WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 101

Mikari · 07/29/08, 6:53 PM

Originally Posted by Latas

Hit mechanics seem to have been reworked lowering the max hit needed to 9% and finally getting rid of that constant 1% miss rate.

Do you happen to have the topic/post where this has been tested? I'm only asking because this change would basically make it so FD is never resisted

Smurrf · 07/29/08, 6:54 PM

Originally Posted by Apaine

Thus, as long as imp gets the party buffs, and is able to live, it's a better solution than DS. Nasty issue if he runs out of mana... maybe consider not upgrading to his newest firebolt, if the new rank is too great jump in mana consumption?

No chance. Demon spells are learned automatically now.

Latas · 07/29/08, 6:57 PM

Well considering his mana regen was increased by 200% and im pretty sure JoW would effect him, and of course you are getting him buffed, and you have Improved Soul Leech, I will be surprised if the little bugger gets even close to running out of mana.

Apaine · 07/29/08, 7:07 PM

Another blue quote that made me laugh:

Master Conjurer will soon be a good investment

Now could it be they *finally* saw the light of reason and no longer want demonology lock slugging it out in melee?

Paranon · 07/29/08, 7:08 PM

Originally Posted by Burberri

Avoidance sounds nice, for things like najentus, but how does it work with standing in fire. If it gets clipped by archimonde's fire its as good as dead. Or Leo if it gets clipped by a whirlwind. Also, what about bosses that do targeted massive damage. ie. rage that hits people for 15k damage over 8 seconds. Are these things going to be designed so they don't insta-gib the imp.

Targeted boss abilities such as Rage or Najentus' do NOT target pets. Also, things like Leo's whirlwind count as AoE abilities, so 80% reduction on those from the new Avoidance. Standing in Archimonde fire and the like is still a problem, but it's easily enough dealt with through better positioning and response times.

As for totems, pets currently DO receive benefits from totems, auras, etc., so unless this is changed in WotLK for some bizarre reason, the imp will be able to benefit from ToW (possibly Wrath of Air and Flametongue Totem as well).

Drundia · 07/29/08, 7:09 PM

Originally Posted by Bibdy

In order to get Imp Soul Leech to equal the Imp's mana consumption rate of 180 every 1.5s, you'll need to be doing 4000 DPS to keep it topped off yourself. Obviously I have no clue how things will turn out at 80, but that seems like quite a lot, to be doing double the DPS we are now. You'll probably need a Shadow Priest or Shaman in a raid to keep that going indefinitely.

Somewhere earlier in this thread I've made some research about Imp's mana regeneration while casting and while not casting. Without any raid buffs, it still had some MR while casting, and pretty massive MR while not casting. He regenerated his full mana while not casting in about as much time as spent it with 2 sec Firebolts, meaning 50% DPS time. The notes mention increase of his mana regeneration, so DPS time goes up. Also there are various raid buffs like BOW, Mana totems, JOW, which will surely help Improved Soul Leech. Even if it's still not enough regeneration, you just stop him when he's OOM, and he'll be full in 10-15 seconds, while it took more than 1 minute (maybe more than 2-3 even) for him to deplete. It's fairly high DPS time.

Originally Posted by Bibdy

From what I can gather, an Imp's Firebolt does 199-223 every 1.5s. Add in 45% more from Empowered Imp and Improved Imp, take off 9% from its hit chance, add 3% from its 6% crit chance (what's a real value for this? I haven't ever checked), add in raid debuffs (COE, Imp Scorch, Misery) and you're in the region of 250 DPS, which barely scales at all. Though with his crits affecting your crits, his crit% would essentially be the same crit% given to you (so long as he doesn't crit 2 times in a row before you can get a shot off). Assuming its 6% (I really have no clue) that alone implies the Imp only needs to make up ~4% of your DPS.

I'll do it easy way and take level 70 values to show you that mentioned "barely scaling". We discard all raid debuffs because Firebolt and Incinerate should get the same.

Imp Firebolt (R8): 110-124 damage at level 68 (a bit higher at 70), average 117, without talents 58.5 DPS
Imp gets 15% of your spell power, 2/3.5 of which go into Firebolt. This is 0.0429 DPS per your spell power, or 23.33 SP per 1 DPS.

