6.1 Demonology Guide

[Gruxa 1]

Have you guys decided on your off spec (read: when u're not cata-demo) ? :) think i'll pick Sac-CR destro

[Soulzar 42]

I'm sticking with Service/Servitude for pure ST fights unless the Destro lock in our raid starts running away with things as Destro.  

I do have Destro as an offspec, and would run the GoSac/CR

[Liquidsteel 279]

Affliction with SB: Haunt.

[Sabertorous 0]

So been reading through a ton of forums on demo changes, I get where we are now, but considering we basically lost use of a major talent, ie DB, I would to know what the warlock community would like to see happen. This is assuming Blizz will change something to make DB viable again at some point.

I would like to see it balanced around a 3 DB rotation, with less fury cost so that we can use other options during burst phase. Like use the 20 sec window on a combination of 3 x DB, with ToC, SF, CW, and doom. Make the cost scale so that the fourth DB takes to much fury to be worth it, but 3 would be viable ST and priority add burn. That way cata can remain aoe and DS could be viable for ST as well as cleave.

My thoughts, I am willing to suffer for awhile so Blizz can find a way to make this work, very interested in what other locks would do if they could choose.

[Paracel 165]

So been reading through a ton of forums on demo changes, I get where we are now, but considering we basically lost use of a major talent, ie DB, I would to know what the warlock community would like to see happen. This is assuming Blizz will change something to make DB viable again at some point.

I would like to see it balanced around a 3 DB rotation, with less fury cost so that we can use other options during burst phase. Like use the 20 sec window on a combination of 3 x DB, with ToC, SF, CW, and doom. Make the cost scale so that the fourth DB takes to much fury to be worth it, but 3 would be viable ST and priority add burn. That way cata can remain aoe and DS could be viable for ST as well as cleave.

My thoughts, I am willing to suffer for awhile so Blizz can find a way to make this work, very interested in what other locks would do if they could choose.

DB nerf was excessive but needed.

Huge amount of spell power multiplier plus BRF gear increase plus raw mastery on the DS have made Demo a pretty monstrous spec - featuring all the kinds of damages for all the cases in current raid, topped with some mobility and a good damage resilence.

All those things packed together in one spec choosing one talent essentially made us a bit OP. I'm still feeling kinda awkward about myself throwing 300k damage punches left and right.

DB is still viable as a source of flexibile single-target burst damage. Conceptually, it has some place for Demo even though it was nerfed. I wouldn't touch it, at least for now.

However, I'd like to find out the point where new CR Destro outscales DB Demo in given terms of ST burst. (It's more sustain-focused AoE instead of burst AoE, though.)

Maybe, just maybe, 25% nerf is an overkill. 10-15% is somewhat a deserved amount IMO.

I mean, Cata is still out there and it's godly. Right?

P.S. I'm just expressing my opinion on our matter with almost stupid honesty.

I feel like I shouldn't be protecting The Nerf Bat.

Druids, Mages, and Hunters are being buffed/untouched and thus remaning top specs, while we are going down for the mid-pack. That's nothing I would like to see.

 

[Alkeir 1]

Hey guys, I had a few assorted questions about some of the intricacies of things I haven't myself decided to experiment with yet. The first one is a question about the new single target play style of GoServ/DemServ. Do we pretty much drop the Glyph of Dark Soul (GoDS) and play like it's MoP? I would assume so, but I just wanted to check if there were any reasons not to.

 

My second question has to do with the GoDS-less Cataclysm playstyle. I haven't tried it out yet myself, but what do you do after the first 3 Cataclyms? Do you just cast Cataclysm without DS up? I just feel like it would be better to always have DS for Cata, so I'm confused as to why the GoDS-less playstyle is viable. Final part of this question, what fights would you play GoDS-less?

