That strikes me as highly unlikely. Attacking from behind, he's almost never going to take a direct hit, and with 80% reduction on AOE damage he should be every bit as likely to survive an encounter as a typical Hunter pet (in fact, a good deal more so than the typical hunter pet of today which has only 50% reduction). The range of his buff isn't very important, since it's kind of a junk buff anyway; the important thing is that he'll provide a significant DPS boost to a spec that has serious complaints about its DPS, and provide you with nigh-limitless Dark Pact fuel in the process.

I very much expect that Blizzard is going to be balancing Affliction's damage output around the assumption that the Felhunter is usually dealing damage.

I'm just curious as to whether the Everlasting Affliction/4-piece Corruptor's Raiment combo is going to be nerfed. (Corruption keeps going forever on the target, and its damage is continuously multiplied by 1.1.) Blizzard may believe that it's okay to let the combo stay as is because you're bound to pull threat or kill the mob before you start reaching the really insane amounts of damage per tick.

The issue is that, for fights where the boss doesn't aggro ranged attackers or where there is no threat table, warlocks would be overpowered when compared to all the other dps; and they could still defeat every other damage-dealer on the meters almost by default so long as they were practiced enough to figure out how much threat per second they were allowed to generate, corruption, shadowbolt up to that point or nearly up to it, and then drain life for the rest of the fight (and that's completely ignoring Soulshatter).

Even in short fights, this combo could easily deal more damage than other affliction builds at the very least, just because of the much-increased corruption damage.

The felguard is almost certainly going to do more damage than a succubus. 0/50/21 should be using a felguard benefiting from all the raid wide melee buffs, and then switching to an imp if a fight is extremely melee or pet unfriendly. Depending on the end state of metamorphosis, 0/50/21 could prove to be the least gear dependent dps spec, but also the poorest support spec. The only way I could reach 0/50/21 was to sacrifice both of the pet survivability talents, which makes using the felguard all the more important.

Playing with the talent calculator I came up with 8/58/5 which shows how top heavy demo is, every point is worth taking. I just can't see going 50 points into demo, you make so many sacrifices. With that build I would have Frailty for raid utility as well as Bane. It's really xx/58/5, and your first tier affliction points are pretty subjective, you could go with 1/3/1 first tier if you needed the spell hit early on. If you don't want Frailty you could go deeper destro with something like 0/58/13 which picks up Molten Core. Probably the highest straight dps demo spec.

It's really looking like Metamorphosis doesn't have to compare to Ruin directly, because it's hard to imagine going deep demo and stopping at 50 points.

Well, shard farming for Destruction just became a bigger pain in the ass now that you can't downrank Drain Soul.

I sincerely don't hope so. Seeing Affliction locks already suffer from lack of scaling for their own damage, having to partially rely on a practically non-scaling pet to make up for lack of damage will only worsen that scaling issue.

Unless you mean the fel hunter adds to the base damage of the affliction lock, with the caster himself having opportunities to increase his damage output significantly with better gear. Like other locks.

The problem is:
You lose more than 20% from dropping Ruin and your Succubus MD buff for the Felguard MD buff.
Plus whatever ISB uptime you lose from 5% less crit.

And yes, the tree is very bottom-heavy. Ugh.
I was looking at 0/50/21 because someone asked me to.

We have had discussions on how valuable frailty is, and it isn't. Corruption still isn't worth casting when instant, and you have to give up demonic aegis which is roughly 125 spell power and +9% to casting mana regen. Pretty sure its 0/13/58 if blizzard gets chaosbolt pve viable like they said they would.

I'd love to see a viable 0/50/21 build because I can't make one using the current talent setup. It sounds logical on paper, obviously Ruin is big, but it takes ages for Ruin to outscale even UA, so it's likely to take just as long to ramp up to that point again. Remember, no one was discussing the power of Destro until T6 where the scaling finally caught up. But even assuming endgame gear, any 0/50/21 spec is a compromise nightmare. If demonic pact turns out to not stack, then it becomes a little more feasible, but then seems even weaker.

The only 0/50/21 build that didn't sacrifice a lot of dps talents had to sacrifice all the survivability ones, which is really bad for the Succubus. Plus, the Felguard currently does well over double the dps that a succubus does, and that isn't likely to change, if anything it will increase because the Felguard will scale much better with all the increased raid buffs. 0/41/21 would destroy 0/40/21 today, and simply adding avoidance to a Succubus isn't going to change that. Everything in Wrath will just make that difference even more extreme, not less. Remember, you'll have a Felguard even if you have Ruin. I'm not really seeing any niche at all for using a Succubus in any build, destro, affliction, or demo.

I realized you don't need Demonic Resilience in a PvE build any more, so the build I have now is 1/55/15 with the ability to drop ISB and pick up 3 more points of Crit and Destructive Reach if you want to.