Incinerate (R2): 444-514 plus 111-129 damage at level 70, average 876.25, increased by Emberstorm to ~964, and with new talented 2 sec cast goes for base 482 DPS, modified by crit.
Spell power coefficient of 2.5/3.5, talent adds 0.2, Emberstorm multiplies by 1.1, so it is 0.503 DPS per your spell power, or 2 SP per 1 DPS.

Now let's take this data and put 10000 spell power. Imp: 487 DPS, Incinerate: 5993 DPS. Your good friend Imp deals 8.12% of your DPS before you count Imp's talents and your haste and higher crit. Imp's talents and your haste+crit can negate each other, but crits you gain from your Imp should make Imp actually usable. Also now useful Backdraft won't let you so easily fit into 50 points.

Originally Posted by Bibdy

Keep in mind, if they're going to make Conflag worth casting in a rotation and you're only going to go 50 points into Destruction, you have to sacrifice 3 points somewhere from the main raiding talents. Essentially, either Imp Soul Leech or Backdraft. So you'll either be a Lifetap hog or lose out on the bonus damage from Conflag/Backdraft. Either way its going to affect your DPS.

If you need to throttle your Destruction talents to 50 points, drop Eternal Flames, it's nerfed to a ridiculous state now if I read it correctly.

Latas · 07/29/08, 7:21 PM

Just as a reference at 73 with imp imp and empowered imp my imps firebolts are critting for about 450, all my gear is the same except i traded out the card for a crit trinket. Oh and i have demonic aegis, but not unholy power.

Burberri · 07/29/08, 9:00 PM

Originally Posted by Paranon

Targeted boss abilities such as Rage or Najentus' do NOT target pets. Also, things like Leo's whirlwind count as AoE abilities, so 80% reduction on those from the new Avoidance. Standing in Archimonde fire and the like is still a problem, but it's easily enough dealt with through better positioning and response times.

Leo, Azgalor and others don't just do AoE damage, they apply debuffs which I suspect are classified as single target. Destruction still suffers from a particularly great way to take heal it, and since the imp isn't going to be in melee range he is less likely to eat a CoH or a CH.

Your imp pets are quite stupid making it difficult to position. And the leash model doesn't really work. You might be able to navigate around fire, but the pet travelings 8 feet to your right might cut through it. The more time you have to spend monkeying around with your pet the more DPS you are going to lose. Which is why I would like for blizzard to give us more than follow, and stand still as options. Maybe a move towards target/location, or even if they would be smart enough to move themselves out of the way, the way they automatically move behind the mob now.

nom · 07/29/08, 9:02 PM

Originally Posted by Nom

"When you cast conflagrate, the cast time and mana cost of your next three Destruction spells is reduced by 30%. Lasts 15 secs."

If you do Conflagrate > Immolate > Shadow Bolt > Shadow Bolt, the last 3 spells go off in 4.55 seconds rather than 6.5 secs. Or, you get 2 "free" seconds every 10 seconds (= cooldown of conflagrate). That's roughly a 20% dps increase -- well, minus a little something for working conflagrate and immolate into a casting rotation. Not bad for 3 talent points

Originally Posted by Drundia

You are wrong, they go off in 5 seconds, because Immolate is GCD-limited. Notice that judging from live behavior % cast time reductions don't affect global cooldown, while % cast speed increases do.

Drundia's post, along with the cost of working conflagrate and immolate into the rotation, seems to completely kill the benefit of backdraft.

A conflag > immolate > incinerate > incinerate will have the last 3 spells going off in 4.5 seconds rather than 5.5. (With incinerate now a 2 sec cast, it's hard to think about using shadow bolt anymore. Do 3 incins and they are no longer assisted by immo, and the immo dot ticks even less before the next conflag).

The gain is 1 free second per 10 seconds, the CD of conflagrate.

The cost is working conflagrate and a weak immolate into a rotation. Keeping to a 10 second schedule, the immolate dot will tick only around twice before it's conflagged away. Devote 3 seconds per 10 seconds to casting conflag and this highly truncated immolate, both at just 80% or so of the DPCT of the new incinerate, and it's like losing 3 * 0.2 = 0.6 seconds per 10 seconds.

