This was written Pre 3.1

I will update the article verry soon.

GAH this makes me want to write that rogue article ive been way too lazy to complete. Perhaps after finals if i find the motivation.

Anyway nice article, except i would not classify afflic lock’s complex rotation as a downside, because that is what makes that spec more fun than the others imo.

Nice, My wife plays a warlock and uses warlock den alot although she has played much since the 3.1 patch came out. Might be useful for her. I have a Druid healer with an offspec of bommkin. I do have a semi descent boomkin set, but looking for like you did here with the warlock if you get a change to post about it.

I am an affliction lock and I agree with Scones. The rotation is not all that complex anyway. Just keep the dots going and nuke with Shadow Bolt when available and you get real good dps, but only after all dots are applied. the only con I see to affliction is the low burst damage. Only after your dps spells are on do you do real damage. Quick fights where mobs die quickly, you do not contribute nearly as much to the dps. Lengthy fights, like bosses, you do massive dps.

I would like to know, however, what you think of spell rotations for demonology and destruction specs. Now that I can dual spec, it might be good to try one of those as an additional spec. Some instances, especially Heroic and below, need more immediate dps that an affliction lock has a hard time applying quickly.

i have a destro lock, and i have taken advantage of the new glyph system and used the glyph of conflagrate, which allows me to have immolate on a target, activate conflagrate, and not consume the immolate spell. this is especially useful because after i use conflagrate i then spam incinerate, which does additional damage if used while immolate is active. my spell rotation is as follows: chaos bolt(with reduced cooldown glyph), immolate, conflagrate(with glyph), incinerate(spam until immolate runs out). it proves to be an enormous amount of dps that only gets higher with better gear. Of course, mana becomes an issue in long fights, but with proper spec choices and a good healer(life tap ftw lol), this issue becomes nominal. in addition to this chain of spells, the proper use of shadowfury, Rain of Fire and SoC helps in moderate AoE damage, despite the tendency of these spells to, at times, rip aggro off a tank that is not geared/experienced. this talent spec imo would provide the destro lock the best possible dps. http://thottbot.com/warlock/t#c/Y23/E,I8sWL,r feel free to comment or correct anything i may have stated incorrectly (no ones perfect lol)

To the destrolock that posted his spec, lose Soul Leech and Improved Soul Leech and put those talents into Intensity and Backlash. Drop Molten Skin and put those talents into Demonic Aegis. You don’t need mana/life regen in raids, that’s what life-tap and healers are for. In fact, with Glyph of Life Tap and the 4 set bonus from t7.5 you want to life-tap fairly consistently. There’s also no point in going that far down the demo tree and not picking up Demonic Aegis. Raid buffed you should be getting 500~600 spirit, and demonic Aegis will give an extra 45~55 spell spower and Backlash gives an extra 3% crit. You’re a dpser … take the dps talents.

Back to the general topic however, I’m currently testing an Imp based hybrid spec (0/40/31) that grabs conflagrate. My imp puts out 600+ dps in raids, not far behind a Feltard, but also gives me +5% crit and allows me to take Conflagrate which is a big dps boost (1 gcd to do 5~10k every 10 seconds).

I’ve had over 50% crit raid buffed in this build (~30% with firestone, +5% from imp, +5% from Ruin, +5% from boomkin aura, +5% from Imp SB/Scorch, +3% from focus magic). Compared to deep destro I lose the spell power on my incinerates from S&F, lose 15% damage on Immo (and therefore conflag) from F&B, lose 15% imp damage and lose backdraft and chaos bolt. CB is made up for by decimation (1.4 sec cast time Soul Fires). 15% imp damage is made up for by the +25% imp damage & 5% imp crit from demo talents. Demonic Knowledge gives spell power to my incinerates, and the demo build also gives +5% fire damage and nearly 12% crit, so my incinerates are actually bigger. That same +5% fire damage, +spell power and +12% crit makes up for the loss of 15% immolate damage so my immolates (and therefore Conflags) are just as big as destros. The +25% Conflag crit which you only get on 1 in 3 Conflags at best is not as good as the straight +12% from the demo talents, so Conflag is better.

So, better incinerates and conflags, roughly equal immolates, and a better pet. Soul Fires used 2 to 3 times as often as CB when target under 35% goes a long way towards making up for that lack. That pretty much just leaves backdraft, which is compensated for by Molten Core. Keeping up a couple of dots which are dps gains to keep MC proccing isn’t that hard.

Basically, there’s no reason to go deep destro in PvE any more.

Could you please talk about some topics about how mages can survive
Thxs

check out wow forums eu loc guide much better

would love to see something like this for pallies if anyone can show me a site even that explains stat caps and whatnot ill even go for that ty and as always great article dys thanks for sharing ur vast knowledge with all of us “noobs” lol

so uh ive started leveling my warlock, just hit NR with him, but i see you dont really comment on which pet to use, any ideas/tips