Hearteater

The biggest problem with Ruin being so key to warlock PVE dps is that it forces Destruction as at least the minor tree. If we ever want Affliction/Demo to be viable, warlock DPS needs to be workable with very few points in Destruction. Bonus crit damage shouldn't be as amazing on warlocks as other classes due to our DOTs, but the fact is, our DOTs sorely underperform our DD. I'll say it again: every warlock, of every spec, should be using Corruption and Immolate. Anything else is poor class design.

 

fconde

That warlocks are badly designed as a class I think is obvious,

. We are a pet class that plays without a pet
. We are a DoT based class that plays without dots

Something is really wrong in the lock class, and is not about being getting buffs or getting nerfs, is about the playstyle of the class being completly different of what anyone that look at lock spells or class descriptions would expect.

 

Drundia

Hearteater, I disagree with you about bonus critical damage of Warlocks. It should be even bigger than for other classes to compensate for part of damage not being able to crit at all. This is matter of having crit as efficient stat. It's one of the reasons why I suggest around 225% crits (other one is making crits noticeable on high-resilience targets). The extra 25% is compensating for DOT layer in the background that doesn't crit. This also suggests that DOT DPS should be roughly 25% of Nuke DPS without crits. So if your SB hits for 4000, DOTs over this period of time should deal around 1000 damage, makeing a total of 5000 over this period of time. However if SB crits damage over this period of time becomes 10000 (exactly double), which is still the same 1000 from DOTs, but 9000 from SB (225% crit).

However with that being said I fully agree that every Warlock should use Corruption and Immolate. If those spells become not worth casting in a given spec, a given spec should provide better buffs to them. This is where we lack some basic cross-tree talents between Affliction and Destruction.

Affliction Warlocks get easier access to higher crit damage as well, and again it's a good question if it should be 175% or 200%. Only about half damage comes from Shadow Bolts so 200% on SB is compensating for no crits on half of damage resulting in net effect of 150%. So it sounds as a good idea to provide Ruin-quality crit booster as early as T1 or T2 (replace ISB), while putting both self-crit booster (from 200% to 225%) plus some group damage booster in Ruin place (some extra details just 3 posts ago), again giving Destruction some basic debuff effect.

 

Pitbuller

Felguard/ruin spec seems to be best dps wise when accounting all melee buffs to pet.(raid wide totems and battle shouts etc) Demonic Empowerment(+20% haste) and Unleashead rage(+10% ap) help with pet scaling. I find it very odd that they fixed demo spec when they obsolated shaman stackking.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Bibdy

You need to ask why PvE DPS Fire-spec mages take Dragon's Breath. It sure as hell isn't a good long-term damage booster and its very situational. The answer is pretty obvious when you think about it - the 21 point Frost and Arcane talents suck for raiding, so why not take DB? Mages have PvP cooldowns in all of their 21 point slots, while Warlocks have static damage boosters in all of theirs. This pigeon holes into WOTLK raiding specs like 50/0/21, 0/50/21 and 0/21/50.

Unless those 21 pointers change that's all we're going to see in raids.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

Hearteater

The problem is, Ruin is too good. Nothing can compare to it. I've tried to make an activated power that delivers the same DPS increase as Ruin over time and the only stuff that works is so stupidly overpowered it would be unacceptable. Ruin is at least a 10% damage increase for a raid-geared warlock--for only one talent point! If you wanted Demonic Sacrifice to be replaced with an activated player haste effect, let's see what it would have to be to compare:

20% haste (same as Power Infusion): lasts 30 seconds, cooldown 1 min, 0 mana
30% haste (same as Bloodlust): lasts 20 seconds, cooldown 1 min, 0 mana
50% haste: lasts 24 seconds, cooldown 2 min, 0 mana
100% haste: lasts 18 seconds, cooldown 3 min, 0 mana

Do you think any of those would be remotely balanced, not counting how insane they'd be in PVP? I may not have been clear, but my problem is our DOTs are so weak that combined with Ruin, our DD become the only spells in our DPS rotations. If Corruption and Immolate were part of every warlock's rotation, maybe Ruin would be okay at 100%. But DOTs need to become a lot stronger (and scale with crit and haste) before that can happen I think. I think making Ruin weaker is a fairly simple way to fix the problem, but improving DOTs, while more complicated (and therefor unlikely) is also a perfectly good (better maybe) solution.

