Demonology Opener PSA

[gahddo]

Sup, I maintain warlocks in simc. It's come to my attention that the opener that I've had in place for the past few months hasn't really been posted anywhere. I tried every combination of ability orders in the first 20 seconds of combat you could think of, and this one is solidly (~1.2%) better than the standard openers people use. If anyone can come up with a better opener in simc, I'll gladly commit it. I've tried every single possible way I could to make chaos wave in the opener good, it just never works.

Since they upped the duration of service to 25 in the last patch, you don't need to pop DS immediately on pull, so long as you use it in the first 5 seconds of after using service doomguard. It pops service after the first HoG so the doomguard benefits from pre-pull trinket buffs.

Visual representation: https://gyazo.com/2884495ea9773830be8e1e5571e37528
Log courtesy of exon from halycon: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...73&view=events

The only difference in the log is that he uses HoG after GoServ, shouldn't make a huge difference.

1. Pre-potion
2. Pre-cast Soul Fire OR Shadow Bolt (see below)
3. Racials
4. Hand of Gul’dan
5. Service Doomguard
6. Corruption
7. Imp Swarm OR Shadow Bolt (requires temporary haste buff)
8. Hand of Gul’dan
9. Metamorphosis
10. Dark Soul
11. Doom

After this point, prioritize:

1. Refreshing Hand of Gul’dan
2. Metamorphosis Soul Fire
3. Touch of Chaos
4. Caster Soul Fire with crit trinket up
5. Shadow Bolt

With the 4pc for demonology, you have the ability to refresh hand of gul’dan 3 times in your opener, instead of the normal 1 time. If you have a hand of gul’dan charge, and you can refresh your initial 2x stacked hand of gul’dan DoT, you should cancel metamorphosis and do so. Yes. CANCEL METAMORPHOSIS. Your brain will tell you it's a bad idea, but when you see your HoG damage shoot up to #1 and your dps spike straight up, it's hard to argue.

A typical example of how you should use the 4pc:

Around 10-11 seconds in the to fight, you have 1 hand of gul’dan charge, a 2 stack hand of gul’dan DoT on the target that’s about to expire, and another hand of gul’dan charge coming off cd in 3-5 seconds.

1. Cancel metamorphosis
2. Refresh your 2 stack Hand of Gul’dan DoT
3. Shadow Bolt 2-3 times, buying time for your next Hand of Gul’dan to come off CD.
4. Hand of Gul’dan again
5. Metamorphosis, continue dumping DF via SF/ToC until DS ends

__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________

You can currently bait your trinkets to proc twice on pull almost 100%. The BRF trinkets proc on combat/cast rather than on impact. This means that if you pre-cast your soul fire or shadow bolt and the cast ends before the boss is pulled, you can proc your trinkets before combat starts, and then the RPPM resets when the boss is pulled. Because the rppm resets, you have a VERY high change to get back to back trinket procs on pull.

Furty explains the pre-pull trinket shenanigans pretty well here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGaQFlH13dE

Shadow Bolt vs Soul Fire in the precast makes very little difference, I prefer using Shadow Bolt to more safely proc my trinkets before combat starts.

[Turturin the Warlock]

Try swapping corruption and service doomguard in initial order, this frees you up to cast doom before dark soul. wasting ~7% of your dark soul on a doom application seems like a bad idea

[gahddo]

Try swapping corruption and service doomguard in initial order, this frees you up to cast doom before dark soul. wasting ~7% of your dark soul on a doom application seems like a bad idea

There was actually an unintended change to the default apl at some point that was fucking up the opener I had posted. Fixing that as we speak.

On the 2nd gcd, it makes literally no dps difference if you use corruption of service DG, it's in the noise.

It's just barely a dps loss (almost noise) to delay dark soul until after the doom gcd. The doom gcd ends slightly more than 5 seconds after service is used, so you lose a tiny bit of DG damage for a slightly longer dark soul, and most of the burst dps comes from pets/dots anyway.

[Deleted]

i would cast a soulfire first after Metamorphosis sometimes your procs run out mid cast when you doom first
ofc only when you get a proc. else use touch till procs expire then apply doom

[Darkzyrklord]

Just more of a curiosity question. With the recent mastery buffs in 6.2, do you think CW will eventually pull ahead of HoG when DS is up in the opener?

