Is impSB worth it?

[wyrmeater]

I figure if I'm going deep destro the only time I'll use it is after I conflag and then I just dont take advantage of the buff.

[Varithorn1]

ISB isn't worth it for destruction, since destro is oriented around fire now.

[DawnNoMoreRises]

ISB isn't worth it for destruction, since destro is oriented around fire now.

this

ISB is only "usefull" if you go Affliction/Demonology to have the debuff up whilst refreshing dots and even then it's argueable.

[Phage0070]

I don't really think it will be useful for most builds. Right now in live realms it is very useful even for an affliction build because it increases the damage taken from shadow DoTs. (It does not matter when the DoT was applied like Laviathan suggests, ticks inside the duration will be increased.) Unfortunately the new patch will introduce a modification not immediately obvious from the talent tooltip: The shadow damage increase only applies to non-periodic sources of shadow damage.

For an affliction warlock this basically means shadow bolt and haunt, and since destro builds will be using fire the only good use I can see for it is a demonology build. That build will probably take advantage of large periods of shadow bolt spam with ruin.

[DawnNoMoreRises]

Phage0070; you're right about the ticks.
Although for me if I'm lucky enough to have 1 increased tick on Corruption I'm lucky ;D
(situational, as a Destro lock I hardly use it)

[Twistedsight]

I don't really think it will be useful for most builds. Right now in live realms it is very useful even for an affliction build because it increases the damage taken from shadow DoTs. (It does not matter when the DoT was applied like Laviathan suggests, ticks inside the duration will be increased.) Unfortunately the new patch will introduce a modification not immediately obvious from the talent tooltip: The shadow damage increase only applies to non-periodic sources of shadow damage.

For an affliction warlock this basically means shadow bolt and haunt, and since destro builds will be using fire the only good use I can see for it is a demonology build. That build will probably take advantage of large periods of shadow bolt spam with ruin.

/agreed, for those who can't play a warlock except for SB spam. Demo will be the way to go, Send Pet, CoD, SB spam = Dead mob

[Kathedral]

In response to Twistedsight, getting the most out of Demo will be a bit more complicated than "Send pet, CoD, SB spam". Any Demo lock who does that in a raid will be sitting under Afflic locks in the meters :P

Agreed, the only build that is gonna use SB as their primary direct damage spell is Demo. But maximizing synergy with your pet and fitting cooldowns like Metamorphosis and Demonic Empowerment in will be breaking up the SB spam.

The old "Curse+SB spam" as 21/40 was so mind numbingly boring to me that I started felguard raiding, and with new talents like Demonic Pact, having a Demo build with Ruin in it might let me stack crit and have good damage through keeping buffs up. Especially if my crits give me multiple buffs, and my pet's crits give a raid-wide buff.

I played Affliction for most of my 1-70, and it does reward good playing (refreshing DoTs at the right moments). I hope that Demo ends up being as good on the meters if you play it right (keeping your pet alive and doing damage while maintaining your own).

If I am right in guessing the intentions of the developers, they want all 3 trees to be viable, so that your choice of spec is more personal, as opposed to "I'm skilled enough to play this" or "This one always does the most damage" or even "This one is easy". 21/40 just ended up being both of the latter before, so I hope that's what they want to avoid.

TLDR: Only get ISB if you're Demo.

[Jashin]

Is impSB worth it?

no

/thread

[Ninthelora]

they should make impIncin :P ... + moltencore yawr!

[Dhamon]

kathedral -

Ive been trying to come up with a good dps spec, both for level 70 raiding and level 80 raiding. I was trying to go demo for metamorphosis at first, but I was confused about some things. Which demon would you have out dpsing? Obviously, it makes more sense if you are shadowbolting to have the Succubus out, but I have a feeling the felguard would output more dps (especially with demonic empowerment). What are your thoughts on that. Also, I was wondering if anyone could let me know if I am doing anything drastically wrong with these two builds, one would be demo dps, the other destro. The destro build would not be utilizing a pet.

Demo w/felguard:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...20501135211351

Destro:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...00000000000000

Is there anything glaringly wrong with those specs? Ive been toying around with a lot of stuff lately, and not able to test on beta, so I feel a little in the dark.

