Bill

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AV0bZfxhuR0oZEx0xM0z

Is there a more effective build for raid dps, aggro issues aside (I'm the easymode faction), for endgame warlock dps. With a sacced succi,ruin, and the lame 5% less mana cost on shadowbolt you get a decent dps, and better than anything I can come up with on the talent calulator and what I've tested myself. You also keep improved imp and healthstone for when you need to buffer up the MT ( I know using this dps build you are not using the imp for your group but in my situation aleast there are 2 other warlocks who usually do that)

Any input, ideas or number crunching would be appriciated.

 

• frmorrison

No Shadowburn? It doesn't help raid dps much, but a fun spell nonetheless.

I don't know how often you cast affliction spells, but would 2 points in the -resist talent on them help over reducing destruction spell cost? So something like 9/21/21?

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

firebird365

The resist talent only affects Affliction spells, unfortunately.

I personally like the 7/21/23 spec for raiding, but I can't imagine a situation where 0/30/21 would be worse-- you maintain nearly the same functionality (albeit without Improved Life Tap) but have the option of sac/resing your pet, drastically increasing your DPS output.

Perhaps Improved Life Tap is worth it, though.

 

Morfina

We had a warlock hit about 450 DPS on Patchwerk - He wasn't getting Nightfall and all of our mages were Ice so that lowered his DPS a little as well; Of course, had he used the same stuff on most other bosses he'd have pulled aggro (He did on Anub'Rekhan the week before, to test said spec).

I suppose the question about that is, do you want DPS at the risk of aggro or do you want managable aggro with sustainable solid DPS ? Searing Pain, from what I understand, has an extremely high aggro value ?

 

Monsanto

Searing Pain generates 2x threat for each point of damage.

Druid: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...hol&n=Monzanto
Warrior: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...n=Thundershaft
Warlock: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...gos&n=Valdamar

 

mekrith

This won't be an option in 1.12 (in fact, is it even still an option in 1.11? I can't remember). Also, if you're willing to wear 8-pc Nemesis, SM/Ruin is a pretty sick dmg build because you can pour out the damage with your -threat set bonus without having to have gimp-ass MD imp spec (although, that would result in a total of -40% threat, which is sexy).

I personally prefer a Nightfall/Conflag spec even though it's pretty lame-o in MC...but seriously, who still does MC? I might be a bit biased because I used to PvP a lot and conflag is deadly in PvP, but I still say it can be damn useful in BWL/AQ if you stack DoTs and let immolate tick out before you conflag it (ala Swiftmend) as well as bolting on all NF procs and keeping mana high while DoTs tick...you can be sick.

Don't know how well it works in Naxx because I've yet to go, but it's probably not too different because those mobs don't seem to be fire-resistant since all the mages recently have been respeccing fire :socar:

 

• frmorrison

In 1.12, threat is multiplied, so you do generate 64% threat with both. Not a big difference, but it is a little more.

I thought I read the pet sac/rez trick would not work anymore in 1.12; if that is true then SM/Ruin should be best.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

◊ Nfariessence

With the prevailing trend of 2-3 warlocks max per raid (I just had an officers meeting last night where I was told "3 warlocks. max." Time to break it to the rest of my class.), you most likely will not have the luxury of DS/MD succy in a raid setting. Therefor any spec that you have should be pet dependent, or focus on having the imp out pretty much full time.

That being said, your best be is most ~probably~ an SM/Ruin or a NF/Conflag build. If your mages are frost, you should definitely go for SM/Ruin to maximize your SB damage. If they are fire or a mix, you might want to consider NF/Conflag so you can take advantage of the 25% (15% from mages and 10% from CoE) damage to fire. The only problem is - you'll have to watch your aggro like a hawk since you'll be spamming Searing Pain (200% threat modifier) and you may have some serious mana issues.

I'm SM/Ruin with about +625 shadow damage, and I lead the rest of my warlocks by 10-20% and even beat a few of the scrub mages on the DM. I also sport 8/8 Nemesis for the threat reduction, and have BoSEZModez.

And threat for warlocks has always been multiplicative, i.e. 8/8 Nemesis + BoS + Imp + Subtlety isn't 73% aggro reduction, it's only 57% (1 x .8 x .7 x .8 x .97 = .43456. 1 - .43456 = 56.543%). Only mages got the benefit of additive threat reduction with their class felat^h^h^h^h review.

 

NiXXeD

I'm currently 9/21/21 - with the 1320 healthstones for HS stacking...

