Calantus, are the nerfs you're referring to the following?

1. Drain Life and Siphon Life now reduce the amount healed when the warlock is affected by healing reducing effects (e.g. Mortal Strike, Wounding Poison).

2. Soul Siphon (Affliction) now increases damage by 2/4% and no longer affects Drain Mana.

I wanted to clarify this. Also, where are you reading about -current- tactics (e.g. searing pain spam)?

Yes to those nerfs, also the resilience affecting DoTs (life drain is a channeled DoT) and mana drains.

The searing pain spam I've been reading about on arenajunkies and gameriot at various points.

The "just live until you run the other team out of mana" strat that was prevalent in S1/S2 just doesn't work anymore.

- Drain Mana doesn't scale with gear
- Drain Mana is reduced by resilience
- Soul Siphon doesn't increase Drain Mana
- Regen on gear has increased

For all of those reasons, just draining the other team's mana until you win is a very outdated strat. You have to kill people to win now, and fortunately spell damage on gear has continued to scale (although not nearly as well as melee damage, but that's an entirely different topic!). Really the only time to use Drain Mana is to scare away a healer, because people still have it stuck in their mind that OMG BLUE BEAM = SCARY RUN AWAY.

The build you linked - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft - is almost exactly what I use, although I keep 5/5 MD. The chance for me to resist a spell from a healer (who won't have 70 spell penetration like a DPS caster) is a little bit useful, and the extra 2% mitigation when I have a Voidwalker out is decent. I might switch over the next time I respec. Some people take it a step further and go 2/3 Demonic Resilience to max out Empowered Corruption, it really just depends how good you and your healer are at keeping your pet alive.

2/5 Fel Conc is because you really don't drain (life or mana) all that often. If you need to do damage, Searing Pain or Incinerate are higher DPS, and you can't drain tank people indefinitely like you could before the Drain Life nerf.

I came across this build: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft and wanted to discuss it. Since draining isn't used much anymore, a point is taken out of Shadow Embrace (and losing a debuff count that would be benefiting Drain Life/Soul Siphon [also I should note that Fel Concentration and Soul Siphon appear to now be simply fillers to get the DPS talents in Affliction]) and used to max out Empowered Corruption. I'm having difficulty deciding on 1/3 Mana Feed vs. 5/5 MD.

I've noticed a couple of top players using the 2pc T6 bonus for arena now and was wondering what peoples thoughts are on it. I have access to a pair of boots I already stuck a 10 resil gem in and can easily get a belt, so I'm probably going to try it out this week. I lose a decent amount of resil and stam, but the 2pc set bonus seems like it would be pretty nice. Also gain a significant amount of damage/haste. I'm still at 440 resil and 12.4k HP in what is far from great PvP gear.

So, for people that have done this - do you like it? Find it worth losing the pure survivability stats? Is the 70 health for the bonus affected by fel armor?

As far as I know the general consensus is that the one point in mana feed is worth having, since 4/5 vs 5/5 MD isn't going to make much of a difference most of the time. I personally like to have the point in Shadow Embrace for extra dispel fodder but its far from game breaking. I usually do 2/3 Demonic Resilience to get the point since 10 vs 14% (1% from shadow embrace) reduction on the pet isn't much of a difference - but once again thats personal preference.

Like you said, you definitely want empowered corruption now as Fel Concentration is just not worth prioritizing. I spend practically no time drain tanking anything in arena, the only time I can think of being if I'm on a warrior and he pummels my immo/searing pain.

Yes, the heal from 2pt6 is affected by fel armor.

The point to Imp Health Funnel is to try and put out a little bit more HPS on your pet when it's in trouble, but in that build you don't include Demonic Resilience. I don't understand why you'd include a talent to heal your pet faster, but not include 15% damage reduction for him.

And no, I rarely Health Funnel. If someone is killing my pet and I don't think my healer can take care of it, I start summoning a new one.

I think the idea was that the 2 points in Shadow Mastery, and the overall emphasis of higher DoTs DPS over draining, come at the expense of Demonic Resil. Perhaps Imp. Health Funnel is a way to buffer the loss of Demonic Resil.

At some point I think you should just go try out these builds and see if they make any practical sense.

Imp. Health Funnel may work in 2s, but I definitely doubt that it will do as well as Demonic Resil. in 3s and especially in 5s. Anyways, never forget that channeling Health Funnel cuts your movement, dps and flexibility...

I've looked and there is a lot of information here but I've not seen anything spelled out for my simple mind! I started in a 3's team with a disp spec'd priest, Arms Warrior, and yours truly. We've all been grinding our battleground stuff to get ready and I'm currently sitting at 475 resil and 13.1 health, unbuffed. From what I've gathered, I now have a little bit of flexibility on what gear I go with and am not a slave to SL/SL spec (which I find amazingly boring).

Since this was originally my main raiding toon, I had the crit pieces from S3 robe, vindicators silk cuffs and the crit neck piece and I've built around these pieces to get the 35 resil bonus splitting up the fel weave and dreadweave pieces (3 fel and 2 dreadweave currently).

Since I'm now getting points and am in position to start replacing S2 gear with S3 and some S4, I've been debating going with a spec that is heavy on destro or moving back to a more affliction spec and going with the 4 piece bonus for the improved fear casting. Currently I'm felguard spec but I've noticed the benefits of using the felhunter in spite of being able to get the more dps producing pet. Since I don't think I'm still tied down to the new 70 lock survival spec as much, I was hoping someone who uses a less arena specific spec with success could chime in here and keep me from being the easy kill on our team and actually lay out some dps on people. It seems like the dots are pretty much as screwed as the crits with the way resil works on both of them but it seems the burst damage from a more crit loaded, ruin spec may be better off anyway. I'm just wanting to avoid wasting hard earned arena points and really don't want to be stuck SL/SL for progression into some modestly higher ratings.

Here is my current profile and thanks in advance for any pointers! The World of Warcraft Armory

I'v been pondering a new spec come Wrath. We all know the same old SL/SL build will still apply: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft . There are a few questions I'd like to ask. 1) Is Demonic Sacrifice worth having in a pure pvp build, there is no reason that I can come up with that would make it necessary, or even useful, since you are more than likely only going to have 2 used pets, the void, and hunter? 2) Is it necessary to have Imp Felhunter and Mana Feed at the same time, I mean does Imp FH maintain a sufficient mana return to warrant dropping Mana Feed in order to pick up a point in Fel Synergy? 3) With the changes to spell pushback, is it even necessary or advantageous to pick up Fel Concentration/Intensity? 4) Finally, if some form of the SL/SL build doesn't seem to produce the burst damage or just not your taste, what is your take on a build such as this:Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated, I'm basically just looking for a build that i can shoot for while leveling and retain when i hit 80 focusing on pvp primarily. Thank you.

For lvling go deep aff straight to haunt. It will be the best for lvling, it should have zero down time while being able to kill multiple mobs at a time.

As far as pvp goes: Your sl/sl spec has a few pointless talents. Shadow Embrace is going to be worthless for Sl/sl because you don't have haunt and rarely use Sbolt. I would do something along the lines of: Sl/Sl

There are a few choices you have to make at the end of the 2 trees. Do you want max survivability or do you want more damage? Because you can drop a combination of Demonic Resil/Fel Syn and pick up Contagion which would make you much stronger against priest teams.

I would never use your 2nd spec. If you want to do more damage then go Aff or Destro.

Aff
You need to decide whether you want Shadow Embrace or Death's Embrace. It really depends on which healers are strong in the smaller brackets. If it is druid crazy again then Shadow Embrace for sure. In 5s I would always get Death's Embrace and skip Shadow Embrace.

Destruction
There are 2 free talent points, I stuck them into soul leech for now but you can get Aftermath, Improved Searing Pain, Improved Health Funnel, or Improved CoA. It is really whatever you prefer, though I recommend putting them into health funnel for arena.


A note about all specs. It will probably be worth moving 2 talent points from Fel Vitality into Improved Health Funnel. And never pick up Soul link while skipping fel dom + master summoner. When your pet dies, and it will, you will be SOL. Good luck getting a 10 second cast off in a game.

I noticed in your SL/SL build that you chose to forgo Suppression, is that because there is typically enough +hit on pvp gear to warrant not picking up the talent? Also, you chose not to pick up Improved Felhunter, is there a reason behind that? It seems a lucrative talent to at least put 1 point in.

This is the SL/SL build that I i think I may shoot for while leveling to 80 and pvping in.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

However I was thinking about dropping Dark Pact and grabbing the Felguard such as in Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft What do you think of these builds? Thank you for your feedback.

I didn't put a point into Improv Felhunter because 1 in mana feed is enough to keep up the Felhunter's mana and I value 2% damage over 5% more to fel int. However, with dark pact throwing one into improved felhunter might be worth it so he is always regening mana. Really, the basic talents we can get right but until we hit 80, have the 80 arena gear, and are playing its going to be hard to say stuff like that will be necessary.

As far as Felguard for the SL/SL. Its more personal preference than anything else. You won't be able to pick up the majority of talents that make the FG attractive though. I personally prefer the felhunter over the felguard, especially in small bracket. The silence is huge but its the dispel that is so necessary. You will be trading that utility for some extra damage. I personally don't like the trade. You can't beat 2 dps teams in 2s without dispel, depending on classes of course.

I am also not sure if SL/SL is going to have a place in WOTLK. I don't know how the changes to druids changes our specs meshing with theirs. Atm, I believe going deep aff with 17 in demo for SL and master summoner will be stronger. The damage increase over SL/SL is insane and you are basically a god against any priest/x and pally/x teams.

This is how I feel as well - the loss of survivability (Demonic Resilience) can be offset by increased mobility (Demonic Circle, Improved Fear, AoE fear to an extent). Improved Health Funnel basically gives you more than Demonic Resilience did as long as you are quick (and in range) to channel it whilst your pet is being burst down.

It's difficult to fit in all you want and still have 17 points left over for Demonology. As stated above, it's mostly going to come down to whether your preferred bracket has a tendancy to include HoT-based healers. If so, I'd go with something like this, with points shifting between imp. Health Funnel and Demonic Aegis if necessary. It's a shame to leave out Eradication, perhaps it's possible to switch the points from Pandemic in there if we get a gear-set that doesn't include any crit. But tbh, I'd probably go for the Felweave variant anyway as Pandemic doesn't suffer from the crit portion of resilience.

Kabale: For what it is worth there is no dreadweave in Wrath to my knowledge. Its only felweave now, which makes sense with every spec having a need for a crit.

MiniQ: The first thing that stands out is you need 3/3 in Fel Conc now. It gives pushback resistance to UA and Haunt along with the drains. It is simply too much value for 3 points to pass up even with the nerf to pushback. The main reason is I believe this "OMG TRAIN THE LOCK OMGOMG" thinking in pvp will carry over into s5. And really it should because an untrained lock is probably the most devasting class in arena. Losing a second every time you cast is still very costly and leaves you open to more interrupts. You will be spam casting UA and Haunt as well.

You also need at least 1, but should have 2, in Improved Felhunter. The felhunter runs through a mana pool quickly already, add in a new spammable mana attack and he will be ripping through his mana pool. He has to replenish mana somehow if the spec allows it, which aff does. I would pick up dark pact, its worth the 1 point. There are many times where I'm oom with low hp as sl/sl and I'm forced to do a low rank life tap and just risk it. Dark pact takes care of this for you.

Also, in Demo. I believe its worth dropping 2 in fel vitality for improved health funnel instead of Demonic Aegis. Having more armor/healing bonus or damage bonus is going to be worth more than 2% more hp and mana and improved health funnel should make 10% less hp on your pet irrelevant. Also, keep in mind, from a tactics point of view, if your pet is dropping into the red where the 10% less hp would matter you should already be resummoning anyways.

Lastly, with the point changes in aff you have to make a choice between Shadow Embrace and Death's Embrace. This choice is mainly personal preference here as both are nice but one isn't noticeably ahead of the other, at least on paper. As stated before, it comes down to which healers are prevalent in the lower brackets. Lots of druids and priests = Shadow Embrace while pallys and shamans = Death's Embrace. In 5s you should pick Death's Embrace almost in every case. With the way healing is currently in wrath you are going to see tons and tons of 4 dps teams. Nobody has the longevity, nor the gear in s5, to heal these 3 healer setups or outlast/mana drain/cleave teams. Its going to be about blowing up somebody as quickly as possible.

Death's Embrace Spec

Shadow Embrace Spec

I've pretty much come up with the foundation of my spec at 80. I was looking for something that's versatile for soloing, raiding, and pvp. So far I've come up with Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft This leaves 4 extra points. I'm trying to figure out where these points can be spent to provide the greatest increase of damage. The main talents I was considering are Pandemic, Eradication, and Malediction in the affliction tree and Demonic Aegis in the demonology tree.

I'm not strong with the math involved to evaluate Pandemic and Eradication, but maybe someone can help me figure out how the haste proc or extra damage proc on corruption and UC affect overall damage. Malediction and Demonic Aegis seem like they could be comparable depending on exactly how Demonic Aegis works. Given about 2k spell damage at lv 80, Malediction would add 60 spell damage. I'm unclear if Demonic Aegis only affects the 180 spell power from fel armor, or the spell power from spirit too. If it's only a bonus to the 180 spell power, that would come out to 54 spell damage. I'd appreciate it if one of you math geniuses can help me figure out which 4 talent points will produce the most overall damage.

Knowing that Dreadweave no longer exists in Wrath makes Affliction Haunt spec a no brainer.

My only concern for Shadow Embrace is that even though we may be spamming Haunt in a pvp setting, it's still on a 10 sec cooldown, and Shadow Embrace is a 12 sec debuff. So that only leaves 2 secs to either pop another Haunt (which is a 1.5 sec cast) or cast a SB (a 3 sec cast) virtually meaning you have .5 secs to react in order to get Haunt off in order to get the full benifit of the talent, making SB not worth the time to cast. I'm finding it hard to believe that we will get the full 2 stack benifit of Shadow Embrace on a target. Assuming a standard rotation of Haunt-UA-Corruption-x curse-SL (hoping your not stunlocked to death), I find it very hard to fit in a SB to round off the 2nd stack for the full effect, and this is assuming that your going against a team that warrants the spec.

Knowing all this, I'm beginning to think that points might be better spent elsewhere, in which case making Death's Embrace a necessity. With Death's Embrace and the changes to Drain Soul, if you get a target to below 35% and get a DS off you pretty much have yourself a channeled execute. This is may be a narrow situation, and difficult to pull off in an effective manner, but if you do you can assure that the guy is going to be left thinking what just happened.

If you still like the allure of Shadow Embrace and don't mind making a little sacrifice, I've posted a spec that even though may look gimp, could work to kill 2 birds with one stone. If you can deal with sacrificing 3 points in Shadow Mastery and 1 point in Everlasting Affliction you can gain 4 points in Shadow Embrace. Now this may look bad in some ways, but it does serve to obtain both talents. I really don't think that it would be a major impact on your damage output to the point that you would want to drop one or the other.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...00000000000000

Shadow Embrace is really awkward to try and keep up in its current form. I've tried it and you can really never get it stacked twice unless you get a Nightfall proc, and it falls off a lot. The points are better spent elsewhere.

I've decided that destruction will be a viable PvP spec in Lich King, and ergo this was born.

I want to play destro PvP so badly after the boring warlock PvP choices in TBC, and I'm willing to give the upper hand to pretty much any opponent. What do you think about the spec? I tried to steer clear of RNG stuff, like Soul Leech which could've gained a point or 2, and get some CC into the build in form of succubus as well. I know that seduction and imp. CoA and Corr kind of fight against each other, but the synergy between the dots and Molten Core is too good to pass, especially with the dot enhancing talents being so low on the affliction tree.

It's still gimped compared to other specs, I'd be relying on an instant seduce which might not be usable due to dots except as an interrupt(!), an unreliable fear and shadowfury, which is a breather to cast immolate at most. One could argue soul link, but the succubus is so fragile that I'm afraid it wouldn't last for a stun with the ridiculous amounts of melee dps.

Still, there's nothing prettier after these boring dot-dot-dot-run days than obliterating someone when everything just clicks together.

edit: Not intended for Arena use. :P World pvp / BG's

Hey gang, first time caller, long time listener here. I just wanted to share some first impressions from WoW 3.0 PvP last night. I respecced every few BGs and played all night.

1. Speed! Wow, is it just me, or is everything going at turbo speed now? Everyone was basically blowing up so fast in the BGs I was cruising that I almost forgot what it was like to play Connect the DoTs / Ring Around the Pole for the past 18 months. I even felt like everyone was moving a bit faster, as if they silent-buffed the movement speed enchant on Boar's speed. I expect to be wrong, that this was just my first impression, but seriously, did anyone else share this impression?

2. Fel Armor! I knew about the nerf but I didn't really feel it's affects until yesterday (I'm in beta but not PTR). I found myself getting torn up pretty fast in situations where I usually laughed and dotted myself to success. Having to choose between a healthy chunk of +spellpower and +armor/healing receiving kept me up all night (crying)!

3. Demon Armor! It's back! (I've concluded, in a pool of tears.)

4. Haunt is great! Except I need Soul Link to survive long enough to cast it twice. If I could borrow a single talent point from someone until WotLK launches, I would appreciate it.

5. Chaos Bolt is awesome! However, the first Chaos Bolt I ever cast was spell reflected back to me. I'm not supersticious but this was a bad sign. I was killed by this very same prot warrior who was keyboard turning. I'm not proud of it but I'm all about full disclosure.

6. Without Paranoia on the Felhunter, but with all the Felguard bonuses, maybe it's time to go back to my original favorite spec, Demo/destruction! With Soul Link and Ruin all in quite accessible places, it's quite tempting, as I could hit the major bases and slide the rest of the spec up or down without much restriction.

7. Can Siphon Life compete with the new burst damage that so many classes are doing right now? I started to feel like I had to Coil > Fear hard and fast, where I used to Siphon Life > Corruption > Curse of Agony > Coil > Fear > Trinket a snare and run like hell.

8. What goes best with x/x/16? Shadowburn and Ruin are best friends now, but can we complement them in a serious PvP spec? Let's pretend for a moment that I'm not excited to go much deeper into Destruction.