Necro/Lock take Archon or Dom for 3rd with zero points?

[Ensy]

Just what the title says - this is for pve, better to have the Archon for the buffs from Searing Vitality and Pillaging Stone?

[Thoon]

If by PvE you are talking about sub 50 leveling, then I would personally go with Dom for the occasion where squirreling a mob would make the fight a lot easier.

If it's for endgame dps, and only given those two options, I'd still go for the squirrel as Endurance isn't really necessary and 5% extra base stats won't amount to much if every other pull you're sacrificing 5 GCDs to reapply. We've had times where (before we were graced with awesome gear) squirreling a mob was the difference between wiping or clearing that pull in a dungeon....now after the nerfs, I'm not even sure if anyone uses CC at all anymore.

[Ensy]

Thanks for the reply, I like the squirrel thing, gotta love it! but once Searing Vitality and Pillaging Stone are up they only have to be refreshed once every 5 mins. When they get to less than one min remaining they only need one pop each to go back to 5, and are inst cast.

The reason I ask is because when I look at popular builds it is usually the Dom that is taken as 3rd for the Transmogrify, but Lock has Fear although it doesn't last long.

I just took a look at my stats with and without the buffs from Archon and they seem really worth it to my newbish eye:

At level 35 I am getting these extras with the Archon buffs:
Health + 315
Mana + 250
Endurance + 35
Int + 25
Wis + 25
Spell Power + 25
Spell Crit + 25

Also, + 25 on Dexterity, Strength, Dodge, Parry, Atk power and Phys Crit (although I don't expect they matter on my mage)

I am only lvl 35 and learning, so was trying to understand why it isn't as popular a build. Is the Dom used as third mostly in pvp?

[Hecate's Lover]

If you are raiding the pillaging stone and extra health is absolutely worth it. 5 man or less it isn't worth the trouble of building and maintaining the stacks.

[Flevius]

I disagree on it not being worth it. You only have to use 5 (actually 6) GCDs to build the initial stacks. After that you need to cast each once every 5 minues, and they don't do horrible dps. You gain 40 spellpower and 40 crit by having the stacks up. That's about a 1.5% crit chance, and the amount of damage the SP adds depends on your build, but to put it in perspective the difference between t1 and t2 plaque gear is usually well under 10 sp. If void bolt is your go-to nuke, it'll add about 16 dmg to each bolt. I usually have archon in and swap dom in when I know I'm gonna need it, but I also don't play necrolock.

[Arianna]

Swap them out.
Use Archon to stack Pillaging; If there's a certain pull coming up that you know can be dangerous, change to Dom for a second, squirrel, then swap back to Archon. Pillaging Stone will stay up for the duration at whatever stack you had it at prior to Soul swapping.

If they're 0-pointer Souls, you can swap out in the middle of combat if you really need to. Archmage is a fantastic 0-point soul for PvE due to this as well. Screwed up on a mechanic? Break free, swap back.