Season of Discovery Demonology Warlock Tank Talents and Runes

While there are multiple different builds that you can tank as, there are three main builds that I wanted to go over. One for each spec, Nightfall/Emberstorm(NF/ES), Master Demonologist/Ruin(MD/Ruin) and Demonic Sacrifice/Emberstorm(DS/ES). Each build has it's own strengths and weaknesses and all three are completely viable. Which you choose is up to and what your raid needs as a tank. Sometimes you want to build for more tankiness and mitigation, whereas sometimes you want to gear for threat.

This first build is what you'll see most Warlock Tanks running. This build is the strongest one and just gets better as you get more gear. It pulls slighly ahead of the other two builds, will be the most tanky build, picking up most of the Demonology talents that buff you and your Felguard.

Put your first five points into Demonic Embrace, to give you 15% Stamina, giving you more health, which is obvously nice as a Tank. The two points into Improved Healthstone allow anyone who uses your Healthstones to gain 20% more healing from it. After that put two points into Improved Health Funnel and then two more points into Fel Intellect. Put five points into Fel Stamina to give your Felguard more Stamina, making him more tanky.

Next you want both Fel Domination and Master Summoner. With these combined, you will be able to almost instantly summon a new Felguard if yours happens to die. The five points into Unholy Power will make your Felguard deal 20% more damage. The point into Demonic Sacrifice is just a flex point in order to open up the next tier of talents to take Master Demonologist, which is extrememly strong since when you're using your Felguard, you both benefit from ALL FOUR of the effects under the talent.

Now that you've picked all the Demonology talents that you need, the rest of your points will go into the Destruction tree to significantly buff your Searing Pain, thanks to talents like Improved Shadow Bolt, Bane, Devastation, Improved Searing Pain and Ruin.

• Head — Pandemic
• Bracers — Summon Felguard
• Gloves — Metamorphosis
• Pants — Demonic Grace or Demonic Pact
• Chest — Demonic Tactics or Master Channeler
• Belt — Shadow and Flame
• Boot — Dance of the Wicked
• Cloak — Infernal Armor or Mark of Chaos
• Ring 1 — Fire Specialization
• Ring 2 — Defense Specialization

While there are many options of Runes this phase, the ones above do the most damage, thus causing the most threat. Demonic Grace got a nice rework and is no longer on the Global Cooldown and also now increases your crit by 30%, on top of the 30% dodge. Demonic Pact is mandatory if you're the only Warlock in the raid as this brings one of the most powerful debuffs in the game that only Warlocks can bring.

You have two options for Chest runes between Demonic Tactics and Master Channeler. Demonic Tactics is the best option, pulling ahead of Master Channeler by a little. However Master Channeler still does great damage and supplies healing, so can be helpful if you feel like you need to be a little bit more healthy.

Metamorphosis is the only option for Rune choice here. You can't tank unless in your Demon form.

Dance of the Wicked is the best option for your boot rune. This supplies a large chunk of dodge to both you and your demon equal to your spell crit everytime you crit, which is a lot. Not only that, but when you crit, you also receive 2% mana back.

Grimoire of Synergy was also recently nerfed and now Shadow and Flame is the best option for the consistant 10% damage.

Summon Felguard is the main choice for this build, since your Felguard will be a LARGE part of your DPS with this build, taking talents that significantly increase it's damage. .

Pandemic is the only option really to pick for the Head slot rune. This allows ALL of your DoT's to crit. The more you crit, the more damage you do as well as more procs of Dance of the Wicked

For your ring runes Fire Specialization and Defense Specialization are the new ring runes and both of these should be used at all times.

This second build is the Demonic Sacrifice and Emberstorm build, which is more beginner friendly build. You're slightly more squishy than the main Master Demonologist build and you don't scale as well as the other specs either, but you have the coziest rotation taht can't be messed up, if you're trying to learn or maybe just cruise through the Raid.

• Head — Pandemic
• Bracers — Immolation Aura
• Gloves — Metamorphosis
• Pants — Demonic Grace or Demonic Pact
• Chest — Demonic Tactics or Master Channeler
• Belt — Shadow and Flame
• Boot — Dance of the Wicked
• Cloak — Infernal Armor or Mark of Chaos
• Ring 1 — Fire Specialization
• Ring 2 — Defense Specialization

This last build is more niche and for anyone who prefers the Nightfall gameplay. This build takes Nightfall and then goes down the Destruction tree to pick up Emberstorm

• Head — Pandemic
• Bracers — Immolation Aura
• Gloves — Metamorphosis
• Pants — Demonic Grace or Demonic Pact
• Chest — Demonic Tactics or Master Channeler
• Belt — Shadow and Flame
• Boot — Dance of the Wicked
• Cloak — Infernal Armor or Mark of Chaos
• Ring 1 — Fire Specialization
• Ring 2 — Defense Specialization

More Engravings are likely to come out as we reach higher level caps, so make sure to checkout our general Runes guide to get a better understanding of what all tools you have available to your Warlock.