It is too bad they focused Destro on crit so much. With crit not applying to DOTs, base damage increases in Destro would have allowed all locks to run less crit gear and more spellpower so that all their spells scaled together. But maybe they'll finally let crit/haste scale DOTs and then it won't matter.

 

Lhivera

That's actually not the reason. The 21-point Frost talent doesn't suck for raiding at all -- it allows for another 20 seconds of 20% haste (twice, if the fight's longer than 8 minutes). That's significant damage, if the Fire Mage holds onto his extra IV for 40 seconds of haste during Molten Fury time. The reasons are:

1) The Fire tree has 44 minimum points for maximum single-target DPS, at which point you only have 17 points left.

2) There's just not a lot of synergy between Mage trees beyond 10 points Arcane (for Fire or Frost) or 11 points Frost (for Icy Veins). Say the Fire Mage could reach Cold Snap -- great, he can use Icy Veins more often, but the only points that actually do anything for him on the way there are Elemental Precision, Icy Veins, and Cold Snap. The other 15 points are essentially worthless to him. Our trees are much more strictly separated than those of most other classes, they do very little for each other. Yes, Arcane talents can boost Fire and Frost spells, but Fire and Frost talents do it much more efficiently, so only deep Arcane builds actually care that they do so.

The basic gist is that, you're right, we don't care about 21 point talents -- but not because of what they do. Blast Wave is a very good, efficient AOE damage spell, POM/Sheep is useful on some pulls, Cold Snap increases DPS via Icy Veins, all have PvE uses. It's because of how many points we need to spend in our primary trees (43 Arcane, 44 Fire, 44 Frost) to maximize damage, and how much we'd need to invest in worthless points in our off-trees to reach those talents. Taking Cold Snap doesn't only preclude taking Dragon's Breath, it requires dropping other Fire DPS talents that add up to more DPS than the extra Icy Veins could provide.

Perhaps one solution would be to take a similar approach in the Warlock trees -- make it so that it's not a choice between your 51-pointer and your 21-pointer, but rather a choice between spending more than 16-17 points in a secondary tree and picking up all the talents you need to maximize performance in your primary tree. Then you're increasing the cost of obtaining those talents without actually reducing their effectiveness.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

Bibdy

That's a good point, actually. That could be the answer: to give us more reason to stay in the primary tree.

Its also a point I've been thinking about for a while now. When I first started putting points into talents on my Mage in a PvP build I found it kind of difficult to decide what to take. I had to make some difficult choices. But on my Warlock? Either I'm too used to the tree by now or every decision from top to bottom is so mind-numbingly obvious it doesn't bear mentioning and the only reason you'd want to stay in the Destruction Tree after hitting Shadowfury (I'm talking purely for PvP here) is to go back and play with Aftermath or Pyroclasm. Everything else sucks a big fat one.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

Draele

There really needs to be a Ruin-like talent deep in every tree that takes advantage of crit.

Affliction: Shadowbolt crits increase the damage of your DoTs for X seconds.

Demonology: Shadowbolt and Incinerate crits increase the damage of your summoned demon for X seconds.

Destruction: Ruin as it is now, but moved deeper into the tree.

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TheDrDroppedMe

I agree, which is the problem. When you build a spec around a mechanic that does not benefit at ALL from 2/3rds of the available DPS enhancing stats (Haste and Crit), you will end up with a spec that scales poorly without the benefit of additional talents to increase the rate at which Crit and Haste effect your damage. With Ruin being so deep in Destro, and 200% crit modifiers being the only means to achieve acceptable +crit scaling (let alone coming from a spec that already has no additional way to increase scaling), Ruin becomes the single "must have" talent, yet it's placed on the talent tree just deep enough to prohibit the 51 point abilities of Demo and Affliction.

