WOD BETA DISCUSSION w/SCREENSHOTS

[Liquidsteel 279]

If you want to multi-DoT, you should have to cast each DoT on each target, just like Moonkins, Shadow Priests, etc.  Soul Swap is interesting, but if you want to use it, it should have a cost.

I half disagree. Soul Swap is a fun mechanic, and using it to apply initial DoT's to new targets is a good thing. Why can't Affliction be a bit different in having it? 

 

On long, sustained multi dotting, once we have intial DoT's on our targets, we'll be hard casting to refresh anyway as they have different durations.

 

No other DoT class has to apply 3 DoTs with one of them having a rather long ramp up time (Agony).

 

Mechanics like Tendons on Spine or Amber/Kunchongs on Klaxxi would be annoying to have to waste a Soul Shard on swapping when you would have preferred to save it for haunt, etc.

 

If Affliction is swimming in shards then this won't be an issue, but I get the feeling they'll be few and far between in the first tier.

 

As I said, giving it a cooldown could be the 'cost'.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Liquidsteel

[Zagam 1,982]

"Fun" is subjective - I'd rather use the term "unique" since no other class has it. 

 

I agree with CD.  Removing it from being able to Soul Burn and treating it like Infest for DKs would be a step in the right direction.  Have it apply all DoTs for a small amount of mana but put a 30 second CD on it. 

[Soulzar 42]

This seems ok. Ember generation already seems absurd, however.

 

Watched a warlock stream of Shadowmoon Burial Grounds and he was basically generating 2 full embers with just 3 casts of incinerate.

 

Charred Remains paired with these set bonuses will be ridiculous.

 

One thing I fear is the spec will truly become 'braindead'. You basically maintain immolate, and spam Chaos Bolt.

 

Paired with GoSac, our execute phase is going to be INSANE

 

Yeah, This is what I found last night when I was messing around. With GoSac and CR I was finding it hard to use all my Backdraft charges between Conflags and not cap on embers. Between Immo ticks and one Crit of Incin.. you have a full ember and are casting CB almost as often as your "filler".  That alone I think is a bit too much ember generation... takes away from the feel of CB being special, and there is literally no "banking of embers for procs" 

 

Now mix in a 15% chance per immo tick to get a free ember?  And 25% chance on ember filling to get free CB's?... You will be casting so many CB's you wont have time to use all your Bacdraft charges on incin and will be using them on CB's.

 

The new tier bonus compounds what I feel is too much ember generation from CR... it will be hard to not waste procs.

 

I want Instant Soul Fire procs back into the Destro lineup.  A proc to react to between the CB spam.  one of my fav part of Ele Sham and Boomkin is the procs to react too.

[Zagam 1,982]

Guess what all that means?  Don't take Chaotic Resources! 

 

In an early iteration, it was a much larger damage penalty as well as a higher ember generation.  It was inferred back then that ember generation would be so high, we'd need a Rogue-like Anticipation talent to bank all the extra Embers.  If CR creates this many rotational issues, just don't use it.  Cataclysm won't be a bad choice, albeit boring, and you might have some reason to take D. Serv. if things continue like this. 

 

Just remember, you haven't seen raid encounters yet.  You also won't have your 4pc in the first few weeks unless you're a loot whore. 

 

Haste looks to be devalued by the 4pc, but not enough to concern yourself over.

 

Anyone played around with Demo?  With the Soul Fire perk, with 5% Haste, I'm GCD capping with Molten Core.  It's absurdly high.  With the proc rate on MC, I was casting Soul Fire 80% of the time and Shadow Bolt 20%.  Haste is being devalued hard.

[Soulzar 42]

Guess what all that means?  Don't take Chaotic Resources! 

 

In an early iteration, it was a much larger damage penalty as well as a higher ember generation.  It was inferred back then that ember generation would be so high, we'd need a Rogue-like Anticipation talent to bank all the extra Embers.  If CR creates this many rotational issues, just don't use it.  Cataclysm won't be a bad choice, albeit boring, and you might have some reason to take D. Serv. if things continue like this. 

