Patch 5.2 Warlock discussion

[Surutcra]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/2...-bonus-issues/
"The Affliction Warlock 4T15 bonus increases the damage of Malefic Grasp itself, and the extra ticks triggered by it. Same with Drain Soul."

Thanks, corrected !

[Teye]

Just tossing it out there, the T15 4 set will change the Demonology APL. Soulfire will no longer be used in Meta other than Decimation phase.

[Deleted]

Great post ponqueur. I rarely say this in this forum, but this one really deserves it. Let me try to add onto this and provide some rough estimates for the actual DPS gains:

2PC - Affliction : ~0.7 additional shards / 2 min ~~ 2 000 DPS
Assuming you are currently saving your shards for DS and have 100% Haunt uptime while DS is active anyway, you will "only" gain one Haunt outside of DS every 2:51 minutes. Calculating the damage value is rather complicated (because it varies depending on the buffs you currently have, the buffs you had when you applied the DoTs currently on the target and wether or not you can channel for the full 8 seconds of that Haunt), but here is my napkin math: Haunt itself does about 130 000 damage (132715 on average), lets say you get 5 ticks of every DoT (should be more in reality) and 8 ticks of MG (again, should be more) then you get: ((25130 + 21164 + 22602) * 5 + (18594 + 15686 + 16767 + 15273) * 8) * 0.25 + 130 000 = 348760 damage per additional Soul Shard. Note that I took average values for all the relevant information (DoT-Ticks, Haunthits, MG-Ticks) and a lower bound for the number of ticks of all the DoTs/MG you can fit in, so this basically gives us a lower bound.

2PC - Destruction : ~0.8 additional embers / 2 min ~~ 2 400 DPS
This one is far easier to calculate, just take the average damage of Chaosbolt (530 489) substract 1.5 times the average damage of Incinerate (114283, because we are not casting 1.5 Incinerates but instead 1 CB) and divide it by the number of seconds it takes us to get another full Ember ((1/0.8) * 120). Note that this probably overestimates the damage of that CB (because most CBs are cast with DS and this additional one probably is not).

2PC - Demonology : ~208 additional demonic fury / 2 min ~~ 1200 DPS
Assuming we only trade Shadow Bolts for Touch of Chaos, this again is easy to calculate: We get 5.2 additional ToCs at the cost of 3.12 Shadowbolts every 2 minutes, which gains us 145 267.2 damage or about 1200 DPS.


4PC - Affliction : ~2.54% DPS increase ~~3 000 DPS
This does factor in the nerf to GoSac, so it is lower than people probably expected. It is basically 130 000 * 0.975 (the nerf) * 1.025 (the bonus). Note that this is not 130 000, but slightly below. In reality, because we will be doing more DPS when getting the bonus, this will be a higher DPS gain.

4PC - Destruction : ~0.56 additional embers / 2 min ~~ 1 500 DPS
Using the same calculation as above.

4PC - Demonology : ~42 additional demonic fury / 2 min ~~ 250 DPS
That is 1.05 ToCs at the cost of 0.63 Shadowbolts every 2 minutes, which gains us 29 332 damage or 250 DPS. This does not factor in the possible change in APL (only using SF outside of Meta, as mentioned by Teye (allthough I was under the impression that this already was the current model? Have not played Demonology since Spirit Kings progression so I might be wrong on this).


Comments :
Funny enough, the Destruction 2 pc bonus is actually quite decent, would have never guessed it. Demonology needs some attention and having 4pc boni that are weaker than the 2pc ones just feels wrong. Anyway, feel free to comment on my numbers, they are nothing but very rough estimates.

[Deleted]

So Sir flipper, if I understand

Aff 2p : You'd better cast all the additionnal Haunt without casting MG, until you'll have at least one haunt at the end of DS. This bonus = More place for 130 K /Gcd

but instead of doing something else, so it won't be " a full gain like you've said for the demo part )



Dest 2p : More place maybe 2-3 " 600 K+ Cast " ( or 3-4 if crit inci / ShdB grants double with bonus ). Considering 4 full embers at the DS activation + time to build the " BONUS ".


Demo 2p : Your pov seems fine and this bonus is.... /rolleye. 5 possible additionnal gcd in meta so... instead of SB.


Aff 2p/4p can scale together.

Dest 2p/4p can scale together.

Demo 2p/4p Can Do Whatever The Fuck You Wanna Do... or not.

[Deleted]

I'm a little underwhelmed at the set bonuses for Demo - I guess they give us more flexibility in terms of fury management and a bit more meta uptime (arguably a very small amount) but I would have preferred something more akin to the affliction 4P like a +dmg bonus to ToC or even imps.

At this rate I'll probably grab the 2 set but not be too worried about the 4 until the aff lock/ret pala/disc priest that I raid with all grab theirs.

Just tossing it out there, the T15 4 set will change the Demonology APL. Soulfire will no longer be used in Meta other than Decimation phase.

Couldn't the 2set make it more appealing to cast soulfire in a dark soul buffed meta?

[Micke]

For funsies, could someonhe do the math for the t14 bonuses?

