http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IgrMbMctVzZcxZxx0tr0z

PvE only, oh yay.

Damage seems ok so far, not as impressive on trash but I can get it up there on boss fights. 4k Shadowbolts are nice. Seeing how much play I get from Imp. CoW. Otherwise the points go over to Imp LT.

Oblivion 2-piece set bonus is nifty for dark pact.

My current gear objective is t4 gloves/helm, frozen shadoweave full set. The 2 pc set bonus for T4 is pretty much built for SM/Ruin, and free health regen never hurt anyone.

I prefer contagion, imp howl of terror, imp CoA to demonic embrace and improved imp, but they all get the job done.

I have Imp CoA, though it's not that hot it is still useful - and there aren't really any other places to put the points. Imp Howl I just don't care that much about. PvP maybe, but there are few situations in PvE where it matters. Contagion is also a PvP talent. 5% on my Corruption (rarely use CoA when getting max DPS matters)? I'll take 15% more stamina please.

I'm not wearing my shadoweave set atm. I'm liking the Oblivion bonus too much and only have two pieces, one being shoulders, so that gets preference.

You'd want Imp Howl for heroics tbh. It's such a good lifesaver.

Imp Howl is pretty awesome on Shade of Aran as well, you really don't want to waste time on that fight standing still to CC the elementals. It's just another oshit button, if I can't survive a melee round I now have - death coil, howl of terror, netherweave nets, healthstones/pots, and soul shatter.

I use Howl all the damn time just grinding as well. Pre elemental plateau nerf, I'd pull 4-5 elementals on the run stacking dots, then howl them when they clump to attack me, lifetap and drain back to full. 5 simultaneous mobs a pull ending with full health/mana, the damage you save yourself with that 8 seconds of fear is pretty swell.

Shadowfuy + HoT = just about instant HoT with damage to boot

I pretty much do the same thing, I dot mobs up, maybe throw in an immolate or Seed of Corruption on them run in shadowfury and HoT. Usually between the damage of shadowfury and SoC most die if they dont they will before fear runs out.

I've found a demonic sac/shadowflame build to have the highest damage so far. Excerpt from a prince fight here, but it's consistantly outperformed all other classes. (Note: The mage and I didn't start damage until about 94% on prince for aggro reasons. The hunter dropped dead last by the end)

I think you're forgetting some major elements / neglecting some major elements that play a pivotal role in how your DPS played out in that fight. For starters, you don't have a shadow priest so fire damage is going to be higher DPS output because the mage you have present is scorch spec and you're getting the 15% modifier. Second, someone spamming shadowbolt with a shadowpriest will not only receive the 15% bonus from a shadowpriest, but when critical strikes land, receive another 20% bonus. This feeds not only the other shadow damage DOT's active on the target, but your fellow warlocks as well. The beauty of it is that the shadowpriest is unlikely to use up your imp shadowbolt as another warlock is, since the primary DPS comes from their DOT and their mindflay.

I think ultimately something along the lines of this build is probably going to be more superior, though the 6k crit is very nice! I was happy with my 7'ish crit the other night.

I thought we had gotten beyond the stage of posting screenshots with ridiculous numbers on them as measurements of damage, when we're flasked and potioned up to the high heavens. I'm not sure exactly what such screenshots or numbes add to the discussion. It's certainly no indicator of overall DPS - I could get stupid numbers with arcane power, but that's hardly going to prove any sort of useful damage measurement.

I've assumed (bad to assume, yes) that gear will outpace the slower and more static gains from demonology over time. Especially if you assume what we've seen so far is likely: warlock pet dps won't be a large part of your raid damage due to how fights go.

The gear->pet->gear feedback of demonic knowledge loop goes through two modifiers, and only is affected by base stats (not +dmg), which I don't think are as likely to grow very fast. Demonic Aegis is static post-70.

Compare with SM, S&F, bane, ISB, ruin, extra dots, imp corruption, etc. all of which grow with gear. I know some of those are 'gettable' with 35+ demo, but not all of them at once.

Has anyone calculated such a point? (either destruction or affliction)

I did some back-of-the-napkin calcs once, assuming 20+/0+/38+, and came out around 800 damage, but I don't really trust my math, as it was fast and i didn't get anyone to proofread the calculations.

