[6.2] Demonology Warlock Guide

[Ghâzh]

The question is though, would you still provide better dps overall using Service over the DB?

That's easy to answer looking at the chart posted my Woz (yes). Only time DB would win if you needed the burst every 1min.

[Deleted]

Wow this is a fantastic analysis of the situation. I was about to start complaining about the lack of actual math in this thread recently since people kept throwing around assumptions without the numbers to back them up (myself included).

I have a couple easy questions/criticisms regarding this spreadsheet that I do not believe will impact your overall conclusions:
1) Touch of Chaos is the only instant spell we have with a GCD of 1s, every other instant spell has a 1.5s GCD reduced by haste.
2) Where are you getting the 87.9% derived damage on chaos wave from? I assume it has to do with the generated MC proc but I don't see the math behind it?
3) What is the difference between resulting and effective damage? (and fury / effective fury)

Thanks !
About your questions :
1) Wow, this is a very big oversight on my end. It may have an impact on the value of Chaos Wave compared to other spells. Thank you for teaching me something.
2) Your assumption is correct. The underlying formula is Damage of SF - (Cast time of SF / Cast time of SV) * Damage of SB
3) Resulting is the damage you get by taking the base damage and adding critical strike and mastery. Effective damage is damage you get by taking into account the mana cost, which will result in GCD lost due to connection.

[gruxxar]

i'm sticking with serv-serv for now for single target, haven't figured out how to dps correctly on Blackhand yet as my dps drop has been the biggest here (6.0 i had logs at 41,2k & 40,5k dps and post patch i only had 33 k dps ) maybe demonbolt could be a nice here, dno yet.

anyhow returning to my question at hand. Currently i'm just wondering if Mythic SoN isn't better for Serv-Serv demo than the haste proc one (atm i have mythic GSR & mythic SoN), I mean, it lines up perfectly with every grim:doomguard you pop making it very powerful, any thoughts on this?

[nsgid]

Sorry for the newb question, but i currently have 680 bracers mastery/multistrike 150 int/95 mastery/103 MS and I just got some awesome bracers(sarcasm) from a mythic cache and the stats are 172 int,95 crit and 126 haste. Am i better off using the 680 bracers sicne they have "better stats"?

[Gum]

Since i wanna keep the forums clear, and this is a mainly demo question anyway, ill just ask my question here. I’ve been toying around on this silly warlock for like 4 weeks now. My life has been the DB rotation and with the recent changes, i have run into the need to adapt anew, which in itself is fine. But with it comes quality of life things id like to achieve. LIKE, this one macro that i for the LIFE of me cant get to work 100% of the time. All i want is really, when i see a proc i want to react to, spam the macro, so when current cast is over, cus ABC, cast meta and instantly cast SF. I cant do it manually with meta->SF, but ultimately i lose some time cus fingers are only so fast, AAAAND i have to time it at the end of the cast, taking my eyes away from other things such as the boss/room/bosstimers and what not.

But im not here to discuss the need of it, more discussing why i cant make it work 100% of the time..
#showtooltip soul fire
/cast [stance:1] soul fire; [stance:0] metamorphosis

Has been tried and tested and so far has yielded the best results. Sadly it isn’t really on point - as in, it fails sometimes and just "forgets" to actually cast Meta. I have also tried with cast sequence + a much more simpler approach. I’m seemingly just either too retarded to do anything right. Anyone has a fix?

[Aravell]

But im not here to discuss the need of it, more discussing why i cant make it work 100% of the time..
#showtooltip soul fire
/cast [stance:1] soul fire; [stance:0] metamorphosis

Are you spamming the button? it may be cancelling your meta if you spam it too fast
try adding a !, as in:
/cast [stance:1] soul fire; [stance:0] !metamorphosis

that way it will only activate meta and not cancel it

[Gum]

i am spamming it, but it isnt even casting it to begin with. atleast it doesnt incur a CD on Meta.

[Edit]
I went and tested it, just to make sure i wasnt insane. And i was right, it has the same "random" (in the sense that i dont know what causes it) chance to not go into meta, as the previous one. without the !