I chose the 2 points in suppression because during any trash that has decent health, or pretty much anywhere in the game, you'll be using curses, and a resisted curse is going to cost you all of your extra mana that you might gain with only a couple points in cataclysm...

I find using DS Succ instead of SM is a bit better... If you really think about it, nightfall is nice and all, but it only reduces your cast time by 1 second thanks to global cooldowns. And you don't gain a whole lot of raiding viability out of that tree. Having DS will help in a lot more situations which will give you versatility that otherwise isn't available. Basically on any fight where we have the control completely, I use succ. If the fight has large environmental damage, which will cause me to be < 100% on health consistently, and it's not a DPS race, I'll have VW sac'd. And if it's long (> 3 minutes, without heals) type dps fight I'll use felhunter...

The conflag with fire mages sounds very interesting to me... We've got like 4 fire mages attending most of our raids, and I can almost always guarantee I'd see the +25% fire damage up on any given mob... I've always wished conflag was viable, and I may have to try that sometime just to see, but I'd hate to find out it was a shitty spec and end up spending 100g just to test... I would miss the ability to get large SB crits, considering how little micromanagement it is... I guess I'd just wonder if you could actually micromanage to get MORE damage out of this type of build compared to a standard SM/ruin or DS/ruin build...

 

Chimera2402

Conflag builds are all well and good. But please bear in mind you`ll never get a immo to last full duration during a boss fight. Ever. It's impossible i swear.

Personally i like SM/ruin for mad trash dps and pretty good boss dps.

 

mekrith

False.

If you're good about watching buffs and have a quick trigger finger...you can get the full (possible) duration out of it and pop a conflag every single time. Also, you gotta throttle some sense into your hunters/etc to not use stupid debuffs.

Although with the new mage review and frost and fire mages having applicable debuffs the put on, it kinda sucks that the bastards are using more of our precious debuff slots....I mean it's not as though they don't already get a huge benefit from (arguably) the best caster debuff out there.

 

Chimera2402

I speak from extensive experience and thats without silly debuffs going up:<

 

◊ Nfariessence

And what happens to your DPS when you're 1 of 2 warlocks in the raid and you need to have your imp out to Blood Pact your tanks? Then your dps goes to complete and utter shit.

I, and countless other warlocks, have been told that warlocks simply aren't a DPS class anymore. There are healing classes (priests, druids, pallies, shammies), DPS classes (warriors, rogues, mages, and hunters), and there is a utility class; the warlock. Our utility comes in 2 forms - the curses we apply to buff the DPS of the raid by ~10%, and the stamina buff that we provide to the main tanks. Additionally we also hand out healthstones, put up soulstones, and summon party members to speed up the raid. Our ability to DPS is secondary, and speccing for DS when you're basically using your imp 24/7 does nothing to make that DPS better.

I maintain that SM/Ruin or NF/Conflag are going to become the premier damage builds for raiding now that DS/MD stacking is no longer viable in 1.12.

 

• bartolimu

DS/MD stacking is, from what I hear, alive and well. The method to get it to work has changed slightly, but people are reporting getting the benefits on Test. Maybe it'll get fixed before it goes live. Maybe not.

SM/Ruin is, to me, the best warlock raid DPS spec because of the reasons stated before. It doesn't care what demon you have out (or if you have none). It's equally at home in the MT group or the caster group. The only problem is it gives up Improved Imp, which is a 30% increase to our buffing ability. That's a substantial hit. I suppose you could take Improved Imp and only 2/5 Shadow Mastery, but that's giving up 6% of your DPS. Is it worth that? Probably not for most encounters.

MD/Ruin is pretty neat too, but the loss of Improved Life Tap has more of an impact on long-term DPS than most people are willing to consider.

 

Zibro

I'm pretty sure SM/Ruin is better than any DS build on just about any fight other than Patchwerk. Any fight where there's no moving or breaking in action is going to benefit from DS, yeah, but there's not many of those fights, and Patchwerk is the only really bad one for us.

 

• Greybone

Man I wish they'd fix the DS/MD 'trick' already.

 

Chimera2402

Damn right.

