WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 119

PsyBomb · 09/23/08, 12:45 PM

Originally Posted by Sebalot

That is obviously something they need to adjust. Dark Pact always have to outperform life tap or it is completely pointless. I would prefer it being removed from gcd as solution. Affliction has so much duration/cooldown-dodging as it is.

As long as it's in the same ballpark, Darkpact has the distinct advantage of not costing your healers any mana.

Sebalot · 09/23/08, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by PsyBomb

As long as it's in the same ballpark, Darkpact has the distinct advantage of not costing your healers any mana.

I have healed every fight up to Brutallus on my priest. Topping up locks after life tap is not an issue for healers ever. One renew and they can tap up over half their mana bar. If Life Tap is ever better than Dark Pact you might as well remove Dark Pact becaue then it won't be used and is a waste of a talent point.

Sure with the shrinking of our health pools, life tapping might be a riskier thing in the future. But that should be even more reason to promote other ways to gain mana. Which makes their decision to kill off the passive regen on fel armor and nerfing ISL look even stranger.

Hearteater · 09/23/08, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by Sebalot

That is obviously something they need to adjust. Dark Pact always have to outperform life tap or it is completely pointless. I would prefer it being removed from gcd as solution. Affliction has so much duration/cooldown-dodging as it is.

I'd prefer they remove Dark Pact completely. It seems odd that a class that has a health->mana ability baseline, and a tree that pushes life draining (SL/DL) more than any other tree, the 31-point ability in that tree completely disregards those features in an attempt to solve the same issue in a completely different fashion.

Myonax · 09/23/08, 1:06 PM

Originally Posted by Profanity

Just ran some more DPS tests on Anachronos.

...cut....

This parse was with a BL
screenshot right after taking Anachronos down to 20%:

ImageShack - Hosting :: wowscrnshot092308075510dd3.jpg

screenshot showing spell breakdown:

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/763...8075948no9.jpg

Was your demon attacking? From much of what I have been reading Blizzard expects our pets to being DPS to keep up with other DPS classes.

PyroTEK85 · 09/23/08, 1:28 PM

Originally Posted by Hearteater

I'd prefer they remove Dark Pact completely. It seems odd that a class that has a health->mana ability baseline, and a tree that pushes life draining (SL/DL) more than any other tree, the 31-point ability in that tree completely disregards those features in an attempt to solve the same issue in a completely different fashion.

I never thought of it like that, but you're right. It almost makes more sense to give it to demonology. Heck, give me that instead of demonic empowerment. for 31 points.

Morvalo · 09/23/08, 1:53 PM

It may have been mentioned before. I can't read through all these post ha, but what thoughts do you guys have on Spirit being usefull/ not usefull. From what I can see only Lifetap and Fel Armor are even affected by it. In gearing are you still avoiding it?

PsyBomb · 09/23/08, 1:58 PM

Originally Posted by Morvalo

It may have been mentioned before. I can't read through all these post ha, but what thoughts do you guys have on Spirit being usefull/ not usefull. From what I can see only Lifetap and Fel Armor are even affected by it. In gearing are you still avoiding it?

No, we really do need some Spirit now. I don't go TOO far out of my way (although I do use Purified cut gems fro blue sockets, now), but I don't avoid it. extra spellpower and less time spent Tapping is nothing to sneeze at.

Sydane · 09/23/08, 2:07 PM

Any pet that is dpsing is going to struggle to keep up with Dark Pact sucking away its mana. Maybe if it was made a pet ability, with the pet's GCD, you'd be able to choose to sacrifice pet dps and none of your own, but as it stands I can't see ever using it unless the Felhunter's bite ability just has it swimming in mana, even if it is a better return than Life Tap (much less if it is worse). Someone would have to run the numbers but the amount of pet dps lost seems quite substantial. There's no more passive imp mana battery for affliction now. It also doesn't really work to move it to demo because Demo is doing the reverse, feeding mana to the pet. Seems to be relegated to being a marginal PvP/Soloing talent now

PyroTEK85 · 09/23/08, 2:52 PM

Yeah, though I'm still disappointed about the new soul link nerf and a lackluster talent given in its place. It just doesn't feel like its good enough to be 31 points, maybe 21.