SM/Ruin moved me from #5 on DPS (13% as Demo losing to Feral Druid) to #1 (19% with the same Feral Druid being #3) on Prince. Yet to try Destruction. But Affliction has other bonuses besides just DPS; mana efficiency, Dark Pact, Siphon & Drain Life, Suppression, Shadow Embrace, being very important factors.

A 7k Crit on what? I'm hitting 4k+ crits with SB currently, with +950spelldamage, Ruin, and Shadow Priest debuffs. I'm not buying 7k SB crits. Assuming at best a SL Succubus you're still only %5 more damage, with more +spelldamage and a higher co-eficient. I'm not seeing that make up for a 50% boost.

And yes, how are you doing this in Karazhan? Aren't you forced to have the imp out most of the time?

Damage Meters mean junk. You might have better gear or crappy players in your raid. I can show you 5-mans where I've done 65% of the groups damage but it means nothing. Show DPS or total damage done during the fight. This kind of random e-peen without reference to other things that can help evaluate the difference between specs is really not that useful.

I have 977 (I'm not online to double check) damage self buffed, add in a shaman, orc racial, Icon of the Silver Crescent, 2 pc voidheart, a shadowpriest, curse of shadow, a little food and maybe an adept's elixir topped off with an improved shadowbolt ... yes I believer we're talking 7k ballpark. Buy whatever you want, it's not a regular occurence and circumstances have to be just right. I don't need to sacrifice a succubus, I had the imp out when it happened.

7158 shadowbolt on a Gruul attempt and although I had flask, my 2pc bonus wasn't proc'd and I wasn't in bloodfury. So you could easily substitute those for the flask. Also, I think over the day my high was actually 7200 something.

I'm not stating that it isn't beneficial to switch to fire on some occassions and in his case, it was definitely the right one. I can prove the difference between a flat 10% bonus all the time vs a 20% from improved shadowbolt, but you must also consider the fact that the *raid's* dots are milking that 20% for as long as it's up there as well. The raiding game isn't always about your own output, though everyone likes to pretend it is. I went a crit build to boost my affliction friends damage and the shadow friendly priests as much as my own and I have to say, the 25% or so I'm rolling around with now is working just dandy. Fire just doesn't offer that kind of luxury on crits, all be it I rotate in an immolate/conflag in the normal scheme of things.

I think what a lot of you might be forgeting in regards to ZProtoss is that everyone may talk about shadowpriests, I don't think they are all that common. Sure, the high-end guils put 2 and 2 together and see the benefit of them, but alot of raiding guilds are either short on healers or have stubborn class leaders(both are the case for my guild). So, for a lot of warlocks, a more realistic thing is to take the theorycrafted numbers(especially from the wiki.shadowpriest.com site) and divide most of the builds by 1.15.

I know I'll almost always have a fire mage in the raid, I know the day we have enough priests to allow a shadowpriest will never come.

That said, don't forget the extra utility some of the shadow trees provide. I'm having trouble deciding between my favorite spec(felguard, but useless and clumsy on raids), fire destruction(best dps in my case, not as much utility), or some form of sm/ruin or sm/ds for more utility.

I'm not trying to rag on your build or how your playstyle betters your raid, merely pointing out what Deathwing said better.

Basically, for that build to do as much as you say the Raid MUST have a shadowpriest AND an Affliction warlock. On top of that, you must have a high crit rate, which in most cases will eat into your +hit/+spell damage.

And I'm still wondering about the whole pet/spec thing. Does raiding with an imp and soullink give more than going up to Shadow and Flame?


Stating that a guild covered in tier 3 might be poorly geared and have crappy players is pushing it. However, it would be nice to see the meters from the whole fight or instance.

I'm curious why I'm not seeing many DPS builds nowadays that have UA. It does ~95% damage of Corruption, and is really easy to work into a rotation. In raids with a shadow priest (which I always have with me in Karazhan and 25 mans) my Corruption and UA combine for around 350 DPS alone, and my average shadow bolts hit for 2k. This is with a 44/0/17 build. I've had no trouble topping our damage meters in raids, even on the High King fight when I'm semi-distracted by enslaving the felhunter.

Trash mobs in heroics typically live ~15 seconds, which still makes opening with UA+Corruption better DPS than an extra shadow bolt. That's sort of beside the point though, since trash is largely irrelevant. Stuff like the last 4-pull in Slave Pens (with 2 of the non-CCable Defenders) definitely suck though. Gotta love wiping more to trash than to the final boss.

