[5.4] Demonology Warlock Guide

[Betrayerx]

Zinnin and I did a few 1v1 7min dps competitions last night and when he used the ToC method I was able to get within 5-10k but the second attempt where he used SF in meta with procs up he destroyed me by almost 40k, granted I had 3 blood procs in 7 mins of smashing keys but still the result seemed pretty clear. After that I decided to sit and do a few tests of my own.

Soulfire with no procs was hitting for around 130k where as Shadowbolt was hitting for about 75 but when it crit it hit for around 150. With some procs it was crushing soul fire dmg when it crit. So basically unless you have like 10 mc procs save them for meta dumping because SF scales way harder in meta then ToC does. As an example my highest SF crit with literally everything up and a 10 stack was 660k and ToC was only around the mid 400s.

Moral of the story go to a dummy and get a full bar of fury and 10 mc stacks. Pop into meta and see how many you can dump with a full bar with weaving in 2-4 tocs. That's the magic number of mc procs you want to save for your DS burns. The rest hold like 3-4 at all times and only use SB to regen fury unless you have 10 stacks of MC and ur in a situation where you need to generate fury before an upcoming DS burn. That's the general rule I'm gunna start using along with an ignore most procs during the last 20-30 seconds of DS coming off cd guideline I came up with last night. Zin was saying he was finding 850 fury to be the magic number for a full meta DS burn so that's a good number to shoot for.

[Mazda]

Zinnin, how significant would you consider 4 piece to be on fury gains alone? Extra fury from more shadowflame + extra MC procs from Chaos wave. I was planning to hold off until making the switch back to Demo until I got 4 piece due to these factors. Thoughts?

[Werst]

I think the 4pc is a) very RNG period and b) stronger in aoe situations than single target. As demo has no specific known itemization goals its a question of whether or not a bit more ilvl/raw stats vs the RNG/aoe side which like so many other things probably swings on a fight by fight basis.

[Jessicka]

I think the 4pc is a) very RNG period and b) stronger in aoe situations than single target. As demo has no specific known itemization goals its a question of whether or not a bit more ilvl/raw stats vs the RNG/aoe side which like so many other things probably swings on a fight by fight basis.

Pretty much this. You're casting so many things that its hard to really guage whether it'll significantly increase the ~30% Shadowflame uptime you'd expect normally. It's actually the Chaos Waves that add more I feel, since they're not clipped by HoG refreshes.

Question is whether to avoid casting Shadow Bolts at all if you have strong Shadowflame stacks up.

[Werst]

Betrayer/Zinn,
Just tested sort of the opposite....but I'm pushing 565 with a T15 wep and 543 chanye so about 4K short in raw spellpower. This is when I use the lower haste setup (destro MS/demo OS) of about 8800 haste/8K crit/16.2K mastery. The soulfire thing felt stronger when I was running my aff mainspec/dest OS setup which is about 12K haste/3K crit/16K mastery.

Same thing as last night....7m tests. Also like last night demo feels the least consistent in terms of procs but could just be user issue...though I still feel like the sheer number of procs to stack to beat aff/dest makes for less consistency. My gut is that the soulfire in meta is higher especially w' better better gear. Maybe normalized over 10K iterations or on a destro reforge caster soulfire > ToC is stronger. However in terms of fight progression, mass movement, etc the caster soulfire > ToC on proc yields a more useable damage figure. IE if I want to parse I'd go for soulfire, if I am working on a fight and focusing on it then I might ToC. That is on the caveat of a destro reforge...for an affliction reforge I'd probably stick with soufire in meta.

[Hellfury]

Private logs, I'll be streaming next week can see numbers then.

Since you gona be streaming and its praticaly public you can set some dummy guild and upload your own logs, there is alot that goes behind the scenes that cant be seen on streaming but caught on logs.

