Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide - The Warlocks Den

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October 12, 2008, 07:59 PM

#1 (permalink)

Warpy

Status: Newly Registered User

Character Info
Warpy
80 Human Warlock
Kul Tiras US PvE
Profile: Blizzard Armory
Talent Spec: 53/0/18

Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide

Blizzard has titled this new patch “Echoes of Doom”, and some warlocks insist that it's just plain doom! It's certainly the end of our old talent builds, spell rotations, and group strategies. We'll have to change the way we play because the rules of the World of Warcraft are changing on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 (at least for the US servers).

Link to the Test Realm Patch Notes – until Tuesday

Link to Previously Implemented Patch Notes – Tuesday and beyond

This guide is intended to summarize the upcoming changes for warlocks and will probably contain lots of information you can find in more detail elsewhere.

All of Your Talent Points Will Be Refunded

The talent trees that you previously invested them in are gone forever. Some talents have been removed, some added, and most changed.

Here are some good places to look for ideas on new specs:

The Warlock's Den:
- “Wrath of the Lich King Discussion” - before Tuesday
- “Spells and Talents” - ongoing
Elitist Jerks Discussion Forums:
- Class Mechanics – look for warlock threads

There are currently no known optimal talent builds or rotations – there have been so many changes on the Test Realms no one know what to believe.

It looks like deep affliction, built around Haunt, and deep destruction, built around Chaos Bolt, with both be competitive for raiding DPS, although affliction builds still receive little benefit from haste.
Demonologists may want to go with a hybrid, especially because of the changes in Ruin and Devastation.

Some talents are better than others, but Blizzard will be modifying them.

You Can't Go to Northrend or Roll a Deathknight Yet

These features are part of the expansion, and you can't have it until November 13th, unless you are Beta-testing it. Chill out!

Your Add-ons are Mostly Broken

The game engine has changed significantly, so a lot of your add-ons will no longer work. Some do, and some have already been rewritten.

However, on patch day and for several days afterwards, most patch sites will be overwhelmed by the number of users seeking updates. Get yours beforehand - Wowinterface has a category for add-ons that work with the Wrath of the Lich King engine.

The Rules Have Changed

The game's engine has been altered and a lot of things we took for granted are no longer true. Here are three of the most significant:

No more buff/debuff stacking – Link to Pern's summary, including a list of debuffs sorted by type
- Almost all buffs are raidwide – including shouts, totems, and auras
- Certain other classes, especially boomkins (balance druids) have new, wonderful buffs and debuffs
- The most powerful of a given type overwrites all others: this has been true in the past, but they've gotten stricter about it. Warlocks and their pets have no best-in-type buffs or debuffs. We'll only be buffing or debuffing if a particular class/build is missing/dead/goofing off.
- Important spells that formerly debuffed mobs: Improved Shadow Bolt, Shadow Embrace, and Shadow Weaving now buff the caster's damage only.
Gear Homogenization – we still wear cloth gear, but the stats may look unfamiliar
- +Healing and +damage-and-healing are based off of spellpower now, so we would be using the same gear as priests basically. Spell power = +damage from spells, so it's not that much of a change
- Spells and melee attacks both benefit from +hit, +crit, and +haste, so no more separate +spell hit
- Many +shadow damage items are now +spellpower, and the total has been reduced
Spell Pushback – has been nerfed! This is very big deal when you are tanking or PvPing.
- The first and second strike each add 0.5 sec cast time or reduce the duration of a channelled spell by 25%.
- The third and subsequent strikes do nothing!

You Can Get Glyphs

There's a new page in your spellbook for glyphs. These are modifiers for specific spells, so you will want to get ones that enhance spells that you use frequently... ones that you will use frequently with your new build.

WotLK wiki has a list of Warlock glyphs (and those for other classes) and a guide to Inscription
You have slots for two major glyphs (the third is unusable until you are level 80) and three minor ones. You can change glyphs the same way you change gems but you can only incorporate glyphs into your spellbook is to be near a Lexicon of Power, found in every major city near your enchanting trainer.
You can unlearn one of your primary professions to pick up Inscription, which lets you make glyphs, among other things, but it currently doesn't add as much to your potential DPS as other professions like tailoring, enchanting, or engineering. You get to trade one of your minor glyph slots for a major one as an inscriber. The raw materials are herbs.
Warning, some glyphs still don't work!

