5.4 Changes and Notes as of 7/10

[Zagam 1,982]

I'll keep this thread and monitor the changes as they are appropriate.
 

As of 8/13:

 

Spell Changes

• Corruption: Corrupts the target, causing 1440 (+ 135%1584 (+ 148.5% of SpellPower) Shadow damage over 18 sec.

Talents and Specialization

• Agony: Inflicts increasing agony on the target, causing up to [348 ( + 32.76%[384 ( + 36% of SpellPower) * 10] Shadow damage over 24 sec. This damage is dealt slowly at first and builds up each time it deals damage.
• Drain Soul: Drains the soul of the target, causing (250 + $SP * 0.234275 + $SP * 0.257) Shadow damage every 2 sec and energizing one Soul Shard after it deals damage twice. If the target dies and yields experience or honor, three Soul Shards are energized. Lasts 12 sec. If the target is at or below 20% health when Drain Soul deals damage, it deals 100% additional damage and causes all of your other periodic Affliction damage effects to instantly deal 60% of their normal periodic damage.
• Immolate: Burns the enemy for 456 (+ 42.7%502 (+ 47% of SpellPower) Fire damage and then an additional 2280 (+ 213.5%2510 (+ 235% of SpellPower) Fire damage over 15 sec. Replaces Corruption.
• Malefic Grasp: Binds the target in twilight, causing 512 (+ 48%564 (+ 52.8% of SpellPower) Shadow damage over 4 sec. Every 1 sec, when Malefic Grasp deals damage, it causes all of your other periodic Affliction damage effects to instantly deal 30% of their normal periodic damage.
• Nightfall: Your most recently applied Corruption has a 7%10% chance when it deals damage to cause you to regain a Soul Shard.
• Unstable Affliction: Shadow energy slowly destroys the target, causing 1974 (+ 184.8%2170 (+ 203% of SpellPower) damage over 14 sec. If the Unstable Affliction is dispelled it will cause [282 ( + 26.4%[310 ( + 29% of SpellPower) * 8] damage to the dispeller and silence them for 4 sec. This damage always critically strikes.

This could read: DoTs + 10% and you'd get the point.

As of 7/10:

GLYPHS

Glyph of Curse of the Elements (NYI) - Curse of the Elements now hits 2 additional nearby targets
Glyph of Havoc - Havoc will now provide 3 additional charges but will increase its CD by 35 seconds (to 60 seconds)
Glyph of Unending Resolve (NYI) Unending Resolve will reduce damage by 20%, down from 40%, but reduce the CD by __ seconds (no value given)

As of 7/8:


Warlock
General

• The debuff from using a Demonic Gateway has been increased to 60 seconds (up from 15 seconds).
• Fel Armor no longer reduces all damage taken by 10%.
• Fel Flame now deals 13% more damage, costs 2% less mana, and no longer increases the duration of damage-over-time spells.
• Rain of Fire now has a reduced chance to generate Burning Embers.

Talents

• Archimonde's Vengeance has been redesigned. For the passive portion of the talent, each time the Warlock or their pet takes damage, the Warlock now gains 1% of the unmitigated damage back as spell power for 20 seconds.
• Howl of Terror is no longer a talent and is now a baseline skill for all Warlocks.
• Demonic Breath, a new talent replacing Howl of Terror. The Warlock sends out a cone of Shadow damage, snaring targets, has a 20-second cooldown.
• Kil'jaeden's Cunning no longer reduces movement speed, and will now allow the Warlock to cast Incinerate, Malefic Grasp, and Shadow Bolt while moving. is no longer a passive ability. Kil'jaeden's Cunning now has a duration of 15 seconds with a 1.5 minute cooldown.
• Mannoroth's Fury is no longer a passive ability. 10 seconds with a 60 second cooldown, and increases the area of area-of-effect by 500% and increases damage by 100% for Seed of Corruption, Hellfire, Metamorphosis: Immolation Aura, and Rain of Fire.
• Soul Leech can now also activate from Shadowburn, and caps out at 15% of the Warlock and their pet's maximum health (down from 100%).

Glyphs

• Glyph of Everlasting Affliction will be redesigned.
• Glyph of Soul Swap will be redesigned.

Affliction

• Agony now deals 5% more damage.
• Drain Soul now deals 40% less damage, and if other periodic Affliction damage effects are triggered by Drain Soul, they now deal 60% of their normal damage (down from 100%).
• Haunt now deals 50% more damage, and increases damage done by all of the Warlock's other spells against the target by 45%.
• Malefic Grasp now deals 40% less damage, and causes all of of the Warlock's other periodic Affliction damage effects to instantly deal 30% of their normal periodic damage (down from 50%).
• Nightfall now gives Corruption a 7% chance to generate a Soul Shard (up from a 5% chance), but the increased chance only works on the most recently applied Corruption.
• Soul Swap no longer does any damage, and now copies damage-over-time effects instead of just moving them without needing a glyph. Copied effects now once again preserve their power and duration. Duration has been reduced to 6 seconds (down from 20 seconds).
• Unstable Affliction now deals 10% more damage.

