I had found in testing that dark pact is based off of your +healing and not +damage or +shadow. I posted this as a bug, though I dont know what has come of it. The impact of this is that the flat fel armor damage increase is not included in the dark pact total, and neither is the +30% spirit damage.
I ran a ZA test on the PTR which was finally my first attempt at a raid on there. We cleared the place retardedly fast, but the one thing I noticed was that I never had to LT as affliction at all (I didnt even spec into dark pact). I caught myself using LT when I normally would have and when I looked at my mana totals, I was already above 50%. With a replenishment source in a 10 man I see no reason to ever run out of mana. I assume the same for a 25 man if you have 2-3 total replenishment sources.
I can't say that I have had the same experience. With lvl 80 and full affliction or any destro spec, I have to LT/DP constantly.
Felguard not a PvE pet? Did I miss something? I mean I could see (provided his damage scaling works well enough) where an Imp could be a viable attacking PvE-pet, but like for Destro, moving him around enemy attacks is gonna be a pain.
Imp is higher DPS than felguard for deep demo right now, unbuffed anyway. I'm not sure how that will change with raid buffs or gear scaling.
Is this for casts, or channels? The pushback changes seem to be related to spells with a cast time like Shadow Bolt and not channels, which have a fixed duration but are "instant cast". Fel Concentration is useful so your Drain Life/Drain Mana/Drain Soul won't be clipped.
Official Beta Patch Notes:
Originally Posted by http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8199569973&sid=2000
Spell casting and spell channeling pushback has been changed to the following:
When casting a spell:
The first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time.
All hits after the second will have no effect.
When channeling a spell:
The first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each.
All hits after the second will have no effect.
Yeah I'll re-run later tonight with CoA for both builds. The reason I didn't is that I'm usually dropping a non-damage curse on fights, so I wasn't interested in seeing how individual builds scaled with CoA/not CoA.
I am actually using LT on all these tests. I'm trying to go 5 minutes to get a more accurate dps session with each of the spec/rotations, but unfortunately for all of the specs save for the affliction, I putter out of health and mana after 2-3 minutes. This is probably because I'm stacking 300+ haste, but it is definitely a sign of the lifetap changes (as I mention I tap for 1123 vs. 1701 on live) and how they affect DPS. Regardless, as a result, imp lifetap was one of things I wanted to work in there. I'll give that shot later as well.[/list]
Oh I see. Well I think you will see that change at 80. On my premade (given it's PVP gear, so not 100% sure it will be the same in PVE gear) warlock, I almost never run out of HP. It's the new Fel Armor that's doing it. My premade has approximately 22,000 HP. (With 13 Demo, which increases his HP.)
This is on a target dummy though, and they are capped at 1 HP. That means (in addition to Pandemic doing 1 damage) that you only get 1 HP back from regular Soul Leech, and only on some procs. It might as well not be there. So I'm assuming that in a normal environment, you will be getting a good bit of HP back from Soul Leech, and coupled with the new Fel Armor, a warlock won't really need heals at all (and should be able to DPS almost forever).
Originally Posted by Akston
Really? I thought all damage was calculated on hit and only crit was calculated on cast.
There was some math done in this thread several pages back. The conclusion was that as long as the Immo is there when the incinerate leaves your character, it gets the bonus damage. Flight time is irrelevant.
Originally Posted by duhwhat
Is this for casts, or channels? The pushback changes seem to be related to spells with a cast time like Shadow Bolt and not channels, which have a fixed duration but are "instant cast". Fel Concentration is useful so your Drain Life/Drain Mana/Drain Soul won't be clipped.
That is for casts only (the 1 second max). Channels will have a 25% of total duration reduction on the first 2 hits, for a max of 50% reduction. Fel Concentration changes that to 15% of total duration maximum, 7.5% per hit.
That means with full Fel Conc, you will be guaranteed 4.25 seconds channeling of Drain Life, no matter how many hits you take (spell interrupts notwithstanding).
Imp is higher DPS than felguard for deep demo right now, unbuffed anyway. I'm not sure how that will change with raid buffs or gear scaling.
Significantly. My raid buffed Felguard is doing 1200 dps. Unless a raid buffed Imp starts hitting fireballs for 2,000, the Felguard is more dps.
