Draele

And furthermore, what about Dark Pact? They certainly wouldn't nerf both would they? If they just nerf LT, will spirit be just another wasted stat to add to Affliction's list of mostly useless stats?

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

 

Flamingcloud

People don't seem to understand. Regardless of whether you lifetap or dark pact spirit is going to make you need to do it less and thus increase your dps. Spirit will never be worthless... If they just nerfed LT and left Dark Pact alone, it would actually be an added incentive to going affliction not a negative.

 

Wander

Angst over Spirit is entirely understandable given how awful it's been for a very long time, and given that even with the recent buff, it hasn't touched most DPS caster classes. People will realize, when they see Mana Regen: 750 (250 while casting) on their character sheets in WotLK

 

Drundia

Life Tap scales with the most scaling stat at our disposal. We spend progressively less time Life Tapping as we level and gear up.

If I'm not mistaken Death Knight takes role of tanking MELEE ELEMENTAL bosses, Warlock stays highest ranged threat source and consequently stays viable for actual CASTER bosses. Soul Link wasn't really all that needed, and the change is welcome by any raiding Demonologists because pet no longer takes huge amounts of damage.

What change to Life Tap? OMG, change to Life Tap? As if change to Spirit wasn't enough.

Honestly I checked it. Right now I have 300 mana per 5 raid buffed while not casting. Subtract 49 for BOW = 251. 251*0.3=75.3. It's actually pretty cool. It's almost 9% of mana costs before haste. I guess 2.4 change to Spirit ended up being not that bad. But I still don't like the idea of Spirit.

 

Redslayer

Anyone thought about what eternal flame could really mean? Highly unlikely but refreshing immo might reapply its intiial damage. that of course will mean alot of dps from that talent which some think is lacking atm.

 

Jonny_Monroe

I'm wondering if mage might be viable in this roll with the new +80 all resistance, stronger resistance on mage armour and better all round absorbtion on elemental wards. All we seem to lack is a high threat spell like searing pain, but we gain a little more anti-burst through wards and not having to lifetap (and if arcane spec, having -4% damage taken and gaining more spell power when absorbing damage). Any Theory crafters able to compare the 2 classes for this role?

OMNOMNOM.

 

◊ manly

Mage tanking will never happen because of +20% heals from armor, because warlocks have more HP, and because if they spec for it, they can spread burst damage to their pet as well. If that weren't enough, searing pain is miles ahead in terms of threat generation.

Mages tanking is not something that will happen save for spellsteal gimmicks.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

rooj

I don't think caster classes will have to specifically choose between spirit and other stats. It feels as if the item budgets for WotLK will nearly all include spirit for cloth wearers. There is now not a single cloth user who won't benefit from spirit. I wouldn't be surprised if we see spirit all over the place like we did with stam and TBC.

 

Jonny_Monroe

For fire and frost mages, its still a matter of choosing between the Mage armour for spirit benefits or Molten Armour for +3% crit, whilst warlocks get their damage effect rolled in with their spirit effect. If this change ends up forcing more spirit on to fire mages that a lot of them won't use... well, then the whole purpose of re-itemizing to homogenise caster DPSers is defeated. Either that, or the purpose of having molten armour is defeated.

OMNOMNOM.

 

Wander

It's possible they intend or expect all Mages to go 18 deep into Arcane in order to make Mage Armor an optional choice, but you're right; in the rush to make SPI a valuable stat for Warlocks and Shadow Priests, they seem to have forgotten that two of three Mage specs still want almost nothing to do with SPI and none of the changes made so far affect that.

Although, it's currently impossible to get Living Bomb, Arcane Meditation and 3/3 Elemental Precision in the same spec, (heck, it's impossible to make a full investment in either tree for PvE and still take Arcane Meditation) so if they do actually intend for Arcane Meditation to become standard, it'll have to move up a tier.

 

alvinrod

It's probably more cost effective for deep fire/frost mages to just use mage armor instead of putting 18 points, most of which serve little or limited purpose just to get to Arcane Meditation.

