I honestly think that Backdraft AND the Chaos Bolt changes should make Chaos Bolt more worth it than getting the imp damage?

That's what I'm hoping. 0/40/31 is getting a bit dull. I want more buttons to push.
If anyone has a chance to test the changes on PTR in a raid, please do.

Don't bother speccing Conflag unless you have 3/3 backdraft. And certainly don't clip your Immolates with it if you don't have backdraft maxed.

(Thus, spec Demonic Knowledge. Personally I spec Shadowfury because I find it invaluable in a lot of situations.

Why do you think Backdraft will be that good? I am afraid it will complicate the casting rotation but that might be just me because I can only use one hand and want to keep my rotaions as simple as possible so I can see what is going on and move in time when needed etc

Perhaps not incinerate, but its quite easy to get Chaos Bolt and Immolate down to 1 second, at which point haste suffers again.

Backdraft already is useless 1/5 of the fight during heroism. I think the talent needs an overhaul.

Stupid question regarding Conflag. Does Incinerate damage get calculated when you release the spell, or when it hits the mob? I'm assuming the later, but wanted to check. (in other words, best case I want to launch an incinerate, let it land, and then conflag for backdraft in a 2/13/56 build)

Hey guys. I recently took out the points I had in Improved SL and put them back in Imp. CoA and 3/3 EI. These are my results for Patchwerk: Wow Web Stats . I am using the a rotation that I am not sure everyone uses with this spec. I start out CoA, Immolate, Incinx4 then conflag. I start off with a CB and 2 soulfires under BD. I tried doing the immolate right after conflag for maximum uptime of Immolate but those few ticks of Immo compared to 2 soulfires are hardly worth it IMO.

I post this here because I've had a couple PM's asking about my rotation. As it stands right now, I think it is pretty close dps wise between 2/13/56 and 0/41/30 but and every fight is situational. It's the different of having a melee pet vs having a ranged pet and in some fights this can help or this can hurt. However, I think that CB spec's will be the clear winner in 3.0.8

using your rotation with BD would solve the problems with clipping immolate because of GCD. I also noticed you didn't use CB many times on PW and even less on some of the other fights. Do you think that it's a wasted talent point for a spell only used a few times every fight with your rotation and instead of 1 cb and 2 soul fires how about 3 soulfires?

Hey all, first timer here as well. I've been reading through all of these posts, and it seems not once has anyone considered a heavy destruction chaos bolt build going into affliction instead of demonology. Perhaps this is due to dot rotations I'm not sure, but I've been using a 17 (+1) / 2 (+1) / 51 spec putting points in affliction down into empowered corruption, and dropping both conflag possibilities along with 3 points in fire and brimstone, and it's been working fantastically for me, well enough that I've had others request my spec and rotation on a regular basis. I'm normally within the top few on damage, only dropping when on add duty or when having to run around like a mad person without the ability to reapply dots. My rotation has currently been Immolate, CoA, Corruption, Chaos Bolt, 6x Incinerate (due to trinket procs not allowing for refreshing Corruption in a timely fashion) and using Imp, Immolate, and Corruption glyphs. Now perhaps I'm crazy, but why isn't this idea being more widely considered? I've just respecced a few times, trying different specs suggested on the site, and (at least for me) my dps has been the best with the one I already had, perhaps because I've grown so accostomed to it I'm not sure. I'd love some feedback, and to see if anyone else manages some pretty numbers with this as well.

I dont have any issues with clipping immolate. I stated that it is not worth it to keep immolate up right after conflag every BD IMO. Just because the added haste can be better spent on other spells with longer cast times. My CB's are harder hitting than incinerate by a good amount, so no I do not think that it is wasted talent point. My CB's can only be worked in when they are off CD but it might be possible to work more in to the rotation, although it will be difficult to get many more than that in. With the next patch even with my 1 CB per BD, the CB damage will be significantly higher. My results are not much different from many others that use CB. Chaos Bolt at 8% of total damage done is around average from what I've seen from people.

This is probably a stupid question but I'll ask anyways:

Assuming there's no other lock casting COE or DK or someone doing a +10% spell damage debuff is there any reason to use COA over COE for Molten Core procs? As far as I can tell they're both +10% damage.

Great posting, and I like the way it's heading us. I'm currently enjoying a 31/40 build, but I have been planning to swap to a deeper destro build, at least to try. Your rotation seems managable, and getting Soulfire into the mix is a good use of a potent spell we havent had much use for. Assuming MC is up and all the increased crit chances firing it off after BD would seem like an ideal use.

