I am trying to help my friend who has a Warlock to figure out which of his spells are the most potent and in which order to put them up.
I have a spread sheet which I use and applying that to the Warlock spells.
Your Destruction tree powers up Shadow and Fire spells.
Yet WoW doesnt support this. The synergies in WoW are Fire/Arcane, Shadow/Frost & Fire & Frost.
You have a curse which improves Shadow and Arcane?? damage.
And you have a curse which improves Fire & Frost?? damage.
WTF is that all about? OK, OK so it helps others, but is your class designed as a support class? I dont think so.
That means that outside of a raid if you are a Desto Lock then you have to choose which of your destruction spells you want to boost. Blizz need to fix this for you guys and give you a curse that improves Fire & Shadow at the same time. Either that or create a 4th Talent tree. Therby Affliction, Demon, Fire, Shadow.
Thats how i see it anyway.
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Oh, cammon, everyone is yelling around already how overpowered locks are. All we can expect is more nerfing.
And tbh, I do see myself as support class and not some DDer exclusively. When I use all my group support abilities I simply dont have space to get to the top of DD lists at the same time.
stridernje, I think you have a misunderstanding of the warlock class, you claim that we are not a support class, yet in a fasion we are. Our primary role is not Direct Dammage, or a true support role. We are the "Debuffing" class(essentaly a combo of DD and Support, in terms of Anti support for the targets), fourntaly Bliz gave us some DD spells to make gameplay doable, and to give us a role in smaller parties. Yet, we must never forget our primary role is a debuffer, if that takes the form of debuffs that lay down some dammage then so be it.
You have also made a few assumptions that are not correct.
Sure there are bonuses to both types of spell in the distructo tree, but if you look realy hard you will see that the biggest Shadow dammage buffs we can get are not in the distruction tree. Distruction tree buffs our Direct Dammage (be them fire or shadow) sources and provides extra utility to those DD spells(as well as a few new DD spells)
Source please? Do Shadow priest use frost magic? i mean they have shadow magic if this were true they would have some connection to frost magic right? Or druids,they use arcane spells, but have no fire spells. And is it your stamement that Nautrue spells have no synergy with any other type of spell?
yup that way we have to choose, folks already whine that we are too strong, could you even begin to think of ballance issues if a lock didnt have to choose what school of magic would do extra damage? and all locks spells just flat out did a lil bonus target? Secondly the two curses make sence, they may not benefit only us, but they are locical. Elements are fire and ice, shadows is shadow(Dark magic) and arcane(Pure magic)that makes sence to me...
Sure dose, otherwise it would be imballanced, this kind of reflects back on my first comment, Distruction tree is NOT the way to buff your shadow dammage(you can boost some shadow dammge spells, but not as a whole.)you may want to check the affliction tree for a tallent called Shadow mastery. This should start to show you that as a distructo your "Primary" source of damage is Fire, and that shadow spells become a distructo locks Supporting spells. By contrast, a affliction Build has the primary source of Dammage as shadow spells, with some support dammage from distructo spells.
Somehow Demo locks got left out of the mix, what you will notice about them is even more intresting. they settle on a happy medium , they have tallents that boost all types of spell damage, as well as opening the door on a new source of damage Physical(felg). this leaves them by far the most versitlie locks out there. the drawback is that ulike a distructo lock that can eazaly put CoE on a target for boosted damage, and a affliction lock can eazaly pick CoS for shadow damage, but the choice is not so eazy or clear cut.
Bottom line is that as long as folks are screaming "Nerf Locks" we do not need "Fixed" or reorganised or a extra dammage tree added or anything. Notice how meny succssfull locks are out there, we have all done it with the rules in the game, none of us need them changed to be the subject of the ire of all but rogues(and thats new, we used to be there bane too).
Last thing, remember there already is a shadow tree, it is called Affliction.
You have also made a few assumptions that are not correct.
