Affliction the fastest lvling spec?Follow

I leveled my lock most of the way in the destro tree just so I could jump in 5mans with friends and being an off toon I didn't want to put the money into dual spec. Well as I played more I became very fond of the class and I have started leveling him in earnest. There seemed to be quite a debate over the fastest leveling spec between demon and affliction, but for me it was no contest with affliction being much much faster. All the threads I read about people just tossing CoA and corruption and running around and watching the baddies die never made much sense to me as usually that will get an equal level opponent to about half health and if you dot enough of them try usually catch up. The best method I found was to start with that basic method running around and casting CoA and corruption on 5-7 mobs, stop running, and sacrifice your voidy (which as we all know doesn't kill them anymore, just provides a damage shield for us). Now with everybody dot'd and me safe in my shield we can cast rain of fire. If you are fighting mobs two three levels higher than you they won't quite be dead yet, so a instant howl of terror and reappy dots as the bad guys run...voilà. If this is done properly you, with a few strategic life taps in the rotation and the occasional death coil, you will experience zero down time and end up dropping 5 guys at once every thirtyoro 45 seconds. The health bonus off of corruption typically brings me to full health while I'm shielded so all I worry about is mp. The closest thing to slowing down that I have expirienced is when I have to fight one enemy or maybe two just to fill back up full on hp and mp. I've gone from 42 to 50 in four days applying this method and honestly only playing about two hours per day.

Thoughts?

Everyone has their own slightly unique playstyle, especially when leveling. if that works for you, go for it and enjoy it as you level to 80.

Some people prefer going affliction and some demonology for leveling up their lock; each has their merits and either one will get you there, so use whatever you find more comfortable and enjoyable.

Afflic has always been my spec leveling and raiding. Drain tanking works well, felhunter/succ/imp beating on them DoT and drain life.

If you run with your felhunter or succubus on defensive with the special abilities turned off you get quicker kills instead of a health buff

I've just started playing my lock again after 8 months away (Lock is 71) and I'm amazed at how powerful DoT DoT Tab is now.

I use Felhunter. My tactic is to surround myself with at least 4 mobs (Any less isn't really fair to them) Corr+CoA 1st target, send in pet, Corr+CoA+UA 2nd target, Corr+CoA+Haunt 3rd target. Life Tap to give Haunt something to heal back. Use Nightfall procs to pull more mobs into your bloodbath. It truly is unstoppable.

I'll put it this way, if Affliction isn't the fastest levelling spec, the one that beats it must level quicker than an entire platoon of Chinese gold farmers.

Dark Pact offers the most mana per GCD at no cost of health. Very useless.

The pre-BC content has been hugely nerfed and XP gains modified a great deal, so I don't know that it really matters which spec is more efficient (notice I did not use "better" as that's a relative term). Mobs just die too fast for the real power of any of the talent trees to shine. Play whichever appeals to you and heck, respecs are cheap.

Personally I found affliction the most efficient in vanilla and most of TBC content. Destro was very useful late in Northrend for a few "go kill this jerk" quests, but couldn't compare to the pure grinding speed of a decent affliction build no matter how badly I tried. I usually suggest a new variation of the old "SL/SL and run" playstyle if you're looking for only XP/hour (and not looting). I think I ended up with something like this while leveling. Focusing on powering up DoTs and drains (when needed) and stam for taking the few hits you will occasionally take.

Run through the quest mob area, DoT everything, keep moving, more DoTs, keep moving, sip tea, laugh, keep moving, more DoTs, return to quest hub. I rarely looted unless I had to. My lock was second only in leveling speed to my rogues' mut-prep build which had a 5-10sec kill rate (to be fair, the rogue had t6/SWP gear).


In the end, I don't really think that spec has as much to do with leveling rate that people seem to think it does. There are a lot of distractions and inefficient uses of time that a lot of players seem to get trapped by. Leaving the quest hub without a basic plan or quest loop; not reading and being sure to understand quest objectives; keeping really full bags; checking auctions for "a few minutes" etc between quest turn-ins; guild chat... etc. All that kinda stuff will really bog down your XP per hour. Understand your objectives, plan your path, do not get distracted.

Unless of course you're not trying to go as fast as possible. I have a couple of toons that didn't (or are not) on any sort of fast track. And that can be just as much fun.