WOD BETA DISCUSSION w/SCREENSHOTS

[Oldtrout 7]

For us to be weak, Blizzard are going to have to purposefully spite warlocks because of our strength in MoP (their doing). We are one of four pure DPS classes in the game, and it's not as if the other 3 haven't had as good a time of it as we have over the years. It's just what happens - to always be strong in DPS, you choose a DPS class. If you want to play a hybrid, you have to sacrifice the likelihood of always being near / at the top.

[gahhda 95]

For all of those in this forum with access to beta, I'd like to direct you to my thread: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13681338110?page=1#3

 

Keeping discussion going here is fine, but at least take the time to post your opinions in a medium where the devs might actually see your opinions. Otherwise, nothing will ever get changed!

 

For all of you 'the sky is falling' folks, yes and no.

 

The sky is falling if you care about your single target rotation being enjoyable in any way shape or form. It is not falling if all you care about is being one of/the strongest spec/s.

 

Warlocks are incredibly strong in beta raid testing despite being mediocre, and actually behind other classes, single target. We have some of the best aoe and cleave mechanics in the game, some of the best snap burst, blahblahblah. Warlocks will be good.

 

However, they won't be fun if you like affliction or destruction.

 

Charred remains is awful, and so is SB:Haunt.

[gahhda 95]

Actually, I have no specifically tested full Mastery gear/enchants for destro yet, but I am finding that full Multistrike is working better for me than crit.  This does not surprise me much as MS is just another form of Crit.   

 

 

Charred Remains is really not as OP as people think.  In fact I do as much dmg, if not more by not even picking a lvl 100 talent...as I do with CR.  I honestly can't take the CR playstyle... its too much.  Knowing that if you pop conflag with more than 2 embers you will cap 4 embers before you can cast a CB that doesnt eat backdraft stacks.... or having barely enough filler time to actually use your backdraft charges on incin..... bank embers for procs? lol nope... no more

 

Charred remains needs to add a 5th Ember to work, unless they tone down the ember generation.  AoE is cluncky (though admittedly with practice this issue would go away) because you can easily drop out of F&B when CB costs two embers.... and you AoE is basically balanced round every other cast being a CB since your Incin/conflag dmg is neutered.

 

Cataclysm is just as bad.  cast time longer than a CB, hits for less than a CB, would be impossible to use on moving targets unlike just toggling on F&B, and its cooldown severely limits its uses in practical situation.  Servitude, while the "dumb passive no skill" talent, is looking like the most appealing honestly.  It was made much much better for affliction now that it aplies Agony instead of Corruption, but for destro.. it needs something else if it want to compete on that tier with CR as an AoE talent.. even the Infernal is looking like a more promising AoE option than Cataclysm lol.  Cataclysm is a spell i have high hopes for, hopefully they can save it... 

 

Multi-strikes don't generate burning embers, so critical strike is actually better (most of the time). At least with charred remains, I haven't really tested anything without it, because it's basically mandatory right now.

 

Either way, mastery is the god statistic single target for warlocks again, across all specializations.

 

Charred remains is in fact a rather large damage gain, it's just so disgustingly awful to play that it's hard to notice. Current sim shows ~10% damage gain from running charred remains vs no talent. It should be noted that it is very much harder to SEE a dps difference now. 10% of 20k is 2k. Seeing variances that small can be hard to look at and go, 'damn..thats a 10% gain!.'

 

Cataclysm is a fine mechanic, it just pales in comparison to an AoE chaos bolt mechanically. It will be tuned, it will be worth using for burst aoe, the devs aren't stupid. But, it's just flat out mechanically worse than an aoe chaos bolt, period. The issue with cataclysm isn't cataclysm, it's charred remains.

Edited August 1, 2014 by gahhda

[Zagam 1,982]

For all of those in this forum with access to beta, I'd like to direct you to my thread: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13681338110?page=1#3

 

Keeping discussion going here is fine, but at least take the time to post your opinions in a medium where the devs might actually see your opinions. Otherwise, nothing will ever get changed!

The battle.net forums need purged with fire before I'll return there.

[gahhda 95]

The battle.net forums need purged with fire before I'll return there.

 

Then your opinions will not reach a developer, and you might as well finalize anything that is on beta right now for launch.

