Need help with Demonology

[Unburdened 0]

Been a long time lurker here and at mmo-champ, but never made an account until now. I just picked up Demonology after getting UVLS and my dps is not where it should be and need help.

I reforged and gemmed for demo/aff as my 2 specs (9778 haste then into mastery). Our first night this week I didn't feel comfortable enough with demo to stay in the spec during raid, but Thursday I did most of the fights from Ji'kun on as Demo to see how it felt...and it didn't feel right. I read forums a lot and am generally one of the best dps in any raid - I feel I understand the mechanics fairly well. It's just the newness of it that is throwing me off and I'd like to know what I need to pay more attention to. Never played demo and only picked the lock up recently.

Recent log: worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-j8prjlwo5h1tqygz/sum/damageDone/

Armory: us.battle.net/wow/en/character/llane/Unburdened/simple

My usual dps at 536 ilvl is 150-160k or up in the 170s if I get lucky on procs, but with Demo I'm sitting at 140-150. I was under the impression that with the Lei Shen trinket Demo can really shine and should do better than the other 2 specs. Simcraft is giving me 195k over 180k for the other 2. I know I won't reach that - it's a sim of perfect stationary fight and average of 10,00+ iterations, but what am I doing wrong here? I'm very unfamiliar with Demo, so I know there is definitely room to improve, but the rotation and CD usage felt fairly good (could be wrong though). I had a few slips where meta would be on CD when I got a UVLS proc, but learned how to keep those 100% crit dooms rolling pretty consistently after a few mistakes. Help me figure out where I'm going wrong or if I should just stick to aff/destro as my 2 specs for now.

I got the H TF belt (yay coin roll on our first kill!) since that log I posted. So, in the log above as demo I had my 4p t15 and stats around 10-11k haste and mastery.

Thanks! Been reading the forums forever to improve, but I need another eye on my logs to see what's going wrong here. If you need me to post rotation or anything let me know, but this seemed long enough as is and I'm following the guides.

[Zagam 1,982]

Well...you haven't really asked any specific questions. What is not answered in my guide that you need answered specifically? General "what am I doing wrong" questions don't really give me any fuel to do anything. You can look at your logs and see if you used Dark Soul on CD, if you had Doom at a good uptime, check your Corruption uptime, and check to see if you're using Soul Fire correctly. Just not sure what kind of help you're looking for.

[Unburdened 0]

Hmmm i see what you're saying, but that's my problem - i don't know what I don't know lol. I know the rotation etc, but don't know where i'm screwing it up. For example, someone advised me to watch affdots more closely for putting doom up - I've probably been overwriting harder hitting and faster ticking dooms just applying it when UVLS procced. I was a bit trigger happy wanting to keep full crit dooms up not knowing the proc rate and just how long doom lasts. I wouldn't have thought of that not having played demo with UVLS. That is probably in the guide, but there's a lot to take in as I start learning. Mostly looking for areas that jump out at you as "that's not right".

Uptimes on Corr and Doom were both close to 100%. How can I tell from logs if I'm using soulfire correctly? Is it like Chaos Bolt where I'd look for a high avg dmg?

Should I be going into meta more often to react to procs? I was only using soulfire in meta when I had DS up (not with just a trinket proc up), otherwise saving them for caster. Oh, this just occured to me: should I attempt to bank soulfires for int procs?

I did miss a DS on durumu, but that's usually not the case. As muscle memory builds up for demo I won't miss that sort of thing.

End barrage of questions. I don't know, whatever you can tell me would be great. It's so foreign to me right now. Just need to get all the pieces together and I've been running heroics and LFR to get more used to it. If I asked something that's already covered in the guid I apologize.

And thanks, Zagam! Your guides are awesome and I make anyone who asks me about warlocks read them first :P

[Zagam 1,982]

Don't watch Affdots as Demo. I watch it simply out of curiosity and to make sure I have a DoT up on my target. You don't care about Doom and Corruption's damage. You just care that Corruption is up 100% and Doom is getting critical hits each tick. Don't look at it and overwrite it for anything except another Unerring proc.

