Working on updates for May 8 patch still.
Updated for April 25th patch.
I wanted to put some info out there that I hadn't seen talked about much yet.
-My notes conclusions are in italics, these are basically just predictions and gut reactions to very limited data about how a max-dps pve rotation/priority might be built. Also please correct or test further any information here and I'll try to update it.
Proposed rotation/priority My current (this changes everytime I can think of an improvement) one would be to use cooldowns as soon as possible and enter/leave meta based around HoG uptime when up to 500f. I'm not sure that this is the absolute best priority for dps for this patch, but since the spec is broken in some ways I haven't worked on it too hard. Once it seems more finalized I will completely optimize it.
Use Felguard
Dark Soul: Knowledge
Grimoire: Imp, if DS:K is up or if it will take you 1m or more to get into Meta and use other CDs.
Doomguard, if DS:K is up
Imp Swarm, if DS:K is up
Hand of Gul'dan, drop Meta for this. (Don't use Chaos Wave (Meta's version of HoG) unless you need burst.
Corruption
Metamorphosis, if over ~500 fury, can stay in Meta down to 0f if you will be ending the fight by that point.
Doom, if the fight will last long enough for two ticks.
Caster form, if under ~40 fury
Soul Fire, if Molten Core is up.
Demonic Slash
Shadowbolt
Life Tap, if under 20% mana.
Glyphs Demonology might use for PVE, bolded green ones give dps increases potentially:
-Major
Imp Swarm: Summons 5 Wild Imps and disables Demonic Calling if Imp Swarm is on cd.
Dark Soul: Gives 3 Mastery when Dark Soul is on cd. Dark Soul will be 27 Mastery instead of 30 though.
Demon Hunting: Gives Dark Apotheosis "tanking" stance and its abilities.
Demon Training: Gives each pet a minor upgrade. Voidwalker gets 20% more hp is the best one and it is bugged currently.
Demonic Circle: Reduce Circle cd by 4s.
Everlasting Affliction: Refreshing Corruption and Doom extends their duration instead of reseting. I need to test this one still.
Fear: Feared targets no longer run away. Gives Fear a 5s cd.
Healthstone: Turns Healthstone into a 10s HoT but heals for double.
Life Tap: Absorbs 15% hp instead of hurting you for 15% of your hp. It stacks and the absorb lasts 30s.
Shadowflame: Slows 50% instead of 30% but removes the charges from Hand of Gul'dan. Doesn't work yet.
Siphon Life: Corruption heals for 4% of its damage.
-Minor
Carrion Swarm: No longer has knockback.
Eye of Kilrogg: Eye can fly and drop Demonic Circle, but the Eye is no longer stealthed. Really useful while leveling in a few situations.
Hand of Gul'dan: Can be targeted with reticle now.
Health Funnel: Heals 15% of pet's hp. Gives Health Funnel a 10s cd.
Ritual of Souls: Reduces mana cost by 70%.
Shadow Bolt: Splits Shadow Bolt into three. Should be good for proc uptimes.
Demonic Fury (purple rage-like secondary power) does not decay in Dark Apotheosis while in combat.
Dropping to 0 fury in DA does not take you out of DA.
Dropping below 40 fury in Meta will take you out of it.
Leaving a Meta while In Combat holds your fury.
Leaving DA will take you down to 200f while in combat.
Demonic Fury decays by roughly 12/2s while in Metamorphosis.
Out of combat Demonic Fury will refill to 200/1000. This takes about 15s if you are at 0.
Demonic Fury decays 30sec after combat.
-There will be a few types of fury situations when starting a boss fight:
*you are at 200 fury from just idling for 15s
*you are at 1000 and pulling a boss within 30s of finishing trash
Pets have 200 Energy. Seems to regen at 10/s.
They will auto attack until they have enough energy to cast their main attack in addition to enough to use their special attack.
Example: Felguard will use only auto attack between 0 and 120 energy since 120 gives him enough to be able to Felstorm on command and enough to cast his Legion Strike main attack.
-If Felstorm has more than 6s left on CD, manually using Legion Strike won't let him sit on that 60 unused energy.
Succubus's Whiplash and Shivarra's Fellash do less damage than listed on the tooltip. (Bug)
Doomguard and Wild Imps require a target to summon. They also don't switch by putting BoD on another target or by using Assist Stance or with Petattack command.
