WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 157

bladehawk · 10/20/08, 5:05 PM

Originally Posted by nikitabanana

What kind of dps were you seeing being at the bottom?

Considering I was at 2200-2600 (burn is a PITA for ranging this) as destro Pre-TBC and at the top.... I can't really say a definitive my meter was borked by the patch. But I've updated it since then. Twins I did better, but not by much at least in relative terms coming in 8th or so. Absolute DPS isn't as important as relative DPS regardless when you are trying to see how valuable your class is compared to others doing the same role.

Absolute is better for rotations and crafting, I don't think I'll really have too much room for improvement. Once all my DOT's are up and I'm filling with SB I'm pretty much capped.

Darian_TruBlade · 10/20/08, 5:08 PM

Originally Posted by Xequecal

I meant the threat modifier, not the spellpower modifier.

The spellpower mod isn't bad. It's only 42%, but it's 42% of your spellpower every 1.5 seconds. For comparison, Shadow Bolt is 86% of your spellpower every 2.5 seconds with Ruin. That's obviously better, but Shadowbolt doesn't get the benefit of Molten Core, +10% crit, or +20% crit damage.

Right, but check the math, and assume a 40% base crit rate.

86%/2.5 * 1.4 = 48.2% (no ISB)
42%/1.5 * (1 + (.5 * 1.2)) = 44.8% (No MC)

If you include 100% Molten Core uptime you do get better scaling, but only very slightly. Given that Molten Core uptime isn't 100%, it doesn't seem worthwhile.

Nehrak · 10/20/08, 5:11 PM

Originally Posted by Villeraz

Only the infernal that you enslave with Inferno lasts for 1 minute, and then disappears. The regular enslave demon spell was unchanged, as far as I can tell. However, it looks like there's a new effect that allows an enslave from a ritual of doom to last for 15 minutes?

Couple things:

1) Infernals summoned from Inferno now behave like normal pets, as far as I can tell. In other words, summoning disorientation, despawning (not dying or enslave-breaking) on summoning a new pet, etc.

2) When I've used Ritual of Doom, it's been bugged. Every person that's been targetted by the effect hasn't been killed at all, just taken some damage (in my case, 50% of my hp). The Doomguard never spawned. I'm pretty sure I didn't miss the boat on this, since I like playing russian roulette/loot-sacrifice, but I'm also pretty sure Ritual of Doom isn't working, at least for me. Every time I've used it, that's been the result. If the Doomguard is now 15 minutes guaranteed with no death, that's actually kind of nice. (Cripples loves Ret pallies I hear.)

3) Enslave Demon I can't decide if they took out the diminishing returns or not. Heartbeat resists still exist unless they hotfixed it; a Doomguard broke early and helped kicked my ass while I was AE soloing with Meta. Has anyone else been playing around with it?

Blotorch · 10/20/08, 7:04 PM

I remember vaguely from Leo days that SP has a 200% modifier. Untested and no source, but i was usually around the 1500+ TPS mark when spamming so sounds about right.

PyroTEK85 · 10/20/08, 7:10 PM

Originally Posted by Nehrak

Couple things:

1) Infernals summoned from Inferno now behave like normal pets, as far as I can tell. In other words, summoning disorientation, despawning (not dying or enslave-breaking) on summoning a new pet, etc.

2) When I've used Ritual of Doom, it's been bugged. Every person that's been targetted by the effect hasn't been killed at all, just taken some damage (in my case, 50% of my hp). The Doomguard never spawned. I'm pretty sure I didn't miss the boat on this, since I like playing russian roulette/loot-sacrifice, but I'm also pretty sure Ritual of Doom isn't working, at least for me. Every time I've used it, that's been the result. If the Doomguard is now 15 minutes guaranteed with no death, that's actually kind of nice. (Cripples loves Ret pallies I hear.)

3) Enslave Demon I can't decide if they took out the diminishing returns or not. Heartbeat resists still exist unless they hotfixed it; a Doomguard broke early and helped kicked my ass while I was AE soloing with Meta. Has anyone else been playing around with it?

Ritual of Doom isn't supposed to kill party members anymore, only hurt them, as reflected in the updated tooltip. I have mixed feelings on doomguards at the moment. On one hand, they're very strong and definately put out the damage when you're in control. However, that makes it all the more dangerous when they break free. I don't think the randomness of enslave makes up for possibly dying at a bad moment, or worse going after other party members after you're dead.

