Latest Beta Build Discussion

[Ragnarokex]

New Soulburn Seed of Corruption and Empowered Imp.

omg rainbows

[Eduardomsc]

seed of corruption shouldn't need a talent to allow soulburn to work with it, that's stupid. I LOVED the soulburn effect, though.

Empowered Imp is awesome. hope they don't change it back on the next builds.

[allforone]

Eh the effect is interesting, and gives us an interesting option for fights.
Do we just go seed spam like now, or do we just use CoE w/ jinx and soulburn seed, then use haunt and Sbolt to keep them all up.
Also would allow for some very nasty AoE grinding.

Very nice too that siphon life is now accessible to all specs. Looks like the soloing demo builds aren't dead after all.
In the same vein, I am hoping that the change to siphon life is indicative of increasing the number of possible builds so that each main spec might well be able to use either of the other two specs for their last ten points.
For Affliction that would mean a 2nd spec along the lines of the current build of aff+demo soloing build, which largely uses drain life over sbolt as filler.

[Omedon]

Two things I noticed right away:

no more mandatory fear/howl talents (to get to haunt, I mean)

the possible beginning of the death of shadowbolt spam (gone from everlasting, embrace has no duration)

anyone else seeing the "stack mastery, use drains, sbolt once every 30 seconds" strat fourthcoming?

Depending on the definition of "competitive" (as in "drain life will do more competitive damage") we could be seeing a new "interim spam" spell in DL.

I approve.

---------- Post added 2010-07-30 at 04:45 AM ----------

Eh the effect is interesting, and gives us an interesting option for fights.
Do we just go seed spam like now, or do we just use CoE w/ jinx and soulburn seed, then use haunt and Sbolt to keep them all up..

You mean haunt and drains. Sbolt is gone from EA.

[Antvg]

So, today we see a huge affliction buff.
Now we have more of execute phase and...
SoulBurn: SoC!
Of course more mana from life tap and..
SoulBurn: SoC!
And of course i can't forget to mention..
SoulBurn: SoC!

I can't even count the amount of situations where could this baby rock. Like huge trash fights(e.g. deathwishper room) or pvp ownage (alterac general room) or gold gringing...*sweet*

[adynn]

Two things I noticed right away:

no more mandatory fear/howl talents (to get to haunt, I mean)

the possible beginning of the death of shadowbolt spam (gone from everlasting, embrace has no duration)

anyone else seeing the "stack mastery, use drains, sbolt once every 30 seconds" strat fourthcoming?

Depending on the definition of "competitive" (as in "drain life will do more competitive damage") we could be seeing a new "interim spam" spell in DL.

I think you're a little too eager to get rid of sbolt as a filler in pve. Having a channeled filler is a terrible idea, go look at spriest's forums once in a while (heck, I think there was a blue post about it today, although GC didn't comment on most of the issues).

[Lifesbane]

I just don't see it lasting unfortunately. There is going to be soooo much bg QQ about it. (SOC that is) As for SB not refreshing corruption don't think it should have any negative effect, minus the fact that I occasionally use a Nightfall proc to keep a corrupt up on an add.

EDIT: Also Nightfall seems a bit weak with the way talents are now. 4% corruption (since we dont drain life pve) chance for an instant small amount of damage. Imo the percentage needs to go up (not a whole lot), add drain soul to it (maybe boost our execute a little more), and or just add a component that the SB proc always crits or does X damage more.

[Lifesbane]

Nah Haste now increases tick speed, not reduces duration, thank god

[bahumut5]

I finally have a reason to go back to Destro Raiding again.
I love those proc --> attack stuff ^^

Also like it when ridiculous high numbers pop-up

[Simca]

Nah Haste now increases tick speed, not reduces duration, thank god

We have a winner. SB not refreshing Corruption is pointless now that Corruption has a static duration. It doesn't matter now since Haunt will always be up and ready to refresh it.

[Lifesbane]

I finally have a reason to go back to Destro Raiding again.
I love those proc --> attack stuff ^^

Also like it when ridiculous high numbers pop-up

Affliction all the way!! been that way since SM ruin

[mistuhbull]

Nah Haste now increases tick speed, not reduces duration, thank god

must have missed that memo, now my post looks foolish and uniformed

[sugarfree]

It seems that Sbolt is now out of the Affliction's rotation, which personally I think is good. I know warlocks are divided on this issue. But it's kinda nice to see a spec who doesnt use shadwbolt as a filler (destro uses the fire version of sbolt).

But I guess we have to wait for next builds to see the modifiers for drain life. This seems to be unsupported for now in the tree.

I also think we would be seeing some changes on Shadow Embrace. With the removal of Shadowbolt, I'm praying this talent will have a complete overhaul. Or just have it stack on the warlock. It's not that hard. Also, kinda confused with mmo-champ's description on it at the front. It indicates "no longer has a cooldown". I'd assume it's a typo.

