So I respecced to http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AiMrVMfkVtboZxx0tM the other day and I cannot decide where to drop the last two points. Leading options are 1/2 imp HS for raids and amp curse, or just 2/5 demonic embrace because my health is somewhat low for a warlock...
Well, I'd recommend not having destructive reach and devastation(without ruin), but if that's staying for sure, go with the healthstone/amp. I mean, the extra health of the stone itself can act as a buffer for not having the highest amount of health.
Yeah I'm still just playing with specs (was dark pact/ruin before this, liked it, but I want to experiment). Since I'm putting DoTs up then spamming SB in between, I figured having both the aggro/range talents might be useful.
Im working on it now, and its cost me over 200g to get the mats alone--there's still 150g straight cash to spend, and I've got a friend who's got the reusable mats. Still, its cheaper than for everyone else.
What are some good Warlock oriented trinkets I should be looking to get, pre-60? I will probably get the movement dispelling trinket from PvP soon but I know next to nothing about any other worthwhile time/money investments.
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ShimSham wrote:
I hate it when Liliputians try to start shit.
There isn't too much... You can get the instantly-summon-a-voidwalker trinket from the warlock class quest in Sunken Temple, but not everyone values that (I took the staff myself). At 56 (I think?) you can buy the DM class book for a +23 damage trinket, but if you were that close to 58 and all the treasures of Outland, it's probably not worth spending what people would charge on the AH for something so rare. The Rune of Perfection from the WSG honor vendor might be decent to fill an otherwise empty slot. (I wore my Frostwolf Advisor's Insignia for a lonnnng time.)
I got Icy Weapon on that thing instead of the usual Fiery. It looked awesome and at level 70 I still refuse to vendor it. It just says "warlock", ya know?
I thought I would ask you guys, since I've been lurking here for a while, and always seen solid advice given:
I've been a demo lock for most of my career, and well, I've been told that as far as DPS goes, demo doesn't cut it compared to affliction and destro. Now that it seem to matter (I've gotten accepted to a major raiding guild on my server under trial status, and I am hoping to make a very good impression), I've wondering what you other raiding warlocks are rolling with. I've checked the build threads, but they don't really have any specific instruction in regards to warlock builds. Here's what I've come up with on my own.
Destruction Build:
Pro
-- Heavy burst damage
-- Have a fire mage in my raid group, which would lead to even better damage
-- Curse of Elements makes mages happy.
-- The rumor mill says that heavy destro is the most damaging spec, provided you can overcome the mana shortatges
Con:
-- Mana Intensive, maybe inappropriate for long fights?
-- Survivability doesn't seem so hot
Affliction Build:
Pro:
-- Heavy sustained damage
-- Since most damage is done over time, threat takes a while to build up
-- Surviability, mobility, self reliance
Con:
-- DoT reliant, which may be a liability in some fights?
-- Need CoA up to make the most of your damage?
-- Overall less damage than destro?
Currently I've been coming in 4th in the damage meters. It usually looks like this: rogue/rogue/fire mage/Me(Demo Lock)/Ice mage. The seperation between myself and the top mage is usually less than 1 percent, but we aren't doing much against the rogues, who have a whole 5 to 6 percent on top of us. I guess it can't help to mention that most of these samples were taken against the Shade of Aran fight in Karazan, which may be a tad caster unfriendly. Here is my current build for prespective.
One thing I will say about affliction: A lot, a lot, a lot of fights require your ass to be moving around a lot and/or focusing on adds and so on. When you can get hard-hitting DoTs up and then focus on multiple things, it's really useful, vs. a firelock who is going to be putting weak DoTs up and wasting time casting them, and only able to burst one target. Also, yeah, self-reliance with healing and mana return is kinda awesome.
Edit: And yeah, don't look at Aran numbers as an average. Definitely melee friendly.
For raiding I'd definitely go with a very heavy affliction build. Insane dps, can dps on multiple mobs at once, almost never run out of mana and provide a lot of utility.