[Aravell]

Try this then:
/cast [stance:1] soul fire; !metamorphosis

that way no matter what it will cast meta but will never deactivate it, and if ur in meta itll cast soul fire

[Gum]

this actually seems to work worse, after the first 20 attempts of making it happen, not once did it go into meta before casting SF; after the 2nd SF it would go into meta as expected. Im not sure if its something integreted in the way WoW queues spells to be cast, and that OFF-GCDs arent really working that well with it, but i remember something about queueing abillities that allowed for instant casting even if you didnt click it "right" when previous thing was off/gcd was ready. Could that be the issue? That SF simply queues itself up and fucks the Meta cast?

[Octa]

this actually seems to work worse, after the first 20 attempts of making it happen, not once did it go into meta before casting SF; after the 2nd SF it would go into meta as expected. Im not sure if its something integreted in the way WoW queues spells to be cast, and that OFF-GCDs arent really working that well with it, but i remember something about queueing abillities that allowed for instant casting even if you didnt click it "right" when previous thing was off/gcd was ready. Could that be the issue? That SF simply queues itself up and fucks the Meta cast?

Yeah I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the timing of the soulfire cast queue (right before your current cast ends) and soulfire being in queue before meta combined with the fact that it is castable in both stances. The macro above works perfectly with spells like Doom which are only available in Meta so it has no spell to queue up in caster form (plus the whole instant cast thing haha).
Try it with Touch of Chaos instead of soulfire and see if it works. If so you can safely assume it's because soulfire is available to both stances and it is being queued up in caster form first. You might be able to narrow down your search from there.

[Tramzh]

Since i wanna keep the forums clear, and this is a mainly demo question anyway, ill just ask my question here. I’ve been toying around on this silly warlock for like 4 weeks now. My life has been the DB rotation and with the recent changes, i have run into the need to adapt anew, which in itself is fine. But with it comes quality of life things id like to achieve. LIKE, this one macro that i for the LIFE of me cant get to work 100% of the time. All i want is really, when i see a proc i want to react to, spam the macro, so when current cast is over, cus ABC, cast meta and instantly cast SF. I cant do it manually with meta->SF, but ultimately i lose some time cus fingers are only so fast, AAAAND i have to time it at the end of the cast, taking my eyes away from other things such as the boss/room/bosstimers and what not.

But im not here to discuss the need of it, more discussing why i cant make it work 100% of the time..
#showtooltip soul fire
/cast [stance:1] soul fire; [stance:0] metamorphosis

Has been tried and tested and so far has yielded the best results. Sadly it isn’t really on point - as in, it fails sometimes and just "forgets" to actually cast Meta. I have also tried with cast sequence + a much more simpler approach. I’m seemingly just either too retarded to do anything right. Anyone has a fix?

get a better meta key binding, it's not on the global CD so unless your reaction times are longer then 1+ second you are doing something wrong. its very unpractical to have macros like the one you listed for anything but demonbolt as it doubles the amount of keybindings required.

[Toastiekins]

Doing piss poor dps as service/servitude and it's lame and boring to play as well. Really makes me reconsider what class I call my main. Talk me down from the ledge!

[FurtyIRL]

Doing piss poor dps as service/servitude and it's lame and boring to play as well. Really makes me reconsider what class I call my main. Talk me down from the ledge!

Was demonbolt really that enthralling for you? You essentially ignored all class mechanics and procs until you had the right amount of fury, then crossed your fingers for good rng. Even if I'm not the hugest fan of serv/serv I am enjoying the change of playstyle. DPS is about the same on movement fights.

[Dietrik]

this actually seems to work worse, after the first 20 attempts of making it happen, not once did it go into meta before casting SF; after the 2nd SF it would go into meta as expected. Im not sure if its something integreted in the way WoW queues spells to be cast, and that OFF-GCDs arent really working that well with it, but i remember something about queueing abillities that allowed for instant casting even if you didnt click it "right" when previous thing was off/gcd was ready. Could that be the issue? That SF simply queues itself up and fucks the Meta cast?

Try this...

#showtooltip [talent:7/1] demonbolt; Soul Fire
/cast [nostance] !Metamorphosis
/cast [talent:7/1] demonbolt; Soul Fire

I have it without the second line, but i used like this before and it put me in meta form... One button which works for Demonbolt/SF.

[Gum]

get a better meta key binding, it's not on the global CD so unless your reaction times are longer then 1+ second you are doing something wrong. its very unpractical to have macros like the one you listed for anything but demonbolt as it doubles the amount of keybindings required.

