WoW--Warlocks at level 80

[Joe O'Malley]

So I don't usually start threads here, but I'm in a bit of a bind. I've played a lock in WoW since 2 days after the game came out. Now Lich King has been released and I feel like the expoloitation object in a prison rape movie.

I've been running Naxx and Heroics for two weeks now, and got about 5-6 pieces of newer gear to replace part of my old T6 stuff. The problem, as I see it, is that the class dynamics for locks have changed. For us to keep up with other classes now we basically need a whole new set of gear to get our stats on par.

As an example: Against non-skull bosses I'll put up an immolate then use incinerate (and conflagrate). In a heroic I'll crit for 5-6k. Right next to me is a similarly-equipped frostfire mage merrily critting away for 10k. My raid leaders are staring at the locks and threatening to drop us from raids.

My question, forum peoples, is this: Am I right in thinking the big difference has to do with regearing around the changes to spirit and damage, or is it something else?

Also, to the affliction folks out there: I realize that the affliction build is top DPS right now. I'm a destro lock, though, so would appreciate any assistance coming from that viewpoint.

Thanks!

[Jag]

From what i'm hearing locks need some DPS love and they should get it soon. I understand the gear issue, hunters had it when they screwed around with our stats awhile back. I wouldn't worry at all about gear since my T6 is not holding up well in Naxx. It's time to get new gear and dump the old stuff.

BTW if your raid leaders are threatening to drop locks, get a new guild. We'd love to get our hands on some locks. We've got tanks and healers aplenty, but no locks.

[AaronSofaer]

Point out that without your Warlocks, your Guild gets no soulstones and healthstones?

I dunno. Warlocks aren't doing very good DPS at 80. I've yet to see a Warlock that is doing more DPS than I saw them doing at 70, pre-3.0.

My suggestion would be to respec. Even Demonology (Felguard/Destro or Felguard/Affliction) seems to be doing more DPS than Destruction.

You do yourself no favors with your Guild sticking with the worst of the three Warlock specs.

[Athryn]

Everything that I've been reading talks about most locks switching to demo or affliction to help with the spell hit problems until they can get better gear. That's about the extent of what I've heard though. I will say that I recently ran some heroics with this lock (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Moonrunner&n=Mudvein) and he was putting out almost 2k DPS.

[AaronSofaer]

The sad thing is that in TBC, pre-3.0, plenty of Warlocks were putting out more than 2k DPS just hitting Shadowbolt. Probably the only class whose DPS actually went down after they picked up ten levels.

[Athryn]

The sad thing is that in TBC, pre-3.0, plenty of Warlocks were putting out more than 2k DPS just hitting Shadowbolt. Probably the only class whose DPS actually went down after they picked up ten levels.

I'm not surprised though, as levels rose, the gear everyone had became mostly useless. I know that I felt really underpowered as a healer and could barely heal through heroics until I started getting some badges and gear under my belt.

[rossm]

Are you not willing to switch to affliction? You're right in that's it's the top dps spec now, haunt is too good to miss. Also, no class is wearing T6 by the time they're doing heroics and 10 mans, afaik. Maybe for some classes a set bonus still puts them slightly on top, but gear needs to be replaced.

[Jag]

Also, no class is wearing T6 by the time they're doing heroics and 10 mans, afaik. Maybe for some classes a set bonus still puts them slightly on top, but gear needs to be replaced.

I am :(

[Athryn]

Also, no class is wearing T6 by the time they're doing heroics and 10 mans, afaik. Maybe for some classes a set bonus still puts them slightly on top, but gear needs to be replaced.

I actually haven't found any shoulders to replace my paladin (holy) t6 shoulders.

[KMartin]

I'm a lock as well and I play deep affliction.

For me trash is bad for dps, and most people know this. Because Naxx 10 and 25 are so damn easy the trash get dropped in no time flat, barely enough time for my dots to tick. On boss fights however, keeping up the rotation is a bit of work but doable. I was pushing almost 2300 dps in spider wing bosses with only 1400 spell damage.

