Demonic Sacrifice will never be an option in SoD since we have scaling pets as well as Demonic Knowledge and Grimoire of Synergy that rely on having a pet. Molten Core will still be a fire build similar to what we run now with ISB. Swap to shadow gear and shadow bolt for the 2 fights that are immune to fire. 2 bosses have high fire resistance, but those bosses also have the same amount of shadow resistance, so fire will be the play there. Affliction has no future without buffing current runes like you say. We run low crit %, so even Pandemic is only a small dps increase (around 5%). Even if you give up master channeler for demonic tactics, that's only another 5% average dmg via crit. That said, affliction will likely be in its best position in phase 3, despite shadow bolt at 44, due to getting ISB and Bane, while Fire spec barely gets anything from talents (improved imp, imp mana). Siphon Life is a dps gain with ISB and Haunt up, so it's not completely worthless, just mostly worthless.
1 day later and all theorycrafting goes out of the window. Lake of Fire nerfed to the ground - what now? Any warlock spec will roughly provide the same damage
Even with LoF being nerfed I still believe fire will out DPS aff all day given similar group setups and gear. Especially next phase, corruption has a rank at 44 and 54. shadow bolt similar situation, caps for the phase at 44.
Demonic Sacrifice will never be an option in SoD since we have scaling pets as well as Demonic Knowledge and Grimoire of Synergy that rely on having a pet. Molten Core will still be a fire build similar to what we run now with ISB. Swap to shadow gear and shadow bolt for the 2 fights that are immune to fire. 2 bosses have high fire resistance, but those bosses also have the same amount of shadow resistance, so fire will be the play there.
Affliction has no future without buffing current runes like you say. We run low crit %, so even Pandemic is only a small dps increase (around 5%). Even if you give up master channeler for demonic tactics, that's only another 5% average dmg via crit. That said, affliction will likely be in its best position in phase 3, despite shadow bolt at 44, due to getting ISB and Bane, while Fire spec barely gets anything from talents (improved imp, imp mana). Siphon Life is a dps gain with ISB and Haunt up, so it's not completely worthless, just mostly worthless.
1 day later and all theorycrafting goes out of the window.
Lake of Fire nerfed to the ground - what now?
Any warlock spec will roughly provide the same damage
Even with LoF being nerfed I still believe fire will out DPS aff all day given similar group setups and gear. Especially next phase, corruption has a rank at 44 and 54. shadow bolt similar situation, caps for the phase at 44.