Looking through guides and it seems like all builds pick ruin - for pve, for pvp, affliction, demonology, everyone.
is it that strong or something? And when do i pick it on leveling, first/last/don’t need on leveling and for 60 only?
I’m going to try to be SM/Ruin for my guild’s raiding. Most of the other warlocks will likely go DS/Ruin.
Eventually for PvP I will aim to use an SM/DS build, or maybe Soul Link, but that won’t be for a long time. PvE will be my main focus until after multiple Naxx clears.
But given the debuff limit, a lot of warlocks will mostly be casting nuke spells in raids, which is why Ruin is popular there.
Ruin is very, very good, especially in raiding, and also for particular pvp styles. Especially once you get gear to bump up your crit rate, your DPS gets way up there.
That said, while leveling you are using a mix of Affliction and Destruction spells, so it isn’t essential by any means. Many leveling warlocks went for improved uptime with Dark Pact until they hit 60. Here’s a likely build:
https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/warlock/55002034122010051
You can invest more into Fel Concentration, or move points into Improved Drain Life if you do a lot of drain tanking. This doesn’t leave enough points to get Ruin, so you’d want to respec once you hit 60. You probably don’t need Dark Pact any more by then, anyhow.
I’d suggest speccing into 30/21/0 leveling. It excels at farming and BGs, basically anywhere you can use siphon life. But without crit talents, it’s not a viable damage dealer in raiding. This is where 30/0/21 shines. It can do everything. You’ll soon realize why 99% of warlocks have this after 60. They can take it anywhere, and never need to respec, a luxury most classes do not have.
At level 60 and for PvE, yes, you should have the ruin talent.
For leveling, however, Ruin should be the very last talent you select if you are running SM/Ruin right away…
and if you aren’t going to cry about a very minor gold cost for respeccing at cap, then ruin won’t even be an option as Darkpact affliction or SM/DS will prove superior options.
For generalized pvp there’s like 6 builds.
In some situations, the Ruin talent can massively increase your threat due to a couple of repeat crits. So it can cause trouble occasionally (due to RNG).