😈 Warlock Leveling: Destruction?

VW has smaller mana pool, doesn’t regen as fast, and it uses its mana for taunt/self heal so it’s less useful for DP. Its taunt become obsolete once you start stacking spellpower, and arguably far before that. Succubus also does A LOT more damage, meaning mobs die faster.

You tank better than a VW does, so you can hold more mobs and aggro doesn’t matter so you don’t have to limit dps.

If you look at actual kill speed, which people have done numbers extensively on, succubus is simply faster.

I saw A LOT of people leveling with VW while leveling up, and i was SIGNIFICANTLY faster than all of them. I was able to handle more mobs at a time, and I was clearing camps at a much faster pace. People regularly asked me what i was doing and what spec I was.

If VW could handle threat without having to spec into imp VW, it might be able to beat succubus as you’d save globals DPing (lifetap is faster) . But it doesn’t, and if it does, you either aren’t gearing properly, or you are limiting your dps output, which is even worse.

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Priests have Wand Spec, a higher regen from Spirit than warlocks, talents that focus on increasing Spirit and mana regen from Spirit, and often they collect Spirit as a primary stat. For Warlocks the main stats are often Stamina and Spell Power. Int is ok too but only if you’re using a lot of Destruction - DOTs don’t crit and a good chunk of your mana pool is your health.

So wanding makes a lot more sense for a priest than a warlock, for a priest the more you stay out of the 5 second rule the better. For a warlock you want to Lifetap for mana and Drain Life to get health back. You should have very little time out of the 5 second rule.

Affliction is just fine in dungeons if you plan it out. On trash put Corruption on everything then drain life one at a time until dead. Use Nightfall procs as they come up. Sure, the first target might go down quickly so you might not even want to put up a dot on it but the second and third will get good use out of your Corruption dot.

In raiding you’ll probably go SM/Ruin, DS/Ruin, or MD/Ruin. A SM/Ruin lock will most likely put up Curse of Shadow, Corruption, and then Shadowbolt spam. This works very well and is similar DPS to the other two main raid specs because of Nightfall procs. DS/Ruin is probably a bit more DPS, MD/Ruin is probably a bit less.

You can certainly level with Destruction but you’ll constantly be drinking/eating and will have a lot of downtime compared to leveling with Affliction. Wanding is a good tactic but nowhere near as good as an Affliction rotation. With Affliction you’ll nearly no downtime and will, overall, kill 2 or 3 mobs in the same time as a Destruction lock when you include their downtime.

Shadowburn saved my bacon more times than I can count. It hits like a truck and the player has just enough points in destro that they can still put up decent numbers in instances.

Drain life beats wand dps at 38, which makes it even worse.

They also dont have a pet.

You will 100% regain all mana spent casting corruption and curse of shadows with no extra spirit.

Dont try to school me, this is how i leveled.

No mob except a boss will live long enough for corruption to run its course. most are dead before its halfway through.

Though some ways are slower than others, there isn’t really a slow way to level a warlock.

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while true, honestly I think the discussion is only relevant while a server is fresh, or if leveling on a PvE server. On a pvp server the points in imp VW/master summoner are too important to pass up on the not-insignificant chance you run into another player that wants to scrap, in my opinion. Because really no matter what you do, warlock leveling is quite fast as a baseline.

I’ve gone up against wanding locks in instances, both at low levels and at higher ones. As a drain tanking lock, in almost every case, I’m above their dps and have similar downtime. Not to mention that by going deep Affliction and drain tanking I’m killing many more things at once than a wanding lock.

Don’t try to school me, this is how I leveled too.

This is true of the first mob in a pack, if people are focusing them down correctly. The second, third, fourth will get often get good use out of Corruption. Don’t cast blindly, you should have good measure of your group and how to time things out properly. Yes, there are times that things will go down too quickly for Corruption, those times you should change up your playstyle.

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Incredibly ignorant. Succubus is amazing for wpvp and delaying gankers while you finish mobs, and if you accidently grab too many. Very few classes can break charm, while priest and shamans can simply purge bubbles. Most people leveling will also be leveling spec, and I DESTROYED people while drain tanking. If it’s a high level, you’d die regardless.

To outright gimp your pve killspeed by dipping into the demo tree for potential gankers is incredibly stupid, especially because it doesn’t actually make you better at pvp, it makes you worse. Demo is only good when you have SL, that’s why all the best pvp specs don’t dip into it unless they are going SL.

Leveling on a pvp post honor is a different beast, and honestly your spec probably doesn’t matter as much as having guards/guildies to help you with quests and kill potential gankers, or people to spam dungeons with. You could actually go destro for aoe spec in spellcleave groups for the uninterruptable chance and the stuns.

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maybe before phase 2, but pvp trink is out now, man. and as an alliance warlock having to deal with the fact that 40% of the horde is undead anyway, succubus loses a lot of its value. I agree entirely pre phase 2 and as horde tho.

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Only 2 classes can break charm with trinket, one being druid. If UD use wotf for charm, wait out the immunity and then fear lock them. It actually makes it EASIER to get your fear off.

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3, rogue, warlock and druid. Tho at the end of the day I mostly agree with your last paragraph that spec doesn’t matter nearly as much post honor as it does pre-honor.

I suppose no one has aoe?

I dont wand in instances, Its shadowbolt, rain of fire and hellfire.

Nothing lives long enough to dot except bosses and i will use corruption on them alone.

What work? Typing a search and reading it versus typing a question and reading the answers? Seems to me that coming here for answers is more “work.”

Of course, none of this rises above minimally relevant.

There isn’t much AOE in dungeons anymore. I’ve been running a few alts through various level instances and I hardly ever see AOE. Not to mention that Rain of Fire/Hellfire can be tough to pull off without a mage freezing the mob in place. Even with the Destruction talents.

A lot of times I’ll tab-target Corruption on the mobs while the tank establishes some threat and then AOE them. The combination tends to hold the mobs to the tank better, provides higher DPS, and procs Nightfall like crazy. That is, unless there’s a mage to help CC the mobs for AOE. Then it’s pure Rain of Fire.

Again, modify what you do to the group. There are multiple ways to get things done.

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I stand corrected, I forgot about other locks. Though in my experience locks don’t attack each other in pve, as even if you win, it’s likely you’d die from the dots after.

I’m a hardcore pvper, and I almost exclusively solo (current rank 7). No offense, but i seriously question your pvp knowledge on an advice thread.

And your spec still DOES matter, the kill speeds and such are still consistent, so an unoptimal build will still be unoptimal. However, knowing HOW and WHERE to level has more of an impact as being corpse camped nets you zero xp/hr.

If you aren’t in a spellcleave group, you should absolutely be leveling drain tanking with a succubus.

My point was merely that you have other factors to worry about ON TOP of spec.

ok, I have to assume you are running low level stuff, because dungeons are all aoe at 60.

Nice job quoting only one part of my statement. You should go work for CNN. I even admitted that was how I first perceived it and added to what the OP wanted to talk about. Go away.

At level 60 I’m mostly raiding so I’m certainly not a deep Destruction spec or wanding much…

In instances, as a raid spec, I’m doing just what I described. There’s no point in using Rain of Fire when I’ll just get owned by all the mobs as I pull aggro.

none taken, I’m r4 tho not solo and not remotely hardcore, I know I’ve got stuff I can still learn about it. Plus what I said was mostly conjecture as I really don’t know how leveling post honor goes since I haven’t really tried it.