Locks vs Cataclysm

[Angus_Og]

For spells and the soul shard, the change sucks imho.

Fel Flame (level 81): Quick-hitting spell dealing Shadowfire damage. This is similar to the mage ability Frostfire Bolt, in that the lower of the two resistances (in this case shadow and fire) on your target will be used for calculating its damage. Additionally, Fel Flame refreshes the duration of Immolate and Unstable Affliction. Our goal for Fel Flame is to provide a spell that's good for mobility and for use by Destruction and Demonology specs. Also, did we mention it uses green fire? Yep. Instant cast.

Dark Intent (level 83): Increases the target's chance for a critical effect with periodic damage or healing spells by 3%. When the target lands a crit, you get a buff to your damage for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to three times.

Demon Soul (level 85): Fuses the warlock's soul with his or her demon. This provides warlocks with a self-burst cooldown to use. The specific effects granted by Demon Soul depend on the demon chosen. Demon Soul lasts for a certain number of charges or until it expires (around 20 seconds), depending on the demon used. 2-minute cooldown.

The new spells imho suck except for maybe one, Fel Fire.

This major change regarding Soul Shards was previously announced at BlizzCon 2009. Soul Shards will no longer be inventory items, but instead a new UI resource mechanic. Warlocks will have 3 Soul Shards that can be used during a fight and will not be able to gain additional shards during combat. Soul Shards will not be required outside of combat. Soul Burn will consume a Soul Shard resource, thereby allowing you to use the secondary effects of some spells. Soul Burn has no mana or health costs and is off the global cooldown.

Soul shards are no more, long live soul shards. You only get 3 soul shards to use during combat. Raiding will have to be adjusted.

Abilities and mechanics have to be one of the best changes out of all the classes.

All warlock damage-over-time (DoT) spells will benefit from crit and haste innately. Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoT's duration, but rather to add additional ticks. When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer "clip" the final tick. Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting Affliction currently works.

Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom will be converted into Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom. Bane spells are considered magic instead of curses. This means you will be able to cast one Bane (e.g. Bane of Agony) and one Curse (e.g. Curse of Elements) on a single target.

Hellfire will no longer deal damage to the warlock.

Imps will lose Fire Shield, but will gain a new ability, Burning Ember, which is a stacking DoT.

The succubus melee range will be increased. The succubus will no longer have Soothing Kiss, but will instead have Whiplash, which knocks back all enemies within 8 yards.

Voidwalker Torment will do increased damage and generate a lot of area-of-effect (AoE) threat. Suffering will become a single-target taunt.

Adding time to a DoT when you cast to early will be wonderful, also the change of CoD being changed to magic so we can put CoE on.

We will see what occurs when they reveal the final changes. I am currently torn with these, mainly with the soul shard change.

 

[[7F]Steel]

For spells and the soul shard, the change sucks imho. Soul shards are no more, long live soul shards.

You only get 3 soul shards to use during combat. Raiding will have to be adjusted.

We will see what occurs when they reveal the final changes. I am currently torn with these, mainly with the soul shard change.

So... what is it that you don't like about the changes to Soul Shards? I have raided with a warlock in both vanilla WoW, and in TBC. I have to say, Soul Shards were my biggest, and most annoying issue. I liked the idea of a finite resource which I had to manage in combat, however, that was NEVER the case. I always showed up early to farm shards before a raid and would routinely show up with 50-60 of them in tow. I trivialized the soul shards in that way, and made it a useless feature. I also wasted hours upon hours farming the stinking things knowing all of this. I think this change is awesome, and will allow for some really engaging play and decision making mid combat which I love. When you look at the changes and how Soul Burn will work you need to combine it with the mastery changes and new spells. All of it will work together to multiply the effects and bring about some truly awesome DPS when timed correctly in combat.

The new spells imho suck except for maybe one, Fel Fire.

Dark Intent (level 83): Increases the target's chance for a critical effect with periodic damage or healing spells by 3%. When the target lands a crit, you get a buff to your damage for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to three times.