Quote:
Your Destruction tree powers up Shadow and Fire spells
Sure there are bonuses to both types of spell in the distructo tree, but if you look realy hard you will see that the biggest Shadow dammage buffs we can get are not in the distruction tree. Distruction tree buffs our Direct Dammage (be them fire or shadow) sources and provides extra utility to those DD spells(as well as a few new DD spells)
Quote:
The synergies in WoW are Fire/Arcane, Shadow/Frost & Fire & Frost
Source please? Do Shadow priest use frost magic? i mean they have shadow magic if this were true they would have some connection to frost magic right? Or druids,they use arcane spells, but have no fire spells. And is it your stamement that Nautrue spells have no synergy with any other type of spell?
Quote:
You have a curse which improves Shadow and Arcane?? damage.
And you have a curse which improves Fire & Frost?? damage.
And you have a curse which improves Fire & Frost?? damage.
yup that way we have to choose, folks already whine that we are too strong, could you even begin to think of ballance issues if a lock didnt have to choose what school of magic would do extra damage? and all locks spells just flat out did a lil bonus target? Secondly the two curses make sence, they may not benefit only us, but they are locical. Elements are fire and ice, shadows is shadow(Dark magic) and arcane(Pure magic)that makes sence to me...
Quote:
That means that outside of a raid if you are a Desto Lock then you have to choose which of your destruction spells you want to boost
Sure dose, otherwise it would be imballanced, this kind of reflects back on my first comment, Distruction tree is NOT the way to buff your shadow dammage(you can boost some shadow dammge spells, but not as a whole.)you may want to check the affliction tree for a tallent called Shadow mastery. This should start to show you that as a distructo your "Primary" source of damage is Fire, and that shadow spells become a distructo locks Supporting spells. By contrast, a affliction Build has the primary source of Dammage as shadow spells, with some support dammage from distructo spells.
Somehow Demo locks got left out of the mix, what you will notice about them is even more intresting. they settle on a happy medium , they have tallents that boost all types of spell damage, as well as opening the door on a new source of damage Physical(felg). this leaves them by far the most versitlie locks out there. the drawback is that ulike a distructo lock that can eazaly put CoE on a target for boosted damage, and a affliction lock can eazaly pick CoS for shadow damage, but the choice is not so eazy or clear cut.
Bottom line is that as long as folks are screaming "Nerf Locks" we do not need "Fixed" or reorganised or a extra dammage tree added or anything. Notice how meny succssfull locks are out there, we have all done it with the rules in the game, none of us need them changed to be the subject of the ire of all but rogues(and thats new, we used to be there bane too).
Last thing, remember there already is a shadow tree, it is called Affliction.
CApitolg, You are probably right. I may well have misunderstood the role of a Warlock, but then so did my friend who has rolled the Lock as we were both trying to work out how he could up his damage output as he has always felt it to be...well less than expected.
I mainly posted becasue I was helping him with some stuff and saw things that didnt seem to click. Fair enough if I had climbed from 1-70 I would have seen these/read about them along the way.
Ok I got my assumtion from some of the high end gear that can be tailored for clothies. Take spellfire items for instance Fire & Arcane damage increased.
Shadowweave on the other hand is Shadow and Frost. How the hell does that work?
Anyway thanks for your post, I shall encourage my freind to read it so he may understand more of his class.
I mainly posted becasue I was helping him with some stuff and saw things that didnt seem to click. Fair enough if I had climbed from 1-70 I would have seen these/read about them along the way.
Quote:
Source please? Do Shadow priest use frost magic? i mean they have shadow magic if this were true they would have some connection to frost magic right? Or druids,they use arcane spells, but have no fire spells. And is it your stamement that Nautrue spells have no synergy with any other type of spell?
Ok I got my assumtion from some of the high end gear that can be tailored for clothies. Take spellfire items for instance Fire & Arcane damage increased.
Shadowweave on the other hand is Shadow and Frost. How the hell does that work?
Anyway thanks for your post, I shall encourage my freind to read it so he may understand more of his class.