 

Just remember, you haven't seen raid encounters yet.  You also won't have your 4pc in the first few weeks unless you're a loot whore. 

 

Haste looks to be devalued by the 4pc, but not enough to concern yourself over.

 

Anyone played around with Demo?  With the Soul Fire perk, with 5% Haste, I'm GCD capping with Molten Core.  It's absurdly high.  With the proc rate on MC, I was casting Soul Fire 80% of the time and Shadow Bolt 20%.  Haste is being devalued hard.

 

Cataclysm and Servitude have a long way to go to come close to competing with CR, specifically since GoSac is far and away miles better than Service and Supremacy (currently) for Destro AND synergizes with CR and not the other two.

 

Spremacy/Servitude Terror guard was doing ~6k/12k attacks, that needs a serious buff to out weigh 35% crit & 300% more resource generation (not to mention GoSac makes Sac Pact like 4x better).  

 

And Cataclysm... I have no idea how they would buff it to comepete with AoE Chaos Bolts.  Sure F&B reduces their damage, but even if Chaotic Resources ONLY allowed AoE CB, it would still beat Cataclysm as an AoE talent, then mix in 300% more resource generation, and its no contest.  

 

I think we need a good numbers tuning pass over that we have yet to have to help bring some of these talents into line, specifically Servitude, since currently its acting like a minor Glyph that changes the appearance of your imp into a terror guard.

 

Demo, where are you getting all these MC procs?  I found that a full Fill/Burn cycle with Demonbolt was taking almost exactly 1min, which lined up fantastic with glyphed Dark Soul.  I was only ever getting about 4-5 MC charges in that time.  

 

I will say that going from 1000 fury -> Demon Bolt -> Blowing MC SF's -> ToC until dry was easily done in the 10s Dark Soul and was not as bad as i had envisioned with the "blow all fury to get refund" mechanic I hate on Demonbolt, however as gear goes up and we get more haste, that perfectly lined up 1min/cycle won't be as perfect.

 

I am finding it hard to get a good feel for Demo currently since Doom crits are not procing imps, so MC charges and Fury generation is a bit lower than it eventually will be.  I'd still like more haste

 

Cataclysm is looking like it could be really good for Demo, I had 128k crits in Meta with Dark Soul up on the lvl 100 AoE Dummies in Shatt.  

 

Really hope they open up Addons soon, I wish I could go off more than just "feel" and see some dps numbers.. I guess I need to get logs going...

Edited July 10, 2014 by Soulzar

[Zagam 1,982]

You have to remember from a post I made earlier - I don't put NUMERICAL value into any of the new talents or abilities since that tuning is still a long way off.  You have to think MECHANICALLY how things are working out now.  It doesn't matter how much Soul Fire does if it gains ZERO benefit from Haste.  This is a mechanical check - similar to what you're observing with the Burning Embers.  Tuning Demonic Servitude or Cataclysm to beat out CR wouldn't be difficult since they just have to ramp up the damage. 

 

As for Molten Core, were you testing at level 100 with the perk or not? 

 

I can't get a feel for Demon Bolt at all.  Right now, mechanically, it feels...awkward.  I REALLY don't like that they talked about button bloat and all that shit and then they introduce another spell into the already most complex specialization.  Since it's not properly damage tuned, it's hard to evaluate it.  I haven't practiced playing a full Demo rotation yet - just messing with the perks and other mechanical changes.  Even if Demonbolt was say, 2-5% better than Cataclysm, I think I'd use Cataclysm as a quality of life thing, similar to me using Supremacy over Service now just because it makes life easier.

 

Logs work.  Just make yourself a WCL link.  Perhaps I'll make one of all of us at IV testing logs and make it so we can all look at each others logs. 

