Deathwing

To be honest, the buffage I was expecting was something similar to what druids got. Most of their talent were obvious dps/tanking/healing increases. If they weren't, they had obvious utility. Even Infected Wounds, which is obviously for pvp, I still wouldn't mind getting for pve, because your tank/kitty have innate snare isn't a bad thing.

I mean, fuck Blizzard, make me run out of talent points. Don't make me sit at some level 70 talent spec but at level 80 wondering "Where do I put these 10 points?" It should be obvious, and when you're done, you should be left wishing you had 10 more.

Yeah yeah, I know I'm being melodramatic over datamined alpha talents and that things will change a lot. Let's just say the starting point isn't that great.

 

rooj

I think it would be a mistake to think that Disc priests could return more mana than SPs even if the change goes live. Disc priests only return mana on 3 healing spells, GH, FH and Penance. No idea whether penance is a good coeffiencient healer, but I can tell you that unless overheals count for mana return (which I doubt severely), Shadow Priest mana return will be much higher than the heavy disc priest. Besides, we still have VE, and you may see our dmg scaling better which means that while they nerf the percentage on VT it may be less of a nerf overall.

Now back to your regularly scheduled Lock Talk.

 

Pyralissa

You can take the new information anyway you like, personally if they want to move all three trees into PVP viability that's fine by me. If they want to try and get Destruction Warlocks to think about two schools of spells, great, add some variety to gameplay. If they want people turning into demons, that's just awesome.

So I like the ideas they are presenting, but the execution is lacking. Clearly a 51 point Destruction talent is always, always, always going to have to compare with a 15% damage boost from a 21 point talent. And frankly that's not due to the weakness of any current or future ultimate destruction talent, it due to Demonic Sacrifice being too strong (or conversely Warlock pet mechanics being far too weak).

I was hoping non-demo heavy Warlock would have an compelling reason to use pets in raids, but that doesn't look like it will be happening. Disappointing to say the least.

 

Johnnyrotten

I am interested in a 31/0/40 DP/SnF with eradication and nightfall seems like you could spit out a ton of SB, have plenty of mana and buff the group with blood pact. Or am i missing something and this is a terrible idea?

 

dexia

You lose 15% and demonic aegis..but gain 10% from SM. You also pick up dps gains from imp corruption, eradication, nightfall (math shows it's actually pretty small) and gain siphon life for a little better survivability. It'll be close, but I still think it'll be less than a 10/21/40 build for SB spam with imp. corruption. A 21/50 fire build would probably be higher dps still.

 

Darian_TruBlade

Both Shadow and Fire Destruction Warlocks might be inclined to skip EF completely and grab Master Demonologist instead. Often enough I'm the only Warlock in Karazhan or ZA, and in those cases I'm on Imp duty. Getting something out of that would be nice.

It depends a lot on how the critical damage bonus of EF plays out. It's current text reads as though it's {Total Damage Done on a Crit * 1.1}, which would mean 2.2x damage on a crit. If you're currently at a 30% crit rate and do 1000 DPS, your DPS contribution from crits (not factoring in ISB) is {1000 - 1000/1.3}~=230 DPS. 10% of 230 is a meager 23 DPS increase. That's all Shadow gets from the talent. Fire also gets the benefit of not refreshing Immolate. At 1000 DPS, my rough estimate is an additional 27 DPS increased from not having to refresh Immolate.

So Shadow gets a 2.3% increase, and fire gets a 5% increase.

 

Darian_TruBlade

Both Shadow and Fire Destruction Warlocks might be inclined to skip EF completely and grab Master Demonologist instead. Often enough I'm the only Warlock in Karazhan or ZA, and in those cases I'm on Imp duty. Getting something out of that would be nice.

It depends a lot on how the critical damage bonus of EF plays out. It's current text reads as though it's {Total Damage Done on a Crit * 1.1}, which would mean 2.2x damage on a crit. If you're currently at a 30% crit rate and do 1000 DPS, your DPS contribution from crits (not factoring in ISB) is {1000 - 1000/1.3}~=230 DPS. 10% of 230 is a meager 23 DPS increase. That's all Shadow gets from the talent. Fire also gets the benefit of not refreshing Immolate. At 1000 DPS, my rough estimate is an additional 27 DPS increased from not having to refresh Immolate.

