The title should hopefully say it all. We just killed the Twin Emps, and are headed off to both Ouro/Cthun and Instructor Razuvious now. My question is (IGNORING dmg meters on trash, boss encounters only) what have people's successes been with both 7/21/21+2 and NF/Conflag for late AQ40 and Naxx bosses. I want to push for the maximum damage on bosses I can get.

I recently picked up 7/21/21+2, and so far I love it. Great shadowbolt spam build with some versatility. However, NF/Conflag seems to do more sustained damage than I thought possible. How have you found it on long, single target boss fights? Intricate fights like Cthun?

This question was probably far too specific? Try it and out and see I guess.

I tried DS/Ruin (after being NF/Conflag for about 4 months) not too long ago and eventually realised how much better certain talents make me in a raiding environment.

Not having Grim Reach drove me insane. Having to run within 30 yards of crap to throw up a curse, then run 6 yards back felt so stupid. I was also unable to give the tanks blood pact and had to keep reminding the group leader to put a different warlock in the tank group because he was so used to throwing me in there. Another thing I really, REALLY misssed was the burst damage of Conflag.

In MC and BWL there really isn't any fight where burst damage or fire damage in general are necessary because the fight is either totally simplistic (Anything in MC), the boss is completely immune to fire (Rag, Vael, Drakes, Nef) or the threat you generate is huge issue (Lashlayer).

A Conflag spec in AQ40 and Naxx is like stepping into a giant themepark made just for you. In almost every fight in AQ40, burst damage is essential and you can get away with using fire spells. I find myself using Searing Pain a lot in AQ40 simply because threat is just not an issue on a lot of fights, whether its impossible to pull aggro (C'thun), I want to pull aggro (Ouro), pulling aggro doesn't even matter (Sartura) or I'm too busy doing other crap that the threat I generate doesn't matter (Fankriss). And the burst damage, by GOD the burst damage, makes you king of the hill on certain fights.

Same deal with some fights in Naxx. I wanted to break down and cry like a little child when I was DS/Ruin spec on Maexxna and was but a mere shadow of my former self when I had to get people out of those Cacoons, or trying to kill the scarabs on Anub'Rekhan running around chewing up the healers and those stupid gargoyles. All kinds of stuff.

I certainly wouldn't recommend NF/Conflag on something like Patchwerk, unless you're getting constant heals or you have more pots than sense. That's the kind of fight where DS/Ruin shines for longevity.

Bibdy - you say DS/Ruin shines for longevity. Is this because you use a restorative sacrifice (VW / FH)? Or simply the mana efficiency of your spells?

How many fights in late AQ40/Naxx would you really say you missed DS of either VW or FH for longevity?

I know that two of our warlocks have had extremely good success with 7/21/23, and both of them are warlock DM competitive while generally being undergeared. From my own experience messing around with the class, I think it definately offers the most raid flexibility and damage potential. The changes to lifetap may mix this up some, but pre 1.12 being able to get almost 500 mana per 5 as a warlock was kind of insane.

I used the VW or FH saccing almost exclusively. I didn't see the point in sacrificing the Succubus on fights where I'm going to be taking damage. The intention was to make me less of a burden on the healers and be self sustaining.

But, for me at least, what I sought to gain from DS/Ruin wasn't sufficient to cover what I lost from Nightfall/Conflag. There are just too many fights and situations where NF/Conflag helps me and DS/Ruin doesn't.

Plus, NF/Conflag is waaaaay better at group PvP. That was pretty much the nail in the coffin for me ;)

I'm so torn between keeping the flexibility of being able to sac a VW on fights where I take dmg, and going the pure damage route. Currently, PvP is not something I do more than once a week if at all (even on a PvP server, I just have time to log to our raids).

From my experience, NF/Conflag is rather impractical for raiding. As a poster above me mentioned, not having grim reach is annoying, but getting your immolate knocked off constantly before you can conflag it is even more so. It seems too situational to be worth it IMO.

