I feel like I'm doing low DPS

[Alkeir 1]

Hey guys, I'm maining Demonology as my primary spec with Affliction as my off-spec for single-target fights. However, I decided to practice Demonology for single-target fights as well in order to get more used to the new Demonbolt playstyle. Unfortunately, I've noticed that my DPS is relatively low in comparison to others in my group. I was hoping you guys could help me figure out how to improve my damage.

 

• Armory
• Logs | Group 2 logs / Group 3 logs

Opener

1. Pre-cast Soul Fire
2. Hand of Gul'dan
3. Corruption
4. Hand of Gul'dan
5. Dark Soul + Metamorphosis
6. Summon Terrorguard
7. Doom
8. Demonbolt
9. Touch of Chaos spam until exit Metamorphosis

Rotation - Building Fury

1. Wrathstorm on cooldown
2. Keep corruption applied
3. Cast Hand of Gul'dan if I have 1 stack and 6 seconds until I have a second stack, filler for 3-4 seconds, Hand of Gul'dan
4. Soul Fire with Molten Core procs
5. Shadow Bolt

Rotation - Spending Fury

1. Refresh Doom if needed
2. Dark Soul + 3-4x Demonbolt
3. Touch of chaos if I have no other movement options left and I had to go into Metamorphosis or I'm about to cap on fury.

One thing I noticed on the Butcher is that I forgot to send my pet to attack for a while, which was my own damned fault. I play in such a way that I command my pet to attack whenever I want to attack something, and I keep him on passive so that he stays on the boss or whatever I commanded him to attack whenever I target switch to an add so that I don't lose DPS from my pet running halfway across the room. I am still getting used to this playstyle, as it's something I've only adopted recently, so some of my mistakes stem from that. Another thing to note is that I've been quite fuzzy on what my AOE rotation should be in situations with 3+ mobs; I have trouble trying to figure out when to use hellfire and end up almost never using it. Tips on this as well as general DPS tips would be appreciated as well. One more thing; when should I be using cataclysm as a talent, and how should I fit it in to my rotation in the fight? Thank you all in advance.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Snip.

I'm going to assume this is a troll, however if not it's still terrible advice.

 

 - There is no talent to make MB instant, nor is Shadow Bolt a DoT, nor is Terrorguard a melee guardian / pet.

 - Soulfire is not cooldown based either.

 

With that out of the way, Alkier have you read the opener in the Demonology guide? It's a good 'standard' opener and allows you to get off 2x Demonbolt under procs. You need to cast 2 spells in between Hand of Gul'dan, both to squeeze out the maximum uptime on the DoT, as well as gain more Fury before you enter Metamorphosis. You should also add in the Terrorguard after your precast Soulfire to get him out of the way early.

 

So on the opener:

 

 - Add in Terrorguard after the precasted Soul Fire

 - Weave in a Shadowbolt after Corruption

 

This should get you 2x Demonbolt in the opener and not just one.

 

It has been proposed that due to not having 10s RPPM trinkets, we can afford to delay the opener and generate more Fury first, before diving into Meta and getting off more Demonbolts that way with initial cooldowns up. I have yet to try it but I can see the logic of it.

 

AoE rotation is basically maximising Hand of Gul'dan uptime or dropping Chaos Wave. Depends on how you need to deliver your damage and if you have procs up that are expiring soon.

 

Hellfire / Immolation Aura is pretty lackluster. I think once you get to like 4-5 targets it is worth taking in conjunction with Mannoroth's Fury, however this is simply based on hearing other people using it. I haven't found a need for it yet.

Make sure to put Doom on targets that will live for a tick otherwise get corruptions up. For mass burst AoE just HoG/CW.

[Alkeir 1]

I'm going to assume this is a troll, however if not it's still terrible advice.

 

 - There is no talent to make MB instant, nor is Shadow Bolt a DoT, nor is Terrorguard a melee guardian / pet.

 - Soulfire is not cooldown based either.

 

With that out of the way, Alkier have you read the opener in the Demonology guide? It's a good 'standard' opener and allows you to get off 2x Demonbolt under procs. You need to cast 2 spells in between Hand of Gul'dan, both to squeeze out the maximum uptime on the DoT, as well as gain more Fury before you enter Metamorphosis. You should also add in the Terrorguard after your precast Soulfire to get him out of the way early.

 

So on the opener:

 

 - Add in Terrorguard after the precasted Soul Fire

 - Weave in a Shadowbolt after Corruption

 

This should get you 2x Demonbolt in the opener and not just one.

 

It has been proposed that due to not having 10s RPPM trinkets, we can afford to delay the opener and generate more Fury first, before diving into Meta and getting off more Demonbolts that way with initial cooldowns up. I have yet to try it but I can see the logic of it.

 

AoE rotation is basically maximising Hand of Gul'dan uptime or dropping Chaos Wave. Depends on how you need to deliver your damage and if you have procs up that are expiring soon.

 

Hellfire / Immolation Aura is pretty lackluster. I think once you get to like 4-5 targets it is worth taking in conjunction with Mannoroth's Fury, however this is simply based on hearing other people using it. I haven't found a need for it yet.