There's New Stuff to See and Do!

Achievements are going to be a lot of fun and a great time sink. Blizzard has more information.
The barbershop (one in every major city) will let you change your haircut and, if you are undead, even your face!
There's a calendar accessible in game.
There's going to be a big world event. Information about this has already been leaked, but I will say no more.
Vanity pets, mounts, and tokens are no longer going to take up bag space! You have to transfer your pets and non-spell mounts by clicking on them.
There's some new geography – Stormwind Harbor, Dalaran Crater, the new Orgrimmar and Undercity zeppelin towers, and two new arenas to get beaten up in!

Your Pet Is Different

Literally, its stats have gone up or its abilities have been changed:

Imp: +20% health, +16% armor, +200% mana regeneration
Voidwalker: +20% health, +16% damage, +45% AP from your spell damage, Consume shadows only takes 6 seconds and is 66% more effective; it also increases your stealth detection.
Succubus: +20% health, +22% armor
Felhunter: Paranoia and Tainted Blood are gone. Instead it has abilities better suited to running instances with a group: Fel Intelligence, which buffs the party's Intellect and Spirit by 3% and Shadow Bite, which increases its damage. No global cooldown effect from Spell Lock.
Felguard: +10% health
Even your Felsteed/Dreadsteed can be cast without mana or a global cooldown!
If you care, they've buffed the doomguard and changed the infernal
No more training demons: they learn new skills, including Avoidance, which spares them 80% of AoE damage, automatically.
Your pet should have the same +hit as you do, but I can find no confirmation for this.

If you raid, you will almost certainly be using your pet to DPS. Watch its aggro and learn to pull it out and heal it when it takes damage. Your healers should be used to Beastmaster pets, but even with Avoidance, pets are still more fragile than rogues or mages, and rogues and mages are pretty fragile.

Some of Your Spells Have Changed

I'm not counting any spells that require talents. The talents have been thoroughly rewritten and will keep changing for a while. You'll need to actually go through and read your talent trees. Here they are, I'm not kidding: you need to read them.

Armor/Skin spells – can't be dispelled or eaten anymore
Demon Armor increases healing taken by 20% but does not increase regeneration in combat
Fel Armor no longer increases healing and only increases spell damage by 30% of your spirit
Curse of Recklessness – only prevents your victim from running if they are feared, but they are still helpless!
Dark Pact – gives twice as much mana
Howl of Terror - costs 15% of base mana
Life Tap is based off of Spirit, so in our current gear it's not giving much mana - haven't been able to document this

Parts of the Game are Broken or Keep Changing

The patch notes are not going to be complete by Tuesday.
Some planned changes are not going to go live. Apparently, Potion Sickness and Tinnitus faded away from the Test Realms with no mention from Blizzard. I can't find anything reliable about the new racial abilities.
Warlock abilities (and those of most classes) have been fluctuating wildly. Some days, Chaos Bolt was a fire spell, some days it wasn't.
The bug forum for the PTR is frantically active still. There are going to be a lot of bugs in this release
Blizzard expects to be patching the live realms frequently in hopes of “balancing the classes”. Should be interesting to watch.

Raiding and PvP Strategies Will Change!

If you want some insight into how they are going to change, you'll need to read up on the changes that other classes are going through. For example, survival hunters now replenish mana! Rogues can transfer threat to tanks!

If your guild is still raiding, one of the Blizzard posters said in the forums that raid bosses have been retuned and nerfed, losing 30% of their health, so this patch may be a golden opportunity to see some raid content that your guild wasn't geared for before.