So Shadow gets a 2.3% increase, and fire gets a 5% increase.

 

Flamingcloud

Actually I think 31/0/40 would actually be far superior to a 10/21/40.. if you could actually get those 10% from SM and Eradication it might even be the best spec. problem is thats not possible you could only get 3 erad 3sm, or 5sm 1dp, or 5sm 1erad. Even without its probably still a very good spec, since it is more heavily dot reliant and dots are really good at the start of an expansion.

 

PSGarak

Remember, master demonologist is mutually exclusive with demonic sacrifice. 15% damage > 5% damage + 5% crit for PvE purposes (PvP builds might value the burst more). It's possible that having the pet alive and DPSing could close that gap (remember, the gap is EF in addition to DS). I doubt it, but we have no idea what numbers will actually be like.

Molton Core and Torture show that they're trying to get some cross-element synergy, even if the talents themselves are kinda bad at the moment. Since these talents are a first-draft, I'm fine with knowing that's the intent, implimentation aside. All that we can really conjecture about their final form is that "fire will help shadow" and "shadow will help fire." I sincerely hope that, by release, they will have removed the dominance of DS in destro builds.

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....88847noszh.png

 

Maels

Master Demonologst's Voidwalker buff is actually 10% reduction to all damage taken, not just physical as stated in the OP.

With Shadow Mastery, Eradication and Everlasting Affliction along with Ruin, I think 50/0/21 just might have the edge over fire destro's 0/21/50. Corruption will scale even more ridiculously with the increasing +dmg (156%). Never losing a GCD to cast Corruption and having to keep up only Siphon Life and UA (if they're worth it) between bolts seems promising.

Unless Molten Core procs off Immolate, fire destro really hasn't gained much besides Kindling Soul and Eternal Flames.

 

Flamingcloud

I rechecked, it is definitely still just physical damage, some site probably just wrote it down wrong.

 

EpochsEnd

So far in this thread I have not seen very much discussion of our teleport spell. I can see the general idea behind it (it has to be a PVP spell) but the wording makes it seem almost worthless in the arena.

Assuming it has a maximum range(avoiding the "ghetto hearth" issue) and possibly a LOS requirement it will have very limited uses. What grabs my attention is that the mechanic for setting a location drops it at our feet. I can see it as a possible predetermined fall back point(assuming no LOS requirements) but it doesn't provide what we really need which is an on the run/under pressure escape.

If(obviously nothing from alpha is even close to set in stone) this pair of spells went live, I do not see how this would address or even moderately help us deal with melee in any way. The idea seems to be on the right track but it would have to be changed to a targeted area of effect to set our "port" point in order to be effective.

So many of these talents and spells seem to be making a large push in the general direction of PVP yet this one has no "real" and universally beneficial application to either PVP or PVE. The fact that we are already PVE powerhouses and it looks like our general role in that capacity will not change(only the manner in which we achieve that goal) we should really be concerned about these PVP centric talents and spells assuming Blizzard representatives read these forums. Although hammering out math and ideas is very interesting regarding PVE most of the warlock issues I hear of on a regular basis are PVP related.

 

Draele

So I brainstormed up an idea to make Atrocity less situational.

Make it like an Amplify Curse style effect. Specifically, make it have a 0 mana cost, 30 second cooldown. Makes your next Corruption spell effect targets within 15 yards of your current target(for the Haunt Synergy as this spell seems to be originally designed for) *or* your next Curse of Agony not count towards your one curse per target limit(allowing this spell to not be so damn situation specific and offer some single target damage boost)

Rantings of the Afflicted, a Warlock blog: http://draele.blogspot.com/

 

Flamingcloud

There was nothing in the files indicating a range (range field was blank).. I am not sure what to look for in regards to a line of sight check but there was nothing obviously indicating their was a check. I think there is lots of room to for exploits and creative usage if there is no range checks or line of sight requirement.

 

Draele

I would assume yes to a range requirement and no to a LoS requirement.

Rantings of the Afflicted, a Warlock blog: http://draele.blogspot.com/

 

Flamingcloud

Regardless it is gonna be awesome for raiding etc. Encap on your party? port out. Conflag? Port out. Something targeting you? Port out of los and break the cast.

