5.4 Changes and Notes as of 7/10

[vaeevictiss 17]

so right now im at 30% haste and 60% mastery, if they will once again be fairly close, should i just leave it as is?

Edited August 16, 2013 by vaeevictiss

[Zagam 1,982]

30% Haste and 60% Mastery as Affliction?  See I sit at 23% Haste and 98% Mastery.  Raid buffed, I'm over 30% Haste and 128% Mastery.  Just leave it as it is for now.  PTR isn't done with its iterations.

[Kaboozey 16]

30% Haste and 60% Mastery as Affliction?  See I sit at 23% Haste and 98% Mastery.  Raid buffed, I'm over 30% Haste and 128% Mastery.  Just leave it as it is for now.  PTR isn't done with its iterations.

 

I'll assume as per your usual, you'll probably come up with stat weights as per usual once they've finalized their numbers?  Another thing to keep in mind is set bonuses.  I know I'll be running a few iterations myself, particularly to see if carrying UA crits are really going to be worth much of anything with the 2-piece set bonus.  On paper, it's complete garbage, especially since they nerfed MG/DS, and it's dealing with a stat we wouldn't desire.  On the other hand, the 4-piece for Affliction seems really solid with 1/5 Haunts returning a shard.  That should be a straight 20% increased uptime for Haunt.  Both of the Demo bonuses are solid, and don't require you to do anything janky.  Destruction, like Affliction, is really asking you to already be stacking crit. 

 

Just a reminder so people don't have to go searching:

 

 

2 pieces: Conflagrate has a 20% chance to increase the critical strike chance of Immolate and Incinerate by 15%. Unstable Affliction critical hits have a 40% chance to increase all damaging effects of Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul by 30% for 10 sec. Soul Fire has a 20% chance to increase you and your pet's damage dealt by 20%.

4 pieces: When a Burning Ember fills up, your critical strike chance is increased by 15% for 5 sec. Haunt has a 20% chance to refund its shard when expiring. Shadow Bolt and Touch of Chaos have a 20% chance to also cast Hand of Gul'dan at the target.

 

[JvChequer 43]

I'm pretty sure that the reforging issue about affliction in 5.4 will be how much mastery u can exchange for haste, IMO we will reforge everything into mastery and see how much haste we'll have, them, reforging a bit until next haste breakpoint, without losing a lot of mastery.

 

I do believe that give up of 300 more mastery worth one tick of your dot.

 

 

Btw, both TP bonuses look good and desirable, for affliction the 2TP bonus it's a good single target boost, and the 4TP it's a good overall dps increase, more than ever we cannot cap 4 soul shards, or we probably will waste a few nightfall + 4tp procs, I think, just think, that it's good to maintain 2 Soul Shards and when Dark Soul is less than 30seg to go, pray for one or two procs.

 

Btw, some ppl report almost 90% haunt uptime in PTR, thats huge.

Edited August 16, 2013 by JvChequer

[Zagam 1,982]

Destruction - 2pc - completely passive.  Just a minor DPS increase. 

Destruction - 4pc - completely passive.  Just a minor DPS increase.  May augment rotation to always cast a Chaos Bolt after filling a Burning Ember to gain 15% additional damage from it.  Otherwise, play as usual.

 

The Destruction set bonuses require no change in stat priority to activate set bonuses.  They are completely passive in nature but may require slight modifications to spell priorities during certain events such as gaining a Burning Ember. 

 

Demonology - 2pc - completely passive.  Just a minor DPS increase.  Duration is 10 seconds.  This MAY create some different rotation adjustment to compensate for this buff.  Since it is only Soul Fire, it may be best to not overwrite the buff with more Soul Fires once the proc is triggered.  However, since the 20% chance is somewhere in the neighboorhood of a 70-80% uptime while spamming Soul Fire, it may be good to just keep the rotation as always and be happy when you get a proc.

Demonology - 4pc - completely passive.  The syncronization of the 2pc and 4pc means you can't get both procs from the same cast.  When you have the Soul Fire buff, you'll want to be using ToC or Shadow Bolt to get the HoG proc.  My first intuition is to say the 2pc won't augment your priority, but the 4pc will.  You will want to pool your MC charges to fish for procs.  While a proc is live, you'll want to fish for HoG procs with ToC/SB.

