5.4 Demonology Tips and Quirks

[Cruzan 71]

Holy balls.

My best log makes me feel ashamed. Even though it was back at 505ish ilvl I feel like it should be higher after seeing all your guys' lol.

I'm curious what it is you guys are doing while your Doom's are rolling. I'm wondering if me worrying about keeping 4x Corruptions up is killing mah deeps. Looks like Soulfire is doing most of the dirty work in everyone's logs whereas ToC is doing mine. I think that's partially due to micromanaging Corr's with ToC and I'm likely sitting on 10 stacks of MC more often than I should be.

I'll have to try logging again since i've got new gear and try out burning more soulfires to see what happens

[Vestion 8]

Damn, I have about 2 or 3 logs atm, 2 of which are LFR! D=

As soon as I get into another raid I need to get in on this ego boosting.

[Sifon 25]

Damn you,that's nice!I see u went for the next Doom breakpoint,over 13k haste,how is it working?Are u using glyph of EA on every fight atm?Does that amount of haste increase uptime of trinkets in a noticeable way?

Sadly,my guild switched to 10 man so I won't have a chance anymore to get better dps on council :(

I use Glyph of EA on every fight so I'm not over next cap which is 14.7k but if I remember correctly I was using 8.1k haste on that log. With that amount of haste I almost never get a dry spell of Perfect Aim procs but Affliction off spec is the main reason for stacking haste, even though I'm thinking about going back to mastery but I'm not sure.

[Zagam 1,982]

A lot of Aff/Demo locks are using a 9778 threshold to gain 4 Agony ticks while keeping their Demo Haste high enough to break the EA Doom threshold. I'm hardly seeing any of the top Warlocks go full of any stat anymore. Things are going to change in a big way on Tuesday if Patch 5.3 goes. Everyone is going to have 6 pieces of gear go up 8 item levels. Going to make things very interesting.

As Demo/Destro, I'm sticking with 8094 Haste and the rest into Mastery. I think right now, I'm reforged out of as much as I can and I'm at 8300 Haste and 10000 Mastery. It's working out quite well. I bounced between Supremacy and Service and really felt like both were solid options.

Supremacy Heroic Durumu parse: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-zsg6jqznhrxbuevc/sum/damageDone/?s=874&e=1286

Supremacy Heroic Iron Qon parse: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-hlwgrlvnllo9zi4g/sum/damageDone/?s=3248&e=3791

Pretty happy with both. On top of it all, I got his name changed to almost match mine. Zagam & Ziggoroth. Zig & Zag for short. Booya.

Service Heroic Twin Consorts parse: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-hlwgrlvnllo9zi4g/sum/damageDone/?s=12406&e=12990

It's flagged as a normal kill for some reason. Not sure what is going on with World of Logs. I went with Service here for the extra burst on the adds going into P2, but in retrospect, I likely woulda stayed with Supremacy since the phase changes at 3:00 and delaying Service for 1:00 is foolish. I'll be updating our Warlock T15 Guide for that fight shortly. 10/13 now...next week: Dark Animus!

[Vestion 8]

Can I ask how to find out who the top Warlocks are?

[Zagam 1,982]

For item level, go to wowprogress.com and search Warlocks by item level.

For performance, go to worldoflogs.com and search for Warlocks by fight.

For individual performance, go to wow-heroes.com and search for a particular person to see their gear, gems, progression, and ranking logs.

[Sifon 25]

On Wednesday, I will be able to break next EA Doom break point, would it be benefical or just too much haste?

[Zagam 1,982]

I'm not too crazy about more Doom ticks at the sacrifice of Mastery. Your choice.

[Vestion 8]

If you get the doom break point, wont you get more imps?

[Zagam 1,982]

At 8094 with Everlasting Affliction, you get +2 ticks of Doom, or 8 in 90 seconds instead of 6. The next threshold is 14840 when you get 9. Basically in a 90 second period, if you don't refresh Doom, you'll be looking at 1 extra Imp every 90 seconds. Is this worth dropping 6700+ Mastery rating? 6700 Mastery = 10% more damage in caster form, 10% more damage from all pets, and 30% more damage in Metamorphosis form. Perhaps in a multi-target fight this may be debatable, but I don't see how this is reasonable in terms of managing your stats.

[Vestion 8]

Well, I would say at high ilevs it would be worth pushing for. With 5.3, ilevs high enough to get that without losing a horrible amount of mastery will be attained much easier.

[Zagam 1,982]

When upgrades come along, some of these values will be easier to obtain, but you're still going to sacrifice a lot of Mastery to get 14k Haste.

[Vestion 8]

Yes, you are going to have to reforge out of some mastery, but im saying that when you can get 14k haste easily, it may be a dps gain to go for it because you are losing much less mastery.

[Zagam 1,982]

I'm not sure you're seeing the whole picture here. At any gear level, you're going to have so much secondary stats you can push around. Right now, I go with 8100 Haste and 10000 Mastery. I could get to 12000 Haste, but I'd then lose 3900 Mastery. For me, I can't get to 14k Haste and maintain my Mastery amount, so I would be losing a lot of Mastery, especially because you'd have to go all out to get the 14k Haste threshold. Even in full BiS gear, if I go to the 14k Haste breakpoint, I won't be able to get to the Mastery level I have now. In my opinion and preference of playstyle along with the knowledge of the fights this tier, I think going for that high of a Haste threshold is a mistake. Higher Mastery buffs your Imps, your Fel/Wrathguard, your damage, and greatly buffs your burst. Higher Haste increases your Demonic Fury generation via faster casts and slightly increases your PPM proc rate. In terms of how I see it, with Haste, you're gambling more with RNG, but with Mastery you're making sure you're more consistent.

