Doomguard Demo scaling nerfed (who didnt see this coming)

[Skeeter]

Maybe they buffed felguard? Compensate for doomguard nerfs and makes the tree use its spec defining ability.

[Xanda]

Probably they'll buff demonic knowledge, that's my guess :P

[Ant Man]

"In 4.3, we have fixed the bug that caused the Doomguard to benefit too much from mastery. We have buffed Demonology warlocks to compensate. Also note that we have not yet completed our balance adjustments for 4.3 so what you've seen in the patch notes are mostly of a mechanical nature.

That said, we think balance is in a good place overall, so anyone expecting huge pendulum swings will probably be disappointed."

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3279042469

Hmm I wonder what they will do to compensate.

[Deleted]

Hmm I wonder what they will do to compensate.

knowing warlock history I bet they will buff master demonologist ! /ironie

I'm wondering too - hope the changes arrive soon

[helheim]

Probably they'll buff demonic knowledge, that's my guess :P

perhaps. seems like a decent place to start.

Been testing on the PTR, and my doomguard appears to be hitting between 39 and 48% less on average than live. It's most noticeable with chalice procced and necromantic focus at full stacks, which suggests it's the mastery scaling and not the base damage?

Anyone have any ideas?

the op suggests a hefty nerf to doomguards dps, though i'd like to see some numbers to confirm this. also curious to know what effect mastery procs have on the doomguard compared to the way it's is currently on live realms. likewise how doomguard dps is running aff/destro. perhaps those 2 specs will see lower dps from this nerf also.

[Jahrastafari]

the op suggests a hefty nerf to doomguards dps, though i'd like to see some numbers to confirm this.

Doomguard's scaling per-point-of-mastery is going from 6% down to 2%. That alone will be enough to change stat weights for Demonology BiS to haste>mastery>crit. Plan accordingly.

---------- Post added 2011-10-03 at 04:32 PM ----------

likewise how doomguard dps is running aff/destro. perhaps those 2 specs will see lower dps from this nerf also.

It won't be anywhere near the nerf for them. They're not directly nerfing the Doomguard, but rather it's damage as it scales with mastery. Affliction and Destruction weren't stacking mastery in the first place, so the impact on them will be quite minimal. Conversely, with the anticiapted change, Demonology Warlocks won't be stacking mastery any longer either.

[xskarma]

This might then be the end of the Chalice being any good, and Demo no longer stacking Mastery would mean I'd mostly be able to use my gear without reforging.

Boring, but can't be helped I guess. Part of me hopes that they have buffed mastery for Demo so we still need to have it as our highest priority, keeps things interesting

[Harsesis]

If those are the new stat weights I'm fine since I bounce back and forth between afflic and demo depending on the situation. Because of that I went a stack haste with giving up as little mastery as possible. It's not minmax but it does pretty well. This reforging scheme should work out well then.

[helheim]

Maybe they buffed felguard? Compensate for doomguard nerfs and makes the tree use its spec defining ability.

unless legion strike hits as hard against a single target as shadow bite does, i don't see felguard being relegated to anything other than aoe/pet swap duty.

[Mavett]

Probably they'll buff demonic knowledge, that's my guess :P

^very likely.

[Hellfury]

That said, we think balance is in a good place overall, so anyone expecting huge pendulum swings will probably be disappointed.

AKA: mechanic wise they wont change nothing at all.

[Jahrastafari]

This might then be the end of the Chalice being any good

Doubtful, 1700 mastery for 36 seconds, every two minutes, will still be the strongest trinket out there, thanks to the Metamorphosis snapshot.

[xskarma]

Doubtful, 1700 mastery for 36 seconds, every two minutes, will still be the strongest trinket out there, thanks to the Metamorphosis snapshot.

True, I'm no math wizard so I'll leave figuring out what trinkets to use to the pro's

Also depends largely on what they buffed to compensate Demo

So come onnnnnnnnn Boubie! Give us the exact things that were buffed in a nice newspost, getting antsy of waiting for info this PTR cycle, Ghostcrawlers second piece isn't out yet either =/

[OOMM]

Doomguard's scaling per-point-of-mastery is going from 6% down to 2%. That alone will be enough to change stat weights for Demonology BiS to haste>mastery>crit.

Mastery should still be quite valuable though. Simulating without even using the Doomguard in BIS t12 and my gear only puts haste ahead of mastery by ~.06 dps per point. I don't know what the other changes are yet though. And complete reforges may give haste a higher advantage.

[clavarnway]

True, I'm no math wizard so I'll leave figuring out what trinkets to use to the pro's

Also depends largely on what they buffed to compensate Demo

So come onnnnnnnnn Boubie! Give us the exact things that were buffed in a nice newspost, getting antsy of waiting for info this PTR cycle, Ghostcrawlers second piece isn't out yet either =/

The blue's haven't posted what they buffed yet, because they haven't buffed us yet. They said that most of the changes to skills in the current PTR are just fixes, they haven't done any balance passes yet. That is when they should look at how to compensate us.

[Gobuchul]

It won't be anywhere near the nerf for them. They're not directly nerfing the Doomguard, but rather it's damage as it scales with mastery. Affliction and Destruction weren't stacking mastery in the first place, so the impact on them will be quite minimal.

You're talking as if the doomguard scales with affliction or destruction mastery at all, which it obviously doesn't. So if all they're doing is fixing the mastery scaling bug, the impact on the other two specs will not be "minimal", it will be *zero*.

[clavarnway]

The amount of damage lost is proportional the the amount of mastery you have..

For Demonology Warlocks.

[IdTheDemon]

Buffing Felguard does not compensate for the Doomguard fix. It just fixes the problem of pet swapping.

[avengingbt]

The likely buffs are

1) Incinerate buff
2) Soul Fire buff
3) Felguard buff (If they feel that pet swapping is bad)

Those would buff demo and destro without touching aff.

[Jessicka]

Doubtful, 1700 mastery for 36 seconds, every two minutes, will still be the strongest trinket out there, thanks to the Metamorphosis snapshot.

You assume this hasn't/wont be fixed; it is afterall not entirely intuitive and seems to be a very, very common problem for players who don't keep right up to date in reading up on the class. Furthermore, if they fixed Doomguard scaling, maybe they also fixed that snapshotting to work in the same way as regular pets?

---------- Post added 2011-10-03 at 11:31 PM ----------

The likely buffs are

1) Incinerate buff
2) Soul Fire buff
3) Felguard buff (If they feel that pet swapping is bad)

Those would buff demo and destro without touching aff.

I'm guessing/hoping the first two; it'll be nice to see MC procced Incinerates, Soul Fires and Shadow Bolts actually doing varying degrees of damage. Unlikely we'll see a Felguard buff due to PvP; but I do wonder how they intend to 'fix' pet swapping, if at all.