[Cybsled]

Extended boss fights arent so much the issue. It's the "OMFG BURN! BURN YOU FUCKERS!!!" boss fights where our dps takes a dump. Your typical raid warlock will be almost completely OOM within 50seconds or less on a mob like Patchwerk.

Your solution works well for shadowbolts, but it would cripple us in other areas, such as fights where we have to AE and are likely to eat some interupts. It takes roughly 3 lifetaps to get enough mana back to replenish what is spent for a hellfire or rof. It would also cripple us in fights where mobs manaburn frequently, since it would be hard for us to generate enough buffer mana to allow us to nuke.

In essence, it would fix shadowbolt nuke spam, but it would be a hard nerf to our other requirements for the spell.

Blizzard just needs to make the spell scale with improvements in gear and the current form of fights today. They either need to make some raider versions of the spell, take another look at our mana efficiency (Shadowbolt and Immolate takes close to 400 mana a cast...lifetap without talent only gives back 420 mana or so)., or review the global on it. I honestly never saw the big balance issue with cooldownless lifetap...they had it in early beta. If anything, it's riskier. With slow lifetap, you can be healed easily. If you spam it too much, you might not get a heal in time and end up dying. Sounds like a fair tradeoff to me.