In regards to instances and drain tanking when pulling aggro, I had no troubles with this until starting the mana tombs at 65.

We were a little low with mostly 64s for teammates who have all played together often, but the mobs in their have crazy combinations of Mortal Strikes, Mana burns, mana explosions, etc.

Incredible instance as far as making everyone really step up and pay attention. This was the first instance that I really felt would make people be choosy about what classes they brought along.



Anyway, my point was that you probably do NOT want to drain tank some mobs in there.

What I like most about elitist jerks is the numbers.
And I'd like to see some on this thread.
Everyone is raving about their build being awesome and fantastic and the best levelling spec possible.
Well, what is your xp per hour? What is your down time (people have been good about addressing this)?
How many mobs can you pull before stopping?

My build is 41/13/0.
My xp per hour @ lvl 60 (when I was 41/10) was 176k/hr. That was when I wasn't admiring the beautiful sky in outland. Hard questing, pulling every mob I can find.
Since then, I imagine its gone up if I pure grind, considering I now have fel armor and som weak gear has been replaced. I now have T1/outland gear, with about 350 Spell damage with fel armor.
For those of you who claim Demo is a better grinder than affliction, what is your pure grinding xp/hr? Please include how much spell damage you have.

I also think we should try to modify the parameters of this thread somewhat. Lets try to look at uniform grinding mobs. Questing varies too much depending on whether you know exactly how to do the quests, and which quests you currently have available. To make a controlled analysis of specs, therefore, lets look at pure solo grinding.

As an example:
Build (41/13/0)
Grinding Lvl 62-63 Mobs
XP/Hr: 176k/hr Unrested
Buffed* Spell Damage: 370
Additional Comments: I pull with UA, then CoA, Siphon, Corr. Second mob is identical. For third mob, I HoT to get rid of the first 2, so I can UA pull again. DoT up. UA 4th Mob, DoT up.
I have an imp out, who does nothing but provide me with mana for DP. I usually DP/LT while getting into range for other mobs. Despite having 4/5 Fel Conc, I almost never use Drain Life. I've found that stopping every 15-20 mobs to eat/drink (after LT down, of course) is actually FASTER than draining life during pulling. If you think about it, Drain Life for 5 sec gets you X amount of health, while expending Y amount of mana (Depending on how much you get interrupted, spell damage, etc). Drinking/eating for 5 sec can get you more, depending on the specific case.
(* Where buffed is what you usually have when you play, Fel Armor, for example)

Stop raving about how great your spec is, and lets see some numbers!

Edit: I concede that having demo for questing may be better. Having a tank with you to surgically complete quests (for example, tanking a mob while you pick up a quest item or something) could be faster than affliction or demo. I'd like to see a pure grinding comparison, as it has the most controlled variables.

Edit 2: If you have a spec that can consistently run instances (w/o) quests and has a high xp/hr, I'd be interested in that too.

The large pull that Demology gives me for leveling is Intercept. Since I started a few levels late (only 62), I am about the same level as the masses.

So the fact that the Pet can run up fast so I can get the tap is useful (you could do the same thing with Shadowburn though).

Also, looking at your Character sheet and seeing a lot of +damage on it is fun.


I have 10 9/43 atm, and the only problem is the Felguard takes a lot of damage (at least I can nearly instant summon every 15 minutes when he gets low and his sac gives a decent bonus while he is dead), and some healers in instances don't heal the pet, so in a PuG I have to stop and use health funnel.

I will get another point to max the damage reduction upon leveling to 63.

nublock - I was 40/17/0 until two days ago, then I respec'd 13/44. I did all of 60-68 as an affliction lock (minus UA), I tended to drain life so I hardly ever, ever drank or ate. According to experienceFu I would average around 120k xp/hour questing+grinding, a lot of times I would stop to enjoy the scenery so it was slowed down a bit.

I did all of 68 and so far 50% of 69 as 13/44. I'm averaging around the same, around 130k xp/hour. I do have to stop and drink a LOT more now, I've gone through 3 stacks of water and food whereas before I went through maybe 2 stacks in all of 60-68.

