[5.2] Demonology Warlock Guide

[xskarma]

Hi warlock forums. Normally I just read, but I decided to actually make an account and post because I've got a question I am hoping someone can answer.

Normally I play affliction for PVE, and Destro for PVP. I've not spent a lot of time with the MoP iteration of Demo, but my raid leader is wanting me to play it for heroic sha of fear progression, as it's damage on the dread spawns is better than affliction, and we have slows under control and don't need me soulburning exhaustion.

I've heard about using meta to significantly boost the damage of the shadowflame dot from HoG, but I am not sure how to execute this properly. I realize this is a dumb question, but I'd rather ask and make sure I have things right so I can get plenty of practice in before our next raid night. Am I correct in assuming that you cast HoG and then pop into meta during the spell's travel time?

If someone could spare five minutes and break down the optimal way to utilize HoG, I would really, really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

First of, welcome to the forums, but I have to start with the most common reprimande on these forums: please search for a recent topic to post your question in. In this case the Demonology guide sticky on the top of the board.

I've merged the thread there, please feel free to ask any Demo questions here, there's plenty of knowledgeable locks here that can tell you anything you need to know.

[Lemie]

Is the "3036 - Extra tick of Doom" with the raid haste of 5%?

Cause I have around 3250 haste atm (playing Destruction normally) and my Doom ticks 4 times.

What's up with that?

[gildelicil]

Is the "3036 - Extra tick of Doom" with the raid haste of 5%?

Cause I have around 3250 haste atm (playing Destruction normally) and my Doom ticks 4 times.

What's up with that?

Yes, that's the raid buffed amount. If you don't have the raid buff, I think the haste cap is 5312. So find yourself a spriest, boomkin, ele shaman, or a sporebat-toting hunter.

[Felfire1]

Im confused. Should we be refreshing Corruption by popping in and out of meta and spamming some ToC's? Or should we just stay out of meta and cast corruption? Im confused.

[zinnin]

Im confused. Should we be refreshing Corruption by popping in and out of meta and spamming some ToC's? Or should we just stay out of meta and cast corruption? Im confused.

For the most part you should be refreshing Corruption in meta. There are some situations where you might not want to spend fury or put meta on cooldown (even though its only 10s) and will want to just extend via fel flame until you get into meta. It is pretty safe to just say refresh via ToC though.

[Bartwentyfive]

Hey guys,

I just started playing my warlock again and geared it up to ilvl 507, playing affliction in the raids. i played a mage before, but had to reroll due to our raid setup. i got gear very fast since i'm in a 16/16 heroic raiding guild and im generally a good player, i'm just not that used to playing a warlock yet, especially demo.

Affliction is really easy and I'm used to it and can play it pretty well, but when it comes to demo i'm kind of lost.

My opener as demo is the following:

pre-cast shadowbolt
pre-pot
hand of gul'dan (apply shadowflame dot)
corruption
imp swarm
grimoire of service: felguard
hand of gul'dan (apply shadowflame dot 2x stack)
pop engineering gloves + dark soul
demonform
doom
doomguard
spam touch of chaos

then, when there's 4-5 seconds left on dark soul i switch out of meta and cast 1-2 soulfires, cast a hand of gul'dan and switch back into meta so i can still benefit from dark soul a little bit more

is this opening the correct way to do it?

another question: on sha of fear heroic in phase 2 (or basically any other aoe situation where there's a lot of adds):

should i use hand of gul'dan (shadowflame) on the adds (2 stack weaving) or should i use chaoswave on them? is there any number of adds when chaoswave is better or is hog always better?

thanks in advance!

[Jessicka]

Since Chaos Wave was nerfed, HoG is pretty much always better unless CW would basically one shot things.

[Viggers]

Hey guys,

I just started playing my warlock again and geared it up to ilvl 507, playing affliction in the raids. i played a mage before, but had to reroll due to our raid setup. i got gear very fast since i'm in a 16/16 heroic raiding guild and im generally a good player, i'm just not that used to playing a warlock yet, especially demo.

