Warlock Specs in M+?

Classes Warlock
1

I just started playing my Warlock this xpac. I played a bit of affliction before and liked the dot and visions playstyle of it but switched to Destro since it was the highest ranked on subcreation. I’m around 380 now and I’ve been wondering just how far apart in terms of DPS and functionality are the specs in terms of M+?

I see affliction is rated as an F and Demo/Destro seem to hover around the A-C tiers from week to week. Is Aff really that far behind in terms of numbers? How do the specs stack up compared to one anotehr in M+? Not that I don’t mind playing the others specs I’m just curious and hoping to get an informed opinion.

2

Affliction is pretty slow damage, so tends to lag behind. Takes a minute to dot everything up so if the mobs die too fast your numbers are low. If they live a bit longer you can do some pretty nice numbers with seed into vile taint to get agony and corruption on them on them. affliction just has a slow ramp up time and I think that plays into the issue people might be having in wanting to play it.

Demo does pretty good as you can just cast dogs and implode everything grouped up. I have seen some ridiculous numbers doing that. get 6+ imps and your hitting pretty hard.

Destro you pretty much just RoF everything and dot up what you can for shards. I think that’s the reason a decent number of people are running it now. Drop infernal every now and then with big groups and you can see some nice number.

3

I’m going through something similar as I just finished levelling my lock and got him into some keys and gearing up, having tons of fun.

As I understand it though, Demo is the play until 20+ keys, where destro takes over especially in coordinated groups

Aff is fun but imo only truly “viable” in higher keys because trash in lower keys will definitely not live long enough for aff to get going

4

Affliction does pretty great in Single Target, it might be a bit behind Destro but its much more mobile and in M+ that usually brings it to about the same point.

In AOE, Affliction relies on seed spam, which costs shards, and packs large enough to see value out of soul flame. Because aff shard gen is RNG off agony tics, its shard gen sucks at normal pull sizes. It sees play in Academy and sometime NO because the pull sizes are big enough to support fast shard gen and soul flame value.

Aff is pretty weak at 2-3 targets and meh at 4 because of the shard gen issue.

In dungeons where the pull size is smaller, which is basically the other 6 (HoV is debatable), it’s really hard to gen enough shards to seed spam.

Comparatively, Destro has slight stronger albeit more stationary single target, fantastic 2 target, and is comparatively meh at 3-4 and begins to excel at 5+ just like Aff. Unlike Aff, it’s shard gen is very stable and deliberate, so you are unlikely to be randomly shard starved on a pack.

Demo is the only spec of the 3 that can really burst AOE quickly and frequently on 3-4 mob pulls, so for keys below ~17 I think it’s the much more practical choice. This late in the season keys below 17 are going to be filled with 410+ilvl players and if you are trying to build up RoF stacks or get a bunch of seeds out, you’re going to have a hard time keeping up with the bursty hunters, DH’s, shamans and monks.

Demo’s down side is that it kind of sucks at ST outside of it’s burst, but in the lower keys the boss might not really live long outside the burst anyway.

*and that Felguard requires manual positioning on some bosses for felstorm to hit, like 1st boss of RLP or 3rd boss of SMB.

5

Demo is going to be your best bet in < 21 keys. Keep in mind subcreation can be misleading in that it focuses on very high end and Destro doesn’t really start to shine until 21 and higher.

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6

This sums it up perfectly.

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