Cataclysm - Build 12479 - Warlock

[theiceman]

hi, iam playing currently on the ptr and have a premade warlock.

i wanted to play him a bit since i got non on the live servers, but i have no glue how to spec and what the rotation looks like.
i wanted to quest in hyjal and deepholm if that does matter and would be happy about any suggestions about the spec / rota.

[sugarfree]

Shadowflame
Targets in a cone in front of the caster take 668.14 to 731.1 Shadow damage and feared in horror while taking an additional 487.9 Fire damage over 6 sec.
25% of base mana, Instant cast, 25 sec cooldown

So is this Death Coil on a 25 sec timer? o.O

Too good to be true? Although if they are going to nerf this, wouldn't mind giving it reduced duration, like 3 sec. But the horror effect is something I want to stay. Fear is on DRs and quite unreliable at the beginning when cooldowns are up. So it's about time we get one more peel that is not on a 2 min cooldown.

[Ravemstr]

I'll give it a week of "OMG! You can't give warlocks another Fear! Are you mad?" and then it will share DR with Fear...
Plus Death Coil has a 30yd range. This doesn't! It's just something to peel melee off you!

[sugarfree]

Lol yea, I'm just preparing it. Yeah, I dont mind the range, it's still a cone, but we desperately need some more tools to peel melee off of us and this is a good start.

But yea, expect the QQ and then it will be reverted to just 70% slow and remove the glyph or none at all.

[Curiousness]

So who else thinks PVE Affliction is dead? In order to move past the 4th tier, you need to take 2 useless talents (unless you consider Siphon Life to be useful, which I don't now that it doesn't increase your damage any).

On top of that, you need to spend 32 points in Affliction to get all the damage talents (which could and hopefully will be changed to 31, removing the previously mentioned useless point), although looking at what's left, you wonder whether that extra point is worth it.

Assuming you go 32 Afflic, that means you'll have to put 8 in Destro (assuming we'll be casting Immolate again along with UA, although they might've left off the "UA or Immo but not both" part of UA's spell text), which leaves you with one talent point to toss into Dark Arts.

If you compare a Destro or Meta build to Affliction, almost no talent points are wasted and everything fits quite nicely together (Destro is a bit shaky on the last couple points before the final tier, but they're still useful in PVE situations, just not in increasing your damage). If they're trying to make Affliction be a PVP tree, I'm fine with that. Just sucks that locks will be forced into the stand-and-cast role again.

[Lyrix1]

I agree, speccing into affliction forces you to spec into useless talents just to go further down the tree sucks.

[HalcyonicPlague]

Yeah, I'm not digging the affliction spec. I dropped affliction in live for destro for PvE already, but after looking at the talent calculators it just blows because of the fact that they force you to take pvp skills so I likely won't leave destro for it. The affliction spec is going to need a lot of retooling in order to be more viable for PvE.

I've never really done demonology spec as a Warlock but the talent tree for that in Cata looks... fine I guess. I do not see much wrong with it, but that could just be my overall ignorance when it comes to the tree to begin with.

Destro looks good. I'll likely stay a destro lock because it definitely seems the most complete and still focused tree.

I think my overall issue is that at times it is VERY hard to go up the tree without going back to other tiers and picking up talents that you likely left behind for a reason. It is -really- frustrating.

[dexmark]

I am playing with the Talent Beta Calculator for the Demo Tree build. I do not agree that in order for you to unlock the tier 6 talents you will need to spend the points on Nemesis. I play the Demo in the current Wrath game and I do not see the need for Nemesis. I need my 2 points to go somewhere else like Improve Immolate or Improve Corruption.

That is wasted 2 points that could have been put somewhere to help my dpsing.

Here is the buld I was dealing with:

Demo build:

Level 1 = 8 points total (Max out all talents)
Level 2 = 3 points (Soul link + Demonic Aegis)
Level 3 = 4 points (Impending Doom + Demonic Empowerment)
Level 4 = 6 points (Max out all talents)
Level 5 = 5 points (Max out all talents = Here is the wasted 2 points on Nemesis to unlock Tier 6).

My comment is that I do not need to waste 2 points on Nemesis. There should be another talent instead of Nemesis UNLESS There is a Glyph that will make Nemesis do some other thing instead of a cooldown.