I don't necessarily believe that a spec shouldn't have "must have" talents for DPS, every class has them. Mortal Shots, Lethality, etc... The problem is, with the exception of Elemental Shaman (which is a hybrid tree which requires greater internal synergy than non-hybrid trees) Warlocks are the only class to have their "must have" talent as a single point talent, which necessitates it's place as a 21 pointer for obvious balance reasons. While I'd personally love each of the Warlock trees to be self-reliant and for what you suggest to actually happen, I wouldn't be overly disappointed to see Ruin become a multi-point (16-20) talent just to allow us access to the other 51 point talents without the complete sacrifice of all useful +Crit scaling.

Even as simple a change of moving Ruin to 4th tier, 2 points (50% & 100%) would do worlds of good for those of us looking to spec deep Affliction (which is bloated already) or Demo.

 

Drundia

You are taking Ruin out of the game and telling how good it is on its own. You miss that nearly every damage dealer has at least 200% crits with Shadow Priests (and Shockadins?) being exceptions, because otherwise crit is simply too expensive stat.

Immolate? Immolate is mostly good. It is usually worth using in deep Affliction spec. For Shadow DS/SnF it takes exactly DS and SnF to make it not worth casting, just SM isn't enough (if we talk Affliction). Mind that everyone specs Bane which affects both Shadow Bolt and Immolate.

Corruption problem is in 2 sec cast. Make it 1.5 sec cast and it is suddenly useful in anything except Fire DS/SnF. Again, you blame Ruin so much that forget that DOTs are having higher spell damage coefficients than DD. What DOTs lose from not scaling with crit they gain from scaling better with spell power, because as you gear up you get all of your stats improved. Even at 2 sec cast it's less or more viable now and then.

Immolate and Corruption problems don't lie in Ruin, problems of other trees may be there, but those trees should get proper fixes inside themselves, not through nerfing Ruin. Crits any lower than 200% will screw Destruction in particular for PVP, Destruction needs higher crits, or just more valuable crits in general. If it makes Corruption not viable Corruption needs extra talent support in Destruction tree, Immolate seems to get enough support in the current trees, though most of talents saying "Immolate" in their desrctiption totally suck comparing to other talents...

 

Burberri

The solution is to move ruin to the top of the tree. Not bury it. If you have to cast shadowbolt or incinerate odds are you are going to take cataclysm. So make ruin a 2 point talent and replace bane with it. Then you can move bane down the talent tree as high as 35 points if you like.

Eradication can be buffed by removing its cool down and increase the proc to 25% which would make it always on effectively making your sb 2.5 sec and your immo 1.667 sec.

Demon tree can also be buffed someplace else.

I would also like to see

conflag made the 21st talent
shadowfury the 31st
demonic sacrifice the 41st talent

Then the demon trees 21 talent could be something that buffs dps on par with bane. damage from destruction spells are increased 20% on the target your pet is attacking.

 

TheDrDroppedMe

Moving Bane any deeper in the tree would be a horrible change. It would make leveling suck, and pinhole developers to put identical talents in Demo and Affliction. There's no need to change that.

 

Drundia

You make up Ruin more powerful than it is. It certainly isn't better than Bane at any reasonable and accessible crit rate. If I'm not mistaken Ruin lost in good old competition against Unstable Affliction. When half of your damage can't crit Ruin is only half as powerful compared to situation when all of your damage can crit. Maybe Affliction should get conversion from crit rating in spell damage (possibly lowering crit rating) to make it scale with crit.

Demonic Sacrifice at the end of Destruction tree is a horrible idea. DS surely should stay in Demo, but maybe become more useful for Demo, generally being a viable option if it's too hard to keep pet alive. To make it viable option Demo talents past DS should actually improve DS, however DS should never be more powerful than alive pet. Destruction raiding with DPS'ing Imp is very good idea, making Destruction alternate between Shadow and Fire spells rather than spam single one would be great idea too and that certainly doesn't need DS.

