Note the addition of "Shadow Bite" to the Felhunter's arsenal, which will serve not only to boost its DPS significantly, but also to keep its mana bar full for Dark Pacting. It seems safe to assume at this time, based both on the changes we've seen and on Blizzard's statements, that pets will be better able to survive a raid environment.

So, by switching from a phase-shifted Imp used solely as a mana battery to an active Felhunter, the Affliction 'lock's DPS is increased by whatever the Felhunter's DPS winds up being, plus adds 8% Intellect as a raid buff.

People really need to stop assuming that WoW/TBC rules are going to continue to apply in WotLK, particularly in areas where it's obvious that Blizzard is trying very hard to make big changes, such as the use of pets by pet classes. "My Felhunter used to die instantly" means nothing until we see what they've actually done (and/or are planning to do) with pets as the Beta progresses. If demons are still getting regularly one-shot by random secondary target effects or AOE's when we're nearing release, then sure, it was all in vain. In the meantime, let's assume they're not a pack of idiots, and that having identified a problem:

...they are capable of solving that problem.

Charges are problematic due to the fact that it's also supposed to serve as a +hit effect for melee/ranged. Setting a cooldown on how often the effect can be applied to a single target allows limiting the uptime to the desired percentage, without badly hurting the value of the talent to a single mage.

For example, with a 15 second target-based cooldown, max uptime is 33%, and thus max crit increase is 16.5%. With a single Frost Mage casting every 2.3 seconds, it's still better than a 6.5% crit increase, which is pretty damn good for two talent points.

You are forgetting that Winter's Grasp needs Shatter to function as a crit gain.

Not at all. I just dismiss the argument that Shatter is worthless without Winter's Grasp, since it's already included in virtually every deep Frost build. The only additional expenditure to gain this crit bonus is the two points for Winter's Grasp; they just happen to work by leveraging the points we've already spent in Shatter.

That's fair... and I don't think so much that they're stupid but that basically they're doing things on purpose. If you look at what classes gained the most from TBC (druids, warlocks, shamans in pve) and what classes lost the most (mages, holy paladins) it's clear to me at least that they wanted to influence the populations. The classes with low representation in the population were all given substantial buffs, where the classes that were over-represented and overvalued weren't given nearly as much.

I think that was was done, especially with the supremacy of warlocks as a ranged dps class and druids as an amazing pvp class, was done more to influence the population and not as much to really balance the game.

Honestly I'm more interested in having class roles restored than what would be more traditionally known as balance, because I feel like if class roles were really restored, balance would come naturally. Plus, I'm really, really psyched for the hunter and shaman changes because I feel they really enhance the pet/survivalist and melee/elemental hybrid images of the respective classes.

Sorry that was pretty OT, but you guys get the point. You are right in terms of shadow bite but what's more important is the 2pt5 bonus being made into a talent for warlocks, as keeping the pet alive is one of the biggest pains in the ass in the game.


As for WG, my opinion is that it needs to just be removed. Look what ISB has done to the warlock class... every warlock has to spec 10 points in destro purely for ISB and bane because shadowbolt is such a powerful spell and ISB is such a powerful debuff. I'd rather not see the mage class turned into the exact same thing where all mages need to spec 37 frost for shatter and WG.

Or if you really wanted to keep WG, make it a self-buff only but give it like a 7/15% chance to proc per cast, and only last for one cast. That'd be a nice burst utility for mages in pvp and it'd be a nice long-term dps buff for frosties in pve... but wouldn't be designed in such a way that all mages basically require WG and inevitably inspire mage stacking.



EDIT:

Lhiv, while I was still playing my mage and working with deep frost builds just for pve, I didn't take shatter... so I don't think it's fair to assume that all deep frost builds will take shatter.

WG atm is the ONLY real addition to frost both PvE and PvP-wise and adds dynamism to the class, the moment they remove it they ruin the whole tree. All it needs is a minor PvE tweak to prevent massive uptime by massing mages, this can be done in a million ways.

I it's more that the highly-represented classes are just powerful, and the lower-represented classes are just weak. Guilds don't stack Warlocks just because they are so prevalent, they stack them because they do good together.

Removed or modified heavily. I also don't want to see this happen. Pigeonholing a class into a certain spec through 1 talent is bad design, and I hope they already found this out when they looked at what happened before Evocation was trainable.

Choice, not power, is what keeps people coming back. You'll eventually get bored with power.

I think you're mixing up cause and effect in what I was saying. I think pre-BC there were a lot more mages and paladins than warlocks and druids because mages and paladins were more powerful classes, so in the interest of balancing the population they made warlocks and druids more powerful classes to attempt to even out the population. Sadly, I get the feeling that WoLK will see a whole lot of people abandoning their ex-main mage or paladin for warlocks and druids, and they'll have to make mages and paladins stronger classes than the rest to re-balance the population again.