Infernals seem pretty useful in BGs at least. They hit pretty hard, and there is no longer any risk associated with them, just a 20 min cooldown. Also, I saw on wotlkwiki.info that they're removing "Once control is lost, the Infernal must be Enslaved to maintain control. Can only be used outdoors" from the description of the Inferno spell. Is that implying we'll be able to use it in dungeons soon?

Edit:

Originally Posted by Blotorch

I remember vaguely from Leo days that SP has a 200% modifier. Untested and no source, but i was usually around the 1500+ TPS mark when spamming so sounds about right.

I haven't tested recently, but originally 1 threat per 1 damage was the default, and high threat meant 2 threat per 1 damage, double threat in other words. So the 200% modifier would be right on.

turturin · 10/20/08, 7:53 PM

Yes, it's 200% threat on searing pain.

Fimotik · 10/20/08, 8:40 PM

Originally Posted by Shailom

We did Hyjal last night for fun, and I played around with RoF to see the difference with SoC on the trash. SoC still comes out ahead by quit a bit. Although it comes in nice when the mobs are >20% and u pull off a few RoF's as the last of them are dying. You can look at the parse here.

Wow Web Stats

Not sure if that WWS shows anything useful without some mathematical deconstruction. It's all about DPS, DPCT and DPM. It would be interesting to see some maths around what the theoretical outputs of the 2 different AoEs are.

In having a look through my recent WWS, it makes me wonder about the benefit of Chaos Bolt in relative terms. Given that F&B is basically a waste of points, is CB enough compensation to be worth it? Do we get more relative benefit from putting 8 points somewhere else (being the difference between Emp Imp and Chaos Bolt)? I haven't done the calcs of the DPS boost of F&B.

On my very rough calculations, Chaos Bolt is about a 40DPS increase over incinerate at level 70 (that's assuming a cast every 12 seconds, which given casting time of other spells is unrealistically generous). Let's say F&B is a 10DPS increase (guestimate only, depends on whether you Conflag or not, and I'm a lawyer so numbers aren't my strong point). If you just go up to Emp Imp, you can get both Demonic Aegis and 3 pts in Unholy Power, I wonder how that compares? At 80 you can go up to 3/5 points in Demonic empowerment.

The problem with Chaos Bolt is its cooldown. On a purely static fight you're going to get close to optimal benefit from it. But on fights with movement CB is problematic as its use drops, thereby hitting its value hard. Something like Demonic Empowerment gives a much more even return, even if it's only 3%. The one thing I don't have any idea how to calculate is the net gain you get from Unholy Power and Demonic Empowerment over base talents such as Imp Imp and Emp Imp. I assume they're all multiplicative so their net value is much less than the tooltip.

Karmy · 10/20/08, 9:03 PM

This post is about dps at level 70 with very short boss fights.

Has anyone tried a Shadow damage destro spec like this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

With the rotation being Doom, immolate, SB till conflag at last tic, 3 SB, immolate, repeat. Tap as needed

I was wondering if using SB for all 3 backdrafts instead of wasting 1 charge on immolate would be a decent dps gain. Chaosbolt without the fire talents does damage under SB on average is why I skipped it. During Bloodlusts you can just spam SB rather then worrying about dots etc.

Also you can take good advantage of glyphs with SB glyph and Imp glyphs where as fire destro really lacks solid glyphs.

The main idea behind this spec is to ease up the timer watching and make your life a bit easier therefore letting you focus and do more solid dps.

Any thoughts or experience with this kinda build?

Darkmantle · 10/20/08, 9:06 PM

Originally Posted by Fimotik

The problem with Chaos Bolt is its cooldown. On a purely static fight you're going to get close to optimal benefit from it. But on fights with movement CB is problematic as its use drops, thereby hitting its value hard. Something like Demonic Empowerment gives a much more even return, even if it's only 3%. The one thing I don't have any idea how to calculate is the net gain you get from Unholy Power and Demonic Empowerment over base talents such as Imp Imp and Emp Imp. I assume they're all multiplicative so their net value is much less than the tooltip.

