MoP: Demonology Warlock Guide and First Week Gear List

[Deleted]

it was glyph of demon hunting.. ok, my friend found his dps went higher, (dark apotheosis), but i dont know if having to pop into it and out of it, as it gave access to some diff spells but only 3 bursts i think of one of them, is causing the loss..i know u say it isnt..but can u explain why? (just so i can pop back and tell him as i havent tried it out)

[Grubjuice]

if his DPS was higher with Dark Apotheosis he was probably playing regular Demonology all wrong

Dark Apotheosis trades damage for survivability. It's a niche glyph for soloing, questing, running old content, emergency tanking, PvP turtling, and over-gear tanking.

The basic premise of Dark Apotheosis is that instead of popping in and out of metamorphosis to do more damage, you are in a sort of 'half-meta' phase indefinitely and Mastery, instead of increasing your damage done, decreases physical damage taken. DA is absolutely not in any way a DPS increase.

while in Dark Apotheosis you use Corruption, Hand of Gul'dan (which has 2 charges) and Demonic Slash (which has 3 charges) to build demonic fury and then spend that demonic fury on Fury Ward (which absorbs damage) or Drain Life/Harvest Life which heals you.

[EvreliaGaming]

if his DPS was higher with Dark Apotheosis he was probably playing regular Demonology all wrong

Dark Apotheosis trades damage for survivability. It's a niche glyph for soloing, questing, running old content, emergency tanking, PvP turtling, and over-gear tanking.

The basic premise of Dark Apotheosis is that instead of popping in and out of metamorphosis to do more damage, you are in a sort of 'half-meta' phase indefinitely and instead of increasing your damage done it decreases physical damage taken. It is absolutely not in any way a DPS increase.

while in Dark Apotheosis you use Corruption, Hand of Gul'dan (which has 2 charges) and Demonic Slash (which has 3 charges) to build demonic fury and then spend that demonic fury on Fury Ward (which absorbs damage) or Drain Life/Harvest Life which heals you.

Can't really put it any better than that. It lowers your damage and turns you into a semi-tank. Great for emergencies and taunting, but not something that's really going to be raid viable at all

[Deleted]

hey guys thank you everso much for that info :-)

[Goosy]

Hello fellow warlocks!

I´ve not had the chance to play on beta. So first off I would like to thank Evralia for these 3 guides of each specc. My holy bibel atm!

Back to the issue.

Atm am doing about 40k dps on a target dummy (Yes am dpsing the right one) with a peak of 52k.
Why I think something is really wrong is because as affliction am doing 50-55k dps with a peak of 65k.
Both testings last for about 2min.

Sadly i can´t link my armory profile. But if you´re up for a look my warlocks name is Goosy and i´m playing at EU Frostmane (Orc/Horde)

Rotation i use. Exactly the same you can find from Evralia´s Demo guide for MoP.

Like I said before am really following the guides, and been reading up as much as I can about both speccs but it just feels like something must be wrong do to the hugh diffrance in dps.

Is this the case or is it just a fact that affliction during lvl 85 is that more powerful?

Thankful for all help i can get

PS: sorted my reforge after wowreforge dot com



Best Regards
Goosy

[EvreliaGaming]

Hello fellow warlocks!

I´ve not had the chance to play on beta. So first off I would like to thank Evralia for these 3 guides of each specc. My holy bibel atm!

Back to the issue.

Atm am doing about 40k dps on a target dummy (Yes am dpsing the right one) with a peak of 52k.
Why I think something is really wrong is because as affliction am doing 50-55k dps with a peak of 65k.
Both testings last for about 2min.

Sadly i can´t link my armory profile. But if you´re up for a look my warlocks name is Goosy and i´m playing at EU Frostmane (Orc/Horde)

Rotation i use. Exactly the same you can find from Evralia´s Demo guide for MoP.

Like I said before am really following the guides, and been reading up as much as I can about both speccs but it just feels like something must be wrong do to the hugh diffrance in dps.

Is this the case or is it just a fact that affliction during lvl 85 is that more powerful?

Thankful for all help i can get

PS: sorted my reforge after wowreforge dot com



Best Regards
Goosy

Affliction at level 85 *is* better than the others, yes, by about 3000 dps, but also test dummies is not a viable way to test out two specs. They won't scale up exactly the same with raid buffs and the gap will likely close in a raid environment. Run a Simcraft and let it tell you what it thinks you should be doing.

Talk me through your rotation as Demo.

[Deleted]

I actually couldn't get that to work. The /cast doom section wouldn't work. I had to change the doom line to Corruption (since Corr mutates into Doom). It worked after that.