But from a business perspective, if people are chasing power by constantly leveling alts, then you've got their subscriptions anyway...


Well, in all honesty shatter is pretty irrelevant for most trash. Unless you're doing Hyjal where being able to freeze/shatter is useful, or doing something like a ZA speed run where clearing trash FAST is important, being able to down trash faster doesn't do much, especially if it's at the cost of 7 talent points that are usually meaningless on the actual boss fight.

Honestly I felt like 10/0/51 was a stronger build without shatter because you could AB spam in situations where you had excess mana or wanted to go really low threat... hence me not taking shatter when I was toying with deep frost builds... but you get the point.



And I disagree with what you're saying that they don't balance around min/maxing. I think you're right that they don't work everything out to the last mathematical detail, but when a mechanic is easily exploited a-la rolling ignites, they fix it... usually by heavily nerfing or removing the mechanic altogether. That's what I think WG is going to be... it's so damn easy to just stack 0/33/38 mages for insane WG uptime that there's little reason to NOT exploit it, especially for the huge amount of rDPS you get from doing so.

But it's not irrelevant for soloing, farming, even necessarily for five-man trash, or for PvP. Blizzard isn't looking at the talent from the perspective that its value must be judged purely from a raiding perspective, and neither should we.

This is what I mean when I say you're incorrectly looking at this from a min/max perspective: they don't consider Shatter to be a wasted 5 points for a raiding mage because they don't expect that mage to spend 100% of his time raiding, and they feel that Shatter adds value when he's engaged in non-raiding activities. I think they're correct about this, personally.

Shatter is five points you spend to improve your performance and play experience when you're not raiding. Winter's Grasp is two points that you spend to improve your performance and play experience in all aspects of the game, including raiding. They certainly work well together, but one is not worthless without the other (indeed, Winter's Grasp is even useful without Shatter, as it permits 3x damage Ice Lance and the use of Deep Freeze). Therefore, I feel it's a mistake born from pretty severe pessimism and a terribly limited point of view to lump all seven points together as a single cost for the gain that Winter's Grasp adds on boss fights.

Is this not the reason most Mages spend the extra point in Fire to get Dragon's Breath, not because it's the end-all of AoEs? Personally I put that point there because it's great fun in 5-mans and soloing.

There's one thing this new talent proves, that they're still trying to move away from talents that are completely wasted on raid bosses. The one side effect is that it negates one of Shatter's weaknesses, that damage can break the freeze effect. I just wish now they'd make Fire DPS more reactive, like Arcane and Frost are.

Precisely because of how ISB was for warlock class, it's getting changed heavily in WotLK. Right now it affects all shadow spells and DOT's. So keeping it up is a raid priority, so shadow priests get 20% more benefit (and 20% more mana return). Also the charges are eaten only with shadow bolt hits. That and fact that alternative tier 1 talent is 5% mana reduction on spells, makes it a non-brainer pickup.

WolTK version has 15% increase on non-periodic damage only. And all non-periodic shadow damage eats charges. So shadow priests get boned with half of their damage being Dots, and charges get eaten up much faster. The new version helps only other destro warlocks do damage really, and it's no longer such a key talent it is right now.
Worse, now it shares tier 1 with Bane, which is a must have talent to any warlock wanting to spam shadowbolt.

While I do see synergy of WG and shatter and DK's frost spells, indeed if not changed, stacking 5-6 frost mages + 2-3 DK's might give more dps than Rogues and dps warriors in their spots.

But remember, dps is not everything. From the looks of it, spell hit will not be as abundant as it is right now. With it working on same table as melee hit (9% needed to be hit capped). Mages/locks have 3% hit from talents. Other 6% might come as buffs (shaman and balance druid give 3% each raid wide). So we might see blizzard not giving any +hit on gear at all to force balanced teams.

I think it's important to remember that Blizzard is trying to balance around 10-man raids as well as 25. While it's not too much a stretch to think that you should be able to have a moonkin and an elemental shaman in any given 25-man raid, the requirement is a lot trickier in a 10-man. At absolute best, you'd have seven DPS in a 10-man raid (1 tank/ 2 healers), and stacking around the hit cap talents means you'd be locked in on two of those slots, and not only with classes but specs. That is, having a druid and shaman isn't good enough; they have to actually be specced balance and elemental. That's not always easy to pull off.

On the other hand, I think removing hit from gear is great, especially since it helps erase the line between healing gear and DPS gear. At the same time, it's still a valid stat rating, and it can't really be fully removed. Thus, gems like Lambent Forest Emerald, Rigid Autumn's Glow, Shining Forest Emerald, and Veiled Monarch Topaz are a great idea. You can gem hit if you can't count on a moonkin, or ignore it entirely if you can always get 6% hit from your raid. (Also, the idea of being able to switch specs on my priest and regear simply by switching a few gems in my healing gear is completely awesome.)