[Woz]

Just more of a curiosity question. With the recent mastery buffs in 6.2, do you think CW will eventually pull ahead of HoG when DS is up in the opener?

Looking like with how the class trinket + set pieces work you won't be really ever casting CW, should always be worth casting a double stack of HoG.

[Turturin the Warlock]

There was actually an unintended change to the default apl at some point that was fucking up the opener I had posted. Fixing that as we speak.

On the 2nd gcd, it makes literally no dps difference if you use corruption of service DG, it's in the noise.

It's just barely a dps loss (almost noise) to delay dark soul until after the doom gcd. The doom gcd ends slightly more than 5 seconds after service is used, so you lose a tiny bit of DG damage for a slightly longer dark soul, and most of the burst dps comes from pets/dots anyway.

My point was that if you swap corruption and service, doom gcd can finish <5 seconds after service, giving full uptime on service during dark soul. That said over course of fight it wouldn't matter much.

[Darkzyrklord]

Looking like with how the class trinket + set pieces work you won't be really ever casting CW, should always be worth casting a double stack of HoG.

The class trinket only procs from initial cast, so that's a moot point. As for the set bonuses, obviously HoG will be better in AOE situations due to the sheer amount of molten core procs you'd be getting. In single target situations though, that's up for debate.

[Verothous]

The class trinket only procs from initial cast, so that's a moot point. As for the set bonuses, obviously HoG will be better in AOE situations due to the sheer amount of molten core procs you'd be getting. In single target situations though, that's up for debate.

Actually the trinket has been fixed on the PTR. The 4pc is currently bugged in a new way where it is spawning waaay too many demons. And no it isn't up for debate. You will have no really strong short procs to react to which is why CW is used so much atm. HoG will flat out be stronger in terms of dps in almost every situation and the average MC procs from HoG are higher even for single target.

- - - Updated - - -

My point was that if you swap corruption and service, doom gcd can finish <5 seconds after service, giving full uptime on service during dark soul. That said over course of fight it wouldn't matter much.

Actually you should be using the double proc trick on the pull, that gives you 20 seconds on each of your 10 sec procs. You want the 25 second service Doomguard to benefit as much from them as possible, not just DS. Also delaying DS means less uptime for double stack of HoG during DS (unless lucky with 4pc procs). I have been using this opener for months and the way Ghaddo has it is how you want to do it, esp when HoG is benefiting from lust.

[gahddo]

Actually the trinket has been fixed on the PTR. The 4pc is currently bugged in a new way where it is spawning waaay too many demons. And no it isn't up for debate. You will have no really strong short procs to react to which is why CW is used so much atm. HoG will flat out be stronger in terms of dps in almost every situation and the average MC procs from HoG are higher even for single target.

- - - Updated - - -



Actually you should be using the double proc trick on the pull, that gives you 20 seconds on each of your 10 sec procs. You want the 25 second service Doomguard to benefit as much from them as possible, not just DS. Also delaying DS means less uptime for double stack of HoG during DS (unless lucky with 4pc procs). I have been using this opener for months and the way Ghaddo has it is how you want to do it, esp when HoG is benefiting from lust.

The precise order in which you use cds or apply doom really doesn't matter much for overall damage, the key difference between this opener and the old methods is canceling meta for HoG uptime. That's the important part, just make sure you're keeping 2x HoG up as long as possible. The rest is mostly anecdotal.

- - - Updated - - -

I fixed a pretty glaring issue in the opening sequence that was in simc, no change from the opener I have posted, just that it got messed up at some point in the code. Shifting the order it uses abilities on pull only gained 0.06% dps. The key really is canceling meta to refresh HoG, outside of that it doesn't really matter very much.

[MycantrumX]

The precise order in which you use cds or apply doom really doesn't matter much for overall damage, the key difference between this opener and the old methods is canceling meta for HoG uptime. That's the important part, just make sure you're keeping 2x HoG up as long as possible. The rest is mostly anecdotal.

- - - Updated - - -

I fixed a pretty glaring issue in the opening sequence that was in simc, no change from the opener I have posted, just that it got messed up at some point in the code. Shifting the order it uses abilities on pull only gained 0.06% dps. The key really is canceling meta to refresh HoG, outside of that it doesn't really matter very much.

