WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 11

Lhivera · 05/27/08, 3:24 AM

Originally Posted by Draele

Warlock spells are less mana efficient, however, (likely) due to Lifetap.

Aye, but with the same stats I have, which give ~30.30 mana/sec from spirit w/mage armor active, and assuming 39% regen for Fel Armor w/Demonic Aegis, you'd expect 39.39 mana/sec, which, with Cataclysm, will give you ~24% the cost of a Shadow Bolt or ~26% the cost of an Incinerate while casting them, making approximately every fourth cast a freebie. Not as good as the every third cast free that I get, but still pretty good.

alvinrod · 05/27/08, 3:27 AM

I actually get a lot of use out of invisibility. If the fight is around four minutes long I frontload a lot of damage through using IV and combustion early along with other cooldowns so that I cause use them again sub-20%. This generally puts me fairly close to the threat threshold where a crit streak could push me over so I use a few ticks of invisibility to get some room to work with.

Also destruction seems to be rather worthless at the moment. Affliction or Demo looks significantly better at the moment so the spirit talents in destruction seem rather pointless at the moment as few warlocks will probably spec into it unless the tree sees some love before release. Most classes are getting 30% use or little more from spirit at the moment. Is there any other stat that is that pointless? It's like getting only 3 HP per point of stamina or only ~5 mana per point of intellect. At least the healing classes get part of their spirit as spell damage or it is used in some other talent that gives it value.

I don't mind them forcing spirit down our throats so long as it's actually useful beyond the 30% most of us will get out of it. Unless they drop the itemization cost to match the crap return we get from it, I'd rather they just not give it to us and make us depend on shadow priests or some other classes mana return buffs.

◊ Kyth · 05/27/08, 5:38 AM

Originally Posted by Wander

Good point. However, you can expect more Warlocks to take Cataclysm, in the expansion; you'll also get a stronger Armor Regen thanks to Demonology's +30% effect talent; finally, I'm sure they expect Life Tap to be used, but the fact that your spells will be both cheaper and your natural casting regen stronger will make up the difference.

I really really really suggest you play a warlock and discover how fast we run OOM.

I know you're a mage, and you're in this thread jealous of lifetap because you're picture your spell costs, your abilities, your passive mana regen and going "wow if I had lifetap on top of that, I'd be so amazing!" But really: I run through my mana bar in 40 seconds. I don't have mana gems. I don't get mana back on crits. I can't evoc later in the fight.

5% is such a drop in the bucket. It does not, in any way "make up the difference."

Originally Posted by Wander

Probably, except that this then causes the undesirable effect of forcing Fire or Frost Mages to choose damage (via Molten Armor) or sustainability (Mage Armor), which remains a choice no other caster class will have to make; it's one of those things that keeps Mages just a little bit behind on the DPS meters.

You.... do realize that lifetap costs a gcd each time we use it, yes? And that's dps time. Pretty significant dps time in fact. So significant that we get more of a dps boost off a mana pot than we do off a destruction pot, because lifetap is so expensive.

I'd give up 3% crit if it meant I didn't have to lifetap.

Does that mean mage armor is overpowered and mages are amazing?

No, it means our classes are designed differently and as we've learned every single time a discussion like this comes up, you can't just take a handful of abilities of one class, decide you want them, and then act as if they're amazingly overpowered simply because if you had them your class would be overpowered.

Similarly it doesn't mean that just because you have to make a tough choice that your class is underpowered. Maybe I should complain that I'm the only class who has to give up 160dps just to increase other classes' dps by casting curses and I don't do anything to benefit myself?

(edit) Also, none of your mana regen causes your health to drop by 2k+ each time you use it.

Drundia · 05/27/08, 5:44 AM

Originally Posted by rochan

Despite that, warlocks tank 3 encounters and mages tank 2? It's pretty equal. I wouldn't say one is better than the other.

Warlocks can tank pretty much anything as long as healers are sufficiently geared and mobs don't have too many interrupts. 5-man were tanked by Warlocks at 60, Normal 5-mans were tanked by Warlocks at 70. The reason why Warlock can't tank for example Hydross efficiently is lack of dodges and parries. But properly specced Warlock in PVP gear with all Stamina gems will have health comparable if not higher than a tanking Warrior or a Paladin.

As for Cataclysm I'm somewhat concerned about lack of effect on deaggro. If anything is Fire-immune and you don't want to respec Improved Shadow Bolt sounds just plain better and we are stuck with very arguably ineffient Tier 1 talents for Fire. Tier 2 isn't quite efficient for Fire either. If they'd make Soulshatter irresistible or lower its cooldown then we could talk, but as it is anything aggro-sensitive may want capped hit, but even then Warlock's Soulshatter rolled a 1% resist chance, Warlock had to lower DPS, hello 1% wipe!

