[5.4] Demonology Warlock Guide

[Deleted]

I bank some procs to use in Meta DS 5-6 maybe, rest I use on trinkets in caster to fish for procs and manage Fury. Tend not to use SF in meta outside of Dark Soul unless Heroism.

How do you (and obv the rest of you) deal with execute?

I personally just switch to soul fire completely, in caster form and in meta. Do people prefer to just soul fire in caster and maintain higher uptime in meta via ToC or do you do the same as me?

I know some people don't like to SF in meta unless they have a haste proc, I personally favour 14k haste purely from an enjoyment perspective, curious how others approach SF.

[Crisius]

I miss when the 4-set was 20% procc-chance on the PTR, with a maximum of 3 stacks shadowflame and UVLS pre-nerf.

[Jessicka]

How do you (and obv the rest of you) deal with execute?

I personally just switch to soul fire completely, in caster form and in meta. Do people prefer to just soul fire in caster and maintain higher uptime in meta via ToC or do you do the same as me?

I know some people don't like to SF in meta unless they have a haste proc, I personally favour 14k haste purely from an enjoyment perspective, curious how others approach SF.

I use ToC to keep Corruption ticking, but otherwise Soul Fire spam all the way, obviously with an eye to the cooldown timers over how much Fury to bank. Also stop banking MC proc before the execute, because there's no point.

[Deleted]

I use ToC to keep Corruption ticking, but otherwise Soul Fire spam all the way, obviously with an eye to the cooldown timers over how much Fury to bank. Also stop banking MC proc before the execute, because there's no point.

Yeah pretty much same, cool.

[Kalshen]

Awesome I felt like I was wasting the proc a lot but I think it's just getting used to demo again. Have only used demo once or twice since the patch dropped.

[Werst]

MC charges are the kind of thing I bank around 7-8 to spend in meta when I get procs. I spend them in caster when I go 8+ and aim to spend my last charge as the boss is hitting execute range. In execute range I use only soulfire with maybe a ToC to extend corruption (if target will live long enough) or if I have to move. If I run out of DF I just keep soulfiring in caster which gets DF back up. It just becomes a minigame around procs/boss HP/time to die lol.

[Deleted]

Would you guys recommend using demo on Malk HC (ilvl 569 HC PBoI / Flex KTT)
Felt quite clunky that i had to cancel alot of chaos bolts due to moving and thus missing out on procs.

Any ideas?

[Werst]

@Tryana: Demo is good if you time your HoG hits when the adds get grouped up and felstorm. Aff works if you bounce SS around if they will live long enough or just are on movement duty. Aff is really the only spec that can take full advantage of trinket procs guaranteed since it can SB:SS snapshot the buffs and MG it on the move. Demo can snapshot a doom and ToC but can't soulfire and destro is the most hurt since chaosbolts with/without procs are millions in difference.

[Deleted]

@Tryana: Demo is good if you time your HoG hits when the adds get grouped up and felstorm. Aff works if you bounce SS around if they will live long enough or just are on movement duty. Aff is really the only spec that can take full advantage of trinket procs guaranteed since it can SB:SS snapshot the buffs and MG it on the move. Demo can snapshot a doom and ToC but can't soulfire and destro is the most hurt since chaosbolts with/without procs are millions in difference.

Alright, so probaly better of as Aff then, we do 10 man so the add kinda melts and doesn't apear to often.

Thanks mate!

[Killem]

Would you guys recommend using demo on Malk HC (ilvl 569 HC PBoI / Flex KTT)
Felt quite clunky that i had to cancel alot of chaos bolts due to moving and thus missing out on procs.

Any ideas?

From personal expirience, I would reccomend demo, since I had the same issue. (Knockback or having to move during strong proccs)

In addition to this I was running a very high haste build. (17204 haste for +6 Shadowflame ticks during a +30% haste buff)
I have recorded that fight and I warn you, it's far from perfect, but you might get an impression what demo looks like in this fight with high haste. (link to youtubechannel in signature)

[Mazda]

Had such a better clear as Demo last week. My HoG weaving was out of whack tonight. Must be the holidays!

