You can definately expect to see either a new spell, or a change to the useage of drain soul so that it matches the usefulness of the current evocation for mages. That being said, in the beta something like this might be a fact, but I have a hard time seeing it go live.

Aren't they removing the shard component of Soul Fire? The only thing keeping it from becoming the "go to" spell for Demo/Destro in Cata in all cases is it's long cast time. Backdrafted SF spamming might become a valid tactic now, we'll have to see if the Cata talent shuffle supports this or not. Personally, I'd be a fan of this because the destro rotation has gotten a bit stale compared to its Demo and Affl counterparts.

Perhaps I am over analyzing this but I am looking at the precise way this is worded.

It says you can no longer clip the FINAL tick. Which is to say you can clip the 2nd to last tick or the tick before that. It also says that it will work SIMILAR to how everlasting affliction currently works. Meaning that it won't act exactly like Everlasting Affliction.

The way it is being described where you refresh the duration and it keeps ticking makes sense, but I question how that is any more intuitive or enhances the dot mechanic function now available. It is likely, particularly when you have Bane of Agony and UA ending at the same time in conjunction with haunt needing a refresh that you are going to lose one of the 3 dots.

In light of that, and based on the language above it seems to me that what will happen is that casting a dot will increase the duration by the dot length up to a maximum amount. Such as for immolate which is a 15 second dot, casting it at 2 seconds remaining will increase the duration to 17 seconds, but casting it at 5 second remaining will increase the duration to 18 seconds. This will prevent clipping the last tick, as well as act similar but not exactly to everlasting affliction while preventing running up 2 minutes of the dot on the boss to start the fight.

the other thing I found interesting is that Fel Flame is specifically mentioned as a way for demon and destro to refresh immolate, but UA is also mentioned without affliction. However, fel flame is instant cast and UA is not. Given that Fel flame does damage + refreshes UA versus just refreshing UA, it seems very much an affliction tool above 25% mob health.

The other oddity with fel flame is that by necessity its cool down will be less than 15 seconds. Granted Shadowburn is getting a buff to the execute phase, perhaps enough to make it worth working into the rotation for destro which is rather bland from start to finish. But in this sense it seems like it is essentially the same spell, and so I wonder if we are going to see them share cooldowns ala dragon breath and cone of cold.

I would think that some of the issue with clipping would be solved if the application of a dot would cause instant damage equal to one tick. This way, clipping or not, there would be damage induced and an unwasted gcd.

Good for mobility does indicate spamable. The fact that it is dual-school also seems to indicate a need to be able to use it during a single school lock out. that also leans toward spamable.

Instant cast however means it isn't spamable unless it does minor damage or limited by a energy/rage/rp mechanic. Given however, that in order for it to be of any value whatsoever to demon and destructon warlocks it MUST do more damage than immolate's opener, it is unlikely to be spamable unless they plan on changing immolates mechanics as 2.5k / 5k+ crits seems a tad much.

If there is no cooldown, baseline, then it is equally good for all three specs. Or actually less so for Demo. Aff will pop it to keep UA going, some damage is better than no damage, giving the spec some freedom to pop it slightly earlier than at 'perfect' time. This doesn't fit with the description very well.

I can't see any other possibility than it having a cooldown that is talented down somewhere. Or else there is simply not much that speaks for Affliction to have less value from it.

I have a question on the DoT refresh that I may be missing.

If the DoT does X% damamage when it run out (thinking spells like Immoliate) what happens in Catalysm when I "clip" before he DoT reaches that last tic?

1) Does this mean the normal damage will continue and not apply the final X% damage when the DoT would have normally run out?

2) Does this mean that the end of the DoT will still exist appling the X% of damage at the nomral duration and then automatically refresh because I casted immolate again before the DoT was up?


I read through most of these but this specific detailed seemed to be missing.


Just curious how people are ready this. I hope item #2

But if it is true it would kinda force future dot clipping.

If 15s, 18s, 21s, 24s, 27s = Immolate Ticks
and 29s = Immolate fails off
then
a) If you let it fall and cast new Immolate at 29s then next Immolate will be
32s, 35s, 38s, 41s, 44s = Immolate Ticks
44s = Immolate falls off
or
b) If you clip it at 28s then
30s, 33s, 35s, 38s, 41s = Immolate Ticks
43s = Immolate falls off (but you can refresh it at 42s)

Looks like if you want immolate tick each 3s for all fight you should refresh it before it falls off.
Weird, doesn't it?

From the paladin preview:

Looks like getting might on pets won't be a problem anymore. And if they are still planning to revamp the pet buff system and have them just mirror owner buffs, this just removed the only potential issue I could see, as in having to put an AP only buff on warlocks just for their pets.

The example without haste is a bad one because the change is made to benefit haste. Any level of haste where your tick timer divides evenly into the duration will end up being the same as the current situation, refresh-wise.

I think it is safe to assume crit and damage modifier rolling must be fixed. Otherwise Destro locks will simply wait for a Emp Imp proc and keep an Immolate rolling with 100% crit rate for the entire fight.