[6.2] Demonology Warlock Guide

[Valq]

I'm in a small casual raiding guild of about 13 players. I keep getting reprimanded for having the lowest add damage on fights. I try to explain that with much of my damage coming from dots and pets, I can't just instantly swap to a different target and burst it down like a hunter can. I'm looking at logs of other demonology warlocks, and most of them have similar add damage on fights like Archimonde and Gorefiend. Am I wrong to think and be telling them this? I'm being told that I need to "figure something out" and I'm just at a loss.

You're playing the wrong spec, if your guild is complaining about low add damage, then you should be destruction, seeing as it's one of the best specs at sniping low health adds (gorefiend) and bursting down/aoe'ing adds (Archimonde)

[Prisefighter]

You can do WORK on Kormrok. Blowing up the hands means your ring can hit the boss for like 5 million over the course of a fight. Pre ring I would not have suggest Demo for this fight but with the ring you can top overall damage while topping boss damage due to ring cheese haha.

What is everyone's thoughts on Demo for Mythic Kormrok progression? We have three locks but I'd likely be the only one playing demo. The ring damage from hands onto boss seems OP but another lock in our raid pointed out that that is largely irrelevant - his point being that raid-wide you are putting the exact same damage onto the hands with rings popped so the total damage done via the ring is going to be the same. A demo lock destroying hands and having 5 mil ring damage done is basically just skewing ring damage from all of the raid to primarily the one demo lock.

I'd like to hear what people's thoughts are on running Demo for this fight on mythic progression. I just miss demo and want to be able to run it for fights without being detrimental to the raid!

[Duckz0rs]

What is everyone's thoughts on Demo for Mythic Kormrok progression? We have three locks but I'd likely be the only one playing demo. The ring damage from hands onto boss seems OP but another lock in our raid pointed out that that is largely irrelevant - his point being that raid-wide you are putting the exact same damage onto the hands with rings popped so the total damage done via the ring is going to be the same. A demo lock destroying hands and having 5 mil ring damage done is basically just skewing ring damage from all of the raid to primarily the one demo lock.

I'd like to hear what people's thoughts are on running Demo for this fight on mythic progression. I just miss demo and want to be able to run it for fights without being detrimental to the raid!

Your fellow Lock is right. Keep in mind however, that one Demo lock focusing on the hands (and thus skewing the ring damage) frees up the rest of the raid to focus down Kormrok by tunneling. If you have the setup to allow that it's not detrimental.

The question is; which part is harder to deal with for your raid? If the hands go down easily, clearly Kormrok himself is the problem (or one of the other mechanics), which could prove to be an edge case where padding is not actually padding but helpful.

Just keep in mind to communicate and discuss with your raid so you don't end up shooting down the hands along with everyone else. That would make it padding as for example hunters can take care of the hands easily with Barrage.

[Octa]

What is everyone's thoughts on Demo for Mythic Kormrok progression? We have three locks but I'd likely be the only one playing demo. The ring damage from hands onto boss seems OP but another lock in our raid pointed out that that is largely irrelevant - his point being that raid-wide you are putting the exact same damage onto the hands with rings popped so the total damage done via the ring is going to be the same. A demo lock destroying hands and having 5 mil ring damage done is basically just skewing ring damage from all of the raid to primarily the one demo lock.

I'd like to hear what people's thoughts are on running Demo for this fight on mythic progression. I just miss demo and want to be able to run it for fights without being detrimental to the raid!

I think he's only looking at it half correctly because you don't focus on ONLY the ring explosion. Having 1 or 2 people who can utterly destroy the hands allows everyone else to play for complete single target even if it's the same amount of damage into the hands overall because of their fixed health. This means you don't have half your entire going for some AoE/Cleave and dropping small portions of single target damage and in turn lowering your overall raid single target damage cause everyone's trying to do a bit of everything. This means that others can play their single target specs and your demo lock will be top boss damage and deal with the hands efficiently. The one big drawback to this is that SO MUCH of your damage comes from those few globals that if you fuck up even 1 global you probably just cost yourself 25k+ DPS and a TON of boss damage and possibly fuck your raid on hands (less likely than just losing a ton of boss damage).

Overall I think running demo on this fight for progression can be good if your raid adjusts to it and puts out max single target instead of trying to pad (for lack of a better word) on the hands and sacrifice a bunch of single target.

[xuros]

I tried T18 and class trinket and it was annoying as I kept letting the buff fall off, plus there were odd occasions where Imps didn't die. I think T17 plays a bit safer in this regard. You get the odd wave where ring is up and everybody goes mad on AoE, but there are some packs which even in current gear die a little bit too slow if you don't have everything up.

I guess your mileage may vary and depends if you have everyone AoE or just certain classes / people.

Edit: I think one of the most important things is getting your Felguard in the correct position every time. On our first night my Felguard's Felstorm after say 5 packs of Imps was doing 2.5M damage whereas the other Warlocks which was sat on the boss did about 500k.

What spec line up do you use for Manna? Others chime in as well please.

[striderZA]

What spec line up do you use for Manna? Others chime in as well please.

Following the conversations here, it seems that the majority prefer Cata Demo for Mannoroth.

[Deleted]

What spec line up do you use for Manna? Others chime in as well please.

GoSyn with Cata, GoSup is probably just as viable for the bigger Wrathstorm, the pets AoE usually comes in 3rd as overall damage on this fight.

