Hello warlocks!
My warlock is a reroll (lvl 72 atm), and I have some trouble with all the changes to that class so far.
I still have to find info on new rotations. I specced her demonology to lvl up, but have a few questions about that spec and affliction (to which I should return soon I think).
- Demonology: I've put remaining talents points into destro to dps with shadow bolts (improved shadow bolt and bane). Is it a mistake? Parsers tell me that shadow bolts and conflag are really really equivalent, so those talents points for shadow bolt only make me feel like I should respec. Is destro still the tree to go for remaining points in demonology and affliction builds?
- Affliction: the big question which stops me from respeccing right now is about the talent improved shadow bolt. It always was clear to me reading the tooltip that all shadow damage is affected, so it would be really strong for affliction dots. But I've read on wow forums someone complaining about this talent not upgrading dots dps!!! So what really does improved shadow bolt?
- What about the impact of "Ruin" on non destro builds?
my affliction tree will be http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warlock=050030000000000000000000002350222031023510053500331351000000000000000000000000000&glyph=030417020406 with 3 points I don't know what to do with atm. Or even 5 points if I really need improved shadow bolt.
Thank you for your comments :)
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With Demo, it really depends how far into Destro you go. If you go a Meta/Ruin style build, then yes, ISB is still worth it. It will not affect your DoTs, but a Meta/Ruin build will be spamming SBs, therefore making it worthwhile. The main benefit of this build is the buff from Demonic Pact if you do not run with a Elemental Shaman. If you do, his totem is better. Here is a decent example of a Meta/Ruin build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbxIzsxRq0sguVoE0hV
The more popular Demo spec at the moment is Felguard Emberstorm. Due to Emberstorm reducing the cast time of Incinerate, Incinerate becomes a better choice than SB. You also have more points to spend in the Destro tree getting you Molten Core. This is my build of choice currently. They will be buffing pet scaling in the future which will make this a very competitive build I am thinking:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbxIzcxRq0sxzZVchVrzuV
For Affliction, you do not really get a chance to cast that many Shadow Bolts, a few, but your DoTs and Haunt are more important. Also, as you said, ISB does not affect your DoTs, only your SBs. It is also self only now, so noone else gets benefit from it. Unless you are Meta/Ruin it is worthless. Molten Core is points better spent as it will increase your Immo damage, which is cast more often than SB. It is also useful for Rain of Fire AoE on tougher trash. This is a common Affliction Build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IfxMbzMAoVq0IstzZVMGV
Edit: Fixed a link per the response.
Edited, Jan 27th 2009 10:23am by Lathais
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbxIzsxRq0sguVoE0hV
The more popular Demo spec at the moment is Felguard Emberstorm. Due to Emberstorm reducing the cast time of Incinerate, Incinerate becomes a better choice than SB. You also have more points to spend in the Destro tree getting you Molten Core. This is my build of choice currently. They will be buffing pet scaling in the future which will make this a very competitive build I am thinking:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbxIzcxRq0sxzZVchVrzuV
For Affliction, you do not really get a chance to cast that many Shadow Bolts, a few, but your DoTs and Haunt are more important. Also, as you said, ISB does not affect your DoTs, only your SBs. It is also self only now, so noone else gets benefit from it. Unless you are Meta/Ruin it is worthless. Molten Core is points better spent as it will increase your Immo damage, which is cast more often than SB. It is also useful for Rain of Fire AoE on tougher trash. This is a common Affliction Build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IfxMbzMAoVq0IstzZVMGV
Edit: Fixed a link per the response.
Edited, Jan 27th 2009 10:23am by Lathais
Lathais wrote:
For Affliction, you do not really get a chance to cast that many Shadow Bolts, a few, but your DoTs and Haunt are more important. Also, as you said, ISB does not affect your DoTs, only your SBs. It is also self only now, so noone else gets benefit from it. Unless you are Meta/Ruin it is worthless. Molten Core is points better spent as it will increase your Immo damage, which is cast more often than SB. It is also useful for Rain of Fire AoE on tougher trash. This is a common Affliction Build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbxIzcxRq0sxzZVchVrzuV
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbxIzcxRq0sxzZVchVrzuV
Just wondering, does MC improve damage of your imp? Or does it only apply to your personal fire spells?
As affliction if you have your rotation down you can usually find time to squeeze off some extra SBs. I'm sure you might be able to fit in more if your haste rating it high enough. Whether or not it would be beneficial to replace MC at that point, I don't know, I would have to look at my numbers. But as Lathias said, MC is typically the way to go as MC is almost always proc'd (from what I have noticed anyway).
The last link is a demo build. I think Lathias meant: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IfxMbzMAoVq0IstzZVMGV
only of your fire spells. but it is worth putting 2/3 points into it for an affliction spec. immolate is affected by haunt and shadow embrace, and you'll find that immolate is your 2nd most powerful dot after corruption for an affliction spec.
ISB does affect haunt too, but unless you have 368 hit rating, it's not worthwhile putting any points into it as an afliction spec (and even then, you'll only want to put 3/5 into ISB... any more is a waste of talent points that can go into better places)
ISB does affect haunt too, but unless you have 368 hit rating, it's not worthwhile putting any points into it as an afliction spec (and even then, you'll only want to put 3/5 into ISB... any more is a waste of talent points that can go into better places)
Yeah, I messed up my links, you are correct. Sorry.
