Warlock WoD Talents - A Glimpse Into the Future

[Zagam 1,982]

UPDATED 2/21/2014 - Chaotic Resources Changes

 

CHAOTIC RESOURCES

 

Affliction - (Passive) Grants the Soulburn Empowerment effect to your Haunt spell.  Soulburn:Haunt empowers Haunt to also grant you 15% increased periodic damage for 30 seconds.

 

If you added that talent right now, you'd simply see a 50% increased periodic damage effect for the duration of Haunt and then a 15% increased periodic effect for the remainder of the duration.  With the removal of snapshotting in WoD, this will feel like the Haunt of Cataclysm where it wasn't tied to a resource and was simply cast on cooldown.  Right now, Soul Shards are used specifically for Haunt.  It would make little to no sense to continue having Haunt cost 1 Soul Shard and having this talent make it cost an additional Soul Shard to empower your DoTs for 30 seconds.  My guess is that a rework is going into Affliction to make Haunt an ability to be used on CD much like it was in Cataclysm while Soul Shards remain a tight resource to be used for Soul Swap and to empower Haunt.  If it does, indeed, remain the way it is today with Haunt costing a Soul Shard, this talent will be a lackluster DPS gain and will add complexity in deciding when and where to spend your Soul Shards.

 

Demonology - (Passive) Touch of Chaos no longer costs Demonic Fury.  Instead, Touch of Chaos generates 40 Demonic Fury, but Metamorphosis provides 30% less increased damage.

 

Currently, Touch of Chaos is your main filler while you're in Metamorphosis.  Demonologists tend to want to use their intellect procs on Soulfire, particularly Metamorphosis Soulfire which costs 80 Demonic Fury with Molten Core charges available.  Between SF and ToC, Demonic Fury is at a premium and optimum uptime of Metamorphosis is somewhere between 40% and 45%.  Right now, at approximately 23k Mastery, Metamorphosis does 143% increased damage without Dark Soul applied.  With Dark Soul up, Metamorphosis does an increased 233% damage.  In WoD, the item squish will change the amount of secondary stats, but not the relative scale, so this value should be relatively similar, but with the standard squish to the first tier of raiding.  Let's assume for this talk that we have approximately 10k Mastery which increases damage done in Metamorphosis by 58% and 148% with Dark Soul. 

 

In WoD, taking Chaotic Resources will have a large change in your playstyle.  Demonologists playing properly will enter Metamorphosis and will remain empowered for the remainder of the fight.  Demonologists using Chaotic Resources will be tasked with managing their Demonic Fury and will no longer worry about mana whatsoever.  Demonologists will build Demonic Fury with Touch of Chaos and spend it on Immolation Aura, Chaos Wave, and Soulfire.  Immolation Aura will be able to be kept up 100% of the time by spamming Touch of Chaos to offset the cost of Immolation Aura.  Chaos Wave can be used to snipe killing blows to generate extra Demonic Fury.  Soulfire will be used as a Demonic Fury spender.  If you've ever played a Hunter, think about this:

 

Cobra Shot = Touch of Chaos (it even reapplies Corruption!)

Explosive Shot/Kill Command/Aimed Shot = Soulfire

Serpent Sting = Corruption

Multishot = Chaos Wave/Immolation Aura

 

Notice that you will play very close to a Hunter in that you'll generate DF with a filler while using DF (focus) to deal increased damage.  The penalty is that you will receive a 30% penalty on your Master Demonologist effect.  The very loose, unofficial math behind this is kind of weird.  Here's how I see it playing out in the first tier of raiding...

 

Mastery ~ 10k (or WoD equivalent) giving 58% increased damage.  Chaotic Resource penalty drops this to 28% increased damage, or just over half.  However, Metamorphosis uptime will go from 40/45% to 100%, or at least a double in uptime.  In caster form, you gain 1/3 of the Metamorphosis damage increase, so the caster form's increased damage would be about 25% (8 base + 10,000/600). 

