[5.4] Demonology Warlock Guide

[Zinnin]

probally becuase I screwed something up =P

[Hellfury]

I made a pass at the OP and updated anything I saw that was wrong, including the trinket list.

I have played Demo on Siegecrafter and Thok the last couple weeks and have done more dps then our lock that was playing Affliction, that said my guild is a pretty small sample size and I haven't actually looked at any public logs to see how it is stacking up to the competition. However, I was still higher dps then every other class as well so I don't think it was just a play issue on the Afflocks part.

I also play Demo on Immerseus, Fallen Protectors, Norushen, Sha of Pride, Iron Juggernaut, Dark Shaman, and Malkorok and have not once felt like I was low dps. The only fight out of those that I think other specs are even close on is Fallen Protectors as Aff, but even that is very close. Single target is pretty close between all 3 specs now I think.

I am currently using Cha-yes and Black Blood, I dropped UVLS without even trying it once I saw the hotfix.

The biggest thing people need to realize is how much proper fury management means now. We don't have unlimited fury to just waste with no procs up anymore. If you HoG-weave into no procs you should be leaving meta as soon as HoG lands and not sitting in meta. Save MC stacks to bait 2pc procs during other trinket procs, and stack the shit out of Doom. Doom is an absolute power-house of damage if used right, I almost think that Wushoolays or Black Blood is a requirement if you drop UVLS. On Single target AD is huge in making sure that you are maximizing Doom damage.

if you could post your logs would be great, curious of the DPS you can do on HC Thok now and compare to mine.

[OokingDooker]

I made a pass at the OP and updated anything I saw that was wrong, including the trinket list.

I have played Demo on Siegecrafter and Thok the last couple weeks and have done more dps then our lock that was playing Affliction, that said my guild is a pretty small sample size and I haven't actually looked at any public logs to see how it is stacking up to the competition. However, I was still higher dps then every other class as well so I don't think it was just a play issue on the Afflocks part.

I also play Demo on Immerseus, Fallen Protectors, Norushen, Sha of Pride, Iron Juggernaut, Dark Shaman, and Malkorok and have not once felt like I was low dps. The only fight out of those that I think other specs are even close on is Fallen Protectors as Aff, but even that is very close. Single target is pretty close between all 3 specs now I think.

I am currently using Cha-yes and Black Blood, I dropped UVLS without even trying it once I saw the hotfix.

The biggest thing people need to realize is how much proper fury management means now. We don't have unlimited fury to just waste with no procs up anymore. If you HoG-weave into no procs you should be leaving meta as soon as HoG lands and not sitting in meta. Save MC stacks to bait 2pc procs during other trinket procs, and stack the shit out of Doom. Doom is an absolute power-house of damage if used right, I almost think that Wushoolays or Black Blood is a requirement if you drop UVLS. On Single target AD is huge in making sure that you are maximizing Doom damage.

Not that I doubt your words, but could you post a log of Protectors and Thok?

[Zinnin]

Private logs, I'll be streaming next week can see numbers then.

[weakdots]

im interested in how the trinket rankings are made (obv simcraft) but the parameters. sparkuggz made rankings for all 3 specs and heroic uvls is still very high up on the list for demo only, just wonder what causes the differences between his list and yours on page 1. http://sparkuggz.com/5-4-trinket-lis...y-destruction/

edit- seems like the list is from oct 6th so it is post nerf, i had personally dropped uvls the night before nerf went live and hadnt tried it, but tonight on dummy i am doing basically equal dmg demo uvls+chayes, and destro chayes+ wush, all 543 ilvl

[Werst]

Did some more testing based on our convo but still very eratic swings in dps even compared to other specs. Its just the odds of lining up a 2pc proc + chanye + 10x BB + darksoul doom. (you get the idea) Some pulls felt like demo was back, others were like I was wearing my safari hat. For your avg joe or even a solidly advanced player its a bit much. That much RNG and skill should net you more than keeping up with the occasional amazing pull.

Didn't play perfectly but I didn't spend fury without at least a trinket proc if not something more. You are juggling the following:
*Troll racial
*Darksoul + SvC FG (can't think of a time you wouldn't sync these)
**2nd Darksoul from AD
*Eng gloves (every other should line up w' darksoul)
*2xT16 20% dmg proc
*Chanye (or amp or KTT)
*BB proc
*Herbalism if applicable

As for 2pc fishing for procs to spend in meta....I saw more consistent results going for a caster soulfire into a ToC dump than meta soulfire which just felt like I bled too much DF too fast for the damage return. Not like destro when the stars align and you pop off a 2.7m chaosbolt or something nutty.

