UA / Felguard talent comparisonFollow

from my experiences, i was an affliction lock until level 68 with alot of success. guildies tried to tell me that felguard helps with leveling, but i never thought i could live without the nifty talents in the affliction tree. was i ever wrong. yes the talents in the affliction tree are nice but your kill rate will go through the roof with an excelent demon spec. felgaurd kills things surprisingly fast and is a superb tank, able to handle up to three mobs of similar lvl with a little health funneling. my advice to you is to respec at 56 so you can get demonic frenzy for the felgaurd and find a good spec, imp drain soul and imp life tap are musts for a good solo'ing spec. you will see the next 14 levels fly by. but dont forget to spec back affliction if you plan on raiding or your dps will just not cut it.

Felguard as MT wont happen m8 ;) In 5 mans PUG's it might offtank though.

Demo in instances is not a bad spec but you wont be topping the dps charts by any means. felguard can hold aggro for a few seconds or up to a minute depending on the group's output, but he goes down real fast. the main use of felguard in instances is to up your dps slightly. be sure to keep the taunt off and use cleave sparingly in crowd control situations. for trash, send felguard after a sunder or 2, use CoS and shadowbolt spam, tap and drain life when needed. on bosses, go all out after the tank builds aggro, with imp drain soul your affliction spells will do 10% less aggro so start with them first. plus groups will love the powered up healthstones

think of it this way... as everyone who's rolled lock for the first time hit 50 they all re-roll demo just to try out the pet. then they can't afford to re-roll and so stay with the felguard, also because they like the +damage increase.

in reality if you want to level faster go for UA. afliction is the king of speedly leveling

at 70 I do notice that it's cheaper for me to farm as a demon lock simply cause I don't have to pay much if anything for armor repairs. For some reason I'd end up with like 70% armor just from farming lv 70-72 elementals for half an hr but I'd be like 98% with a demon.

while it's a trivial amound I'm sure, it will eventually add up and frankly I don't see myself killing that much more faster as affliction off the mobs I want to farm for that to be worth it for me. (mostly due to mob spacing is kind of far and I run helluva slow dazed all the time with mass dot farming

there's always exceptions to the rule, but generally people respec the moment they can get the felguard simply because it's a 'fun new pet'
also, ya. in 5mans the felnub spec is one of the kings of dps, but that is only in 5mans also it's obvious that your survivability would be greater, though in 5 man heroics it won't make much difference due to the insane damage of the mobs, heck your pet will die quite often simply due to cleave.
back to the original post, afliction is the faster leveling spec and the difference in repair costs isn't noticable due to how easy it is to make money past lvl.60. felnub is far from as effective as afliction + voidy/imp as he takes far to much damage and has to little hp, especially once you include soul-link damage

i've nothing against felnub specs, they are just simply put.. nub. there are very few locks who can play it properly (not saying you're one of the masses, if you use all the abilities on manual then you're probably not) but the reality of it is that most warlocks keep the pet on defensive with all abilities on auto and have little to no control over pet abilities and positioning. for pvp you can win through simply doing nothing but running around like a headless chicken as your pet attacks things, in solo pve you simply have to wand + attack + resummon when it's low on hp and in 5mans / raids currently all the felnub locks i've played with have again, had most abilities on auto, not realised that they kept on un-CCing mobs / their pet dies in the mobs aoe.

also the reality of it is that '1afliction dot can do more damage than the felguard', or to be more precise... the total increase in dot damage through all the afliction talent points means that your increased dot damage more than makes up for the felguards damage, infact it's been calculated plenty of times on forums about DPSing and the wow lock forums that felguard spec has the lowest dps out of the 3 available specs to warlocks.

my 'arrogance' exists because I have tried it all, I have looked at everything and I've come to the conclusions about it all, you may not like it but I am right (now that is my arrogance unleashed, everything prior was it leashed)

In the end it’s my honest belief that BOTH specs are pretty much the same. Demo has the slight edge as my favorite PVP spec but UA still works wonders. It’s just which play style you prefer or enjoy the most, and even if one "may" be better on paper or that what the elitist pigs tell you, it really makes no difference what spec you are.

But if you’re raiding as demo and you look at your damage output and it’s not up to snuff then respec, stop kidding yourself and just respec. I’ve done everything in Kara as both specs and they both perform about the same in my eyes. Sure some fights favor affliction over demo but there are only 2-3 of those in the whole place and even as demo you can still be competitive on damage.

