Miim

I have a question about Molten Core:

Your Shadow spells and damage over time effects have a 10% chance to increase the damage of your Fire spells by 10% for 6 sec.


Does that mean that the immolation DOT effect will also proc this?

Considering a 0/13/58 Fire Destro build with imp as damaging pet for WoTLK. Just hope they give the imp an increased survivability.

 

Nihlatak

As improved Soul Leech is at the moment looking like it will take care of Imps mana problems, we are left with the issue of survivability. It is obvious that if we are to raid as destruction with an Imp, the Imp needs some serious fixing on that department.

If we think about the kind of damage the Imp might face in raid encounters, it can be divided into four categories:

1. Wrong time in the wrong place -damage: This is the classic case of "do not stand in the fire" and should be avoided with player movement. Some issues may arise if the right spot to be is very small, because on follow the Imp likes to stand a few yards to the left from the player. One could naturally position the Imp, command it to stay and then position himself, but I honestly think that's too much of a hassle and more importantly dps loss.

Some of these effects (Rain of Fire, Death and Decay etc.) are such in nature that with bad luck you're bound to take one at least one tick of damage. The only solution I can think of here is to make the Imp able to take that one tick and survive, be it with passive avoidance or big enough hp pool.

2. Big raidwide bombs: Tidal Shield on Naj'entus and Earthquake on Morogrim are typical examples here. This struck me as difficult at first, but perhaps Phase Shift could be used here to make the Imp immune for the time needed. These kind of effects are most often predictable so a well timed Phase Shift would mean only a slight dps downtime. Unfortunately this is pure speculation, since taking an Imp at it's currents state to raids and having it out of Phase Shift is quite useless.

3. Nasty debuffs on a random target: Exaples include Parasites on Illidan and Burn on Brutallus. Some of these effects target pet's, some don't. Most of the time they just destroy the Imp and this is probably okay, since it saves a player. Again Phase Shift could be used here, but testing it at it's current form is almost impossible due to the low HP pool.

4. Unavoidable raidwide damage: This is the killer and almost every encounter in Sunwell has this. From Arcane Buffet to the vast arsenal of elemental damage Kil'jaeden has this can be survived only by resistances or passive avoidance. With my limited experience (2/6) of Sunwell I don't know how hunter pets survive this, but a guildmate confimed that at least on Kalecgos their pets survive thanks to the resistances they have. Interestingly enough this seems to be more of an issue the further we go in raid progression. Karazhan has next to none of this kind of damage and Sunwell is packed with it so this might not be an issue in the early raids of WotLK.


So in conclusion we find that to survive in raids the Imp needs a HP pool big enough not to be one shotted by random AoE effects. That's the basic requirement of it being viable. Additionally some passive avoidance and resistances are probably needed as well as some way to return health. Healing the imp could be included in Soul Leech, because although Fel Synergy and Soul Leech are not mutually exclusive, no one is going to take them in the same spec.

Then there is Phase Shift. This could perhaps be an opportunity to make that skill worthwhile to be used actively. Perhaps make it clear debuffs from the Imp in a Cloak of Shadowish style but of course have a longer cooldown.

These are my thoughts on Imp survivability at the moment. Note that since I really don't pvp, the possible pvp implications of buffing the Imp in this way are out of my reach to speculate. Also the actual damage and scaling of the Imp still remains a mystery.

 

Fabinas

Continuing my questions about the beta:

Seeing the itemisation of the instance blue drops for dps casters, the schemes i have noticed are:

Armor: STA, INT, SPI, Spellpower or STA INT Crit Spellpower

the healers itemisation mostly lacks STA and has MP/5.

I havent seen ANY gear with gem slots so far.

What worries me is the huge amount of stats these items pack. Some blue loot, usable at lvl 78 (can be seen at worldofraids.com) have amounts of 55+ INT and SPI, or even more. Their spellpower though is almost the same or less than badge epics. I have seen very little gear (rings and amulets atm) with any +hit. Comparing that kind of items with the mana cost of our spells in WotLK, it means that people with BT/Sunwell gear will have mana issues if they still use their epics at lvl 75+, due to less INT, low SPI, and the resulting lower mana regen from the ratio of the two stats above.
So, while the TBC end game epics pack enough dps punch to last even till lvl 80, their impact/usefulness on WotLK encounters while levelling will be reduced, when we get new ranks of spells that have huge mana costs but not the stats to support casting those spells for long.

What are the thoughts of the beta testers on the subject above? when would you think it will be the time to lose our gemmed/enchanted, hit-packed gear to the blues of WotLK?

