I was leveling one up because I thought the aoe looked really cool, but I saw a pretty recent thread in the general forum where people were discussing which class/spec had the best AoE.
Warlock was never mentioned by anyone, which is worrying. For Destro lock I thought a big part of it thematically was big aoe distruction…
Once you get your legendary and tier, yes. Destro is massive aoe. Demo is also decent.
dogs build with the bite legendary and implosion is more than decent aoe
I had my ‘forum protection’ filter on while I wrote that.
The issue with lock AoE, is that if the mobs move at all (ie, out of reign of fire), then you will loose all your AoE damage. If they all stand still, and the tanks never move, then sure, we can compete against others.
Destro AOE is insane, strongest aoe by far in 9.2
Demo is still rly powerfull aoe, specially considered its the single target specialized spec.
not anymore.
It’s now back to bottom of the barrel
Guys, stop the “we are doomed” trend. Destro is still good and will still perform well in every type of content. We are nerfed but we ALL KNEW IT WAS COMING AND NEEDED. We will still do great dps.
Grow up 
With tier sets, yes. Without, no.
this is the same for all casses
I love when nerfs happen and all these old threads get randomly necroed
Not really, no. Fire mage, MM hunter, WW monk don’t need a 4 tier to put out respectable AoE.
It’s like saying shadow priest is the same as frost DK. Not even close. Even with a 4 piece tier set a shadow priest does less aoe dps than a frost or unholy DK.
Some classes’ baseline kits suck at aoe, period. Warlocks are only doing well because the tier set gives their mediocre aoe a massive boost comparatively to other classes. In the case of destro, a ton of shard gen that pumps off RoF output plus keeps it going without wasting casts on weak single target spells to build to it. In the case of demo, by giving the dogs a 33% damage boost and adding even more implosion damage.
Try demo in M+ without the 4 piece vs. a MM hunter or frost DK and let me know how it goes. You’ll likely be outDPS’d by the tank in AoE.
Ive found the aoe for destro is only good for sustained aoe. if the adds live for seconds the dps will suffer
implosion go brrrrrr
afflic doesn’t thats for sure.
Seed and thats all your aoe LMAO
Seed is quite good if the mobs live long enough.
The issue is that all the other classes will usually just delete the packs before you can ramp up.
The other issue is that Aff can spec to be good at either aoe or ST - not both, If you spec good aoe, your ST is trash. And vice versa.
Whereas the other classes are allowed to have it all. Or, in the case of Monks, receive massive emergency ST buffs because their ST was low even though their AOE was brokenly OP and still is.