My question is multifacted:

• I lose out on Imp Corr, should I go 5/35/21 instead of 0/40/21 for succubus spec (or also get imp lifetap)

• Is a succubus way too squishy to raid with?

• Has anyone actually compared the 2?

• I know Affliction is the best for dps, pre-BT, but I hate keeping track of 5 dots.

• I'm at work, so I cant make this initial post very long

I just hit 70, but I will prolly gear up pretty fast, my guild is raiding BT/Hyjal, my main is a feral druid. So, this question may seem a bit noob. I asked the locks in my guild and nobody seems to have tried it.

I think it can replace Icon, but probably not Hex Lord

I figure that 54 hit is equal to 54 haste on the margin (since you can trade them equally via gemming), which puts it equal to about 70 spell damage for me.

I don't have the hexhead, so I plan to use Skull + Crusade with a 12% hit set (currently I have 12.5% hit, which will drop to about 12.2 once I get my last 2 pieces of t6), and swap in the new trinket as needed.

On another note, I got a working Recap on the PTR. Here's some real world fire spec testing:

ImageShack - Hosting :: 24firetestdx4.jpg

1372 dps with just self buffs and a lousy 15% crit rate.....definitely seems on par with shadow.

A soul-linked imp takes damage via soul-link. 2-piece T5 can be used to heal the pet through any incidental damage taken via soul-link without ever having to break phase shift. My average fight dps is on the order of 1500; 15% healing means 225 healing per second to the pet. Imp takes 20% of my damage via soul-link. Imp has ~3500 hp buffed so I'd need to take 17,500 damage to one-shot him (which will kill me anyway). 1125 dps against me will counter the 225 hps that I give the imp through 2-piece T5. It seems unlikely under most circumstances that a soul-linked imp would die from soul-link if I have 2-piece T5.

I'm in a position where I'm seriously considering a 1/39/21 spec for the threat reduction from the imp. I'm currently 0/21/40 and produce massive amounts of damage and threat relative to the rest of my guild. It's exceptionally rare for me to be #1 on dps by a margin less than 20% and it's not uncommon to have 2x the damage of the person in the #2 spot. Even with a prism of inner calm equipped and with well timed soulshatters I'm still riding the threat ceiling (and hosing my dps) on at least 75% of the boss encounters* that we regularly run... it's especially bad with our warrior tank and pally tank, the bear is the only tank that can out-threat me under most circumstances. Given this, I ran numbers through the spreadsheet assuming 2.3 values (so no GCD improvements, which will benefit the imp spec much more in this case):

My 0/21/40 spec gives me the following two options:
not threat capped: shadow destro with immolate = 1961 dps
threat capped: shadow destro with immo + prism = 1902 dps and 1605 tps

The 1/39/21 spec would give me the following two options:
not threat capped: 1/39/21 with succy and soul-link = 1957 dps
threat capped: 1/39/21 with imp and soul-link, no prism = 1824 dps and 1345 tps
(the ultra rare situation where I can have my imp attack = 2169 dps and 1345 tps ... I don't plan on ever being able to do this)

The damage difference for non-threat capped situations is negligible, assuming I can keep the succy alive in a corner somewhere. For threat capped situations, I lose 78 dps in exchange for a loss of 255 tps. I have to lose 4.1% casting time with the destro spec to holding back for threat in order for it to lose damage relative to the imp-demo spec.

As a side effect (NOT my primary motivation for this) looking forward to the new lifetap changes.. using some rough numbers here: assume my toon has 10000 hp. The imp will increase my hp by about 1000, so 11000. My effective health pool is 20% more than that as a result of soul-link: 13200. However, my lifetaps will only cost 20% of 11000 or 2200 hp per tap. Assume 20 taps in a fight, that's 44,000 hp that needs to be healed. A warlock with an actual health pool of 13,200 will tap for 2640 requiring 52,800 healing. It's a minor difference, but worth mentioning I suppose.

* Fights where I have to hold back due to threat:

hydross
tidewalker
leotheras
voidreaver
solarian
kael
vashj
eagle boss timed ZA
bear boss timed ZA
lynx boss timed ZA
zul'jin
rage winterchill
hyjal trash - worth noting given our current progression

Fights where I don't have to hold back:

lurker
karathress
dragonhawk boss timed ZA

You're probably thinking I'm crazy for considering this. You probably think our tanks should generate more threat and I agree. In the meantime, I'm not sure what other option I have other than spamming rank 1 spells trying to get crits for negative threat from my prism.

All I can say is bear tank FTW . Our MT is a bear tank & I have to hold back at times, but he allows me to keep rolling out bolts one after another.

We also use a couple of prot tanks and a prot pally for OT needs. The same just cannot be said here. I'm easily threat capped "making a sandwhich" ...

Solarian, Vashj & bear boss are tauntable, if you are pulling aggro on those fights you need to find better tanks.
Hydross, Leo, Zuljin have aggro resets, if you are pulling aggro on those then its just bad timing on your part.
On fights like rage winterchill & tidewalker a couple of misdirects in addition to the time spent not dpsing (running out of death & decay, watery grave, aoeing murlocs) should give tanks enough of a head start.

On Tidewalker, Hydross & Hyjal trash we give the warlocks tranquil air in addition to salv so they can aoe earlier. If you raid with a good number of shaman this would be a good option.