I went with a build like this http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=NyMrrRfkqtbobxZxx before I decided to respec for the Illhoof fight in Kara, the only time I'd recommend going destro over affliction.
I'm not basing this on extensive testing, but I feel like destruction will pretty much always win at pounding a single target for maximum damage.
Affliction's nice for a couple of reasons, though: you never, ever run out of mana. Affliction's threat generation is also really steady; you're not going to get yourself killed with a string of big Ruin crits, and it's quite easy to cut back your threat if you need to (just leave one DoT out of your rotation.) Affliction is also better at DPSing multiple mobs (trash, some boss fights), cause it's not too hard to keep DoTs stacked on more than one guy.
Your damage is basically all shadow, though, which I could see being a pain against resistant mobs. At least with destruction you get a little flexibility.
I'm not sure you'll see all that much increase in overall DPS over a demonology build, though, just because there's so much +spell damage in the demonology tree.
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hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
in places like Black Wing Lair, affliction will win hands down on DPS. The boss fights are long enough that your DOTS get full ticks, which way out damage destruction by a long shot.
Affliction's threat generation can get you into trouble too. threat managment is huge in some places. They call for a stop on DPS and there my DOTS keep ticking and everyone one else has stop DPS..so I end up dead cause of way to much threat build up.
The only place my DPS suffers a little is on the 5 man's but I make it up on the boss fights. But anything above a 5 man gimmie more dots...
in places like Black Wing Lair, affliction will win hands down on DPS. The boss fights are long enough that your DOTS get full ticks, which way out damage destruction by a long shot.
Well, I've not raided on a warlock in the xpac, but everything I see leads me to believe that destruction(at least with 800 +damage or more) will beat out single-target affliction. Affliction doesn't exactly have a problem with dot ticks being cut short on anything but trash. I think a significant factor in destro's dps is the shadow and flame talent. That's pretty huge considering that warlocks didn't suffer from the cast-time coefficient nerf.
Now, it may be that you have to go with DS/shadow and flame to beat affliction, I'm not sure. But either way, affliction is more self-sufficient, is a bit more group-friendly(malediction isn't hard to fit in if you want it, plus you can afford more points for improved imp and healthstones) and it's certainly a better spec for soloing.
I'm not basing this on extensive testing, but I feel like destruction will pretty much always win at pounding a single target for maximum damage.
This really depends on the length of the fight. Most destro locks will be out of mana and have their pot timers up less than half way through most boss fights in Kara and most healers don't appreciate having to actually throw you a heal instead of an instant dot when they need to healing the MT. Affliction locks have almost infinite mana just pausing their dps for a couple global cool downs. So once a fight gets into the 7 minute + range a destro lock will have not much to do where as the affliction lock is still pluggin along with 75% mana.
I think a significant factor in destro's dps is the shadow and flame talent. That's pretty huge considering that warlocks didn't suffer from the cast-time coefficient nerf.
This is exactly what I was thinking. It seems like destruction scales better with gear than affliction does.
This really depends on the length of the fight. Most destro locks will be out of mana and have their pot timers up less than half way through most boss fights in Kara and most healers don't appreciate having to actually throw you a heal instead of an instant dot when they need to healing the MT. Affliction locks have almost infinite mana just pausing their dps for a couple global cool downs. So once a fight gets into the 7 minute + range a destro lock will have not much to do where as the affliction lock is still pluggin along with 75% mana.
I am assuming that when we talk about a destro raid build, we're talking about 0/21/40 (since shadowfury contributes nothing to raid dps.) On long fights, I'd likely have the felhunter sacrificed. I believe that regen continues while casting. You've also got soul leech.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Heh, I find that soul leech pretty much blows. But really, when can a healer not spare a HoT on the warlock? Resto druids certainly can, that's what their forte is, and one hot from a tree druid, every 20 seconds or so could be enough.
I am really liking 0/21/40 right now, the damage I output with a sacced succy is really nice. Did kara yesterday, was #1 in the meters, pulled aggro only a couple of times, but soulshatter took care of that. I was critting for 5k with SB's, it was hot.
