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December 03, 2009, 12:07 PM
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#1 (permalink) |
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Character Info
lilsteele 80 Human Warlock Terenas Euro PvE |
Overview of 3.3 Raiding Specs
Patch 3.3 Raiding Specs To anyone who is trying to read this with a bright forum theme: Sorry for the white text, I'm using this to avoid everything being bright green because of the positive ratings for this post. Updates: 01/09: Added discussion of Destro specs and glyphs, see end of post 03/25: Updated for 3.3.3, used ilvl 264 T10 gear sets for DPS comparison/scale factors The builds: Deep Affliction (56/00/15) Glyphs: Haunt, Quick Decay, Life Tap Pet: Felhunter Stone: Spellstone Casting Priority: Haunt, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, Curse of Agony, Shadow Bolt (below 25% replace with Drain Soul) Haunt need not be cast immediately after it comes off cooldown, but should be cast early enough so the debuff stays on the target for all times. As for all specs, Life Tap to keep the buff up. Recommended starting rotation is LT,SB,Haunt, Corr, UA, Curse of Agony. Affliction gets its favorite pet back, the Felhunter. Dark Pact is the best choice, builds without it are also viable. Deep Destruction (00/13/53+5) Glyphs: Conflagrate, Incinerate, Immolate Pet: Imp Stone: Firestone Casting Priority: Immolate, Conflagrate, Chaos Bolt, Curse of Doom, Incinerate Nothing new here. It is a minor dps gain to cast CoD after the first round of cooldowns so you can grab the Pyroclasm buff. Life Tap to keep the Glyph up. The ISL build seems to win out with ICC gear, generates lots of threat (00/13/58) ISL build, very mana efficient, brings replenishment buff (00/18/53) strong Imp build (03/14/54) Suppression build, best threat reduction, one free point (soul link here)[/COLOR] Deep Demonology (00/56/15) Glyphs: Life Tap, Felguard, Quick Decay (alternative: Metamorphosis) Pet: Felguard Stone: Spellstone Casting Priority: Curse of Doom, Immolate, Corruption, Shadow Bolt (Incinerate if Molten Core procs, Soul Fire below 35%) Cooldowns: Metamorphosis, Immolation Aura (during meta), Demonic Empowerment During a fight you will spam Shadow Bolts until you get a Molten Core proc in which case you cast 3x Incinerate. Keep all DoTs up, even below 35%. Below 35% Decimation will be activated. Soul Fire will not consume the Decimation effect anymore, and will refresh it everytime it hits the target. This means Decimation weaving is over, you can just spam Soul Fire below 35%. Demonic Empowerment should ideally be macro'd into all other spells so it is used on cooldown. The use of Meta should be adjusted to the fight, for a tank and spank scenario just use it on cooldown. Life Tap as usual. You might want to keep your mana up so that you don't have to tap while Meta is up, so you benefit maximally from it. DPS Rankings (simcraft 333-1): I have put together a benchmark gear set based around normal mode T10 loot (as opposed to BiS hard mode gear sets). The resulting rankings and scale factors should be closer to what most people will be able to aquire, although individual items like trinklets are still hard to obtain. Here's the selections I made, without claiming that these are optimal pre-hard mode sets: Profiler - Wowhead (11% hit set) Profiler - Wowhead (14% hit set) Scale Factors (simcraft 322.r14): Warlockt9560015 Sta=0.0000 Int=0.4662 Spi=1.1611 SP=2.2348 Hit=3.0402 Crit=1.2594 Haste=1.7074 Warlockt9005615 Sta=0.2200 Int=0.5003 Spi=1.2293 SP=1.9149 Hit=3.8524 Crit=1.2109 Haste=1.4108 Warlockt9001358 Sta=0.0000 Int=0.8486 Spi=0.8105 SP=2.0770 Hit=4.6351 Crit=1.2377 Haste=1.2205 For the above benchmark gear sets. Your personal results may be different, if in doubt, simulate your own armory profile. Gems: Based on the above scale factors, the following rules of thumb for gemming are found: Red socket: +23 sp Yellow socket: +12 sp, +10 haste, if the socket bonus per gem is more than 5 sp. Otherwise, +23 sp Blue socket: +12 sp, +10 spirit, two to meet the requirements for the meta gem, in addition worth if the socket bonus is more than 5 sp. Otherwise +23 sp Meta: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond, as usual As for scale factors, your individual best choices may vary slightly. Glyph of Quick Decay: There are currently Ideas that this glyph could also be used for the Demo and Hybrid builds and might result in a DPS increase. I'll update this post once I have time to figure it out myself. An analysis by dyson shows that it might be useful to replace the Meta glyph for the deep demo build: 3.3 Demo Spec rotation and glyphs Life Tap Glyph: Some people love it, some people hate it, I don't care. For most specs you can probably find a Glyph to replace it if you don't like it. This issue has also been discussed to death numerous times, please don't continue it here. I didn't put Life Tap in the casting priorities, but it should be clear that if you take the glyph, you should keep the buff up all the time. For destro with 400-500 or more spirit the Glyph is recommended. With less spirit Immolate or Imp are better Glyph choices. Variations: There is quite some flexibility in the destro builds, less in most of the others. The specs I presented are to my knowledge those that result in the highest DPS output. They might not be optimal for practical purposes due to threat issues or pet survivability. In most cases it is easy to modify the specs accordingly, although in the case of affliction this might be less obvious. Other builds: The following two builds are nice for new and not yet fully geared warlocks. They provide a high base damage and simple rotations. My latest simulations show them a bit low compared to the above specs with endgame gear, so I currently do not recommend them for endgame raiding, also due to missing utility. Hybrid: Imp/Conflagrate (00/40/31) Glyphs: Life Tap, Conflagrate, Incinerate (or Immolate) Pet: Imp Stone: Spellstone Casting Priority: CoD, Corruption, Immolate, Conflagrate, Incinerate (Soul Fire below 35%) Corruption is needed for Molten Core procs, and should be kept up during the decimation phase, as well as Immolate. Life Tap as usual Hybrid: Felguard/Emberstorm (00/41/30) Glyphs: Life Tap, Felguard, Incinerate (or Immolate) Pet: Felguard Stone: Spellstone Basically the same as above, but you drop Conflagrate in favor of the Felguard. Requires better pet management, but you don't have to watch the Conflagrate cooldown. If you find anything that should be changed in the above post please tell me. In particular I will be happy to add links to threads where anything relevant to this post has been discussed in more detail. Last edited by lilsteele; March 25, 2010 at 04:56 PM.. |
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97 members liked this post. 3 members didn't.
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December 03, 2009, 12:11 PM
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#2 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Belthezor 80 Undead Warlock Draenor US PvE PvP Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 54/17/0 |
Re: 3.3 Raiding Specs: A Preview
Thank you very much for for compiling this. I'm sure many of us are looking forward tot he patch and trying some new (or old) things. |
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2 members liked this post. 0 members didn't.
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December 03, 2009, 10:36 PM
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#3 (permalink) |
 
Status: Subscriber
Character Info
Notdyson 80 Human Warlock Thunderlord US PvP Guild: Continuum Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/56/15 |
Re: 3.3 Raiding Specs: A Preview
Kudos for putting this together. I just did something similar for our guild and I wish I had waited one day so I could link this! It might be worth adding a 1 line about the stone per spec for completeness (essentially fire stone only for the deep destro specs, spell stone everywhere else) |
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1 members liked this post. 0 members didn't.
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December 04, 2009, 09:56 AM
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#4 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Malanor 80 Gnome Warlock Skullcrusher Euro PvP Guild: Relentless Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 3/14/54 |
Re: 3.3 Raiding Specs: A Preview
thanks for this awsome post  gonna link it on the guild forum for my fellow locks to study (and for me to geek out on when I need to test shit :P)
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1 members liked this post. 1 members didn't.
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December 04, 2009, 02:52 PM
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#5 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Stavmar 80 Human Warlock Alleria US PvE Guild: Incite Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: 3.3 Raiding Specs: A Preview
Thank you for the excellent post, I have my two glyphs ready to swithc and hopefully the Decay glyph comes gets on the AH soon after. |
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December 04, 2009, 03:11 PM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Fizzik 80 Blood Elf Warlock Dunemaul US PvP Guild: Ghosts of Damnation Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/55/15 |
Re: 3.3 Raiding Specs: A Preview
Looking forward to trying Affliction again. Thanks for the post Lil! |
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December 04, 2009, 04:41 PM
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#7 (permalink) |
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Re: 3.3 Raiding Specs: A Preview
Just an addition as there is little to no point in having two warlocks with demonic pact. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is the/a deep demo build sans demonic pact. why would you take that spec you ask? For fights like Anub or other aoe intensive fights. |
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1 members liked this post. 0 members didn't.
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December 04, 2009, 04:54 PM
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#8 (permalink) | |
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Status: Subscriber
Character Info
Notdyson 80 Human Warlock Thunderlord US PvP Guild: Continuum Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/56/15 |
Re: 3.3 Raiding Specs: A Preview
Quote:
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December 04, 2009, 05:46 PM
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#9 (permalink) |
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Re: 3.3 Raiding Specs: A Preview
I could agree with not cluttering up but I saw all the variations of the deep destro spec and I thought this was actually a viable alternative. It's good to know that RoF isn't going to be affected by MC, but I don't think we really know how SoC is being buffed yet do we? Does anyone know if immolation aura, or hellfire for that matter, is going to be affected by the new aoe damage cap? |
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1 members liked this post. 0 members didn't.
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December 04, 2009, 07:46 PM
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#10 (permalink) |
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Status: Subscriber
Character Info
Notdyson 80 Human Warlock Thunderlord US PvP Guild: Continuum Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/56/15 |
Re: 3.3 Raiding Specs: A Preview
Hey Carnall, I could see that. I suppose I prefer parsimony in a spec overview guide. The moment you start having weird custom builds that hardly anyone uses, then everyone will want their favorite build in and then it just becomes a laundry list. And since you bring it up, the "strong imp" build in the destro list is probably one of those 1-off builds that I've not ever seen anyone actually use, so I am not sure why this is in the list. I've seen more locks with soul link customized destro spec for PVE than I have seen a strong imp spec but in a way that is already in there as a 3/14/54 spec although EJ usually lists the suppression spec as a 3/13/55. That's probably reasonable variant though. Many a lock use soul link-destro spec for progression in hard modes. Also, after another review of the guide, I might suggest the two hybrids be linked to the old Fallenman quick specs guide for history's sake but remove them as recommended specs. They do worse DPS now than demonology and yet don't even have the demonic pact or ISB buffs? IMHO, these should be 'retired' specs come 3.3 and only listed to let people know these are finally not good specs to use anymore. Prior to 3.3, the hybrid specs were still closer to destro and afflic in DPS, but in the 3.3 simcrafts, that is no longer the case and they fall short of DPS of a spec that gives better buffs (deep demo). That would be another way to shorten the guide and give the most relevant information out to the most people. I honestly also have never ever seen a hybrid spec in 2 months or more of armorying PVE people randomly, so I suspect people don't use them anymore anyway. But anyway, it's not my guide, and it is a good guide. It's up to Lilsteele what he wants to put in or take out.
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