Warlock patch 5.4 discussion

[Deleted]

It's pretty obvious that the post said "pair" I got indignant before reading it properly.

I was pleased I had misread until others came in to confirm my worst fear.

I really hate casting RoF on a single target.

[Jessicka]

People were asking for a button that gave an entire ember, instantly, and had a somewhat long (~60 secs?) CD to compensate. RoF generates 0.2 embers over ~7 seconds on single target. That's NOT an "Ember Generator Button".

Unless you're referring to something else entirely, that I'm not aware of.

Such a button would be a DPS cooldown, not an Ember generator. There's a difference, the generator would improve generation at a DPS loss, just as Drain Soul functions as a Shard generator for Affliction and Wild Imps functions outside of DS for Demonology.

[sasofrass]

If they reduced the ember gen for RoF to 0.25 per tick (down from ~0.4) and it's gaining about 2 emberbits per cast, wouldn't it still be worth it to cast single target? You would technically get about 1 more emberbit at a slight dps gain for keeping RoF up instead of casting an extra incinerate.

- - - Updated - - -

Edit: Just checked on my geared lock. It's reforged for Demo instead of Destro, so has tons of mastery (which increases the damage of incinerate, but not RoF), so these numbers might be a wee bit skewed, but as it currently stands, completely unbuffed, the tooltip for Incinerate says that it does 70,083 damage in a 1.67s cast time (so 41,965 damage per second), whereas RoF does 42,280 damage in a GCD.

Are you also remembering to add that if your target has immolate up, rain of fire does 50% more damage? So your RoF would really be doing 63,420 damage which is a dps gain.

[walp]

Well, you don't want RoF in your single target rotation for several reasons. But I personally think that the main reason is that RoF burns your mana.
When you get 4T16 you'll want to buff all your Chaos Bolts with than 5 second buff. And if you use RoF too much you'll end with lots of weak Chaos Bolts.

[sasofrass]

Using RoF in a single target rotation doesn't burn your mana on live so that is not even an issue and I don't really think you understand what I wrote. If you are still capable of gaining emberbits, even just one, it's worth to cast because it will give you, overall, more embers to spend on chaos bolts. It's not difficult for a player to chaos bolt when they gain the buff from the 4 piece next tier, so I don't understand the "weaker chaos bolts." Even if you rain of fire as soon as the buff procs, you can still get off 2 chaos bolts if the embers allow it.

[ZaneBusby]

Are you also remembering to add that if your target has immolate up, rain of fire does 50% more damage? So your RoF would really be doing 63,420 damage which is a dps gain.

Aww shit. Yes, I completely forgot about that part. >_< Thanks for pointing that out. Looks like RoF will most likely still be in the single target rotation after taking that into consideration. Higher DPCT than Incin, roughly equal ember generation. Dammit Blizz fail hard.

Well, you don't want RoF in your single target rotation for several reasons. But I personally think that the main reason is that RoF burns your mana.
When you get 4T16 you'll want to buff all your Chaos Bolts with than 5 second buff. And if you use RoF too much you'll end with lots of weak Chaos Bolts.

Mana is really a non-issue for destro. If it is (since mana regen scales with haste, and we're going for as little haste as possible next tier) just use less RoF's overall. But it'll still be required to have a *somewhat* decent uptime. Incin costs 60k mana, RoF costs 75k, just to put things in perspective.

And 4pc T16 = 5 sec of 15% crit on ember fill up on a 10 sec ICD... How is that affected by RoF in any way? Just don't waste your proc uptime casting RoF, use RoF BETWEEN procs. If you're implying more Chaos Bolts that AREN'T affected by the 4pc proc are a bad thing, then that's just stupid. Even an unbuffed Chaos Bolt is extremely valuable.

[Deleted]

Also because of how often we are getting cast chaos bolt with the 4 piece, and how slow our cast of chaos bolt is, we have ample time for mana to regenerate inbetween chaos bolt casts.

[Apero]

I went with a mastery/crit setup and fel flame as filler (except for backdraft incinerates) and i didnt had enough mana to maintain a decent uptime of rof.
You get a maximum of 2 emberbits per RoF , often enough you get 0. If using rain of fire in a single target scenario is a dps increase, than it must be a really small one. (simcraft with ptr data says around 300 dps, something if would sacrifice to get rid of the clunkyness, but then, i wont be using destro other than bomb fights anyway)

2 targets or more rof is required of course.

[Deleted]

Yeah for single target I won't be using it unless it somehow becomes mandatory. I sat around just casting rain of fire on two dummies for a while. I think the most I got was 7 ember bits per cast, definitely a few occasions where I got none. Between 2 and 5 seemed to be the average.

Again, this was just anecdotal evidence, but those times where you got 7 ember bits was sweet. I didn't have immolate up either, just pure rain of fire.

This was done with 5k haste and 5k crit, as I couldnt get haste any lower, and was stacking mastery as priority.

[Deleted]

Also because of how often we are getting cast chaos bolt with the 4 piece, and how slow our cast of chaos bolt is, we have ample time for mana to regenerate inbetween chaos bolt casts.

We won't cast a lot of Chaos bolts with the 4 pieces buff, except if we have a high ember generation on the fight. You would be better off waiting for trinkets or Dark soul.

Yeah for single target I won't be using it unless it somehow becomes mandatory. I sat around just casting rain of fire on two dummies for a while. I think the most I got was 7 ember bits per cast, definitely a few occasions where I got none. Between 2 and 5 seemed to be the average.

Again, this was just anecdotal evidence, but those times where you got 7 ember bits was sweet. I didn't have immolate up either, just pure rain of fire.

This was done with 5k haste and 5k crit, as I couldnt get haste any lower, and was stacking mastery as priority.