 

My third question has to do with the viability of my playstyle on certain AoE fights. I adopted this playstyle since our mastery got buffed a while ago now, meaning Chaos Wave in metamorphosis packs a pretty good punch now, and is more viable to use sparingly now than HoG in 2+ target situaions, at least to my knowledge. Keep in mind I don't have a 4 set, or even a 2 set for that matter. For fights like Operator Thogar and Beastlord Darmac I bank my HoG charges for Chaos Waves in metamorphosis when I have either Demonic Synergy procs, Dark Soul or weapon/ring/trinket procs up, or I'm about to cap at 2 charges and have more than one target up. Otherwise, I only ever cast HoG in the opener on Operator Thogar, Once in the opener of Beastlord Darmac (to allow another charge to come back for the first beast pack for CWs), or if I have only 1 target at the time and need to prevent myself from capping at 2 charges and there will not be several more targets within the next 5-10 seconds. I feel that this is probably what most people do for these two fights, however; I have also adapted this style into Iron Maidens. After the opening 2 HoGs, I TRY not to cast another HoG for the rest of the fight (until there is 1 target left, of course), instead saving HoG/CW charges for CW when Synergy or good amount of procs are up or when I am about to cap at 2 charges. Now, finally to my question. Is this viable for Iron Maidens, or is HoG going to do more damage over the course of the fight? My playstyle seems to be doing well; it had a lot higher of a ranking last week than it is this week, however. Second, is this the right playstyle for Operator Thogar and Beastlord Darmac, or are there situations where I should try to maintain HoG-woven shadowflame debuffs on all the adds? Will that do more damage? Finally, if this playstyle is viable for some or all of the fights I have listed, how do you think the 4 set will change this playstyle? What will I have to do to adapt to having an extra charge of HoG?

 

If you read this far, I thank you for your patience and look forward to your responses.

 

Also, I know I should stop using the Infernal

Edited February 24, 2015 by Alkeir

[Magyar 0]

 Couple quick questions about Demonbolt-less playstyle. Currently running Synergy/AD/DServ for purely single target fights and I'm struggling a little bit with fury expenditure in between Dark Soul CD. When I get a Synergy/ring/trinket proc is it of utmost importance to jump into Meta and spend what fury I have while procs are up or is it better to make sure that I can build enough fury for next DS? Sometimes I get a string of procs and if I used ToC for all of them I'd be starved for when DS comes off cd. It bothers me to see procs and do nothing to utilize it. I feel like I'll get a better feel for how much fury I can spend in between DS and still have plenty for when DS comes off cd as I play more, but I was wondering if anybody had any tips.

 

My second question concerns your second charge of DS. Do you usually find yourself using this during bloodlust? I feel as though this is one of the only times I'll have enough fury gen to be able to use DS that close together.

[Paracel 165]

@Alkeir
1. New singletarget playstyle is to use other spec

You're pretty much right. Haven't played in MoP as wlock, but now you would want to drop glyphs as your burn phases are much longer than 20 seconds

2.Check out some posts at this thread : https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/10782-61-demo-not-as-bad-as-the-demonbolt-nerf-makes-it-look/page-3
As Liquidsteel stated, good usage of CW around your procs and short DS can come up as a very good DPS performance.
My point is that unglyphed DS is better for your fury usage as a 20 second burn phase.

DS does not really buff Cataclysm, that's it. It buffs CWs, DoTs and all the things around - but not the exact Cataclysm spell. It's totally ok to cast it unbuffed or something like that.

 

3. That's a decent tactial idea for the fights you're stating.
Before 6.1, I'd argue with you, keeping the point that HoG is close damage to CW and gives you a bunch of fury - both solid count and MC procs. And this fury is going for the Demonic Punch.

Times change, however, and your HoG/CW usage could be a very good variant for Demo without DB.
4 set tier bonus will just make you pure winner with the 3rd CW. Packed in one glyphed DS it will be insane with good procs and decent target count.
 

[Paracel 165]

@Magyar

1.
Just relax. Those procs are pretty much incontrolable, so I wouldn't really touch them.
Stick to something that you are really in charge with - Dark Soul.

2.

I often find myself having a little of space for AD'ed DS, in some cases - not enough fury/embers/shards to spend.
IMO it serves best as the Big Red Emergency Burst Button, for the obvious cases of nuclear attack increased damage windows/unexpected Bloodlusts/priority adds popping.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Cataclysm DOES benefit from Mastery. It is increased by caster form. So Dark Soul does increase the damage. Getting 250k crits is pretty sweet.

[Soulzar 42]

Cataclysm DOES benefit from Mastery. It is increased by caster form. So Dark Soul does increase the damage. Getting 250k crits is pretty sweet.

