The 3.2 Discussion Thread

supplicium · 06/27/09, 5:19 AM

Since 3.1 content is still very relevant and I don't want to shit up other thread pouring in data etc etc I'm making this thread.

What this thread is: A place to discuss ongoing and forthcoming changes to the warlock class, be it talents rotations game play new items etc.

What this thread isn't
An all inclusive pve guide to raiding in 3.2 as a warlock, this front post, most likely won't be updated period. It's not a raiding compendium, don't ask for help here, just discuss things.

Start things off

Here is immo UA and Corruption data comparing near = spellpower gear between t8 set and a t9 (245lvl) set.

t8
1415 spellpower
Immo hits 808
ticks ticks 518

corr ticks 455

full 13-58
immo hits 1139
ticks 739

53-0-18
with haunt

ua
1101
corr
1170

t9
1414 SP
Immolate hits
hits 817
ticks 528

Corr ticks 509

full 13-58
immo hits 1152
ticks 752

53-0-18
with haunt
UA
1039
Corr
1228

My guess? This set isn't finished yet, as the current bonus provides such a small difference between immo output.

Phrequency · 06/27/09, 5:24 PM

I also don't believe that the 4pc set bonus is finished. .1 second on UA/Immo is a joke.
If however it does increase the duration of UA/Immo, that seems like a stronger Affliction buff than Destro. Currently, Immo's dot is weak dps and most of destruction's damage comes from incin/conflag. I hope the 4pc bonus gets reworked before going live.

Copola · 06/27/09, 5:44 PM

Originally Posted by Phrequency

I also don't believe that the 4pc set bonus is finished. .1 second on UA/Immo is a joke.
If however it does increase the duration of UA/Immo, that seems like a stronger Affliction buff than Destro. Currently, Immo's dot is weak dps and most of destruction's damage comes from incin/conflag. I hope the 4pc bonus gets reworked before going live.

Yeah, it's pretty clear just from the wording of the 4pc bonus that it is nowhere near done yet. The 2pc bonus is very nice though at least for destro. It's essentially a straight 10% crit increase. It would be like BC all over again if they made each set bonus only good for 1 spec and different ones at that.

supplicium · 06/27/09, 6:01 PM

Originally Posted by Phrequency

I also don't believe that the 4pc set bonus is finished. .1 second on UA/Immo is a joke.
If however it does increase the duration of UA/Immo, that seems like a stronger Affliction buff than Destro. Currently, Immo's dot is weak dps and most of destruction's damage comes from incin/conflag. I hope the 4pc bonus gets reworked before going live.

I don't mean to come off dickish but that's clearly not what the set bonus does.

Lets look at Kel'Thuzad's Gloves of Conquest and break it down, and phrequency I don't mean to single you out here, this isn't really directed at you, more the 15-20 whispers I get a day asking me what I think of the set bonus, hopefully this will trim down some of that.

Any ways as we can see the first bonus is this:

"(2) Set: Increases your pet's critical strike chance with its abilities by 10%."

Based on the change to Empowered Imp specifically the upping of the benefit to us as copola stated it's basically an increased chance for us to crit of just under 10%. It's under for two reasons 1) do to the fact that it can double proc and you can essentially, and 2) because there is a chance (based on your crit that you would have crit any ways and there by the buff means nothing, Either way it IS in fact a large increase to crit. Assuming your pet crits roughly 13% as is in raid which would roughly yeild, I believe I saw from my last simcraft run a 10% increased critical chance, then this would be about a 7-8% chance to crit increase on top of the meaning your pet increases your crit% by 17% and that the 2 pc bonus is effectively 2% better than our current 4 pc for destro ONLY. It's still pretty terrible for affliction though it is a DPS increase.

Now lets look at the 2nd set bonus.

"(4) Set: Increases the damage done by your Immolate, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction spells by 0.011 sec."

Ok so this set bonus clearly increased damage done by your spell by what % is hard to tell from the bonus, and the time thing is in error, they've made mistakes like this in past ptr's and it's just something you have to over look. Essentially your 4pc though will do x amount more dmg than you would have with out it.