If all things work out happily with spells like COH and Flourish being any raid targets, and not just party targets, you won't need Fel Synergy. And you can probably get away with dropping 2 points in Improved Demo Tactics or Demo Empathy. Its a DPS drop to lose either of them, but a WAAAAY bigger DPS gain from Ruin and Devastation.

With them changing all spells to base mana, why even leave lower ranks of spells in our spell book? Just have the spells "upgrade" like melee abilities do. Would remove a lot of pointless clutter.

There's a tickbox at the top of the spellbook now, that will let you only see the highest rank.

These spells can heal up to 5 targets. You would be "stealing" heals from ppl who probably need it (assuming the spells will try to select low hp targets like Chain Heal).

How does it prevent casting lower rank spells? The change is truly good to filter out all low ranks spells which you don't care about in most cases.

0/21/40 is dishing out most DPS of all Warlock specs way before T6, it should do it already in the middle of T5 content, if not earlier. While Ruin may take some time to outscale UA, there is also SnF outscaling SM, and of course the unbeatable DS. As some people who raided pre-TBC said, Affliction felt interesting because it isn't the same pre-TBC Shadow Bolt spam, also I saw insane amount of flaming when I applied to T6 guild including word "Destruction" before "Warlock" in application topic name. People just don't like Destruction enough it seems.

I suspect Blizzard will probably boost the range on the Felhunter's raid buff, since it benefits casters who tend to be much more spread out. If they do that, they might well boost the range on Blood Pact as well. I would predict boosting both to 40 yards, or maybe 50. Healers are going to be the most interested in a buff that boosts int and spirit, and they tend to stand pretty far away. Pets are a lot harder to position than totems or players, so it seems reasonable to give them a bit more range.

If avoidance is given to all lock pets, then hopefully they'll give the Felguard some kind of extra buff. On live, avoidance is a huge part of the raid utility of the Felguard, and making that standard dilutes his appeal. Given that deep demo is now hugely crit based, i agree the Succy MD buff is too good. If they made the Felguard +5% dmg and +5% crit, that would do the trick, or give him another passive DPS boost to replace avoidance.

You can make a 0/50/21 spec. You sacrifice Demonic Empathy, one point in Imp Demonic Tactics, and the single point in Improved Corruption. Between the new Avoidance, Fel Synergy and the fact that all healers are getting smart-targetting AOE heals, pet survivability in raids won't be much of a problem. I think those sacrifices are worth it, but it will probably be impossible to say for sure until Blizzard does its massive DPS tuning changes.

I think the worries about Affliction scaling are slightly overinflated. Checking the spreadsheet, haste is 70% as good as spell damage per point of item budget. Crit is pretty awful, only being worth 30% as much as dmg. So yes, crit is bad, but haste is not. Also, a significant reason why Affliction started out so strong was Frozen Shadoweave and similar items that had pure +Shadow. Blizz has stated that FSW was overpowered and the next veresion won't be just pure dmg. I'm guessing most of the gear we'll see will have a mixture of stats. The stat priority will wind up +hit, dmg, haste, spirit, crit... which is exactly the same priority as Shadow Priests. Take out the +hit, and its pretty similar to Holy Priests as well.

I hope they buff Improved Drain Soul in the light of the downranking changes.

Remember, we aren't comparing Demo vs Destro, that's a different issue. It's mostly Metamorphosis vs Ruin (with a bit of Felguard vs Succubus thrown in). Ruin only outscaled UA in an Affliction build at the end of T6 (40/0/21 vs 41/xx/xx). 0/40/21 isn't even close to xx/41+x/xx, even at the very end of Sunwell. Yes, 0/21/40 outscaled them all, but that's a different issue that has been addressed. Also, destro itself didn't even beat out Affliction until the supplimental gear started accelerating people towards end T5 much faster. When S1/Kara/early T5 was what most people had, Affliction was by far the best dps spec, and it probably will be again at level 80.

The nice thing is that you'll pick up more than just Metamorphosis with a deep demo build, you'll gain a few other talent points worth having, meaning it doesn't have to compare directly to Ruin on a dps basis. Personally I think all the best builds we are seeing come out are deep in their trees and include the 51 point talent, and that's a very good thing and certainly what Blizzard intends.

This is quite incorrect.

T4 - Affliction >> Demo >> Destro
T5 - Demo >>>>> affliction = destro
Early T6 demo > destro >>> affliction
Mid T6 and beyond Destro >>>>> Demo >> Affliction

Especially since the pets attack from behind change and due to the nature of most fights in T5, demonology is absolutely dominant at that gear level, with destro only catching up in early to mid T6.

No. We need Banish Rank 1.

Delusional poster is delusional?

At no gear level does demo EVER outdo both affliction and destruction. It can try to compete with them on certain select fights, but at absolutely no gear level is it the superior choice.

Pretty certain Leulier agrees with me on this subject.

Affliction was the best spec early when TBC came out for a couple of reasons:

1.) FSW hadn't been nerfed yet.
2.) Spell hit was not widely available on gear.
3.) Gemming for spell hit was impossible because veiled and great cuts did not exist.

