Chaos bolt specs suffer from the same problem TBC destruction did at the start of the expansion: you just don't have the gear to get the best out of it. I expect it will end up scaling superbly (and I'm looking forward to that) but for the time being I bit the bullet and went for 0/41/30.

Some points of interest about Chaos Bolt specs: you NEED to learn to micromanage your pet. Sartharion is the prime example of this. Keep him alive at all costs, he's your second highest damage source after Incinerate, offers you a nice crit boost which is quite valuable at current gear levels and you can't afford to have him phase shifted - or dead. Put him on defensive, bind Pet follow to an easily accessible key (I have Alt 3 bound to it since it's impossible for me to use Ctrl) and pay attention to your surroundings. It's not enough to move your warlock out of the fire anymore, you need to do the same for your minion as well.

Assuming 2 of your 3 major glyphs will be Glyph of Imp and Immolate, your 3rd one is up for debate. As a 0/20/51 spec I used both CoA and Corr in my rotation and the difference in DPS by using either of the two corresponding glyphs can range from minor to pretty damn big depending on RNG (but always in Corruption's favour). With this spec Corruption does more damage than CoA for me (regardless of selected glyph) and it gives increased MC uptime, there's no reason you wouldn't cast it. I suspect someone will bring up DPM issues or whatnot - 500 extra mana spent every 18 seconds when your main nuke costs 522 mana anyway will not destroy your DPS. In most fights you have to move so much that time spent casting Lifetap means nothing at all.

Steer clear of Conflag/Backdraft specs for the time being. Conflag is not worth the talent point without speccing into Backdraft, and all Backdraft does is mess up your priorities. When/If they make Backdraft not affect Immolate (or alternatively, when/if they remove the shard cost from Soulfire), we can talk again.

Improved Soul Leach is well worth the 5 point investment, both in normal and heroic raids.

My imp went to ~9% Mana in 10 man Naxxramas Patchwerk Fight (3:30). Never seen any oom imp in 25 raids. Its best to keep phase shift off, so the normal group buffs can catch your imp (its a pain in the ass to discuss with some buff-classes why they should buff "this little useless imp").

Sartharion: I have to admit, that I like to sac my imp there, I tend to forget him all the time. Our healers arent really spending attention to it, so even with the firebolts coming from the sky there is still a good possibility for him to die. I dont think that health funneling your imp will increase your dps .

Is it worth dropping CoA from your rotation in favor of CoD once you get the 2 piece t7 bonus? Since corruption and immolate both can proc MC as well as the 2 set bonus, it would make for a simpler rotation with a higher DPCT curse.

Does immolate proc MC? The talent tooltip isn't clear.

No. Shadow damage procs MC.

That's what I thought, and was about to say that as a reply to Flying V, but then checked the talent tooltip which is worded quite badly.

Actually the tooltip says shadow spells AND damage over time effects.

Molten Core

It seems safe to assume that immolate's DoT effect would proc it since the only other damage over time effects we have (other than the shadowflame dot -_-) are all shadow, and the second part of the tooltip wouldn't be worth mentioning.

Well, while I agree it's worded weirdly I think it's highly likely that the meaning is:
"Your Shadow (spells and damage over time effects)"
rather than
"Your (Shadow spells) and (DoT effects)"

Ah that's probably the correct way of looking at it. I'll still try out heading to the target dummies in org later tonight and see if it's just bad wording after all.

Now that I'm confident enough that it works, here is my spec suggestion (I mentioned it in the pve spec discussion but that thread is too unfocused):

31/0/40 Shadow Mastery+Shadow and Flame

This is basically a shadow bolt-centered spec. Keep 3-4 DoTs up, spam Shadow Bolt as filler, use Imp as the pet.

Advantages:
- the hardest-hitting Shadow Bolts you can get now (SM+SnF);
- both hit and range talents;
- both aggro reduction talents (not an issue now, but it may well be in future raids);
- less reliant on pet DPS than Demo or deep Destro specs;
- scales very well with crit and haste;
- stronger dots than Demo or deep Destro specs.

Disadvantages:
- weaker DoTs than deep Affliction specs;
- weaker pet;
- some non-optimal points (you can't really avoid Improved Drain Soul, and the point I put in Shadowburn can go anywhere else, really);
- while Shadow Embrace is bugged, the points in it are worthless, since you should let an Affliction warlock get SE for it'll benefit him/her much more than it'll benefit you.

The Shadow Embrace problem actually suggests that while the bug persists, you should really change the affliction part of the spec and get some less-than-ideal talents which will, at least, be better than wasting 5 points in SE. So the current, non-ideal version of this spec would probably look something like this:

30+1/0+1/40+1 shadow spec

Soul Siphon is obviously useless for raids, but it's still useful for soloing. The last point can go to a lot of places: Eradication, Dark Pact, Shadowfury, Empowered Imp or Improved Imp.

Glyphs should be Shadow Bolt, Imp and then you choose between Immolate/Siphon Life/Curse of Agony/Corruption, depending on your personal preference.

What I like about this spec is mainly its simplicity. Keep 4 DoTs up (or 3 if you end up casting CoE/CoR), set your imp loose and spam shadow bolts. Since your imp isn't a big part of your DPS, in fights where it'd be tough to keep it up you can just keep it phased and still do decent DPS.

Right now it obviously doesn't perform as well as deep Affliction or even deep Demo. But I suspect that we're currently living in a situation very similar to the beginning of BC, when lots of warlock specs were competitive - but as new content and gear came out, it was clear that shadow bolt scaled much better than either DoTs or pets, and then Destruction easily came out on top. Of course, Blizzard seems to be aware of the issue and apparently fixed a lot of the scaling issues (especially with DoTs, but not so much with pets), but I still think that Destruction will eventually scale better. And if the choice is going deep Destruction with annoying rotations and talents (I really hate Fire and Brimstone), or a demo/destro hybrid that emphasizes your imp (which still can easily die and won't scale as well as your own spells) or this build I'm suggesting, the latter may come out on top (or near it, at least).

This is the 25-man Patch WWS I have, using an inferior version of the spec I'm proposing (still wasting Shadow Embrace, and with points in Soul Leech), on a non-optimal raid (no moonkin, ele shaman or demonic pact) and with a non-optimal player (me, still mostly in Sunwell gear and playing with 500ms latency). And yet it still didn't lag too much behind the affliction warlock.

I think this spec holds promise, and it would be good to get more feedback from better-geared and/or less laggy players. Comments? Criticisms? Suggestions?

Hm, good point. I'd have to actually test it to see which is better sub-25%, Drain Soul or Shadow Bolt (my SBs averaged 4323 damage in that WWS).