Are there any difficulties you find w/ not having Improved Mana Tap/Corruption?
In a game where bosses fall over in 30 seconds, “viable” is a funny word to be using.
1 Like
Any build without improved corruption is something I won’t even try to pvp with. I won’t call it necessary, but its such a huge improvement that it makes me not want to even try without it. And anyone who is allowed to use corruption in raid should have at least enough points to bring it below GCD or its also not worth using corruption at all.
Improved tap is largely a PVE thing. Its very nice to have, but I tend to skip it in pvp builds. You could skip it in PVE builds as well but you’ll be using more globals to tap.
This is not anything for a warlock, are you talking priest maybe?
Really should only be SM/Ruin locks since they need to proc Nightfall for their DPS. Even with 16 debuff slots you’ll find that they’re all used up by better stuff in a 40-person raid.
I’m not sure why sm/ruin gets recommended as a versatile all around spec especially for pvp. Siphon life is terribly inefficient, your hp is way lower, your void sacrifice is weaker, you summon pets slower at full mana cost, and you don’t have demonic sacrifice for dme farming compared to ds ruin.
I say this as a lock who has 100k hks, ranked 80% solo que during wsg meta, and spent over 3k gold trying out all types of pvp specs. Sm ruin is a bad spec for pvp lol don’t do it melee will destroy you.
I say ds ruin is way more versatile. I often have 20+ KB 0 death games solo que with this spec, which is on par with the survivability of soul link but you have ruin crits and can parse. With a 2.5k voidwalker shield you can nuke melee before you even take damage. If you’re in a real pickle you can fel domination and insta summon another void as well.
TL;DR DS/RUIN > SM/RUIN for everything
1 Like
DM/ruin anymore.
Your corruptions ain’t gonna stay on the boss without strict debuff discipline from your raid, plus it has a 4% rng baked element for nightfall procs, assuming you can even get a corruption debuff slot. So SM/Ruin is meh.
DM/Ruin gives you the ability to spam shadowbolt and not worry about debuffs and the highest +shadow damage increase.
You also get DM, which you can run with 5/5 nem and fel puppy for +60 to all resists free(at the cost of 15% shadow increased Shadow damage. Saves a ton of stats/money not chasing +resists for the various fights we need it on.
IMP life tap is not worth dumping the points into, burn pots/runes if raid dps is too low and you go oom
Here is a link to what I run. There are 2 talents you can throw anywhere in destro to pick up Ruin. I went Imp Searing Pain b/c I’m MT on Twins.
/talent-calc/warlock/-205031015250105-50500051022001
2 Likes
Improved Corruption is pretty essential, I think, for any Warlock. Making Corruption instant cast is a godsend for dotting on the fly.
Improved Life Tap, however… You’re only going to life tap in groups (when a healer is around) or out of combat (to reduce the amount of time you eat/drink). Life tapping while the mobs are beating on you is not usually the best play, unless you need that last bit of mana for an instant spell that’ll kill them.
Yeah, the debuff limit fills up fast. Warlocks in a group typically get a slot for their curse, and maybe one dot. Two, if you’re lucky. I’ve found that, in raids, keeping your curses up is more important than spamming dots, at least on bosses. Trash packs are different. I’ll toss a couple dots on each while tab targeting around.
1 Like
Because nightfall, both spell ranges, fel concentration, amp curse and affliction hit rating > ds/ruin. Farming without fel concentration is cancer.
DS/Ruin is like ghetto Demonology without the real reason you go Demonology, Soul Link. Way more vulnerable to spell interrupts, and pretty much lower pvp damage than my modified SM/Ruin spec.
Play what you want, different play styles are gonna work differently for people, but IMO, for PVP either go all the way to Soul Link, or don’t bother with more than minimal Demonology.
1 Like
Except farming. Farming is so much better with SM/Ruin. The efficiencies between SM, Lifetap, and Drain Life are amazing.
I’d also say MD/Ruin is a better spec for PVP than DS/Ruin.
I can always count on you to disagree with me dot even when you agree with me.
