Warlocks

[Rhom]

First post is Affliction, then Demo/Destruction, then Deep Destruction. Please provide comments/updates in this thread and I'll update the information. A general link for all Warlcoks is: Warlocks

[Rhom]

Affliction Warlocks

Talents & Glyphs
Affliction Warlock Build has very little flexibility, other than the amount of +hit gained via talents. 2% +spell hit (2 points in Suppression) looks to be ideal, but requires 12% (315) +hit via gear.
For 3% +spell hit remove 1 point from Nightfall.
For 1% +spell hit add 1 point to Dark Pact or Destructive Reach (for threat reduction).
For 0% +spell hit add 1 point to Fel Concentration, but 0% is not recommended.

Major Glyphs: Life Tap, Haunt, Curse of Agony.
Minimum Spell Hit Required via gear/gems/enchants: 263

Spell Cycle
Advanced Reading
Singe Target Opening Gambit
Life Tap
Corruption (or Haunt)
Curse of Agony (or Haunt)
Haunt (if it hasn’t been cast yet)
Unstable Affliction
Shadow Bolt
* The goal is to cast Haunt as early as possible (following a Life Tap), but due to initial movement/positioning in a Boss fight, it often occurs after applying our instant cast DoTs. So, once you are positioned, immediately cast Haunt.
* Some suggest casting Shadow Bolt after Life Tap and before Haunt, to apply 1 stack of Shadow Embrace, if initial positioning allows.

Single Target Spell Prioritization
Life Tap
Haunt
Curse of Agony
Unstable Affliction
Drain Soul when Boss is less than 26%
Shadow Bolt
* The Glyph of Life Tap provides ~80-150 spell power (depending on amount of spirit) when active. Therefore, the first goal is to Life Tap every 20 seconds. It can be cast before the 20 seconds are up, but casting more frequently will reduce your DPS, since you could have been casting something else.
* Haunt is a very unique spell. It does a minor amount of direct damage, but increases shadow DoT damage by 20%, applies one stack and refreshes Shadow Embrace, refreshes Corruption (through the Everlasting Affliction talent) and provides substantial amount of health back to the caster. Because of all of its benefits, it is our most critical spell. Further complicating matters, Haunt has a travel time to hit the boss, so that its benefits are applied/refreshed only upon Haunt traveling to the boss and hitting it. Therefore, depending on your Haste rating, Haunt should be cast every ~9-10.5 seconds to account for cast and travel time. Haunt is NOT a DoT, and therefore it is fine to clip it. The goal is to have Haunt land on the boss and refresh Corruption, Shadow Embrace and Haunt’s debuff before any of them drop.
* Curse of Agony and Unstable Affliction are our only DoTs that must be reapplied. Obviously, never clip them, and always reapply them (if they’ve dropped) before casting Drain Soul or Shadow Bolt.
* Drain Soul does ~10k / 3 seconds when the Boss is less than 26%, which is substantially higher than Shadow Bolt damage. Drain Soul does damage every 3 seconds. Between each 3 second tick DS does 0 DPS. Therefore, don’t think of DS as a channeled spell lasting 15 seconds, think of it as 5 separate 3-second-cast-time spells. So, when a boss is less than 26%, and Life Tap, Haunt, CoA and UA are good, cast DS. At each tick, if any of the higher priority items have dropped, cast them, then recast DS. It is rare to get more than 2 ticks of a DS channeled. Note: Once you start a DS, never cancel it until a tick occurs. You must have an add-on that displays Drain Soul’s ticks. EventHorizon can be configured to do this.
* Shadow Bolt is our lowest DPCT spell, therefore before casting it, ensure that all other spells are in use. With that said, Shadow Bolt is still a critical aspect of our DPS. Never stay idle instead of filling the dead space with a Shadow Bolt.

Gear Ranking and Gear Weighting
Affliction Warlock Gear Ranking is an Elitist Jerks post that provides a gear list for each item slot (scroll down till you see it). Note: take care with this gear list, since it does not provide an, “ignore +hit” ranking along with the standard ranking. Therefore, many of the items are higher than a non-hit item (since +hit is worth so much), but may not be best for your gear, if you’re above hit cap.

Below are the DPS weightings for Affliction Warlocks that are just entering Naxxramas (first column), and those that are entering Ulduar (2nd column).