[Jessicka]

Did some more testing based on our convo but still very eratic swings in dps even compared to other specs. Its just the odds of lining up a 2pc proc + chanye + 10x BB + darksoul doom. (you get the idea) Some pulls felt like demo was back, others were like I was wearing my safari hat. For your avg joe or even a solidly advanced player its a bit much. That much RNG and skill should net you more than keeping up with the occasional amazing pull.

Didn't play perfectly but I didn't spend fury without at least a trinket proc if not something more. You are juggling the following:
*Troll racial
*Darksoul + SvC FG (can't think of a time you wouldn't sync these)
**2nd Darksoul from AD
*Eng gloves (every other should line up w' darksoul)
*2xT16 20% dmg proc
*Chanye (or amp or KTT)
*BB proc
*Herbalism if applicable

As for 2pc fishing for procs to spend in meta....I saw more consistent results going for a caster soulfire into a ToC dump than meta soulfire which just felt like I bled too much DF too fast for the damage return. Not like destro when the stars align and you pop off a 2.7m chaosbolt or something nutty.

4pc might give you a bit more stability with the extra Fury it generates, but without 2pc T15 you really shouldn't be using Soul Fire in Meta unless you're generating a lot of excess Fury from multidotting.

[Xyronic]

4pc might give you a bit more stability with the extra Fury it generates, but without 2pc T15 you really shouldn't be using Soul Fire in Meta unless you're generating a lot of excess Fury from multidotting.

Technically, Soul firing in Metamorphosis is STILL a better use fury than touch of chaos. You just have to balance the molten core charges between caster form and Meta form.

[Jessicka]

Technically, Soul firing in Metamorphosis is STILL a better use fury than touch of chaos. You just have to balance the molten core charges between caster form and Meta form.

It does have a better DPET, but the Fury cost has always been excessive compared to what it generates in caster form.

[Zinnin]

It does have a better DPET, but the Fury cost has always been excessive compared to what it generates in caster form.

This is actually not true. So, Soul Fire has a funny relation ship with fury. Because of the fact it costs so much more fury then ToC (and that ToC doesn't scale with haste) using Soul Fire in Meta means that your Meta uptime will go down, this also means that your time spent gaining fury goes up. It comes out that spending Soul Fires in meta is actually almost as much fury as spending them in caster form. Spending them in caster form is still going to be more fury in the short term, but in the long term it really isn't a huge change to not spend them.

Anyways, I made a bunch of people tonight play random specs on a dummy and spent a few hours going at it myself. From personal testing I have found that using Soul Fires during cooldowns (and possibly sacrificing 2pc uptime) is still better then baiting 2pc procs and gaining 2pc uptime without other CDs or procs up. I've done many runs at the dummies and my numbers have always been pretty consistent, so if you are seeing wild swings you probally aren't timing fury usage or cooldowns 100% correctly yet.

Personally I am back to a pre-UVLS mentality where you need to identify which procs and cooldowns are best to spend fury, how much fury those procs are going to take, and how often they will be up and go from there. For instance, I am running Cha-Yes, Black Blood, and have DS. Under normal conditions I don't have enough fury to dump into each of those so I cut the weakest out (Cha-Yes) and focus on spending fury on only DS and Black Blood. MC procs are put into those same cooldowns/procs.

The other thing I took from my random testing out of several players from many different guilds is I am fairly certain that people are not playing Demo correctly and need to just get used to the 'new' fury restrictions. Affliction and Destruction numbers were very static across the board, as ilvl went up so did the numbers for both of those specs. When people played Demo however, the numbers fluxuate quite a bit.

[OokingDooker]

This is actually not true. So, Soul Fire has a funny relation ship with fury. Because of the fact it costs so much more fury then ToC (and that ToC doesn't scale with haste) using Soul Fire in Meta means that your Meta uptime will go down, this also means that your time spent gaining fury goes up. It comes out that spending Soul Fires in meta is actually almost as much fury as spending them in caster form. Spending them in caster form is still going to be more fury in the short term, but in the long term it really isn't a huge change to not spend them.

Anyways, I made a bunch of people tonight play random specs on a dummy and spent a few hours going at it myself. From personal testing I have found that using Soul Fires during cooldowns (and possibly sacrificing 2pc uptime) is still better then baiting 2pc procs and gaining 2pc uptime without other CDs or procs up. I've done many runs at the dummies and my numbers have always been pretty consistent, so if you are seeing wild swings you probally aren't timing fury usage or cooldowns 100% correctly yet.