I leveled 10-70 as demo and enjoyed it, and I think deep down that will always be my favorite spec out of all of them, sure affliction is easier and can outperform demo in many ways but skill > spec in the end.

I will chime in just a little bit late on this.

I went Affliction my whole way up the chain and it because very routine to drain tank and basically never be in any fear of dying against regular mobs. There is an occasional mishap but for the most part I was never in a bad spot.

I switched specs a few times between now and then. I will say first that Destruction is very difficult to get used to for a affliction lock. I was in shell shock at the lack of mana efficiency I had. Sure, in a group with a boss you can keep your mana and hp up but in short fights you kill things so fast that there is no time to regen. (getting off topic)

I felt that demo was pretty good but the felguard is a squishy and you cannot rely on him to be a good tank. He hits hard but is constantly dying.

Basically if you are comfortable with a spec stick with it. I am now in a full end game raiding spec with my Lock and love it. Just need the gear to back up the skills at this point.

Good Luck

Never have I switched out of Fliction, 10 to 70.

NEVER have I been side-by-side with a Demo lock and had him Kill faster, put out more Total Damage in a 5man/raid, grind faster or more efficiently. Demo's Pet Quickcast does make for a safer build in most situations if you're quick enough, and the term FelNub, although a relatively degrading term, refers to a Warlock who just sends in his Pet and maybe throws on a DoT or two... this tactic DOES work, but it's even less effective than a good Demo Lock.

The main problem I have with Demo lock for grind, especially at first, is that your pet WILL run out of mana LONG before you do, and even with techs to get his mana back, you're looking at a constant merry-go-round of Improved LT + ManaFeed then Life Drain just to keep him rolling at a decent pace. As you reach upwards of 65 this seems to be less and less a problem, but especially in more hairy situations (2 monsters?! OH NOEZ) you'll see a Felly drain his mana seriously quickly.

In BG, Demo fails the Damage/Kill test, as well as large WPVP encounters. Where Demo (and Destro for that matter) seem to shine is in 2v2/3v3 Arena, small WPVP confrontations (duels,1v1/2v2), and Farming.

This being said, the MAIN thing I have against Demo is that it IS too Pet dependant. 90% of Demo Locks will agree, and of that group, 90% will say they are fine with that! Demo is a very unique and specific tree (as is Fliction) which fits certain play-styles.

It's really all about what you want to do.

Having been in your exact situation, however (you can probobly find the exact same question posted by me on these boards somewhere), I can tell you that you'll have absolutely 100% no problem leveling efficiently, bringing damage to groups, and holding your own in PVP on the trip up to 70 (and beyond.) There is also a certain level range (about 3-5 levels below the Lock) for which Affliction lock is the king of Farming (DoT DoT DoT DoT, Change target, Repeat x5, IHoT, get new Targets -- can do about 15-20 this way before break). For lower monsters, however, as stated the fact that a Demo can have his pet kill for free makes it a good choice.

One thing I WILL warn you about if you stick to your Fliction background, however, is your first few levels in BC. Hellfire Peninsula is a ***** of a place to level as a Fliction/Destro warlock. It just is. The good news here is that you will still be bringing great utility/damage to Hellfire instances, and you will be out of this level range (61 or 62 you can move out) insanely quickly if you just do the chain quests.

No you dont? Just Wand once?

We're talking about Farming Itemzzzzzz l0lz amirite? Since that's the part you're quoting =)

Those are quotation marks, right? =)

Although I've only played with a Felly breifly (friends house) I would use Reckless if I was farming anything under 65.

No flee and dying faster are good things, and quite frankly Felly doesn't drop health too quickly against lower monsters =) Even if you were worried about either the mana consumption, the agro, or the +ATK effects of Reckless, you could use Rank1 for the Flee effect and call it a day.

Then again theres not really a reason to do this...
Then again theres not really a reason to have a Felguard =P

BTW I agree with all your previous posts and hopefully I havn't come off as countering any of your arguement XD

I respecc'd at level 53 back to demo as I was getting bored with my aff lock. I love fg, and he looks cool unlike vw (main reason I dropped demo for aff in the first place). And intercept is sweet.

my guys takes a lot of damage though. I've read posts about taking on many mobs at once, but I don't think I will. One mob beats fg up pretty good.

I do have a noob question though. Should I leave cleave on if only fighting one mob? Seems like a waste of mana. And he was burning thru mana like crazy when I first got him, so I put one point in that talent to give my minion mana when I life tap. One point seems plenty, he doesn't have mana problems anymore.

Edited, Sep 27th 2007 2:43am by thrashering