2.4, Fire, warlock specs, raiding

[Kyth]

Starting Tuesday I'm going to run as fire in raids unless anyone has objections, because I want to try this out for real.

The data is incomplete, but......:


Summary:

The 'best' (most flexible) warlock spec now is a hybrid shadow/fire spec (basically, skip cataclysm, get ISB, pick up the fire talents. conflag or not is up to you, I skipped it and grabbed 1/3 soul leech instead.) Taking cataclysm over ISB is a better choice, but means you'd have to respec if you're doing shadow.

This is because when we have three locks in a raid, someone should be doing fire. Possibly two someone's (see footnote). In some cases (only one spriest), maybe three someone's.

When we have two locks, the ideal curses are CoE/CoR, not CoS/CoR, and one lock should be fire. Not sure about the second.

Note: By switching to the hybrid fire/shadow spec, casting immolate is now a dps *gain* again, so Timbal's becomes a viable second trinket until you get the good pair. (and you have something else to do other than just SB.)



Details:

Fire destro is +100 dps from shadow with current gear. +130 if you're using flamecaps on every cooldown (very reasonable for a lock since healthstones are less important to us than mana gems are to a mage.) Add +15 if you go a pure fire spec.

More than two destruction locks do not increase ISB uptime in raids.[1]

CoE is more raid DPS than CoS is if you have 3 lock+mage versus 3 lock+spriest.

If a spriest doesn't have CoS, the warlocks lose ~10 dps per lock due to the decreased mana regen.



[1]Slake in <Advent Fury> actually thinks you don't want more than one -- I haven't tested his results in detail (it's based off of a simulation he wrote.)