 

Deathwing

I've been thinking along this line lately too. I realize it's still early beta, so a lot could change. BUT, what's new and exciting? I don't agree that the Fel Armor change is a nerf, but actually a buff. Since we'll lifetap less, we'll need less healing. Kinda a shame not to use lifetap though, like mage not needing mana gems.

A haste talent in affliction
Another spell rotation for affliction keep track of(what, 4 wasn't enough?)
3 new pet talent in each tree tied to pet survivability
Demon form that locks out your base abilities and only lasts 45s
Chaos Bolt, pve-wise, it really just another nuke

So, where's our Titan's Grip? Or Explosive Shot? Or Deadly Brew? Or Frostfire Bolt? Or Ancestral Awakening? I could go on and on, and I have barely played some of those classes, but it is quite easy to see that there are new mechanics that will change how they are played. Hell, some of the warlock builds are being dumbed down. Improved Soul Leach and Eternal Flames, as they are now, basically ensure all you will ever press is Incinerate. Even more mind-numbing than shadow destro!

I know how this post is coming across, and I hesitate posting it here because it doesn't quite seem to fit with the atmosphere. But seriously, we're in beta, if they had anything special up their sleeve, shouldn't it had been at least partially implemented now(kinda like Titan's Grip...very cool idea, bad implementation)?

Maybe I'm bored with the class. Or maybe I'm not satisfied with a generic 10% dps upgrade from 10 more talent points. Anyone else feel this way?

 

Darian_TruBlade

I'm not sure what you mean concerning Soul Link. It's a 15% damage reduction for the Warlock. That does increase your survivability at the cost of your demon's, but ultimately you're still 2/3rds or more of your DPS even with my wonky suggested build.

The only really helpful Affliction talents are too deep into the tree to get both them and Demonic Aegis without sacrificing key talents at the top of the Destruction tree. The entire first tier would effectively be wasted points, aside from a few minor situational uses for instant Corruption. Frailty and Life Tap would be okay, but the latter would be marginalized by Demonic Aegis and Improved Soul Leech anyway. You only get a truly useful talent when you hit Amplified Curses, but that and Frailty are mostly exclusive to one another.

In return, you lose Unholy Power, Soul Link, Eternal Flames and Chaos Bolt. It really doesn't seem like a good tradeoff.

 

Krazen

Backdraft is currently incredibly powerful. I'm speced 60 into destruction in beta atm.

My normal incinerate cast is 1.95 secs. Casting a conflag gives me 3 incinerates at .65 seconds.

My chaos bolt also hits harder than my incinerate, base.

 

Darian_TruBlade

That's rather phenomenal, roughly 200% spell haste for three spells? Can that possibly be right?

Are you pinging the GCD during that, or can you cast those back to back without interruption?

If that stays as is Eternal Flames becomes unappealing. I'd imagine the default 0/21/50 build would look something like this.

 

Bibdy

Is there a new beta build out? I thought Backdraft was still bugged.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

Deathwing

Ha, who was saying 50% haste on backdraft was too much?

BTW, a substantial(yeah, I'll agree 200% haste is too much) change in gameplay like backdraft with a nice haste boost was something I'm looking for in an expac. Hell, I think at just 50% haste, you can conflag around its cooldown instead of immolate's last tick. Warlocks have lacked substantial burst for a long time(still lacking a low cooldown skill like arcane power), but Backdraft with the right amount of haste and chaos bolt is definitely a huge step towards solving that.

 

• Althor

I haven't tested it yet myself (might do so tonight) but there's been reports on these forums that the spell hit mechanisms have changed in Beta so that we only require 9% hit to cap out on bosses (and that final 1% miss we can't bypass is removed) compared to the 17% miss rate (16% to hit cap) we currently have.

The caster classes all seem to have some sort of 3% spell hit talent so that means we only need to get another 6% spell hit to cap out. A Moonkin and an Elemental Shaman each bring +3% to hit buffs so if you have both of those in a raid you don't need to itemise for +hit rating at all. If you have neither then you still only need 76 hit rating at level 70 and maybe double that at level 80. Chances are there will be some gear around that stacks +hit rating but I don't forsee reaching the hit cap to be likely to be all that difficult.

In regards to mp5...without looking at the loot that is dropping, I must say if there are cloth items with mp5 on them I'd probably be somewhat disappointed. The changes to regen via int/spi pretty much made mp5 a far less useful stat for those classes with a Meditation like talent.

 

Burberri

You shouldn't worry at all about spell hit until you see level 70 gear.

You need +5% hit to cap on a mob +2 levels. You get 3 from talents, so you need 2 from gear. Even with the increased ratings requirements for leveling that means you are gonna need what? +40 hit max to be capped on a +2 mob. I think we all can find 40 hit, hell you get 14 from the helm enchant and the 15 hit enchant is comparatively cheap to the damage one anyway.

