Also the gems were cheap (8g each) and I am broke :P
What would you advise?
Coming from a jewelcrafter, the cheap green gems give you almost the full effect of the blue ones. Unfortunately, there isn't a Veiled Flame Spessarite or Great Golden Draenite, so until you can afford the good gems for your FSW, you may want to put Potent Flame Spessarites in the yellow slots instead. That preserves your socket bonus on FSW, and gives you some stats you can use. I'd farm for a bit to get the yellow slots on your FSW to Veiled Nobles, though, that's really the best gem for that slot and there's no cheap subsitute for it.
I tried Siphon Life/Soul Link build (24/37/0) for a bit. No felguard, very high maintenance pet, not worth it, from what I've heard. Mostly for arena. I didn't like it that much. Last time I was SL was about a year ago, when the demonology tree was a bit different. I was trying to get used to it while questing/doing dailies. I can see it's usefulness as a PvP build, I still can't stand SL...>_<
And I didn't get to do my arena matches this weekend because the other two people on the team decided to go to Kara to gear up their alts. Grr.
So...I switched back to UA - 41/15/5. I'm back to dotting & kiting, but with more hp. ^_^;;
My spec before all this respecc'ing - 44/0/17 (raiding build, I'm on break, so it don't matter now).
Warlock
- Banish can no longer be cast on targets tapped by other players or
groups.
- Drain Life and Siphon Life now reduce the amount healed when the
warlock is affected by healing reducing effects (e.g. Mortal Strike,
Wounding Poison).
- Hellfire: This spell will no longer cause enemy spells to increase
casting time or reduce channel time. It will also no longer prevent
flag captures in Battlegrounds.
- Nether Protection (Destruction) now has a new, more distinct visual
effect.
- Ritual of Souls now takes significantly less time to cast and complete.
- Seed of Corruption detonation will now obey line of sight.
- Shadow Ward: This spell now gains additional benefit from spell
damage bonuses. Base absorb value of rank 4 has been reduced.
- Soul Siphon (Affliction) now increases damage by 2/4% and no longer
affects Drain Mana.
I think only the last two are new to me. Shadow Ward thing is nice. Soul Siphon thing is "lol lock/priest teams were doing too well with mana drain spam in 2v2 arenas." OMG ANOTHER NERF. TO THE OFFICIAL FORUMS.
Man oh man. I have been 32/0/29 (give or take) for months and months on end, basically since I started raiding.
However, the other night, I rolled my friend's 0/21/40 build on the PTR (you loose your spec when copying). The very next day I switched on my live realm. I'm in loooove.
On a side note, heroism is the best stuff ingame. It must be even worse for a destro lock, but even when with affliction, I'm like "BURN BURN BURN MOTHERFUCKER MUHAHAHA" for the duration of it
I have a lock I've been working on. He's currently 42 and entirely affliction. I'd like try out destro, but my mana seemingly vanishes before I cast my second SB. (slight exaggeration) So how exactly do I get around this?
I have a lock I've been working on. He's currently 42 and entirely affliction. I'd like try out destro, but my mana seemingly vanishes before I cast my second SB. (slight exaggeration) So how exactly do I get around this?
Honestly, I wouldn't put more than 11 points into Destro (Improved Shadowbolt, Bane, Shadowburn) until I hit 70 and geared up a bit. Heavy destro just isn't a very good build for soloing (Affliction is the king of soloing builds), but it's great for instances.
I have a lock I've been working on. He's currently 42 and entirely affliction. I'd like try out destro, but my mana seemingly vanishes before I cast my second SB. (slight exaggeration) So how exactly do I get around this?
Honestly, I wouldn't put more than 11 points into Destro (Improved Shadowbolt, Bane, Shadowburn) until I hit 70 and geared up a bit. Heavy destro just isn't a very good build for soloing (Affliction is the king of soloing builds), but it's great for instances.
But to answer your question, Life Tap.
Ok cool. I'm really enjoying affliction right now. Just wanted to see what destro is like. But if it's pretty gear dependent, I'll definately wait till 70. Is there anything good about the demon tree? I see people running around with felguards a lot.
I have a lock I've been working on. He's currently 42 and entirely affliction. I'd like try out destro, but my mana seemingly vanishes before I cast my second SB. (slight exaggeration) So how exactly do I get around this?
Honestly, I wouldn't put more than 11 points into Destro (Improved Shadowbolt, Bane, Shadowburn) until I hit 70 and geared up a bit. Heavy destro just isn't a very good build for soloing (Affliction is the king of soloing builds), but it's great for instances.
But to answer your question, Life Tap.
42 and entirely affliction? Get out the old mana battery (imp) and Dark Pact.
I do that. I was asking in reference to a destro respec. SB was eating through my mana. (granted, I'm affliction) So assuming I went destro and was relying on SB, how would I get around mana issues? Since I wouldnt have use of dark pact.
