Is anyone able to get ranks 2 and 3 of life tap? I'm stuck with rank 1 only and the others aren't showing up on trainers.

EDIT: On test.

I wasn't able to. There seems to be some discrepancy across test realms. I don't know if it a difference in PvE versus PvP, or US versus EU.

I'm on US PVE and only have rank 1. =(

Okay, now that Life Tap has been scaled up to 20% mana, whats the current DPS value of Intelligence against +damage, given that Int increases crit% and lowers Life Tap frequency.

I'd also be very curious how the new Ember Skyfire Diamond meta compares to CSD with the changes to Life tap. Ember Skyfire is +14 Spell damage and +2% intellect.

I know of someone who copied their character twice about a week ago. One character had all three ranks, one didn't. I have only one rank on both my pvp and my pve characters. The algorithm might be "when the character was copied", who knows.


Regarding the change in general:

I think it's okay. Warlocks will be at a disadvantage on fights like mother or RoS, sure, but we're an advantage of Kaz'Rogal. I think you have to look at both sides.

20% is generous, meaning T6 doesn't see a dps hit (although we probably will from what we could have had in Sunwell gear) and lower-geared locks see a dps boost.

They did listen, multiple ranks exist for pvp and for tanking.

Down the road I think it will make it easier to balance lock gear and scaling because lifetap is more fixed (I was convinced by a few folks that a scaling lifetap isn't actually a good design from Blizzard's perspective.)

I am concerned a bit about how this works with levelling-up gear (from 1, not from 70) and various gear levels for soloing.


In the end I think that, if you accept that they wanted something that scaled so pvp took a bigger stamina hit, it was going to look something like this anyways so this may be the best we can hope for.

I'm not convinced it's as terrible with respect to stamina as the PTR forums would like to make it out to be. There's plenty of other stats (like haste!) which, while you get something out of them, you also lose something and don't get "full" efficiency out of them (for haste, it's that we have to go into mana-regen mode more often.)

Only been tanking Leo (full FR gear) and Capernian (no FR other than from Pet) so far - but at Leo I only tap during human phase (coordinating with my Healer so he wont get aggro) and on Capernian its also no problem since its no "race" in either phase giving me time zu warn my Healer(s) before I tap....IF I have to.

Cant coment on the other fights though since we're not there yet.

As far as i know they do actually stack, but its multiplicative. Anyways it was probably an affliction lock that didnt want to regem his gear to meet requirements of other meta's.

Swift Starfire Diamond - Items - World of Warcraft - 2 x yellow
Chaotic Skyfire Diamond - Items - World of Warcraft - 2 x blue

I think a lot of players are missing the difference between the current version & the PTR version.

Both versions scale (current - 80% of sdmg, ptr - 20% of max hp)
Both versions cause an increasing hp penalty per lifetap as you gear up ( damage & stamina both increase as one moves up the tiers)
Both versions scale with buffs (fort, wrath of air, flasks..)

The difference is that the current version has a direct correlation between hp lost & mp gained whereas the PTR version scales off two independent stats. Its like taxing someone based on hours worked but paying them based on the hours spent watching TV.

So, assuming that the 20% max health for 20% max mana change goes live, does this mean that [Ember Skyfire Diamond] becomes a viable replacement for [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond]? Can someone better than me (and who has full access to the armory/WoW at the moment) do the math on this.

~ Chaotic gives you 14 crit rating and 3% more crit damage. I have about 25% crit from gear and 1500 spell damage self buffed. My observed crit rate is something around 33% with an elemental shaman and 1650ish spell damage while raid buffed, and my SB crits usually range from 6.5k - 9k (yes I get freak 11k crits as well, but it's not a common occurrence). That means I get 0.63% more crit and my crits hit for ~232 more damage, right?

~ Ember gives you 14 straight up spell damage, which itemizes better than crit on a point-for-point basis, but it also gives us 2% more Int which means about 46 more mana per life tap, or a free SB every 10 taps.

This is slightly further complicated by the fact that the color gem requirements of the Ember are much friendlier than they are on Chaotic. If I switched to Ember I could trade out the 2 [Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst]s that I have for 2 more [Runed Crimson Spinel]s for an extra 12 spell damage.

Would love some of the expert theorycrafters to take a look at the new 54 hit alch trinket. With the new lifetap changes I think drinking mana pots might become needed. Wondering if that trinket is going to replace icon or hex lord.

Hi nfar, CSD is actually 9% crit damage with ruin, which would be about 697.5 more damage per crit for 33% of your SB. Plus 0.63% more crit chance on top.

Effectively, ember will give you 26 damage and extra 40-ish mana per tap. But when you are tapping for 2k+ each time with 2.4 gears, you are only saving one GCD for every 50 GCD, or the time you used up spending that 100k mana. Imo, CSD still leads by far.

Most warlocks are already chain-potting super mana on most longer fights. The new trinket is somewhat interesting for warlocks, but on some fights it seems better to use destruction potions, the trinket then loses much of its worth and I don't really see a possibility to build two gear sets around using and not using the trinket.

I know this is pretty newb question, but I'm leveling a lock and was wondering, once I hit 70, the guild I'm going to be raiding with is starting t5 instances.. I was wondering on the meta gem choice, I'm obviously going to be starting affli mainly because the lack of gear and the fact that I'm going to be either 1 of 1 warlock or 1 of 2 warlocks raiding. What would be the best starting meta for an affli lock, also including the recent changes to life tap? I was looking at the 14 spell dmg 2% int gem, and was thinking that was probably the best way to go but I would like confirmation.

Hooray for massive lifetap buff.. Lifetapping for 2200-2600 mana is going to be sweet. Haste affecting it aswell.. Going to be lifetapping like 40 less than on live.

