Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsHotfixes for Conflagration and Ulduar
by Eliah Hecht 
Apr 15th 2009 at 5:00PM
Servers are still getting stabilized, players are reporting bugs left and right, and in general, it's the day after patchmas. So it's not too surprising that we're seeing some hotfixes. So far, here's what Blizz have let us know about:
- Ulduar:
- XT-002 Deconstructor's heart aggro radius lowered to 60 yards.
- Trash before XT-002 Deconstructor disabled temporarily, because there was a problem with them being linked.
- Shattering a Construct during the Ignis the Furnace Master encounter will now decrease the number of Strength of the Creator stack buffs he has by one.
- Conflagrate nerfed to do 70% of Immolate's total periodic damage instantly, down from 100%.
The last point is the most significant. The stated reasoning is that destruction is too bursty in PvP, which seems to have been the reasoning for half of the changes we've seen in WotLK. I hear this nerf was not unexpected - Warlocks, how do you feel about it? Was this change deserved?
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 6)
Zerene Apr 15th 2009 5:24PM
I'm really concerned about raid DPS now. I've been waiting for 3.1 to raid as destro again for months. I did last night, and had a great time. Now I'm getting nerfed for the sake of PvP.
Not that I expect it, but buffing something like CoD or immolate to make up for the lost damage might be nice.
Nice, not expected. Welcome to playing a warlock.
LJ Apr 15th 2009 5:34PM
This is no shock to the warlock community whatsoever. We've been trying to keep it quiet for ages, as most of us knew full well that this was going to happen if people brought it to the devs attention.
Cool Story Bro Apr 15th 2009 5:36PM
Yeah pretty much this. No one (especially the locks) should be surprised by this. The amount of dmg conflag was doing was pretty ridiculous even after the nerf to the 2p T8 and the glyph.
Eyvindr Apr 15th 2009 5:29PM
/sigh
Here I was all excited and enjoying my initial foray into the destruction tree and just as I'm starting to love all the bursty goodness that I was hoping to find (main spec is affliction) they nerf it...
Ordinarily I take class nerfs in stride, but this time, it's personal.
/target Blizzard
/glare
LJ Apr 15th 2009 5:39PM
Whats a real kick to the balls though, is that people knew conflagrate was hitting high numbers for ages. Warlocks prayed that Blizz woul let it go onto live. It did, everyone got the glyph and spec, then the day after it got nerfed, after they had had ages to do it on the PTR first.
Pathetic.
Barbasol Apr 15th 2009 6:10PM
Yeah it's quite strange that they nerfed it less than a day on live... the servers are barely even stable yet. It would have been no big deal, and expected, to nerf it on the ptr, but doing it on live leaves a bit of a bad taste.
Really I just feel bad for destro which dropped to the bottom for pve dps. Hopefully Blizz will compensate in some other way since the specs were all looking very comparable dps wise previously.
Nord Apr 15th 2009 5:48PM
How about worrying about keeping Northrend up instead of nerfing 'locks. More stability, less nerfs.
Chris Apr 15th 2009 5:49PM
I don't know if the nerf was completely justified. But I was in a WSG last night against 3 locks and got hit several times for 10-14k damage with immolate/conflagrate combos. This is with 500+ resil.
Seems a bit much,
Naix Apr 15th 2009 5:51PM
I can't believe no one has brought up the fact that...
*Immolate OVERWRITES Unstable affliction*
That's right. Immolate somehow removes UA.
This needs to be fixed ASAP.
Ramsey Apr 15th 2009 5:59PM
Working as intended. That's why nobody brought it up.
R055 Apr 15th 2009 5:59PM
That's not a bug. Its an Affliction nerf.
One of many.
Naix Apr 15th 2009 6:02PM
Your joking right?
SuckItTrebek Apr 15th 2009 6:18PM
It's RIGHT THERE ON THE PATCH NOTES.
Naix Apr 16th 2009 9:31AM
I guess I glazed over that note with the other 10,000 nurfs warlocks got.
Thanks Blizzard for making the warlock class free HK.
Radiophonic Apr 15th 2009 5:57PM
My beloved spec screwed over for f'ing PvP. Thanks Bliz.
Dragoon Apr 15th 2009 5:58PM
I threw a 13K Conflagurate last night and I knew that a big nerf was coming.
To all the locks out there my personal belief is that Affliction is still the best spec. The rotation is simplified so you have a lot more time to spam SB or Drain Soul. I'm rolling 53/1/17 (Lifted from Fallenman the warlock genius) and I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. And with this nerf I think that its going to win out again.
DON"T trade your haste for crit just yet.
Shubb-Niggurath Apr 15th 2009 6:04PM
heh
that nerf to conflagrate is quite deserved in my opinion. Though I play and love my warlock, a 10/13k instant crit every 10 sec is clearly overpowered. Though ... Hm ... How long did the PTR last ?
Wasn't it enough to see it coming ?
well ... I guess the conflag change came while the dev team was drinking a coffee :D
Pfooti Apr 15th 2009 6:09PM
Yeah, that's a problem of mine. They waited until AFTER I laid down my talent points (and spent 50g on new glyphs) to nerf conflag. It wouldn't be as bitter if I didn't have to go find a trainer and respec less than 24h after the patch hit live.
alex Apr 15th 2009 6:06PM
I knew a nerf was coming when I saw all the nice crits and thought, "Hmm, I should get off my DK and play my Warlock for a bit" and then realized... I was playing my Warlock.
NERF TO THE GROUND, BABY.
Honestly, though, it was critting really high. I'm more bothered that my Dwarf Rogue lost immunity to bleeds/diseases/poisons. That's what he gets for being able to kill DKs, I guess.
Pfooti Apr 15th 2009 6:07PM
The problem is that this may be a somewhat-deserved nerf in PvP (although by all measures, you can't actually pull those huge crits off against people with high resilience, since conflag double-dips resilience because it's based off of your DOT's damage), but it destroys all hope for making a destruction spec viable in PvE.
I got my warlock, languishing at 70 while I raided on a DK, up to 80 in anticipation of 3.1. I was excited that I could finally raid without speccing Affliction, which is super boring (if effective). But this change takes two significant specs (0/40/31 and 3/13/55+2) and makes them drop well below the affliction bar. So once again, we're forced to either spec affliction or accept a DPS tax for going into a more exciting tree.