 

Notice that as you gain Mastery, this talent becomes more and more valuable.  If we extrapolate the values, we can try to estimate when this talent becomes a DPS gain (assume 40% Metamorphosis uptime without CR).  Here's a quick spreadsheet to show the values and how they work with and without Chaotic Resources.

 

Notice that at any Mastery level over 10k, Chaotic Resources is a DPS gain at the given values listed.  Also notice that Chaotic Resources scales EXTREMELY well being only 1.5% better at 11k Mastery but being a whopping 25% better at 23k Mastery.  In WoD, secondary stats will scale down, but the important part is to look at the percentage bonuses.  Keep these values in mind when you're looking at your character sheet in WoD.  11k Mastery translates into 26.33% on your character sheet.  If Blizzard sees my math (or someone there does it themselves), this value will need to be boosted a bit in the first tier, similarly to how Grimoire of Sacrifice was 50% for Affliction early on.  My proposed penalty in the first tier of raiding would be about 15%.  In the 2nd tier of raiding, a penalty ranging from 25-30% will be appropriate, and in the final tier, somewhere around 40% would be a balanced penalty.  Leaving this at 30% will make this talent garbage in the first tier and godly in the 3rd tier.

 

New: Demonbolt (instant cast) - consumes 30% of your Demonic Fury and refunds up to 300 of the amount consumed when Demonic Fury goes below 50.

 

This will be a much different take than the initial version which enabled permanent Metamorphosis.  Now we're looking at a new spell to be introduced into the rotation (WHAT HAPPENED TO THERE ALREADY BEING ENOUGH BUTTON BLOAT, BLIZZARD?) which will be a complicated calculation.  The refund will be UP TO 300 meaning you'd have to consume 1000 Demonic Fury to get the 300 refund.  We'll have to see how it plays out and gets adjusted.

 

Destruction - (Passive) Incinerate and Conflagrate deal 75% 60% less damage but generate 400% 300% more Burning Embers.  Fire and Brimstone may now affect Chaos Bolt.

 

This is a creative change to Destruction.  With the damage scaling, it's very difficult to gauge how this will impact DPS as a percentage, but we can explore the application.

 

First off, this will be an extremely delicate talent in that your emphasis will be MUCH higher on Chaos Bolt.  Being such, you'll need to be sure that movement is not a part of anything.  Since KJC doesn't impact Chaos Bolt, you'll likely be dropping that talent and picking up Archimode's Darkness.  With Chaotic Resources, your Incinerates and Conflagrates will generate half of a Burning Ember on non-crits and an entire Burning Ember on a critical effect.  Get used to seeing the big green dragon animation of Chaos Bolt because you'll be casting it every 3-4 spells as pooling them for Intellect procs won't be necessary because rebuilding Embers will take 3-4 globals. 

 

This is going to be rather hysterical to watch.  This fixes Chaotic Energies in regards to AoE.  You'll use Incinerate with FnB to build Burning Embers and then unleash 4 Chaos Bolts at once.  That's my guess, at least.  This means if you use FnB with Chaos Bolt, you'll drop FnB but hit 4 things really, really hard.  Two Incinerates and you should get back in your FnB spam.  I wonder what happens if you Havoc, too...

 

There are two possibilities with this talent now:

 

1) Chaos Bolt consumes 1 Burning Ember per Chaos Bolt and can be cast at 4 targets maximum which would feel somewhat balanced.

2) Chaos Bolt Fire and Brimstone consumes 2 Burning Embers per cast making Destruction the best AoE spec in the game by a mile and a galaxy.

 

I can't see #2 being a viable, logical option at this point.

 

 

CATACLYSM

 

All Specs - 2.6 cast - deals 10,000 Shadowflame damage and applies a DoT base on specialization.

 

Cataclysm looks like a rather boring talent with a 60 second cooldown that does some AoE Shadowflame damage and leaves a DoT.  Affliction and Demonologists apply Corruption upon application while Destruction applies Immolate. 

