Legendary Metagem

[SeraphSix 1]

Clearly this thing is awesome... Sinister Primal Diamond

...but the question is: How awesome is it between our different specs? Obviously, I know there's a class/spec coefficient that's applied to the base RPPM, but I'm still curious how anyone else has seen it benefit their spec.

Sinister Primal Diamond – 1.18 base RealPPM on damage/absorb of harmful or periodic spell. No ICD.

- That base proc rate is multiplied by an additional coefficient:

0.761 Arcane

0.302 Fire Mage

1.387 Frost Mage

0.625 Affliction

0.598 Demonology

0.509 Destruction

1.891 Elemental

1.872 Moonkin

0.933 Shadow

1.000 Anyone Else

Seems like a fantastic proc for Affliction, but only on the okay side of cool for Destro. Having not played Demo much, I can't be of sound judgement.

[Vaelyn 6]

Exactly like you said, it's awesome for Affliction (and Demo, mostly a dot spec as well), gives over 10k more DPS, but not so much for Destruction because you're often hitting a hard cap on haste for incinerates and you can't always optimally dump Chaos Bolts during that time.

[gahhda 95]

Exactly like you said, it's awesome for Affliction (and Demo, mostly a dot spec as well), gives over 10k more DPS, but not so much for Destruction because you're often hitting a hard cap on haste for incinerates and you can't always optimally dump Chaos Bolts during that time.

Its a combination of the fact that haste procs aren't as good because immolate is our only dot, and the fact that we GET MORE from the old meta than the other specs. Destruction should've been at the top of that list with elemental instead of the bottom.

[Zagam 1,982]

It's still very solid for Demonology. You'll often go down to 1.3 Shadowbolts and 1.0 Soulfires with the Meta and Talisman live. I know when I give up Talisman for something better, it won't drop down to those values, but they'll still be much faster. Regardless of how you feel about it, it is still temporary Bloodlust which everyone can get behind. Also, Destro's only DoT is not Immolate. You must include Rain of Fire here, as optimal single target DPS insists on continuous use of Rain of Fire, most simply use it during CDs to generate more embers. If you still feel like playing Destruction, reforge a bit out of Haste and into Mastery. I hate seeing 0.8 second casts knowing I'm wasting 20% of my time waiting for my GCD to finish in situations like these.

[gahhda 95]

It's still very solid for Demonology. You'll often go down to 1.3 Shadowbolts and 1.0 Soulfires with the Meta and Talisman live. I know when I give up Talisman for something better, it won't drop down to those values, but they'll still be much faster. Regardless of how you feel about it, it is still temporary Bloodlust which everyone can get behind. Also, Destro's only DoT is not Immolate. You must include Rain of Fire here, as optimal single target DPS insists on continuous use of Rain of Fire, most simply use it during CDs to generate more embers. If you still feel like playing Destruction, reforge a bit out of Haste and into Mastery. I hate seeing 0.8 second casts knowing I'm wasting 20% of my time waiting for my GCD to finish in situations like these.

Yes but it doesn't function in the same way that dots do for demo/affliction where you get the 30% haste, throw it up, and afk for 30 seconds while you get 3 extra ticks for no labor. It makes it more difficult to maintain RoF because of the insanely reduced cast time, and the benefit is limited to the buffs duration.

[Zagam 1,982]

Agreed. I know it's not easy/optimal, but you gotta play with the cards dealt.

[SeraphSix 1]

It's pretty unfortunate... I really love Destro, but I feel like I've gained nothing with this gem. I may be switching things back to Afflic for awhile to see how it works out, regardless of the fact that Destro is still top average DPS. Looks like Afflic is starting to climb, though...

I know for a fact that Spriests looooove this legendary meta, so I may as well kick in the hasted DoT train.

Edit: I linked the 25H DPS scores up there, but it looks like Afflic is coming back stronger in 10H.