Conflagarate is worth casting, no practical dps test has shown otherwise. Grab a Glyph of Conflag and use the right rotation. Destro is behind Affliction damagewise, yes.
Debuff slots are fine. I did a 25 man with 4 warlocks and 4 DKs, nothing of mine ever dropped off.
I feel like I'm repeating myself, but the same misinformation keeps cropping up. If you sift through this thread, you'll find there's hard evidence for the above claims.
Significantly. My raid buffed Felguard is doing 1200 dps. Unless a raid buffed Imp starts hitting fireballs for 2,000, the Felguard is more dps.
Conflagarate is worth casting, no practical dps test has shown otherwise. Grab a Glyph of Conflag and use the right rotation. Destro is behind Affliction damagewise, yes.
Debuff slots are fine. I did a 25 man with 4 warlocks and 4 DKs, nothing of mine ever dropped off.
I feel like I'm repeating myself, but the same misinformation keeps cropping up. If you sift through this thread, you'll find there's hard evidence for the above claims.
Glad to hear that about the Felguard.
Conflag keeps getting bashed because without being able to do the math behind it, it looks like junk. It's also a very unforgiving rotation, much more so than other warlock rotations. Given those two perspectives, it's understandable why people are so quick to dismiss/degrade Conflag.
As for debuffs, it's pretty easy to divide 40 slots by 25 people. How many raiders aren't going to use their share of 1.6 slots? Cause with multiple affliction locks at 6 slots each, those slots have to come from somewhere. Forgive me if I missed the cap being raised above 40.
The thing about the debuff slots being raised is simply that we were told by Blue that they wanted to increase them, but we never got any confirmation that they actually did, or did not.
Once we get that, I'm sure all this worrying will go away, until then... I'll still be advising to only bring one affliction warlock. Period.
So if the change -has- been made.. you beta folks better get on Blue's asses to get that info out and confirmed.
o Armor: 50%-ish Damage Reduction
o Demonic Resilience: 15% Reduced Damage (All Damage)
o Master Demologist: 10% Physical Damage Reduction
o Improved Health Funnel: 30% Reduced Damage while channeling (All Damage) - ZoMG
o 5% Dodge
o 5% Parry
That's a total of .5 * .85 *.9 * .7 * .95 * .95 = 24.2% damage taken (75.8% mitigation)
Now bring in Metamorphosis for a boatload more armor, and mitigation is looking damn good.
And oh yeah, Suffering for -13% Hit Chance (talented). Not sure if it works on bosses, but if it does, WOW.
Threat and health:
* Demonic Brutality: Increases the effectiveness of your Voidwalker's Torment by 30%
* Demonic Empowerment: Increases the Voidwalker's health by 20%, and it's threat generated from spells and attacks by 20% for 20 sec. (1 min CD)
* Glyph of Voidwalker: Increases your Voidwalker's total Stamina by 20%.
Thread also goes on to claim that the voidwalker is doing 500-600+ TPS.
Last edited by Bruscha : 10/12/08 at 8:14 AM.
Reason: Spelling erros
Significantly. My raid buffed Felguard is doing 1200 dps. Unless a raid buffed Imp starts hitting fireballs for 2,000, the Felguard is more dps.
Conflagarate is worth casting, no practical dps test has shown otherwise. Grab a Glyph of Conflag and use the right rotation. Destro is behind Affliction damagewise, yes.
Debuff slots are fine. I did a 25 man with 4 warlocks and 4 DKs, nothing of mine ever dropped off.
I feel like I'm repeating myself, but the same misinformation keeps cropping up. If you sift through this thread, you'll find there's hard evidence for the above claims.
If those warlocks were affliction, that's fairly tough to believe. 24 debuff slots for the 4 warlocks. Let's say none of the DKs is unholy (which is unthinkabke atm), then it's 2 debuff slots each, unholy needs 4 or 5 even. So now we are at 32 debuff slots, out of 40. Let's see:
Warrior, 2-3 debuffs
spriest: 4, 3 for each after the 1st
hunter: 2? mark and expose weakness, dunno if there's more needed
rogue: 1?
mage: 2
druid, feral 2, owl 2?
shaman: ele 1
paladin: 2
Dunno what I forgot, but this is also with the lowest possible debuff slot use. Means no aimed shot, serpent sting for chimera shot or anything like that. Or silly stuff like an arms warrior, god forbid. Adding this up with 1 spriest in the raid leads to about 45 slots permanently used, out of 40 possible.
