[6.2] Demonology Warlock Guide

[Deleted]

is it just me or does felstorm provide no real damage boost in a pure single target environment (as opposed to wrathstorm, which in fact boosts the wrathguards single target damage significantly)?

[JV Chequer]

Hello guys, im destro/demo lock! Can u please tell me which pets for demo i should use on certain fights? since it always ends up that my pet will die. Should i go with the imp on some fights?
Which boss is still best to go with destro? kargath and imp maybe? maybe bracken?

Just remove Soul Link and use Sac. Pact or Dark Bargain and your pet will stop dying from stuff.

The only fight my pet dies on mythic HM it's Imperator because novas are just OP.

[weakdots]

Just remove Soul Link and use Sac. Pact or Dark Bargain and your pet will stop dying from stuff.

The only fight my pet dies on mythic HM it's Imperator because novas are just OP.

yes my pet ALWAYS dies in p2 on mythic imp

[Haawken]

Been playing hunter for a long time and looking to possibly try out demon wlock. Is it hard to master? Cus the guide seems complicated..

[Livendula]

Been playing hunter for a long time and looking to possibly try out demon wlock. Is it hard to master? Cus the guide seems complicated..

When compared to Hunter it is.

[Xorn]

is it just me or does felstorm provide no real damage boost in a pure single target environment (as opposed to wrathstorm, which in fact boosts the wrathguards single target damage significantly)?

It's hard to say. On one hand, he's dealing damage faster than he would be without it, however he's not generating Fury for that time either. It's probably a very slight increase if anything. For the Wrathguard guard, though, you're right in that it's a clear ST dps increase, but for the Felguard, it's a bit murkier. My advice would be to sim it both with and without using Felstorm and see what results you get.

[Kirroth]

It's hard to say. On one hand, he's dealing damage faster than he would be without it, however he's not generating Fury for that time either. It's probably a very slight increase if anything. For the Wrathguard guard, though, you're right in that it's a clear ST dps increase, but for the Felguard, it's a bit murkier. My advice would be to sim it both with and without using Felstorm and see what results you get.

It might be a situation where it's a DPS loss if you just do it on cooldown, a DPS gain if you line it up with Synergy and/or DS. But that's just a guess.

[Deleted]

Hello guys, im destro/demo lock! Can u please tell me which pets for demo i should use on certain fights? since it always ends up that my pet will die. Should i go with the imp on some fights?
Which boss is still best to go with destro? kargath and imp maybe? maybe bracken?

I had that issue for a few hours when I first went demo.
Just remove soul link and take one of the other talents, sac pact probably being better overall or dark bargain being a potential lifesaver if you royally fuck up.

[Zevoa]

yes my pet ALWAYS dies in p2 on mythic imp

Never encountered my pet dying in any Highmaul encounter, unless I am too.

Just remove soul link and take one of the other talents, sac pact probably being better overall or dark bargain being a potential lifesaver if you royally fuck up.

Except all of those are inferior overall. Unless you need to soak a specific mechanic.

[FurtyIRL]

Never encountered my pet dying in any Highmaul encounter, unless I am too. Except all of those are inferior overall. Unless you need to soak a specific mechanic.

Sac pact is honestly fine, especially if you are using glyph of demon training. It'll never amount to less 'overall' damage taken, but sometimes overall damage is unimportant relative to ensuring you are alive for danger periods (e.g. Infesting Spores). I still tend to prefer Soul Link just because ER + SL = passive sham rage (lol 0p0p0p) but I definitely think sac pact is an equally viable option.

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

Sac pact is honestly fine, especially if you are using glyph of demon training. It'll never amount to less 'overall' damage taken, but sometimes overall damage is unimportant relative to ensuring you are alive for danger periods (e.g. Infesting Spores). I still tend to prefer Soul Link just because ER + SL = passive sham rage (lol 0p0p0p) but I definitely think sac pact is an equally viable option.

Kinda weird that they have never nerfed it since they stated in 5.3 or something that they don't want specs to have passive dr like this. For example: Boomkin and shadow priest passive 10% dr got removed and replaced with armor. Warlocks got glyph of eternal resolve and the new soul link resulting in around 30% passsive dr.
I do not want a nerf to this since i love having it like this, you know, tanky caster, that is a warlock.

[FurtyIRL]

Kinda weird that they have never nerfed it since they stated in 5.3 or something that they don't want specs to have passive dr like this. For example: Boomkin and shadow priest passive 10% dr got removed and replaced with armor. Warlocks got glyph of eternal resolve and the new soul link resulting in around 30% passsive dr.
I do not want a nerf to this since i love having it like this, you know, tanky caster, that is a warlock.

Yeah, there's ups and downs to it. You'll never die to incidental damage as a warlock but you do need to be cautious of isolated big hits. I honestly tend to prefer playing classes like mage and shadow priest more (defensively speaking) because no matter what happens you can survive practically anything with Greater Invis/Disperse. Our lack of active CDs and mobility makes us good turrets but bad at doing jobs. I personally find it pretty fun to do the brand juggle on Mythic Mar'gok, which is something you just can't do as a lock. I think that's why SL+ER remains; strong as it is vs. everyday damage, it limits the class in a way.

