Last night in attendance in KB raid we had present 3 locks, so i wanted to make a comparison to finally decide best spec for dps. The worldoflogs parses show us the difference in our dps + our stong/weakpoints.

First thing you will notice is that the dps between the 3 classes is quite similar in our parses. BUT, the greatest dps was easily destruction. Destruction was consistently about 1-1.5k higher then affliction on any fight which is so considerable, I am wondering why we are even bothering with aff lock in raid. Yes some fights may be more running around, but all we have to do is look at the demo lock(another stand still caster like destro) to see how much variation there would be in dps.

With a comparison of rotface(a kite fight) and festergut(a caster fight) we see ~800 dps increase. which is relatively small. comparing the aff to destro from these fights though, there is ~1400-1500dps increase. Now if the dps increase for demo is so slight, I would see no reason why destro dps would be any different. This begs the question if aff lock is really worth speccing into at all? http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t48311-simulationcraft_warlocks_3_3_3_numbers/ would state that affliction locks would have top dps, but this would be in a perfect world where fights were boring and no one had to move.

Affliction locks, like demo locks, are dependent on the Sbolt spam between keeping their dots up for roughly 50% of their dps. Thier dots do significantly more damg then demo, while demo is dependent on thier castables moreso. In kite fights(rotface, sindragosa) I see the appeal of Affliction, but numbers have shown(assuming our locks have a perfect rotation) that the dps between demo and Aff are almost exactly the same. (rotface fight last night had a difference of ~100 dps between the 2 classes which can be attributed to gear difference)

Another point I would like to make is about demo lock dps. for most of a fight, demo lock dps is not even comparable to the other 2 specs consistently about 2-3k dps lower. however, for the last 35%(thanks to decimation http://www.wowhead.com/spell=63158) demo dps is unsurpassed spiking as high as 20K+. This makes the overlooked demo lock top dps in certain situations as well. Putricide and sindragosa come in mind. I honestly think that having 3 demo locks for sindragosa will help us immensely with the final phase.

My Look into this has shown me that the only 2 viable classes for warlock dps really are destro + demo with affliction being very situational. I would really like to post some dps numbers on a dummy or to have a better review, perhaps have all all 3 lock specs present in raid this week.