* 1 hit rating = 1.111 dps OR 1.632 dps
* 1 spell power = 1.305 dps OR 1.405 dps
* 1 haste rating = .644 dps OR .898 dps
* 1 spirit = .666 dps OR .717 dps
* 1 crit rating = .496 dps OR .695 dps
* 1 int = .150 dps OR .211 dps

As you can see, +hit becomes more important as your gear improves, but even with entry level gear, it’s critical, since a miss really messes with an Affliction Warlocks spell cycle (having Haunt miss and be on CD for 8 sec is horrible to behold).

[Rhom]

Demo/Destruction Warlocks
**Updated by Hammaer on 05/21/2010. Cuz controllin deemons eez 'ard werk.

Things are a bit different these days for a pure demo lock. Your "job" in the raid is now three things:
1. Keep the Demonic Pact debuff up for the raid (10% of your spellpower as a raid buff, procs on demon crits)
2. Keep Shadow Bolt 5% crit debuff up on the primarly kill target.
3. Bring da pain!

Talents & Glyphs
Meta/Ruin Build requires hit cap via gear only, ie 13% (+342). With all the +hit cloth that drops (and that people seem to hate) this isn't all that difficult to acheive. There are a number of flexible points in this build, Mana Feed/Master Summoner/Fel Domination are all optional and could be switched out for Imp Healthstone. In THEORY, you shouldn't be losing your pet very often if ever in a raid, so take mana feed & Imp HS.

With the 3.3.3 changes to Demonic Pact, it now lasts 45 seconds and has a 20 second cooldown. This means that unless your demon doesn't crit for 25 seconds, this buff will be up. The odds on that happening are VERY remote (<<1%) so 3/3 demonic tactics is no longer necessary except at VERY low gear levels.

Major Glyphs: Life Tap, Quick Decay, Felguard. Testing has shown that Quick Decay is a better glyph than Meta because it increases the rate at which Molten Core can proc.
Minimum Spell Hit Required via gear/gems/enchants: 342

Spell Cycle
Note:Rhom had a fire-based build in here. With the changes to Demonic Pact, Fire-based builds are no longer as strong as Meta/Ruin, but no raid buffs. Also, 25k Soul Fire crits in demon form are epic WIN.

Advanced Reading including an excellent Spell Prioritization flow chart.
Singe Target Opening Gambit
Life Tap*
Curse of Doom (if target will live more than one minute) Curse of Agony (if not)
Corruption
Immolate
Shadow Bolt / Incinerate x3 ON MOLTEN CORE PROCS ONLY**
* The Glyph of Life Tap provides ~150-250 spell power (depending on amount of spirit) when active. Therefore, the first goal is to Life Tap every 40 seconds. It can be cast before the 40 seconds are up, but casting more frequently will reduce your DPS, since you could have been casting something else. Only use it for mana outside of the 40 seconds.
** Without the additional fire talents from deeper in the destruction tree, Shadow Bolt is by far the better nuke. Both SB and Incinerate have a 2.5 second base cast time, and SB does more damage. However, when Molten Core procs (off of Corruption ticks) Incinerate cast time is reduced 30%, making it the better nuke. Once Molten Core is gone, go back to SB.
*** Once you get 4 piece T10 gear, switch the priority for Curses and Immolate. You need immolate up at all times to proc the 4pc bonus.

Single Target Spell Prioritization (after the opening gambit)
Life Tap (for glyph or mana only)
Corruption
Soul Fire (if Decimation)**
Curse of Agony
Immolate
Shadow Bolt / Incinerate x3 ON MOLTEN CORE PROCS ONLY
* Curse of Agony should only be cast if it will complete its entire duration. Obviously this is hard to gauge, but in general if the target is <200k hps, skip CoA.
** All of your DoTs are higher DPCT than Shadow Bolt or Incinerate, but not Soul Fire, which is sick powerful with Decimation up.
*** With 4pc T10, Immolate second after Life Tap to proc the set bonus.

Corruption/Molten Core, and Decimation/Soul Fire Spell Discussion
For Decimation to occur, the target must have less than 35% health and an Incinerate/Shadow Bolt must hit the boss and apply the Decimation buff. In general, if you see the target at 36%+ when your Nuke flies out of your hands, cast another nuke. At the completion of the second nuke, Decimation will have proc’d and Soul Fire spam begins.

At that point you should only be using Life Tap and Corruption (and Immolate with T10 4pc set bonus), all other casts should be Soul Fire. Life tap is for mana & spellpower, Corruption is for Molten Core procs. Due to the power of Molten Core with Soul Fire (18% more dmg, 15% more crit), it is more damage to cast a new Corruption than to skip it.