[Deleted]

From personal expirience, I would reccomend demo, since I had the same issue. (Knockback or having to move during strong proccs)

In addition to this I was running a very high haste build. (17204 haste for +6 Shadowflame ticks during a +30% haste buff)
I have recorded that fight and I warn you, it's far from perfect, but you might get an impression what demo looks like in this fight with high haste. (link to youtubechannel in signature)

Will check it out before raid, would you say that high haste is needed or is the 14xxx breakpoint enough?

[Deleted]

I'm gonna play Demo on as much as possible today, running 14880 which is +8 ticks of doom with BL/Meta/Zerking, only 7 haste higher than the usual 14873 for +3 Shadowflame ticks.

The other lock in my guild prefers 8097 > Crit and I did get decentish results with it last week, but I personally prefer the fluidity of higher haste so we'll see how it goes later. He's got about 10 ilvl on me so probably won't be much of a competition, but hoping to beat the similar geared destro on some fights at least.

[Werst]

I'd be curious to see how it went with 2x demo locks each at very different haste points... The last time I did demo for farm clear I was at 15K haste > M > C and DF didn't feel so starved compared to 8097 ballpark. My gut is that if you ToC a lot then 8097 is better while if you are really good with soulfire useage then 15K'ish haste is the stronger option. FWIW sims predict the 15K haste ballpark to win vs 8097 at the same gearing level. (about 575 at the time)

[Deleted]

I'd be curious to see how it went with 2x demo locks each at very different haste points... The last time I did demo for farm clear I was at 15K haste > M > C and DF didn't feel so starved compared to 8097 ballpark. My gut is that if you ToC a lot then 8097 is better while if you are really good with soulfire useage then 15K'ish haste is the stronger option. FWIW sims predict the 15K haste ballpark to win vs 8097 at the same gearing level. (about 575 at the time)

Probably not the best example considering myself and crisius were 9 ilvl apart, but here is the log from tonight where both of us played Demo on Iron Juggernaut 25H. I was running 14.8k haste with BBoY, whereas Crisius was at 8097 with KTT.

Overall a 30k difference in dps. Not sure if you can really glean anything useful from it, but feel free to pick it apart as you see fit.

Regardless, I personally prefer running a higher haste build as I like to soulfire in meta a lot when I get procs. Crisius prefers 8097 and only soulfires in meta when he has both an int and a haste proc (at least I think that's what he said).

I dropped down to 8097 for thok, though that fight is a different kettle of fish entirely so it's whatever.

Edit: Sims also put 14.8k haste as nearly 10k dps higher than 8097 for me.

[Crisius]

*snip*

Fuck off linking my bad, bad Juggernaut parse for public display. ;P

That being said, I feel a 14k haste build seems better than 8097 for single-target. In the same run (though that didn't get logged, duh), I did do 429k on Malkorok with a 8097 haste build, even though that aswell was far from perfect play.

[Werst]

I too saw a 10K'ish jump from 8097 ballpark to 15K haste ballpark per simC "prediction". Though I still think each is very viable and depends on your playstyle. If you tend to soulfire "fish" for procs and ToC then 8097 will suit you better. Conversely if you are good at managing your MC stacks soulfire really does pull ahead (at least on paper perfect world blah blah)

[Killem]

Will check it out before raid, would you say that high haste is needed or is the 14xxx breakpoint enough?

I might say 17xxx was just an overkill and the 14xxx breakpoint for shadowflame should be sufficient without losing too much mastery and int.

[Deleted]

I might say 17xxx was just an overkill and the 14xxx breakpoint for shadowflame should be sufficient without losing too much mastery and int.

Awesome, will try it out on sunday raid and will report my findings!

Thanks mate

[Teye]

100% positive it stacked to 3 on late PTR. Guess not enough people have played it since that fateful day on September 22nd to actually notice.

Confirming that it stacked to 3 up until about 1 week before raid testing began. Never went back to 3 after that.