 

Affliction - 2pc - completely passive.  Just a DPS increase.  I ran some numbers back a while ago (I think Omaric suggested higher Crit), but I ran an Excel simulation and showed that increasing the crit wouldn't guarantee 100% uptime with the proc but not increasing crit could give you a very high uptime.  To reiterate what I posted before, Critical hits are based on your unique %.  Most people at this ilvl completely unprioritizing Crit will see around 20-25%.  Getting that effect to trigger then does a RNG roll to see if the actual proc happens, which is 40%.  So the chance of you seeing a proc on any given UA tick is your Crit * 0.4.  For me, at 25.0%, the proc rate of any individual tick is 0.4 * 0.25 = 0.10, or 10%.  Increasing your Crit to 30% would make your proc chance per UA tick go up to 12%, a minor 2% increase, but costing you 3000 secondary stats that could be pushed into Haste or Mastery.  Crit's value only goes up for classes that see an effect off of a critical hit, such as Fire Mages and Warriors.  Since this is our only crit effect, we shouldn't be prioritizing crit in this effect for something that will have a minor change via RNG.  It was similar to stacking Haste to get more RPPM procs...if you don't remember the numbers ran for that scenario, it was concluded over a long set of iterations that you would have a higher proc rate, but for each individual encounter, you were subject and a slave to good RNG. 

Affliction - 4pc - completely passive, higher DPS.  This won't change gameplay at all...it'll just be bonus Nightfall procs essentially.  This will make it so you'll never want to have more than 2 Soul Shards at any time on the chance that you get a Nightfall proc and a Haunt proc and overflow on shards.  That would be a wasteful proc. 

 

TL;DR: none of the tier bonuses influence any stat change.

[Zagam 1,982]

I'm pretty sure that the reforging issue about affliction in 5.4 will be how much mastery u can exchange for haste, IMO we will reforge everything into mastery and see how much haste we'll have, them, reforging a bit until next haste breakpoint, without losing a lot of mastery.

 

I do believe that give up of 300 more mastery worth one tick of your dot.

 

 

Btw, both TP bonuses look good and desirable, for affliction the 2TP bonus it's a good single target boost, and the 4TP it's a good overall dps increase, more than ever we cannot cap 4 soul shards, or we probably will waste a few nightfall + 4tp procs, I think, just think, that it's good to maintain 2 Soul Shards and when Dark Soul is less than 30seg to go, pray for one or two procs.

 

Btw, some ppl report almost 90% haunt uptime in PTR, thats huge.

This is why I don't understand the buffs to Affliction.  This will make it so that really good Affliction Warlocks can break open the meters.  Mediocre to good Warlocks will do good damage, but the gap between good and awesome Affliction Warlocks will be quite large.  Balancing all of your DoTs with procs and boosting your Haunt uptime as high as possible will be how you make us get nerfed.  With good RNG on the 2pc, you're going to see high damage pushes.  With good RNG on the 4pc along with good RNG on Nightfall procs, you're going to see very high Haunt uptimes.

[JvChequer 43]

Indeed the crit effect from 2tp will not worth it AT ALL stacking crit, it's just some minor thing to make crit less useless.

BTW, the 2tp bonus looks worse in multi-target fights, because u won't have time to malefic grasp every time while dot a lot of adds.

But, for fight with 2-3 targets, maybe the bonus will be great, if every target and not the last applied like nightfall can proc the bonus.

 

This is why I don't understand the buffs to Affliction.  This will make it so that really good Affliction Warlocks can break open the meters.  Mediocre to good Warlocks will do good damage, but the gap between good and awesome Affliction Warlocks will be quite large.  Balancing all of your DoTs with procs and boosting your Haunt uptime as high as possible will be how you make us get nerfed.  With good RNG on the 2pc, you're going to see high damage pushes.  With good RNG on the 4pc along with good RNG on Nightfall procs, you're going to see very high Haunt uptimes.

 

 

I totally agree. I don't see why these changes for affliction, buffing dots again just make me feel they don't have any idea how OP it can be at multi-target and make me remember the nerfs at corruption in the 2nd week of ToT BECAUSE the multi-dots.

 

I think that if affliction stay like this, with nerfedagain Gosac - at higher levels - the dmg will be just...OP. The combination of Gosac + Immersius Trinket just look great, and just a 10% nerf at Gosac compared with nowadays does not look enough, since with ilvl 545~ Gosac in single target starts to draw with Gosup.

 

And I feel that more than ever, Malefic grasp don't fit in that "new-old" affliction with powerful dots.

Edited August 16, 2013 by JvChequer

[vaeevictiss 17]

im completely fine with it haha. I remember back in vanilla when the dots were actually strong and could kill things on their own. There was never need for a focused filler. In PVP especially, people feared locks because they knew even if they killed one there was still a very high chance they would die. 

