yozik

With 5 points in it, trhe crit chance becomes pretty darn high - +5%
from devastation and +10% from improved searing pain. But even at 60,
the base damage is quite low. So it is kinda useless? in pvp (low dps),
and in raiding it might become a nice tool if not the high threat. Does
anybody know of an useful application of improved searing pain?

hornet

It's a PvP skill mainly. 1.5 sec cast, high crit rate, decent damage.
Yeah the base damage is low, but if you go down the destruction tree
and load up on +fire dmg it gets nasty. Between immolate, searing pain
and conflag you can put out some big dps in 3 seconds, with a crit or 2
that combo will take down anything but a warrior or another lock.
You'll also notice that on the warlock rank 12 or 13 gloves, there's a
nice bonus to searing pain and resisting interrupts.

The big problem is that fire resist can be pretty high on people's base
gear. A good pvp team will put it on(or make you a priority) after a
few kills if you're making that big a nuisance of yourself too.