[Soulzar 42]

Yes, I am trying to keep in mind tuning to be done and honestly and going more by Feel and how I think a talent could be used...but a flat 35% crit scaling on base line ember generation and then on top of that an additional 300%?  Thats really going to be tough to balance with the others unless our Pets start to cast CB's for us.. lol  

 

Mechanically, Its not DMG that's hurting Cataclysm as much as cast time and Cooldown.  Being able to toggle on at will and cast on moving targets AoE CB trumps having to target an area, cast a 3s cast, then wait 1m on CD.  It will need a buff in Dmg, reduction in cast time, and lower CD, or else the situations where Cata could pull ahead of CR are looking very very niche.

 

I have only done lvl 100 testing so far, so it was with the perks.  I do LOVE unloading a handful of Soul Fires in as many seconds, however i do not like the forecasting of being Global capped on Soul Fire if we try to push better fury generation and smooth the gain/drain cycle via haste.

 

The flat 20% crit on doom looks to be working as my dooms were critting very frequently I noticed when playing with Cataclysm.  Excited to see how fury generation is with Doom Crits working as they should.  

 

I made a WCL account the day i got Beta, but so far with servers being down within an hour of me getting min macros and bindings setup, I've only had a bit of tie to mess around and never got logs rolling.  I'll do that tonight so I can post some logs for the Simcraft thread too. 

[Liquidsteel 279]

I'd rather they had given Demonology increased Fury generation on Shadowbolt/caster Soul Fire and Destruction a new spell.

 

Destruction looks very bland in WoD if we go Chaotic Resources coupled with the new 4 set, and any depth the spec had will be lost.

 

In MoP, we can gain a lot of damage from gaming the 4 set and managing our resources correctly with trinkets/cooldowns.

 

In WoD (as it stands), I fear there won't be much to differentiate the good from the great. Havoc usage sure, and Immolate up time, but these are minor things.

 

I hate the sound of GCD capped Soul Fires compared to 2.5s shadow bolts, and I'm not the biggest fan of Demon Bolt.

[Zagam 1,982]

In WoD (as it stands), I fear there won't be much to differentiate the good from the great. Havoc usage sure, and Immolate up time, but these are minor things.

Truth here, bud.  The gap between elite calibur players and more casual players will collapse more than it ever has.

[Soulzar 42]

 

Destruction looks very bland in WoD if we go Chaotic Resources coupled with the new 4 set, and any depth the spec had will be lost.

 

 

Whats bland looking about this?  

 

76%!!!!!!   lol

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/yTrQzcxfhnNCZ2R7#type=damage-done&source=7

[Zagam 1,982]

I looked at your Burning Ember log.  Capped A LOT.  I would rather see the damage reduction of Incin and Conflag be much smaller and cut the Burning Ember generation to 200%.  Right now, it's just too damn high.

[Soulzar 42]

And immolate uptime was like 50%? Which is even more embers.... just always casting CB!  And yes, its very hard not to cap.  

 

Basically if you have more than two embers when you use conflag, you will cap at 4 embers while burning off a charge of backdraft so that your CB doesn't consume the whole 3 stacks of backdraft.

 

The ember generation is WAYYY to high.  I'd like to see them adjust the dmg reductions on Incin/conflag in ratio to the ember generation as well

[Liquidsteel 279]

Finally got onto the Beta today via the help of a friend, hoping to score my own key in IGN's giveaway later...

 

Anyway, did some dummy tests on all 3 specs and ran the Slag Mines as Destro.

 

Using Glyph of Dark Soul for all 3 specs, not sure if I'd prefer to unglyph it to get more opening burst in especially if we have 20 second trinkets with Charred Remains.

 

Have to say I hate how Chaotic Resources plays, you alternate Chaos Bolt with Incinerate and maintain Immolate. Conflagrate actually feels unnecessary and to prevent from capping you need to dump 2 Chaos Bolts before it.