 

zerdell

I have to say I'm pretty disappointed that Blizz don't seem to be trying to end the reign of the 21 pointers (ds/ruin). Is it so much to ask for a 51 point talent to be useful enough for PvE that choosing between it and a 21 pointer is a genuine choice? I thought they handled it pretty well with UA/Ruin (both are very good, choice changes with gear) and Felguard/Ruin. It's sad to see them heading more towards the... utter uselessness of Shadowfury, capping every tree with what's very clearly a PvP oriented talent.

A CoA + other curse talent to cap affliction would be really good for PvP and PvE, and play into the new haste buff, and seems the logical thing to do. As for decimate, why not give it a debuff to increase the synergy of the school you didn't cast with? For PvP this wouldn't matter, since the punching through immunity wouldn't persist for that next spell (unless you wait till the end of the immunity, I suppose), and in PvE it could pretty cool to have your Decimate shadowbolt increase your chance to crit with fire by 5% (say) for a short duration, to add to the synergies they seem to be trying to introduce.

I suppose the jury is still out on whether demon form would be good for PvE, but it'd have to be pretty amazing to be worth losing the dps time on both ends fo the metamorphosis, while you run to the boss to be in melee range.

 

Flamingcloud

The 51 point talents would greatly be helped if there was more than 51 good points in a tree. If you had the desire to put 65 points in destro then it wouldn't be comparing just 0/21/50 vs 0/20/51.. but maybe 0/5/66 or 5/5/61 etc. As is right now you would be hard pressed to find more than 55 good points in any of the trees in total.

As to metamorphosis the only way it is raid viable is if it is close to as good as ruin with the current state of the demo tree and brokeness of the early destruction tree. So lets say metamorphis needs to be +12.5% raid damage atleast. meta uptime is 15% so to be better you would have to do 83.3% more damage than normal while in demonform. That kind of burst would ruin pvp, so unless you can put up a raid buff/debuff of somekind there is pretty much no chance meta will be raid viable.

 

zerdell

Yes, I'd definitely agree with that. There's nothing more disheartening than sinking 10,20 useless talent points into a tree into talents you know you'll never use, just to rank up to the 1 really useful talent there. Ideally, every talent would have its niche and you could see a bunch of different specs happening. However, it seems to me that Blizz want to avoid this, given that so far each tree really only has a handful of powerful spells. It probably makes the job of balancing a lot easier, but at the cost of a richness of experience, and choice that the game could really use.

Then again, if you look at prot pallies, there seems to be a lot of complaining that you can sink every point in the tree and still miss out on useful talents. I'd love nothing more than the idea of all trees being like that and being able to play with them, but if a sizable number of players end up complaining about 'bloated' trees, they may not think it's even worth their time.

 

Maels

Soul Depletion probably only takes away 4 rage per tick instead of 40, there's a druid talent that makes rejuv restore the exact same amounts listed under Soul Depletion except it's 4 rage.

I read the teleport as something that makes or breaks fights versus melee. You can probably port out of stuns, port far away enough for an uninterrupted fear or just port away a few seconds from mortal strike/wound poison running out - 40 yards and out of line of sight is enough time to have your healer get you back to full health.
It's instant and ports you away 40 yards, how is it anything but an on the run/under pressure escape.

 

EpochsEnd

As a fall back point I see where you are coming from. However, assuming it has no LoS requirements it still requires both you and your healer/team to be able to fall back(and be in LOS and range of each other at least) to be a valid escape mechanism.

If, however, you have not set a designated fall back point and try to use this under pressure(in its current form) how much distance/breathing room will you get while under the effects of hamstring/crippling/stuns. In that case(against the 2 strongest melee classes) it does not take any pressure off of you or your healers until the range is such that you are out of range of an intercept/shadowstep. The circle dropping at the feet of the caster will simply inhibit your ability to counter snares/pressure from melee classes.

Once again we are making huge assumptions about its LOS checks but in the interests of a PVP centric Blizzard mentality these days, LOS checks are probably going to be an issue in order to keep warlocks from becoming as difficult to control as mages currently are without limiting the passive damage they can inflict.

Edit for clarification: What I am really addressing here is the ability to change the tactics mid battle rather than relying on a "reset" which is currently what SL/SL Warlock/Healer teams are made to do. Since these spells are not spec specific they seem rather hard to take advantage of in either deep affliction or destruction. I understand that my point is of a narrow focus but I think it applies to all brackets as a "keep the lock alive" mechanic. The main difference is that it is actually less effective as the number of teammates to worry about increases.

