6.1 Demonology Guide

[Liquidsteel 279]

Most probably. If we're speccing Demonbolt we don't want to waste Fury if we can help it. As we get more gear, we'll have more to play around with in between burst cycles, however we will still want to avoid wasting fury where possible. 

 

Incidental refreshing through ToCing whilst moving is fine, but actively entering meta to extend is not.

[Alkeir 1]

So is demonology going to be viable now...? :(

[Zilthy 36]

It depends on what you mean by viable.  Viable, yes.  Optimal, no.  As long as you are not confusing 'top performing spec' with viable, then Demo is viable.  And if you play it well, you will outperform someone who is mediocre in Dest.  But you'll have to work harder, and know your game better.   And if you do the same with Dest, you'll outperform Demo.

 

*shrug* It really depends on how well you play and what your group expects.

[Zilthy 36]

This is what I have been finding with Demonology so far:

 

DPS is lackluster (thought that a nicer way of putting it) outside of burst.

 

Line up 4 Demonbolts inside a Dark Soul window (glyph-ed), overall damage is acceptable.   Don't want to miss that at all though, KJC has become my best friend there.  Miss that Demonbolt being in Dark Soul, damage drops a lot.   Sort of nifty though, that KJC cd lines up with DS cd and it all works out.

 

This seems to be working out well, but the hardest part I am having with it is retraining muscle memory (and probably need to spend more time on target dummies for that).

 

Currently for the burst phase I am finding it more reliable to:

 

meta -> doom -> DS (glyphed) -> unload fury (4x demonbolt) [KJC if needed, which, is more often than not]

 

when before I did:

 

DS -> meta -> doom -> unload fury

 

Much smaller margin of error in the 10 second window vs 20 second, still working on timing and silly muscle memory, might swap places between doom and DS, although pretty sure will actually go meta before both now.

 

In a way, it is kind of fun, but in another, it is kind of annoying, as to how well that ten second window needs to be used.

[Alkeir 1]

How do you do your opener with demonbolt?

[Imagine 0]

How do you handle the mana as demo?  thats my biggest trouble!

[Zagam 1,982]

How do you do your opener with demonbolt?

Should be pre-casting Soul Fire, Hand of Gul'dan, Corruption, Shadow Bolt, Hand of Gul'dan -> Metamorphosis + Dark Soul, 2x Demonbolt, assume normal rotation.  This opener allows for 2 Demonbolts in opener which is the best you can do.  From there, it's build and dump cycles.

 

How do you handle the mana as demo?  thats my biggest trouble!

Life Tap.  More specifically, Life Tap during build phases.  You'll be Life Tapping more when using Demonbolt since you'll be using Soul Fire to generate DF faster.  I strongly suggest glyphing it and letting your healers know it's a healing absorption thing and it's safer than taking direct damage which could divert their healing.

[Zagam 1,982]

In regards to the most recent patch notes, nothing has changed.  The opener, stat weights, trinkets, and other things I have in this guide are up to date and live with the 11/25 buffs.  You still build to use 4 Demonbolts with Glyph of Dark Soul, you get 2 Demonbolts off in your opener, keep your DoTs up 100% of the time, use GoSupremacy and KJC or MF - NOT AD.  Demo feels pretty solid to me except on trash AoE.  Don't bother wasting DF on Immo Aura - it tickles.  HoG is where it's at, but after HoG, there's really nothing to do except wittle away at one target.

 

I was able to open to 47.5k DPS with a full Demonic Fury bar before a boss - we hit like a truck if saving resources, which is good news for CMs.  Sustaining, I had no problem sustaining 20-23k with partial raid buffs, no flask, no potions, and no food.  I was keeping up with a very good Hunter, so I think this puts Demo back in the upper tier.  Sadly, I won't play my Warlock for 11 days, so hopefully you guys have as much success as I have.

[Emy 1]

I was able to open to 47.5k DPS with a full Demonic Fury bar before a boss - we hit like a truck if saving resources, which is good news for CMs.  Sustaining, I had no problem sustaining 20-23k with partial raid buffs, no flask, no potions, and no food.  I was keeping up with a very good Hunter, so I think this puts Demo back in the upper tier. 