 

Jheherrin

Regarding +hit, I wonder if the draenai racials will be raid wide now ?

 

Drundia

I am concerning that extra damage to your pet is something you do not need and it may be undesireable.

At least 2 points in Corruption (Grrr why don't they make it 1.5 sec at least if they don't want to make it instant?), some in Improved CoA, for more MC procs, though I'm not sure if it's worth it over CoD. But you are right, with new Fel Armor and Improved Soul Leech, Improved Life Tap isn't all that good, my mistake there.

That pretty much means that you cast next 3 spells at GCD cap of 1 sec, but that's far from being perfect. 1.33 sec cast Soul Fire looks evil. Anyway why can't we be normal like everyone?

I would still remove Conflagrate consuming Immolate functionality and put Eternal Flames in place of Backdraft which would make Conflagrate refresh Immolate. And then put something useful in Tier 10. Also some long evil cooldown comparable in power to some lasting buffs like Shamanistic Rage, Icy Veins, or The Beaast Within would be nice to see.

 

ninielin

Well as far as I see it currently in beta: affliction is a full dps spec with a little bit of utility,
destruction is full dps spec with DD
demono is less DPS than the 2 other but demonic pact is one hella powerfull buff. In raid basically the debuff will be up 100% of the time ( currently solo in beta its up more than 80% and the pet only get 10% crit) and gives 10% of your spelldmg to everyone. I m pretty sure that would more than compensate the inferior dps compared to the 2 other spec.

On top of that a 0/50/21 spec should be pretty powerfull anyway. Guess it depends if you like having big personal numbers of feeling like helping your raid

 

Bruscha

Comments to hunters about their pets.
Referencing resistances, survivability, and pet threat/tanking

WoW Forums -> Pet Skills -- A few questions.

WoW Forums -> Suggestion: Ability to feed pet in combat

WoW Forums -> Pets Holding Aggro

Are simliar changes being made to warlock demon's resistances, survivability, and threat generation/tanking ability?

 

Fabinas

Thanks for the +hit replies. Although we dont have any reference yet for the hit ratings needed while levelling and at lvl 80 (which are the most important), the answers are helpful.

I would still like to know, though, from any beta player who has transferred his char with BT/Sunwell gear, where exactly did the lower stats of the TBC gear (talking about sta, int, spi, not spellpower, as that is almost on par till lvl78 loot) are becoming an obstacle for long fights, due to the higher mana cost of spells and the lack of mana regen, both from the combination of spi/fel armor and the int/spi ratio. Anyone who has had the chance to play against any beta instance boss with epic TBC gear could probably be the right person to help with my query.

Sorry if i ask a lot, am not still lucky with the beta invite, despite the opt-in...

 

Bibdy

I will say that while levelling in my sunwell gear and 213 hit, I have not seen a single 'Miss'. I would expect to see about 1 in every 20 kills, and I've been actively looking for it to see if it does indeed say 'Miss' instead of 'Resist', but I've hit nearly 72 and not encountered a single one.

Backdraft's current state is nothing short of overpowered. With the proc up every spell but Soul Fire becomes a shorter casttime than the global cooldown itself and Soul Fire becomes a measly 1.5s cast. You'd run into every arena match and drop a quick Immo/Conflag on somebody, or somebody's pet, just to get the haste bonus ready for the main fight and drop a guy before he knows what hit him.

Also, doing the math on Imp Soul Leech, it too is overpowered as all hell. A sunwell geared Warlock will literally never run OOM and never need to Lifetap. It translates into 9% of your DPS becomes mana regen per second. With 2200 DPS it'll return 198 mana per second. With a 2.0s Shadowbolt (300ish haste) you only consume 199.5 mana per second. Even with a Shadowbolt now costing 715 mana, DPS will go up and we also have Fel Armour regeneration. Destruction would be nothing short of absurd.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

Deathwing

Shhh, damnit, I know Backdraft can't be kept under wraps, but no need to bring Improved Soul Leach up again(I commented on a few pages ago).

Main reason people(including Blizzard) haven't noticed ISL is because it's only 50% more than SL. And really, what good is a talent that's 50% more of a talent that's barely worth anything, right? Well, except that SL is all overheal and ISL is rarely ever "overheal".

ISL's power gain actually isn't that overpowered. With the changes to raid mana gains(group buffs become raid buffs) and passive spirit regen, ISL actually will provide lots of "overheal". Mind you, this was with level 70 spells, I haven't altered the spreadsheet for level 80 spells.