Affliction is really easy and I'm used to it and can play it pretty well, but when it comes to demo i'm kind of lost.

My opener as demo is the following:

pre-cast shadowbolt
pre-pot
hand of gul'dan (apply shadowflame dot)
corruption
imp swarm
grimoire of service: felguard
hand of gul'dan (apply shadowflame dot 2x stack)
pop engineering gloves + dark soul
demonform
doom
doomguard
spam touch of chaos

then, when there's 4-5 seconds left on dark soul i switch out of meta and cast 1-2 soulfires, cast a hand of gul'dan and switch back into meta so i can still benefit from dark soul a little bit more

is this opening the correct way to do it?

another question: on sha of fear heroic in phase 2 (or basically any other aoe situation where there's a lot of adds):

should i use hand of gul'dan (shadowflame) on the adds (2 stack weaving) or should i use chaoswave on them? is there any number of adds when chaoswave is better or is hog always better?

thanks in advance!

i too really struggle when i switch to demo, but one thing you can do is double cast doom when it is very buffed, so for example at the start with pot, DS and all trinkets up, cast doom twice to get 90 seconds of mega doom damage.

i have a question of my own, what is the best way to use molten core charges? i know not to use it in meta except for execute or burst, but should i wait for trinket procs to use it? or should i just use it as and when i can and use trinket procs to go into meta for a few ToC?

[Lemie]

[...]HoG is pretty much always better unless CW would basically one shot things.

Why is Chaos Wave better if it one shot things?
Have I missed something?

[Kink]

Why is Chaos Wave better if it one shot things?
Have I missed something?

Chaos wave hits harder instant damage then that of HoG, so if the targets aren't going to live with shadowflame or need to be slowed, Chaos wave comes into play.

[Lemie]

Chaos wave hits harder instant damage then that of HoG, so if the targets aren't going to live with shadowflame or need to be slowed, Chaos wave comes into play.

Thanks! (10lettersyo)

[gildelicil]

Hey guys,

I just started playing my warlock again and geared it up to ilvl 507, playing affliction in the raids. i played a mage before, but had to reroll due to our raid setup. i got gear very fast since i'm in a 16/16 heroic raiding guild and im generally a good player, i'm just not that used to playing a warlock yet, especially demo.

Affliction is really easy and I'm used to it and can play it pretty well, but when it comes to demo i'm kind of lost.

My opener as demo is the following:

pre-cast shadowbolt
pre-pot
hand of gul'dan (apply shadowflame dot)
corruption
imp swarm
grimoire of service: felguard
hand of gul'dan (apply shadowflame dot 2x stack)
pop engineering gloves + dark soul
demonform
doom
doomguard
spam touch of chaos

then, when there's 4-5 seconds left on dark soul i switch out of meta and cast 1-2 soulfires, cast a hand of gul'dan and switch back into meta so i can still benefit from dark soul a little bit more

is this opening the correct way to do it?

another question: on sha of fear heroic in phase 2 (or basically any other aoe situation where there's a lot of adds):

should i use hand of gul'dan (shadowflame) on the adds (2 stack weaving) or should i use chaoswave on them? is there any number of adds when chaoswave is better or is hog always better?

thanks in advance!

The T-15 2P bonus will help with this. While Dark Soul is active, your abilities cost 30% less demonic fury, so you should be able to say in meta the whole duration. I haven't mastered the demo opener yet, myself. It just doesn't flow as much as I would like it to.

[zinnin]

Chaos wave hits harder instant damage then that of HoG, so if the targets aren't going to live with shadowflame or need to be slowed, Chaos wave comes into play.

Small point; Chaos wave still has the 'same' 6s slow that HoG has.

then, when there's 4-5 seconds left on dark soul i switch out of meta and cast 1-2 soulfires, cast a hand of gul'dan and switch back into meta so i can still benefit from dark soul a little bit more

With that opener you should be able to get away with only dropping out to cast 1 soulfire and maybe the HoG and be able to go right back into meta to finish it out.

i have a question of my own, what is the best way to use molten core charges? i know not to use it in meta except for execute or burst, but should i wait for trinket procs to use it? or should i just use it as and when i can and use trinket procs to go into meta for a few ToC?