Probably partly due to drain soul ticking for 6200 every 2 seconds with my other dots ticking away at 1000+.
The class dynamics haven't change much in terms of PvE. I think we excel in that area and are no slouches. PVP is where I have a huge problem, as I am a DoT class in a burst pvp world.

Perhaps you should try changing your spec to see if that helps you at all.

[rossm]

I am :(
We had a rogue in our nax10 pug using both glaives; it happens. But really level 80 gear is much better than T6. Heroics and 10man normals drop ilvl 200 blues and epics, vs T6 which is under ilvl 155.

[Acosta]

You are not sacrificing the pet and doing SB spam, right? Probably not, but just in case, take on count that doesn't work anymore as it worked before.

In any case, I suggest Demonology, it has some really nice raid utilities that will improve the general DPS and I think your own DPS will notice a boost given that your pet is not as easily killable as it was in BC. Aside of that, there are some problems with gear and itemization and I'm pretty sure Blizzard is working on it, however tell your guild leader that he is a dick adn think on get out of there.

[Mordrak]

For me trash is bad for dps, and most people know this. Because Naxx 10 and 25 are so damn easy the trash get dropped in no time flat, barely enough time for my dots to tick.


Back in the day, I played affliction and I picked up soul shatter (in destro) for this very reason. If mages are hitting for 10k, it won't make up for it, but it let's you edge in a bunch of damage before the mob dies and you get your shard back.

[Mordrak]

As an example: Against non-skull bosses I'll put up an immolate then use incinerate (and conflagrate). In a heroic I'll crit for 5-6k. Right next to me is a similarly-equipped frostfire mage merrily critting away for 10k. My raid leaders are staring at the locks and threatening to drop us from raids.



What jerks. I'm sorry, but changes to class balance take time to work through and may even need to be adjusted by Blizzard, especially after an expansion hits. If your raid leaders are going to ostracize competent raiders because of this, they're idiots.

[Matt Nahman]

Put me in the camp of people who did 2k dps pre 3.0 (even as affliction) and now I can barely break 1500 dps on boss fights. Deep affliction too... I just don't know what I'm doing wrong other than the fact that I am still wearing a lot of level 70 gear. I'm noticing that I am spending a lot more time lifetapping than I was, I think that is a major contributor to the drop of dps and should be fixed with more gear. I guess time will tell, but so far I am not a fan of the changes made.

[Jag]

We had a rogue in our nax10 pug using both glaives; it happens. But really level 80 gear is much better than T6. Heroics and 10man normals drop ilvl 200 blues and epics, vs T6 which is under ilvl 155.

I don't disagree, I just don't have the time to run as many heroics as I would like. I'll gear up, just not as fast as I would like given my job, kids, etc.

[Joe O'Malley]

Sorry to be so long getting back. Work was crazy yesterday.

To answer the assorted questions:

--Yes, we have mentioned the change in class dynamics to the GM. His response has been basically a jackasstical "QQ more" response.

--I do not believe the class is hopeless. by changing the synergy and spirit effects on locks, however, it basically calls for a full gear replacement to get back on the horse, so to speak. The damnable catch-22 of it is that I am unlikely to get the time for that replacement before the roster sacks me. Once sacked, of course, I won't have much opportunity to get the gear needed to prove my point. I could go to another guild, but it's a game. I know these guys and play with them. I don't want to leave and have to learn all new peeps, if possible.

--Honestly, hit ain't all that right now. I'm only missing ~3.6% on skull bosses in Naxx 25 with ~200 hit rating. All the gear comes with massive +hit, so I don't think that'll be a long-term issue.

--I'm specced destro now, mostly because affliction was about as much fun as juggling cactus for me. Great for grinding, don't get me wrong. Using the teleport circle and leading a bunch of dotted mobs on a wild goosechase while I heal fater than they can damage me is a real hoot. But raiding is different. I want to see what's going on, not be stuck staring at all my timers. My gear isn't destro-ready, so to speak, but the damage level isn't that bad comparatively.

I appreciate all the feedback from everyone. I also appreciate some concensus that I wasn't crazy about what I was seeing with the class. Thanks, all.

[André Costa]

I have been focusing on my warrior since WOTLK was out so i can't really say much about locks right now.