Non-Boss Decimation Procs
You can also get Decimation procs off of adds. For example, on Marrowgar, if you target the Bone Spikes and cast a nuke, you can often proc Decimation. Similarly on Deathwhisper, the adds will likely proc Decimation for you.

This is where things get tricky. Decimation lasts 9 seconds. This means you can likely get off 5 Soul Fires if you spamcast it. (9 secs-->7-->5-->3--1). However, you want your Corruption spell up at all times for potential Molten Core procs (as per the priority list). In the 9 seconds of Decimation, it is likely to drop.

Due to the sheer superiority of Soul Fire vs SB/Incinerate, it is better to cast out all of your Soul Fires than to refresh Corruption, but ONLY when Decimation procs off of trash. If you will have a regular Decimation buff from a boss <35%, then keeping Corruption up is required.

Gear Ranking and Gear Weighting
Hit (to the cap) > Spellpower > Spirit > Haste > Crit

Why Spirit > Crit & haste? Because Spirit now gives you Spellpower, of which 10% goes to the entire raid. This means that while your personal dps would be better with crit or haste, the RAID benefits more from your spirit. Thus an item with spirit is very useful. Ironically, Blizz removed all spirit from the T10 warlock gear after making these changes (sigh).
Despite the fact that haste is better than crit, you should still use Firestones, because the 1% direct damage buff does more for you than 1% more DoT damage.

Recommended Add-ons
Forte Exorcist It does lots of nice things for warlocks. In fact, it does so many things I'm not sure exactly what it does. Still, get it, cause its nice.
Power Auras Its a bit complication to setup. I've created a separate post on how to configure it in the tips forum. I use it to monitor Glyph of Life Tap, Molten Core, and Decimation – when the glyph isn't up, I get a bad aura, and when Molten Core/Decimation are up, I get a good aura.

So How Do I Use Big Purple Bat Form?
The basic bonus from going Meta is the 20% damage bonus (yum!), but you also get 3 other abilities. One of these is VERY POWERFUL: Immolation Aura. This is a FREE damage aura for 15 seconds and it does scale with spellpower. You can solo packs of 20 mobs with this aura (I've done it in Icecrown). It does that much dps.

Thus, when you pop Meta, you should immediately pop Immolation Aura and use the Demon Charge ability to get right next to the boss/mob so that it gets hit by the aura. At that point, you can resume your regular rotation. Once the Meta mode is gone, teleport back to your circle (you did put your circle at the spot where you're supposed to be right?) and resume normal dps.

The other Metamorph ability, Shadow Cleave is similar to Heroic Strike for warriors, in that it uses your melee attack you can queue it up while casting other spells. Thus, after you start your Nuke cast, immediately hit Shadow Cleave, and once the cast is done, you'll cleave and can resume casting. This is advanced-mode however, and its not that big of a damage boost. If you aren't comfortable with it, don't take the chance.

Oh, and NEVER use your taunt unless the boss is at <1% and the tank just died. Just...don't...

Depending on the fight, you can use Metamorphosis as many as 3 times (in a 10 minute fight). In that case, use it as often as possible. I tend to try to time it with Heroism, as 20% more damage + 15% haste = epic firepower.

Useful Macros
Curse of Agony/Demonic Empower/Pet Attack
#showtooltip Curse of Agony
/cast Demonic Empowerment
/petattack
/cast Curse of Agony
– Empowers your pet, sends him after your target, and casts CoA. Can also be put into Curse of Doom, Corruption, Immolate, Shadow Bolt, Incinerate, etc. You want as much uptime on Demonic Empowerment as possible.

Meta/Trinket
#showtooltip Metamorphosis
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Metamorphosis
– Uses both trinkets (if possible) before activating Meta-mode.

[Rhom]

Talents & Glyphs
To be done.

Spell Cycle
To be done.

Gear Ranking and Gear Weighting
To be done.

[Hammaer]

Bump. I have updated the Demo lock section to reflect the Meta/Ruin build, which is the best Deomonology Raid build currently.

[Hammaer]

Re-bump. Updated for 3.3.3 changes to Demonic Pact.

[Shadowmiste]

I recently switched from Affliction to Destro on my warlock and was looking for information. I guess that section never got done......

I can start creating a post as I continue gathering information if someone would be willing to review it.