Mage question.

If a warlock is specced 53/0/18 DG, where does Improved Shadow Bolt fit into his rotation? Is it used only to keep up Shadow Mastery and a DPS loss (like Scorch is for mages) or is it a part of the DPS rotation?

You cast it whenever you don't cast dots.

Shadow Mastery is a side-effect debuff from casting the Shadow Bolt spell, which is used as a filler spell for a large number of Warlock Specs. As a result it will have a very high uptime. Two key things you need to know as a mage though are what specs won't supply this and why.

Affliction uses SB as a filler until the mob is below 25% then they switch to DrainSoul filler, as its significantly better DPS. Variations of 0/13/58 use Incinerate as their main nuke and therefore won't supply the debuff at any point. Most other specs continue to use SB enough to keep the debuff up until the mob dies.

Does Improved Soul Leech still grant you mana if you are under the influence of General Vezax' Aura of Despair? And what about Dark Pact?

And what about Improved Felhunter's Shadow bite? Does it give mana to the felhunter under the influence of Aura of Despair?

No and no on the first two.

As for the second I'm not entirely sure, but I'm fairly certain that the aura doesn't apply to pets.

If you had bad latency 300+ is it worth casting COD - Immo - CB then Conflag. Due to the land time and server response of Immolate? It doesn't feel right spamming away at buttons waiting for conflag to become active. It feels like you would be wasting a GCD that could be better spent elsewhere.

Using 13/58 as of live.

If you still have 2pT7 you could alternatively cast COD, Immo, Corr, Conflag and CB, hoping for a crit on the Conflag to proc Pyroclasm for CB.

Hello

Is it possible to make a macro that casts incin, but when CB gets off cooldown, it chose this spell instead? Then returns to casting incin when the CB is on cooldown again.

Thanks in advance

Unfortunately no, the best thing you can do is a modifier to cast CB instead like: /cast [mod:alt] Chaos Bolt; Incinerate

Ok thanks =) Better of just keeping that extra button then =)

Well, the only way would be a macro like that:
But then you have to spam the button twice for each cast, most likely resulting in a dps decrease

I was seriously considering using a 41/30 spec for entering raiding as well (will basically be in mostly blues and Ebonweave by the time I start) simply for the DPS bonuses the demo tree offers to warlocks in starter gear. That doesn't really solve my +hit issues though, so now I'm wondering would the 3/13/55 destro spec cause me any really noticeable DPS loss in starter gear instead of 41/30? I mean if it's going to be a trivial difference anyway, I've always preferred destro and I'm not too keen on timing 1:1 weaving.

for 3/13/55 spec:

Glyph of Immolate or Glyph of Incinerate?

Does the egg still proc for locks or do I need to find a new trinket??

Yes, the egg still procs for my afflic lock (as of last night at 2am PST).

Incinerate

I suggested 0/41/30 mostly because it's incredibly easy to play. 1:1 weaving is about as hard as moving 29 yards away from a boss, and if you're just starting to raid 0/41/30 will do better dps for you than a deep destro spec (though the destro spec will scale better at Ulduar gear levels). If you don't have enough hit for 14% then go affliction to start rather than destro.

Should one wait to get 2 pieces of T8 before breaking the 4T7.5 bonuses or should one wear one piece right away?

Who has the smallest DPS loss -- mage or warlock -- in providing the crit debuff (shadow mastery vs. scorch)?

I've been searching the forums to try and find numbers pointing to one or another and I'm failing at it.

Scroll up.

That does not address my question. Again, my question: Which class has the smallest dps loss from casting the crit debuff -- mage or warlock.

I don't think there's any singular piece of T8 that is so good that would warrant breaking the 4 piece T7 bonus.
Right now some people are debating whether 2 piece T8 is better than 4pc Tier7, so you should definitely stick to your T7 for now...

CoE is now less of a loss for Destro because molten core has been moved to the demonology tree. Prior to 3.1, dropping CoA meant that a demo lock lost uptime on the rather potent molten core buff. Most sims I've seen have put CoD as the best thing for a deep destro lock to be casting for personal DPS; testing this on dummies may cause you some problems as curse of doom will cause your average DPS as shown by recount to spike and then gradually fall as you approach the next tick, while CoA/CoE will have generally steady DPS.

Your mileage with CoE may vary, however there's often no reason for a warlock to be casing CoE when the 13% spell damage debuff is provided by the rotation of a Moonkin or deep unholy DK without their having to change their rotation at all. Most of the time, there will be one of these in a 25 man raid, and if you're in a 10 man with several other casters but nobody providing the spell damage debuff, you should go ahead and use CoE.