[Rrasis 13]

did some beta testing on beastlord yesterday, our boomkin was doing around 75k damage consistently, i bounced between 45-55k and was usually 2-3rd in damage. most of that damage being aoe keeping the adds under control, havocing shadowburns onto the boss every chance i had.

 

I played destruction for the entire raid, I tried out all the talents using them for a couple of rounds at a time so i could get a good number comparison.

 

Cataclysm for destruction is not worth it, the adds dont' live long enough for the damage + immolate charge to be more than if you had kept up a normal F&B rotation.

 

Charred remains is a AOE DPS loss, it looks pretty cool but you end up ember capping too much to where I was only getting 2-3 aoe chaosbolts off per set of adds. I think you end up losing out on a lot of potential ember bits.

 

Demonic servitutde is a joke, I tried out both demons since there is a good amount of aoe to be done throughout the fight. both did compareable damage, around 50k.

 

my best dps came from not selecting any talent, i just used sac pact and archimonde's darkness, I didn't try out Manoroth's fury, you would only be able to use it every other pack of adds it just didnt' seem worth it.

 

the fight is a lot of fun, I think it took us 2-3 wipes before we started intentially wiping and trying out different stuff.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Then your opinions will not reach a developer, and you might as well finalize anything that is on beta right now for launch.

 

 

Posting on the battle.net forums is normally ignored also, best method has and always will be through in game reports and testing. 

[gahhda 95]

did some beta testing on beastlord yesterday, our boomkin was doing around 75k damage consistently, i bounced between 45-55k and was usually 2-3rd in damage. most of that damage being aoe keeping the adds under control, havocing shadowburns onto the boss every chance i had.

 

I played destruction for the entire raid, I tried out all the talents using them for a couple of rounds at a time so i could get a good number comparison.

 

Cataclysm for destruction is not worth it, the adds dont' live long enough for the damage + immolate charge to be more than if you had kept up a normal F&B rotation.

 

Charred remains is a AOE DPS loss, it looks pretty cool but you end up ember capping too much to where I was only getting 2-3 aoe chaosbolts off per set of adds. I think you end up losing out on a lot of potential ember bits.

 

Demonic servitutde is a joke, I tried out both demons since there is a good amount of aoe to be done throughout the fight. both did compareable damage, around 50k.

 

my best dps came from not selecting any talent, i just used sac pact and archimonde's darkness, I didn't try out Manoroth's fury, you would only be able to use it every other pack of adds it just didnt' seem worth it.

 

the fight is a lot of fun, I think it took us 2-3 wipes before we started intentially wiping and trying out different stuff.

 

I made a spreadsheet of current damage values of aoe abilities without charred remains. I found that, yes, charred remains is a dps loss on 5 targets.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_iVpqw3nSeS15BShHAVpIAWWCL1V1yU-iilQcyecVh8/edit#gid=0

 

Interestingly, RoF is incredibly strong right now. 2 ticks and it beats the damage of an incinerate. 4x the damage of an incinerate over the full duration. I'd imagine mannoroth's is actually incredibly strong right now, but this is before a major #s pass.

 

Example parse: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/FzxXDybtk9W24qad/#type=damage-done&source=6&start=15972&end=335419

 

31.06% RoF :D

Edited August 2, 2014 by gahhda

[Mode 0]

can anyone tell me how demo feels in WOD at the current time?

 

thx.

[JvChequer 43]

What I observe in Beta and raid testing its something like that:

 

Cleave = CR

Single = CR

AOE = Cata

 

Solo content = D.Servitude

[juribe 1]

Latest changes:

Cataclysm buffed across all 3 specs, needed to be done imo, is it enough though?

 

Charred Remains Ember Gen dropped from 300% to 200%, I think most people in beta agreed that the ember gen was too high

 

Demonbolt now increases dmg of subsequent Demonbolts by 20% and cost by 100%. So makes it something we'll use 2 times per burst cycle, but the option is there to use it for a 3rd if the burst is required (like Raden orbs)

Edited August 5, 2014 by juribe

[Liquidsteel 279]

I know Orcs are considered dumb, but this takes the cake. Guess he was in a rush to catch the last train to the Dark Portal!

 

[Desos 18]

Maybe he tried to pull some kind of this stunt: Mr.Bean

[Zagam 1,982]

Latest changes:

Cataclysm buffed across all 3 specs, needed to be done imo, is it enough though?

 

Charred Remains Ember Gen dropped from 300% to 200%, I think most people in beta agreed that the ember gen was too high

 

Demonbolt now increases dmg of subsequent Demonbolts by 20% and cost by 100%. So makes it something we'll use 2 times per burst cycle, but the option is there to use it for a 3rd if the burst is required (like Raden orbs)

Cata got doubled - fairly amusing for it to literally require being doubled to be competitive.  Either it was far too weak before or it will be very powerful now.  750% of spell power makes it the hardest hitting ability in our toolkit bar none.  This used with the Glyph of Dark Soul alone may be justification enough to take this talent - this buff was enormous.  Enough?  More than enough, I do believe.

 

Agreed on Charred Remains for Destruction.  I am concerned, however, that Charred Remains isn't getting any attention in the Affliction area which is drastically needed.  Nerfing the Ember generation without buffing the damage is a nerf, not a tuning (unless I misread).  The fact a Soulburn Haunt with Charred Remains costs 50% of your secondary resource as Affliction is concerning.  This talent, for Affliction, to be competitive, will need to be adjusted without the extra shard cost.  We'll see if it gets ANY attention at all.

 

Demonbolt was changed to what it was intended to be before the premature build release last time.  Now it's almost spelled out for us that you build fury and dump it in 1 minute cycles with the glyph of Dark Soul.  Build 1k DF, dump with Demonbolt watching it stack like Arcane Blast.  You'll use it more than the 2 times you mention because the initial cost got cut to 80.  Theoretically, if you went into Meta, you could use it at a cost of 80, 160, and 320 for a total of 3 uses for 560.  I don't see the return bonus anymore, so that at least frees us up to drop out of Metamorphosis before spending below 40 DF.

 

The only concerning issue I see here is that the builds they are doing with Warlocks will make the glyph of Dark Soul mandatory in that I believe optimal DPS will use the glyph.  This lends an opportunity to them to change Archimode's Darkness into the glyph to make it a competitive talent with KJC and Mannoroth's Fury by copying what the glyph does now in that it reduces the CD and duration of Dark Soul by 50%.  I'm just tossing out random thoughts here, but there are some interesting things being spelled out for us.

 

I know Orcs are considered dumb, but this takes the cake. Guess he was in a rush to catch the last train to the Dark Portal!

This is rather amusing.  New cosmetic glyph - wear your helmet sideways.

[Soulzar 42]

Cata got doubled - fairly amusing for it to literally require being doubled to be competitive.  Either it was far too weak before or it will be very powerful now.  750% of spell power makes it the hardest hitting ability in our toolkit bar none.  This used with the Glyph of Dark Soul alone may be justification enough to take this talent - this buff was enormous.  Enough?  More than enough, I do believe.

 

 

The buff to Cata brought it up in line for Destro compared to CR.  For demo however, its over the top amazing and is significantly better than demon bolt single target.

 

Demon bolt - 80k/175k, cost 80 fury.

Cataclysm - 175k/350k, costs no fury, and saves a global on applying doom.

 

With full mastery gear/enchants/consumables, prepot, trinkets, and GoSym proc I got it to crit for 475k.  A single Cataclysm with procs on the 5 pack test dummies hit for 1.78m

 

Cata will need a Demo nerf or Demon Bolt will need a severe buff to bring these two in line with each other, probably a bit of both.

 

I'd like to see them try a build with Demon Bolt having 2-3 charges, and scrap this stupid dmg/cost debuff idea.

 

Glyph Dark Soul just seems too good, especially with the 1 min cd's on everything.  1 min demon bolt debuff, 1 min cata cd, 1 min icd trinket, 1 min on use trinket...I have honestly not done any testing without the glyph.  

Edited August 5, 2014 by Soulzar

[Soulzar 42]

It was a bit hard to test correctly since Mannoroths was causing me to clip other dummies outside of the 5 pack I was playing around on, but Demo Sustained AoE with Cataclysm is as strong, if not stronger than Destruction.  Once imps get fixed to proc from doom crits, it could be better.