Then I had
/cast Metamorphosis
/cast Corruption
/cancelaura Metamorphosis

That one takes two clicks.

i have tried this macro..most times it seems to apply corruption aswell on second click, but sometimes it doesnt..is there something i am doing wrong?

[EvreliaGaming]

i have tried this macro..most times it seems to apply corruption aswell on second click, but sometimes it doesnt..is there something i am doing wrong?

It should apply on the first click, unless you're in a global.

[Jessicka]

i have tried this macro..most times it seems to apply corruption aswell on second click, but sometimes it doesnt..is there something i am doing wrong?

Latency, spell queuing, and just general habitual button mashing I've found make trying to tie this to one button just not practical, you need one button that only ever activates Meta and one that will only ever cancel the aura.

Trying to fix the class design with macros was never going to be fun, engaging or add anything to the experience. Three keystrokes to apply 1 debuff... neither hard, engaging or fun.

[Greywardenn]

Hello fellow warlocks!

I´ve not had the chance to play on beta. So first off I would like to thank Evralia for these 3 guides of each specc. My holy bibel atm!

Back to the issue.

Atm am doing about 40k dps on a target dummy (Yes am dpsing the right one) with a peak of 52k.
Why I think something is really wrong is because as affliction am doing 50-55k dps with a peak of 65k.
Both testings last for about 2min.

Sadly i can´t link my armory profile. But if you´re up for a look my warlocks name is Goosy and i´m playing at EU Frostmane (Orc/Horde)

Rotation i use. Exactly the same you can find from Evralia´s Demo guide for MoP.

Like I said before am really following the guides, and been reading up as much as I can about both speccs but it just feels like something must be wrong do to the hugh diffrance in dps.

Is this the case or is it just a fact that affliction during lvl 85 is that more powerful?

Thankful for all help i can get

PS: sorted my reforge after wowreforge dot com



Best Regards
Goosy

I know people hate looking at Simcraft but atm affliction is way ahead of demo on patchwerk:

T14 heroic gear:
http://simulationcraft.org/505/Raid_T14H.html
T14 normal gear:
http://simulationcraft.org/505/Raid_T14N.html

[Goosy]

Affliction at level 85 *is* better than the others, yes, by about 3000 dps, but also test dummies is not a viable way to test out two specs. They won't scale up exactly the same with raid buffs and the gap will likely close in a raid environment. Run a Simcraft and let it tell you what it thinks you should be doing.

Talk me through your rotation as Demo.

Am using the felguard first off, and also i do use grimoire of service:felguard and glyph Wild Imps forgot to mention that and i do hope this is right

Rotation wise which gives me the best results atm is:

CoE+Send in the felguard -> Corruption -> BoD -> Wild Imps -> GoServ Felguard+Bladestorm from my original felguard -> Doomguard ->HoG -> x2 SB (If not procc from SF) -> HoG (gives me x2 stacks of Shadowflame)-> SB/SF filler -> refresh Corruption -> SB/SF filler -> HoG -> Orc Racial/Demon Soul/Meta -> ToC spam -> Normal form.

I always make sure to have both corruption and BoD uptime to 100%. I pop Wild Imps always asap when its off CD but the second GoServ i line up with my Demon Soul+Orc Racial. Idk if the delay is correct but with the testing i´ve done it´ve given me more dps. (Tho like you mentioned tests from dummies might not be the most accurate way)

If i´ve got something completely wrong and my rotation looks like a joke please do let me know. Would appreciate that alot so i can improve my performance Any other tips or tricks to improve it would be Ace aswell.

Thank you so Evralia for your reply to my frist post and i pray that when you´ve read this you might be able to fill in some blanks i´ve missed!



Best Regards
Goosy

[smegdawg]

Latency, spell queuing, and just general habitual button mashing I've found make trying to tie this to one button just not practical, you need one button that only ever activates Meta and one that will only ever cancel the aura.

Trying to fix the class design with macros was never going to be fun, engaging or add anything to the experience. Three keystrokes to apply 1 debuff... neither hard, engaging or fun.

I encountered this more last night then I have ever, and it forced me to do exactly what you said, split it up into meta and cancel meta.

However in doing so I have completely redo my key mapping to get my all of my keybindings to work for me again. So its back to the target dummies so I can burn which spells are bound to which keys into my skull.

[EvreliaGaming]

Am using the felguard first off, and also i do use grimoire of service:felguard and glyph Wild Imps forgot to mention that and i do hope this is right

Rotation wise which gives me the best results atm is:

CoE+Send in the felguard -> Corruption -> BoD -> Wild Imps -> GoServ Felguard+Bladestorm from my original felguard -> Doomguard ->HoG -> x2 SB (If not procc from SF) -> HoG (gives me x2 stacks of Shadowflame)-> SB/SF filler -> refresh Corruption -> SB/SF filler -> HoG -> Orc Racial/Demon Soul/Meta -> ToC spam -> Normal form.

