Page 1 of 152
1
2
3
11
51
101
... LastLast
  1. #1
    Brewmaster Zinnin's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    California
    Posts
    1,359

    [5.4] Demonology Warlock Guide

    The 6.0 Demo Guide has started HERE, keep in mind this is a WIP and may not always be accurate




    1. Introduction
      • Welcome To Demonology!
      • FAQs
    2. Gearing
      • Quick Gearing
      • Stats
      • Picking a Haste Breakpoint
      • Enchants and Gems
      • Racial Bonuses
      • Trinkets
    3. Talents and Glyphs
      • Level 75 Talents
      • Level 90 Talents
      • Imp Swarm
      • Other Glyphs
      • Harvest Life
    4. Rotation
      • Single Target & Cleave
      • AoE Rotation
      • Fury Generation
      • Mechanics
    5. Change Log
      • Patch Changes
      • Guide Changes




    Welcome to Demonology!
    This guide will try to collect everything related to PvE Demonology play, and present it in a quick but accurate layout. Everything in here is correct as far as I am aware, if you notice anything in here that is incorrect please bring it up so I can keep it updated .

    Demonology is a spec that can give unparalleled control over damage and mobility, properlly used this spec can produce some of the top damage in a variety of scenarios. Your Primary pets, Wild Imps, Doomguard, Molten Core, Demonic Fury, and Dark Soul give you insane amounts of control on when and how you are doing damage.

    If you are a person that generally enjoys have many powerful cooldowns and can plan out your fight ahead of time then I highly suggest that you give Demonology a try. Be aware though, that Demonic Fury is a relatively slow building resource, if you are the kind of player that plays mainly in the moment then I would suggest Affliction or Destro.


    FAQ

    Q: Does Demonology Require good gear to play?
    A: It doesn't require good gear, but good trinkets can make a huge difference.

    Q: Can Demonology compete against Destro / Affliction?
    A: On single target it is extremely competitive, in other occasions such as 3-4 Target Cleave it falls short to Affliction (as does every other spec in the game). However, compared to Non-Warlock specs it is very strong still.

    Q: Do you need Legendary items to play Demo (Cloak / Gem)?
    A: No

    Q: Is Grimoire of Sacrifice viable?
    A: No

    Q: Should I use Glyph of Imp Swarm?
    A: If you are a Troll it may be a solid option, if you aren't then most likely no. More info HERE.



    Quick Gearing

    Disclaimer:
    So one of the things that players generally want right away in a guide is a quick and simple run down of what stats to gear for. For Demonology this is basically impossible because our secondary stats are so close together that depending on what trinkets you are using, what talents, if you have four piece, of just the level of you gear that Crit, Mastery, and Haste can all rotate being your top stat.

    Quick and simple stat guide:

    • Intellect
    • Hit / Expertise
    • Haste to a Shadowflame or Doom Breakpoint:
      • 3036 (Doom)
      • 8064 (Shadowflame)
      • 14873 (Shadowflame)
      • 21596 (Shadowflame)
    • Mastery
    • Crit


    Stats

    Intellect
    This is our primary stat, everything we do scales with it.

    Hit / Expertise
    While some warlock specs (Affliction) can get away with not being hit capped, Demonology cannot. You need 15% or 5100 rating. With the release of MoP 1 point of Expertise is equal to 1 point of Hit.

    Crit
    Increases your crit chance by 1% every 600 rating. Soulfire now crits 100% of the time, and gains a damage increase based on your crit percentage, which makes this slightly less RNG then it used to be. Also, whenever Doom critically hits you spawn 1 Wild Imp that does good damage and will generate 50 fury over its duration.

    Mastery
    Increases basically all of our pets damage and increases the damage of metamorphosis by a solid amount. Also increases the damage while we are in caster form by a small amount. Unlike cataclysm, in Mists of Pandaria none of our abilities snapshot mastery.
    1% Pet damage: ~600 Rating
    1% Caster form damage: ~600 Rating
    1% Metamorphosis damage: ~200 Rating

    Haste
    Haste rating increases the speed we cast, the rate our DoTs tick, how fast our Primary pets gain energy, and also decrease the cooldown of Imp Swarm and Demonic Calling. Touch of chaos is at a 1s GCD and is not effected by haste. You will need 425 rating for 1% haste.

    Haste will generally drop in value after hitting a break-point that includes both Doom and Shadowflame. Which break-point is best is going to depend on your ilvl and how much haste is naturally on your gear. I recommend you hit the highest haste break-point that you can without sacrificing socket bonuses.


    Picking a Haste Breakpoint


    Quick Note:
    I personally recommend going to the highest haste point that you can without sacrificing socket bonuses, however you can focus more on Mastery if you choose, the method of picking a haste point if you choose Mastery is the exact same you just pick a lower one.

    Picking a Haste Breakpoint is actually very simple, but since there are so many different Haste cooldowns available what you should be shooting for can vary a lot from person to person. I highly reccomend using Ask Mr. Robot's Haste tool HERE

    First off Unchecked Corruption, you should basically just never worry about corruption breakpoints.

    Under Temporary Buffs check off every single buff that you have available to you. First pick the Shadow flame break point that looks to be closest attainable with your gear level. For most people this will be either 8064 or 14873. Once you've done that see if there is a Doom Break Point near that, this will be your opener Doom.

    For Example:
    This player is a Worgen and is trying to choose between 8064 and 14873. If he picked 8064 he could easily jump to 8397 to get an extra tick of Doom during his initial Meta Gem and Bloodlust Doom. If he chose 14873 the opener Doom is under that so he doesn't need to go any higher.