 

I second this. It does.  What Parcel was likely thinking of is that Meta Mastery bonus does not effect Cataclysm, but Darksoul sure does.

 

Additionally to the questions regarding the playstyle of GoServ/Servitude.  You want to use the 2min Darksoul, there is no 1min burn cycle when using GoService as you want a full 20s duration darksoul for your Service Demon summon.  You main fury dumps will be every 2 minutes aligned with Darksoul/GoService.  You will Bleed off excess fury between those 2 minutes on trinket/weapon procs.  My MC procs seem to be limited (no 4p yet) so I personally am currently Pooling all MC procs for the 2min burn, and using ToC to bleed during procs.  Ideally you would want to use SF over ToC, but Soulfire during Darksoul is more important so pool them to use there unless you are capping.

 

When using Cataclysm, you will want to use the Darksoul glyph and each minute burn you Cataclysm, Soulfires, and CW's.  Caveat to this is, depending on the fight duration, 2m DS can still be best,.. since your first 3 cataclysms would have DS when using AD and you can do more effective fury dumps with the extra 10s of DS per cycle.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Soulzar

[Alkeir 1]

When using Cataclysm, you will want to use the Darksoul glyph and each minute burn you Cataclysm, Soulfires, and CW's.  Caveat to this is, depending on the fight duration, 2m DS can still be best,.. since your first 3 cataclysms would have DS when using AD and you can do more effective fury dumps with the extra 10s of DS per cycle.

I don't think my raid's overall dps is good enough to shorten heroic fights to less than 4 or 5 minutes, so I guess I'll stick with the glyph for now.

[Paracel 165]

Didn't really know this fact about Cata. Sorry for misleading advices.

Russian client tooltips have a long story of being broken/mistranslated.

 

[Zinthar 2]

I second this. It does.  What Parcel was likely thinking of is that Meta Mastery bonus does not effect Cataclysm, but Darksoul sure does.

 

Additionally to the questions regarding the playstyle of GoServ/Servitude.  You want to use the 2min Darksoul, there is no 1min burn cycle when using GoService as you want a full 20s duration darksoul for your Service Demon summon.  You main fury dumps will be every 2 minutes aligned with Darksoul/GoService.  You will Bleed off excess fury between those 2 minutes on trinket/weapon procs.  My MC procs seem to be limited (no 4p yet) so I personally am currently Pooling all MC procs for the 2min burn, and using ToC to bleed during procs.  Ideally you would want to use SF over ToC, but Soulfire during Darksoul is more important so pool them to use there unless you are capping.

 

When using Cataclysm, you will want to use the Darksoul glyph and each minute burn you Cataclysm, Soulfires, and CW's.  Caveat to this is, depending on the fight duration, 2m DS can still be best,.. since your first 3 cataclysms would have DS when using AD and you can do more effective fury dumps with the extra 10s of DS per cycle.

 

I was leaning towards using Glyph of Dark Soul as well, and using it each minute with Cata, then 7 secs of burning CW's and 1-2 soulfires.  Then I ran it through simcraft (500 sec duration, 20% vary length, expert skill level) and found that I couldn't come up with a scenario where Glyph of DS lead to a DPS increase (I tested light & heavy movement, and between 1-3 enemies) when taking either Cata or Demonic Servitude as my tier 7 talent.  The difference was usually in the 4-5% range, too. 

 

The difference is even larger when you take GoServ in tier 5 rather than GoSup. 

 

A few caveats: These sims were with my character's gear, which is ilvl 676 and just the 2 piece bonus.  Also, my second trinket is Copeland's Clarity, so stacking 20 second DS phases with it is probably part of it. 

 

That said, unless there's a fight-specific need for glyph of DS that makes it the clearly superior option, I can't imagine why I would want to replace the many Demo glyps that have some nice survival utility (Healthstone, Eternal Resolve, & Demon Training when combined with SacPact).

 

Also, I simmed my old ST DB build vs. GoSup/DS with my gear on a light-movement fight with one enemy (450 seconds, 20% vary) and the latter came out ahead by 2.2k DPS.  I thought it would come out ahead, but not by a 6-7% margin.  Is the new SimCraft simming DB bursts properly post-nerf? 

