Warlock QA (I'm doing the Q part!)

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Nickd

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Hi guys,

So I've been on a 8-9 month break from wow, and decided to start prepping for the Cataclysm release - I sincerely hope it lives up to expectation.
Anyway, my main is a lock and after logging in I realised I had no friggin clue what was going on.
New talents, Mastery, funny soul shard mechanic - I don't even know what the best DPS spec is currently....
So, I therefore ask of all you SA locks out there:

1. What is the best spec for dps currently
2. What is the optimal rotation for #1
3. I love affliction for leveling, so will probably be using that for the launch - any rotation tips there?
4. Add-ons: anything new and cool I should check out?

Lets get this thread going, maybe we can even get out own Warlock QA sticky!!
 
The coolest thing I would do is get the glyph for fear, so that you have one of the most awesome CC's for 5mans going into Cata. Basically it causes your feared target to be stunned in place, meaning it doesn't run all over the place.

Other than that, can't tell you much, my lock is only a profession alt, I mostly still place destruction. I don't think you get a set rotation anymore for any class, its all priority based now. Cast spell A, if its on cooldown cast spell B, if both those on cooldown, cast spell C ect. At least that is my experience now on most classes that I play.
 
fellow loc
Unfortunately affliction is now the sucky spec, :( i know
Destructiion and demology are the two new dps specs. And they have both been changed rather nicely


The short answers are basically
Destruction would be the best to start off with after a long break for dpsing
spell priority is something like

* Improved Soul Fire (If target is above 80%, make sure this buff is up)
* Immolate
* Conflagrate
* Bane of Doom
* Corruption
* Chaos Bolt
* Soul Burn -> Soul Fire
* Soul Fire (If Empowered Imp has procced)
* Incinerate

Stat priority is
Hit (Until 17%) >> Int >> Mastery = Haste = Spellpower >>> Crit

And addons get - power auras. Somewhat complex but extremely powerful.must have.
 
thanks man.
I'm assuming Intellect directly influences mana and SP then? (I think I still have a cape with spirit on it, doh!).
What about reforging, some armory profiles have every piece of gear reforged for mastery and some have no reforging whatsoever...?
 
Tinuva said:
The coolest thing I would do is get the glyph for fear, so that you have one of the most awesome CC's for 5mans going into Cata. Basically it causes your feared target to be stunned in place, meaning it doesn't run all over the place.

Other than that, can't tell you much, my lock is only a profession alt, I mostly still place destruction. I don't think you get a set rotation anymore for any class, its all priority based now. Cast spell A, if its on cooldown cast spell B, if both those on cooldown, cast spell C ect. At least that is my experience now on most classes that I play.
Click to expand...

That glyph sounds wicked, I've always loved fear and would use it in instances just for *****s and giggles~!
 
Murdoc said:
fellow loc
Unfortunately affliction is now the sucky spec, :( i know
Destructiion and demology are the two new dps specs. And they have both been changed rather nicely


The short answers are basically
Destruction would be the best to start off with after a long break for dpsing
spell priority is something like

* Improved Soul Fire (If target is above 80%, make sure this buff is up)
* Immolate
* Conflagrate
* Bane of Doom
* Corruption
* Chaos Bolt
* Soul Burn -> Soul Fire
* Soul Fire (If Empowered Imp has procced)
* Incinerate

Stat priority is
Hit (Until 17%) >> Int >> Mastery = Haste = Spellpower >>> Crit

And addons get - power auras. Somewhat complex but extremely powerful.must have.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this, just one thing, Improved Soul Fire now works at any stage in the mobs life (ie. even below 80%)

That said its a week till Cata, if you want to play Aff then I'd just play Aff if I was you, oh and here's a linky for you.

And Power Auras is pretty much the be all and end all of notification addons, well for me anyway :)

EDIT: Yeah int gives you something like 1.3 sp per point (I could be way off, thats just what I remember reading at some point) and don't waste your gold reforging at the moment unless you really do have money to waste. When you do reforge its pretty much going to be to haste or mastery.
 
Last edited:
Esea said:
MaxDps
Click to expand...

SimCraft

I find SimCraft to be far, far better than MaxDPS. It's more customizable, for example you can actually change spell priorities (the rotations on MaxDPS make me cringe), you can change stat values, use trinket procs, etc. MaxDPS is very restrictive.
SC is more complicated but also far more accurate, especially when deciding between a couple of pieces of gear or deciding which talents to pick.
 
Hi, Thread Resurrection :D

Just rolled a goblin lock yesterday. With all the new updates im confused as to which is the best spec. only lvl 12 now so a lvling + pvp spec would be nice. Can anyone help me ? :)
 
At this point any spec wil be good for levelling, it all comes down to preference. For a more pvp focused spec (really not my field) I guess destruction would be best now due to burst and later on the best caster defense (nether ward/nether protection) - but the problem is that you get your main nuke(incinerate) much later and wil have to do with shadow bolt and shadowburn until then.

An improved demon and some demon abilities won't help against a player who goes directly for you and since soul link is now baseline I'd stay away from demo until at least 70 when you can get meta.

Affliction may be a good leveling build still but since you heal for a % health now and you don't have that much at low levels and with revamped quests and zones you really don't need to fight more than two our occasionally 3 mobs st a time

Endgame has affliction as the top theoretical dps spec this patch, but the difference is basically negligible sure to latency, human error and boss mechanics.

Note that I have *always* played as destro and only dabbled with the other specs for soloing older stuff and occasionally group quests, so I may have been unfair to the other specs :p

Sent from my Nexus One using MyBroadband Android App
 
My lock was my main raiding char during early WotLK days. I leveled to 83 a few weeks back. I have always found that affliction is great up to when you can get your felguard, then go demonology. When I got to lvl 80, destruction was the most fun. I find the recomended rotation goes out of the window within 5 seconds due to having to move or suddenly aoe some bad trash during a boss fight. For destruction, though keep your fire dot up, and use whatever else is free of it's cooldown. And more dots... !

As for what is the best dps, i found the highest dps comes from the spec you enjoy the most. Experiment.
 
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