 

ninielin

I think its funny in the end that every talent is designed with pvp in mind before PVE considering wow used to be a purely PVE game a start.

Even more funny is that they are repeating the same errors as in TBC. 41 points TBC ultimate were strictly pvp too. UA is a nice dot but 50% of the spell only work in pvp, felguard is the only thing thats good for both, 41 destru is a joke for a finisher.

51 points? Same business baby, decimate is a fucking joke for PVE. Demon form looks totally designed for pvp too, might have some use for aoe purpose in pve ( 360% armor + 360 degrée cleave is alright I guess). Atrocity thats one talent that might be usefull in pve but then its situational. Basically we got 0 freaking finisher thats usefull for PVE DPS ( I don't know, some kind of nuke? some kind of big dps boost to dots or dmg nuke whatever?). Could have put a demon form in destro too which would have boosted the dps of detro spell by 10% + something else and then you could stop putting point in sacri...



Just disapointed in the end when I look at the talents and wonder how I m going to get the usefull ones without spending points in pvp crap which is all over the trees.

 

Smurrf

If the only thing our new port is capable of is getting me back to a pre-designated spot, you know what? I'll be happy with that. I can think of a LOT of areas in existing content where that would be useful.

*Affliction locks dotting up several targets, then porting back to a clear zone, making enemy mobs run that much more (and dying in the process). Useful for when Fear isn't the best idea in the world.

*Gruul's Lair, anyone? Just having a second 'fall back' point would make the inital rounds of shatter much more survivable. Got three people around you? Hmm, where you dropped yuor port is clear, port out and survive!

*Shade of Aran's Blizzard type effects. (yes, yes, none of us should have any problems avoiding that kind of thing, but anything that makes it easier in case we have lag or somehow missed the obvious isn't a bad thing.)

*Get out of the freakin' FIRE!

The list goes on. There's a lot of applications that it's useful for, and the advantage of this over a mage's Blink spell is that you KNOW where you're going to end up. You can be pointed in any direction, and you'll still end up in one spot. So it takes a bit of foresight, and it takes being able to kno when to use it and knowing that the area you're porting to is safe. Much better to have an option than to not have an option.

 

Pintofbrew

Not to mention, there's all sorts of funkyness your porting can work with the new knockback effects. Apparently some classes (and it's been hinted some Inscriptions, perhaps?) will be able to manipulate your position. I found on my pitiful warlock that my biggest problem (compared to being a mage, that is) is positional; If something closes in, and you don't have either an instant Howl or a DC, you're sitting there getting a beating. Porting out can introduce all sorts of fun.

I expect that unless your pet is on "stay" it'll port with you, thus making for some particularly funky kiting tech. Using it to gain distance for lolguard intercept, or as another poster suggested, as a kiting tool. All in all, I'm more excited about that and the demonology tree. Destro, as it stands, I just don't get.

Speaking of Demo, there seems to be three directions it may take: Imp-bazooka, Succy and Felguard. Letting aside the lolguard, I'm thinking: The difference between choosing an imp or a succy, is one's "use" is a locky Bestial Wrath, the other's is a locky pet-bubble. While imp looks like it's been seriously well-looked into (for one, it has that funky mechanic which forces crit for you, for another, it's MD effect is now 10% fire dam which is clearly better than -20% agro) I feel like the Succy spec looks... Well... Sucky. Empowered Succ is a good chance to convert damage into healing, great, but combined with 15% damge -> pet heal and pet-bubble, do you really need to protect her -that- much?

Edit: It's 3% damage I'm refering to, the version of wartools I was reading listed the talent as "7% per pet hit per rank to increase your party's damage by 1% per rank stacks 3 times" rather than "..party's damage by 1%, stacks 3 times".

From what I'm seeing, going demonology-imp is a no-brainer, the only downer being I don't get if you'll be able to compete, given his bonus is fire, without the deeper destro-fire talents. If Blizz hadn't requested that War Tools take their calculators down, we could at least have a play-around with some of the more atypical specs.

And on that note, does anyone have any link to any talent tree from Alpha that does still work? I suspect PM might be the optimal way to convey, lest we all be searching for another one later on...