Warlock 5.2 DPS Attunements and new Simulated DPS

[Zagam 1,982]

FULL SUMMARIZED PATCH NOTES EFFECTIVE FEB 25, 2013.

• Warlock
  • Fel Armor now reduces damage taken by 10%, instead of increasing the Warlock’s armor.
  • Blood Fear has been replaced by Blood Horror. Blood Horror costs 5% health, has 1 charge, and lasts 60 seconds with a 30-second cooldown. While Blood Horror is active, melee attacks that strike the Warlock will cause the attacker to be horrified for 4 seconds.
  • Burning Rush now also prevents movement-impairing effects from reducing the Warlock’s movement speed below 100% of normal, in addition to its other effects.
  • The Imp ability Blood Pact has been removed.
  • Dark Intent now increases Stamina in addition to Spell Power.
  • Immolate now deals 20% more damage.
  • Shadow Bolt now deals 15% more damage.
  • Soul Leech now provides an absorption shield instead of healing.
  • Sacrificial Pact now requires the pet to sacrifice 25% of its health to activate (was 50%).
  • Kil'jaeden's Cunning is now a passive talent, and its activated ability has been removed.
  • The passive damage from Archimonde's Vengeance no longer has a visual effect.
  • Grimoire of Sacrifice now increases the damage of abilities by 15% (was 25%) for Destruction Warlocks and 35% (was 50%) for Affliction Warlocks. In addition, it now provides the spell Whiplash instead of Seduction when a Succubus is sacrificed.
  • Glyph of Burning Embers has been removed and its effects are now baseline for Destruction Warlocks.
  • Glyph of Soul Shards has been removed and its effects are now baseline for Affliction Warlocks.
  • New Glyph: Glyph of Ember Tap. This glyph increases the healing gained from Ember Tap by 33%, but the health is restored over 10 seconds.
  • New Glyph: Glyph of Drain Life. This glyph increases the healing gained from Drain Life by 30%.
  • Glyph of Unstable Affliction has been redesigned. This glyph now reduces the cast time of Unstable Affliction by 25%.
  • Affliction

  • Unstable Affliction’s backlash effect is now always a critical hit and deals approximately 15% more damage.
• Demonology
  • Chaos Wave now has a new visual.
  • Hand of Gul'dan now deals 15% more damage.
  • Shadowflame now deals 15% more damage.
  • Soul Fire now deals 22% more damage.
  • Touch of Chaos now deals 15% more damage.
  • Wild Imp's Firebolt now deals 15% more damage.
• Destruction
  • Conflagrate now deals 20% more damage.
  • Fire and Brimstone now has a radius of 10 yards (was 15 yards).
  • Incinerate now deals 10% more damage.

(Changes effective 2/26)

- Haunt now increases damage to the target by 30% up from 25%. This is partially in compensation because we also nerfed Sacrifice for Affliction because it was looking too mandatory.

- Partially reverted the buffs to Conflag and Immolate. They were +20%, and are now +15%.

http://blue.mmo-cham...es-february-25/

http://blue.mmo-cham...ssues-part-iii/

Warlock

- Hand of Gul'dan, Shadowflame, Shadow Bolt, Touch of Chaos and Wild Imp Firebolt +15%.

- Soul Fire damage +22%.

- Conflagrate and Immolate damage +20%.

- Incinerate damage +10%.

Posted changes today. This will be a HUGE buff for Demonology and Destruction. Affliction will be nerfed while Destro and Demo will win. I think Demo will be the top DPS very soon. Stay tuned.

*****EDIT: DPS Simulation Adjustments (paper napkin math style)*****

This will be my attempt to see how the adjustments thus far have modified the T14H simulated DPS for all 3 specs.

Affliction (132,154 DPS)

-5% Grimoire of Sacrifice (Haunt, Drain Soul, Malefic Grasp, Fel Flame)

Haunt -> 11783 to 11390 (-393 DPS)

Drain Soul -> 5592 to 5406 (-187 DPS)

Malefic Grasp -> 11653 to 11265 (-388 DPS)

Fel Flame -> 0 to 0 (-0 DPS)

Overall Effect: 131,187 DPS (-967 DPS) (0.8% loss)

Note: If the proc damage of Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul is nerfed 5% as well (hard to decipher from patch notes), then the following happens to Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul:

Drain Soul -> 14977 to 14478 (-499 DPS)

