New to warlock, which Spec should I go for?

[Lappenforce 0]

Hey everyone I'm new here so don't stomp me into the ground for asking a question a lot of people might have asked before me. So yeah as the title says I'm kinda new to warlock. I'm wondering which spec I should go for and would show the most result. And what interest me the most, when does WHICH spec become superior to the others? I already know that as soon as I have the Lei Shen trinket, demo should skyrocket with the proper using (Opener and Doom etc).

Well I searched through various thread, found a lot of information but nothing that really showed me what's going on. So how do I start, when do I switch? Stat values seem to be close in all specs so that won't be a problem.

Would really appreciate help from you guys, thanks in advance !

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I'm going to PvE ONLY! Sorry

Edited May 19, 2013 by Lappenforce

[Weston 0]

Depends if you're doing PVP or PVE really

Demo is fun all around spec, it has a ltitle of everything. It's also very tanky. (For pvp)

Destro has high burst and has good CC

Affliction isn't the BEST right now, but it's still good. Expect buffs in the future.

[Sagnuts 1]

Depends if you're doing PVP or PVE really

Demo is fun all around spec, it has a ltitle of everything. It's also very tanky. (For pvp)

Destro has high burst and has good CC

Affliction isn't the BEST right now, but it's still good. Expect buffs in the future.

Well, for PVE affliction is doing great. For pvp it's struggling.

[skullytor 4]

from my experience attempting to make affliction work i would say its the most high-maintenance.buff snapshotting is easy, but when adds are involved it gets ugly quick. demo seems to be the most consistent on a fight by fight basis, at least from what ive seen.

[Cruzan 71]

As far as which spec is the quickest to learn, Destro. Simple rotation with some basic rules to follow. Timing certain abilities with buffs can separate you from the pack as you get more skilled at it. If you are looking for a place to get started that will give you satisfying returns pretty quickly, go for destro. Branch in to Demo and Affliction after you're comfortable. You'll need to know one of the other two specs eventually for multi-target fights if you want to remain competitive and be bordeline OP in some cases .

By no means am I saying destro is the best spec, but its just my suggestion for getting your feet wet. I love Demo and Affliction, but we don't have tri-spec unfortunately.

[Nobleshield 15]

As a relatively new 'Lock myself, Destro is fairly easy to learn but hard to master (when to time chaos bolts, how many to fit in, etc.) while Affliction is a lot more maintenance with all the DoTs (whenever I try it it feels like all I'm doing is refreshing DoTs). I haven't touched Demo because it didn't sound appealing.

[Lappenforce 0]

Thanks for the replies so far. I was thinking about rolling destro + affli until i get the Lei shen trinket. Which spec would give the most result in early gearlevels? And when should I switch to other specs (breakpoints, certain equip pieces)?

[obleak 10]

Demo is going to be a challange for new locks simple because of the skill cap it requies to master. It's a bit more difficult then the others.

[Hawkmune 2]

Which spec would give the most result in early gearlevels? And when should I switch to other specs (breakpoints, certain equip pieces)?

Well you sure are specific Lappenforce, seems you want a very detailed iLevel of when to switch. :)

This will be relatively difficult but I'll try. At the beginning of the expansion I think most people went Destro and Demo with a few remaining Affliction. They buffed Destro and Demo and it was a good opportunity to dump Affliction after playing the entire 5.1 patch with it as the only viable option. Then a week into the patch they nerfed Corruption and Doom by 25%. Demo was no longer as viable in early ToT.

That said, I think Destro really shines all the way up into the iLevel 520 range. In fact it still does IMO. Affliction is supposed to get better at this point but I found with all my SIMS that Destro > Affliction > Demo at 520.

Until you get the Lei Shen trinket. Even the 502 trinket which I have.

Suddenly it became (on a patchwerk fight) Demo > Destro > Affliction.

So this is what Simulationcraft said about my specs but it's also true in game and on the target dummy. There is a noticeable difference with Demo + Lei Shen trinket.