First off, Totaly Awesome job, Sometimes my replyes are taken as a personal attack, and i swear they are not. the fact that you did not lash out at my post because it holds contudicurary views says a lot about you and your willingness to see a diffrent point of view, Kudos to you.
Aaaa well this is so that bliz do not have to make gear for every diffrent caster class/spec, sure it would be nice, but likely overpowerd. so what they have done is collect spell types in to groups. So rather than making one pattern that only dose shadow dammage, and one that only dose frost(as no class in the game casts both shadow and frost spell)they made one item that coverd both. this increases the market to one given item. Because of this a tailor can now sell a item to a frost mage, or a lock, or a shadow preist, sure no one class will take advantage of all of the sets bonuses(but they are pretty heafty so only using half of the spell dammage is OK in my mind). Spellfire on the other hand seems to be super good for mages, and adaquate for a lock(who has speced Deep in to Distructo for huge fire dammage).
The big thing to remember about tailoring, and all player crafted gear is that it dose not make the "Best" items in the game, bliz has been very carefull to make sure that you can almsot always get better gear from a instance, this is to reduce the role of Gold, they want you to play the game for your stuff, not buy gold with real money and deck yourself out. The exeption to this is the BoP epics that trade specilations can make, but you cannot sell those(well to other players that is), and those are essentaly a reward for those who do not want to be raiders(I will never join an other full time raiding guild, so i see where this is relevent).
Hummmm well more dammage output, thats a whole diffrent story. The sticky in this thred has some AWESOME guides to playing a lock, in meny diffrent stles so i will not get in to that too much, but i will touch on some of it. Belive it or not most locks do not see Distructo as the bigest damage build there is, usualy the responce to distructo builds is "Why not make a fire mage" While i find this kind of dispicable there is a gleem of relevance. Distructo spec is awesome, but you cannot stop being a lock otherwise you are just a gimped firemage. Being a lock is not Eazy by any means, it is one of the hardest classes to figure out because we are not as dirrect as other classes.
So the first question is is your freind level 70 yet? If not i would recomend a leveling build(drain tank,drain hunt type deal) locks can level very fast if they deticate the build to the process of going up in levels. The trick is to use a heavy affliction build so that the lock has no downtime(it is not uncommon for level 35 and up locks to rarely ever take a food/water break). If you get tricky a lock can leave a fight with more HP and MP than they started the fight with !!! ya no joke, can you immigine no downtime? one other thing is a affliction heavy build is realy good for learning what is exelent in demo/distructo trees.
Do you play on a PvP or PvE server? this makes a diffrence, a big one, i found leveling distruco was hard because on a PvP server i had to drink a lot and one out of 4 times i sat down to drink a rouge or durid jumped me and got a free crit(they get a free crit if you are "Sitting")
My choice: As i stated I may raid from time to time i am not a full time raider. Sometiems i farm rep, other tiems i do BG and areana. Even jump in to some small scale isntances as well. for my playestyle i use This build.
It is a common setup(some varations based on taste) but it boasts 3 isntant dots. buffed Shadowbolt, neerly infinate mana(and you have 3 choices on how to regain mana), super duper strong Drain life, reduced thret(on affliction spells) (good for isntances), a snare(curse of ex), and a Shadwo bolt that will regulary cirt for 2.2 K and up to 2.8k if the situaion is right(need a chunk of damage gear to do that.) A instant AoE fear(givng me 2 isntant cast fear effects) and slightly better AoE attacks.
so is that enough to nibble on?
We end up looking like a DPS class because we work hard, we are not a Three button class(we use at least 6/snicker )
Edited, Apr 28th 2007 12:57pm by Capitolg
Edited, Apr 28th 2007 2:57pm by Capitolg
Quote:
Ok I got my assumtion from some of the high end gear that can be tailored for clothies. Take spellfire items for instance Fire & Arcane damage increased.
Shadowweave on the other hand is Shadow and Frost. How the hell does that work?
Shadowweave on the other hand is Shadow and Frost. How the hell does that work?
