MoP: Demonology Warlock Guide and First Week Gear List

[Grubjuice]

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.

I think a 5minute cooldown that instantly grants 2 ember/500 Fury/2 shards equivalents to a DK's Empower Rune Weapon cooldown would be more appropriate (in my opinion)

[Greywardenn]

I think a 5minute cooldown that instantly grants 2 ember/500 Fury/2 shards equivalents to a DK's Empower Rune Weapon cooldown would be more appropriate (in my opinion)

Didn't even think of that,...would definitely help for the bosses we are going to have to pop Lust at the start for.

[Jessicka]

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.

On the contrary they should speed it up so there isn't an expectation of being able to start with more.

In all honesty though, when progression starts again I'm thinking of just going Affliction; toggling between stances to maintain a resource and manage dots on a fight you're not hugely experienced with isn't conducive to a reliable performance, and that's exactly what you need and is exactly what the changes were meant to be about. DoTs OR resource, ok, but both? It's asking an awful lot compared with what other specs deal with, especially on distal multidotting.

[Greywardenn]

On the contrary they should speed it up so there isn't an expectation of being able to start with more.

In all honesty though, when progression starts again I'm thinking of just going Affliction; toggling between stances to maintain a resource and manage dots on a fight you're not hugely experienced with isn't conducive to a reliable performance, and that's exactly what you need and is exactly what the changes were meant to be about. DoTs OR resource, ok, but both? It's asking an awful lot compared with what other specs deal with, especially on distal multidotting.

I guess to each his own but this Demo rotation and gameplay compared to past Demo rotation (mainly the opener) is way easier to manage. Though, I do agree that going affliction in the beginning of this expac while you're learning the fights is the better way to go

[Jessicka]

Don't get me wrong, its not that I'm not enjoying it, I guess I'm just finding the change from zero resources to manage to managing 3 lots a pretty big deal: and it is 3 because mana is so scarce and there are molten core charges too. Its even more disheartening through how much I'm getting crushed by rogue dps at the moment. Seriously fucking nerf them.

[Grubjuice]

is it just me? because i find Demonology WAY easier to play than Affliction. I can handle two dots and resource but not three Dots and a debuff.

[Grizelda]

/cast Metamorphosis
/cast Corruption
/cancelaura Metamorphosis


Ya, it can work well. You just have to watch your GCD.

[kneeo]

/cast Metamorphosis
/cast Corruption
/cancelaura Metamorphosis


Ya, it can work well. You just have to watch your GCD.

Yeah, that works fine. You just have to wait a second between pressing it the first time and pressing it again, you can't just mash the hell out of it.

[Greywardenn]

is it just me? because i find Demonology WAY easier to play than Affliction. I can handle two dots and resource but not three Dots and a debuff.

Eh I wouldn't say easier, just different, if you were guaranteed a Haunt proc instead of going Sould shard starved for almost a minute i'd say Affliction is pretty easy.

[Deleted]

Don't get me wrong, its not that I'm not enjoying it, I guess I'm just finding the change from zero resources to manage to managing 3 lots a pretty big deal: and it is 3 because mana is so scarce and there are molten core charges too. Its even more disheartening through how much I'm getting crushed by rogue dps at the moment. Seriously fucking nerf them.

Indeed they are brutal atm.

[shags the penguin]

So a fair few questions and requests for a reroll lock.

With HoG and pandemic and the whole two charges system I take it that:

The 2nd stack of shadow flame does more damage and higher slow?

Pandemic If used to clip the first stack will the 40% get added onto the 2nd stack ? So say you clip at 2.4 seconds will that get added onto the 6 seconds of the new 2nd stack ? Giving you 8.4 seconds of 2 stack shadowflame ?

If the case is true and it is higher damage to clip them is it worth letting it build back up towards two charges and clip them each time ?
For Aoe Same question is it worth pooling mid fight and gaining a extra charge just before Aoe ?