Edited April 23, 2013 by SeraphSix

[gahhda 95]

It's pretty unfortunate... I really love Destro, but I feel like I've gained nothing with this gem. I may be switching things back to Afflic for awhile to see how it works out, regardless of the fact that Destro is still top average DPS. Looks like Afflic is starting to climb, though...

I know for a fact that Spriests looooove this legendary meta, so I may as well kick in the hasted DoT train.

Edit: I linked the 25H DPS scores up there, but it looks like Afflic is coming back stronger in 10H.

You can't just link the top 100 of each fight and declare balance talk. First, you have to understand how to properly use the tools you've been given.

Firstly, the heroic sample size is so tiny at this point that observing trends is useless. I know for a fact that theres a large desparity in player skill inside heroic parsing alone. I hold rank 4 on heroic iron qon at 152k, there are warlocks with that boss dead that only did 120k and never died, and you also have to consider gearing.

Secondly, almost NONE of the top guilds have released parses yet (exorsus being the only I've seen). This greatly skews the 'optimal' spec debate using parses, because the best players in the game aren't being considered.

So, we're left with this issue. If you want to look at the 'best players' (or the ones that gimmick mechanics harder than everyone else), you can't even look at top 100 right now for heroics, having to narrow down to an even tinier margin. The true 'top players' are very limited, as most haven't actually released public logs. On the other hand, that player base is so small that a lot of what we observe can be accredited to rng.

I'd also like to note, affliction is mechanically the weakest of the specs. Destruction has the highest passive survivability, and destroys any add fight (which is a lot this tier). Demo has the highest mobility by far (I LOVE YOU DEMONIC LEAP), coupled with stupidly op sustained cleaving, and the best snap aoe burst. That leaves affliction in a place where its really only king on fights like jinrokh that are relatively single target.

Thats just my two cents, though. Demo will continue to rape affliction well into the rest of this tier, when played properly, and if abusing unerring to its fullest.

Edited April 23, 2013 by gahddo

[Omaric 246]

Sinister Primal Diamond should now correctly have different activation rates depending on the class and specialization. In addition, activation rate for Fire Mages has been increased.

So, this hotfix from the 22nd, how are people feeling it? Drastic uptime differences from last week? I don't have it yet, so I'm curious.

[Wolland 1]

So, this hotfix from the 22nd, how are people feeling it? Drastic uptime differences from last week? I don't have it yet, so I'm curious.

I read it like this: "We adjusted the legendary meta for everyone. In the process, we over nerfed it for destro locks and fire mages, but after all the QQ we only reverted it for fire mages... screw them warlocks!".

Because I remember them explaining that the date they post a hotfix on the website might not necessarily be the date the hotfix was actually applied. So it looks to me that this is in fact a description that sums up 2 hotfixes into 1, considering people started "feeling" the nerf on ~20/Apr, and it could be that it was just reported on 22/Apr.

Unfortunately I only have this gem since Sunday 21st, so I don't have data for myself for the week before that.

However, I looked at the other one warlock in my guild, bear in mind he's affliction:

16/Apr: NM Lei-Shen: 26.9%.

18/Apr: Tortos, 15 tries on HM 1 kill in NM: 24.6% uptime.

22/Apr: NM from Ji-Kun to Twin Consorts, 9 pulls: 18.9% uptime.

23/Apr: NM Lei-Shen, 6 pulls: 20% uptime.

24/Apr: Tortos, 20 tries on HM: 20.3% uptime.

I looked at Gahddo's logs where he was playing destro:

16/Apr: HC Megaera, 22 tries: 25.3% uptime.

18/Apr: HC Iron Q, 16 tries: 25.2% uptime,

23/Apr: HC Horridon, 7 tries: 14.1% uptime.

Looking at this data, it seems to me that they indeed nerfed it on ~20/Apr, and it stayed the same ever since.