However, i'd advise you to go read the warlock threads (http://elitistjerks.com/f80/) in ElitistJerks. I have seen WWS reports of destro-locks doing around 3k+ DPS so it's not a problem with only the class.

Also, "hit ain't all that right now"?? Seriously? That's the most important stat for anyone starting raiding. You need 446 Hit Rating to reach the 17% cap and you only have 200 and say it isn't important?

Finally, what's your spec and rotation?

EDIT:
Easy to get +hit cloth gear list made in 5 minutes on LootRank.com
Head: Hat of Wintry Doom (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41984) - Crafted
Neck: Amulet of the Malefic Necromancer (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43884) - Quest
Shoulders: Mantle of the Underhalls (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43862) - Quest
Back: Dark Soldier Cape (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44242) - Knights of Ebon Blade Honored
Chest: Ebonweave Robe (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42101) - Crafted
Wrists: Fleshwerk Shackles (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38739) - Quest
Hands: Ebonweave Gloves (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42111) - Crafted
Waist: Sash of the Wizened Wyrm (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44196) - Wyrmnrest Accord Honored OR Belt of Blasting (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30038) - TBC Crafted
Legs: Spellstrike Pants (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24262) - TBC Crafted
Feet: Leiah's Footpads (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43839) - Quest
Ring: Ring of Northern Tears (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43253) - Crafted
Ring: Brunnhildar Runed Ring (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42845) - Quest
Trinket: Rune of Infinite Power (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38765) - Quest
MainHand: Flameheart Spell Scalpel (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44173) - Kirin'Tor Revered
Ranged: Wand of Blinding Light (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38206) - Quest

(And this is without enchants or gems)

[TriggerHappy]

Put me in the camp of people who did 2k dps pre 3.0 (even as affliction) and now I can barely break 1500 dps on boss fights. Deep affliction too... I just don't know what I'm doing wrong other than the fact that I am still wearing a lot of level 70 gear. I'm noticing that I am spending a lot more time lifetapping than I was, I think that is a major contributor to the drop of dps and should be fixed with more gear. I guess time will tell, but so far I am not a fan of the changes made.

I don't play a warlock and honestly haven't even read up on them very much, but I do know that Affliction is a ton more complicated and harder to play than it was pre-3.0. Folks who got used to the changes supposedly do a ton more damage, but said it was a pain in the ass adjusting to the new style of prioritizing spells instead of having a rotation.

Also, if Haunt misses you're screwed, apparently.

[André Costa]

Also, Shadow Embrace is bugged(just like Ebon Plague is for DKs or other stuff like this) so if you have 2 or more afflicition warlocks with it on a raid, only 1 will be making use of it and screwing up the other warlocks DPS.

Thank god they finally removed the debuf limit too.

[Joe O'Malley]

Also, "hit ain't all that right now"?? Seriously? That's the most important stat for anyone starting raiding. You need 446 Hit Rating to reach the 17% cap and you only have 200 and say it isn't important?



Hit is important, yes. But the mechanic of it is not biting hard yet, at least in Naxx. I'm not sure if it's a bug or if they are saving it for Udular but there's no way I should only be missing 3% of the time with less than half the hit cap. As a result, I'll let the hit gear take care of itself as we clear Naxx twice weekly (10 and 25 man) and I'll be painlessly hit-capped by the time the mechanic is "working as intended." Right now haste and damage and spirit are higher on the list.

Mind you, the above is said with the caveat that if hit -was- working (and penalizing) properly right now I would completely agree with you.

As to the other part of your statement, I have done the math and anticipate that once all my (now inappropriate to the the restructuring) gear is replaced I should be well over 3k DPS. Just not now. Unlike the other classes that can "get by" doing 2+k DPS with their T6 while they work for replacements, locks (and to a lesser extent rogues) can't.

I'm also getting a new nvidia 9800 GT card tonight (good value) and that should help with some of the other issues I've had.

edit: fixed quote

[Mordrak]

What'd they do to spirit to make it more important for locks? Or is haste just making mana regen more important?

