How much would I losing going back to destro?

[bigtox]

As the topic says, if I went from affliction to destro, how much dps am I losing? I just liked the ability to concentrate more on the fight as destro and not have to worry about the annoying corruption in affliction where you have to wep switch, pop the trinket , ect ect to get the most out of it, then not let it fall off.

[Bluey111]

Well it is only roughly a 200 dps decrease, and afflic may not even be good for the fight, alot of icc bosses require burst,

[Watermage87]

What you mean is you're not very good so struggle at any spec requiring any though?

Really??

What he is saying is that he is sick of swapping weapons all the time. Anyway on the topic you might actually find that in some fights you will have a dps increase due to burst issues.

[bigtox]

I can pull 10k. I'm good at it..it's just annoying.

[bigtox]

Oh one thing about destro that I never knew if i should do or not. If immolate is going to run off slightly b4 conflag comes off cooldown(think under 1 second) do you wait till immo dot ends to recast so you don't clip, or do you clip the last tick so you can cast conflag immediately off cd?

[bigtox]

It's not that I dont like dots...it's just that corruption has become a super annoying factor in the spec. To get the maximum out of it, you have to stack t10 4 pc bonus, tricks of the trade, nmic, wep swatch to crit wep, if your t10 procs fast enough you get a wild magic in there. You have to do that like every fight..

[Accolade]

It's not a matter of losing or gaining DPS, more of what your raid needs out of you. If you are in a guild that focuses on progression and downing the "new" content - then you need to be working hard to do the most DPS you can. Thus, if you pull higher dps in affliction, I recommend going with affliction. If your guild isn't pushing and you are looking for something less concentrated, perhaps destruction is what you want - or more specifically / an arcane mage. I don't believe anyone is going to pull 10k+ in any warlock spec without "trying"... each spec takes work and rotation/timing.

I do agree with you about the annoyance... I don't feel like we should "have" to use unintended mechanics (NMIC and other rolling factors) to be able to touch the dps of other classes as affliction... but at the same time - I personally find pride in finding the way to do the most dps possible. I also believe affliction provides bragging rights b/c of the difficulty of truly maximizing dps. To a similar extent, destro too - and definitely Demo (which is far more about timing than rotation). I'd rather not know I'm pulling 10-12k avg without any work, seems silly.

You should have a dual spec, so perhaps make an affliction and destro spec. For certain fights, affliction will pull more dps, other fights are preference. But honestly, it's easy to fall out of sync in destro too if you are clipping immolate and mis-timing conflag and chaos.

[Accolade]

It's not that I dont like dots...it's just that corruption has become a super annoying factor in the spec. To get the maximum out of it, you have to stack t10 4 pc bonus, tricks of the trade, nmic, wep swatch to crit wep, if your t10 procs fast enough you get a wild magic in there. You have to do that like every fight..

Only certain fights let you maximize all of these factors... Gunship, Putricide, Sindragosa, Dreamwalker, Lich King, and Blood Princes do not. So for the other 6 fights - it might be worth it.

*Bottom Line: Doing all of the stated stuff above will put your dps higher than any other spec as a warlock and in many cases will push you to the top of your guild's meters (if not #1 on certain fights).

[Xynthion]

Well it is only roughly a 200 dps decrease, and afflic may not even be good for the fight, alot of icc bosses require burst,

Saurfang adds and the slimes on Putricide=/="alot of icc bosses"

[milkinteets]

Saurfang adds and the slimes on Putricide=/="alot of icc bosses"

I think you forgot Lady/Gunship/Valith/Adds on LK

[Baaadum]

Saurfang adds and the slimes on Putricide=/="alot of icc bosses"

Marrowgar's bone spikes, Death Whisper's adds, Sindragosa iceblocks, orb duty on princes...

Edit:These too.

I think you forgot Lady/Gunship/Valith/Adds on LK

9/12 bosses.

[harky]

Bone spikes are lul-worthy. If you have remotely decent Mages/Melee/Hunters you shouldn't be switching to them at all. The health compared to DPS is ridiculous and any class with ramp up should ignore them. Deathwhisper adds uhm... with the old strategy, you might have a remote point, with the HM strategy, or the newer normal mode strategies? No, sorry, Afflic's Seed damage is higher and her adds = an AOE trash pack. Sindragosa ice blocks it's more important to DPS them slowly than to burn them, no point there. Orbs on princes is due to access to SL... Gunship Destro can't come close, 90%+ of your damage will be from Seed. Dreamwalker you'll be tab dotting and AOEing. Adds on LK Destro will lose due to multi-dotting in general.

If you want to get really specific, in a good guild, Destro is favored on exactly 0 fights as a high DPS spec. The argument just isn't there and that's why Afflic is winning on all those fights. The argument is survivability. Destro wins by a landslide.

On live expect to lose up to 1.5k DPS, depending on the exact fight and your current gear. Most will lose closer to 500-750.

[Accolade]

Once again, there is more to this discussion than just a right/wrong answer - Heroic modes are different than normal modes in the necessity of spec... so I am assuming normal mode for the extent of this discussion. I am affliction, and here is my reasoning (not everyone needs to go affliction though, just my personal opinion):

Marrowgar: Bone Spikes will be taken down by a number of other classes with insta-casts and higher burst dps - affliction will pull more on this fight and you shouldn't have to ever switch to spikes as affliction.