Wild Imp passive gives a buff called Demonic Calling that summons a Wild Imp on next Shadow Bolt cast. You get this buff again 20s after your Shadow Bolt cast started.
A glyph (Imp Swarm) for Wild Imp's allows you to summon 5 imps on a 2m cd at the cost of 150f. The above Demonic Calling mechanic, is disabled if Imp Swarm is on CD.
Wild Imps each shoot 10 Firebolts which gain 5f. The will die after 10 casts or 2m.
-Using the passive is gain of 100f over 2m, but the ability to stack Imp Swarm with Dark Soul. Combining this with being in Meta and getting Molten Core procs seems like it would be much stronger. You still gain Demonic Calling if Imp Swarm is not on CD, so you will be able to get an extra Imp at the begining of a fight still too.
Grimoire of Service pets use their special ability when summoned (example Axe Toss and Felstorm.)
Pets aren't scaling HP correctly.
Pets' melee attacks are at about 20% of what they should be. (Bug)
Grimoire of Service pets will generate Demonic Fury for the warlock. (Bug)
-For the current patch, use an Imp because of the melee damage bug.
-From my testing it seems that this will be the talent choice for max dps, especially considering you can summon them while procs are active. Having a second on demand second silence/purge etc in addition to burst may make this a choice for PVP too.
Instant Pet Summoning can be done by having your pet die, possibly by reducing his hp by 50% using Sacrificial Pact, and using Demonic Rebirth (passive, 2m cd) to change pets. Summoning a pet while in a demon form is also instant but costs 250 fury (200 for Imp).
-Swapping as part of an opener or rotation won't be a dps increase unless you use Grimoire of Sacrifice (this may not be the case even here.)
Soul Leech is probably a good choice since we will be Life Tapping a bit more than in Cata.
Grimoire of Sacrifice gives 2%hp/5sec and 30% single target damage dmg for 15min. Both of these effects are doubled for the first 15s after using it.
This currently not killing pets. (Bug)
-This temp buff could lead to doing a demon summon and sac every time you enter Meta. Though summoning an Imp (the cheapest pet at 200 fury) will most likely give a dps loss. In a fight like Hagara or Spine, standing still and summoning a pet in preparation for a burn phase could be a good idea. I'll need to investigate the numbers a bit more. In general, if pets are doing more than 15% of your damage this talent won't be used.
Molten Core procs from the debuff (called Shadowflame) applied by Hand of Gul'dan or by hitting a target below 25% hp. MC reduces the cast time and mana/fury cost of Soul Fire by 50%. MC stacks allowing you to build multiple charges.
Void Twilight (Fel Flame in Meta) is not a targeted spell, it is similar to Shadowflame and you must face the direction you want to aim it.
-Since it hits all enemies directly in front of you for 40 yards it could potentially be a decent AoE in specific circumstances.
Hand of Gul'dan has 2 charges and hits the selected target, can be placed with a targeting circle if glyphed, and use once for each charge after every GCD. When it lands it does AoE damage and applies a movement slowing debuff, Shadowflame dot, that can stack to 30/60% as charges hit the target. The new Shadowflame debuff dot generates 2 fury per tick. It seems to tick 7 times over about 6.5s.Unusable in Metamorphosis now.
-We will most likely start a fight using 1 charge every 6 sec as the debuff falls off and then use a single charge as the the cooldown generates one, we can actually cast about 1s early since it has a placement and travel time.
-For AoE we might save all 2 up.
-Since this generates fury it will be best to spread this out on to as many targets as possible.
Touch of Chaos is the name of the auto attack spell in Meta and Dark Apotheosis. It refreshes Corruption and hits every 1s.
Tooltip for the spell used in Meta and DA says it has a 20 yard range but it actually only hits in melee range. (Bug)
Metamorphosis can reach a deadzone where you have enough fury to stay in it but not enough to cast any spells. Corruption and Wild Imps can out pace the fury decay but you wont be able to cast any spells.
-This could lead to complexities with the rotation and warlocks will need to be prepared to toggle out of Meta to keep their dps from dropping. Even using a fury generating priority, triggering Meta with only 200 is most likely not going to be be optimal, although shifting in and out of Meta to get high Immolation Aura uptime (with many available targets) or some other single spell before falling out could possibly work if handled correctly.
Demonic Leap no longer does damage and will also carry you in any direction you are currently moving.