Personally I am back to a pre-UVLS mentality where you need to identify which procs and cooldowns are best to spend fury, how much fury those procs are going to take, and how often they will be up and go from there. For instance, I am running Cha-Yes, Black Blood, and have DS. Under normal conditions I don't have enough fury to dump into each of those so I cut the weakest out (Cha-Yes) and focus on spending fury on only DS and Black Blood. MC procs are put into those same cooldowns/procs.

The other thing I took from my random testing out of several players from many different guilds is I am fairly certain that people are not playing Demo correctly and need to just get used to the 'new' fury restrictions. Affliction and Destruction numbers were very static across the board, as ilvl went up so did the numbers for both of those specs. When people played Demo however, the numbers fluxuate quite a bit.

Whats the reason behind not using bindings trinket and useing Cha-Ye's?

[Zinnin]

Whats the reason behind not using bindings trinket and useing Cha-Ye's?

....Because I don't have one......

[Biomega]

Some people seem to think just because you're a hardcore raider you live in Magical Christmas Land where you get all the drops you need...

10-man especially can be *brutal* with drop luck. We farmed hc-ToT as long as any other guild, and when SoO hit we had a total of *three* heroic caster trinkets *of any kind*, one of which was from a coin. Stuff happens

[Zinnin]

I like the sound of Magical Christmas Land, where do I sign up for that? =P

[Lether]

Is there any chance of adding the 543 yulon's bite into the trinket ranking in the op? Im currently looking for this magical christmas land of trinkets too, stuck with that, flex bindings and normal tot trinkets.

[Jessicka]

Some people seem to think just because you're a hardcore raider you live in Magical Christmas Land where you get all the drops you need...

10-man especially can be *brutal* with drop luck. We farmed hc-ToT as long as any other guild, and when SoO hit we had a total of *three* heroic caster trinkets *of any kind*, one of which was from a coin. Stuff happens

Raiding 25s isn't necessarily any better. The stuff might drop, and I have indeed seen Warforged BBOYS and HC WF Bindings drop; it doesn't mean the other casters (5 Warlocks, 3 Boomkins, 3 Shadow Priests, Mage and Elemental Shaman) in the guild aren't competing for them. :P

[Zinnin]

Is there any chance of adding the 543 yulon's bite into the trinket ranking in the op? Im currently looking for this magical christmas land of trinkets too, stuck with that, flex bindings and normal tot trinkets.

Going to re-run the list tomorrow to fix the LFR / Flex thing, will add yulon's bite when I do that.

[Deleted]

Raiding 25s isn't necessarily any better. The stuff might drop, and I have indeed seen Warforged BBOYS and HC WF Bindings drop; it doesn't mean the other casters (5 Warlocks, 3 Boomkins, 3 Shadow Priests, Mage and Elemental Shaman) in the guild aren't competing for them. :P

I dunno, I think I'd prefer to actually see stuff drop and not win it than never at all. At least I can hope I'll get one eventually (I actually coined both my trinkets this tier as well as my UVLS last tier).

In my 10 man we've had 19 tier tokens drop so far and not a single one has been conqueror. Not one. We've still got garrosh left to wrap things up tonight but I'm not holding out. Even if it does drop our ret is on for his 4 set so yeah...

[Werst]

I think to some extent ALL the simcraft APL's are suboptimal. Hyper optimizing demo's does make it look stronger (well reflects better play) but you can say that about aff or destro as well. For instance sims predict incinerate as my largest damage source but I've almost always seen chaosbolt as my highest simply because I don't cast one without an int/big proc if I can help it. I suspect a true optimization of aff would show an even bigger snapshotting gain which is why the nerfs keep coming for it.

Actually I do have 4xT16....1x heroic/3x normal. I was only spending DF during procs and stacking dooms with 10xBB + something else. Maybe I somehow misunderstand it but just due to the RNG of when what procc'd I saw far more variance in demo than any other spec. You are just too reliant on perfect storms of buffs/procs to coincide.

Also if we are ignoring the chanye proc (in the example above) wouldn't a trinket who has a stronger passive and weaker proc (perhaps yulon) be a better option if the proc is to be ignored due to simply not enough DF to go around.

[FurtyIRL]

Raiding 25s isn't necessarily any better. The stuff might drop, and I have indeed seen Warforged BBOYS and HC WF Bindings drop; it doesn't mean the other casters (5 Warlocks, 3 Boomkins, 3 Shadow Priests, Mage and Elemental Shaman) in the guild aren't competing for them. :P

It means they are dropping and the raid is getting stronger as opposed to them not dropping at all.