New to warlock, which Spec should I go for?

[Lappenforce 0]

Yeah :P. Basically I thought the trinket will be better than the darkmoon thingy. I'll go and clear normal soon. Do you have any affliction specific tips for with gearing or anything else? I'll make sure to get some logs

[Omaric 246]

I'd check out the sticky again if you haven't already on the forums. Otherwise you seem to be prioritizing your stats properly. You can't really go wrong with keeping your haste/mastery about even until your item level starts blowing up. Your trinkets are the biggest factor this tier in Affliction playstyle. UVoLS changes things. How you react to Wush changes things. Both together can really mess with your brain.

Really though, I haven't played Affliction competitively since the end of last tier. The Affliction tips sticky thread has more than I can cover. :)

[Cruzan 71]

I'm seeing 17.78% hit on you atm. Maybe you haven't had time to reforge and stuff, but get yourself down to 15% mang!

[Lappenforce 0]

Nah I just relogged with new pieces to get my askmrrobot updated. I was at 15% straight.

[schmearcampain 0]

And I'll argue the only reason it falters single target is the meta gem and practically every fight this tier caters directly to destruction :3. Either way, next tier will be nothing but ST patchwerk bullshit and arcane mages and affli locks will dominates. Destro had its moment in the sun, and now its time for them to shove it back into a box as they always do :,<

You know what the next tier raid bosses are like? Is it up on the PTR?

[obleak 10]

You know what the next tier raid bosses are like? Is it up on the PTR?

I've heard this as well.. i can't cite the source atm, but i have heard this.

[gahhda 95]

No, but I've played the game long enough to know when they're going to fuck my favorite spec in the ass because of fight design. :3.

[Zagam 1,982]

It's as Gahhda says...specs will be dependent on the fight design. Imagine if every fight had moments of intensive AoE needed. Survival Hunters, Demonology Warlocks, and Elemental Shamans would be high on the meters. Single target with temporary buffs? What up, Rogues, Ret Paladins, etc. If you took this same spec design back into Dragon Soul or Firelands, things would be DRASTICALLY different.

Fight designs usually appear unique but they mostly follow the same few types of characteristics including but not limited to:

-Tank Swaps

-Dispels

-Void Zones

-Adds

-Special Action Button

Dark Animus is the first fight I've seen where you solved the fight before you even looked at it. Once you mathematically solved it, it was just a matter of making 9/24 other people do what you see. Except for that fight, most things are generically similar. Specific to Warlocks, if the next tier is predominantly single target and doesn't have tons of targets to generate Burning Embers with Rain of Fire and Shadowburn, then Destruction will fall behind and Affliction will take off. Demonology is pretty well built right now to be able to do good AoE and single target. I doubt we'll see Warlocks make it to 5.4 untouched in design, though.

[Lappenforce 0]

Seeing that I now have 2 RPPM trinkets (wush and breath both lfr version), should I go full haste now to increase procs? I'm curious if this is worth it, or if I should just stick to breakpoint (6637) -> mastery

[Zagam 1,982]

I've mentioned this somewhere...I think I need to start a Warlock F.A.Q. section for questions such as these...

As such, choosing to go full Haste is a preference choice. Yes, your proc rate will slightly increase, but this does NOT mean you will see an extra proc or two during any one encounter. The RPPM factor makes your trinket procs completely random. Sadly, your LFR trinkets have a diminished proc rate as it is (502 = ~75% of the proc rate of a 528 trinket) so trying to push this up won't get you far. Without going all math geek on you, the way it works out is over hundreds of thousands of fights, yes, you will see a higher proc rate. The problem now is if you had 10% Haste, you might see 6 procs in one attempt. Then you reforge to 30% Haste and you get 5 procs the next time. While getting 6 at 10% is lucky and 5 at 30% is unlucky, it does happen. Personally, I prefer the Haste = Mastery push because it's far more reliable to be consistently good. Since you don't mention which spec, I can't give you a Haste threshold to push for, but if you check out some of the forum guides here, you'll see that value.

[Lappenforce 0]

Yeah that's what I thought since in one of your guides you said Haste and Mastery are great when they work "together". It's just so confusing that there are so many different opinions on this. Some say keep both on the same value, some say go for a breakpoint, others say go mastery and some are 100% sure you should put every little point you possibly can into haste. Then there's Sparkuggz, saying pushing into haste is not THAT good. But yeah as you also said earlier, reforging and gemming won't make me awesome. But it feels so weird to not be 100% sure what to do. I'm literally searching through everything, running SimCraft for 1 item. It takes me like half an hour to change ONE item on my gear because I'm just not sure whether I should stay on my 6637 Haste -> Mastery or go all Haste now because person xy and z said it's best.

I'm playing mainly affliction right now btw, with a bit of destru. Will be switching to Affli/Demo as soon as I get hands on UVOLS.

Thanks for your fast reply :)

[Zagam 1,982]

You know, it's kinda awesome that there isn't a clear cut choice. Each fight is different, each player's style is different, and no raiding team is the same. Everything depends on what you personally do. As a Warlock, there is a saying I'm trying to coin. That saying is "Crit is shit." If you remember that and nothing else, you'll be fine.

Just don't let the Fire Mages and Warriors hear that.