 

Chiquihuite

People make way too big of a deal out of the imp buff, IMO. If you're not in a tank group, does it really matter that much? Oh Em Gee +55 sta to you, who already has way too much of it, and to 4 people in your group who, if you aren't in a tank group, are probably other ranged DPS that are unlikely to take serious hits(other than environmental damage) in which case it's almost always negatable by healing. I guess it lets your healers be lazy, but...come on. The few fights I can think of where that kind of heavy environmental damage occurs involve a shitload of moving around(which has a nasty tendency to negate the buff >=/)

btw, I remember seeing the supposed DS/MD nerf in the "fake" patch notes, but where was it stated that the nerf was official?

"They're Dragon Kill Points; not Dragon Feed Points"

 

silya

Well, if one is only taking 2 warlocks on a raid, the best spec would probably be a tossup between MD/ruin and 7/21/21+2.

MD/ruin gives you -20% threat, +60 resist (for huhu, emps, and other resist fights), and sac/rez. Incidentally, I love how useful felhunters are on huhu. MD makes them much more so :).

7/21/21+2 gives you better sustained dps.

Personally, the way warlocks are now, I wouldn't even bother optimizing their damage, and just go for maximum utility -- which is MD/ruin.

Of course I am biased -- I loathe the affliction tree with a passion.

 

Arnath

2 questions about this:
1) How do you deal with the lack of threat reduction in SM/Ruin?
2) I realize this is a very specific case, but doesn't the loss of MD make the Twin Emps rather more difficult if you use the warlock strat?

 

Radagast

Lurk a lot, rarely if ever post. Thought I would contribute a bit of my observations in this topic.

I used to raid as an SL lock ( 7-31-13 ) during bwl days and some in AQ ( we actually found great utility in using our SL locks on huhuran etc ). As we were finishing up in AQ all locks in our guild more or less respecced out of demonology and into various "high dps" speccs, I went 7-5-39 conflag, Another Sm/ruin and the rest mixed between sm/ruin and conflag builds.

Anyhow, to the point. I recently specced into 7-21-23(4 left over pts in destruction into 4/5 cataclysm) , I find the time spent lifetapping and our mana efficiency very annoying recently since we just began working on Patchwerk this has become even clearer. So togheter with full doomcaller and this build I figured I would atleast make my mana problem in raids less of a hindrance. This is what I think after a week in naxx with this build: Very nice sustained damage compared to other builds, On single target encounters the sm/ruin locks cant catch up to the 130ish MP4 and Rank10 307 manacost bolts. Worth noting is that I am rarely if ever on "blood pact duty".

I guess it really boils down to: Band aid mana effiency vs Strengths in areas like burst / high vs low maintenence.
Dont know how well the Fel energy does vs more dot intensive builds on multi-target encounters like Noth tho, I reckon the 7-21-23 might loose a bit on fights like that, but then thats just assumptions.

Hope that made some sense.

Oh and Arnath, we havent used demonology locks for tanking emps for quite some time, We've used conflag locks and it has worked out great.

 

• Greybone

BWL is heavily tuned for aggro management, while most other things aren't - though a passive aggro reduction would be nice :)
I don't think it's as big a problem as people seem to think.

 

Krill

Personally, I don't like builds that drop such things like Intensity and Shadowburn. Optimalization for one spell is nice and all, but losing any chance to deal decent AoE damage (especially Horde side) and our only real instant burst damage spell is a bit too much.

In group that does not use min-max setup and sticks to 5 per class system, warlocks actually have do more then just drop curse, deliver some stones then spam SB, while having 7 mages and similar number of rogues doing everything else.

SM/Ruin and Conflag vs. DS builds is basically imp vs. demon of your choice. It mostly depends on the group you are in then anything else.

PS. And yeah, past BWL aggro is not that big a deal, just get your fetish of sand reaver and you are good most of the time. And that's Horde, not Allies.

 

Herrera

I believe SM/DS (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=NE0bAMboVZfthuM0o) is slightly better in terms of raid dps over any Ruin build.
10% SM + 15% DS far overwheighs any dps that Ruin will give you. Important to mention that DS buff is calculated after all gear and after buffs (pots, flask etc). Sure you lose 2.5sec cast time on SB, but you get 10% on Corruption+CoA. Suppression is an outstanding talent for boss fights.
If someone has the time to some math and check if 15% flat dmg modifier is better than 5% crit + 100% bonus on crits, would help a lot.

Totem of the Crusader
Tools: Earth Totem
Increases mounted speed of all party members by 20% while in range of the totem.

 

• Greybone

It's 20% less dps on shadowbolt which is going to be a far bigger loss than the Corruption/CoA gains.
In reality it's even worse since the added cast time will mean you'll miss that last bolt much more often.