 

I'm going to test more later, but I'm betting that the nerf is so strong that glyph of DS is no longer a DPS gain for a DB build, and so we're stuck firing off 2 DB's per cycle without DS, while making sure we're pooling MC procs for a 20 second burn and dramatically cutting our fury generation as a result.  6.0.3 DB was so strong because we could quickly dump all of our fury in 10 seconds and had a means to rapidly regenerate it over the next 40-50 seconds with loads of MC procs. 

 

In short, no one is going to use DB and Blizz will probably find that they need to give it a ~10% buff at some point. 

Edited February 25, 2015 by Zinthar

[Alkeir 1]

I was leaning towards using Glyph of Dark Soul as well, and using it each minute with Cata, then 7 secs of burning CW's and 1-2 soulfires.  Then I ran it through simcraft (500 sec duration, 20% vary length, expert skill level) and found that I couldn't come up with a scenario where Glyph of DS lead to a DPS increase (I tested light & heavy movement, and between 1-3 enemies) when taking either Cata or Demonic Servitude as my tier 7 talent.  The difference was usually in the 4-5% range, too. 

 

The difference is even larger when you take GoServ in tier 5 rather than GoSup. 

 

A few caveats: These sims were with my character's gear, which is ilvl 676 and just the 2 piece bonus.  Also, my second trinket is Copeland's Clarity, so stacking 20 second DS phases with it is probably part of it. 

 

That said, unless there's a fight-specific need for glyph of DS that makes it the clearly superior option, I can't imagine why I would want to replace the many Demo glyps that have some nice survival utility (Healthstone, Eternal Resolve, & Demon Training when combined with SacPact).

 

Also, I simmed my old ST DB build vs. GoSup/DS with my gear on a light-movement fight with one enemy (450 seconds, 20% vary) and the latter came out ahead by 2.2k DPS.  I thought it would come out ahead, but not by a 6-7% margin.  Is the new SimCraft simming DB bursts properly post-nerf? 

 

I'm going to test more later, but I'm betting that the nerf is so strong that glyph of DS is no longer a DPS gain for a DB build, and so we're stuck firing off 2 DB's per cycle without DS, while making sure we're pooling MC procs for a 20 second burn and dramatically cutting our fury generation as a result.  6.0.3 DB was so strong because we could quickly dump all of our fury in 10 seconds and had a means to rapidly regenerate it over the next 40-50 seconds with loads of MC procs. 

 

In short, no one is going to use DB and Blizz will probably find that they need to give it a ~10% buff at some point. 

Try a sim using Cataclysm and GoSyn. Syn proc + Cataclysm + Dark Soul = monster big dick damage, and I think most sims put GoSyn>GoSup as is, don't they?

Edited February 26, 2015 by Alkeir

[Furyio 3]

Damn, I was useless in my raid last night. Was struggling to keep in the top 5 and on Grull and Oregorger I was barely scrapping top 5-7. 

 

Concerned Warlock is concerned....

[Paracel 165]

Damn, I was useless in my raid last night. Was struggling to keep in the top 5 and on Grull and Oregorger I was barely scrapping top 5-7. 

 

Concerned Warlock is concerned....

Wouldn't you mind fetching logs?

I've been totally fine yesterday at our Normal 9/10 clear.

Even nerfed DB still got me and my guild wlock 2 spots in a top 3 on Gruul, losing ~100dps to WW monk.

85-95% percentile Aff play on pretty much all the rest of the fights been OK, too.

I guess it's still "beat the Balance Druid - beat them all" kind of game for me

DB parses will be ranging from fight to fight still, depending on your personal skill progression / RNG procs / Good crits or multistrikes.

It does not seem like that much of a DPS loss, compared to what I've expected.

 

[Drkdragon 9]

Wouldn't you mind fetching logs?

I've been totally fine yesterday at our Normal 9/10 clear.

Even nerfed DB still got me and my guild wlock 2 spots in a top 3 on Gruul, losing ~100dps to WW monk.

85-95% percentile Aff play on pretty much all the rest of the fights been OK, too.

