Arelenda

The spec is usable, but as the other post mentioned, it is a pain to keep the succubus alive and get her buffed.

It's an ok build if you're not well equipped. DT is worth about 150-200 spell power with some raid buffs. SnF is worth 20% of your spellpower, so at 1000 spellpower they're about equal.

The other differences:
5% crit DK vs 3% crit BL
and
10%+5%=15.5% vs 15% from DS

In addition, the succubus adds around 130-200dps if you can have her attack (no Lash of Pain, though, it eats ISB).

0/40/21 and 1/39/21 are decent specs if you're just starting to raid and don't mind the added micromanagement. At decent gear levels (1100 and up) you'll see 0/21/40 pull ahead due to better scaling. Note that having a shadow priest is pretty much required if you lack 2p T5. The Solarian trinket helps a lot, as well.

There are two reasons I included it in the compendium:

The compendium is old, written at a time when most people where raiding BT and MH, and there was no Quel'danas badge loot. Sunwell raises the bar considerably, but in the amount of dps required and in available loot quality. I would definitely not recommend it in SWP, although it could do okish on Brutallus since the succubus can attack.

I prefer to have a compendium that lists alternatives to the obvious best build of 0/21/40. It requires a different play style, and at lower gear levels and fights it is competitive. It definitely has drawbacks (lack of scaling, succubus deaths and buffs) but it is possible to dish out decent damage with it. It requires a lot more attention than the "spam SB or Incinerate" standard, and it'll appeal to some people because of that.


As for "is it popular" I'd have to say "not among high geared warlocks, due to scaling issues"

 

Latas

Anyone have any hard data on deathfrost now that it is out?

 

Smurrf

 

Latas

Ah it was in the general forums, i almost never go to those, usually just the class mechanics. Thanks for the link.

 

clavarnway

I feel silly...on the spreadsheet, in my first set of gear (before regemming), it showed 10 haste as being best for yellow slot. So I regemmed a little and now it's not saying that, I think I went overboard!

Is Reckless Pyrestone the generally accepted Yellow gem slot of choice since it's a nice balance?

http://sigs.guildlaunch.net/sig.php/1424974uXyta.png

 

Drac'thor

How is this possible? If Mana Feed gives 33% of what you attain from a Life Tap, then you would need to Life Tap quite often within the said 5 minutes. Is this only possible in raids, where there is a healer watching the health bars of everyone, or can this be done while soloing?

 

Sydane

If you are soloing/leveling, you're going to want two points in Mana Feed, especially since you will most likely have Anguish on as well, and use up much more mana. In a raid environment, one point is plenty. If you have a shadow priest, or if you can talk a paladin into giving your pet a 10 minute BoW and there is JoW on the boss, you could run with zero points (though I'd never spec out of one point).

Edited for Clarity.

 

Drac'thor

Just to clarify, while I'm leveling, 2 points in Mana Feed is better because you are get more for your buck (or health). When you get the to raids, the Blessing of Wisdom on your pet allows you to only need one point in Mana Feed, because the mana regeneration from BoW allows you to use Life Tap less?

 

clavarnway

That, and in raids you should be casting 24/7, while soloing, you usually aren't. In raids you will LT more.

http://sigs.guildlaunch.net/sig.php/1424974uXyta.png

 

Drac'thor

The Demonology tree is centered around lots of health, a demon doing a lot of damage, and survivability. But on DPS, they lack the burst damage Destruction Warlocks posses and the sustained damage and DoT's of the Affliction Warlocks. My question is: Is it a viable Talent tree if you go like this: Demonology with ISB, Shadowburn, and Devastation

The ISB, with critical strike Shadow Bolts causing a 20% increase in damage dealt to a target for 12 seconds is invaluable.
Bane, with ISB, is just wonderful. The increase in bolts fired means more chances to crit the target. Enough said.
Devastation, paired with Bane and ISB, is desructive. The improved crit chance from Devastation and ISB is fantastic and the Bane, of course, decreases casting time.
Destructive Reach is useful for boss fights like Prince, where a couple yards can be the difference between death and DPS (his Enfeeble- Shadow Nova combo)

