Commonly Asked Questions and Answers.Follow

What Gems should I use?

Meta: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (requires you to have 2x blue equipped)
Red: Runed Cardinal Ruby
Blue: Purified Dreadstone
Yellow: Rigid King's Amber, Veiled Ametrine, Reckless Ametrine


Should I get the socket bonus?

Socket a blue slot with Purified Dreadstone if...

...the socket bonus is +5 Spell Power and you have 3/3 in Demonic Aegis and Glyph of Life Tap
...the socket bonus is +6 Spell Power and you have Glyph of Life Tap
...the socket bonus is +7 Spell Power or more
...you do not have at least 2 blue gems to activate Chaotic Skyflare Diamond

Socket a yellow slot with Reckless Ametrine if the bonus is +5 Spell Power or more or with Rigid King's Amber or Veiled Ametrine if you need +hit.

Socket a red slot with Runed Cardinal Ruby

If the Socket Bonus is not Spell Power or is less than +5 Spell Power, socket a Runed Cardinal Ruby


What weapon buff should I have?

Destruction: Grand Firestone
Affliction: Grand Spellstone
Demonology: Grand Spellstone


What enchants should I have?

Helm: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries available from Kirin Tor at Revered
Shoulder: Greater Inscription of the Storm available from Sons of Hodir at Exalted or Master's Inscription of the Storm Inscription only.
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed, Lightweave Embroidery for Tailors only or Springy Arachnoweave for Engineers only
Chest: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats or Enchant Chest - Major Spirit
Bracers: Enchant Bracers - Superior Spellpower, for Leatherworkers only
Gloves: Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower or Hyperspeed Accelerators for Engineers only
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs: Brilliant Spellthread or for Tailors Sanctified Spellthread
Boots: Enchant Boots - Icewalker, Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality, Nitro Boosts for Engineers only
Main Hand: Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower or Enchant Weapon - Black Magic
Staff: Enchant Staff - Greater Spellpower
Ring: Enchant Ring - Spellpower for Enchanters only.
Blacksmiths also gain a single Socket to both Gloves and Bracers


What glyphs should I use?

Destruction(0/13/58)
Glyph of Conflagrate
Glyph of Incinerate
Glyph of Life Tap (at higher levels of Spirit) or Glyph of Immolate (at lower levels of Spirit)

Destruction(3/13/55)
Glyph of Conflagrate
Glyph of Incinerate
Glyph of Life Tap

Destruction(0/17/54)
Glyph of Conflagrate
Glyph of Incinerate
Glyph of Imp

Demonology(0/56/15)
Glyph of Felguard
Glyph of Quick Decay
Glyph of Life Tap

Affliction(56/0/15) or (55/0/16)
Glyph of Haunt
Glyph of Quick Decay
Glyph of Life Tap


What are typical cast sequences (rotations)?


Destruction

Life Tap (if glyphed) - Curse of Doom or Curse of Elements - Immolate - Conflagrate - Chaos Bolt - Incinerate for filler

~If moving and you do not need to Life Tap cast Death Coil, if Death Coil is on cooldown cast Corruption.


Affliction

Life Tap - Shadow Bolt - Haunt - Unstable Affliction - Corruption - Curse of Agony - Shadow Bolt for filler

~At target health <25% replace Shadow Bolt with Drain Soul and refresh DoTs between Drain Soul 'ticks'
~Haunt has a 8 second cooldown and a 12 second Duration. Due to spell travel and cast time try to refresh Haunt right after the cooldown is up.
~Do not Refresh DoTs before they expire (clipping) this causes an extended amount of time between final tick and new application.
~If moving and you do not need to Life Tap and no other instants are available cast Death Coil


Demonology

Life Tap - Curse of Elements or Curse of Doom - Immolate - Corruption - Shadow Bolt for filler

~If Molten Core procs then 3x Incinerate. Molten Core can proc over itself so having an addon to monitor this is recommended
At target health <35% Soulfire takes over from Shadow Bolt and Incinerate. There is still the factor of having to cast a Shadow Bolt every 25 seconds to maining Improved Shadow Bolt Debuff(5% Crit) if there is no other player in the raid providing the debuff.
~Metamorphosis when off cooldown, if in melee range while in demon form also use Immolation Aura (do not use if crowd control is nearby as this is an AoE effect)
~If moving and you do not need to Life Tap and no other instants are available cast Death Coil


What is the spell hit cap, what does it mean?

The 'hit cap' is the level past which you should stop building +hit. Any +hit above the hit cap brings no additional benefit.

Base Hit Cap for Raid Bosses (level 83) = 17%
If 3/3 Suppression = -3% from base (14%)
If Misery (Shadow Priest) or Improved Faerie Fire (Balance Druid) is available -3% (11% or 14% depending on points in Suppression)
If Heroic Presence (Draenei racial) is available -1% (10%, 13% or 16% depending on other hit modifiers)

Percent - Value
17% - 447
16% - 421
14% - 368
13% - 342
11% - 289
10% - 263


Calculating Spell Power from Spirit based on Buffs
Spirit*1.1*1.03*((0.3*1.3)+0.2)

What these numbers represent:
1.1 - Blessing of Kings
1.03 - Racial: Human Spirit
0.3 - Fel Armor
1.3 - Talent: Demonic Aegis
0.2 - Glyph of Life Tap
(Take out parts of the equation that do not pertain to you)

For example: Human Demo Lock with 500 Raid Buffed Spirit
500*1.03*((0.3*1.3)+0.2)=
515(0.59)=
303.85 Spell Power


Set Bonus

Destruction
2pcT10 = 163 DPS
4pcT10 = 434 DPS

Upgrading Tiers
4pcT10 > 2pcT10 + 2pcT9 > 4pcT9

Affliction
2pcT10 = 248 DPS
4pcT10 = 384 DPS

Upgrading Tiers
4pcT10 > 4pcT9 > 2pcT10 + 2pcT9

For the Record: 4 piece Tier 10 in ilvl 251 is a dps upgrade over ilvl 277 Offset pieces.

I linked the Source as that is my Thread. I am the Original Author. It would be a copy/paste however the links on this site are terrible and none of them copied over and I didn't feel like doing the 40-50 links I did in the other thread on wowmb.net. I will even add this accounts information at the bottom of the source post for clarification as having my Warlock's name/server/guild on both posts apparently isn't enough.