Warlock buffs next patch.

I think it was Stephen Hawking who said, "People wanted to argue with it, but it's kind of hard to argue with mathematical proof."

btw Pagy please don't insult skedar by lumping him in with you and zentsetse. He is actually a talented gamer, just wrong on this specific issue ;p


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Forensic said:
I haven't seen one first person, no. I have played with a bunch of crappy warlocks though :>

Remember you have to reapply 10 corruptions every 18 seconds when they all run out, so for every 18 seconds of damage you have 10 seconds of no-damage where you have to cast 10 spells on 10 different people. This isn't exactly the most convienient or reliable plan.

So anyway

If you have nightfall proccing on 10 people and corruption ticks once every 3 seconds that's a 30% chance of an instant cast every 3 seconds so 10% per second which, when it happens, will add 481 dps to your dps. Shadowbolt is 240dps + 10% of 481 means with the 10 dots on everyone you are only gaining 48dps on average. **

So with 10 seconds of setup you can do 289dps for 18 seconds. If you include those initial 10 seconds of setup in the dps calculation this means you're actually doing 185dps for 28 seconds. My warrior can beat that.

BUT, your corruptions are ticking away as you cast them on the next people. So cast 1 corruption, that starts your 18 second counter. By the time you finish casting corruptions you only have 8 seconds left on the first one. So you get 8 seconds of +48dps, then 1 second of +43, then +39, +34, +29, +24, +19, +14, +9, +4 and then 0.

My above calculation of 185 dps for the whole cycle was high then. It's actually 176dps.

It's kind of funny, it's almost like reversed burst damage. Just like Curse of Doom, instead of frontloading damage warlocks backload damage. Do nothing for a minute, then do 3200 damage. You know what that comes out to? 53 dps. :p

This doesn't include innate crits or CoS of course since those affect everyone's damage not just the warlock.

You also can't take improved shadowbolt into much consideration because a focus fired target will usually die very quickly and you'll need to switch targets. You'll probably only get 1 bolt off per target if you're playing with a good team since it's such a slow cast.

If you JUST spam shadowbolts without your 10 second complicated setup, you'll actually do more DPS than using your setup. 240dps compared to 176. The benefit from 10 nightfalls doesn't outweigh the loss in DPS due to a 10 second setup time for only 8 seconds of 43dps increase.

Sounds like the corruption/nightfall plan is really just to get some big numbers instead of being effective.

Correct me if I missed anything.

** This is actually not quite right, it's neglecting a few cutoffs on the sides since each corruption is going to be staggered. But it's an alright approximation anyway.
Click to expand...
I know you're just trolling but I'm dumb and taking the bait.

Cast Corruption on each target and as you go through your rounds renewing it and such cast an instant shadowbolt when it pops up. You could be getting one every tick until the first corruption you cast runs out. So that could end up being one instant cast about 500 minimum damage nuke one after the other.
 
So, i thought id post a nice screen with all the Doomguard's abilities pasted next to him...

This is... needless to say, a very VERY powerful pet... especially for group pvp.

One of the points of this thread relates to the upcoming patches and the impact on warlocks (gasp, the topic!).

Warlocks ARE already effective in pvp, and that was without being able to rely at all on infernals or doomguards due to the capacity of Enslave to be quickly dispelled. In the future, this will not be the case so folks will be seeing a TON of them in group pvp. It's gonna be awesome...

DoomGuard03.jpg



and they punch hard, too
 
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your math scares me forensic. it scares the shit out of me :)

you've completely forgotten to take CoS into account, tho. assuming Ruin and Shadow mastery with no +shadow damage items, those shadowbolts are going to be hitting anywhere from 455 damage (on a minimum roll) to 2232 damage (on a resist "crit" with a regular crit). this kind of borks up your formula a bit :) with improved shadowbolt and a crit beforehand, you can hit a peak of 2678 without any +shadow damage items.

with cap of scarlet savant, gloves of spell mastery, eye of the beast, inventor's focal sword, new spellstones, and devastation talent, you can get your crit rate up fairly high as a warlock.

edit: mosh and zprotoss did a lot of testing into this kind of stuff. you might want to send zp a pm or something for more info.
 
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like i said about Imp bolt though, it's pretty rare you'll get more than 2 or at most 3 bolts off on one target if your team is focus firing properly

Imp shadowbolt seems great for PvE (if it wasnt for the 8debuff limit) but for PvP when you constantly switch targets I dunno

I did neglect CoS but that is because CoS benefits everyone if you have 1 warlock in a PvP group which is what I would recommend. The question is about justifying using warlocks for FF or something, over a mage. Or something. I don't really know. It seems obvious to me that a mage outdamages a warlock in AoE and single target, and dots dont really matter much in pvp :\

Backloaded damage, that is what warlocks have

Also remember that everything I calculated is for comparison purposes they dont reflect in-game numbers. I'd have to take base crit rates and stuff into account. If you use the same methods to calculate mage dps you'll get a valid comparison. Even without crits mages can do 1000dps single target though for short periods of time.
 
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Voidsinger said:
Dude, I hope that's not Venomshroud on your character...
Click to expand...

