Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 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 6 of 6)
Nefas Apr 19th 2009 10:46AM
Seriously as a destlock playing for a few days now, finally having managed to get the glyph of soul link and everything. post conflag nerf we are still very powerful atm. if your getting beaten by DKs you either need to use shadow protectiony sheild thing better, or teleport better or chaos bolt better to get through their magic sheild or something seriously though DKs are pretty screwed against us these days. (it just occurs to me can we use pet dispell on their sheild?? it is a magic effect.. if it is possible and i didnt know im seriously gonna be kicking myself for days)
Keeping felhunter out and your self dispell macro at a handy easy to hit place to stop their crazy ice snare thing and using your portal well and trying to keep shadow protection sheild up all the time pretty much spells death for DKs. not sure how warlocks can complain right now.
Tuna Tank Apr 20th 2009 5:45AM
I've been destro since I started in Jan '05. NEver changed specs. When 3.0 hit, I tried all the others, and I hated them. Pre-LK I rocked the DPS charts in Hyjal from AOE, and in ZA I was mostly top 2 DPS, sometimes 3rd, but always very very close in DPS. I was Destro/Aff, rocked as well if not better than the other locks who specced any classic raid style, and never had to change spec, and rocked PvP as well.
Then LK hit. Afflic locks rocked PvE. Demo and Destro just sorta were... there. I hate affliction's dot dot dot dot dot dot SB SB SB dot dot dot. As destro, I mixed it up, always have, always kept dots up on multiple mobs with insta cast dots, etc. Even in destro, when everyone went fire destro, I stayed with the trusty shadow.
But I digress. I was looking forward to patch 3.1. People said "OMG LOCKS GET BURST DAMAGE FINALLY" when i had been rocking shamans in less than 7 seconds, and had been raping pallies before they could bubble pre LK. So I thought YES! The destro is back!
Now, there's so many destro locks its not even funny. Frankly, it saddens me. I'm not unique anymore. And as destro, yea, in PvP i could still rock, but in PvE, in 3/5 heroes, and rocking the hateful gear for non set items, fully raid buffed, I was still putting out an average of 2.5-2.9k DPS.
Now, 3.1 hit. I hit my conflagrate, first one off on the target dummy, no buffs, no procs, just my fel armor, and bam, 12k. I was ecstatic. I thought "Wow. I can finally be competative in PvE." The next day, my hopes were smashed. Now, I'm still doin the same damage, no change. Nothing. Patch 3.1 did nothing at all for destro. THe buff we had went away.
My main gripe follows what was said a few posts back, about resil. The thing is, Conflagrates hit for 22k fully raid buffed, everything up to par. So step back, wear that same gear into a BG, and you'll notice something. THat 22k wont hit at all. The buffs are gone. THen on top of that, resil blows the frequency of those crits away to someting way more minimal. ANd on top of it, the resil blows the amount of the crits away. And how long do you think you'd survive in that gear? Resil evens out the crits and the bursts, thats why its there.
So yes. We had burst. Fantastic. Does it make us OP in PvP? No. Destro has a few second stun, nowhere near the 4 second stun of a pally, who has burst deeps like Pam Anderson has STDs. Rogues? Burst dps and excessive stuns. So we finally get the chance as not a lock, but a destro lock in WOTLK where everyone has 20k+ health in minimal PvP gear, and our damage is comparable to everyone else now. And we get a buff that helps both PvE and PvP. THen its taken away. So waht if Conflagrate was bursty? Thats what destro is.
half Apr 21st 2009 10:04AM
Being a proud destruction lock I was happy to find that warlock builds were once again balanced going through the ptr changes and I found 0/40/31 to be a build nearly as powerful as affliction but with this nerf to conflagerate once again affliction is the strongest spec by a decent margin. I dont mind the fact that affliction is the strongest spec but dont create a large margin between its max dps and the next best specs max dps. If anything Doomguard was nerfed in power but also reduced in cooldown so let a demo/destro spec be top dps unless the affliction spec has doomguard out. This nerf has reduced my raid dps by 400, an unacceptable loss to any spec.