Rough theorycrafting estimate of 5.4 PTR Afflic changes:

[gahhda 95]

Destro 2pc is awful. Destro 4pc looks meh with a side of probably bad. Both horribly devalue crit even more than it was already worthless in raiding.

Demo set bonuses collectively net ~15% dps gain if the 2pc is a 5 second duration.

Affliction 2pc is either the most op bullshit ever, or the worst. Mainly revolving around if extra ticks count in the damage increase, and the wording suggests it does. UA crit chance WITH LIKE NO CRIT puts the uptime at 100%, which seems horribly unintended regardless. The 4pc looks meh because the uptime is already so stupidly high..

[tzarc 0]

Not sure of the relevance given how early we are in the dev cycle, but Wowhead PTR lists both KJC/MF as having 15sec duration:

http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=108508

http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=137587

[Omaric 246]

There's no point in making you cast it on yourself if it lasts forever. I have to agree with the above that it will be a shorter duration buff now. Ugh. My brain.

[JvChequer 43]

Not sure of the relevance given how early we are in the dev cycle, but Wowhead PTR lists both KJC/MF as having 15sec duration:

http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=108508

http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=137587

Omfg, that sucks so hard.

Any duration less than 30sec makes the talent hyper useless.

Edited June 12, 2013 by JvChequer

[Cruzan 71]

My God. Who runs the numbers on these at Blizz to even consider some of this stuff?

I won't be surprised to see the aff 2pc get it's duration or proc chance cut in half, or worse, before going live. Practically a baseline bonus as it stands. Even if it does get reduced somehow I wonder if UVLS is going to be a trinket aff locks carry well in to the next tier because of this 2pc...A flat 30% buff to MG/DS is crazy. Seems more like an OP 4pc bonus rather than a 2pc. AND speaking of OP 4pc bonuses....wow. Me likey. I'll take stacking high Haunt uptimes with a constant 30% buff from the 2pc alllll day.

2pc for Demo seems like it could lead to a lot of fishing for that proc before jumping in to meta. Stacking extra damage modifiers makes this a pretty strong 2pc though. 4pc? lol wow. Will it be buffed by Meta since we can only cast ToC inside Meta?

R.I.P. KJC. I loved you while you lasted. 1.5 min CD seems a little long though. 1 min seems appropriate from a raiding perspective. Pretty awesome PvP talent though.

Speaking of PvP. Good luck to melee trying to touch my Demo lock. Lets just add more CC's to a spec that already has a ton of utility mwahaha. Shadowflame slows, Breath of Gul'Dan slows, Carrion Swarm, Leap, Tele....on and on and on...

Interesting stuff overall. Will wait to see what additional changes come out.

Edited June 12, 2013 by Cruzan

[gahhda 95]

Destro - kjc = weaker frost mage with fake blink

Affli - kjc = weaker shadow priest with no raid heals

Demo - kjc = demo

Goodbye destruction. This, and the set bonus, have killed you. Just as I predicted, blizzard kills my favorite spec...could probably find the post where I said that like two weeks ago if I really wanted to. Time to either full time demo or reroll..my enh shaman looks rather tasty.

Does anyone remember destruction at the start of t14? Of course you don't. Because it didn't exist. ANY form of movement makes destruction a worthless spec without KJC, and furthermore, it fucking sucks to play. Not being able to do ANYTHING but fel flame/rof while moving saps ALL the fun out of the playstyle. Incinerate -> fel flame side step -> incinerate -> fel flame side step.

Destruction is already one of the single worst specs in the entire game single target, punishing them for any added movement is simply beautiful if you remove the only thing they're actually good for, which is RoF, and we all know GC is having that nerfed into the dirt.

If they think KJC is why warlocks are op...I have no faith left in blizzard.

Edited June 12, 2013 by gahhda

[Zagam 1,982]

KJC was a talent that made Warlocks unique just like Mages have Blink, Hunters Disengage, etc. The 30% snare was perfect in its design. On fights with heavy movement needed, especially Heroic Lei Shen, I couldn't imagine not being able to cast and move with everything else going on. Our Tier 6 talents are worthless now. I can't think of a single encounter to date where I needed to move for 15 seconds and then not again for 75 seconds. Affliction and Demonology, this is where you'd Life Tap or Fel Flame, but as Destruction...ugh, I don't even know.

And Gahhda, I, too, have been working on my Enhance Shaman...

[Ilion 8]

Didn't they say they wanted to nerf lock's survival? Why are they nerfing a utility talent while buffing a surv one?

[Zagam 1,982]

They removed the baseline 10% damage reduction. They buffed Soul Leech, but that's a PvE buff to compensate for the 10% baseline reduction. All of the patch notes have PvP in mind and not PvE except MAYBE Mannoroth's Fury.