Lady Death Whisper: Adds go down super quick as well, and as Affliction, you should be able to cycle dots on adds and return to Lady D, keeping many of your original dots up too - other dps being able to burst the adds down.

Gunship: Really doesn't matter - wand if you want. =)

Saurfang: Put corruption on each blood beast when it comes out then go back to the boss... you will effectively do anywhere between 300k-500k dmg to them this way depending on raid dps and length of fight --> but you can pull massive dps on this fight as affliction without the need for burst.

Festergut: Ramp-up and beast mode... no burst needed here.

Rotface: Ramp-up and beast mode... no burst needed here either - the only reason to lose DPS here as affliction is if you get some bad rng with multiple slimes - sometimes better to get the slimes to off-tank and stay out of slime-spray then stopping and refreshing dots (a dead lock is no dps at all). No burst here.

Putricide: Both affliction and destro and demo can be good here respectively - I have not tried destro on this fight (I plan on doing destro this week), but as affliction I still pull in the top by just watching dots on Putricide, refreshing and quick dot'ing oozes - effectively using my teleport to get back to dps position for the boss. However, burst can definitely be effective here though - especially if you are struggling to get the oozes down.

Blood Princes: Thought about going destro for this, but I pull #1 each run in my guild on this fight as affliction - so I don't see a need to switch at the moment, although I can see the argument for lower ramp-up times here since you cannot roll crit (much like putricide). However, each boss is active long enough for you to reach full dps for a while. Burst damage not being necessary, just lower ramp-up requirements.

Blood Queen: I have not tried destro here either - but 'burst' damage isn't necessary.

Dreamwalker: I actually do go destro for this fight - mainly because I kill blazing skeletons faster, bottom line. Lots of adds - manageable for affliction, but demo and destro do much better single target here.

Sindragosa: Haven't attempted in 25 (only 10) - ice blocks can be managed by good dot timing and SBs. But for Sin herself (especially with the debuff), I would think dots + wanding would pull better dmg overall, maybe not high dps.

Lich King: Haven't attempted in either 25 or 10 - Lots of AOE needed here - seems Demo works great (especially in phase 3). But I don't really have any experience to back up my opinion.

----long post--- haha.

[harky]

Just so you know, I realize you said you haven't attempted him, but AOE is pointless on the Lich King fight. Destro is only 'favored' because you can stun the Val'kyr. Unless you have some messed up group with a lack of good slows it's a non-issue.

[scandore8472]

All these "boss favors x spec" crap doesn't matter, because the real question is what are you better at? If you're ok at affliction, but kick ass as destro, you're probably gonna do better as destro. If you're good enough at affliction to kick ass, then you will probably lose DPS by going destro. It's as simple as that.

Affliction kicks ass if you execute a perfect rotation, but if you mess up a few times, it loses it's advantage. Personally, I'm not very good at it. I just got too frustrated learning affliction, and the new fights in ICC at the same time.

[tkoreaper]

Don't go Destro, go Demo. It's pretty close to affliction right now, and above Destro. In 3.3.3 Demo will pull ahead of Affliction and be the #1 DPS spec.

[Accolade]

@Fry-Lock
I very much agree overall with you... obviously you need to do what you can do and don't just respec to a certain way b/c it pulls the best DPS (because you might not be able to pull the best DPS with it until you have practiced it enough).

@harky
I guess I am confused about phase 3 for the lich king... is aoe not important there? I am referring to 25. I have watched numerous videos and read quite a few strategies on the fight - but I know that the ghosts need to die asap - what better way to kill them than seed? I'm not refuting the fact that aoe isn't a top priority, but to say it's pointless seems a bit misguided.

[harky]

Eh, pointless might be over-stating it. You should pop off a few seeds when they spawn, but having them all dead isn't actually a huge priority as long as people don't stand on top of them. The damage is non-fatal and has a very, very small radius. The AOE makes a negligible impact on the fights overall DPS since really it's only maybe 4-5 seeds every 30 seconds.

Demo's advantage in the fight is due to having many adds to chain Decimate with, not due to Seed. High Decimate time results in Demo doing higher single target damage than Affliction, or Destro. That's why you see Demo topping meters.

[Maeno]

On your first point, even as Affliction, i find it easier to simply pop a RoF over them, while still targeting Marrowgar to make sure DoT's don't drop off for too long. They die so quickly though that it's usually worth to just spam SB's or refresh your DoT's or haunt on the boss instead.

In my guild everyone stacks at the back of marrowgar. So a simple shadowflame can be used to do damage. Its one GCD that is always up for the spikes and it usually hits all of the spikes and the boss. Plus those 2.5k crits are impressive : Did I mention the dot ticks for like 500? ZOMG SOOOOO OP.

[Ormula]

All these "boss favors x spec" crap doesn't matter, because the real question is what are you better at? If you're ok at affliction, but kick ass as destro, you're probably gonna do better as destro. If you're good enough at affliction to kick ass, then you will probably lose DPS by going destro. It's as simple as that.

Affliction kicks ass if you execute a perfect rotation, but if you mess up a few times, it loses it's advantage. Personally, I'm not very good at it. I just got too frustrated learning affliction, and the new fights in ICC at the same time.

This is pretty much the bottom line. The difference between destro and affliction as far as dps goes isn't like you're going from arcane to frost. Both are viable. In all honesty, whichever one you like playing more will probably be the one you do more DPS in.

@Fordric: In hard mode, Saurfang adds are no joke.