We just started Hyjal yesterday. I'm excited about the gear change over to include more hit/crit/damage so I can gem +12s =D.

frmorrison, how did your guild decide when it came to Conqueror T6 tokens? Did they deck out healers first or distribute evenly? I'm a little worried having to fair against Paladins & Priest...mainly priest because we bring a lot to raids.

Well, when i discussed this with the healers on vt, like, back when i was aff, its , 2-3LT +1x drain = full health again.
but, when i tried to do that, i always got spam healed. healers insist on healing me and to quote a druid: well, 1-2 lifetaps, thats just another lifebloom". and those lifeblooms are dead cheap :P

so basicly its not alowed for me to, or cant cause i get heals, be self sustained. so chugging mana pots will increase dps ye, cause you get rid of some gcd that you would use LT'ing.
BUT , chugging Destruction pots = alot more fun , is it worth chugging mana or destro pots for dps ? thats my question.

Y, i am really lazy when it comes to theorycrafting etc.

Firstly, Ill only go into raid applicable information, secondly, feel free to correct me I'm still learning too , I will not go into the math too much, there are plenty of other sources that have covered these areas exquisitely and better than I could manage to put into words besides, "its better."
I've been back and forth between affliction, demo, and destro a few dozen times, and this is what I’ve learned;

Here is a list of all the talents that I would deem raid applicable in some way:

Affliction Talents;Shadow Embrace; reducing physical damage dealt to your tank by up to 5% (1%/lvl).
Instant Corruption; less time casting dots equals more time to spam sb's, increasing dps.
Siphon Life; most of the time, more than enough to keep you alive during a boss fight if you life tap once or twice or take some aoe dmg.
Nightfall; not a reliable source of damage, but always a nice burst.
Shadow Mastery; increases the damage dealt by all of your shadow spells, shadow bolt included, and life gained from siphon life/life drain, by up to 10%.
Imp Life Tap; allows for less time taping for mana, and more time dpsing.
Suppression; Awesome talent, allows you to focus your gear in other areas other than hit up to a certain extent.
Dark Pact; mana battery with your imp out, BoWisdom on it, you will often times not even need to life tap in a fight.
Unstable Affliction; 1050 dmg over 18 seconds, another dot.
Imp Curse of Agony; 10% more dmg from CoA.
Malediction; 3% bonus dmg from CoElements and CoS.
Soul Siphon; 4% more life drained for each affliction effect on a mob.
Amp Curse; increases the effect of CoA and CoD by 50%. (use this then apply curse...)
Emp Corruption; 36% bonus dmg to corruption based on items/buffs.

Demo Talents;
Imp Imp; up to 30% more life from Blood Pact.
Imp health stone; up to 20% more health per stone.
Demonic Embrace; up to 15% more stamina.
Fel Int; up to more max mana by 3%, + pet int by 15%.
Fel Stamina; up to 3% more HP.
Demonic Aegis; up to 30 more spell dmg, and 30% more healing taken from fel armor.
Demon Sacrifice; Will be used with succubus mostly, to increase your shadow dmg by 15%.
Fel Domination; Good for a quick summon if your pet dies.
Master Summoner; reduces mana and casting time of pets.
Unholy Power; Increases damage dealt by a pet by 20%.
Mana Feed; Gives 33% of the mana from life tap to your pet.
Master Demonologist; Grants a buff depending on what pet you are using.
Demonic Knowledge; increases your spell dmg by 15% your pets int + stam.
Soul Link; 20% of the damage you take, is taken by your pet instead, also gives you and your pet 5% more damage.
Demonic Tactics; Increases your and your pets crit chance by 5%.
Summon Felguard; Summons a felguard.

Destro Talents;
Imp Shadow Bolt; when you crit with a sb, it increases all shadow damage taken by 20%.
Bane; 2.5 second sb vs 3 sec sb.
Cataclysm; 5% less mana for destro spells.
Devastation; 5% more chance to crit with destro spells.
Shadow burn; Instant 530 dmg.
Destructive reach; 20% longer range and 10% less threat generated by destro spells.
Intensity; 70% chance you wont get interrupted while casting destro spells.
Ruin; increases the damage of your crit strikes by 50%.
Nether Protection; 30% chance to become immune to shadow or fire spells for 4 seconds after being hit by a shadow/fire spell.
Backlash; 3% more chance to crit, 25% chance to have an instant sb/ incinerate when hit by a physical attack.
30% chance to recover 20% of the damage dealt by non aoe spells as health.
Shadow and Flame; 20% bonus spell effect from your items/buffs for sb and incinerate.



Raid builds; All builds, regardless of the focus your going into, you should get bane, and imp sb. Sb will always do more damage than life drain, regardless of spec, bane allows more sb's (20% more) increasing your dps while spaming.