---------- Post added 2010-07-30 at 08:14 AM ----------

EDIT: Also Nightfall seems a bit weak with the way talents are now. 4% corruption (since we dont drain life pve)

Don't conclude on this yet. Drain Life might be the filler for affliction and not sbolt anymore.

OMG COEX IS NOW 50%!!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!!
Sorry for the caps.

[Lifesbane]

Don't conclude on this yet. Drain Life might be the filler for affliction and not sbolt anymore.

I highly, highly doubt that. That would make it so warlocks and shadow priests have nearly the exact same rotation. Plus from what I read on these and other forums, 90% of warlocks are opposed to that solution. A Drain as a filler is a terrible mechanic susceptible to lag, and would increase the difficulty of an already difficult rotation, by making us have to watch ticks.

[sugarfree]

This current build already slightly suggests that. EA's removal of Shadowbolt is questionable. GC already made an official statement that DL will do competitive damage, so it might turn out as a filler. But we are not sure of that, but it's a real possibility. It might become something like a proc or whatever. I dont know.

Yes it is susceptible to lag. But I also like the idea of having a filler that is not Shadowbolt. Yes it makes us more of a shadowpriest but I don't care. I want the tree to be flexible in both pvp and pve aspect of this game. I'm not following much of Spriest changes, but are they trying to make Mind Spike their filler? Not sure about when are they going to use this in a rotation. And as I've heard in beta, casting Mind Spike actually lowers DPS.

[Themessiah]

Essentially the rotation would be something like COE - SOC - Hellfire/RoF (while the dot placed on all ticks) and then back to SOC to refresh/recast that dot once it is almost done.

[Bradwarden]

I think it will be nice if a beta tester tell us things about warlock beta.

1) With new soul leech i think destro warlocks never have to use life tap to gain mana (Calculating with live stats, 2,6k mana per 12 sec + replenish).

2) What are the imp's new skills and how destro lock gives %5 spell haste to raid.

[Lifesbane]

This current build already slightly suggests that. EA's removal of Shadowbolt is questionable. GC already made an official statement that DL will do competitive damage, so it might turn out as a filler. But we are not sure of that, but it's a real possibility. It might become something like a proc or whatever. I dont know.

Yes it is susceptible to lag. But I also like the idea of having a filler that is not Shadowbolt. Yes it makes us more of a shadowpriest but I don't care. I want the tree to be flexible in both pvp and pve aspect of this game. I'm not following much of Spriest changes, but are they trying to make Mind Spike their filler? Not sure about when are they going to use this in a rotation. And as I've heard in beta, casting Mind Spike actually lowers DPS.

I really really hope your wrong. Depending on mob health in 5 mans, this will just make affliction worse. At least right now on normal trash i can just spam some shadowbolts.

[sugarfree]

Essentially the rotation would be something like COE - SOC - Hellfire/RoF (while the dot placed on all ticks) and then back to SOC to refresh/recast that dot once it is almost done.

Hellfire and RoF will not be part of AOE rotations for affliction I think. I still dont know how they can pull this off with corruption and soc being mutually exclusive, casting ur next soc will pretty much reset the corruption on the mobs affected with corruption. So correct me if I'm wrong but I think the purpose of corruption is to tick while warlocks are casting another soc. Since the shard regen suggests you can spam this.

If they'd make soc and corruption be castable on the same target, then warlocks will be godly in aoe. Since dots don't clip, soc detonation will just reset the durations. Lol, but this is not going to happen.

---------- Post added 2010-07-30 at 09:10 AM ----------

I really really hope your wrong. Depending on mob health in 5 mans, this will just make affliction worse. At least right now on normal trash i can just spam some shadowbolts.

Which part? GC already confirmed Drain Life will do competitive damage in the next builds. :\ So that might be inevitable. And I think they are trying to improve aoe more so u use soulburn: soc. Target switching is another issue and completely out of the fact that affliction in general sucks at it and their attempt for soul swap is still iffy at best.

[Themessiah]

Hellfire and RoF will not be part of AOE rotations for affliction I think. I still dont know how they can pull this off with corruption and soc being mutually exclusive, casting ur next soc will pretty much reset the corruption on the mobs affected with corruption. So correct me if I'm wrong but I think the purpose of corruption is to tick while warlocks are casting another soc. Since the shard regen suggests you can spam this.

Since dots don't clip, soc detonation will just reset the durations.

I think you may be right on reflection. I had totally missed from my equation that the dots do not clip but reset and also the implication from the instant shard regen. One of the problems however is whether the corruptions caused by SOC will be giving you that health from Siphon Life - because if so, then killing a lock in a battleground might prove a touch difficult.