0/21/40 sounds really good on paper but destro just didn't do it for me. I guess skill/effort/playstyle can factor into it, but the top two locks in my guild are full affliction (I had ruin for awhile but I think I'll be sticking with UA for the time being), next on the meters is demo, and the one who's destro fire spec usually can't keep up with us at all. That being said, the Maulgar meters last week were warlock, warlock, shadow priest, warlock, warlock...
I was just looking at the warlock talents to figure out how to build my alt. I was thinking about going demonology, but I wasn't too sure the felguard would be worth the 41 point talent. Any comments on this?
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since version 2, my Felguard has been my crutch in fights. I use him so much soloing that I forgot how I fought stuff from 1-60 it seems.
I'm afraid to respec because of my heavy reliance on my Felguard. I was previously Affliction.
Right now I use my Felguard as a pretty decent tank for most of my fights. I also enjoy the +damage I have from the demo tree, would I get that on par in the affliction tree?
I honestly was in the same boat and I went a 42/8/11 build and i do way more damage. So if you hop back into affliction make sure you realize your going to as much damage but you can lose a fair amount of burst damage. Which is why I dumped the 11 into destruction.
I was kinda the same way. I had the felguard from 62 to 70. He is just so useful in five-mans and I couldn't top the damage when I tried out a destro spec, which was irritating, so I specced back to felguard. But he's such a liability in fights where melee is bad, or you need an imp buff, etc. I think it just takes a little time to get used to a new spec but you'll probably be better off in the end.
0/21/40 sounds really good on paper but destro just didn't do it for me. I guess skill/effort/playstyle can factor into it, but the top two locks in my guild are full affliction (I had ruin for awhile but I think I'll be sticking with UA for the time being), next on the meters is demo, and the one who's destro fire spec usually can't keep up with us at all. That being said, the Maulgar meters last week were warlock, warlock, shadow priest, warlock, warlock...
I really think that warlock either is bad, your healers are far too stingy, or he doesn't have very good gear. Even without DS, I think destruction would probably be on par with affliction, and adding in DS bumps that up even more.
I would also suggest a 40/0/21 build. Especially if you have great gear, this spec will put you at the top of the charts, just be careful with your aggro and make judicious use of soul shatter
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I really think that warlock either is bad, your healers are far too stingy, or he doesn't have very good gear. Even without DS, I think destruction would probably be on par with affliction, and adding in DS bumps that up even more.
Not with 3 other locks and a shadowpriest in there. The shadow synergy destroys any sort of fire synergy you can get with a scorch mage.
I really think that warlock either is bad, your healers are far too stingy, or he doesn't have very good gear. Even without DS, I think destruction would probably be on par with affliction, and adding in DS bumps that up even more.
Not with 3 other locks and a shadowpriest in there. The shadow synergy destroys any sort of fire synergy you can get with a scorch mage.
Well "3 other locks"(like you're going to have 4 in most 25 mans) doesn't really help for anything but drain life, which is still less dps than shadowbolt for affliction. But yeah, if you're affliction(with bane, I really don't think you can keep up without it) then you're probably right that it'd beat out a shadowfury destroy spec, and may possibly beat out a 0/21/40 warlock.
0/21/40 sounds really good on paper but destro just didn't do it for me. I guess skill/effort/playstyle can factor into it, but the top two locks in my guild are full affliction (I had ruin for awhile but I think I'll be sticking with UA for the time being), next on the meters is demo, and the one who's destro fire spec usually can't keep up with us at all. That being said, the Maulgar meters last week were warlock, warlock, shadow priest, warlock, warlock...
I really think that warlock either is bad, your healers are far too stingy, or he doesn't have very good gear. Even without DS, I think destruction would probably be on par with affliction, and adding in DS bumps that up even more.
Again I must stress the power of DoTs over pewpewlazors when you're dealing with bosses like that. When a felhunter spawns and I have to stop DPS to enslave it, my DoTs are still going strong, but when she stops to enslave, she's not casting incinerate. Maiden repentances me, DoTs are rolling, incinerate is not... I bet 21/40 would have higher DPS potential in a test with a priest renewing you both against a stationary single target, but that's just not realistic.
