Problems with lock team

[luxlunae]

Right now I'm four boxing rather than 5, so that might be part of the problem, but my locks just feel really slow.

I'm running 3x lock, with a shadow/disc priest and they just feel a lot weaker than the other teams I've levelled up (at level 55ish now). Right now I have 2x demonology running with felguard and 1x affliction running felhunter (I thought the mana buff might be nice) but it seems to be working terribly for me. I've tried a variety of things, but double dotting everything doesn't actually kill it very fast and 2.8 seconds is a REALLY LONG nuke. The shadow priest blows them away and even disc (in instances) she's often competitive. Any levelling faster hints for locks? (the last time I played a warlock below level 80 was three years ago). They aren't yet at a level to pick up incinerate so I thought shadowbolt spam was the way to go but its still taking at least two-3 casts to get anything dead. And shadowbolt is long casts.

edit: I generally run with simple two button spam for levelling and I've tried a variety of things for that two step.
edit2: they all have chest, shoulders, helm, back heirlooms and one of the locks and the priest have heirloom weapons

[Ughmahedhurtz]

They feel slow, depending on the mob spawns you are killing. If you're doing a quest on a sparse spawn, it's painful. If you're doing something where they are densely packed, just keep dotting everything in sight as fast as you can and it actually goes a lot faster.

Conversely, you'll notice that the burst classes are better at leveling in certain areas but the locks do a lot better on things that take time and sustained damage to kill. Locks are also excellent at kite killing. The first class I ever managed to effectively solo Sarathstra in Dragonblight on was my affliction/demonology lock.

Also, you are correct in thinking 4 vs 5 is quite different, depending on what you're farming. That extra 25% damage can be the difference between a 2-dot kill and having to reapply them again.

When I was leveling mine, I ran straight affliction most of the time, and switched to demonology (felguards+VW) for the elite stuff. Getting used to playing a character constantly at half health was a bit counterintuitive at first but once you get the hang of it, things do pick up.

[HPAVC]

At 55 there might be a small spell balance deficiency that is the cause.

I am probably in the minority, but I would roll full affliction + disp and just go for fast dot application mostly relying on instants, minus the opener. From memory without jamba/isboxer targets this is what i roll with from the 'apply macro'. The deathcoils are there to keep things from wrapping.

/cast [nocombat, harm, nodead] Unstable Affliction, Death Coil
/castsequence [combat, harm, nodead] reset=target/combat Bane of Agony, Corruption, Death Coil, Death Coil, Death Coil 
/cast [harm, nodead] Shadow Bite

/cast [harm, nodead] Smite 

I find myself draining for a nuke, not because of efficency but because of the instant kill ... zero overkill and fast mob turn over.