Demonology Survey

[kvarn]

I was curious to see how many demo locks are now stacking mastery and using the pet swap technique.

[Deleted]

Doesnt stacking mean everything? Gems included?! as that would be pretty shite.

[Jahrastafari]

Mastery is scaling above all other stats for me, so yes, I prioritize it.

I swap pets on the pull and don't do it again unless a clear opportunity presents itself. If you have an opportunity where you have no other assignment and no movement coming up AND all of that aligns with your Demon Soul cooldown (hint: this will happen next to never,) it's a DPS gain to be sure, but to make it your default priority every two minutes in a fight with heavy movement will decimate your DPS.

Look at the sims for BiS. While the pet swapping put Demonology at #1 for a no-movement Patchwerk encounter, it resulted in a ~2000 dps loss for a heavy movement Patchwerk encounter, when compared to the previous priority list.

[Fellcaller]

I'm pretty new to demo, but I favour mastery (not to the exclusion of haste though).Pet swapping, I'm not to sure of, perhaps after a few more raids when I've got the rest of the spec nailed down, but at the moment it seems too risky given the dps loss if you screw up. I'm actually still not 100% on the when and why of swapping yet anyway.

[Uriel]

i have no clue about demo. could anyone explain why you swap pets and wich pets?

[Greyarea]

I stack mastery and have the felguard out on the pull, but I don't resummon him during the encounter after ive soulburnt my felpup. It's just way too clunky in an already clunky spec, as I've said many times before.

[Micke]

Has anyone noticed a dps increase when going from aff to full mastery demo+moonwell trinket on baleroc/majordomo?

[Frewt]

I tried the Full Mastery approach but found it too vulnerable to movement and as such I'm sticking to 1993 Haste for the Corruption tick, atleast until I can get access to more i391 gear.

The difference is simmed (on Patchwerk) to be very small - With my gear the Full Mastery beats out 1993 Haste by about 200~ DPS, but even the slightest movement during Meta and the Haste profile catches back up.

This may not be the same for everyone though due to gear differences etc.

[Lillah]

I simmed my character while stacking mastery and came out a few (like 3 lawl) dps behind my current setup at the moment. Regardless of that though I don't think I'd want to run around with only mastery at the moment..
When I pick up a few more pieces with haste (soon!!), I'll try to for the 1993 haste threshold again. I feel like its slightly too much out of the way for me currently.

Also I do petswap when it feels appropriate. Which so far for me is just ragnaros. Where I'll swap back to a felguard for seeds phase.

[Jessicka]

I can't stand playing with >2sec Shadow Bolts. I don't think the stat weighting difference between Haste and Mastery is that great at the moment either in my gear, and with certain encounters always demanding multi-dotting, for which Haste is much more useful I'm very reluctant to shift wholeheartedly over to Mastery. Off-specs are also an issue, for which Haste is also better so again, another reason not to stack Mastery too heavily. I'd like more, but not really at the cost of Haste, and I wouldn't want to drop below 1993.

[Stridulent]

Getting first additional corruption tick (1846 for goblin) then all out mastery. I think it has been tested that the extra corruption tick will also yield one extra doomguard shadow bolt. Not too big, but still notable.

Also, I tried the pet-swapping technique on baleroc, domo, and ragnaros this week. Worked fairly well on all except ragnaros, but I was summoning the felguard early to help AoE the seeds and DPS the Sons, so that might have hurt my DPS in the long run but still helped the raid.

EDIT: As Jahrastafari mentioned above, it really depends on the fight. On a heavy movement fight you might actually gain more dps by buffing your dots with Demon Soul: Felhunter (as compared to Demon Soul: Felguard, where most of the DPS is gained through spamming shadow bolt and hand of gul'dan on CD).

[Jahrastafari]

I can't stand playing with >2sec Shadow Bolts. I don't think the stat weighting difference between Haste and Mastery is that great at the moment either in my gear, and with certain encounters always demanding multi-dotting, for which Haste is much more useful I'm very reluctant to shift wholeheartedly over to Mastery. Off-specs are also an issue, for which Haste is also better so again, another reason not to stack Mastery too heavily. I'd like more, but not really at the cost of Haste, and I wouldn't want to drop below 1993.

