9% increase on overall dps from Imp SB? I don't think so. By the time you cast your next SB, at least 2 charges are consumed by other locks spamming SB or a shadow priest. Pray for +hit to work.

In my mind it always fell under the category of "creative use of game mechanics".

URL or it didn't happen. There are plenty of other ways of getting the same effect. I like using blessing of sacrifice.

What do you mean it's not true. Do the math yourself. Improved shadowbolt is almost like another ruin.

MD/ruin does not lack corruption. I have been using corruption just fine, considering the aftercast.

I don't know about you, but I am planning on getting 25% from MD/ruin until I see a URL where this is stated to be an exploit, or until the mechanics change.

But let's assume you are right, and sac/rez goes away next patch. Let's tally things up:

SM/DS:

10% + 15% + 3% + 1% = 29%
(SM) (DS) (NF) (faster corruption, and I am being generous)

MD/Ruin:

15% + 20% + 9% + 10% + 5% =~ 59%
(DS) (bane) (imp sb) (ruin) (devastation)

I am willing to backup every single % I put in this post.

Its not intended, most of us have the integrity to realise that and choose not to use it.

Siphon life is nice if you use it, you generally have more hit on your dots/curses, you use less shards, your dps potential doesnt change if you're in the mt group or a caster group (not counting shaman totems)

The MD/DS Trick to get both bonuses is indeed considered a bug. It is included in the known issues list on the official forums. Just scroll down a bit until you reach the warlock section.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...p=1#post148782

Oh dear lord. Ok. Warlocks asked Tseric I think on the wowforums about the sac/rez issue. Tseric said: "I will ask the devs about it." Shortly thereafter sac/rez appeared on the warlock's 'currently researched issues' list. We haven't heard anything from Tseric since. Sac/rez stayed on that list for at least 2-3 patches. In fact, sac/rez has been in the game since release.

Now. It may be Blizzard will finally decide this will be gotten rid of. But it seems to me from their behavior up to now that they have not even decided whether this is intended behavior or not. Not a single person has using sac/rez has received disciplinary action of any kind, as is normally the case with exploiting buggy behavior. Not a single official from blizzard that I can see ever said using sac/rez was exploiting a bug. I just hear a lot of rumors and conjecture, and no pointers to concrete policy.

I understand Blizzard's position perfectly -- it is not obvious sac/rez is abusive. In many ways sac/rez is a very 'warlocky' tactic -- the class is full of tactics like that (for example controlling fear using curse of recklessness, or using infernal fire aura to guard nodes by releasing and banishing it, or using curse of doom and banish to solo hederines, or using fear and curse of doom to solo borelgore, or ... etc). Sac/rez does allow warlocks to pile on multipliers, but this doesn't really give warlocks superior dps due to mana and aggro issues. Sac/rez does not overpower warlocks in pvp since most prefer the utility of a pet.

Here is something that IS obviously abusive: Back in the olden days soul link was applicable to enslaved demons. The problem was, if you released a demon, the soul link stayed on it. So what one could do was go into a demon camp, enslave a demon, soul link, release. Enslave another demon, soul link, release. The soul link would STACK, and pretty quickly, warlocks would get 100% mitigation and could solo the camp. THIS is abusive. Sac/rez? Hell, I think warlocks need help even if sac/rez is intended. Incidentally, this bug is why soul link does not work on enslaved demons anymore. Blizzard couldn't find a better way to fix this.

For posterity, there was also a gloriously hilarious bug around that time where a 'lock soloing the satyr tricksters in Felwood (and only those satyrs) somehow managed to turn himself invulnerable by manipulating enslave demon/soul link/satyr mind control. Any damage caused to him by NPC entities would immediately reset both his hp and mp bars, and any effort to target him with spells by members of the opposing faction would pop up an error message akin to "this target is charmed" and refuse to cast. A 'lock on my realm stumbled into it entirely by accident before being reset by a GM and I'm privy to at least one other occurance on a different realm with a SL-specced warlock.

I still say this was the root cause for the chance, but nobody believes me. :(

Yes, know that they said for a couple of patches that they will look into it. Recently it appeared on the known issue list I linked in my post above and the conclusion should be obvious to everyone. It was looked into and is now considered a bug. No further statement by any official on the forums is needed to recognize this. That it was working since the dawn of beta or whenever is hardly an argument. I don't even know from the top of my head if MD was there from the begining or not.

Blizzard unfortunately has a policy of acknowledging bugs and not punishing people for using them. You are right, that Blizzard may never come around fixing this issue. You'll also be able to get a ton of different answers when you start asking the ingame customer service. But please, you asked for a official source and I provided it. It's a bug and therefor it shouldn't be included in a list of viable talentbuilds at least not in a serious discussion. I think we can both agree on that.

As I noticed this wasn't answered, the only reason to spec MD for the Twin Emperors if you can't get the 60 SR elsewhere. We only used Warlocks specced for it on our first kill, now we have one SM/Ruin Warlock and one Conf Warlock tank it with no issues. From my point of view it's actually nicer this way, the tanking Warlocks now use a Voidwalker usually which they can always use for a quick shield, it also means that in case only our tanking Warlocks are online for some reason we can let them tank the caster and still give the tanks an imp buff.

Even if you are a tanking warlock on twin emps you really shouldnt have to go MD purely for the extra shadow res. With a mix of nemesis/felheart pieces with +SR, runed stygian set, 2 rings from ah, neck from broodlord head, gift of arthas etc i get 312 shadow res with no felhunter - and i dont even have that damn blasted lands trinket or the engineering one (nor any of the epic shadow res drops that our warriors keep ninjaing :p).

Furthermore post BWL aggro really isnt an issue on most fights (at least for alliance), so there really is absolutely no reason to be MD anymore, especially once you get the fetish trinket and can throw on 8/8 nemesis situationally if really necessary

For AQ I've found a destruction heavy conflag spec works best. Cthun, Viscidus, Fankriss, Emps etc all benefit from it

For Naxx if you arent using imp:

If you are using imp then SM/Ruin would be the way to go. I definitely agree with Chiquihuite that people make too much out of the imp buff. Furthermore I think people make too much out of the imp imp buff. You can pretty much go with just one imp imp in your raid for the MT group if you really feel its necessary - but in my entire raiding lifetime I can think of maybe only 1 or 2 occasions that imp imp saved the MT from death and i bet on both those occassions he either wasnt using stam food (at the very least not the +25 chops) or elixir of fortitude :p