[TriggerHappy]

I think it was just adding a spirit to spell power conversion to Fel Armor.

http://thottbot.com/s47893

[Mordrak]

I think it was just adding a spirit to spell power conversion to Fel Armor.

http://thottbot.com/s47893

Ahh, gotcha. Thanks. :)

[André Costa]

Still not reason enough for any warlock to put it above any other stat.

[AaronSofaer]

Man, that's better scaling than Holy Priests get for five talent points.

[Mordrak]

Still not reason enough for any warlock to put it above any other stat.

Sure. However if the new heroic gear (which I haven't looked at) has more, but evenly distributed stats, so it ends up being basically T6 + more spirit, that could be a significant contributer to low dps. I don't know if that's the case, but it isn't necessarily an issue of putting spirit above other stats.

[Joe O'Malley]

Spirit is a double whammy for locks, good or bad, depending on whether you have it.

With improved fel armor, you get 39% of spirit as +spell damage. So 500 spirit=+195 spell damage. Not bad.

Also, and this is important, life tap is now tied to spirit. Since lock abilities are high-mana we have to tap during fights to get it back. With low spirit you can lose over 10% of your DPS time just tapping. With 150 spirit I only got about 900 mana. Eek. With 500 I get around 2800 mana.

So higher spirit= both more damage and drastically reduced lost DPS time. Put them together and it's like a 15-20% damage difference.

[Mordrak]

Also, and this is important, life tap is now tied to spirit. Since lock abilities are high-mana we have to tap during fights to get it back. With low spirit you can lose over 10% of your DPS time just tapping. With 150 spirit I only got about 900 mana. Eek. With 500 I get around 2800 mana.

So higher spirit= both more damage and drastically reduced lost DPS time. Put them together and it's like a 15-20% damage difference.

Wait, so lifetap is now tied to spirit? Does it still eat life? What the heck have they done to my warlock class? : /

This is making me want to go back to my horde toon. Heh.

[Joe M.]

I do know that Affliction is a ton more complicated and harder to play than it was pre-3.0. Folks who got used to the changes supposedly do a ton more damage

Yeah, supposedly some EU warlock did 5900 DPS on Patchwerk. I wouldn't say locks are gimped, but it's going to be a learning experience figuring out how to maximize DPS in WOTLK. I haven't touched my warlock alt since 3.0.2 and don't anticipate playing it until I have some time to seriously look at what I'm dealing with.

[Infinity]

I'm still a Demon spec'd level 72 lock and wonder if I should go ahead and respec to Affliction.

What level is best to respec?

Thanks.

[Fuzzydevil]

Slightly long diatribe. Apologies if any of this is particularly commonly known.

Opinion seems to very. Patchwerk often isn't considered a good estimate of "real" DPS simply because it's (apparently; I've yet to run Naxx as my guild has all of 3 people at 80) not a fight that involves any real sort of movement, so there's nothing to interrupt your casting. While it shows your potential DPS, it's not really how you'll be doing in most raid battles, or so the thinking goes.

Demo is fairly decent for grinding; the issue lies with the fact that it has downtime, which is something Affliction simply doesn't have. Levelling as Affliction, I think I bought maybe one stack each of food and water between 70-75, and maybe one stack more for the final levels. Simply put, slamming down every DoT and dropping Drain Life pretty much lets you tank, solo, to your heart's content. If you run low on mana, Dark Pact. At the end of every fight, Haunt should be healing you for a few thousand, not to mention the constant topups from Siphon Life and Drain Life. Health and mana are rarely a problem against the average mob.

Demonology does have a few advantages, though, and the biggy is Metamorphosis. While Warlocks have an incredibly hard time in PvP at the moment - or I'm just awful - Metamorphosis can kill ill-prepared players without too much hassle. Incredibly risky against Paladins or Warlocks, though, as Turn Evil, Exorcism etc. will make short work of you with the former, while the latter can just Banish you and laugh until you're out of demonform. The other major one is that Felguard and Metamorphosis can let you solo a lot of 3-man group quests, which is pretty hard for Affliction to do without massive stamina, judicious use of Curse of Exhaustion (if you're lucky and it works on the elites), healthstones and potions, etc.