    Gems and Enchants


    Enchants


    *As Demonology warlocks, we have a lot of mobility and can probably get away without having a run speed enchant on our boots, but I wouldn't recommend doing so.

    Gems

    Haste Focused

    Mastery Focused

    At very low gear levels it might not be a good idea to gem Secondary over Int, however with the gear that is available at this time you shouldn't be in that gear range for very long.


    Racial Bonuses




    Trinkets


    Generally for demonology you want trinkets that have a high value proc, over trinkets with a high passive stat. This is because you have so much control over your cooldowns and can place most of your damage in very small windows throughout the fight.

    5.4 Trinkets
    Left list is single target, right list is 3 targets. It is created using my gear in Simc build 540-3.






    Level 75 Talents

    For Demonology you basically only choose between the Grimoire of Supremacy and Grimoire of Service. In general Grimoire of Service is always slightly ahead of Supremacy, however the difference between the two is pretty small so if you don't want another cooldown to press you can get away with using Supremacy without much issue. Grimoire of Service does have a few perks to it however. On any fight with AoE having an extra Felstorm every two minutes is going to outweigh the 20% increased Felstorm from the Wrathguard. GoServ will also generate 60 fury over its duration, which is a huge help on the opener when you are going to be fury starved.


    Level 90 Talents


    Archimonde's Darkness
    In 5.4 this talent has been reworked significantly. It no longer is a damage reflect and instead modifies our main cooldown, Dark Soul. The talent now makes our Dark Soul cooldown have two charges. The main strength of the this talent comes from the fact you can now sit on a charge of Dark Soul and not get penalized for not using it until it hits its second charge. You 'can' just use it back to back, however I find that isn't optimal in most situations. This talent is strongest on single target fights, anything more then that and Mannoroth's Fury is most likely a better option.

    Kil'Jaeden's Cunning
    In 5.4 this KjC no longer provides complete passive cast while moving with a snare. Instead it lets us cast our base fillers (Shadow Bolt for Demonology) while moving with no snare. Fel Flame is nearly the exact same damage, just at a higher mana cost. There is literally no scenario I can think of where we would take this talent anymore.

    Mannoroth's Fury
    Mannoroth's Fury is going to feel like Demonology's bread and butter talent this tier. It no longer provides a passive AoE radius increase, and instead gives us a 1 minute cooldown that increases the damage of Hellfire and Immolation Aura by 100% and also increases their radius by 500%

    Anything more then 2 targets sustained and this becomes a very solid damage increase to be using on cooldown. The biggest thing to remember when using this talent is that Immolation Aura is a far stronger ability and you will want to make sure you have the proper amounts of fury saved up for its use.


    Imp Swarm

    Glyph Mechanics:
    For the most part the new Major Glyphs are not going to effect your damage at all, with the exception of Imp Swarm.
    Without the Glyph of Imp Swarm you will passively gain the Demonic Calling buff every 20s, which will spawn one Imp. This will grant you 6 Imps \ 2 minutes.

    With the glyph you will passively gain the Demonic Calling buff every 24s. This means you get 5 Imps \ 2 minutes. You also have the option to use Imp Swarm which instantly spawn 4 Imps, but then make it so you cannot gain the Demonic Calling buff for 2 minutes. This means by using the glyph you are instantly losing 1 imp \ 2 minutes by glyphing it. Actually using the Imp Swarm ability lowers this by another 1. However due to the fact that the cooldown of Imp Swarm is snap-shotted the instant you cast it, you can 'game' the ability to some degree using it during haste procs.

    Trolls:
    If you are a troll, and have the Purified Bindings of Immerseus it will almost always be a DPS increase for you to use Imp Swarm. Use it during every PBOI + Dark Soul, and make sure when you have Berserking you using Imp Swarm after using Berserking. Keep in mind this is a very Minor Gain and if you are not comfortable with the Imp Swarm glyph it will not have a noticeable impact on your overall DPS unless the fight is very short.

    Non Trolls:
    In most cases using the Glyph of Imp Swarm will be a small DPS loss (1-2%). However if the fight is under 3-4 minutes it can still be in increase due to how much stronger it makes the opener. It will also be a BURST DPS increase if you need it for something specific in a fight.


    Other Glyphs

    Glyph Of Shadow Bolt
    This glyph is NOT a DPS increase. It is also NOT a DPS loss. It is simply a cosmetic glyph.

    Glyph of Demonic Training
    This glyph doesn't suddenly make your Imp do a bunch of DPS, that is just your recount being shit. Still a very nice boost to your Sac Pact cooldown if you decide to use that talent.

    Glyph of Unending Resolve
    This glyph can me a fairly large DPS increase on Thok, being able to have interrupt protection during every Dark Soul is huge.

    Glyph of Life Tap
    This glyph will allow you to Tap indefinitely on Malkorok and Heroic Tortos. Not really needed outside those fights.


    Harvest Life

    Quick intro to Harvest Life:
    As of 5.4 the 50% increased damage to Drain life and the extreme strength of Procs means that if used properly there is a minor DPS gain to be had when you add in Harvest Life into your rotation. Used to its max potential you can add ~1-2% overall DPS on average, more if you got lucky with strong Procs. I do not recommend that someone still learning Demo try to add this to your rotation. Only attempt to add this if you welcome the extra challenge and are very comfortable with your skill at executing the standard rotation.

