[WOTLK] Warlocks

[Denic]

Since nobody else has posted it, here's a thread to discuss 3.0 and Wrath shit for Warlocks.

So far it looks like Destro is going to be the strongest DPS spec yet again, however it is becoming less brainless. Instead of putting up a curse and spamming shadowbolt until your fingers fall off there is some actual thought and precision required to achieve the potential of the spec. Preliminary tests by Profanitie from Exiled were using this spec:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...00000000000000

Posts can be found here:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t26024-w...17/#post904021
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t26024-w...19/#post905465

Pulling a consistent 2.8-3.1k depending on if Bloodlust was up or not. This is at 70, obviously, and the march to 80 affords more talent points. However, Warlock relative strength should remain the same or increase during 3.0. If numbers can be pulled at 70 like this in Sunwell gear then 80 should prove to be interesting.

Affliction still looks to have scaling issues with the Haunt nerf. However, it's generally the more complicated tree, so we'll see if anything develops.

Demonology looks like it has potential to be strong as long as pet management is good. One thing to look into is how much spell power can reasonably be achieved (IE, without gimping other stats). Wrath of Air totem has a max rank in the xpac that gives 280 spell damage, so Demonic Pact becomes better than this totem once 2900 spell power can be attained. Obviously this scales with the locks gear, but it will be necessary to weigh how much extra damage is gained from the raid wide boost vs how much DPS, if any, is lost by speccing demo.

[Surehand-SiN]

Chaos Bolt is nasty.

Ignores all Shields and does like 2500 dmg on PTRs now.

I can't think of any class that this is designed to kill more than mages...

My prediction: They lower the CD on Chaos bolt from 12 seconds to like 3 and they nerf mages hard.

[Abso]

Originally Posted by Surepaw

I can't think of any class that this is designed to kill more than mages...

Paladin? Warlocks don't need help with mages!

[Crimsonfury]

Originally Posted by Abso-SiN

Paladin? Warlocks don't need help with mages!

Chaos bolt right now won't pierce through immunities; it only pierces through absorptions like a priest or mage shield.

Iceblock and Divine shield remain immune; however there is some good news:

Since Chaos bolt can't be resisted and shoots through all absorbtion effects; you can hit a CoS Cheat Death rogue and it will kill him always. Problem being you need to get the cast off; which is going to be damn near impossible if the rogue is on you.

Also, if you get kicked, CS'd, mindfreezed etc etc while casting Chaos bolt you get locked out of both fire AND shadow. Then you really know what it's like to be a paladin.....

[Synapse]

Improved Soul Leech might be mandatory, it's your imp's only power gain outside of not-casting regen. Given you get crits from your imp's attacks, and apparently the imp will do *some* dps, you might as well make sure it stays closer to full mana.

I'm really not in the mood to theorycraft the usefulness of picking up imp soul leech in comparison to other stuff tho >.>

[Crimsonfury]

It's not worth the 5 points Chiv. Those points are better spent elsewhere. Granted; this is also level 70 we are talking about; and it soul leech had a better proc rate it would be a lot better. But 1% of an imps mana is like....50 mana. They have very little to begin with; I think mine has just over 3K.

Even with the imp going OOM; it regens fast once it stops casting. More bothersome is the fact that it dies so fast. Without being able to rez it fast or cheaply it's almost not worth having. Blizz says they are going to put in some sort of AoE resist mechanic for pets so the boss won't constantly one-shot the imp; but I somehow doubt this.

[Denic]

Originally Posted by Crimsonfury

It's not worth the 5 points Chiv. Those points are better spent elsewhere. Granted; this is also level 70 we are talking about; and it soul leech had a better proc rate it would be a lot better. But 1% of an imps mana is like....50 mana. They have very little to begin with; I think mine has just over 3K.

Even with the imp going OOM; it regens fast once it stops casting. More bothersome is the fact that it dies so fast. Without being able to rez it fast or cheaply it's almost not worth having. Blizz says they are going to put in some sort of AoE resist mechanic for pets so the boss won't constantly one-shot the imp; but I somehow doubt this.

People were parsing their imps to around 280-400 DPS depending on gear. Profanitie also stated that in a pug BT run the imp was dying a ton. I'd have to imagine Blizz will make good on this, simply because besides fel dom there is no hunter-like option for a faster summon. We'll just have to see.

I haven't really seen any 80 specs floating around, but I could've missed them when researching specs at 70. Imp Soul Leech will be far from necessary I feel, as the talent isn't all that strong to begin with. It's more likely that you'll get more bang for your buck taking more mid tier affliction/demo talents than spending 5 points on a very, very underwhelming talent.

[Synapse]

Originally Posted by Crimsonfury

It's not worth the 5 points Chiv. Those points are better spent elsewhere. Granted; this is also level 70 we are talking about; and it soul leech had a better proc rate it would be a lot better. But 1% of an imps mana is like....50 mana. They have very little to begin with; I think mine has just over 3K.

Even with the imp going OOM; it regens fast once it stops casting. More bothersome is the fact that it dies so fast. Without being able to rez it fast or cheaply it's almost not worth having. Blizz says they are going to put in some sort of AoE resist mechanic for pets so the boss won't constantly one-shot the imp; but I somehow doubt this.

They plan on giving imp 80% avoidance, and buff their hp and mana pools by a huge bit, plus tripling it's regen. They have to do that scaling twice now since they buffed every class' base hp at 80

[Synapse]

Originally Posted by Abso-SiN

Paladin? Warlocks don't need help with mages!

ABsorption != immunity. As of now chaos bolt's unresistable and unabsorbable aren't as nasty as it's raw damage so far.

[Crimsonfury]

Originally Posted by Synapse

They plan on giving imp 80% avoidance, and buff their hp and mana pools by a huge bit, plus tripling it's regen. They have to do that scaling twice now since they buffed every class' base hp at 80

They keep saying this is their master plan, but being the cynic I am I won't believe it until I see it. They have said it for months now, but unfortunately they can't get everything done by expansion. I would assume if not by release than shortly thereafter in a patch. As it stands; those imps are suckers for punishment. I think one blast wave from Kalecgos can kill them

They have pretty good regen right now when not casting, but while casting they defintely are OOM quick. If they are beefed up a bit I am sure the imp imp (weird) would work very nice with a destro spec.