So...how many of you are looking forward to ISF at 85?

[Greyarea]

Pretty much the title says it all. As every spec will need to spec it (Improved Soul fire, 15% haste for 15 seconds, 15 sec ICD when a soulfire hits a target, T2 destro talent) to be competitive or be max spec DPS.

Who is looking forward to weaving them into your demo rotation or aff rotation? How's about them destro rotation weavings in?

Personally I shudder at it and hope the talent goes to T3 destro so others cannot get to it but meh.

Thoughts and opinions?

[Runc]

I can't wait. Really looking forward to it as Demo, and expect it to make things a lot more interesting.

[cinnamons]

Its singlehandedly making me not wanna go affliction or demonology.

[Falconys]

Myself, I'd like to see it go to the third tier and the specs be reballanced to account for that. Since I really doubt thats going to happen though I'll be joining the thousands of other shadow slingers in tossing this fireball out evern 12-15 seconds.

Probably the most annoying part is that my dot timer "LockDots" only tracks damage over time effects, not debuffs, so I'll be hunting for a replacement soon. Unfortunately, it's a very nice addon for the task but thats simply not currently within its realm.

Yeah, just what I needed, one more annoying thing to keep track of with one hand while the other is on my vent key so I can yell at the noobtards who think fire is pretty.

[Velocet]

Myself, I'd like to see it go to the third tier and the specs be reballanced to account for that. Since I really doubt thats going to happen though I'll be joining the thousands of other shadow slingers in tossing this fireball out evern 12-15 seconds.

Probably the most annoying part is that my dot timer "LockDots" only tracks damage over time effects, not debuffs, so I'll be hunting for a replacement soon. Unfortunately, it's a very nice addon for the task but thats simply not currently within its realm.

Yeah, just what I needed, one more annoying thing to keep track of with one hand while the other is on my vent key so I can yell at the noobtards who think fire is pretty.

ISF is a buff, not a debuff. Try PowerAuras.

[cinnamons]

Myself, I'd like to see it go to the third tier and the specs be reballanced to account for that. Since I really doubt thats going to happen though I'll be joining the thousands of other shadow slingers in tossing this fireball out evern 12-15 seconds.

Probably the most annoying part is that my dot timer "LockDots" only tracks damage over time effects, not debuffs, so I'll be hunting for a replacement soon. Unfortunately, it's a very nice addon for the task but thats simply not currently within its realm.

Yeah, just what I needed, one more annoying thing to keep track of with one hand while the other is on my vent key so I can yell at the noobtards who think fire is pretty.

At the moment i'm keeping my regular dot bars (elv's tukui setup) and i'm using powerauras to keep a animation on when its up, and a cool-down timer in the middle of my screen. (If you are used to tracking dot bars, Its a good solution for a new buff for me)
There was this addon out before 4.0 called lifetapper, where it would beep at you, and fill your chatscreen if you didn't have glyphed lifetap buff up, i'm hoping to find something like that even though it annoyed the hell out of me.

[Dostus]

I'd agree with OP. It's shouldn't be reacheable for other specs, in my opinion.

[Jessicka]

I don't mind it for Demonology if it's only worth it from a Soul Burned SF, and during Decimation; but the idea of hard casting for either Demonology or Affliction just to maintain the buff makes me sad.

[andromalia]

For affliction this also increases the ramp up time even more as we will have to open with a soul fire cast, or Soul Burn + Soul Fire combo before you start the affliction Haunt + SEx3 ramp up. Ideally you will be able to start to pre-cast Soul Fire, but in cases where you can't do that the ramp up time which is already bad is increased by another 3 seconds (before haste). Using a Soul Burn + Soul Fire to open isn't always a good idea as it would be smarter to save the Shards for when you need to refresh ISF while on the run via Soul Burn.

This point is invalid. I can "prepot" Soul Burn and harvest the shard right back before the fight begins. I have 15 seconds to get the shard back and pop my potion. Complicated yes, wastes shard no.

Personally I hope it moves up 1-2 tiers.

[cinnamons]

Have you thought about trying Filger? Its much lighter weight than Power Auras and accomplishes the same sort of thing (without aruas, just icons and bars). Here is a link to Filger skinned for Tukui:
http://www.tukui.org/v2/forums/topic.php?id=3687

If you want to know what it looks like (the way I have it setup):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTLrAA9dPL4


DK

Thanks I'll check it out!

[Falconys]

Totally opinion here, so ignore me if you hate this.
I see every class/spec as having cousins in other class/specs. Not siblings because there are variations and nuances, but family all the same.
To my eye, Affliction's cousin is the Shadow Priest, Demonology's cousin is the Beast Mastery Hunter, and Destructions cousin is the Fire Mage.
I have yet to see a Shadow Priest use a fire spell, and do you think a Hunter would appreciate having a 3 second cast timer on his stings??

Besides, one of Blizzards goals with Cata is to make mana regulation a priority for healers (probably everybody). Warlocks have this awesome little spell called life tap that converts a small amout of our healers mana (if any, fight depending) into a chunck of our mana. However, Destruction gets to proc Replenishment for themselves and Demonology gets Mana Feed... a wonderful second tier talent that Affliction is locked out of by the necessary points in Destruction to maximize ISF. So not only is Affliction mishandled in it's natural design, but it's also getting jibbed on continuity of effectiveness due to mana issues. Can't wait to be the "long fight" spec that cant handle a long fight without other people boosting me along. Fel Intelligence (92 mp5) is a boon but irrelevant because other classes grant the same benefit to our Destro and Demo siblings.

I agree with Deathkoil although I haven't done any research due to us being stuck until it changes. It's bad, but not as bad as not using it probably will end up being.