    Note: This does not require a lot of haste to be viable, however it can be more of a gain for high haste builds than mastery builds.

    Simple Priority with Harvest Life:
    This is a very basic overview of when it can be an increase to use Harvest Life, but to know for sure you can use my spreadsheet to go over your own trinket procs.
    • If you have a % Haste Proc Up (Bloodlust / Meta Gem / Berskering) - Replace all Touch of Chaos casts with Drain life
    • At the end of a Strong Int Trinket Proc (Black Blood / Bindings / KTT) - Replace Touch of Chaos and Shadow Bolt casts with Drain life
    • At the end of a Fiery Wrath (2pc) Proc - Replace Shadow Bolt with Drain Life
    • At the end of a Black Blood proc in Caster Form (assuming you have low fury or are not refreshing Doom) - Replace Shadow Bolt with Drain Life

    Quick Guide in using DPET Spreadsheet
    Link to spreadsheet HERE

    First off input your UNBUFFED (No Dark Intent) character sheet stats into the character page. After that put your trinket stats into the two trinket slots on the right.


    Once you have done that you can go into the DPET (Damage Per Execute Time) page and compare the different spells. In this example I am comparing the damage of a buffed Drain Life to an unbuffed Shadow bolt. This means that if there is less time then a shadowbolt cast on either of the trinket procs that I should cast Drain life instead of that Shadow Bolt. Keep in mind when comparing ToC and Drain Life DPET that you can get 2-3 ToC casts off in the time it takes to Drain life, so if drain life is a 20k DPET gain, then you are actually gaining up to 60k+.





    Single Target & Cleave

    In general your single target rotation will follow this priority:


    Single target DPS as Demonology is very dependent on good cooldown management, try to stack as many cooldowns together as possible without delaying the use to the point where you might lose uptime on a fight.

    Opening Rotation
    So, there is a few different things that might change up your opener rotation based on if you are using Imp Swarm, GoServ, Mannoroth's Fury of what fight you are doing. However this is the basic Opening rotation that I follow:

    Prepot -> Precast Soulfire -> Hand of Gul'dan -> Corruption -> GoServ -> Berserking / Dark Soul / On Use Cooldowns -> Imp Swarm -> Hand of Gul'dan -> Metamorphosis -> Doom

    If you aren't using Imp Swarm or GoServ you may have room after the corruption to add Shadow Bolts, but this will depend on your haste levels.

    Metamorphosis
    You want to plan to use your Demonic Fury when you have other damage increases like Dark Soul or trinket procs. When you enter into Metamorphosis after using Shadowflame you don't want to stay there for more then 1-2 casts unless you have procs to be spending the fury on. Always keep an eye on your ICD trinkets and Dark Soul Cooldown, there may be times when you get a nice trinket proc, but saving the fury for 30 seconds to be used with stronger cooldowns is worth it.

    Hand of Guldan - Shadowflame Weaving
    The 'correct' way to use Hand of Gul'dan is to wait until there is less then 6s until you get 2 charges of HoG. You then want to use one charge, cast a few spells, and then clip shadowflame right before it runs out so you have ~5s of a one stack shadowflame, then 6s of a 2 stack
    shadowflame. As soon as you cast your second Hand of Gul'dan immediately jump into Metamorphosis to increase the damage of the 2 stack Shadowflame. Doing this correctly will make Hand of Gul'dan out-preform Chaos Wave virtually always, and makes Chaos Wave pretty useless in PvE.

    Soul Fire - Molten Core
    Using MC stacks correctly is a big part of making sure you are optimizing your damage as much as possible. You should be treating your Molten Core stacks like an additional resource that you use with other procs such as Trinkets, Engineer Gloves, Potions, ect. You should only be casting Soul Fire outside of Meta when you have high stacks (>8) or if you are under 30%. The goal is to make sure you have no MC stacks when you hit 25% so that none were wasted.

    Choosing Your Pet
    Currently you should be choosing to use Fel Guard in nearly every situation. However if you find your losing some damage due to your pet taking awhile to switch targets you can use Imp or Succubus instead. If you are really needing some extra burst Imp with Glyph of Demon Training will allow your pet to burst a little higher, however it is an overall damage loss. On fights such as Thok or Sha of Pride using Imp for dispels may also help your raid out.

    Doomguard and Infernal
    Most fights you should be using Doomguard.

    Doomguard does not gain any casts from haste so when you use Bloodlust won't have an effect on when you want to use Doomguard. There are two ways you can use it, and either might be better. The first option is to use it right on the pull, you are guaranteed to have all of you trinkets and cooldowns effecting it on the pull so you will have the most consistent Doomguard with this option. The other option you have is using it sub 20%, I would only recommend this if the sub 20% phase is going to last at least a full minute and you'll use Dark Soul at some point during that period. It is a lot harder to time this well and will give you more inconsistent results, however if you time it right it may give more damage then just using it on the pull.

    The majority of the damage that you will get from Infernal is from Infernal Awakening. In general you won't actually get much damage from the Infernal itself, maybe 200-300k. The damage of Infernal Awakening is buffed by Metamorphosis so you want to make sure you are in Meta when you cast it. If you have DS up you need to hit ~7-8 targets to equal the damage of Doomguard, if DS isn't up you will want ~15 targets.

    Harvest Life
    If you have a strong grasp on the basic rotation you can add Harvest Life for a small increase. More information HERE.


