What spec do you prefer? (heroics)

[quez]

While I'm leveling up my warlock I was interested in which spec you people preferred in HCs, I was thinking on doing my HC farm as demo or affliction

So vote on what spec you enjoy the most, and post which one you choose and for what reasons!
As in:
-Dmg output
-Fun
-Contributing to party members
-etc...

Thanks for your answers in advance!

EDIT: I totally forgot to add the poll :'( I assume you can't add it after the thread is done?

-Quez

[benzody]

i've always found demo as the easiest and destro the most fun. both do about the same dps. affliction is just frustrating as the mobs die wayyyy too fast.

[Perudo]

going as destro on my warlock (average item level of 213) and doing good in all instances.
I could probably contribute a bit more and pick up the replenishment when I plan to respec next time.

Have not tried demo and affliction yet, so cannot comment on that.

[Deleted]

I like Destro in dungeons / raids, and aff when im fooling around doing qs and other solo shit

[quez]

Thanks for the input!
I was under the impression that Affliction ruled due to seed spam, and destruction being the worst due to limited aoe.

[Alternategray]

I've always run destro... tried demonology, I know it has good group buffs caster-wise, but it seemed a little "flat" after playing destro.

Keep in mind, if you're going to be grinding heroics while doing few-to-none raids, you don't have to use the cookie-cutter raid spec. I won't be raiding anytime soon (and thus don't have to worry about hit-cap or doing 4500dps vs. 5000dps), so I dropped Demonic Aegis in favor of "utility" talents- shadowburn, shadowfury and imp. soul leech. Shadowfury especially can be handy in some situations, and helps a little with destro's lack of good aoe. Use it to stun a mob who's making a beeline for the healer to give the tank a few extra seconds to pick it up, or whatever. Shadowburn is a dps loss in a raiding situation, sure, but things die so fast in heroics it helps to roll it into the end of an incinerate now and then for some extra burst.

Edit: oh, yah.
Dmg output- good. Even on heroics that don't favor the spec, once you get the playstyle down you do pretty good damage.
Fun- Always fun to blow stuff up. (As a side note, pick up Soulspeak. It's got some priceless emotes for lock abilities. And some horrible ones, but you can edit those out)
Contribution- Depends. Imp Soul Leech can help out the group by speeding things up. Pales in comparison to demo's buffs, but meh. Having the imp out, of course, provides some minor buffs.

[Nangz]

Personally I find destro to be most viable for me.

But i do love the demo rotation more and i seem to pull more damage.

Demo does buff my raid nicely which is a plus too.

[Wolftears]

Here is your simple answer:

destro is "the" best spec for 5 mans. destro out dps's any other lock spec in a 5man, its a different story in raids.
heres why:

Its burst damage
its simple, some might say pretty faceroll.
Great damage for such short fights

for you starting off i say go with 3/13/55 spec: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...bNOjDpr,,11403
this the optimal dps destro spec for a warlock just starting to do 5man Heroics. It gives you 3% extra hit, an extra Aoe, and 10% more range to get you into the groove of things.

When and if you start raiding and you will like to keep destro, than the spec changes to 0/13/58 : http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...bFiBxS5,,11403
this is the optimal spec for when you "start" raiding as destro.
eventually as you get better gear it will change to 0/18/53 : http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...RNV7Bie,,11403
which is the optimal raiding spec for destro at this point in time.
The Glyphs for destro for each variation is LT, Conflagurate, and incinerate. the LT will switch when you reach highend gear

if further down the road, you would like to maximize your dps in the raiding scene, than you would have to go affliction 56/0/15 http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...ZCiS4rK,,11403

i hope this helped.

[Deleted]

I enjoy demo a lot. i think the best spec for damage output against hc bosses is probably destro on the whole, due to its bursty nature and relatively short cast times. For trash packs i find demo actually trumps afflic, since although the affliction tree has a couple of buffs to SoC, the sheer weight of Spell Damage that you will find yourself with as demo will trump it. the awesome thing about warlocks, atm at least, is that we have three viable specs, and although none of them will top dps tables when competing with pure dps classes of equivalent gear and skill, we're pretty much unique in that respect.

If you can afford the odd re-spec I would definitely take this opportunity to try out at least the three cookie cutter specs, since it's so rare that a class is offered such equality of choice. That said, if you find yourself in a group effecting sub 30 second boss kills (and most do) you probably won't get a chance to appreciate the joys of affliction. Maybe save it for raiding, or low dps HCs.

[Xenocastra]

I'll vote demo over destro, pop meta on bosses, which is excellent for such short fights and easily get 6-8k ~232 gear, where destro offers a bit lower, but sustained damage.

On trash, as long as you have at least 3 mobs, you can just spam seed and hit 4-6k aswell. 5 mobs, and you're hitting 10k+ if you add in the immolation aura while in Metamorphosis.

[harky]

Nothing really touches Demo. You can't beat Demo on AOE, which is all trash is in heroics and it's immensely hard to beat Demo when Meta has 50-100% up time on bosses. Demo > Afflic > Destro for 5 mans since 3.3.

[quez]

I appreciate the answers, I will be going demo or destro, depending how fun it turns out to be. Then affliction when i get geared for raids.

[Beachchairs]

I appreciate the answers, I will be going demo or destro, depending how fun it turns out to be. Then affliction when i get geared for raids.

Try them all. See which you like the feel of most, and play that. No one is going to be mad if you aren't top spec in a heroic, so just play the one you like the best.

Though for affliction's sake, you should probably use a test dumbie for which boss rotation you like best. The average heroic boss will probably be dead long before you get a full stack of shadow embrace and all your dots going.

[harky]

Though for affliction's sake, you should probably use a test dumbie for which boss rotation you like best. The average heroic boss will probably be dead long before you get a full stack of shadow embrace and all your dots going.

That's extremely impressive. It takes less than 10 seconds for all that to take place without any haste on your gear. Weaker heroic bosses have ~430k health. Gotta admit, I'd be taken aback to be in your heroic groups. Even if you were running 5 DPS, having everyone average 8.3k DPS is rather impressive.

My record for kill time on any boss in a heroic is 14 seconds on Slad'ran (snake boss in Gun'drak). He only has ~320k health (instead of the normal 400k+) and we had 4 DPS (Shadow Priest healer). So even then a Lock with 0 haste would have got all DoTs and debuffs applied. So sure, you can zerg down pretty quick. But come on, don't exaggerate so much. A good 'normal' kill time is ~30 seconds on old heroics (non-ToC/ICC). More than enough time to ramp up as Afflic.

[Shebaa]

I find afflic is the best for 5 man heroics. Seed of corruption is the ultimate AOE spell in the game and with the buffs afflic get to SOC and with 5 mans being quick aoe fests for the most part these days, you can get really big numbers from afflic seed spamming nearly the whole way through and you have enough time for normal rotations on bosses.

Also your felpuppy adds nice party buffs

[Palcica]

Destruction is probably best heroic specc speaking of DPS.For larger groups,use Rain of Fire.Instead,just pop immolate and conf-cb and you will deal some dmg,compared to affli wich does almost none trash dmg.

[War]

I haven't read all posts but I noticed someone (i think OP) mentioning aff>destro in AoE for heroics etc.

Just a quick note if you're having issue with AoE Seed in destro isn't a bad idea

for 3-4 group mobs if they die uber fast ill doe 1-3 SoC and then RoF to make them explode

or 1 SoC then RoF till they boom then SoC again then RoF again till explode till its down to 1-2 mobs then just chaos bolts and incins.

Easily 6-10k dps in Heroics

[harky]

There's a slight problem with that logic, War. Yes, Destro should be using Seed for AOE. That's not the issue though, the issue is that Afflic gets ~25% more Seed damage. So even if you use seed for AOE as Destro you'll be substantially behind. You'll be closer than if you used Rain of Fire, which does less than half the damage of Afflic's Seeds, but you'll only catch up halfway.

Oh also, don't use Seed the way you're describing. If you don't expect the seed to instantly detonate then you tab and throw Seed on another target and cycle between targets that way. Rain of Fire should only be used towards the end if you're unsure of the order mobs will die. If you can guess the order you should just nuke the last target to die though. Rain of Fire right now has one use: Saving mana on Anub'arak 25HM to limit life tapping.

[Shebaa]

Yep rain of fire is a bad idea. Keep tabing to other targets and let the other dps in the group set the seeds off for you, Destro cant even get close to this damage with rain of fire especially if the afflic lock has a high haste rating.

[Tritone496]

All lock specs spam seeds - what sets them apart is your crit chance. This is why demo is the strongest in aoe atm. affliction is no better than destro in this area. affliction gets a 5% bonus in damage as well as a 5% increase is crit chance. Destro gets 15% from emberstorm and has higher crit chance. take your pick.