 

Its nice to see that come back to what it always should have been...our DoTs being our strength and doing heavy damage. Still, part of me likes MG, even tho priests practically do the same thing. Warlocks were always a drain spec, but back in the day it was DL. However, you didnt always need to be healing in PVE. In came shadowbolt as our filler, it was nice to be able to cast something. MG seems like it was just an excuse for aff locks to do something else. They came up with the idea that only Demo should use it. What they did then was make it so you HAD to use it to even be remotely competitive. 

 

The changes scaled it back, and once again put force in our DoTs, and i for one, am very happy with that.

Edited August 16, 2013 by vaeevictiss

[JvChequer 43]

I'd like to see Malefic grasp beeing removed and keep Drain Soul like it is.

 

I say: Just give us 2 more dots - 1 instant and one casted - to manage and remove Malefic grasp and we will be fine.

 

A new AOE spell would be great too.

[vaeevictiss 17]

I'd like to see Malefic grasp beeing removed and keep Drain Soul like it is.

 

I say: Just give us 2 more dots - 1 instant and one casted - to manage and remove Malefic grasp and we will be fine.

 

A new AOE spell would be great too.

i have been saying for years and years and years....GIVE US SHADOWBOLT VOLLEY!

 

I hate SoC with a passion, its too clunky and slow. All the bad ass demons in lore had shadowbolt volley. Just thinking about this really makes me miss my Cunning of the Cruel with a passion haha.

 

As for the extra dots, i would like that too. Siphon Life used to be its own dot.

Edited August 16, 2013 by vaeevictiss

[vaeevictiss 17]

I'd like to see Malefic grasp beeing removed and keep Drain Soul like it is.

 

I say: Just give us 2 more dots - 1 instant and one casted - to manage and remove Malefic grasp and we will be fine.

 

A new AOE spell would be great too.

(dunno what the hell is going on with the post above)

 

i have been saying for years and years and years....GIVE US SHADOWBOLT VOLLEY!

 

I hate SoC with a passion, its too clunky and slow. All the bad ass demons in lore had shadowbolt volley. Just thinking about this really makes me miss my Cunning of the Cruel with a passion haha.

 

As for the extra dots, i would like that too. Siphon Life used to be its own dot.

[Kaboozey 16]

To reiterate what I posted before, Critical hits are based on your unique %.  Most people at this ilvl completely unprioritizing Crit will see around 20-25%.  Getting that effect to trigger then does a RNG roll to see if the actual proc happens, which is 40%.  So the chance of you seeing a proc on any given UA tick is your Crit * 0.4.  For me, at 25.0%, the proc rate of any individual tick is 0.4 * 0.25 = 0.10, or 10%.  Increasing your Crit to 30% would make your proc chance per UA tick go up to 12%, a minor 2% increase, but costing you 3000 secondary stats that could be pushed into Haste or Mastery.

 

 

Math > All.

 

Okay.  So eff any chance of crit being worth a lick for Affliction.  Stupid bonus is stupid.  And as JV pointed out, it's even worse in multi-target situations.  Hopefully Demo + Mannoroth's Fury will be better for those situations anyway.  I still think the Demo bonuses are both fairly solid.  Getting a 2P proc with popped DSx2 + new trinket to apply a Super Doom + a slice of bacon (HoG proc) if you're super lucky while spamming ToC sounds pretty massive.  Then again, so does 90% uptime of Haunt debuff.

[Zagam 1,982]

The biggest thing to note is that Archimonde's Darkness will essentially only give you one additional Dark Soul per fight because it has a HoG recharging system.  It makes it very undesirable, much less than if the charge systems were unique to each cast.

 

Demonology will be pretty good, despite having lower damage, because it'll take MF and not rely on KJC at all thanks to Touch of Chaos.  Affliction MAY have to take KJC, but will still have to plant for Drain Soul, Haunt, and UA casts.  Empowering Seed for 10 seconds and boosting its damage by 100% is pretty solid, but it will be fight dependent.  I'll be updating the T16 guide as soon as I plow through SoO week 1. 

 

Manno's Fury is relatively crap for Destruction unless Rain of Fire's baseline damage is increased a good bit.  If they increase it too much, you'll need to keep it up during single target again, and blah to that.  For Demonology, it's said that Immo Aura and Hellfire are the only affected spells.  I'd MUCH prefer a buffed Shadowflame, but whatever.  I think the baseline talent to take will be AD, but MF will have its places for Demo and KJC might have its place for Affliction.