Corruption ticked for 509 with t9 and 455 with out. IE it ticks about 11% harder with the new set bonus. Thats pretty hefty increase to both aff and destro, though I'm not sure if it will make Corr worth using for destro it certainly levels out the 2 specs.

duhwhat · 06/27/09, 8:09 PM

Originally Posted by supplicium

though I'm not sure if it will make Corr worth using for destro it certainly levels out the 2 specs.

At a bare minimum it will make filling the Immolate dead zone with Corruption more attractive. Nenad has posted some numbers showing this strategy to be an approximate 20 DPS increase (without T9), but I find that it's a DPS loss in practice, perhaps due to latency.

Frogmite · 06/28/09, 3:57 AM

I'm curious how the modified Lifetap Glyph will now perform. Anecdotally it seems that SP is increasing faster than Spirit as we increase in gear ilevel. Has anyone tried comparing the new Lifetap Glyph to Glyph of immolate and got any real numbers out of it?

Impowitz · 06/28/09, 2:50 PM

I doubt improved imp pact will gain much traction. DPact uptime with Felguard is already easily upwards of 90%, and using imp instead of guard is a major sacrifice in personal dps relative to a spec which already sacrifices personal dps.

supplicium · 06/28/09, 3:45 PM

Originally Posted by Impowitz

I doubt improved imp pact will gain much traction. DPact up time with Felguard is already easily upwards of 90%, and using imp instead of guard is a major sacrifice in personal dps relative to a spec which already sacrifices personal dps.

Yes but if your imp is critting at 50% or over, then it doesn't matter, it'll be up 90% too, and the imp is much more favorable than the FG as far as pet control and other things. Now the imp will do a lot less dmg than the FG, but it may increase YOUR damage enough.

My worries are there are no fire talents in the destro tree except for aftermath, and while good, is not amazing at all.

Diogi · 06/28/09, 10:51 PM

Originally Posted by supplicium

the 2 pc bonus is effectively 2% better than our current 4 pc for destro ONLY. It's still pretty terrible for affliction though it is a DPS increase.

Is this taking into account the higher pyroclasm uptime since the crit increase will effect all destro spells instead of just incinerate from current 4 piece?

supplicium · 06/28/09, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by Diogi

Is this taking into account the higher pyroclasm uptime since the crit increase will effect all destro spells instead of just incinerate from current 4 piece?

No it's not

Frogmite · 06/29/09, 6:50 AM

Originally Posted by Diogi

Is this taking into account the higher pyroclasm uptime since the crit increase will effect all destro spells instead of just incinerate from current 4 piece?

That is extremely unlikely to happen. As conflag is an instant cast you will ALWAYS be casting it after something else. Unless you're on Vezax or something or overloaded with haste there will be no time in between your previous cast and the conflagrate.

dakalro · 06/29/09, 3:43 PM

The 4 piece set bonus looks more like everlasting affliction. 0.011 increased coefficient/second of spell, 0.033/tick. 20% more spellpower scaling for corruption, 16.5% for UA and Immo.
Makes having both set bonuses about equal dps boost for any spec.

Mystearica · 06/29/09, 8:14 PM

4pc has been updated.

Item - Warlock T9 4P Bonus (Immolate, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction) - Increases the damage done by your Immolate, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction spells by 10%.

Faction-Change Service in the Works, PTR Build 10048

bonhoeffer · 06/30/09, 12:30 AM

4 piece T9 bonus doesn't seem spectacular...it's the same as 2 piece T8 if you're destro...unless destro is going to work in corruption some how. Do you think this announcement means the 4 piece bonus is finalized?

ultrajustin · 06/30/09, 2:04 AM

Do remember to note that Imp's firebolt is 2seconds with talents, and only goes down to 1.8ish in a raid. The warlock's main spells are much faster than this in nearly all circumstances.. therefore this it does not follow for imp's 10% crit being a 10% crit buff for the warlock.

Oh sure incinerate might be 1.8ish with a lot of haste from gear, but it's going down 30% with backdraft. Chaos bolt is faster to begin with, as is immolate.

