The Warlocks Den - WoW Warlock Discussions
Member Login
The Warlocks Den - WoW Warlock Discussions
| Ask A Beta Tester A place for Cataclysm Beta testers to share screenshots, videos and impressions of the Warlock in the expansion and for the rest of us to ask questions |
September 28, 2010, 03:29 AM
|
#1 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Akrab 80 Orc Warlock Sunstrider Euro PvP Guild: Warlord Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Tree: Demonology |
Drain Life buffed!
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, so I'll go ahead and post it. I've been reading over the changes and noticed drain life only heals for 2% now, I wanted to check out the damage on the spell. Turns out, Drain Life actually deals more damage than a shadowbolt right now (with DoTs up, but not Shadow Embrace). AND it can crit. I've had Shadowbolt hits of about 4250 and Drain Life ticks of 2000 damage. That's 3 seconds of Drain Life for 6000 to 12000 damage vs. one shadowbolt of 4250 to 8500 damage (untalented for shadowbolt cast-time reduction, 3 seconds). Sure Drain Life won't heal as much as it used to, but at least Affliction doesn't have to rely on Shadowbolts anymore! There will be more nightfall procs and Drain Life + Soul Burn got a lot more interesting.
__________________
Pizjub for President! |
|
| Recommended Guide |
|
|
October 03, 2010, 02:39 AM
|
#2 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Keldion 85 Blood Elf Warlock Moon Guard US RP Guild: Ownage Factory Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Tree: Destruction |
Re: Drain Life buffed!
I did two tests of Drain Life's damage and posted my findings on EJ's Warlock Cataclysm thread. Summary of my post: 1) Overall casting time down from 5 second channel to 3 seconds. 2) Coefficient raised by approximately 10% on the entire cast. This means the coefficient on each tick leaps from 0.1428 to 0.2618. That is a difference of 83.33 percent! 3) Ticks can crit. 4) Drain Life benefits from the Potent Afflictions mastery. Affliction will swing largely in favor of Drain Life filler, relying on Nightfall procs to cast Shadow Bolts. Last edited by Keldion; October 03, 2010 at 03:06 AM.. |
|
|
|
October 03, 2010, 07:46 AM
|
#3 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Eschatos 85 Gnome Warlock Moonglade Euro RP PvE Guild: Nightfall Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Tree: Affliction |
Re: Drain Life buffed!
Keldion your findings are in the destro spec :/ Are there any tests with a proper affliction spec?
__________________
Don't worry, it only hurts till you die. |
|
|
|
October 03, 2010, 09:53 AM
|
#4 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Keldion 85 Blood Elf Warlock Moon Guard US RP Guild: Ownage Factory Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Tree: Destruction |
Re: Drain Life buffed!
The point of my testing in Destruction was to find the spellpower coefficient without adjusting for the shadow bonuses. Now that it's been established, I can go forward with testing the actual Affliction damage. EDIT: Half the testing is done; I will post the full results later this evening. Soul Siphon appears to be bugged, going up to 24% additional effect for Drain Life instead of the 18% as indicated by the tooltip. Last edited by Keldion; October 03, 2010 at 12:29 PM.. Reason: Soul Siphon PTR bug |
|
|
|
October 03, 2010, 02:58 PM
|
#5 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Amaranthus 80 Blood Elf Warlock Bleeding Hollow US PvP Guild: REIGN OF DEATH Profile: Blizzard Armory |
Re: Drain Life buffed!
Interesting idea, I wonder if it'll stick. |
|
|
|
October 04, 2010, 02:27 AM
|
#6 (permalink) | |
|
|
Re: Drain Life buffed!
Quote:
Just quietly, I always thought Drain Life should be the Affliction filler. It couldn't be more appropriate. Literally sucking the life out of your enemy.  Its a grand spell that has always needed a very little TLC to make it 'rotation viable'. Having such a short cast time, as opposed to say Drain Soul, still enables us to refresh DoT's or pop SB on NF proc without wasting mana or dps. As an aside, as a 'lock I would rather be as independent as possible, and the dual nature of the spell - heal/damage - enables that magnificently. I'd like to think a Major Glyph of Drain Life would refund the mana cost when Nightfall procs. Fingers crossed for DL/NF.
__________________
The 31pt talent for Demo should be enslaving Illidan. He does 75K dps, blocks all damage you take, returning it to a rogue who is afk in SW. (to Paraphrase Ragingtiger from 2008) |
|
|
|
|
October 04, 2010, 04:41 AM
|
#7 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Keldion 85 Blood Elf Warlock Moon Guard US RP Guild: Ownage Factory Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Tree: Destruction |
Re: Drain Life buffed!
I got a faceful of keyboard after returning from work, in addition to spending at least an hour reassembling my 2300 Spellpower set on the PTR. I'll collect Drain Life ticks for the 2300 Spellpower range very soon! In the meantime, you can visit https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?...thkey=CKPti9oE and see how Shadow Bolt and Drain Life ramp up with their respective talents. The damage results were gathered at the specified spellpower and spell crit values using a 31/0/0 spec with no external buffs, debuffs, or modifiers other than the Affliction passives. If you notice any mistakes in the math, kindly point them out to me. Last edited by Keldion; October 04, 2010 at 04:45 AM.. |
|
|
|
October 04, 2010, 10:20 AM
|
#8 (permalink) |
|
|
Re: Drain Life buffed!
The spreadsheet has a lot of numbers in it but I am not sure I fully understand the "bottom line" of the damage difference between drain life and shadow bolt and how much you are saying the benefit really is. Can you present a spec for drain life and a spec for shadow bolt, and what the damage difference is for a drain life tick vs shadow bolt? One thing that does not appear to be in the thought process in this thread is the Mana Cost for drain life. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that a cast of drain life costs a lot more mana than shadow bolt. And since we will have many more glyphs, I would guess we'll have a lot more room for the mana redux glyph for shadow bolt. Having to life tap a lot more often will reduce the usefulness of drain life. |
|
|
|
October 04, 2010, 02:40 PM
|
#9 (permalink) | |
|
Character Info
Keldion 85 Blood Elf Warlock Moon Guard US RP Guild: Ownage Factory Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Tree: Destruction |
Re: Drain Life buffed!
Quote:
As for mana costs, our prospective fillers have been heavily discounted. Drain Life moves from 17 to 12% base mana cost, and Shadow Bolt from 17 to 10%. |
|
|
|
|
October 04, 2010, 03:07 PM
|
#10 (permalink) | |
|
|
Re: Drain Life buffed!
Quote:
I am assuming of course, that glyph of shadow bolt is one of the few viable ones in the major slots. What glyphs were you thinking of using? Right now I would think As Primes: Haunt Bane of Agony Corruption (or Unstable Afflic or Imp if I take Dark Arts and use imp in Affliction spec at 80) As Majors then there seems less PVE choice: Shadow Bolt Soul Swap Life Tap (replacing Life Tap with Fear glyph for CC in 5-mans while leveling) So I'd see Shadow Bolt mana redux glyph always being a viable major glyph option as affliction at 80. Off the mana topic though I have another question... In addition, can you "queue" drain life like you can queue up sbolt? ie I can spam sbolt as soon as GCD is done but before sbolt is done casting, and the server will know that was my next action so that I don't worry about latency in between sbolts so much. But if I cannot do the same with drain life, then although on paper drain life may look 'better' in practice, it may be subject to latency delays between every life drain. Not sure if this is true or not as I haven't tested it. |
|
|
|
| Bookmarks |
| Tags |
| buffed, drain, life |
| Thread Tools | |
|
|
