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Come WotLK content patch, what spec'll you all go?Follow

#1 Aug 25 2008 at 4:52 PM Rating: Good
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as the subject suggests, the content patch will be coming up soon (next few weeks maybe). Come then we're gonna have to respec.. simply put 0/21/40 won't be as powerfull... 5% less damage from demonic sacrifice and 5% less damage bonus from imp.SB.

my chosen spec to try first is this: 2/3/56 Fire Imp Spec. from what I can tell, the spell rotation is fairly complex as this spec...
1. obviously keep curse and Corruption up.. if going dps curse, CoA > CoD now due to Molton Core proc
2. keep pet in a decent location.. granted from aoe damage all pets take 80% less damage... and imp's mana+health are being seriously buffed as well as mana regen (300% increase I believe)
3. for actual spell rotation.. well the opening rotation is gonna require some testing.. but everything after the first immolate will be fairly routeen. simply use conflagorate at 12.1 seconds, then immolate, chaos bolt, incinerate until next 12.1 seconds (possibly include soulfire in there prior to the incinerate if got enough shards... also depends on dpsc comparison of soulfire and incinerate)
4. for the opening rotation... it's either like 3.... or it'll be immolate > conflag > immolate > chaos bolt > incinerate due to trying to improve long-run mana efficiency by being inefficient on the first immolate and conflagorate

a few random figures.. incinerate will be a 2second cast instead of 2.25, so with my haste that'll be roughly a 1.7sec cast on bosses and a 1.65 on trash.. so actually haste becomes a bit less beneficial.. 4-5% bonus haste to only get an additional 0.05 cast reduction.

the Backdraft proc to decrease cast-time will bring immolate and chaos bolt to a 1.05 sec cast prior to haste, after my spell haste I go below the 1second GCD so actual figures don't matter. incinerate will go from 2seconds to 1.4, or a 1.19 after my haste. beyond the backdraft proc I can get in another 5 incinerates before I get to almost the 12second mark... now depending on lag etc... I may be beyond 12.1 seconds of immolate (so allowing a conflag) or I may not, so meaning another incinerate before conflag so as to not waste time.. and then the cycle repeats. without any haste I'd get in 1 less incinerate per rotation so 17% is a nice target (15% minimum I believe... can't be bothered to work out the exact cut off point).

another thing... the imp's 100% crit proc.. presuming I have the shards (and the dpsc is better for it), I'll be using soulfire everytime it's up with this proc so as to make the most of it... otherwise it'll be an incinerate or chaos bolt if it procs at the right part of the rotation (doesn't make much difference if I cast immolate or chaos bolt first in the rotation imo)

so yeah, anyone else bored enough to start theorycrafting on specs for wotlk... or has the constant pressing of SB already eaten away at your mind? hehe
#2 Aug 25 2008 at 6:48 PM Rating: Decent
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To be honest this expansion just seems like nerf after nerf for Warlocks.

I admit to being basically downcast about the changes, the new tools we are getting are almost universally poor and focus entirely on PvE DPS. Haunt is... nice but has been changed to another 1.5sec single-target DoT. Demon Form has no place anywhere, as far as I can see. Chaos Bolt is the exception, but deep Destro is so totally lacking in mobility (Demonic Circle must be the most poorly conceived escape spell in history) and defensive moves I don't see any PvP strategy other than the one we have now; burn them down and pray for a crit before the horrible rape begins. Having seen the tremendous damage currently being frontloaded by melee classes in beta, and their increased ability to close distance, I don't see that strategy being effective. Death Knights alone are a Warlock's nightmare, and the various Rogue buffs do nothing so much as to remove all hope of escape from a Rogue with cooldowns.

In amongst the various talent changes are nerfs to talents we have come to rely on, like Amplify Curse and Demonic Embrace, Soul Link got moved but then got nerfed into nothingness, Demonic Sacrifice became more or less pointless and then came back nerfed, and we remain terribly short of insta-casts and mobility when a great many other classes are getting serious buffs in those areas. Dispersion for Shadowpriests is a great example of an ability Warlocks desperately need, but won't be furnished with. I don't really mean to sound quite so whiney about it, but I really enjoyed playing my lock for 2 years and I'm really sad to see what's become of it.

As a result, I'm speccing Death Knight for the expansion.
#3 Aug 26 2008 at 3:03 AM Rating: Decent
I haven't looked in detail at the talents on offer so far. I'll wait until the expansion comes out.