    AoE Rotation


    Demonology AoE is very encounter specific and has a lot of different situational options. When encountering an AoE situation you need to figure out how long the targets will be up for, how often the adds might spawn and if you will run out of fury during the AoE.

    Your AoE rotation will follow this priority:

    Cooldowns
    1. Dark Soul: Knowledge
    2. Grimoire: Felguard if talented
    3. Glyph of Imp Swarm if Glyphed
    4. Felguard: Felstorm on CD

    Meta Form
    1. Metamorphosis: Immolation Aura
    2. Keep Metamorphosis: Doom Ticking on all targets. Under 8 Targets it needs to tick once, over 8 it should tick at least twice.
    3. Chaos Wave If the targets will be alive under 10 seconds and you will not run out of fury for AoE
    4. Carrion Swarm if you are in Meta, and corruptions are at max duration (Recommend using the glyph)
    5. Use Metamorphosis: Void Ray is your filler AoE spell. Use it at 4+ targets. As of 5.4 it no longer refreshes corruption so you won't have free AoE corruption refreshes anymore. If you have Tier 16 4pc I would suggest just casting ToC instead.

    If you have 4 piece tier 16 it is actually more dps over time to use ToC over void ray and hope for Chaos Wave procs. However, it is RNG and may or may not come out to be an increase on quick periods of AoE because of how unreliable it is.

    Caster Form
    1. Hand of Gul'dan - Double Stack like on single target if the targets will live long enough
    2. Hellfire


    Fury Generation


    Single target fury generation:
    Soulfire 15 Fury/s
    Shadowbolt 10 Fury/s
    Fel Flame 10 Fury/s
    Hand of Gul'dan 8 Fury/s (Entire DoT)
    Legion Strike 2.5 Fury/s
    Corruption 2 Fury/s (36 Fury per cast)
    Wild Imps 2 Fury/s (50 Fury per Imp)
    Hellfire 10 Fury/s + 3 Fury/s per extra target

    If you want a more detailed look at fury costs and gains you can use the spreadsheetHERE


    Mechanics

    Dot Damage
    Damage from DoTs DO NOT automatically benefit from procs, you have to refresh them manually or update them with Touch of Chaos. This does mean that if your DoTs are already gaining damage from a previous proc, and you refresh via any method that your DoTs will lose the damage from that proc. I suggest using using the addon 'Affdots' for tracking DoT strength. Shadowflame is included in these mechanics.

    Corruption does not get any benefit from metamorphosis, however it does get a benefit from the caster form mastery. There is a slight delay upon leaving Metamorphosis where you don't have the caster mastery increase, so you do not want to cast corruption or hand of guldan directly after leaving meta.

    Depending on the strength of you procs when you are casting Doom, you may want to consider double casting it to have a higher uptime of Doom + procs.

    Refreshing DoTs
    At level 90 you gain the Pandemic passive. This allows you to refresh a DoT under 50% of its normal duration without losing DPS. For example: Corruption has a base duration of 18 seconds, this means you can refresh at under 9s and it will go to a maximum of 27s. I strongly recommend using the addon 'Affdots' for tracking DoT strength.



    Patch Changes


    5.4
    -Corruption Damage +10%
    -UVLS Proc Chance Nerfed
    -Fel Flame Damage +13%, Mana Cost +100%
    -Hellfire / Immolation Aura Damage -20%
    -Wild Imp Damage -30%


    Guide Changes


    6/14/2014
    Added a short section about the opener rotation

    5/5/2014
    -Fixed Carrion Swarm's place in the AoE priority

    4/22/2014
    -Added a quick line to Harvest life about comparing Drain Life and ToC DPET

    4/20/2014
    -Starting Massive Overhaul on Guide
    -Added a FAQ to the Intro
    -Added Haste Gem Info
    -Added Picking a Haste Point Sub Section
    -Added a Harvest Life Section
    -Improved the Imp Swarm Section
    -Added Other Glyphs Section
    -Hopefully made the Single target rotation easier to understand
    Last edited by Zinnin; 2014-08-03 at 12:56 AM.

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by zinnin View Post
    Refreshing DoTs
    At level 90 you gain the Pandemic passive. This allows you to refresh a DoT under 50% of its normal duration without losing DPS. For example: Corruption has a base duration of 18 seconds, this means you can refresh at under 9s and it will go to a maximum of 27s. I strongly recommend using the addon 'Affdots' for tracking DoT strength.
    Corruption should never be manually reapplied. You should only be applying it once at the beginning of the fight, and keeping it active with ToC for the rest.

  3. #3
    Brewmaster Zinnin's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    California
    Posts
    1,359
    This is a WIP for the 6.0 Guide
    This section needs work
    I will try to update this as much as I can, but be aware that Beta / 6.0 is constantly changing and it hard to keep up with all the changes
    This guide is being written for level 100, so some information may be off for level 90




    1. Introduction
      • Welcome To Demonology!
      • FAQs
    2. Gearing
      • Quick Gearing
      • Stats
      • Enchants and Gems - WIP
      • Racial Bonuses - WIP
      • Trinkets - WIP
    3. Talents and Glyphs
      • Level 75 Talents
      • Level 90 Talents
      • Level 100 Talents - WIP
      • Imp Swarm - WIP
      • Glyph of Dark Soul - WIP
      • Other Glyphs
    4. Rotation
      • Single Target & Cleave - WIP
      • AoE Rotation - WIP
      • Fury Generation - WIP
      • Mechanics - WIP
    5. Change Log
      • Patch Changes
      • Guide Changes




    Welcome to Demonology!
    This guide will try to collect everything related to PvE Demonology play, and present it in a quick but accurate layout. Everything in here is correct as far as I am aware, if you notice anything in here that is incorrect please bring it up so I can keep it updated .

