Working on Demo DPS

[Drakile]

So I am trying to make the most of Demonology through normal and heroic Uldir. After researching what the damage breakdown of higher damage demo locks are I noticed that alot/most of them have their Felguard/Wrathguard as their most damaging 'ability', whereas I usually have Demonbolt topping out as most damage for myself.

I am not even really sure what would cause this as I macro my petattacks and felstorm into my rotation to keep my pets on the right targets at all times, so I am unsure of the cause of the discrepancies in main pet damage. Has anyone else came up with similar results after research?

[Deleted]

Just had a look at your logs on warcraftlogs. It's breaking down your felguard's three attacks (melee, legion strike, felstorm) into seperate ranks. Not sure why it's doing that for you, but combines them all into "Felguard"/"Wrathguard" for others, but it is in fact your top damaging ability.

[Drakile]

Oh ok fair enough, I appreciate it.

[Deleted]

Aff is the best spec and strongest dps spec in game. Demo spec has poor mobility and damage is average.

[Sarange]

Aff is the best spec and strongest dps spec in game. Demo spec has poor mobility and damage is average.

No. One of the strongest, yes.

[Kazuchika]

Aff is the best spec and strongest dps spec in game. Demo spec has poor mobility and damage is average.

lmao aff is not the strongest dps spec in the game

FOH with your parroting bullshit

[volrat]

anyone can comments on the effects of this 15% buff to some spells?
I noticed it on my chart, DB is hitting a little harder, but the problems the spec has have not been affected by the changes, we are still doing a lot of effort for the poorest result.

[Kwaai]

On what fights are people having issues with Demo's mobility?

[Veritable Verata]

My feeling on Demo is it currently offers decent compromise between the other two Lock specs, and with the recent buffs, I am quite happy with its current state. I would prefer to feel useful in a multitude of situations vs. god-mode in one and much less so in others. Both Aff and Destro have their advantages over the spec, but I really enjoy how there is always something for me to do rotation-wise.

If nothing else, Demo in its current form has confirmed for me 1.5 min CDs are where its at: Not so long you feel you have to be thinking 10 steps ahead to be sure you're not left without them in a critical moment and not so short that their effect has to be trivialized to keep things in balance.

[Jahrastafari]

On what fights are people having issues with Demo's mobility?

Just the ones where you have to move.

[Kwaai]

Just the ones where you have to move.

Specifically, please. It's really not hard to pool DC and plan ahead.

[Taenaeris]

For Heroic Uldir, from my experience:

• Taloc - Only really tried this as Affliction since there aren't too many adds and quite a bit of movement during the add phase.
• MOTHER - Aff is pretty much the only viable spec on this fight as there's a lot of movement. You also want Absolute Corruption on this fight if you're assigned to move to the other chamber early.
• Fetid - This is essentially a single-target fight with some two-target cleave happening every once in a while. From the nature of the fight, one might think Desto, though sim'ing and looking at wcl clearly says otherwise - Destro's overall dps seem to be too low. Go Affliction here.
• Zek'Vok - Demonology! This is essentially a zero-movement fight if you play it smart with your teleports and gateways. I actually had a lot of pulls on this in several different PUGs before I finally killed it. The usual PUG strategy for this fight is to have everybody spread out for Eye Beams and stack up for adds. However, if you place your Demonic Circle at the edge of the room, then you don't have to spread as you can quickly teleport if you get Eye Beams. For Rolling Deceit, use your Demonic Gateway then quickly run away from it. You can actually turn this into a mostly zero-movement fight with smart use of your insta-cast spells. I had several groups where I was clearly out-dps'ing all other Warlocks and also most Frost Mages although some of them had higher item level. Extra Bonus: you can actually get quite a decent burst when using your Grimoire combined with your Demonic Tyrant and DPS potion and pretty much instantly target switch. Super useful if somebody steps into one of those puddles and you have to quickly burst down that add.
• Zul - That PUG I was in when I killed it used the "zerg strategy" (*), so I had to use Affliction for highest single-target damage. If you kill all the adds, then using Demonology might actually be best, though I haven't tried that yet.

(*) You pop BL and all your CDs on pull and tunnel boss to phase him quickly, adds are CC'ed and must not be touched until P2 - this requires high dps or you'll wipe. The RL said he'd kick everybody doing less than 12k during that phase and I was quite happy that I just barely made that.

While I did kill all the bosses, I don't have enough experience on the other ones to really comment on what strategy is best for them - I was merely happy that the group I was in was able to kill them at all.

[kisteglad]

On what fights are people having issues with Demo's mobility?

I am able to play demo to great success on every fight in Uldir.
Some fights (Zek'voz mythic etc.) it even feels like the best spec because of your unrelenting on-demand burst aoe for silithids!

In general mobility isn't the biggest issue since you can always just plan ahead or take soulstrike for something extra to do on the move.
Mother is easiliy our worst fight in there with G'huun as our second (also because if you don't have three warlocks you'll get forced into playing affli for the platforms).

