6.1 Demonology Guide

[Liquidsteel 279]

I meant to follow up this up with another question

1. Am I correct in assuming that GSR/BMC combo is better for cleave/aoe fights with Cata/synergy?

Yes. Ultimately all 3 trinkets are close. The one I consider BiS without question is GSR, after that it isn't really a big deal. I'm going to take GSR + BMC as my preferred set up purely because most fights contain cleave / AoE and I love to use Chaos Wave whenever I can.

 

 

I should have added synergy procs in there as well. It seems like such a strong proc that meta is worth popping. But then: TC or MC? TBH I think I love some dps on this, cause for some reason I never set up my weakauras to include synergy.

Here's my mentality for Single Target (Serv/Serv) Demonology:

 

Burn Phase

• Enter each Dark Soul dump with 800+ Fury and preferably 8+ MC stacks. However 6+ is acceptable.
• I go into Meta with HoG - Corruption - Grimoire: Doomguard - HoG
• Pop DS and spam out all my MC stacks. 
• Chaos Wave is used on ST if say Ring and GSR are fading during DS OR if I have run out of MC procs OR if I'm approaching 3 stacks of HoG
• Chaos Wave again used as Dark Soul is fading

Conserve Phase

• The aim is to conserve Fury and MC stacks as much as possible without capping in order to have as many resources as possible for the next Dark Soul burn phase.
• However, the secondary aim is to be as efficient with my resources as possible. I do NOT want to find myself where I'm at 950 Fury and 9 MC stacks and no procs. This results in having to bleed off resources in Meta akin to casting unbuffed Chaos Bolts. You simply do not want to do it.
• Therefore you need to be proactive in bleeding resources. You can easily build up 800 Fury in ~40 seconds, so if you have a GSR proc 30s before Dark Soul comes back up, you know it's ok to jump into Meta and burn 2-3 Soul Fires + refresh Doom unless this will put you at 0 Fury and 0 MC procs.

Worthy Procs

• Dark Soul is hands down the best.
• GSR and 7+ stacks of BMC are also worth bleeding Fury / MC procs.
• 715 ring is 15% Intellect which is also worth burning on but the above is preferred.
• DUT is for Fury generation.

Therefore if you have a ring proc and Dark Soul is way off then absolutely you should burn resources on it. Jump into Meta, fire off a few Soul Fires then jump out. No need to add extra ToC or anything around it. Procs are frequent enough that you can happily dump in small doses to keep yourself from capping.

 

Finally there is no such thing as "the 1 minute Dark Soul". Ideally you want to use both charges during execute. If the execute phase will only last 20-30 seconds then of course you should plan ahead and move your extra Dark Soul to another part of the fight, however a rule that you use it 1 minute later is not a thing!

[Glorn 1]

@Liquidsteel, big thanks for that post, you literally made clear all the minor things with playing demo that were over my head. Funny part is that I used to play much more in MoP, playing in a serious HC progress guild, and now when I'm playing demo I still have many MoP habits, the one I finally got rid of and makes me giggle now is snapshotting HoG(putting 2nd charge of HoG and entering meta immediately for the increased dmg :D) I used to constantly enter meta before the 2nd HoG lands.

[Soulzar 42]

Good post Liquid.  That is one thing I feel I still need to work on, better bleeding in conserve phase.  

 

With Crit/MS proc trinkets and the Ring... I am finding I just don't have enough MC charges coming in to cast SFs for all of them, and float enough charges for my 2 min burns.  I have more than enough fury, even to the point where I need to bleed outside of those procs... but I am forced to do it with ToC or i'll leave myself dry for 2min cycle.

 

Looking at your Proc Prio list, I can probably help mitigate my troubles by holding back SF a bit more on low stack BMC procs

[Liquidsteel 279]

Substitute SF for CW if necessary. High damage and a guaranteed MC proc.

[Liarparadox 5]

Thanks so much for the post Liquid, huge help! Glad others found it helpful as well.

 

My comment about the 1 minute DS I was referring to what you wrote, "You should know that if you have 500 Fury and 5 MC stacks with a minute left on Dark Soul that it's fine to hop into Meta when your GSR or Ring proc is active".

 

Yep, I misunderstood you there; I don't know why I thought you meant: Pop another DS.

 

 

 

[Liarparadox 5]

 You should know that if you have 500 Fury and 5 MC stacks with a minute left on Dark Soul that it's fine to hop into Meta when your GSR or Ring proc is active and dump a few Soul Fires.

 

I never find myself do big ToC burns and it should be avoided where possible through careful planning.

 

 

Question about this since I find myself sometimes being in an awkward position; and maybe the answer to this is that I shouldn't ever really be in this position in the first place.

 

Suppose I have something like 700 fury, 5 stacks of MC, 30seconds left on DS cd and GSR procs. What's the thing to do here? Go into meta and ToC for GSR? Ignore GSR? If it's ignore, then is there any combo of procs that you wouldn't ignore even though DS is coming up?  Ring/GSR? GSR/BMC? 