[Iraedey]

ISF and ISF alone makes me not want to play my lock. If the talent was annoying enough, they added a pointless 15 second ISD to make it even more frustrating.

With everything I am watching I don't want to watch another buff that's tedious and flat out annoying as hell to reapply. Why not make it so arcane mages have to hard cast a pyroblast to reset there arcane blast stacks. Why not make feral druids have to pop out of cat and cast a starfire every 15 seconds and every 15 seconds only to maintain 15% haste, why not? because It doesn't make sense and it wouldn't be fair. Same logic should apply to locks.

Also, someone mentioned bloodlust, we should we be penalized during bloodlust when the entire raid is getting 30% extra dps , and since we have an extremely lazy mechanic built into our spec basically determines our dps and doesnt stack with lust we only get 15% haste. This ALREADY shows a major scaling issue for cata and it didn't even come yet. Did we really get a 12% nerf on all our spells just to gain it back through a horribly designed mechanic like ISF? Who's idea was that, I'm speechless.

No one mentioned PI either (that i saw). In my 10 man we run a disc priest and I get PI'ed as I'm the highest dps caster. When you get PI'ed your ISD buff falls off and you cant get it for the duration. I enjoy getting 5% haste off another players buff while everyone else in the raid could get 20. I told my priest to give it to someone else. This blows. This talent is just bad, it adds too much haste for one talent, its annoying, its required for all 3 specs, it has scaling issues and it makes me angry. Does anyone else have as much hate for this talent as I do?

[Shadowviper]

I am not looking forward to it at all. I most likely will be going back to affliction when cataclysm comes around *really not liking how easy it is at the moment may just stay Demonology even though I loved old Affliction* and I don't like that I must use Soulfire in order to have a competitive chance in a raiding setting. If I remember correctly ISF doesn't get overridden or stacks with Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp/Ancient Hysteria correct? So while the rest of the raid gets the 30% haste increase we are stuck with our 15% unless it is coordinated ahead of time. Bad enough our spells got a 12% nerf and now all warlock specs will need to go into Destro just to get the ISF? I really do not like that at all, but if it comes down to it, if I must use it then I will unhappily.

[Deleted]

ISF is one of the worst mechanics I ever encountered in a game. Espacially the 15sec cooldown sucks donkeyballs.

But let's look at it from another point of view: What's about pvp? Is there any other class that has to give up such an overpowered talent for their pvp-specc? 15% haste...that's really a lot of damage. And don't tell me you'll subspecc 10 points into destro as afflictionpvp. Hardcasting this awful spell in a pvp-environment... sounds like fun, eh?

ISF sucks. It just sucks. Nothing more, nothing less. I hate it. Take the 12% - nerf back and change this silly talent into something useful.

[nwo]

Definitely looking forward to it on my lock. Hoping that they keep it in 2nd tier and let the other specs enjoy it, at least for the first couple of tiers until everyone is op again.

[Gohzerlock]

It is really bad, I haven't even bothered reapplying it every 15secs.. maybe if soulfire hit for significantly more than 2 incins even as destro stacking mastery it doesn't. Maybe if it was 30sec uptime and stacked with BL... i'm with everyone else, I could do without this talent and would like my 12% back lol. Thats another thing this talent is garbage for pvp as well. Damn you blizz

[Aristeides]

I enjoy it now as Destruction and I anticipate enjoying it even more at 85 speccing Affliction. I've been disappointed in the gradual streamlining of the Affliction spec and the addition of ISF seems to have been a compromise on the designers' part to raise the skill ceiling a bit for Affliction/Demonology Warlocks.

Could it have been something more appropriate to Affliction's emphasis on DoTs? Sure. Is it a mandatory talent? Yes, for optimal DPS. I am treating it like a shorter duration Glyph of Lifetap buff bring Affliction back to parity with its pre 4.01 self.

[Jessicka]

I enjoy it now as Destruction and I anticipate enjoying it even more at 85 speccing Affliction. I've been disappointed in the gradual streamlining of the Affliction spec and the addition of ISF seems to have been a compromise on the designers' part to raise the skill ceiling a bit for Affliction/Demonology Warlocks.

Could it have been something more appropriate to Affliction's emphasis on DoTs? Sure. Is it a mandatory talent? Yes, for optimal DPS. I am treating it like a shorter duration Glyph of Lifetap buff bring Affliction back to parity with its pre 4.01 self.

I actually don't think it's intended to be as good as it is. As with the Searing Pain and Drain Life buffs they implemented on PTR/Beta to make those spells useful, it seems to me to be intended as a situational buff you proc off Soul Burn and Empowered Imp to make the talent more interesting than trying to awkwardly work around proccing off adds like Decimation as it was with the health restriction. As happened with PTR and Beta, DL and SP were discussed and horrendously abused and yet it wasn't until they went live that Blizz realised they'd fucked it up. I see the same happening here.

[Meejum]

In addition it brings affliction very close to the GCD haste cap when procs are up without having to stack haste on gear. Eradication is 20% haste, ISF is 15% haste, raid buffs give 5% haste.... so we get roughly 45% haste (haste stacks multiplicatively) which is close to the 50% haste GCD cap. This will lead to scaling issues at higher tiers.


DK

This is the most shocking aspect of it, to me. It's not going to be fun to deal with this at 85.
Edit: Add in the 15% buff from Felguard demon soul, and demo will be sneaking up on the threshold also.

I empathize with the people who will shelve their warlocks if this talent stays as it is, as I will probably not want to raid with this clunky mechanic and just pvp on the side.

[Joedivision]

Looking forward to the buff and not the spell itself is an odd odd thing... as an aff lock anyways. Anywho, at least its not as cheesy as rolling corruption but I do see it getting changed eventually.

Maybe if it had a shadow counterpart or some sort of dot component I would like it but thats never going to happen.