Aaaa well this is so that bliz do not have to make gear for every diffrent caster class/spec, sure it would be nice, but likely overpowerd. so what they have done is collect spell types in to groups. So rather than making one pattern that only dose shadow dammage, and one that only dose frost(as no class in the game casts both shadow and frost spell)they made one item that coverd both. this increases the market to one given item. Because of this a tailor can now sell a item to a frost mage, or a lock, or a shadow preist, sure no one class will take advantage of all of the sets bonuses(but they are pretty heafty so only using half of the spell dammage is OK in my mind). Spellfire on the other hand seems to be super good for mages, and adaquate for a lock(who has speced Deep in to Distructo for huge fire dammage).
The big thing to remember about tailoring, and all player crafted gear is that it dose not make the "Best" items in the game, bliz has been very carefull to make sure that you can almsot always get better gear from a instance, this is to reduce the role of Gold, they want you to play the game for your stuff, not buy gold with real money and deck yourself out. The exeption to this is the BoP epics that trade specilations can make, but you cannot sell those(well to other players that is), and those are essentaly a reward for those who do not want to be raiders(I will never join an other full time raiding guild, so i see where this is relevent).
Quote:
were both trying to work out how he could up his damage output as he has always felt it to be...well less than expected
Hummmm well more dammage output, thats a whole diffrent story. The sticky in this thred has some AWESOME guides to playing a lock, in meny diffrent stles so i will not get in to that too much, but i will touch on some of it. Belive it or not most locks do not see Distructo as the bigest damage build there is, usualy the responce to distructo builds is "Why not make a fire mage" While i find this kind of dispicable there is a gleem of relevance. Distructo spec is awesome, but you cannot stop being a lock otherwise you are just a gimped firemage. Being a lock is not Eazy by any means, it is one of the hardest classes to figure out because we are not as dirrect as other classes.
So the first question is is your freind level 70 yet? If not i would recomend a leveling build(drain tank,drain hunt type deal) locks can level very fast if they deticate the build to the process of going up in levels. The trick is to use a heavy affliction build so that the lock has no downtime(it is not uncommon for level 35 and up locks to rarely ever take a food/water break). If you get tricky a lock can leave a fight with more HP and MP than they started the fight with !!! ya no joke, can you immigine no downtime? one other thing is a affliction heavy build is realy good for learning what is exelent in demo/distructo trees.
Do you play on a PvP or PvE server? this makes a diffrence, a big one, i found leveling distruco was hard because on a PvP server i had to drink a lot and one out of 4 times i sat down to drink a rouge or durid jumped me and got a free crit(they get a free crit if you are "Sitting")
My choice: As i stated I may raid from time to time i am not a full time raider. Sometiems i farm rep, other tiems i do BG and areana. Even jump in to some small scale isntances as well. for my playestyle i use This build.
It is a common setup(some varations based on taste) but it boasts 3 isntant dots. buffed Shadowbolt, neerly infinate mana(and you have 3 choices on how to regain mana), super duper strong Drain life, reduced thret(on affliction spells) (good for isntances), a snare(curse of ex), and a Shadwo bolt that will regulary cirt for 2.2 K and up to 2.8k if the situaion is right(need a chunk of damage gear to do that.) A instant AoE fear(givng me 2 isntant cast fear effects) and slightly better AoE attacks.
so is that enough to nibble on?
We end up looking like a DPS class because we work hard, we are not a Three button class(we use at least 6/snicker )
Edited, Apr 28th 2007 12:57pm by Capitolg
Edited, Apr 28th 2007 2:57pm by Capitolg
Indeed, the build you linked is an SM/Ruin build (Shadow Mastery in Affliction and Ruin in destruction). From my experience, this build allows for the best sustained DPS whereas a full destruction build allows for the best burst damage (really really good burst damage at that). If you have a good healer or an off-healer the full destruction build will out DPS the Sm/Ruin in all but the longest fights.
