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So, What to do in Wrath?
As a Demonologist, I have been having some trouble staying focused in Wrath. Both of my roommates dabble in Warcraft (actually, one of them more than doubles, he eats, sleeps and bathes in Warcraft), and play a Paladin and a Hunter. I hear no shortage of “HOLYGODIJUSTGOTTHEBIGGESTHEALI’VEEVERSEEN!” and “Wow, being a hunter is basically just cheating (in regards to soloing group quests, which I heartily recommend trying, every group quest recommended for only two I’ve found most classes may be able to solo, I did Last Rites on my own at 73, so anythings possible)”, and I often find myself thinking “so I paid for this whole new continent and got…what?”. The short answer is nothing. Demonology got zilch. I didn’t have to even add a spell to my UI, there’s no new button to press, my raid is still exactly the same: Curse of Choice, Immolate, Corruption, SB-SB-SB etc. Sure, I have ten more talent points to spend different ways, but how useful are those talents available to me anyways?
Metamorphosis is a flat 3% damage increase in a raid environment (and badass looking, and possibly the best aoe tool in the game), but really not all that attractive, considering it’s current opportunity cost is Devastation, which provides nearly an equal amount of bonus damage. Now, most people would tell you otherwise; but here’s why:
Devastation changes your stat priorities, and encourages haste stacking. How? Well, it encourages keeping up ISB as much as possible, and since ISB no longer applies to DoT’s, it encourages getting as many crits-after-the-crit as possible. and this can be done by stacking haste to get as many SB’s in on a mob as possible, making ruin scale even better. This is why I plan on using the oft ignored 50/21 spec. This spec allows for all my possible spell power needs to be taken care of through my demon, and even better, encourages Mages to toss me Focus Magic. This gives me the the ability to become a crit slamming machine, getting out as many high crit chance, high damage bolts as possible. It carries the benefits of having Demonic Pact for your raid, high demon survivability, and lots and lots of Shadow Bolt crits, but it will cost you the survivability of Metamorphosis, and it’s AOE ability, and possibly the sheer damage of 41/30 Felguard/Fire, though it benefits from having CoE up.
Sure, this is partly becaue I am one of the only locks planning to raid in my guild, but it has the benefit of bringing all the possible buffs to my raid.
Anyways, off that rant, back to my original rant, at 75, I gained Shadow Flame, which doesn’t even deserve linking, it’s not bad, it’s just…not what warlocks needed. It’s not Ice Lance of shadow (which is what warlocks needed). A conal shadow/fire instant cooldowned, short ranged, mini-nuke/DoT is not very useful. Sure, it sets off SoC, but when I’m staring up at a big ol boss baddie, it’s never something my finger will drift to press. Then, I got Demonic Teleport. Well, to put bluntly, it’s just blink, but worse. Sure, it can save raid wipes, and sure, it may be fun to pop around, but wouldn’t it be nice to have something even a tenth as useful as SoC that we got at 70. SoC was (and is) one of my most frequently pressed buttons, Demonic Teleport made it onto bar 4, barely.
Overall, I am very displeased with the changes given to warlocks, in that I believe that overall warlocks are going to be pigeon-holed into certain spec’s if they wish to DPS competently, which will be remarkably similar to what Blizzard said they would try to avoid, in fact, that Ghostcrawler explicitly stated that would indicate a failure on their part.
Overall, I feel satisfied, but far from ecstatic about playing the character that so much work has gone into already.