Soul Fire should be used in Meta outside of Dark Soul IF you can have a sufficient amount of Demonic Fury for the next Dark Soul burn AND you have an Intellect proc running such as Breath of the Hydra. I wouldn't push Soul Fires with a proc as small as Jade Spirit.

Sounds like you have the concepts down. As long as you understand HoG weaving, which Grimoire to use in certain situations, and how important getting Doom up on everything is, you'll make a fine Demonologist.

[Unburdened 0]

Fantastic, thanks man. I'm definitely not overwriting a full crit doom with just a powerful one on affdots. I was more referring to the first doom that's buffed with all the haste and int at the start. I think that one I need to let tick more before refeshing with UVLS, no?

The rest I'm doing or will do more of. I think I wasn't using soulfire during minor meta burns (hydra procs). Should I pool them without letting them get to 10 or just go ahead and use "'em if you got 'em" type deal?

Time for more practice! You rock, Zagam

Edited July 16, 2013 by Unburdened

[Zagam 1,982]

Never pool past 10.

[Unburdened 0]

Yeah, pool without letting them cap. Do pool for trinket proc metas and DS though?

[Omaric 246]

Yeah, pool without letting them cap. Do pool for trinket proc metas and DS though?

Yeah. You want to use them when you have buffs in Meta form.

[Jenaye 9]

If DS is soon, pool em (again, not past 10). If you proc, go meta and let em loose. Otherwise, use em for caster form to build up that demonic fury. I don't care how many int procs and whatnot you have going at the start; the second Unerring procs, you overwrite whatever it is you had going. The damage from the imps is going to do more overall for you that slightly stronger-hitting doom tick.

[Unburdened 0]

Thanks for all the help guys. Did much better in tonight's raid (only a few bosses bc our raid lead was out so we cleared to H-tortos which is our next target). Felt more comforatble knowing what I needed to watch out for thanks to the tips.

Again, as to the Doom at the start, I would never overwrite a UVLS proc with simply int or haste procs. What I meant to say was UVLS+meta+breath+pot+hero was getting overwritten by the next proc of UVLS. I definitely prioritize UVLS procs over anything else, but I needed to wait for another UVLS proc or 2 before reapplying.

[Jenaye 9]

I wouldn't wait for the 2nd one, lol, because it may never come

[Kazistrasz 216]

Take anything I say with a grain of salt, as I am a far less experienced warlock than most here, and less skilled than many (I pride myself on being more skilled than my life schedule and preference of playing with buddies allow me to raid).

The biggest thing I did once I got my UVLS, even if it is only the 502 version, was make a big, impossible to miss Weak Aura for it. As soon as it procs, I have an enormous pink rune circle spinning on my screen, and I'm fairly good at quickly getting three GCDs in that window. Because I have the LFR version, which is less reliable, I usually hit Doom twice to maximize its duration with Pandemic if I have less than a tick remaining. If there's two targets, I make sure at least one of them has the full duration. If I'm not having to burn off fury and simply in the middle of building (on single target), I make sure I use a GCD for Touch of Chaos to refresh Corruption so that it gets more DPS when I'm back to Shadow Bolting.

Also, when you said you were "more referring to the first doom that's buffed with all the haste and int at the start": if you use the opener Zagam recommends in Demo guide here on the forums, your first Doom will generally end up having all the haste, int, AND trinket proc snapshotted with it. Since I've started playing with it, I've never had it be less than perfectly timed unless I just left combat before pulling (i.e., heroic scenario or well-running LFR). Even with my lowly gear, using that opener Monday working on Magaera I was bursting well enough without Heroism that we were killing the first head while I was still at 240k.

Oh, and the number one thing I'm breaking myself of doing still, as much as I try to beat myself in the face for it: get yourself a timer you can clearly see for the cooldown of Meta, and don't ever leave Meta with more than 2 seconds left on its timer. The crappiest thing ever is getting UVLS to proc only to find yourself unable to get into form to cast Doom.

[Zagam 1,982]

Oh, and the number one thing I'm breaking myself of doing still, as much as I try to beat myself in the face for it: get yourself a timer you can clearly see for the cooldown of Meta, and don't ever leave Meta with more than 2 seconds left on its timer. The crappiest thing ever is getting UVLS to proc only to find yourself unable to get into form to cast Doom.