[Betrayerx]

The thing you have to remember is, Zinnin and I both didn't have Bindings during testing last night and since that thing has an ICD that lines it up perfectly with DS the Massive MC burn during DS will be ridiculously strong. This should even out the randomness of the feel and make it a little less clunky so all you're really reacting to is Blood procs. Hopefully I'll get a binding tomorrow night so I can do some actual testing to get numbers.

As far as the 4 piece goes I would just get it. Until someone confirms and shows numbers for itemization being better it should be safe to assume getting 4 piece is worth. In caster form if you have a shadowflame dot tracker or some way of seeing the proc happen with a weakaura or something you can roll 2 stack shadowflames longer then normal, which is probably better then worrying about clipping a stronger one. I don't think Demo should be worrying about how strong shadowflame is over other priorities, just keeping a 2 stack as much as possible should be good enough. All this will get sorted out in time though as progression is over at least for the top end guilds so they will figure all this stuff out and actually test it during farm while people are still doing prog.

[Jessicka]

The thing you have to remember is, Zinnin and I both didn't have Bindings during testing last night and since that thing has an ICD that lines it up perfectly with DS the Massive MC burn during DS will be ridiculously strong. This should even out the randomness of the feel and make it a little less clunky so all you're really reacting to is Blood procs. Hopefully I'll get a binding tomorrow night so I can do some actual testing to get numbers.

As far as the 4 piece goes I would just get it. Until someone confirms and shows numbers for itemization being better it should be safe to assume getting 4 piece is worth. In caster form if you have a shadowflame dot tracker or some way of seeing the proc happen with a weakaura or something you can roll 2 stack shadowflames longer then normal, which is probably better then worrying about clipping a stronger one. I don't think Demo should be worrying about how strong shadowflame is over other priorities, just keeping a 2 stack as much as possible should be good enough. All this will get sorted out in time though as progression is over at least for the top end guilds so they will figure all this stuff out and actually test it during farm while people are still doing prog.

It's random, you can't really force the extended stack; it either happens or it doesn't. Even then, with procs as they are these days, it's actually quite possible that clipping the Shadowflame with a proc will cut its damage by more than half; while at best you'll simply remove the Meta bonus from it.

Also, about Soul Fire and saving them for Meta, I found this to be a massive DPS loss. You simply generate much less Fury, giving you a very long ramp up, which then gets spent in next to no time, leaving you with several seconds of Dark Soul or whatever other procs you were lining up to use them on, leaving them to merely buff some caster form Shadow Bolts.

Lastly, a question about Imp Swarm. Is it a massive loss now? I really miss it

[protput]

What opener do you guys use without the t15 2-set? Is it still possible to pop DS right away? My DF is always depleted when I have like 8 seconds left on DS.

[Jessicka]

What opener do you guys use without the t15 2-set? Is it still possible to pop DS right away? My DF is always depleted when I have like 8 seconds left on DS.

It's always been best to blow everything right away.

[Goosy]

I do not have any logs that can back it up but i would say its more needed then ever before to keep the imp swarm glyph just to be able to stay in meta as long as possible while cd´s and procs are up and running. Helps out alot on the pull for instance.

The imps do not as high % of our overall damage as they did before, so with that being said having few less can´t be much of an impact.

Is the shadowbolt glyph on the other hand a dps gain tho?

[Zinnin]

Imp Swarm is dead, pretty much that is the end of it for now.

Again with trying to say using Soul Fires in meta means your generating less fury, this isn't true.

For the purposes of this I'm going to pretend that the only spells in our rotation are filler spells.