1. We don't have the option of finding better tanks on our server. We're the most advanced raiding guild on our server and we downed Kael for the first time last night (talk about backwater..) I believe that our tanks are good.. they could probably be better but (aside from transferring) that's not an option.

2. Hydross, Leo, Zul'jin: yes, these bosses have aggro resets but you're mistaken if you believe that the aggro reset is the only time you can pull. I can get to the top of the threat chart after spending the first chunk of a phase seeding exclusively off of hydross herself. Phases 2, 4, and 5 of zul'jin I have to hold back considerably. Same with each leo phase. Pulling aggro at the beginning of a phase is not the issue (I understand how that _can_ be a problem, it's just not a problem for me).

The math, simplified:

destro warlock A generates X amount of damage which causes Y amount of threat.
imp-demo warlock B generates X amount of damage which causes Y * .80 amount of threat.

In any threat capped fight or phase, warlock B has the _potential_ to do up to 25% more damage than warlock A before pulling aggro. Phased fights _especially_ benefit from passive threat reductions because the soulshatter cooldown makes it so that you can rarely use soulshatter in more than 1 phase (out of 5 in the case of Zul'jin, for example).

3. I recognize that many of these fights involve movement but I'm telling you matter-of-fact: on these fights, in my guild with my players and my tanks, I end up threat-capped.. even if I have to run or tap or whatever. I recognize that many of these scenarios prevent other locks from reaching the threat ceiling, I just don't find that to be the case for me and my situation.

I don't see how you get improved imp without significantly gimping yourself. While shadow embrace, having an imp out and malediction are the only real reasons to even go affliction in the first place, improving that imp just costs too much - at best you will be losing range, anything else will be losing DPS.

To illustrate: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft the only talents you could argue are in the first 3 tiers of affliction, but you can only swap those to other talents within the first 3 tiers of affliction, which do not include improved imp. Anything from the 4th tier and above is pretty much a must-have for affliction raiding. 17 in destruction is also required for every warlock. Unless you want to give up range and/or dps you cannot put more than the 1 leftover point in improved imp, and even that may be better off in Intensity or maybe even CoEx. 3/3 improved imp is not possible with a viable build. The tank will live with 14 less stamina better than you managing with 2% less shadow damage to the raid if you take out malediction, 2% less damage reduction if you drop points from shadow embrace or if you lose range by dropping either of the range talents (range=survivability+dps).

Even if for some reason you have such insane gear (T6++) that malediction/ruin becomes a better build for DPS, then having to pick ruin means you're at the exact same position. In fact, you'll have 2 free points instead of 1, but will only have 2/5 contagion (3% less damage to corruption - remember to take that into account when comparing UA to ruin on the spreadsheet!).

Bottom line if you think an affliction warlock should have improved imp, you probably didn't look at the talent calculator carefully enough, or just don't care about anything other than 14 more stamina on the tank. Note that I say 14 becuase if you really want improved imp you can put your last point in there having 1/3 which already gives 7s tam out of the 21 you'd get from 3/3 improved imp.

1. Agreed. Go FG if you want to reduce threat. Splitting DPS w/ a pet is a huge threat reduction. Going for imp reduces your dps significantly.
2. I thought so as well. When I put her gear in 2.0 beta 4, and turned on all grp buffs (Elem totems, Moonkin, Spriest, Malediction CoS, casting CoD + SB only, chaining super manas, full consumables, etc), I get the numbers quoted. However, I'd be extremely surprised to see that performance actually achieved anywhere. I have very similar gear (more dmg, less crit), and I get 1.2-1.4k (actual. ~1.7-1.9 in xls) dps in that situation.

Which again points to a post I made in the spreadsheet thread, where I questioned why the xls so over-estimates real world performance at the high, buffed out the wazoo gear level.

There's no question that for a stand-and-cast fight with no threat ceiling, a destruction build will beat an imp-demo build. From the numbers I've generated on the spreadsheet, destruction is a 7.5% damage increase over the imp-demo build assuming I'm not using the prism of inner calm. If I have to use that trinket (which I presumably won't have to use with the imp) then that gap drops to 4% (that 4% figure comes from using quag's eye in my other trinket slot.. getting a VSH would further narrow that gap). I'd say that in the vast majority of fights I have to hold back by more than 4%. In situations where I don't have to hold back I can use the succubus for the extra 10% damage.

Felguard spec is a great spec and I've used it many times in the past. I have no doubt that it produces more damage and helps alleviate my threat problems. However, for progression content I just don't feel comfortable enough using it right now (especially since I don't have the VST and I only have 1-piece T5).

Anyway, you don't have to like my proposed spec. I was originally just asking about whether 2-piece T5 affected the phase-shifted imp.. and then felt the need to defend myself against the onslaught (all 2 replies =P) suggesting that there's no possible scenario under which that might be useful.

So Incinerate is looking like it's going to beat up Shadow Bolt on personal DPS. So assuming ISB doesn't change in 2.4, will it be more effective to have your Affliction lock be the only one applying ISB as the other locks wouldn't be eating up charges with Incinerate.

Ehh, it takes all kinds.

I will say this. If I wanted to be a fire nuke casting, 6k hp (fictional min/maxing to maximize output due to current lifetap stupidity) cloth caster, I would have made a mage.

I would really love to once again be a "dot everything up and live while those around me slowly rot or get eaten by my pet" class. But gear and talents.... you know the drill.

O well, at least I can still be a shadowmage.... And casting 2 spells the whole fight means more forum time, even on new content!