AquiziTC

Worthless.

Immolate and incinerate are both fire and destruction spells, where primarily for the affliction tree it's all shadow damage and affliction spells.

As such...

Talents taken in affliction tree that effect shadow bolt but not immolate & incinerate:

Shadow Mastery
Death's Embrace


Shadow Mastery and Death's Embrace are the two -huge- problems for an immo/incin filler, as you'll get NO bonus on them from these two spells.

Molten Core can semi-balance this, but it's not up 100% of the time, but the trick is to see if it will increase DPS the same as the length of time Death's Embrace would be on the target would do to SB. Also, throwing Immolate in there might screw up a rotation, as you'll have 3 15s dots on the target, plus haunt 10-12s, SL- 30s and CoA or CoD 24s and 60s respectively.

Also, since I'm forgetting this -- Glyph of Corr and Nightfall both proc the same buff: Shadow Trance. Does it basically stack creating an 8% chance on Corr ticks? Or are they treated as different spells?

 

sinnocence

Did you see where GC posted this gem? "Every tree needs one other tree to be viable. You cannot sink your points into a tree and disregard other trees, even though some beginning talents (ISB, Fel Stamina) have been nerfed pretty hard. Thoughts? "

Link: WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> Concise Questions 4 Devs-Thanks for your time

 

Veok

Shadow Embrace doesn't affect shadowbolt by my count, but does affect Immolate (apparently the DD portion too? Bug?)

If you treat Shadow Mastery as approximately equal to Molten Core, you're assuming

690 to 770 / 2.5 = 276 to 308 DPS for an average of 292 DPS (before gear) from shadowbolt versus

727 to 845 / 2.5 = 290.8 to 338 DPS for an average of 314.4 DPS from incinerate.

Death's embrace will increase shadowbolt's damage by approximately (and this is badly estimated, I know) 35% of 12% or 4.2% for an effective (but slightly lower in actuality) DPS of 304.264.

In a build that picks up molten core however, immolate will also get a 10% boost, resulting in (with glyph) 414 / 1.5 + 942/15 = 276 + 62.8 = 338.8 DPS, 10% of which is a 33.88 DPS difference.

The question then becomes, at what level of gear (Spellpower) does the higher coefficient on shadowbolt make up for the (314.4 + 33.88 - 304.264 = 44.016 extra DPS provided by an Immo / Incin combo?

 

AquiziTC

Lower than you think if not for -anything- other than Nightfall and Glyph of Corruption procs. But, since I'm not in Beta or feel like doing math/spreadhseets (le suck), I have no clue. Either way, until one gets to 80, SB will be bread and butter, even though I don't have points to max out ISB (still debating if I even want to) or Molten Core (assuming I take Cataclysm first).

Also, I did revise my post about one minute before you posted yours. :P I caught myself and hoped it was in time to save face. Alas, I have been foiled!

 

Snidelyw

1. Does this mean Soul Fire will have a huge coefficient based off the untalented 6 second cast time?
2. Does it mean Curse of Agony will have a base coefficient of 24/15 = 1.6 instead of 1.2?
3. Does it mean Curse of Doom will have a coefficient of 60/15 = 4.0 instead of 2.0?
4. Does it mean Corruption will have a base coefficient of 18/15 = 1.2 instead of .936?
5. Does it mean Unstable Affliction will have a base coefficient of 18/15 = 1.2 instead of 1.8?

 

Abominatus_DMF

I remember that quote. However, I seem to recall other quotes about trying to do away with manditory talents. I can't seem to find them at the moment, so maybe I'm just imagining it. Right now however, every single raiding warlock, regardless of spec, will have 5/5 Bane and 5/5 Ruin. Given that those are both 5 point talents, that seems like an awful lot of manditory point allocation.

I don't have experience with a diversity of DPS casters so perhaps I could use some feedback on this: Is GCs statement true for the other DPS caster classes? In fact, can it even be considered strictly true for a Destruction warlock? It certainly does not seem to be anything remotely as severe an issue for that tree as it is for Affliction or Demonology. Perhaps it is because the points which a destruction warlock would put into either demonology or affliction add additional functionality to the base destruction skillset, they do not duplicate it for a separate subset of manditory spells.

 

PyroTEK85

This is exactly what I was saying, they need to unravel the mess they made of our spells, and then fix the filler spell issues. The problem is, it's been getting tangled up for quite some time, so I won't hold my breath on a complete fix anytime soon.

