Warlock changes in 3.3.3 and how they will affect us!

[Rolt-]

Currently the two changes released is:

Life Tap: This spell no longer scales with spirit, and instead scales with spell power.

Immolate: The damage-over-time component of this spell can now produce critical strikes.

The first change means that speccing into "Improved life tap" will be a waste since, coupled with the recent mana reductions, mana issues will be very rare.



The second change, and undoubtedly the most interesting one will make a whole lot of specs viable:



2-3-5



The usual corruption points moved to "Bane" - giving you 1,5s Immolates and 2,3s Shadow bolts(which, I'm guessing, is still inferior to Searing pain).

The trade of is 10% on Corruption for 0.5s on Immolate.



2-0-8



Here you trade the usual 10%-stamina for -6% on all damage taken.



2-1-7



Taken the most powerful point in "Demonic Embrace" which gives you +4%-stamina and a 4% all-damage reduction.



Why?



The reason I've started thinking about alternative specs and ways to play is due to the fact that I've now played Warlock for about 2,5years and haven't even touched anything but the cookiecuter specs. This would mean I could play my warlock in a whole new way, just by changing a few points.



Questions



Would -6% damage be better then 10%stamina?

Taking from an arena perspective I'd say yes. This is without doing having done any math to check but just by looking at the numbers.



Would a 1,5s Immolate be that much better?

Again, I can only speak from an arena perspective but, yes, I think so. Compare the amounts of Fears you get off with the Immolates you get off. A 2s cast is just so much easier to LoS.



Would skinning be better then mining cause of the Immolate buff?

I'll leave this to you. Factor in the fact that you will be casting alot more Immolates(i.e - alot more spells that can crit) with this spec.

 

[Rayu]

With warlocks sitting at about 5-10% crit chance at most and their critical strikes being only 50% higher than normal hits I can't see why immolate is all of a sudden so much better.

 

[Rolt-]

With warlocks sitting at about 5-10% crit chance at most and their critical strikes being only 50% higher than normal hits I can't see why immolate is all of a sudden so much better.

It's always been very good. Just felt like this tipped it over.

 

[Rayu]

It's always been very good. Just felt like this tipped it over.

I know it's good. But if it were anywhere near the viability of the cookie-cutter warlock build I don't see why people haven't already tried this. So I'm guessing they have and it was significantly less viable than 7/3/0. This buff is actually a lot smaller than it looks.



I took the liberty of taking your lock as an example. It now has the 7/3/0 build and 6.92% crit chance.

If you change spec now you will gain a flat 6% damage increase on your immolate. (Aftermath talent)

If you drop your current spec for an immolate build your immolate damage will increase by 100 * 1.06 * (1 + 0.5 * 0.0692) - 100 = 9.67%. So this spec will gain exactly 9.67 - 6 = 3.67% more viability.

 

[Grabco]

If anything I think the max spellpower lock set will change from 20 shadowpower on gloves to 16 spellpower. I also think that locks using +6 shadowpower bracers or +9 shadowpower boots in their SP set might think about going with crystalline cuffs and spidersilk boots for max SP sets.

 

[ArthurianKnight]

just a thought that came to mind.

wouldn't more stam + better life tap making you hold your ground with that warlock way better then going glass cannon ?



better lifetap means more mana and more mana means longer fighting. longer fighting means better overall dps. unless i'm wrong on this, but wasn't warlock depending on dots to win. with all the purging and lal having more mana makes it even better dotting wise because you dot even more. and since lifetap can get you out of trouble by enabling you gain mana when you are out of it. It is easy to assume that it is better to have more mana out of it instead of draining your whole life to get more.



less lifetap = less life loss due to it. thats a hell of a good addition.

that said, the 6% less damage is better then 10% more stam. because once the 10% more stam is gone, the damage reduction still kicks in. just do the maths, 100 life point in damage =6 life point saved. thats 4 life point to go to get that 10% gone entirely. while once that 10 life point will be gone, the 6 damage saved every attack will still be there to keep you alive. of course this is basic thinking, i know we have like 100 times the 100 life point.



in this scenario, i agree the 10% stamina is worth less then 6% damage reduction.

 

[notoriousthf]

I would probably say they should have it based on whichever is higher, between Spirit and SP.

 

[Curley]

spirit< sp