Profanity · 09/23/08, 3:08 PM

Originally Posted by Myonax

Was your demon attacking? From much of what I have been reading Blizzard expects our pets to being DPS to keep up with other DPS classes.

The demon accounted for 384.3 of the total DPS

I was using Glyph of Imp, which gives +10% to the imp's firebolt damage.

Lockkster · 09/23/08, 3:28 PM

Dunno if anyone has mentioned it, but has anyone tried out the Ashtongue trinket yet ? 220 spell dmg for 5 seconds may be great depending on proc rate

Fulgurite · 09/23/08, 4:36 PM

This was the spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
~1740 SP, 19% crit, 0% haste, 4% hit
Glyphs were Shadowbolt and Imp (-10% shadowbolt mana cost and +10% Imp firebolt damage).
Curse was Curse of Elements for all Damage tests.

I did some Imp DPS testing at 80 just now, against the level 80 target dummy.

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/1118/impdpskv1.jpg

Holy cow was his crit rate high. 24-25%. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not.

Before he went oom, DPS was at about 230. I went AFK and Fel Armor/CoE fell off for some of those Bolts. It was about 500 a hit with Fel Armor, 480 without.

I need to do more testing without 4% hit, but I think the Imp misses if you aren't hit capped. I was testing the DPS of the build earlier (with only 2% hit + Cataclysm), and the Imp missed twice in about 50 Bolts. As you can see, no misses in 600ish with 4% hit.

Another weird thing to note is the Imp's mana. You can see in the screenshot that he's casting with ~130 mana. Firebolt rank 9 costs 180 mana. He has about 20-30 mana left after a cast with that much mana. Sometimes he casts as low as 120 mana, sometimes he waits until >180 mana (and it spends 180 mana then). Was very weird.

-----

On a side note, I was testing the DPS of this 20/0/51 spec. The rotation was just Shadowbolt + Corruption + Chaos Bolt. Wasn't too bad, but unfortunately I couldn't find the Glyph of Corruption, so honestly there weren't that many Nightfall procs.

I didn't do too many extended tests with Chaos Bolt (but with Molten Core and ISB up, it was pretty OP. 4.1k non-crit, self buffed). I did do Corruption+SB vs. Immolate+Incinerate tests. Immolate only seemed to buff Incinerate damage by like 100-200. Which seems comparable to Nightfall's increase on Shadowbolt spam. Probably in favor of Immolate.

Molten Core is comparable to ISB, though ISB has a higher percent and if you're casting Incinerates, a higher Uptime.

With the 20/0/51 spec, both Corruption and Immolate were about 14% of the total damage of their respective rotation s.
Shadowbolt spam was 2800-2850 non-crit without ISB, 3300-3400 with ISB. That's 1130 DPS without, 1340 with.
Incinerate spam was 2650-2750 non-crit without Immolate, 2850-2950 with. That's 1200 DPS without, 1289 with.
(Note that DPS assumes 0% crit and 0% haste)

So it seems to me, while Emp. Imp increases the crit chance of Incinerate/Immolate just as much as Shadowbolt, the increased ISB uptime makes this a SB oriented talent.

The mana actually goes in Shadowbolts favor IMO. I'm using the -10% SB mana cost glyph, and 3/3 Cataclysem for -3% mana. These are the mana costs of my spells at 80:
Shadowbolt . . . 569 mana
Incinerate . . . . 522 mana
Immolate . . . . 635 mana
Conflagrate . . . 597 mana
Corruption . . . ~538 mana

Maels · 09/23/08, 5:36 PM

At level 80, with full fire talents your shadowbolts should be hitting for less than your incinerates before molten core procs. They take longer to cast as well.