Chaos Bolt benefits from a certain amount of movement unless you have to move exactly when the cooldown comes up. Since CB does more damage than incinerate that means when you are moving around and you are casting more chaos bolts per incinerate so consequently you get a greater dps benefit from CB.

For example if you are needing to move often you can go from:
6 inc 1 CB per 'cycle' to 5 inc 1 CB so the extra damage of the CB is more of your damage.

Now there may be some funky interaction with keeping immolate up while moving around but having a higher damage cooldown spell isn't usually bad for movement heavy fights.

Fimotik · 10/20/08, 9:25 PM

This is true, but I'm finding the human element comes into play. I found my DPS on M'uru to be great, but on KJ it was poor. The reason being that targetting orbs, trying to work out what to cast when they came in range, hitting CB when it wasn't quite ready etc really hurt my DPS. Maths aside, my efficiency went downhill from time spent working out what was up to cast. Unfortunately Blizz not allowing conditional macros hurts like this, I'd love to have a macro that cast CB if it was not on CD but incin if it was, but alas. I'm sure familiarity and UI tweaking will help, but even a part of a second delay due hurts DPS, whereas a more limited rotation just allows more immediate reaction.

PyroTEK85 · 10/20/08, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by Fimotik

This is true, but I'm finding the human element comes into play. I found my DPS on M'uru to be great, but on KJ it was poor. The reason being that targetting orbs, trying to work out what to cast when they came in range, hitting CB when it wasn't quite ready etc really hurt my DPS. Maths aside, my efficiency went downhill from time spent working out what was up to cast. Unfortunately Blizz not allowing conditional macros hurts like this, I'd love to have a macro that cast CB if it was not on CD but incin if it was, but alas. I'm sure familiarity and UI tweaking will help, but even a part of a second delay due hurts DPS, whereas a more limited rotation just allows more immediate reaction.

Agreed on the lack of conditioning macros. I'm having the same problem with my rogue and using Shadow Dance. There just isn't any way for macros to take buffs/debuffs as conditions anymore. =/

Darkmantle · 10/20/08, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by Fimotik

This is true, but I'm finding the human element comes into play. I found my DPS on M'uru to be great, but on KJ it was poor. The reason being that targetting orbs, trying to work out what to cast when they came in range, hitting CB when it wasn't quite ready etc really hurt my DPS. Maths aside, my efficiency went downhill from time spent working out what was up to cast. Unfortunately Blizz not allowing conditional macros hurts like this, I'd love to have a macro that cast CB if it was not on CD but incin if it was, but alas. I'm sure familiarity and UI tweaking will help, but even a part of a second delay due hurts DPS, whereas a more limited rotation just allows more immediate reaction.

I personally fell in love with addon ghost pulse. Ghost: Pulse 2 : WoWInterface Downloads : Ace: Combat
In arena and in pve the little icon blink that tells you a spell has come off cooldown is awesome for juggling your cooldowns. That way every time you see CB blink you know you can use it next instead of an incinerate.

Bismar · 10/21/08, 12:05 AM

Originally Posted by Maels

Edit: Crosspost from the beta forums;
If you don't have Immolate up on a target, but another warlock does, you can Conflagarate. It does not eat their immolate, it does proc backdraft.
Maybe you can even conflag others' Shadowflame, I don't know that yet.

Would be interesting to see the DPS of a Destro build that makes liberal use of Conflagerate and Incinerates, while a different lock in the raid makes sure to keep 100% uptime for their Immo. Use Conflagerate every cooldown, and have no problems using Backdraft on just Incinerates and Chaos Bolts.

Otherwise, I like the 0/23/48 build.

Beveline · 10/21/08, 12:28 AM

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

What major flaws do you see with this build? I think that it is well balanced around simplicity (all you have to do is keep immolate up and spam Incinerate) Its all about making your imp much stronger and avoiding long cooldowns and exotic rotations.

Or would something like this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft be better?

Kalku · 10/21/08, 2:44 AM

Originally Posted by PyroTEK85

Agreed on the lack of conditioning macros. I'm having the same problem with my rogue and using Shadow Dance. There just isn't any way for macros to take buffs/debuffs as conditions anymore. =/

I agree. I don't want to play WoW, I want to write a macro to play it for me.