See this is exactly what i wanted to avoid. Again youre assuming i have a bad meta bind, or that im not able to do it without it. Wich is entirely not the case.

being able to spam a key mindlessly while looking at other shit, isnt what i would consider unpractical. losing even 0.2 sec of a cast casting meta before you start your SF is a dps loss, if there was a macro to cut that away, why not use it? seems awfully shitty to me atleast. Also im so glad you decided to read the entirety of my post and still wanted to be an ass. Thats lovely, thanks for that bro, maybe you can get off your high horse of perfect play and be either a) helpfull or b) fucked off.

Also hey Dietrik, thanks for the PM, tested your macro and it runs into the same issues i had with well, every single other macro i have tired. It can do it, but not 100% of the time.

Again, it think it runs into the issue of spellqueueing SF up, ignoring meta cus "reasons". I think it might just not be doable. Wich is a shame.

[Merovingia]

Back at Toastiekins, re: "Doing piss poor dps as service/servitude and it's lame and boring to play as well. Really makes me reconsider what class I call my main. Talk me down from the ledge!"

OK, here's my best shot:

As to dps - changing a rotation is always going to take a toll until you get the muscle memory and learn the rhythm of the fights from that angle. Personally, I've rolled Sup/Serv for single target, because it's very close to Serv/Serv with steady damage output, and there is more forgiveness for mistakes while I relearn MoP playstyle. It's also focussed on steady, consistent damage output, and is very solid on high movement fights like Blackhand.

As to lame and boring to play - I first note that what is fun for me may not be fun for you. That said, I enjoy how dynamic and versatile the Sup/Serv build is on ST fights. Stance dancing is the core of the spec, and I the more time I spend in Meta, the more I feel like a true demo lock. With high mobility from stance dancing, and the option to cleave / burst aoe, I'm in a pretty good position to handle whatever the boss throws at me and keep on rolling. The DB playstyle depends on root & cast, which works awesome on fights like Butcher and Gruul, but is more difficult (not impossible of course) to manage well on fights like Blackhand, Flamebender, or Imperator. I had a lot of fun with DB once I figured out how it worked, and I can't say I don't miss it's dominance. But the Cata/Serve playstyle is fun too, just in a different way.

As to what class you call your main - well that's up to you; I'm sticking with my Demo lock through thick and thin because I absolutely fell in love with the spec at level 10. Soloing RFC at level 13 in full heirlooms was awesome. (BTW I really miss demonic rebirth.) But for what it's worth, we are the only casters, and the only ranged class besides hunters, that can reliably dps on the move, thanks to ToC (so far as I can think of - and we need to learn the fights first to make sure we have some fury stored for movement phases, unlike hunters). Couple that with excellent damage reduction, the mixture of ST & aoe spells, the ability to swap around pets and talents, and we have a very versatile spec that will perform decently on any encounter, although we may not top the charts like we used to. That said, anecdotally, the other demo lock in my guild and I both consistently place in or close to the top 5 for damage done in our guild runs on most fights. And unlike other classes, we are able to pull our weight on any fight without needing to respec (rogues come to mind).

Finally, there is something to be said for playing a class that has a higher skill cap. I want to play my lock as well as I can, and that can be a lot more frustrating than, for example, my ret pally alt, because it requires a lot more care and attention. (BTW, if you main a warlock, ret pallys make great alts. Flashing lights, mashing buttons, RNG - it's like Vegas!). But when I pull it off, I get a satisfaction out of playing the class well that playing my ret just doesn't give me. Demo has always been the glue-eating cousin of the other two lock specs, and it can feel really weird sometimes. The compliments that mean the most to me aren't from other classes commenting on the meters; what means the most are the whispers from other locks asking for tips on demo, because it took a lot of work to get to that point.

Now, the interesting thing is that writing this response has quelled some nagging whispers in my own mind. I think it's easy to look at whatever the Simcraft rankings are atm and forget about the fun of the gameplay. Let's be honest, I WANT to be OP. I want to rock a meter, and that got harder last Tuesday. But so long as I can deliver solid, reliable results, the boss dies, and we live - we're going to be okay. The guild will progress, I will get gear, and sooner or later Blizz will hire someone who really understands Warlocks. But WoW isn't a job, where I focus on results, and if I happen to have fun in the process, all the better. It's a game, and it's fundamentally supposed to be fun while we progress toward results. I play my lock because I have fun, and I can deliver solid results, and that's the perspective I need to keep no matter where we place on the meter.

