more so for destro with havoc cleave, but even for aff it's basically an additional permadot that hits for similar amounts to UA and buffs MR.
After that, Venthyr is quite good. I think it might be a better all-round choice as it's very good for M+ as that + seed + MR spam is very good for multi target, and it's still OK in raids.

I wouldn't call necro's trash by any means, I just think the other 2 are better. Night Fae, now that's some hot trash right there :P

Yeah I'm still baffled to see why they created an "ability" that clearly only sinergizes with one spec, and with a particular talent. I haven't checked many other class abilities (also because I don't play many other specs competitively), but is there anything else similar in how narrow it is?

[thrill]

Even if you are affliction with inevitable demise, soul rot is still pretty terrible. It's negligible for single target; DoT is weak and only lasts 8 seconds as an MR amp. Despite being an AoE centric ability, the DoT and drain life effect are limited to only 4 total targets (compared to venthyr which is uncapped). It's kind of baffling.

[Gaidax]

i don't understand discord warlock... in pvp fleshcraft is a good shield and actually for destro decimating bolt single target is very very good... 3X incinerate in a row with the conflagrate buff and the conflagrate bonus +30% fire damage = insane!

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.

---

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.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

[Mashnakh]

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?