Make sure to put Doom on targets that will live for a tick otherwise get corruptions up. For mass burst AoE just HoG/CW.

Thank you, I'll come back with some logs after trying out these changes.

[Alkeir 1]

Thank you, I'll come back with some logs after trying out these changes.

Ok, here are some logs from tonight. After the 2nd attempt or so I got a hang of the opener, which meant it was more smooth opening, but I still had relatively low DPS throughout. It doesn't help that its an uber movement focused fight, but I would still like to know if there is any room for improvement. Thanks

[Saifadin 0]

Hi Alkeir,

 

I hope I can help you. I am not the best analyzer of Logs, but demo is my main and I could find some stuff.

 

First of all you should enter Meta only to dump Fury during movement with Touch of Chaos or if you can cast 4 Demonbolts in a row. If you only cast 3 your DPS is gonna immensily and with your gear you should be able to output more, especially with Demonbolt.

 

Now how to do it? Opener is quite good, but in a fight like Margok where the most DPS comes at the beginning due to the high movement you should conisder the Glyph of imps, to get more MC procs and being able to get 1000 fury faster. Then switch into Meta and apply Doom and 4 times Demonbolt. After that just cast Touch of Chaos until you have no Fury left.

Repeat spamming Soul Fire with MC procs and Demon Bolt and keep up corruption, If you do it right you should be able to get into Meta as soon as the Debuff drops, then you dumo it fast with DS active. 

 

Second thing: You are not using Comand Demon, which is a huge upgrade of your DPS and its of the Global Cooldown. Use it always with Dark Soul, thanks to the huge amount of Mastery you get from it.

 

Lastly knowing when to cast in high movement fights needs lots of training and is hard to master, but if you do, you will see a huge jump in DPS.

 

With Love

Saifadin

[Alkeir 1]

Hey, so I have the shards of nothing trinket now, but It occured to me that I've never used an on-use trinket in raiding before. How/when/why do I need to use the trinket? On cooldown? Just during burst phases? or what?

[Saifadin 0]

Hey, so I have the shards of nothing trinket now, but It occured to me that I've never used an on-use trinket in raiding before. How/when/why do I need to use the trinket? On cooldown? Just during burst phases? or what?

 

Line it up with DS and put it into a macro like this:

 

#showtooltip Dark Soul

/cast Dark Soul: ...

/use Trinket Name

 

Like this you make sure to always usw it in Burst phases where you will use Dark Soul for example before casting Demon Bolt.

[Furee 0]

Hey, so I have the shards of nothing trinket now, but It occured to me that I've never used an on-use trinket in raiding before. How/when/why do I need to use the trinket? On cooldown? Just during burst phases? or what?

 

Time it with Dark Soul, which you should be timing with your bursts and trinket procs.

[Alkeir 1]

Ok, here are some more logs for tonight. I got some gear and I feel like I did a little better, although I really think my Affliction play needs some improvement. I really have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to that. I also made a ton of mistakes playing Demo on our Brackenspore attempts. Finally, I don't know if I should be using the Shards of Nothing trinket whenever I burst, because after a few burst phases, because of the fact that the demonbolt debuff doesn't line up in neat 60 second intervals, I found myself with long periods of time (10-20s or so) where I have the trinket available to use but I can't use it because either the demonbolt debuff is still up or my dark soul is not up. Oh yeah, one more thing, sometimes I find that my demon bolt debuff is off but I don't have a charge of dark soul, and this generally happens later on in the fight. Also, it seems to happen the most on Brackenspore. What's going on with that? Thanks in advance guys.

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/aTKnfFbH7BPJgY8x#

[Saifadin 0]

Ok, here are some more logs for tonight. I got some gear and I feel like I did a little better, although I really think my Affliction play needs some improvement. I really have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to that. I also made a ton of mistakes playing Demo on our Brackenspore attempts. Finally, I don't know if I should be using the Shards of Nothing trinket whenever I burst, because after a few burst phases, because of the fact that the demonbolt debuff doesn't line up in neat 60 second intervals, I found myself with long periods of time (10-20s or so) where I have the trinket available to use but I can't use it because either the demonbolt debuff is still up or my dark soul is not up. Oh yeah, one more thing, sometimes I find that my demon bolt debuff is off but I don't have a charge of dark soul, and this generally happens later on in the fight. Also, it seems to happen the most on Brackenspore. What's going on with that? Thanks in advance guys.

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/aTKnfFbH7BPJgY8x#

 

Generally you want to wait always for when Dark Soul or your trinket or your debuff falls off to usw everything. It doesnt line up perfectly all the time, because the Demon Bolt Debuff is 40 seconds long not 60. That shouldnt be a problem if you use the Gylph of Dark Soul. 

If you have the debuff not coming off soon enough and you will cap soon, switch into Meta form and use Doom or shoot some soul fires or Touch of Chaos, just to loose some DF. Then switch out and charge up until the debuff is gone. Normally should never be the case.