Yes i would be mad if they add a “must have” enchant and it would cost 200+ g … or maybe i would just ignore it because my weapon is trash anyway
The only way to use pandemic effectively at the moment is with demonic grace since dots snapshot their crit chance and spell power modifier upon cast. So you can cast immolate/UA + Corruption + CoA with the +30% crit chance (since you have 4.5 second window to cast them).
You mean the other way around… the only way to use demonic grace is with pandemic 
I mean yes it is true if this works then pandemic rune will be more viable. It is very weak now with only 5-10% base spellcrit chance the average geared warlock has.
But you have to use it anyway because it is the only option for affli spec.
I need to check this today if the +30% chance gets snapshotted. If it is true then maybe demonic grace is now stronger than demonic pact for one self.
But the truth is that not using demonic pact would be a mistake and also will not be accepted by raid party members
What a shame that we have no access to real training dummies 
Even if this really works… this would mean you lose 10% of the dot damage because the new refreshing intervall would be 20 sec instead of 18 (= uptime 90% instead of 100). And talking about CoA you would lose 2 ticks from the end because of refreshing it every 20 sec instead of 24. This means you trade 2 high ticks from the end with 2 low ticks from the start. Dps and mana loss.
All these “problems” in addition to losing the +50spellpower from demonic pact this will not really pay off for yourself and never ever for overall raid dps
Looking at the current ST Raid dps statistics i only can say every single word in this post is true.
Casters falling back very fast (except elemental shamans because burn rune +200 spellpower on top of 2 other effects for free is pretty overtuned). They must fix caster scaling or increase raid boss armor values by at about +1000(?) to close the gap
Interestingly enough. if you look at the top casters performance according to wcl you’ll see the following.
211 dps warlocks have over 1000 as “boss damage”
170 fire mages over 1000 dps.
98 elemental shamans.
29 boomies.
1 shadowpriest.
Based on this, how are elemental shamans overturned in PvE?
I dont look at top performers (nobody should use them as a measurement), i look at median “knows what to do” performers (=75% percentile) whole raid statistics over 1 week
Results:
Ele shaman 61.4 points
Firemage 56.3
Warlock 56.3
Moonkin 56.3
Frostmage 56.2
Shadowpriest 50
Ele shaman 10% stronger than other casters.
Even at 95% percentile there is a 7% gap from ele shaman down to fire mage.
And by the way i did not say elemental shamans in general are overtuned, only the +200 spelldamage on the burn rune are over the top.
Warlock leg rune give me +50 spellpower, foot rune +90 … without any extra effects on myself.
Burn rune gives 1.5x the spellpower in 1 rune and also 2 more effects
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I do agree with you that the burn runen seems abit over the top, especially on larger traspacks. I would like to see some caster changes without gutting one specialization in order for justification.
For my sake they could reduce melee scaling to tighten the gap between caster and physical. This would result in slightly longer fights in ST and therefore in a way ‘buff’ the bosses.
Or they could improve casters as a whole and buff the raid to prevent the fights having 10 duration
But it’s classic sadly, without some significant changes I do fear we will see a larger physical meta come MC.
Let’s say they don’t change boss resistance for fire/nature in MC, we won’t have a single elemental or Boomie left.
I have the hope and expectation that blizzard will prevent this.
They already talked about warrior rage normalization for p4 in one post.
And if they would use only 2-3 of the 4 suggestions that were made in this thread’s original post then it would work out fine for us casters i guess
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Hopefully this happens, I refuse to play anything but elemental, it’s too funny, even in 2019/2020 I raided as elemental. Bottom of the barrel dog damage, but I like the specialization.
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The new caster gear is an improvement in the right direction.
Still to weak by far but at least they tried!
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when you have to add on that “at least they tried” its not really a hopeful sign, is it.
think heal power should be spirit thou
This needs a push. Casters too weak in PvE!
Or they should just give +200 spellpower for free to every caster, like they do with ele shamans (head rune)
Ele shamans are on average the best spellcaster dps in ST (about 10% stronger than the 2nd placed - fire mage. looking at 90% percentile)
The caster gear buff didn’t do anything.
P4 is looking really bad scaling-wise. Physical/melee is already outdamaging casters by a HUGE margin and they only get stronger compared to casters. Don’t be surprised if casters are below 40% of average melee parse next phases.
As it’s looking now there is no reason to bring casters. The ideal raid comp for 20mans would be:
3x melee group (1 feral, 1 TSA hunter, rest melee/tank)
1x heal group (random, get 3 healers max and a boomie+demo lock to boost them I guess)
1x ranged group that’s standing outside if boss mechanic makes it impossible for melee/physical to deal with it.
If they will build another melee fiesta in p4 then they failed.
Things could be so easy if they want to balance PvE without breaking PvP.
Make all raid bosses take 30% extra damage from shadow priests and affli warlocks.
And 20% extra damage from mage moonkin and destro warlock and feral druid.
And 10% extra damage from elemental shaman and ret pala and ranged hunter.
Done.
Even easier would be just add 1500 armor to all bosses - but that would not balance the casters among each other. Only put all melees back by -10 to -15% (ferals would be useless if they make it the easy increase armor way)
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It gets snapshotted, tested it back in S3, so does any bonus spell damage (from trinket etc). I would argue that you should cast dots only with demonic grace, even if it means they are gonna be off the target at certain time window while waiting for DG CD. Also bonus damage from pandemic crit and ruin talent stacks in case of immolate and shadowflame, so enjoy 250% crit damage (+150% bonus) if you have both.
Yes this is the best way.
But let’s be honest… in a raid you don’t have the luck to use demonic grace and shadowflame. It is either demonic pact or mark of chaos, or even both.