Nostalrius Begins - Quality wow vanilla realm (1.12)

Well, leveling I usually do with a generic mix of talents that concentrates on powering up the blueberry and getting extended reach for both affliction and destruction spells; at 60 the ballgame changes to setup for grouping, raiding and pvp. Here are my 3 usual builds, though it depends a lot on what I've gotten gearwise- sometimes I get loads of +fire dmg, other times +shadow dmg.
****
1) General raid support (keyed for vs fire bosses (MC/Onyxia) 21/13/17
Affliction (21)
5 improved corruption
2 life tap 3 drain life
3 curse of agony 1 fel concentration 1 amplify curse
2 grim reach 2 nightfall 1 drain mana
1 siphon life
Demonology (13)
3 improved imp 5 demonic embrace
3 improved voidwalker
2 fel stamina
Destruction (17)
5 improved shadow bolt 5 cataclysm
5 bane
2 destructive reach
****
2) pvp (SL-soul link build) 20/31/0 (currently using this with some success for BG's, rank 9 in 5 weeks)
Affliction (20
5 improved corruption
1 improved life tap 5 drain life
3 improved curse of agony 1 fel concentration 1 amplify curse
2 grim reach 2 nightfall
Demonology (31)
2 improved healthstone 5 demonic embrace
3 improved voidwalker 1 fel intellect
1 fel domination 5 fel stamina
2 master summoner 5 unholy power
1 demonic sacrifice 5 master demonologist
1 soul link
****
3) pvp (sucubus destroy build (vs warriors/rogues) 30/0/21
Affliction (30)
5 suppression 5 improved corruption
2 life tap
3 curse of agony 1 amplify curse
2 grim reach 2 nightfall
1 siphon life 1 curse exhaustion 3 improved curse of exhaustion
5 shadow mastery
Destruction (21)
5 improved shadow bolt
5 bane
2 improved lash of pain 5 devastation 1 shadow burn
2 destructive reach
1 ruin
Well, builds are a personal taste and play style thing along with taking into account gear, but these 3 are my favorites that have worked for me over the years.

Might be more convenient to use this page to display your template :
http://www.wowprovider.com/Old.aspx?talent=11215875_9

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. Personally, I ran 20/31 as PvP, which raped everyone, and 30/0/21 to raid. Take Ruin with 5/5 Shadow Mastery and 2/2 Nightfall. That's some nice damage. While casting Shadow Bolt or Drain Life to heal, you keep proccing instant Shadow Bolts, which can land big crits. Dark Pact really isn't that useful, and like most Warlocks, I never specced into it. It's not worth dropping Ruin for.

But your first concern is leveling up, and I highly recommend at least 3 Suppression and 3/3 Voidwalker. I leveled 2 Warlocks in Classic and 2 more in BC. I had it down to a science. I would mix builds between Affliction and Demo to get these together. Level 29: http://www.wowprovider.com/?talent=1122 ... 1i20303zc0

The best build in PvE is :
http://www.wowprovider.com/?talent=11226005_9_805c2m2350020152001e555d5002000100

Sacrifying your succubus will give you an additional 15% of damage for your shadow spells.
Affliction is not a good choice for PvE as debuffs are limited on mobs.

Personally, I like to use this destruction build for PvP :
http://www.wowprovider.com/?talent=11226005_9_805d2l205o555c25102005151

Right will repost that way if we every have separate class sections.
I've never really had much problem with spells landing except in pvp, so rarely bother to put points in it for pve play, even in mc and aq it's rare that I get a resist while levelling and well, having like +6 to hit, +6 to crit in my mix of T1 and AQ20 quest item set on current 1.12 server makes a difference also regarding resists.
Lol, current server I kept having +to fire dmg drop with nothing for shadow, finally got enough generic +dmg and +shadow dmg just as we started mc. Builds are a lot of fun to mess with!

I wouldn't call that "best" in any way, as I don't think any Warlock would have even considered raiding with it. You sacrificed almost everything for a mere +5% damage, and a lot of your talent points don't even do anything with Demonic Sacrifice active. You might outdamage them with nuke spamming, but they have the infinite healing to feed Life Taps and get instant nukes while doing so. You don't heal anything casting a nuke, and don't proc instant nukes while doing so. You also dumped Blood Pact, which was a big group buff back then. Hope that +5% to you only was worth it.

30/0/21 was "the" raiding build for Warlocks back then. Every Warlock either used it, or told you to use. Some guilds downright required you to use it. The only real good alternative was to swap Ruin for Dark Pact, which basically gives you infinite mana off the invulnerable Imp, but sacrifices a lot of the damage, since much of it comes from nuke crits. You see, a big flaw in Blizzard's design back then is the fact that Shadow Mastery affected Shadow Bolt, which caused Affliction to actually dominate nuking for raiding, not Destruction. Oddly enough, Destruction, the tree built for nuking, was worthless past 21 points because everything was fire immune.

It is not +5%, it is +15%. So yes, it is worth it. Instant nuke is only 4% chance, which is pretty low. Infinite healing is a great word... Your healers can do the job a lot better, unless they have a poor stuff.

Not gonna lie, OP linked some pretty fucking awful specs.

Drain wrote:I wouldn't call that "best" in any way, as I don't think any Warlock would have even considered raiding with it. You sacrificed almost everything for a mere +5% damage, and a lot of your talent points don't even do anything with Demonic Sacrifice active. You might outdamage them with nuke spamming, but they have the infinite healing to feed Life Taps and get instant nukes while doing so. You don't heal anything casting a nuke, and don't proc instant nukes while doing so. You also dumped Blood Pact, which was a big group buff back then. Hope that +5% to you only was worth it.

SM/Ruin was nice, but only because it allowed a Warlock to do PvE, PvP and raids. In terms of pure, sustained dps on a single target in a raid environment, the Sacrifice/Ruin did the job better.

Not by very much, but still, +15% > +10%. And you don't really sacrifice anything, as Siphon Life wasn't used in raids due to debuff slots limitations, same for Corruption (Nightfall useless), and if we're considering single target dps, drain life is not to be used either.

(I'm perfectly aware in reality being able to Drain Life more efficiently to help your healers and getting free SB doing so is nice, just like doting several targets more efficiently etc., that's what made SM/Ruin so convenient, but it was the "I-can-adapt-to-anything-while-having-a-very-nice-dps" spec., not the one with the highest dps output potential.)

MD/Ruin was the best, and most versatile.

For times where threat needed extra attention or raid-wide damage, have your imp out. For fights where your pet didn't risk dying frequently and threat wasn't a huge issue, have the succy out for +10% all damage. If the fight was one where your pet would die a lot despite your best management, just sac succy for +15% (or VW in fights where you needed sustained dps and didn't want to tax the healer's mana healing your taps). And for resistance fights, nothing beats Felhunter, which allows you to squeeze in a few more dps pieces instead of pure resistance gear.