Quote:I disagree. Blizzard continues to not understand the mechanics and problems behind the soloing and raiding Warlock. The biggest problems Warlocks face is threat at all times, not the ability to get rid of half of it once every 5 minutes. While the addition of threat reduction to Imp Drain Soul and Destructive Reach (why Imp DS I have no clue, or even why the talent still exists) it is not enough. They are forcing Warlocks to get MD and have Imps out if they want better than 10% threat reduction. This does not lead to an expanded play style, but a pigeon holing build.

I can only hope that there will be a true Talent review for Warlocks and Warriors prior to BC coming out and we (Warlocks and Warriors) get a chance to argue against some of the changes they're making. (Why is Curse of Exhaustion still a talent based Curse when it should be normal repetoire? Why is the talents for CoW and CoA still split off as seperate talents, there should be one all encompassing talent that boosts all curses by a specific amount. Why does Imp Corruption still exist when Corruption should be made instant much like Arcane Explosion was? Blizzard's developers just don't understand the inner workings of the Warlock in a solo environment and a raiding environment.)

Quote:Had a look at the rogue talents, wasn't too impressed with the new ones. However the old ones are very good and 61 points to spend is great

Quote:GIVENS:

base backstab: 600
crit backstab (4/5 lethality): 1344
backstab energy: landed = 60, dodged = 11
backstab critrate: 60% (30% spellbook, 30% from talents)
sample time: 3 hours (10800 seconds)
energy generated in this time: 108000
miss/block/parry factoring: attacking from behind, enough tohit to never miss

WITHOUT TALENT:

1877 swings:
94 dodged (5.01% dodge)
657 hits (35.00% hit)
1126 crits (59.99% crit)
energy used: (94 * 11) + ((657 + 126) * 60) = 108014 (+/- 14 energy)
dps = damage / time = ((657 * 600) + (1126 * 1344)) / 10800 = 176.6 DPS

WITH TALENT:

1800 swings:
0 dodged (0.00% dodge)
720 hits (40.00% hit)
1080 crits (60.00% crit)
energy used: (1800 * 60) = 108000 (+/- 0 energy)
dps = damage / time = ((720 * 600) + (1080 * 1344)) / 10800 = 174.4 DPS

DPS Before Talent = 176.6
DPS After Talent = 174.4

Quote:Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing 445 to 488 Holy damage at the cost of 148 to 163 health.

Quote:Why is that Heroism and Bloodlust for shamans are faction specific but do the exact same thing?

Quote:Meanwhile warriors get an upgrade for Sunder Armor

Quote:Interesting Tidbit: Anyone who grabs Suprise Attacks, as it stands, lowers their DPS.

I though it was bad (as in completely not worth going for) before. Now that I've seen this (the key is dodged Backstabs take very little energy), I realize it's borderline incompetent.

Quote:Meanwhile warriors get an upgrade for Sunder Armor

Quote:Warriors, being the most gear-reliant class, are likely to have underwhelming talents; Blizzard will make up for it by adding crazy weapons and armor and people will cry 'nerf warriors' before you know it.

Quote:Add what will probably work out to be 500 HP or so from vitality, and it looks to finally give protection warriors a pretty significant advantage over non-protection warriors or protection warriors with 15-20 points in protection when it comes to tanking.

Quote:If the aggro-control spell (Soulshatter) dumps 50% of existing aggro, that's pretty huge; you'd just need to use it when you have enough aggro to be worth dumping.

If it operates instead by adding a buff which reduces threat generated by 50% for a minute or two, that might have about the same effect as the 30% overall MD/imp reduction.

Anyhow I think this is basically our talent review. More mana regen, a useful DP, aggro management, better/more affliction spells suitable for PvP, a high-level pet ... it's right from the wishlist. There's some stuff Blizzard hasn't really cleaned up yet, but there's time before the expansion.