Thank you for all the work you do Gahddo! /praise

[Tramzh]

Talking from a live patch point of view: Not using CW makes the opener way more inconsistent. Anything that forces you to cast ToC more than 2-3 times during your first DS is not good, especially if you BL on pull (this opener suffers without BL on the pull too because of HoGs scaling with haste). Sure if you happen to swim in MC procs from the start, know a 4pc proc is coming in the first 10-15 seconds of the pull and you are using darmac and GSR trinkets then this opener beats anything with CW, but I have come to the conclusion that the variance that this opener can cause if you are unlucky with MC procs really isn't worth it. It's overall pretty hard to define the best opener for every situation as it depends on procs.

[pkm]

My warlock is only in HM lfr gear atm but how do you guys get enough fury on the opener? If I follow this priority I barely have any fury to make use of dark soul in demon form and just standing there casting in normal form.

[Styxxa]

My warlock is only in HM lfr gear atm but how do you guys get enough fury on the opener? If I follow this priority I barely have any fury to make use of dark soul in demon form and just standing there casting in normal form.

There's a couple of things right off the bat that will help you generate: Doomguard(s), Corruption, 2 stack of HoG. Even then you'll be lucky to cast a few SF's in Meta if you get the necessary MC procs. I don't think anyone here is talking about staying in Meta spamming SF's here - it's never been the case in the opener.

[pkm]

There's a couple of things right off the bat that will help you generate: Doomguard(s), Corruption, 2 stack of HoG. Even then you'll be lucky to cast a few SF's in Meta if you get the necessary MC procs. I don't think anyone here is talking about staying in Meta spamming SF's here - it's never been the case in the opener.

Doesn't that make dark soul a waste then? Using HoG which means no chaos wave and chances of not getting any soul-fire or maybe just 1 or 2.

[SpikeySquad]

Look through any decent logs and you are extremely unlikely to find burst like in the opening. All the trinkets and damage procs together make a lot of difference.

[Styxxa]

Doesn't that make dark soul a waste then? Using HoG which means no chaos wave and chances of not getting any soul-fire or maybe just 1 or 2.

Well when do you suggest is a better time to use Dark Soul then? The other reason you use it at or near the pull is because your Doomguard, Bloodlust (if using) and all of your procs are popping at that moment. There's really no better time to line everything up - it's just the most obvious and powerful use of Dark Soul.

Putting the proposed opener in this thread aside, if you get your Doomguard out, get BL on the pull, pop Dark Soul, get a 2 stack of HoG rolling and your Corruption up, you might have generated 1 or 2 MC charges that you can use after you pop into Meta and apply Doom. Then if you get back to caster form immediately for a few Shadow Bolts you might have generated just enough Demonic Fury and 1 or 2 more MC charges that you can pop back into Meta and cast at the tail end of your 20s Dark Soul. But that's really as good as it gets in your gear on the pull.

[gahddo]

Talking from a live patch point of view: Not using CW makes the opener way more inconsistent. Anything that forces you to cast ToC more than 2-3 times during your first DS is not good, especially if you BL on pull (this opener suffers without BL on the pull too because of HoGs scaling with haste). Sure if you happen to swim in MC procs from the start, know a 4pc proc is coming in the first 10-15 seconds of the pull and you are using darmac and GSR trinkets then this opener beats anything with CW, but I have come to the conclusion that the variance that this opener can cause if you are unlucky with MC procs really isn't worth it. It's overall pretty hard to define the best opener for every situation as it depends on procs.

HoG is only about 20% worse than chaos wave when you can roll it 4 times, without bloodlust, or haste trinket, or troll racial. With ANY of those haste buffs active, HoG just flat out beats it for damage output.

You also lose 80 demonic fury, and the opportunity cost of ~12 DF generated from HoG, and the molten core charges you would get from HoG anyway.

In return, you gain 20% Damage Per Charge increase and a molten core charge.

-Correction- that was based on 6.2 values, 40% hog nerf/25% chaos wave nerf, favoring CW. On live, 4x HoG with 3 2 stack rolls ALWAYS beats chaos wave in terms of average damage per charge, regardless of haste buffs.

[MycantrumX]

-Correction- that was based on 6.2 values, 40% hog nerf/25% chaos wave nerf, favoring CW. On live, 4x HoG with 3 2 stack rolls ALWAYS beats chaos wave in terms of average damage per charge, regardless of haste buffs.

Thanks for the additional correction. So there should be no difference in the opener at all with or without Bloodlust. This is good to know for a fight like mythic Blackhand.