4.0.1 Raiding Warlock Guide
Scaron — Fri, 10/15/2010 - 11:58
I'm bored at work so I'm going to use this as a place to compile some raiding Warlock thoughts for until Cataclysm. I'm not going to do a Demo spec at the moment because, well, I don't really see it as raid viable yet so long as an elemental shaman is around the sp buff is now the same.
Word of Warning: This guide is in a state of constant flux as what's live is also in a state of constant flux. For example, presently Demonology is testing as the second strongest DPS spec, ahead of both DL and SB affliction locks...so I may need to write up one of those guides soon. We'll see.
Destruction
Destro looks to be the top warlock spec at the moment, even after the nerf to Searing Pain (which you had to know was coming).
Glyphs: Top main performing prime glyphs are Conflagrate, Imp, and Immolate
Other valuable major glyph: Lifetap (unless your haste is high...1400ish).
Fear, for CC issues is nice too. When glyphed targets cower in terror rather than run around and pull mobs.
Gear: First, get up to 17% hit. 446ish. Remember spirit is worthless, dump your purple purified dreadstones for veiled dreadstones (int / hit). Reforging is okay if you have gear with crit on it, but in many cases it won't be that helpful, since you've probably been stacking haste for the last little while anyway, haven't you. If you can reforge hit (if over cap) or crit to haste or mastery, you should do so. Haste is very slightly better than mastery at the moment, unless you're over the 1406 haste cap. Anything beyond that point should ABSOLUTELY get reforged into Mastery. But, let's be honest...you're only at that point of haste on your gear w/o any more spellstones if you're mostly 277/284 gear...and those folks aren't probably the kind of person who needs to read guides like this. :)
Spec: Pick the dps talents as much as possible to 31 in Destro. Then hop over and pick up some points in Dark Arts and Imp Corruption.
Pet: Imp
Rotation:
Start with a Shadow Burn --> Soul Fire to keep up the Imp SF buff (15% haste buff for 15 seconds if target is over 80% health).
Keep these dots up all the time: Immolate, Bane of Doom, Corruption.
Keep Conflagrate and Chaos Bolt on CD.
Use your instant cast SF when it procs.
Pop Doomguard / Infernal (for multi-targets) if it's up.
Collect loot.
EDIT 3: Neither edit 1 or 2 was helpful. Things are correct as originally posted.
Affliction
Affliction is still a strong contender for a dps spec. Many things remain the same in terms of rotation for affliction. There's technically a viable Drain Life spec which is very different than the Shadowbolt spec. The thing is, if you want to be a DL warlock, your reforging is very different than either a SB afflock or a Destrolock. That means that if you want to be at an optimal level you'd have to reforge if switching between DL Affliction and Destro or SB Affliction.
Personally, my dps has been about equal between DL Affliction and SB affliction and I like to be able to switch to destro, so SB is the way I'm choosing. DL is substantially harder to play and requires you to micromanage each and every facet of your gameplay (no simple button spamming for your filler spell, your range from the target is a substantial issue in order to keep up your 15% dot damage debuff, lots of math in terms of figuring out when to "clip" DL). All in all, if you can manage all that, knock yourself out...but Ghostcrawler says you'll be casting SB again in a few months anyway.
Glyphs: Haunt, Bane of Agony, Lash of Pain
Other major glyphs of importance: Shadowbolt, LifeTap (until haste > 1400). Fear, for CC issues is nice too. When glyphed targets cower in terror rather than run around and pull mobs.
Spec: Pick all the regular dps shit in Affliction to get to 31. You'll have to pick some optional stuff. I only put 1/2 in Jinx as Jinx has only really valuable application on trash. Same reason I skipped on the Seed of Corruption talent. I did pick up Curse of Exhaustion, for potential kiting. Then I grabbed 3/3 Bane and 2/3 Shadow and Flame in the destro tree.
Gear: Here's where DL and SB playstyles vary. The reason DL is viable is that it benefits from mastery. If you switch just about every piece of gear (after hit capping at 17%) so it has mastery on it, you get an added 33% (ish, that's what it was for me) periodic damage increase. What that means is that essentially ALL your spells have an extra 33% damage bonus.
For either DL or SB you should be dumping spirit. (As above). Gearing for a SB focus the stat weights are basically the same as for Destro gearing as described above. (Mastery is a little more valuable for Destro locks than SB afflocks, but probably not so much that it changes gear sets between the two.)
Pet: Succubus
Rotation:
Starting off, it's no longer as valuable to stack Shadow Embrace with shadowbolt and haunt, so you're just as well starting off by throwing up your dots on the target as you run in because dots automatically readjust to crit, haste, and spellpower levels upon refresh.
Keep Haunt on CD at all times.
Get up your Dots (Bane of Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction).
SB filler (or DL if you're a drain life focus...also as DL you probably will need to stand way closer to the boss so you don't lose Shadow Embrace w/ Haunt's long travel time...you'll also need to keep an eye on the 5% crit debuff if you're the only one bringing it--see, I told you it was hard).
When boss is <25% health, use Drain Soul (which can now crit) instead of ShadowBolt.
Pop Doomguard when available.
Pretty much the same rotation as before for SB focus.


corruption
Lilpuddinpop — Tue, 10/19/2010 - 22:25Have only really been using corruption in my rotation when i am on the move. Stand still I find corruption is not doing as good as damg from say a conflag speed increased incinerate.
Going to look at parses to see if the gcd is worth it. I'll reply from work tomorrow
Just looked and yes, it truly is worth the gcd. I just didnt expect to have to use a shadow dot with all this mastery in fire spells
You should also move the 2
Scaron — Wed, 10/20/2010 - 06:22You should also move the 2 points you have in the first tier of your affliction tree to imp corruption rather than the improved banes talent. EJ has been making this call for a few weeks now regarding corruption in destro rotations. The damage per execute time for Corruption is something like 18k ish. While DPET for incinerate is only 10k ish. It should be prioritized more highly than even chaos bolt.
Also, if you want to max dps, technically you should work Shadowflame into your rotation. prioritized ahead of chaos bolt but behind corruption.
Edit: One last thing. I saw you were using the Glyph of Incinerate, but simcraft and other less controlled tests have been showing that Glyph of Immolate is a substantial improvement over Incinerate.
i agree
Lilpuddinpop — Wed, 10/20/2010 - 07:40corruption is worth it. and i should be moving my 2 aff points into it.
I find it sad that we still have to use corruption in destro. It just seems like it should be solely for aff tree dps.
I hate having to use corruption in my demo rotation.
But yes one gcd = ~ 26k for corruption from my parses last night whereas one incinerate was ave to about 18k.
One other note, you can
Scaron — Wed, 10/20/2010 - 15:53One other note, you can afford (at your current level of haste) to drop at least 1 point out of dark arts and keep 3/3 imp corrption. If you're over 1406 haste you can drop to 1/3 dark arts and grab 3/3 imp corruption and 1/3 doom and gloom. The reason for this is that the imp's firebolt GCD has a hardcap of 1.5s no shorter, so decreasing cast time beyond a certain point doesn't help at all.