Affliction Warlock Review of Hellcaller Hero Talents – Hidden Potential & Quality of Life

Our Affliction Warlock guide writer, Kalamazi, offers an early review of the Hellcaller Warlock Hero Talents that offer a lot of hidden potential and some additional intricacy managing Wither and acute windows, but some baseline talent changes could go a long way to help the spec fit in more naturally with Affliction.

Hellcaller Affliction Warlock Review

Hellcaller is the new Affliction-Destruction Hero Talent pairing in The War Within. While these Hero Talents are shared between the two specs, Hellcaller has some serious Affliction vibes and could potentially be quite strong in the right settings. Wither does a great job at capturing the essence of Affliciton, while also having a bit of extra “flare” via other abilities such as Bleakheart Tactics and Malevolence, which we will discuss in further detail.

Breaking Down Wither

Wither

As mentioned, Wither is what the Hellcaller Hero Talent tree builds upon for Affliction. Wither replaces Corruption (even thought its baseline form is VERY similar to Corruption), but the ability is then built upon through other various hero talents like Blackened Soul and Bleakheart Tactics. Both effects allow Wither to gain “stacks” which (when reaching 8 stacks or 20% health on a mob) become acute, dealing Shadowflame damage every 1 second for each stack of Wither. Blizzard has not yet clarified how the stacks of Wither will work specifically, or if having additional stacks increases the DOT damage of Wither itself. They did however clarify on Seed of Corruption interaction with Wither, that it WILL indeed apply Wither to all enemies hit.

This all essentially means that Wither will function in a similar manner to Corruption when being applied via Seed of Corruption, but micro-managing Withers stack count and acute windows will certainly add a bit more intricacy to the ability.

Intricacies of Hellcaller Warlock

Xalan’s Ferocity

Xalan’s Ferocity is a flat 5% increase to your Shadow and Fire damage spells. While a bit bland, this talent will likely be used as a “tuning knob” for Hellcaller, if the tree is in need of some buffs. It could also be a placeholder for abilities to be added later in Alpha/Beta.

Blackened Soul

Blackened Soul is what takes Wither to the next level. This ability states that your damaging abilities further corrupt enemies affected by your Wither, increasing its stack count by 1. I want to point out that the word “chance” is not used on that sentence, it currently reads as if every damage based ability will add an additional stack to Wither. I would assume DOT ticks will be blacklisted or likely have some kind of internal ICD placed on them, but this mans you will likely be accruing stack of Wither very quickly. At this point in time, we are not sure if additional stacks of Wither increase Withers damage before becoming Acute, but the presumed answer is no.

Blackened Souls also mentions that Wither will become Acute upon reaching 8 stacks, or whenever the mob reaches 20% or lower health. This gives Wither a small, pseudo execute while also providing a bit of extra burst damage whenever Wither reaches 8 stacks. It is also not clear currently if the Acute stacks will become a separate damage event once they “flare up” or if it will remain the same Wither effect, but its likely safe to assume that Wither itself will not fall once all stacks of it are consumed be becoming Acute, it will likely just remain active with 0 stacks, and the cycle will the begin once more.

Xalan’s Cruelty

Xalan’s Cruelty is likely another “tuning knob”, similar to Xalan’s Ferocity whichc an be used to buff or nerf Hellcaller based on overall performance. Seeing two flat % increase nodes this early on into a Hero Talent tree does seem a bit odd, so I am hoping that one of the two is a placeholder for another Hero Talent to be added later on.

Hatefury Rituals or Bleakheart Tactics

The choice between Hatefury Rituals and Bleakheart Tactics will likely come down to tuning and the potential interactions between Hatefury Rituals and Absolute Corruption. Wither is an 18 second dot but that is reduced to a mere 9 seconds if Hatefury Rituals is chosen over Bleakheart Tactics. Having to refresh a DOT roughly every 8 seconds seems both punishing and tedious, which is something that should potentially be looked at in further tuning passes. Potentially something along the lines is having Wither deal damage 50% less often or so, but still have the same duration would maybe suffice, while not making gameplay feel frustrating. There is also the unknown interaction between Absolute Corruption and Wither, as in if it will make the effect permanent or simply have no interaction at all. Absolute Coruption also shares a talent node with Siphon Life, which is the better option in most settings regardless, so we really need to see if any changes have been made to the spec tree before diving too deep into said interaction.

Bleakheart Tactics also increases the damage of Wither, but only by 15%. You do however have a chance to generate an additional stack of Wither from Blackened Soul whenever a stack is applied. Keep in mind that Blackened Soul tooltip does currently imply that damage based effects will apply a stack 100% of the time, it is not a chance. This can easily lead to generating stacks of Wither very quickly, with a slight element of RNG involved. You also would not have to deal with managing a 9 second Wither on targets, a large QOL increase.

