Right before our raid one of our Warlocks came to me and said you’re getting my Dark Intent tonight. Naturally I had no idea what he was talking about. The only thing I’ve ever gotten from Warlocks are summons and cookies.
Earlier that day he tested out this ability with another Survival Hunter and had gotten some favorable results.
So what does it do? It gives us a straight up 3% haste buff. When the Warlock critically strikes with its periodic damage ticks it Increases our periodic damage by 3%. This effect can stack up to three times for a 9% boost in damage. The same is true for the Warlock when our periodic damage ticks crit.
Survival hunters are good candidates for this because we have a lot of abilities that do periodic damage, have decent crit rates, and we can easily get full stacks of the buff. Keep in mind though, that the overall effectiveness of this ability is dependent on the Warlock, their spec. and crit rates. The DPS Analyzer at femaledwarf.com has been updated to included Dark Intent in the list of buffs so you can use this to get a sense of how this might effect your dps.
While Survival hunters may not be first on the priority list for this buff (Resto. Druids, Shadow Priests and Boomkins are probably better candidates), we do have a seat at the table. Depending on your raid composition and your personal dps you may find yourself an excellent target for this buff. To read more about it you should check out this thread over at MMO Champion.
Oh, and if you see a Warlock casting this on another Warlock be sure to Imp slap them, because it doesn’t work that way, or so I’ve been told at least. Again, summons and cookies are all I know about Warlocks.
Happy Hunting!
Hey Dark, thanks for this post. Very use full info here. I find I spent a lot of time learning about WoW's greatest class "Hunter's" and really don't know much about other class. Great stuff.
A warlock gave me this the other night. Pretty awesome.