 

In terms of AoE, the area is rather small - in fact, it's identical to Shadowfury at the moment.  It also has a 2.6 second baseline cast putting it on par with Chaos Bolt.  This would certainly be useful to spread Corruption for Demonologists, but Destruction can already get Immolate up on all targets with a spell in its baseline toolkit.  Affliction will want to spread more than its weakest DoT, and they, too, can spread DoTs with a tool in their baseline toolkit.  For Demonology, we've already discussed how potent Chaotic Resources is, so I don't see this talent doing well.  If it adds a snare, stun, knockback, or some other jazzy effect, we MIGHT see some utility out of it, partcularly in PvP.  I just don't see this one getting off the ground in its current state. 

 

 

DEMONIC SERVITUDE

 

All Specs - (passive) Doomguards and Infernals can now be summoned as permanent pets.

 

In terms of awesomeness, this one is definitely up there.  In terms of practicality, it is by far the worst.  Right now, Doomguard does very little DPS.  In most of my personal logs, my Doomguard runs around 27k DPS while he's out.  In respect to my total DPS, that's around 7-8%, so if the scaling remains exactly the same, this will be a boring, but awesome looking level 100 talent that translates into a modest DPS gain.  If you used this talent, it's more than likely you'd want to take Supremacy along with it.  Then again, if they make the Doomguard a permanent pet, I wonder if it will be subject to Grimoire of Service...

 

However, the Infernal MUST be fixed.  The only way an Infernal is worth a damn is when he is summoned and deals Infernal Awakening damage.  Otherwise, his ridiculously awful melees and AoE is pathetic.  He will need a heavy makeover to make choosing him worthwhile.

 

 

Overall, I'm digging Chaotic Resources.  I think it is by far the most complex talent I've seen and it will require much analysis to see how its effects will be felt.  Cataclysm is boring and Demonic Servitude looks cool but needs some pet reform.  My early talent recommendations, given nothing else changes, would look like this:

 

Destruction: Demonic Servitude (movement), Chaotic Resources (no movement)

Demonology: Chaotic Resources

Affliction: Demonic Servitude

[Liquidsteel 279]

Depending on the damage of Chaos Wave (wtb buffs), it will be interesting to see if with the Chaotic Resources talent for Demonology, it will still be better to pop out of Metamorphosis in order to land a double stack HoG or not.

[Zagam 1,982]

My guess is if there is some additional targets that will survive all 11 seconds, then it would be. 

[mediocregatsby 18]

demonic servitude is just so BORING unless they give those demons some new abilities. just retuning the numbers to give us a flat X% DPS bonus would be really bland. 

 

i would be quite happy with haunt going back to the charge/cd system.

[Zagam 1,982]

I think that Haunt is being reworked - the wording of the talent leads one to believe such.

 

Demonic Servitude is going to be your baseline increase.  I described it as boring, but I think it would be neat to have a constant Doomguard/Terrorguard.  Even if they get no extra abilities, it'll be a solid DPS increase.  Chaotic Resources looks to be situational and gains benefit as your stats grow.  Cataclysm is the real boring winner here.  I don't even think I would implement that spell anywhere today even if it did 250k to everything.

[Mode 0]

Thank you Zagam for the overview!

 

I dont know why but it feels that in next expansion we will be playing as demo warlocks :)

[Zagam 1,982]

HOLD THE PHONES!  NEW TALENT INFORMATION RELEASED YESTERDAY/TODAY!

 

http://i.imgur.com/cZYlPB6.jpg

 

Chaotic Resources

 

Destruction: Incinerate and Conflagrate do 60% less damage but generate 300% more Burning Embers.  FIRE AND BRIMSTONE CAN NOW AFFECT CHAOS BOLT!

 

This is going to be rather hysterical to watch.  This fixes Chaotic Energies in regards to AoE.  You'll use Incinerate with FnB to build Burning Embers and then unleash 4 Chaos Bolts at once.  That's my guess, at least.  This means if you use FnB with Chaos Bolt, you'll drop FnB but hit 4 things really, really hard.  Two Incinerates and you should get back in your FnB spam.  I wonder what happens if you Havoc, too...

