From shadow destro to fire destro

[Tooze]

Character Name: Toozey
Armory Profile: The World of Warcraft Armory
Wowhead link of current build in use: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Comment: Choose Soulleech over backlash, like the survival factor of the extra health you get back rather than a extra incinerate. With 2.25 cast time I gane some extra damage but the backlash still procs a GCD, which maked me choose some healing over it. Just my preference, some would probably choose to have that extra chance of triggering an extra incinerate. Didnt choose to go for nether protection, Illidan is up ahead and we have speculated a bit about having me tanking since Im fire, coflagrating a immolation to get aggro then spam searing pain would get me decent head start, especially if I can keep the imp saced for some extra fire damage.

PvE Play style and Requirements of build:
Switched from shadow destro to fire destro to get some variation and to save some soul shards. The constant soul shard hunting and all the work extra work around the raids killed some of the fun. Plus the one button spam started getting on my nerves. Im currently in a BT/MH guild and we are soon about to start progress raiding Illidan, where the firespecc would be a bit gimped due to the elemental killing. We also lack a fire mage, all our mages are still arcane. This means I dont have a scorch debuff up which is another set back to the specc atm causing me to missing out on 15% extra fire damage.

I like the immolate doting with the specc and the incinerate spam do look nice. Highest crits are in the area of 6000 up to 6500 if I get real lucky, with avarage hits in the span between 2800-3100. My gear aint as good as for shadow destro, think im about 40 spell damage behind or somewhat. Still unsure whether I should go for more haste for incinerate spam or crit to get as much DPS out as possible from the specc.
A fire mage's scorch debuff would give about 900 more damage for each crit (counting 6000 x0.15). Feels like a great damage loss not to raid with a fire mage.

I like the spell rotation in the firespecc: Immolate, 6xincinerate, LT (if needed) refresh Immolate and so on. The specc also feel a bit more mana efficient and the faster cast speed on incinerate (2.25 vs 2.50 for SB without haste) feels good.

Still ending up top five at the damage meters, but have lost the top position since the respecc.

To sum up the questions I have from this massive wall of text:

- IS it worth beeing fire destro without a fire mage?
- Does the specc look okay, or have I missed something
- Is it worth giving up the top position in the damage charts just because Im a bit bored with soulshard farming?
- What about a fire lock as Illidan tank?
- Haste or crit? What stat is the most important for a fire lock?

PvP Play style and Requirements of build:
"Not Applicable", prefer deep affliction for PvP

If you survived reading this far without getting one-shooted by the hugh wall of text I thank you for your time

[Malevevely]

- IS it worth beeing fire destro without a fire mage?

The synergy you lose from fire will overall give you lower dps, however play what you enjoy you don't really need to min max at your gear level. If you were having dps problems on brut or something my advice would be different but play what you enjoy. Fire is still a decent spec for you even with the lack of haste. The fire mage is unfortunate but as your mage's gear improves you will see them move toward fire.

- Does the specc look okay, or have I missed something

Your spec is fine you picked all the key fire talents. I prefer sburn over 1/3 imp SP but that is just for farming and trash.

- Is it worth giving up the top position in the damage charts just because Im a bit bored with soulshard farming?

You pay money to play this game have fun with it. I would suggest moving back to shadow for sunwell dps races etc but take a break from shadow and enjoy the change.

- What about a fire lock as Illidan tank?

No problems here you will actually put out very good threat and be able to pick up a dps rotation faster as fire. (Emberstorm etc)

- Haste or crit? What stat is the most important for a fire lock?

Haste is the more important of the two however there are very few items in BT that are properly itemized to make them worthwhile. Obviously things like the skull and the staff are great investments but steer clear of all the ZA haste crap. The trash ring is the only decent piece with haste pre T6 and in T6 its just bracers, skull, staff, and the ring of ancient knowledge. Do not gimp your other stats for haste stacking, haste will start to show up more on sunwell gear.

[Solarus]

If you're going to go fire, go with this build:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

You should ALWAYS take the necessary talents to do maximum DPS with BOTH Shadow and Fire.

Needed for shadow:
ISB.

Needed for fire:
Emberstorm, improved immolate.

The rest of the talents apply to both specs. Ruin, Shadow and Flame, Devastation.

So hmmm if you only need ISB to still do maximum DPS with shadow, why does everyone take cataclysm? It's like they think there's some kind of hidden rule that if you're a "firespec" lock you aren't allowed to use shadow spells.

Cataclysm? It's useless. It's purely a filler talent. The only reason people take that talent in the first place is because there's no other places to put the talent points. After spamming 50 nukes I save the mana cost of 1 lifetap. wuuuuuw. That's going to make a difference.

If you take ISB, at least you have the option of going shadow if necessary. Oh no. This mob is immune to fire *cough, flame of azzinoth on illidan* damn, I don't have ISB.

By the looks of it it's going to be "necessary" for you to go shadow the majority of the time. Why go fire spec without a fire mage? To lose 15% damage?

Also, backlash. Why would you NOT want 3% crit to all spells? If you didn't notice it gives 3% crit, check the talent :p

If you're relying on soul leech to keep you alive in bosses like BT, your healers suck.

[Meridani]

The way I play my 0/21/40 build is that I take talents that allow flexibility between Shadow and Fire. That way all I need to do is a quick neckpiece change along with different potions and the right demon sacrificed to immediately change orientation.

Take for example Supremus. When I played fire against him, I noticed a stark drop in damage dealt. I tried the next week with shadow and kind of topped the overall meters for him. Then there's the Illidan fight where P2 has fire-immune elementals.

Personally I find the fire spec to be more fun. You still have to manage a DoT (Immolate) and the graphics are nicer. Plus I seem to deal more damage with it than as shadow. Hence why I'm kind of pleased with the new fire lock changes in Wrath of the Lich King

[Theleb]

Well first of all the whole Shadow vs Fire question has been answered exhasutively in this thread:

Fire Raiding - The Warlocks Den Forums

- IS it worth beeing fire destro without a fire mage?

In my opinion no. The point of speccing into Fire is to increase your personal DPS - lacking a fire mage is going to negate 15% of that....and of course have you considered the loss to RAID dps by speccing fire?

WoW Warlock DPS Spreadsheet

Has a simulator for exactly the question - I suggest that you take a look at the numbers. If you're trying to progress there's no excuse for not being shadow.

- Does the specc look okay, or have I missed something

You missed a few items but the build Solarus linked is exactly right.

- Is it worth giving up the top position in the damage charts just because Im a bit bored with soulshard farming?

No. Raiding is about repetition a lot of the time, be it shadowbolt spam or SS farming. Its just one of those things you have to get used to. If you're not outputting your maximum possible DPS then the raid as a whole is hurting.

- What about a fire lock as Illidan tank?

Try it. I haven't personally tried it as fire but as long as you don't die and hold aggro then its fine. Are you prepared to switch back and forth from Fire in P1, to Shadow in P2, and Fire again in P3?

- Haste or crit? What stat is the most important for a fire lock?

I'd lean more towards crit than haste, especially in pre SWP content.

At the end of the day I'm sure there are many people would sympathise with the complete boredom generated by the one-button playstyle...but swiching to fire (except perhaps on farm raids) isn't doing your raid group any favours.

[Tooze]

Gonna change to a specc that suits both fire and shadow:

Here it is:Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Can keep both backlash and soul leech, and skips improved immolate (wont do that much to my overall dps), conflagrate and nether protection.

[Solarus]

You like cataclysm it seems :p

Take them out and put them into improve immolate! Since you're doing immolate -> incinerate, you're gona HAVE to use immolate ;p

[Theleb]

Cataclysm is NOT a dps increase. Improved Immolate IS a dps increase. Its that easy

[Malboro]

Originally Posted by Theleb

Cataclysm is NOT a dps increase. Improved Immolate IS a dps increase. Its that easy

Cataclysm is a dps increase as it lowers the number of time you spent casting life tap. Even if its just 1 life tap, it is a dps increase. Small one and not direct, but its represents an increase.

Improved immolate gives 25% increase damage on a spell that, usually on a 1500 spell damage warlock, does about 600 damage, every 15 seconds. Over a minute, casting immolate every time its not up, the increase of dps from this talent is +-10 dps (having it casted 4 times a minute).

[Theleb]

Its not an increase when compared to imp immolate, and its incredibly situational - Imp Immolate is useful all the time for Fire Spec.

I never even use lifetap tbh (well, not as much as I could - certainly in DPS sensitive fights its not something I do for preference) its a marginal benefit to have Cataclysm with proper groups and chain-chugging mana pots - and as you need Immolate in a fire rotation its a better increase than Cataclysm, no question of that.