[Vestion 8]

Im not saying mastery is bad, im just saying it might be worth getting the break point if you have very good gear. If it results in a huge loss in mastery, then yes thats bad. This is just an idea, and while I can't say with confidence its right, I think it should be considered.

[Omaric 246]

Maybe when we have 600+ ilvl I guess. You start to get to a point with haste where you're GCD capping. Mastery for Demo affects *everything* we do, which is pretty much fucking amazing.

[Zagam 1,982]

With very good gear, you'd be doing more with more Mastery than more Haste. It's a simple cost/benefit ratio. The benefit you get of getting more Mastery over more Haste indicates more Mastery is better. With just 8100 Haste, I'm already seeing Molten Core Soulfires with Tempus Repit or Bloodlust at 1.2 seconds. Anymore than that, and you start to run into the same question as you do with Destruction and hitting below 1.0 sec cast times.

By the same measure, this entire discussion on Haste is ONLY if you let Doom run out of its duration and then reapply. If you reapply when Perfect Aim procs regardless of where you are in its duration, your breakpoints suddenly don't matter as much. I'm still finding with my 522 Unerring that I sometimes go more than 135 seconds without a proc. Yeah, it's unlucky, but it doesn't happen often. When I go more than 135 seconds without a proc, I'm fully utilizing my Haste threshold on Doom, so it works out. However, that's rare. Mastery doesn't let me down, ever. If you like Haste, go for it. The difference is very small when compared to large amounts of pulls. However, I'm trying to minimize the number of crappy parses I have by having high amounts of Haste and crap RNG leaving me out in the cold. I'd rather have consistent great parses than have a few super ones and a few lackluster ones.

[Omaric 246]

FYI spamming crit dooms on all the baby robots for Dark Animus is hilarium in a box. I wish I would have taken a screenshot.

Numbers are funny enough tho!

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/vghkypxx4zcxhzy1/sum/damageDone/?s=341&e=698#Xythin

Edited May 16, 2013 by Omaric

[Zagam 1,982]

Imps almost out DPS you...carried by pets!

[Omaric 246]

Haha, not surprising. The entire first 3 quarters of the fight we're just pulling the baby robots one by one into the middle to feed the larger robots. I just stand around looking pretty and giving birth to imps. Have to be careful, if you don't give them direction they'll start randomly killing the baby bots.

I love when you get to the point where you have *so* many imps that you can't Soulfire fast enough.

[Sifon 25]

I just coined Heroic random drop shoulders with hit and haste, I'm not sure if I can efford to drop 2 set as Demo because I love spamming Soul Fire during Dark Soul but simcraft bis profile also doesn't have 2 set so I'm kinda confused.

[Zagam 1,982]

Haha, not surprising. The entire first 3 quarters of the fight we're just pulling the baby robots one by one into the middle to feed the larger robots. I just stand around looking pretty and giving birth to imps. Have to be careful, if you don't give them direction they'll start randomly killing the baby bots.

I love when you get to the point where you have *so* many imps that you can't Soulfire fast enough.

Have you gotten the effect on Council where they form a complete circle around you? I don't mean some bullshit circle...I'm talking a solid circle of grey, red, and yellow Imps who are so numerous you can't see where one starts and one ends? Quote after the end of one Council victory: "holy shit, dude, how many Imps do you have right now?!" I'd say it was about 20. During the opening of the fight, I've seen AT LEAST 30. NEED MORE TARGETS!

[Zagam 1,982]

I just coined Heroic random drop shoulders with hit and haste, I'm not sure if I can efford to drop 2 set as Demo because I love spamming Soul Fire during Dark Soul but simcraft bis profile also doesn't have 2 set so I'm kinda confused.

Me, too. I dropped my 502 LFR chest which dropped my 4pc for a 535 chest and was pretty happy. The issue is during my opener, I run out of fury and never make it through Dark Soul without dropping out of Meta. The 4pc would SURELY help that. After that, though, it's pretty much just managing your DF. The 2pc is pretty good and makes it so you can Soulfire with mega DPS, but if you're comparing 522 tier to 535 non-tier, the water gets muddy. I think the 2pc is pretty crucial for your opener and burst during Dark Soul. The 4pc is rather loose in terms of discussion.

[Omaric 246]

Have you gotten the effect on Council where they form a complete circle around you? I don't mean some bullshit circle...I'm talking a solid circle of grey, red, and yellow Imps who are so numerous you can't see where one starts and one ends? Quote after the end of one Council victory: "holy shit, dude, how many Imps do you have right now?!" I'd say it was about 20. During the opening of the fight, I've seen AT LEAST 30. NEED MORE TARGETS!

I run and jump around too much for that. I'll occasionally hear, "THERE GOES THE IMPS!" in Mumble, but generally they're pretty scattered due to my positional ADD.

[Sifon 25]

I gave up on 4 set already when I bonus rolled 541 Chest from Ji-Kun, I was thinking about getting heroic helm and shoulders and 3 541 offpiece but that hit-haste shoulder was a confusing bonus roll.