Best Spec Atm?

[Saraki]

What's the best spec for warlocks ATM?

I stopped playing for a few months and now I'm back.

What to spec, what to cast and what to keep in mind?

Cheers~

[Confessor Kahlan]

As far as simulated dps, affliction is coming out on top, with destro second, and demo last(barring aoe based fights). However they are fairly close, close enough that whichever you are best at will probably give better results.

[lightgil]

they are all pretty close as of this patch

[Hellfury]

I would say they never been more equal.

Also sims arent accurate because they dont take in consideration the imp stealth buff(yes he was buffed in 4.1) also Simcraft doesnt take snapshots of procs when using doomguard(wich affects demo a great deal)

[Faradin]

I would say they never been more equal.

I don't know about that, they were very equal back before the initial cataclysm Affliction nerf.

[vkei]

maybe warlock is the only one pure DD class that can choose spec on your own choice
all of them are works

i am demo when i still working on 5man , the AE damage is so good , now aff. since it don't need to keep ISF and keep all DOT manually refresh like destro

[Lichiz]

still, I seem to pull out ALOT more dps with destro then with affliction
Ofcourse i'm rusty with it again but the difference is 4k for me. this is ofcourse on dummy and I need to test it out on a different fight then HC Chimearon( where it defo is the best spec)

[Gobuchul]

Also sims arent accurate because they dont take in consideration the imp stealth buff(yes he was buffed in 4.1) also Simcraft doesnt take snapshots of procs when using doomguard(wich affects demo a great deal)

Both of these statements are false. Imp was not buffed in 4.1, and Simcraft does take snapshot of stats when using the doomguard.

[Kivimetsan]

I can only play affliction, its just so refined and easy to manage my dots, whereas destro is just so complicated, although I have spent more time perfecting my affliction skills.

I have demo as an offspec so I can kill adds easily at the last boss of ZG because my guildies were pissed off when we kept wiping because my dps sucked on that fight and I hardly did any damage to the adds :P

My lock is only an alt atm though (my 25man group has 1 warlock and he isnt very good, so im hoping to get my lock in to replace my position as Ret pally so I can get legendary

[Bleunappy]

maybe warlock is the only one pure DD class that can choose spec on your own choice

Mages and as far as I know hunters can do so as well. Even sub rogues are viable on a fight or two.

OP: As others stated, it's up to both personal preference and what you're intent on doing. 5mans, raids, etc.

[Hellfury]

Both of these statements are false. Imp was not buffed in 4.1, and Simcraft does take snapshot of stats when using the doomguard.

Sigh

Imp was buffed and Iam not the only one seeing that. He does considerable more damage. I cleared most bosses already has aff but I did chogal as destro for shadowfury interrupting. I happen to have logs from pre patch kill and after only thing that changed was the ring from chogal from 359 to 377. Actualy my dmage on the pos 4.1 kill was lower cause of the lagspykes on my side but what counts is the imp data.

Pre 4.1 Imp avg hit: 4688
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=8276&e=8836

Pos 4.1 Imp avg hit: 5375
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r.../?s=901&e=1497

And also about snapshots, the pre-simulated stuff on EJ and Simcraft's site wich dates from 13 of March dont take the snapshots the doomguard doombolt adjusts with your stats.

"Simcraft does not take a snapshot of your stats when you summon a doomguard, it dynamically adjusts on every shot. Tested this by moving doomguard lower in the priority, which should have made it more likely trinkets and other procs are up by the time you cast it, but instead made its average hit lower because trinkets/volcanic potion expired earlier in the duration. "

The latest simcraft already takes snapshots, the stuff on EJ site doesnt its easy to see just download last simcraft and use the BIS profile here http://chardev.org/?profile=36757. And then we can see the DPET of the Doombolt going from 4587 to 9131

[Extinguish]

It really depends on the fight, and what you play best. If it's a fight like Omnotron or Magmaw, then destro is the way to go. If it's pure single target then affliction is the best (this is assuming you can play all 3 specs at the same level)

[Gobuchul]

Imp was buffed and Iam not the only one seeing that. He does considerable more damage.

Those WoL numbers are certainly interesting, but it's pretty easy to test whether he was buffed or not by having him cast a couple of firebolts on a dummy and look at his spell damage in the pet sheet and do the math. Pre-4.1 his base damage was around 118 and his spell power coefficient was 0.65. Post-4.1 my numbers on the dummy still match that exactly.

So no, he was not buffed directly. If he's consistently doing better in raids than he did pre-4.1 it's possible he was indirectly buffed in some way such as now benefiting from some raid buff he previously didn't. But given the randomness of your typical raiding situation and the low sample size, I would bet on some other effect (or combination of effects) causing the difference you're seeing.

Do note, however, that at least one time in the past I have conclusively observed two different imps (from two different warlocks) having different firebolt mechanics - one scaling about 10% better with spell power than the other. Clearly a bug, but it's apparently a possibility, so I would encourage you to find a dummy and do the same test I did.

(EDIT: One final note - the base damage and coefficient numbers I mentioned above were tested a couple of months ago, so I guess the final possibility is that he was stealth nerfed in a hotfix at some point before 4.1, and then stealth buffed back to the exact same numbers with 4.1.)

[Imbashiethz]

The specs are equal? Last time i checked, affliction was 2-3k ahead.

[Hellfury]

(RE_EDIT: Looking more carefully at your WoL, it doesn't appear you had the 10% spell power buff in your pre-4.1 raid.)

The Demo warlock is present on both kills, just maybe something changed with how buffs are registered cause Demonic pact isnt a buff u gain in combat and pos 4.1 it shows alot and prob his pet died and he recasted it. But yeh the demo lock is present on both kills so isnt that

[Gobuchul]

Yeah I noticed, so I removed that last edit. Not sure what could be causing the differences then, but again, you should test it on a dummy to check if there's a bug affecting some imps but not others.

[Kragtik]

It depends on which fight you are on and how you use the different mechanics of your spec and of the fight to gain an advantage.

I currently roll affliction

[Deleted]

I played destro all the time pre 4.1 and now that affli is over destro in sims I switched. However, I realized that affli only is so high in sims because of the execute phase which, in sims, does not involve movement in general. Thats where affliction gets their high dps from in thos calculations. In reality I still do more dps as destro in most fights

[Falconys]

Current numbers are here: http://www.simulationcraft.org/410/warlock_auto.html

Keep in mind thats in fully optimized best in slot maximum item level gear, so your personal experience may vary a bit.

While the 8.35% spread is quite close, the spread was only about 2.5% back in 4.0.1. If you remove Demonology from consideration as a single target spec you are left with a spread of 5.5% between Destruction and Affliction/DL, with Affliction/SB in the middle. None of this is even close to the 12-15% spread from wrath.

Ultimately, skill with your spec is worth 10-20% of your dps anyway so play what you are best at.

[Hellfury]

Those numbers are from 13 of March, alot changed in Simcraft code, so ppl should just sim they gear to accurately check.