They should also add some basic cross-tree buffs, generally I'd like to see Cataclysm a pure PVP talent (maybe some proc when being victim of critical strike?), while Suppression affecting all spells (5 ranks for a total of 5% increased chance to hit and maybe some other effect, either mana cost reduction, or moving into it threat reduction from Improved Drain Soul and Destructive Reach)

 

PSGarak

Lhivera: What you're saying is true for ruin, but not for demonic sacrifice, which is one of the many complaints I ahve about it. What we get out of the first 20 talent points amounts to a flat 30 spell damage and some fringe benefits. Not that 18% stamina is a bad fringe benefit, but it's not a damage talent. This dovetails a bit with what I was saying earlier about it, either you spec demo and don't use it very much, or you spec Demonic Sacrifice as if it were its own talent tree.


Bane being deeper would necessitate an affliction filler spell. It would also kill affliction-destruction hybrid builds because any points in destruction aren't worth much until you get either bane or emberstorm. Personally I don't mind the existence of 4X/0/17+ and 40/0/21 builds and shadowbolt as a filler spell, I just mind that it's the only viable option. As long as you're spending points in destro you need bane, what I would like is to not need points in destro at all.

I also think that the focus on ruin is a bit single-minded. Remember, it's an opportunity cost. What's really going on isn't that ruin is such an exceptional talent, it's that it scales better with item distribution than a fourth DoT or a demon that scale mostly with spell damage, and even then not that great. Ruin wouldn't dominate affliction builds if the 51-point talent was an affliction filler, because in line with what Lhiv mentioned, that frees up the whole 21 points, not just the 21st. It works especially well if some of those points go into talents that would be filler without the 51-point but are necessary to support it, like soul siphon or suchlike, but even without that there are a few talents in demonology I would like to pick up like 9% meditation in Aegis and unholy power. Demonology's problem is a bit harder because I don't think you can actually come up with a demonology "filler" spell short of either channeling an empower, or possessing your demon. Scaling the felguard off the caster's crit would be a start, but that doesn't address the fact that it's a point-to-point comparison instead of a point-to-21-points comparison.

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Burberri

we use shadowbolt to level with?

The goal is to provide more flexibility. making it so that we have to do 21/50 or 50/0/21 or 50/21 to raid is just stupid. What other class has to sacrifice their 51st talent to pve better?

 

Lhivera

That doesn't make it less true, it makes it more true. Imagine for a moment that speccing Demonic Sacrifice not only cost you your 51-point talent, but also cost you another four talent points that increased your DPS by 7%. Instead of gaining 15% damage at the cost of your 51-pointer and your pet's utility (and, when feasible, damage), you're only gaining 8% damage for that cost, because taking DS requires giving up those other talent points.

Would you still spec DS then, knowing that you're not going to make up for those other four talent points with the sub-21 points in Demo? (Maybe you would, but the numbers could be tweaked so that you wouldn't.)

That's my point: the reason Mages tend to take their end-point talents rather than 21-pointers from other trees is because getting to the 21-pointers cost them more than just the 51-pointer, and they gain nothing compelling in those first 20 points. You're looking at a very similar situation with DS, where the first 20 points you spend in that tree are just not very interesting to you (in particular once you get past tier 2).

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

◊ Kyth

It's not that you're too used to the tree. I've helped a lot of lock alts level up, and there just aren't many choices, not to mention a lot of bad stuff in various spots where you're actually better off hitting the trainer, respecing to a *completely different tree* for 5-10-15 points, and then respecing again to come back, just because the trees falter so much.

I have quite a few level 70 alts, and locks are the only dps trees that have struck me in this manner. (Hmm. maybe not only. But definitely the worst when you also include the times you're picking up talents that aren't useful at all.) Normally in my other classes I'm looking forwards to getting 41 deep so I can come back and pick up even more points in the tree because there's good stuff there.



All the conversation about "toning down" ruin is missing the point: you can't avoid crit, and making crit less useful to us really isn't the solution here.

