ISF: 8% damage boost instead of 15% spell haste.

[Moonlapse]

Seems like a really good opportunity for Blizzard to buff Felpuppy's usefulness. Increase the damage caused/increased by it enough to counteract the ISF change. Kills two birds with one stone.

[Infernix]

All three speccs were hit hard by the infamous 12% damage nerf just before Cata came out. This nerf was tied to the ISF haste that all three speccs were using.

This fact is fresh in the minds of the dev and players alike. It's highly unlikely, to the point of hilarity, that they would remove this haste buff from 2 speccs without offering them a chance to get that same 8% damage buff in one form or another.

I'm guessing a haste buff connected to Felhunter, and a damage buff to Felguard. This accomplishes two things at once. It compensates for the loss of damage from ISF haste, and it returns Felhunter to Aff, and Felguard to Demo, as their proper PVE pets, instead of those two speccs using a glyphed LoP Succy.

[Jahrastafari]

All three speccs were hit hard by the infamous 12% damage nerf just before Cata came out. This nerf was tied to the ISF haste that all three speccs were using.

This fact is fresh in the minds of the dev and players alike. It's highly unlikely, to the point of hilarity, that they would remove this haste buff from 2 speccs without offering them a chance to get that same 8% damage buff in one form or another.

I'm guessing a haste buff connected to Felhunter, and a damage buff to Felguard. This accomplishes two things at once. It compensates for the loss of damage from ISF haste, and it returns Felhunter to Aff, and Felguard to Demo, as their proper PVE pets, instead of those two speccs using a glyphed LoP Succy.

You're going to have to buff my Felguard's dps by 300%+ to compensate for me losing 25% (4.0.3a + 4.0.6) off of every damaging ability.

[Moonlapse]

You're going to have to buff my Felguard's dps by 300%+ to compensate for me losing 25% (4.0.3a + 4.0.6) off of every damaging ability.

Yeah, a direct buff to pet damage is unlikely imo, especially for Felguard (who already does solid damage in PvP). I think it's more likely to see a buff to any sort of damage bonuses that the pet gives the warlock.

[Infernix]

You're going to have to buff my Felguard's dps by 300%+ to compensate for me losing 25% (4.0.3a + 4.0.6) off of every damaging ability.

They nerfed us 12% to compensate for the ISF haste. With that gone, you'll be getting that back in one form or another. I'd 'guess' and sa ythat Felguard will get buffings, but do keep in mind that the dev have set expectations as to where they want average DPS to be for this tier level. Their expectations may not be what we expect.

So. Be prepared to be disappointed.

[Jahrastafari]

They nerfed us 12% to compensate for the ISF haste. With that gone, you'll be getting that back in one form or another. I'd 'guess' and sa ythat Felguard will get buffings, but do keep in mind that the dev have set expectations as to where they want average DPS to be for this tier level. Their expectations may not be what we expect.

So. Be prepared to be disappointed.

Getting those Destruction power auras ready now. It's dummy time when I get home to put some polish on my Destruction play. I know deep down that Affliction and Demonology are just going to have eat the 15% dps loss until they 'gather data' and it's fixed in 4.1.x. I'm going to assume we're not getting anything back until they say otherwise.

[Infernix]

Getting those Destruction power auras ready now. It's dummy time when I get home to put some polish on my Destruction play. I know deep down that Affliction and Demonology are just going to have eat the 15% dps loss until they 'gather data' and it's fixed in 4.1.x. I'm going to assume we're not getting anything back until they say otherwise.

I'm sorry, it just sounds like you're expecting the worst without any real evidence to back it up. I'll wait for the ptr patch notes to be posted before I worry too much about it.

If there's nothing there to compensate for the loss of DPS from ISF haste, then yeah, every competitive Demo and Aff lock will be swapping to Destro. And with good reason. But until I see that Blizz dev are window-licking retarded, I'm not going to assume that they are.

[Jahrastafari]

If there's nothing there to compensate for the loss of DPS from ISF haste, then yeah, every competitive Demo and Aff lock will be swapping to Destro. And with good reason. But until I see that Blizz dev are window-licking retarded, I'm not going to assume that they are.

And I'm going to assume they're "window-licking retarded" until I see otherwise. The whole ISF thing was "window-licking retarded" in the first place. Ill conceived talent that shoe-horned the entire class into cookie cutter specs, forced a horrible mechanic on every spec, haste-capped the class in the first tier of this xpac's gear and necessitated a 12% across-the-board reduction in all damaging abilities? Like I said, this has been "window-licking retarded" since the talent's inception. I don't expect that to change, and the patch notes so far don't indicate that it will change.

You're counting on the guys that thought ISF was a great idea in the first place to do right this time. I'm assuming they're going to bollocks it up.

[cinnamons]

Numbers are done, nerf is fairly even across the board.

Pre Nerf


^ Via of Zakalwe on EJ

[Infernix]

And I'm going to assume they're "window-licking retarded" until I see otherwise. The whole ISF thing was "window-licking retarded" in the first place. Ill conceived talent that shoe-horned the entire class into cookie cutter specs, forced a horrible mechanic on every class and necessitated a 12% across-the-board reduction in all damaging abilities? Like I said, this has been "window-licking retarded" since the talent's inception. I don't expect that to change, and the patch notes so far don't indicate that it will change.

