Warlock Challenge Mode Guide

[Drakzlol]

Done 9/9 gold on my lock and hunter. With top world 28th scholomance

My opinion would be destro is the best. RoF/F&B immolate on trash, F&B incinerates/conflags build immense amount of embers, havoc shadowburn/Cbolt is amazing on bosses like Strife/Despair or whatever the bosses are called in Jade serpent.

Shadowburn sniping on trash before boss so you get 4 chaos bolts on bosses in a row is amazing burst and singletarget dps. However, I'd say all 3 specs are viable, depending only on what you play best.

[Multiabuse]

Thank you for this. My group banged our heads against a wall in ToJS while I was Destro. I switched to Demo per this post (although I remained Demo the whole run rather than switch specs as suggested). We finished our 3rd CM relatively easily. I did Gate and Scarlet Halls as Destro with no problems, but now that I've gotten used to having a knockback and Demon Leap I don't think I can go back.

I know how strong affliction is (my raid spec) but I do want to point out that Destro puts out some pretty impressive damage versus bosses, especially if the fight starts with 4 embers. I was hitting 100k consistently on single target fights. Anyway, for now I am shelving the spec until I finish CMs and following your advice for the most part.

Despite your posting otherwise, this IS as close to a "Warlock Challenge Mode Bible" as I have seen. Thanks again.

[Nivrax]

I find it odd that you found Affliction that good. I think it more depends on setup than anything. My group had frost/fire mage and ele shaman dps, going Affliction for, what you described, not aoe worthy packs of 4 mobs would be for me just stupid, they would be half dead before I would finish dotting them with SS. In few place where you say that pull isn't big enough, my group had 7+ mobs since we had different tactic.

Scholo especially seems odd, you have a total of 2, maybe 3 aoe pulls in whole place - Rattlegore, room after him and one pack of students, if Affli really felt better for you for single/cleave you should stay with it till Barov is dead.

I personally run Demo all the time, the stun, aoe silence, fury from killing blows and felstorms gave me both more utility and burst damage than multidotting could ever do, coupled with 2 other excellent cleave burst classes made trash melt. I tried Destro myself since I love that spec and sniping things off, but not really managed it to work, at least not as well as Demo, and overkill from SB don't count as real damage so it's worse than recount likes to show you. The amount of times you have to pull 3-4 mobs is just terrible for Destro, you can't aoe them, and your cleave beyond 2 mobs is laughable to what other specs/classes can do. That was before RoF change however, I would imagine it'd be lot better now.

[Shauni]

I agree, affli makes good numbers but if you aim for gold then you should have a pretty strong Aoe group.

So the trash will die "relatively" quickly and some of your Dots will never get the full duration. Demono is much better because it is much quicker to attain "100% AOE Damage".

[Woz]

@Multiabuse: Thank you for the kind words! Glad that it helped you out.

@Nivrax: Like I put in the disclaimer this was based on my experiences doing the challenge modes and Destro is a completely viable for them. I have run multiple comps and I'm sure Destro would have worked just a well for them but I, admittedly, had not played Destro or given it second thought since I hadn't touched the spec in quite some time. Ive run with Mages, Hunters, Monks, DKs, Warriors...basically every DPS possible and there were many times where smaller packs existed and multidotting excelled where Demo AoE was simply not needed or there wasn't enough mobs to warrant it.
I play Affliction likes its a religion so quickly multidotting is in my blood and it's just my natural instinct to multidotting like a madman. Like I said...this was based on my experiences .

[Drakzlol]

@Multiabuse: Thank you for the kind words! Glad that it helped you out.

@Nivrax: Like I put in the disclaimer this was based on my experiences doing the challenge modes and Destro is a completely viable for them. I have run multiple comps and I'm sure Destro would have worked just a well for them but I, admittedly, had not played Destro or given it second thought since I hadn't touched the spec in quite some time. Ive run with Mages, Hunters, Monks, DKs, Warriors...basically every DPS possible and there were many times where smaller packs existed and multidotting excelled where Demo AoE was simply not needed or there wasn't enough mobs to warrant it.
I play Affliction likes its a religion so quickly multidotting is in my blood and it's just my natural instinct to multidotting like a madman. Like I said...this was based on my experiences .

