Warlock patch 5.4 discussion

[Chrispotter]

Soo soul link + UR gylph + Harvest life + Drain life spam seems pretty interested... would like to be able to use this in p3 lei shen atm to see if I actualyl would need any healing at all . Seems pretty strong.

[Deleted]

Soo soul link + UR gylph + Harvest life + Drain life spam seems pretty interested... would like to be able to use this in p3 lei shen atm to see if I actualyl would need any healing at all . Seems pretty strong.

Probably not but seen as your job there is doing damage primarily that seems a bit counter productive, at the point you can drain tank content you probably overgear it and arent worried about the dps check.

[FurtyIRL]

I'm not sure if dropping Soul Link will ever be worth it. 20% reduction passively is quite amazing, and the 3% of DPS as self-heal is nothing to forget either. I agree though that passive UR looks quite good as well.

Stacking both passives would be amazing IMO for most fights:
Immerseus only threat is when many blobs explode further into the fight. Passives seems best, UR will definitely be too long cd, Sac Pact might be good.
Protectors has quite a bit of sustained damage, as well as the big pulse the priest does often. Passives seem best.
Norushen is changed a lot in the current journal compared to testing. You have to purify people now, read it here if you want. Raid damage will almost certainly happen more often than every 3m, maybe Sac Pact could be nice though.
Sha of Pride also very consistent damage, can't imagine both passives not being the best choice.
Iron Juggernaut could favor any option, I think it's 3 minutes between Seismic Activity. Passive reduction is still nice for the mines as well, but you might need an active for the siege mode.
Shamans is a fight where I think actives will shine. The only time you are in danger is if you are getting hit by 2 or more our of Toxic Mist, Iron Prison, and Foul Stream. Maybe even take both actives, because beside those skills the raid damage is quite low.
Nazgrim was very strange on heroic testing, never using Warsong. Really depends on the timers of that if you want any active for it. Bonecracker reducing your health could favor Sac Pact, your pet health does not get reduced so you will still get the same size shield. Percentage reduction on the other hand is less useful with less health.
Malkorok for me involved soaking a large amount of Imploding Energy (like any warlock should), making passive reduction really good. They are far too often for the actives.
Thok interrupts you so hard that UR will be invaluable. Not only is it reducing the worst part of raid damage, but making you immune to interrupts while he is casting Deafening Screech so fast you can't even get a Haunt in should be amazing.
Siegecrafter is not that clear to me. Actives could be nice for Magnet, but I'm not sure how often you will get those.
Paragons is just all over the place. I don't think there is anything damaging enough to need an active, so passives are probably best.
Garrosh is a fight where I could see Sac Pact excel, I think the Whirling Corruption is the only thing you need to reduce really. Maybe even UR on top.

Seems exactly like intended, heavily depending on the encounter which combination you take. Anything from both passives to both actives could be best in a certain scenario. So IMO it's a very nice glyph to add.

Agree more or less. Obviously there might be some encounter nuances that encourage the occasional foray out of the talent, but for now it looks like Soul Link remains the go-to.

[pokeadott]

Soo soul link + UR gylph + Harvest life + Drain life spam seems pretty interested... would like to be able to use this in p3 lei shen atm to see if I actualyl would need any healing at all . Seems pretty strong.

Yeah, starting to think this might be an interesting combo for certain bosses. Not every period of heavy raid dmg comes with a dps check, and glyphed drain spam + SL 3% dps heal + 30% DR sounds pretty great for some things. It's not like DL spam means we do zero damage, it cuts it but it's not like it zeroes us out. 30% DR and crazy self heal spam sounds pretty damn valuable at times.

[Deleted]

it will certainly be an insane survival tool for spikey dmg on bosses especially when they are forcing us to use pets anyways for progression.

[Xorn]

Random damage mechanics such as Frostbite might dictate having an active CD, but beyond that I feel as though passive reduction might be the way to go, but possibly not at the cost of a glyph slot.

[xskarma]

but possibly not at the cost of a glyph slot.

Which Glyphs would you value higher, or more mandatory? I can probably see Healthstone being better value, but the rest is pretty debatable

[Chrispotter]

Probably not but seen as your job there is doing damage primarily that seems a bit counter productive, at the point you can drain tank content you probably overgear it and arent worried about the dps check.

well everyone already out gears lei shen p3. As in, its killable without using lust, so dps isnt really gonna be the reason you are wiping, its just gonna be fuck ups that wipe you. Maybe if healers are having a hard time due to too many fuck ups, you can help them by effectively keeping yourself topped at full HP all through out p3.

[Deleted]

Ye ofc Chris, i more meant that i dont feel that combo would be that useful when content actually matters =) but ye ofc for that situation you could do that.

[Cebel]

Brace yourselves boys, nerfs inc.

This quote is taken from ghostcrawlers twitter:

@Alisrafil1 - We're fine with Shadow DPS. It's where it should be if you're not comparing yourself to mage and lock, which are too high.

