Halfus HC, whelps aside, why this spec?

[Deleted]

Hey, a question. My guild is just moving towards HC progression and we'll be starting on Halfus. They asked me to go Demonology. I want to know, aside of obvious whelp-massacre, what can Demo lock bring there to do well? Any useful tricks? I always went Destro with Halfus-BoH awesomeness. I'm clueless about how to efficiently use demo. Only used it looong ago on Magmaw and Maloriak.

Thanks

[Deleted]

Well, 10% increased Spellpower for all casters and healers is quite okay I am not that much into locks, but I suppose it's for the healers sake?

[frshovinstuf]

Not really sure demo is a must for that fight. If it's 25m then sure it's good to have a demo lock or two, but on 10m I run affy and the whelps die pretty fast still with improved seed... I did try demo once on Heroic Halfus and I had so much upfront threat that it wasn't even worth it, but maybe your tank is better with that.

other than whelp massacre i can't really think of any other advantage. Any cleave/aoe dmg (aside from whelps) can be out done by destro or affy imo. If they insist though.. you might try running multiple immolates for Molten Core procs. Hope this helps GL HF

FR

[Eshua]

Aberrations / vile swills...maybe they just want you ready with demo for when it counts?

[Penguin FTW]

I assume they asked you to go a specific spec because of what the raid needs (10% sp), not because they feel it's just the spec you should be for that fight.

[Raht]

Aberrations / vile swills...maybe they just want you ready with demo for when it counts?

There are aberrations and swills on halfus?

[Deleted]

It's not about the spellpower, no. I always go as Destro or Aff, but stats show Demonology to prevail at this fight and they say whelps have to go instantly. I get it, but I'd rather not be useless for the rest of the fight Hence asking for tips and maybe some missed tricks I don't know about Demo to abuse there.

But it seems there are none so I'm gonna be the Whelp Squad and leave SRS DPZ! to others :<

[Treebagged]

SP buff, Whelp annihilation, pet cleave on the drakes + halfus all make demo favorable for that fight.

[Deleted]

I'm gonna sound like a complete and total n00b but what the hell, I am one - what pet cleave? :O

...which pet's cleave? :<

:3

[Dacu]

Hey, a question. My guild is just moving towards HC progression and we'll be starting on Halfus. They asked me to go Demonology. I want to know, aside of obvious whelp-massacre, what can Demo lock bring there to do well? Any useful tricks? I always went Destro with Halfus-BoH awesomeness. I'm clueless about how to efficiently use demo. Only used it looong ago on Magmaw and Maloriak.

Thanks

Well at the start of the fight, there will be a GIANT clusterfuck of mobs in the middle (everything is stacked on everything), so you will pop everything after a few seconds (for aggro sake), demonic leap in, immolation, shadowflame, felguard WW, hellfire spam and use shadowflame on CD....you can get up to 100k dps

[Soisoisoi]

I'm gonna sound like a complete and total n00b but what the hell, I am one - what pet cleave? :O

...which pet's cleave? :<

:3

Felguard's Legion Strike and Felstorm I guess? ;o

[Deleted]

Well at the start of the fight, there will be a GIANT clusterfuck of mobs in the middle (everything is stacked on everything), so you will pop everything after a few seconds (for aggro sake), demonic leap in, immolation, shadowflame, felguard WW, hellfire spam and use shadowflame on CD....you can get up to 100k dps

Sounds yummy

Felstorm has a big CD though, not sure it could be counted as a cleave? Legion strike, it says it divides the damage between targets. So it's the same damage on 1 as on 6 targets, no?

[Soisoisoi]

Sounds yummy

Felstorm has a big CD though, not sure it could be counted as a cleave? Legion strike, it says it divides the damage between targets. So it's the same damage on 1 as on 6 targets, no?

Don't know for sure as I don't play a lock, but I guess they all have their own chance to crit, so it still adds extra.. I guess?

[Viceversa]

Affliction is best for this fight.

[Nume]

There are aberrations and swills on halfus?

He was saying that maybe they want him to learn how to use demo effectively when he'll need it in future fights, such as H mal with aberrations/vile swills.

[Deleted]

He was saying that maybe they want him to learn how to use demo effectively when he'll need it in future fights, such as H mal with aberrations/vile swills.

Hah, no no. That's not the case either. They want the spec for Halfus HC, not thinking about the future. My learning of how to deal with a new spec is least of our guild's DPS concerns Killing Halfus is a priority now (just got Nef down this evening) and there's no learning room. We gotta pwn and I want to be the pwner not dead weight


@Viceversa

Why so? Can you, please, elaborate?

[Aeiri]

It seems you are under the impression that Demonology is a horrible single target spec. It is absolutely not, and is very good if played properly.


Also, the fact that Felstorm is on a huge cooldown doesn't really matter. You pop that after the tanks have aggro on everything and you will do 30-40k dps from your felguard alone. The single target dps output is more than fine if you just do the rotation properly. Honestly if you can do good dps with destro or affliction demo wont be hard. It might be a little difficult to play perfectly, but it will be easy to play adequately. Just look up the rotation on EJ or some other site and spend 20 minutes on the dummy practicing it and profit.

[Killora]

If you don't already have an affliction warlock for that fight, you'd be better off being Affliction. Even for better AoE. Curse of Elements Jinx would give the rest of the raid more of an AoE DPS increase than you'd gain from going from Affliction to Demonology. It's why i'm Affliction for Heroic Maloriak.

[nilnar]

Well if your guild's tactic involves mass aoeing the whelps at the start, then demo is simply the best spec, as it has the highest burst aoe. The first part of the fight is by far the most important on hc halfus, so any spec that will specifically help you get through that is great.

Our strat involves single target nuking one drake first, while cleaving the whelps (I play affliction and soulburn seed/shadowflame on cooldown, plus a fire mage spreading combustion and a survival hunter using serpent spread, so theres significant aoe cleave damage) and we find we can drop 2 drakes (whelps as a whole counting as a drake) faster than if we flat out aoe - plus its made aggro a little easier for the tanks.

[Deleted]

my guild has had halfus hc on farm for quite some time now (10 men that is) and our lock found out that if we stack halfus and all the dragons together for massive cleave (something we used to do the first weeks) demore was king, but he needed a salvation on pull pretty much every single time
Aoe from the Pet+immo aura etc... just demolished everything

BUT

now that the fight is on farm and we want it to be as simble as possible we don't stack the dragons anymore to make fireballs easier to dodge for tanks and melees (really, fireballs are the only "hard" part of halfus imho) making Destro with Bane of Cleave better for the fight, he starts with the bane on the second dragon we nuke and after the first one is dead he puts it on halfus to abuse the debuff, plus shadowfury might not be the insane aoe demo has, but the 3 sec stun is always nice with many adds

ps. we generally kill the third dragon after the whelps, at that point he just uses the bane on that and nukes halfus, the bonus dmg he gets makes the bane hit like trucks