Shadow Embrace mechanic

[karadominair]

Does anyone else think the mechanic for this is pretty fail? Not just coming from a lock who raids current end game content, but also from leveling a lock recently as well. It requires a destro talent as well as haunt which is the last affliction talent to apply this debuff and to stack it accordingly. Most leveling locks can get shadow embrace well before haunt. Usually into the 40-50 level range. At that time, shadow bolt is nearly a 3 second cast. They do not even have haunt yet. As a raiding lock, using direct damage spells seems silly as well has not being able to have the extra dmg on an off target is rather disappointing as well unless you fire some bolts but then thats dps loss on your primary target. Would def be useful on fights like rags to get more dot dmg in on adds as affliction as well as any fight requiring to dot multiple adds to get the most from your dots. I understand that shadow embrace is probably designed to just stack on the target your mainly focusing on and that the 15% more might in some situations be overkill (alysrazor). However, when there is adds to nuke quickly, aff locks simply fail and dots just dont cut it. My solution to all this should be that periodic damage spells should apply this effect and have it stack to 3 like normal on dot tick. Could even have just one dot apply the stack like corruption or UA so it would stack just as fast as a shadow bolt/haunt would. Might be 1 second faster but that is not game changing. The 15% more periodic dmg we get from this would make sense if dots actually applied the extra affliction debuff. Not direct damage spells. Just would seem more logical to me. Would also help those affliction locks leveling as well getting more from their talents they spend their early points in without having to hard cast 3 second shadow bolts. Life drain works well even at the lower levels for dungeons, pvp and questing alike. I would hope they seriously consider this change. I really do not see this effecting pvp too much due to resilience pounding dot dmg to the ground anyhow. I really do not see this as OP as most classes have mechanics that work within their own talent trees and proc off things that they should normally proc off. Direct damage to increase dot damage just seems odd. Especially using a destro skill to apply an affliction effect. Destro does not rely on corruption ticks to get extra incinerate, immolate, chaos bolt, conflag, soulfire, or any other type of damage increase. Demonology actually has mechanics that make sense for affliction talents and destro talents to increase demonology damage that play within itself very fluid. I am not qq'ing, but just see that dot dmg to apply an affliction effect that increases dot dmg makes more sense to me. Before, hybrid classes might of tried to exploit this to get more periodic dmg, but with the new talent system, that is impossible to do now. I would say that having UA and corruoption to apply this effect would be ideal and better all around for those leveling as well as raiding and pvp'ing alike.

[Deleted]

Out of that tight wall of text, i do agree affliction needs some makeup for being able to do any decent damage on changing targets in fights / adds!

[Inshabel]

I'd love for it to be a selfbuff, but then you wouldn't be able to cast dots till you had 3 stacks, still that would be a smapp price to pay.

[saosin]

The reason it's a debuff in the first place and not a buff is cuz they don't want to make multi dotting too strong. If they were to make it a buff they could aswell just buff all dots with 15% across the board instead since you practiclly would have it at 3 stacks 98% of the time..

[Keilith]

Since its not wrath anymore and dots up date per tick with debuffs and buffs I dont really see the problem with it. Like it was said already it just isnt usefull if your multi dotting.

The one thing I can agree with you on is its down right dumb as a leveling talent only usefull at end game and then only on bosses. Trash wont live long enough to build up stacks.

[Inshabel]

Since its not wrath anymore and dots up date per tick with debuffs and buffs I dont really see the problem with it. Like it was said already it just isnt usefull if your multi dotting.

The one thing I can agree with you on is its down right dumb as a leveling talent only usefull at end game and then only on bosses. Trash wont live long enough to build up stacks.

Dots don't update per tick for buffs on you.

[Harsesis]

I think what needs to be done is a way to get all 3 stacks at once. Perhaps Soul Burn: Haunt or something similar.

[Abandon]

Since its not wrath anymore and dots up date per tick with debuffs and buffs I dont really see the problem with it.

edit: Correction, DoTs update each tick with debuffs on the target, but not with buffs on you, which require refreshing or recasting.

[nocturnus]

I think what needs to be done is a way to get all 3 stacks at once. Perhaps Soul Burn: Haunt or something similar.

That would be a decent fix. OR just remove SE and buff our dots across the board. Why are we forced with this ridiculous ramp-up time? Shadow Priests don't have this problem. Their dots do A. more damage and B. require no debuffs whatsoever. Their version of Haunt (mind blast) hits harder and doesn't have travel time. Their multi-dotting is amazing and they have the best (non cooldown dependant) AOE in game. Doesn't seem very balanced to me.

That doesn't happen. DoT spells update when they are automatically refreshed by a skill, or re-cast.

You're misinformed. Dots do update on the fly in most scenarios.

DoTs update on a per tick basis on debuffs. They only check for buffs when cast or refreshed.

This is also incorrect. You can easily test this by putting your dots on a dummy. When eradication procs the amount of ticks per dot is updated without having to refresh/recast them.

[Harsesis]

DoTs update on a per tick basis on debuffs. They only check for buffs when cast or refreshed.

[Abandon]

You're misinformed. Dots do update on the fly in most scenarios.

Sorry, you're right, I was thinking of buffs, not debuffs. Edited my original response to be correct.

[nocturnus]

Sorry, you're right, I was thinking of buffs, not debuffs.

The confusion about this subject is pretty logical. In theory dots should update on-the-fly for every buff or debuff available. Unfortunately Blizzard hasn't managed yet to make this work as intended. Haste procs, for example, update on the fly. Other procs don't... It's a real mess.

[Abandon]

The confusion about this subject is pretty logical. In theory dots should update on-the-fly for every buff or debuff available. Unfortunately Blizzard hasn't managed yet to make this work as intended. Haste procs, for example, update on the fly. Other procs don't... It's a real mess.

Heh, I even went and checked the Affliction sticky to make sure I wasn't just getting it backwards, unfortunately I don't raid much on my alt Warlock so I messed up. On the plus side, woo for new knowledge

[critterkiller]

Not to be rude in anyway but why dont you Tab + Seed of Corruption? i mean dosnt that work?

I am not lock as main, but i thought that locks took the Soulburn: SoC for raiding?

Without looking at the sticky that is

[Nerraw]

Not to be rude in anyway but why dont you Tab + Seed of Corruption? i mean dosnt that work?

I am not lock as main, but i thought that locks took the Soulburn: SoC for raiding?

Without looking at the sticky that is

That only spreads Corruption, not Shadow Embrace.

[Lillah]

Not to be rude in anyway but why dont you Tab + Seed of Corruption? i mean dosnt that work?

I am not lock as main, but i thought that locks took the Soulburn: SoC for raiding?

Without looking at the sticky that is

Dont understand the question...?

But yes, warlocks usually pick up that talent.

---------- Post added 2011-09-12 at 04:20 PM ----------

The reason it's a debuff in the first place and not a buff is cuz they don't want to make multi dotting too strong. If they were to make it a buff they could aswell just buff all dots with 15% across the board instead since you practiclly would have it at 3 stacks 98% of the time..

I'd say this would make sense if boomkins didn't have the multidotting power they had, and if spriests didn't have shadow weaving removed during cata beta, despite the 3403493049 threads warlocks made asking for the same treatment on an even worse mechanic. (shadow embrace)
With that said, at least spriests are somewhat limited by the fact that they will go OOM if they try to multidot a million targets. (I think!)

[Jessicka]

Out of that tight wall of text, i do agree affliction needs some makeup for being able to do any decent damage on changing targets in fights / adds!

Something like Soul Swap then?

[Nicola]

The problem you get if you change the way shadow embrace works is that multidotting will get out of control.
If you no longer have to build up shadow embrace stacks per target you can just spam your dots on every single target instead of the normal 2-3 targets we can manage right now.

[nocturnus]

The problem you get if you change the way shadow embrace works is that multidotting will get out of control.
If you no longer have to build up shadow embrace stacks per target you can just spam your dots on every single target instead of the normal 2-3 targets we can manage right now.

Shadow Priest can. Why shouldn't we? Haunt is only castable on one target which balanced the fact that DP can only be casted on one target in SP's case. On top of that, SP's have a much more potent and user-friendly AOE. Removing SE is perfectly fine imo.

[Nicola]

Shadow Priest can. Why shouldn't we? Haunt is only castable on one target which balanced the fact that DP can only be casted on one target in SP's case. On top of that, SP's have a much more potent and user-friendly AOE. Removing SE is perfectly fine imo.

You realise that shadowpriests got their dot damage nerfed and their direct damage buffed to limit the multidotting.
If we get shadow embrace as a buff, our dps on 2-3 targets remains the same but once you get more targets, you'll see huge dps increases.