[Vestion 8]

I also have a ele sham....only level 13 but nonetheless, I propose we change icy veins into a shaman dominated site when 5.4 hits xD

All the tier sets look very strong imo. Obviously some better than others, destru isnt exactly terrible but at the same time wont make a huge difference. Not to mention how much it devalues crit. I can bet there will be plenty of crit gear waiting for us in T16 as well.

Im really interested in Demo's 4set, the 2set is kind of meh, would be nice if it lined up with DS though. Like Zagam said, if Shadowflame can stack up more than twice, then people would have a reason to call us OP. It may also make ToC better in meta than soulfire as you can get a lot more ToC off.

I dont know what to think about the Affliction 2set, I never really looking into how much my UA is critting, but I can assume not much. However, if for some reason it does and I just never realised, this could make Affliction super OP. The 4set is meh. Just meh.

Overall the tier bonuses seem ok, better than T15 at least. However, oh god, KJC, why?

[Twinkielock 15]

Here is a thread on the battle.net forums. Here's hoping it remains civil and is read by the blues.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9282218518

[Omaric 246]

Civility on the WoW forums?

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHA;SLEJFA;EIFJA;SLEIFA;ELJE;ASKJF

[Zagam 1,982]

Just going to have to play Demonology like I do on Durumu. Anytime movement happens, I lose my cast and have to spam Fel Flame while moving which eats TONS of mana. This talent change will be a pretty significant DPS loss, but less so for Demo and HUGE loss for Destruction and Affliction. Affliction might be pretty terrible to use on any fight with movement.

[Felbrew28 1]

I didn't spend all that time getting green fire to play a spec that doesn't utilize it. Come on blizz, if the talent nerfs is to make the demographic more even and have more people choosing Archimonde's Vengeance, then just make it passive and scale the percentage down to about 3%. They already nerfed grim sac the most for destro and it's already 20k dps behind. Furthermore, destro is a tier overdue for decent set bonuses. "Lets do this really awesome questline that gives you green fire, make a spec that has a million fire spells, and then make it suck. I thought MoP was about making the specs balanced...

[Omaric 246]

Just going to have to play Demonology like I do on Durumu. Anytime movement happens, I lose my cast and have to spam Fel Flame while moving which eats TONS of mana. This talent change will be a pretty significant DPS loss, but less so for Demo and HUGE loss for Destruction and Affliction. Affliction might be pretty terrible to use on any fight with movement.

Everyone seems to be missing the point. We're so awesome that we will be able to kill every boss in about 15 seconds. Sheesh people.

All of the fights in the next tier also might have special roles for warlocks. Like vehicle duty.

P.S. I also think it's cute that they removed the on-use from it because of a boss last tier that employed mind control mechanics that could make it unavailable for when you need it. So, it's pretty safe to say the next tier won't have a boss with mind control? Yay?

Edited June 12, 2013 by Omaric

[Vestion 8]

Like vehicle duty.

Oh....joy.

[Zagam 1,982]

WTB Glyph that makes Metamorphosis rideable like Druids.

If you all haven't seen it, have a Priest cast Levitate while you're in Metamorphosis form for THE BEST LOOKING THING EVER. You're welcome.

[Omaric 246]

So maybe the demo set bonuses will go live now to overcompensate warlock raiding status. We'll have the one spec, so we can't complain right?

Edited June 12, 2013 by Omaric

[Vestion 8]

I did that a while ago, had a mini nerdgasm xD now i demand levatation when taking a photo for a boss kill.

[Gravyspasm 70]

i just wanted to share my thoughts on what i've read so far

[Omaric 246]

I'm just going to take a guess that your wings are constantly flapped up and you look like you're having a fit of joy.

[Vestion 8]

Find a preist and find out :)

[Kaboozey 16]

Survival nerfs are fine. Pact probably needs one in addition to the Fel Armor nerf. The level 90 talent nerfs are, and I hate to say this because normally only morons use this phrase... "unacceptable". Warlocks would have a full set of 3 complete crap talents to choose from. I'd love to hear Blizzard (or anyone for that matter) attempt to make a case for being offered the 5.4 90 Talents in comparison to the superior choices provided to other classes. I cancelled my subscription and won't re-sub if the 90 talent nerfs go live.

[Omaric 246]

Survival nerfs are fine. Pact probably needs one in addition to the Fel Armor nerf. The level 90 talent nerfs are, and I hate to say this because normally only morons use this phrase... "unacceptable". Warlocks would have a full set of 3 complete crap talents to choose from. I'd love to hear Blizzard (or anyone for that matter) attempt to make a case for being offered the 5.4 90 Talents in comparison to the superior choices provided to other classes. I cancelled my subscription and won't re-sub if the 90 talent nerfs go live.

Voidwalkers are now mountable exclusively to warlocks and, once mounted, attack whatever they feel like as well as allowing the warlock to cast as it moves.