I'd still say Affliction is the way to go, but if you're doing fine with Demo and/or you're on a PvP server, feel free to stick with that. Up to you if you want to give Affliction a try or not. If so, give it a couple of days, though; it takes awhile to get used to the foibles of any new spec. There's not really a "best level" to respec, either, so I guess I can't help on that much.

And I've yet to try Destruction, so no comment on that just yet. There's no great consensus but there are plenty of people arguing the merits of each. Deep Demo has almost no supporters, but there are plenty of effective-looking Aff/Demo, Demo/Destro, and Aff/Destro hybrids out there. Will give it a look in a few days, when I get time.

All of this said: there's a wonderful little trick for grinding greens for DE and Frostweave cloth involving a group of twenty or so level 80 mobs in Icecrown, which can be taken down in about 15 seconds using Metamorphosis and a modicum of kiting. Supposedly it can be done, with a Felguard/Siphon Life spec and judicious use of teleportation, if you're skilled, but I'm not even going to attempt that just yet.

Warlock is somewhat gimped in my opinion, but not as badly as most people whine, though part of this may be that I've been playing Warlock pretty much since launch. We'll see how high-end gear levels out the playing field. Right now the problem tends to be that to play most specs effectively you need to pull out an insane juggling act, and this is for generally less DPS than a lot of other classes spamming two or three buttons (Mage and Hunter, I'm looking at you.) We're due for a fix, eventually, but considering our shadowbolt spam in TBC, no-one's particularly sympathetic. Well, that and our PvP prowess back then, too...

[intruder]

I agree with the point that affliction is the best way to level.
As stated you rarely run out of mana and have virtually no downtime.
Even in instances with imp + Dark Pact you hardly have to drink at all besides after wipes / deaths.

Specc wise I always put some points into demon for a "better" imp (Blood Pact) and destro for wider reach of Shadowbolts (having a wider max range is not that bad on shit with huge aoe). You got those relatively cheap (tier 1 talents) but I haven't checked if this is still the case after patch 3.0.


Additionally I want to say that affliction resembles my view of the "warlock" best as a absymal deeply hateful creature putting curses / diseases on everything while abusing his demon slaves and sucking life out of everything that dares opposing him / her.
To me it was always like as if destro were fire mages in disguise and every true warlock would hate anything "mage" around him (besides table and int buff hehe)! However "Illidan form" is pretty tempting, too. Think I will re-specc her at 80 to play around with that. :)

[Joe O'Malley]

The first level 80 was a demon/aff warlock who just plowed his felguard into a ton of mobs and never got out of combat for 23 hours. He healed faster than mobs could damage him, and his damage and tapping healed the felguard. It is an awesome leveling build. Not a raiding build, but awesome for leveling.

I think a lot of the whining about locks comes from people not realizing that what you are when you hit 80 isn't what you'll be after bunch of heroics. I think it should mostly even out as the gear starts matching the new dynamics. With a lot of their old synergies discontinued, locks now need to gear more like mages, with more damage and crit and haste.

[TriggerHappy]

If you mean Nazz or whoever, he had a pocket healer, he didn't really solo his way to 80.

[Fuzzydevil]

Destructive Reach is now Tier 4; don't remember what it used to be. Bane seems a better option, really, to reduce casting times; Shadowbolt can be more useful than Drain Life at times. Improved Imp isn't a bad choice if you group a lot but I tend to prefer putting points into Demonic Embrace - the Stamina boost, for yourself, is better than it is with an improved Blood Pact. Depending on how many points you've got free, anyway.

The other thing I forgot to mention is the obscenity that is Drain Soul. The level of that which you get mid-70s does 4x damage per tick when the target is below 25% health. It only checks that on application of the spell, sadly, and not per tick, which means if you start at 26% and they take a few points of damage, it won't start doing 4x the damage, but it can be such a ridiculous damage dealer once they hit 25% that it borders on the unfair. I've yet to see how this works in PvP.

Rumour has it that Blizz didn't have much time to play with Warlocks before Wrath came out, and this has fair evidence to support it - the class is quite different to how it was on the beta, with no testing for a lot of the new changes.