 

Sorry I know I keep pressing on this combo proc thing. But I think it's knowing what to do with procs that I struggle  with the most.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Question about this since I find myself sometimes being in an awkward position; and maybe the answer to this is that I shouldn't ever really be in this position in the first place.

 

Suppose I have something like 700 fury, 5 stacks of MC, 30seconds left on DS cd and GSR procs. What's the thing to do here? Go into meta and ToC for GSR? Ignore GSR? If it's ignore, then is there any combo of procs that you wouldn't ignore even though DS is coming up?  Ring/GSR? GSR/BMC? 

 

Sorry I know I keep pressing on this combo proc thing. But I think it's knowing what to do with procs that I struggle  with the most.

700 Fury and 5 stacks of MC sounds like a standard scenario.

 

When GSR procs in this case, my thought process is that I clearly need to burn some Fury or I risk capping, however I'm not exactly overburdened with MC procs.

 

I would hop into Meta and fire off 2, possibly 3 Soul Fires then drop out. You should still be able to fit in a 2 stack HoG before DS comes off cooldown, and when it does you'll be dropping another 2 stack before hopping into Meta ready to burn. This should easily put you back at 5+ charges going into the burn and you should expect at the very least 1 more charge during.

 

You can also utilise Chaos Wave during the burn phase to both hit hard and also generate a guaranteed MC proc, allowing one extra Soul Fire. Depening on 4pc and MC procs you could even do it twice.

[Nytemare 2]

We are working on Heroic Blackhand, and I read and saw locks use Demon leap on the fall. I keep trying to do it and sometimes I nail it (as in I hit the right side). Is there a certain facing I want to always hit the right balcony that the first set of adds will spawn on?

[Drafty53 17]

We are working on Heroic Blackhand, and I read and saw locks use Demon leap on the fall. I keep trying to do it and sometimes I nail it (as in I hit the right side). Is there a certain facing I want to always hit the right balcony that the first set of adds will spawn on?

East side of the inner circle facing west. Unglyph Demon Leap if you have it glyphed.  Use demon leap close to the ledge height.  Should work every time.

[Soulzar 42]

I always put my Portal down before pull as a reference point, so I always know which way I need to be for transition.  Its easy to get turned around during phase 1.

[Gruxa 1]

If you put your Demonic portal up at around 10 on the clock, you should have no problem leaping towards the correct place :)

[Soulzar 42]

If you put your Demonic portal up at around 10 on the clock, you should have no problem leaping towards the correct place

 

Thats odd... I put mine around 3oclock... if entrance to room looking in is your reference spot.  I pretty much land where they spawn.  

 

Green is my portal for a reference point, star is where I aim to be for transition.

Second pick shows where they spawn.

 

 

[Gruxa 1]

As far as I can tell you get knocked from one side to the other. So say you wanna end up on the right side (where the first adds spawn), you need to be on the left before he smashes the floor.

 

I'd very surprised if I'm wrong as i just had 2 days of Mythic BH progression (got the kill yesterday btw, Woooh !! :D) and I always had my teleport at  the left side around 10 o clock (we were doing the run-in-a-circle tactic for demolitions)

[Liquidsteel 279]

I don't think it matters too much. I moved to the entrance before the smash and never had problems. Allowed me to use my portal for getting back to the home position after each demolition.

[Soulzar 42]

Ahh I see, you're positioning yourself to get knocked towards your leap location, i get knocked back from it, but thats canceled out when I leap forward.  So sounds like it really doesn't matter much where you are for transition, as long as you leap the correct direction  

 

BTW, since BH is not too far off for me (currently working P2 BF) .. can a single lock Solo that first pack, or do you need more than one person?  I know they easily die solo on Heroic..

Edited April 22, 2015 by Soulzar

[Gruxa 1]

 

Ahh I see, you're positioning yourself to get knocked towards your leap location, i get knocked back from it, but thats canceled out when I leap forward.  So sounds like it really doesn't matter much where you are for transition, as long as you leap the correct direction  

 

BTW, since BH is not too far off for me (currently working P2 BF) .. can a single lock Solo that first pack, or do you need more than one person?  I know they easily die solo on Heroic..

 

Well I honestly never tried it from the other side, I always thought I wouldn't be able to reach it! guess it doesn't matter at all then as long as you can aim, hehe.

 

1 lock can clear a freshly spawned pack (thank you shadowfury!) with Dark Soul. We send 2 locks on 1st transition so we don't have to waste our cd's and on the 3rd smash we send 1 lock to the left side (mini map) to clear a new incoming pack with DS.

Edited April 22, 2015 by Gruxa

[Djargo 4]

But it's so much more fun to have them for yourself :3 I don't feel like cds get wasted that much, as they die in 3 globals and you can then jump down and continue doing damage with DS up.

[Soulzar 42]

But it's so much more fun to have them for yourself :3 I don't feel like cds get wasted that much, as they die in 3 globals and you can then jump down and continue doing damage with DS up.