But I get the feeling I'll play with Demo for a while, spec to Affliction until I hit 80 and then we'll see. Cos the idea of being a Fire 'lock sucks. That's just an underpowered mage, frankly.

So I'm HOPING that being affliction will become a viable raiding spec so I don't have to go all fiery.
#4 Aug 26 2008 at 3:27 AM Rating: Good
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inop, the talents are coming out in a few weeks time, just like before tbc for like a month or so they changed the live servers to have the new talents and stuff so people could get used to them before the big expansion.

in terms of pvp.. we're having high proc chances for large amounts of haste being chucked at us from all around, which'll help alot in pvp. in terms of dest pvp... shadowfury can be cast while moving, the demonic circle teleport is a very powerful tool IF used properly (have it around a pillar and make sure you stay in combat away from it, around 30-40yrds. 26% chance to stun on conflagorate and 2talent points now from 10% chance to daze is actually worth it now. spam searing pain for when you need to cast, use alot of burst like immolate > conflag, or hope your immolate can last 10 seconds before you conflag. obviously abuse the backlash procs and in terms of pets... the imp could be useful. have it shoot a bit, then get it and you OOC when it needs to regen health/mana and allow phaseshift to do all the work there.

for afliction.. haunt isn't a dot. it's a direct damage attack which applies a debuff for 12 seconds to increase dot damage by 20%. afliction has always been powerful in pvp due to it's moboility and this isn't going to change. felconc affects UA and haunt, you can glyph an additional 4% to your nightfall chance and frailty for the improved CoW would be very useful in pvp now. (max rank of CoW decreases AP AND 20% melee and ranged attack speed, so talented 24$ less damage from melee classes.. very OP). readication and deaths embrace are both pretty OP for survivability / improved ability to CC/nuke and everlasting afliction means that the dispeller won't beable to get corruption off their target.

for demonology.. 1 thing people don't realise about metamorphasis is actually how much bonus to armour it gives. it's 360% ontop of what we currently have, and 360% bonus to all armour values... so 20-25k armour in pvp would be doable... which basically makes us impossible for melee's to kill. I'll admit though... demonic empowerment seems a bit weak and other than demon form.. there really hasn't been any chance to the tree... so pvp as it could be hard...
#5 Aug 26 2008 at 11:56 AM Rating: Decent
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Thinking of going for haunt, so when it's Life Tap time, refresh all DoTs, throw Haunt and then Life Tap. Be even more self sustaining than we already are. Also, with some of the bonuses in Affliction, it could make for some nice SB spam. Thinking something along these lines:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=I0xrRhbAoitcuAoZE

Just need to shave 4 points somewhere. Any ideas?

Edit: Argh, poting from ym g/f's account again, this is Lathais.

Edited, Aug 26th 2008 3:53pm by amayu
#6 Aug 26 2008 at 1:23 PM Rating: Decent
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if you go haunt you should be keeping it up 100% of the time, the increased dot damage is one of the main reasons afliction might compete with a heavily dest build in pve
#7 Aug 27 2008 at 7:27 AM Rating: Decent
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2,211 posts
I'm planning on leveling haunt, similar to this. Might try demon form for a bit though.
#8 Aug 27 2008 at 10:35 AM Rating: Good
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2,680 posts
I'm guessing there will be a lot of alterations to the talents before the dust settles, but I'm thinking of trying mixed Aff/Demo for
PvP and for solo/5-toon instances this. But I tend to try out a lot of different specs so nothing is final.

edit: L2link

Edited, Aug 27th 2008 11:32am by TherionSaysWhat
#9 Aug 28 2008 at 1:30 AM Rating: Decent
I might stay as I am until someone else does all the work and there's a guide to 70-80 levelling and end game spec again. :o)

Let's face it, I'm gonna go with whatever means I don't die but allows me to level. That's always been Affliction and I don't see it being any different here. Demo (which I used for 10 levels) has been killed off with FG being half way up the tree and the rest being buffs to ME, not my pet, for the most part. Has the FG been given massive HP/threat gain boosts to mitigate for the higher level mobs? If so, MAYBE still worth it...if not, it's about as useful as the Felhunter in PvE.

So, back to drain tanking, which, with Haunt, will be IMBA in my opinion.