[DawnNoMoreRises]

Dhamon... no Nether Protection :X

[dave55man]

With the nerf to 10% on crit, and it know no longer affecting DoT's I'd say ImpSB is pretty much useless for affliction now. The only thing it's good for is Demo.

[ascote]

It's still better than conflagration anyway.

[Kathedral]

Dhamon- Your Demo spec is really close to what I will be running at 80. The demon you use is the Felguard, and you try to max out how often you crit, and how often he crits to get the most out of all of your talents that apply buffs or debuffs (Imp SB, Demonic Empathy, Demonic Pact) I will be trying out:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...20501135211351

It's a little different than yours, I made sure to get all 3 points in Imp. Demonic Tactics for the extra crit... we'll see if that's worth it.

I got 2/2 Master Summoner because when you do screw up and the Felguard dies in a boss fight, being able get another one in reasonable time/mana if you've blown Fel Domination already makes a difference.

I haven't really messed around with using Spellstones for the extra crit, so how much mileage you get out of 2/2 Master Conjurer I am unsure of.

Your build does get the last 2 points in Cataclysm that mine lacks... but I was hit capped for all spells at 70, and I probably will be able to get there again at 80, making that talent only 1/2 as good. I certainly might swap out 2 of the Demo points in there until I can get capped through gear again though.

Now that Soul Link has had the +dmg component removed, the Succy even less viable as a raid pet you definitely want the Fel! Your 41 point talent is tree defining

I have less Destro experience, but from what I have heard saccing will be against the new nature of the tree, instead you want an Imp out firebolting, with Improved Imp and Empowered Imp. I haven't messed around with the new Destro talents, so I'm not sure how big of a role SB and Corruption are in it, or how people use shadow damage to get Molten Core up.

...Which leads back in to the main topic; Does SB have a big enough role in Afflic or Destro specs to make 5 points in Imp. SB worthwhile? When people say flat out NO, I want to ask, is that because of how much it costs versus the benefits? Or because SB in general has a diminished place? Another thing to remember is that other 'locks won't be eating your charges now, how will that factor in?

[Dhamon]

Laviathan: Where could I alter points to pick up nether prot? It seems like most the other talents are HIGHLY useful for dps. I could drop IMP Corruption to get it I suppose. I could also thin some points out of Demonology and lose the IMP Armors in order to get the Imp's dps talents.

Kathedral - Unless I am incorrect, the build you linked is the exact same as the build I linked. Does that just mean that I had a better understanding of demonology raid dps than I thought?

I will go ahead and be honest, I play my warlock as a serious alt, and have taken time and thought to gear it out the best I can, and want to continue that in WoTLK. So thank you for all the input already

[wearelegion83]

from what i saw on the ptr ISB was a buff on yourself that said increases your shadow damage by 10 percent UNTIL 4 non periodic sources of damage are dealt. however i didnt see it increase any of my dots but i might have missed it

[Kathedral]

Ugh... my bad Dhamon, I linked your build back to you. I had both open and was comparing when I posted.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=IZ0tIzsgoVzsguAoE0oV

That's mine. I hope my comments clarify the differences. I like your build alot, I think the differences might be up to individual taste, but if anyone else can test and improve I'll bet we'll see it by the time we are hitting 80.

I do hope that the damage is competitive, I like that build for questing, farming, instances. <3 that Felly Being a little mini Illy D every now and then pwns too!

[Dhamon]

Yes, I definately can sort of see the differences between the two specs. I was finally able to play around around on the PTR, and came up with a few conclusions of my own (at least for level 70 playing). Without ISB (in order to get Catacylsm first, to test how haste works out with my gear set)

1) Master Conjuror - buffs spellstone from 40 haste to 52 haste at level 70. This seems like a good deal to me. It never hurts to have a conjurable, significant (~3% I believe) haste buff imo.

2) Mana Feed - seems like this will be important for demonology RAIDING. Just letting my felguard solo level 70-71 mobs in Skettis was draining his mana pretty steadily, with only cleave and the AP buff on auto-cast. It appears to me at least 1 point in this talent will be very helpful to sustain your pet's dps, over Demonic Resilience because...