Sure. I haven't done Maulgar, it's just been my experience that in most boss fights, they are not designed as such to overly favor dots. Honestly, I think the clearest advantage of affliction is on multiple mob trash pulls, when the trash is a "tank" type that doesn't go down quickly. In MC, it used to be molten giants where I could dot up both of them and get nearly full ticks on both.
Well "3 other locks"(like you're going to have 4 in most 25 mans) doesn't really help for anything but drain life, which is still less dps than shadowbolt for affliction. But yeah, if you're affliction(with bane, I really don't think you can keep up without it) then you're probably right that it'd beat out a shadowfury destroy spec, and may possibly beat out a 0/21/40 warlock.
Just going by the source material.
That being said, the Maulgar meters last week were warlock, warlock, shadow priest, warlock, warlock...
Don't underestimate drain life. With the bonus capped out, 800ish spell damage, shadow weave/CoS and you're looking at 450-500 ticks easily, with each cast giving you little under 20% chance to proc nightfall over 5 seconds. While this doesn't out damage shadow bolt spammage, there are a lot times in fights where you do take damage and being able to recoup a lot of hp without pressuring healers or significantly dipping your DPS is significant. Not to mention the mana efficiency.
Also more locks = more consistent imp shadow bolt debuff = consistent dot dps increase. It also means a less chance you'll be the curse bitch, which for affliction locks is a significant dps increase.
Also I personally find itemization for affliction locks to be "easier." You don't care about crit on items which can be an expensive stat. "Easy" to obtain gear like the continuum blade and shadowweave sets are very pro affliction. You don't have to sacrifice spell damage for crit and you don't have to keep a balance of fire/shadow damage.
I've also got to agree with Riz about the encounters in TBC. Rarely are bosses tank/spank anymore and being able to move around/do other stuff while keeping up your damage is a huge asset.
Well, some of your points rely on having a bunch of warlocks. I think it's going to be rare to get more than 3 warlocks in a raid, and with three that's still CoE, CoS, and CoR, and while three warlocks(if you can even get three) can max out soul siphon, one of the others also has to be draining and not shadowbolting, and they all have to be affliction.
And I'm not saying affliction isn't great. I think it's in general the best raid spec because of it's ability to deal with high dps, provide valuable raid buffs, and be self-sufficient(not to mention better grinding/farming), I think destro is still in general going to be the max possible dps, and sometimes that's important.
Well, some of your points rely on having a bunch of warlocks.
That was in response to this:
Well "3 other locks"(like you're going to have 4 in most 25 mans) doesn't really help for anything but drain life
Which I don't believe is true. Having multiple locks is a much larger boost to affliction locks than to destro locks, which was the point I was making when I joined this delicious conversation.
It's still not much help beyond drain life, and the only other point made was more imp. shadowbolt procs(but you shouldn't have much crit, and your shadow priest will eat up these charges quickly, and the ability to start getting curses of doom/agony. But I think the point is mostly moot, the value of bringing 1 more of virtually any other class(and if you have 4 warlocks, there's a good chance you may have 1 of another class) will be better.
Thanks for the suggestions guys, I really appeciate it. I'm probably going to try out both affliction and destruction. Did Kara yesterday, team shoe hearth is our name apparently, and downed up to the Curator. I was pretty useful in most fights, although I did get one shotted by both Midnight and Monroes. Man, i thought 10k health would let me live more than one hit.
So, in deep destro, do you prefer Backlash, Nether protection or Soul leech? I think I only have room for one, considering that i'm gonna try out 40 destro/21 demo when I give this build a shot.
As for affliction, I think I've got it down pretty pat. Gonna try this one first, see how it goes today.
Thanks again for all the responses, it's definetly been helpful.
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ShimSham wrote:
I hate it when Liliputians try to start shit.