    Demonology is a spec that can give unparalleled control over damage and mobility, properly used this spec can produce some of the top damage in a variety of scenarios. Your Primary pets, Wild Imps, Doomguard, Molten Core, Demonic Fury, and Dark Soul give you insane amounts of control on when and how you are doing damage.

    If you are a player that generally enjoys have many powerful cooldowns and can plan out your fight ahead of time then I highly suggest that you give Demonology a try. Be aware though, that Demonic Fury is a relatively slow building resource, if you are the kind of player that plays mainly in the moment then I would suggest Affliction or Destruction.


    FAQ

    Q: Does Demonology Require good gear to play?
    A: It doesn't require good gear, but good trinkets can make a huge difference.

    Q: Can Demonology compete against Destro / Affliction?
    A: On single target it is extremely competitive, in other occasions such as 3-4 Target Cleave it falls short to Affliction (as does every other spec in the game). However, compared to Non-Warlock specs it is very strong still.

    Q: Is Grimoire of Synergy viable?
    A: Currently it is a DPS loss, however since it gives the player an increase it damage it may be an AoE damage increase.

    Q: Should I use Glyph of Imp Swarm?
    A: TBD



    Quick Gearing

    Disclaimer:
    So one of the things that players generally want right away in a guide is a quick and simple run down of what stats to gear for. For Demonology this is basically impossible because our secondary stats are so close together that depending on what trinkets you are using, what talents, if you have four piece, of just the level of you gear that Crit, Mastery, and Haste can all rotate being your top stat.

    Quick and simple stat guide:

    • Intellect
    • Mastery
    • Crit
    • Multistrike
    • Haste
    • Versatility


    Stats

    Intellect
    This is our primary stat, everything we do scales with it.

    Crit
    Increases your crit chance by 1% every 110 rating. Soulfire now crits 100% of the time, and gains a damage increase based on your crit percentage, which makes this slightly less RNG then it used to be. Also, whenever Doom critically hits you spawn 1 Wild Imp that does good damage and will generate 50 fury over its duration.

    Mastery
    Increases basically all of our pets damage and increases the damage of metamorphosis by a solid amount. Also increases the damage while we are in caster form by a small amount. Unlike cataclysm, in Mists of Pandaria none of our abilities snapshot mastery.
    1% Pet damage: ~110 Rating
    1% Caster form damage: ~110 Rating
    1% Metamorphosis damage: ~36.66 Rating

    Multistrike
    Multistrike grants two chance to deal 30% extra damage per hit. The chance is based on rating. It takes 66 rating to gain 1% multistrike. =

    Haste
    Haste rating increases the speed we cast, the rate our DoTs tick, how fast our Primary pets gain energy, and also decrease the cooldown of Imp Swarm, Demonic Calling and Demonbolt. Touch of chaos is at a 1s GCD and is not effected by haste. You will need 80 rating for 1% haste.

    Keep in mind that in 6.0 our DoTs no longer snapshot haste and update their tick duration after every tick.

    Versatility
    Versatility is purposefully designed to be a weaker DPS stat, however it does give you some extra utility in terms of extra healing via Drain Life, other % personally healing, and damage reduction.

    It takes 130 rating to gain 1% damage and healing, and 260 for 1% damage reduction.

    Gems and Enchants


    Enchants

    To be finished.

    Trinkets


    To be finished.




    To be finished.

    Level 75 Talents


    Grimoire of Supremacy

    Grimoire of Service

    Grimoire of Synergy

    Level 90 Talents


    Archimonde's Darkness
    Archimonde's Darkness makes our Dark Soul cooldown have two charges. The main strength of the this talent comes from the fact you can now sit on a charge of Dark Soul and not get penalized for not using it until it hits its second charge. You 'can' just use it back to back, however I find that isn't optimal in most situations. This talent is strongest on single target fights, anything more then that and Mannoroth's Fury is most likely a better option.

    Kil'Jaeden's Cunning
    This talent gives a 1 minute cooldown ability to cast while moving, on some fights if our cooldowns repetitively line up with movement phases it may be ideal to take this talent. However if movement phases are random and/or don't line up with our cooldowns Demonology has high mobility through use of ToC and can get away with not taking this talent.

    Mannoroth's Fury
    Mannoroth's Fury is our main talent when it comes to AoE. It gives us a 1 minute cooldown that increases the damage of Hellfire and Immolation Aura by 100% and also increases their radius by 500%

    Anything more then 2 targets sustained and this becomes a very solid damage increase to be using on cooldown. The biggest thing to remember when using this talent is that Immolation Aura is a far stronger ability and you will want to make sure you have the proper amounts of fury saved up for its use.

    Level 100 Talents


    Demonbolt

    Cataclysm

    Demonic Servitude


    Imp Swarm


    This section needs work

    Glyph Mechanics:
    For the most part the new Major Glyphs are not going to effect your damage at all, with the exception of Imp Swarm.
    Without the Glyph of Imp Swarm you will passively gain the Demonic Calling buff every 20s, which will spawn one Imp. This will grant you 6 Imps \ 2 minutes.