27% raid Haste

Shadow Bolt
Cast time: 1.968
Fury Gain /s: 12.698

Soul Fire: Caster Form
Cast time: 1.574
Fury Gain /s: 19.048

Soul Fire: Meta Form
Cast time: 1.574
Fury Loss /s: 50.79

Touch of Chaos
Cast time: 1
Fury Loss /s: 40

Scenario 1: 60s DPS time, 5 stacks of Molten Core used in caster form. 5 Soul Fires: 7.87s Casting time 150 fury gained 19 Shadow bolts: 37.392 Casting time 475 Fury Gained 15 Touch of Chaos 15s Casting time 600 Fury Spent	Scenario 2: 60s DPS time, 5 stack of Molten Core used in meta form. 26 Shadow Bolts: 51.168s Casting time 650 Fury Gain 5 Meta Soul Fires 7.87s Casting time 560 Fury Spent 1 ToC cast 1s Casting time 40 Fury Spent
Total Fury Gained: 625	Total Fury Gained: 650
Total Fury Spent: 600	Total Fury Spent: 600
Total Time Spent: 60.262s	Total Time Spent: 60.038
Meta Uptime: 15s	Meta Uptime: 8.87

This is what I've been trying to say for awhile now. As our haste goes up, spending Soul fire in META form actually generates MORE fury because the time spend in Meta goes down. The damage per fury spent for Soul Fire and Touch of Chaos is nearly identical, with Soul Fire having the lead. So not only is it the same slightly more damage per fury spent, you are gaining more fury to spend, and you can fit more fury into cooldowns which is increasing the worth of each point of fury.

The only Wild Card to this debate was how t16 2pc would effect spending Molten Core procs because dumping them at one time means losing potential uptime of the 2pc. However, I have found that having more reliable 2pc uptime during procs (plus the fact soul fire is just so much more damage) outweighs trying to bait extra 2pc procs when you don't have fury to spend on them anyways.

[Goosy]

Very good information Zinnin, much appreciated.

I do wonder tho, why is Imp Swarm glyph dead?
Is it that they just do too little damage, that using em with DS and meta just doesn´t cut the fury gain you get from em throughout the fight without having the glyph?

[Zinnin]

Very good information Zinnin, much appreciated.

I do wonder tho, why is Imp Swarm glyph dead?
Is it that they just do too little damage, that using em with DS and meta just doesn´t cut the fury gain you get from em throughout the fight without having the glyph?

There are basically 3 parts of Imps; Damage, Molten Core procs, and Fury gain. Imp Swarm allowed us to increase the damage of them for a small overall Fury and MC Proc loss. With the 30% nerf and it being cut from 5 from 4 there is just no way trying to use it smartly (which was even debatable before the 30% nerf) is anywhere near worth the extra Imps we generate from the normal passive.

[Jessicka]

So you get half the Meta up time with which to make use of Dark Soul and all your various trinket procs; that's the point I'm making. If you could reliably ensure all your procs and cooldowns stacked all the time over that time, then it may work better. That simply never happens.

The reality I found is that waiting on Fury generation from Shadow Bolt just leads to a shortfall in generation leaving you unable to actually exploit procs properly when they do happen. I believe filling out 20s of Dark Soul with ToC offers more throughput overall than 10s of Soul Fires and 10s of Shadow Bolts. I'd like to be corrected, but experience tells me otherwise.

[OokingDooker]

There are basically 3 parts of Imps; Damage, Molten Core procs, and Fury gain. Imp Swarm allowed us to increase the damage of them for a small overall Fury and MC Proc loss. With the 30% nerf and it being cut from 5 from 4 there is just no way trying to use it smartly (which was even debatable before the 30% nerf) is anywhere near worth the extra Imps we generate from the normal passive.

What's the opener without the glyph then? Without the extra 4 imps, like someone above said, you'll still have a few seconds left on dark soul while being forced into caster form during the opener due to running out of fury.

[Goosy]

Damn work, MC procs ofc. Totally missed it. Thanks for the quick reply!

[Zinnin]

I don't agree that the point of view should be 'waiting on Shadow Bolt' to generate fury, it should be more focused on literally how much fury you can dump into a strong cooldown or proc. If I can dump a full fury bar into DS + a trinket (which AD will nearly always allow you to do), then it doesn't matter if another proc happens 20s later, because I just spent the majority of my fury in the highest possible scenario.