From my understanding, it will be possible to be hit-capped at level 80 using current BT/Sunwell raiding gear. For this reason, I do not think Affliction will be nearly as dominant at level 80 as it was when we were all first hitting level 70.

Metamorphis will:
Lose pet dps for 45 seconds
Lose Demonic Pact uptime for ~40 seconds
Lose Master Demonologist
Need movement (into melee range, and out of melee range. Yes we have interesting movement options, but we'll still have to spend time using them)
Lose ruin

Now to match Ruin in PvE dps over a 3 minute cycle, with all these drawbacks, it would basically have to double or triple our personal DPS for those 45 seconds. Which would be utterly broken in PvP, that burst DPS would be insane.

It could be the other talents in aggregate make x/55/10+x better than 0/50/21, but I can't see 0/51/20 being better ever.

It should also be noted that if Demonic Pact has a 12 second uptime, crit on our pet doesn't really scale, because even at low levels of crit, it should be up pretty consistently.

You won't even be close to hit capped in SW gear at level 80 unless you gem every single slot with pure +hit and you have group buffs or talents to fill the gap (though if it does actually change to 9% it will be close). You're right the FSW set is why affliction started off so far ahead, but remember you'll have half the crit and haste from gear that you do now when you ding 80, whether FSW exists or not. I expect Destro to be comparable to Affliction, but I don't expect either to be radically ahead like they were at various states during BC. But as Affliction is inherently less gear dependent than Destro, it will have an advantage in the undergeared environment (and yes, you will be undergeared at level 80).

Turturin's analysis of spec performance in BC is spot on. Not only does the spreadsheet support it, but the spreadsheet also underestimates Felguard dps unless you do a ton of tweaking to it. It takes 4pT6 for destro to catch demo and even then on pet friendly fights it is tight. Plus it comes with intangibles like over 20% of your damage is threat free and you gain a lot of the advantages melee has on certain fights (of course the disadvantages on others). It is also the least gear and group buff dependant of all specs.

The debate over Metamorphosis's value when directly compared to Ruin alone is moot until we see the end product, but as was discussed for countless pages in this thread, making it a viable dps option compared to Ruin is pretty simple to do in many different ways.

Emberstorm adds 37.5% for Incinerate. Now have a guess how well Incinerate performs without 30 in Destro
Even with the Master Demonologist of an Imp, Shadowbolt will be slightly better than Incinerate.
The only Fire spell we might cast is Immolate, if it's worth the mana, Molten Core just isn't worth it.

* => So 3/3 Molten Core can be replaced by 5/5 Devastation.


Now to get Ruin, it gets pretty ugly.

Fel Synergy is back to 5%/10% stat scaling 50%/100% chance to heal 15% of damage *done* by you, so 1/2 should keep your pet up.
You lose ~10 +dmg via Demonic Knowledge though which counts roughly twice due to Demonic Pact, but should still be your least loss compared to other talents.

Improved Demonic Tactics is up to 8-10% crit for your demon for 3 points.
Demonic Empathy is up to ~5% DPS, Demonic Pact is ~60% DPS.

If IDT increases your DP uptime by at least 12%, the DE has to go.
That should be when your pet has less than 25% crit over all swings (incl. misses/dodges).
If your pet gets much more crit than that, then you might make some some split of 3 points in IDT/DE.

That's a really really steep cost, no doubt. And you lose 1/5 Corruption which is ~2% haste, and Metamorphosis which we have no idea how strong it is. And you lose a lot of Badassness


The thing is that when you break 40% crit raid buffed/debuffed, Ruin increases your Shadow Bolt spam by more than 20%. It's just that good.

The other thing is that Demonic Pact scales relatively upwards with gear. When everyone has 1.5k spell power, it adds ~6%. When everyone has 3k spell power, it adds ~9%.
In BC (as far as I know), Demo was simply outscaled at some point. In Wrath, it's utility scales upwards with gear.

* => That means that sooner or later, the question how to pick up Ruin and Demonic Pact will come up.


To make up just for the loss of Demonic Pact, Metamorphosis would have to be a +60% DPS increase. Ouch.
But than can be tweaked by making you apply DE/DP from your crits in Demon Form or something.


[Edit]:
Demonic Empathy on the "official" talent calcs procs when you/your pet get crit and is useless in PvE.
I used the one on MMO-Champion, adding 6% damage for 15s to one when the partner crits.

Um, I actually missed that it has 3 charges. Which makes it even weaker. Adjusted some numbers.
Felguards/Succubi have a 2s swing timer, 1.6s with Windfury/Reat Aura. Felguards get another 20% haste for 15s every 1m from Demonic Empowerment. Cleave and talented Lash of Pain are instant attacks on a 6s CD.

We certainly don't "need" it. It would be a bonus if landing a Banish on a Banished target unBanished them, as it worked for a short, glorious while. I'd prefer those over being forced to downrank Banish.