/end sarcasm

Work out the DPSC for each spell, for a boss fight or a trash fight, then just work down the list. That is in fact what simcraft does (the work down the list part, based on user defined cast priority list). Know what you should be casting next well before it is time to cast it, and know what you'll do next if some sort of predictable random thing happens (fear/silence/phase change).

Watch your DoT and CD timers, know your class, and know the fight. Sounds hard.

Profanity · 10/21/08, 4:53 AM

Does anyone know of a mod that can be set up to keep a timer running of all immolate debuffs currently on a target mob from all warlocks in the raid?

Reason I ask is this:

All warlocks benefit from eachother's immolates; i.e. incinerate's damage is boosted whenever immolate is currently ticking on a mob, whether the immolate is from that warlock or not.

I ran some tests with another warlock from my guild, trying to stagger our immolate casts in order to extend the immolate/incinerate rotations and found that it was possible, and more mana efficient to do so.

We normally run with 3 warlocks and if we can keep track of eachother's immolate timers through a mod, I can definitely see us being able to extend our rotations significantly.

This may even solve the issue of immolate consuming a backdraft charge and clipping the GCD. I don't know if it will for sure though, I am definitely not a number cruncher.

Any help with finding and setting up an appropriate mod would be greatly appreciated.

edit: I just saw Bismar's post, literally right after I hit the submit button for this one.

Imbattable · 10/21/08, 5:08 AM

Originally Posted by Profanity

Does anyone know of a mod that can be set up to keep a timer running of all immolate debuffs currently on a target mob from all warlocks in the raid?

You can now see the duration of debuffs from your fellow party/raid members in the standard UI. You could just use a filter option from your unit frames (Pitbull works afaik). NeedToKnow has an option to watch debuffs that are not yours (though i do not know whether it distinguishes between the single debuffs, or merges them).

Profanity · 10/21/08, 5:22 AM

Originally Posted by Imbattable

You can now see the duration of debuffs from your fellow party/raid members in the standard UI. You could just use a filter option from your unit frames (Pitbull works afaik). NeedToKnow has an option to watch debuffs that are not yours (though i do not know whether it distinguishes between the single debuffs, or merges them).

Thank you for the quick response Imbattable, I will give "Need to Know" a test run tommorow and see if I can get the other 2 raiding warlocks to experiment with it as well.

My goal is to set up a bar timer that has the same look/feel as Dotimer to track all 3 warlocks' immolates.

pindle · 10/21/08, 6:04 AM

Originally Posted by Beveline

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

What major flaws do you see with this build? I think that it is well balanced around simplicity (all you have to do is keep immolate up and spam Incinerate) Its all about making your imp much stronger and avoiding long cooldowns and exotic rotations.

Or would something like this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft be better?

I've tried the build after the patch, was 20/41 before it, and its dps is pathetic. I did at least 100-300 dps less on the average heroic and was overall very disappointed. Improving playstyle a little might queeze some more out of it (I was still a bit slacky having the imp dpssing right away with me) but overall it's so easy there's not much to tweak. Trying 40/21 atm, altho I haven't had time to test it yet

Profanity · 10/21/08, 6:21 AM

Originally Posted by Beveline

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

What major flaws do you see with this build? I think that it is well balanced around simplicity (all you have to do is keep immolate up and spam Incinerate) Its all about making your imp much stronger and avoiding long cooldowns and exotic rotations.

Or would something like this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft be better?

I have actually been seeing some decent numbers with this spec. Been running it for a few days and have been putting up about the same numbers as I was with 7/3/51 variations (averaging 2800 DPS on fights that last anywhere between 2-3 minutes).

Keep CoA going on the target for molten core procs.

I am also going to be testing immolate staggering with the other warlocks in SWP this week to see how far we can extend our incinerate:immolate ratio.

I believe that we will see a noticable DPS increase with the extended rotations, once we get used to them.

pindle · 10/21/08, 6:53 AM

Originally Posted by Profanity

I have actually been seeing some decent numbers with this spec. Been running it for a few days and have been putting up about the same numbers as I was with 7/3/51 variations (averaging 2800 DPS on fights that last anywhere between 2-3 minutes).

Keep CoA going on the target for molten core procs.

I am also going to be testing immolate staggering with the other warlocks in SWP this week to see how far we can extend our incinerate:immolate ratio.

I believe that we will see a noticable DPS increase with the extended rotations, once we get used to them.