Huh? How can you not just love Dark Intent? Slap the buff on someone (seems it is cast on others) let them crit, stack it 3 times, for a damage buff? Cast and forget for a damage boost that someone else maintains for you? I love it. If it is anything like the mage ability Focus Magic, that would be a 9% increase to critical strike, nothing to sneeze at, now make that +damage instead of crit and imagine refreshing all your DoTs with the increased spell damage total, aweeessoommeeeee.

Demon Soul (level 85): Fuses the warlock's soul with his or her demon. This provides warlocks with a self-burst cooldown to use. The specific effects granted by Demon Soul depend on the demon chosen. Demon Soul lasts for a certain number of charges or until it expires (around 20 seconds), depending on the demon used. 2-minute cooldown.

Demon Soul... yes please, every 2 minutes you get a boost. Also, if you are demo add in Metamorphosis every 3 minutes. Coupled this is a HUGE damage boost, if glyphed for meta, and I assume a glyph will exist for Demon Soul, you could be looking at an entire MINUTE of burst damage as a warlock, yummy. (even without a glyph for demon soul, and just the one for meta, thats 56 seconds)

Fel Flame (level 81): Quick-hitting spell dealing Shadowfire damage. This is similar to the mage ability Frostfire Bolt, in that the lower of the two resistances (in this case shadow and fire) on your target will be used for calculating its damage. Additionally, Fel Flame refreshes the duration of Immolate and Unstable Affliction. Our goal for Fel Flame is to provide a spell that's good for mobility and for use by Destruction and Demonology specs. Also, did we mention it uses green fire? Yep. Instant cast.

Yea, its yummy too, and its uses being instant cast make me want to drool. Also, we finally get GREEN fire, YAY!

Abilities and mechanics have to be one of the best changes out of all the classes.

Adding time to a DoT when you cast to early will be wonderful, also the change of CoD being changed to magic so we can put CoE on.

Yes, this is amazing, not being able to clip your DoTs is an awesome change and so overdue its crazy.

Maybe you could outlay what it was you didn't really like about the soul shard change and the new spells? A different point of view is always welcome.

 

[Angus_Og]

right now, the shards are limited to 32. is that to much, i think so. but i think 3 is to little for some of the raid bosses. i know some people use them like candy and to limit it that low is bad. 5 or 6 i think would be a good number to have. especially since you no longer have to farm them and they get replenished after each fight, or so it seems from the post.

as for the spells, let see. dark intent, how long will it last? will i have to apply it every minute or every couple of minutes? how much of a buff will i get? can someone have both focus magic and dark intent on them? and the stacking, is that the buff or the targets crit or both? 3% is not that good of a chance. hopefully it is the targets crit. and you're right 9% wouldn't be to bad.

there is a good chance that demon soul will only be for the demonology tree and that would be fine for leveling, but not good for raiding. also what buffs are we getting?

right now there is just not enough info about the new changes to make a clear good/bad decision on them. but right now i think the spells need work and the we should get a few more soul shards.

 

[[7F]LarryBoy]

Blizzard will be removing the Shard cost from Warlock spells and instead the use of shards will provide bonus effects.

Focus Magic currently lasts 30 minutes, I imagine Dark Intent will be the same. Most dps caster classes have over 40% crit (some even over 50% crit i think) in raid right now, I imagine this buff is going to proc a lot in raids.

 

[[7F]Steel]

right now, the shards are limited to 32. is that to much, i think so. but i think 3 is to little for some of the raid bosses. i know some people use them like candy and to limit it that low is bad. 5 or 6 i think would be a good number to have. especially since you no longer have to farm them and they get replenished after each fight, or so it seems from the post.

Soul shard cost, as larryboy said, will be removed from spells entirely. Soul Shards will act as a modifier to existing spells, and the modification itself seems to be called Soul Burn. This means that you have 3 shards to burn for Soul Burn during a fight. 3 chances in a raid boss fight to tweak your output to benefit yourself to the greatest. This is more often then I would say you currently use soul shards during combat. Soul Fire is used when Decimation is active, negating soul shard cost already when you should be using Soul Fire. They have said that if they will watch how things progress and allow for soul shard regeneration if it is needed.

as for the spells, let see. dark intent, how long will it last? will i have to apply it every minute or every couple of minutes? how much of a buff will i get? can someone have both focus magic and dark intent on them? and the stacking, is that the buff or the targets crit or both? 3% is not that good of a chance. hopefully it is the targets crit. and you're right 9% wouldn't be to bad.

With Dark Intent, you increase someone else crit by 3%. If they already have 60% crit, you will boost them to 63%, when they crit, you get the damage buff, which can stack 3 times and lasts for 10 seconds. Considering the mage version of this spell gives 6% crit increase to the mage (Focus Magic only allows for stacking twice) Dark Intent stacks 3 times, giving my guess would be a generous dmg increase. I of course do not know exact numbers (Again, Dark Intent is a dmg increase, not crit increase for the warlock, I was merely using Focus Magic as an example of a very similar spell)

there is a good chance that demon soul will only be for the demonology tree and that would be fine for leveling, but not good for raiding. also what buffs are we getting?

Not good for raiding? Are you saying Metamorphosis isn't good for raiding then? Metamorphosis glyphed gives you a 20% dmg increase for 36 seconds, thats huge. My guess is if Demon Soul is a spell not specific to a tree, you can see maybe a less strong type of metamorphosis ability, and if it is talented, probably stronger. This is nothing but win. I use Metamorphosis as an example as similar ability we currently have.

right now there is just not enough info about the new changes to make a clear good/bad decision on them. but right now i think the spells need work and the we should get a few more soul shards.

From a warlock that has raided over 5 years in WoW, I can say, the changes look amazingly good for warlocks. In fact, with these changes, my only worry is threat... I don't know if I could contain myself to hold back and keep under the tank.

 

[Neirai the Forgiven]

Just to horn in for a second, I believe the "Demon Soul" spell will not be restricted to Demonology, as it was posted in the Spell changes and not the Talent changes section of the release. Obviously, it might be a better spell for a Demonology than the other trees, but not necessarily useless.

I'd have liked some infos on what Demon Soul could do, rather than just an enigmatic "it does something with your Demon and you." I mean, I'm sure it's a cool buff, but I'd love specifics.


On the subject of Soul Shards: the way I see it is that the old soul shard is dead and buried. Good riddance. The idea of using them as ammo was kind of nasty.

Instead, the Warlock has the ability to use his fel powers to summon up three trinkets from the Abyss, and punch them, without ever wearing them. Which trinket he summons and punches depends on which spell he channels them through. With enough practice, these soul shards will operate as if the player actually HAD a spell that said "summon a trinket from the Abyss and use it to empower your spells."

I suspect that the use of the soul shards will not really affect sustained DPS on bosses, but will allow a lock (particularly affliction) to perform better on trash and in PVP because they aren't required to put a ton of debuffs on mobs, only to have the hunter gun them down. If you look at the Shadow Priest ability "Mind Spike," it follows the same idea.

 

[Angus_Og]

With Dark Intent, you increase someone else crit by 3%. If they already have 60% crit, you will boost them to 63%, when they crit, you get the damage buff, which can stack 3 times and lasts for 10 seconds. Considering the mage version of this spell gives 6% crit increase to the mage (Focus Magic only allows for stacking twice) Dark Intent stacks 3 times, giving my guess would be a generous dmg increase. I of course do not know exact numbers (Again, Dark Intent is a dmg increase, not crit increase for the warlock, I was merely using Focus Magic as an example of a very similar spell)

curious which casters have this crit of 60% or even near it?

 

[Pandacution]

Check this Link out.

Go to damage by spell and hover over each spell to check out the crit percentage of that spell, along with other info if you care to look.

This is a 25 m normal in a group is that is failing on blood queen. There are not artificial crit boost mechanics in this fight. The mage is pulling well over 60% crit. This is not an example of the best players in the world.

Yes, it does happen. Welcome to wrath of the lich king raiding.

 

[[7F]LarryBoy]

In the 10 raid I run with, my resto shaman regularly hits 45% spell crit, buffed. I'm not stacking crit either, it's just what's on the gear. Someone like a Fire Mage is going to be intentionally going for crit - they're going to run a lot higher than that.

 

[rhysj]

most mages can get to 60%, Haveo is at about 50 with buffs

 

[Angus_Og]

i don't see a crit chance for that mage, just the number of times he crit'ed and hovering over the spell gave me nothing but what wow gives you.

