4.0.1 PvE major changes and discussion thread

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Messaggio di asakawa

finally got onto the EU PTR.

things i noticed*:

empowered imp sucks.
nightfall has always been a weak talent, destro didn't need its own version.

burning embers is a shadow of its former self

but is probably reasonably balanced in terms of damage per talent.

imp damage is surprisingly high.

i feared it would be low with the loss from emp imp.

HoG works ok as a immo refresh.

Quite fun actually

why doesn't molten core trigger one of the game's new power auras?
ancient grimoire sucks.

as do ebon imps
actually that's probably not true. their contribution is small but they work ok with demo's buff to their spawn rate

Aff still bores me >.<
getting used to clipping DoTs will be harder than i thought
mana, generally, is very easy but that's a result of the int change no doubt.

* this was not extensive testing just some messing around to get a feel for things.

Messaggio di fuhrerschein

just to clarify

when you say getting used to clipping dots will be hard

youre referring to how re casting the DoT just adds onto the duration now correct? so whats the strategy... re cast it as close to the end of the original as you can? not sure how exactly the new system works

Messaggio di asakawa

basically the way to properly benefit from haste will be to clip the DoT.

this is because ticks get closer together with more haste but the duration remains the same. as such, without clipping haste become better at various plateaus as you gain enough to provide an extra tick. clipping (which will, no doubt, be referred to as refreshing) maintains the tick timer so you regain all those half ticks that you would lose by letting the DoT drop.

the finer you can clip it the better (since casting corruption every 17 seconds will use more GCDs over a long enough time frame) but instinctually i'd say that's not SUPER important - though as we get into cataclysm that is likely to one of those things that defines a really good player.

Messaggio di DraconisAerius

You mention that empowered imp sucks, does it suck enough for us to drop it?

Messaggio di LookOut

You say Ancient Grimoire sucks. Why? Because it increases the duration of a summon that can only be used once per fight? You could have figured that out without PTR testing :p

Messaggio di Fingulfin

You mention that empowered imp sucks, does it suck enough for us to drop it?
Not really. While it is a lame talent, there are no better alternatives.

Messaggio di asakawa

exactly, at that point in the tree your only other options are things like backlash or aftermath. just like nightfall it'll get points in it because it IS a dps increase. it's just a small and boring one.

exactly lookout (and i did). once per fight is ok but 10minutes is actually more annoying that simply once per fight. it just seems to me that it will shine as a talent on high-health trash when you pull out the infernal. the DG is a bit underwhelming on dingle targets.

demo having more interaction with those summons is a great idea.
perhaps when used well it's a decent return for you investment and i'm being overly harsh but either way, ancient grimoire just isn't fun.

on a side note. can anyone see any reason why aff would still cast BoA? BoD requires fewer GCDs and spawns imps. BoA... umm... just a DoT. it needs an aff talent to improve it if we're supposed to use it i think.

Messaggio di 289853

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Messaggio di Fingulfin

Barring wild suggestions, I have no clue how or why BoA would still be used. I would assume simply because its DPS is better than BoDs, but nothing in the current talent trees would imply that that would be true (and if it was true, EVERYONE would use BoA instead).

Messaggio di asakawa

(and if it was true, EVERYONE would use BoA instead).
exactly.

there's been a couple of specifics that make aff use CoA on live, namely that it has a talent to support it (iCoA = +10%) and CoD is unaffected by SM (a bug that's been around for years). i wonder if there's a fix on the way for this or if BoA will dwindle into obscurity.

Messaggio di 385379

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Messaggio di asakawa

i think there was some discussion in the main cata thread.
the sub-25% refresh will act exactly the same as ALL refreshes though (that is all clipped recasts) so it's not really a mechanic that is particularly important.
the research done suggested a model closer to your option (1). i think it was fin that gathered the numbers so perhaps he'll be able to find that post.

gems added
input welcomed

Messaggio di 385379

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Messaggio di Fingulfin

Refreshing BoA actually lowers its DPS, regardless of what point during its duration you refresh it it goes back to doing weak ticks.

In other words
1) - 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - Refresh - 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - Refresh - 1 - 2 . . .

So yeah, its a garbage spell.