I know they've made notes about pets gaining more from hit, expertise, and spell penetration -- but I have yet to say they're gaining haste. Thus while it's a nice buff, it is probably going to come out to something like a 5 - 6% crit buff at best for destro.

Raugturi · 06/30/09, 4:40 AM

Doing some quick math on the 2pc, I don't see where the 7-8% is coming from.

A 10% crit increase will net 6/x extra procs per minute, where x = the cast time of Fire Bolt, regardless of the Imp's starting crit rate.

x = Cast time of Fire Bolt in seconds
pet_crit = Pet's crit percentage before the 10% increase.
num_casts = Number of Fire Bolt casts per minute
extra_procs = Extra Empowered Imp procs per minute from 10% increase to crit

player_crit = Player's crit percentage without Empowered Imp
player_casts = Number of casts per minute for the player
player_gain = Extra crit percentage gained by the player for the extra EI procs.

num_casts = 60 / x

extra_procs = num_casts * (pet_crit + 0.1) - num_casts * pet_crit = numcasts * 0.1

extra_procs = 6 / x

player_gain = extra_procs * (1 - player_crit) / player_casts

Assuming a cast time on Fire Bolt of 1.86s (based on T8 simcraft), this means a net gain of 3.23 procs per minute, assuming no double/wasted procs.

Simcraft has the player at 38.6 casts per minute.

So, the net gain is 3.23 * (1 - player_crit) / 38.6.

Running simcraft for a 5 minute fight as 0/13/58 without the imp gives a crit percentage of ~50% without Empowered Imp, which results in a gain of only about 4.2% crit.

Also, this means that the higher your crit rate is to begin with, the less benefit you see. The same goes for haste, but that is simply due to more casts between the Empowered Imp procs.

Or am I tackling that with an inappropriate method?

Edit: The 50% crit is probably a bit high. I just realized I ran this with the 4pc T8 still set to active. Dropping it to 45% would net about a 4.6% increase from the T9 bonus.

You're right though (just to clarify that I wasn't arguing with the overall conclusion, just the actual percentage), even at 4% it would still be a nice dps boost, especially when considering the extra pet damage as well.

supplicium · 06/30/09, 6:45 AM

After looking through your numbers (several times over as I'm very tired) you are right in the sense that I was a BIT over the top with my guess on #'s.

Though this is going to be a VERY difficult set to figure out dps wise, as it's soo rng based if the pet crits and you weren't going to crit than you crit, but if the pet crits and you do crit based on your own internal roll than you lost the worth of the bonus, and if the pet crits twice between the time you cast one spell, you loose, it's soo iffy, but still a pretty solid bonus given the pets current role of 10%~ percent dps for the warlock maybe more depending on the fight, (or a lot less too) so thats a good sized buff.

bonhoeffer · 06/30/09, 11:27 AM

I'll be curious to see how 41/30 performs with the T9 set bonuses. 41/30 is already getting a boost thanks to improved pet scaling and now it seems 41/30 would benefit the most from T9, increased pet crits, immolate and corruption increase. Nevertheless, I hope destro stays on top

nenad · 06/30/09, 11:56 AM

Tier 9 effects are added to simcraft (although not yet in release version):
tier9_2pc=1
tier9_4pc=1

Related to 4pc, corruption now seems to be small DPS increase for destro with 4pc, but affliction is seeing much more DPS increase, since afflic had corruption as good DPS spells already included in rotation.

realCool · 06/30/09, 2:34 PM

Originally Posted by bonhoeffer

I'll be curious to see how 41/30 performs with the T9 set bonuses. 41/30 is already getting a boost thanks to improved pet scaling and now it seems 41/30 would benefit the most from T9, increased pet crits, immolate and corruption increase. Nevertheless, I hope destro stays on top

Don't think there is much of an increase because the bonus only increases the critical strike chance of the pet abilities and most of the dmg of the felguard comes from his autoattacks, so the crit would only apply to cleave

• Heeno · 07/04/09, 1:14 PM

Elaborating on what Raugturi was disscussing earlier, I've done some quick calculations to determine the approximate dps value of 2pt9 for destruction using Simulationcraft. The imp's damage increase can be determined by the following formula:

h = avg. imp hit
c = avg. imp crit
n = total # of casts
x = crit rate
t = time in combat