I'd argue against some of the gear changes though. Considering a lot of our PvE used to be focused heavily on dam and crit, haste is the only new thing to add, and... it seems rather less useful to us than dam and crit. Will need to try that out to be sure though. It's a hard life :)

[Joe O'Malley]

If you mean Nazz or whoever, he had a pocket healer, he didn't really solo his way to 80.


He had a healer, but apparently didn't really need him. The healer backed up the assertion.

[Joe O'Malley]

Destructive Reach is now Tier 4; don't remember what it used to be. Bane seems a better option, really, to reduce casting times; Shadowbolt can be more useful than Drain Life at times. Improved Imp isn't a bad choice if you group a lot but I tend to prefer putting points into Demonic Embrace - the Stamina boost, for yourself, is better than it is with an improved Blood Pact. Depending on how many points you've got free, anyway.

The other thing I forgot to mention is the obscenity that is Drain Soul. The level of that which you get mid-70s does 4x damage per tick when the target is below 25% health. It only checks that on application of the spell, sadly, and not per tick, which means if you start at 26% and they take a few points of damage, it won't start doing 4x the damage, but it can be such a ridiculous damage dealer once they hit 25% that it borders on the unfair. I've yet to see how this works in PvP.

Rumour has it that Blizz didn't have much time to play with Warlocks before Wrath came out, and this has fair evidence to support it - the class is quite different to how it was on the beta, with no testing for a lot of the new changes.

I'd argue against some of the gear changes though. Considering a lot of our PvE used to be focused heavily on dam and crit, haste is the only new thing to add, and... it seems rather less useful to us than dam and crit. Will need to try that out to be sure though. It's a hard life :)

Shadowbolt isn't really used any more, except by affliction locks. All the main talents in the destro tree are fire-based now. Even Molten core gives you fire damage bonuses when you score a shadow crit. Incinerate does about the same damage as a shadowbolt (more if an immolate is up) and casts faster. Backdraft with conflagrate is a nice damage kicker, if you can keep time with the rotation (more below). I'm still on the fence about chaos bolt. It's just a fast-cast fire spell with decent damage (the big number on the spell description gets reduces damage gear adders due to the short casting time).

Keeping an eye on rotations in LK bossfights is why I don't like affliction for it. A lot of these bosses in Naxx, Sartheridon and maygos require a lot of movement or you die. It's tought to watch a lot of timers and keep light on your feet. The counter-arguement, of course, is that it's hard to cast big-damage blastie spells when you have to keep moving. Tomato, to-mahto, etc. Come to think of it, about the only Naxx bosses I can think of that don't require a lot of movement (potentially) are Patchwerk and Gothik. Everyone else is a run-fest.

For the imp I would just go with the improved imp, improved forebolt and empowered imp. I've tested fully tricked-out imps (sans empowered imp as it's too deep in the destro tree) and really, it the difference between 500 damage every second and a halfish to 800-900 damage. There's better use for some 10-13 talent points that what amounts to 200 DPS on a pet that dies. A lot. Also, in a raid, forget about the improvement on blood pact. The warriors will just overwrite it with their shouts. If the imp is out, it's just as a little backup firepower. Most groups prefer the felhunter for the int buff.

Regarding the gear changes, a mere 4-5 swapout have increased my DPS by about 500. Big improvements, like weapon and chestpiece, should really get that going. Our T6 gear was a lot weaker going in than, say, the gear a mage or hunter was wearing. Rogues kinda got the same issue we did, and need new gear, but hunter and rogue gear drops a lot in heroics, is what I seem to see.

Drain life is great, but even ticking at 4x damage every 3 seconds it doesn't keep up with a stream of incinerates coming in, at least not at my gear level Maybe when I have more damage gear.

[intruder]

What troubles me is the possible lack of upgrades until 80 Heroics.
I checked today since I will start leveling my lock now and I found very few things while using the Armory "Find Upgrade" option.
She is currently wearing badge + Kara items.
I hope that is a mistake on the Armory side since it would suck to run around 10 more levels with the same item.