The lower cd DS just seems so much more useful.

[Purpleisbetter]

For affli are quite good, not the end of the world, but good. 3 Extra haunts under the effect of some op T15 trinkets can be huge. This kind of things should always to be kept in memory; considering that in fact Haunt is a minor DPS cooldown to be used when huge procs are rolling.

For demo, not that simple. I guess with much more haste there could be times where Imp Swarm + Pets + HoG could lead to "spam as much as u want, in the end u're building fury while meta'ing".

Not as strong as 4pct14 but let's say that, it was stupidly overwhelming.

[Jessicka]

Just tossing it out there, the T15 4 set will change the Demonology APL. Soulfire will no longer be used in Meta other than Decimation phase.

We do that anyway, in spite of what the simcraft APL says.

[Deleted]

Yep since the beginning of MoP ptr, nothing new here.

[Deleted]

So Sir flipper, if I understand

Aff 2p : You'd better cast all the additionnal Haunt without casting MG, until you'll have at least one haunt at the end of DS. This bonus = More place for 130 K /Gcd

but instead of doing something else, so it won't be " a full gain like you've said for the demo part )



Dest 2p : More place maybe 2-3 " 600 K+ Cast " ( or 3-4 if crit inci / ShdB grants double with bonus ). Considering 4 full embers at the DS activation + time to build the " BONUS ".


Demo 2p : Your pov seems fine and this bonus is.... /rolleye. 5 possible additionnal gcd in meta so... instead of SB.


Aff 2p/4p can scale together.

Dest 2p/4p can scale together.

Demo 2p/4p Can Do Whatever The Fuck You Wanna Do... or not.

Yes, I overestimated the Affliction 2p bonus by not substracting one lost MG tick. This drops the DPS value by about 300 to 1700. My bad.

I don't understand your point about the Destruction 2pc bonus.

And yes, I ignored the synergistic effects that the boni have with each other. Although for Destruction/Demonology they should only be adding to each other (you gain more Fury/Ember AND more Fury/Ember).

[Deleted]

For Destro 2P, point is the difference between spec. Aff and Demo can have a small dps increase but for destro, CB and ShdB are hitting like monster truck.

For destro both bonus can scale together, Demo is the lonely spec which can't have 4P effect + 2P.

And that's for single target....

2P with 2 or 6+ target ( + bloodlust )

Aff : Too much NF procs => possibility of wasted procs.

Destro : Pewpew orgy, not sure if it'll be possible to have 4 full embers at the end of DS with a lot of adds.

Demo : Uptime of meta increased. It could be very interesting in this case.

[Bonkura]

Interesting set bonus discussion. Really useful information.

UA dispel hit a Spriest in full unupgraded PvP gear resi gems for 78500. Rsham with spirit gems unupgraded gear 77200. (I had 43% PvP power.)

[Xorn]

2PC - Destruction : ~0.8 additional embers / 2 min ~~ 2 400 DPS
This one is far easier to calculate, just take the average damage of Chaosbolt (530 489) substract 1.5 times the average damage of Incinerate (114283, because we are not casting 1.5 Incinerates but instead 1 CB) and divide it by the number of seconds it takes us to get another full Ember ((1/0.8) * 120). Note that this probably overestimates the damage of that CB (because most CBs are cast with DS and this additional one probably is not).

This logic is a bit off. While, yes the 2set is technically worth 8 embers/2 minutes, you can't think of it just in terms of those extra resources, but also the reduction in cost during DS as well.

Under DS, the cost of CB will drop from 10 to 8 embers, and thus if you start with 40, you will be able to cast 5 CB under the effects of DS. The extra calculation involving the time it takes to build another ember is unnecessary, as you will automatically get a 5th cast off during DS due to the lowered cost. Therefore, the estimated damage is also not on the low side, as the extra cast will be during DS. So, it makes more sense to think of the bonus as 1 extra CB every DS, instead of just thinking of it in terms of 8 extra embers as the second thought process doesn't factor in the fact the 8 is enough to cast CB during that time.

Therefore, what the calculation should be is the average CB damage of 530 489 (which might be on the low side) minus 1.5 Incinerates, divided by 120 seconds, which comes out to about 2 992 DPS.

Furthermore, this only accounts for 80% of the boss's health. In execute rage we'll definitely get the one extra cast, in addition to 2-3 more SB cast as the reduced cost. I personally don't want to model this at this time because I don't have a lot of time, but overall it should bring the average dps of this 2set above 3k.

[Deleted]

neubs you are correct, I missed the additional CB under DS with the 2pc, my bad.

I chose to ignore execute range because it gets a little trickier there and you usually don't spend too much time in the execute phase anyway (Sha-HC says HI!) so I figured I wouldn't go through the trouble for a (most likely) rather minor adjustment. I tried to give some kind of lower bound for the boni and ignoring a phase of potential bigger gain works fine with this concept.

[crysilaero]

For me affliction bonus has a very bad design.

Warlock T15 DPS 2P Bonus (New) While Dark Soul is active, your chance to trigger Nightfall is increased by 30%

As affliction we are already pooling soulshards to use with dark soul, so it's common to have at least 3 soul shards when using dark soul.
For me it wont be a gain to use dark soul with 0 or 1 shards expecting to regen some shards during dark soul, because RNG can be a bitch.

