Afraid you don't really have much of a choice at that level, but hey, nowadays you won't even get carpal tunnel from hammering the dark pact hotkey, things have improved a lot =D

You could go destro, it would partially solve the issue, but you'd better have a mage friend for that o_O

I am interested in that as well, but if you look at the Shadowpriest.net dps run down, 41/0/20 is the highest Lock dps build, but it is nice to have real data as well.

Anna: Thanks for your great responses. Thats the perfect mix of personal experience backed up with detailed numbers that I think makes this thread fantastic.

My earlier quote was with some questing rolled in.
Pure solo grinding with affliction is between 100-110 k xp/hr.
I think the key to proper affliction grinding is UA. I'm currently 41 afflic, rest in demo. The thing that I realized about UA is that it is the extra dot that lets you finish a mob so you don't have to re-dot it. Without UA, Cor + CoA + Siphon just aren't enough to kill one mob (or at least not with my gear). It is better than immolate because its increased range from grim reach allows you to start the pull from further away, and move towards the next mob while you are insta-casting dots.

The Sequence:
Max Range UA on mob 1.
Move into range of mob 2 while: CoA, Siphon, Cor
Max Range UA on mob 2.
Move into max range of mob 3 (usually not very far) while dotting mob 2.
Mobs 1 + 2 reach you at roughly the same time, insta HoT.
Max Range UA on mob 3, dott.
Treat mob 3 and 4 as 1 and 2 in the sequence, respectively. This can be a little rough because HoT probably wont be on cooldown. Just run towards mob 5, possibly start insta dotting #5, and when all 3 get to you, insta HoT, and then UA on #5 while it is running away.
Throw in Dark Pact and Lifetap as needed, try to soul drain when possible for the shard and mana.
I very rarely use drain life - I've found that stopping every 20 mobs or so to loot and DP/LT/Eat/Drink is actually better than draining mobs - At the end of the day, drain life is incredibly slow - the 5 seconds spent draining could be another dead mob.

The beauty of this sequence is that you very rarely get hit by a mob, and you're constantly casting. Your global cooldowns tend to be while you are moving. Interestingly enough, doing this has made me rebind hotkeys in some strange ways: I have autorun set to Q, for example.
It requires some intricate movement functionality and some mapping out of how/when you're going to pull, and what direction you're going in when you are instadotting.

A note on pets: Whoever suggested using succubus white damage was a genius. A few things I noticed about pets: imp has a pretty small mana pool, but regens fast. Others have larger mana pools (felhunter's is about 1 DP greater than imps) but seems to regen slower. So depending on how often you DP, using a Felhunter can be better than imp or succubus.
I haven't gotten around to doing a solid calculation with different pets, as there seem to be too many variables that are uncontrolled in a grinding session.

Look forward to reading everyone else's thoughts and, hopefully, NUMBERS.

=)

I'll have to agree that heavy affliction, with points into demonology and destruction, combine to one of the best drain tanking solo grinding specs, and still leave you a viable spec for 5 man raids (granted more demonology is preferred for 5 mans, it can be easily worked around)

currently with a 42/8/11 spec, the aforementioned dot sequences make pulling mobs while around 50% hp/mp an extremely easy exercise, through the use of Life Drain and Dark Pact. Versatile for low food/water usage, I'm interested to see how a demonology spec will compare in higher end instancing.

Now that I'm about to ding 70, I've been evaluating what spec I want to use (yeah, I go through respecs like candy) for the 70 5/10 mans.

Been looking at something like:

41/0/20 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AEMr0RfkqtboZxx0tr

40/0/21 with UA swapped for Ruin. This is SM/Ruin 2.0 and probably feels just like it.

A few questions for anyone that has spec'd this way:

(1) I'm thinking of trying out a deep affliction build WITHOUT fel concentration. Has anyone done this? It is painful? I can just get so many more affliction goodies and still have room for 20/21 destruction if I leave it out. It's been mentioned elsewhere that drain tanking gets less effective in the 5-mans as they get harder, and I'm thinking that maybe the extra Supression (5/5 might be overkill but I've not run across much +hit on items) and Contagion (for SoC fun) might be worth the inability to drain tank things.

(2) UA vs. Ruin. I'm finding that the increased range and threat reduction on destruction spells are must-haves, I love shadowburn, and ISB helps out dot damage now that it's not even funny. Perhaps I've missed recent theorycraft on this one-point spec-changing decision, but does anyone have any ancedotal experiences and/or raw DPS comparisons that would help me decide? I think I'd rather go UA if it were actually possible to get items without crit, but all of the caster drops I'm finding have a fair amount of crit on them and I feel like it's going to waste without Bane/Devastation/etc. -- which is why I'm shying away from 48/13/0-ish builds.

Sorry for the wall of text. Input appreciated.

I've been 40/0/21 with zero suppression and 5/5 fel concentration. Resists haven't been that bad, but I'm not really hurting for spell hit (nelt's tear, my weapon has a bunch, that belt off the last boss in steam vaults, doomcaller crown, and frozen shadoweave has hit rating as socket bonuses).

Having tried both, I find Ruin better suited to the pace of 5 mans. Especially since you can keep everything amazing about affliction besides UA.

Well, that's tough to say. Outdoors I use it almost every pull (because I typically do 2-4 mobs at a time and one of them is BOUND to resist howl of terror), and if it fails I just pull one mob next pull and fear it while getting full health mana. Seeing as I need something like 40 primal water for my tailoring suit and my enchanting rods, anything that lets me grind faster is mandatory. The need to maintain health with 3 mobs beating on you probably won't ever go away.

In instances, it's a toss up. On non-heroic shadow labs, I use it a lot. Especially those fel overseers- I seem to always resist intimidating shout, so he fears the tank and goes straight to me. Hits for 2k normally, then 1500-1700 ish with CoW or Demo shout up. If I start Drain Life when he comes to me, I can usually just hold him until the tank breaks fear. Any ranged caster that does less than 1200 damage with their attacks, you can just straight up drain tank.

It's even MORE useful with a paladin, because conc aura makes it 100% uninterruptable. I run with a paladin main heal almost all the time so I'm biased.

Arcatraz has mobs with baron riverndare's shadow aura, which will pushback spells and heals. Uninterruptable life drain is a boon there.

I have no experience with 70 instances.
That being said:
I think that going w/o fel concentration should be ok. As I stated in my grinding sequence, I rarely use drain life.
Even while levelling, I have max suppression - It seems to me that the partial resists get reduced by suppression. (Also, for previous poster - I wonder if your HoT would get resisted if you had suppression).

I realize this thread is about PvE leveling builds, but I am curious about thoughts people have about PvP builds.

Now that people are reaching 70, What are your experiences with each spec?
What classes do you find the most troublesome to fight? How have you dealt with cloak of shadows?

I was planning on switching to a full destruction build around 70.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...12220513531351

After spending enough time leveling with affliction though, I've grown to like it a lot. I'm not sure that I want to give up the ease of grinding with affliction for a destruction pvp build. I just miss the burst damage on destruction. I started toying with the idea of the following hybrid build: 15/5/41

The build picks affliction though up fel concentration, Demonic Embrace, and 41 in Dest through shadowfury. To me the build provides the ability to grind via drain tanking, but also allows for it to supplement dest in PvP. Any thoughts?

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...12200513231051