Originally Posted by Fulgurite

Shadowbolt spam was 2800-2850 non-crit without ISB, 3300-3400 with ISB. That's 1130 DPS without, 1340 with.
Incinerate spam was 2650-2750 non-crit without Immolate, 2850-2950 with. That's 1200 DPS without, 1289 with.
(Note that DPS assumes 0% crit and 0% haste)

~3190 incinerates with Molten Core up, 1417 dps.
You should never incinerate without Immolate up.

Destro Shadowbolt is dead, we shouldn't be wasting time testing 51+ destro shadowbolt rotations, they're pointless.
The only way to make conflagarate worth the cast is to get its glyph, Fire and Brimstone and only use it after the second-last immolate tick. Conflagging correctly yields more dps than not.

dakalro · 09/23/08, 5:43 PM

Oh, so the Imp crit bug is still there. I'd like to think it's not a bug and the pet also scales with our crit but sort of doubt it.

Darian_TruBlade · 09/23/08, 7:42 PM

Originally Posted by Maels

At level 80, with full fire talents your shadowbolts should be hitting for less than your incinerates before molten core procs. They take longer to cast as well.

~3190 incinerates with Molten Core up, 1417 dps.
You should never incinerate without Immolate up.

Destro Shadowbolt is dead, we shouldn't be wasting time testing 51+ destro shadowbolt rotations, they're pointless.
The only way to make conflagarate worth the cast is to get its glyph, Fire and Brimstone and only use it after the second-last immolate tick. Conflagging correctly yields more dps than not.

Pure Shadow Bolt spam is certainly dead, but Shadow Bolt as a regular part of a DPS rotation isn't.

At 2k SP and 40% crit Corruption will be your worst DPCT spell even with the talent. The best case scenario for uptime will be ~45% assuming absolutely zero overlap and that the 12 second duration is intentional (6 seconds in the tooltip). That puts the Incinerate rotation at 1347dps, which is approximately even with Shadow Bolt spam in the best case scenario.

But the trick is that Chaos Bolt benefits from ISB as well as Molten Core, both of which will have better uptimes with Shadow Bolt. If you're going to cast Chaos Bolt you're going to get more punch out of it if your bread and butter is Shadow Bolt. Additionally, Immolate has a very nice DPCT compared to Corruption and can be added to the Shadow Bolt rotation for a nice DPS increase.

If anything, Incinerate is being pushed into a niche position where Backdraft is ignored.

Originally Posted by dakalro

Oh, so the Imp crit bug is still there. I'd like to think it's not a bug and the pet also scales with our crit but sort of doubt it.

From the language in this post it seems extremely likely that anything they do for Warlocks will be done for Hunters and vice versa, or is at least extremely likely.

I had thought there was a blue post stating they were allowing Hunter pets to benefit from their master's Critical Strike Rating, but when I looked for it I couldn't find it. If it does exist it's possible that it isn't a bug, but an upshot of the Hunter change. Otherwise it's a bug.

I was under the impression that there was a blue post stating that they were going to allow some portion of a Hunter's Critical Strike Rating affect their pets, but I couldn't find the post when I went and looked for it.

Darian_TruBlade · 09/23/08, 7:47 PM

EDIT: Accidental Double Post, Meant to Edit the Above

KraxisSingular · 09/23/08, 8:08 PM

Originally Posted by Darian_TruBlade

I had thought there was a blue post stating they were allowing Hunter pets to benefit from their master's Critical Strike Rating, but when I looked for it I couldn't find it. If it does exist it's possible that it isn't a bug, but an upshot of the Hunter change. Otherwise it's a bug.

I was under the impression that there was a blue post stating that they were going to allow some portion of a Hunter's Critical Strike Rating affect their pets, but I couldn't find the post when I went and looked for it.

If there had been such a post then the Hunter forums and threads would have it repeated many times. I have seen nothing of that kind despite spending a lot of attention on that matter.

I think you might have expanded on the Hitsharing post a little.

PyroTEK85 · 09/23/08, 9:03 PM

Yea there was a post about hunter and warlock pets sharing +hit, but I haven't seen anything about crit. Which wouldn't make sense for warlocks, otherwise why did demo get an improved demonic tactics?

