[6.2] Demonology Warlock Guide

[Deleted]

Spam ToC
10chars


There are few topics where you can find information that ToC is very similar to SF in terms of DPS currently. So it really doesnt much matter what will you do. Never cap Fury.

[Gaidax]

First of all getting fury capped is nigh impossible if you play well (well unless you get to HoG or Hellfire swarms of adds, of course).

Spend your fury on trinket, ring and enchant procs. If you have no MC up, ToC is fine.

~30 seconds before you intend to push DS - start hoarding MC procs and Fury (but do not cap!). When DS is up use MC procs and Chaos Waves - also Chaos Wave always procs MC. If you have no MC and no Chaos Wave - use ToC.


Don't use Soul Fire without MC EVER, except for pre-pull precast.

[FurtyIRL]

Honestly there's a huge skillcap to knowing when to dump and when to conserve. Demo warlock right now is basically an extremely complex arcane mage. It definitely has the ability to put out when you play it correctly, however. This week I managed to do ~46k DPS on Gruul and I made some pretty explicit errors (and also got fucked pretty hard by smash rng).

[Deleted]

Honestly there's a huge skillcap to knowing when to dump and when to conserve. Demo warlock right now is basically an extremely complex arcane mage. It definitely has the ability to put out when you play it correctly, however. This week I managed to do ~46k DPS on Gruul and I made some pretty explicit errors (and also got fucked pretty hard by smash rng).

Thats a point, I think i'm just shifting into demo form to cast soulfire when I have 3 or so stacks and no proc. I need to work on that. I was just curious about what to do when my fury was becoming full with zero stacks. I thought I had read that touch was not worth it unless you were moving.

Also, I saw you were destro for the blackhand kill Do you just do better single target with Sac and CR?

[Count Zero]

About 4pc, i finally managed to get it. How should the 3rd HoG? I have to use it as an additional stack and go for a 3stack HoG or wait for the 2nd and go for a higher uptime?

HoG debuff only goes to 2 stacks. I'm not sure what general consensus is but personally I'm torn on whether to keep the initial debuff rolling (always use all your charges) or use it to get a new debuff back on quicker (get two stack but wait until you can two stack again). I think former results in higher uptime (due to how pandemic or whatever it's called now works), but latter is more flexible for keeping a stack rolling during procs / having a chaos wave available

[Deleted]

On single Target the best is probably going up to 3 charges and keeping a 2 stack rolling for as long as possible. With only one corruption ticking, the additional charge procs are rare enough that there is not much risk losing one that you probably gain more from a higher 2 stack uptime.

When you factor in more targets and more corruption ticks with means more additional charges procs then you should probably use it as if you didn't have the 4p, and never go above 2 charges so that you don't lose procs.

There's probably a target number breakpoint for when you should do either, but I'm not certain on how to do the math or configure Simcraft APLs to find out.

[Gaidax]

I think i'm just shifting into demo form to cast soulfire when I have 3 or so stacks and no proc.

That is definitely not the way of the ninja, create a tracker which tracks your trinket proc, ring proc and enchant proc and then only pop Meta and dump when:

1. Either of those procs happens
2. You popped DS
3. You are about to cap fury/MC - in which case just dump a couple of stacks or like 200-300 fury depending on what you are about to cap.
4. You need a somewhat long period of mobility, for example Blackhand various forced movement like ceiling, mark or Hanz dancing. Spam ToC of course.

Some facts for when you are in Meta (up for a debate)

No procs up: MC Soul Fire = ToC... You should only pop Meta here for mobility or to bleed Fury/MC charges.
Some procs us: MC Soul Fire >= ToC
DS up: MC Soul Fire >= Chaos Wave (note if you are about to get capped on Chaos Wave charges, you should use it asap) > ToC

If you are planning to burn DS charge soonish, start hoarding Fury/MC procs, but do not cap.


And of course encounters change things, for example Blast Furnace - have to burn Elementalist in Meta even if the timing is bad for you (you should hoard fury before too)... or Blackhand - Siegemaker takes double damage when plating is removed, so it's pretty much like uber version of DS - so just burn even if you are not having procs (and DS hoarding applies here btw too).

In short, it can get pretty complicated first, so you need to make a lot of decisions midway to optimize and I will be honest, on average I am maybe pulling 85% of the DPS I could potentially do because following everything AND having encounter perks in mind is simply very challenging.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, I saw you were destro for the blackhand kill Do you just do better single target with Sac and CR?

Well I am not him, but no you do not do better single target with Sac/CR, than Demo... what you DO arguably better is Siegemaker damage, since with CR's ember generation you can pretty much burst every Siegemaker to dust (those take double damage when penetrated), which is why his damage appeared to be that high on the meter there.

I still firmly believe that as Demo he would probably do more DPS, especially at Phase 3, because Demo Serv/Serv execute range is very nice.

That said I by no means say he was Siegemaker whoring or something, if he was a designated Siegemaker killer, then great job there.

[FurtyIRL]

Also, I saw you were destro for the blackhand kill Do you just do better single target with Sac and CR?

Well I am not him, but no you do not do better single target with Sac/CR, than Demo... what you DO arguably better is Siegemaker damage, since with CR's ember generation you can pretty much burst every Siegemaker to dust (those take double damage when penetrated), which is why his damage appeared to be that high on the meter there.