Malefic Grasp -> 50611 to 48924 (-1687 DPS)

Overall Effect: 129,968 DPS (-2186 DPS) (1.7% loss)

Demonology (120,482 DPS)

+15% Hand of Gul'dan

+15% Shadowflame

+15% Shadow Bolt

+15% Touch of Chaos

+15% Wild Imp Firebolt

+22% Soulfire

Hand of Guldan -> 6876 to 7907 (+1031 DPS)

Shadowflame -> 4882 to 5614 (+732 DPS)

Shadow Bolt -> 10165 to 11690 (+1525 DPS)

Touch of Chaos -> 18167 to 20892 (+2725 DPS)

Wild Imps -> 20293 to 23337 (+3045 DPS)

Soulfire -> 17959 to 21910 (+3951 DPS)

Overall Effect: 133,490 DPS (+13008 DPS) (+10.8%)

Destruction (120,042 DPS)

-5% Grimoire of Sacrifice (Chaos Bolt, Shadowburn, Incinerate, Conflagrate)

+20% Conflagrate

+20% Immolate

+10% Incinerate

Chaos Bolt -> 36601 to 35137 (-1464 DPS)

Shadowburn -> 7296 to 7004 (-292 DPS)

Incinerate -> 46844 to 44970 to 49467 (+2623 DPS)

Immolate -> 10742 to 11816 (+1074 DPS)

Conflagrate -> 10501 to 10081 to 12097 (+1596 DPS)

Overall Effect: 123,580 DPS (+3538 DPS) (+2.9%)

New "Simulated" T14H DPS Rankings based on newest patch notes:

Demonology = 133,490 DPS

Affliction = 131,187 DPS (MG and DS not nerfed by Grim of Sac nerf)

Affliction = 129,968 DPS (MG and DS nerfed by Grim of Sac nerf)

Destruction = 123,580 DPS

I also believe this will heavily change the stat weights for each spec. I anticipate Mastery scaling to go down for Destruction especially if Grimoire of Sacrifice is no longer used. I believe Grimoire of Supremacy will be better for Destruction and will cause Haste to be more valuable than Mastery. Hard to see what might change with Demonology and Affliction, but man does Demonology look attractive now. Not sure if Destruction has received enough of a buff. Reverting the Grimoire of Sacrifice nerf for Destruction would bring them closer to the other two specs, but I think that Demonology and Affliction lined up so nicely will be very nice.

EDIT: Had some math errors in the Affliction calculations. Those have been corrected.

[Cruzan 71]

Not sure if i should "like" your post or not haha. I'm not opposed to getting to play demo more though if it lines up with affl.

Edited February 20, 2013 by Cruzan

[Hawkmune 2]

I think it's incredible news, and hopefully the buffs stick for a while. It'll be nice to hopefully play another spec other than Affliction. Not that Afflock's aren't fun to play, but I like to change it up a bit.

[Zagam 1,982]

I am SO excited to go back Demo. I was Demo since ICC and was sad to be forced to play Affliction.

[Jenaye 9]

I would like to go destro and still have affli as a backup, but this looks like that's not going to be a viable change. :-\

[Zagam 1,982]

Aff will still be viable for multi-target fights where you can keep DoTs running on both, but Demo may feel the same. I'm excited to have more than one viable spec.

[Nekkrosis 2]

Hot damn, this is big news. Nice to see things getting switched up, throwing out some chaos bolts or soul fires will be a refreshing change. Every lock spec is fun imo, so it'll just be a new flavor of awesome.

[Zagam 1,982]

Modified first page to include new simulated damage.

[Omaric 246]

I am SO excited to go back Demo. I was Demo since ICC and was sad to be forced to play Affliction.

I'm right there with you! I started raiding as demonology because I loved it and it's actually what drew me to start playing the class this expansion. Then my raid members were like, "Bro, why aren't you affliction?"

And I was like, "Bro, when I'm not doing top DPS let me know."

And they were like, "But bro, you could be doing even *more*."

