Has anyone come to any conclusive results on whether low rupture cycles will provide more umph than high rupture cycles?

Affliction is alive and well. Out of the 13 raid encounters we have available to us right now, it ranks highest against Demo and Destro on 3 fights (Demo wins 2 and Destro wins 8). Even on the fights where Destro wins out, it's usually very very close (between 1%-7%, averaging 4%). This is based on the average top 40 parses for each spec on WoL as of today, so it's a pretty good indicator.

A few of the encounters have a clear winning spec, but for most of they it all comes down to player role (tanking Rohash, stunning adds on Magmaw, etc.) and a player's comfort level playing that spec.

The reason there's no guide yet is that nobody has made one yet, and I don't have the time to put one together myself.

Edit: THIS is what happens when I open a reply window and take 30 minutes before I hit submit. Jmickey from <Adept> has posted a great guide for Affliction today.

List of 4.06 PTR patch notes for priests (taken from MMO's thread):


Discipline

* Levitate now lasts 10 min, up from 2 min.
* Power Word: Fortitude now costs 22% of base mana, down from 69%.
* Power Word: Shield now scales from 87% of spell power, up from 41.8%. Base absorb increased by 110%, from 3906 to 8136. Now costs 25% of base mana, up from 19% of base mana.
* Focused Will now reduces all damage taken by 5/10%, up from 4/6%.
* Grace can now be active on multiple targets at a time.
* Strength of Soul now also rpocs from Greater Heal and Flash Heal.
* Pain Suppression no longer increases resistance to Dispel mechanics.
* Rapture now energizes you with 2/4/6% of your total mana, up from 1.5/2/2.5%.
* Atonement now affects a friendly party or raid target within 15 yards, up from 8 yards.
* Improved Power Word: Shield now also increase the damage absorbed by an additional 15/30% when Power Word: Shield is cast on yourself.


Holy

* Holy Word: Chastise now has a 30 sec cooldown, up from 25 sec.
* Chakra's state now last 1 min, up from 30 sec.
* Blessed Resilience now increases all healing received by 15/30%, up from 5/10%.
* Holy Concentration now increases mana regeneration by 15/30%, up from 10/20%. [Actually a nerf, currently 20/40 on live tho not reflected in tooltip.]
* Surge of Light now also procs from Flash Heal and Greater Heal.


Shadow

* Shadow Protection now costs 22% of base mana, down from 62% of base mana.




This seems to make BR look more attractive than State of Mind.

Horay! Thanks very much for being the one to do this well

Just a few points... mostly because they disagree with stuff that i've found in other places, but more than likely, i'm incorrect, but would like to see what everybody else thinks.

Firstly, these two tie together, but I personally go for Felhunter as pet. Theres a big emphasis on CC, and being able to interrupt and silence (albeit for 3 seconds) mobs is really handy. Indirectly it can be used for CC, since I've been using it to silence casters that need to be pulled into traps. Very situational, I'm aware. But my second point helps too. (see below)

I use Glyph of UA instead of Lash of Pain, since I was using the felhunter, I took this glyph instead, and then the DPS added by succubus is at least evened out a little bit by this. I've also read somewhere here, but cannot remember which thread about the DPS difference between the succubus and felhunter being minimal, granted simulationCraft is a bit strange the way it calculates some of the damage of pets, but I wouldn't say all out that the succubus wins hands down.

Last point is Affdrain and haste VS mastery. There is proof that yes, when you're using BiS, mastery will increase DPS over haste. My argument being, is that mastery doesn't affect all spells/talents the same that haste does.
My point being is: If you can perfectly time all spells, priorities and rotations, then yes, stack mastery. For the rest of us mortals (read panicked hotkey mashers), would it not be better to push for that 2nd extra tick with haste (2.6k+) instead of stacking mastery? I'm just looking for some discussion on this, because I've not really seen it checked out in detail.