Also, with higher haste numbers (I am raiding with 8k haste and I already feel it) with dark soul your shard regen is already too high, making this bonus totally worthless. It's very common to regen 2 or 3 shards during dark soul with 8k haste. Also, under 20%, you already sit with shards so its even more worthless. I compare this bonus with warlock fel flame 2P T11 bonus.

What would be better is a 30% chance to not spend a shard while on dark soul, or to regen all shards after ending dark soul, or to regen all shards when activating dark soul (that would be a very nice design). Something like that.


Item - Warlock T15 DPS 4P Bonus (New) Your Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul deal 5% more periodic damage

Compared to previous bonuses (T14) 40secs dark soul reduction was one of the best 4P warlock bonuses ever. The cooldown reduction could make us less RNG dependant, and very dynamic on encounters. Dark Soul has a very long cooldown and this can be very frustrating.

About this 4P bonus, I think it's weak compared to previous warlock 4P bonuses & another classes T14 bonuses. And totally unimaginative. Working with the ideia, what I would suggest is "while casting malefic grasp or drain soul, all your periodic damage have a 5% chance to deal another hit".13:30 11/01/2013

[Deleted]

Demonology : ~42 additional demonic fury / 2 min
Assuming 16.7 SB and 14.2 SF casts / 2 min (from Simcraft T14H, 83.3 resp. 70.8 casts over 600s), the 4P is worth (16.7*25 + 14.2*30)*0.05 = 42 additional demonic fury / 2 min.

4PC - Demonology : ~42 additional demonic fury / 2 min ~~ 250 DPS
That is 1.05 ToCs at the cost of 0.63 Shadowbolts every 2 minutes, which gains us 29 332 damage or 250 DPS. This does not factor in the possible change in APL (only using SF outside of Meta, as mentioned by Teye (allthough I was under the impression that this already was the current model? Have not played Demonology since Spirit Kings progression so I might be wrong on this).

Interesting calculation - so please tell me now when exactly we are spending those demonic fury ?


When you are calculation for 2 minutes (times between each DS STARTS) you should calculate additional demonic fury from 100 sec not 120 sec. If we will take 2p bonus its even less (dunno - 80-90 sec ?)

It wont be 250 DPS gain - its about 150 DPS gain - on pure tank & spank fight. So about 100 DPS gain for normal fights. This is so low that you can just ignore it.



2p for tank & spank fights will be a bit more - it will be great especially for our opener and execution phases.
For AoE fights it will be totally OP.


Anyway as we can see when we will compare those thier bonuses to other spec we can see that Blizzard is going to ignore Demo again like the did eariler.

[Scathbais]

Destruction : ~0.56 additional embers / 2 min
Assuming ~30% crit for incinerate (from Simcraft T14H), each incinerate generates 0.13 embers (on average). Assuming 53.7 incinerate casts / 2 min (from Simcraft T14H, 268.3 casts over 600s), the 4P is worth 53.7*0.13*0.08 = 0.56 additional embers / 2 min.

Demonology : ~42 additional demonic fury / 2 min
Assuming 16.7 SB and 14.2 SF casts / 2 min (from Simcraft T14H, 83.3 resp. 70.8 casts over 600s), the 4P is worth (16.7*25 + 14.2*30)*0.05 = 42 additional demonic fury / 2 min.

Comments :
Note that as these bonuses build on fillers, their values decreases in multitarget situations. This time around, destruction and demonology (especially !) bonus seem very weak for a 4P. Affliction is around the average expected from a set bonus.

Please comment and/or point out any mistake !

Nice analysis and summary. Just wanted to comment on your 4-pc summary w/regard to multi-target situations. The 4-pc bonus for Destro scales quite nicely with multi-target situations. F&B Incinerate and Havoc mean that our ember generation scales with the number of targets.

For the simple 2-target scenario, havoc means ~16.6% change of double ember bits for 3 incinerates. Not a large improvement, but nonetheless an improvement. For AOE situations, the probability of generating extra embers is (1.08)^n per F&B Incinerate cast, where n= number of targets.

[Deleted]

As affliction we are already pooling soulshards to use with dark soul, so it's common to have at least 3 soul shards when using dark soul.
For me it wont be a gain to use dark soul with 0 or 1 shards expecting to regen some shards during dark soul, because RNG can be a bitch.

Then don't enter DS with 0-1 shards hoping for regen?

You can enter DS with 3 shards, as you claim to be doing now, and the (I believe) estimated 1 extra shard gained won't be wasted - even exiting DS with 1 extra shard is an improvement.

That said, I agree it's lackluster - but totally worthless and comparing it to the felfire bonus is a bit of an overstatement.

[Dastey]

We are strongly considering allowing Dark Intent to provide Stamina so that warlocks don't feel like they must use their imp.

[Count Zero]

I would almost rather either having Blood Pact be a separate Warlock ability or have it tied to all our pets. I just like seeing a buff called Blood Pact up.