Need help with Service / Servitude spec

[Lolflay 0]

Hello. I just can't seem to figure this spec out - where does the most of damage come from ( obviously ignoring the passive stuff such as imps and various pets ) ? Ever since WoD got released, I consistently ranked > 90 percentile on all fights, first as Destruction in heroic / mythic highmaul, then as Demonbolt after the buffs to Demo mastery, and proceeded to hold that percentile in heroic BRF and early mythic BRF pre 6.1 . After the Demon Bolt nerf, I've swapped to Servitude / Service spec as everybody else did, and even though that in theory I should be doing more damage as Serv / Serv than as Demonbolt, I still pull off better numbers as Demonbolt. Also my rankings on warcraftlogs are now consistently below or averaging around 70 percentile.

 

I know I'm doing something wrong, I just didn't bother looking at it and fixing it, until now, that is. It doesn't help that I'm the only Warlock in my guild and it's annoying not having notes to compare with someone. We're 6/10 Mythic btw.

 

 

1) What is my priority list after the opener ? Obviously I should be using the next pot and next dark soul combined with the grimoire of doomguard, that's a nonfactor issue. My concern is - do I save Soul Fire procs exclusively for Metamorphosis, or do I use them meanwhile ? At what Demonic fury % should I usually hop into Metamorphosis, even if I'm allowed to stand still and cast ( no movement required from the fight ) ? 

 

Do I hoard Molten Fire procs and use them exclusively with Dark Soul, or should I Dark Soul on cooldown ? When Oregorger/Blackhand trinket(s) proc, do I drop everything what I'm doing and hop into metamorphosis regardless of dark soul cooldown and pop all the soulfire procs I can during the trinket procs ? Also, are the trinkets snapshotting my cast at the moment I'm cast it off, or does my cast get modified midair ( for example, Chaos Wave flying towards the target, at the moment I shot it off, I was under the influence of trinkets, but mid air trinket procs got removed off myself - is Chaos Wave still empowered ) ?

 

2) Fight opener.

 

What I usually did was prepot+soulfire at 3.6sec until pull, @ 0:00 pop Grimoire Doomguard, Dark Soul, Hand of Gul'dan, Corruption, Shadowbolt, Hand of Gul'dan, Metamorphosis, Doom, Chaos Wave, use any Molten Core procs I might've gotten meanwhile, and otherwise dump entire demonic fury bar with Touch of Chaos. At this point, do I chain my Dark Soul into another dark soul, pool molten core procs and in the last few seconds of dark soul go into metamorphosis and dump as much molten cores as I can ?

 

3) Hand of Gul'dan/Chaos Wave

 

When is it more beneficial to use Wave and when is it more beneficial to stack gul'dan dots on a fight like gruul for example. 

 

 

 

With ilvl 693 gear and 4set heroic, I was pulling off 38-40k DPS on Gruul, and on some attempts I did around 44k. My damage seems so random, I know the basics of Demonology but damn it if I don't understand the spec fully.

 

Also to clarify - I'm seemingly randomly entering Metamorphosis, like, Doom is falling off, I'm at 450 Demonic Fury, no Molten Core procs, I enter metamorphosis, refresh doom, and I'm kinda like "fuck it" and dump the entire fury bar on Touch of Chaos even though I don't need to move or anything, because I'm convinced it's a good thing to do ( I've read it somewhere ).

 

Thanks for the help, please set me straight.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Lolflay

[Liquidsteel 279]

Sounds like you're over thinking the spec and getting a bit worked up. I think this is a side effect of how faceroll Demonbolt was.

 

To simplify things, try to imagine Demonology as being exactly the same as Destruction.

 

As Destruction, you build your resource with ember generators, and spend it with ember consumers, all the while maintaining your DoT and spending your stacks of Conflagrate.

 

You make sure to plan ahead for your next Dark Soul burn phase by pooling resources, however throughout the fight you react to trinket procs by also bleeding off any excess embers.

 

Demonology is exactly the same! You just need to think a bit further ahead. You build Fury with Shadowbolt. You maintain Corruption and Doom. You line up a huge DS burn phase where you bank 800+ Fury and 8+ Molten Core stacks, and outside of that you react to procs to spend your Fury as efficiently as possible. If Dark Soul is still 60 seconds away, you know you can jump into Meta for 2-3 Soul Fires and a couple of ToCs when your GSR trinket procs and still pool enough resources for your burn. 

 

You don't want to cap on 1000 Fury or 10 stacks of Molten Core, however neither do you want to just randomly dump all your Fury; you wouldn't dump 3x Chaos Bolts without any procs, would you?

 

With this in mind, you should be able to answer most of your questions yourself.

 

Regarding when casts snapshot; it is as the cast completes. If you cast Chaos Wave with DS, it will not lose the buff as it travels in the air. Consequently, any unbuffed Chaos Wave will not receive any buffs that proc before it reaches its target.

 

When to use Chaos Wave is a bit trickier. It depends on the fight and whether you're running the DS Glyph in conjunction with Cataclysm. In general, HoG > CW, assuming you can land a full duration 2 stack. However, if you only have 4 seconds left on Dark Soul and GSR, it is much better to cast Chaos Wave as HoG will not benefit fully from these temporary buffs.

 

As an example, if I was against a pack of adds and I had 4s left on Dark Soul and 3x stacks of HoG, I would cast 3x Chaos Wave.

 

Against a single target it becomes trickier, because you won't have the same inflated Fury and Molten Core generation, so you need to weigh up the pros and cons. Generally in the above situation I would add an extra Soul Fire or two, then finish with a Chaos Wave, before getting a 2 stack HoG rolling on the boss again.

[Lolflay 0]

Thanks for the reply !

 

Kinda have the idea how to approach the general fight now. What about the opener though ? Do I still chain two Dark Souls, or do I save the 2nd charge of Dark Soul for a DF dump 30ish secs later ?

[Paracel 165]

Thanks for the reply !

 

Kinda have the idea how to approach the general fight now. What about the opener though ? Do I still chain two Dark Souls, or do I save the 2nd charge of Dark Soul for a DF dump 30ish secs later ?

Think it yourself.

How much stuff will you cast with that chaning on the opening?

 

The answer is - not really much. You need that MC procs to happen, have some DF and other procs at bay.

2nd Dark Soul is usually coming into play for me after around 60 seconds of cooldown from first one have passed.

It depends on the encounter, however - there is a lot of phases you can benefit from using 2nd DS at the different time, like Flamebender Wolves, Blackhand Tanks and execute phases generally(if they last long enough, like Iron Maidens).