It will sometimes not activate the cooldown if used while jumping straight up while standing still. (Bug)
It will sometimes reset the cool down if used while falling from a jump straight up while standing still. (Bug)
It will sometimes take you backwards if used while running forward and jumping and using while in the air. (Bug)
Fury Table: Much of the testing below is very limited and not all of the columns have been filled out yet. I wanted to see where fury is coming from and how it could be spent. There is also some pet dps info since that relates to potential energy costs and therefore fury generation. I didn't count crits in the case of the Grimoire pets, they can crit, but I haven't determined their crit rate yet so just stripped crits from their damage totals. I was using the Demon Training glyph for these tests (gives Imp 50% cast time reduction.)
The [D] indicates a demon form version of an ability.
-Felguard is most likely the best pet to use for Demonology since it does the most damage single target, has the most attacks, and has AoE potential.
Source
Spell
CD
Energy
Fury Gain
Fury Loss
Notes
Out of Combat
10/s
Metamorphosis
12/2s Imp/Fel Imp Firebolt 40 8
VW/Voidlord Torment 50 10
VW/Voidlord Shadow Shield 10 60 0
Pet must be hit Suc/Shivarra Lash of Pain 60 12
Suc/Shivarra Whiplash 40 0
Fh/Observer Shadow Bite 60 12
Fh/Observer Devour Magic 25 0 0
If spell is purged, pet gains 60 Energy,
Clone Magic (Observer) could spell steal a dps increasing buffFg/Wrathguard Legion Strike 60 12
Fg/Wrathguard Persuit 8 0 0
Weapon damage if target is >8yd away Fg/Wrathguard Felstorm 45 60 0
Infernal 600 0
Doomguard 600 0
Grimoire:Imp 120 72
118k: 9x Firebolt(13.2k) Grimoire:Voidwalker 120 70
71.1k: 1x Suffering (0), 7x Torments(6.5k), 16x melee(1.6k) Grimoire:Succubus 120 60
112k: 1x Whiplash(7k), 5x Lash of Pain (15.8k), 16x melee(1.6k)
Grimoire:Felhunter 120 72
69.2k: 1x Spell Lock (0), 5x Shadow Bite(7.8k), 14x melee(1.6k) Grimoire:Felguard 120 72
46.4k: 6x Legion Strike(1.6k), 7x Felstorm(1.6k), 16x melee(1.6k)
Summon Pet [D]
250
Instant pet summon. (Not Imp) Summon Imp [D]
200
Instant Imp summon. Fury Ward [TP] 50+
50 fury if 1% hp is absorbed, increases by
(previous cost)*1.5 for each additional
1% hp prevented.Drain Life 0
Drain Life [D] 0
30
Harvest Life 0
Gain 10 per tick, multiple targets give more fury. Harvest Life [D] 0
30
Gain 10 per tick, multiple targets give more fury. Fel Flame 15
Void Ray [D]
40
Fel Flame turns into this spell while in a demon form. Hand of Gul'dan 0,15 12
10 per tick, 7 ticks over 6.5s Chaos Wave [D] 200 Hand of Gul'dan turns into this spell while in a demon form. Soulfire 30
Only use when Molten Core is up Soulfire [D]
50
Only use when Molten Core is up, can't
autoattack/Touch of Chaos while casting,
so actually an oppurtunity cost of 10f more.Doom 60
Corruption 12
12 per tick, 7 ticks over 20s Imp Swarm 60 250 150 5 Fury per Firebolt, 5x Imps, 10x Bolts per Imp Shadow Bolt 25
Demonic Slash [Meta]
40 Rain of Fire 0
Immolation Aura [D]
250 Hellfire turns into this spell while in a demon form. Touch of Chaos [D] 5
Auto attack. Both in Threatening Presence and Meta. Aura of Enfeeblement [D] 100
Curse of Weakness turns into this spell while in a demon form. Aura of the Elements [D] 200 Curse of the Elements turns into this spell while in a demon form. Demonic Leap 100 These few utility spells seem to have too high of a cost.
Demonic Circle: Summon [D] 100 These few utility spells seem to have too high of a cost.
Demonic Circle: Teleport [D] 100 These few utility spells seem to have too high of a cost.
Dark Apotheosis 100 Costs 100 to enter form. Sleep [D] 60 Fear turns into this spell while in a demon form.