Warlock Gearing Through Naxxramas
Warlocks come in 3 flavors, and although their main purpose is to dish out gigantic heaps of pain, each has a unique way of achieving this goal and understanding the difference between them and aligning your spec, your gear and your style of play is what’s going to make a difference and set the good apart from the great!
The Warlocks Den has a great article that covers most of the questions that warlocks can ask.
Affliction Warlocks
Some information in this section extracted from the Afflictions Warlocks Thread on ElitistJerks.com
For a Naxxramas starter gear, the stat-to-dps ratios of these are:
10 hit rating = 14.07 dps
10 spell power = 13.12 dps
10 haste rating = 5.48 dps
10 crit rating = 3.75 dps
10 spirit = 4.33 dps
10 int = 1.14 dps
” …”
The exact numbers are not interesting here, just the tendency. Spell power is a very valuable stat and nearly reaches the importance of hit rating. Haste and crit rating have less than half the effect of spell power. Spirit, however, is a surprisingly good stat. Intellect is, as usual, inferior to all other stats. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t really help, either.
The Pros
- High personal DPS
- Best Single Target DPS in prolonged fights
- High Health regeneration
- High mana efficiency
- Hit-Capped at 367 with Suppression
The Cons
- Minimal Burst Damage
- Lowest AoE DPS
- Extremely complex spell rotation (5-7 DoTs to maintain)
Demonology Warlocks
This information is extracted from the Demonology thread
There are many ways to do Demonology you can go 0/41/30 and try to delve as far as possible in the Destruction tree.
Another option is to go 0/53/18 all the way down the Demon tree. It’s not the top DPS spec, but you buff the whole raid group via Demonic Pact. Bear in mind that, although Demonic Pact gets overridden by the Elemental Shaman’s Totem of Wrath, in fights where movement is an issue like Heigan the Unclean or where there is a large combat area like Saphiron, a near-constant raid-wide buff worth ~225+ sp for every caster and all healers can come in quite handy.
Although exact stat-to-dps values are not readily available, the order should remain relatively similar except that crit and haste should be reversed since Demonologists rely heavily on crit rating to make up their personal DPS.
The Pros
- Raid-wide Buff worth 10% of your SP
- Excellent Survivability
- Great for PvP
- Best AoE in the game.
- Good burst Damage
- Very simple spell rotation
- Highest Crit rating (25%+)
The Cons
- Lowest DPS spec of all warlock against Single targets
- Heavily dependant on Felguard for DPS
- Hit Capped at 446 with No Talents for reduction in the Demo tree
Destruction Warlocks
This information is extracted from the Destruction Warlock thread.
All in all the Destro lock is probably the highest DPS you can get with excellent Burst DPS abilities
The Pros
- Highest DPS spec
- Excellent Burst Damage
- Nice big Crits
- Great for PvP
- Hit Capped at 367 with Cataclysm
The Cons
- Mana issues in prolonged fights
- Complex spell rotation (Interdependent spells).
What you’re going to strive for to do Heroics is (Self-Buffed)
~750 Intellect
~400 Spirit
~1750+ SP
You could reasonably expect 1500-1750 DPS steady in Heroics
For Naxxramas (10-man) Strive for
~900 Intellect
~500 Spirit
~2000 SP
With Raid buffs you should strive for 2000-2500+ DPS steady
Ultimately after full T7 gear (or better) to Face Malygos and 25-man instances
1200+ int
700+ Spirit
2500+ SP
Ultimately (This is only a guess) you would most likely achieve 2500 – 3500 DPS
Bear in mind that these values are not absolute but a goal to strive for. Some of you may laugh at them thinking that they are unattainable but I assure you they are. Others will call me a pansy because they beat them by a mile and that’s ok too because this article has not taught you a thing. But for most of you this will be a new look into a class you know next to nothing about.
So if you’ve been thinking of rolling a warlock you know what to expect, if you are a warlock then you know what to strive for and what is possible and if you really don’t care … why have you read this far down the article ?
Enough talk, Knowing is only half the battle … now get out there and DOMINATE !