Warlock Respec

[Arethor]

I've been waiting to respecc for a while since I've been mostly soloing and the Affliction tree has served me well these last 55 levels. But now I've been feeling it's time for a change. I've felt more of a need to use my destruction talents and likewise feel (and have been suggested) that it's time to respec into Destruction a little more. I ran a quick talent calculator earlier and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for me.

NOTE: These are the talents of my final level 60 'Lock build. Being 55 (soon 56) a few of these talents will be NYI. I still want to use my Affliction spells and plan on still using Nightfall for the insta-cast Shadowbolt. This will be supplemented by the Drain Life and Corruption.

Class: Warlock
Level: 60
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Affliction Talents (25 points)
• Suppression - 5/5 points
Reduces the chance for enemies to resist your Affliction spells by 10%.
• Improved Corruption - 1/5 point
Reduces the casting time of your Corruption spell by 0.4 seconds.
• Improved Life Tap - 2/2 points
Increases the amount of Mana awarded by your Life Tap spell by 20%.
• Improved Drain Soul - 2/2 points
Gives you a 100% chance to get a 100% increase to your Mana regeneration for 10 seconds if the target dies while while you drain its soul. In addition, your Mana may continue to regenerate while casting at 50% of normal.
• Improved Drain Life - 5/5 points
Increases the Health drained by your Drain Life spell by 10%.
• Improved Curse of Agony - 3/3 points
Increases the damage done by your Curse of Agony by 6%.
• Fel Concentration - 5/5 points
Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channelling the Drain Life, Drain Mana, or Drain Soul spell.
• Nightfall - 2/2 points
Gives your Corruption and Drain Life spells a 3% chance to cause you to enter a Shadow Trance state after damaging the opponent. The Shadow Trance state reduces the casting time of your next Shadow Bolt spell by 100%.



Demonology Talents (5 points)
• Improved Healthstone - 2/2 points
Increases the amount of Health restored by your Healthstone by 20%.
• Improved Imp - 3/3 points
Increases the effect of your Imp's Firebolt, Fire Shield, and Blood Pact spells by 30%.



Destruction Talents (21 points)
• Improved Shadow Bolt - 5/5 points
Your Shadow Bolt critical strikes increase the next 4 sources of Shadow damage dealt to the target by 20%.
• Bane - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Shadow Bolt and Immolate spells by 0.5 seconds.
• Devastation - 5/5 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Destruction spells by 5%.
• Shadowburn - 1/1 point
Instantly blasts the target with 87 to 99 Shadow damage. Requires 1 Soul Shard. If the target dies from Shadowburn, and yields experience, the caster gains a Soul Shard.
• Destructive Reach - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your Destruction spells by 20%.
• Intensity - 2/2 points
Gives you a 70% chance to resist interruptiong caused by damage while channeling the Rain of Fire or Hellfire spell.
• Ruin - 1/1 point
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Destruction spells by 100%.


Thanks for any suggestions. I'll be respeccing when i hit 56 which is about 50k xp away at the moment.

[Bun-Bun]

I've been waiting to respecc for a while since I've been mostly soloing and the Affliction tree has served me well these last 55 levels.  But now I've been feeling it's time for a change.  I've felt more of a need to use my destruction talents and likewise feel (and have been suggested) that it's time to respec into Destruction a little more.  I ran a quick talent calculator earlier and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for me.

NOTE: These are the talents of my final level 60 'Lock build.  Being 55 (soon 56) a few of these talents will be NYI.  I still want to use my Affliction spells and plan on still using Nightfall for the insta-cast Shadowbolt.  This will be supplemented by the Drain Life and Corruption.

Class: Warlock
Level: 60
________________________________________

Affliction Talents (25 points)
•  Improved Drain Soul - 2/2 points
Gives you a 100% chance to get a 100% increase to your Mana regeneration for 10 seconds if the target dies while while you drain its soul. In addition, your Mana may continue to regenerate while casting at 50% of normal.
•  Improved Curse of Agony - 3/3 points
Increases the damage done by your Curse of Agony by 6%.
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I'm not at all happy with Improved Drain Soul as it stands, and I don't think the points in Improved CoA do much at all. First, a 6% bump is not all that significant, and if you're focusing your tactics on Destruction, I'd think you're more likely to be using Curse of Elements or Curse of Shadows. I'd take these points and get your instant Corruption back.

[Arethor]

Thanks Bun. A very good point that I overlooked when i slapped this together. That'll give me 5/5 in Imp. Corruption plus 1 extra. I'll have to look at it again later as I don't have the time now, but thanks for the post.

[Drasca]

PvP server or PvE/RP?

Might have to reconsider if PvP server. For any raids above 20 people, you'll need dark pact for instant mana recharge.

If you PvP, you'll want to shave points off low priority life drain and suppression (useful, but very marginal utility increase), and put one into amplify curse for killer curse of agonies. Heck, you might even want to dump points into fully improved exhaustion. PvE, you won't in instances. Otherwise... stick to 20/21 point affliction. Siphon life has its uses too, but always PvE. not worth the cast time PvP.

If you want to make active use of life drain, get grim reach. You'll miss the range.

You can still have 21 Ruin build, but consider 2 points into improved lash of pain or improved firebolt. The imp is a little chain-gun with that, and lash of pain really gets nasty on the enemy. I had both improved imp and improved firebolt last build, and it was nasty burst damage, especially alongside improved succubus.

You don't have improved health funnel I see. Too bad, its really great if you've already have 5 points into demonology. Demonic embrace is 'teh stuff' too. I'd consider either over improved healthstone, as it only works for yourself and not others.

[Arethor]

I forgot to mention it was for a PvE server. Thank you for the suggestions. I did however already respec, but still have 4 possible points to play with before i reach 60. I'm gonna try the build as I have it now for a lil bit

I like the idea of a Chain-Gun Imp since he's always a valuable utility and I'm sure he can really pour on the DPS.

I'm sure Grim Reach has it's uses, and I did have it on my previous spec, but don't see how it would improve my Drain Life usage (with how I tend to use it) unless it's when i've Feared something.

As for Health Funnel, truthfully it didn't occur to me because of how rarely I use it. Most of the time I use my VW for his tanking ability and if he's getting romped particularly bad I'll Searing Pain to take aggro of of him. By this point the mob is close enough to toast that Drain Life keeps me well above half life while finishing him off. Health Funnel also always seems to put me at the top of the hate list anyway, but now with less health. This isn't to say that it doesn't have it's uses but a majority of the time it just sits on my hotbar feeling lonely next to Enslave Demon. Maybe I'll find it extremely useful in high level instances when i have a proper tank to hold aggro while I funnel, only time will tell.

Demonic Embrace..... how do I say this... I read the tooltip on it incorrectly and for some reason thought that each level only gave me a 1% increase to stamina while decreasing spirit by 3% A stupid reading error, but one that had me neglect what seems to be a very useful skill.

Synopsis:
I've already respecced so I plan on trying out my current build for a little while.
I like the points you made about Demonic Embrace and Improved Firebolt
Still a little uncertain about Grim Reach and Health Funnel in my style of play
With my 4 remaining points I'll probably put them into Imp. Firebolt and Demonic Embrace at this point. (I think the 4 I left out at this point were 2 in Imp. Corruption and 2 in Fel Concentration)

I ran a quick idea for another respeccing based on suggestions I've received that I'll post in a separate post.

[Arethor]

This is a level 59 spec. I left 1 point out that could be used to top out Grim Reach, give me 1 in Lash of Pain, 1 in Health Funnel, or 1 in Intensity.

Affliction Talents (21 points)
Improved Corruption - 5/5 points
Improved Life Tap - 2/2 points
Improved Drain Life - 5/5 points
Fel Concentration - 5/5 points
Nightfall - 2/2 points
Grim Reach - 1/2 point
Siphon Life - 1/1 point

Demonology Talents (8 points)
Improved Imp - 3/3 points
Demonic Embrace - 5/5 points

Destruction Talents (21 points)
Improved Shadow Bolt - 5/5 points
Bane - 5/5 points
Devastation - 5/5 points
Shadowburn - 1/1 point
Improved Firebolt - 2/2 points
Destructive Reach - 2/2 points
Ruin - 1/1 point

Unspent talent points: 1

[Malakar]

I suggest getting 2 points in Intensity for instance utility. With a Paladin around for Concentration, you can serve as main AoE.

Personally I don't really find Siphon Life to be very useful at all. The passive life steal is cool, but neither the cast time nor the mana cost stand out.

Something else you might want to consider is Dark Pact for instances. It'll require some sacrifices, though. You'd have to ditch ruin and some other talents. But in doing so, you could also get Shadow Mastery which would boost your Shadow Bolt damage by 10%, about as much as ruin would. Dark Pact is great in instances, because it's like an unlimited mana pool. Just as long as your pet isn't casting constantly, they'll regen mana fast, which you can drain very quickly.