Demonology n00bishness (yes, I read the guide)

[Deleted]

But I have not played in MoP and in Cata it was so different. And so long ago. So despite reading the guide, I'm confused about some things (or maybe it's just late), but could you answer me shortly a few short questions please?

1. Spell priority in basic terms. Is it: Corruption > HoG > Soul Fire (with MC) > Shadow Bolt? Am I missing something?

2. Cooldowns. If I were to line up everything, I got: Wild Imps, Grimoire of Second Demon for 20 seconds, Dark Soul, Felstorm, on-use trinkets. Press Wild Imps and Felstorm whenever they're off-CD. Am I missing something? Should I not pop something on CD?

3. LifeTap. I went on a dummy and derped around a little to get my binds at least. And I kept running OOM, and killing myself with this. I don't seem to outheal it at all. Isn't that an issue in raid? Am I missing something?

4. Someone said demo can do a lot on the move. I see only corruption and HoG. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something xD

5. Demon From abilities. The guide says - cast 3-4 Demonbolts and 1 Doom at end. That kinds does it for the fury What about the Chaos Wave and Touch of Chaos?

[zey]

3. LifeTap. I went on a dummy and derped around a little to get my binds at least. And I kept running OOM, and killing myself with this. I don't seem to outheal it at all. Isn't that an issue in raid? Am I missing something?

On the dummy you can just toss on glyph of life tap. In a raid, one would hope you would bring healers along.

For the rest of the questions, go back and read the guide more slowly. Your first question does not inspire confidence.

[Deleted]

On the dummy you can just toss on glyph of life tap. In a raid, one would hope you would bring healers along.

For the rest of the questions, go back and read the guide more slowly. Your first question does not inspire confidence.

Why would I care about the life lost during a dummy fight? My issue is exactly straining the healers in raid.

The guide covers complex rotations and openers, I will go there and analyze if I'll need depth. As someone who has absolutely no clue what this spec is about, I just ask for a simple starter that doesn't go in depth into anything and will take someone 10 seconds to type, not 3 hours.

[Mhyroth]

Why would I care about the life lost during a dummy fight? My issue is exactly straining the healers in raid.

The guide covers complex rotations and openers, I will go there and analyze if I'll need depth. As someone who has absolutely no clue what this spec is about, I just ask for a simple starter that doesn't go in depth into anything and will take someone 10 seconds to type, not 3 hours.

Not to be too harsh but if you can't take the effort into reading some basic lines which tell you what to do, demo is not for you. This specc has a lot of micro-management and if you're not willing to put in Some effort, you won't get decent results, as jumping on the "fotm" train will make you perform worse as with a specc you're familiar with and do want to put effort in..

[nsgid]

Yeah get rid of your demo spec, 10 seconds won't help you and it implies you're too lazy to put effort towards some skill. So ywah, go spam incin and chaos bolt and keeps corruption, CoA, and UA up 98%+. Good luck with aff/destro!

[Spelorzi]

I Agree with the last 2 posts, all of your concerns are explained and detailed in the guide, if you can't take the time to read/study it up carefully and with patience, then i think demo is not for you, its not a "pick and play" spec, you need to learn and practice all the tricks if you want to do good

[Deleted]

2. Cooldowns. If I were to line up everything, I got: Wild Imps, Grimoire of Second Demon for 20 seconds, Dark Soul, Felstorm, on-use trinkets. Press Wild Imps and Felstorm whenever they're off-CD. Am I missing something? Should I not pop something on CD?

You do realise that saying something 'whenever they're off cooldown', is the same as saying. "'to pop something 'on cooldown'" it means to use them every time they become available, this is basic stuff.

Someone said demo can do a lot on the move. I see only corruption and HoG. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something xD

. Demon From abilities. The guide says - cast 3-4 Demonbolts and 1 Doom at end. That kinds does it for the fury What about the Chaos Wave and Touch of Chaos?

Chaos Wave and Touch of Chaos?

Both of these abilities are instant cast, and can be used on the move.