Edhrin · 09/23/08, 10:01 PM

Sorry for posting out of the blue, but 120 pages, ugh :s Too many things to read for a single person.

I'm frankly wondering a lot about the new template, my first thoughts when I got the beta key were "ha, fire gameplay, at last!", and the molten core part wasn't much of an issue since I soon figured that a corruption/incinerate gameply with a bit of backdraft/conflag out there could do it. Along with the imp improved in every respects, something of that kind. It has led me to a very good dps on the first dungeons I've cleaned - but it was indeed the very beginning of the beta testing.
I also didn't feel like Chaos Bolt was much of a pve improvement, since the 3% hit in the template make the hit cap quite easy to reach (ok there's still a 1% resist but well...), and a 2,5 secs cast is still a lot, compared to the incinerate. The damage didn't seem that great compared to the sb/incinerate last level.

Then I've seen the glyphs, and if the imp one was a good proof that the pet would be king, I've been thoroughly surprised by the absence of any incinerate glyph. It could simply mean, of course, that it's NYI, but it looks like the shadowbolt will be empowered a lot.

But the worst of it was when I found out that the improved corruption did no longer mean instant corruption, sad fact which makes the incinerate/corruption association very questionable.

Now I've browsed the various templates offered through the topic, but I still can't see the point of it. We are given such a powerful weapon as Backdraft and we would rather make a shadow template and not use it? No way.
Taking all these fire improving points in the template and still using shadowbolt over all? Sounds weird. It would have been easier, indeed, if Molten Core worked the opposite way, but yeah it doesn't.
Even though I can see that most of you still use SB/CB a lot, I'd like to find out if there's any alternate way.

The best I could come out with was the cycle:

Immo
Sb
Sb(...) until Molten Core procs
Incinerate (...) until Molen Core ends.

Throw some Conflas and CB (if it's really efficient) in the middle of it and you're good.

It could work with this sort of template.

I've given up on leveling my lock up in the beta (too lazy to do the same job twice), but have some of you tried something of the kind?

PyroTEK85 · 09/23/08, 10:03 PM

Originally Posted by Edhrin

But the worst of it was when I found out that the improved corruption did no longer mean instant corruption, sad fact which makes the incinerate/corruption association very questionable.

Corruption is now instant cast by default, after 4 long years of complaining.

PsyBomb · 09/23/08, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by PyroTEK85

Corruption is now instant cast by default, after 4 long years of complaining.

That's old news. Been like that for, what, more than a week now? Improved Corruption is now 4% damage increase per rank.

PyroTEK85 · 09/23/08, 10:07 PM

That was in response to the post above me.

Edhrin · 09/23/08, 10:10 PM

Ha

I've missed out that point. That makes it better. So why would corruption be so dreadful in the cycle then? Everyone seems to say that it would be a loss of dps, has someone done any maths on the subject?

PyroTEK85 · 09/23/08, 10:14 PM

Originally Posted by Edhrin

Ha

I've missed out that point. That makes it better. So why would corruption be so dreadful in the cycle then? Everyone seems to say that it would be a loss of dps, has someone done any maths on the subject?

I believe its due to the lack of affliction talents to buff its damage, compared to what your destruction spells get. Immolate, for instance, also benefits from crit somewhat for the initial portion. I have seen some that go 7 or so deep into affliction to get improved corruption though. I think generally it'll fall behind your other spells at a certain point, but it does seem a lot more viable than in live of course.

PsyBomb · 09/23/08, 10:20 PM

My apologies, Pyro. I saw the one-line post and assumed standard forum intelligence levels. Comes from hanging around the WoW boards for too long, I guess.

Anyway, Corruption unspecced is fairly weak overall. Good DPCT, but not worth the mana unless you have either ISB, Molten Core, or the Affliction talents that boost it. In short, you should be using it in just about any sane Warlock spec. I don't know where you got the impression that it sucked, because it doesn't.

Oh, and Backdraft really isn't weak. It's just that Conflag itself sucks, so it kinda balances out.