Affliction builds:
44/7/10; Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
UA, CoS, Corruption, Siphon life, spam sb, re-dott target, spam, repeat, dark pact and life tap when your on the move, and drain life if you see the healers struggling. Fairly easy to do, just don’t re-dot before the dot has it's last tick, or your wasting mana and lowering your dps, DoTimer helps.
- Variations of this build;
- take the 3/3 malediction, put it into amp curse, and imp CoA. If there are other affliction locks in the group, assign a curse to each of them before the raid, the ones with Mal. use CoE for the mages, and another with Mal use Cos, for shadow/arcane users. If you have a destro lock, let them use CoDoom, CoA, or another applicable curse for the fight (weakness perhaps).

34/17/10; Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
CoA/Doom, Corruption, siphon life, spam Sb, dark pact/life tap, drain if needed, repeat. This allows for more hp/mana than the above build, but slightly less dps.
- Variations of this build;
- take the 3/3 off imp imp if you are in a 25 man raid, most of the time, you will not be close enough for the tank to get your imp effect, in addition, you can park your imp ( run up to the tank and tell the imp to stay ) and run back and dps, but often times there are other buffs that tanks want, and you can max ur dps elsewhere. Use the 3/3 skills from imp, to put into health stone, if your group needs a rank 1/2 or 2/2, and put the remainder into Devastation.
30/21/10; Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
CoA, Corruption, Siphon life, spam sb, repeat. This build utilizes demon sacrafice while using succubus to increase shadow damage by 15%. This is one of the better builds for overall DPS, but lacks several raid buffs, mainly shadow embrace, dark pact, and malediction. Then 1/5 unholy power is just a filler skill, as you will not be using a pet.

Destro Builds:
0/21/40; Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
15% more damage from demon sacrifice, use the curse designated to you, (CoA or Doom, depends on length of the fight, usually if there are aff locks in raid, as they will be spec'd into Malediction) and spam shadow bolt. Fairly boring, but gives the greatest dps of all of these builds. Very mana intensive, but if the healers aren't too busy, they can throw a HoT or a heal on you every once in a while, allowing you to mana up during a boss fight.

0/16/45; Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Fire lock, I would not recommend this, unless there is NO shadow priest, or there are already 2 aff and 1-2 destro locks.
CoE, Immolate, spam incinerate until immolate is nearly up, then conflagrate, and repeat. Great dps, but again, not a large demand for this spec, as it is hard to gear up into ( most lock items are shadow damage oriented until t5-6 when you replace shadoweave). You can also go spellfire spec tailoring instead of shadoweave, and then utilize this build fairly well.

Demo Builds:
5/41/15: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Use fel guard, soul link, instant corruption, and spam shadow bolt. Use fel domination if you pet gets dominated, ^_^.
- Variations;
-take the 5 pts from instant corruption, put them into intensity, destructive reach, and shadowburn.
-same as above, only use succubus instead of a point into FG, and get ruin for higher crits.

Recommendations for builds;
Stay affliction until you reach at least +1k dmg and 20% crit with ~150 hit unbuffed. Up until this point, affliction will out dps you, and out last you if you spec'd destro.

Raid Tips;
Assign Curses before the fight.
Get different rank's of health stone, you can only carry one of each rank, 0/2, 1/2, and 2/2. Figure this out with your locks, and decide who gets what.
Curse of Doom on mobs/bosses that last longer than 60 seconds...
Dont load up your dotts on trash that would die before the dott is up, just instant corruption(aff spec only) CoS then spam sb.
Give the Tank time to get aggro if your destro, yes, you gave him 10 seconds, but you hit like a truck, so give ‘em 11 seconds if he needs it. Cast Corruption and immolate to maximize your dps while waiting to unload. Soul shatter is nice, but you shouldn’t need it in the first few minutes of a fight.
Only one person needs Shadow Embrace, it does not stack, and does not count as multiple affliction effects, sort this out with your locks.
Life tap and Dark Pact while moving if you can, allows you to not 'waste time' when you could be standing still dpsing.


Overall:
Affliction is easier for grinding, so if you still need a lot of primal *, or if heroics/raiding is not what you do most of the time, stay affliction, or do a hybrid build such as 30/10/21, it allows for decent raid dps, and exceptional grinding.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft


If you get anything from this, please let these points sink in;
-Sort out who gets what talents, 2-3 people casting the same spells, when one person has a better spec bonus is a waste.
-Sort out what curses you will use before the fight, this goes hand in hand with the above statement.
-Not being #1 on the dps meters is ok, affliction may not be the best dps spec available, but it has bonuses that cannot be argued with as being well worth it.
-Dont life tap to 10% and wonder why you died. Healers have other things to be focusing on, life tap sparsely, and drain life if you see they're struggling to keep people up.
-Dont be an aggro hog. Yes, you do insane damage, awesome, you also pulled agro and died seconds into the fight, as the raid wiped without your dps.
Be patient.
-Death coil, soul shatter, and fear things when you think your going to die, but remember that your feared mobs can pull, so if they get close to something else, use curse of recklessness, and they will stop running, if you need them feared again, just put a different curse on them, and as long as fear is still active, they will run away again.

Hope you learned something new.