Or this: Demonology with Improved Life Tap and Cataclysm

Cataclysm reduces the mana cost of all Desruction spells by 5%
Bane, which reduces casting time, paired with Cataclysm, could be potentially dangerous. The speed at which the shadow bolts can come off of the Warlock with the reduced mana cost could lay down some major DPS.
The Improved Corruption was merely to get the the Improved Life Tap. However, if you put down Corruption regularly, it might prove to be viable enough with the decreased casting time, allowing you to move on to other things more quickly.
The Improved Life Tap (ILT) is there because of the Mana Feed. With two points in Mana Feed and both points in ILT, your total mana received from a Life Tap is 591.6, and your demon will gain 390.46 mana per Life Tap. That, paired with high stamina and perhaps a good healer, can keep a large portion of your DPS (your demon-pet) always doing their DPS thing.

Please tell me what you think, and give me some feedback, and please help me and others who may face a similar situation. Is the Shadow Bolt or the pet's DPS more important?

 

Arelenda

You'd be a lot better served with Demonic Resilience and Fel Stamina, over a few of the weaker talents. That'd give you the compendium felguard spec, though.


Demonology with Improved Life Tap and Cataclysm

While Devastation is not entirely uselesss, ISB is way more important. And Shadowburn is not worth losing crit for: burst dps is not really an issue in raids.

This spec looks like a solo farming spec of some sorts. Saving mana during raids is nice, but you're losing all key dps talents to obtain them. Your job during raids is to dish out tons of damage, while staying alive and not pulling aggro. That you'll require an occasional heal to do that is not really a problem, your healers will be happy to oblige as long as you're sensible about it. They essentially gear and spec themselves to be rechargeable mana batteries with super efficient healing spells, after all.

 

Drac'thor

Ok, in the Demonology with ISB the ISB and Devastation are together, along with bane... with two points in Fel Stamina in place of Shadowburn is better than before? I haven't tested DPS yet or studied it in a chart, but the ISB Demonology is going to provide more DPS than the Cataclysm mana efficient spec. I'm 95% sure about that. When I take away Devastation, where do the extra points go, and why doesn't a Demonology Warlock want Spell Crit, which would work in tandem with the ISB talent. Just my thoughts on it.

 

Anexus

Can anyone link me to the discussion about optimal gear set pre sunwell. I know it's in here but I cant seem to find it again. I ended up with an argument today on which t6 item not to take. As I remembered it I should go for my Vashj chest, but someone else thought I should go for the legs that drop in MH. They dropped today and the fact that I chose not to bid on them caused some attention. So i would like to reread th discussion and make sure I made the right choice. I could take the MH legs temporarily, until I get the t6 but I do not really have enough dkp to do that if I want to get my gear ready for sunwell. My guild has not killed Illidan yet either so the t6 chest is currently out of reach. The summer is really taking its toll on our raiding.

 

LockApologist

They are essentially the same, so, unless you had Vashj robe, you should have taken the legs. However, it goes Vashj robe (replaced w/ Sunfire) > Leggings of Channeled Elements ( Leggings of calamity) > Illidan helm

 

Arelenda

Get your 4p T6 bonus asap, it doesn't really matter which parts. It's the only thing that'll actually make a noticeable difference. T6 chest isn't very good, but the badge one can compensate for that easily. Any discussion about optimal pre sunwell loot will be outdated or won't apply. There was no badge loot back then, and it was assumed you only looked at pre sunwell optimal gear if you had both BT and MH on extensive farm.

 

Cryptcronic

First this forum is wonderful and has helped me out more than any source in Wow. Thanks to the contributers.

I am a shadow destruction lock in good late BT gear, (just downed illidan last week woot!) And I had question about meta gems. I'm finding with the chaotic skyfire Im getting threat capped on most boss/trash fights, and while stringing together crits is fun, riding the aggro line and having to wait/bandage/life tap starting to make me think I'd be doing better over all dmg if I went with the threat reduction/+9dmg meta gem. Rather than critting my way up the tps chart, lowering the crits a tad, and having the 2% threat reduction seems like it would allow for better overall dmg. Am I wrong?