Wander · 05/27/08, 5:54 AM

Originally Posted by Kyth

I really really really suggest you play a warlock and discover how fast we run OOM.

I know you're a mage, and you're in this thread jealous of lifetap because you're picture your spell costs, your abilities, your passive mana regen and going "wow if I had lifetap on top of that, I'd be so amazing!" But really: I run through my mana bar in 40 seconds. I don't have mana gems. I don't get mana back on crits. I can't evoc later in the fight.

5% is such a drop in the bucket. It does not, in any way "make up the difference."

As Lhivera calculated (and I double checked), effectively 1 in 4 of your Shadowbolts are "free" if the changes go live. That's pretty significant, and it goes right into fixing the problem you mentioned, that Lifetaps cut into DPS significantly.

Originally Posted by Kyth

You.... do realize that lifetap costs a gcd each time we use it, yes? And that's dps time. Pretty significant dps time in fact. So significant that we get more of a dps boost off a mana pot than we do off a destruction pot, because lifetap is so expensive.

This is more because Destruction Potion effects are so tiny compared to the ~100mp5 chain-chugging Mana Potions works out to. Every DPS caster class gets more DPS from Mana Potions over Destruction Potions.

Originally Posted by Kyth

No, it means our classes are designed differently and as we've learned every single time a discussion like this comes up, you can't just take a handful of abilities of one class, decide you want them, and then act as if they're amazingly overpowered simply because if you had them your class would be overpowered.

No, that's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying Spirit Regen is objectively good, even for Warlocks. I don't care about Mages in this discussion; yes, I normally have a horse in this race, but right now all I'm concerned with is actually spreading the Spirit Regen gospel.

Originally Posted by Kyth

Similarly it doesn't mean that just because you have to make a tough choice that your class is underpowered. Maybe I should complain that I'm the only class who has to give up 160dps just to increase other classes' dps by casting curses and I don't do anything to benefit myself?

-160 personal DPS for +X rDPS where X is much, much larger than 160 is a terrible, terrible thing to be complaining about, honestly. I gave you praise for honestly recognizing that fact in another thread, and you throw it back in my face now? I thought we had rapport?

alvinrod · 05/27/08, 8:12 AM

I haven't seen how spell costs are scaling in WotLK, but the mp5 abilities that other classes can give mages and warlocks seem to be getting a significant bump. JoW and BoW from a Paladin are roughly doubled in effect from what they currently are. Someone mentioned in either this thread or another the new Priest DS is 80 spirit. Talented MotW is going to add another 52 spirit as well. I think even 30% mana return is going to be a decent amount.

What the new mage raid spec will be is also up in the air. Someone has to have the shadow priest in their group and it may end up being the warlocks who get him this time around simply because the ideal mage happens to have Arcane Meditation.

I also haven't seen what elemental shamans are getting either so it's possible there will be plenty of mana for everyone if the get some new talent that hands out mana. A totem that returns mana when you crit a spell perhaps. Who knows right now.

I think we really need to look at the big picture and ask ourselves how much spirit we're likely to have on our gear and how much we'll be getting from raid buffs and other sources. I think a lot of us tend to get blindsided by how crap spirit us for many of us right now, but that doesn't mean it can't/won't be good.

I'm not completely sold on it yet, mostly because for the majority of specs is does little more than serve as mana regeneration, but there will be plenty of time for that to change and us to leave feedback for the developers.

Anexus · 05/27/08, 8:35 AM

Originally Posted by Wander

Originally Posted by Kyth

Similarly it doesn't mean that just because you have to make a tough choice that your class is underpowered. Maybe I should complain that I'm the only class who has to give up 160dps just to increase other classes' dps by casting curses and I don't do anything to benefit myself?

-160 personal DPS for +X rDPS where X is much, much larger than 160 is a terrible, terrible thing to be complaining about, honestly. I gave you praise for honestly recognizing that fact in another thread, and you throw it back in my face now? I thought we had rapport?

I think that was intended as a rethorical question.

Wander · 05/27/08, 9:31 AM

Originally Posted by Anexus

I think that was intended as a rethorical question.

