Going warlock for the guild needs

[sifuedition]

TL;DR
Switching to warlock, need good resources for theorycrafting kind of depth learning about the class/specs/rotation/gearing/etc.

I have been a tank for a long time now. So long, I was burning out on it. DS was a nice break for me since there were a fair number of single tank fights in 10 man which let me dps a bit and break the monotony. Now, the guild is having some real issues with maintaining our raid team.

Long story short, we need ranged and heals more than anything and mostly ranged. The GM is a hunter and we already replaced one mage with another. I could have leveled any of the ranged, but based on our current makeup, warlock made the most sense. I never really liked my warlock much but I had not even logged onto it since the pre-patch and didn't know how different it might be. Turns out, I like most of the changes. This will probably be my main for the foreseeable future.

What I really need is a good resource for learning the ins and outs of this new class. If I am going to call it my "main" I would like to understand it as well as I have my pally. Unfortunately, the only places I've found info that really seems current on warlocks are sites I usually only half trust at best; mmo-c, icy-veins and noxxic. Warlock's Den is one I have heard of but when I checked out the site recently, most of the info was from Cata or Wrath.

I am currently spec'ed affliction and destruction. When I leveled the toon to 80 in Wrath and to 85 in Cata, I enjoyed affliction the most. Affliction is still ok but with the changes, I am enjoying Destruction the most. I ding'ed 90 on Sunday and just before logging, reached 460 iLvl so I can try LFR tonight.

For whatever reasons, destruction is higher dps for me at the moment. Since I have had less than 8 hours at 90, I haven't reforged any of my gear or anything so maybe this is just that the gear I've managed to acquire is itemized better for the spec. Maybe this is just because Destro is better at low gear levels. I really don't know and that is why I want a resource where I can learn more about the class at that kind of depth. Also, I have questions about the rotations beyond the basics, and that kind of thing.

If anyone can recommend good places for me to check, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

P.S.
Our makeup if anyone actually cared:

Blood DK
Guardian Druid

Fury Warrior
Frost DK

Survival Hunter
Frost Mage

Disc Priest
Mistweaver Monk
Holy Paladin

For that last spot, shaman or warlock seemed the best choice.

[Tengenstein]

I've not really found any Really good warlock sites out there, Simcraft is probably the only tool i'd really trust for lock stuff right now.

[sifuedition]

If anyone plays affliction, here are some questions:

1. Maelific Grasp filler doesn't seem to work for me if I want to keep haunt at 100% uptime. I can go with Haunt down for sometimes 6 seconds or maybe even more until a Nightfall proc. That's after Haunt falls off. With Drain Soul, I still sometimes cut it close on getting the next soul shard before Haunt falls off.

2. While questing, if I cast Haunt while I still have even 6-8 seconds left on the duration, it really hits the mobs hard. Should I be casting haunt as often as SS allow regardless of duration remaining?

3. When I AoE, I am trying to spread dots (small groups) with Soulburn/Soul Swap. When is the best time to refresh those? When Agony is about to drop? Haunt? Depends on SS?

I know there's more, but those are some of the biggest I can think of off the top of my head.

[Tengenstein]

1. You want to rely on night fall procs for Haunt. YOu can use Soul shards on it for burst, but ideally you only ever cast Drain soul on things with less than 20% health, as an execute and not for recharging your shards mid fight. You probably want to sit on your shards until blood lust and then use whatever you have left to ensure close to 100% Haunt uptime during lust.

2. If your using soul shards to cast haunt, you definetly do not want to clip it, ideally you want the new haunt to land just before the old one expires so you get maximum uptime and damage. if you're using nightfall procs to cast haunt feel free to clip it. , nightfall procs don't last very long and if you finish the cast after the buff expires it will use a soul shard instead.

3.I eally you keep all the dots up All the time refreshing all the dots as necassary. They should auto update ther damage with haunt, so you you shouldn't need to reapply them when you put haunt up.

[sifuedition]

Thanks Teng, I'll give that a shot. Just seems...odd to not need 100% uptime on Haunt.

Also, it seems none of my dots auto-refresh like they used to and I guess that's by design.

Did my first LFR on the lock last night. Sooo painful. The back half took over 3 hours and all on Will of the Emperor. So many wipes >.<

For that fight, I used Drain Soul a LOT but it was because there were so many adds that I wanted to be able to Soulburn/Soulswap. Is that reasonable or would I still be better off taking two gcds for Corruption/Agony and then casting UA for every mob?

Edit:I was only able to pull about 35k on the fight and it seems as many mobs as I was dotting it should be higher. Having said that, a lot of those mobs died before the dots ran their full duration, so maybe not.

As to manually refreshing dots, with just two mobs, that leaves very little time for filler. I guess that's normal?

Also edit: Was going to add an armory link but forgot about maintenance. I'll have to edit that in later.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/stormrage/Hellsbride/simple

Logs (Kind of screwed up ones because I forgot to turn off combat logging and it has quests and heroics mixed in DX):
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-xqpxrj4w00qhukru/

Edit: Edit: The cloak and weapon are new after the logs. Previously, I was using Greatstaff of Righteousness (http://www.wowhead.com/item=81691) and some green hit/haste cloak.

[Tengenstein]

You used to main as a warrior right? think of Huant as as Aff's version of colossal smash; some times you have the shards for it, sometimes you don't, but as a warrior wouldn't stack Haste, gem haste, enchant haste or otherwise have a hardon for haste you'd just be like Haste sucks i'll just use CS whenever its up. Aff's kinda the same it likes having haunt up, but its not worth DSing all the time just so you can have Haunt up.

No dots auto-refresh, but you do get http://www.wowhead.com/spell=131973 which gives toy a fair amount of leeway for refreshing. On fights like Will where having DS up when an add dies doesn't give you all you shards back its worth pulling your dots off just before they die and throwing them on something else with an unburned soulswap, its a bit timing centric.

Multidotting two mobs shouldn't be too much of a problem once you get the hang of it you're shortest dot lasts 14 seconds, manually refreshing everything on two mobs you should take 6GCDs, 9 seconds max, which gives you some time before the next UA needs refreshing, It just one of those things you have to feel your way with, with two mobs i tend to focus one one whislst just keeping dots up on the seconds, if i get quite a few gathered up i start tab SOCing them as filler

[sifuedition]

I was able to edit in my character profile and a short log. About three of our raiders were complaining about bad lag and another one has a weird gear bug where rep gear suddenly claims it requires higher rep and is not adding to his stats (the mistweaver in the above logs). The GM called it after only four or five pulls. In my anxiety about performing on the lock, I forgot to start the logs and only have two pulls here. Forgot to stop the logs as well so I have some stuff in them from dailies and heroics.

If anyone has time to review these for my lock performance, I'd appreciate it. Hellsbride is the toon.