What spec does the most damage in 5 man groups?

[Deleted]

Hello warlock community,

I'm a level 89 aff lock atm. Going to do allot of heroics once I hit 90. However, I've noticed and seen this confirmed, that aff is a very crappy spec for 5 mans. I like to be competitive, even in 5 mans.. What spec would you advice me? Personally I thought Demo might be the best spec considering their crazy AoE, but I might be wrong here cause Destro seems to wreck stuff aswell.

Thanks in advance


I've been a long time lurker but couldn't find an answer to this one, so decided to make an account, first post! haha.

[Harsesis]

I don't play destro much but demo will give you the higher trash numbers when you are just aoeing everything down, and has the high burst that most bosses don't live past. Spec is a decent amount more complicated to play well than destro though.

[Alarinth]

Hi, and welcome to the forums Geffrey. :-) I've been a lurker for an eternity as well, so I've been here way longer than it looks, haha! As to answer your topic...

I'm a huge fan of affliction, and in most cases I REALLY dislike speccing away from it... except in dungeons, then I always go destruction! Very few things beat thinking "gosh, that tank is slow, even though he's geared. Let's help him!" and then doing a Rain of Fire with the aoe-talent specced. Everything and their mothers will get affected by this, and the fun has started.

As in a numbers discussion, there isn't much discussion really. getting 200-650k executes like 8 times in a row in any aoe fight makes your dps seem silly. More so than multidotting like a boss in affliction.

Although, Demonology is viable too. Great aoe, any great singletarget dps almost at all times. I've you've specced into harvest life as well, you'll have full fury whenever you want to.

[Deleted]

Thanks for your reply's!

Harsesis: Ive played demo for the first 70 levels or so and the AoE is indeed crazy! But it sort of relies on felstorm to be off cd though.. Dont get me wrong, meta -> Immo aura , harvest life deals crazy dmg aswell if you can dot up some mobs before that with corruption and shadow flame.. But I think because of the fast paced group killing felstorm will be on cd allot.. Should I be concerned?

Alarinth: I've tried destro for about 2 levels. 86-88, but somehow I run out of burning embers in dungeon, which is why I probably didn't AoE as effectively as I could.. I think I did the rotation right though, here's what I did:
FaB - immolate, RoF, FaB - conflag, making sure to keep all the former up when possible and fill with FaB incinerates with the backdraft buff...

How many targets does destro actually need to not run out of burning embers using this method? If it's even the right one?
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I mostly like to prepare a bit for challenge mode dungeons, getting used to the spec I'll play there seemed a good idea to me.

[Alarinth]

Destruction aoe will get you 1,5 shard per tick per target on an average basis. Then you can easily calculate how many targets you need to not run out of embers pr GCD.

If you're getting used to CM runs, I'd recommend you to run the specs in this prio, because this is what you'll end up doing if you're 100% result oriented:

1) Affliction
2) Demonology

The reason I don't think Destruction is worthwhile for CMs, is that while it's very good at sustaining high aoe damage, that is not the reason you would spec away from affliction - you do that for extreme aoe burst, and that alone. Anything else is very well handled by affliction. Not to say Destruction is useless for challenge modes, but during my 9/9 golds, I didn't even think about it for a split second, Affliction offered me the singletarget, and I specced into demo with harvest life for those huge trashpacks.

[nightfalls]

Fairly, you can do 5-mans (normal or CM) as any spec, and do really good numbers. Demo is what I would go for CM's, just for the AoE burst, AoE interrupt, felguard, and greater survivability in meta versus affliction (since if you manage to get a few adds on you, you can use meta as a short defensive).

[Alarinth]

Fairly, you can do 5-mans (normal or CM) as any spec, and do really good numbers. Demo is what I would go for CM's, just for the AoE burst, AoE interrupt, felguard, and greater survivability in meta versus affliction (since if you manage to get a few adds on you, you can use meta as a short defensive).

When running CMs, you shouldn't get adds on you unless it is intended, since you're gonna be practising it to perfection, so that's actually not a scenario you're likely to encounter unless you've got a really bad tank.

[Amiright]

Is this a serious question?

Demo, Demo by a long shot. Build up demonic fury during trash doing insane aoe dps, and then blow it all on bosses. Most bosses will not live through you burning all your demonic fury. Back when MoP first came out i would pull about 200k burst as demo on bosses. I always ran with my friend who was a really good ele shaman and bosses would just fall over, 2 dps doing 150-200k burst in a mix of vp epics and blues=shit dying super fast.

[Deleted]

Yes this is actually a serious question because I couldn't find another up-to-date topic about it.

But I think, thanks to your answers, that i'll go demo. I enjoy that spec allot aswell.
Thanks all for your insights

[Reolac]

It depends on the instance, in instances like Halls and ScarMonastery I think Affliction is stronger.

On instances like Brewery I think Demonology is stronger.

[Zmaniac17]

If you wanna do challenge modes I would recommend learning Demonology. Having an AOE interrupt on a 15 second cool down is really nice. And your damage will always be higher as demo in the places where it counts the most.

Seed of corruption pales in comparison to immolation aura and shadow burn is mostly overkill in 5 mans.

[Bonkura]

The energy systems for Demo and Destro make them far more effective for dungeons than Affliction. Which one is more effective I can't say but I love Demo personally.

[Zinnin]

The energy systems for Demo and Destro make them far more effective for dungeons than Affliction. Which one is more effective I can't say but I love Demo personally.

Yea, I basically agree with this. I did all challenge modes as demo and the way challenges modes are (AoE - Boss - AoE - Boss) is basically perfect for demo's damage.

[Underscore]

Demo definitely.

Its very suitable since 5 mans are aoe trashpacs until boss then nuke.
Boss fights aren't very long so your demo burst will be perfect.
Trash packs are perfect for your aoe arsenal and build demonic fury.

[Iry]

I've done both extensively in heroics. My findings were thus.

Destro rips through trash faster than you can blink. We're talking 100-200k on every single trash pack over and over again. When they get to the bosses you have to make sure you have four embers, and then you can get about 120k on the boss.

Demo has to work a little harder on the trash packs, still able to do some good numbers but they spend precious fury to do it. But Demo going up against a boss with a full tank of Fury can pull over 180k on the boss.

This makes Destro faster getting to the boss and no slouch when fighting the boss. Demo is slower getting to the boss but faster when fighting the boss. Affliction just falls behind in both categories (but rocks long fights like raid bosses).

[Cebel]

Destruction aoe will get you 1,5 shard per tick per target on an average basis. Then you can easily calculate how many targets you need to not run out of embers pr GCD.

If you're getting used to CM runs, I'd recommend you to run the specs in this prio, because this is what you'll end up doing if you're 100% result oriented:

1) Affliction
2) Demonology

The reason I don't think Destruction is worthwhile for CMs, is that while it's very good at sustaining high aoe damage, that is not the reason you would spec away from affliction - you do that for extreme aoe burst, and that alone. Anything else is very well handled by affliction. Not to say Destruction is useless for challenge modes, but during my 9/9 golds, I didn't even think about it for a split second, Affliction offered me the singletarget, and I specced into demo with harvest life for those huge trashpacks.

I loved destro for CMs, especially for getting gold in siege.... that first boss gets absoloutely annihilated by 4 chaosbolts with full CDs and the ooze stack... CMs 90% of the time come down to doing trash fast enough anyways. Destro provides you the ability to do amazing aoe damage on trash, and then start a boss fight with full embers for some amazing boss dps as well

[Deleted]

I ran some dungeons as demonology and got great results already for the crappy gear I got. I'm going to try master Demonology and Affliction.

Thank you for your replies everyone!