I always make sure to have both corruption and BoD uptime to 100%. I pop Wild Imps always asap when its off CD but the second GoServ i line up with my Demon Soul+Orc Racial. Idk if the delay is correct but with the testing i´ve done it´ve given me more dps. (Tho like you mentioned tests from dummies might not be the most accurate way)

If i´ve got something completely wrong and my rotation looks like a joke please do let me know. Would appreciate that alot so i can improve my performance Any other tips or tricks to improve it would be Ace aswell.

Thank you so Evralia for your reply to my frist post and i pray that when you´ve read this you might be able to fill in some blanks i´ve missed!



Best Regards
Goosy

Dummy testing is great for practicing your rotation, it's just not too great for accurate DPS analysis, particularly when comparing across different specs/classes. I can't see anything glaringly wrong with your rotation - I would probably use Goserv Felguard sooner and do Doom before Corruption as it's DPET is higher. Whether you want to burn your Meta like that right at the start is a situational decision, but the sims are waiting until close to full fury to go into the full burn. That doesn't mean you're doing it wrong though.

[Greywardenn]

Wouldn't the following rotation take the most advantage of your DS?

CoE, send in Felguard, Doom, Corruption, HoG, SB/SF Filler Refresh HoG, once at full Fury Pop Meta/DS/trinkets/Racial refresh Doom and then GoServ Felguard and Wild imps while spamming Touch of Chaos? Wouldn't the Wild imps and extra Felguard get boosted by your DS as well as keep a flow of Fury coming in while in Meta to potentially lengthen the amount of time you can be in Meta?

[Goosy]

Seems like i have a solid opener sorted out now. Again thanks for all the help!

[Jessicka]

Wouldn't the following rotation take the most advantage of your DS?

CoE, send in Felguard, Doom, Corruption, HoG, SB/SF Filler Refresh HoG, once at full Fury Pop Meta/DS/trinkets/Racial refresh Doom and then GoServ Felguard and Wild imps while spamming Touch of Chaos? Wouldn't the Wild imps and extra Felguard get boosted by your DS as well as keep a flow of Fury coming in while in Meta to potentially lengthen the amount of time you can be in Meta?

This is pretty much what I'm doing, it does make Meta last a very long time, 40s+, which means you'll want to break midway through, once DS has faded to maintain Shadowflame, then toward the end of the second spell you'll refresh Doom.

The main problem here is that as encounters get shorter, you risk only getting 1 burn phase per encounter, and a very short execute. This is the main problem I have with starting at only 200 Fury, you barely get a chance to actually build your resources and finish using them up.

[Xandy]

I actually couldn't get that to work. The /cast doom section wouldn't work. I had to change the doom line to Corruption (since Corr mutates into Doom). It worked after that.

Then I had
/cast Metamorphosis
/cast Corruption
/cancelaura Metamorphosis

That one takes two clicks.

This is super useful, in two clicks I get Doom and Corruption up, you should include this in your guide

[Greywardenn]

This is pretty much what I'm doing, it does make Meta last a very long time, 40s+, which means you'll want to break midway through, once DS has faded to maintain Shadowflame, then toward the end of the second spell you'll refresh Doom.

The main problem here is that as encounters get shorter, you risk only getting 1 burn phase per encounter, and a very short execute. This is the main problem I have with starting at only 200 Fury, you barely get a chance to actually build your resources and finish using them up.

^^^I completely agree, at the moment or until the content gets easier (MOP) and finished quicker I think holding off for Meta is the best choice. Once encounters get shorter and burn phases are fewer I def would switch it up so that I could use Goserv and imps frontload as much fury as I can.

[kneeo]

This is pretty much what I'm doing, it does make Meta last a very long time, 40s+, which means you'll want to break midway through, once DS has faded to maintain Shadowflame, then toward the end of the second spell you'll refresh Doom.

The main problem here is that as encounters get shorter, you risk only getting 1 burn phase per encounter, and a very short execute. This is the main problem I have with starting at only 200 Fury, you barely get a chance to actually build your resources and finish using them up.

If they upped demo's starting fury up to even 500, it would probably be a gigantic quality of life increase, without being overpowered.

Someone should suggest that on the forums..

[Greywardenn]

An extra 300 fury to start would def be OP, I think slowing down the decay rate on our saved up DF would be a better solution.