WOD BETA DISCUSSION w/SCREENSHOTS

[Zagam 1,982]

Spirit is a healing specialization stat, only.  If you're leveling in healing specialization, I worry for you. 

[taliesin52 3]

Spirit is a healing specialization stat, only.  If you're leveling in healing specialization, I worry for you. 

Unlike the days of Wrath where Sprit just made you a badass Demo lock

[Lockybalboa 618]

[*1 + 375% 412.5% of Spell Power*]

 

Buffed Demon Bolt....

[Zagam 1,982]

• Agony Inflicts increasing agony on the target, causing [*120 + 26.3% 30% of Spell Power*] Shadow damage over 24 sec. Damage starts low and increases over the duration. 100 yd range. Instant.

This equates to a 14% increase.

•     Corruption (Affliction) Corrupts the target, causing [*21.6% 26% of Spell Power*] Shadow damage over 18 sec Your most recently applied Corruption has a 6.0% chance to generate a Soul Shard each time it deals damage.

This equates to a 20% increase.  Still sad to see 6.0 base Nightfall proc rate.

•     Corruption (Demonology) Corrupts the target, causing [*21.6% 26% of Spell Power*] Shadow damage over 18 sec, and generating 4 Demonic Fury each time it deals damage. Metamorphosis transforms this spell into Doom: Doom Inflicts impending doom upon the target, causing [*4 + 120% 144% of Spell Power*] Shadow damage over 60 sec.

Corruption increase is 20%.  Doom increase is 20%.  Nice.

•     Corruption (Destruction) Corrupts the target, causing [*21.6% 26% of Spell Power*] Shadow damage over 18 sec.

Unsure if this means Immolate or not - might see a tooltip correction coming soon.  This looks like baseline Corruption, however, so it might be one of those duplicate lines.

•     Shadow Bolt (Demonology) Sends a shadowy bolt at the enemy, causing [*1 + 105% 126% of Spell Power*] Shadow damage and generating 25 Demonic Fury. Metamorphosis transforms this spell into Touch of Chaos: Touch of Chaos Unleashes energy at the enemy, causing [*1 + 56% 67.2% of Spell Power*] Chaos damage and extending the duration of Corruption.

Hell yeah - 20% gain on Shadow Bolt is very nice.  20% boost to Touch of Chaos makes it less shitty but still shitty. 

•     Unstable Affliction Causes [*7 + 25% 27.5% of Spell Power*] damage over 14 sec. If dispelled, the dispeller suffers [*8 + 200% 220% of Spell Power*] instant Shadow damage and is silenced for 4 sec. This damage is always a critical strike. 100 yd range. 1.5 sec cast.

Unstable Affliction buff is 10%.  Dispel damage is also increased 10%.  Relatively small, but every bit counts.

 

Talents

•     Demonbolt Launch of ball of demonic energy at the target, dealing [*1 + 375% 412.5% of Spell Power*] Chaos damage. Each Demonbolt amplifies further Demonbolts, increasing damage by 20% and cost by 100% for 40 sec (reduced by Haste), stacking up to 10 times. Warlock - LvL 100 Talent. 80 Demonic Fury. 40 yd range. 2 sec cast.

Now this one I don't get.  This is an additional 10% buff on an ability that already was one of the hardest hitting abilities in the game.  This puts it in very dangerous waters of being legitimately overpowered in both PvE and PvP, but especially PvP.  Here's what this looks like if you are able to maintain your stacks throughout an encounter.

 

*This assumes multiple stacks are additive*

 

1 stack = 495% of Spell Power, 160 DF

2 stack = 578% of Spell Power, 240 DF

3 stack = 660% of Spell Power, 320 DF

4 stack = 743% of Spell Power, 400 DF

...

10 stack = 1238% of Spell Power, 880 DF

 

If you're able to get to a 10 stack, which wouldn't be THAT difficult, you could blast something for 1238% Spell Power for a reasonable amount of Demonic Fury (reasonable = obtainable here).  BRING ON THE FORUM QQ!  Someone is going to get hit by a 10 stack Demonbolt and their account is going to get sent back to 2005.  Note - I calculated these stacks as if each stack only added 20% Spell Power on each stack (40% for stack 2, 60 for stack 3, etc).  If these are multplicative, in that a 2 stack is actually 44%, 3 stack is actually 72.8%, etc - a 10 stack would be 2554% of Spell Power.  I don't even have to tell you what this would look like hitting something.  I'm assuming things are additive and I'll be able to test this tonight.  I show here how the 10 stacks put things in ridiculous terms, but I don't think you'd even need to get that far.  I'm pretty sure 7 or 8 will one shot most people from 100% to 0%. 

•     Drain Soul Drains the target's soul, causing [*4 + 76% 83.6% of Spell Power*] Shadow damage over 4 sec. If the target dies and yields experience or honor, one Soul Shard is energized. When Drain Soul deals damage, it causes all of your other damage over time spells on the target to instantly deal 40% of their normal damage. Warlock - Affliction Spec. 1.5% of Base Mana, plus 1.5% per sec. 40 yd range. 4 sec cast (Channeled).