It is 0.25 emberbit per tick & per target, no matter how many targets you have. So on average you will get 4 emberbits with 1 RoF on 2 targets.

[Kashii]

All this endless discussion about RoF, while the mechanics are interesting to ponder, gives me a headache and makes me glad I switched away from Destruction half way through ToT Normal. Recasting an AoE spell with a targeting reticule every 6 seconds on a single mob is just NOT my idea of fun. I am hard pressed to find any other Lock mechanic that annoyed me as much.

What more does Blizzard need to do to keep Locks from using this in their single target rotation?

[Brusalk]

All this endless discussion about RoF, while the mechanics are interesting to ponder, gives me a headache and makes me glad I switched away from Destruction half way through ToT Normal. Recasting an AoE spell with a targeting reticule every 6 seconds on a single mob is just NOT my idea of fun. I am hard pressed to find any other Lock mechanic that annoyed me as much.

What more does Blizzard need to do to keep Locks from using this in their single target rotation?

Restore the original ember generation ability from 5.3, and then make it only generate embers when it hits more than 1 target.

[Hangrah]

I have a really quick question, i kinda know the answer but i want some confirmation. Which trinket combo would you recommend for affliction at the beginning of 5.4, i have Normal UVLS, Normal Cha ye's and Heroic Wush.

[sasofrass]

I have a really quick question, i kinda know the answer but i want some confirmation. Which trinket combo would you recommend for affliction at the beginning of 5.4, i have Normal UVLS, Normal Cha ye's and Heroic Wush.

UVLS and wush

- - - Updated - - -

Restore the original ember generation ability from 5.3, and then make it only generate embers when it hits more than 1 target.

if only blizzard had this much common sense. :\

[Hexotic]

Ive seen a few of my buddy locks talk about an rppm change to UVLS, where its no longer procing of rppm, apparently this change was put in on the ptr 2-3 days ago. Can anyone confirm/deny this? because this could really be a game changer lol.

[Deleted]

I have a really quick question, i kinda know the answer but i want some confirmation. Which trinket combo would you recommend for affliction at the beginning of 5.4, i have Normal UVLS, Normal Cha ye's and Heroic Wush.

UVLS and Wushoolay, replace the UVLS first.

- - - Updated - - -

Ive seen a few of my buddy locks talk about an rppm change to UVLS, where its no longer procing of rppm, apparently this change was put in on the ptr 2-3 days ago. Can anyone confirm/deny this? because this could really be a game changer lol.

Eh... source?

[Jetjaguar]

@ 550 ilevel UVLS consistently procs for me very close to how it does on live and on live i have a 2/2 HTF UVLS so I imagine something might have changed

[Nardale]

@ 550 ilevel UVLS consistently procs for me very close to how it does on live and on live i have a 2/2 HTF UVLS so I imagine something might have changed

Really? I'm 550 as well w/ 2/2 HTF UVLS and I'm wondering what to do come next Tuesday for demo and aff. I have 543 Hydra and Wush and obviously a 549 UVLS. I really wish we had some better way to determine what's optimal than simply playtesting through normals next week, but that will likely be the case...

[walp]

If you are still capable of gaining emberbits, even just one, it's worth to cast because it will give you, overall, more embers to spend on chaos bolts.

Yeah, RoF rotation over 5 minutes fight will give you for example 2-3 additional chaos bolts and LOTS of weak chaos bolts.
If you throw away RoF and use it only on 100% mana and during Dark Soul you'll be able to buff >90% your chaos bolts.

If you're implying more Chaos Bolts that AREN'T affected by the 4pc proc are a bad thing, then that's just stupid.

I don't think it's so stupid. Just kinda difficult to do the math. Whether worth it or not.

Ok. Here's some random retarded math:
~9 min fight (I had to stop because of a lag spikes). The old "RoF on CD" rotation. Incinerate spam, just few Felflames. And here I'm trying my best to use set bonus procs for bolts and immolates, Black Blood trinket proc, line up Purifide Bindings with dark soul and trying to save few embers for dark soul.

47 Chaos Bolts
479 RoF ticks = 60 RoF casts
According to what Zumzumzum said, 479 RoF ticks = 119,75 ember bits = 12 embers = 12 Chaos Bolts
RoF has the same cast time as Felflame.
If I throw out RoF and cast FF intead of it I'd get (60 casts) x (1emberbit per cast) x (1+ crit chance) ember bits.
Let's say I have 20% crit. That would be 60*1,2=72 bits = 7 Chaos Bolts
As you can see, in a 10 minute fight RoF gave me 12-7=5 additional Chaos Bolts. It wold be 3 Chaos Bolts for 5 min fight. (And a lot of unbuffed Chaos Bolts.)
And I can say that it was 10 minutes of HELL. Always low on mana AND embers trying to squezze some dps out of procs. (Same dps as brainless FF spam, by the way)
I don't want to write the rest of my math because it's too obscure and probably wrong.
RoF in this example is responsible for 4% additional damage(additional chaos bolts + difference in RoF and Felflame DPET).
But I'm sure I can do better always having 2+ embers and almost full mana bar. For example spend 2 Chaos Bolts instead of 1 Chaos Bolt on Black Blood of Y'Shaarj proc(probably lined up with 15% crit buff). I don't even want to talk about boss mechanics and that you should always have 1-2 embers in stock.
Seriously, that RoF rotation feels clunky even for Patchwerk-style fight.


By the way. I've been doing some tests and suddenly realized that destro has 1 second GKD. The more you know lol.
Sorry for poor english.

[Hexotic]

Eh... source?

Thats why Im asking here, I couldn't find anything about it anywhere, but ive heard about this from 5 semi credible people.