Warlock Revived

Huh, our little guild actually haven't stepped foot into Firelands despite it being out and about for about oh, three months no? Other than trash runs, I haven't really got to shoot my arrows into any bosses except for an accidental Shannox spawn this one time. Anyways, we've recruited a lot of promising players and perhaps we shall set foot into Firelands this weekend! Though my dear one reader this may be old news for you as you have already downed Ragnaros many times right? Our guild (Umbrella Corporation) finally unlocked the Dark Phoenix Mount this weekend as well, with a very quick Nefarion Kill. Reading about his encounter was actually more daunting than the actual doing of the encounter! Turby's Molten Front adventures are about to come to an end, he's edging closer and closer to the final 125 mark to finally help "Fill the Moonwell". I assume there's some short conclusion quests afterwards, but other than that he's pretty much "done" the game. So about my Firelands Action Plan 2. Instead of my Druid, I am going to play my beloved Warlock again! BUT WHY? What about Fel Armor? Oh god not that again, I've completely forgotten about the Fel Armor health regen thingamajigger! SO, I was bored and logged into my Warlock to process some herbs into inks and do the insciption daily and what-not and decided to queue for a random Zandalari while mucking about Azeroth. I forgot what led me to stay logged in for more than 20 minutes, but all of a sudden I see the "Enter Dungeon" thingy pop up and go "what the heck?", and go in anyways. I decided for this run, since Demonology is so clunkity clunky I would go Destruction so I switched to my 2nd spec and started looking for my Imp on my action bar. No imp. Where's my imp? In place of where I usually keep my demon icon was a Felpuppy face. Huh? When did they make Felpuppy the "better" pet I wondered. Was it kind of like how succubus was the top pet for demo? What's going on? I was Affliction specced. Say what? This is going to be embarassing! I quickly searched my mind on the proper technique to play an Aff Lock, and it from what I gather it was to keep Haunt on my target and keep my dots on 'em and spam shadow bolt. I also managed to remember to use Soul Drain when things were low on health for massive crits! I actually managed to pull 17-20k dps on most boss fights, wayyyy more than I could have done in Demo and with way less buttons to push. And really, Demo isn't all that strong in AOE anymore with all the nerfs and everyone getting geared as heck anyways. I feel there is much potential for my Warlock now, having stopped gearing her up at an average ilvl of 355, with a focus on haste. Demo for questing and mucking about, and Aff for raiding. Sounds like a good plan! Wait....hasn't that always been the case? Anyways... Speaking of alternate specs, deciding to see what all the RAGE was about Marksman huntering, I gave Turby's secondary spec a run and it's quite fun being completely OP. Let's start from the beginning. As a Beastmaster, you are optimally probably around a 10-12k DPS hunter ALONE, with an 8-10k dps pet. Well, I am anyways. As Marksman, you are a 18-20k DPS hunter ALONE, with a 1.8-2.5k dps (Turtle - Wolf) pet. Like they say, it's bring the player not the class, and I am speaking as one single player and I can see the potential of Marksman edging out Beastmaster EVEN in moderate movement fights, Beastmaster MAY have a slight advantage in fights where you have to be constantly moving (more than 10 seconds), and your pet can continue to Nom Nom away. Though honestly I don't really care for min-maxing my damage as we aren't bleeding edge, but my natural accountant persona finds joy in optimizing numbers. A single target low movement fight capitalizes on a Marksman's ability to use Aimed Shot as their focus dump rather than multiple Arcane Shots. A high movement fight can see a Beastmaster use their Bestial Wrath to initiate Arcane Shot machine gun mode, which does not require any standing still as you can use all your ability on the move for the 10 seconds. Of course, depending on the encounter any keen player will look for openings to stasnd still for a couple seconds to get off any short spells. So from what I see right now in terms of Raiding Viability, it would be: 1. Bm/Marksman, doesn't really matter, as my long-term companion Puppy the Devilsaur likes to see new encounters. But I'd also like to take advantage of Careful Aim on mobs with MORE than 5 million health. 2. Affliction Warlockery. Soul Drain is bad-ass. I KIND of miss Life Tap. KIND of. 3. Bear Druiding, Druid Healing (My backup toon who has the most raid experience under his belt). Though both tanking and healing are quite boring, despite how hectic some encounters are. 4. Demo Warlockery. This spec so far for me is no good anymore. I will get back to you on this with further testing. Ok I'm going to talk about something else now, bye!