Desto is a bad, bad thing for solo'ing. When you have level 70 worth of talents, then it's not so bad as you can do demonic sac outta the demo tree, but it's still not the best solo build.
Stick to full affliction or demonology (I went demo 1-65 and affliction 65-70).
I tried out 0/21/40 as a fill in in Karazhan the other night, and wasn't really impressed by it's output compared to my usual 42/1/18. It's boring to play, too, unless you really like seeing big numbers every once in a while.
I understand why it should scale better than affliction, so either my gear (which I thought would be good enough) isn't there yet, or I'm 'doin it rong', as the kids say.
I think there's a couple things that nudges warlocks to destro for raiding:
-The debuff cap: If your raid is warlock-heavy at all, you're going to run into issues with dots overwriting stuff. Four Affliction Warlocks in a raid putting on Immolate, Unstable Affliction, Corruption, Siphon Life, a curse, and sharing an Improved Shadowbolt debuff slot is allocating 21 of the 40 debuff slots to less than one-sixth of the raid. Destro locks have a very small debuff footprint, they only account for an additional one curse and an Immolate (and ISB, but that's a shared debuff).
-Higher Improved Shadowbolt uptime: If you've got a warlock with high crit who is only throwing Shadowbolts, ISB stays up longer and all the shadow users do more DPS.
-Supposedly better scaling. I believe the prevailing theorycraft has shadowbolt spam in a Demonic Sacrifice/Shadow and Flame build as the DPS king at high levels of gear. Destro also benefits more from stats like spell crit and spell haste, which are not all that great for a dot-based build ruled by the Global Cooldown.
And speaking of spell haste, what's the word on the new Heroic Badge cloth compared to crafted/Kara level gear? I know spell haste is extremely good for shadowbolt spamming, but if I were to get it and wear it, I think I'd lose stats from every quarter (stam, int, spell damage, spell hit, spell crit) in order to get the spell haste.
Pvp, or raiding, as a supplier of shadow vulnerability more than for personal dps. Affliction is still king I think.
I disagree. Affliction really starts sucking in terms of DPS later in the game. Don't get me wrong, it not horrible, but you're gonna get beat on the DPS meters.
Even when you're full affliction, a lot of your damage still comes from shadow bolts.
I tried out 0/21/40 as a fill in in Karazhan the other night, and wasn't really impressed by it's output compared to my usual 42/1/18. It's boring to play, too, unless you really like seeing big numbers every once in a while.
I understand why it should scale better than affliction, so either my gear (which I thought would be good enough) isn't there yet, or I'm 'doin it rong', as the kids say.
Your gear is entirely affliction -- you need WAY more crit for it to be worthwhile. With talents (+3%), your generic crit should be 18-20% which pushes destro spells (the ones that count) to 23-25%.
If you were to give destro a serious go, you'd need a ton more crit for it to be worthwhile. Even I'm a bit light on crit as I want to be hit capped (4 points shy at the moment).
moonkins and elemental shamans would be pretty important to a 0/21/40 build methinks
The boomkin buff is quite awesome, but the boomkins themselves usually aren't, so...
As for shamans, yeah, I'll take any shaman I can get. That wrath of air is totally kickass. Totem of wrath is nice too, but not nearly as important to a destro lock as a mage as we still have a DoT or two depending on CoS/E or CoA.
Pvp, or raiding, as a supplier of shadow vulnerability more than for personal dps. Affliction is still king I think.
I disagree. Affliction really starts sucking in terms of DPS later in the game. Don't get me wrong, it not horrible, but you're gonna get beat on the DPS meters.
Even when you're full affliction, a lot of your damage still comes from shadow bolts.
Eh, I could never see it, and the loltheorycrafters on ElitistJerks(these guys generally know what they're talking about) favored Affliction over anything else, though I don't know if having one destro lock for the shadow vuln debuff would have been assumed in those calcs.
heh, I managed somewhere around 1300-1400 DPS last night on our 2nd night of Tidewalker attempts (got him to about 40% -- people keep dying / pulling *curses murlocks*). Still had like 50% mana too with no external regen or pots (DS > dark pact honestly, I get around 375 MP5 without having to burn a global cooldown on dark pact).
Pvp, or raiding, as a supplier of shadow vulnerability more than for personal dps. Affliction is still king I think.
I disagree. Affliction really starts sucking in terms of DPS later in the game. Don't get me wrong, it not horrible, but you're gonna get beat on the DPS meters.
Even when you're full affliction, a lot of your damage still comes from shadow bolts.
Eh, I could never see it, and the loltheorycrafters on ElitistJerks(these guys generally know what they're talking about) favored Affliction over anything else, though I don't know if having one destro lock for the shadow vuln debuff would have been assumed in those calcs.