This is nice.  Solid 10% buff to the baseline damage and each DoT got buffed, so this will deal more damage.

•     Haunt (Normal) A ghostly soul haunts the target, dealing [*1 + 375% 412.5% of Spell Power*] Shadow damage and increasing damage over time you deal to the target by 30% for 8 sec.

This is crazy to me - Haunt already hits so much harder than all of your DoTs.  10% buffing to it hit ridiculously hard.  The Soul Shard cutting hurts until we hit level 100. 

•     Hand of Gul'dan Strikes the target and all enemies within 6 yards for [*137.6% 165% of Spell Power*] instant Shadowflame damage and an additional [*18% 21.6% of Spell Power*] Shadowflame damage and 12 Demonic Fury over 6 sec. Metamorphosis transforms this spell into Chaos Wave: Chaos Wave Hurls a wave of chaos to strike the target and all enemies within 6 yards, dealing [*210% 250% of Spell Power*] Chaos damage and reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec. Warlock - Demonology Spec. 5% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. Instant. 15 sec recharge.

Not sure HoG needed buffed, but whatever - ain't going to complain.  20% buff to initial hit and a 20% buff to Shadowflame.  Solid.  20% buff to Chaos Wave gives Demonology even more insane burst. 

•     Soul Fire Burn the enemy's soul, causing [*1 + 68% 81.6% of Spell Power*] Fire damage and generating 30 Demonic Fury. Soul Fire always critically strikes and your critical strike chance increases its damage. Warlock - Demonology Spec. 15% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. 4 sec cast.

Something to note here - Soul Fire is listed as generating 30 Demonic Fury.  Shadow Bolt generates 25 Demonic Fury.  With Soul Fire always critting, assume the % of Spell Power to be 163.2%.  Shadow Bolt is at 126%, but if it crits, this will go up to 252%.  With Demonbolt being the absolute choice for Demonology, Soul Fire isn't going to be used a great deal in Metamorphosis because of how hard DB hits, so Soul Fire will be a decent choice to use while filling your DF if you have excess charges over 5.  Demonology is looking to be Mastery > Crit > Haste, so it'll be interesting as the tiers go on to see if Soul Fire loses its zing, especially outside of Meta.

 

Pets

•     Doom Bolt Sends a shadowy bolt at the enemy, causing [*1 + 108% 162% of Spell Power*] Shadow damage. Deals 20% additional damage to targets below 20% health. 35 Energy. 30 yd range. 3 sec cast.

50% buff to Doom Bolt?  Hell yeah.  Couple this with a Terrorguard's 20% additional damage and this is looking super sweet for Demonic Servitude, and even non-Dem Serv Doomguard cooldowns.  Doomguard is legit again.  My early interpretation is that Affliction might look at Demonic Servitude with some bigger eyes now with SB:Haunt costing a TON of resources and Cata being rather selective in opportunities.  The 20% execute damage is not to be ignored here, as well. 

•     Immolation Burns nearby enemies for [*15% 22.5% of Spell Power*] fire damage every 2 seconds.

The bread and butter of an AoE fight - this guy will be like duplicating your Hellfire/Immolation Aura.  This dude might be super awesome for 5+ targets - I'm thinking Challenge Modes and any AoE fight, this one might be worth something. 

 

Summary

 

Affliction - buffed across the board with all DoTs, Haunt, and Drain Soul.  Was needed - got delivered.

Demonology - already the best spec, it arguably got the best buffs, too.  Demonbolt scaling doesn't matter for 6.0, but for level 100, it looks like it's becoming more and more the default talent of that tier for Demo. 

Destruction - no changes.  Not sure any were needed, but with Aff buffs and Demo getting more buffs, I think Destruction just went from best to worst.

[EvilOverlord 1]

Copy pasta really doesnt look as good without the layout of red and green numbers 

Edited October 2, 2014 by EvilOverlord

[Desos 18]

[*1 + 375% 412.5% of Spell Power*]

 

Buffed Demon Bolt....

But wait, there´s more...

They buffed the doom guard and the infernal´s AoE by 50%.

 

Edit: Ohh too late.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Desos

[Zagam 1,982]

Copy pasta really doesnt look as good without the layout of red and green numbers 

This was done while I was taking my morning shit.  Formatting will commence soon. 

[Krippz 0]

This was done while I was taking my morning shit.  Formatting will commence soon. 

lol I happened to be reading this while I was taking my morning shit 

[Alphric 7]

I read it on my commute to work. Nearly crashed because of all the view obscuring joy tears. We have persevered. We have overcome. All glory to the hypnotoad!

Still hope the fel weather locks go back home though.

[Zagam 1,982]

Formatting done.

 

Side note - Feral Druids brought back down signifcantly - which is good, beacuse they were a bit out of reach.  Demo buffs should push us up on the charts in Simcraft by a pretty large margin.

[Phenax 12]

I was laughing out loud when I saw the Demonbolt buffs after it's been doing about 25-30% of my damage in one burst window every minute during raid testing. I'm just waiting for the outcries on the beta pvp forums after people get destroyed faster than chaos bolt with this.