The only thing is, these new trinkets coming out seem to be far more beneficial to affliction by a ridiculous amount. Sure, having Doom crit everytime for the next 1.5-2 minutes every 13-15'ish seconds seems really nice, but compared to 3 DoT's constantly critting with the possibility of Malefic Grasp causing them to crit as well...... yeah. We'll see I guess, but I'm really looking forward to going back to demonology. =)

[Zagam 1,982]

My thing is I don't really care if Demonology ISN'T the top DPS spec...as long as it's CLOSER than what it is now. Being so far behind Affliction now is just really saddening. I'm going to be regemming, enchanting, and reforging to pure Demonology stats this weekend (Crit=Mastery > Haste) and seeing how things work out. I'll then take my logs and modify them with the impending changes and see what really happens. I know the first time I ever raided in T14 as Demo I pushed a #17 parse on normal Feng at 91k while I wasn't ranking doing 105k as Affliction the week before. This alone shows the split between the specs (or that all the good players went Affliction).

[Cruzan 71]

That's crazy. I know its napkin math and GC said not to use 5.1 numbers to analyze the changes, but I don't see how what you posted could be far off. Demo having higher numbers than pre-nerf affl is impressive!

[Omaric 246]

That's crazy. I know its napkin math and GC said not to use 5.1 numbers to analyze the changes, but I don't see how what you posted could be far off. Demo having higher numbers than pre-nerf affl is impressive!

His math includes the GoS nerf.

[Zagam 1,982]

Omaric is correct; I've incorporated the 5% nerf to Grim of Sacrifice.

[Cruzan 71]

I realized that. I was just saying that even without a nerf to affliction (assuming the number in parentheses of 132k is the current 5.1 value) demo still would have higher theo. numbers. Craziness. Also did your math change within the last hour Zagam?

Edited February 20, 2013 by Cruzan

[Phatdaddy 0]

Well at first I thought hearing the buffs to demo were the best news I've heard in a long time, but then Zagam said he prefers to play demo so now I got even better news. This means demo may FINALLY get some of that theory crafting love that affliction stole lol. I've always liked demo more and I been playing it threw MoP so far but I can't find any where near the info. on it he has made available for affliction. I'm to stupid to do near the amount of theorycrafting he puts into it, do me proud :D lol

[Omaric 246]

I realized that. I was just saying that even without a nerf to affliction (assuming the number in parentheses of 132k is the current 5.1 value) demo still would have higher theo. numbers. Craziness. Also did your math change within the last hour Zagam?

I read that wrong, sorry Cruzan. =)

Edit: That Soulfire buff is seriously huge. In execute range my demon form Soulfire's can generally climb to the top of my spell percentages with DS:K popped among other procs. 22% more damage is ridiculous. We'll see how it holds up through the PTR I suppose.

Edited February 20, 2013 by Omaric

[Zagam 1,982]

I realized that. I was just saying that even without a nerf to affliction (assuming the number in parentheses of 132k is the current 5.1 value) demo still would have higher theo. numbers. Craziness. Also did your math change within the last hour Zagam?

My math did change for Affliction only. I stupidly multiplied those numbers by (45/50) instead of (145/150). I corrected it and shows that it wasn't as drastic as I initially put. I knew nerfing some abilities 5% wouldn't create an overall 5% change. Theorycrafting at work sometimes causes distractions :)

Well at first I thought hearing the buffs to demo were the best news I've heard in a long time, but then Zagam said he prefers to play demo so now I got even better news. This means demo may FINALLY get some of that theory crafting love that affliction stole lol. I've always liked demo more and I been playing it threw MoP so far but I can't find any where near the info. on it he has made available for affliction. I'm to stupid to do near the amount of theorycrafting he puts into it, do me proud lol

I should have put more time into both of the other specs, but I just felt they weren't viable enough for progression. Granted, some players play those specs for fun or personal preference, but the sad truth was if you could be good at Destruction or Demonology, you could be better with Affliction. With theoretical ties between Aff and Demo, I'll gladly be Demo. I didn't spend a good portion of the end of Cataclysm collecting 2H weapons so that I wouldn't use my Glyph of Felguard! Demo will get a lot of love from me this weekend. Tonight, I continue Heroic Protectors progression as Affliction.

I read that wrong, sorry Cruzan. =)

Edit: That Soulfire buff is seriously huge. In execute range my demon form Soulfire's can generally climb to the top of my spell percentages with DS:K popped among other procs. 22% more damage is ridiculous. We'll see how it holds up through the PTR I suppose.

If you played Demonology back in T10, you'll remember how awesome starting to use Soulfire was. I remember me and my girl first playing Warlocks together...she didn't trust me about Demo. Went into a Marrowgar PUG and we were both 7th and 8th in DPS when Marrow hit 25%. We began our Soulfire spam and watched us climb up to #1 and #2 (she beat me). Soulfire was the SHIZ back then and I'm really glad it'll be fun to play again. I also think I'll have to go and check whether or not using Soulfire during Meta will be a DPS gain...I imagine with the scaling, it might be.