I still firmly believe that as Demo he would probably do more DPS, especially at Phase 3, because Demo Serv/Serv execute range is very nice.

That said I by no means say he was Siegemaker whoring or something, if he was a designated Siegemaker killer, then great job there.

It was actually better boss damage overall. A little less in P1, significantly more in P2, and about the same in P3. It's also a lot better on balconies and allows you to allocate a lot less raid damage to sieges because free havoc cleave. That said I wanted to kill myself after playing it for like 50+ pulls.

[Jessicka]

I'm actually getting much better results overall with Affliction as a ST spec, using Servitude with the 2pc I have no issues with resource starvation and can use Haunt on pretty much every trinket and ring proc. I feel like its being seriously overlooked because its simming so much worse than I feel it actually performs.

[SpikeySquad]

I am not that good of a player but what I had to learn is that DS is our best buff and hence we should make the most of it. So DS+meta+something else=even more win. I am assuming you are using unglyphed DS so you have that window for 20 seconds and in that time you can get a lot of Soul Fires (SF) off. I tend to keep up to 8 SF for this time (though sometimes I am really lucky to have just 4)... Remember if you start hoarding them to burn them before 25% boss HP or that is another waste.

Like others have said never cap fury or MC procs, it's such a silly loss. Keep an eye out for other procs and burn that fury with ToC or SF if you will have enough going into Meta for DS. Get a feel for how fast your fury grows. Have a timer for your DS. If it still has 1 min 20 secs say to the next charge then you can burn your fury away on good procs (the more procs at once the better) rather than ever entering Meta unbuffed. If you have 20 seconds to Meta then only go down to say 700 fury etc. Demo is a lot about thinking ahead/intuition and that is something I still need to develop for this non DB spec.

[Deleted]

Some facts for when you are in Meta (up for a debate)

No procs up: MC Soul Fire = ToC... You should only pop Meta here for mobility or to bleed Fury/MC charges.
Some procs us: MC Soul Fire >= ToC
DS up: MC Soul Fire >= Chaos Wave (note if you are about to get capped on Chaos Wave charges, you should use it asap) > ToC

If you are planning to burn DS charge soonish, start hoarding Fury/MC procs, but do not cap.

No procs up : ToC. If you want to burn Soulfire charges, better do it outside Meta and cast ToC from time to time to refresh your Corruption and not cap.
Some procs up : Same. Probably the right time to use Soulfire procs outside meta or go meta to cast ToC.
DS up : Soulfire > ToC. If you anticipated well your DS phase, you should have 2 stacks of HoG on the target just before your enter DS and you will probably never reach 3 when in Meta. CW should only be used if DS will fade before you run out of fury.

And of course encounters change things, for example Blast Furnace - have to burn Elementalist in Meta even if the timing is bad for you (you should hoard fury before too)... or Blackhand - Siegemaker takes double damage when plating is removed, so it's pretty much like uber version of DS - so just burn even if you are not having procs (and DS hoarding applies here btw too).

Siegemaker taking double damage does not mean you should change your gameplay at all. For optimal raid DPS you should not maximize your own DPS but less the classes who have their burst ready use it and continue to do your normal rotation.

[weakdots]

starting Mmaidens, whats going to be the most effective from other that have done it? noticed that even on just heroic cata lacks any punch at all when the fight actually matters. is db or servitude the way to go for progression right now?

[Tyrean]

starting Mmaidens, whats going to be the most effective from other that have done it? noticed that even on just heroic cata lacks any punch at all when the fight actually matters. is db or servitude the way to go for progression right now?

I have been playing bolt and it is super strong on the part that matters, the end. The fight is sooooo long and sooooo boring until you get to the end and then there are high priority targets that have to die (namely turrets). You will probably be on the team that does NOT go over to the boat so there will be a lot of movement as well.

If I were just learning it again, I would probably go with the DS option so I could have my fury for touch on the movement bits and have as much of my damage as passive as possible while I learn the movements and flow of the fight. Once you get used to the fight though, I think demonbolt matters more when it counts.

[Adurp]

Played Demonbolt this week for Gruul just to see how it actually does (hadn't really played with it since the nerf). And was overly surprised on the ST it still pulled out. A few people messed up and died randomly so fight is longer than it should have been.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

That's without 4pc (although I do have some baller trinkets)

[Taalyn]

If you have DS up do you refresh Corruption with ToC or get rid of all your MC stacks first

[Cyberthug32]

Demonbolt slowly making a come back haha

[Dietrik]

Got my mythic BMC today from a garrison mission, i have heroic DUT and heroic GSR.

I am sure its lucky procs and good use of them, but Demonbolt sims 3-4k higher than serv/DS with M.BMC and H.GSR with my gear.

I am going to try it tomorrow night, and hope for good procs.

[Deleted]

Wow, you guys are awesome thanks for all the helpful responses. I have taken everything you said onboard always room to improve.

I was holding stacks to use with DS but between DS cooldowns I guess I was just shifting randomly. What do you use for tracking proc's? just weak auras? I could do with something clearer.

[SpikeySquad]

Yes Weak Auras which is as clear as you make it. You are totally in control.

[zgollum]

Kind of a lame question, but what is the current stance of the heroism and summoned pets (doomguard), are pets automatically affected by my current haste levels or do they need to be summoned before heroism to get the buff themselves?