Here is the link to her profile:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Nordrassil&n=Urab

My rogue had a lot of stuff replaced while leveling already he started with the same gear (badge + Kara).

Can any of you that already went to 80 or is close and had similar gear comment on that?

[TriggerHappy]

I didn't upgrade my T4 stuff until level 78 crafted blues.

This isn't like BC where "green is the new purple". It's been mentioned quite a bit that Blizzard didn't want a drastic item upgrade path like BC.

[rei]

don't use the wow armory.

i used this to plan my upgrades on the way to 80: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=27759.0

[intruder]

don't use the wow armory.

i used this to plan my upgrades on the way to 80: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=27759.0

Hm but they only list "spell power" as the critera for the list order.
Is that the single stat needed for locks now? (Back from my old days it was +stam and +int that were quite important, too).

I don't even see my current equipment in that list + it doesn't factor in gems that my current gear has (something the armory also doesn't factor in).

Is there a warlock site like this (http://www.shadowpanther.com) (for rogues)?

Thanks for the heads-up :)

Concerning leveling: So far lvl 70-71 is damn easy. I kill lvl 73 mobs without issues and didn't have to drink at all. :)

[Joe O'Malley]

I didn't get many upgrades prior to heroics. Mostly just a couple blues from instances or group quests. Actually, because of erosion in hit and crit and haste percentages in a lot of ways I was actually weaker as a new 80 than at 70. THAT is somehting I never felt in BC.

[André Costa]

Actually, because of erosion in hit and crit and haste percentages in a lot of ways I was actually weaker as a new 80 than at 70. THAT is somehting I never felt in BC.

I have no clue what you're talking about here. In BC it was a lot harder to get +hit gear. Besides the Spellstrike set(which were a drop so not every tailor had them) and some trinkets from quest rewards or reputation there weren't that many easily accessible items with +hit on them like there are in WOTLK. Haste was only a concern for T5+. Lots of crit though.

Intruder: http://wowmb.net/forums/

Also WoWHead or LootRank are much better sites to search for items because of their weight scales.

[intruder]

Thanks for the link to the Warlock's Den. :)

Off I go to the depths of hell...

[André Costa]

Warlock's Den is good for general discussion about most warlock stuff but i'd stick to ElitistJerks warlock forum/threads for anything about raiding.

[ShyGuy]

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/12/fcc-commissioner-war.html

A good article on WoW :)

[Aeon221]

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/12/fcc-commissioner-war.html

A good article on WoW :)

I knew several MUDders who dropped out of college for MUD related reasons.

[Jason McMaster]

Yeah, I saw Dragon Realms ruin more than one life.

[Infinity]

Is level 72 a good level to respec from demon to aff?

[Fuzzydevil]

Is level 72 a good level to respec from demon to aff?

Middle paragraph of my preceding wall of text:

I'd still say Affliction is the way to go, but if you're doing fine with Demo and/or you're on a PvP server, feel free to stick with that. Up to you if you want to give Affliction a try or not. If so, give it a couple of days, though; it takes awhile to get used to the foibles of any new spec. There's not really a "best level" to respec, either, so I guess I can't help on that much.

So, yeah, it doesn't really make much difference. You could wait until you've done Dragonblight if you really want to as there's a load of fairly easy group quests there, but it doesn't honestly matter. If you're doing fine as demonology, you'll continue to do so; there are no levels where you HAVE to be a particular spec. If, on the other hand, you really want to try Affliction, then why not do it now? No sudden loss there, either.

Thanks for the response by the way, Joe; I'll give Destruction a try at some point soon but I'm done with WoW for a few days due to impending deadlines on work.

[Infinity]

Thanks for the response Fuzzydevil, and I apologize for the double-post. I had actually forgotten about that 12/09 post - scary. :)

[Adam B]

I just have to pop in here to bitch about this lock I was in a heroic with earlier today. Specced 2/23/46 in some insanely awful DS/destro implementation. Had about half the fire talents in destro, but spammed shadowbolts instead.

760 dps. In a heroic at 80. I so wish I were kidding. Healing is friend the beartank with 26k buffed hp and no mitigation to speak of was instructive, to say the least.