[vaeevictiss 17]

that is rather upsetting how AD works. I really wish i did the ptr this patch. lot of critical lock stuff. 

 

Looks like they just exchanged a crap talent for another crap talent. You mention empowering seed...does that also empower the corruptions that spread? if not i cannot see that being a massive change...it seemed like it already was one of the weakest AOEs out there.

[Zagam 1,982]

No, MF only empowers Seed of Corruption explosion, Hellfire, Immolation Aura, and Rain of Fire.  It'll be a lackluster talent for Destro/Aff.  It would be MUCH better in design, IMO, if it was 500% increased range passively and the damage modifier was a 10 sec duration, 60 sec CD, but what do I know?

[Soulzar 42]

The biggest thing to note is that Archimonde's Darkness will essentially only give you one additional Dark Soul per fight because it has a HoG recharging system.  It makes it very undesirable, much less than if the charge systems were unique to each cast.

 

 

While only one added DS a fight is nothing huge, I think the ability keep DS on cooldown every 2 mins as usual, while having that extra charged banked to used during a specific point in the fight where you need burst (procs, burn phase, hero) is going to be very powerful and allow us to maximize that extra DS.  AD will lose a bit of potency once we move away from 2pT15.

 

I personally am still not sold on the new MF.  Without any testing, it seems being able to bank DS for aoe burst will be more effective than short partial buff to aoe burst.   That said, doubling up DS with MF sounds sexy!

 

KJC seems good where they have it.

[vaeevictiss 17]

While only one added DS a fight is nothing huge, I think the ability keep DS on cooldown every 2 mins as usual, while having that extra charged banked to used during a specific point in the fight where you need burst (procs, burn phase, hero) is going to be very powerful and allow us to maximize that extra DS.  AD will lose a bit of potency once we move away from 2pT15.

 

I personally am still not sold on the new MF.  Without any testing, it seems being able to bank DS for aoe burst will be more effective than short partial buff to aoe burst.   That said, doubling up DS with MF sounds sexy!

 

KJC seems good where they have it.

that is true. As much as we try to make sure we have DS up for Hero/Zerk, it doesn't always happen. Its either on CD or you are waiting up to two minutes just to make sure you have it ready. Now, with the talent you are guaranteed to have it ready...i suppose it could be decent, but ya, at face value it doesn't seem to add a lot over added mobility.

[JvChequer 43]

Nowadays where AD would shine in TOT:

 

Jinrohk: First DS at pull and another at pool, it's a fast fight, the boost it's great.

Horridon: For Lust at War-god/Horridon at the end

Council: Inicial cleave of the 3 bosses to help zerging at beggining.

Tortos: End of the fight 20% with the dmg modifier.

Megaera: Lust or last head.

Ji-kun: Primal w/e buff but maybe MF would be better for soloing some nests easier.

Durumu: MF when icy walls show up. Forget AD.

Primordius: AD for double DS when lusting in the first transformation.

Dark Animus: AD for zerging or w/e

Iron Qon: AD for lusting/ when all dogs show up.

Twins: Zerging Fire bitch

Lei Shen: Dunno

Ra-den: Kill fastly any ball.

Edited August 16, 2013 by JvChequer

[Zagam 1,982]

Another iteration and no changes.  Sorry fans of Destruction, pick a new spec.  Looks like what is going on with Aff and Demo is going live in 5.4.

[JvChequer 43]

A couple sites in germany are saying that 5.4 is going out 10-11/09 so still hope destro-fans.

[Zagam 1,982]

PvP season ends the 27th.  I can't imagine they'll make people go 2 weeks without any PvP.  It's easy to leak that sort of information.  My computer already has the entire 5.4 patch downloaded...they'll just release a quick update and we'll be in.  I don't think it'll be delayed that long.  That'll just let people go play FF which Blizz doesn't want.

[Khaos 5]

i'm glad tbh , don't like destruction and i love demo.

[Omaric 246]

I'm going to go pure crit destruction and turn some heads.  Yea that's right!!

[Zagam 1,982]

Yeah, but it won't be the turn your head like "holy shit, did you see that?!?!?!"  It'll be like "holy shit, did you see that...."

 

That #1 = boobs

That #2 = crit stacking Destruction Warlock

[Zagam 1,982]

Patch confirmed Sept 10, so definitely a chance for more iterations.  Building our loot table spreadsheet (as well as other classes) and will be offering this as a download for a guild management tool.  Screenshots coming as I complete it.