Er, no they don't... The "loltheorycraft" position is that once you get t5/t6, shadow destruction is king. You want at least one affliction lock for malediction/shadow embrace/imp but for everyone else shadowbolt spam with 21/40. It keeps the debuff limit under control, high ISB uptime for locks and shadow priests, and just great DPS. Affliction is awesome for Kara/t4/early t5 gear levels, but after that... (My guild is in the middle of this, our best affliction lock does great DPS, but he rarely gets near me.) I think in addition to general scaling, part of it is the available gear. There's no separate tier set for affliction vs. destruction, and high-end gear has a ton of crit on it, which helps affliction a bit but not as much as being able to stack more and more shadow damage would.
For what it's worth I don't have efficiency problems in raids and I never get a shadow priest. (Fucking mages.)
And destruction is in NO WAY a PVP spec, shadowfury or no. Unless you mean just fucking around in BGs. Anyone in an arena with more than 11 points in destro is silly.
Edit: Re: haste, I'm still not sure about that myself. But I don't think I'll jump to replace things for haste items. It doesn't seem to do as much as other stats... doesn't make you crit more or hit harder, just go OOM faster? I dunno. lolmathcraft.
Yeah, that's what I had heard too about affliction vs. shadow destro -- the better your gear, the more of an advantage destro has.
As for haste, think of it as a direct upage in DPS as you can cast more damage per second. It's awesome. However, my personal jury is still out on how it rates vs. dmg and crit -- i.e. when is it worth giving up dmg or crit for haste.
Well, I don't know if it's so much that you'd want to lose one or the other particularly. Haste should scale equally well with both, so I assume you'd want to sacrifice them in proportion as much as you could.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Er, no they don't... The "loltheorycraft" position is that once you get t5/t6, shadow destruction is king. You want at least one affliction lock for malediction/shadow embrace/imp but for everyone else shadowbolt spam with 21/40. It keeps the debuff limit under control, high ISB uptime for locks and shadow priests, and just great DPS. Affliction is awesome for Kara/t4/early t5 gear levels, but after that... (My guild is in the middle of this, our best affliction lock does great DPS, but he rarely gets near me.) I think in addition to general scaling, part of it is the available gear. There's no separate tier set for affliction vs. destruction, and high-end gear has a ton of crit on it, which helps affliction a bit but not as much as being able to stack more and more shadow damage would.
For what it's worth I don't have efficiency problems in raids and I never get a shadow priest. (Fucking mages.)
And destruction is in NO WAY a PVP spec, shadowfury or no. Unless you mean just fucking around in BGs. Anyone in an arena with more than 11 points in destro is silly.
Hmm, I haven't been to the EJ forums in a couple months, but I could have sworn affliction was still preferable all the way. I never read the warlock forums consistently though.
I played with a couple very good destro warlocks, in 5v5 where we had support, and they were quite good for taking out players quickly, and for dominating the shadow priests/warlocks.
Should I wait till I get the 41 point affliction talent before putting the 11 points into destro? Or get those 11 as soon as possible? Also, if only putting 11 into destro is the way to go, would everything else be put in affliction? Or would some go into demonology? As far as a good leveling build goes.
Posts
Coming from a jewelcrafter, the cheap green gems give you almost the full effect of the blue ones. Unfortunately, there isn't a Veiled Flame Spessarite or Great Golden Draenite, so until you can afford the good gems for your FSW, you may want to put Potent Flame Spessarites in the yellow slots instead. That preserves your socket bonus on FSW, and gives you some stats you can use. I'd farm for a bit to get the yellow slots on your FSW to Veiled Nobles, though, that's really the best gem for that slot and there's no cheap subsitute for it.
And I didn't get to do my arena matches this weekend because the other two people on the team decided to go to Kara to gear up their alts. Grr.
So...I switched back to UA - 41/15/5. I'm back to dotting & kiting, but with more hp. ^_^;;
My spec before all this respecc'ing - 44/0/17 (raiding build, I'm on break, so it don't matter now).
I think only the last two are new to me. Shadow Ward thing is nice. Soul Siphon thing is "lol lock/priest teams were doing too well with mana drain spam in 2v2 arenas." OMG ANOTHER NERF. TO THE OFFICIAL FORUMS.
Why do you only get 1 shard back when you use Shadowburn followed by a quick Drain Soul?
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
However, the other night, I rolled my friend's 0/21/40 build on the PTR (you loose your spec when copying). The very next day I switched on my live realm. I'm in loooove.
I think I need to replace my soulfrost with +40 though. Even if I go back to pure shadow, I'll still do immolate, so I think it may be worth it.
