aff locks in sunwell

[dangle]

So far in the most recent Sunwell kills over the last month or so, I see zero affliction locks in the raid. Seems that they all go destruction once gear permits. Is it a safe assumption that the extra DPS makes it worth dumping shadow embrace and an imp? I'm our guilds current aff lock, and wonder if it's worth it. I'm also our Illidan tank, so I would need to avoid putting points in nether protection. Are affliction locks obsolete in sunwell?

[Lamina]

I play a Hunter, so my info may be a bit skewed, but we run with 1 Aff lock for shadow embrace / malediction / imp, and the rest of our locks are all destro. The destro locks pump out some pretty high dps, and i don't think any of them picked up nether protection, in case they were required to tank illidan

[QuiSiLoR]

Affi locks if played well can be great assets to any raid. Imp for added HP to certain groups / tank.
Shadow Embrace & Malediction are also very handy for Destro locks spamming SB and also SP's.

So usually one... can be an addition .. but more than one well typically no

[Heru]

I've quit the game so I dont know about SW but I used to tank Illidan as destro and I didn't have points in Nether Protection. So dont worry about that

[Baldassar]

Affliction, even with the dps of malediction accounted for, has much lower dps than Destruction at that gear level as you probably know. The Sunwell fights were designed to be pretty tight about group lineup. An affliction lock cannot easily fit in a Brutallus raid due to dps, is not needed in Kalecgos or Eredar twins due to safe amounts of physical damage, hence would only be useful for one fight, Felmyst.
(i have no clue about M'uru)

Moreover, in my experience we are already having problems with debuff slots, judgments being thrown off, Demo as well, although our rogues have reluctantly stopped using deadly poison, and we use two SPs in brutallus as oposed to our original 3sp lineup.

SE is indeed a nice asset for the raid, as can be the imp and malediction, but it just doesn't fit.

[Shuya]

Nether Protection is just something that some destro locks like to choose because they don't like wasting points in Emberstorm (lol). We have a reliable lock to tank Illidan, so the rest of us just take nether protection and there's no complaints really.

And yeah, affliction locks become obsolete around High Warlord Najentus. =P

[Xixa]

Nether Protection is just something that some destro locks like to choose because they don't like wasting points in Emberstorm (lol). We have a reliable lock to tank Illidan, so the rest of us just take nether protection and there's no complaints really.

And yeah, affliction locks become obsolete around High Warlord Najentus. =P



actually nether protection is excellent in brutallus fight, if it procs on meteor slash you can immune the debuff which helps alot on healing, also soul leech helps alot too. when we need an illidan tank one of our locks specs for it, no biggie.

here's my build http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbxszIbzZEx0tr0khhi

[Jecet]

Emberstorm (lol).

aren't some locks going emberstorm? it seems pretty viable if you have a bit of spellhaste. But hey what do I know I'm a rogue.

[leeloo77]

aren't some locks going emberstorm? it seems pretty viable if you have a bit of spellhaste. But hey what do I know I'm a rogue.

the haste from emberstorm only applies to incinerate.

[Jecet]

I'm well aware of that... isn't that why so locks go a fire build as seen here :
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZdxczIbzZxx0tr0pVhi

[cidji]

i run affli lock for SW .But for the twins and m'uru , affli is very useless. All warlock are destruc now (no fire atm)

[Jecet]

i run affli lock for SW .But for the twins and m'uru , affli is very useless. All warlock are destruc now (no fire atm)

http://eu.wowarmory.com/charac...nilash&n=Xelnag (http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Vek%27nilash&n=Xelnag)

I think he or one of the other SK locks was fire during the twins fight, thats when i started looking into fire builds.

[cidji]

http://eu.wowarmory.com/charac...nilash&n=Xelnag (http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Vek%27nilash&n=Xelnag)

I think he or one of the other SK locks was fire during the twins fight, thats when i started looking into fire builds.

no fire lock in my guild atm :p

[slayme]

I'm well aware of that... isn't that why so locks go a fire build as seen here :
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZdxczIbzZxx0tr0pVhi

Hmm, why improved SB if you are fire? Cataclysm is better for dps then (less life tapping)

[b1ackcat]

I don't have a 70 lock, so I'm hoping someone can clear this up for me. Why would one not take Nether Protection for tanking illidan? does he lose aggro if you don't take his bolts or something?

[Tsunami]

nether protection grants immunity to shadow/fire spells. if you're immune to his spells, he'll look for the 2nd on threat to shoot at just like divine shield/bop does

[SqueektheWeek]

the above poster is right that illidan will see you as immune and will stop seeing you as main tank since he cant do anything to you

and about the fire builds i believe that either the guild chooses not to bring Spriests on some fights or dont have a reliable one so on fights where they cant get shadow vulnerability up they use the bonus dmg from scorch and throw incinerates (currently i am testing the same spec honestly im leaning to fire)

also about the affliction locks ive seen a few videos where a guild runs with one on kalecgos and brutallus but the dps difference is massive

[Zbegra]

I hope Affliction will be more viable for later end game raiding in WoTLK. Affliction is my favorite spec by far. It was great in the beginning like Karazhan and most of SSC/TK, but Destruction gets more and more supreme the longer you go.

When I realized I would have to go destruction I lost motivation and stopped playing my lock for PvE. No use raiding as a destro lock when fully geared for Affliction. No crit at all!

Affliction is the way locks are supposed to be played tbh. If I wanted to spam balls/bolts I'd be a mage :>

[azteck]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZMxczIdzZVx0xrotVuV

[Jecet]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZMxczIdzZVx0xrotVuV

the only problem is when you raid your not going to conflag because your using incinerate.

[affe]

the reason so many locks go nether protection is cuz of the eredar twins encounter. all raid dmg yout ake is either shadow or fire. most dmg is dot so nether protecktion ftw there

[Shuya]

the reason so many locks go nether protection is cuz of the eredar twins encounter. all raid dmg yout ake is either shadow or fire. most dmg is dot so nether protecktion ftw there

So, I can imagine that's amazing if you're the lock tank. :)

And yeah, I also hope affliciton gets a major dps boost in WOTLK. Just give shadow mastery like +30% shadow dmg. /miss

[rabbimojo]

Couple comments from a fire destro to respond to the above. (Only partially through T6 content, for what it's worth)

1. Fire destro dps can be as good or better than shadow, check EJ if you want details. (I haven't recently, maybe I'm totally wrong here
2. The main downside of fire, "not contributing to ISB uptime", is not an issue. ISB uptime works as an average, and if you've already got 2-3 good shadow destro holding it up, one more won't make much of a difference.
3. You take ISB anyways because while 5% mana redux helps, it's better to be versatile.
4. The main downside of the spec is that it's hard to fit points in soul leech, so you're more of a burden on your healers, and lose dps more quickly if they're slacking.
5. On the upside, you're free to take less crit in place of haste and the like, if that's what you're into. Also, you can make good use of immolate, which has a better damage-per-cast-second than SB or Incin. (Oh, and the option to use spellfire instead of FSW early on can be nice, since it's a superior damage set)

So far, I've been unable to match my raw fire rotation dps with SB spam, but that's probably due to having lower crit than I'd would if I were SBing all the time.

[Borntrue]

On a side not u can tank illidan with nether protection, All you do is make a searing pain macro liek this

#showtooltip
/cast Searing Pain
/cancelaura Nether Protection

it works just fine :)

[Kyrstal]

Affli lock can be nice on Brut / Felmyst (don't know about Twins / Muru since I'm not there yet) due to reduced damage on the tank + the extra dps debuff "almost" makes up for their own lower damage - one of our destro locks specced affli for one Brut kill and did something around 1800 dps as opposed to his typical ~2300 - and this is with his gear tailored for a destro spec, so it's not that horrible; now you can't really measure the value of 5% less dmg on your tank but it's something to consider when we're talking hits of 13k+ through corrosion from Felmyst, or Brutallus' 15k dps during stomps.

The main prob is the extra debuff slots it takes; our rogues had to switch to instant poison instead of deadly simply because we lacked these couple debuff slots - and we didn't have any moonkins in the raid and only 1 mage, so the debuff limit problem could be even worse for some guilds. Merely because of that I would rather have all locks as destro, but if debuff slots weren't an issue I'd certainly give it more consideration.

As for nether protection on Brutallus.. there actually is (or at least there was) a bug when a lock netherprotting a burn would cause Brutallus to walk over there and kill him, just because. Don't know if this was fixed or what, but some weeks ago on our first kill we had to have our locks spec out of it after wondering for a while why the hell does he just kill them like that.

[Goodcat]

If your gonna run affliction in sunwell, then go with http://www.wowdb.com/talent.as...e2fe2f2efef6ef3 (http://www.wowdb.com/talent.aspx?id=9#de3f2e5fe2fef3e2fdf21e2fe2f2efef6ef3)

Just use corruption, sl, and shadowbolt the rest. Its more damage than a pure affliction build, and you still get all the extras(shadow Embrace, Malediction, DP). Our guild affliciton lock recently switched to this, and hes almost doubled his dps on brutallus. We run with 3-4 spriests and 3-4 locks though, so its not for every guild.

[QuiSiLoR]

Destro Locks just have more DPS than affi locks when the gear is right 4 piece of T6 is super for Destro locks. One Affi lock can add a dps boost with malediction to locks and SP, generally it aint needed.

We are on Twins currently and all our locks are destro spec.

[Siph]

Some guilds use and affliction warlock on Brutallus to get the fight a bit more stable. Besides that it's nothing but a waste on all the rest of Sunwell.

[Schusselchen]

illidan looses aggro whenn you proc NP and turn immun the next shot

to the affli thing .. fact is .. that once youre roaming sunwell your supposed to do raw dps on all encounters ..

affliction locks cant supply that this well because auf the rather poor itemization and scaling ...

furthermore things like an imp (even skilled) and the embrace are negligible at most ...

any tanks only surviving on imp and embrace are having bad gear/skills or very bad healers

certain different skills of other classes rather are much more worthy to use i.E. the hunters sting ...

and speccing to shadow/firedestro upon receiving 4th t6 is giving yourself and the raid a massive dps increase .. most times doubling it for very less effort

@slayme : some locks even if fire specced rely on the possibility to switch schools instantly .. f.E. in case of a lack of firemages in the raid or allmost no elemental support ... so the pors of a shadow lock are not totally wasted

As for nether protection on Brutallus.. there actually is (or at least there was) a bug when a lock netherprotting a burn would cause Brutallus to walk over there and kill him, just because. Don't know if this was fixed or what, but some weeks ago on our first kill we had to have our locks spec out of it after wondering for a while why the hell does he just kill them like that.

are you sure it wasn't rather because of overaggro .. immuned a certain number of burns and never got that

[kaib]

I have seen a WWS from affliction locks reaching 1900-2000 dps on brutallus being in the tank group, a guy from FTH. If you can put out such numbers and have a reasonable amount of shadow locks/spriests in raid, it's surely very much worth it. Most guilds do not really bother with it, also as Nether Protection is a very good talent for multiple SWP fights.
I respec a lot anyway and I do not really care for the money, but it's just not worth to pull the respec for brutallus and pretty much every other fight it seems better to just stack destro locks.

[Sukah]

If your gonna run affliction in sunwell, then go with http://www.wowdb.com/talent.as...e2fe2f2efef6ef3 (http://www.wowdb.com/talent.aspx?id=9#de3f2e5fe2fef3e2fdf21e2fe2f2efef6ef3)

Just use corruption, sl, and shadowbolt the rest. Its more damage than a pure affliction build, and you still get all the extras(shadow Embrace, Malediction, DP). Our guild affliciton lock recently switched to this, and hes almost doubled his dps on brutallus. We run with 3-4 spriests and 3-4 locks though, so its not for every guild.

Don't use that spec...
You're not going to use CoA, and Fel Concentration is pretty much crap in Sunwell. I'd suggest
http://www.wowdb.com/talent.aspx?id=9#::ce4f3e6fecefef23efef3e4f3ef7:
You can always switch a point here or there, but that's got the basics.

[unsane]

Any affliction build that doesn't take Unstable Affliction but at the same time doesn't take Ruin is awful.
go either UA or Ruin, otherwise it's a fail-spec.


Don't take supression,imp agony, imp cow and amplify curse because you should be hit capped and with 3/3 malediction you'll be on shadow/elements duty always.
For filler to unlock 4th tier talents take 2/2 soul siphon and 4/5 fel concentration (not ideal pve talents but better than taking imp cow/coa which improve curses you will never use)

Ideal tank group for imp, shadow embrace and malediction build, with Ruin: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IVMrmMftVkcZMZxx0tr0z

[Baldassar]

Don't take supression,imp agony, imp cow and amplify curse because you should be hit capped and with 3/3 malediction you'll be on shadow/elements duty always.
There are fights with more than one target, where you wont be casting CoS on everything.

Imp CoW will be useful if you do the M'uru encounter with 3 tanks (on the pala tank's targeT) and an amplified CoD on Felmyst p2 can only be nice to have. Just giving some examples.

Generally speaking though, i still do not think there is room for an affliction warlock in a Sunwell raid for three reasons:
1. Dps loss.
2. Debuff slots.
3. Nether protection.

[darospl]

Damn, I would love going destro-like spec too =S
.. but as shadow priest stucked in DoT build

[Lumb]

What kind of dps can sunwell geared affliction locks do on brutallus compared to destro?

[Mezzlock]

We use a hunter to tank illidan instead of a warlock since a few weeks ago, works just as good (also, he never disconnects :P )

Destro dps > affli dps
dps is king.

[thedarkknight5]

What kind of dps can sunwell geared affliction locks do on brutallus compared to destro?

1st off get ur terms right...as an aff lock ur never goin to out "dps" almost any damage dealing class, u will though out damage ppl gear depending. dps and dmage done are two seperate things. and i will admit, being an aff lock for life, u wont be able to out dps a destro lock in bt/sw ina straight fight...ie not moving etc. u ahve a fight that requires movement though..and ur aff lock will shine above the rest.

[thedarkknight5]

and to all those aff locks goin maledicition, ur spec is unjustified unless u have a minimun of5 ppl also doin full shadow/arcane or same for fire/frost. in any aff lock rotation ur coa( yes coa, with imp coa) should do about 20% of ur damage. but imo, destro locks should be using coe, cos cor, not aff locks.

[thedarkknight5]

and also another thing, this is gonna cause a stir i know, but a lot of aff locks DO NOT know what stats are best for then to max their dps, i will show u here (this is assuming ur smart and spec suppresion, ur an idiot if u dont)

pre 6% hit rating-- hit>spl dmg>haste>crit

and then it changes dramatically once u hit 6% hit raiting

with 6% hr--- spl dmg>haste>hit>crit

if u dont think this is the case, go to the max dps site, whom aparently has the same conclusions that i have. aff locks are not a partial dps class, they are a FULL dps class, those wh say otherwise are just following the crowd of destros who think they're all conquering dps machines. when in fact everyone else is just as good.

[Lumb]

1st off get ur terms right...as an aff lock ur never goin to out "dps" almost any damage dealing class, u will though out damage ppl gear depending. dps and dmage done are two seperate things.

Excuse me? Lets think about this for a second, disregarding demage meters. If, over an entire fight, player 1 does 1.4k dps and player 2 does 1.3k dps, player 1 will without a doubt finish with more damage than player 2. Damage meters often don't show this as they calculate 'pure dps time' (aka when you are hitting the boss) rather than actual dps. I was merely asking a question (which was 'termed' correctly, by the way).

[thedarkknight5]

Excuse me? Lets think about this for a second, disregarding demage meters. If, over an entire fight, player 1 does 1.4k dps and player 2 does 1.3k dps, player 1 will without a doubt finish with more damage than player 2. Damage meters often don't show this as they calculate 'pure dps time' (aka when you are hitting the boss) rather than actual dps. I was merely asking a question (which was 'termed' correctly, by the way).

k sorry if i seemed...err...antagonsing.

but refering to the statement, say an aff lock puts up his dots, and some moving is required (i.e supremous phase two) and say a adestro is able to cast 6 shadow bolts that do the same amount of damage as the dots. now lets say its a 30 sec period. the 6 shadow bolts have a dmg period of 18 secs...compared tot eh 30 secs of the dots... showing that althoug damage done is the samne (theorectically) the dps fo the destro lock is higher

[thedarkknight5]

but i guess the only eral fights where u can guage pure dps is brutallas (however its spelt).

[BlueScrn]

If your gonna run affliction in sunwell, then go with http://www.wowdb.com/talent.as...e2fe2f2efef6ef3 (http://www.wowdb.com/talent.aspx?id=9#de3f2e5fe2fef3e2fdf21e2fe2f2efef6ef3)

Just use corruption, sl, and shadowbolt the rest. Its more damage than a pure affliction build, and you still get all the extras(shadow Embrace, Malediction, DP). Our guild affliciton lock recently switched to this, and hes almost doubled his dps on brutallus. We run with 3-4 spriests and 3-4 locks though, so its not for every guild.

Horrible specc in my opinion.

You are saying that just use corruption, sl and shadowbolt, and in that build you didn't even pick empowered corruption and without UA you lose quite a lot of dps there as well.

That imp. CoA for that kind of use seems to be quite useless as well and imp. Imp. CoW seems to be even more useless when you are supposed to use CoS with malediction.

Then you have improved Lash of Pain when you are supposed to use imp there. And since you are giving imp for a tank, you get nothing out from imp firebolt either. And why don't you have improved shadowbolt selected if you are going for SB spam with dots up?

It seems like you have no clue about speccing, no offence.

Plus you used 62 talents points for that build when 61 is maximum you can have at level 70.

[draguza]

http://www.wowdb.com/talent.aspx?id=9#e2fde2f2efe4fedefef23efef3e4f3ef7


Is what I figure an aff lock would use in SW. The points in suppression are mostly filler at this point if your switchin from destro, otherwise their good. Gets all the important things except UA, but (if your switching from destro) it makes up for it with Ruin.

Chicka-BAM.

[Krispin149]

there are some affliction locks who can DPS hard, you just have to find them. They really aren't needed, my guild uses ones but I forgot what is it that we use from them.

[Raisa]

I have been raiding as US affliction until very recently. As UA affliction my DPS tops out at around 1600-1700DPS for most fights with me trying very hard and paying close attention to my DOT rotation.

In Sunwell while affliction may be great for Kalecgos (opportunity to DOT two targets), my lack of DPS contribution immediately becomes clear when we were on Brutallus.

Because most of the DPS for affliction lock still comes from SB, I did respecced to Ruin-affliction (40/0/21) and was able to up my dps from 1600~1700 to 2000 dps while still providing raid utility. But at this point the 3% increase in damage just doesn't make anymore sense. When I finally respecced to Destro my dps went from 2500 ~ 2900. At this point there is no way 3% increase in raid shadow/arcane damage can scale better than my personal increase in DPS.

I love Affliction spec, but after Brutallus there is simply no way to justify keeping any affliction lock in raid. I would say maybe it makes sense to keep a 40/0/21 affliction lock to provide more stability to Brutallus encounter (so tank don't get one-shotted) while learning, subsequent boss encounters are just not affliction-friendly.

Especially for fight like M'uru, where you need huge amount of burst damage to dps adds down fast, there is just no way affliction lock can be useful at all.