That math lowballs my Conflag values quite a bit. I get 4759 while the actual was 5461.

I admit, I was still cursing Joymax for ruining iSRO when you were running around Sunwell, but looking at the current rotation, for every 60 seconds I get without haste, with AC and CoA glyph:
5xhauntx1.5s
4xUAx1.5s
4xImmx1.5s
2xCoAx1s
2xSLx1.5s
60-15x1.5-2x1=35.5 or 35.5/60x100%=59% casting SB
Remove SL and Imm from that equation, and you get:
60-9x1.5-2x1=44.5 or 44.5/60x100%=74% casting SB
Admitted, that's during 3/4 of every fight, but it still feels like spamming SB to me. Add a bit of haste into the equation, and it only gets worse.

Yup, I noticed that too. I think they had to nerf it a bit since they moved it to tier 1 but they also buffed the healing portion of it so it may be because of that too. I do think its one of the ways they are trying to stop the VW tanking from continuing in later content though. Oh well, at least we get to have fun with it for the time being.

Ok, it would be much easier to determine Conflagrate's behavior if ppl in the PTR could do some tests with constant spell power (no random proc trinkets, no 4t7, no glyph of life tap, etc) and tell us their spell power and link their spec and glyphs.
For Gherkin we observed a damage difference between the expected Conflagrate and the observed Conflagrate of around 48%, and for Krazen it's around 40%, which to me just smells like different spell power coefficients being used for Immolate and Conflagrate.

The healing component didn't get buffed, it's a typo. It still heals for 15% of the damage done.

Ahh thanks for clarifying. Haven't had a chance to actually get onto the PTR myself yet, was just going by the patch notes and PTR data from MMO and WoR. So yeah I think the nerf is likely because as a tier 1 talent they didn't want it to be as good as it was before (like the previous nerf to Soul Link when they moved it higher in the tree).

IMO, our contenders for the post-3.1 DPS throne are:

Deep Affliction
Deep Destruction
Meta/Ruin
Felguard/Emberstorm
Master Demonologist/Pyroclasm, or some similar imp/fire mid-demo spec

I can't see a resurgence of Demo/Destro Shadowbolt spam with a Succubus - there's nothing to recommend it over Meta/Ruin. Similarly, I can't see any build without Ruin being viable - particularly with the changes to Affliction. That cuts out Afflic/Destro hybrids such as the popular SM/FG levelling build.

It's generally accepted that Affliction (in the hands of an excellent player pulling out all of the stops) is the highest DPS spec currently - partly because of the Drain Soul's c/f, and partly because Affliction doesn't have any particular attachment to its Felhunter and can happily summon an Infernal or Doomguard instead.

Affliction gets hit hard by the current build on the PTR. I'm seeing maybe 500 DPS less on a dummy. The true DPS loss could be even higher than that if you consider that Pandemic doesn't show up very well on the dummy in Live, but seems to show up fine on the dummy on the PTR.

I think both Deep Destruction and Meta/Ruin will be popular - the former for replenishment, the latter for DP/ISB. My opinion is that Shadowpriests, Ret Paladins, Frost Mages, and Survival Hunters give replenishment "more naturally" than a Destruction lock (they all pick up the talent and cast the linked spell *anyway*, where a destruction lock would probably pass over ISL in a raid which already had replenishment). Meta/Ruin mobs provide DP and ISB more naturally than the alternatives, and so I expect they'll be in demand.

Contrary to the opinion of some other posters, I expect Demo/Destro hybrids (with or without the Felguard) to remain very strong. The loss of hit on Cataclysm is nowhere near as make-or-break as it's been made out to be. 3% hit is much cheaper to make up on gear than, say, the crit we gain from having access to Backlash, or the new Master Conjuror. I raid 10-man without a Shadowpriest/Balance Druid, and I expect to have no problem whatsoever hitting 446 Hit Rating on gear - probably even without using the glove enchant. In 25-man with a 3% hit raidbuff, 368 hit rating is fairly trivial to reach. Remember, hit on gear is cheap compared to basically anything else.