 

Demonology: Demonbolt - consumes 30% of your current Demonic Fury to deal damage and then refunds the 300 DF when you go below 50.  This is kinda...wonky?  It sounds like an ability you need to use on CD that is required to maintain 100% Metamorphosis uptime.  But it sounds like it'll only return 30% of what you sacrificed to cast Demonbolt, so this is going to make it a little more difficult to optimize Metamorphosis uptime.

 

Affliction: same boring shit. 

[ColeSS22 0]

FnB Chaos Bolt... Just give me that for one trash pull today... I cannot even begin to think about...uhhh...brain meltdown...

 

Ok but seriously.. so that would take 2 embers? 1 for the Bolt and1 for FnBing it...? So imagine glyphed Havoc, @ lets say Garrosh, and pop off two CBs using 4 embers that duplicate from FnB that duplicate from Havoc...

 

Yummmmy... that would really make some classes jealous...

[Zagam 1,982]

There's a lot of confusion on people thinking they will see 20 Chaos Bolts on 20 mobs - it won't work that way.  Fire and Brimstone changes Incinerate and Conflagrate's cost from mana to Burning Embers.  Chaos Bolt already consumes Burning Embers.  My best estimated guess is that each Chaos Bolt will cost 1 Burning Ember.

 

If you are hitting 3 targets, you could Incinerate/Conflagrate to 4 Embers, Chaos Bolt, and rinse and repeat.  With this, you'd fire 3 CBs and maintain Fire and Brimstone infinitely.

 

If you are hitting 4+ targets, as soon as you cast Chaos Bolt, you'd consume all Burning Embers and lose AoE capacity.  Doing this would SEVERELY hurt your DPS because your Incinerate would be doing 40% of the normal damage.  I can see this talent being awesome for 2 or 3 target cleave - for 4+, this talent will cause issues and be a DPS loss.

[ColeSS22 0]

Thanks for ruining my Friday buzz Zagam!! Haha jk... i know that 20 CBs would be too insane but I let myself dream for a second...

 

I agree you are probably right and this sounds like an interesting balance. But I cant think of any fight in SoO right now where there is a 2-3 target cleave... Protectors maybe but they are so spread out the majority of the fight... Im sure it will find its applications but now I'm seriously unipressed if dampens single target that much just to help only 2-3 target fights.

[Liquidsteel 279]

The wording of fire and brimstone says it hits all targets in range. It should hit everything in range with CB.

Remember that incinerate will do a lot less now because of it.

[Zagam 1,982]

I'm just saying if CB hits everything in range, CB will need to be nerfed or Warlocks will be ungodly broken.  That'd be equivalent to Survival Hunters getting to apply Explosive Shot to EVERYTHING.  It won't go live.  I guarantee it.

[Guest garmeth06]

Destro would also be histerical in RBGS and 5s, although those are considered jokes. If it goes live I can finally make warriors cry.

Edited February 21, 2014 by garmeth06

[ColeSS22 0]

I wont be surprised if CB is nerfed... I know all numbers will shift down but still seeing 2mil+ on one cast that can double with Havoc seems broken already... Not that I am complaning...

[Lockybalboa 618]

Destro would also be histerical in RBGS and 5s, although those are considered jokes. If it goes live I can finally make warriors cry.

 

 

warlocks eat warriors as it is in arenas.

 

For both RBGs and 5s I think it would be more effective to get two or 4 full powered havoc'd CBs on two targets, then a lot of weak ass ones.

[Guest garmeth06]

warlocks eat warriors as it is in arenas.

 

For both RBGs and 5s I think it would be more effective to get two or 4 full powered havoc'd CBs on two targets, then a lot of weak ass ones.

What, warriors are immune to warlock CC for half an arena, we wear cloth, warriors have multiple ways to cover large distances.

 

Warriors have so many interrupts, destruction is essentially unplayable in high level arenas because it does shit tier damage if the lock is trained, a warrior can sustain himself through non dark-souled dots with second wind alone.

 

Not to mention any warrior above 1700 will spell reflect chaos bolts at a reasonable rate.