All 3 specs have their nuances and require a lot of skill to master. Destro is the easiest to learn. But when people say "it's easy to learn, hard to master", that's really true of everything, right? Affliction is watching dots and using the addon Affdots (a must have). Destro is ensuring you wait until procs for Chaos Bolts and using Shadowburns on low health mobs. Demo is all about stance dancing. All 3 ask that you be aware of when trinket procs.

And you're right about stats on gear from 502 > 520 or so. THey are all so even that you can just balance them for the most part. I don't like to go for high crit builds and like a high haste, high mastery. Again, that changes once you get "The Trinket" (and you know what, from now on in this post, let's just refer to Lei Shen as "The Trinket") and then you can stack haste.

Hope this helps. Others may have had a different experience. Knowing the boss fights is equally as important, as is group makeup and assignments, etc, etc.

Good luck. And welcome to the Lock Community!

[Lappenforce 0]

Well you sure are specific Lappenforce, seems you want a very detailed iLevel of when to switch.

This will be relatively difficult but I'll try. At the beginning of the expansion I think most people went Destro and Demo with a few remaining Affliction. They buffed Destro and Demo and it was a good opportunity to dump Affliction after playing the entire 5.1 patch with it as the only viable option. Then a week into the patch they nerfed Corruption and Doom by 25%. Demo was no longer as viable in early ToT.

That said, I think Destro really shines all the way up into the iLevel 520 range. In fact it still does IMO. Affliction is supposed to get better at this point but I found with all my SIMS that Destro > Affliction > Demo at 520.

Until you get the Lei Shen trinket. Even the 502 trinket which I have.

Suddenly it became (on a patchwerk fight) Demo > Destro > Affliction.

So this is what Simulationcraft said about my specs but it's also true in game and on the target dummy. There is a noticeable difference with Demo + Lei Shen trinket.

All 3 specs have their nuances and require a lot of skill to master. Destro is the easiest to learn. But when people say "it's easy to learn, hard to master", that's really true of everything, right? Affliction is watching dots and using the addon Affdots (a must have). Destro is ensuring you wait until procs for Chaos Bolts and using Shadowburns on low health mobs. Demo is all about stance dancing. All 3 ask that you be aware of when trinket procs.

And you're right about stats on gear from 502 > 520 or so. THey are all so even that you can just balance them for the most part. I don't like to go for high crit builds and like a high haste, high mastery. Again, that changes once you get "The Trinket" (and you know what, from now on in this post, let's just refer to Lei Shen as "The Trinket") and then you can stack haste.

Hope this helps. Others may have had a different experience. Knowing the boss fights is equally as important, as is group makeup and assignments, etc, etc.

Good luck. And welcome to the Lock Community!

Thank you for your detailed answer, it really opened my mind! As you said destru will be my primary thing until I raise in itemlvls, while I might switch to affliction for council or something. But it looks like Affliction isn't really good at the moment even with The Trinket, or is it? As soon as I get "The Trinket" I'll roll demo. With stacking haste, what do you mean by that? More ticks on the 100% crit Dooms -> more imps or something specific?

Thanks so far!

[Cruzan 71]

I think Hawk nailed it. Destro will carry you well in to high ilvls. Can't vouch for personal testing of Destro at 520+ but its not like Destro "falls off" or anything it is still great and very competitive.

The Trinket is okay for Affliction, but I believe you'd have more success with Breath + Wushoolays I believe. At higher ilvl of The Trinket Affliction might enjoy it more as it will proc more often as compared to an LFR version, but currently The Trinket doesn;t proc often enough to be useful. THe stars will align once in a while and all your procs will be up and you can snapshot 100% crit on top of everything else, but other times you'll run in to weird situations of deciding to overwrite Empowered DoTs with a non-intellect buffed 100% crit set of DoTs.

As for stacking Haste it benefits a lot of things. For Demo specifically it will give you more ticks on Doom (If you let it fall off), a reduced CD on Imp Swarm, higher RPPM proc rate, faster casts on soulfires and shadow bolts, etc. If you roll with Service or Supremacy your pet will also benefit from Haste.

Until you get two RPPM trinkets and the legendary meta gem you will be fine to have Haste and Mastery fairly even for Destro. This stat priority works great for when you need to switch over to affliction. Its kind of the jack of all trades of stat setups.

[Lappenforce 0]

So basically, Affliction seems like it isn't worth it at all at the moment? Like pre Lei Shen trinket Destru > affli, as soon as the trinket rolls in Demo > affli? Or are all three just really close together and it depends on the boss or what I "like" to play? I can't find any reason at all to play affli right now it seems, with the expection of Council maybe (without lei shen).

[gahhda 95]

Zomg the amount of responses.

You said you're 522 right? At a gear level that high, spec changes based on the fight. Demo is good on some, terrible on others. The same can be said for the other two. I'd definitely learn how to play at least 2, and if you learn all 3 you'll be a great help to your raid with the ability to switch for each fight to optimize your play.

If you don't have LMG, affliction and destruction are basically equal single target. The only difference is mechanics. Horridon, tortos, meg, and primordius, I'd say destro 100% with your gear level. It is so easy to game shadowburn/havoc and RoF on those fights. The others, open for debate. If you have LMG, affliction will beat destruction on basically everything else in NM. For council, I HIGHLY recommend learning demo, regardless of having the trinket or not. It is just plain the best spec for that fight, hands down.

When you get unerring, demo can be AMAZING on some fights. It is, however, horribly based on RNG. If you wipe and pull the boss within ~2 minutes, you aren't anywhere near ensured to have unerring proc in the opener, which can suck during progression cycles, and leads to a lot of RNG.

[Zagam 1,982]

I personally think Demonology is not terrible for any fight, but Gahhdo believes so ;) I've performed extremely well on every fight as Demonology, but it's been skewed by Affliction meter padding. Destruction pads on Horridon, so people think it's the god spec on that fight as well. Properly played Demonology can hang with anyone, anywhere, any time.

Also, Haste doesn't affect Demonology pets nearly as well as Mastery does. If you're looking at pet damage, Mastery is your friend. It's Destruction and Affliction Supremacy where Mastery isn't your pets' friend.

With the discussion on specs, you really should play what you're most comfortable with. As a pure DPS class, you should be responsible for mastering all three of your specs. You should never rely on one spec to do well on every single fight. Spend a week playing a different spec each week and really try to learn the small nuances with each. Don't wait for someone to say 'go Affliction' so you can go and do that. Make the game fun for you and learn to play all facets of your class.

[Lappenforce 0]

What for the love of God is LMG? It's propably obvious and I'm being dumb lol. Anyways it looks like I'll need triple spec, or am I fine just rolling destru for the fights you mentioned above and demo for the rest as soon as I have the trinket?

Actually before I have the trinket for demo, all specs will be quiet equal and I should play what's the most fun for me or best for the specific boss, right?

I'm fresh 90 btw, don't know where you got that 522 from .

Edited May 20, 2013 by Lappenforce

[JvChequer 43]

What for the love of God is LMG?

Legendary Meta Gem.

www.wowhead.com/item=95347

Edited May 20, 2013 by JvChequer

[Lappenforce 0]

Legendary Meta Gem.

www.wowhead.com/item=95347

Ooooooh right, thanks.

[gahhda 95]

I personally think Demonology is not terrible for any fight, but Gahhdo believes so I've performed extremely well on every fight as Demonology, but it's been skewed by Affliction meter padding. Destruction pads on Horridon, so people think it's the god spec on that fight as well. Properly played Demonology can hang with anyone, anywhere, any time.

Also, Haste doesn't affect Demonology pets nearly as well as Mastery does. If you're looking at pet damage, Mastery is your friend. It's Destruction and Affliction Supremacy where Mastery isn't your pets' friend.

With the discussion on specs, you really should play what you're most comfortable with. As a pure DPS class, you should be responsible for mastering all three of your specs. You should never rely on one spec to do well on every single fight. Spend a week playing a different spec each week and really try to learn the small nuances with each. Don't wait for someone to say 'go Affliction' so you can go and do that. Make the game fun for you and learn to play all facets of your class.

Do I really have to break out the logs and entirely remove all shadowburn not done to the boss, not even regarding the fact that most of the shadowburn on adds isn't to small adds but big ones who don't just take 50% overkill, again to show you I still win that fight not counting 'padding?' I've done it for both you and my guild now, not afraid to do it again :3.

Demonology has obvious faults compared to other specs and classes on a number of fights, primarily tied to that fact that 13% of our dps in a perfect world is entirely tied to a completely RNG based trinket, and we play around it, meaning the margin of error is actually greater than 13%.

Affliction is hilariously good on a number of fights with or without the bug, there is a reason most top warlocks were demo/affli for progression outside of destruction gimmick fights. No one can even touch a good affli lock on ji-kun or jin'rokh.

Demonology hands down is the best spec in the game on council, probably the best on lei shen, arguably durumu with good rng, and twin consorts. Those fights where we really get to see large aoe burst and/or sustained multi-target dooming.

There aren't unviable specs, if I were to reroll subt rogue right now I'd still beat 99.99% of wow players dps on most fights, but when you're talking about heroic progression, there are very distinct and clear choices as to which spec wins for which fight, most of the time. There are, of course, grey areas, such as consorts or qon, where it really doesn't make any difference at all which spec you play. But, that isn't the majority of fights.

[Zagam 1,982]

I agree, but the only fight I had to switch from Demonology to a different one was Heroic Primordius. With the 5.3 change, that fight is going to be laughably easy with a Destruction Warlock now spamming FnB Incinerate instead of having to macro crap to make it seamless.

There hasn't been a fight where my DPS held back the group by playing Demonology, and we're 10/13H. There's always going to be better players than me playing other specs, but my argument was only that there is no fight Demonology is bad at. There may be fights where other specs are better, but I don't care to switch because it's not needed.

The other meaningful point is that progression in this raid hasn't been tied to tight enrage timers except for Horridon and Twins. None of the other fights made you race for DPS. This raid is more tightly tuned for players able to execute mechanics like Dark Animus' anima charge or Primordius's ooze that blows up and wipes your raid.

TL;DR: Demonology isn't going to hold your raid back on any fight in this tier.

[Lappenforce 0]

TL;DR: Demonology isn't going to hold your raid back on any fight in this tier.

Is affliction going to hold anything back? Because I really like affliction, as you said in one of your guides you feel like a 'Warlock' :P.

Thanks for the massive amount of infos so far guys, I appreciate it!

[Zagam 1,982]

Depends on your role, but none of the specs are noticably way worse than others except for Destruction on Council of Elders. The rest of them are pretty good for all of them.

[Lappenforce 0]

Hey there. So I'm currently equipping my lock and playing straight affliction at the moment. Currently it says Mastery has the most value, 0,5 or something over Haste. And I heard I should reforge and go for haste as soon as I can reach the 6637 Haste cap -> rest into mastery. Before I can reach that cap (around 490 I guess) should I just prefer mastery over haste? I mean that's what sim and askmrrobot say.

And I have another question kinda off topic, do you guys have any useful WeakAura strings for affli? Something like DarkSoul cooldown+uptime etc. I won't need anything for dots since I'm using affdots.

Thanks in advance !

[Cruzan 71]

Heavy mastery is fine. Don't worry about haste soft caps as you gear up. As you get better about not letting your dots fall off they become less important.

What exactly are you looking for on your DS timer?

dOZ7eaGArkA9Iu6LIu1UuvY2ePYmjuz2K6MeQY3uI2Pk2lSBkTFPIFsrnmkyCe0TjXqvvQblv1WLIdkLWPKsQJrsNtQYcfXsLs1Ivvz5s6HuOEkYYuv45kMifYuLyYQY0fUiHQ60eDzuxNkBuvr)MQ2SsA7IKPPe(QuI(Ss9DcL)kkpwunAkY4Ls5WQ0Tuv11iW5LknkPK8mc51IuyOIcOlkianGu)AXxl)Qhifqpqpua1M511Hd85IE9sNQWp6jCHHElx2Bbw)VqaOUMxxhoWNPZGa1Lg6juG6YEcwiqiw)VqaOH1RF7L2auI5sXS4joX)ZcOkVLEBPBddAx9UgqwNsPk3BUo4Ocs(azebs7Vpuav9AgfqkoDirbbceG42AU2h)qccq5OGJkkG6AEDD4aN)QlnakQY9MROak62WGM4gUbKZYPyBa66cpi3Wzk3i3e)A3zzKaYnCM0MIRdJeqCk2gGm271pVy2o9)U63vEMo9Bf1WADRb5goZzLbsannSwFUkmoQQIekqii3WztdR1NRcJeq5Uj8kzMKpguiv4hcqMy52uGJidG0(7dfqUHZY13zqcOQxZOasXPdjkiqaYnCwA9wg)annCokGgPDRzCubP40HefCeHeeiaLRVZGcOrA3AgulBr7IZSXPhbi3Wz5ELF3ajiav5T0BlDByqYCVf0toPPZMhYumsaL796Nxml(b6(EYq6TxDwuL7nxhuqasm5lmHJidGAZ866Wbo)fjaKZgv5EZvuannSwFUkmoQQIekqicqsBkUomsazDkLQCV56GJki5dKruN(gXtu9iW5dua1M511HdC(lsaiNnQY9MROaAAyT(CvyCuvfjuGqeGIQCV5kkGIUnmOjUHBa5SCk2gGUUWdYnCMYnYnXV2DwgjGCdNjTP46W4hiofBdqg796NxmBN(Fx97kptN(TIAyTU1GCdN5SYajGMgwRpxfghvvrcfieKB4SPH16ZvHrcOC3eELmtYhdkKk8dbitSCBkWrKbqA)9Hci3Wz567mibu1RzuaP40Hefeia5golTElJFGMgohfqJ0U1moQGuC6qIcoIqcceGY13zqb0iTBndQLTODXz240JaKB4SCVYVBGeeGQ8w6TLUnmizU3c6(EYq6TxDwuL7nxhuqaQR511HdC(RU0aiXKVWeoImaY6ukv5EZ1bhvqsBkUomsajFGm6wtJo9jVt3PVXg1P)hGY9E9ZlMfjiqakfoQlmyabaa

Above is what I use for tracking DS. Very basic.

[Lappenforce 0]

I've seen a lot of locks going full haste, why are they doing it and should I aswell? I'm totally lost about my haste and mastery right now, can you clear that up for me or something?

[Cruzan 71]

It's a gear/playstyle choice. Prioritizing haste will come after you acquire 2 RPPM trinkets and the legendary meta gem. Until then you'll more than likely not want to go with anything more than Mastery=Haste.

Haste reduces the amount of RNG built in to this tier by increasing the procrates of those RPPM trinkets/meta while also doing a ton of other good stuff inherently with your spells. Its a great stat no doubt, but Mastery and Haste are very close to each other in weight to begin with it's just the RPPM system bumps up haste's value the more that you rely on the RNG of the system.

We're talking fairly small differences here by the way. Depending on your gear (which i didn't find an armory link for) you can make the choice based on the playstyle you want. At low ilvls (sub 510 with no RPPM gear) I wouldn't recommend stacking haste. With proper gameplay you could arguably negate the effectiveness of haste on RPPM trinkets in my opinion. That's just the power of Affliction and Pandemic. The plus side of a mastery-heavy build is a slower playstyle allowing for an easier time of executing proper class and encounter mechanics. More haste means more button mashing and more chances to mess up.

Hope that helps a little bit.