I specc'd UA out of curiousity recently, for raiding, and I have to say... it's only mediocre to me. Like any specc for any class, some players will tell you it's God-mode, others will say it's only for PvP or PvE.
I dropped Ruin and threw in extra points into Affliction. Picked up UA and Malediction, since there's been discussion of how effective 3% more damage would be. I dropped a few things that I do miss, though, in the process. Intensity and Ruin being the most missed in raids... and Soul Siphon from the Affliction tree. Some fights I severly miss the extra bonus to drain life... though many fights it's not even noticed.
The difference between UA and Ruin is based mostly on what the fucking encounter is. On something like Archimonde where you can often be moving, constantly, due to doomfires and air bursts... UA is probably the way to go. You cast it and viola, you have another dot, ticking away. Ruin is nice, but on a fight like that... you can't promise you'll have much of a chance to spam shadow bolts, so it's better to have something like UA to promise that damage consistantly.
However, on tank and spank fights where threat isn't even much of an issue... Ruin does show itself. Lurker, for example, you can pretty much go all out on. I mean the only thing that prevents you from shadowbolting is the brief time you spend in the water during spouts. Otherwise, you can throw your dots up and spam shadowbolts all day while he's up. 6k+ crits add up really quick on a fight like that.
The biggest annoyance with UA is that it's a casted DoT and fairly mana expensive. Corruption is annoying when you have to cast it, haha. UA does it's biggest damage if it's dispelled, as well. Which does not often happen on trash or especially boss fights. So for raiding... I'm debating how worth it, it is. It's not entirely useless, but realistically... it depends on your gear. If you stack strictly plus damage and some hit, then yeah... by all means... stick to as many DoT's as possible. But seriously.. if you go for any amount of crit above 12%... shadowbolts aren't so bad, are they? Especially if you can get in around 20% crit - those 100% damage bonus crits aren't looking so bad, now are they?
I mentioned how on Archimonde another DoT is useful, however... you're still casting it as if it were a shadowbolt, in a sense (not quite as long of a cast time). You still have to be stationary for a short bit in order to place it on the boss. So... it's debatable on how useful it is, even there. It would depend on your luck with Doomfires and such, I'd imagine.
So... I'm pretty torn as to which is better to me. I enjoy Ruin more, but UA isn't treating me too bad. For my current gear, UA is probably more reliable... but once I get more crit - I may go back to Ruin for a bit and see how my damage stands.
I'm not entirely sure on Malediction. I need to go back through some raid stat stuff and see if there's a major difference in shadow damage, etc.
I know there are plenty of other warlock raid speccs and pending where you go or what you're reading, you'll see it say such and such is the best.. etc. I'm not saying UA or Ruin are the only ways to raid, at all. Lol.... just giving my opinion on both since I've raided with either.
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few of my RL warlock friends have gone/go the way of +crit/shadowbolting, much to my chagrin at times.
its not a boring blog. quit crying.
It's pretty boring. :P
Btw, who are you? :D
who do you want me to be?
Good post, Jes. I'm hearing pretty much the same thing from most 'locks that after Kara/Gruul/Mag, etc, specific encounter DPS is maximized by specific specs. So it's tough to compare them at that level, I guess.
Have you looked into a Destro nuking spec? I've been hearing it works wonders at your stage of raiding and with 20-25% crit. In my own experience, with a 21-pt Destro build, I can see how that might be the case, if one is up on their mana efficiency, that is.
P.S. - Let me know when you guys need me for 5-mans.
Jago - only thing about heavy destro is getting the crit gear for it without compromising all other stats entirely. As a lock, you'd basically be taking non-tier stuff until T6, and that leaves you taking a lot of Mage/Shadowpriest stuff that puts gear points into heavy spirit rather than something else.
Heavy destro with a good crit amount is pretty win, BUT, as it always has, it still kills your mana. So... once again, it's very situational. I hear healers complain a lot about our heavy destro lock on some fights because he lifetaps a good deal (you have to without darkpact) ...and yeah. Just wastes healers mana on some fights, especially if it's one where every person needs to be topped off the entire time.
Warlocks are weird... we don't really have one safe specc that works for everything eqaully. Lol.
And to my anonymous poster: I don't really care, just curious who you are. :p
Annnd... about 5 manning it up - find Blaw hordeside sometime... or on a Saturday if you still play then. I'm basically free all of Saturday, usually. :D
Yeah, the healing issue is one I always bring up when people ask "Why aren't you raiding as Destro?"
I did the burst-dmg thing for a while when PvPing and saw Soulfires that borderlined 10k. But after the novelty of that wore off, I would have been left with little health, no mana, and a bunch of pissed off Priests if I were to ever have raided with that spec.
Still, I did put together over 20% crit without sacrificing Spell Damage (was still over 1k). The most important downside, I think, is that it totally gimped me when it came to Spell Hit.
WTB lots of +Spell Hit w/ +Spell Crit gear pls. PST.
haha exactly. i hate gimping any one stat at the benefit of another. i mean without the hit how effective is your crit % realistically? Effective crit is the key :D
Before I specced out of Ruin I had some shadowbolt crits for 6k on non-vuln mobs. I'm curious what they'd hit for now with my newer gear. I've added a little bit more +dmg recently! (Over 1k unbuffed shadow dmg)
Very nice. My 'lock is a bit gimped atm -- tacked on a little more +Hit and sac'd some +Spell Dmg for it. A bummer, but since I haven't seen new gear in a while, it's not surprising.
I definitely felt the hit tonight, though. I was behind a few Mages on Gruul ffs. That never happens.
Grr.
Yeah... I fall somewhere between 5th and 10th on damage on my gnome, right now. And... given the gear of the other dps that I'm up against - I'm not surprised.
Also, killing bosses with Verizons joke of a connection is getting fucking old. So sick of 1000ms lag spikes mid-fight. :(
I'm trying to work out some specc tweaks and balance my gear more now that I'm finally in some actual gear. Trying to figure out what I can do to up my overall DPS time. Since I grabbed Malediction, I've been throwing up CoS every raid. God knows no one looks at that and says GG, your damage was good considering you weren't throwing up 12k dooms every minute! >.>
Warlocks are frustrating sometimes... but always <3.
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