TL; DR: Are we the FOTM now? Nah. But we still have a lot going for us, and it's worth sticking it out if you enjoy the class. Stance dancing is the core of the Demo spec, so if you like the rhythm, stick it out. At the end of the day, this is a game, and if you're not having fun, keep asking the question - what WOULD be fun?

[Deleted]

See this is exactly what i wanted to avoid. Again youre assuming i have a bad meta bind, or that im not able to do it without it. Wich is entirely not the case.

being able to spam a key mindlessly while looking at other shit, isnt what i would consider unpractical. losing even 0.2 sec of a cast casting meta before you start your SF is a dps loss, if there was a macro to cut that away, why not use it?

For the exact reasons Tramzh said - keybind creep. There are plenty of situations where you'd want to use either SF or meta without them being married to each other, so you'll want keybinds for them individually anyway. Making a third keybind to shave a fraction of a second off a cast seems like it'll bite you in the arse more times than it's worth by either hogging a more ergonomic keybind or being pressed out of habit when you need to do something other than the norm.

No need to start telling people to fuck off and "get off their high horse" and generally being a jackass just because they tried giving some, frankly, half decent advice.

[Gum]

It isnt half decent advise. Its totally and utterly pointless advise. Im very much aware how important it is to be able to choose when and how and why i go into meta, but that isnt why i want the macro. Its insane how the lack of complete udnerstanding of the issue make it seem like its me being an ass. I must take it upon myself i guess, not being able to explain propor the reason behind the need for it, and that is why you guys are adamant on your "just hurr durr l2p" standpoint, and for that im sorry.

I dont want/need to be told why something else is important/better/smarter/tastes awesome, i was just wondering why it didnt work. If anyone had one that was working or had an idea to fix mine.

If i wanted to discuss the need for the macro, i wouldnt have stated the EXACT opposite in my first post..


Seemingly it just cant be done, and ill ahve to like some pleb, accept the fact that when a trinket proc, ill have to pay attention to the end of my cast so i can pop Meta, rather than be able to spam a kay while noticing boss timers/room/my raid/my dog/my kid/anything else than my cast-bar. But its cool team team, thanks to the ones that tried to help. But im not even surprised the warlock community ends this simple question in a debate on whoms the best at pressing buttons, thats the exact reason i didnt want to go here before trying every other option.

Love

[Tramzh]

It isnt half decent advise. Its totally and utterly pointless advise. Im very much aware how important it is to be able to choose when and how and why i go into meta, but that isnt why i want the macro. Its insane how the lack of complete udnerstanding of the issue make it seem like its me being an ass. I must take it upon myself i guess, not being able to explain propor the reason behind the need for it, and that is why you guys are adamant on your "just hurr durr l2p" standpoint, and for that im sorry.

I dont want/need to be told why something else is important/better/smarter/tastes awesome, i was just wondering why it didnt work. If anyone had one that was working or had an idea to fix mine.

If i wanted to discuss the need for the macro, i wouldnt have stated the EXACT opposite in my first post..


Seemingly it just cant be done, and ill ahve to like some pleb, accept the fact that when a trinket proc, ill have to pay attention to the end of my cast so i can pop Meta, rather than be able to spam a kay while noticing boss timers/room/my raid/my dog/my kid/anything else than my cast-bar. But its cool team team, thanks to the ones that tried to help. But im not even surprised the warlock community ends this simple question in a debate on whoms the best at pressing buttons, thats the exact reason i didnt want to go here before trying every other option.

Love

Sorry if you got insulted but I dont type on these forums to become best friends with everyone, I'm here to try to help people out and now if you dont want people to answer like I did then it would be great if you explained your specific reasoning because how I understood is that you want a macro for the general scenario I'm pretty sure what I said is what most people are actually doing, just wait until you find the real flaws of the class if this is something you get stuck up about.

[Calz]

I have also tried with cast sequence + a much more simpler approach. I’m seemingly just either too retarded to do anything right. Anyone has a fix?

I've tested with a castsequence macro ( /castsequence Metamorphosis, Soul Fire ) for 10 minutes on target dummies now and it hasn't failed once. Is it consistently failing for you?