Mark of Xavius

Mark of Xavius is an interesting talent. It increases the damage of your Agony by 10%, but also makes it a “combo” skill. Directly recasting Agony within 2 seconds will apply Agony to one other nearby enemy. This essentially means that you get 3 Agony casts for the price of 2, but I am not sure if it’s actually that powerful. Sure, it will save you a cast of Agony when you manually having to refresh 5+ in M+/AOE based settings, but I think having the ability simply reduce the cooldown of Vile Taint to the point where it could be used to apply and maintain the effect in AOE, would make players much happier. You are still going to have to manually refresh Agony between Vile Taint casts with Mark of Xavius, it will just save you a global or two. Between all of the effects that need to be juggled for Affliction to be successful, a Vile Taint CD reduction would be more than welcome and would be a tremendous QOL increase in M+/AOE content.

Cull The Weak

Its important to note that Cull The Weak requires you to either refresh Wither DIRECTLY (via a manual reapplication) OR refresh it with less than 4 seconds remaining, to generate the 3 stacks of Wither. This will be easy enough to manage in single target settings (its basically Pandemic), but in AOE where you are spamming Seed of Corruption, its unlikely you will generate much value from Cull The Weak, barring later on in an AOE cycle to refresh your Withers. Keep in mind that Wither becomes Acute at 8 stacks or 20% health remaining on a mob, so being able to generate 3 stacks instantly may be quite powerful in certain scenarios depending on tuning.

Mark of Peroth’arn

Mark of Peroth’arn build upon Wither even more, increasing the damage of Blackened Soul by 5% per stack of Wither. It also causes Agony to deal damage 10% faster, which does mean slightly increased shard generation on average. The effect is similar to Creeping Death, which is a talent selected in basically every scenario. My hope is that is actually causes Agony to deal its damage 10% more often, but keep the same baseline duration. This is the way Creeping Death functions, after the changes it received.

Malevolence

Malevolence is Hellcallers Capstone Talent and is a “baby” Dark Soul: Misery in a sense. While it only grants 10% Haste, it is a 1-minute cooldown. The effect also increases your Wither stack count by 3 on all targets affected and turns them all Acute. It also causes your Malefic Rapture to apply a stack of Wither to targets affected by Unstable Affliction while the effect is active. This means that for the duration of Malevolence all of your active Withers will be dealing their bonus Acute damage, acting as a damage boost, resource generator and haste increase, all in one effect. The ability also does mention “Targets” (plural) affected by Unstable Affliction, but that is likely due to Rampant Afflictions being applicable in PVP.

The fact that is it such a short cooldown means that managing it may be a bit more complex than simply hitting it on CD. You will want to make sure that the max amount of targets have Wither applied to them (to trigger the Acute portion of Malevolence), but also have enough time to make good use of the Haste and Malefic Rapture amplifying portions. In mass AOE, chances are high you won’t be casting many Malefic Raptures, but you will have a good bit of Withers active thanks to Seed of Corruption applying the effect. I would like to see Seed itself added to Malevolence, so that the Rapture portion of the CD does not feel out of place in AOE, but that could also potentially be a bit too strong with it being a 1-minute CD. I do feel the effect is deceptively powerful is used properly, especially with how quickly we can generate Wither stacks thanks to other abilities.

Defensive and Utility Talents

Mark of the Legashi or Aura of Enfeeblement

Mark of the Legashi is an interesting option, as there have not been many cases in the past where both Curse of Tongues and Curse of Weakness have been relevant on the same target in PVE. One of the more recent fights where both were is actually Sylvanas, but that was merely due to a bug with Tongues, which was later fixed. I could see a handful of uses for it in PVP however, being effective against certain roles in various situations.

Aura of Enfeeblement however is much more interesting to me. The biggest question is how the spell actually functions, if it is an aura around your character itself, or if it is an aura based around the mob that you cast either Tongues or Weakness on. I would venture to guess that it will be based around any mob that has either curse applied to it, but the wording on the tooltip could technically imply that it is an aura around the player. If that ends up being the case, you would likely need to play within 10 yards of most mobs in an M+/AOE based setting to apply Weakness and Tongues to the pack. An aura around the player would also likely be stronger in certain PVP based situations, but weaker in others. Either way, Aura of Enfeeblement is likely one of the strongest QOL and utility traits we have seen so far.

