Have they done something with imp crit rate? On PTR my imp seemed to crit 30%+ but now when I test on live it crits 5-6% over 200 casts on a dummy. Obviously that makes empowered imp pretty much useless.

Perhaps that is part of the explanation of the lackluster dps figures we see for locks.

Nope. Both tests were on target dummies in Orgrimmar while ungrouped.

PTR=imp 30%+ crit
Live=imp 5% crit

The current options are just not maxing out the potential of warlocks. No need to call it. Without being able to reach Ruin with either Affliction or Demo, we will simply not see what we can do in the future.

I can't make a statement about the comparison to other classes at 80. Haven't been able to raid much on the beta and on top the aweful pvp gear isn't helpful to figure out stuff when you miss the majority of your spells ...

I do share the opinion however, that once the roations are settled (and theorycrafted), we'll see an increase in damage compared to now. How much in comparison to other classes, I don't know.

Maybe it was just lack of habit from SB spamming for the past months but my DPS on last night's Hyjal was subpar at best.

Fire destro didnt work, damage done was rather low(1400-ish on Kaz'rogal and 1200 on Azgalor but Silence really messed me up) and i was constantly life tapping.

Affliction sort of worked. I was 5th on Rage but only did 1200 DPS on Anetheron due to target switching with the Infernals messing up my rotation. It did work rather well on Archimonde simply due to the fact that it was dishing out damage while i was moving away, so that's always nice.

Now, looking through a few pages to try and find SOMETHING to make me viable again, i've seen quite a few threads about people suggesting that it's not possible for any of the trees to pull out their best damage simply because there's missing synergy with the talents in only one tree(like Shanice, above me, pointed out). They say that the key talents on other trees would be what would add up and bring us back to the front.

Then, i saw this guy that went with ye old SB spam build(with only a few differences). Only big change was the Glyph of Corruption proccing Nightfall, which is always nice. Showing us recount meters, he managed to stay at the 6th position on Brut and topping the meters on M'uru.

Here's the thread if anyone wants to be the judge: 0-21-40 @ 70 still the best

What do you guys think?

I use a similar build

5/5/51

5 in corruption for 5% crit seed impact, aswell as the nightfall proc
3 in imp imp and 2 in demonic embrace for some extra health
51 in destruction BUT
- no mc
- no chaos bolt
- no emberstorm
- no fire and brimstone

I have maximized what I would think beneficial to SB!!!

Cast sequence

- coe
- corruption
- immolate
- sb until immolate nears end
- conflagrate
- quick sbs on backdraft
- rinse and repeat from corruption

I found this rotation was simple, and worked efficiently, being able to grab the immolate for the improved backdraft haste was beneficial for quick kills (IE: you can consume it quicker if you have the mana and want those quick sbs)

Realistically, you could just repeat before the quick sbs, as corruption does not consume the backdraft tick, and getting immolate back on might be beneficial.

I used against Gruul and ZA, it was "OK" (shakes head in disbelief, crying), and will use on Hyjal tonight and BT on Saturday, so we shall see what happens.

I am finding mobs die so quickly, that it is almost impossible to judge anymore.......

Here is a link to my build Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I've done a few tests with a 56/5 build but im finding it is taking me some time to get back into the 'keep everything up' mindset of affliction. I think the thing thats causing me the most grief is unstable affliction...its duration seems...off and its throwing off my timing. I know they reduced it and this might be part of the problem. My DPS has been about 1100, which is a bit low for me and it may be because my uptime isnt the best yet... but its all been solo testing... Im expecting a large difference with raid debuffs stacking up on the mob, but my guild kinda stopped raiding a month before the patch or so due to poor attendance and we havent gotten the numbers back yet for a 25 man.

Can some people post some 'solo' dps stats vs 'raiding' dps stats? Id like to see what the disparity is I'd be curious to wonder how blizzard could fix a spec whos main problem is that the majority of its dps is based on raid debuffs to be compariable.

On Wednesday for the SWP raid up to KJ, I used the 3.0 version of the 21/40 spec, and it was ok. I was getting beat by rogues and the moonkin druid (2100 dps or so for each fight, 2200 for Brut). The other locks included an imp-spec, 56/0/5 affli, and meta. I got beat by the haunt lock on Brut by about 100 dps or so.

Last night, I decided to spec the felguard/ruin (0/45/15) spec and I was hitting 2700 dps on Gurtogg and was consistently #3 or #4 in dps all night and I was the highest dps'ing lock out of the ones I mentioned above. At the end of the night, we did KJ and I did the most damage on the shield orbs and #4 overall dps (the bow dropped for us too!)

I popped demonic empowerment everytime it was up. Since we had an enhance shammy, BM hunter, and a fury warrior, my felguard was doing crazy damage.

My rotation was just CoA/CoD->Corr->SB Spam->Demonic Emp. It's nice having an affli lock with malediction so I didn't have to worry about support curses.

Most of you probably have 21/40 related gear, gems, and enchant choices like I do. This spec seemed to be complimentary to that spec more so than affli or fire destro specs. I highly recommend it.

In-game, I'm seeing Incinerate crits (and non-crits) for about the same as Chaos Bolt, which is pretty concerning.
Wow Web Stats

Thusly, I posted about it on the bug report forum, which Blizzard seems to be pretty actively monitoring. Hopefully I receive a response.

Edit: The response is, "We'll look into it", more or less. Hopefully we'll see something in the 3.0.3 patch!

I've decided to try 40/21 [ Succy / Devastation ]. This build gives:

- 5% shadow dmg increase
- 10% more crit
- Ruin
- IMP shadow bolt
- Succubus pet DMG

The spec rotation includes Corruption > shadowbolt spam. I was noticing a decrease in dmg with immolate.

My question however lies here; has the crit cap been raised and if so what is it?

EDIT: I've gone mad and decided to try random specs, I'll be testing the UA/Ruin Effects.

My notes on translating the theorycraft to how real play effects affliction dps:

1. Definitely a huge transition from SB spam. Calling it a rotation gives it too much credit. After the initial application, I felt like I was playing whack-a-mole on dot cd's. Having prided myself on being a quick reacter and an expert of staying out of the fire, I suddenly realized I had turned into the dps equivalent of a bad healer staring at health bars, oblivious to what was going on around me.

2. Once I added immo to the rotation, I found that I wasn't actually getting a lot of SB's in on any fight that didn't allow me to stand in one spot and cast continuously, particularly once you factored in LT. It may be sacriligeous to say so, but I'm seriously wondering at this point if affliciton locks may find their dps improves more in actual (non Dr. Boom situations) at level 80 with improved fel armor and improve imp than with ruin. The advantage with improved fel armor is it effects everything you are casting.

3. I was having a big problem reacting quickly to nightfall/glyph procs (which, admittedly may effect my analysis in #2). What's a good mod to tell me when they have proced without trying to catch it in the middle of 20 buff icons?

The thing that upsets me most about this patch and blizzards take on it is that they felt lock damage got into crazy land but didn't say anything of that short about BM hunters or rogues.In my opinion hunter seems to have the best potential damage on stand and nuke fights with their pet out and from what I saw it was true. I liked the ideal of everyone being close in damage and skill would be involved more with more rotations and what not. But it seems hunter still spam the 1 button along with mages spamming the amount they did before and doing more damage.

I know this is meant for level 80 raids and I am still going to level my lock in the belief blizzard will fix this by then. It just seems w/e spec I try doesn't seem like it is enough.