 

sinnocence

I would assume Frost mages don't have to spec that deep into a different tree to be viable. Fire/Arcane, I'm not sure.

Now why exactly do all Warlock specs have to? I dunno.

 

AquiziTC

I don't even have enough points to max Ruin out at 80, I think... I think I could put 3 or so points in it, but that's it.


EDIT: Oh, yes I can.. hm, but then I can't max ISB, which I guess isn't huge. I dunno, it's still very... well, cluttered.

 

Soul

6. Will Drain Soul once again have a base coefficient of 15/3.5 = 4.29 instead of 2.25? IIRC, max rank Drain Soul was rather... efficient in TBC beta. And back then, Soul Siphon didn't affect Drain Soul.

I thought UA was a 15 second DoT with a coefficient of 1.0 (1.5 for the dispel backlash) in WotLK.

I can see a way the general outline to balance out DoTs such that they scale with all stats: make spell power scale the DoT additively with the duration of the DoT, crit % scale the total damage of the DoT multiplicatively and haste rating scale the interval between DoT ticks. Unfortunately, finding a sweet spot for coefficients would be rather messy. I don't think a fortnight would be enough time to run even a set of preliminary sims and calculations to get in the ballpark of the right coefficients, especially in light of the completely different nature of DoTs versus DD spells. A lot of the scaling considerations are very abstract when one considers scaling on spellpower alone, let alone giving crit and haste rating a role to play.

Frost mages aren't viable in WotLK. There's this talent in Tier 3 of the Arcane tree called Spell Impact which doesn't affect Frostbolt, but affects Fireball for a 6% damage boost, making Fire with a minor in Arcane more effective than all Frost specs by a fair amount.

 

Korchak

If I had to guess I would say it's because mages have viable filler spells from all 3 trees. Between fireball/scorch rotations, chaining frost bolts, and arcane missiles/blast, even without the addition of frostfire bolt and arcane barrage mages had plenty to choose from that would be boosted by their primary tree to fill up their entire casting rotation.

For warlocks, we all fall back onto destruction. Affliction locks can't fill an entire damage rotation without falling to shadow bolt, and demonology warlocks have nothing of their own to blast the enemies with after they've sent the pet to do his job, thus the primary focus of their rotation will be a shadow bolt or an incinerate after they get their token DoTs up. Destruction warlocks don't really have this problem because they can fill an entire rotation without going to affliction or demonology for more than minor support to their main damage.

This fall back to destruction probably wouldn't seem so bad if it weren't for two things:

1. The amount of damage our fall back contributes to our total
2. The ease of improving that damage.

The first point is rather obvious. For affliction a good 25% to 30%, maybe more depending on how our spells end up scaling, comes from shadow bolt. It's hard to ignore this much of the total output. Demonology has it worse with well over 60% of its damage coming from sources outside the demonology tree. By it self this isn't really much of an issue though. Not compared to how easy it is to improve the damage. With bane and ruin being such huge bonuses to the damage output of shadow bolt, and shadow bolt being such a huge part of the total damage output, bane and ruin become necessities. Sadly its not just simply about moving the improvements out of reach, or altering them or the alternatives to give a better range of options, doing so would further unbalance demonology for the worse because of how much more demonology relies on external sources for damage output.

Really, what we need is a better range of options for filling the gaps. Something that can better supplement the unique aspects of each tree without forcing it to rely really heavily on the other trees for anything more than support to what it does really well.

 

Deorcnes

As a Demonology Warlock at 80 wouldn't you spec 16 in Destruction: Bane, Cataclysm, Molten Core and Ruin?

CoA-->Immolate-->Incin spam?

Why would a demonology use Shadow bolts at all now?

Regarding Affliction, wouldn't a change to Shadow Mastery to only affects DoT and Channeled spells solve the issue instead of nurfing Shadow bolt which is a destruction spell that also hits Demonology?

I understand that the split in DPS contribution for Affliction between DoT+Channeled and Shadow bolt is not 50/50, but whatever it is, I'm sure it can be solved without destroying Shadow bolt while taking into account scaling.

 

Sebalot

I have the feeling Shadow Bolts with Bane+ISB will scale much better than Immo+Incinerate without Emberstorm, even with ISB being a shadow (pun intended) of what it used to be. I think the anti-shadow bolt sentiment we see is more overreaction than based on actual numbers.

