Assuming Unstable Affliction, CoA, Corruption and Siphon Life the first point in Molten Core represents 60% uptime. The second point increases that to 85% uptime. That is to say that the second point is worth less than half of the first.

The question is therefore whether 2.5% additional dps for Immolate is worth 3% (potentially) DPS for Shadow Bolt. That will depend on whether your ISB uptime and the relative damage contributions of each spell.

Tailoring this time round doesnt give as much the old Shadowweave gave us, much better to just get the Heroic/Rep gear will give you the same if not better, its cheaper and gives you all the stats you need.

Just something I realized that might help affliction locks - but don't take cataclysm. 3% hit on 1 destro spell isn't a huge deal whatsoever in the end and it's not worth going out of your way to hit cap that (outside of say loatheb). If you end up with 17% hit on gear cause that's all you can get, that's fine - but I've found the optimal setup for the destro side of an aff build is 5/5 bane 5/5 isb, 5/5 ruin, and 1/3 molten core. This allows 3/3 eradication, which beats out the hit talent and anymore pts in molten core.

You mean 2 spells?

Yeah, I meant to say two but I'm at work :P. While the difference isn't that great, but if you look into it with some math or simulations (and empirically in the game) you'll find that the 3% hit isn't actually that huge of a deal.

I thought in the same patterns as you did when I took my current spec but I seeing as SB counts for like 30% of my total DPS and my crit rating wasn't exactly brilliant I went with Cataclysm instead of ISB until I could get the hit to support a removal of both Cataclysm and Suppression.

Decisions, decisions... as someone pointed out in another thread though, Molten Core is kinda the same for Eradication: 1p is really good, then it becomes much worse the 2nd and 3rd.

3.0.8 PTR Notes:

Backdraft now also reduces the global cooldown of your next three Destruction spells by 10/20/30%.
Chaos Bolt damage has been increased (from 1036-1314 to 1243-1577 for Rank 4).

Destro might still have a chance after all! =D

Ouch. Hopefully they'll at least fix SE so everyone can spec Affliction freely.

Question is, are Hybrid specs going to be viable post patch? a few heavey nerfs right there, after buffing those same talents not so long ago i dont really understand the thinkiing behind Blizz on this one, its not like the Hybrid specs were breaking any dps records, far from it. With the drop in Crit, will Haste stacking become even more attractive, most high end dps gear focusses on one or the other, Haste stacking may be the way to go.

Well these changes will really hurt meta/ruin the most and put a dent 0/41/30 doesnt affect 0/31/40 at all.

Who's specing Meta/Ruin for PvE in the first place? But yes this is a clear and obvious nerf to all the crit laced through the Demo tree. Which is probably good because if gear scales like it did in BC we are going to see a ton of crit gear in the later instances, which would have made Demo INSANE.

Might be a nerf now, but Demo might come back into being viable later, probably when Dest is passing Aff.

Im meta/ruin since our guild doesnt have a ele shaman and this hurts me alot. If these changes make it live my guild will need to find a ele shaman cause im not staying meta/ruin with these nerfs.

I honestly don't know. Using Leulier's spreadsheet and just putting some values in, a best in slot for right now:

31/40: 5536
2/3/56: 5539
Haunt: 6294

+200 spellpower and crit

31/40: 5921: +385
2/3/56: 5795: +256
Haunt: 6800: +506

+300 spellpower more

31/40: 6328: +407
2/3/56: 6202: +407
Haunt: 7310: +510

Haunt started at 758dps more and ended up at 982dps more. That's definitely scaling better unless something is drastically off in the sheet, which I don't think it is.

It doesn't directly affect 0/31/40 (unless you take the 1pt in DK, and then only slightly), but it might make the pure builds better than it.

This statement makes no sense. More crit from gear would make crit from talents worth less, not more.

Maybe. Affliction at this point is only good pure build. The reason 0/41/30 and 0/31/40 have become popular is cause full dest is not that good and the hybrid specs out perform it. However with the buff to backdraft that might change.

We run with 3 locks and the other 2 are affliction.

Why are you even bringing two aff locks? Thats like purposely nerfing one lock by 10% each fight.

Shadow Embrace only buffs periodic damage, so Shadow Bolt, Haunt, Pandemic, the initial application of Immolate, and Pets aren't affected by it. I'd mark it more around a 6% dps loss, which isn't all that bad considering the dps drop to another build.

It's 6% if you are in the upper echelon of warlocks playing right now, and it lowers the worse your DoT uptimes are. My only point would be that rather than race to win the SE debuff at the beginning, just spec something else so that you know 100% of your effort is being put to full use. I suppose it would be worth going as aff lock 2 one night, and then trying out other builds to see which one does better DPS for your playstyle. Just want to put more options out there for people.

I don't know. It seems like the didn't like the idea of people speccing deep demo/destro solely for +10% crit, MD, and DE. Either that or they've been losing sleep at overbudgeting the talent. At the same time, it seems as if Demonology is back to being a useless tree.

I would understand if Demo/Destro specs were doing absurd damage, but they aren't. I guess we can expect some sort of compensation in the tree at some point? It seems out of place without a blue posting whatever fuzzy logic they had behind the change.

We are not nerfing Demonology

The Demo changes won't be going live.