I'm just finding deep affliction too useful to give up for Ruin or DS. Ruin is a great talent, especially considering it's only 1 point, but the bulk of the DPS from 21 points in destruction come from Bane and Improved SB. A build relying on Demonic Sac for damage is rarely able to actually use it, and out of the other 20 points you spend, only 3 actually raise your DPS, by a paltry +30 damage.

If you go beyond 30 or 31 points in Affliction, you pick up 5% damage on corruption, instant AE fear (if you ever run heroics or PVP, it's a huge difference being instant instead of 1.5 seconds), UA, and points to put into things like Malediction or Shadow Embrace, for more contribution to the raid overall.

Anyone play in the 5v5 arenas heavily?

I am 40demo/21ruin currently. I thought the burst and survivability of demo would be better then a ton of dots, but I am beginning to doubt myself and think the Howl of terror + siphon life and unstable affliction is better to go.

Would UA + SoC be an interesting combo in 5 man arenas? Very mana intensive I know, but i think it has potential.

From the good 5 man PvP groups I've had the pleasure of fighting I can at least say that Destruction is NOT the desired spec to be
1. Despite how many hitpoints you have you are still paper thin.
2. Even if you are being healed, 1 warrior, rogue or hunter is enough to put a severe dent in what you can do damage or CC wise.


For survivability you would definitely go with Demonology, but your dots wont last long enough to help.

For creating chaos in the other group you could go with Affliction. However, 2 seconds to cast UA is a long time in that kind of situation, but if you do get it out there it can create a big problem for the other team.


IMO, if I were to make a 5 man team I wouldn't want a warlock. The best group I've found:

1 Warrior MS spec
1 Paladin Holy/Protect
1 Priest Holy/Disc (or something)
1 Hunter probably Marksman
1 Mage

UA is only 1.5 sec, Seed is the 2 second.

Seed might be fun in 5v5 once you have UA on someone to protect it, I'm not really sure though. With most teams, the goal is to focus fire and assist-train down specific members. SoC would whittle away the other members while doing 0 damage to the focused target- doesn't sound like it would accomplish much.

I do love using UA though. It does an absurdly high amount of damage if it's dispelled, and coupled with the 5 sec silence, it's almost always enough to finish off either the person who dispelled it, or whoever your team is attacking. It also lets you keep corruption and siphon life on your targets easily. Affliction doesn't have the huge burst potential in most situations, but it does make a healer's job on the opposing team a nightmare.

I'm curious how 48/13/0 type builds are holding up in Karazhan and Gruul's Lair right now. I'm tempted to spec something more along the lines of 41/0/20, but I find it hard to give up the Demonology points, as they're currently giving me a pretty big jump in overall stamina right now, and the increased healing efficiency is very hard to turn down with a heavy Affliction build. I've been pretty busy at work so I haven't caught up to my guild yet (they're on Shade of Aran right now), but I'm closing on 70 and starting to look at a more group/raid oriented PvE spec.

I know Drain Life doesn't ever really catch up to Shadow Bolt in raw DPS even with a full stack for Soul Siphon, but how close does it actually get when you factor in things like Suppression?

I have Shadow&Flame, I don't believe I ever stated I didn't have it; I just assumed it was expected in a destruction build. But even at 1350 you would be shy over 200 damage from what I quoted in my previous post. Lets also the 13% CoS you're missing and modifiers are not additive as I understand it, each is multiplied after the first is applied which is how I'm able to achieve the 7k.

I'm not sure what there is to miss, each time I've hit 7k has been with the following spec http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AVZfx00cZxx0trhtzuAo. I assure you I'm not making these numbers up.

Not that close. And with Soul Siphon ticking for 300+ & Dark Pact you dont really need to drain for mana efficiency.

Also, those stamina talents aren't that big a deal really. Buffed with my imp out (which it is most of the time) I'm sitting on 10.5khp. Getting it to 13k might make people say "omf nerf warlocks" more often, but in the raid envorinment there are few situations where you need that much hp. 10 points in Destruction will give you a notable DPS boost - 13 points in demo wont.

I dont see 48 points of worthiness in affliction either, what are you thinking of getting there? Meldiction? Nightfall??