3) Demonic Empathy only procs off of your pets special ABILITY crits. Meaning the felguard has to crit on cleave to proc this ability. I didnt do the math but a 3% increase in my felguards damage for a few swings seemed pretty negligent, and it RARELY procced when soloing due to the necessity of it proccing off of cleave only. This ties into (2) because the more mana the FG has, the more often he can spam cleave.

This lead me to believe that perhaps, at first in my build, demonic empathy would not be worth taking over maxing Improved Demonic Tactics. Once I could acquire more +Hit gear naturally, I could swap the points from Catacylsm over to it. My revised build based on these facts would look something like:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...22500135231051

This style of DPS looks really fun to me. Even without IMP SB, Ruin, or COE I was posting some 3k shadowbolt crits when all of the procs aligned.

My last comment would be towards Demonic Res. It seems not too necessary, as Fel Synergy was pretty much keeping my demon topped off. I have a feeling that if there are fights where Fel Synergy isnt enough alone, then you should probably be saccing the demon, and getting what marginal dps gain you can out of that anyways.

[Kathedral]

I agree that the extra point in Mana Feed is a good choice, the 1 point in Demonic Resilience was just filler to get further up the tree... so good to see that gone.

I still prefer to get the Master Summoner maxed out and maybe just keep 1 point in Master Conjuror, the lower mana cost/higher speed for summoning really helps coming back from wipes quickly in raids. I just don't think 12 haste rating is worth 2 talent points, and I wouldn't even spend 1 point in it if I could avoid it

How good Demonic Empathy is remains to be seen; It procs off of YOUR spell crits for your pet as well as their specials. If the whole build has you stacking crit anyway, it might scale better than you think.

[erinthea]

Yes, I definately can sort of see the differences between the two specs. I was finally able to play around around on the PTR, and came up with a few conclusions of my own (at least for level 70 playing). Without ISB (in order to get Catacylsm first, to test how haste works out with my gear set)

1) Master Conjuror - buffs spellstone from 40 haste to 52 haste at level 70. This seems like a good deal to me. It never hurts to have a conjurable, significant (~3% I believe) haste buff imo.

2) Mana Feed - seems like this will be important for demonology RAIDING. Just letting my felguard solo level 70-71 mobs in Skettis was draining his mana pretty steadily, with only cleave and the AP buff on auto-cast. It appears to me at least 1 point in this talent will be very helpful to sustain your pet's dps, over Demonic Resilience because...

3) Demonic Empathy only procs off of your pets special ABILITY crits. Meaning the felguard has to crit on cleave to proc this ability. I didnt do the math but a 3% increase in my felguards damage for a few swings seemed pretty negligent, and it RARELY procced when soloing due to the necessity of it proccing off of cleave only. This ties into (2) because the more mana the FG has, the more often he can spam cleave.

This lead me to believe that perhaps, at first in my build, demonic empathy would not be worth taking over maxing Improved Demonic Tactics. Once I could acquire more +Hit gear naturally, I could swap the points from Catacylsm over to it. My revised build based on these facts would look something like:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...22500135231051

This style of DPS looks really fun to me. Even without IMP SB, Ruin, or COE I was posting some 3k shadowbolt crits when all of the procs aligned.

My last comment would be towards Demonic Res. It seems not too necessary, as Fel Synergy was pretty much keeping my demon topped off. I have a feeling that if there are fights where Fel Synergy isnt enough alone, then you should probably be saccing the demon, and getting what marginal dps gain you can out of that anyways.

1 master conjuror is still a horrible talent point spend 2 talentpoints for less then 1% haste benefit over the stones without the talents

2.mana feed is for sure a must have for a fel guard raiding lock

3. I post 4K+ shadowbolt crits as affliction without needing all the stars to be aligned...this is in addition to having corruption ticking for 1.3k (With crits for 1.5kish) Ua ticking for 1K CoA doing 7k over its duration siphon life doing 6-7k over its duration(can't wait for siphon life glyph)

I know that you are set on Demon build raiding but from everything I have seen and read on beta the dps provided by a demon lock is incredibly low compared to either a afflic or destro lock.

I think that once an affliction lock gets ruin and gets his SB crits up in the 9-10k region along with the dot ticks being massive and the drainsoul buff 4x damage at 25% (9k drainsoul ticks) I can see where affliction will be the highest caster dps as shown by the spreadsheet on eletist jerks like 5300 dps about 300 dps above any other caster build.