If none of your dots ever dropped off, maybe the guys you played with need to get dotimers cause something was very wrong there.
That is for casts only (the 1 second max). Channels will have a 25% of total duration reduction on the first 2 hits, for a max of 50% reduction. Fel Concentration changes that to 15% of total duration maximum, 7.5% per hit.
That means with full Fel Conc, you will be guaranteed 4.25 seconds channeling of Drain Life, no matter how many hits you take (spell interrupts notwithstanding).
Also, thanks to Kalgu for the confirmation from patch notes.
Shodan30, I would counter that Fel Concentration is very useful for a deep affliction leveling build. I would still include Grim Reach too, for the extra range for kiting. I'm assuming you're discussing leveling, since you mention farming in your build, but if this is a spec to stay at 70 for raiding until Wrath, I would agree that Fel Concentration/Grim Reach is not worth it.
Thread also goes on to claim that the voidwalker is doing 500-600+ TPS.
Even if the mitigation is there, 600 TPS is a joke at 70, much less at 80. That, and the DPS of a Voidwalker is pathetic compared to an of the 4 real tanks, since the Warlock himself will have to be channeling Heath Funnel pretty much constantly. Lastly, a Voidwalker tank is incapable of fine adjustments or specific tank maneuvers while the warlock is stuck in one spot channeling. No, I don't think the real tanks are in any danger of losing their job.
I have not read that thread, this is just what I can think of on the spot.
To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.
Also, thanks to Kalgu for the confirmation from patch notes.
Shodan30, I would counter that Fel Concentration is very useful for a deep affliction leveling build. I would still include Grim Reach too, for the extra range for kiting. I'm assuming you're discussing leveling, since you mention farming in your build, but if this is a spec to stay at 70 for raiding until Wrath, I would agree that Fel Concentration/Grim Reach is not worth it.
Humm. Well while i had the numbers wrong, let me clarify my position. My viewpoint was from level 80 raiding, not a leveling build and i tend to talent and gear for bosses, not trash. From what we have seen, mana replenishment is rather good in raiding and i think the need to lifetap/DP is going to be reduced, in addition to fel armor providing us with a decent stream of healing (not even including siphon life). Since its a dps reduction, drain life will still be an emergency spell, drain mana, will continue to be used even less. Unstable affliction and haunt helps a bit but I tend not to spend alot of resources dedicated to the idea that im going to get hit by something in a boss fight and actually survive anyway (If BC heroics are any indication of a meele hit on cloth).
So really the best reason to get this is drain soul, since at 25% that will be in use. but thats still 3 talent points investment in a spell im going to use 25% of the fight, and since i can instantly recast the spell anyway, its not like im wasting a lot of casting time having to recast. I still think its a waste of points
As far as grim reach goes, Again, im talenting for boss fights. not having destructive reach means grim reach is somewhat pointless. Kiting? there has only been one boss fight where we needed to kite in the entire game so far (Vash). I dont see that changing so drastically that 6 extra yards is going to save my life consistantly.
I think this is going to cover the affliction level 80 build, I've left off 9 points, but it may not be worth it to get imp shadowbolt anymore, and if immolate (with glyph) turns out to be part of a good affliction rotation, going molten core might be worth it. same with eradication which is only really worth dropping one point in right now.
It remains to be seen if the points in imp felhunter and dark pact are going to be worth it depending on how lifetapping looks when we have spirit on our gear so those points may fall away
Even if the mitigation is there, 600 TPS is a joke at 70, much less at 80. That, and the DPS of a Voidwalker is pathetic compared to an of the 4 real tanks, since the Warlock himself will have to be channeling Heath Funnel pretty much constantly. Lastly, a Voidwalker tank is incapable of fine adjustments or specific tank maneuvers while the warlock is stuck in one spot channeling. No, I don't think the real tanks are in any danger of losing their job.
I have not read that thread, this is just what I can think of on the spot.
