PvE best Warlock spec

[Tryvia]

Hi guys, i'm new to mop warlock (i played lock back in cata), can you tall me the strenght and weakness of every warlock spec in pve? Best one for single target, aoe, mobility fight, low gear etc..

[xskarma]

In my experience:

Every spec works well enough in most niches and on the whole you will do best in the spec you are most comfortable playing. If you are really pushing it though:

Multidot: Affliction
Mobility: Demo
Pretty much everything else ranging from AoE to low geared: Destro

[Kink]

I'd say destruction is the go-to new to the class/low geared Warlock spec.

Trinkets are extremely strong this expansion and will tend to always determine your performance on fights, along with the legendary cloak and meta gem making the added difference. Destruction has more room for error in play than Demo, and somewhat for Affliction (More so RNG). If I had to categorize from easiest to hardest, I'd say Destruction >= Affliction > Demo.

Demo and affliction require a learning curve and research to master, destruction is more straight forward where as Demo and Affliction past their base rotation require a lot of self awareness and self management. As Karma said, affliction can be silly due to soul swap and the right trinkets on multi-target fights and farm kills (faster kills the better as affliction), Demo will shine on mobility and pick up on multi-target and Destruction will shine in almost all situations, especially cleave fights where you can snipe adds with Shadowburn.

[striderZA]

What's with this "destro with low gear" trend going on?

My two cents:

Heavy AoE - Destruction is great if you can keep FnB up.
Fights with burst AoE sections - Demonology. (Immerseus, to name one)
Multi target - Depending on the time that the targets are alive, any spec is fine, affliction is miles ahead if you can extend DoTs properly though.
Single target - All three are viable, if played perfectly the specs are very close.

At this point, play whatever the hell you like, only fight where there's a massive difference is on protectors.

[Kink]

What's with this "destro with low gear" trend going on?

It's mainly the difference between Destro with bad trinkets/4pc vs Demo/Affliction with bad trinkets/4pc is going to be noticeable (Unless you know how to play the other specs better than Destru). At least that's my take on why gear is brought up all the time with specs.

[xskarma]

What's with this "destro with low gear" trend going on?

People boosting their Warlock, or simply leveling a Warlock as their umpteenth alt will usually end up with basic TI gear, no trinkets and probably a 463 or 476 weapon. For those people Destro will most likely yield the best results when stepping into LFR/Flex unless they are used to playing another spec and are allready good with that.

[striderZA]

Fair enough

It's just interesting that it's become the go-to response when people ask about warlock spec performance, and few actually move on from destruction, which is kinda disappointing.

Edit: Then again, I don't remember much from when I had rubbish trinkets.

[xskarma]

Edit: Then again, I don't remember much from when I had rubbish trinkets.

Most of us who main Warlocks had Frozen Resin Globule probably before the first week-end of the expansion. We never really had the problem of bad trinkets. It's the people leveling now and skipping everything, just going Timeless Isle straight to LFR and Flex that lack weapons and trinkets compared to those of us who have been playing this tier since, euh, what was it, so long ago, September? October? Well, proves my point really. Forever ago.

Fact few move on from Destro is probably cause 1) Destro performs well in good gear too 2) Most people gearing now are on alts, so they don't care as much to learn all the specs 3) Green Fire quest is best done on a Destro lock 4) Green Fire is most visible on a Destro lock

In just a few months we get The Great Reset again and what happens in WoD is anyone's guess. Demo might become the dominant spec again for once, like it's not really been for a while, who knows.

[striderZA]

That, definitely, and one of the reasons I first switched to destro - pretty numbers! :P

Can't wait to see the spec balance in WoD, I'm rooting for demo to be top dog.

[Bonkura]

Fair enough

It's just interesting that it's become the go-to response when people ask about warlock spec performance, and few actually move on from destruction, which is kinda disappointing.

Edit: Then again, I don't remember much from when I had rubbish trinkets.

If you don't have anything strong to snapshot then Affliction will fall behind. That's why people for example recommend you to get LMG before switching spec.

[striderZA]

If you don't have anything strong to snapshot then Affliction will fall behind. That's why people for example recommend you to get LMG before switching spec.

Indeed, I forget that people play without the LMG and how important it is for affliction.

[Cursalock]

What's with this "destro with low gear" trend going on?

Affliction isn't very good compared to Destruction (even on multi-target fights) unless you can make the first big haste breakpoint along with enough mastery, and you can't do that in LFR or worse gear. It's acceptable in normal and shines in heroics because you can stack a lot of haste.

[Deleted]

It's more about Affliction requiring snapshotting to really do high damage.

Go whack a target dummy without any trinkets or legendary meta gem and you'll see why Destro is favoured at low ilvl.

[ryklin]

destro is also really easy, I made a lock with the wod boost last week and am already doing over 150k single target at 520 ilvl

[klogaroth]

It's more about Affliction requiring snapshotting to really do high damage.

Go whack a target dummy without any trinkets or legendary meta gem and you'll see why Destro is favoured at low ilvl.

Plus if you compare current affliction to affliction when people started MoP it's had some fairly significant nerfs to account for better gear being available.