Yes, perhaps; color me continually baffled by his position on the matter, though, because unlike any other rDPS buff, A Warlock can elect not to sacrifice his personal DPS and not apply the raid's Curse; No other rDPS buff works that way, or at least none that I can think of off the top of my head, like Improved Scorch, or Expose Weakness, Hemo, Blood Frenzy (unless the Warrior is forced to maintain Rend to keep it up), etc, etc; if the debuff supplier choose not to maintain the debuff, his own personal DPS suffers dramatically as well. It's utility in a way no other rDPS buff is.

At any rate, to avoid completely wasting the post, I'm fairly certain that going from zero to some finite amount of mana regen while casting is going to be a dramatic and highly noticeable change for Warlocks; you might not realize it now, but passive stats-based regen scales faster than linearly, faster than exponentially; you can obtain functionally infinite mana reserves from passive regen with much, much less of a gear investment than it would take to do the same with Life Tap (in this scenario, I'm counting the healer's gear investment as well), and it doesn't rely on your hit point pool, either. I think Warlocks are going to be pleasantly surprised going from 0 ->150/200 mp5 while casting. Basically, it will be like suddenly finding yourself under the effect of chain-super-mana-potting (~100mp5) without having to drink mana pots.

Think about the DPS you can sustain now with mana pots - that will be the potion-less DPS you'll maintain after the SPI changes go in. Chain-potting will drive you to an even higher level of DPS.

Ele' · 05/27/08, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by Wander

Yes, perhaps; color me continually baffled by his position on the matter, though, because unlike any other rDPS buff, A Warlock can elect not to sacrifice his personal DPS and not apply the raid's Curse; No other rDPS buff works that way, or at least none that I can think of off the top of my head, like Improved Scorch, or Expose Weakness, Hemo, Blood Frenzy (unless the Warrior is forced to maintain Rend to keep it up), etc, etc; if the debuff supplier choose not to maintain the debuff, his own personal DPS suffers dramatically as well. It's utility in a way no other rDPS buff is.

Technically, a warlock can sacrifice rDPS to improve its personal DPS. Yes. (Or without decreasing it, at least)
But any half-decent raid leader would kick your ass for doing so, thus forcing you to apply the raid curses.

@everyone, not specifically Wander:
I'll say it without much conviction, but could we go away from this whole Mage v.s Warlock little war ? Yes, getting a 30% regen armor is a buff, and arguably a needed one. Yes, increasing warlocks efficiency could prove to be detrimental to mages, as we share about the same role in raids (outside of gimmick fights). But do it really means that warlocks should be "attacked" each time there's a hint that they may be buffed ? Would it not be more constructive to try and fix whatever may be broken in the mage class ?

In short: stop being jealous about other's buffs, try to fix your own problems instead.

[Note] I feel I'm gonna be flamed for this post. But it's alright, I'm just sick of the impression that half the casters threads those days are about how mages envy warlocks and so on... those are not the official forums, dammit.

Wander · 05/27/08, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by Ele'

Technically, a warlock can sacrifice rDPS to improve its personal DPS. Yes. (Or without decreasing it, at least)
But any half-decent raid leader would kick your ass for doing so, thus forcing you to apply the raid curses.

Yes, but what I mean by this is for all non-raid applications, the Warlock has paid no penalty whatsoever for his rDPS buffing capabilities; Elemental Shaman and Shadow Priests have a lower top-end potential in exchange for their raid utility; Warlocks simply swap around a Curse to change what they want.

Originally Posted by Ele'

Yes, getting a 30% regen armor is a buff, and arguably a needed one. Yes, increasing warlocks efficiency could prove to be detrimental to mages, as we share about the same role in raids (outside of gimmick fights). But do it really means that warlocks should be "attacked" each time there's a hint that they may be buffed ? Would it not be more constructive to try and fix whatever may be broken in the mage class?

Even given that it's not specifically me that you're addressing, my focus really isn't Mages here but trying to convince Warlocks that getting 30% passive SPI is a much much bigger buff than any of them think it is. Mages, in my opinion, are getting fixed on their own way, though they could use some tree-trimming.

Flamingcloud · 05/27/08, 10:47 AM

I think people are trying to look at this from a what we will have for level 70 raiding perspective.

Imp Motw improved by a few points.
Spriests reduced to 2% from 5%
39% passive regen
more locks going fire

That is pretty much it, there won't be the huge spirit influx yet or bow/jow rank changes so we won't have massive regen, pretty much we will be slightly-moderately down on regen with a spriest, and we will be better off than before by a good margin if we didn't have a spriest.

Wander · 05/27/08, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Flamingcloud

I think people are trying to look at this from a what we will have for level 70 raiding perspective.