Yeah, there might be some specific cases where he'd be perfectly viable as an offtank, but I doubt he'd ever MT a raid. They did bump his damage up though, hes actually not too bad damage wise, considering his mitigation and it just consisting of auto attacks. Elite quests should be a breeze though
Still, that is enough to make the blueberry a viable off-tank for 5-mans, which is in line with what Blizzard stated about tanking hunter pets, and much more than what the VW can do currently. So that's a good thing
This pretty much solidifies my desire to go back to affliction after the patch. For everyone else, I'd recommend trying out an affliction and destruction build on test to see what's easier to maintain for yourself. It looks like bringing quality DPS after the patch means being able to keep up whatever rotation you choose (i.e., no more face rolling, yay!).
I'm curious as to what your rotation was when you tested this build. I've been testing it for about a week now alongside 56/0/5 and 51/0/10 and have consistently been able to outperform both builds by a decent margin as 5/3/53. You seem to be Chaos Bolting on C/D, which I do not attempt, and in my tests I'm consistently out DPSing your benchmark by a good margin with less gear (your Incinerate crit rate was a decent amount above your normal crit rate as well). This isn't an attempt to brag, just pointing out that Chaos Bolting on C/D might not be ideal because you essentially lose an Incinerate in your rotation. I'd be interested in seeing if your DPS goes up while using the following rotation:
Note: First three spells in parenthesis are opening spells, don't include them in the repeat portion.
(CoE->Chaos Bolt->Corruption)->Immolate->Incinerate x 7->Chaos Bolt->Life Tap once or twice depending on mana->Corruption repeat.
Results from a typical test for me on a 70 test dummy (I'll just copy your format because it's neat :P):
Spec link: 5/3/53 Fire
Overall: 3 min trial (OOMed), 324322 damage (1777.2 dps), Imp = 8% of overall damage.
I'm curious as to what your rotation was when you tested this build. I've been testing it for about a week now alongside 56/0/5 and 51/0/10 and have consistently been able to outperform both builds by a decent margin as 5/3/53. You seem to be Chaos Bolting on C/D, which I do not attempt, and in my tests I'm consistently out DPSing your benchmark by a good margin with less gear (your Incinerate crit rate was a decent amount above your normal crit rate as well). This isn't an attempt to brag, just pointing out that Chaos Bolting on C/D might not be ideal because you essentially lose an Incinerate in your rotation. I'd be interested in seeing if your DPS goes up while using the following rotation:
Note: First three spells in parenthesis are opening spells, don't include them in the repeat portion.
(CoE->Chaos Bolt->Corruption)->Immolate->Incinerate x 7->Chaos Bolt->Life Tap once or twice depending on mana->Corruption repeat.
Results from a typical test for me on a 70 test dummy (I'll just copy your format because it's neat :P):
Overall: 3 min trial (OOMed), 324322 damage (1777.2 dps), Imp = 8% of overall damage.
That's one of the decent specs for Destro. I got close to 1500 dps with 4 pc T6, no CoE: 7/3/51,
Just couple of differences though, I took imp LT and I used CoA instead of corruption assuming in raid conditions, the affliction warlock would be taking care of CoE. 12 ticks (14 with glyph) of CoA vs 6 ticks of corruption. The uptime of Molten core is something that needs more theorycraft, do we want CoA and corruption up or just CoA for a more efficient rotation and mana usage...I am not sure.
2 destro locks in raid would really help with the uptime of immolate though so the last tick of immolate isn't lost.
I need to try this in a group, but it seems solid.
As to why I got shadow fury, and Shadow burn, well, I love shadow fury (please un talent this) and shadow burn gets me down the tree. I find when you have 2 points in DP your imp runs dry way to quick.
I ran a ZA test on the PTR which was finally my first attempt at a raid on there. We cleared the place retardedly fast, but the one thing I noticed was that I never had to LT as affliction at all (I didnt even spec into dark pact). I caught myself using LT when I normally would have and when I looked at my mana totals, I was already above 50%. With a replenishment source in a 10 man I see no reason to ever run out of mana. I assume the same for a 25 man if you have 2-3 total replenishment sources.
10/12/08, 1:54 AM
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