I'm really curious as to what rotation you are using then? My warlock is shit geared (Kara epics) but suffered from a big dps decrease after taking this build since patch. I was using CoA, Immo, Incinerate and only Corruption if I needed to move around alot. I've never really played fire before maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I variated a bit to see what DPS I could push and whatever I did it seems to be pathetic compared to my old spec pre-patch or my party members.

dedmonwakeen · 10/21/08, 8:23 AM

It seems that the written definition of Everlasting Affliction changed in the latest patch. Has its functionality stayed the same?

Previously, it provided an IMMENSE coefficient increase to UA and Corruption (25% and 30% respectively).

EDIT:

Old description referred to each tick which matched the behavior:
UA has 5 ticks so its spell dmg coeff increased 5 * TalentPoints * 1% = 25%
Corruption has 6 ticks (by default) so its spell dmg coeff increased 6 * TalentPoints * 1% = 30%

EDIT2:

I'm wondering if my sim is modeling Siphon Life correctly: It uses the same method as UA/Corruption:
SL has 10 ticks so its spell dmg coeff increased 10 * TalentPoints * 1% = 50%
Does this coef increase suffer the 50% reduction due to it returning health, putting the coef increase at 25%?

Shodan30 · 10/21/08, 10:14 AM

Guys can we please complilate a current collection of known bugs/issues here? The Wow lock forums are their usual pile of steaming usefulness with everyone QQ'ing, and id like to see and pass along a nice looking list of things that we would like to see addressed.

So far i have this but its likely out of date. Please clarify whats fixed and whats not, and anything not on the list as of Live/Beta tests

1) pets not currently inheriting full crit from master. (Seen several reported examples where on the PTR imp was displaying 25% crit, and on live it was still showing like 5%). Does this only take effect when the pet hits a certain level?

2) Chaos Bolt coefficient seems bugged. Several long samples showed it having a coefficient that was higher then a 2.0 cast time but lower then a 2.5 cast time. It's also doing little more damage then incinerate. (70th level samplings...however this probably should remain consistant).

3) Conflag is not benefitting from Ruin.

4) Immolate and Chaos bolt do not seem to be benefitting from backdrafts haste buff.

5) Rain of Fire is benefitting correctly from the + fire talents but hellfire does not.

6) Please clarify for future spellstone/firestone usage.... do channeled spells like hellfire/RoF gain from the direct damage stone or the Damage over time stone? How bout SoC?

◊ Melbuframa · 10/21/08, 10:26 AM

Originally Posted by Shodan30

Guys can we please complilate a current collection of known bugs/issues here? The Wow lock forums are their usual pile of steaming usefulness with everyone QQ'ing, and id like to see and pass along a nice looking list of things that we would like to see addressed.

SNIP

Pets not attacking bosses/mobs happening with both felhunter and imp, random where it occurs, I know many have had issues with pets on fights in Sunwell.

Backdraft GCD clipping when you have too much haste.

Haste still poor stat for affliction

PyroTEK85 · 10/21/08, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by Kalku

I agree. I don't want to play WoW, I want to write a macro to play it for me.

/end sarcasm

Work out the DPSC for each spell, for a boss fight or a trash fight, then just work down the list. That is in fact what simcraft does (the work down the list part, based on user defined cast priority list). Know what you should be casting next well before it is time to cast it, and know what you'll do next if some sort of predictable random thing happens (fear/silence/phase change).

Watch your DoT and CD timers, know your class, and know the fight. Sounds hard.

Uh, that wasn't quite what I meant. I've never been very macro heavy, but there are some situations where they are useful, particularly when you begin to run out of keybinds. The macro issue isn't a huge deal to me at the moment, demo has a very simple rotation. I do enjoy the complexity of the class, I was just commenting how I wish some things were still possible with macros. I do agree though, I didn't like people who would abuse them and make one or two macros that did near everything.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Shodan30

1) pets not currently inheriting full crit from master. (Seen several reported examples where on the PTR imp was displaying 25% crit, and on live it was still showing like 5%). Does this only take effect when the pet hits a certain level?

Did you mean hit rating? It was stated that hunter and warlock pets were to inherit hit rating, but not crit. After all, that's why demo has improved demonic tactics. From what I had read, I was lead to believe that the 25% imp crit was a bug or something.