Imp Motw improved by a few points.
Spriests reduced to 2% from 5%
39% passive regen
more locks going fire

That is pretty much it, there won't be the huge spirit influx yet or bow/jow rank changes so we won't have massive regen, pretty much we will be slightly-moderately down on regen with a spriest, and we will be better off than before by a good margin if we didn't have a spriest.

I suppose, but let me reiterate what I posted a few posts back: Right now, chain-chugging Super Mana Potions is worth about 100mp5 averaged over a fight. Right now, a Warlock has a 250mp5 while not-casting while raid buffed from SPI-based regen; 39% of that is 97.5mp5.

Even at level 70, with no new ranks or skills and no additional changes aside from Fel Armor going to (30 *(1.3))% SPI-based regen while casting, the change almost completely replaces Chain-chugging Super Mana Potions; the DPS a Destruction lock is capable of now, supported by chain-chugging Mana Potions, will be achievable consumable-free if the changes were to go live today.

Even looking at it from a level 70 raiding perspective with no itemization changes whatsoever (i.e., Warlocks still have 0 itempoints spent on SPI), the change is simply very significant, objectively.

The VT reduction will hurt some, but SP personal DPS is being increased fairly dramatically, so it's possible the actual returns won't be reduced nearly as much as people fear, and even if the changes were to go live today, there's freely-available SPI-heavy caster gear free for the taking for Badges.

Lhivera · 05/27/08, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by Flamingcloud

I think people are trying to look at this from a what we will have for level 70 raiding perspective.

Aye, I think people really need to shift and look at this from a "what we will have after replacing some gear in the first 10/25-man raids at level 80" perspective. It's true that the Fel Armor change will not do much for you while leveling, but by the time we're all in the 2nd or 3rd raiding tier at level 80, mages and warlocks should be wearing pretty similar gear and it'll be doing a lot more.

Zasz · 05/27/08, 11:22 AM

Fel Armor - Changed to +Dmg and 30% of mana regen during combat
I think its stupid. Warlocks are supposed not to have manareg due to lifetap. We never needed nor will we need it. Its totaly ignoring the role of Warlocks.

Its a neat idea to have every 4th SB without any costs but we already have unlimited mana as long as we get healed. What about dark pakt? Its a better lifetap Imo that we can use when our demons have enough to use it without life costs. I dont understand what blizz was thinking with this change.

Kindling Soul (35 point) -Your spell damage is increased by 10% of your Spirit, and your spell criticals increase your Spirit by 30% for 10 sec.
Since when do Warlocks have spirit (if its the same stat thats increasing heal on the druids tree form, using a non english client)? I only have 141 spirit, with this talent I get 14 spelldmg. After a crit I have 183 spirit which gives me additional 4 spelldmg. Totaly wasted points. Thats nothing.

Improved Shadow Bolt - reduced to +15%
I hope they are buffing shadowpriests because with this talent changed they will nerf their dmg by 5% and their manareg for their party.

All in all, some usefull changes, some that I dont really need and the rest... no comment. Warlocks seem to become a mix of other classes more and more.

Just my 0.02.

Lhivera · 05/27/08, 11:40 AM

Originally Posted by Zasz

Its a neat idea to have every 4th SB without any costs but we already have unlimited mana as long as we get healed. What about dark pakt? Its a better lifetap Imo that we can use when our demons have enough to use it without life costs. I dont understand what blizz was thinking with this change.

I think they may be looking at Brutallus here. Warlock DPS is balanced around that need to life tap, which means when you feed the class a bunch of fuel and eliminate the need to life tap, their DPS goes up much, much faster than mage DPS. They're probably looking to even that out a bit.

Since when do Warlocks have spirit (if its the same stat thats increasing heal on the druids tree form, using a non english client)? I only have 141 spirit, with this talent I get 14 spelldmg. After a crit I have 183 spirit which gives me additional 4 spelldmg. Totaly wasted points. Thats nothing.

You're looking at this in the context of your level 70 gear. Your level 80 gear will have a lot more spirit on it.

Improved Shadow Bolt - reduced to +15%
I hope they are buffing shadowpriests because with this talent changed they will nerf their dmg by 5% and their manareg for their party.

Spriest changes do seem to be geared at higher DPS, however, they're also reducing the mana generation from 5% of their damage to 2%; it looks like they're trying to spread around that regen function.

tetracycloide · 05/27/08, 11:40 AM

Originally Posted by Zasz

...we already have unlimited mana as long as we get healed.