Devs have continually stated that they intend Frost to be a dual-wield tree for DK dps. The only reason I can really see they gave MotFW to the spec was to allow players to experience the Frost playstyle even if they do not have access to one-handed weapons. If it was intended that 2H be competitive with DW, they would have changed it. This underwhelming buff was brought just to lessen the rather large gap between the two Frost specs (simmed between 8-12% DPS difference).

In terms of practicality, the change just doesn't seem to amount to much. Like DW, you will (almost) always be GCD capped. Adding more RP into a GCD locked rotation only leads to more wasted RP. If they were serious about buffing 2H damage, they would have buffed strike damage or all damage with 2H weapons as a modifier built into MotFW, added a frost-debuff modifier to account for the loss of Razorice, or something else.

The only thing Blizzard is saying with this change is: "We know 2H frost sucks, as it should; so here's something small to play around with while we think of a reason to break it for good." I would agree with that too. My interpretation of the purpose of 2H Frost (along with SMF for Warriors) is not to provide a competitve DPS spec, but rather to give players a quirky subspec to keep them interested in content and realize that developers aren't simply resting on the "tried and true", but rather looking for ways to change the flavor of the game. Perhaps developers were fooled by the WotLK reports of 2H frost that were marred by having a vastly superior weapon to bridge the gap (Shadowmourne). But nevertheless, death knights have reporting since beta that this spec has been vastly underperforming.

In terms of discussing this change on these forums, it's really not that applicable. The point here is to min/max to provide the best output in a raid. Even with this change, 2H is still just a shadow of DW.



EDIT: Several sites have reported the buff incorrectly, and the talent now provides melee damage buff by 4/8/12%. This completely changes my perception of the change, which should bring it near or at DW levels. Devs are attempting to make it a viable spec.

When you use Drain Life as a filler, would still Succubus be the best choice of Demon? Demon Soul will be kind of worthless? Or you maybe want to switch to spamming Shadow Bolts during this period of time?

How would Darkmoon Card : Volcano rank against other trinkets including Heroic versions of Bell of Enraging Resonance and Theralion's Mirror?

Someone may have posted this already, but I didn't see it updated in the main post yet.

You can buy the engineering crit cogwheel now. The required mats are in the game.

Alright so looking at the simcraft numbers and gear, the BiS trinkets at least for destro locks is a heroic Theralion's mirror and the heroic blue Gale of shadows......?!?!?! wtf?
[Heart of Ignacious] seems better then [Gale of Shadows]. Also [Theralion's Mirror] how could this be good when mastery usually isnt a major priority until a haste or crit requirement is met? Is it just the static Int from the trinket that make them better or am I missing something?

As to the Dark Intent section, here is a great reference article with math:
Dark Intent - The Guide (2010/12/24))

Summary:
DPS priority for DI for affliction warlock with approximate raid DPS gain:
Class DPS GAIN
1) Shadow Priest 4131
2) Balance Druid 3462
3) Fire Mage 3332
4) Feral Druid 3127
5) Survival Hunter 2909
6) Frost Mage 2641
7) Combat Rogue 2580
8) Assassination Rogue 2361
9) Arcane Mage 2213
10) Elemental Shaman 2200
11) Frostfire Mage 2192
12) Unholy DK 2119
13) Ret Paladin 1944
14) Frost DK 1740
15) MM Hunter 1555
16) Enhancement Shaman 1444

Healer priority (should be used on healer if healing issues are preventing progress on a boss):
1) Restoration Druid
2) Holy Priest (Raid Healing)
3) Restoration Shaman
4) Holy Priest

"DI trading" with other warlocks is a raid DPS loss vs. casting on non-locks since the proc doesn't stack even though the static 3% haste does. It should never be done.

edit: This was posted by Gherkin on mmo-champion. Just wanted to be sure to credit the source.

Ye. I guess we won’t know until someone checks it out and goes in more detail. I’m really hoping that this gives us a slight increase in our energy regeneration comparatively then before this hot fix. Though I understood that there has to be a balance between mastery and haste, obviously with having more mastery. I also felt very limited as to what I do based on my energy regeneration. I’d like to come home from work and find my energy regeneration boosted, would be a good late Christmas present from Ghostcrawler since he screwed me this year.