 

[[7F]Steel]

i don't see a crit chance for that mage, just the number of times he crit'ed and hovering over the spell gave me nothing but what wow gives you.

Angus, don't hover over the spell name, hover over the dmg amount right next to it (884259).

 

[Moredhel]

Check this Link out.

Go to damage by spell and hover over each spell to check out the crit percentage of that spell, along with other info if you care to look.

This is a 25 m normal in a group is that is failing on blood queen. There are not artificial crit boost mechanics in this fight. The mage is pulling well over 60% crit. This is not an example of the best players in the world.

Yes, it does happen. Welcome to wrath of the lich king raiding.

Actually, the mages are pulling 60.9% crit average amongst all spells, not well over 60% crit. He cast 141 times, of which 86 were crits. Remember that a crit is automatic double-damage (unless partially resisted) so by going off of damage done you're double-dipping.

 

[[7F]Steel]

Actually, the mages are pulling 60.9% crit average amongst all spells, not well over 60% crit. He cast 141 times, of which 86 were crits. Remember that a crit is automatic double-damage (unless partially resisted) so by going off of damage done you're double-dipping.

The other mage was pulling 64.4% and 65.4% crit rating respectively for his main spells used, those together were 111 casts, his other spell used was 10 casts, and was a 60% crit rate. I would call his crit rate well above 60%. Again, this is easily achieved, 60%+ crit rate is not something you even need to raid to achieve.

 

[Moredhel]

I was in never way doubting that crit over 60% was achievable in raids. It is, with all of the buffs available. However, using the damage to calculate crit is, well, mathematically unsound (i.e. wrong).

 

[[7F]Steel]

I was in never way doubting that crit over 60% was achievable in raids. It is, with all of the buffs available. However, using the damage to calculate crit is, well, mathematically unsound (i.e. wrong).

I really don't follow... the numbers are there, the graph it displays when you hover over the damage amounts are accurate.

This is a screen shot of the mage Sean linked. When you hover over the damage #'s of Arcane blast, it is using that entire line of information to create this graph. Telling you the hit %, crit %, how much total damage was crit damage, and how much total damage was from regular hits... This is pure math, there are no errors here.

So for the outer circle:
23 non-crit hits with Arcane Blast
37 crits with Arcane Blast
For a total of 60 casts of Arcane Blast

23 non-crit hits is (23 / 60 * 100) = 38.333% non-crit hit%
37 crits is (37 / 60 * 100) = 61.666% crit hit%

The inner circle:
205312 non-crit damage with Arcane Blast
678947 crit damage with Arcane blast
For a total of 884259 damage with Arcane Blast

205312 non-crit damage is (205312 / 884259 * 100) = 23.21853% of damage total
678947 crit damage is (678947 / 884259 * 100) = 76.78146% of damage total

This math seems sound to me

 

[Moredhel]

What's wrong is looking at damage done to calculate the crit % chance because crit chance is chance to deliver a crit, not what % of your damage is going to come from a crit.

 

[[7F]Steel]

What's wrong is looking at damage done to calculate the crit % chance because crit chance is chance to deliver a crit, not what % of your damage is going to come from a crit.

I just explained that above... the crit % chance is NOT being derived from damage AT ALL. It is being derived from the number of attacks, and what percent were crits, and what percent were non crits. They simply put the damage and hit type graphs together into one...

 

[[7F]LarryBoy]

Whether it's 50% or 60% or 65%, the point is that dps casters crit A LOT right now, meaning that the Focus Magic (and presumably) Dark Intent buff is going to have a high uptime, probably close to 100%.

 

[Neirai the Forgiven]

Whether it's 50% or 60% or 65%, the point is that dps casters crit A LOT right now, meaning that the Focus Magic (and presumably) Dark Intent buff is going to have a high uptime, probably close to 100%.

Except that you're forgetting that in Cataclysm, a lot of rating numbers, such as critical hit chances, will be a lot lower.

That being said, you can expect Dark Intent to have a high uptime. I rather like these synergy abilities where the buffer and the buffee get to work together to make things better for both of them (think Warrior's Vigilance power.)