There isn't too much... You can get the instantly-summon-a-voidwalker trinket from the warlock class quest in Sunken Temple, but not everyone values that (I took the staff myself). At 56 (I think?) you can buy the DM class book for a +23 damage trinket, but if you were that close to 58 and all the treasures of Outland, it's probably not worth spending what people would charge on the AH for something so rare. The Rune of Perfection from the WSG honor vendor might be decent to fill an otherwise empty slot. (I wore my Frostwolf Advisor's Insignia for a lonnnng time.)
I...should stop here. I don't think we want a third iteration of this argument.
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I've been a demo lock for most of my career, and well, I've been told that as far as DPS goes, demo doesn't cut it compared to affliction and destro. Now that it seem to matter (I've gotten accepted to a major raiding guild on my server under trial status, and I am hoping to make a very good impression), I've wondering what you other raiding warlocks are rolling with. I've checked the build threads, but they don't really have any specific instruction in regards to warlock builds. Here's what I've come up with on my own.
Destruction Build:
Pro
-- Heavy burst damage
-- Have a fire mage in my raid group, which would lead to even better damage
-- Curse of Elements makes mages happy.
-- The rumor mill says that heavy destro is the most damaging spec, provided you can overcome the mana shortatges
Con:
-- Mana Intensive, maybe inappropriate for long fights?
-- Survivability doesn't seem so hot
Affliction Build:
Pro:
-- Heavy sustained damage
-- Since most damage is done over time, threat takes a while to build up
-- Surviability, mobility, self reliance
Con:
-- DoT reliant, which may be a liability in some fights?
-- Need CoA up to make the most of your damage?
-- Overall less damage than destro?
Currently I've been coming in 4th in the damage meters. It usually looks like this: rogue/rogue/fire mage/Me(Demo Lock)/Ice mage. The seperation between myself and the top mage is usually less than 1 percent, but we aren't doing much against the rogues, who have a whole 5 to 6 percent on top of us. I guess it can't help to mention that most of these samples were taken against the Shade of Aran fight in Karazan, which may be a tad caster unfriendly. Here is my current build for prespective.
Demo Build
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
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Edit: And yeah, don't look at Aran numbers as an average. Definitely melee friendly.
I went with a build like this http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=NyMrrRfkqtbobxZxx before I decided to respec for the Illhoof fight in Kara, the only time I'd recommend going destro over affliction.
Affliction's nice for a couple of reasons, though: you never, ever run out of mana. Affliction's threat generation is also really steady; you're not going to get yourself killed with a string of big Ruin crits, and it's quite easy to cut back your threat if you need to (just leave one DoT out of your rotation.) Affliction is also better at DPSing multiple mobs (trash, some boss fights), cause it's not too hard to keep DoTs stacked on more than one guy.
Your damage is basically all shadow, though, which I could see being a pain against resistant mobs. At least with destruction you get a little flexibility.
I'm not sure you'll see all that much increase in overall DPS over a demonology build, though, just because there's so much +spell damage in the demonology tree.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Affliction's threat generation can get you into trouble too. threat managment is huge in some places. They call for a stop on DPS and there my DOTS keep ticking and everyone one else has stop DPS..so I end up dead cause of way to much threat build up.
The only place my DPS suffers a little is on the 5 man's but I make it up on the boss fights. But anything above a 5 man gimmie more dots...
Well, I've not raided on a warlock in the xpac, but everything I see leads me to believe that destruction(at least with 800 +damage or more) will beat out single-target affliction. Affliction doesn't exactly have a problem with dot ticks being cut short on anything but trash. I think a significant factor in destro's dps is the shadow and flame talent. That's pretty huge considering that warlocks didn't suffer from the cast-time coefficient nerf.
Now, it may be that you have to go with DS/shadow and flame to beat affliction, I'm not sure. But either way, affliction is more self-sufficient, is a bit more group-friendly(malediction isn't hard to fit in if you want it, plus you can afford more points for improved imp and healthstones) and it's certainly a better spec for soloing.