The thing is, SM/Ruin focuses on shadow damage whereas full destruction focuses on fire damage. The reason a lot of people like SM/Ruin the best (me included) is because it creates a synergy between the affliction tree and destruction tree with virtually no "wasted" talents. A fire lock, on the other hand, can only boost fire spells within the destruction tree making it difficult to combine it with another tree to full effectiveness.
In the end, while full destro may allow for the most DPS, the SM/ruin build has more options (instant howl of terror, malediction, nightfall, and dark pact to name the best ones) and, because of dark pact and imp shadow bolt and ruin and an increase to crit percentage, SM/Ruin allows for more sustained damage as opposed to DPS.
The thing is, SM/Ruin focuses on shadow damage whereas full destruction focuses on fire damage. The reason a lot of people like SM/Ruin the best (me included) is because it creates a synergy between the affliction tree and destruction tree with virtually no "wasted" talents. A fire lock, on the other hand, can only boost fire spells within the destruction tree making it difficult to combine it with another tree to full effectiveness.
In the end, while full destro may allow for the most DPS, the SM/ruin build has more options (instant howl of terror, malediction, nightfall, and dark pact to name the best ones) and, because of dark pact and imp shadow bolt and ruin and an increase to crit percentage, SM/Ruin allows for more sustained damage as opposed to DPS.
Yeah... I have to agree on that.
I've recently respecced from my Sm/Ruin build, only because I got so tired of it. Yeah, ofcourse it was fun, but constantly doing instances and such made me grow a bit tired.
In my oppinion the SM/Ruin is purely a Raid spec TBH. Gimping the PVP aspect of the game, yeah ofcourse there are tons of possibilities with that build. But still I got the feeling that it wasn't that good at it.
Wherever you are in an instance, you will preform better than a full Destruction or Affliction lock. Just make sure you dot the mobs up and not only do a shadowbolt spam. That's the key. DoT 'em up and then do your spaming, and make sure you use CoS, even if there's a mage with the group... Be a bit selfish ;)
now when i compare my two faourite builds
40/0/21
&
7/7/47
I've found out that Destro will work better than I thought in instances. But I think that a SM/Ruin will work better if you are like me, not craving for the best gear or the highest spelldamage in the game, but to enjoy you gaming. Yeah, packing a whopping(lol) +450 spelldamage, and I pwnd most DPSers wheter it has been ranged or melee in most instances. Although, I got my **** whipped in Duels and BGs...
Now when I'm Destro, I tend to win over them PVP wise, but not in PVE damage. Although, I guess that could change when or if I'll get a bit more spelldanmage.
What I was trying to say, SM/Ruin is for us who don't care about gear, and Destro could be viable for those with huge amounts of spelldamage.
I've recently respecced from my Sm/Ruin build, only because I got so tired of it. Yeah, ofcourse it was fun, but constantly doing instances and such made me grow a bit tired.
In my oppinion the SM/Ruin is purely a Raid spec TBH. Gimping the PVP aspect of the game, yeah ofcourse there are tons of possibilities with that build. But still I got the feeling that it wasn't that good at it.
Wherever you are in an instance, you will preform better than a full Destruction or Affliction lock. Just make sure you dot the mobs up and not only do a shadowbolt spam. That's the key. DoT 'em up and then do your spaming, and make sure you use CoS, even if there's a mage with the group... Be a bit selfish ;)
now when i compare my two faourite builds
40/0/21
&
7/7/47
I've found out that Destro will work better than I thought in instances. But I think that a SM/Ruin will work better if you are like me, not craving for the best gear or the highest spelldamage in the game, but to enjoy you gaming. Yeah, packing a whopping(lol) +450 spelldamage, and I pwnd most DPSers wheter it has been ranged or melee in most instances. Although, I got my **** whipped in Duels and BGs...
Now when I'm Destro, I tend to win over them PVP wise, but not in PVE damage. Although, I guess that could change when or if I'll get a bit more spelldanmage.
What I was trying to say, SM/Ruin is for us who don't care about gear, and Destro could be viable for those with huge amounts of spelldamage.
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