demonology-warlock
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Blood Pact: Using CompareBot to see differences in logs
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill didn't waste time getting a Whole Body Shrinka' so she could re-enact the Genie describing his living arrangments. Originally, the last part of this column's series on World of Logs (WoL) would be talking about the other parts of RaidBots (EpeenBot and DPSBot) with WoL rankings, but as time went on, I realized I wanted to look at that data over a patch or tier rather than over just a week. Besides, I believe it's time next week for a break in these serious warlock matters. The previous four posts went over a very basic introduction to WoL, the graphs of WoL important to warlocks, looking at buffs and debuffs on a timeline, and digging deep into the combat log. This final post will look at comparing two logs more easily than flipping between browser tabs.
Blood Pact: "En Doomguarde!" shouts the warlock tank
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is really just looking for an excuse to take the big hits as a warlock tank. We have the Glyph of Demon Hunting, whichever side of the warlock tanking fence you're on. Maybe it's just for soloing old content. Maybe it's for tanking in a pinch while the real tank gets battle ressed. Maybe it'll just be the chunky flag-carrier glyph for PvP. Any way you slice it, there's going to be a beefier stance than Metamorphosis. Someone in your future pickup group will try to tank with it, guaranteed. Let's explore the possibilities of warlock tanking before we tell that pugger how silly they are.
Blood Pact: A tale full of cheering and demonic fury
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. Today, Megan O'Neill is your host, and she's hopefully not an idiot, though as this post goes live with the Mists of Pandaria press release news, this could very well signify nothing. You could argue that an affliction warlock is like a shadow priest with a demon. Or that a destruction 'lock is like a fire mage with a demon. But it's hard to argue demonology as anything but warlock, especially when a demo 'lock is often a demon with a demon. And yet for a long time, demonology had been the lesser of the three specs. In Wrath, it was popular opinion that demo 'locks were only there for the raid buff, despite the fact that well-played demo could be competitive and even beat the then-reigning affliction spec. The other popular use of demo was to farm either old dungeon fun or honorable kills as the nigh-unkillable, hybrid affliction, SL/SL-specced drain tank. In Cataclysm, demo took a change for the better in its DPS output. It rose every tier and finally overtook affliction and destruction in Dragon Soul. But its ascent wasn't -- and still isn't -- without problems.
Blood Pact: On armor spells and warlock survivability
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. I believe that somewhere along the line, I promised that I would write more this week about how terrible mages are -- which, you know, that's entirely possible, but I say lots of things. Trusting that what I said was accurate or true, well, that seems like a pretty big lead of faith; I personally wouldn't take it. Besides which, I feel that Archmage Pants does quite a good enough job of that for me. Why should I bother? It's like kicking a wounded puppy. Although I'm not entirely against that, either. No, no, there will be no puppy kicking today -- well, perhaps minimal puppy kicking. Instead, we're going on an adventure -- a literary adventure! I know, get excited, because those are the best kinds. This week is all about keeping yourself alive. If you recall, a while back I wrote on the art of surviving as a warlock. This time, I'd like to take a look into exactly how this works, what's paying off, and what's better left off being passed down to mages.
Blood Pact: On the sustainability of mastery
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. When it comes down to mastery, Blizzard can be a little bit hit or miss. There are some classes or specs that love it, while there are plenty more that find it near worthless. When it comes to warlock specs, there isn't much of a difference. Well, so maybe there is a little bit of a difference; no warlock spec particularly loves or stacks mastery. From an outsider's prospective, it would seem rather odd that mastery wouldn't be a better stat; after all, every warlock spec has nothing more than a flat boost to their damage for their mastery bonus. The problem, however, is in the dual nature of warlocks. With more focused or limited mastery, will warlocks be able to continually sustain themselves throughout the expansion? Further, will the scaling of affliction's mastery cause new issues once again?
Blood Pact: Soul Shards, talent specs and the 4.0.1 warlock
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. Today, Zach Yonzon fills in while the new warlock columnist dusts his robes off after his trip from the Twisting Nether. A new warlock columnist? Why, yes -- holding the warlock columnist position here at WoW Insider is akin to holding the Defense of the Dark Arts teacher position at Hogwarts, you know. Let's get this one out of the way: The game isn't balanced for level 80. You can't cry about being broken or your spec not being viable or your DPS not being up to par because, right now, everything is in flux. The new mechanics are balanced for level 85 and some values in the game aren't properly scaled for this level, so none of the numbers you see will be truly representative of how it's going to be a couple of months down the line. You won't even get a feel of how important mastery is because there just isn't the proper gear to support it. Unless you're hell bent on being on top of the meters at a time when it's largely meaningless, you're better off using this period to get a feel for how the class plays.
Patch 3.3.2 patch notes on official Korean WoW site
Blizzard, perhaps jumping the gun a little, has posted the patch notes for the upcoming Patch 3.3.2 mini-patch on the official Korean site. We've translated them for your convenience. Lots of changes to heroic dungeons, some class buffs (warlock, shaman, druid), and some class nerfs (prot warrior). All this and more, after the cut. Disclaimer: Translation is hard! Some of these notes, especially more complex ones, may be slightly off. We'll post the official English notes when they're posted as well. Update! Warbringer change clarified (again). Ghostcrawler chimed in about it. Dungeons and Raids Icecrown Citadel The Frostwing Halls, the last stronghold of the Lich King and the Scourge, has been added, but the Ashen Verdict must break down the door first. (Does this mean we have to wait some additional time to fight Arthas?) Halls of Stone Brann Bronzebeard has been working out, so he'll run faster during the escort event. Forge of Souls Devourer of Souls will cast Mirrored Soul less often. Trash mob Spell Reflect abilities have been changed. It now has a casting time, and will proc only twice at a rate of 75% instead of 100%.