=(

it is. i have shitty gear except for the stam bonuses (venomshroud is +20 stam after all).

then again, i often have the most HP in my parties... (295 stam)

Forensic said:
like i said about Imp bolt though, it's pretty rare you'll get more than 2 or at most 3 bolts off on one target if your team is focus firing properly

Imp shadowbolt seems great for PvE
Click to expand...

and for group PvP, unless you continue to disagree with all of the experienced warlocks here. i agree that if you look at it merely as a SB matter then you will see a nerfed mage, but we've tried to politely point out that warlock isnt about merely SB and as you said... only 2-3 in a quick fight anyways (and when you can do 2000 damage per bolt that certainly helps). having the CAPACITY to do big hits is a major factor for the warlock in group pvp... but that isnt their primary role.

the issue is WHO they attack, when and why. in group pvp, locks i play with hold the flanks and work to protect casters. dots are good for psychological and tactical movement of the enemy, holding back the enemy casters, etc.

dots really arent useful in all-out pvp as a real damage matter. they CAN help as a CC dynamic, which is why placing Siphon and Corruption is so important (not to mention they offer chance of shadow trance and it all works well together if you try to be patient and just react as a counter-attacker on the flank).

and nor is a warlock a raw dps mage. a lock CAN do serious damage, especially with a lot of shadowtrance pops, but IMO for group pvp a warlock needs to play carefully and keep 1/2 mana to respond to crises. they need to be on their toes and taking advantage of enemy weakness or responding to crisis in the rear. they are NOT the front line dps guys (but nor can you win in group pvp with just dps guys).

you have to look at the big picture rather than just comparing SB to a mage, or whatever. and also keep in mind all the various skills of the pets... especially since Enslave is about to be fixed allowing infernals and doomguards to stomp around group pvp basically all the time.

ive fought in raids as a warlock and against warlocks. there's a lot more to it than meets the eye for most... and after you've had those nasty battles a LOT at lvl 60 you'll start to see that most arguments about classes in pvp are rather thin and not really considering the whole range of dynamics in group pvp in the end game (most debates about pvp class "balance" is looked at narrowly from a 1v1 pov)
 
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20050207l.jpg


which one is making less sense?

Forensic said:
Remember you have to reapply 10 corruptions every 18 seconds when they all run out, so for every 18 seconds of damage you have 10 seconds of no-damage where you have to cast 10 spells on 10 different people. This isn't exactly the most convienient or reliable plan.

So anyway

If you have nightfall proccing on 10 people and corruption ticks once every 3 seconds that's a 30% chance of an instant cast every 3 seconds so 10% per second which, when it happens, will add 481 dps to your dps. Shadowbolt is 240dps + 10% of 481 means with the 10 dots on everyone you are only gaining 48dps on average. **

So with 10 seconds of setup you can do 289dps for 18 seconds. If you include those initial 10 seconds of setup in the dps calculation this means you're actually doing 185dps for 28 seconds. My warrior can beat that.

BUT, your corruptions are ticking away as you cast them on the next people. So cast 1 corruption, that starts your 18 second counter. By the time you finish casting corruptions you only have 8 seconds left on the first one. So you get 8 seconds of +48dps, then 1 second of +43, then +39, +34, +29, +24, +19, +14, +9, +4 and then 0.

My above calculation of 185 dps for the whole cycle was high then. It's actually 176dps.

It's kind of funny, it's almost like reversed burst damage. Just like Curse of Doom, instead of frontloading damage warlocks backload damage. Do nothing for a minute, then do 3200 damage. You know what that comes out to? 53 dps. :p

This doesn't include innate crits or CoS of course since those affect everyone's damage not just the warlock.

You also can't take improved shadowbolt into much consideration because a focus fired target will usually die very quickly and you'll need to switch targets. You'll probably only get 1 bolt off per target if you're playing with a good team since it's such a slow cast.

If you JUST spam shadowbolts without your 10 second complicated setup, you'll actually do more DPS than using your setup. 240dps compared to 176. The benefit from 10 nightfalls doesn't outweigh the loss in DPS due to a 10 second setup time for only 8 seconds of 43dps increase.

Sounds like the corruption/nightfall plan is really just to get some big numbers instead of being effective.

Correct me if I missed anything.

** This is actually not quite right, it's neglecting a few cutoffs on the sides since each corruption is going to be staggered. But it's an alright approximation anyway.
Click to expand...
 
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zentsetse can't be more wrong. we're good in 1v1, we suck balls in groups. its not practical to dot 10 people in a row with this fucked up targetting system and lag. people will be dead by the time we come back to them, get real. anyone with half a brain dispels our dots anyway, gj wasting a shitload of time. pvp'n is about focused targets and front loading. fear and summoning are the only things that make us useful.

you keep claiming "all the experienced warlocks say..." SHUT THE FUCK UP, ive probably PvE'd, PvP'd, raided and dueled more than you. lord knows i have better gear.

we aren't that good, i play with one of the top mages on a top pvp server and they'll be the first to say we aren't very good in group PvP, solo is where we shine. shards gimp us, having to spawn a pet to use half of our tools gimp us, and no defense gimps us.

i still have fun with the class, but WE ARENT THAT USEFUL WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO WHAT THE OTHER CLASSES OFFER IN GROUP PVP, GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD.

and we got more fucked with this new patch comin up, gg.....
 
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FalseMyrmidon said:
I know you're just trolling but I'm dumb and taking the bait.

Cast Corruption on each target and as you go through your rounds renewing it and such cast an instant shadowbolt when it pops up. You could be getting one every tick until the first corruption you cast runs out. So that could end up being one instant cast about 500 minimum damage nuke one after the other.
Click to expand...

...

is this a joke?

Nightfall is a 3% proc...

you aren't going to get an instant shadowbolt every tick

i'm trying not to call people morons here :O
 
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