[AaronSofaer]

Yeah, I've had groups like that. And DPSers like that.

On the other hand, I've also had the people pulling 2k+ in Heroics, who don't complain when shit goes wrong and we wipe, and who generally just shrug and pass on shards.

Those people go on my friends list, and I invite them before I pick up randoms. This way, within a couple of weeks of hitting 80, I almost never have to pug anyone. :)


Deep Demo is actually a good raiding spec now if you have massive spelldamage. The spellpower buff you give the raid can be significantly higher than even Totem of Wrath, the second highest, because it scales with your spellpower.

[Adam B]

Yeah, I've been working on building a functional friends list at 80. It's less easy than I'd like it to be since most of the good players on my lower-pop server are doing guild stuff at this point. Still, it happens occasionally.

In other news, Naxx is rofl. Stepped inside for the first time today with the guild and 8-manned most of the spider wing (Maexxna enrage was kicking our tank's ass). Very strange to roll in and just start owning the hell out of everything, compared to for instance Karazhan which beat the hell out of us but good as we were learning it.

[intruder]

In other news, Naxx is rofl. Stepped inside for the first time today with the guild and 8-manned most of the spider wing (Maexxna enrage was kicking our tank's ass). Very strange to roll in and just start owning the hell out of everything, compared to for instance Karazhan which beat the hell out of us but good as we were learning it.

We cleared Spider Wing yesterday with totally new people there (including me) and the first 2 bosses of Plague Wing. Started around 21:30 stopped at 0:15 because people wanted to go to bed.

People that had done the 40 man Naxx back in the day where in shock how easy that place is now.
"Oh my god I hate that gauntlet!" (before Heigan)
"Why?"
"All that shit will respawn when we wipe and it's a pain in the ass to re-clear!"
"Nah! I don't believe that!"
"You will see!"

-> AOEd the shit in 2 pulls with 2 aoe (lock and hunter) -> Wipe at Heigan -> Run back -> no respawns -> 2 tanks + Death Knight + 3 healers alive after 2nd failed dance -> 25% - 0% - Heigan dead. :p

[Athryn]

We cleared Naxx 10 this weekend, finished up with Sapphiron and Kel Thuzad last night. The hardest things were Heigan (only because we discovered that the dance portion is longer in 10 man vs 25 man) and Sapphiron. The first night we tried Sapphiron we just kept wiping, but we went back in the 2nd night with a slightly different mix of classes and some FR gear on the tank, and it was a lot easier.

Edit: on the 25 man version, the eyestalk gauntlet does respawn.

[TriggerHappy]

We keep having to PUG some DPS and we're still learning some stuff, but we did kill Patchwerk and the first spider boss last night in Naxx 10.

Patchwerk with only a shammy and priest healer is a bitch. I was out of mana the last 20% of the fight, always getting just enough for a healing wave just in time.

[intruder]

Plague wing down yesterday after one wipe at Lothaweb.
We are still not good with the healing thing (nailing the time window) so it was a messy last 4%.

Patchwerk also down (one-shotted) with lock as top dps and then 2x rogue , DK, followed by hunter (newly hit 80 so gear is so / so) and fury warrior.

Most people died playing "Frogger" with the slime blobs. :)

Having issues with Grobbulus (getting the poision cloud thing down) but he will probably die today before reset.

All killed bosses so far are considered "on farm" for the future.

[idrisz]

We finished 10 man naxx, I think Sapphiron fight was by far our hardest encounter. Kel wasn't a push over but wasn't really hard.

We made an attempt on 10 man malygo and even though we can get to phase 3, but due to our dps on phase 1, we can't kill him fast enough in phase 3.

Patchwerk is a great dps meter (http://wowwebstats.com/obl2g6nsz5hca?s=88-11651), so far in our guild, Me(DK) top the chart with around 3.2k DPS, follow closely by a shadow priest with pushing 3.1k. I think DK is probably near the top in DPS ranks in WOTLK, I'm fairly sure if there was a pally and a fury warrior in the 10 man raid, I be pushing over 3.6k+, unfortunately the raid buff was stacked in caster's favor.