    With the glyph you will passively gain the Demonic Calling buff every 24s. This means you get 5 Imps \ 2 minutes. You also have the option to use Imp Swarm which instantly spawn 4 Imps, but then make it so you cannot gain the Demonic Calling buff for 2 minutes. This means by using the glyph you are instantly losing 1 imp \ 2 minutes by glyphing it. Actually using the Imp Swarm ability lowers this by another 1. However due to the fact that the cooldown of Imp Swarm is snap-shotted the instant you cast it, you can 'game' the ability to some degree using it during haste procs.

    Trolls:
    If you are a troll, and have the Purified Bindings of Immerseus it will almost always be a DPS increase for you to use Imp Swarm. Use it during every PBOI + Dark Soul, and make sure when you have Berserking you using Imp Swarm after using Berserking. Keep in mind this is a very Minor Gain and if you are not comfortable with the Imp Swarm glyph it will not have a noticeable impact on your overall DPS unless the fight is very short.

    Non Trolls:
    In most cases using the Glyph of Imp Swarm will be a small DPS loss (1-2%). However if the fight is under 3-4 minutes it can still be in increase due to how much stronger it makes the opener. It will also be a BURST DPS increase if you need it for something specific in a fight.

    Glyph of Dark Soul



    Other Glyphs

    Glyph Of Shadow Bolt
    This glyph is NOT a DPS increase. It is also NOT a DPS loss. It is simply a cosmetic glyph.

    Glyph of Demonic Training
    This glyph doesn't suddenly make your Imp do a bunch of DPS, that is just your recount being shit. Still a very nice boost to your Sac Pact cooldown if you decide to use that talent.

    Glyph of Unending Resolve
    On any fight where you need a faster cooldown on interrupt immune, or a faster cooldown on damage reduction this is viable.

    Glyph of Life Tap
    This glyph will allow you to Tap indefinitely on fights that you cannot receive healing due to a shield mechanic (Exp: Malkorok and Tortos). Outside of those kind of fights it is a basically useless glyph




    This section needs work
    Single Target & Cleave

    In general your single target rotation will follow this priority:


    Single target DPS as Demonology is very dependent on good cooldown management, try to stack as many cooldowns together as possible without delaying the use to the point where you might lose uptime on a fight.

    Opening Rotation
    So, there is a few different things that might change up your opener rotation based on if you are using Imp Swarm, GoServ, Mannoroth's Fury of what fight you are doing. However this is the basic Opening rotation that I follow:

    Prepot -> Precast Soulfire -> Hand of Gul'dan -> Corruption -> GoServ -> Berserking / Dark Soul / On Use Cooldowns -> Imp Swarm -> Hand of Gul'dan -> Metamorphosis -> Doom

    If you aren't using Imp Swarm or GoServ you may have room after the corruption to add Shadow Bolts, but this will depend on your haste levels.

    Metamorphosis
    You want to plan to use your Demonic Fury when you have other damage increases like Dark Soul or trinket procs. When you enter into Metamorphosis after using Shadowflame you don't want to stay there for more then 1-2 casts unless you have procs to be spending the fury on. Always keep an eye on your ICD trinkets and Dark Soul Cooldown, there may be times when you get a nice trinket proc, but saving the fury for 30 seconds to be used with stronger cooldowns is worth it.

    Hand of Guldan - Shadowflame Weaving
    The 'correct' way to use Hand of Gul'dan is to wait until there is less then 6s until you get 2 charges of HoG. You then want to use one charge, cast a few spells, and then clip shadowflame right before it runs out so you have ~5s of a one stack shadowflame, then 6s of a 2 stack
    shadowflame. As soon as you cast your second Hand of Gul'dan immediately jump into Metamorphosis to increase the damage of the 2 stack Shadowflame. Doing this correctly will make Hand of Gul'dan out-preform Chaos Wave virtually always, and makes Chaos Wave pretty useless in PvE.

    Soul Fire - Molten Core
    Using MC stacks correctly is a big part of making sure you are optimizing your damage as much as possible. You should be treating your Molten Core stacks like an additional resource that you use with other procs such as Trinkets, Engineer Gloves, Potions, ect. You should only be casting Soul Fire outside of Meta when you have high stacks (>8) or if you are under 30%. The goal is to make sure you have no MC stacks when you hit 25% so that none were wasted.

    Choosing Your Pet
    This section needs work
    Currently you should be choosing to use Fel Guard in nearly every situation. However if you find your losing some damage due to your pet taking awhile to switch targets you can use Imp or Succubus instead. If you are really needing some extra burst Imp with Glyph of Demon Training will allow your pet to burst a little higher, however it is an overall damage loss. On fights such as Thok or Sha of Pride using Imp for dispels may also help your raid out.

    Doomguard and Infernal
    Most fights you should be using Doomguard.

    Doomguard does not gain any casts from haste so when you use Bloodlust won't have an effect on when you want to use Doomguard. There are two ways you can use it, and either might be better. The first option is to use it right on the pull, you are guaranteed to have all of you trinkets and cooldowns effecting it on the pull so you will have the most consistent Doomguard with this option. The other option you have is using it sub 20%, I would only recommend this if the sub 20% phase is going to last at least a full minute and you'll use Dark Soul at some point during that period. It is a lot harder to time this well and will give you more inconsistent results, however if you time it right it may give more damage then just using it on the pull.

    The majority of the damage that you will get from Infernal is from Infernal Awakening. In general you won't actually get much damage from the Infernal itself, maybe 200-300k. The damage of Infernal Awakening is buffed by Metamorphosis so you want to make sure you are in Meta when you cast it. If you have DS up you need to hit ~7-8 targets to equal the damage of Doomguard, if DS isn't up you will want ~15 targets.