Spending Soul Fires over ToC is very much a risk / reward / planning thing. If you do not feel comfortable that those 10s of Meta up time are placed in the 100% correct position then sure, maybe it isn't a good idea to risk the fury there. But during a strong Proc, or when you have a lot of cooldowns up and you are comfortable that there isn't going to be a higher damage window to dump fury, then you should be trying to dump as much fury as possible and not worrying about meta uptime.

Lets say you every point of fury is 1 point of damage. Dark soul modifies it 1.5x, you might have a trinket that modifies it 1.4, and maybe a minor proc that modifies it 1.2. If you can dump 900 fury into DS, that is going to be 1350 damage, compared to maybe only dumping 450 fury into DS, and then 450 into a smaller proc giving you 1305.

Good fury usage shouldn't be measured by meta uptime, but by how the fury was modified when spent. I feel that if a player feels uneasy about spending their fury because they don't know for sure that the situation is optimal, then that is an error in planning.

What's the opener without the glyph then? Without the extra 4 imps, like someone above said, you'll still have a few seconds left on dark soul while being forced into caster form during the opener due to running out of fury.

I've been doing:
Prepot / Precast Soul Fire, Grimoire of Service, Corruption,Doomguard, HoG, life blood / zerking, SB x2 (3 if bloodlust), HoG, DS / Meta, Doom

This generally gets me in meta with DS at the 6th or 7th stack of Black Blood, so I can for sure get a doom with 10s Black blood, and a chance get a 2pc proc before that happens.

You aren't going to have stellar uptime on the opener, but the main thing is to make sure you leave with no fury left and that your doom is put up with every proc possible.

[Goosy]

I do struggle abit with the opener aswell. If you could share your opener zinnin that would be very much appreciated. (Hero/TW/BL on pull scenario, rogue = noneed of CoE)

[OokingDooker]

I don't agree that the point of view should be 'waiting on Shadow Bolt' to generate fury, it should be more focused on literally how much fury you can dump into a strong cooldown or proc. If I can dump a full fury bar into DS + a trinket (which AD will nearly always allow you to do), then it doesn't matter if another proc happens 20s later, because I just spent the majority of my fury in the highest possible scenario.

Spending Soul Fires over ToC is very much a risk / reward / planning thing. If you do not feel comfortable that those 10s of Meta up time are placed in the 100% correct position then sure, maybe it isn't a good idea to risk the fury there. But during a strong Proc, or when you have a lot of cooldowns up and you are comfortable that there isn't going to be a higher damage window to dump fury, then you should be trying to dump as much fury as possible and not worrying about meta uptime.

Lets say you every point of fury is 1 point of damage. Dark soul modifies it 1.5x, you might have a trinket that modifies it 1.4, and maybe a minor proc that modifies it 1.2. If you can dump 900 fury into DS, that is going to be 1350 damage, compared to maybe only dumping 450 fury into DS, and then 450 into a smaller proc giving you 1305.

Good fury usage shouldn't be measured by meta uptime, but by how the fury was modified when spent. I feel that if a player feels uneasy about spending their fury because they don't know for sure that the situation is optimal, then that is an error in planning.



I've been doing:
Prepot / Precast Soul Fire, Grimoire of Service, Corruption,Doomguard, HoG, life blood / zerking, SB x2 (3 if bloodlust), HoG, DS / Meta, Doom

This generally gets me in meta with DS at the 6th or 7th stack of Black Blood, so I can for sure get a doom with 10s Black blood, and a chance get a 2pc proc before that happens.

You aren't going to have stellar uptime on the opener, but the main thing is to make sure you leave with no fury left and that your doom is put up with every proc possible.

Makes sense. Thanks for the detailed theorycrafting too, this makes me want to give demo another go. I'm assuming the stat weights from the OP are still standing right? Intellect > Hit > Mastery > Haste to 8097 > Crit > Haste