Cryptcronic

And if anyone does take a look at that gear setup and see something I should change, I'd be happy to listen.

 

Cryptcronic

I'm in the same boat you are. And everything I have looked at says do not take the leggings. best t6 option imo is the Hands/Head/Leggings/shoulder The robe is awful for destruction, and the badge chest is just too much crit to give up. The Vashj robes are prefered (presunwell) but if u cant get them the badge robe is still better than the t6 robe.

 

Faldrath

I doubt it's the CSD's fault. Threat problems usually mean that you're not soulshattering optimally and/or your tanks have threat issues. Riding the threat line is a skill you'll have to master anyway (hey Brutallus, how are you doing?). But never nerf yourself.

 

taybul

Your gear looks fine as it is, seems like you know what you're doing. As a destro lock you're gonna have to get used to riding the threat line a bit. I wouldn't recommend switching out the CSD gem, just consider yourself ahead of the curve. Like you said, spend the time letting the tank generate threat by lifetapping, bandaging, or repositioning if need be. Also don't forget to shatter later rather than sooner.

Now that you're clearing BT, your tanks should be getting better geared, allowing them more threat production.

 

Sydane

I think one big thing to consider now when gearing pre-SW is you aren't going to have nearly as long farming BT/Hyjal as you would have in the past. Especially with 3 T6 token drops now, getting set pieces is going to be much more likely than non-set pieces. So really, I'd consider just taking what drops you can get, because you're going to be getting your T6 bracers long before you have your ideal gear set most likely.

P.S. Even excluding the Vashj robes, I've yet to find an ideal non-SW gear set using the spreadsheet that includes the badge chest. That big shiny 50 crit rating looks a lot better than it really is because it costs too much to get that much of one stat on an item, and only having one socket hurts it a lot.

 

Latas

Um one glaring problem i see (baring that i caught you with the SR neck on), you are 0/21/40 but only have a hit rating of 101 (116 if you put in one of the high hit necks, and still only 148 if you replace the horn with the bloodgem.). If you are having threat problems with that low of a hit rating im tempted to say its not entirely you, that is unless you go all out right off the bat and shatter the instant you hit your cap and keep going all out. So unless what i caught you in wasn't your raid gear, try to find out what exactly is going on. Hell fraps it and throw up a link to it here if you have the computer to do so, it would give people a better idea of what is going on and give you a more detailed answer.

 

Cryptcronic

Yeah sorry you caught me in my lunch break dps farm gear (neck was on for the port). I did some checking on what you guys posted though and it really cleared things up for me. Keeping the CSD, and now Im going to ditch my badge robe ASAP, the sheets I saw that it was better were only for killing trash its a HORRIBLE drain on boss fights. Robes of Ronin look like the best choice. Thanks again for giving me a swift kick to the logic center of my brain.

 

Zasz

I currently have haste+spelldmg gems in my gear. Then I played abit with the spreadsheet and crit+spelldmg gems and noticed that my dps went down, only about 35dps. Does it calculate the crits too or just normal hits? I can hardly imagine doing less dps with more crits.

 

Drac'thor

I don't think so. The crit chance is something to factor in, and there are too many variables for that... Then again, I'm known to be never right...

 

Anexus

Maybe I should have written my post better. I do already have the Vashj chest. Someone in my guild claimed that the leggings of channeled Elements would be better as the non t6 item. So I want to go back and read the discussion again see which one of us was right. The guy who said this is usally right about the things he claim. As for getting the 4setbonus asap that is exactly what I'm trying to do. And to do so I cannot use dkp on any other items. As it is now we're only able to raid once a week at best. Which means MH farming and maybe a boss or two in BT. So the gloves, helm, rage offhand and tempest of chaos are on my wishlist for the summer. And the shadowdmg cloak that never drops.