Correct me if i'm wrong but even with max hit wouldn't the improved SB talent still be fairly worthless without a decent amount of crit. You only fire off a few shadowbolts at a time. If your first one crits it's all well and good but more often then not you'll have the buff on you while your refreshing dots and it'll run out before you land your next round of shadowbolts.
The talent is affected alot by the rng. The less shadowbolts you can get off the worse the talent gets. On patchwork it can be a decent gain especially if your lucky with critting the first one often, but on any fights with movement the shadowbolt is the first thing you drop from the rotation. If you can get off 1 shadowbolt and it crits but you have to move around and then refresh your dots the buff does you no good aside from haunt. Add to the fact that you won't be using shadowbolt at all after 30% health due to drain soul and it makes it even worse.
It seems like a waste of points the could be better put in MC so you can get a steady buff, ruin so you can get a bonus from those crits no matter what, or improved Imp to boost it's damage for a flat 30%.
Of course if you have your hit maxed and no longer need cataclysm you kind of have to put 2 points in it to get down to ruin anyway. At the end of the day you want to avoid the talent unless it's the only worthwhile thing to put points in to get further down the tree.
The talent is affected alot by the rng. The less shadowbolts you can get off the worse the talent gets. On patchwork it can be a decent gain especially if your lucky with critting the first one often, but on any fights with movement the shadowbolt is the first thing you drop from the rotation. If you can get off 1 shadowbolt and it crits but you have to move around and then refresh your dots the buff does you no good aside from haunt. Add to the fact that you won't be using shadowbolt at all after 30% health due to drain soul and it makes it even worse.
It seems like a waste of points the could be better put in MC so you can get a steady buff, ruin so you can get a bonus from those crits no matter what, or improved Imp to boost it's damage for a flat 30%.
Of course if you have your hit maxed and no longer need cataclysm you kind of have to put 2 points in it to get down to ruin anyway. At the end of the day you want to avoid the talent unless it's the only worthwhile thing to put points in to get further down the tree.
I find Bane to be more useful than Improved Shadow Bolt. If you do not critical hit a lot, then the latter is useless, and you'd get more DPS with reduced casting-time.
2/3 MC will be enough for an afliction lock to have like.. 99% uptime as an afliction warlock, so like i said, if you're hit capped (368 hit rating +3% debuff) then you're better off putting those 3 points from cataclysm into ISB. also in terms of crit rate... as afliction spec, i have around a 15% crit chance self buffed. +10% major debuff from fire mage, +5% from shaman (or any other class that provides the 5% buff), +3% minor buff (or debuff, don't think they stack though) from like.. almost any other class.= a 33+% crit chance after buffs... getting the crit chance is easy.
Another little note about your talent set-up Egraynn, you don't want 3 points in eradication. Due to having a 30 second cool-down of sorts each point put into it gets significantly less of a damage boost. 1 point in it is excellent, the second point is decent and the third point is almost worthless. 2 of those points could go into Molten Core for more of a damage boost.
It's another one of those tricky talents, much like Improved shadow-bolt, that when glancing at it would seem to be wise to max out but ends up wasting points.
It's another one of those tricky talents, much like Improved shadow-bolt, that when glancing at it would seem to be wise to max out but ends up wasting points.
Thanks a lot for your answers!
From what I read here, my affliction build would become:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warlock=050230030000000000000000002350222031023510051500331351000000000000000000000000000&glyph=030417020406
Did I miss anything? Ideas to improve?
Edited, Jan 28th 2009 10:42am by egraynn
From what I read here, my affliction build would become:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warlock=050230030000000000000000002350222031023510051500331351000000000000000000000000000&glyph=030417020406
Did I miss anything? Ideas to improve?
Edited, Jan 28th 2009 10:42am by egraynn
You could drop 2 points from Eradication, as explained above.
I am also not too sure of the usefulness of Death's Embrace. For soloing/questing maybe. In an instance/raid though, you should almost never be casting Drain Life, or below 10% health. And the SB thing below 35%, well at 25% you should be switching to Drain Soul because of the increased damage when enemy is below 25%. I wouldn't spend 3 talent points on something that is only useful for 10% of the mobs health.
Pick up Molten Core and Ruin instead IMO.
I am also not too sure of the usefulness of Death's Embrace. For soloing/questing maybe. In an instance/raid though, you should almost never be casting Drain Life, or below 10% health. And the SB thing below 35%, well at 25% you should be switching to Drain Soul because of the increased damage when enemy is below 25%. I wouldn't spend 3 talent points on something that is only useful for 10% of the mobs health.
Pick up Molten Core and Ruin instead IMO.
Sorry I linked the wrong build.
Here is the final build I wanted comments on: (with only 1 point in eradication)
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warlock=050230030000000000000000002350222031023510051500331351000000000000000000000000000&glyph=030417020406
Edited, Jan 28th 2009 10:39am by egraynn
Here is the final build I wanted comments on: (with only 1 point in eradication)
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warlock=050230030000000000000000002350222031023510051500331351000000000000000000000000000&glyph=030417020406
Edited, Jan 28th 2009 10:39am by egraynn
deaths embrace is AMAZING for pve. 12% bonus to damage when the target is below 35% health. it's not just SB, it's ALL shadow spells. (read the tool tip next time)
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