We have three warlocks in our guild and my impression of demo is that it's completely fine that the affli-locks burst three to four times our dps on the pull. If we just keep at it and execute the rest of the fight correctly we are going to end up very close to each other because our sustained dps with low cooldowns is actually pretty good.
One thing i think hurts us a bit is how few of the fights we can lust on pull. It's often a bit awkward when it comes to delaying tyrant etc.

[Kazuchika]

For Heroic Uldir, from my experience:

• Taloc - Only really tried this as Affliction since there aren't too many adds and quite a bit of movement during the add phase.
• MOTHER - Aff is pretty much the only viable spec on this fight as there's a lot of movement. You also want Absolute Corruption on this fight if you're assigned to move to the other chamber early.
• Fetid - This is essentially a single-target fight with some two-target cleave happening every once in a while. From the nature of the fight, one might think Desto, though sim'ing and looking at wcl clearly says otherwise - Destro's overall dps seem to be too low. Go Affliction here.
• Zek'Vok - Demonology! This is essentially a zero-movement fight if you play it smart with your teleports and gateways. I actually had a lot of pulls on this in several different PUGs before I finally killed it. The usual PUG strategy for this fight is to have everybody spread out for Eye Beams and stack up for adds. However, if you place your Demonic Circle at the edge of the room, then you don't have to spread as you can quickly teleport if you get Eye Beams. For Rolling Deceit, use your Demonic Gateway then quickly run away from it. You can actually turn this into a mostly zero-movement fight with smart use of your insta-cast spells. I had several groups where I was clearly out-dps'ing all other Warlocks and also most Frost Mages although some of them had higher item level. Extra Bonus: you can actually get quite a decent burst when using your Grimoire combined with your Demonic Tyrant and DPS potion and pretty much instantly target switch. Super useful if somebody steps into one of those puddles and you have to quickly burst down that add.
• Zul - That PUG I was in when I killed it used the "zerg strategy" (*), so I had to use Affliction for highest single-target damage. If you kill all the adds, then using Demonology might actually be best, though I haven't tried that yet.

(*) You pop BL and all your CDs on pull and tunnel boss to phase him quickly, adds are CC'ed and must not be touched until P2 - this requires high dps or you'll wipe. The RL said he'd kick everybody doing less than 12k during that phase and I was quite happy that I just barely made that.

While I did kill all the bosses, I don't have enough experience on the other ones to really comment on what strategy is best for them - I was merely happy that the group I was in was able to kill them at all.

I mean when it comes to heroic it literally does not matter what spec you play so I'm not sure what the point of this post is. You could play Destro for every fight and still kill everything easily. If you legitimately have to think about optimizing your damage for heroic your raid has bigger problems.

[slickwilly]

I mean when it comes to heroic it literally does not matter what spec you play so I'm not sure what the point of this post is. You could play Destro for every fight and still kill everything easily. If you legitimately have to think about optimizing your damage for heroic your raid has bigger problems.

Dur the point of his post was what his experience was with the spec. Did it bother you? I'm sorry did you not get your snowflake title yet for being a mythic raider.

[muto]

lmao aff is not the strongest dps spec in the game

FOH with your parroting bullshit

If you're looking at a pure single target standpoint, yeah it is.

However, Demo is much better at AoE with tiny adds like in Waycrest Manor.

[Kazuchika]

Dur the point of his post was what his experience was with the spec. Did it bother you? I'm sorry did you not get your snowflake title yet for being a mythic raider.

Who cares what a random person's experience is with heroic? This isn't a blog site.

You seem to be the only one bothered here bud.

[D3thray]

I am able to play demo to great success on every fight in Uldir.
Some fights (Zek'voz mythic etc.) it even feels like the best spec because of your unrelenting on-demand burst aoe for silithids!

In general mobility isn't the biggest issue since you can always just plan ahead or take soulstrike for something extra to do on the move.
Mother is easiliy our worst fight in there with G'huun as our second (also because if you don't have three warlocks you'll get forced into playing affli for the platforms).

We have three warlocks in our guild and my impression of demo is that it's completely fine that the affli-locks burst three to four times our dps on the pull. If we just keep at it and execute the rest of the fight correctly we are going to end up very close to each other because our sustained dps with low cooldowns is actually pretty good.
One thing i think hurts us a bit is how few of the fights we can lust on pull. It's often a bit awkward when it comes to delaying tyrant etc.

I second the Zek’voz vote. Using it on mythic progression right now, it’s amazeballs.

[Tweetster]

Who cares what a random person's experience is with heroic? This isn't a blog site.

You seem to be the only one bothered here bud.

What a douchebag reply.
Taenaeris was merely adding his input - I for one miss those kinda posts giving advice/tips on individual bosses regardless of difficulty.

[Count Zero]

Who cares what a random person's experience is with heroic? This isn't a blog site.

You seem to be the only one bothered here bud.

Uh, the original post in this thread quite literally opens with the thread-starter saying they're doing normal and heroic Uldir.