My prediction is that the majority of raiders without an existing preference (e.g. those who just enjoy Affliction) will gravitate towards Meta/Ruin for farming raids - mostly because a 2-minute CD, 36s Meta + Demon Charge + Immolation Aura + Shadowflame + Hellfire is probably the best AoE going.

However, Metamorphosis still only accounts for a ~6% increase in sustained DPS vs a single target. That's not a terribly good deal for four talent points (Non-Meta locks will probably skip Nemesis). Also, bear in mind that in a raid with an Elemental shaman, only your damage *without* Fel Armour (bug?), and only your damage over and above 2800 (Totem of Wrath gives 280) is "counted" for Demonic Pact.

My second prediction is that despite the spec looking a bit messy on the calculator now, Demo/Destro will deal the highest 1-target DPS. I can't see 51-destro making up for not having the awesome talents in tiers 5-8 of Demo. Demo/Destro also benefits from most of the important buffs (most notably Master Conjuror, and the availibility of both Decimation and Backlash) while avoiding the nerfs to Affliction.

I'll be speccing FG/Ember at least to begin with.

I'm quite excited to be able to use Dual-Specs to compare two builds without having to respec!

I'm also very interested to see what they do with Molten Core and Molten Skin. Notice those [PH] tags in the names?

One little thing to note: On PTR actually master conjuror gives 300% to both stats of the stones;

Spellstone = 240 haste 4% to dot
Firestone = 196 crit 4% to DD

I m not sure its going to stay that way but the talent is actually mandatory for demonology. ^^

You just dont get enough points for emberstone/mc even skipping decimation..
The best i coudl manage is this :
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...0&version=9614

Skipping mc and decimation, and only 1 point in backlash, but it gets all the immolation boosts.

I think it's safe to say that the talent is bugged at the moment, giving 300% increase to all stats on the stones.

It clearly states that it is the combat rating only that is going to be altered. Unless I'm mistaken, and "combat rating" includes the % gain on DD and dots.

A couple of different things to address here:

1. All direct, critable damage has its average damage over time reduced by resilience, as well as its burst.

- Dots are affected by resilience to a greater extant than direct dmg. You're wording seems to indicate you think both forms of dmg are roughly reduced by the same amount and that it all sort of averages out over time. I don't understand how that could be true considering the basic fact that normal dot dmg is reduced, while normal direct damage is not. According to GC's recent post on the issue they are both treated the same with regards to crits however.

2. Arguing that a percent-based reduction is unique is, I think, a pointless line of reasoning.

- My intention wasn't to simply state that dots are treated uniquely and that in and of itself was the problem. It was my fault for not being more clear. The implication was that I'm not sure the extra penalty is warranted at this stage of the game. It was absolutely needed in early BC when a Warlock/SP combo could kill a target with 1 round of dots being buffed by both misery and shadow weaving. UA also provided a much harsher penalty then in relation to a player's health max health pool. Neither of these things are true in Wotlk. Also, Affliction PvP dps is balanced around having Fel Armor + Haunt + SEx2 up on a target which is rather difficult in the current environment. Not impossible, but far from easy. Dot dmg can be dispelled and by it's very nature will not kill you quickly, meaning that it gives healers more time to react to it's dmg than burst does. Those built in disadvantages make me question whether or not the extra penalty from resilience on dots is warranted at this point in the game's cycle.

3. Not to mention, that's how armor works on all (non-bleed) physical damage.

- Every dps class/spec that I can think of has a way to bypass how armor reduces physical dmg, including melee - poisons, bleeds, diseases, etc. There is nothing that can bypass/mitigate the flat % dmg reduction resilience has on dots.


To be perfectly clear, I'm not of the opinion that Blizzard must eliminate the flat dmg reduction currently applied to dots. I'm simply saying that it's something that was absolutely needed in the past, but some of the reasons I've mentioned make me question whether it's warranted at this point in the game.