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http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?5502222002230105510312000000000000000000000505000510200000000000
This is one of the two specs that i think are the best for PVE, though it really isnt very good for pvp nor will the next one i post be. Anywho let me explain some reasoning behind it. For starters, a warlocks most affective damage dealer are their dots. So i have all the dots you can use and have them maxed out. Imp CoA and imp corruption along with having UA and Siphon life. So how i use this sort of spec would be keeping the dots on for the duration of every fight, they really are most important. While the dots tick spam Shadowbolts and get some fun crits and what not that will allow your dots to tick harder. Have both threat reduction points filled, those being imp drain soul and destructive reach. Reason being for those is with any spec that you spam Shadowbolts and get crits you also gain a lot of aggro relatively quickly which can lead to your death in many occasions, so having the 20% less threat generation can make a huge difference. Also having both dark pact and imp lifetap keeps you with a constant flow of mana, you will never run dry with this spec. When you get low dark pact two times and lifetap two times and your back at full mana with minimal HP loss. This spec does not have large burst damage so is not good for trash mobs but has very very good duration damage. Since you dont rely on crits with this spec you have the potential to keep a constant flow of damage going at all times. Remember, bosses are what count, not trash. Malediction is key for any Warlock that is focused on PVE more then their PVP career. Imp healthstones for the raid and tanks. Thats about all for this spec, onto the next!
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?3502222502231105510312350030003000000000000000000000000000000000
Here is the next one. Now this is a funny looking spec i know. The goal of this spec is to make sure that your current gear maxes out your potential Spell damage and + hit. That is all you want with this spec, +crit will be worthless to you if you went this route. This spec is similar to the first in the fact that your dots are doing majority of the damage. Keeping them on at all times during encounters will be crucial to your DPS. Now again, this spec will not be as good on trash but will do far better on boss fights as it has no burst damage. To go along with the dots you would lifedrain while they eat away. Apply dots, lifedrain, rinse and repeat. Use shadowbolt when you get a nightfall proc, which will occur fairly often i might add. Now heres my reasoning behind why this is, in my opinion, the most deadly PVE spec you can do. First and foremost, in any 25 man raid you will have at least 3 warlocks. If each warlock is affliction/whatever and has UA and Siphon life, then there will be a total of 4 dots per warlock, plus one shadow embrace shared between them. That equals out to 13 total dots/curses on the given target. Soul siphon increases the amount of damage done by your drain life attack by 5% per dot with a maximum +damage of 60%. If you do the math, with those 3 warlocks you reach the maximum of 60% extra damage on the lifedrain. Now i know, your thinking im crazy. Finish reading. Drain life at lvl 70 with +0 spell dmg ticks for roughly 105 maybe, not sure exactly what the rated number is on the attack. Now add about 1100 spell dmg with just fel armor on and now that is automatically boosted to about 600 a tick. Now add the 60% boost from the 3 warlocks debuffs on the target and you get your drain life attack to tick for about 1000. Now add a shadow priests debuffs, which you should have at least 1 in every raid, and your drain life is now increased by another 15% roughly. Your lifedrain now is around 1150-1200. Now lets add this all together and ill move onto my next point. You have your corruption which ticks for about 550 with around 1100 spell damage, your UA which ticks for about 550 aswell, your siphon life which will tick for about 200, and then your lifedrain. This equals out to about 2500-2700 damage per tick. Also, unlike shadowbolt and the other destruction abilities, drain life is a binary attack. By this i mean it can only be resisted in one way. You either have a successfull drain life attack or you do not, its resisted off the get go or it is not. The other destruction spells are not this way. You may have a Shadowbolt hit but 50% of it be resisted by the target. You also may shoot a shadowbolt and it will be resisted all together, wasting that 2.5 second casting time. Again with this spec you have Malediction to increase your damage of shadow spells by another 3% to go along with shadow mastery and contagion of which i did not add into all of the numbers listed above. The reason i feel this spec is the ultimate spec for a PVE warlock is this. 1. You do a steady amount of dmg of long period of time. 2. You wont ever run out of mana thanks to dark pact and imp lifetap. 3. You are virtually unkillable unless you are one shotted due to demonic embrace, imp imp, and fel concentration. 4. Its hard to mess up. You dot and you lifedrain.
I know its a lot to read but if you really look into it you will see that for a PVE warlock destruction isnt the way to go but one of these two or some sort of hybrid of these is going to, in the long run, be better for your total dmg output and survivability. Comment as you will, im curious to know what you guys think.
Crustie
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Supreme Being
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Hey Crustie- thanks for the very informative posts. Incidentally, that first spec is almost exactly the raid spec I had before switching to destro- and destro beats the damage output over the course of a kara run significantly. Even on most of the boss fights, I still tended to out dps my afflict version, and essentially kept up with the crazy uber pwnage rogues we tended to have.
The second spec is the intrigueing one- WS is the first time I am grpd with warlocks who care about working together- and the arguement you present is a good one- if only the bit about the binary spell and resists etc.
It seems as we progress through SSC, TK and onwards, bosses will be able to increasingly resist more and more, so stacking attributes that minimize that will be important- but spec changes seem appropriate as well.
Look forward to talkin to ya guys later today and seeing how things went.
We are War Storm!
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Supreme Being
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Last Login: 11/12/2008 8:17:38 PM
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Ok, one more issue to think about...
With only one lock on destruct duty, the 20% imp shadowbolt effect- will only be worth it if only the destruct lock spams s-bolts, and the aff locks use only periodic dmg effects. If the aff locks throw a few s-bolts onto the mix, it will cancel the effect faster. The effect only lasts til 4 non periodic hits occur- or 12 sec- whichever is sooner.
What's interesting is while crits trigger the effect, regular hits will stack to cancel it.
The destruct lock needs to crit as often as possible, so crit bonuses and any shammy or boomkin partying has to happen for max effect.
This may also become more difficult as we progress and we encounter targets with more resilience to crit.
Definitely a worthy experimentation and monitoring excercise.
We are War Storm!
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Last Login: 2/13/2008 4:16:50 PM
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On the first spec, and i think with any, suppression does not need to be maxed out as to mobs being able to resist your DoTs. about 3 or 4 points into it will usually suffice as you also have +spell hit gear so you can spend the points elsewhere. improved drain soul is almost close to useless because dealing dmg along with 9 or 24 people in the raid lessens your chance at getting the killing blow on any mob or boss. putting one point in shadow embrace will also maximize dps along with soul siphon because it counts as an affliction effect. for malediction, only 2 locks need it per raid for curse of shadows/elements. if you have extra points, amplify curse is a good investment because it can add over 50% dmg on CoA or CoD
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Nq0rVRfkMZbxczIiz0xs
i actually enjoy a SL build best because you get to live longer and less dependent on heals if dmg is dealt to us. demonic knowledge and demonic aegis adds a significant amount of dmg. there is less DoT dmg but the user won't feel gimped when solo grinding/farming or doing 5 man instances inbetween raids.
~Morius
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