You can make an argument for using sac pact to improve our soaking capability (I used SP on Mythic Mar'gok to soak gazes in P4) but then you lose access to potentially the strongest defensive talent in the game.

[zvvl]

Playing around with the 4pc on PTR got me thinking of how I should use HoG with it:
I know you can't get 3 stacks. Only 2. So, was thinking maybe

HoG -> wait -> HoG = 2 stacks for normal duration
then you can wait for one charge repeat the above.

or you could
HoG -> wait -> HoG -> wait -> HoG = 2 stacks for longer duration

Any ideas on this?

[Santoisms]

Playing around with the 4pc on PTR got me thinking of how I should use HoG with it:
I know you can't get 3 stacks. Only 2. So, was thinking maybe

HoG -> wait -> HoG = 2 stacks for normal duration
then you can wait for one charge repeat the above.

or you could
HoG -> wait -> HoG -> wait -> HoG = 2 stacks for longer duration

Any ideas on this?

I would assume the longer duration would be better, when I was on beta testing it I got the dot pretty high.

[FurtyIRL]

Playing around with the 4pc on PTR got me thinking of how I should use HoG with it:
I know you can't get 3 stacks. Only 2. So, was thinking maybe

HoG -> wait -> HoG = 2 stacks for normal duration
then you can wait for one charge repeat the above.

or you could
HoG -> wait -> HoG -> wait -> HoG = 2 stacks for longer duration

Any ideas on this?

On PTR encounters (even at 650 ilvl) I'm generating enough fury/min that I like to sit on one charge as my DB cycle rolls around. For my cycle I do 4x DB + Doom + Chaos Wave. If I'm getting good procs after the cycle, however, I tend to subscribe to the latter in that I'll maintain the 2 stack shadowflame for as long as I have charges to sustain it.

[Woz]

On PTR encounters (even at 650 ilvl) I'm generating enough fury/min that I like to sit on one charge as my DB cycle rolls around. For my cycle I do 4x DB + Doom + Chaos Wave. If I'm getting good procs after the cycle, however, I tend to subscribe to the latter in that I'll maintain the 2 stack shadowflame for as long as I have charges to sustain it.

That's my feeling as well. Even from Beta testing with 4pc I was under the same impression for rotation (hence why it's in the OP to begin with) with including Chaos Wave.

[weakdots]

not sure if it was adressed earlier wondering why 680 sandman's is dead bottom of trinket list on first page

[Brusalk]

On PTR encounters (even at 650 ilvl) I'm generating enough fury/min that I like to sit on one charge as my DB cycle rolls around. For my cycle I do 4x DB + Doom + Chaos Wave. If I'm getting good procs after the cycle, however, I tend to subscribe to the latter in that I'll maintain the 2 stack shadowflame for as long as I have charges to sustain it.

With there being so much extra fury in the rotation due to extra HoGs, I found in the testing that we did that going into a brief re-doom + a few ToCs around 30 seconds in between 2 doombolt dumps burned enough fury. When using the DS glyph, I could fit 4xDoombolt + Soul Fire + ToC into every 10 second DS and save all of the HoG charges for fury gen.

W/ regards to what to do with HoG stacks themselves, you want as little 1-stack Shadowflame as possible as it does less damage than 2 stacks. If you can use a HoG to refresh a 2-stack Shadowflame, that's way better than using it to refresh a 1-stack later on in the fight as you get more 2-stack uptime that way.

[bio347]

From a full three charges, you'll be able to hit four HoGs without the stack dropping. Under bloodlust there might be time to spit out three DBs in between two HoGs, which seems like it could be pretty cool in the opener.

[FurtyIRL]

With there being so much extra fury in the rotation due to extra HoGs, I found in the testing that we did that going into a brief re-doom + a few ToCs around 30 seconds in between 2 doombolt dumps burned enough fury. When using the DS glyph, I could fit 4xDoombolt + Soul Fire + ToC into every 10 second DS and save all of the HoG charges for fury gen.

W/ regards to what to do with HoG stacks themselves, you want as little 1-stack Shadowflame as possible as it does less damage than 2 stacks. If you can use a HoG to refresh a 2-stack Shadowflame, that's way better than using it to refresh a 1-stack later on in the fight as you get more 2-stack uptime that way.

Chaos Wave costs the same fury as soul fire and does slightly more damage non-crit, with the obvious potential of dealing significantly more if it crits (or there is more than one target). Sometimes I slip the ToC in as well but generally speaking I didn't have enough fury (you need 970 DF going in to do 4 DB + CW + ToC + Doom). I think you benefit more from slipping in some soul fires or toc for movement during synergy procs between cycles to siphon excess fury than to pool that much or risk capping (or delaying).