Finding a way for shadowbolts to benefit from dots or vice versa (I really liked that idea) or solving the issue that dots just do not benefit from enough stats in the game are better paths to go down.

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PSGarak

By "less true" I meant "your contrast of the synergies in the warlock trees compared to those of mages," since the DS situation is much more comparable to the fire-IV situation than ruin is to either, except that DS is actually worth specing into because destro isn't as cluttered as fire. Your analysis is correct.

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TheDrDroppedMe

I think you missed my point. By changing Ruin to a muti-point 4th tier talent, you can spec 51/0/20 or 0/51/20 and still have 100% Ruin. That's if Ruin were made a 4th tier 5-point talent (20/40/60/80/100%)... If it were made a 4th tier TWO point talent (50/100%) you could spec 51(+3)/0/17, 51/0/17(+3), 0/51/17(+3) or 0/51(+3)/17. The point is now that Ruin is a 21 point talent because it only requires ONE talent point for the 100% increase, whereas other classes also have Crit modifiers for multiple points lower in the trees.

And yes, we all use Shadow Bolt to level. We use it in instances all the time. Besides, Bane doesn't just effect Shadow Bolt, Immolate is a major function of it as well.

 

Drundia

Destruction is cluttered just as Fire, except that it is cluttered with nearly useless PVP-oriented talents. I'd argue that those talents add to Destruction PVP problems since tree doesn't even provide enough DPS. Number of useful Destruction talent pointa for pure Shadow or pure Fire PVE spec is somewhere around 25, with important note is that early tree favors Shadow so you can dodge Fire talents for some situational utility (like Soul Leech and Nether Protection), but you can't really dodge Shadow talents like that. For that reason I think about something like 0/21/40+10 Shadow (7/21/43?).

For Demonic Sacrifice it seems I got some idea mixing many. "When your summoned demon dies you are granted a buff based on demon type and number of points spent in Demonology talents that lasts X sec. After this effect ends demon returns to life with full Health and Mana. Imp: Increases Fire damage by (NumPoints/2)%. Succubus: Increases Shadow damage by (NumPoints/2)%. Voidwalker: Restores (NumPoints/15)% of maximum Health every 4 seconds. Felhunter: Restores (NumPoints/10)% of maximum Mana every 4 seconds. Felguard: Increases all damage done by (NumPoints/3)% and restores (NumPoints/20)% of maximum Health and Mana every 4 seconds."

 

Vagabond

I really wish Destro had 2 solid paths to 51, 1 shadow, 1 fire. You could go pure either, you could mix'n'match, you'd never feel that you wasted talents in offschool garbage (on-school garbage is another story). Yeh sure, some might whine that that'd make it some form of 4th tree. But Fuck, it works for druids.

 

Latas

Did anyone else catch that they are looking at giving hunter pets their own talent trees and feel strangely neglected?

Also something that occurred to me about demonform (at least in PvE), so you go demonform possibly low on health and mana and then go AoE crazy, of course getting aggro from everything under the sun in the process. Now what happens when those 45 seconds are up? Seems to me like you would practically die instantly from everything on you.

 

Pintofbrew

Lhiv demonstrated some facts on the spell, there are more. Not having 2 points in Arcane massively gimps AoE potential as it rules out Arc Exp as an AoE option, the highest AoE DPS spell even in fire. The necessary 43 Fire as was pointed out are non-negotiable, leaving "not enough" for much at all.

These all are beside the fact that DB is a hugely raid-relevant tool. Pulling agro on AoE is something both mages and locks do, and when it happens there are very few tools to deal with it:

1) Shatter
2) Ice Block
3) Nova, which is a big risk. It may kill other AoEers, healers who are too close, yourself, or melee DPS.
4) Dragon's Breath

I always have to DB at least two-three mobs per pull if warlocks get too trigger-happy. Dropping Blastwave as a great but no necessary AoE DPS spell is natural. Dropping DB as an anti-AoE-death tool is silly.

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◊ manly

DB is a really solid trash clearing tool for the most part. Thats about all good it does though.

Log on with different model:
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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.