Warlock mana is not unlimited. It costs us very real casting time to get mana back, casting time we could be spending on something that deals damage. Dark pact is not a trainable ability and reasonably geared raiding warlocks are going to be destruction. Mana regen, no matter how small, is a welcome change.

Torq · 05/27/08, 2:32 PM

So, just as a reference back to my proposed 0/38/21+12 spec, I saw a comment about ~10% increased pet scaling in LK. Does anyone have a reference for this? It could considerably change some numbers on that build, making it even more attractive.

[E] Found it. For reference, it's the talent Fel Synergy.

Jonny_Monroe · 05/27/08, 2:46 PM

On the fel armour vs. mage armour topic:

I'm not trying to turn this into a mage versus warlock discusion; I'm rather using this example to show some inconsistency in the new 'spirit for all' setup.

-All cloth casters, regardless of class or spec, are going to get a lot more spirit
-All casters except fire and frost mages are being given better functionality on that spirit FOR FREE.
For Example:
:Shadow priests - tier 1 tallent for regen and +spirit on crit
:Warlock - Fel armour (the PvE armour) gets 30% regen passive
:Warlock - Spirit-based tallents in the PvE tree
:Fire mage - 30% spirit regen at a cost of 3% crit in a PvE tree.

To me, this seems like bad design from blizz. Unless they plan on adding some spirit-based tallent, WotLK will simply make molten armor completely redundant in every situation. This is blizzard effectively telling mages 'You can either spec arcane, drop 3% crit or be stuck with lots of wasted item points. Your choice'

Since this should probably be in the mage thread, i'm stop commenting on this here.

alvinrod · 05/27/08, 2:56 PM

I don't know if the were trying to spread it around so much as keep it from scaling ridiculously. On Brutallus one of our shadow priests was doing between 1500 and 1600 DPS. That works out to over 375 mp5. Most classes are going to do around 2k on a fight like that but if you allow shadow priests to do anywhere near that much damage the mp5 gets really out of hand. By dropping it down to 2% Blizzard can raise the damage cap on shadow priests so their single target DPS is able to compete with other classes to a greater extent but the mana returns won't be absolutely crazy.

If their DPS goes up to 2000 because of the changes the old VT would be putting out 500 mp5. With the other mana regen increases it probably would have been possible to have a mage spam non-stop AB the entire fight.

With the way things are shaping up now it looks as if a raid would want one of each priest spec. I tend to feel as though that's not a bad thing even if it does shake things up on our end.

◊ Kyth · 05/27/08, 3:48 PM

No point in trying to respond to the mages one by one (posting in the warlock thread...), so a bulk reply:

The next mage who sits and acts as if warlock spells cost the same as mage spells, who ignores evoc, mana gems, mana back on crits, and focuses needs to shut up and reroll warlocks if we're so amazing. You guys shit up every warlock thread and are why I never even bother to post about my class anymore. EJ used to be safe -- apparently no longer.

It's like you're back to forgetting that we actually have to lifetap and it actually takes dps time. One more mana pot per cooldown will *not* remove my need to pot and give me unlimited mana, even with spriests at the levels they are now (and VT is getting nerfed from 5% to 2%.) Lifetap is alive and well and costs dps time to do it (you know, just like you giving up 3% crit -- except it's a bigger hit than 3% crit.)

You obsess about our armor differences -- should I go through our trees and point out all the extra dps boosts you get in your tree that I don't? No, it's dumb to do so, so I won't. You cannot compare one piece of one class to one piece of another class (well, you can, you guys did it all over this thread...)

Your envy is a riot because you can't see beyond your own nose to understand the interplays with other classes and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Just like the mage in the other thread who is raiding sunwell but apparently forgot about how key decursing and spellsteal are in several fights there, and stated that the only mage utility is polymorph and it isn't used on any fights so mages are useless.

The likelihood is that the spirit/armor changes are a two-fold attempt to adjust the balance between pvp and pve. They want locks to have to lifetap in pvp, but recognize that it makes us a burden on the raid in pve. So they won't put spirit on the lock pvp gear, and they don't give you the meditation talent in your pvp gear anyways. (given an equal dps mage and lock, I'd bring the mage in a heartbeat just because they don't have to lifetap so my healers aren't dealing with that up to a ~400/tick dot we call "lifetap.")

@ Wander:

Yes it was rhetorical. And technically you can stop casting scorch too and just force the other mage to do it. Same thing, same argument. "But I'd be kicked out of my raid if I didn't do scorch." Yeah, well, same thing here. Except it's more noticable than when one mage slacks on scorch.