 

HoG being buffed seems like it makes us even more top tier on fights with massive amounts of AoE (darmac, trainbro). Again, don't see why we were buffed here.

 

SF/SB changes seem healthy and maybe they will make demo playable in 6.0. I can already taste the nerfbat though.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Phenax

[Zagam 1,982]

SF/SB changes seem healthy and maybe they will make demo playable in 6.0. I can already taste the nerfbat though.

Demo might be spec of choice in 6.0 with the way things are looking.  Ignore DB since we won't have access to it - the rest of the abilities staying as is and the simplicity of the spec, we're going to see a lot more people who were scared/bad at Demo come out and play it better.  Those of us who played it well in 5.4 will be able to be nearly perfect with it in 6.0. 

 

Don't underestimate the nerf Destruction will take with spell changes, losing KJC, and the loss of snapshotting, mostly Immolate.  Affliction won't be NEARLY as powerful as it is in 5.4, so Demo may be the way to go.  I'm already preparing a guide on how to do 6.0 Mythic as each spec - but I may save time and just do it as Demo.

[Eddie 16]

Really glad to see Affliction get buffed across the board. Also glad to see some buffs to baseline Demo, because knowing how to play it already will put me a few steps ahead of the other 6 warlocks in my guild when 6.0 hits.

[Zagam 1,982]

Seven Warlocks in one guild?  Do you all raid together?  Holy shit, class stacking.  How many of you/them have said you were going to reroll?

[Deamux 4]

We can't even find a solid second warlock. On my realm 95% plays destruction and still flaws on the basics too often :/. Starting to dream for a second warlock to talk all sorts of warlock stuff :D

[Zagam 1,982]

We can't even find a solid second warlock. On my realm 95% plays destruction and still flaws on the basics too often :/. Starting to dream for a second warlock to talk all sorts of warlock stuff

Almost every good Warlock is in a really good raiding guild because of how powerful they are.  Even the best guilds are still recruiting Warlocks.

[Phenax 12]

New build already!

[Zagam 1,982]

Most of the notes from this morning were from that build.

[Phenax 12]

Heh, I seemed to have missed that.

[Recklessfear 33]

 

Affliction is like a starving African child

 

-Zagam on 6.0 spec choices

[Zagam 1,982]

-Zagam on 6.0 spec choices

You son of a bitch! 

 

I said "Affliction is going to be so Shard hungry it'll be like an African starving child in the middle of the desert."  CONTEXT, MAN, CONTEXT!

[Eddie 16]

Seven Warlocks in one guild?  Do you all raid together?  Holy shit, class stacking.  How many of you/them have said you were going to reroll?

Zero, but at least 4 of them are going to be cut for not figuring out how to do more than 250k dps in heroic gear.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Zero, but at least 4 of them are going to be cut for not figuring out how to do more than 250k dps in heroic gear.

 

[Kazistrasz 216]

 

Talents

•     Demonbolt Launch of ball of demonic energy at the target, dealing [*1 + 375% 412.5% of Spell Power*] Chaos damage. Each Demonbolt amplifies further Demonbolts, increasing damage by 20% and cost by 100% for 40 sec (reduced by Haste), stacking up to 10 times. Warlock - LvL 100 Talent. 80 Demonic Fury. 40 yd range. 2 sec cast.

Now this one I don't get.  This is an additional 10% buff on an ability that already was one of the hardest hitting abilities in the game.  This puts it in very dangerous waters of being legitimately overpowered in both PvE and PvP, but especially PvP.  Here's what this looks like if you are abIf you're able to get to a 10 stack, which wouldn't be THAT difficult, you could blast something for 1238% Spell Power for a reasonable amount of Demonic Fury (reasonable = obtainable here).  BRING ON THE FORUM QQ!  Someone is going to get hit by a 10 stack Demonbolt and their account is going to get sent back to 2005.  Note - I calculated these stacks as if each stack only added 20% Spell Power on each stack (40% for stack 2, 60 for stack 3, etc).  If these are multplicative, in that a 2 stack is actually 44%, 3 stack is actually 72.8%, etc - a 10 stack would be 2554% of Spell Power.  I don't even have to tell you what this would look like hitting something.  I'm assuming things are additive and I'll be able to test this tonight.  I show here how the 10 stacks put things in ridiculous terms, but I don't think you'd even need to get that far.  I'm pretty sure 7 or 8 will one shot most people from 100% to 0%. 

 

Log Here

 

The stack is additive, not multiplicative.

 

However, when I popped Orc racial, DS, and on-use PvP trinket with no raid buffs other than DI, I still threw one for 187k.  I had one in an un-logged run before this (because derp I don't remember to push buttons) that hit for 215k non-crit. I have 273k HP, so it would need to crit to one-shot me. A crit from a 6-stack could even do it, I think.

[Alphric 7]

Is it possible that they're buffing demon bolt disproportionately from Demonic Servitude due to demonology's demons being stronger, and that fact isn't showing itself in the beta/logs? Or are they just flat trying to make us take it, or atleast increase it's probability for being used for testing purposes?