For Aoe:

To me it looks like HoG is our aoe damage without doubt It hits so hard.

But rotational wise HoG being outside of meta makes it a bit tricky especially since its prio based upon damage going to be far higher than what is possible in meta. I am pretty sure it is worth dropping meta for this buff.

However Is it worth say:

HoG,two globals, HoG again (clipping), (Cd left from first HoG) 11 seconds of First charge CD then a further 15 Seconds for the 2nd Charge to refresh Giving you basically a burst and between that you get about 26 seconds of freedom to force up corruptions/Dooms/Voidray refreshes on corruptions and immo aura. Then you start again with HoG double again and get the free time.

Issue here also is it will not be possible to sustain meta uptime so at some-point during the downtime you will need to gain some extra fury from HL/HF although with the dooms(imp), corruption, shadowflame it shouldn't require too much out of meta time.

But the delay on HoG is a in theory not a dps loss because you still get the same amount (just wait to use one for a little while )

Else we would have to dance between normal and demon form all the time:

With HoG on a 15 second CD it would mean that if you spent too much time outside of meta you risk not being able to re-enter because of the CD of meta after the next HoG so you would have to miss a complete HoG CD window in order to make sure you have meta fully ready in the next one.

Now how much this would matter I have no idea but having a 15 second window inside meta each time could be quite annoying (is immo aura global CD or off global, big deal 15 seconds if it is on the CD as you have to use a global for 5/10 seconds) Also if you do not go into meta for a whole HoG CD then you risk dropping corruptions where as if you had 26 seconds you can meta voidray refresh them easily at anypoint during the window without really effecting other windows with meta Cd.

All of this is based upon sustained aoe with 8 ish targets not burst and clearly if the fight/adds are coming to the end you would not hold a CD and lose a complete spell.

If anyone understands what I have just written Pretty dam hard to explain


One last thing
Chaos Wave, never really gets mentioned much. At first I just assumed it was crap but on reading it... The tool-tip suggests it does more damage as a Spell than HoG + Shadowflame combined ? and same charge system/cooldown as HoG means you can double them up one after the other if you stack the charges.

dealing 1602 (+ 175% of SpellPower) It also has far better gains from SP than HoG.

Only thing I can bring myself to is that it must suffer badly from Aoe Caps (shadowflame clearly will not) and that it costs a huge chunk of fury.
But on the upside it hits pretty blood hard and for pure burst damage on aoe would this ever be viable ?

I will admit this spell I didn't really know existed and it might change a fair bit at 90 with gear but it must be there for a reason right ?

Overall
A fair chunk of stuff I have badly tested at 85 and even more was taken from simcraft at level 90 especially involving damage numbers ect and now it is 3 in the morning and i am tired.

Cheers.

[Mr.Pineapple]

couple questions:

1. am i supposed to be running oom between metas? i find myself having to use life tap a significant (feels excessive) amount on live right now. is this normal? am i missing something?

2. napkin math suggests two things: first that the grimmoire of supremacy is better unless the second felguard using felstorm on cd with other buffs makes up the difference. same thing with glyph of DS, overall average mastery is ~36% higher with the glyph, so unless stacking cd's is making up that ~36%, the glyph is better.

links to math would be helpful as simC is still pretty buggy for locks (among other classes)

my rough napkin math looks like this:

un glyphed DS provides X mastery for 20 sec
glyphed DS provides .9X mastery and .1X mastery for the other 1:40, or 1.4X* {(0.9+[5x0.1])X} mastery which means you would require 40% of outside help in buffs on each cd on average to make up the difference.
on a 7 minute fight that's 160% in buffs (assuming that haste mastery and crit are essentially equal), you get 1 blood lust (30%), and zerking on cd (20%x4), so you still need to find 50% of buffs on cd that last the full 20 seconds....(and if you're not a troll the math gets worse for whatever racials you might have...blood fury.... and gg?) 20% crit from a warrior times however many warrior crit buffs at 10 seconds each, assuming their 3 minute cd's can be times with your two minute cd....
ya, seems unlikely. not much else in the way of good group buffs... storm lash totem? maybe? i don't buy it, i'm using the glyph til i see solid math not involving 4 pro warriors and rerolling troll proving otherwise...

