Looks like our combined T6 Bracers/Boots/Belt changes are:
-120 Stamina
+52 Crit rating
+28 Hit rating
Going to take Praetorian's assumption that the stam was removed to discourage the use of 4 piece T6 in the arena and say that I for one am tired of PvP affecting PvE in ways like this.
While the 3 pieces lost 150ish stam (raid buffed with 21/40), which is 1,500 health while nice to have, there are only a few times with another 1500 health would make a difference. It is a nice dps increase and pre-changes the T6 belt was a sidegrade to Blasting, now no competitive to the "new" T6.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Assuming the change to Emberstorm -- the first point now grants a 2% decrease in Incinerate casting time -- is the only significant talent change we will be receiving, is this enough to push an Incinerate 0/21/40 build ahead of a Shadowbolt one? I would guess that the answer is no; however, this change seems to indicate Blizzard will be further increasing the viability of an Incinerate build.
Pardon the ignorance, but what exactly is a G15 macro?
Ill throw those numbers into my calculation tomorrow and gonna tell you whether or not it´s gonna make a change.
You gonna get CoE, 15% improved scorch and 5% misery, immolate and 10% emberstorm + 10% casting speed.
This is gonna get interesting actually, though I doubt incinerate is gonna pull ahead.
Ill throw those numbers into my calculation tomorrow and gonna tell you whether or not it´s gonna make a change.
You gonna get CoE, 15% improved scorch and 5% misery, immolate and 10% emberstorm + 10% casting speed.
This is gonna get interesting actually, though I doubt incinerate is gonna pull ahead.
Its not 10% casting speed increase. It is just 2%. mmo-champion's posting says that, strangely, only the first talent point increases cast time by 2% (along with the 2% fire dmg increase, and the remaining points just increase fire damage done as normal.
I suppose you might assume it is bugged on the PTR, and that the remaining 4 points are supposed to increase the cast time by 10% though.
Its not 10% casting speed increase. It is just 2%. mmo-champion's posting says that, strangely, only the first talent point increases cast time by 2% (along with the 2% fire dmg increase, and the remaining points just increase fire damage done as normal.
I suppose you might assume it is bugged on the PTR, and that the remaining 4 points are supposed to increase the cast time by 10% though.
It's almost surely bugged. I actually don't have the 2% speed increase with 4 points in Emberstorm.
Yeah, I would run the numbers myself, but I'm studying for midterms...anyway, also take into account +15% from a sacced imp and the +25% from improved immolate. It should be interesting to see how things turn up, I'm pretty sure it'd result in a higher personal DPS, but unless imp SB is changed, shadow DPS might be preferred for greater raid DPS. Tough to determine right now, they'll be comparable anyway, and also, fire destro seems like a lot more fun to play than shadow destro. This seems like the probable build to use for 0/21/40 fire: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Assuming the change to Emberstorm -- the first point now grants a 2% decrease in Incinerate casting time -- is the only significant talent change we will be receiving, is this enough to push an Incinerate 0/21/40 build ahead of a Shadowbolt one? I would guess that the answer is no; however, this change seems to indicate Blizzard will be further increasing the viability of an Incinerate build.
Pardon the ignorance, but what exactly is a G15 macro?
The G15 is a programmable keyboard from Logitech.
You can program it so that the key spams the shadowbolt button , so all you have to do is press the key once you get close to the end and it will cast with the most precision possible - as soon as the game allows it. You can program it so that it only spams when you actually press the key which is preferred, or that the thing just keeps pressing it for infinity until you press the macro button again, which would work in some cases, but again , not preferred. Now if human error gives about 0,1 ms extra casting time, you are effectively increasing your dps by 4%, the more haste you have however, the more significant the difference becomes.
Played a bit with it yesterday and worked like a charm.
The G15 is a programmable keyboard from Logitech.
You can program it so that the key spams the shadowbolt button , so all you have to do is press the key once you get close to the end and it will cast with the most precision possible - as soon as the game allows it. You can program it so that it only spams when you actually press the key which is preferred, or that the thing just keeps pressing it for infinity until you press the macro button again, which would work in some cases, but again , not preferred. Now if human error gives about 0,1 ms extra casting time, you are effectively increasing your dps by 4%, the more haste you have however, the more significant the difference becomes.
Played a bit with it yesterday and worked like a charm.
When I tried something similar it seemed to cause a bunch of casting lag instead of helping dps. Simply the lag reported by quartz was always a lot higher when having the SB button spammed compared to just 1-2 clicks. That was my experience but obviously do your own testing.
Now if human error gives about 0,1 ms extra casting time, you are effectively increasing your dps by 4%, the more haste you have however, the more significant the difference becomes.