Quote:Improved Drain Soul is really strong. I can see people grinding with this as their main recovery and deleting the shards produced. 15% of maximum mana for free is way better than Life Tap or Dark Pact

Quote:As far as aggro goes, it remains to be seen how effective the new 41 point Defensive Warrior talent is. There's a good possibility it will increase MT threat gen significantly. On top of that, Horde guilds are getting Blessing of Salvation (keep in mind they've managed to get to Naxx without it). A 50% threat dump at will is pretty damn good for long fights, too. I may be remembering incorrectly, but wasn't the MD/Imp threat reduction additive before, now nerfed to multiplicative? The added threat bonuses (which is pretty nice gravy on the already useful talent Destructive Reach) reduce the threat gap, which is all they *should* do considering the MD/Imp requires sacrifices for that one, now smaller, threat advantage. Considering all these things, I believe there's a good chance that Warlocks will be able to get by without the MD/Imp combo, while maintaining its viability.

Mana feed looks awesome - finally a way to restore pets' MP, or get more from DP. I still would like to see pet's stats/abilities scale with spell damage or something gear-dependent though. The Soulwell looks awesome too, finally something to make Healthstones for a raid at a reasonable shard cost.

We'll have to wait and see just what exactly the Fel Guard's abilities are. It could have a large impact that we don't even know about yet. The only indication we have from the preview is that it's grouped with the Succubus in MD. It's not even listed in DS though, which is odd.

Affliction looks like it could be pretty insane for group PVP. I'm not sure about how exactly dispels work; are the debuffs on a "stack" which pops the top debuff off? If so, I expect Decursive to be updated to simply skip targets with Unstable Affliction on the top of the debuff stack. Unstable Affliction could be a "decursive shield" for the other magic DoTs, including Seed of Corruption which effectively would give you a 36 yd range AOE. Improved HoT looks awesome, too.

It remains to be seen whether Contagion's damage bonus is additive or multiplicative in relation to the Imp CoA/Corruption bonuses. Even if all of the damage bonuses become additive, you're still looking at a 1900 Corruption, 2200 CoA, and 1800 UA on a +500 SD geared lock with the new +100 SD armor buff. That's 5900 damage if they don't get dispelled - talk about lethal.

We don't yet know whether the duration increase for Lasting Afflictions is meant as a damage buff or as a counterbalance to the 30% dispel resist. If it's a damage increase, that'd boost the two instant cast spell Corruption/UA combo to 4950 damage! If the talent does not increase overall damage, I don't think it would be all that useful if UA is usable as a shield for other magic DoTs.

Of course, I have completely skipped Immolation. If the UA "decursive shield" does end up working, that would open up a new combo. Queue up an immolate, once it goes off an immediate Corruption is cast, leaving only 1.5 seconds for a safe dispel before UA comes in. So you're looking at over 4700 damage to an unsuspecting target if the dispellers are busy for only 1.5 seconds, or you're forcing the dispellers to take that 1575 damage hit and dispel anyway.

Who knows, perhaps UA's dispel damage gets increased by spell damage and SM. Talk about a hurtful dispel!
Overall, I'm pretty excited about the Warlock preview. The possibility of locks specializing in DoTs seems realistic. The Fel Guard is intriguing. There are some overall improvements, and the threat situation looks decent enough to me at this early stage. It may not have everything I want, but it's definitely something I'm excited about.

Quote:Thanks for pointing out the Heroic Strike/Shield Bash combo, I missed it. I hope raid mobs can be dazed - this would be nice synargy - but I have sure never seen one dazed before. Can non-players even be dazed now?

Quote:Pending how much extra threat this deals, this is not minor. First, it's an instant-attack, scaling damage, no cooldown, skill for Protection warriors. Something they completely don't have right now. Add in the extra threat you get from this, and it can be a great talent for Protection warriors.

The fact that the threat is dependent on Sunder Armor is a very good idea. It doesn't limit the attacks damage for PvP purposes while not making it "too easy" for threat in PvE purposes.