I'll be happy to do it too - it's a fun spec. If I can keep it for raiding as well, so much the better. Going fire is NOT AN OPTION. Damn Blizzard.
#10 Aug 28 2008 at 4:42 AM Rating: Decent
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fire so is an option, or do you mean for leveling? in which case I'll still say it's usable, bit harder, bit more recing, but still usable :) unless one of the other specs is proven to do more damage in raids at lvl.70, i'll be raiding and leveling as the fire spec I've linked and imo, it has all the requirements to deal massive damage :)
#11 Aug 28 2008 at 11:12 AM Rating: Decent
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1,729 posts
I think he meant it's not an option for him. Personally, it's not an option for me, unless it is clearly the best spec. I personally don't even like being Shadow Destro. Makes me feel too much like a mage. I think I may even re-roll mage for WotLK as they seem like they are getting more Debuffs and we are becoming the damage kings. I like being a dark shadowy, debuffer with utility. Not a nuker.

#12 Aug 28 2008 at 12:31 PM Rating: Decent
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lathais, blizzard said that mages and rogues are going to be the top dpsers (in theory) in wotlk, stuff like hunters/locks etc... who are buffing/debuffing/utility classes will be doing less damage but gaining more raid utility (which we are.. alot). mages aren't getting any additional debuffs, they're basically the same just with some cool imba new abilities and talents almost all aimed at purely increasing personnal dps.
#13 Aug 28 2008 at 1:22 PM Rating: Good
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308 posts
I'll go haunt/affliction for levelling to 80 and hope that it becomes the raid dps build for warlocks. Honestly, I don't like the playstyle of shadow destruction currently. But the damage is nice.
#14 Aug 28 2008 at 10:02 PM Rating: Decent
Lathais wrote:
I think he meant it's not an option for him.



Exactly. Chasing number one on the damage meter is of no interest. BEING a warlock and getting through the raid with no deaths is. And warlocks DON'T USE FIRE!!

Shadowy, like Lathais said.

Not that you'd have a clue, Jeno, you're a damn gnome... ;o)
#15 Aug 29 2008 at 4:20 AM Rating: Decent
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look at all the blizzard vids with warlocks, they use fire spells :P though yes, you never see a gnome version.... lol
#16 Aug 29 2008 at 12:03 PM Rating: Decent
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taken from a post at the warlocks den based on a blue post on the O-Boards.

Blue Post:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336665205&sid=2000

post from the den wrote:
Basically they are combining buffs into specific categories, and the strongest buff in that category wins; i.e. only one per category, they do not stack (okay, so that was announced some time ago).

The following affect us directly as warlocks, meaning it concerns stuff we have, some of it being old news (CoT & poison for instance). I have marked two that I found particularly ... surprising let's say :

- Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness
- Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements
- Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact
- Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
- Health Buff: Commanding Shout, Blood Pact
- Intellect Buff: Arcane Intellect, Fel Intelligence
- Spirit Buff: Divine Spirit, Fel Intelligence
- Cast Speed Slow: Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind-numbing Poison

Quoting the blue on the Fel Intelligence part:
"In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants Spirit and Intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the Spirit value from Fel Intelligence."

So if you have a mage and a priest in the raid, why do they take a affliction lock with felhunter with them again...?


So now our buffs/debuffs are no longer needed. And alot of those buffs/debuffs that look like they will be replacing ours, look like mage buffs.
#17 Sep 02 2008 at 9:26 PM Rating: Decent
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Lathais wrote:
taken from a post at the warlocks den based on a blue post on the O-Boards.

Blue Post:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336665205&sid=2000

post from the den wrote:
Basically they are combining buffs into specific categories, and the strongest buff in that category wins; i.e. only one per category, they do not stack (okay, so that was announced some time ago).

The following affect us directly as warlocks, meaning it concerns stuff we have, some of it being old news (CoT & poison for instance). I have marked two that I found particularly ... surprising let's say :

- Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness
- Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements
- Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact
- Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
- Health Buff: Commanding Shout, Blood Pact
- Intellect Buff: Arcane Intellect, Fel Intelligence
- Spirit Buff: Divine Spirit, Fel Intelligence
- Cast Speed Slow: Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind-numbing Poison

Quoting the blue on the Fel Intelligence part:
"In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants Spirit and Intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the Spirit value from Fel Intelligence."