And why do you ask "What about Chaos Wave and Touch of Chaos?" You sound like they're being left out by the other kids on playground. If you must know, it's because the damage output from ToC is shit for the amount it costs to use, and HoG provides more damage if you manipulate the stacks properly than Chaos Wave, plus it GIVES fury, instead of using it.

[Gaidax]

RTFM!

Really, all you ask here is covered there.

[Adaren]

Warlock forums are pretty assholeish.

OP, you're absolutely correct that the Demo guide on this forum isn't beginner friendly and spends a lot of time talking about small optimizations instead of core mechanics.

I'll take a couple minutes to answer to the best of my abilities. Hopefully someone will correct any mistakes I make.

1. From the guide:

Post opener with Demonbolt:
Hand of Gul'dan (2 stack) > Corruption > Soulfire (with Molten Core) > Shadowbolt

Post opener in Meta with Demonbolt:
There are a couple variations going around that are being tried out to see which may be the most optimal;

Option 1
If Demonbolt is off cooldown then
Demonbolt (as many times as you can) > Doom > Chaos Wave (if any Demonic Fury is left over and you have T17 4P) > Soulfire (with Molten Core) > ToC

Option 2
If 800+ Demonic Fury, Dark Soul is available and Demonbolt is off cooldown then
Demonbolt 4x > Doom > Chaos Wave (if any Demonic Fury is left over and you have T17 4P) > Soulfire (with Molten Core) > ToC

Put differently:

1. When you get > 800 Demonic Fury, go into Meta and Dark Soul -> Demonboltx4 -> Doom.
2. When you have 2 stacks of Hand of Gul'dan, use one, wait a few seconds, and then use it again. You should get most of the duration of 1 stack of the DoT AND a full duration of 2 stacks of the DoT. Make sure to practice this!
3. Keep Corruption up.
4. Soulfire with Molten Core stacks.
5. Shadowbolt.

2. Glyph of Wild Imps shouldn't normally be used unless you're in dire need of burst damage. Use Glyph of Dark Soul and use it before you start spamming Demonbolt. Grimoire of Service can also be aligned with Dark Soul+Demonbolt.

3. As others said, Glyph of Lifetap is pretty handy here.

4. Touch of Chaos and Chaos Wave can be used on the move. They aren't optimal usages of Fury, especially in single-target situations where your Fury generation is relatively low, but they're better than nothing (or Rain of Fire).

5. In general, ToC and Chaos Wave aren't used. They can be good while moving, and some argue that Chaos Wave > HoG by a little when Dark Soul is up, but they aren't part of the core rotation. If you *do* have tons of Fury left over (from, say, multi-dotting a lot) and need to spend it on something besides Immolation Aura or Demonbolt, then Soulfire+Molten Core in Demon Form is your most efficient usage. This should rarely happen in the single target situation, though.

I don't play a Warlock, so hopefully anything egregiously incorrect that I said will be corrected by forum-goers less crotchety than the ones above.

[Deleted]

I have a question also about demonbolt. Yes I wrote this on demonology guide but no one answered. When to use demonbolt? I mean on which buff: mastery from weapon or demonic synergy? which buff is more important for this spell? Tooltip doesn't say that demonbolt is increased by mastery but tooltip may be wrong

[Gaidax]

The above is clearly written in the guide. It even talks about which buffs benefit Demonbolt and which not.

Really people? Read the guide! Not just flash it before your eyes and pat yourself on "job done lol".

[Adaren]

The above is clearly written in the guide. It even talks about which buffs benefit Demonbolt and which not.

Really people? Read the guide! Not just flash it before your eyes and pat yourself on "job done lol".

Maybe you should read the guide (or at least the question of the poster above you) because I'm pretty sure A. the answer isn't in the guide and B. your response doesn't even touch on what feanorm was asking.

Anyways, I'd expect Synergy to be slightly stronger for Demonbolt than a Mastery buff, but the difference probably isn't huge. If either buff aligns with your Dark Soul cooldown and Demonbolt buff, I'd probably start the Demonbolt rotation immediately.