 

Yes, one advantage to killing them solo is you end up capped on Fury from killing blows in Meta!

[Drkdragon 9]

Now that I have Darmac and Blackhand trinkets. With DServ:DSup should I be building for a solid burn phase or just be reacting burning MC procs every time I get a blackhand proc?

[spikeysquad 50]

There is no one answer but look at the numbers.

 

DS: 3300 Mastery (I think)

 

BMC at 18 stacks:  3258 Multistrike

 

I only got BMC yesterday so I haven't had much chance to play with it yet.

 

I believe that ultimately your game play does not change. The question always being when is my next DS window and by then will I have enough MC procs, CWs (if using) and fury for it? Then whatever extra then you can dump on trinkets/ring. However as you only have one trinket for dumping then you can afford to be a bit more aggressive at least at the higher BMC stacks. At the lower amounts they are worth far less than your legendary proc. Do the maths and see where BMC pulls ahead.

 

Edited to change numbers as did not realise that you meant mythic! My apologies

Edited May 1, 2015 by spikeysquad

[spikeysquad 50]

Let's say a 6:52 fight, Mythic Oregorger to be precise. Ok, will be brave and this is my log (yeah I know I didn't play that well but I'm a work in progress, I still had a 670 staff, no GSR/BMC and it was my first kill). Alright enough with the excuses. 

 

So I planned my DS basically for the non-rolling phases, when I had the resources (in theory anyhow) and ideally when there was another proc up. So this was mostly all fine but I didn't DS every 2 minutes as such. My issue now is that I could have got another Grimoire and Orc racial in the fight length. So in an ideal world they would be paired with DS. But in this case should I have done another Grimoire and Blood Fury and had 2 sets of them without DS? Though the second pet also running around on roll phase probably doesn't do much damage. Or timed my DS for every 2 minutes (though that was during a roll phase)? Or did what I did and missed out on an extra? It seems like nearly every log that I compared to of a similar fight length does 3 Grimoires and pairs them always with DS (but that may just be a macro thing).

 

I wonder why I do not know this answer yet. Thanks for any help. 

Edited May 7, 2015 by spikeysquad

[Liquidsteel 279]

snip

Ok, so let's think about the problem that you have, and the solution to fix it.

 

Your problem is that you elected to delay Dark Soul as you thought using it during a rolling phase would be a mistake. Because of this you ended up missing out on a large burn cycle in execute.

 

I always think the best way to approach these posts is to actually go ahead and solve the problem, rather than try to use general theory. 

 

So, you thought that using Servitude in the rolling phase would cause it to not attack for a large portion of its uptime. The issue here is clearly positioning! To counter this you should place your demonic portal someone near the middle, and right after the final blackrock barrage you can portal from the outside lane to the middle and set up for the rolling phase. Using Service near the middle will mean the Doomguard is positioned well to at least get in a few shots wherever you summon, and not be terribly out of position depending on where the boss chooses to move. You are also nicely positioned to either attack the boss or nuke nearby boxes, and don't need to move as much as others (you actually get a juicy headstart!).

 

This logic can also be applied to your perma doomguard; by having him start the encounter via a move command to the middle, he won't start chasing the boss endlessly as he starts rolling.

[spikeysquad 50]

Thanks for the reply Liquidsteel. So basically for this fight are you saying that it's still better to use DS every 2 minutes, regardless of phase, and save the extra one for execute? I think that is what you are implying from the weak execute comment. Then all my Grimoires and Blood Furys would line up nicely still with DS and I would get the maximum of everything in. I gave that a try tonight but haven't had time to really look at the logs yet. I noticed though that I was using the 2 DS charges too close together at the end (that's a common problem for me) so that is something to work on. I did see tonight that my crate damage was appalling as I was focusing the boss during the roll phase but to be honest whatever I do it's always awful compared to most other classes.

 

After reading your post I did wait until I was in the middle to DS/GoServ. For my group there's no rush as we tend to phase change about the 1 minute 40-50 second mark. Yeah my permanent pet does start in the middle like you advised me before but he does still run a bit. I did watch your video as well where you do DS on the roll phase but you are Demonbolting there so it is not so relevant to this situation.

Edited May 8, 2015 by spikeysquad

[spikeysquad 50]

Well I did much better this week so thank you. Still didn't play well but I have realised that being able to analyse logs makes me a lot more conscious of my mistakes than other people about my level of play so I am giving myself a little break.

 

Anyhow, I got the 4 Grimoires in (just about) so that's an improvement. 

Edited May 11, 2015 by spikeysquad

[Nytemare 2]

Thinking of making a troll or an orc lock to raid with friend. Which race would you recommend for MS Demo / OS Affliction or Destro

 

If its troll do I want to pop their racial every time I use Dark Soul only? Also if troll for demo, would glyph of imp swam now be useful?

Edited May 17, 2015 by Nytemare