I still fall victim to this every now and then. Nothing more frustrating...

[Unburdened 0]

The biggest thing I did once I got my UVLS, even if it is only the 502 version, was make a big, impossible to miss Weak Aura for it. As soon as it procs, I have an enormous pink rune circle spinning on my screen, and I'm fairly good at quickly getting three GCDs in that window.

I have a giant Jesus head pop up right below my character - impossible to miss :P

Also, when you said you were "more referring to the first doom that's buffed with all the haste and int at the start": if you use the opener Zagam recommends in Demo guide here on the forums, your first Doom will generally end up having all the haste, int, AND trinket proc snapshotted with it. Since I've started playing with it, I've never had it be less than perfectly timed unless I just left combat before pulling (i.e., heroic scenario or well-running LFR). Even with my lowly gear, using that opener Monday working on Magaera I was bursting well enough without Heroism that we were killing the first head while I was still at 240k.

Yeah, I use Zagam's opener and It's doing really well. Most of the time I get the UVLS proc while everything is up (been sneaking out of trash early to give me better chances...they haven't noticed yet, shhhhh). The burst is just...wow. Our hunter used to be the burst king, but now I laugh at his puny attempts to out-burst me at the opener! :)

With doom/UVLS my priority is this:

UVLS+haste/int/pot procs with more than a minute or so > UVLS proc at less than a minute to 45 sec remaining > Int/haste procs with doom less that ~15 sec (might as well get something for the next refesh if UVLS isn't proccing, right? or is that 1 crit tick better than doing this?) > no procs less than 5 sec remaining

Oh, and the number one thing I'm breaking myself of doing still, as much as I try to beat myself in the face for it: get yourself a timer you can clearly see for the cooldown of Meta, and don't ever leave Meta with more than 2 seconds left on its timer. The crappiest thing ever is getting UVLS to proc only to find yourself unable to get into form to cast Doom.

Yeeeeeeeep. I did that a lot until I threw up a WA for meta to be right near my cast bar and procs. Bane of my existance while learning demo lol

[Skyrge 9]

Just thought I'd share my Weak Aura for Perfect Aim proc. (never done this before, hope it works.)

dyZccaGEkk9ske7sqEnvrZesQ5kvnBO6MqsUTQStrAVODt0(vu9tPYFfXVjmub1GvedhsCqHCmHAHcyPuiTybA5s5HuO8uWJPYZvAQIAYkmDshMsFJIKll56qzJuvAyksBwvTDkuDsk4Rue(meFNQuJKQKtRYOPQA8uK6suuSmQkUgvHZdPEgfrttrzCuunJzMWrWGuR236QEdoHC7JcE4NIoXlmPwTeFfoSTgr3JWsio0SqMku8ucpcdcdMj8fsfoZwm1Nzeg3IcUfnOwNNlbZGcHwHCczgnkfHZjKeq39)BPmn2K(qaxyhmtaBRehUDxgGqtGxmt4HHRhZuPsaBReN4f0QmabhUDxMjSNebViyIiJI6oJzeQujyD6jKlZew12uMjmeji4cVzqcRatoiyqQv7BDvF0y0j3(Uxj7TcbI1FibccHHizfyYbdqLkbTDiivJzcs7RwMzAmHWv7xoD(KO7rLkbVVH6NPM7bbt39)BPmnMGe7LBhcs1wMgt4gecxTF505tS3JG)6q8Rm1CpiSQ155gwCsLqGUCUdvujyzMq4Q9lNoFs09iyqQv7BDvVbNqU9rbp8trN4fMuRwIVch2wJO7rLGXzA8SPtPsc

I think the best part of it is the siren that sounds when UVOLS procs. In the visual mayhem of a raid fight, the audio cue is just impossible to miss.

Wow, that looks wierd, if there's a better way to do it can anyone let me know please.

Edited July 19, 2013 by Zagam

[Zagam 1,982]

I editted it for you so it doesn't look like garbage lol