I honestly don't expect mages to fill the spot that warlock tanks currently have. As Manly pointed out warlocks have more health and are able to mitigate a good portion of the damage to their pets. An addition to what he mentioned is that in some cases the spells cast by the bosses that a warlock tanks are not partially resistible, which makes any amount of spell resistance a mage has completely pointless.

Since we have no idea what type of encounters we'll face in WotLK and exactly how DKs will shape up, it's difficult to say whether or not warlocks will still have a tanking role in some encounters. My guess is that they probably will just to add more purpose to the class in the same manner that there will be fights that mages will need to off-tank. There won't be a lot, but they'll crop up from time to time.

 

Wander

Probably, except that this then causes the undesirable effect of forcing Fire or Frost Mages to choose damage (via Molten Armor) or sustainability (Mage Armor), which remains a choice no other caster class will have to make; it's one of those things that keeps Mages just a little bit behind on the DPS meters.

That said, if the trees go live, going 18 points into Arcane provide (compared to BC Live):

+42 All School Spell Resist (assuming still only 3/5 Absorption)
-3% cost to Polymorph, Blink, Counterspell.
No change in +Hit Rating requirements (both Frost and Fire gem and gear for 164 Hit Rating already)
+6 Yards to Polymorph, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and Counterspell (in my fondest dreams, +6 yards to Blink, but I know that's not true)

The cost, in Fire: You can't take Payback, World in Flames or Hot Streak, and only 2/3 EP if you want Living Bomb. Probably not a big loss, since those three talents are currently lackluster, save in AoE situations.

The cost, in Frost: You can't take Deep Freeze or Brain Freeze and can only take 4/5 Winter's Chill or 4/5 Shatter (or 1/5 Arctic Winds with 4/5 Shatter, if the theorycrafting shows that's better)

This allows you to run Molten Armor without fear for +3% Critical Strike.

In Fire, it's a six of one, half dozen of the other choice. You lose the ~3% Critical Strike from Hot Streak, but gain it back by being able to wear Molten Armor all the time. You have the same Mana Regen as if you wore Mage Armor, you lose no single-target DPS at all and you gain all of the above.

In Frost, it's about the same, except that you're taking probably a small outright DPS hit for the gain of all the above and the ability to wear Molten Armor all the time.

 

rochan

Despite that, warlocks tank 3 encounters and mages tank 2? It's pretty equal. I wouldn't say one is better than the other.

 

Wander

Mmm. Mage Tanking requires a spellsteal target. Warlock tanking just requires stacking STA and Resistances.

The only reason Warlocks can't tank Krosh or Zerevor is because they cast massive, massive spells with innate ~450 Spell Penetration, making Warlock tanking impossible. While one isn't better than the other, it seems to me that Mage tanking is more gimmicky, though both require some carefully designed encounter mechanics. It's not "real" tanking.

What would be interesting to me is that there's nothing that says Mages have to spellsteal from the target they're tanking, a concept I feel would've made for much more exciting Mage tanking.

There's also nothing that says the spell they steal has to be an anti-spell shield; it could just as easily be a Rune Shield or really, anything.

For example:

Champion of the Blue
"Blue Whelps and Drakes flock to the caster, considering him an ally. They will not attack the caster or his allies and will furiously attack anyone who threatens their Champion"

Spellstolen during the Malygos fight from a Blue Drakonid to keep the swarming Blue Drakes and Whelps under control.

 

alvinrod

Both are pretty niche, but I think it's more of a check on Blizzard's part to make sure that your guild has or is using warlocks/mages. I don't think gimmicky tanking encounters are the best way to make our classes useful, but it is a way.

 

Lhivera

As you regear in WotLK and gain spirit, you're going to see that it's a lot more powerful than people give it credit for. I regen about 28% of my Frostbolt cost while I'm casting it from spirit alone when I have Mage Armor up; if I were regenning at 39%, as you will with Demonic Aegis, it'd be 36% -- every third frostbolt would be free, essentially.