This kind of depends on what trinkets you have. For example; with 4pc and relic of Yu'lon the majority of the fury I generate will be used during DS with not much left over for Yu'lon procs. This means that it is in generally a good idea to save some MC procs to use for when Yu'lon is up because I can't really afford to go into Meta during them.

So far my testing in PTR shows kind of the opposite; with 4pc t15 very little of my overall fury is actually spent in DS which means that I generally have plenty of fury for every single proc that I get and don't really need to bank soulfires at all. On the other hand if trinkets in 5.2 really release with the crazy random rPPM mechanic it might be a good idea to sit on a few MC procs just in case you gain a proc right during a few short times meta is on CD. But now im kind of rambling on.

[Viggers]

so basically zinnin, i want to use meta during procs if i can, if not i want to use soul fire during procs? as a kind of TL;DR

[zinnin]

so basically zinnin, i want to use meta during procs if i can, if not i want to use soul fire during procs? as a kind of TL;DR

Basically that is correct; if you can you want to treat MC as a 3rd resource to dump during procs. With a 30s duration and the ability to stack to 10 it isn't too difficult to sit on them for at least a short amount of time.

[Bartwentyfive]

thanks so far.

one more thing with the opener:

why dont we use imps and service after popping dark soul and meta?

for example:

precast sb
hog
corr
hog
dark soul
meta
doom
imps
service
touch of chaos spam

is there any reason for it? both spells would deal a lot more damage if we used them after DS and meta, no?

[zinnin]

is there any reason for it? both spells would deal a lot more damage if we used them after DS and meta, no?

None of our pets snapshot their stats anymore. Imps take nearly 30s to cast their 10 firebolt, so they aren't going to get 100% uptime on DS. Grimoire: Felguard lasts 22s and its first cast is Axe Toss, so by the time you cast it starts Fel Storm DS is going to be up buffing it. Another part of it is that without the fury generated by the Imps and Grimoire we wouldn't have as much fury to spend on the initial DS.

[jokern]

Are we supposed to open with doomguard? Dosent he get extra dmg o targets under 25%?

[Jainzar]

Are we supposed to open with doomguard? Dosent he get extra dmg o targets under 25%?

yea, it does. there's only a few fights where this is the best situation to use the doomguard in, though.

reason for that is that the doomguard profits from bloodlust, and there is quite a few fight this tier that we start with bloodlust, hence using it in the opener is better.

also there are some fights where the boss does not live longer than 1 minute (doomguard duration) once he is under 20%, so on those fights it's also better to use it at the beginning, because the doomguard will profit more from the guaranteed proccs when opening the fight.

then there is fights where you can use it twice because the fight is >10min. empress hc and sha heroic would be an example. you can open with doomguard here and use it again in the execute phase of the fight, both times with bloodlust/heroism.

the only fights i can think of we use it at 20% boss hp and that are <10min are feng heroic and protectors elite heroic, amber shaper heroic and maybe zorlok heroic, depending on your raid dps.

[Jessicka]

yea, it does. there's only a few fights where this is the best situation to use the doomguard in, though.

reason for that is that the doomguard profits from bloodlust, and there is quite a few fight this tier that we start with bloodlust, hence using it in the opener is better.

also there are some fights where the boss does not live longer than 1 minute (doomguard duration) once he is under 20%, so on those fights it's also better to use it at the beginning, because the doomguard will profit more from the guaranteed proccs when opening the fight.

then there is fights where you can use it twice because the fight is >10min. empress hc and sha heroic would be an example. you can open with doomguard here and use it again in the execute phase of the fight, both times with bloodlust/heroism.

the only fights i can think of we use it at 20% boss hp and that are <10min are feng heroic and protectors elite heroic, amber shaper heroic and maybe zorlok heroic, depending on your raid dps.

Doomguards are capped at casting 17 Doom Bolts, so they don't actually gain anything from Heroism.