[xskarma]

Brace yourselves boys, nerfs inc.

This quote is taken from ghostcrawlers twitter:

@Alisrafil1 - We're fine with Shadow DPS. It's where it should be if you're not comparing yourself to mage and lock, which are too high.

Source: https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...62609158144002

For those interested in the actual tweet & convo.


OT: Yeah, was pretty much waiting for balance changes anyway, so not a surprise. I just hope they balance us a.s.a.p. so we have enough time to test the consequences and see what specs we'll be best able to use in SoO.

[Deleted]

Well here is my thoughts on that.

- Destruciton, if you nerf this anymore you may aswell remove it, no burst anyway so that cant be an issue, fuck all haste scaling without Rof, 2 of the trinkets dont even take the full benefit of having a pet (kadris and amp). This spec will never suck on AOE, but ye it could probably get brung in line a little if they are willing to actually buff up its single target

- Demo, if you kill UVLS for this spec its not to high at all, that trinket severely amplifies the amount of damage demo will do. Multiple crit dooms are 100% retarded, if that remains possible doom needs a target limit to keep the potential damage inline

-Affi, If blizzard do as they say and neuter opener damage i dont think that leaves affi as strong as what people think, being forced into MF for any aoe damage at all really hurts there single target.

Bring on the balance changes, i wanna see what happens with mages.

[login]

i really can't remember the classes being so trinket dependant. has it always been like that or has it gotten more like that during this expansion?

[Deleted]

i really can't remember the classes being so trinket dependant. has it always been like that or has it gotten more like that during this expansion?

The trinkets have far to strong an impact on damage now, partially because of how high numbers are and as numbers get bigger the variance of damage in small windows of power gets a lot bigger, if the item squish removed even this one problem id want it right now lol

[Deleted]

For affliction, I think the MF is not a big deal, there seem to be only 2 fights to take it on (Sha of Pride and Galakras) and even then it's just an option, those adds are not that dangerous that you need to stack the whole raid for AoE damage output.

While RPPM changes do mess with our opener way more badly than other specs, it's still going to be just one trinket affected. The trade-off is we get an amazing ICD trinket in Bindings, and even though everyone can get it, I think it favors affliction particularly.

Wouldn't mind if they nerfed it slightly to bring it in line, but I would bet my net worth they won't nerf mages at all or so slightly they will still be a clear number one. Also wouldn't be surprised if demo gets clipped as well as ''too high in 5.3 with UVLS, let's scale down the whole spec'' plus destruction getting no or far too little compensation for RoF in the name of ''we changed the spec, let's see what happens first''.

Then again, balance has been spectacular if you look at how close classes have been throughout all of Mists, so maybe I'm giving the devs too little credit

Or he could be giving him the DPS variation of the classic holy priest argument: ''We don't think holy regen is too low, but disc is too high. Ergo no changes to anything.''

[Deleted]

I think it favors affliction particularly

What is your thought process behind that, i would have thought with it being possible to go under the GCD at like 9k haste and affi running next to no crit it would easily be the worst for them, especially if you consider that the crit bonus during times of increased damage is a huge factor.

[Deleted]

What is your thought process behind that, i would have thought with it being possible to go under the GCD at like 9k haste and affi running next to no crit it would easily be the worst for them, especially if you consider that the crit bonus during times of increased damage is a huge factor.

i think he is refering to the fact that afflic get a lot more out of the haste and mastery part than the other specs, and while not having much crit(i have 22% raidbuffed which i think is a lot) afflic's attack frequency is very very high, so while each spell wont crit very often, we will still get a lot more "dmg events" that could possibly crit through ticks and channels that we will still crit fairly often, benefiting from the critdmg as well.

[Nerraw]

i really can't remember the classes being so trinket dependant. has it always been like that or has it gotten more like that during this expansion?

Demo was really damn dependant on MWC in Cataclysm, so it's not a completely new thing.

[Deleted]

What is your thought process behind that, i would have thought with it being possible to go under the GCD at like 9k haste and affi running next to no crit it would easily be the worst for them, especially if you consider that the crit bonus during times of increased damage is a huge factor.

I mean that because it's a huge intellect proc on an ICD that is believed to be 105s, we can line up every DS with it with AD. I think that benefits affliction more, because we can have overcharged dots from that for a huge part of the fight.

As for the passive, it's true the crit is not great, but in the end we all get the same amount of secondary stats for it (provided we all go for hit cap). It allows affliction to go lower on haste and still hit the breakpoints we need, giving us an insane amount of mastery. With damage being shifted to dots quite a bit, mastery is a very powerful stat for us. It is already tied with haste in 5.3 and the shift to dot damage (not only directly, but mainly from haunt changes) makes mastery even better. For that reason I think the passive is more valuable to affliction than our other specs, but can't be sure without simulating of course.

[Deleted]

Moar changes, please stop it!
Seriously, this feels like a minor overhaul