The cost seems to cancel much of the benefit over the long run. Napkin math says 4% dps increase or so, and a more careful calculation says even less.

EDIT:

I didn't take into account the usual boost to dps that including a full duration immolate provides, that using backdraft deprives you of. A full duration immolate's DPCT is about 130%, give or take, of the DPCT of the new incinerate. Its inclusion in an incinerate rotation improves dps by 0.3 * 1.5/15 = 3% over what incinerate spam gives (if you treat immolate's boost to incinerate's damage as innate to incinerate).

Subtract 3% from the Napkin math 4% above and nothing's really left. Including the effect of Eternal Flames might even make backdraft a dps decrease.

ggyourlife · 07/29/08, 9:11 PM

Originally Posted by Burberri

Your imp pets are quite stupid making it difficult to position. And the leash model doesn't really work. You might be able to navigate around fire, but the pet travelings 8 feet to your right might cut through it. The more time you have to spend monkeying around with your pet the more DPS you are going to lose. Which is why I would like for blizzard to give us more than follow, and stand still as options. Maybe a move towards target/location, or even if they would be smart enough to move themselves out of the way, the way they automatically move behind the mob now.

Or simply for the imp, a "follow and attack" option in which if you aren't moving the imp attacks, and if you start moving, it follows you.

Although this could probably be done with some elaborate macros that link your movement keys with "follow" and "attack".

Bibdy · 07/29/08, 9:32 PM

In case anyone was banking on high-powered AOE spells, Backdraft doesn't affect Shadowfury, Hellfire or Rain of Fire in mana cost or haste.

Latas · 07/29/08, 9:46 PM

Something has occured to me, what happens if you have multiple locks with Demonic Pact? How does the game handle multiple expose weakness effects from survival hunters? I suspect it would be handled the same. If they stack it has the potential to be extremely powerful for a raid.

clavarnway · 07/29/08, 10:31 PM

Originally Posted by Latas

Something has occured to me, what happens if you have multiple locks with Demonic Pact? How does the game handle multiple expose weakness effects from survival hunters? I suspect it would be handled the same. If they stack it has the potential to be extremely powerful for a raid.

It probably works like ISB, Imp Scorch etc, it refreshes the debuff.

Latas · 07/29/08, 10:42 PM

Originally Posted by clavarnway

It probably works like ISB, Imp Scorch etc, it refreshes the debuff.

But how much it does is dependant on who applies it.

Drundia · 07/29/08, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by nom

The cost is working conflagrate and a weak immolate into a rotation. Keeping to a 10 second schedule, the immolate dot will tick only around twice before it's conflagged away. Devote 3 seconds per 10 seconds to casting conflag and this highly truncated immolate, both at just 80% or so of the DPCT of the new incinerate, and it's like losing 3 * 0.2 = 0.6 seconds per 10 seconds.

Eternal Flames also no longer refresh Immolate, so Immolate is getting back to rotations anyway, though cost of Conflagrate is indeed higher than I originally accounted for, because I practically discarded its own low DPCT, forgetting that we are talking about 2.0 sec Incinerates and not 2.5 sec ones, for which Conflagrate base damage partially offset its poor scaling, but on the positive side maybe it gets improved coefficient.

With these Incinerates Eternal Flames pattern for ticks of Immolate appears to be 0, 2, 3, 5, 5, so it averages 3 stacks while previos one averaged 5 in the long run. Considering that there is 1 "free stack" (not counted), average increase of Immolate DOT went down from 30% to 20%. Without going into deep math, it seems to get equivalent of old EF effect we need to get 9 extra points going into Backdraft chain.

And now I'm thinking about Emberstorm. 37.5% DPS increase to Incinerate. Maybe better than the rest of the tree put together. So if it has same amount of effect as Bane now, why not stick that effect into Bane instead? Also it further amplifies concerns of Destruction being too Fire, it's getting worse than Fire Mages for Fire-immune fights. Maybe we should get some talent to fix it for us or change our good Incinerate to Shadow Incinerate and stick Frostfire Bolt-like mechanic on it?