New warlock - Which spec for pve at the moment ?

[Deleted]

Hi everybody,

First, sorry for my english, it's not my first language, so I hope I'll be understable.

So, I play warlock from few weeks and I waited this patch with some excitation but, I asking myself about the choice of spec depending the boss.
Actually I play affliction on all encounters. I'm careful on my rotation (refresh dots, haunt when is available, soul drain as finisher), use soul drain when possible on add to refresh my shards.
I think I'm on a good way but (and I hope it's like that for every affli lock) after my burst and without available haunt, my dps decrease and sometimes it decrease so much...

So, my big question is : Do we need to take another spec for some encounters ? If yes, which one on which boss ?

And last question, during execute phase, do you refresh your dot between your soul drain or they fade ?

That'all !

Sorry for my english.
See ya !

[Inshabel]

Refresh your dots with SB:Soulswap during execute, you'll have shards coming out the wazzoo.

[hellhamster]

What Inshabel said, also try not to use any Haunts with 2 and less shards when you have no procs up. Use a Haunt when stuff like Power Torrent or Lightweave proc, and keep refreshing Haunts during Blood lust, Dark Soul and Insignia of the Corrupted Mind. Always use a Haunt asap when you have 4 shards though.

Lastly, I find that it is very worth it to drain soul any stuff that is about to die, to get 4 shards almost instantly. This includes Zonozz tentacles, Yor'sahj blobs, Hagara frost pillar thingies (for some reason lightning phase add never gives me shards back when it dies, this screwed my incoming burn phase 2 weeks in a row because i used shards on the add expecting to get them back), Warmaster adds, Spine amalgamations and bloods, Madness parasites and meteors etc etc.

You can try demo and see how it feels, in my opinion it can be exactly as good as affliction is atm, maybe a little worse, but it may be far more complex than you find affliction.

[Xandy]

I would recommend Demo for pure single target fights, fights with heavy movement and fights with heavy AoE (Morch, Yors, Hag, Ultra)

Also until they fix the Madness GrimSac bug I would go Demo for that fight, although you could just go GrimSup and do just fine too.

[Femto1]

I have noticed that Destruction tends to be absolutely ridiculous for any fight with damage increases or haste increases, ah-la-la Madness of Deathwing or Majordomo Staghelm. Our second Warlock, who is always Destruction, would absolutely ravage my DPS on these fights.

However, on all fights other than Madness and Majordomo Staghlem, I was able to oust him by a respectable amount with Affliction or Demonology. Last week, I was able to burst to aboue 87k on Morchok as Affliction (Stormlash and Heroism and a double DoT on Kor/Mor included).

I guess it depends on what you want to play. I view all three specs perfectly viable.

**EDIT**
To elaborate more, on strictly single target fights I have had more success with Demonology. However, any time there is an included add or something along those lines, I have found Affliction to be superior or at least equal to Demonology. I have not raided as Destruction as of this week.

I have noticed that, as someone stated earlier, timing your Haunts is absolutely crucial. Make a Power Aura for when your spell damage procs are up and Haunt then if you're low on Shards. Refreshing your Shards is a huge dps increase. I usually hover around 2 shards until things proc or something is about to die. I try, obviously, to time it and end the fight with 0 shards. However, RNG doesn't always allow this. The more shards and haunts I can manage, the better in my opinion, though.

SB:SS is f'in amazing. Never under-estimate it.

[Deleted]

For the moment I used Haunt when available at the beginning of the fight to have a bigger uptime of his debuff, but after few secondes (24sec, 8secondes of debuff for one shard), my uptime of haunt decrease and I need to wait nightfall.. I got one proc of nightfall, use Haunt and again waiting waiting and waiting nightfall...

After reading your posts I understand that my first big mistake ! I need to manage much better my shards waiting good moment to use it and keep a uptime during burst (BL an so).

Thanks for your help, I'll try it !