I guess this is just a perception issue. Where you see nothing that shows that they both acknowledge their mistake with ISF and are looking to fix it, I see several things.

Just from the bit that we see now, I see...

1) They acknowledge that 15% is too much and we're getting soft capped at the FIRST tier of gear. Too good, too soon.

2) They're acknowledging that 15% haste is too much, but they're not yanking it entirely, but rather replacing it with 8% damage boost, but making it unreachable by the other two speccs.

3) This last fact indicates that they doing so deliberately, not to punish Demo and Aff, but to keep it out of reach so that these two speccs cannot get both 'it' and the incoming buffs that will likely also be in Tier 3 or lower.

4) Over all, realizing that they'd forced Aff and Demo into a single cookie-cutter post-70 talent build into Destro for ISF, they're making changes to allow us to do what they promised: Have more wiggle room for those last 10 points for player fun.

So, I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree. You don't see much reason to have faith in the dev. I see plenty of evidence that they're not going to throw aff and demo under the bus just yet.

Do understand, if they do, I'm quite comfortable with respeccing to Destro for PVE as well as PVP. So, either way, I'm good.

[Deleted]

I'm one of those Warlocks that enjoyed ISF as it was. It felt rewarding to maintain and reaped the benefit of playing well. What this leaves us with is a whole slew of balancing issues when it would have been much simpler for Blizzard to leave ISF as it was but move it out of reach of Aff and Demo then give Aff and Demo a comparable (or even identical) effect which is refreshed by Haunt and HoG. They could have called the generic buff for all 3 specs "Fel Alacrity" and be done with it.

Cosmetically, I'd like to see a purple (like shadowflame) or green soulfire while I'm dreaming. :P

[Amnesia101]

Are the changes to ISF even in the PTR yet?

Either way, half the patch notes have yet to be published and it's reasonable enough to assume that compensation to Affliction/Demo or even Destro will be made in lieu of ISF changes. If not on the first pass of PTR then on the second pass.
Despite common conception here, Blizzard aren't a bunch of stupid people and it's beyond clear that a 15% Haste removal is a big nerf and will be addressed.
I say patience before people cry doom.

[Jahrastafari]

Numbers are done, nerf is fairly even across the board.

Pre Nerf


^ Via of Zakalwe on EJ

I'm sorry, but removing 15% haste from Demonology is more than a 3% dps loss. They sim'd those numbers out poorly.

[Mourning]

Probably worth waiting for this evening's notes before deciding whether or not this is too dire a measure.

[Nicola]

gonna be fun to see how every demo and affliction lock respecs destro.
I don't see blizz giving a good compensate for this nerf.

[Anoregon]

As a demo lock bringing 10% spellpower buff to my 10man, I've already grown totally used to keeping ISF up. I have mixed feelings about it's removal, since I was never that bothered by it in the first place but can see the benefit of not being locked into speccing for and casting it. The above EJ sims make me doubtful that any compensation will be given for Aff and Demo, but if they did I would like to see Blizzard take this chance to hit two birds with one stone and tweak our relatively weak masteries.

I know that's pretty much a pie-in-the-sky dream, but who knows. Demo has at least one technically worthwhile but rather lackluster talent (Ancient Grimoire, I'm looking at you) that could have another function tacked onto it, something that buffs Felguard and/or us in a way that would increase the value of mastery. Affliction needs a similar Felhunter boost, as the poor pup isn't even used these days, but a mastery fix for that spec is as easy as increasing the gains from mastery, as the current design meshes well with the spec. With the removal of ISF from both specs, there is no better time than now to get the ball rolling on these issues.

[gherkin]

A lot of people forgot (myself included) that hard casting soulfire every 15 seconds was a dps loss offset by the gain. It appears simcraft treats this as 800 dps for Destruction and 1100-1500 for Affliciton/demonology. This is much less than what I was guessing.

[Staberinde]

Wow, a flat 15% nerf for Demonology and Affliction, with no compensation. Get ready to see every single warlock in the game rolling as Destruction.

Well it's not exactly a flat 15% dmg nerf given that you had to lose some DPS from your normal rotation in order to hard cast Soulfire every so often. Also bear in mind those 4 extra talent points will go elsewhere so you may gain some dps boost or utility elsewhere.

As it stands on the EJ forums warlock simulator they are calculating roughly a 6% loss for affliction, 3.7% dps loss for demonology and a 2.7% loss for Destruction in 359 bis gear with affliction still being the top DPS by about 2.5% more than Demo or Destruction (The latter 2 being almost identical in DPS).

[gherkin]

Well, demonology loses 15% haste but gains ~2 gcds every 15 seconds from not hard casting soul fire (which is a lot), and gains 3/3 ISF and potentially Improved Corruption. Hell, with multiple molten core procs during the ISF refresh gone, you potentially have more MC's to utilize as well.

The more I think about it, the more it seems Demonology had the least to lose.

[Zathrendar]

Good change. So long as affli and demo are compensated, and it can be refreshed before expiry, it's great.