I can kill stuff slightly faster, but I can kill fewer things over a period of time. I really notice no huge difference in solo-ability, except for perhaps tapping mobs and grabbing things while mobs are busy (herbs, quest items). Tapping mobs has not been a problem because I'm far enough ahead of the general population that the zones arent too crowded.

imo Affliction is actually MORE suited for hard quests and mobs, because of the huge health returns per second you can achieve. With ~500 spell dmg I was sometimes getting healed for over 800/tick with 3-4 mobs, so even a bunch of stuff beating on me did absolutely nothing. Whereas with demo I have come close to dying many times if I get 3-4 multi-mob pulls when i'm near oom (never an issue with affliction). I do have to micro-manage more with demo, keeping an eye on my hp/mana and my felguards. With demo I'm sitting at around 720 spell damage.

In the end I don't think it matters too much, just a personal playstyle. There are very few spots in the world where you can chain 5 mobs at a time for hours on end (Nagrand being one of the few), usually you kill a bunch in an area and have to spend travel time finding more mobs. By the same token there have been maybe 10-15 quest mobs I have found that hit hard enough to really care about having a felguard out, and all become trivial with 2 people (the elite giants in netherstorm for example or the elite end-animals in nagrand).

For most people with good gear (T2+) imo affliction will be the superior leveling build, simply because you can take on so many mobs at once without a care and you don't have to really pay too much attention. For people with poor 60 gear felguard is better, as the lack of +dmg hurts all your dots/drain much more. Demo is also better if you only ever want to kill 1 mob at a time, or if your server is extremely crowded and spawn camping is a big problem (affliction is horrible on trying to get taps).

This is all solely regarding leveling 60-70, I have done almost no PVP and no battlegrounds/arena during this time, and only ran a few instances - no problem with either spec for instancing, just have to have a good tank.

I soloed all the Mastery Quests in Nagrand (non fearable mobs!), as well as soloing pretty much every other group quest in the game, as Demo. You cant do this with affliction.

Demo is for sure suited to hard mobs. Because you have a pet with 60% DR, huge health, and SL.

I have done about 5 non PvP/Non-instance corpse runs in Outlands. Havn't done a single one since level 64 or so. For sure the most survivable spec.

Demo should also never have to drink. You should perhaps have to health funnel once in a while, but it's not very often.

The other virtues of Demo I've already covered above.

If you have many mobs with Demo the trickis to get the Guard tanking them all, then switching back to the main target, DoT and nuking as needed. If Felguard gets low you need to funnel him. It can take many mobs safer than Affliction (less chance ot die, no matter what mob type), but it is slower. It's much more suited to single or two target killing.

Demo kills single targets MUCH faster. My current way is to send guard in, Corruption, Imm, Incin, drain. That kills most of the mobs I'm fighting at the moment and takes less than 10 seconds.

Stats at level 68 are currently:

8.5khp
7k mana
10% crit chance
656 +damage.

I think the main differences between Afflicton and Demo is like has been said many times bofore, playstyle.

If you like 2 mobs at once, high survival, another way to get the tap, not tanking, medium burst, Demo is the best.

If you like 3+ mobs at once, medium survival, Drain Tanking, low burst, Affliction is best.


Corruption, Immo, Incin, Drain Life is the way to go as deep Demo (once you hit 64).

The thing to remember about Demo leveling is you really need 44 points in the tree for it to shine (getting 1/3 in Mana Tap and 3/3 in reducing pet damage is what I find the best).

I agree for PvP, that talent is great and I wouldn't want to PvP without it. However, with a Felguard, you really don't need instant fear.

Nfariessence, a lil' favor
I'm still 63 on the lock so i can't check it for myself, but are the non-fearable mobs in the Mastery quests immune to CoEx?

Just an alternative that people often tend to forget, takes a hair longer than fear kiting but still perfectly safe.

Otherwise i'll just do as you've told and pick an npc felguard.

I ~believe~ so, but I'll go back and check tonight. In beta I killed the Talbuk named solo (SE portion of the map) because his adds take little interest in you. Being able to pick up a 20k HP, 1200 melee swingin' Felguard from one of the Forge Camps just a 30 second ride from the named Clefthoof and Razorwing names just made it too attractive (and fun) to pass up. I didn't even test out CoEx at that time.

Yup, CC is much more vital there because mobs have abilities that cause trouble over time. Summoning adds, nasty mana burn, etc.

Half of them have a kick or spell interrupt / counterspell to. On the other hand, most of the hardest pulls there can be brought back where fear is safe, and if short on CC you can seduce one, fear another. Fun place, definitely not for drain tanking. I was in there at level 63 (65 tank though).