 

Using GoSup meant less of those incinerates crit and felt better, but I feel the 35% crit loss on Shadowburn will be too much on add fights and execute in general. Time will tell.

 

Affliction feels shard starved, but running Dark Soul glyph I was able to bank 2 shards for a Soulburn: Haunt each cycle.

 

For me, Demonology was the biggest surprise, as I actually really enjoyed using Demon Bolt.

 

The thing was critting for over 200k damage at max fury, and the cycle time lines up perfectly with glyphed Dark Soul. I would enter Meta, cast Dark Soul followed by Demon bolt, and churn out 4-5 Soul Fires before refreshing Doom and ToCing to 0 fury. Rinse and Repeat.

 

The only down side is that it feels extremely cyclical, almost rotational, but of course this does not account for any movement whatsoever. Soul Fire also feels really weird with the perk.

 

I also don't use Demon Bolt on the pull, so your first cast is over a minute into the fight. This kinda sucks, but so far Demonology feels the most fluid, and pulled the most DPS on the dummy (and yes Zagam, I know numbers mean sweet F A right now, but it's pleasing nonetheless). 

[Zagam 1,982]

Hey, numbers are nice.  I just don't put stock in them yet.  It's too easy to say 'hey, Chaos Bolt damage needs doubled.'  I'm more interested in fixing problems like too many embers, too few soul shards, and weird DF generation/MC charges.

[Kazistrasz 216]

And Twilight Ward. Don't forget Twilight Ward.

[Zagam 1,982]

Beta 6.0.1 update from this morning (granted, I'm hungover...)

 

I get Demonbolt now.  It clicked.  It's there to speed up the transition into your next Metamorphosis.  You don't need to sit in caster form until 1000 DF, but if you get a proc, you should spend ALL of your Demonic Fury if you choose Demonbolt as a talent.  You MUST trigger the DF return in order for talent to be viable.

 

I just got a Demonbolt crit of 87,212 with no procs.

Chaos Bolt, by comparison, is hitting for 35,536 with no procs.

Chaos Bolt, with Dark Soul, is hitting for 44,763.  This is only a 25.9% increase, so scaling may be off.

 

Chaos Bolt is NOW benefiting from Crit.

Imp can Multistrike.  Testing others.

When a new pet is summoned, that pet automatically goes into combat with your target.  There doesn't seem to be a delay in "Assist" mode now.

 

Doing a 5 minute DPS rotation with all 3 specs and then posting logs.  Coming soon.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Been playing around trying to get the biggest Demon Bolt that I can.

 

I swapped out a few pieces of gear from the fat Tauren in Orgrimmar so I got a bit more Mastery, sitting at 2302 rating with all the cauldron buffs.

 

A 1000 Fury Demonbolt with Dark Soul + the proc and on-use trinkets was hitting for 125k, and finally managed a 250k crit. Forgot to log so took a screenshot.

 

[Atramor 0]

Sorry if this was brought up before but I didn't see it reading through the topic.

 

I was wondering if anyone has considered just how much Demo is affected by the lack of snapshotting. I noticed my doom ticks weren't hitting as hard as they 'should' unless I was in Meta when they ticked. Corruption is the same but less important. Maybe I'm looking too deeply into maximizing doom and shadowflame like we are supposed to on live, but I imagine demo locks having to track when doom is going to tick and making sure to be in demon form when that happens. Same with shadowflame and staying in demon form the whole duration of the dot.

 

What do you guys think? Too early to tell?

[Liquidsteel 279]

They have explicitly said that corruption, Doom and Shadowflame will snapshot mastery from when they were cast.

This means corruption and shadowflame will snapshot caster form mastery, and doom will snapshot meta mastery.

The bonus is we no longer need to weave HoG into demon form.

The downside is that 10 second trinket procs could proc and expire before Doom even ticks.

[Kazistrasz 216]

I'd rather they'd leave Shadowflame to continue to be weaved.

 

Either way, lack of snapshotting in general is just going to de-emphasize Doom in our damage and put greater emphasis on Soulfire and TOC.