I'm curious about a couple things...(1) Soul Shards...we still are at 1 per soulfire. As it is with a 28 slot bag I still start burning through shards if we are wiping on particular boss...are you carrying extra shards or just dealing with this. (2) Could you link your build? I understand the benefits of ISL, but I also was thinking we could spend the points elsewhere for better benefit. My imp running dry is a pain, but we seem to have enough heals that I can tap frequently enough so more DPS would be nice. I was personally playing around with a build like this... Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Thoughts? I'm not sure if 2 of the points in UP would be better spent in ICOA.

I wanted to post to get some opinions on the build an rotation i been using on my Lock.
Current build / spec : The World of Warcraft Armory

For my Rotation i been using
1)Chaos bolt
2)CoA
3)Immonlate
4) Incinerate spam till CB pops or Conflaguate ready
5) Conflagurate (When immolate = less than 4 seconds

i was tracking 1.8k dps but that seemed alittle low on a Nax boss fight my dps was greatly decreased in comparison. Any opinions or feed back would be great...

You are kind of undergeared. A much better spec for you would be 41 demon and 30 destro, the spec has been discussed further up in the threat. Felguard will give you a good dps boost and fel knowledge is a LOT better then shadow/flame with your gear. The rotation for that spec is CoA, Corr, Immol and spam Incinerate while refreshing those 3. I am sure you would see a decent dps increase with that spec.
Also you need to work on your hit rating if you wanna do boss dps in raids.

@ shabaz -Is your raid missing and or is your replenishment buffs falling? I have a totally speced imp and there hasn't been a single fight where he reaches OOM status. (note im 0/30/41, playing emp imp lottery currently)

@ Patch
-Personally im going to try specing back to something like 0/20/51 without BD/conflag. The same clipping problem will be there and adding conflag always seems to just mess up things more. You got to remember spreadsheets are nice but they don't actually fit a raid enviroment at all. 200ms latency before server lag and movement in fights definatly force you to make "cuts." We will see how the buffed Chaos Bolt does though.

I too have been pushing Soul Fire during BD more and more and can pretty say right off the bat that it WILL increase your DPS. However, this is mostly because Immolate which will clip because of problems with GCD, a problem that might go away with next patch, we'll see how that one turns out. Also this rotation will eat through your shards like crazy if the fight is pretty long or pure nuke (I tried this one out mostly on Patchwerk, haven't got an WWS though), especially if you happen to wipe on a try.

Yes, shard consumption is the worst part of using Soulfire often in a rotation. I have been coming to raids with around 70 shards lately. I can end up using up to 10 shards per boss fights but it varies. Some people may not like the idea of having to have that many shards or using that many but honestly what else are you going to use your shards for? Ritual Summoning is on a 5 minute cooldown and I rarely have to soulshatter, even in 3+ hour Naxx clear and shadowburn is just bad. I guess I'll always be a sucker for big numbers. :P


Here is a link to my build WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator . Shadowfury isn't a dps increase but will help out in some situations, personally I love this spell. I tried spec'ing into ISL but I personally could not see myself with all that much more mana. I felt as though I was lifetapping just as much. Unfortunately, my guild didn't post the WWS for the week I ran with ISL or I'd give you exact numbers. I do know that my imp wasnt doing as much damage because I sacrificed 3/3 EI for ISL. Honestly, your imp should not be running dry in these fights. Make sure to un-phaseshift him so he is getting the buffs the rest of the raid gets. I don't know if the buffs go to pets automatically but I do know my pet is usually close to fully buffed.

Very cool! Thank you. I'm curious, I'm currently running a 31/40 build and doing fairly well. I have about 2100 SP (raid buffed) and in my hit gear my hit rating is 355...so close to cap. My fire crit is up around 40% raid buffed (with moonie and adding in the 10% for Demo and Destro talents). Am I geared enough to try the swap, or should I wait till 3.08? I would lose +5% fire crit and +5% fire damage along with 40ish spell power in return for BD, CB, EI, and FB.

Also...Noob moment...I'm fairly certain my pet OOM issues were my own stupidity. I wasn't making sure he got buffed. I started actively watching that last night and noticed the issues vanished. To many nights of saccing my succy have made my pet management skills rusty!

From what I've read, when is it and when is it not appropriate to use Corruption regarding 0/31/40, 0/41/30 and similiar speccs, by math and by experience?

I'd love to see a Glyph of Soulfire that removes the shard cost so it can be used as part of a regular rotation. Probably not going to happen seeing as how they seem to be absolutely against removing the shard cost from anything (see Glyph of Soulwell) but it would be nice.

If you're going a hybridspec you're better off with Corruption. As for deep destro I haven't had the time to do any real testing yet.

Right now I'm using 0/41/30, so I should use corruption then I guess?