Can't find the answer for this elsewhere and I don't have the pieces to test it: will the 2-piece T5 bonus heal a phase-shifted imp? I'd like an answer from someone who actually has the pieces and has tried it.

Isn't that kind of moot point ?

Yes.

The change to LT means better mana/gcd than on Live. It also means losing more HPs, but that just means smarter Tap-placement on damage heavy fights.

As far as the trinket, 40% increased pottage means if you're using every pot cd, that bonus can be considered 40mp5 (if using Supers). It scales from there (ie using pots every 4mins would be 20mp5, etc).

My question is multifacted:

• I lose out on Imp Corr, should I go 5/35/21 instead of 0/40/21 for succubus spec (or also get imp lifetap)

• Is a succubus way too squishy to raid with?

• Has anyone actually compared the 2?

• I know Affliction is the best for dps, pre-BT, but I hate keeping track of 5 dots.

• I'm at work, so I cant make this initial post very long

I just hit 70, but I will prolly gear up pretty fast, my guild is raiding BT/Hyjal, my main is a feral druid. So, this question may seem a bit noob. I asked the locks in my guild and nobody seems to have tried it.

If you don't like micromanaging dots, I don't see how you'll like micromanaging a pet. IMO if you don't have a specific reason to go demo (tanking), then you should either go destro or affliction. If you do go affliction, you'll want to pick up malediction, shadow embrace and improved imp, so there's only going to be 4 dots to juggle.

I think it can replace Icon, but probably not Hex Lord

I figure that 54 hit is equal to 54 haste on the margin (since you can trade them equally via gemming), which puts it equal to about 70 spell damage for me.

I don't have the hexhead, so I plan to use Skull + Crusade with a 12% hit set (currently I have 12.5% hit, which will drop to about 12.2 once I get my last 2 pieces of t6), and swap in the new trinket as needed.

On another note, I got a working Recap on the PTR. Here's some real world fire spec testing:

ImageShack - Hosting :: 24firetestdx4.jpg

1372 dps with just self buffs and a lousy 15% crit rate.....definitely seems on par with shadow.

A soul-linked imp takes damage via soul-link. 2-piece T5 can be used to heal the pet through any incidental damage taken via soul-link without ever having to break phase shift. My average fight dps is on the order of 1500; 15% healing means 225 healing per second to the pet. Imp takes 20% of my damage via soul-link. Imp has ~3500 hp buffed so I'd need to take 17,500 damage to one-shot him (which will kill me anyway). 1125 dps against me will counter the 225 hps that I give the imp through 2-piece T5. It seems unlikely under most circumstances that a soul-linked imp would die from soul-link if I have 2-piece T5.

I'm in a position where I'm seriously considering a 1/39/21 spec for the threat reduction from the imp. I'm currently 0/21/40 and produce massive amounts of damage and threat relative to the rest of my guild. It's exceptionally rare for me to be #1 on dps by a margin less than 20% and it's not uncommon to have 2x the damage of the person in the #2 spot. Even with a prism of inner calm equipped and with well timed soulshatters I'm still riding the threat ceiling (and hosing my dps) on at least 75% of the boss encounters* that we regularly run... it's especially bad with our warrior tank and pally tank, the bear is the only tank that can out-threat me under most circumstances. Given this, I ran numbers through the spreadsheet assuming 2.3 values (so no GCD improvements, which will benefit the imp spec much more in this case):

My 0/21/40 spec gives me the following two options:
not threat capped: shadow destro with immolate = 1961 dps
threat capped: shadow destro with immo + prism = 1902 dps and 1605 tps

The 1/39/21 spec would give me the following two options:
not threat capped: 1/39/21 with succy and soul-link = 1957 dps
threat capped: 1/39/21 with imp and soul-link, no prism = 1824 dps and 1345 tps
(the ultra rare situation where I can have my imp attack = 2169 dps and 1345 tps ... I don't plan on ever being able to do this)

The damage difference for non-threat capped situations is negligible, assuming I can keep the succy alive in a corner somewhere. For threat capped situations, I lose 78 dps in exchange for a loss of 255 tps. I have to lose 4.1% casting time with the destro spec to holding back for threat in order for it to lose damage relative to the imp-demo spec.

As a side effect (NOT my primary motivation for this) looking forward to the new lifetap changes.. using some rough numbers here: assume my toon has 10000 hp. The imp will increase my hp by about 1000, so 11000. My effective health pool is 20% more than that as a result of soul-link: 13200. However, my lifetaps will only cost 20% of 11000 or 2200 hp per tap. Assume 20 taps in a fight, that's 44,000 hp that needs to be healed. A warlock with an actual health pool of 13,200 will tap for 2640 requiring 52,800 healing. It's a minor difference, but worth mentioning I suppose.

* Fights where I have to hold back due to threat:

hydross
tidewalker
leotheras
voidreaver
solarian
kael
vashj
eagle boss timed ZA
bear boss timed ZA
lynx boss timed ZA
zul'jin
rage winterchill
hyjal trash - worth noting given our current progression

Fights where I don't have to hold back:

lurker
karathress
dragonhawk boss timed ZA

You're probably thinking I'm crazy for considering this. You probably think our tanks should generate more threat and I agree. In the meantime, I'm not sure what other option I have other than spamming rank 1 spells trying to get crits for negative threat from my prism.

All I can say is bear tank FTW . Our MT is a bear tank & I have to hold back at times, but he allows me to keep rolling out bolts one after another.

We also use a couple of prot tanks and a prot pally for OT needs. The same just cannot be said here. I'm easily threat capped "making a sandwhich" ...