I guess I'll have to explore and see the other instances to find out how viable off-tanking is as a warlock as things go forward. Its not just the special abilities, its that so many things just hit fairly weakly. When you are draining 300 to 350 or so health per second from a target, they have to hit you pretty hard to be a problem. And on top of that, any heals on you from other people is 20% bigger too.... If there is a shadow priest around Vampiric Embrace combined with your drain is often enough to tank 1.

Auchenai Crypts was the first instance where I really felt I couldnt peel a mob off and solo it without taking unnecessary risks. We were really spoiled by both the enemy type and layout of all the hellfire and coilfang instances- they're VERY fear friendly. Even Mana Tombs is very friendly by comparison.

Very true. Plus relying on fear too much just gets you owned by competent players and certain classes. Affliction has it's strengths, but it can get owned by melee players who know how to stun and trinket/WotW/CloS/etc.

Demo is rather good at PvP because you have huge health and big heals (HS crit for nearly 5k hp, yes please), and the Felguard still does some very respectible damage. It's just a bit boring.

I'm going to respec destro once I hit 70 for sure.

Anyway, this is all a little OT.

Pretty sure we've established that both Affliction and Demo are great Leveling trees at this point; not much more to say.

(Though, as regards Enslaving in Nagrand: I must have got unlucky the time I toyed with them as it broke quite early - with CoS on it. I never bothered to use it on the Mastery elites as I didn't need to.)

Oh, and for those who care to know:

Felguard tank stats at 68:

5.2k hp
7.5k AC (44% DR)

Can hold aggro very well. Better than a shitty warrior. I have to turn off Aungish when grouping or the Felguard just tanks most of the time. Great OT in instances still, but I expect this to taper off once I hit 70.

Soul Shatter can get resisted. Better to use it before you get aggro just in case.

Also. You getting aggro, then the tank taunting, then you soul shattering would give the tank a better aggro lead overall.

Yeah actually I wasn't aware soulshatter could be resisted until it happened to me earlier today with a mob beating on me. Nasty surprise, that.

Not every boss is tauntable though. I guess for raid bosses you'd be best sticking right below the tank's aggro using KTM, and then once he's up to a good amount of threat, you go for a soulshatter, and if it's not resisted, you can go all out the rest of the fight.

Thanks for the advice and this thread. I specced out of Affliction into Demonology and it's a lot of fun so far. The felguard is a very capable tank indeed at lvl 53, I was able to solo lvl 60 undead in EPL despite having 4-6 resisted casts per kill. I wouldn't normally try to tackle mobs seven levels higher than myself but after ripping the hell out of lvl 53 elites in Burning Steppes I thought I might push my own personal envelope. Also, my lock is sporting +264 shadow damage right now and with the +dmg demo buffs my shadow bolts are hitting very hard indeed.

This is exactly what happened with me.

Here is an idea for leveling build , works very good , I have tested it myself.
At least 40 in destruction(be sure to get soul leech) , 7 or 9 in affliction(for improved lifetap/drainsoul) and rest of the points where ever you like.
The grinding strategy is :
Send pet(use sucubus) , get max distance ofcourse, as the pet his the mob you should be landing rank1 immolate on it(it wont aggro you). So now you are at max range , start casting incenerates (x3) the 3rd will hit the mob before it touches you and if its still not dead use conflagrate !. Both incenerate and conflagrate have great DPM.
Well ofcourse you cant use it before level 64 but after that it is really fast and painless way to grind ! I was grinding for hours without having food or water just ocasional bandage and/or canibalize :)
p.s. Never stay at full HP so you could take full benefit of soul leech :). Also you will be doing amazing dps in those 5 man instances.
cheers , happy grinding :)

This is a really good point. After loving affliction for the first few levels, and then trying deep demo and enjoying it but feeling too much like a one-trick pony and hating being worthless without my pet, I decided to try out destruction after I got incinerate. The problem I had with affliction in 5-mans was I never felt like I was contributing very much, as with the kind of dps our guild can put out, I was never able to get a single dot cycle up on trash and nuking as affliction is just painful to me without ruin and little +crit.

I played around with a few variants, including shadowfury and such, and was loving incinerate (especially paired with a fire mage for imp scorch on boss fights in instances). The only thing I didn't like was the fact that I had a lot of downtime while questing and was spending a fair bit of cash on the good vendor water when I didn't have a mage pal around.