I think the DPS difference is negligible for most people, and it comes down to play style. I personally prefer the heavy mastery build. I don't like having to delay Metamorphosis every cooldown to have it align with the MWC. With the extra Impending Doom procs, thanks to extra shadowbolts from the increased haste, I was often looking at a >30 second difference between my Metamorphosis and MWC. At my low haste levels, I'm almost guaranteed that Meta will become available within 5-10 seconds of the MWC cooldown, every time, sans Bloodlust. I hate to wait on the cooldown, and I hate popping Meta without the MWC even more.

Additionally, I really don't place much value on the extra Corruption tick. Lots of Demonology warlocks seem to be placing the same emphasis on it that Destruction warlocks place on the extra Immolate ticks. Without a secondary spell to take advantage of the extra tick, the value just isn't the same.

Suppose it all boils down to play style though.

[Ichiru]

Now when im seeing pet swap is that like felguard to felhound for like phase 1 beth to phase 2? Also some post seems like they refer to a hard cast instead of a soul burn.

I play destro tried out demon few week ago did stacking mastery but i didn't like how slow it felt. With the 1993 haste threshold mark for extra corruption just curious whats the cast time fully raid buffed for haste for Shadow Bolt.

[Jahrastafari]

Now when im seeing pet swap is that like felguard to felhound for like phase 1 beth to phase 2? Also some post seems like they refer to a hard cast instead of a soul burn.

There's going to be a hard cast at one end or the other. You can soul burn in your Felguard in for a Demon soul and Felstorm, but you'll end up hard casting the Felhunter back in (resulting in lost Demon Soul time) or you can hard cast your Felguard in for the Demon Soul and Felstorm, and then Soul Burn the Felhunter in (better choice.) Either way you're hard casting.

[Ichiru]

There's going to be a hard cast at one end or the other. You can soul burn in your Felguard in for a Demon soul and Felstorm, but you'll end up hard casting the Felhunter back in (resulting in lost Demon Soul time) or you can hard cast your Felguard in for the Demon Soul and Felstorm, and then Soul Burn the Felhunter in (better choice.) Either way you're hard casting.

So is this for every demon soul of for the 3 soul shards cause if you had to hard cast twice seem like a big lost.

[Jahrastafari]

So is this for every demon soul of for the 3 soul shards cause if you had to hard cast twice seem like a big lost.

The idea behind the pet swap is that you hard cast the Felguard in every time Demon Soul is up, to take advantage of it's superior Demon Soul buff, and then Soul Burn the Felhunter in. In theory it's a DPS increase, in practice it's extremely impractical in almost every situation.

Personally, I start a fight with the Felguard, pop Demon Soul, get off a Felstorm with the Felguard and the Soul Burn the Felhunter back in for the duration of the fight. I find hard summoning the Felguard for every Demon Soul to be unwieldy in almost every encounter.

[Barbalel]

So is this for every demon soul of for the 3 soul shards cause if you had to hard cast twice seem like a big lost.

it's not a big lose its a gain in dps to line up the ds with meta, even more so if you have the chalice.

[Frewt]

Getting first additional corruption tick (1846 for goblin) then all out mastery. I think it has been tested that the extra corruption tick will also yield one extra doomguard shadow bolt. Not too big, but still notable.

15.39% Haste (1970 rating non-goblin) is enough for 4 additional Doom Bolts (i.e. 25 casts) as Demo but you'll be lucky to get more than 20 due to his AI / latency so you may as well ignore the thresholds for extra casts.

[Stridulent]

15.39% Haste (1970 rating non-goblin) is enough for 4 additional Doom Bolts (i.e. 25 casts) as Demo but you'll be lucky to get more than 20 due to his AI / latency so you may as well ignore the thresholds for extra casts.

Valid point.

[Penguin FTW]

I personally prefer the heavy mastery build. I don't like having to delay Metamorphosis every cooldown to have it align with the MWC. With the extra Impending Doom procs, thanks to extra shadowbolts from the increased haste, I was often looking at a >30 second difference between my Metamorphosis and MWC. At my low haste levels, I'm almost guaranteed that Meta will become available within 5-10 seconds of the MWC cooldown, every time, sans Bloodlust. I hate to wait on the cooldown, and I hate popping Meta without the MWC even more.

I would definitely run this way if every encounter didn't require at least moderate movement.