Thanks for posting this. I was looking for this, but couldn't find it anywhere.

 

Totally off-topic: Is there any other place to get warlock information apart from here? Since EJ died a long time back it's been difficult to find high-end theory crafting. 

[Zagam 1,982]

Totally off-topic: Is there any other place to get warlock information apart from here? Since EJ died a long time back it's been difficult to find high-end theory crafting. 

THERE IS ONLY US.  WE ARE THE ONLY SAY.

 

Kidding, of course.  MMO-C has a lot of world-renowned Warlocks posting there.  Sometimes, I'll drift over and see what's the chatter, but most of my stuff is done isolated from other influence.  I like to do it that way to see if I really know my stuff or if I'm out of the loop.  When what I come up with matches what Gahhda comes up with and what those at MMO-C come up with, I'm fairly confident we're all right.  I personally don't visit MMO-C and post there (don't even have an account) because I'm happy here and feel the environment is less 'hostile' here than it is there. 

 

I would accumulate lots of stuff and bring it all together.  If you see that someone else is doing a better job at something than us, let us know.  I personally strive to be better at what I bring back to the community, so any recommendations and feedback is always welcome.  I've personally gone out to recruit experienced Warlocks to this community to give it a sense of established experience and credibility, so most of anything can and will be explained here, but I urge you to seek out other knowledge as well.  Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Garothmuk 0]

After trying out Demo in a few dungeons last night and doing some rather pitiful DPS on trash, I'm glad to see that I wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong. I felt like I wasn't doing enough to burn down packs, but evidently there just isn't a whole lot that you can do. My boss damage was significantly higher, but I still felt like dead weight because of how terribly I was doing on trash.

 

Not that I'm blaming the spec--I still have a lot of practicing to do in order to do demonology justice, it's just reassuring to hear that bad trash DPS isn't entirely operator error.

[Recklessfear 33]

THERE IS ONLY US.  WE ARE THE ONLY SAY.

 

Kidding, of course.  MMO-C has a lot of world-renowned Warlocks posting there.  Sometimes, I'll drift over and see what's the chatter, but most of my stuff is done isolated from other influence.  I like to do it that way to see if I really know my stuff or if I'm out of the loop.  When what I come up with matches what Gahhda comes up with and what those at MMO-C come up with, I'm fairly confident we're all right.  I personally don't visit MMO-C and post there (don't even have an account) because I'm happy here and feel the environment is less 'hostile' here than it is there. 

 

I would accumulate lots of stuff and bring it all together.  If you see that someone else is doing a better job at something than us, let us know.  I personally strive to be better at what I bring back to the community, so any recommendations and feedback is always welcome.  I've personally gone out to recruit experienced Warlocks to this community to give it a sense of established experience and credibility, so most of anything can and will be explained here, but I urge you to seek out other knowledge as well.  Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

 

 

There's my domain!

 

.....jk don't go there it's a cesspool.

 

I mean you can post and someone reasonable will come in.

 

Or ask in the guides. You'll get decent responses.

[Hanguk 0]

So I'm a relatively new Warlock, respecced Demo to try it after levelling 90-100 with Demo but switching to Destro because before today it seemed impossible to pull decent numbers with the other specs. I respecced to Destro today because it does seem more fun, and just to see what happens. I'm trying to follow the rotation as described in the guide here as closely as possible and end up pulling around ~13k on pure singletarget fights without too much movement - take the hc Skyreach bosses, I did 13.2k on the last one (got grabbed 2 times), no flask/pot, no abyssal/terrorguard (10min cd) but with LFG buff, ilvl 634. I feel that's really disappointing. What are the experienced locks here seeing in similar situations?

Edited November 27, 2014 by Hanguk

[Copperbad 5]

I'm also not seeing very good number vs trash as demo. It's a shame because after the destro nerf, neither spec really does much between bosses in 5 mans.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Copperbad

[KoragonArt 0]

Good lord demon bolt hits hard.  139k crit on a 4 stack just now.  Just regular buffs and nothing special.  Just wish it didn't take so long to build up to, cuz it's a kickass ability to use.  When we get more haste...