So after thinking about it a bit and playing with the talent calculator on wowhead, I came to the conlusion that DS/Conflag + more destro is actually very amazing for grinding and still lets me have a blast in instances. Of note is the choice of 5/5 Cataclysm over ISB.

Previous poster's idea about rank 1 immolate works very well. However, I've found that I don't really even need imp lifetap nor instant corruption (what is this insanity!?, you say).

Why? DS sac (even with the 2% nerf) + demonic aegis is giving me about 180 hp/tick. In addition, I use [Power Infused Mushroom] and [Mark of Defiance] while grinding (switching them out for +dmg/+crit trinks in instances). I still hit like a truck, take mobs down very fast, and the trinket proc off of very cheap, very hard-hitting searing pains is a thing of beauty. Backlash proc (I chose backlash over soul leech for the crit, YMMV) or conflag to finish mobs off and the +200 mana tick plus maybe a lifetap is all that's needed to keep going. I rarely have to drink.

I think it works really well, even on mobs that hit pretty hard. Might not work so well for grinding at level 70, but in the mid to high 60s it's been rock-solid.

In case it's not obvious, DS the imp in instances and you'll be loving your 5608 soulfire crits with decent +dmg =)

A level 67 spec would look something like:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AZdxczIbzZVx0tr0tVuM

Cheers,
Anna

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

That is my current build. While I am still questing (70, but still have a lot of quests to do still) I will not change. Affliction, as others have said, just doesn't have the damage output to compete in 5 Man Instances and Destruction doesn't have the soloability to hoon through the quests.

Odd.
I reread the topic to find others saying that, but didn't find anyone.

I did find others saying that affliction is quite the contender for 5mans, what with them offering unCC'ed multimob pulls and allathat.

Deep affliction with 14 points in destro is still excellent dps, you just gotta know what to DoT and what to nuke, much like in the old days.

The post directly above mine...

Affliction is the multi target and long fight king. 5 Mans can be a great place for Affliction spec, but it requires a group that kills many targets at the same time, and slowly, to really shine. There are not many groups like this.

Ironicly Demo more often has the option to kill multipule targets, as a Felguard is able to OT while dots tick on it's target and the Lock burns the main one.

Affliction IS great on bosses, I don't disagree. When you have time to get all those DoTs up and let them tick to full they can really shine. But Demo has powerful DoTs too, and more powerful Nukes, and Pet damage, and Drain life for Mana efficiency. So it also does well in boss fights.

I see it like this:

Affliction: Not so hot on trash, great on bosses.
Destruction: Destroys! trash, good to great on bosses depending on heals/soul leech).
Demo: Very good on trash, with OT option. Great on bosses.

I think all Lock specs are fine, but for me Demo is the best one for 5-mans and soloing, especially with PuGs.
Affliction is great for soloing and guild runs, especially raids (with some of the debuffs it has), but not as great for 5mans, especially pugs.
Destruction is not so great for consistent soloing, but great in 5 mans and raids.

Fair estimation?

Demo/Affliction is a truly great spec at the moment, affliction and destro can only touch it as you get closer to organised group runs/raids.

He said he never "felt". He never said affliction simply couldn't compete.
Add to that that he's the only chap that said that, unless i'm in dire need of having my eyes checked.

On groups, try pugging nowadays, every bloody hunter i meet is too dumb to use traps and every rogue doesn't know flash bombs exist and tries to sap staring straight into the eyes of the mob with 0 points MoD. Fun fun affliction times. Having a little better luck with the tanks if i only throw 2 dots on the extra mobs, throwing 3 is pushing my luck and asking to have to draintank a mob >_>

How are "I don't feel it can compete" and "It cannot compete" different? This whole conversation is opinion so far.

I believe I said in my previous post that Affliction CAN compete, it just requires specific situations. Meanwhile Demo can compete in pretty much any. It is BLATANTLY obvious that Demo can do much greater single target damage than Affliction over a short period of time. As 5 mans require a lot more of this (especially in PUGs) it's easy to see how one can 'feel' that affliction cannot compete.

Unless you have a decent tank you trust you shouldn't really DoT to many other targets. It's just asking for trouble, trouble that is your fault as much as theirs (they might not be a great tank, but you exacerbate it) because you're affliction and rely so much on multipule DoT targets to compete damage wise.

EDITED: to remove some (provocative?) capital letters.