    AoE Rotation

    This section needs work

    Demonology AoE is very encounter specific and has a lot of different situational options. When encountering an AoE situation you need to figure out how long the targets will be up for, how often the adds might spawn and if you will run out of fury during the AoE.

    Your AoE rotation will follow this priority:

    Cooldowns
    1. Dark Soul: Knowledge
    2. Grimoire: Felguard if talented
    3. Glyph of Imp Swarm if Glyphed
    4. Felguard: Felstorm on CD

    Meta Form
    1. Metamorphosis: Immolation Aura
    2. Keep Metamorphosis: Doom Ticking on all targets. Under 8 Targets it needs to tick once, over 8 it should tick at least twice.
    3. Chaos Wave If the targets will be alive under 10 seconds and you will not run out of fury for AoE
    4. Carrion Swarm if you are in Meta, and corruptions are at max duration (Recommend using the glyph)
    5. Use Metamorphosis: Void Ray is your filler AoE spell. Use it at 4+ targets. As of 5.4 it no longer refreshes corruption so you won't have free AoE corruption refreshes anymore. If you have Tier 16 4pc I would suggest just casting ToC instead.

    If you have 4 piece tier 16 it is actually more dps over time to use ToC over void ray and hope for Chaos Wave procs. However, it is RNG and may or may not come out to be an increase on quick periods of AoE because of how unreliable it is.

    Caster Form
    1. Hand of Gul'dan - Double Stack like on single target if the targets will live long enough
    2. Hellfire


    Fury Generation


    Single target fury generation:
    Soulfire 15 Fury/s
    Shadowbolt 10 Fury/s
    Fel Flame 10 Fury/s
    Hand of Gul'dan 8 Fury/s (Entire DoT)
    Legion Strike 2.5 Fury/s
    Corruption 2 Fury/s (36 Fury per cast)
    Wild Imps 2 Fury/s (50 Fury per Imp)
    Hellfire 10 Fury/s + 3 Fury/s per extra target

    If you want a more detailed look at fury costs and gains you can use the spreadsheetHERE


    Mechanics

    Dot Damage
    Damage from DoTs DO NOT automatically benefit from procs, you have to refresh them manually or update them with Touch of Chaos. This does mean that if your DoTs are already gaining damage from a previous proc, and you refresh via any method that your DoTs will lose the damage from that proc. I suggest using using the addon 'Affdots' for tracking DoT strength. Shadowflame is included in these mechanics.

    Corruption does not get any benefit from metamorphosis, however it does get a benefit from the caster form mastery. There is a slight delay upon leaving Metamorphosis where you don't have the caster mastery increase, so you do not want to cast corruption or hand of guldan directly after leaving meta.

    Depending on the strength of you procs when you are casting Doom, you may want to consider double casting it to have a higher uptime of Doom + procs.

    Refreshing DoTs
    At level 90 you gain the Pandemic passive. This allows you to refresh a DoT under 50% of its normal duration without losing DPS. For example: Corruption has a base duration of 18 seconds, this means you can refresh at under 9s and it will go to a maximum of 27s. I strongly recommend using the addon 'Affdots' for tracking DoT strength.



    Patch Changes


    6.0
    -There were many changes to Warlock in 6.0, this will give the most relevent. If you want to read all changes please click the link below.
    -Various spells have had their damage changed, please refer to THIS LINK for the full changes.
    -Void Ray and Fel Flame have been removed
    -Hand of Gul'dan and Chaos Wave have received large buffs
    -Shadowflame weaving is no longer necessary (Hand of Gul'dan no long receives a damage increase from Metamorphosis)
    -Related to the change above: HoG still stacks to 2.
    -DoTs no longer snapshot any stats
    -Doomguard now gives Demonic Fury
    -GoSup now gives a Demonic Fury bonus to put in line with GoServ

    Guide Changes


    8/2/2014 6.0 Guide started.
    Last edited by Zinnin; 2014-08-03 at 07:52 AM.

  4. #4

  5. #5
    haste to bracers> Int to bracers? just wondering if i missed something.

  6. #6
    Brewmaster Zinnin's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    California
    Posts
    1,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Seribus99 View Post
    haste to bracers> Int to bracers? just wondering if i missed something.
    Nope your right, I just need to sleep more.....

  7. #7
    Can you add the 3036 breakpoint for doom? It's currently the one that gets the best results for me with my gear.

  8. #8
    Brewmaster Zinnin's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    California
    Posts
    1,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Killem View Post
    Can you add the 3036 breakpoint for doom? It's currently the one that gets the best results for me with my gear.
    Done, I didn't add it initially because I didn't think people would be sitting that low on haste, but I can see how it would be useful information.

  9. #9
    The Unstoppable Force Jessicka's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Manchester
    Posts
    20,933
    Quote Originally Posted by Teye View Post
    Corruption should never be manually reapplied. You should only be applying it once at the beginning of the fight, and keeping it active with ToC for the rest.
    Popping Meta 'early' to refresh Corruption can, and will break your rotation causing a considerable DPS loss compared to manually refreshing. It's also worth noting that refreshing Corruption to it's full duration through ToC costs 240 Fury; again there can and will be better times to spend that Fury.

    The spec is, above all else about resource management over executing a perfect rotation. Meshing the two is where the skill lies.