I did some PTR demo tests with 0/40/21 and there succ+shadow bolt scaled better than imp+Immo+Incinerate by quite a bit. Early destro seems to do better as shadow. Still was much worse than pure affliction or pure destruction though.

 

Korchak

True, demo likely won't look to shadow bolt anymore unless something changes again, but the fact remains that they're still pigeonholed into putting 15 or 16 of their remaining 20 points into destro rather than spending more in demo, or dumping some into affliction. There is no viable alternative right now, and I thought that was the problem being raised. At any rate, the changes that are likely required to balance everything within the warlock class, and further, with other classes, in terms of damage output go far beyond tweaking 1 or 2 spells.

I wish I had a ready boxed solution that I could provide, or even the beginnings of one, but I don't. I just play this game and try to follow the number crunching of people who are far more dedicated than I in the hopes that I can generalize it out to something that I can use to make my own choices regarding spec and output.

edit: So as not to double post. Does anyone have a good idea of what the uptime on the new 'ISB as buff' is? That would certainly add something solid for comparison to molten core/cataclysm.

 

Deorcnes

I'm having trouble using the simulator -I really am, not being lazy Could I get geed back on the following level 80 build please?

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...00000000000000

7/13/51

Rotation: CoA-->Immo-->CB/SB, keep DoT's up and keep CB on CD.

Affliction:

I. CoA 2/2
Suppression 3/3
I. Life Tap 2/2

Demonology:

Improved Imp 3/3
Demonic Embrace 4/5
Fel Vitality 3/3
Demonic Aegis 3/3

Destruction:

I. SB 5/5
Bane 5/5
Molten Core 3/3
Cataclysm 3/3
Ruin 5/5
Shadowburn 1/1
Demonic Power 2/2
Destructive Reach 2/2
Intensity 2/2
Devastation 1/1
I. Immolate 3/3
Emberstone 5/5
Backlash 3/3
Shadow & Flame 5/5
Empowered Imp 3/3
Fire & Brimstone 2/5
Chaos Bolt 1/1

 

Fulgurite

I agree with you, but I don't think it's relegated to Affliction only. Destro also has to use skills from other trees. For instance, we're being pushed towards using Corruption and/or CoA in our rotations. If we want our 36 yard range to matter in that case, we would have to spec like 17 points into Aff. Same with +hit and -threat. Having to use affliction spells means we will probably get very little use out of Cataclysm.

But on top of that, we have Soul Shatter and our Imp DPSing. The Imp uses our spell hit, but he doesn't get cataclysm's +Hit (i've tested this myself with recount), so we will probably have to get 17% hit anyway.

We might want to use drains the same as you, not in a 25 man situation, but maybe if we have an add on us or in a 5 man if we get aggro. In that case we'd love to be able to get Fel Conc.

------

Like I said, I totally agree with your Affliction analysis. Just trying to show that Destruction has problem in these regards too.

Ele Shamans spec 20 points for 5% crit and some miniscule totem talents. That's really cause their trees are made to be lackluster though, so they wouldn't gain much speccing 61 Elemental. They use only Elemental spells though.

Moonkins spec into resto. Used to be like 17 points, I think in Wrath it can be cut to 14. No resto spells though. Mostly regen talents, 4% damage, and 10% int in wrath. (Was for regen and threat reduction in BC.)

Shadowpriests' only reason to spec into Disc is mana regen I think. Not sure with wrath, but they'll probably do the same. No disc spells obviously.

Fire mages specced 10 arcane for mana regen purposes, and 3 (THREE) frost for +3% hit in BC. I don't know about Wrath. They only use Fire spells though.

Frost mages did about the same in arcane? Not sure, I know in PVP they just go 61 frost. I think another frostbolt raiding spec was 40/0/21. Only frostbolt though.

Arcane only mages probably need 0 points in Fire or Frost. I can't really think of anything that would majorly benefit arcane blast or arcane missles in Fire or Frost. It wasn't very viable.

Hunters aren't a caster, but it's worth it to note that they're getting a "per tree" system in wrath if I recall correctly. Each tree has a certain "sting" that they'll be using, from what I know. Possibly also a specific "shot" too, in addition to steady shot, which all trees used in BC.

Rogues also have a "per tree" filler. Shadow Strike for combat, Hemorrhage for Subtlety, and Mutilate for Assasination. They usually sub-spec into at least one other tree though. Autoattack + whatever tree's filler is 75-85% of their damage though.

 

Fulgurite

edit: thought I was adding to my above post, so I accidentally made a 2nd post. Sorry.

 

Kalle

It's recalculated when corruption gets refreshed, so you loose the bonus the first time you refresh it after the buff expired. Corr -> Trinket -> Haunt should be possible.

 

Teufelwarlock

If this is true, and it means that they are reverting our coefficients to their "natural" values, then affliction is going to be awfully powerful at the lower levels of gear before spell haste and crit start piling up (sure it scales better with these stats now, but it's not the same). Drain soul is going to be somewhere in the realm of ridiculous as well, with the 4x damage at 25% health no less.

PSGarak: is there any chance you have the link to the source of what you are saying? It's not that I don't believe you, but I want to read the exact quote to see if there are any other interpretations to its wording.

 

PyroTEK85

Well, blizzard has stated that they aren't hand tweaking coefficients anymore, but to my knowledge they never said anything about undoing the ones they already tweaked. Like some other posters said, it would screw things up again, since things are balanced more or less with the reduced coefficients at the moment.

 

whitch

After following the discussion here about rotations for Destro I came up with an idea. I am probably not the first person to come up with this but I hadn't seen anything like it on the Blizz forums.

I would really appreciate any feedback from you pro theorycrafters as to if this is totally stupid or could actually be useful and if so what kind of numbers would need to be adjusted.

WotLK Beta (EU-English) Forums -> [Suggestion] Soul Fire change

BTW wall of text may ruin/crit you here. Sorry, I'm not the most succinct person.

 

dedmonwakeen

New release (r680) of SimulationCraft is available.

Many thanks go out to Scrufola for his detailed code review of Warlock support.

Changes: RecentUpdates - simulationcraft - Google Code

Sample Output: SampleOutput - simulationcraft - Google Code

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft

 

tetracycloide

Elemental shaman and shadow priests spec off tree because they don't have anywhere else to spend the talents but they pick up buffs to on tree abilities only, never buffs to new abilities.

Druids are in a similar state as warlocks in that 13 points in resto is pretty much mandatory for cat DPS, bear tanking, and moonkin DPS. Pretty much ever druid spec is going to want to pick up Omen of Clarity and Master Shapeshifter. It is worth noting that these talents are required because of how much they buff on tree talents NOT because they buff an off tree skill set they're occasionally forced to use.

Fire mages only go off tree to buff fire skills. Frost and arcane specs are more complicated. Deep Arcane could spec heavy into frost for a massive criticals build that uses Spell Power in arcane with Ice shards/Shatter in frost for 150% critical strike damage bonus and +50% crit vs. frozen targets getting most of its damage from off tree spells. Deep frost with Brain Freeze can spec into early fire to buff Fireball procs.

Rogues almost always require points in three trees to be viable. Dual Wield spec, Relentless Strikes, and to a lesser extent vile poisons virtually require a baseline of 18/5/5 for virtually any rogue spec. Some dual tree builds have been tossed around for hemo and deep subtlety but these are largely regarded as non-raid viable builds by the community as a whole. Some rogue builds have on tree filler and some don't. Deep assassination and deep combat have on tree filler from mutilate and sinister strike respectively (shadow strike is not combat filler). Hemorrhage builds are actually 41 point combat builds that spec 21 points into subtlety for their filler skill. Deep Subtlety uses backstab as filler because shadow dance virtually requires daggers to be a DPS boost. Rogues are a bit different from casters, however, in that all three trees buff physical damage so 'off tree' is not really applicable here.

None of the other class and spec combinations, with the exception of massive critical deep arcane which I am almost certain is not raid viable, are as compartmentalized as warlocks in their off tree skills. The changes to ISB really make SB filler between affliction DoTs or Demo pet DPS and management like playing one spec for half your casting time and playing another spec for the other half.

My vanity is justified.

 

valeea

Thanks for the work dedmonwakeen. One question: What does the NoDS mean for the warlock affliction specc?

 

dedmonwakeen

No Drain Soul. Currently, a truly unbiased view of the Warlock class might say DS mechanics are a bit OP at the moment.....

I have the DS 400% modifier working in concert with Deaths Embrace. In Beta, Deaths Embrace and DS interact in a way so bizarre it must be a bug.

Bottom line: DS mechanics will probably change at least a little because they are just broken (wrt DE) and perhaps a bit OP.

So..... I figured I'd add a profile that stuck with Shadow Bolt the whole way through instead of switching to DS at 25%.

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft