Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Raiding Spec Roundup - Part 1 - 0/41/30

Today I'm starting part 1 of what will be an overall review of the different raid specs I'm playing with these days. People often ask me why I'm not spec'd one of the two "top dps" specs (deep affliction or deep destruction), and my answer is that if I want to continue to try and contribute to the warlock community as I have, it does me no good to just play 1 spec and never get first hand experience with anything else.

This Raiding Spec Roundup will be exclusive to our blog, and will also be posted on The Warlock's Den.

I start with 0/41/30, a Felguard/Emberstorm build. My rotation consists of using Corruption, CoA, Immolate, and Incinerate. I use the Felguard for my pet, and use Demonic Empowerment every time it's up, and my Felguard will get to use it for the full duration. (ie, I dont pop demonic empowerment if I am 2 seconds from having to pull my Felguard off of doing dps for some reason) My current stats with talents and self buffs (no raid buffs) are around 2500 spell power, with 25% crit, 425 haste, and hit capped.

The first thing that I notice about this build is that it's extremely easy to play. It's probably one of the easiest builds I've played so far. The rotations are simple, and aside from a bit of pet management, there isn't much to say. I don't have too much difficulty keeping the Felguard alive on every fight. You just have to pull him back using passive in cases where he would die, such as fire waves on Sarth, or the AoE damage on Sapph, etc.

I'd strongly recommend this as a build for newer warlocks who are getting used to the ideas and concepts of raiding. It's a very fun build, and outside of the fact that it falls short on dps and has a lack of scalability compared to the "big two", I really have nothing bad to say about it. It's a good build if your server gets really laggy too, since the timing of your casts and rotations are not critical.

For PVE I'm going to rate this build an 8 out of 10.


Edit: See the thread on wowmb. There is some great feedback there: http://wowmb.net/forums/f76/31516-raiding_spec_roundup_part_1_0_41_30_a/

9 comments:

Unknown said...

First of all, Fallenman - thanks for everything you doin for Lock Community :) I really appreciate that! ;)

And bout that build, as most experienced Lock in my guild (and everyone everytime asks me for "new and better build", yack) I've tried lots of builds - and 0/41/30 too.

By that time I was surpriced that with 0/41/30 I got less damage output than with 0/31/40 I had before respec... it was like 100-150 dps gap, and it has same rotation btw. also I myself dont like relying so much on demon dps.

Plus that I often found myself only warlock in 10man raid with no Commanding shout available... So, my oppinion: If U want easy rotation and nice dmg output - Go to 0/31/40.

I actually may be very wrong, cuz ppl on the net say that 0/41/30 pwns 0/31/40. Dunno, dunno I dont think I screwed that much :)

Frank said...

Hiya. I found this blog through a post on the warlock forums. I saw a link to it in Fallenman's signature. On my first Naxxramas 25 man raid I was still leveling spec. This spec was felguard with the extra points split between the affliction and destruction tree. I had maybe 2 80 epics at this time and the rest of my gear was level 78+ blues. I was pulling about 1.3k DPS. Another warlock, whom we pugged was in the group, too. He was doing 2.5k DPS in almost all tier 7 gear. I asked him his spec, and it was 0/41/30. I went this spec. My DPS went up to about 1.8k. The next week of Naxxramas 10 man, I was in a new guild with a few long time friends and a few new friends. I got probably 3 or 4 epics that week, and my DPS went to 2.3k or so. For a long time I considered this to be the perfect spec. I then got 4/5 T7 and all epic gear except my ring and wand. My DPS only went up to 2.5k DPS on most fight then. The problem with this spec, targeted at new player like you said, is that your DPS spikes and then it plateaus (I had about the same stats as you at this time). I since went affliction (53/0/18, needing some tweaking). I now push 2.9k DPS in the same gear. Sure, this requires a lot more trying. Once you get about 25%+ crit, 2.2k+ self buffed SP, and hit capped, I see no reason not to go affliction. It allows you to do a lot more DPS. This almost nullifies your DPS on trash in heroic, but at this point you shouldn't really need to do heroics. At first when you go affliction you're gonna suck. It just works that way. After about a day or 2, it becomes no problem. As you pointed out, this spec is a good noobie spec. This is also a spec that should be graduated from early on, as well.
Madhat/Stormreaver
AIM: mehasaim (Hit me up if you wanna talk warlock at all)

Fallenman said...

@ Otory:

I have not yet tested the 0/31/40 build. However, without going into too great a detail, the outcome you will see with the builds depend wholly on your gear. The talents and the pets used essentially dictate this.

@ Frank:

An affliction spec can be used at any level of gear and be great. To be honest, most of the warlock specs can be used at any gear level and be decent. Gone are the days of minimum stat requirements to spec a certain way.

Of course some specs scale better than others, but early on if you're new to warlock raiding and affliction is too difficult to start with, a spec like 41/30 or 31/40 is a good starting point.

You should be able to do a lot more than 3k dps with your gear as affliction. Read the very first 2 posts in this blog for more tips on affliction raiding.

Several warlocks have broken the 6k dps mark now on patchwerk as affliction. I myself had a 5700 last night.

Chris said...

I'm wondering would there be advantages to using the imp instead of the felguard? with the 0/41/30 build? There would be less micro-managing and you could put the one extra point that would be spent in fel guard to something else say... backlash for the extra crit?

Also... could you please say what glyphs you are using for each respective build?

Frank said...

@Fallenman
My friend does just over 6k patchwerk dps as of last week. I have the same spec as him. Our only difference is 400 sp. I don't know why I don't do more dps. I follow your guide exactly. My dots have about a .1 sec downtime at the most, I never stop casting, and I have the rotation down. Last weeks patch I did 3.7k DPS. I know I should do more, but I just don't. Any tips?

Fallenman said...

@ valrik. There is no advantage in using the imp. He's not any less likely to die than the FG, and he's less dps. I will include glyphs used from now on (cant believe i forgot that). for this build i used FG, immolate, and CoA.

@ frank. What specs are being used? 400 spell power difference is pretty big, by the way.

Frank said...

@fallenmen:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Stormreaver&n=Madhat (56/0/15) is my build

Unknown said...

@ Frank:

Why you have Grim reach mate? Or why do you have Suppression and dont have Cataclysm?..
Looks weird, I'd do some changes...
Just look to the post after this one, and try that build.
With less Spellpower, Haste and Hit - I Did 4+k on Patchwerk25man... Dont really know whats the case here :(

Unknown said...

Been running 10-man nax for about a month. Tonight we're doing our first 25-man. There is another afflic lock in the group and we're going to run into SE bug. Would it be foolish to raid affliction anyway? Or should I switch to 41/30? Can affliction beat 41/30 without the shadow embrace effect?