I've never really seen Immolate get bumped off that often. It always seems to last the full 12 seconds before I blow a conflag. If you restrict warlocks to just 1 DOT each and then fill up debuff slots as they appear to be available then you should be okay.

Oh and tell people not to use shitty controllable debuffs like Rend and Serpent Sting.

Ah, the reliance on DOTs to be effective, I had forgotten about that. We typically bring 4-5 warlocks to a raid (they're one of our most active and competent classes), so perhaps I will stick with DS/ruin.

Eh, sort of. If you get stuck in the MT group then ok, you have to have that Imp out, but then at least you have Improved Imp (which a lot of other builds don't). Aside from that, there are a ton of fights in Naxx and AQ40 where even if the extra Imp HP is useful for your party, the fact that they're going to be constantly gaining and losing the buff from movement nullifies the utility they'd gain.

VVV Obviously so VVV

I played around with a conflag type build myself and found that SM/ruin was probably on par if not better when you focus into shadow damage stuff... there was nothing that conflag gave me, even having mages keeping 5/5 scorch up, that made it do more damage than the other locks. I'd be fairly curious to see your gearset, and even to have someone who's experienced in that type of build compete with an SM/ruin lock... Although, with the recent life tap changes, it might be a bit better, but I personally found it was a bit too much micromanagement just to be able to compete with the others on damage...

I'm currently SM/ruin and likely will follow suit in the xpack and go something around 40/0/21. I tend to focus myself toward crit gear, to pair with ruin, as crits give me the most dps benefit in long and short fights. I was DS/ruin for a while but found that what it gave me in longevity it truly lacked in damage capabilities. Now that I'm back to SM/ruin I likely won't leave the spec again. A few renews here and there work wonders, and even in fights like faerlina, I find myself having plenty of heals and health to manage, and if I don't I will use potions and healthstones and bandages to make up for it. Siphon life helps uqite a bit too, especially with imp SB every so often, and if you get it off during a toep (if you have it), it's worth quite a bit of regen...

Oh I'm not talking about pure damage here. Theoretically other builds can do more damage over long durations, but, like I've tried to explain to people on the WoW warlock forums (entirely in vain, I might add) there's a huge difference between a theoretical fight where you can just go balls to the damned wall damaging something and the actual fights in the game today.

If I could stand there and spam shadowbolts, Corruptions, COAs etc time the cows came home with SM/Ruin I doubt my current build would stand a chance in keeping up. NF/Conflag is just convenient for me. I've tried a ton of builds and this is the one for me.

When TBC comes out, I imagine I'll end up with a 41/0/20 or 20/0/41 build for the same reason that NOT having certain talents drives me crazy.

No, to clarify: I meant NF/Conflag NEEDS to have the DOTs up and not having them constantly getting knocked off. Otherwise, you can't do what the title says: NF or conflag. I keep up my DOTs as DS/Ruin, but they are not long lived.

Fair point.

What do you mean? In most fights I sac a succubus, reserving the regen sac only when it's really worth it to the healers. I don't think DS/Ruin is any less dmg on a SB-spam fest with a sacced succy that SM ruin. On the contrary, it seems like it should outperform.

Because the second you have to be in the tank group you'll go ':('

And you get a little bit of both worlds with SM, siphon life is a rediculously good buff to have, especially in naxx where there are lots of targets to keep it up on. If you do the math on siphon life, without even including imp SB procs or other buffs (weapon nightfall, shadow priest, etc) it will provide an equivalent 95mp5 AFTER you consider the cost of the dot. Assuming it doesn't get bumped off, but if you have a decent group, you should be able to keep dots fine.

So you get:
Mana regen (siphon, drain if necessary)
Imp out so you can be in the tank group, or provide health benefit to your group
10% shadow damage from SM so that you get your dps

Whereas with DS you get:
Mana regen, low(er) dps, no imp
DPS, no mana regen, no imp
Imp, low(er) dps, no mana regen

I think I'd rather have all 3.