__________________

The Following 30 Users Say Thank You to Warpy For This Useful Post:

Akasha, Celestriel, Cormanthor, Coud, Cvijafaq, Darinar, Elricc, Ethellion, evinge, forketta, Kalium, Locklady, Marsyx, Mindbomb, Minou, Oliselia, otelma, Redmage, Ryltar, schylla.bc, Serpigo, Sinnistra, Smyth, snackereen, So0o0o0, Suspiria, Sylarnor, Taquarin, Trizzig, Vaell

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October 13, 2008, 04:59 AM	#2 (permalink)
Akasha	Re: Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide Thankyou very much Warpy for hearing my 'Soul Sign' (like the Bat sign, only more soulful) and putting this together. Hope this helps some of the people feeling a little too 'lost' finding information themselves. If anyone would like to elaborate further on this, please reply and I will copy the information in. Added by yours truly List of NEW Spells List of NEW Talents Current Glyphs >>> Larger Image __________________ Whether you're a forum expert, newbie or just want a good laugh... Everyone can learn something from : Posting And You... They're, there, their? Wear, were, where? Test yourself!

October 13, 2008, 05:21 AM	#3 (permalink)
Sasztam Character Info Sasztam 80 Human Warlock Dentarg US PvP Guild: Pure Energy Talent Spec: 3/13/55	Re: Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide "Fel Armor no longer increases healing and only increases spell damage by 30% of your spirit" Does that mean that it's not a baseline bonus with your spirit adding even more? It's just a portion of your spirit? Well that's not very inspiring... Does it at least still passively restore life? __________________ You don't need defenses, you're ranged!

October 13, 2008, 05:22 AM	#4 (permalink)
snackereen Character Info Snacker 70 Gnome Warlock Zirkel des Cenarius Euro RP Guild: Heavens Fall Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 27/34/0	Re: Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide Thanks a lot for putting this together. This will save me a lot of time trolling all the forums and infos. __________________ Snacker

October 13, 2008, 05:30 AM	#5 (permalink)
Coud	Re: Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide awesome guide... @ Sasz, fel armor gives X amount of spell damage + 30% of you spirit and regens 2% of your hp / Y second see wowhead for complete tooltip

October 13, 2008, 07:30 AM

#6 (permalink)

Figgs

Character Info
Hina
80 Human Warlock
Asia PvE
Talent Spec: 0/13/58

Re: Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide

Quote:

Curse of Recklessness – only prevents your victim from running if they are feared, but they are still helpless!

if I recall correctly, CoR now prevents fleeing that results from being low on health, it will not prevent fleeing due to Fear effects. That is, cast Fear and then CoR, the mob will continue to wander around aimlessly. It's still useful on mobs who run away to get help when low on life---cast CoR and it'll fight to its death.

Fel Armor is a flat spellpower bonus plus additional bonus from 30% of spirit.

October 13, 2008, 07:41 AM	#7 (permalink)
Lessic Character Info Lessic 80 Undead Warlock Darkspear US PvP Guild: Tarren Mill Deathguard Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 56/0/15	Re: Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide I hope life tap being based off of spirit is like a bad rumor :P

October 13, 2008, 08:26 AM	#8 (permalink)
Theleb Character Info Theleb 70 Human Warlock Shadowsong Euro PvE Guild: Original Talent Spec: 0/46/15	Re: Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide Sticky this kk? __________________ Lefric - 80 Rogue Theleb - 70 Warlock Celegorm - 70 Hunter Kahlye - 70 Shaman - Gaerun 62 Paladin - Weldrake 80 Death Knight Shadow priest for me , So I can lifetap wildly, Then roll on your loot.

October 13, 2008, 08:54 AM

#9 (permalink)

Robik

Character Info
Robika
70 Human Warlock
The Sha'tar Euro RP Guild: Society
Talent Spec: 41/0/20

Re: Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide

Quote:

Originally Posted by Figgs

Can someone confirm one way or another?

Its rather important as it makes Fear CC viable in instances, or worse than now (cant stop feared mob runing in undesired direction)

October 13, 2008, 08:56 AM	#10 (permalink)
Netheriol Character Info Netheriol 80 Human Warlock laughing skull EU Euro PvP Guild: Epiunion Talent Spec: changes	Re: Warlock Patch 3.0.2 Survival Guide i must admit i like the glyph of soul drain with the new improvments to it it seems shard farming will be easyer now __________________ I'm like a DoT machine I even come with my own battery , an annoying loud mouth battery

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