Gearing Lock for PvP.

[Deleted]

Hey guys, long time lurker and first time poster. As the title hints, I've recently started playing my lock and again got it to 90 a few days ago and was wondering, what's the best spec to be playing while farming gear? I've tried Afflication as it's mean to be "op but as you can imagine - my gear sucks and so does my damage. I've noticed Demo doesn't seem to be what it used to be in PvP and a few slight changes to Destro.

Real question is, what do you think will be more viable playing until I get caught up in gear/stats?

Cheers for any help, tips or advice

[Deleted]

in random bgs destruction is far superior to affliction, mastery/crit (haste for affliction)

[Deleted]

Awesome! Thanks for the quick reply So for randoms, just stick to Destro and for RBG's and Arena's go Afflic? I'm so out of touch with it all now, it all feels strange. And advice for running a simple 2's for cap? Like what set-up works well etc? Or just take a warrior or Unholy DK as they are OP as fuck...

[Novx]

Awesome! Thanks for the quick reply So for randoms, just stick to Destro and for RBG's and Arena's go Afflic? I'm so out of touch with it all now, it all feels strange. And advice for running a simple 2's for cap? Like what set-up works well etc? Or just take a warrior or Unholy DK as they are OP as fuck...

For RBGs you are going to want to run as Destruction still. There are a few cases where aff would be decent, but unless you are running double lock that generally isn't going to come into play.

[Painolympian]

2v2 destruction is very tanky and can put out some hefty burst with havoc chaos bolt
3v3 been playing it as affliction with ww and resto shaman and the spread pressure we put out is just insane, if we litterally get it right we are seeing that our enemies all die around the same time.
Rbg this really depends what comp youre going with if youre team has a lot of dotters like balance, unh dk, spriest i'd go affliction. But otherwise its destruction for me since destruction also works very nice as flag carriers.

[gortz]

Affliction puts out a ton of pressure in RBGs/BGs. I'm always top on DMG and if the healer is properly CCd then the targets really drop rapidly. Not had a ton of RBG experience but I've been hitting my cap. Going for a full mastery/crit build with like 4720 haste for extra corruption tick and it works better than haste imo. The dots do so much damage and even if they drop off as long as you keep agony at 10 on at least 1 target so you can redot + soul swap you're going to keep pounding out a ton of pressure.

Just curious why you say destruction is more tanky?

[Deleted]

Affliction puts out a ton of pressure in RBGs/BGs. I'm always top on DMG and if the healer is properly CCd then the targets really drop rapidly. Not had a ton of RBG experience but I've been hitting my cap. Going for a full mastery/crit build with like 4720 haste for extra corruption tick and it works better than haste imo. The dots do so much damage and even if they drop off as long as you keep agony at 10 on at least 1 target so you can redot + soul swap you're going to keep pounding out a ton of pressure.

Just curious why you say destruction is more tanky?

embertap
/10chars

[gortz]

embertap
/10chars

Thats not really my definition of tanky as it's just giving you a heal limited by embers that you use offensively too. Tanky is more damage reduction to me which is why I thought I'd check I wasn't missing something important.

I guess the fact most destro locks are going GoSac is also giving them 2% hp5 which is pretty sweet and I miss it on my aff lock.

[Tyrean]

Most RBG groups will want you to be affliction and have you spread UA on everything, but the main reason you are there is to be a cover for CC that punishes the other team for dispelling. Your role will most likely be to dot/fear/dot. If there is already a UA lock then depending on makeup they will either ask you to double UA (which can sometimes kill healers who are not paying attention) or they will ask you to destro.

No one in RBG will ever ask you to go demo.

In randoms, I actually prefer demo while gearing up because your damage output is so low that you are not really helpful UNLESS you can be a good distraction. If you are specced Demo you can be insanely tanky and while you will not be able to land kills 1v1 you will be able to help your team win in randoms and gear up faster. Living forever and being a CC bot/ distraction goes a long way.

In arena if you are capping 2v2 I would also suggest demo and get a dps partner that can kill things for you. Again, your job is the same in randoms eat damage and CC.

Good gearing demo spec is:
Dark Regen
Shadowfury
Soul Link
Blood Horror
Sacrifice
Archimonde's

Then for glyphs go with:
Demon Hunting
Eternal Resolve
Healthstone/Imp Swarm

What that does is give you a ton of HP though soul link and sac, makes it so you don't have to manage a pet, makes dark regen and healthstones much beefier because they scale with health, gives you on demand tankiness with demon hunting and very nice passive damage reduction/healing.

You won't do much damage, but while you are gearing you won't do much damage as any spec. You will be able to live forever and CC/Debuff people all day and make it easier for the people that are geared.

[DenniZ]

Affliction puts out a ton of pressure in RBGs/BGs. I'm always top on DMG and if the healer is properly CCd then the targets really drop rapidly. Not had a ton of RBG experience but I've been hitting my cap. Going for a full mastery/crit build with like 4720 haste for extra corruption tick and it works better than haste imo. The dots do so much damage and even if they drop off as long as you keep agony at 10 on at least 1 target so you can redot + soul swap you're going to keep pounding out a ton of pressure.

Just curious why you say destruction is more tanky?

Mastery-crit over Mastery-haste?? Wouldnt you need insane amounts of crit to get a decent crit % ?

[Tyrean]

Mastery-crit over Mastery-haste?? Wouldnt you need insane amounts of crit to get a decent crit % ?

Chaos Bolt Level 90
10 Burning Embers 40 yd range
3 sec cast
Requires Warlock (Destruction)
Requires level 42
Unleashes a blast of chaos, causing [2488 ( + 258.75% of Spell power) * (1.24)] Shadow damage.

Chaos Bolt always critically strikes. In addition, the damage is increased by your critical strike chance.

Dark Soul: Instability
5.0% of base mana
Instant 2 min cooldown
Requires Warlock (Destruction)
Requires level 84
Infuses your soul with unstable power, increasing your critical strike chance by 30% for 20 sec.

[Nicola]

Mastery-crit over Mastery-haste?? Wouldnt you need insane amounts of crit to get a decent crit % ?

Crit gives more damage on Chaos bolt and an increased emberbit generation. Not only that, but as Destruction you spend most of your time either casting instant spells or backdraft hastened spells so there's little need for haste.