Zevrim’s Resilience or Illhoof’s Design

Both Zevrim’s Resilience and Illhoof’s Design are flavorful, but a bit underwhelming to me personally. While gaining a 10% Soul Leech from Zevrim’s Resilience after consuming a Healthstone is nice, you often will consume a healthstone to make up for life already lost from a recent attack, making the 10% Soul Leech shield not as effective in certain spots. Other times however, such as PVP or encounters with frequent periodic damage, the Soul Leech shield can be put to good use. The ability is not incredibly flashy of powerful but will typically lead to a bit of extra damage negation. The only downside is that its tied to healthstone use only.

Illhoof’s Design causes you to sacrifice 10% of your health, but also grants the ability to accrue 15% additional Soul Leech on top of what you already can. While this may sound like a worthwhile trade off, it is already difficult to accrue your full 10% Soul Leech shield currently after the nerfs it has received over the course of Dragonflight. It is also important to clarify that this is a static effect, not an ability like Dark Pact.

Is Hellcaller Warlock a Hit?

Overall, I think that Hellcaller is an exciting tree that has a good bit of hidden potential in various settings, but a decent bit of questions remain unanswered until we can fully test with it in an Alpha/Beta cycle. Having a 1 minute cooldown in Malevolence is something that should certainly not be overlooked, and will reward players for properly timing the ability and managing Wither stacks well. I do wish that Mark of Xavius simply reduced the cooldown on Vile Taint, rather than giving us the ability to refresh dots in an odd manner, but it may very well feel better in actual gameplay than it seems on paper. Aura of Enfeeblement is also a massive QOL increase and something that will bring a tremendous amount of value in M+/other various spots where it is applicable.

A good bit of Hellcaller’s overall potential depends on the Affliction’s talent tree and if changes are made to its more problematic areas such as Siphon Life and the single target or AOE damage profiles choices you must make. Without seeing the tree as of yet, I would give Hellcaller a 7.5/10 from an Affliction POV, with potential for it to be even higher (or lower) once Alpha begins.

About the Author
Hello! My name is Kalamazi, and I am a Warlock content creator focused mainly on PVE content. I recently joined Liquid and have previously cast multiple Race to World First events. If you have any questions feel free to stop by my Twitch and ask! You can also find me on Youtube, Twitter or in my Discord.

Wither
Bestows a vile malediction upon the target, burning the sinew and muscle of its host, dealing Shadowflame damage over 18 seconds. Replaces Corruption (Affliction) or Immolate (Destruction). Xalan’s Ferocity
Shadow damage increased by 5%. Fire damage increased by 5%. Blackened Soul
Your damaging abilities further corrupt enemies affected by your Wither, increasing its stack count by 1.

Each time Wither increases it has a chance to become acute, dealing Shadowflame damage to its host every 1 second until 1 stack remains.

Wither will always become acute after reaching 8 stacks or when its host reaches 20% health. Xalan’s Cruelty
Fire critical strike chance increased 10%. Shadow critical strike chance increased 10%.Mark of the Legashi
Curse of Weakness also applies Curse of Tongues. Aura of Enfeeblement
Enemies within 10 yards are affected by your Curse of Weakness and Curse of Tongues at 75% effectiveness.Hatefury Rituals
Wither deals 100% increased damage but its duration is 50% shorter. Bleakheart Tactics
Wither damage increased 15%. When Wither gains a stack from Blackened Soul, it has a chance to gain 1 additional stack.Zevrim’s Resilience
When you consume a Healthstone, you also restore 10% of your maximum health as Soul Leech. Illhoof’s Design
Sacrifice 10% of your maximum health. Soul Leech now absorbs an additional 15% of your maximum health.Mark of Xavius
Agony damage increased 10%. Agony is now a combo skill (Affliction). Directly recasting Agony within 2 seconds applies Agony to 1 other nearby enemy.

Wither damage increased 10%. Wither is now a combo skill. Directly recasting Wither within 2 seconds applies Wither to 1 other nearby enemy (Destruction).Cull The Weak
Casting Wither directly or refreshing Wither with less than 4 seconds remaining causes Wither to gain 3 stacks.Mark of Peroth’arn
Blackened Soul deals 5% increased damage per stack of Wither (Affliction). Agony deals damage 10% faster. Wither deals damage 10% faster (Destruction).Malevolence
Dark magic erupts from you and corrupts your soul for 20 seconds, causing enemies suffering from your Wither to take Shadowflame damage and increase its stack count by 3 (Affliction).

While corrupted, your active Withers are acute, your haste is increased by 10%, and Malefic Rapture grants 1 additional stack of Wither to targets affected by Unstable Affliction.

While corrupted, your active Withers are acute, your haste is increased by 10%, and Chaos Bolt grants 1 additional stack of Wither (Destruction).