Edited November 27, 2014 by KoragonArt

[Hybrex 1]

Is anyone else finding they are capping fury (i mean 1000 not 800//850) before DS is off cooldown?

 

Im actually a bit unsure how to manage it. Go into metal and throw off soulfires/toc then come out intime, to go back in for DS/Demonbolt?

 

I am in mostly crit gear (from destro)

 

What to do! 

[PhilColins 9]

I would just like to point out that this Demonlogy thread has almost 100k views.

Holy warlock community batman!

[Lockybalboa 618]

Is anyone else finding they are capping fury (i mean 1000 not 800//850) before DS is off cooldown?

 

Im actually a bit unsure how to manage it. Go into metal and throw off soulfires/toc then come out intime, to go back in for DS/Demonbolt?

 

I am in mostly crit gear (from destro)

 

What to do! 

 

 

I was having this problem today in my daily CM. I started jumping in meta just to throw some extra dooms out on multi target or a CW at adds. The only time I had it happen single target I jumped in meta and threw some TC as I ran around jumping making fun of the ele shaman in mumble.

[gahhda 95]

Are people still delaying demonbolt for dark soul despite me explaining countless times on 4 forums how that's not how you use it?

 

Also, demo trash dps is amazing, just on 30 second intervals because you do 0 dps while HoG isn't up l0l. I really hate playing demo in 5 mans, all 3 specs will be strong for raiding, but for 5 mans demo/aff just can't keep up with other ranged for me. I DESTROY boss damage with demonbolt if I go in with 800+, but the trash dps is just so...so bad.

Edited November 27, 2014 by gahhda

[Hybrex 1]

I've read what you said about not delaying. but 10-12seconds, its hard not to delay it. 

[Lockybalboa 618]

Are people still delaying demonbolt for dark soul despite me explaining countless times on 4 forums how that's not how you use it?

 

 

Since what you say and what Zag says differ, you could link your thoughts or repost them for discussion among the people of this forum.

[gahhda 95]

Since what you say and what Zag says differ, you could link your thoughts or repost them for discussion among the people of this forum.

 

https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/demonology-warlock-pve-dps-rotation-cooldowns-abilities#advanced-demonbolt

 

Not taking AD is a 4-5% dps loss for demo.

Assuming you don't take AD, it's a ~2% loss to delay for dark soul. That is to say, delaying non-ad dark soul for demonbolt debuff is a gain, despite losing massive dark soul uptime.

 

I recommend delaying for DS without AD in the guide because 2% is more than made up for by not hating your fucking life doing the other method.

 

If you had AD, why would you delay for dark soul? I mean, in the case of copelands or some massive mastery/int/sp on use that has a 1/2 minute timer I could see that being worthwhile, but in most cases you never waste DS uptime, and you never waste DB downtime.

Edited November 27, 2014 by gahhda

[Lockybalboa 618]

I assume all of this is based on the sims, last I heard delaying DB for DS was the way to go in anything pre-mythic level gear, as per your post about it on 18 and 19 November.

[gahhda 95]

I assume all of this is based on the sims, last I heard delaying DB for DS was the way to go in anything pre-mythic level gear, as per your post about it on 18 and 19 November.

 

There are weird haste/mastery breakpoints for demonbolt, which makes writing the APL for it very complicated. It's a very very tiny gain pre-raid, and a non-negligible loss in mythic.

[Nytemare 2]

There are weird haste/mastery breakpoints for demonbolt, which makes writing the APL for it very complicated. It's a very very tiny gain pre-raid, and a non-negligible loss in mythic.

 

If we take DB we always supposed to have DS to put it to a 1min cd, what about AD? you mention it if we take it supposed to jump in minute debuff falls off, so is the idea to have both glyph+ talent or just one?

 

Regarding Life Tap. What you guys think of the glyph that makes it make all spell cost 30% less? So far I been testing and I have not gone oom, on side note switch into demo with glyph makes it where you need to use something to gain mana (food, treasure  Ba'ruun's Bountiful Bloom, etc.)

 

Another note does GoSup still beat out GoSyn by a small amount on ST and lot of AE or has GoSyn gain more value on ST?

Edited November 27, 2014 by Nytemare