*it should be noted that the comparison between the two scenarios makes your own buffs near moot, yes the extra mastery would make a small difference, approximatly 4% dps which is why i stated ~36% above, making the average total 144% and still retarded!

outside of this i haven't found any other problems with your guide! great guide!

[Grubjuice]

@pineapple:
1) Are going OOM on Test Dummies or in real fights? Both Demonology and Affliction do have to life tap; it's just the way Demo and Aff are designed. But it should not make it impossible to play if you have a healer or sufficient self healing from talents and glyphs.

However you cannot get the benefit of your self-healing talents and glyphs from test dummies (soul leech, siphon life and Soul Consumption just don't work on test dummies).

In a real fight you either have a healer (a rejuvenation or Renew or Riptide is more than enough to cover all your life tap needs) and/or you have self-healing from talents and glyphs.

2) Grimoire of Service stacks with Dark Soul's Cooldown so indeed, the second felguard using felstorm on cd with DS:K (plus other 2-minute cds you may have like blood fury/Lifeblood) makes up the difference between GoServ and GoSup. However GoSup is still a viable option especially for soloing and dungeons where there is less emphasis on cooldown and more emphasis on constantly being able to damage from trash-pack to trash-pack. Void Lord btw is an amazing tank.

Also the passive mastery of Glyph of Dark Soul is only effective when Dark Soul is off cooldown, so you napkin math is incorrect. if you are not using Dark Soul on cooldown then you are really playing the game wrong. So Glyph of Dark Soul cannot ever be justified.

[Keiyra]

@Pineapple

I'm not sure glyph of DS works that way - or i'm not understanding what you wrote.

When I tried it, I only got the 10% bonus mastery when the CD was available and rdy to be pressed. After you use the CD, you get the 90% for 20 sec, and then you get nothing for the 1 min and 40 secs while its recharging. The only time i tested it was launch day of the new patch so it may have just been buggy that day - i have to take a look at it tonight. Or can anyone else confirm? Because if it behaves that way the glyph is not useful if you are hitting it on CD (except for the start of the fight where the CD is available but you are still building demon fury and haven't used DS yet)

Edit - did test it and I was correct, you do not get the 10% mastery while the CD is recharging, only once its up and rdy to be used - so you'll get it at the start of a fight, but after that if you are hitting it on CD every 2 mins, you aren't getting that 10% (works good in fights where you are holding DS:K for specific burn phases)

[Strafer]

So my Felguard does more damage than the Wraithguard, bug or tooltip error?

On my Felguard it says 6,935 - 6,936 damage and on my Wraithguard it says 5,935 - 5,936.

It's nothing major but it's just something that bothers me when the GoS should do 20% more.

[kneeo]

Edit - did test it and I was correct, you do not get the 10% mastery while the CD is recharging, only once its up and rdy to be used - so you'll get it at the start of a fight, but after that if you are hitting it on CD every 2 mins, you aren't getting that 10% (works good in fights where you are holding DS:K for specific burn phases)

It says it on the tooltip for either the actual spell when you have the glyph in, or on the glyph itself that the passive is disabled while the spell is on cooldown. It's not exactly some crazy mystery.

[Deleted]

no - tooltip is ok. Just remember that Wrathguard has 2 weapons. Not only 1 as Felguard.

[daethINC]

Question, is corruptions dmg recalculated every time we use ToC?

[Brauhm]

What is the mastery rating for Dark Apotheosis damage reduction? How much per 1%, does anyone know?

[EvreliaGaming]

Question, is corruptions dmg recalculated every time we use ToC?

Yes, it is.