Oh, and yes, I put a ring on her!

[Omaric 246]

Well played sir.

[Cruzan 71]

I read that wrong, sorry Cruzan. =)

Edit: That Soulfire buff is seriously huge. In execute range my demon form Soulfire's can generally climb to the top of my spell percentages with DS:K popped among other procs. 22% more damage is ridiculous. We'll see how it holds up through the PTR I suppose.

I got an apology on the internets! Must cherish this moment....mmmmm . Np though. I was getting worried that I was reading Zagam's original post wrong.

If you played Demonology back in T10, you'll remember how awesome starting to use Soulfire was. I remember me and my girl first playing Warlocks together...she didn't trust me about Demo. Went into a Marrowgar PUG and we were both 7th and 8th in DPS when Marrow hit 25%. We began our Soulfire spam and watched us climb up to #1 and #2 (she beat me). Soulfire was the SHIZ back then and I'm really glad it'll be fun to play again. I also think I'll have to go and check whether or not using Soulfire during Meta will be a DPS gain...I imagine with the scaling, it might be.

Oh, and yes, I put a ring on her!

I definitely did play Demo back then. My best memory was my first Prof. Putricide kill, but almost all my first kills were awesome just because of the insane amount of damage you could put out during executes. Getting to to that point was always the problem and I'd always have to justify to my RL that, "Trust me. The first time we get to execute you'll be glad I'm Demo. " Turned out to be true lol.

So sort of back on topic, is there a way to tell if GoSac for Demo will be better than Sup or Serv? It seems like having most of the single-target abilities buffed at least 15% (22% for soul fire /drool) in 5.2 should make a Grimoire that buffs those abilities even more appealing if the numbers worked out.

[Omaric 246]

So sort of back on topic, is there a way to tell if GoSac for Demo will be better than Sup or Serv? It seems like having most of the single-target abilities buffed at least 15% (22% for soul fire /drool) in 5.2 should make a Grimoire that buffs those abilities even more appealing if the numbers worked out.

I'm just going to arbitrarily say that I feel, because felguard/wrathguard are awesome (and are increased by mastery), that they will remain a staple. I could easily be wrong though. XD Definitely interested to see how all of this pans out. I like options!

[Jenaye 9]

I honestly only touched demo for about 3 levels when I leveled my lock, as I got bored with afflication for a bit. Not looking forward to gemming/reforging/chanting everything again, lol.

[Zagam 1,982]

Grim of Sacrifice will never be an option for PvE Demonology Warlocks. It has its usefulness for PvP burst, but you summon your minion back out as soon as your burst is over.

[Chobani 6]

Seriously. This is ridiculous. I feel sorry for anyone who isn't a warlock this expansion.

The best thing about 4.1 in Cata was the option of switching between Demo and Destro on a per fight basis. Heroic Maloriak was the greatest thing ever. I was pretty disappointed that wasn't going to be the case with this expansion (namely because the stat weights between Affliction and Demo are so different and that Demo was/is still pretty far behind).

Aside from these sweet juicy buffs, Demo was already looking pretty strong as far as the new boss mechanics go in addition to all that fat crit thats on the new gear.

[Zagam 1,982]

My next struggle will be to find the best balance for people who will be Affliction/Demonology. Demonology goes Crit = Mastery >>> Haste while Affliction is Haste = Mastery >>> Crit. It's pretty obvious to keep Mastery high in both spec's reforgings...but these Warlocks that bounce back and forth may have to legit grab gear for off-spec to be really effective.

[Gravyspasm 70]

Heroic Maloriak was the greatest thing ever.

I never got to experience heroic mode, but on normal it was the tits. The closest thing i can do to get to that feeling of kill everything. right now. hard is on the one scenario where you're running around the horde dominance area, and at the end you get the 4-5 waves of NPCs. i just sel my portal down at the Horde NPC and just as the other two players are clicking on the 3 action items (guns/bombs/rockets) i run up past the gate and wait for the waves to resolve, then drop a rain of fire and portal back to the group.

a delicious group of mobs ensues, complete with people on horses that'll run&stun you, healers and annoying ranged.

but what ends up happening is nothing short of magic.