And when you sacrifice your pet, that whole tree is going to waste for that ONE point. Who wants to spend 20 points in a tree to have all of them wasted just for that one talent. There are plenty of decent abilities in the affliction tree that will help your raiding plenty.

Oh not to mention the fact that when you're learning new bosses, you'll have a rediculous amount MORE shards when you don't have to spend 1 just to be able to fight.

SM/Ruin with the new lifetap is incredible. I just won DMMs on Grobbulus (we have melee mainly on slimes, so they do a lot of running, making it a ranged dps competition) with constant refreshing of Immolate, Corruption and CoA (had I believe five Warlocks). Hunters were close for a while, as were Mages, but their DPS slowed down a bit while I could just keep going.

Don't discount the Nightfall procs either. It comes out to 4 extra shadowbolts per 100. With a crit rate of 20% and base shadowbolt damage of 1200'sh that's an average extra +58 dmg per shadowbolt.

No, I didn't count the 1.5s cooldown for casting in that. But nor were things like shadow weaving, imp sb, and such counted.

The lines aren't very clear. Further, when you toss in the HP regen from Siphon Life (about 800 every 30s) and the benefit of Imp. LT with new Life Tap(though most builds here are getting the 7 in affliction) and it gets even blurrier.

It's nothing close to the sort. You are claiming an increase of 58 damage over a base of 1200 due to Nightfall, or a 4.8% increase in damage. (You can discount crit rate when discussing the % increase because NF Shadowbolts benefit identically from Crit as non NF Shadowbolts).

A better way to look at Nightfall is this:
When attacking a single target, assuming Corruption is efficient enough to put up regardless of Nightfall (it usually is), Nightfall will proc once every 75 seconds on average.
When Nightfall procs, it shaves 1-1.5 (if you don't have Bane) off the casting time of your Shadowbolt. Since nearly all raiding builds currently have Bane, we will use 1.0 seconds.
Assuming you were going to Shadowbolt anyway (which is most of the time), you gain 1 second of casting time every 75 seconds over a Warlock without Nightfall.

Since Warlock Mana is infinite, given healing, saved time translates nearly directly to a gain in DPS. (If you don't get healing, casting faster doesn't necessarily mean you'll do more damage. This is the lynchpin of SM/DS advocates against Bane, although there are few situations where it is applicable).

1/75 = 1.33% Nightfall is a 1.33% increase to DPS on single target fights.
It's obviously worth more when dealing with multiple targets, but the encounters are few and far between.

When you want mana regen, DS will do it better than Siphon Life. DS returns more life, without costing mid-fight mana or a global cooldown every 30 seconds. When you're worried about self-sustaining, SM/Ruin can't pull ahead of DS/Ruin because your higher base damage is curbed by your more limited regen.

When you want maxed DPS, DS will do it better than Shadow Mastery. Max DPS implies you're getting healed after Life Taps, in which case Siphon Life is just contributing to overheal.

When you want an imp... you picked the wrong spec. Any build with a significant investment in Demonology sucks while using an imp. I'll concede this point. If you are going to be expected to provide an Imp, DS/Ruin is not for you.

5/5 Demonic Embrace and 2/2 Improved Healthstone are not a waste. Also Fel Domination with Master Summoner makes changing your specialization mid fight easy. Think about encounters like Maexxna or Huhuran. You might want to start with DS Voidwalker to be less-reliant on healers during the easy part, and then switch to DS Succubus for the 30% burn.

As for shards, bring more. Pass out healthstones before the raid even starts, and request that they be saved for a boss encounter. Replace as many of those shards as you can ASAP. Get shards from the more trivial trash mobs. They are there for a reason.

As a sidenote you can have 0/2 1/2 and 2/2 imp. HP stones all at the same time.