    _____

    You made no mention about Life Tap, which is where a lot of people seem to complain so I presume is causing people issues when they start out. Essentially I'd just point out that it's down to Soul Fire being expensive, and that you'll only get 2-3 Soul Fires out of a Life Tap and that therefore it's generally a good idea to get into a habbit of using LT every 3rd Soul Fire if they're in a situation when they're spamming it outside of Meta.

    Otherwise, great guide as expected... even if I will continue to swear by Haste

  10. #10
    Mechagnome
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Canterbury
    Posts
    731
    but i would have thought that popping into meta with big INT procs and using a few ToC will not only refresh corr, but also buff corr making it worth the lost fury?

  11. #11
    Mind if I roll need? xskarma's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2011
    Location
    Netherlands, EU
    Posts
    27,573
    Allright, nice job Zinnin, stickified! I ask all of you to continue the discussion about all things Demonology in this thread.

  12. #12
    Brewmaster Zinnin's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    California
    Posts
    1,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Viggers View Post
    but i would have thought that popping into meta with big INT procs and using a few ToC will not only refresh corr, but also buff corr making it worth the lost fury?
    For the most part you want to be using meta during large INT procs anyways, so yes then you want to refresh with ToC. I just argue that spending fury with 0 procs may not always be worth it. \

  13. #13
    The Unstoppable Force Jessicka's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Manchester
    Posts
    20,933
    Quote Originally Posted by Viggers View Post
    but i would have thought that popping into meta with big INT procs and using a few ToC will not only refresh corr, but also buff corr making it worth the lost fury?
    In that case yes, but then you should be using ToC with the INT procs anyway. It's when you have no procs when it's less of a big deal. The real point is that even if you manage Corruption completely manually, it's only something like a 500DPS loss overall; that's minor enough on a Patchwerk that in real encounters that you could see a real terms increase by occasionally hard casting if it means better management of your rotation and use of Fury.

  14. #14

    Demo - Cooldowntiming and FRG

    I am thinking of how to improve my DPS as Demo by downranking one of my trinkets to Flashfrozen Resin Globule again.

    How may this work:
    • DS has a cooldown of 1:20 with 4pc T14
    • GoServ has 2:00 cooldown
    • FRG has 2:30 cooldown
    • Imp Swarm somewhere between 2:00 and 1:30

    The plan would be to empower every second DS with the trinket, GoServ and FRG. But this has the downside of not using some CDs which might negate the bonus or lead even to a DPS loss.

    I surely have to sim it out, but the APL must be modified, in order to do that cooldownstacking.

    Am I missing some points that would lead to a DPS loss and make this idea obsolete?

  15. #15
    Brewmaster Zinnin's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    California
    Posts
    1,359
    I have been using this since launch, and it is very good. This is why is I listed FRG so high in my guide. It also just happens to be that Yu'lon is almost always up at the same time as FRG, GoServ, and DS. Until you have Heroic trinkets I don't feel that it is worth replacing these. Unless the fight is on the longer side you don't lose a GoServ use.

  16. #16
    Keyboard Turner Xayton's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    xor Sanity, Sanity
    Posts
    4
    What would you consider to be the most optimal opener for Demo. I've tried many different ones and can't seem to find one that is glaringly better then another. My current one is;
    Soul Fire, Curse of the Elements, Hand of Gul'Dan, Imp Swarm, Summon Terrorguard, Dark Soul: Knowledge, Corruption, Hand of Gul'Dan, Metamorphosis, Doom, ToC till drop out of Meta. I follow that up with Lifeblood and rapid fire Molten Core procs.

    Also what would be the best way to manage execution phase. Soul Fire spam in caster to build fury then Soul Fire in Meta?
    Last edited by Xayton; 2013-01-11 at 06:56 PM.

  17. #17
    Maybe you can add to your "Grimoire"-section that GoServ synchronizes well with Dark Soul as long as you dont run with 4p T14. Otherwise GoSup could be worth another thought.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    @Killem - thats why in my opinion each demo lock should use Shock-Charger Medallion. Even with T4 bonus its just to good trinket to waste it. Since we are trying to doing best during meta, trinket with "use" bonus is just great. Less RNG during fight (trinket proc etc) = profit for demo locks. You can easilly use DS on 2 trinket proc with this trinket - its almost impossible with others.



    About topic - very nice basic information about demo. Just wondering why you didnt write anything about entering meta after casting second HoG for double ticks - we can also put it as and basic information.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Xayton View Post
    What would you consider to be the most optimal opener for Demo. I've tried many different ones and can't seem to find one that is glaringly better then another. My current one is;
    Soul Fire, Curse of the Elements, Hand of Gul'Dan, Imp Swarm, Summon Terrorguard, Dark Soul: Knowledge, Corruption, Hand of Gul'Dan, Metamorphosis, Doom, ToC till drop out of Meta. I follow that up with Lifeblood and rapid fire Molten Core procs.

    Also what would be the best way to manage execution phase. Soul Fire spam in caster to build fury then Soul Fire in Meta?
    Never pre-cast Soul Fire over Shadow Bolt. Shadow Bolt will use Demonic Calling, which is otherwise wasted when you pop Imp Swarm.

  20. #20
    Keyboard Turner Xayton's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    xor Sanity, Sanity
    Posts
    4
    Quote Originally Posted by Teye View Post
    Never pre-cast Soul Fire over Shadow Bolt. Shadow Bolt will use Demonic Calling, which is otherwise wasted when you pop Imp Swarm.
    They both use Demonic Calling.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •