Having a hard time...

[Raptace]

Hey all,
finding it hard to find some good info about lvl 80 raiding builds... I've looked around and locks I know and such *shrug* but most of everything I'm finding is pre WOTLK data like "ooooh this spec looks good at 80"... which isn't exactly what I'm looking for.

I've seen the http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZ0xIzsgRq0cxzZVchqr0uV
which is the 0/41/30 which seems to be fairly good and is around on sites. I tried it out, and without
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47230 Fel Synergy... atleast for normal questing and stuff, doesn't seem fun at all. I spend way too much time healing the Fel Guard. And have alot of down time. Maybe for raids its ok?

I was just messing around with a talent calc and came up with this which is my current build. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZfbczsxMZVcGVr0uVsAbs
I had 2 points just laying around after this so I put them in conflag, which won't really be in my rotation except when something is almost dead anyways... maybe Shadowburn would be ok for that? And also Shadowfury, also just a filler really.

Any help here is much appreciated, I thought my build works out pretty well cause I get the imp stone, demonic aegis, plus I can just phase shift my imp if its not a pet friendly fight, also keeping the big cookies for the raid :). Any ideas?

[Nortibiry]

We wouldn't want to have to start calling you Smally-C.

[Raptace]

We wouldn't want to have to start calling you Smally-C.
That would be a damned Greek tragedy :D

[phewl]

my best advice is to go 0/41/30 at least until you have good gear. I have found that the pet buffs from being demo can buff you ~200 spell dmg and 10% crit, which is huge for helping make up the gear gap, especially since your likely wearing a fair bit of lvl 70 gear. Not to mention your felguard does an insane amount of dps himself, and is very handy for soloing and id imagine pvp too.

Affliction is currently a very demanding spec to play, but it can push out slightly higher dps than demo/destruction if played well. I've never raided as affliction, and with things dying so quick you dont get too much time to practice proper rotations. Ill go affliction eventually if it continues to stay top dps and bosses live longer. Another issue with affliction is the curent debuff limit of 40.

The standard deep destruction builds with chaos bolt are very comparable to the other builds in terms of dps. my brief experience raiding with a full destruction build didnt turn out to be as good of dps as i wanted, due to what i believe is the gear gap, and the amount of mana needed for it was also a pain.

The only downside i currently see to the hybrid FG/emberstorm spec is pet management, which is not too bad these days. Im getting the hang of pulling him out manually when needed, ive been adding key bindings as i gain more experience. The FG gets alot of the aoe heals too so he isnt horrible to keep up. Their are a couple fights where using the felguard is not ideal, stuff like heigan, but in those cases you can just switch to the imp. You do lose a bit of dps doing that but not too much, as the imps buffs to you are pretty good too.

I personally find this spec works really good for soloing too, but everything i point at tends to die before it has a chance to do stuff anyways. The felguard is awesome for soloing and i find that hes never tanking as long as im blasting. His intercept stun is key too, typically stuff is dead before it gets to me.

[Raptace]

I'm wearing nearly all lvl 70 gear... I haven't had the heroic time at all... but thats because I just got to 80 yesterday. I did my first heroic, it was a pug, and it went horrible, I should know better by now. But when you say in guild chat "who wants to do a heroic?" And no one answers you, not much you can do other than that.

What did you think about the spec I conjured up there? I think its pretty sound for the most part. I don't run out of mana and neither does the imp because of the soul leech. Which I found was a big problem with the 0/41/30 spec. And the imp hits nearly 1k a firebolt... which isn't bad. I'll have to find some way to test out the specs. I don't think Bliz put in that empowered imp for shits and giggles, and this seems like it'd be pretty good.

[phewl]

The imp is great, just i found i personally wasnt doing nearly as good raid dps using destruction as i was using 0/41/30. It depends what you want i suppose... purely fun or the best raid dps performance. Mind you I only had 1 night in Naxx 10 and sartharion 10 using my full destruction build. And ive done a full naxx 10 clear since then, i found i was even competative with hunter dps using the hybrid spec. I dont think 0/41/30 will remain the highest dps spec as the gear gap closes though.

And remember im really only concerning myself with raiding, thus my comments will reflect what i think is applicable to a raiding environment, not 5 mans, soloing etc.