So if you have a mage and a priest in the raid, why do they take a affliction lock with felhunter with them again...?


So now our buffs/debuffs are no longer needed. And alot of those buffs/debuffs that look like they will be replacing ours, look like mage buffs.


We can hope our guild is short of the classes that have the debuffs? Who am I kidding, my guild is overflowing with Mages. Priests we look fine on as well. So now we're relying on our pure DPS? That's not really a safe bet considering how big of a thing gear is in that respect.
#18 Sep 03 2008 at 5:18 AM Rating: Decent
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it's quite amusingly really the changes... they wanted to decrease our damage and make debuffing/buffing/general utility more important for us... but then they make this change..

1. druid's earth and moon > CoE. it's a proc, it'll stay up constantly as long as the moonkin is alive and it doesn't inflict a gcd... so yeah, that's 1 additional warlock going CoA/CoD
2. CoW is equal/worse than both the warrior and druid version... and the warriors also have thunderclap for the 20% attack speed reduction too.
3. bloodpact being changed to pure health instead of stamina... so now equal to commanding shout..
4. same with fel intelect
5. CoRec Armor reduction is being nerfed... so ignore that sh*t
6. no point with CoT either... have a muta-rape rogue with the "deadly brew" talent and they won't have any dps decrease from having mind-numbing on 1 weapon as their other weapons 'instant' poison will proc deadly poison too...

so yeah.... we're left with purely dpsing... lol

oh, the only debuff of ours that's worthwhile is 'Demonic Pact'.. at high end raiding, 10% of a demo lock's +dmg (2000+ dmg) will be more than any other classes bonus damage...

Edited, Sep 3rd 2008 9:16am by Jenovaomega
#19 Sep 03 2008 at 8:13 AM Rating: Default
I'm going for the Demon form, i do still play FOR FUN. Not to worry about end-game raids and IF they like me or not. Demon form is the ultimate Warlock transformation...i'm excited already.
#20 Sep 03 2008 at 9:53 AM Rating: Decent
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1,729 posts
Metamorphosis(the real name for Demon Form) is great, and will be fun in PvP. For some though, myself included, the fun in the game is seeing the content. If there's no reason to bring a warlock, then there's no way for me to see content. Hopefully the coming changes for warlocks(Affliction only?) that have been mentioned, but not what they are, will make us wanted in a raid.



Edited, Sep 3rd 2008 1:51pm by Lathais
#21 Sep 03 2008 at 1:20 PM Rating: Decent
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ya, i'm just hoping that seeing as my debuffs won't really be needed, my damage will be enough to get me in... preferable destruction spec (the rotation/spec i linked at top) as dest has always been my prefered spec.. just sucks that it became a snooze fest in tbc... lol
#22 Sep 03 2008 at 9:19 PM Rating: Decent
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Again, Im really not sure Metamorphosis in its current state has a use. It just doesnt do enough damage to make it worthwhile at the moment, 70% of a good Warlock's spelldamage is what, just over 1k AP? With no decent instant Strike moves? Think of a Retribution Paladin's DPS when he just hits 70 and has quest greens, that's what you're looking at.

But with less armour.

And no bubble.
#23 Sep 04 2008 at 5:49 AM Rating: Decent
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1,729 posts
I think I've made my decision. After playing my Shammie in Kara for the first time last night, if I Affliction/Demo are not viable builds, then I will go Resto Shammie after the patch.
#24 Sep 04 2008 at 11:39 PM Rating: Decent
If current scaling still blows come Wrath, more than likely I'll be playing my resto shaman more. However, I do intend to level my warlock, and will most likely go with Destruction + Imp for it. I love Soul Fire-Shadowfury combos way too much.
#25 Sep 05 2008 at 2:48 AM Rating: Decent
I've got a warrior I could level up with a quick respec to DPS - will that be required?

Or a BM hunter - will that be required?

Or a long, long grind to get an Enhancement Shammy up to speed - will that be required?

Playing a 'lock is STILL my preference and I really believe that they're forcing us down the Affliction route. I can live with that. I will even enjoy it. Hitting CoD and spamming SB in raids is alright - but when I was balancing DoTs it was way more involved.
#26 Sep 05 2008 at 8:21 PM Rating: Decent
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play what you enjoy. I only enjoy warlock, so I only play warlock. if they ***** it up to much, i'll go back to FFXI... otherwise I'll carry on playing
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