This really depends on the length of the fight. Most destro locks will be out of mana and have their pot timers up less than half way through most boss fights in Kara and most healers don't appreciate having to actually throw you a heal instead of an instant dot when they need to healing the MT. Affliction locks have almost infinite mana just pausing their dps for a couple global cool downs. So once a fight gets into the 7 minute + range a destro lock will have not much to do where as the affliction lock is still pluggin along with 75% mana.
This is exactly what I was thinking. It seems like destruction scales better with gear than affliction does.
I am assuming that when we talk about a destro raid build, we're talking about 0/21/40 (since shadowfury contributes nothing to raid dps.) On long fights, I'd likely have the felhunter sacrificed. I believe that regen continues while casting. You've also got soul leech.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
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"Funny you should say that," replied the shadowy figure "because that's exactly what I had in mind."
since version 2, my Felguard has been my crutch in fights. I use him so much soloing that I forgot how I fought stuff from 1-60 it seems.
I'm afraid to respec because of my heavy reliance on my Felguard. I was previously Affliction.
Right now I use my Felguard as a pretty decent tank for most of my fights. I also enjoy the +damage I have from the demo tree, would I get that on par in the affliction tree?
I need to kick my Felguard habit.
I really think that warlock either is bad, your healers are far too stingy, or he doesn't have very good gear. Even without DS, I think destruction would probably be on par with affliction, and adding in DS bumps that up even more.
Not with 3 other locks and a shadowpriest in there. The shadow synergy destroys any sort of fire synergy you can get with a scorch mage.
Well "3 other locks"(like you're going to have 4 in most 25 mans) doesn't really help for anything but drain life, which is still less dps than shadowbolt for affliction. But yeah, if you're affliction(with bane, I really don't think you can keep up without it) then you're probably right that it'd beat out a shadowfury destroy spec, and may possibly beat out a 0/21/40 warlock.
Again I must stress the power of DoTs over pewpewlazors when you're dealing with bosses like that. When a felhunter spawns and I have to stop DPS to enslave it, my DoTs are still going strong, but when she stops to enslave, she's not casting incinerate. Maiden repentances me, DoTs are rolling, incinerate is not... I bet 21/40 would have higher DPS potential in a test with a priest renewing you both against a stationary single target, but that's just not realistic.
Just going by the source material.
Don't underestimate drain life. With the bonus capped out, 800ish spell damage, shadow weave/CoS and you're looking at 450-500 ticks easily, with each cast giving you little under 20% chance to proc nightfall over 5 seconds. While this doesn't out damage shadow bolt spammage, there are a lot times in fights where you do take damage and being able to recoup a lot of hp without pressuring healers or significantly dipping your DPS is significant. Not to mention the mana efficiency.
Also more locks = more consistent imp shadow bolt debuff = consistent dot dps increase. It also means a less chance you'll be the curse bitch, which for affliction locks is a significant dps increase.
Also I personally find itemization for affliction locks to be "easier." You don't care about crit on items which can be an expensive stat. "Easy" to obtain gear like the continuum blade and shadowweave sets are very pro affliction. You don't have to sacrifice spell damage for crit and you don't have to keep a balance of fire/shadow damage.
I've also got to agree with Riz about the encounters in TBC. Rarely are bosses tank/spank anymore and being able to move around/do other stuff while keeping up your damage is a huge asset.
And I'm not saying affliction isn't great. I think it's in general the best raid spec because of it's ability to deal with high dps, provide valuable raid buffs, and be self-sufficient(not to mention better grinding/farming), I think destro is still in general going to be the max possible dps, and sometimes that's important.
That was in response to this:
Which I don't believe is true. Having multiple locks is a much larger boost to affliction locks than to destro locks, which was the point I was making when I joined this delicious conversation.
So, in deep destro, do you prefer Backlash, Nether protection or Soul leech? I think I only have room for one, considering that i'm gonna try out 40 destro/21 demo when I give this build a shot.
As for affliction, I think I've got it down pretty pat. Gonna try this one first, see how it goes today.
Thanks again for all the responses, it's definetly been helpful.