 

alvinrod

The thing is I don't know how much regearing will be going on as we move towards 80. Blizzard has stated (take that for what it's worth) that there won't be as much of a gear bump as there was in TBC so I think we'll be keeping a lot of what we have.

I had mostly T2/T3 mix when leveling to 70 and I didn't start replacing gear until I hit around level 66 and was still using some items at level 70 until we started instancing/raiding. I don't see Skull of Gul'dan going anywhere for a while, for instance.

It's possible that if you had the best in slot from SWP that none or little of it will be replaced on the way to level 80. This presents a problem for warlocks because they're undergoing some major class changes, but is only short term as it's possible that new gear will start arriving at level 80.

The only problem I have with spirit is that its item budget is somewhat costly despite the fact that most classes only get about 30% use out of it. They really need to look at some affliction, fire/frost mage talents and add some gimmick stuff in the lower tiers so that it's actually valuable.

For example, Burning Soul could get additional push back resistance from spirit. Otherwise spirit still by and large still sucks when compared to other other stats.

 

Flamingcloud

Realistically speaking spirit will be better than int.

Adding base 50 spirit at my levels would add 11dmg (14 for 10 seconds after a crit) and 25.7mp5(35.75 after crit) and adding 50 int would give 0.67% crit or 14.8 rating and 6.1mp5. Uptime on kindling with a 30% crit rate would be 76% so 13.28dmg 27.25mp5 vs 14.8crit rating according to the spreadsheet, spirit wins 25 dps to 15 dps or is 66.6% better than int. (All buffs including imp spirit/blessing of kings are assumed)

It has been awhile since I've heard int described as a sucky stat, but it really is.

 

Draele

Warlock spells are less mana efficient, however, (likely) due to Lifetap.

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

 

Wander

Good point. However, you can expect more Warlocks to take Cataclysm, in the expansion; you'll also get a stronger Armor Regen thanks to Demonology's +30% effect talent; finally, I'm sure they expect Life Tap to be used, but the fact that your spells will be both cheaper and your natural casting regen stronger will make up the difference.

Also note that, compared to both Mages and Shadow Priests, you'll have more talented +Hit % and so the saved itemization points can be spent on whatever you like!

 

alvinrod

As pointed out before in this thread the +hit is worthless since it doesn't cover their agro drump. Even affliction locks in TBC would get 16% hit because they cast shadow bolt a lot and their hit talent didn't cover that.

Spirit is only really good for Destro locks because they get a few talents to cover it. It's significantly more worthless for deep fire/frost mages who don't get anything out of it unless they run with mage armor. Because some group needs the shadow priest it'll probably be the one with the least mana regeneration. If frost/fire mages can get away with it they'll just run with molten armor since it's a DPS boost.

Other posters pointed out that spirit is fairly meh for affliction (based on their observations which may or may not be mathematically sound for warlocks) so it may be as useful (rather useless) as it is for fire/frost mages. Until blizzard adds some spirit buffs to our talents (regardless of how insignificant) in the lower tiers of those trees, spirit is completely wasted itemization. Let it buff Dark Pact or something else like that. Even if they're all minor buffs they're still buffs.

 

Draele

Fair enough. I'd still rather it convert X% of spirit from gear to spellpower. Continue the trend for Warlocks to focus purely on throughtput and make us pay for it in global cooldowns and healer reliance. I appreciate the differences in mechanics between Warlocks are other casters, regardless of whether or not we're better or worse off, it's nice to have us function totally seperate from passive regen mechanics. Having a spirit to +dmg conversion of some sort would still allow gear to become homogenized, while still allowing Warlocks to retain their unique mechanics.

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

 

Draele

Affliction is going to continue to fall into the gutter into we have another stat besides +DMG that boost DoT damage in a meaningful way. I think that's the news most of us are waiting to hear...

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

 

Wander

I think "worthless" is a significant overdramatization. Fire Mages have the exact same amount of passive threat reduction, cause (approximately) the same amount of damage, and even today don't need to cast Invisibility, period; given all that, having Soul Shatter not covered by Cataclysm seems less than a vital concern.

 

Wander

Kindling Soul in the Destruction Tree does this, no?