[Atramor 0]

They have explicitly said that corruption, Doom and Shadowflame will snapshot mastery from when they were cast.

This means corruption and shadowflame will snapshot caster form mastery, and doom will snapshot meta mastery.

The bonus is we no longer need to weave HoG into demon form.

The downside is that 10 second trinket procs could proc and expire before Doom even ticks.

Good to know about those abilities snap shotting. I wasn't aware of it. Currently, doom and corruption are actively scaling to meta and not, so I thought I'd ask. I'm sure it's either a bug or they haven't implemented it yet.

[Liquidsteel 279]

I dunno, I like not having to weave Shadowflame anymore from a resource generation point of view, though I do miss it from a play style perspective.

 

Fury generation is obviously lower in the gear we get on the Beta compared to what we have in live, so having to spend fury to weave and extend Corruption would be annoying.

 

Currently, taking Demonbolt as a talent, it takes almost a full minute to build up from 320 Fury to 1000 and then burn it all again. This lines up well with Glyph of Dark Soul, and allows us to get a max strength Demon Bolt plus around 4-5 Soul Fires and a bunch of ToC's.

 

I've been refreshing corruption manually in caster form, as having to ToC to extend just resulted in having Dark Soul come off CD with more like 850-900 fury.

 

Having ventured into the Shadowmoon Burial Grounds dungeon, the first boss highlighted some issues with the spec in early gear; we just do not have the Fury generation to sustain multiple target swaps with burst. There's an add that spawns every 20 seconds or so, and I just felt useless only managing to build around 250 fury before dumping it all on this add and not even killing it in that time.

 

It feels good on Single Target, but I prefer MoP Demo to WoD Demo so far by quite a bit.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Liquidsteel

[Zagam 1,982]

I'd rather they'd leave Shadowflame to continue to be weaved.

Doesn't match up the intended gameplay they are working towards which is similar to the old Arcane Mage.  Build phase (generate DF) and Burn phase (spend with Demonbolt, Soul Fires, then ToC spam).  Weaving would completely ruin Chaotic Resources by making your Demonbolt obsolete.

[Zagam 1,982]

Having ventured into the Shadowmoon Burial Grounds dungeon, the first boss highlighted some issues with the spec in early gear; we just do not have the Fury generation to sustain multiple target swaps with burst. There's an add that spawns every 20 seconds or so, and I just felt useless only managing to build around 250 fury before dumping it all on this add and not even killing it in that time.

 

It feels good on Single Target, but I prefer MoP Demo to WoD Demo so far by quite a bit.

You highlight my exact concern I had when I saw the new talent trees and redesign.  The freedom we have to play different specs in different situations right now won't be as cut and dry soon.  Demo will be garbage for snap burst unless you don't take CR.  In that case, you're limited to Cataclysm or the awful pet talent.  Destruction, however, is DESIGNED for snap burst and hard switching.  Affliction has some multi-DoT capacity, but only for two targets that will live a long time.

 

Would not surprise me to see our specs be set up like the Mage Bombs.

 

1 Target - Demonology

2-3 Targets - Affliction

4+ Targets - Destruction

 

Also wouldn't surprise me to see Warlocks stuck into the niche of handling adds.  Based on what I see with all ranged class design, we will have by far the best add management, burst, control, and sustained AoE.  It would be fair to see Destruction fall behind single target DPS similar to what it was like in ToT.  With some damage tuning, we could see some changes.  If Destruction can keep up with Demo or Aff in one or two target fights, it will be vastly overpowered for AoE.

[Liquidsteel 279]

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Celestalon‏@Celestalon

Cripple, Debilitate, Burning Presence, Meteor Strike, Seethe, Torch Magic, and Blaze Magic. #tease #warlocks

 

Looks like the new Servitude minions will be getting some nice abilities.

 

Edit: Sorry for horrible formatting.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Liquidsteel