Edited February 21, 2014 by garmeth06

[Hatelock 0]

First, thanks for the breakdown.  However, I think you are forgetting an important part of FnB in your analysis of chaotic resources and cataclysm.  My understanding is FnB does 100% damage to your target but only 44% (I know thats not right but i think its close) damage to the other mobs in AoE range.  That fact, at least in my mind, makes cataclysm better (dot it applies does 100% damage compared to the 44% from FnB on the mobs other than the main target

0than your breakdown mentions but also makes doing FnB chaos bolts (my assumption is 2 embers but hits everything but the CBs only do 44% of normal) much less OP.

Edited February 21, 2014 by Hatelock

[Zagam 1,982]

Not forgetting the damage reduction in FnB at all.  Even with it, Chaos Bolt hitting all targets like FnB Incinerate does today would still be outrageously powerful.

[Lockybalboa 618]

You are mistaken on the basic mechanic of Fire and Brimstone, the primary target doesn't get a magic full damage, F&B lowers the damage to ALL targets to XX.XX%, depending on mastery.

 

Since the percentages will be about the same in WoD, we can likely expect that by the end tier our percent values will be the same as they are right now. So for be F&B does 76.89% damage to all targets. 76.89% of spammable spells is FAR more powerful then a fairly weak 60second cooldown.

[Kazistrasz 216]

I actually can totally see them letting it go live where it's 2 embers to hit everything with the damage reduction including the reduction from the talent. Yes, our burst AoE will be absolutely retarded, but due to the reduction in damage to our other abilities, we won't have the same steady stream of AoE we have now - we'll be a little more bursty. I'm not saying it isn't completely broken, but I don't think it's quite as god-mode ridiculous as you guys think. Yet, they do let some super broken things go live (see: UVLS).

 

As demo, there's a lot I want to know. How much will it actually do at 100, especially in buffs and in Meta? It has no listed CD or buff duration. Can we slowly stack it with smaller amounts, or is it only your most recent? If we ToC at 60 and trigger it, will be have to go back into Meta or will we not be kicked out of it to begin with? There's a lot of things I can see using it for, such as saving up to make sure we can burn that much more during DS or using it as a headstart to build up after dumping with a proc.

 

Given Mamytwink said he was critting with Shield Slam for 10k at 91 (see: MMO-Champ), I'm not so sure that Cataclysm's initial hit is going to be so weak. Shield Slam is not a small thing. It may not be a Chaos Bolt, but it's about a Shadowburn in raids at similar item levels in current content. So far as I've seen right now, we're only getting these tooltips with their level base damage at the level 90 scale. (much like how Dragon Roar at lower levels will tell you it hits for 150 for warriors). This could end up being something that instantly (okay, 2.6 second castly) vaporizes a big field of adds, or at the very least removes a large chunk of their HP and puts a DoT on them on top of it. I really think we should hold judgement on this until we can see it in a legitimate beta situation at level 100 and how it compares to other abilities at that point.

[Zagam 1,982]

Don't compare Shield Slam to Shadowburn.  If he had ANY vengeance at all, that amount is augmented by something Warlocks can't have. 

 

The point most miss here is that I'm not saying Cataclysm is terrible.  I'm saying it's not that great considering you're giving up Chaotic Resources (whatever the shit it ends up being) or permanent Doomguard for it. 

 

Let's say we could decide between Cataclysm and permanent Doomguards as a base spell right now as Destruction.  Let's say it did 300k damage to everything in an 8 yard radius and applied Immolate.  Remember, it has a 2.6 second cast!  That's equivalent to a Chaos Bolt. 

 

Worthless: Norushen, Iron Juggernaut, Nazgrim, Malkorok, Siegecrafter, and Paragons

Maybe Good: Immerseus, Protectors, Dark Shamans, Spoils, Thok, Garrosh

Definitely Good: Sha of Pride, Galakras

 

Worthless means that it wouldn't hit more than one target, or if it did, nothing would live long enough for the DoT to matter meaning you're essentially casting an AoE Chaos Bolt and getting little to no gain.

 

Maybe Good meaning you could hit a bunched up group of Immerseus adds or hit a pack of the slimes on Shamans, but it's not going to be available every time you want it.  The DoT also might be of little consequence.

