As the title says, has anyone tried it that could give me some insight on its strengths/weaknesses?
All the guides I see say to go with the affli/demo hybrid build which I’m sure is the most effective. It definitely seems like a build that shines during solo play but I’ll likely be leveling in a duo and we’ll be doing alot of dungeons on the way up (For fun not efficiency).
The concern I can maybe see is destro pulling too much threat solo/duo and even in dungeons and constantly having a mob smacking on me while trying to cast. Thoughts? Opinions?
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Its fun to see the crits pop off and you two shot mobs, but it’s very unfun when none of that happens. It is a very similar feeling to a fire mage for sure.
Your voidwalker basically holds 0 threat off of you and is just basically there to aoe taunt if you pull too much or there to sac to get his shield. You will have to eat/drink after almost every other pull because of how oom you go. Dungeons you have to really really watch your threat because you pull off tanks really easily.
It is fun in the sense that you do destroy with shadowbolts and such, but it is a way bigger pain than the demo/aff alternative where you just have to put up two dots and wand and never have to touch water the whole time you level if you don’t want to.
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Ahh I hadnt considered how much worse the mana usage could be. That would definitely be a big con. Thanks for the insight and helpful reply.
Exactly this.
I would add for the times you are going to solo level in the world, make sure you have a large space around you for fear dancing. All of my locks have all been /still are Destro. There is something just purely entertaining about seeing if you can pull off 2 or 3 mob dance before going oom (back then) and the the fire mage big booms are nice. Life tap is your friend but balancing it with getting hit by everything is a trick in itself. In dungeons, May I suggest you just take a second or 2 between casts to slow your threat as best as possible. As E-lord has stated, you WILL pull threat VERY VERY easily and have no real way to drop it. I think soul shatter did not even happen until BC. So, I usually just kept my VW handy for the shield sacrifice, and waited there patiently until ANYONE could grab aggro back. LOL. Overall, IMO, it is the most fun of the specs to play. Mostly because you are always having to think ahead and keep a fluid strategy for when you do end up pulling aggro.
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You can, but why? Why make it tedious for yourself?
It’s hard to take advantage of Improved Shadow Bolt and Ruin with the low crit rate you have while leveling. On the other hand Shadowburn is amazing. I’m sure it’s workable but probably not as good as Affliction.
You can level as any class/any spec but the question is are you making it harder on yourself. Sure you could level as detro but there are far better ways to level as a warlock. Personally, i would go for improved lifetap and then demonology after that to level. Mobs won’t die as fast in general but you essentially can solo elites and have a much smoother time leveling.
If you plan on group play then do whatever you want!
I seem to remember leveling as destro. Once you get conflagration you’ll blow stuff up really quickly, but you’ll go out of mana in no time. You can usually burn the mob down before it reaches you at the cost of a lot of mana. Lvling I would usually have my succubus in case I got jumped.
A seduce into soul fire-immolate-conflagration-shadow burn would pretty much delete anyone. It’s harder to deal with multiple opponents at the same time since dot kiting/tanking isn’t really an option.
You can seduce and fear, but there’s a much higher chance something will go wrong and you don’t have as much time to recover without soul link. Probably not a great idea if your an alliance lock.
I never leveled in Vanilla as any single spec. What I do remember though is a Destro focus was NOT a good leveling spec at the beginning… tanking talents for you and your pet were more important than DPS talents for early leveling, which meant you spent most of 10-20 in Demonology and perhaps a little in Affliction, but zero points in Destro. The reason is that the small amount of additional DPS you’d get from Destro 10-20 just didn’t move the needle that early in terms of taking out the mobs more quickly. It was more important to cut your out-of-combat down-time and that meant Demo and wanding.
Once you hit level 20 Destro begins to be viable with Shadowburn. By that point you have enough health that you can life-tap without blowing it all, so you could afford to be less mana efficient. So at 20 you respec and you can put 11 points into Destro through to ShadowBurn, then at 21 and 22 put two points in Improved imp Firebolt and start using the imp. That gives you a lot of front-end burst as well as more aggro for the imp and you should be able to down mobs quickly.
I wouldn’t worry about crit until you have some base crit from stats and gear. It just won’t move the needle that early. You can’t get Ruin until level 30.
Getting to Ruin at level 30 means you need 5 points in Devastation, but there’s no need to max it out immediately. Put two points into it at level 23 and 24 to open up the next tier, then get Destructive Reach for 2 points at levels 25 and 26 (extremely important). Then finish out Devastation. That takes you to level 30 and you can get Ruin.
After that, more front-end damage to take the mobs down quickly… Improved immolate, obviously, then Emberstorm, and finally Conflagrate.
That’s my suggestion for someone who wants to be Destruction-focused for leveling. Demo to 20, then respec to Destruction. Remember that you will still be wanding a lot regardless, because that’s what gets you into MP5 regen and there are advantages in not taking aggro away from your imp too early. So save all the direct spell-based damage until you know you can finish the mob off with it (since you will get aggro the moment you start doing it).
-Matt
I leveled affliction back in BC and drain tanked.
Going DS/Ruin this time and spending as much time in instances as possible since that is the spec I will be at 60.
Probably getting imp lifetap first, then improved void, then up to shadowburn and back to demo then last remaining in destr.
But full destruction? No. It’s not a very good raid spec anyway. Your choices end game are pretty much DM/Ruin or DS/Ruin.
Going more or less Pure aff worked very well for me when I leveled in TBC.
Find a good amount of mobs with a mana bar and you’re basically golden to do w/e the hell you want.
Dot up 1 mob, VW tank the other, dot and fear another or abuse it for drain mana, finish them all off with drain soul and move onto the next bunch.