Honestly, I wouldn't put more than 11 points into Destro (Improved Shadowbolt, Bane, Shadowburn) until I hit 70 and geared up a bit. Heavy destro just isn't a very good build for soloing (Affliction is the king of soloing builds), but it's great for instances.
But to answer your question, Life Tap.
Ok cool. I'm really enjoying affliction right now. Just wanted to see what destro is like. But if it's pretty gear dependent, I'll definately wait till 70. Is there anything good about the demon tree? I see people running around with felguards a lot.
42 and entirely affliction? Get out the old mana battery (imp) and Dark Pact.
Stick to full affliction or demonology (I went demo 1-65 and affliction 65-70).
....right?
I understand why it should scale better than affliction, so either my gear (which I thought would be good enough) isn't there yet, or I'm 'doin it rong', as the kids say.
Here's me.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
-The debuff cap: If your raid is warlock-heavy at all, you're going to run into issues with dots overwriting stuff. Four Affliction Warlocks in a raid putting on Immolate, Unstable Affliction, Corruption, Siphon Life, a curse, and sharing an Improved Shadowbolt debuff slot is allocating 21 of the 40 debuff slots to less than one-sixth of the raid. Destro locks have a very small debuff footprint, they only account for an additional one curse and an Immolate (and ISB, but that's a shared debuff).
-Higher Improved Shadowbolt uptime: If you've got a warlock with high crit who is only throwing Shadowbolts, ISB stays up longer and all the shadow users do more DPS.
-Supposedly better scaling. I believe the prevailing theorycraft has shadowbolt spam in a Demonic Sacrifice/Shadow and Flame build as the DPS king at high levels of gear. Destro also benefits more from stats like spell crit and spell haste, which are not all that great for a dot-based build ruled by the Global Cooldown.
And speaking of spell haste, what's the word on the new Heroic Badge cloth compared to crafted/Kara level gear? I know spell haste is extremely good for shadowbolt spamming, but if I were to get it and wear it, I think I'd lose stats from every quarter (stam, int, spell damage, spell hit, spell crit) in order to get the spell haste.
I disagree. Affliction really starts sucking in terms of DPS later in the game. Don't get me wrong, it not horrible, but you're gonna get beat on the DPS meters.
Even when you're full affliction, a lot of your damage still comes from shadow bolts.
Your gear is entirely affliction -- you need WAY more crit for it to be worthwhile. With talents (+3%), your generic crit should be 18-20% which pushes destro spells (the ones that count) to 23-25%.
If you were to give destro a serious go, you'd need a ton more crit for it to be worthwhile. Even I'm a bit light on crit as I want to be hit capped (4 points shy at the moment).
See sig.
As for shamans, yeah, I'll take any shaman I can get. That wrath of air is totally kickass. Totem of wrath is nice too, but not nearly as important to a destro lock as a mage as we still have a DoT or two depending on CoS/E or CoA.
Eh, I could never see it, and the loltheorycrafters on ElitistJerks(these guys generally know what they're talking about) favored Affliction over anything else, though I don't know if having one destro lock for the shadow vuln debuff would have been assumed in those calcs.
Whoops, remembered a little high (figures, heh). Thankfully Recount keeps the past 5 fights.
Er, no they don't... The "loltheorycraft" position is that once you get t5/t6, shadow destruction is king. You want at least one affliction lock for malediction/shadow embrace/imp but for everyone else shadowbolt spam with 21/40. It keeps the debuff limit under control, high ISB uptime for locks and shadow priests, and just great DPS. Affliction is awesome for Kara/t4/early t5 gear levels, but after that... (My guild is in the middle of this, our best affliction lock does great DPS, but he rarely gets near me.) I think in addition to general scaling, part of it is the available gear. There's no separate tier set for affliction vs. destruction, and high-end gear has a ton of crit on it, which helps affliction a bit but not as much as being able to stack more and more shadow damage would.
For what it's worth I don't have efficiency problems in raids and I never get a shadow priest. (Fucking mages.)
And destruction is in NO WAY a PVP spec, shadowfury or no. Unless you mean just fucking around in BGs. Anyone in an arena with more than 11 points in destro is silly.
Edit: Re: haste, I'm still not sure about that myself. But I don't think I'll jump to replace things for haste items. It doesn't seem to do as much as other stats... doesn't make you crit more or hit harder, just go OOM faster? I dunno. lolmathcraft.
As for haste, think of it as a direct upage in DPS as you can cast more damage per second. It's awesome. However, my personal jury is still out on how it rates vs. dmg and crit -- i.e. when is it worth giving up dmg or crit for haste.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Hmm, I haven't been to the EJ forums in a couple months, but I could have sworn affliction was still preferable all the way. I never read the warlock forums consistently though.
I played with a couple very good destro warlocks, in 5v5 where we had support, and they were quite good for taking out players quickly, and for dominating the shadow priests/warlocks.