 

Phonebooth

The only issue that brings up with destruction is it looks like blizzard will raise mages over warlock level, or at least plan to. Leaving warlocks between a rock and hard place, at that point you would really only want demo pact/frailty and malediction locks in the raid.

It almost seems warlocks are being pushed to a utility dps class instead of top of the ladder. I personally don't mind as long as people still bring 2 which is a balanced number given 10 classes, but i much prefer the destro play style.

Keep in mind this is all speculation going off reports so far and blizzards posts, it's going to be interesting to see once people level cap and get into actual raid content.

 

Darian_TruBlade

Depends on the fight I suppose. In any fight where there is the potential for significant damage to the Warlock it seems worthwhile as the Warlock can always resummon a dead imp, but once the Warlock's dead that's the end of it.

CoA really depends on the Warlock's role in a raid. If there are only 2, chances are the Destro Lock will be using CoR or CoW on the boss. So long as that is true, CoA is something of a moot point.

The math on the usefulness of CoA and Corruption to maintain MC is rather straightforward.

CoA ticks 12 times per cast, meaning 30 ticks a minute if you commit 2.5 GCDs to the spell. 10% of those will proc MC, meaning you can expect 3 procs per minute from CoA. On average, that's about 15 seconds of uptime.

Corruption ticks 6 times per cast, meaning 20 ticks a minute if you commit 3.3 GCDs to the spell. That's another 2 procs per minute, and another 9ish seconds of uptime.

The bottom line, therefore, is whether CoA/Corruption's Damage + the 10% fire damage from their procs is more than Incinerate's DPS. Also remember that if Immolate also procs MC, the relative effectiveness of CoA and Corruption is diminished.

Assuming 2000 SP and 35% crit and WotLK ranks:

No-MC Incinerate DPS: (786 + .9143 * 2000) / 2.25 * 1.35 * 1.1 = 1725.6
No-MC Immolate DoT DPS: (785 + .65 * 2000) * 1.1 * 1.05 * 1.25 / 15 = 200.7
MC DPS: (1725.6 + 200.7) * 1.1 = 2118.9

CoA Damage: 1440 + 1.2 * 2000 = 3840
Incinerate Difference * Uptime: (2118.9 - 1926.3) * 15 = 2889.5
CoA Total = 3840 * 2.5 + 2889.5 - 1725.6 * 3.75 = 6018.5 DP60S = 100.3 DPS

Corruption Damage = 1080 + 2000 * .936 = 2952
Incinerate Difference * Uptime: (2118.9 - 1926.3) * 9 = 1733.7
Corruption Total = 2952 * 3.3 + 1733.7 - 1725.6 * 5 = 2847.3 DP60S = 47.5 DPS
Corruption Total (2s Cast) = 2952 * 3.3 + 1733.7 - 1725.6 * 6.6 = 86.3 DP60S = 1.44 DPS

So CoA can represent a 5-8% damage increase for Firelocks, but Corruption is completely worthless untalented and very iffy talented.

Imp CoA would only represent an additional 16 DPS, making it a bad investment. Corruption is already meh in it's DPS increase given that much of that would be lost in human error trying to juggle it with CoA. Even a single point in Corruption means killing a DS build, losing significant pet DPS from my wonky build, or picking between Chaos Bolt, Shadowburn and Shadowfury on a deep Destro build.

The bottom line being, CoA would be the goto Curse for Destro Firelocks whenever they aren't buffing the raid's DPS.

There's been some buzz about dropping below the 1.0 second GCD, but I don't know if that's specific spells like Wrath or more universal. If it's universal, he isn't pinging the GCD at all, which is somewhat amazing. It's incredibly doubtful, however, that such a massive haste buff is intentional. Napkin math would put a C/Immo/Inc*2/Inc*3 rotation at around 2050 DPS with my stats (~1000 SP with FA, 30% Crit) and CoE, DS, Scorch and Misery. That's close to double my current DPS, which seems borderline ridiculous (if seriously fun).

 

ninielin

Well they are still working on destruction ( blue said new build this week) but right now:

-I found that chaos bolt in its current state isn't worth casting so no 51 pointer if you're planning to raid ( I don't know who said it did more base dmg than inci but at my level of + dmg which is 1500 + it does less damage).

- If they keep backdraft as it is ( and I really like the mechanic ), they need to rework eternal flame because the talent has no meaning if you're going to use conflag every 8 sec. They just have to tune the % of haste.


My suggestion would be to make conflag not consume immolate if you have eternal flame or backdraft.

If that is done then you still get to cast conflag/inci/corruption/curse + managing your imp ( imp diêd wayyy too many time doing instances tonight... Basically if a mob looks at it, he will die...) which is quite a few more things than just spamming shadowbolts ^^