 

Definitely Good: Sha of Pride.  Reflections come up exactly every 60 seconds.  This talent would be MONEY for them.  Same for Galakras - spawning waves of adds, this talent would come in handy. 

 

For the rest, you're giving up a 6-8% DPS gain, as we stand today, with a permanent Doomguard, more if you take a perma-Terrorguard.  I will argue until the end of time that as these talents stand now, no way you take Cataclysm.  As a 60 second CD spell that doesn't do CRAZY good damage, it's boring and rather tame.  This is just comparing it to the improved pets. 

 

The other thing that is frustrating is that it adds a spell to our rotations.  They've already talked about button bloat yet here we are looking at adding Cataclysm as a spell or looking at Demonbolt as Demonology Chaotic Resources.  They're being contradictory as to what they said they want to do and what they have running now.

[Kazistrasz 216]

Warlocks don't have vengeance, but a prot warrior doesn't have the insane spell power and mastery going on. I also do that without even tanking normal or heroic bosses where I'm taking enough damage to worry about dying. I've even pushed that high in LFR, but that one is less relevant. Even soloing PvE, it's roughly half as much as a 546 warlock is likely to do with a Chaos Bolt without DS and procs. I'm expecting it to be roughly half the damage of a Chaos Bolt.

 

I'm not sold about trying to analyze these in terms of our current tier and setup. 6-8% if it went live today. But things are also going to be very different when they take out snap-shotting, move away from god-mode trinkets, and any of the other things they're doing to get the game under control, including some of the other things they're not sharing publicly.

 

Cole said that only Protectors is really a 2-3 target cleaveable fight (also, Cole, many guilds especially once they outgear a little bit just stack the bosses on top of each other) in SoO. It's true. But, they're not designing these level 100, next-expac talents to be designed based around what fights we're clearing now. They've already said they're going to be designing encounters differently in WoD with the advent of Mythic difficulty and one raid size. I don't particularly think it's fair to pass but so much judgement when we don't know what everything is going to look like.

 

I know you know and hear things that many of us don't, but for all we know they could give CB a major nerf in WoD that puts it on par with Cataclysm and devalues Chaotic Resources. I'm just trying to keep an open mind until there's a little more concrete for me to stand on.

[JvChequer 43]

The point most miss here is that I'm not saying Cataclysm is terrible.  I'm saying it's not that great considering you're giving up Chaotic Resources (whatever the shit it ends up being) or permanent Doomguard for it. 

 

Let's say we could decide between Cataclysm and permanent Doomguards as a base spell right now as Destruction.  Let's say it did 300k damage to everything in an 8 yard radius and applied Immolate.  Remember, it has a 2.6 second cast!  That's equivalent to a Chaos Bolt. 

 

(...)

 

For the rest, you're giving up a 6-8% DPS gain, as we stand today, with a permanent Doomguard, more if you take a perma-Terrorguard.  I will argue until the end of time that as these talents stand now, no way you take Cataclysm.  As a 60 second CD spell that doesn't do CRAZY good damage, it's boring and rather tame.  This is just comparing it to the improved pets. 

 

 

But it also applys immolate so even if Cataclysm deals same or just a little more dmg than Chaos bolt, still a dps gain even single target because u willl not need to apply one more immolate.

 

But of course it's not that good as a personal Terror-fuckin'-guard.

 

Btw, I'm curious about how this talent of perma-guard will work with Sacrifice or servitude.

 

My guess is:

 

Supremacy -> U use only one pet, the terroguard.

Servitude -> DOUBLE FUCKIN GUARDS

Sacrifice -> A powerful version of sacrifice, instead 15% increase dmg, 25%, for example.

Edited February 22, 2014 by JvChequer

[SparkSovereign 61]

Destro would also be histerical in RBGS and 5s, although those are considered jokes. If it goes live I can finally make warriors cry.

Until they all get Mass Spell Reflected at you, anyway...

[Guest garmeth06]

Until they all get Mass Spell Reflected at you, anyway...

 

Indeed . I didn't mean they would make warriors directly cry, just that we would be op.

Edited February 22, 2014 by garmeth06