[bio347]

Maybe you should read the guide (or at least the question of the poster above you) because I'm pretty sure A. the answer isn't in the guide and B. your response doesn't even touch on what feanorm was asking.

Sure it is.

Since being able to play with it more and more it seems as though the most optimal way to use Demonbolt is:
Every time the debuff expires spend as much Fury as you can on as many Demonbolts as you can
Line up on use trinkets that are not Haste, so anything with a Mastery, Crit, Multistrike or Versatility on use, with Demonbolt. Use Haste on use trinkets on CD

[Adaren]

Thanks for at least providing a quote, bio347, but I'm not seeing the answer to feanorm's question anywhere in your quote or in the rest of the guide. The quote says to use Demonbolt on cooldown and align it with on-use trinkets, but says nothing about weapon enchants, Demonic Synergy, or their relative value with regards to Demonbolt.

One could infer that the quote invalidates feanorm's question in most scenarios: the relative value of the buffs shouldn't matter because you're using Demonbolt on cooldown regardless of your procs (though the guide provides no evidence for why this is better, and last I checked the optimal usage of Demonbolt was with Glyph of Dark Soul and high Demonic Fury, contrary to what the guide suggests).

The guide further complicates things with this line:

Grimoire of Synergy actually has great synergy (go figure) with Demonbolt (Level 100 talent) since the proc rates are fairly in line with the cooldown of Demonbolt.

which suggests that the Grimoire of Synergy proc should be aligned with Demonbolt somehow, despite contradicting itself later.

The guide is a decent resource, but people in this thread are mostly asking legitimate questions that aren't clearly answered by the guide. If you can write out multiple lines of vitriolic sass, then you can write out an answer.

[Gaidax]

There is also a thread specifically for such question... two as a matter of fact...

1. http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...EAD-FIRST-POST
2. http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-Warlock-Guide

Feel free to ask questions there, instead of nitpicking here.

[Mhyroth]

Basically what the OP says is that the writer of the Demo guide did a bad job and didn't make it "noob friendly" ? Seriously for a specc which has a lot of potential, min-maxing and paying attention to buffs/debuffs/ etc the writer did a FANTASTIC job. I haven't seen a guide written into detail which helped me a lot (since I never played Demo since ToT) and even if some parts are harder to understand, get your character to a training dummy and test out the stuff which you see written..
To the ones here saying the Warlock community is toxic and ass-holish, please look at yourself. There are dedicated treads here to post in and ask questions. Ever since Demo became the "to-go" specc I've seen like 15 posts pop up regarding the same stuff and always it's the same people who have to keep explaining the same stuff in those topics.
Instead that people take a minute to look through the Warlock forums, and post it in the proper treads, they complain in newly made ones and wonder why people are so toxic.
TLDR: post in the proper forum and there will ALWAYS be someone answering your questions without any problems...

[Adaren]

Basically what the OP says is that the writer of the Demo guide did a bad job and didn't make it "noob friendly" ? Seriously for a specc which has a lot of potential, min-maxing and paying attention to buffs/debuffs/ etc the writer did a FANTASTIC job. I haven't seen a guide written into detail which helped me a lot (since I never played Demo since ToT) and even if some parts are harder to understand, get your character to a training dummy and test out the stuff which you see written..
To the ones here saying the Warlock community is toxic and ass-holish, please look at yourself. There are dedicated treads here to post in and ask questions. Ever since Demo became the "to-go" specc I've seen like 15 posts pop up regarding the same stuff and always it's the same people who have to keep explaining the same stuff in those topics.
Instead that people take a minute to look through the Warlock forums, and post it in the proper treads, they complain in newly made ones and wonder why people are so toxic.
TLDR: post in the proper forum and there will ALWAYS be someone answering your questions without any problems...

First off, the OP didn't have any criticism of the guide. That was me. I think it's a solid start to a guide but definitely isn't as friendly to new players as it could be. There are even some errors and some misleading logic (see: my earlier posts in the thread). The guide itself states at the top that it is a work-in-progress. That said, my annoyance isn't with the guide; it's with people citing the guide as a complete resource when they themselves don't seem to have a good idea of what's in it.