And
Not sure which farm fel concentration is mandatory for but it is not dme
OP wants a pvp/pve spec why would you recommend soul link?
Have you ever tried void demonic sacrifice? That’s better than drain life imo. I admittedly rely on the r12 gloves for searing pain spam in lieu of fel concentration.
I’d tend to agree. I still say Soul Link is better than Ruin for world content, though. Sending 30% of incoming damage to your pet can really boost survivability.
1 Like
It’s pretty good but I’ll run a succubus while I’m farming so stuff dies faster and I don’t need as much healing. I’ve tried it both ways and SM/Ruin with succubus is a lot better at farming than DS/Ruin with VW sac.
pve? ds/ruin for max dps. 1 sm/ruin for tank buff.
nothing else unless you’re tanking twin emps, maybe.
a pvp/pve catch all spec only achieves being mediocre at both.
Good question. SL/Shadowburn is actually not half bad for PVE DPS. It does not scale as well as Ruin specs, but if you’re not world buffing, it’s really not far behind. And on fights where your pet is useable as a dps source, there are a few, it actually closes the gap, sometimes beating out a ruin spec. It’s also significantly more effective at pvp, and farming both.
So. It depends on which side of the fence you want to lean on, PVE with a side of PVP, or PVP with a side of PVE.
And for the record, SM/Ruin deals with melee in pvp by blowing them up. Personally, I do it by taking 3 points out of SM for improved imp in Demo, and getting improved firebolt from Destro. This puts me at roughly the same HP as someone with the stam talent, give or take a bit. And I run black book. With this setup, my imp does 200+ dps, ill dot people deathcoil, shadowbolt and shadowburn them. And if they aren’t dead because nothing crit, the dots plus imp dps will kill them even if I’m locked down from that point on.
2 Likes
I actually never tried super imp because I usually deal with super zealous rogues that ride me all bg long. I might give it a go one of these days
1 Like
I respecced the other night from DS/Ruin to MD/Ruin. Was having to hold back on damage due to catching up with the tanks on threat and wanted to try something different (it is basically the spec that we start out doing Emp tanking with in AQ40). I managed to be the highest overall caster (boss fights) DPS in BWL for my guild run this past saturday and did not have to worry about threat with my imp out. Raid spec to use mainly depends on Tanks gear/raid comp/your gear. If you have tanks with great gear that can keep threat then yea DS/Ruin is the one to go. if your tanks gear is such that you have to wait/wand to not pull then try out MD/Ruin for the threat decrease. If you have the debuffs slots avail and the raid is ok with it can go SM/Ruin (but this takes 3ish debuff slots so not all raids are ok with it)
I disagree, I outfarmed everyone around me at twilight camps getting pages before AQ. I’ll outfarm any SM/ruin lock as well in that spec. Just gotta know how to play it… and the right gear helps.
1 Like
This thread is wild. There are 3 specs for PvE. 2 of them are about equal, 1 is worse but has uses.
1 - DS/Ruin
2 - SM/Ruin (similar but generally not as good if you can’t use corruption)
3 - DM/Ruin or some variation with DM (good if you have threat issues, need resists for Twin Emps, etc)
If you want to be optimal in PvE, you pick one of those. If you just want to have fun and your guild doesn’t care, you can close your eyes and click on the talent tree.
Yikes at some of the bad information in this thread.
Pve there are 3 builds :
Ds/ruin. top parsing build for most
SM /ruin. Just below ds /ruin but needs corruption slot, which may not be avail. Don’t need to respec for pvp. Can rng via nightfall procs to top parses.
Md/ruin. Technically the top parsing lock spec right now. You use black book with a talented Succubus pre fight, then swap back to your real trinket before the pull, keeping the buff and using the power and pet to dps. In practice, keeping her alive for most fights is -VERY- hard, and as soon as she dies it becomes a garbage spec.
For pvp purposes there’s a ton of builds that are all at least “A” or “B” tier, with two, and only two builds being above and beyond at “S” tier (those builds being nf/conflag and and sm/ruin)… If you think either of those builds struggle with melee, you simply don’t understand range and positioning in a bg.
1 Like