Quote:Well, Heroic strike looks to have been significantly improved with the synergy with shield bash. It sets up another combo like shield block + revenge... assuming some bosses can be dazed... and it seems silly to add this synergy if bosses can't be dazed.

And the focused rage talent looks to bring the possibility of very significantly reducing rage requirements. And I suspect rage will not be "unlimited" in 25 man content, as it isn't in any of the current 20 man content. These rage savings should be able to translate into a rather significant amount of extra threat for a warrior able to spam 3 skills at once (sunder / devastate / shield bash / shield slam / revenge + Heroic + shield block). Add what will probably work out to be 500 HP or so from vitality, and it looks to finally give protection warriors a pretty significant advantage over non-protection warriors or protection warriors with 15-20 points in protection when it comes to tanking.

More interesting to me in the warrior talents is the move of tac mastery into protection and leaving parry in arms. This seems like a deliberate complication to the 30 (flurry) / 31 (MS) that I suspect will be popular among the DPS warriors and PvP crowd.

Quote:Unless the tank is overgeared, the MT in a 40-man has near-unlimited rage to work with from being hit. If they don't, then their gear is good enough they don't really *need* the excess rage to hold aggro.

Quote:Expansion is 25 man content, not 40 man. I expect there to be less rage available than currently... more on the order of AQ20 type content, and in that content you have somewhat limited rage. Plus, even in 40 man content, the "unlimited rage" factor doesn't come in until you start hitting the Tier 2 bosses. I know in my tanking in MC I still didn't have enough rage to be mashing the HS button every swing cycle along with my cooldown skills. Until that happens and you still can't spend all your rage, you aren't hitting an unlimited rage situation. It's going to be more difficult to generate content with that kind of damage done to a tank when you're bound to have fewer healers around just from the 25 vs. 40 standpoint.

Gauging how much threat you NEED is difficult, because DPS classes will "test" their threshold on trash and scale their boss damage appropriately. Shake is an example of this... GG mentioned the hunters would scale back their damage so tehy wouldn't pull aggro... So the tank has little indication that he is not generating as much threat as another tank would. It's difficult to gauge how much extra DPS can be liberated by improving threat generation. In some fights it's zero, while in others it's significant.

It works hand in hand with things like the warlock complaints that they can't utilize their DPS because of aggro concerns. Warrior threat handling capability has been improved... so warlocks will be more able to utilize DPS. Also I see "good tanks" tougher to come by simply because of the parallel tasking you will have to do while tanking. As it is it's a cycle of shield block, heroic strike, and [insert global cooldown skill here]. The expansion will add a layer of complexity with the Shield Bash / Heroic Strike mechanic and the sunder / devastate mechanic.

Quote:Gauging how much threat you NEED is difficult, because DPS classes will "test" their threshold on trash and scale their boss damage appropriately. Shake is an example of this... GG mentioned the hunters would scale back their damage so tehy wouldn't pull aggro... So the tank has little indication that he is not generating as much threat as another tank would. It's difficult to gauge how much extra DPS can be liberated by improving threat generation. In some fights it's zero, while in others it's significant.

It works hand in hand with things like the warlock complaints that they can't utilize their DPS because of aggro concerns. Warrior threat handling capability has been improved... so warlocks will be more able to utilize DPS. Also I see "good tanks" tougher to come by simply because of the parallel tasking you will have to do while tanking. As it is it's a cycle of shield block, heroic strike, and [insert global cooldown skill here]. The expansion will add a layer of complexity with the Shield Bash / Heroic Strike mechanic and the sunder / devastate mechanic.

Quote:I don't really see a problem. I can take Keshi into 20-mans and still garner all the aggro I need. So, while this makes for good discussion, I really don't see how it'll be a problem. However, I also don't depend on HS for threat generation. I generate most of my threat off Revenge and Shield Slam, being a tank specialist. In the expansion, I'll have Devastate. I think I'll have all the aggro I need.