Second, feanorm posted in the Demo thread and wasn't answered.

Third, I'm not really sure what kinds of posts you want to see on the Lock forums. Is "highest demonbolt crits" really more healthy for the forum than a thread for simple Demonology questions that aren't covered in the guide? If you wanted to drop this thread off the front page, then the best way to do it would probably be to link to relevant information or take a couple minutes to answer the OP's questions. Instead, we got half-a-dozen elitist posts telling the OP to stop being lazy, delete his/her Demo spec, or go re-read the guide for answers (that, for the most part, aren't actually there).

[Gaidax]

Cute, but really the answers ARE in that guide, it is the most complete demonology guide there is.

The answer is right here:

Post opener in Meta with Demonbolt:
There are a couple variations going around that are being tried out to see which may be the most optimal;

Option 1
If Demonbolt is off cooldown then
Demonbolt (as many times as you can) > Doom > Chaos Wave (if any Demonic Fury is left over and you have T17 4P) > Soulfire (with Molten Core) > ToC

Option 2
If 800+ Demonic Fury, Dark Soul is available and Demonbolt is off cooldown then
Demonbolt 4x > Doom > Chaos Wave (if any Demonic Fury is left over and you have T17 4P) > Soulfire (with Molten Core) > ToC

These are 2 options on how to use Demonbolt... the requirements for every option are clear... such things as enchant procs and shit are not mentioned because they are not a requirement for either option.

I personally use 2 most of the time and 1 sometimes. It IS spot on.

Really, should we chew everything for people? So don't tell it's not there - it is there for anyone who bothered to read.

[Adaren]

I think I fully responded in one of my earlier posts where I suggested the very same retort, Gaidax, but I'll say it once more here:

That section of the guide doesn't actually answer his question, which is "Is the Mastery enchant or Demonic Synergy a bigger buff to Demonbolt?". Besides being a reasonable question in itself, it's understandable that someone might (incorrectly) think they should wait for procs after reading the guide because of this line:

Grimoire of Synergy actually has great synergy (go figure) with Demonbolt (Level 100 talent) since the proc rates are fairly in line with the cooldown of Demonbolt.

The "Option 1" that the guide puts forth is, also, worse than "Option 2" in pretty much all scenarios. The guide, however, doesn't give any information to allow its readers to make their own choice. In fact, it supports the lesser "Option 1" with this line:

Since being able to play with it more and more it seems as though the most optimal way to use Demonbolt is:
Every time the debuff expires spend as much Fury as you can on as many Demonbolts as you can
Line up on use trinkets that are not Haste, so anything with a Mastery, Crit, Multistrike or Versatility on use, with Demonbolt. Use Haste on use trinkets on CD

So, if the guide is confusing and sometimes contradictory, is it really that hard to clarify it by saying "Synergy is a bigger buff than the Mastery enchant, but aligning Demonbolt with Glyph of Dark Soul should take precedence."?

Again, kudos to Woz for writing a solid guide to one of the less well-understood specs in WoW, but it would be nice if everyone in the community read the large "work-in-progress" notice at the top before suggesting that any new Demo player asking reasonable questions is lying when they say they've read the guide.

[Xorn]

It's neither confusing, nor contradictory, you're just reading too far in between the lines. That section you quoted doesn't say to hold DB for a proc, it just says that the proc tends to align itself with when we happen to be casting DB. The only confusion comes from when you try to read too far into it.

And I'll answer his question (mastery proc vs synergy proc), even though it's fairly effing obvious: the synergy proc is the bigger buff to DB. It's 15% damage. Are we really that confused to think that 500 mastery is the equivalent of 15% damage? Hint: it's not.

But, again, it's sort of a moot point because that's not how to use DB. Cast DB with DS every chance you get. If you happen to have procs, that's great, but your top priority is casting 4 DB with DS as soon as possible. DS is the biggest boost to DB damage, and therefore is your number 1 priority.