In regards to the spec you made, I dunno, theres a fair bit of aoe going on in Naxx but i dont think id ever spend a talent point in shadow fury, unless the raid really needed it for a specific fight. And i would never take or use conflag in a raid setting without backdraft. Conflag is horrible damage per mana, and it burns a global cooldown. The addition of backdraft was an intention to try and make conflag worth using in a PVE raid.

If your interested in full out destruction i would suggest something along the lines of http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IbZfbc0cZVcGVd0uVsAfct
this build is apparently competative with the rest of the main 51+ tree specs, im inclinded to believe this is more true when your in a mix of entry level 80 gear, rather than lvl 70 gears.

If you check out this build i would reccomend this rotation
Curse, Corruption, Immolate, Chaos Bolt, Incinerate, Incinerate, Incin....... Until you need to re apply a dot, use conflag(as immo is about to end), or chaosbolt as it comes off cooldown.

After you use conflag try making the best of your current haste gain, If immolate is under the GCD, then just use 3 nukes(incin, CB) and start over.

In the event of heroism, i would put less priority on dots, and just keep immo up, while incinerating, chaos bolting, and conflaging when necessary

All of this while of course letting your imp have at er, imps can apparently put out roughly 650 dps now. They are really great. If you have any other questions or concerns feel free to ask, Ill be busier the next few days but ill try to check in.

[Etrigana]

Id like it if one of you could make a 50/21 spec work. Demonic pact is a pretty cool buff and I cant imagine it would be a huge hit to your dps if one of you pulled out a felguard and used it to keep the buff up. Without an elemental shaman or a discipline priest, we are lacking a solid +spellpower raid buff (excluding Kubs flametounge but its not nearly as good as demonic pact is) so Im kinda gonna need one of you to fill that role.

-Etri

[Xyriin]

Just from seeing different locks in 10 and 25 man raid settings so far the Demo/Dest builds have seemed to be the more competitive dps builds. I haven't seen a Dest heavy build do well yet, and only one Affliction build managed decent damage that I can recall.

[Raptace]

Id like it if one of you could make a 50/21 spec work. Demonic pact is a pretty cool buff and I cant imagine it would be a huge hit to your dps if one of you pulled out a felguard and used it to keep the buff up. Without an elemental shaman or a discipline priest, we are lacking a solid +spellpower raid buff (excluding Kubs flametounge but its not nearly as good as demonic pact is) so Im kinda gonna need one of you to fill that role.

-Etri
Expect me to be 0/50/21 at the raid tonight sir *salute*
Ask and ye shall recieve.
-Rap

[phewl]

You might want to consider 0/56/15 if your looking for a build that incorporates demonic pact. I've read that this build is pretty competitive demo dps, using shadowbolt as your main nuke along with your dots.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?tal=000000000000000000000000000000503 301135202250013523135155000005000000000000000000

[phewl]

Or perhaps something like this if you wanna stay biggie C!
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?tal=000000000000000000000000000000503 301135202250013523135155000005000000000000000000

Or maybe take a point from demonic brutality and put the other one back into mana feed.

[Raptace]

Are you just reading through the normal channels like warlock den and the warlock raiding compendium or? I'd like to know where you go so I don't have to ask you all the time lol.

You really think going all the way down to Meta is the answer? Everything I've seen doesn't seem to point that Meta is very good. I mean basically that becomes Meta vs. Ruin... thats a tough call. And not having Cataclysm seems bad with all the hit loss. I can see some of the points being good but... I don't know I'll come up with something.

[phewl]

In my time out of game I've been reading through the elitist jerks class mechanics forum on warlocks. There is enough people doing active testing there that it can save alot of time on your own part to see whats working for other people and try it yourself. The old pve raiding thread has been retired but there are many good new threads emerging.

http://elitistjerks.com/f80/

[Raptace]

yeah I know the old one was retired, but people still post there pretty often lol. I'll check out that site tonight after work.

[phewl]

Yea having cataclysm would probably be better now depending on your hit rating situation, Either way is probably pretty good in terms of dps, I think that 0/56/15 might be assuming you can reach hit cap on your own, thus giving you a marginal dps gain as full demo. I'm sure you can tweak the 0/50/15 +6 spec to fit your needs. Have a good one, cya later tonight!