(n*h*(0.9-x) + n*h*(x+0.1)) - (n*h*(1-x) + n*c*x) / t

So plug in using values obtained via Simcraft:

((161.2*1114*(0.9-.18)+161.2*1672*(.18+.01)) - (161.2*1114*(1-.18)+161.2*1672*.18)) / 300 =
(((161.2*1114*.72)+(161.2*1672*.28) - ((161.2*1114*.82)+(161.2*1672*.18)) / 300 = 
8994 dmg / 300 seconds = 29.98 DPS

Then taking empowered imp into account which is calculated like the following:

a = imp crits per minute with 2pt9
b = imp crits per minute without 2pt9
c = # casts per minute
x = crit rate

((a-b)*(1-x))/c

To determine the a definite crit rate, instead of just looking at incinerate, I multiplied the crit rate of each spell capable of critting by the number of casts of that spell per minute divided by the total number of casts per minute and added them all up.

(.463*(20/161.2))+(.684*(27.5/161.2))+(.449*(19.1/161.2))+(.516*(124.6/161.2)) = .6262 = 62.62% crit rate

Then plugging that back into the formula for empowered imp above:

3.23 * (1-.6262) / 38.6 = 0.03128 = 3.128% crit increase

Then after adjusting the crit rate by that amount, the empowered imp boost from 2p t9 approximated to be about a 135 DPS increase. Combining that with the actual increased damage of the imp, 2p t9 appears to be a total of about a 165 DPS increase.

As mentioned earlier, empowered imp scales backward with haste and crit. A cast that boosted by empowered imp that was going to crit regardless, is not a dps increase. So the lower one's crit is, the greater the dps value empowered imp is going to be. The same goes with haste, since the imp has a normalized cast rate, you will receive the exact same number of empowered imp procs regardless of how much haste you have. So with less casts per minute, the impact of empowered imp will be greater.

Ewinessa · 07/13/09, 6:10 PM

Some nifty 3.2 info, demonic pact now gains full benefit from spirit to spell power conversion from 3/3 DA Fel Armor and Glyph of LifeTap.

dwsr · 07/25/09, 11:58 PM

I'm curious to see how deep destro (0/13/58) DPS will change come the new patch. I'm currently destro because I like the playstyle more than I like the fact that it is top DPS (though that is a nice bonus). With 10% more crits from the imp, will the changed Empowered Imp (100% chance to crit) make up for the fact that F&B is getting nerfed by 5%? Or will it balance out or even possibly be a DPS increase (i.e. is the 5% nerf to Incin & CB more than 135 DPS)? I'm leaning towards the fact that we're getting a slight nerf, but I'd love it if someone more knowledgeable than I could actually confirm that.

Salius · 07/26/09, 2:50 PM

I'm currently testing a build using Glyph of Life Tap. (it's 40 sec duration is looking quite attractive in 3.2) Since I need to maintain that buff however, I feel Improved Soul Leech is less useful, and those points are better spent on 3/3 Suppression, and Soul Link. (I previously only had 2/3 Backlash so I could obtain 2/2 Reach - so the last point goes for 3/3 Backlash)

Considerations being:
1. Improved Soul Leech builds can shy away from spirit - hence gear needs to be re-evaluated if you go with this idea
2. Glyph of Conflagrate is a given, so now we're left with Glyph of Incinerate vs Glyph of Immolate?
3. Since you get those "free" points in Suppression, you now have more utility to work with by requiring 3% less hit in your gear (I was able to swap out Dying Curse for Scale of Fates)
4. Would 3/5 Improved Corruption provide a larger dps increase than the utility gained through Suppression?

I currently run:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...&version=10116

I may drop Improved Healthstone in favor of Demonic Embrace at some point since our other lock is demo.

Naforce · 07/26/09, 8:20 PM

Well speccing Corruption wouldn't be worth it since unspecced, corruption has a lower DPCT then incinerate and is therefore not used in the rotation. Of course, running around and all one might spend a GCD on corruption, but it is not prioritized. 3% hit is way better then improved corruption.