Wednesday, December 6, 2006

My impression of the latest talent changes from beta

Shadowfury is super great now. The mana cost is just right. The damage is a nice tradeoff vs the utility it provides. The fact that aftermath can proc off of it, and it can be used 3x more often, does make aftermath a bit more valuable, but again the benefit is not for the warlock, but the folks up on the front lines. It saves a snare or two, and it's not really something you can count on either. It's still a novelty talent more than anything. Unfortunately when I spec out my lock, it usually comes down to a choice between demonic embrace, and aftermath. That choice isn't too difficult to make (15% more stamina is just fantastic, especially with the +stamina on items now). I still think the 10% chance on aftermath is too low to rely on in any way shape or form. It's merely a fun talent, when it works, but 90% of the time, it's not even needed, especially now that shadowfury is 20s cooldown.

The other main choice currently is improved shadowbolt vs cataclysm. For raiding, and even in pvp, improved shadowbolt is just so handy, especially as fights drag on. 20% more damage is nothing to sneeze at. It's a fantastic talent, and cataclysm is.. "ok" at best. Aftermath + cataclysm rolled into one talent might be the way to go. I'd still feel compelled to get improved shadowbolt, and then I might consider sacrificing talents from other trees (demonic embrace, improved corruption) to spend those 5 more points on the combined talent. I still don't know. DE and corruption are pretty much staple talents. And Improved lifetap is just wonderful in every single situation. I spend my points based on how often the talent will be useful. If it's something I can barely count on, or rarely use, I just won't invest the points into it.

Demonology is still a very solid overall tree. It has damage. It has mobility. It has survivability. It has versatility. It doesn't have burst or range but this doesn't matter as much in prolonged arena fights. Very very solid overall tree.

Soul Leech I have mixed feelings about. It's doing its job just fine in karazhan. It's a good raiding talent. Nice to see chunks of 600 health regained via incinerate crits here and there. It will be a boon for locks who wish to spec destruction while a guild learns encounters and mana conservation is at the upmost importance. Otherwise, Siphon life and drain life as affliction spec is just phenominal for self-reliance when it comes to long boss fights in raids. I never need a single heal, ever, as long as everything is going smoothly and folks are doing their job. The only problem with this talent is that it's often wasted. A lot of healers are anal about anyones hp bar (or they are just bored and wanting something to do), and will heal me as soon as I lifetap even once, negating the whole point of taking soul leech. It also seems rather underwhelming once a holy priest with decent gear casts a simply renew (which costs next to no mana) on me and heals me for 700 a tick for several ticks. I understand this talents job is to be a warlocks version of clearcasting, but this talent goes too much waste, too often. I'll put points in here ONLY if i plan on raiding, and ONLY if I can't use them better elsewhere. To REALLY make this talent attractive, include seed of corruption procs and shadowfury. Then I would be impressed and would love to invest points into it. That would be very very fun to use, and add to a dest warlocks survival a bit more in group pvp, since they don't have the mobility that affliction locks have, or mitigation that demo warlocks do.

Affliction.. just seems quite solid still. Dot's are nasty now, and I can see these builds (that used to be looked down on in group pvp and raiding) as being much more viable, even preferred.
Part of me wishes that improved lifetap was tier1, and that's because I use lifetap more heavily as a destruction build than anything. I guess you'd need a total of 10 talent points for tier1 if that happened? I guess make imp corruption 3/3 with .7 seconds shaved off per rank. I know a lot of warlocks want corruption to be a base instant cast spell, but I'm not sure about that.. Maybe a slight burdening of the talent would be better.

Absolutely love the changes so far, as well as the rogue changes that went through. Once subtlety builds get a little bit more damage going for them (the imp backstab in assassination tree is one of the best changes for this particular case), a shadowstep build might be a lot of fun (assuming it gets buffed). I really hope the stealth requirement is removed from it. And yes, this is coming from (primarily) a warlock, soon to be fodder for rogues. =]

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Grats for the blog, very nice indeed!

Do you have a favority talents build that you would use to lvl 60->70?

Unknown said...

I have sooo many.. I don't know where to start. But I'll list a few I suppose. :)

(Destro)http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=AV0bZbxZVx0trhtAuVo
(Felguard)http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=NVZbxczIizMestxx0z
(Afflic)http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=IA0riRfzqtbobxZxx0z
(Grinding)http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=IA0rqRfzqxbZdxczIbz

It's hard to say which is my favorite. They're ALL so good.

Unknown said...

The changes look so good indeed.

It looks like the affliction path is the fastest one to lvl up on a pve server, but missing the felguard, is such a shame! :D

Matron said...

Great blog, very impressed. I looked at your gear link- is most of that obtainable w/o raiding? And are you keeping the 3 nemesis pieces just for the set bonus? Nemesis individually doesn't seem up to par with the rest of your blues/greens.

You also said in one of your posts that most instances are 30-60 min. Is that really true? That would be insanely good for the casual player.

Anyways, thanks for the updates and keep up the good work. :)

Unknown said...

All of the pics I am wearing came from raiding. Nemesis as you know from BWL, and the other 2 from Karazhan (the ring being an honored faction freebie with the violet eye faction by killing mobs in karazhan).

Every other blue and green piece of gear I am wearing came from questing. The only exception is the Mark of Defiance, as it's a pvp reward for getting 30 Marks of Honor by killing 30 horde at the pvp points in Hellfire and Zangarmarsh. Extremely easy to get.

Unknown said...

Excuse me. All of the EPICS* I am wearing. 8)