I will like to suggest to make Nemesis help the cast time of some of the other spells too at the bare minimum.

Some people will argue that in Metamorphis you have cool demon abilities yeah but the cool down sucks on that even with Nemesis. I need the dps to come from my main rotation that has Shadowbolt, Corruption, Immolate and Soulfire in play.

I argue that that 2 points is a waste for Demo tree. Unless the Demon = Metamorphosis talents was changed in Catalysym to make me really want that help in cool down. To me being in demon form is just a plus but not a requirement. I need that 2 points to help me in my main rotation and not just a plus.

What do you guys think?

[sugarfree]

Things we'll be seeing in the next build:

-- Improved Drain Soul and Dark Pact have been cut / redesigned.
-- Aftermath is a 100% chance to proc with 2 points. That is just a tooltip error.
-- Soul Fire’s base cast time is reduced to 4 sec, and Emberstorm takes it down to 3 sec.
-- Demonic Aegis back to 15/30%.
-- Drain Life will do more competitive damage.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...eNo=3&sid=1#41

[Curiousness]

I am playing with the Talent Beta Calculator for the Demo Tree build. I do not agree that in order for you to unlock the tier 6 talents you will need to spend the points on Nemesis. I play the Demo in the current Wrath game and I do not see the need for Nemesis. I need my 2 points to go somewhere else like Improve Immolate or Improve Corruption.

That is wasted 2 points that could have been put somewhere to help my dpsing.

Here is the buld I was dealing with:

Demo build:

Level 1 = 8 points total (Max out all talents)
Level 2 = 3 points (Soul link + Demonic Aegis)
Level 3 = 4 points (Impending Doom + Demonic Empowerment)
Level 4 = 6 points (Max out all talents)
Level 5 = 5 points (Max out all talents = Here is the wasted 2 points on Nemesis to unlock Tier 6).

My comment is that I do not need to waste 2 points on Nemesis. There should be another talent instead of Nemesis UNLESS There is a Glyph that will make Nemesis do some other thing instead of a cooldown.

I will like to suggest to make Nemesis help the cast time of some of the other spells too at the bare minimum.

Some people will argue that in Metamorphis you have cool demon abilities yeah but the cool down sucks on that even with Nemesis. I need the dps to come from my main rotation that has Shadowbolt, Corruption, Immolate and Soulfire in play.

I argue that that 2 points is a waste for Demo tree. Unless the Demon = Metamorphosis talents was changed in Catalysym to make me really want that help in cool down. To me being in demon form is just a plus but not a requirement. I need that 2 points to help me in my main rotation and not just a plus.

What do you guys think?

I think either you don't play Demon on live or you don't fully recognize the value of Nemesis.

Putting Demonic Empowerment on a 42 second cooldown means it's got a 36% uptime as opposed to 25%. And if you seriously don't see the value in cutting almost an entire minute off of Metamorphasis' cooldown, then you greatly underestimate how important that 20% buff is.

Assuming there are going to be a few dps races slipped in amongst the longer Lich King-type fights (like Festergut, for instance) and assuming you DON'T have Nemesis, you have one of two options:

1) Either pop Meta with Hero/Bloodlust at the start of a fight, meaning you don't get to use it for Soul Fire spam
-or-
2) Simply save it until the boss drops below 35% and pop it then.

If you DID have Nemesis, there would be only one option (unless you're thick):

1) Pop Meta with Bloodlust at the start, wait 2 minutes for the cooldown to come up, then pop Meta again to finish off the boss.

Also, you're talking about wasting talent points when you're speccing into Demonic Embrace and Soul Link? I'd love to hear your justification as to how more stamina and reduced damage taken improves your dps.

[Evillocksp]

The cooldown reduce on demonic empower and meta is amazing. I've been playing demo for a long time and having demonic empower up with icy talons in raid is amazing. I'm not liking how some demo locks are talking about taking the haste buff from soulfire talent in destro tree. 20% to immolate thru the whole fight is alot better than some haste at the beginning of the fight. Demo locks in cata will be using demon soul for their haste. Demon soul at the beginning of the fight then pop meta right after with immolation aura and haste potion will be epic burst for demo.