I guess it's still "beat the Balance Druid - beat them all" kind of game for me

DB parses will be ranging from fight to fight still, depending on your personal skill progression / RNG procs / Good crits or multistrikes.

It does not seem like that much of a DPS loss, compared to what I've expected.

 

Do you have logs Paracel? would like to go over what you are doing and compare it to my play.

[Paracel 165]

Do you have logs Paracel? would like to go over what you are doing and compare it to my play.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/guilds/38819

Our guild log page.

We're scrubs, though

[Drkdragon 9]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/guilds/38819

Our guild log page.

We're scrubs, though

Was completely spacing off the Russian part. Those are kind of hard for me to read lol.

[Paracel 165]

Was completely spacing off the Russian part. Those are kind of hard for me to read lol.

There is an awesome "translate" button, top left corner.

 

[Drkdragon 9]

There is an awesome "translate" button, top left corner.

 

Well I'll be damned. Thank you!

[cicerovivikta 0]

Sadly It seems I failed to understand the ongoing 6.1 discussion well especially the MC stacks/fury management. I was horrible last night at heroic BRF 1-9 run, then started to blame my second language skill again. (It is true actually, please forgive my poor English further!)

Apparently I am losing the confidence on the building phase(demon soul on CD) balancing between MC stacks and demonic fury. This is what I had planned for the quick adaptation (and failed)- when demon soul CD is left more than 60 seconds, even in a low fury state I spend some fury mostly on meta soul fire aligned with the legendary ring, synergy, or weapon enchant proc. Then I try to obtain 6+ MC stacks with 800+ fury when Demon soul is less than 45 seconds in order to have soulfires as many as possible for the burning phase. I dump them as soon as demon soul is ready.

Problem lies that all those dynamic components make me hesitate at certain points like 'is it okay to cast SF in a caster form in low fury/high MC stacks', 'should I delay my demon soul for synergy proc', 'spamming toc to farm MC stacks when high fury/low MC stacks is genuine?', and so on. I have no experience in MoP and meta/soulfire both so it confuses me very much.

After the raid is over, I tried to seek some enlightments over my 'local' communites, it seems that most of other players had no definite clues on the subject like me. I wanted to check streamings, but no lucky with my timezone. Please, any even a small tip on the fury/MC stack management would be much appreciated. Oh and again please forgive my English if there is any akward expression or grammar stuff. Thank you for reading.

[Zagam 1,982]

6.1 Demo plays like 5.4 Demo except you use Cataclysm or have a Doomguard in the background doing 40% of your DPS for you.

 

Go back and think about your roots.  Save Molten Core charges for Soul Fire in Metamorphosis, maximize your Metamorphosis uptime, and sync up your Grimoire Service:Doomguard with Dark Soul.  It's a really simple rotation, less complex and more forgiving that Demonbolt was with movement. 

 

The thing with Demonology is it is complex and it requires practice.  It's not as simple as reading, digesting, and applying.  Get out there, queue for LFR, go do some normal runs, and PRACTICE.  They keep messing with us, but it's up to you if you let it get you down or you keep fighting. 

 

It's not about how hard you get hit.  It's about how hard you get hit and keep fighting. 

[cicerovivikta 0]

6.1 Demo plays like 5.4 Demo except you use Cataclysm or have a Doomguard in the background doing 40% of your DPS for you.

 

Go back and think about your roots.  Save Molten Core charges for Soul Fire in Metamorphosis, maximize your Metamorphosis uptime, and sync up your Grimoire Service:Doomguard with Dark Soul.  It's a really simple rotation, less complex and more forgiving that Demonbolt was with movement. 

 

The thing with Demonology is it is complex and it requires practice.  It's not as simple as reading, digesting, and applying.  Get out there, queue for LFR, go do some normal runs, and PRACTICE.  They keep messing with us, but it's up to you if you let it get you down or you keep fighting. 

 

It's not about how hard you get hit.  It's about how hard you get hit and keep fighting. 

 

Thank you for the reply, Zagam. Of course, I will keep practicing. I know even if it were more simple, I couldn't make it without trials and fails for myself. Eventually I will get my position back. 

 

I am actually kinda nervous on a scheduled normal run- I hope I could do better than the last one.

Edited February 28, 2015 by cicerovivikta