Edited August 5, 2014 by Soulzar

[Zagam 1,982]

You echo my thoughts on 'lol, they doubled it.'  When you double something, it was either horribly broken or will become horribly broken.  I find it amusing to know the release date of WoD is coming in 9 days and they're still making horrible swinging passes at talents and haven't even done DPS tuning yet.

[Soulzar 42]

You echo my thoughts on 'lol, they doubled it.'  When you double something, it was either horribly broken or will become horribly broken.  I find it amusing to know the release date of WoD is coming in 9 days and they're still making horrible swinging passes at talents and haven't even done DPS tuning yet.

 

Big swing indeed!  It took me one cast of Demon Bolt and one cast of Cataclysm to see that the "AoE" talent crushed the Single target talent.  Demon Bolt got changes this build vs the last, so no idea why, given the HUGE buff they gave Cataclysm, they did not adjust the base dmg of Demon Bolt while they were screwing with the stupid stack mechanic.

 

On a side note, Cataclysms graphic was updated and is now pretty damn cool.

[Djargo 4]

Doesn't cataclysm still cost too much fury though (Takes fury from each target doomed)

[Soulzar 42]

Cataclysm does not cost any fury, but the dooms it applies do.  So it really does not cost anything as you would be spending that fury on doom regardless however now do not need to allocate a global to it.

 

That said, its been posted in the official Blizz Theorycrafting thread that it is a bug and it is not intended that those dooms cost fury.  Currently, I think the Fury cost on the Dooms is the only thing keeping it from being 100% OP.  Free AoE dooms would be a talent in its own, never mind the dmg from Cataclysm....

[Mokrengar 0]

Following the trend Soulzar has noticed, it is clear that cataclysm offers many various benefits (even if damage is tuned down). With certainty, they are as follows: AoE Doom!

Currently, it takes many globals to quickly attain a situation where doom is on many targets - this achieves that goal in a single global. As the dooms are to cost 0 fury, this represents a significant quantity of free (but inaccessible) fury; additionally, the imps generated by doom criticals represent a highly variable (add duration dependent) source of additional fury which may be spent on single-target/AoE spells. As a worst case scenario for cataclysm use, it offers (50 DF + 1 GCD) per minute in a single target encounter.

 

I know not many here PVP often, but this talent is absurd in the benefit it provides when combined with the new demonology PVP 4-set bonus. Consider a random or rated battleground in which one lands cataclysm in a crowded area? Even if all targets are dispelled, the warlock gains 100 DF per dispel! The mechanical advantages of sudden, AoE Doom are immediately tangible to demonology warlocks.

[Zagam 1,982]

Dispelling that many Dooms (since Mass Dispel won't work, I don't think) would be enough of a side task that healers on the other side (PvP) wouldn't be able to keep up.  On top of the massive damage it will do, Cata will wreck shit.  However, I think with a talent like this, you'll be watched like a hawk.  Remember, it DOES have a massive cast time.  If you PvP at all, you'll know landing a Chaos Bolt in 2v2 or 3v3 can be tricky if you're playing against skilled opponents.  You can get away with a lot more in random BGs, but in an RBG where you're fighting for a flag, a Warlock is going to have to be ignored in order for the other team to let him cast a Cataclysm.  Seems like it'd be something you'd absolutely not let happen to your team by focusing the Warlock.  Long cast time + 60 second CD means when it's up, look out. 

[Soulzar 42]

Gorefiends Grasp into the Cataclysm of Dooooooom!

[Mokrengar 0]

Accurate PVP observations! (@zagam) I agree very much that in 2s/3s it will be difficult to cast. For randoms/Ashran, this ability will probably be the source of much rage (assuming you can sneak a cast in!); for rateds, Soulzar sums it nicely: use it as part of the Gorefiends/Solar Beam(not sure if in WoD)/Ring of Frost/<insert powerful AoE damage/CC> chain.

[Soulzar 42]

Very happy to finally see a wave of number tuning.  i figured this was coming shortly given that Blizz was requesting Warcraft Logs to be submit along side raid testing feedback.

 

Everything looks good, except one thing stood out....  Did they really buff the damage *WE* take from Hellfire, and not the damage it does to enemies?  rofl

 

• Hellfire (Demonology) Ignites the caster, causing [ 220.5% [ 14 + 220.5% of Spell Power ] Fire damage to himself and [ 176.4% of Spell Power ] Fire damage to all nearby enemies over 14 sec.