Messaggio di asakawa

it's clear that they do expect aff to use it but they haven't given them reason to as yet.
it's relatively common for there to be a disconnect between what is "intended" and the emergent gameplay, never more so than this phase in the cycle.

thinking through the ramifications of what fin's saying, if (an assumption but i think a safe one) the pandemic refresh does work the same as a clipped refresh then it would, in fact, drastically lower output from BoA since it would never get out of weak ticks and into stronger ones.

if this is the case then far from just not having a good reason to use it we actually have a very good reason NOT to use it.
i'll look into finding a way to test some of these assumptions at some point if i can but urge others to also.

confirmation that BoA currently ONLY ticks at the weak level when getting refreshed by DS via pandemic.

recognition from blizz that pandemic is a problem:
We agree that BoA is problematic with Pandemic, and we may end up removing it.
and a possible change coming to MC:
We're considering having Molten Core proc from Immolate and just removing the Soul Fire part of the talent. We want to make sure Demo's dps isn't entirely balanced around the execute phase of a fight.

Messaggio di asakawa

doing a double post bump, apologies but it's been a couple of days and i'm hoping to get some input on affliction.

i've done some testing on affliction on the ptr and i'm actually looking at 31/3/2 for 4.0.1 with the priority:

CoE
Haunt
Corruption
UA
BoD
SB (shadowtrance)
Drain soul (<25%)
Drain life

using DL as filler does give good numbers.
imp > felhunter until we get demon soul in catclysm.
mastery becomes very strong.

SE becomes a problem. haunt is the only reliable thing that refreshes it. nightfall procs more because of DL ticks (and the glyph which may not be the best option (the only alternative is BoA so, meh!)) so instant SBs will help but standing close is the only way to beat RNG and not lose stacks.

anyone else seeing similar results? i've not tested very extensively. a series of 5-10 minute tests on a dummy with no execute barely filters the white noise.

Messaggio di TheVorago

according to statements reforging will become available already at the coming patch. anybody who've had any experience with it? So I'll be able to just carefreely skip into a city and convert lots of stupid points into juicy things such as haste and mastery? sounds too good to be true.

btw asakawa, affliction boring? WHY, whyyyy? admit you like messing with it on the PTR ^^

Messaggio di asakawa

reforging is a mechanic change not part of the expansion so it is coming with 4.0.1, yes.

you choose a stat and convert a portion of it into another stat. it's not as powerful as one might like (as jamayk is discussing in that other thread) in that you don't get to convert all of the stat you don't like, just a portion of it.
you spirit gear will still have some spirit on it but it's better than not having this option.

btw, it does cost gold but it only costs the vendor value of the item so the cost shouldn't be prohibitive for pretty much anybody.

i just haven't enjoyed aff since naxx and it's epic number of timers to watch. it's not really worth discussing since it's very subjective. i like the spec in theory but not at all in practice.

Messaggio di 539323

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Messaggio di asakawa

these are all good questions.

ISB seemed fine in my small tests but you're at the mercy of RNG from several directions with only 2 points in SnF.

i'm actually assuming a lot by valuing nightfall as highly as i have done and i feel all wrong because of it. nightfall has always been a seriously bad talent. it's just the DL spam with it's one-second ticks give it a bit of viability that it's never had before. we need a ton more testing to back up or refute my ideas.

SB:SoC i think depends on the player. someone currently working on LK will love it for spirits (they're on a minute cooldown right? so 45sec CD on SB wil work out...? been a while since i did it) but someone doing other stuff might only want it for trash and have much less use for it beyond epeen.

either way that point would definitely come out of nightfall.

a DL filler aff spec will value mastery very highly since it effects pretty much all damage done... i can only really think of haunt's DD off the top of my head). destro too for basically the same reason.

demo is questionable. increasing pet damage is cool and they can scale the percentage to rating ratio to balance it BUT...
blizz announced that all stats scale to our pets. they said mastery would scale with pets in some way but things went a bit quiet on that point or i missed the clarification. the problem is that if they make affliction's mastery scale to pets but just increasing their damage by some smallish factor then we have the problem that demo mastery already increases pet damage.

basically, we don't really know yet but it'll be interesting to see.