Tried playing affliction last night in Gate CM. Terrible terrible damage in massive aoe, quite stronk on bosses and very good on trash packs with 2-5 trash mobs.
I feel destruction overperforms affliction in every way exept trash packs like the elementals in brewery where you can multidot.

You underrestimate the cleave destro has and the immense burst you get on bosses with more than 2 embers. If you snipe shadowburns on trash before a boss you'll have 4 embers and can blast 4 chaos bolts and peak 130k burst dps and end up at 110k dps. However I say what I said before: play the spec you play best with.

[Woz]

Tried playing affliction last night in Gate CM. Terrible terrible damage in massive aoe, quite stronk on bosses and very good on trash packs with 2-5 trash mobs.
I feel destruction overperforms affliction in every way exept trash packs like the elementals in brewery where you can multidot.

You underrestimate the cleave destro has and the immense burst you get on bosses with more than 2 embers. If you snipe shadowburns on trash before a boss you'll have 4 embers and can blast 4 chaos bolts and peak 130k burst dps and end up at 110k dps. However I say what I said before: play the spec you play best with.

I mean you're not really saying anything that I didn't already say in this thread or even in the OP. That is the purpose of having Demo as the other spec so that you are able to be either for boss/trash if time permits.

From the OP:

This is not to say that Destro is bad or is the wrong spec for challenge modes but this is to say that you can do it as either and any spec and this was just MY experience and yours may be different.

This is mostly because I don't play Destro often and wouldn't feel comfortable playing it though I'm sure it's completely viable.

Again....I have never had the stance that Destro is the wrong or a bad spec for Challenge Modes. I simply would not have felt comfortable in them as I hardly ever played the spec. At this point I feel like you're just not reading my posts at all.

[kaamila]

what are you gemming also for challenge mode demo + aff?

[Woz]

I just keep my normal Affliction gems and go for hit cap through reforging (Mastery in yellow, Mastery/Int in orange, Mastery/Hit in blue).

[Multiabuse]

Done 9/9 gold on my lock and hunter. With top world 28th scholomance

My opinion would be destro is the best. RoF/F&B immolate on trash, F&B incinerates/conflags build immense amount of embers, havoc shadowburn/Cbolt is amazing on bosses like Strife/Despair or whatever the bosses are called in Jade serpent.

Shadowburn sniping on trash before boss so you get 4 chaos bolts on bosses in a row is amazing burst and singletarget dps. However, I'd say all 3 specs are viable, depending only on what you play best.

I am back, now 7/9.
I have actually done all but Scholo as Destro (despite previously saying I was abandoning the spec for CM). The AoE is quite good as long as there are a number of targets to generate embers. When I came to the forums the first time, we were basically solo pulling the groups and destro AoE on 4 packs is pretty abysmal compared to a multi-dot approach.

Going into boss fights with full embers meant a burst of 120k and sustained 90-100k dps on the bosses.

I would use this guide for all of the great information it has, but look inward to your own skillset while making the decision on what spec to play.
I have seen videos up of all 3 specs in CM. All 3 are viable. If you normally play Affliction, don't switch to a spec that you have not had in years (although I would suggest familiarizing yourself with Demo. It's AoE on the first pull in SPM is ridiculous 250k+). OP has illustrated very nicely how he gets the most from his preferred two, which, if you are starting from scratch and want more than Marza's general outline video guides) are a huge help. Thanks again. These really helped me start looking at CM a little differently and are part of the reason we went from 1/9 to 7/9 in a few sittings. Cheers in 5.2!

[Deleted]

I am taking this guide as help as my group progresses to clearing all golds. Completed all on silver now, so hard part is ahead!

I am not so comfortable playing demo, so will be replacing demo with destro from the guide Thanks for the tips though, I'm sure they will come in handy!

I find that destro definitely has good AoE damage, and single target damage also. Especially when you start a boss with 4 embers

[missbrooklyn25]

I'm going to give our gold runs a try as destro. Still mastery>haste>crit? And thank you for the guide! Was very helpful.

[Woz]

Depends on if you're using GoSup or not - which you probably could/should - in which case Haste=Crit>Mastery for reforging.

I'm probably going to do another run sooner than later here as Destro since I've become more comfortable with the spec. Judging from raids it should be pretty lols.

[Multiabuse]

I'm going to give our gold runs a try as destro. Still mastery>haste>crit? And thank you for the guide! Was very helpful.

I went GoSac Mastery > Crit > Haste

The 5.2 Buffs to destro nukes and the shadowburn fix mean you will be generating a lot of embers on trash. You'll be amazed at just how much of your damage comes from Shadowburn, and despite the nerfs to gosac, the spell is still very powerful- Moreso now that you don't need the actual killing blow to generate 2 embers back.

Either way works fine, and if you are really trying to min/max you might want to do simcraft for a 463 iLev and see, with your gear, what the optimal reforge is. The quality of life GoSac brought was well worth keeping GoSac for CM. Too many pathing issues (MSP, Scholo) that can cause issues and I was more comfortable with that than rolling around with a pet.

[Deleted]

which challenge mode dungeon is the hardest?

[jaymzkerten]

which challenge mode dungeon is the hardest?

YMMV depending on the group comp; MSP can become extremely hard if your group lacks a mage/rogue/hunter/night elf that can drop combat in the tunnel after the second boss, as an example. Yesterday the one that gave us the most trouble was SM, but that one can also be cheesed with a DK/rogue and then it becomes super easy.

The difficulty mostly comes down to knowing the instance -- knowing what your tank/healer can handle as far as pull size and knowing what pulls you can and cannot skip.

[Aceshigh]

I have a CM question but didn't want to create a whole new thread on it and since this was a very very good resource for them I figured I'd post in here to ask the question and give this a bump in the process.

I've got gold on several characters and my warlock is up next, I'll be playing demonology because I enjoy it the most. I'm at 533 ilvl and most of my gear has sockets in it now (ring/neck/3 socket pants and chest, etc.) so to me it seems like stacking mastery in my gem slots for massive AOE will be the way to go since once I get all set up it'll be like 9-10k of a secondary stat I can stack. I know in 463 ilvl intellect is supposed to be better, but with this many sockets and the ability to stack so many secondary stats is it better to go for them?

[Woz]

I have a CM question but didn't want to create a whole new thread on it and since this was a very very good resource for them I figured I'd post in here to ask the question and give this a bump in the process.

I've got gold on several characters and my warlock is up next, I'll be playing demonology because I enjoy it the most. I'm at 533 ilvl and most of my gear has sockets in it now (ring/neck/3 socket pants and chest, etc.) so to me it seems like stacking mastery in my gem slots for massive AOE will be the way to go since once I get all set up it'll be like 9-10k of a secondary stat I can stack. I know in 463 ilvl intellect is supposed to be better, but with this many sockets and the ability to stack so many secondary stats is it better to go for them?

I would say it's likely that mastery would be better for you. Make sure not to wear any RPPM trinkets and put on a different helm with a normal Meta gem in it so you actually get the use out of it.

When I did them as Demonology/Aff I was using a full Mastery set-up so you'll be golden.

[JV Chequer]

Demo vs Destro for CM, what u guys think would be better since Demo without UVLS looks worse than Destro in low gear lvls.

[Aceshigh]

I would say it's likely that mastery would be better for you. Make sure not to wear any RPPM trinkets and put on a different helm with a normal Meta gem in it so you actually get the use out of it.

When I did them as Demonology/Aff I was using a full Mastery set-up so you'll be golden.

K cool that's what I though, thanks a lot. I've got a helm with the regular meta gem and I have Relic, Light of the Cosmos and the Frozenflash resin gobule trinket (850ish hit with 4k+ intellect on use) to play around with. Probably go with Relic and LoTC so I can be a little lazy haha.