[Kirroth]

he's basically trying to tell you to respec to destruction

If you're playing for your raid and what the encounter demands, you should be playing Destruction on those types of encounters.

And here's where "casual raiding guild" becomes a highly subjective term. Some people focus on "casual" and say that if you're not pushing Mythic or Heroic progression you're free to play what you enjoy most. Other people focus on "raiding guild" and say that obviously you're expected to play the spec that's most powerful in a given tier, personal preferences be damned.

Really, I'd suggest having a frank discussion with your guild officers. Make it clear that changing specs is pretty much the only way to satisfy the demands being thrown at you, find out if that's something that's expected in your guild, and decide if the answer is what you want in a guild.

[Deleted]

And here's where "casual raiding guild" becomes a highly subjective term. Some people focus on "casual" and say that if you're not pushing Mythic or Heroic progression you're free to play what you enjoy most. Other people focus on "raiding guild" and say that obviously you're expected to play the spec that's most powerful in a given tier, personal preferences be damned.

Really, I'd suggest having a frank discussion with your guild officers. Make it clear that changing specs is pretty much the only way to satisfy the demands being thrown at you, find out if that's something that's expected in your guild, and decide if the answer is what you want in a guild.

I think his guild telling him to shape up his act or he's benched is reason enough, if they were as 'casual' as you say then he wouldn't be here in the first place. He can continue to play Demonology and get benched, or shape up and play a spec more suited to the encounter.

[Yorindesarin]

I think his guild telling him to shape up his act or he's benched is reason enough, if they were as 'casual' as you say then he wouldn't be here in the first place. He can continue to play Demonology and get benched, or shape up and play a spec more suited to the encounter.

In a 13 man group it shouldn't particularly matter though.... If the classes that are great at add damage are killing adds he SHOULD be able to focus on priority target damage. At least thats what I use to do when I played demo in Herioc. So long as the fight completes the damage spread theoretically doesn't matter. However if they are say wiping due to adds (gorefiend I guess) then... He should definitely destro.

I've currently dropped demo for Affi until my guild reaches a point where we no longer require Destro so I can go Demo/Affi (but as usual probably won't happen because everyones an AoE whore instead of ST focus..)

[Duckz0rs]

In a 13 man group it shouldn't particularly matter though.... If the classes that are great at add damage are killing adds he SHOULD be able to focus on priority target damage. At least thats what I use to do when I played demo in Herioc. So long as the fight completes the damage spread theoretically doesn't matter.

Depends heavily on the setup. I'm in a 13 man group as well, but we only have 2 ranged dpsers (a mage and myself). Which pretty much means if there's adds, all spec choice for us is out the window. We have to go with what can focus down adds such as Archimonde's shadows and infernals asap, as otherwise we can't manage the fight.

[Yorindesarin]

Depends heavily on the setup. I'm in a 13 man group as well, but we only have 2 ranged dpsers (a mage and myself). Which pretty much means if there's adds, all spec choice for us is out the window. We have to go with what can focus down adds such as Archimonde's shadows and infernals asap, as otherwise we can't manage the fight.

Thats effectively what I was saying. However... That setup sounds awful... Some melee should reroll! 1 melee is too much... Never mind 5-6?

For example on mythic council I had to play destro whilst the other lock in my guild played affi because I had a demo spec... (Demo > Destro here... but we required mirror damage) now we don't really so I've dropped demo for affi... just to also maximize cheese. At a "casual" or low level of raiding unless extreme circumstances such as yours happen you should be able to play what you like.

I look forward to the 7.0 patch so I can properly pick Demo again without being on add duty. (I hope they don't scratch meta for locks it's the most warlocky thing in the game...)

[Duckz0rs]

Thats effectively what I was saying. However... That setup sounds awful... Some melee should reroll! 1 melee is too much... Never mind 5-6?

Tell me about it! I wish they'd listen :P The setup is hands-down atrocious with I think 3 Rogues now?

[Yorindesarin]

Tell me about it! I wish they'd listen :P The setup is hands-down atrocious with I think 3 Rogues now?

Don't worry! Rogues are good in HFC. So many fights have rogue jobs! xD

[Luis Oscar]

Hello, I was wondering...

Does anyone have a weak aura for Fragment of the Dark Star that tracks the stacks on my current focus? (and preferably on my current target too)

Thanks in advance.

[Ricshard]

Hello, I was wondering...

Does anyone have a weak aura for Fragment of the Dark Star that tracks the stacks on my current focus? (and preferably on my current target too)

Thanks in advance.

The demo version of Fragment of the Dark Star is a personal buff. The one that stacks on targets is the destro version of the trinket.

Also sorry, i don't know how to share weakauras or if anything i make it worth sharing. I just made a buff tracker for "Demon Rush" and told it to show time and stacks.

[Atroxe]

The demo version of Fragment of the Dark Star is a personal buff. The one that stacks on targets is the destro version of the trinket.

Also sorry, i don't know how to share weakauras or if anything i make it worth sharing. I just made a buff tracker for "Demon Rush" and told it to show time and stacks.

Demon Rush doesn't come from fragment.

[Zevoa]

Demon Rush doesn't come from fragment.

Oh wow, clever.

[Atroxe]

Oh wow, clever.

Thanks man.

[Deleted]

Can anyone share some tips and tricks or general observations/info for mythic mannoroth? It would be much appreciated.