Played a bit with it yesterday and worked like a charm.
Well, actually if you press to key to cast your next shadowbolt a bit before the completion of the current one (a bit before its completion according to Quartz latency bar), it will be casted as soon as possible. You don't need to spam the key, simply pressing it once a bit before the completion of the spell will work. (I doubt this can be imputed to the lag, I have almost none).
Yeah, I would run the numbers myself, but I'm studying for midterms...anyway, also take into account +15% from a sacced imp and the +25% from improved immolate. It should be interesting to see how things turn up, I'm pretty sure it'd result in a higher personal DPS, but unless imp SB is changed, shadow DPS might be preferred for greater raid DPS. Tough to determine right now, they'll be comparable anyway, and also, fire destro seems like a lot more fun to play than shadow destro. This seems like the probable build to use for 0/21/40 fire: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
I'm terrible at calculations, but I would *assume* that Shadow DPS would still be more preferrable.
The question I'd like answered is if all raid conditions are optimal for both Shadow & Incinerate DPS, that Emberstorm 5/5 results in an increase in casting speed by 10%, and that the "rumoured" ISB changes go through (Only works for the warlock, and increases Shadow damage by 15% instead of 20%), what would the coefficient incease of Incinerate need to be to result in Fire being the best for personal DPS?
The reason I would ask is because with ISB possibly only affecting the warlock, the uptime of ISB would be inconsequential to the raid group as a whole, and with another "rumoured" Warlock change being a 'Incinerate spell coefficient increased by $', if that coefficient would be a ballpark figure of < 10%, then the rumoured coefficient change would make sense.
With the change in haste mechanics, and +haste on items being prevalent in SWP, the change to Incinerate and ISB would indicate Blizzard's desire to really push this relatively new stat onto players in replacement to crit.
The reason I would ask is because with ISB possibly only affecting the warlock, the uptime of ISB would be inconsequential to the raid group as a whole, and with another "rumoured" Warlock change being a 'Incinerate spell coefficient increased by $', if that coefficient would be a ballpark figure of < 10%, then the rumoured coefficient change would make sense.
With the change in haste mechanics, and +haste on items being prevalent in SWP, the change to Incinerate and ISB would indicate Blizzard's desire to really push this relatively new stat onto players in replacement to crit.
Given how haste works (or rather doesn't work) with dot ticks, fire spec is not going to be fun with haste in the game.
We don't even have a filler spell to help out on the rotations: conflag is a dps loss, recasting immolate early is a dps loss, searing pain is double threat, and an incinerate where immolate wears off halfway through is a dps loss.
While the 3 pieces lost 150ish stam (raid buffed with 21/40), which is 1,500 health while nice to have, there are only a few times with another 1500 health would make a difference. It is a nice dps increase and pre-changes the T6 belt was a sidegrade to Blasting, now no competitive to the "new" T6.
well considering everyone and their uncle will want the sunfire robes, leggings of calamity, and either the haste gloves or sunfire gloves, and sunflare, this is gonna be a pretty significant health loss overall
When synced with the Skull every activation, I was pretty convinced Icon was superior, but I don't know if that is still the case.
Currently, with my ~100 haste, I get 8 Shadow Bolts under the 20 second duration of the Icon, or 10 when paired with the skull. This effectively boosts the 26 dmg on use of the skull by 25%, to 32 damage. Heroism further boosts this effect.
Yes, I think now I will use Crusade over Icon for fights like Brutallus (100% probability you will keep Crusade up), 80dmg vs 69.
Regarding incinerate/emberstorm: Obviously the talent is broken, however, I don't think the 2% with one point works. I have 1 pt in emberstorm and my incinerate had the same cast time as shadowbolt (2.34s).
Oh and elrac, add the Eredar Twins shoulders to that list =)
I just fiddled with the spreadsheet's cast-time on incinerate. If Emberstorm gives 10% haste, a lock with maxed 2.4 gear would see slightly higher personal DPS with a fire spec. They outperform shadow by more if they can't use CoD, so if you're in raids where you always are on CoS/E/R, fire will be even slightly better. However, you don't contribute to ISB uptime. It certainly would push fire back into a decent raid spec though, if a slightly selfish one. :P
But if you're not casting Curse of Doom, your contribution to ISB uptime increases, so you would want to be using shadow instead of fire...
Addressing the lack of Bane affecting incinerate is a good thing. But until something compares to Improved Shadowbolt, or shadow priests start going out of style, fire would have to completely blow shadow out of the water to be worth using. I suppose it makes fire-destro acceptable for 5-mans and 10-mans, which is more than you can say for it now.
an incinerate where immolate wears off halfway through is a dps loss.
I'm almost certain that this is not true. I believe that if immolate is up when you begin casting (and wears off before you finish casting) that you still get credit for immolate being "up" for the purpose of additional incinerate damage. I can't provide any hard evidence for this but I do use fire (sacced imp destro) on a limited number of fights and have found this to be the case.
Also, incinerate is affected by any immolate on the target.. so if you have even 1 other lock using immolate the probability of immolate being down is going to be quite low.
But if you're not casting Curse of Doom, your contribution to ISB uptime increases, so you would want to be using shadow instead of fire...
Addressing the lack of Bane affecting incinerate is a good thing. But until something compares to Improved Shadowbolt, or shadow priests start going out of style, fire would have to completely blow shadow out of the water to be worth using. I suppose it makes fire-destro acceptable for 5-mans and 10-mans, which is more than you can say for it now.
If ISB still affects the raid then your assessment is spot on. However, if ISB no longer affects the raid then personal DPS is the only metric for a warlock's contribution to the raid (beyond their curse).. given this, if fire is better personal dps \then fire will be the way to go.
I'm terrible at calculations, but I would *assume* that Shadow DPS would still be more preferrable.
The question I'd like answered is if all raid conditions are optimal for both Shadow & Incinerate DPS, that Emberstorm 5/5 results in an increase in casting speed by 10%, and that the "rumoured" ISB changes go through (Only works for the warlock, and increases Shadow damage by 15% instead of 20%), what would the coefficient incease of Incinerate need to be to result in Fire being the best for personal DPS?
The reason I would ask is because with ISB possibly only affecting the warlock, the uptime of ISB would be inconsequential to the raid group as a whole, and with another "rumoured" Warlock change being a 'Incinerate spell coefficient increased by $', if that coefficient would be a ballpark figure of < 10%, then the rumoured coefficient change would make sense.
With the change in haste mechanics, and +haste on items being prevalent in SWP, the change to Incinerate and ISB would indicate Blizzard's desire to really push this relatively new stat onto players in replacement to crit.
I calculated that back before the PTR went live and the change requires that the coefficient for Incinerate be increased by about 0.21 or 0.22 to pull equal with SB even with the change to ISB.
But if you're not casting Curse of Doom, your contribution to ISB uptime increases, so you would want to be using shadow instead of fire...
Addressing the lack of Bane affecting incinerate is a good thing. But until something compares to Improved Shadowbolt, or shadow priests start going out of style, fire would have to completely blow shadow out of the water to be worth using. I suppose it makes fire-destro acceptable for 5-mans and 10-mans, which is more than you can say for it now.
While feeding SPs (and therefore their groups) is great, if a raid moves from shadow-locks to fire-locks, the raid-DPS from losing ISB isn't that great. Also, if most guilds are keeping an affliction lock for utility, they are still providing some ISB buffage to the raid.
If you had 2 SPs at 1200dps, going from 65% uptime to even 25% uptime drops the SP's individual DPS by less than 100 each, so it wouldn't be hard to make that up in personal gains.
Obviously it's all speculation depending on the talent, but the loss from ISB wouldn't be that huge.
The damage on Incinerate is locked after the spell is cast. If immolate drops before the bolt hits the target, you'll still get the bonus, but if it drops before you finish casting, you won't.
The damage on Incinerate is locked after the spell is cast. If immolate drops before the bolt hits the target, you'll still get the bonus, but if it drops before you finish casting, you won't.
My understanding of the tooltip on incinerate is that it doesn't need to be your immolate either, just "target is afflicted by immolate". This means that with multiple locks even if personal uptime is low, it'll likely still be afflicted by the spell.
The damage on Incinerate is locked after the spell is cast. If immolate drops before the bolt hits the target, you'll still get the bonus, but if it drops before you finish casting, you won't.
So if you watch your DoTtimers close enough, there should be no real DPS loss, as far as incinerate goes, the only DPS loss would be either if you cast it slightly too early and the last tick of immolate doesn't hit, or if you hit it slightly too late, and the time lost where there's nothing ticking between immolates, regardless, nothing ENORMOUS. What actually might be an interesting mod is an attachment to Dottimers that shows right before a dot ticks off, a horizontal bar, with a mark in the middle that calculates your haste that points out the exact perfect time to start recasting a dot or something. If any of you have ever played CABAL online, perhaps somewhat like the combo meter. I don't know, something to chew on for a mod idea. But might be too limited in use to be worth programming. Would just be a nice visual representation of when to recast dots.
02/20/08, 4:34 PM
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