[Zagam 1,982]

Demo uptimes

4/24 H Jin'rokh: 3:59 fight, 3 procs, 30 sec duration, 12.5% uptime

4/24 H Horridon: 10:06 fight, 11 procs, 109.9 sec duration, 18.1% uptime

4/24 H Council: 7:42 fight, 11 procs, 94.4 sec duration, 20.4% uptime

4/24 H Council Wipes: 17.3% uptime

4/25 H Tortos: 6:53 fight, 10 procs, 100.3 sec duration, 24.2% uptime

4/25 H Megaera wipes: 15.8% uptime

Not looking very sexy, but it's still better than the 1.03% damage modifier on a crit.

[gahhda 95]

Not looking very sexy, but it's still better than the 1.03% damage modifier on a crit.

*For demo. Destruction literally has the single lowest benefit from upgrading to the meta in the entire game. By an entire percent over warriors. Balance druids get 6.6x what I do. *hate blizzard*

[Omaric 246]

Could be that Blizz is using it as a means to level out our specs a bit? I mean.... warlocks aren't really in a bad spot.

[Zagam 1,982]

*For demo. Destruction literally has the single lowest benefit from upgrading to the meta in the entire game. By an entire percent over warriors. Balance druids get 6.6x what I do. *hate blizzard*

Yeah our Balance Druid was looking at our DPS logs for Heroic Meg attempts and he realized he was the lowest. I assured him it wasn't his play that was lacking, it was the fact RNG didn't give him his meta. It's absurd that it gives Boomies 30-40% uptime. Leads me to my next point that Omaric noticed as well...

Could be that Blizz is using it as a means to level out our specs a bit? I mean.... warlocks aren't really in a bad spot.

That is EXACTLY what I felt as a theorycrafter when I saw the coefficients. My immediate thought was 'that will never last as Fire, Warlocks coefficients are less than 1 because they're in a good place, not sure what's up with Frost and Arcane Mages, but it looks right. WTF BALANCE? Oh yeah, they suck, so this is Blizzard's bandaid to balance specs.'

It's sad to think they're using it that way, but I'm pretty sure they are. Sad even more is the bullshit RNG that holds raiders back who have cleared every LFR boss and every available regular/heroic raid boss since release and don't have their meta. I didn't realize I was in the minority to have it the very first night Nalak was available. Hearing some people not have it two weeks later is...well, that's a design flaw, and a pretty shitty one, at that, especially to be using it to bring subpar specs up to norm.

[SeraphSix 1]

Thats just my two cents, though. Demo will continue to rape affliction well into the rest of this tier, when played properly, and if abusing unerring to its fullest.

I wasn't really declaring balance talk. I was declaring what specs we use as warlock to which you'll see the greatest gain based on this gem. Switched to affliction and it's raping my comparative destruction DPS... and I'm a GOOD destro lock.

Unfortunately, I just hate the play style and mechanics of demonology to try raiding with it. Affliction may be clunky once you get a load of procs rolling that you need to refresh, but that's why I use AffDots to help me determine when I should and when I shouldn't.

That being said, I will probably keep Destro as my secondary for fights in which cleaving or AoE is important. Being mastery heavy with affliction will benefit those situations.

[Ilion 8]

They're using the meta to balance specs and classes, those sneaky bastards :(

Anyway, most locks I know are switching back to Demo and Affli because of the meta, as it's a notorious dps improvement. As more and more locks get the meta, it's likely that destro will only be used in cleave fights.

[Zagam 1,982]

I used to PvP on my Warlock and Destro was where it was. Sadly, I'm not in love with Warlock PvP this tier, so I'm going to play something else. So dumping Destruction will be pretty easy to do since Aff and Demo stack the living hell out of Haste now. I have to dust off the old Malefic Grasp macros and get used to it again. Hooray.

[gahhda 95]

Destro will rain supreme on roughly half the fights this tier (on heroic) regardless of how much affli/demo beat it single target. Its just mechanically op on so many fights comparatively.

[Ilion 8]

Destro will rain supreme on roughly half the fights this tier (on heroic) regardless of how much affli/demo beat it single target. Its just mechanically op on so many fights comparatively.

Both in hc and normal modes?