[5.4] Demonology Warlock Guide

[Nighthaven-]

I wonder how much they need to buff doom in 6.0 to compensate for DoT snapshotting. Even if they increased the damage by 100% it would still end up dealing less damage proportionally than today, as most dooms are 600% on pull and 250% after that.

Baseline Doom is probably the worst dps dot ingame, let alone you rarely get any value of it on adds unless they live for more than 30 seconds.

[Werst]

When snapshotting goes away lots of specs will have to be rebalanced. That said, for 6.0 I'd like to see a couple things for doom honestly:
*minor glyph of doom - half DF cost and duration
*dispels of doom spawn 1x imp and refund the DF cost of the spell
*have its ticks be independent of meta form's damage modifier...shifting in/out around a doom tick timer will piss me off greatly.

Wouldn't mind seeing corruption go away from demo (get buffed back to UA levels in aff) and just extend shadowflame 6'ish seconds. That way people who are really good at HoG use can shine and corruption can go away since its now just basically a DF engine nothing else. That would further make demo feel unique.

[Zevoa]

*have its ticks be independent of meta form's damage modifier...shifting in/out around a doom tick timer will piss me off greatly.

Oh god. That would be awful.

[rijn dael]

Oh god. That would be awful.

Considering they made corruption an extension rather than a refresh just for that reason I think we are safe :P

[Werst]

Stuff like that just tends to sneak its way into warlock mechanics and end up mired there for tiers if not expansions....at least historically speaking. Still more concerned with the balance of chaotic resources....turning a resource spender into a resource generator is seldom a balanceable thing. Then again the whole warlock panel felt very 11th hour...kinda like someone put the powerpoint slide together about 2am the night before...

Do hope they reconsider things for demo in terms of pvp...it has such great potential mechanics wise but its similarly castrated by overall game mechanics at the same time. IE fel flame doing more damage to the lock via lifetap than the target due to global resilience vs mana cost vs pve "balanced" damage. I mean its easily fixable by making FF refund 75% of its mana cost when striking a player target or something but the fact blizz can't take the time to polish what is theoretically the pvp side/half of the game more is shameful.

[Mazda]

*begs players to play Demo in 10H*

I think my guild is going 25 in a month, so I guess I'll see some there!

[Werst]

Dest/Aff tend to offer more results for less effort in 10h and/or the self healing of ember tap becomes a massive life saver. Especially in a 10m there is little demo does that really can't be done equally well (if not better) by the other two specs. So while its still one of the most fun specs (IMO) to play sadly very few do. Granted we have months of farming to do so hopefully more people will pick it up.

PVP on the other hand is bordering on the silly how bad it is for locks...especially demo. On the one hand your main filler (in theory) fel flame is instant and spammable making it good for pvp. Its DF spenders are also instant (CW/ToC) thus making them far more reliable than chaosbolt. Your offensive form is also defensive. You have good mobility with demo leap. Your pet has a nice healing debuff and a physical stun to counter all those anti caster/fear immunities. There is a lot to like... So why is it such a turd with so many good qualities? Well that fel flame thing gets reduced by 75%'ish so the lifetap cost is higher than the damage it does...casting a 2.5 sec shadowbolt for pitiful damage is just never going to happen nor is a 4 sec MC'less soulfire so they are out...hell even a MC'd soulfire is out realistically. The imp glyph got nerfed from 5 to 4 imps with the UVLS beatdown whether it was warranted or not which took pvp down with it. Demo's dots are pathetic...corruption ticks for so little in demo it may as well be 2 expansions ago and doom can be dispelled nearly 2x between each tick so that's a gigantic waste of DF. Our pets have no snare or root break and only minimal gap closing (only the FG). So basically the spec has no way to build DF. The chaoswave nerf went way too far. Again it was based on the delta between a double crit being a near 1 shot with a swifty macro even though it was (still is) a 1.x% chance to crit both chaoswaves. It was also a problem due to mannoroth making it hit a large aoe swath which is no longer even possible so we are "safe" in that aspect as well. The only way you would hit multiple targets is if they were densely packed and things such as bladestorm certainly would hit the same or wider (and for more I might add).

With so few people playing demo I really with they would give it some love for pvp. Right now locks are the lowest rated class in 2's and near the bottom in 3's and 5's if arenamate ladder sites are to be believed. Safe to say you could give them some help, especially demo. Just do it in ways that don't fubar PVE or minimally change things. Honestly what would this list break?

*Doom dispels refund DF cost and spawn an imp.
*Fel flame refunds 80% of its mana cost when striking a player target.
*Glyph of Imp swarm is back to 5x imps (might change demo glyph'ing slightly big whup)
*Chaoswave damage always crits, damage scales with crit....this just normalizes chaoswave damage so it can be balanced
*Felguard/wrathguard pursuit acts as a freedom

I know WoD is the priority but these aren't exactly wild changes and there is a long time till WoD. It would be a nice way to be able to enjoy the other half of the game again. Part of me would like to see something like ToC giving a chance to proc a CW based on haste % to give the spell some haste scaling but that is too big a change to mess with at this point.

[Jessicka]

To be fair, they could at this point just reverse the Chaos Wave and Imp Nerfs; the problem with CW was fixed when they made resilience baseline and fixed further with the changes to Mannoroth's Fury, it's effectively been triple nerfed. Returning the Imps' damage wouldn't exactly be gamebreaking in PvE either given where the spec currently stands; it was simply never a necessary nerf on top of the UVLS change, it just seems to have been a reinforcement to make sure said nerf 'worked'.

As for Doom, I found that even in my limited PvP experience that if the opposing team didn't have a decurser, that it was a serious risk to cast because it lasted so long and effectively made that target un-CCable for the duration; not really what you want.

As for pets and CC breaking, Unbound Will does break pets' CC as well as yours. Would be nice to get the old Demonic Empowerment back though.

[Werst]

I agree doom is nearly worthless in pvp...I'd almost go for decurse/dispel bait to spawn imps the same way you'd cover a fear with a UA. Aff can have its lolpressure with dots, demo can have its pressure with imps. Demo feels seriously DF starved in pvp so baring some kind of DK'ish "you get DF when stunned/snared or touched in your no-no spot by players" mechanic it needs help somewhere. Either the spenders need to hit harder in pvp or the DF needs to generate easier. Corruption is largely out as any form of damage but that's true in pve as well....its been solely a DF engine for awhile now. If you go with a "more flow" model then maybe have doom give an imp 100% each tick vs player targets or simply double/increase the DF gained from attacks vs player targets. Chaoswave needs some big time un-nerfing/buffing as does ToC. You could give them the inverse chaosbolt treatment which is absolutely what the spec needs if you don't turn up the DF flow. However that just promotes swifty'ing though that's 90% of specs now. I lean towards the always crits/scales with crit for chaoswave so it can be rebalanced to be a serious hitting spell but not go into OP territory or have such a wide variance you can't balance it (ie 5.0-5.1 era).

Unbound is 60 sec (plus we need it for omg personal CC moments) and so many pvp snares are passive/spammable our FG/WG need to be closer to hunter pets (hai blinkstrike) in terms of uptime. Especially if our other DF sources take such a reduction. I mean a BM hunter pet effing hurts...nobody even notices a wrathguard. Just saying the pet should be a bit more scary than it is and even if that is too big a balance shift at least it should be able to have uptime when things like howling blast/chilblains make aoe perma snaring a fact of life. Demo empowerment was a nice niche...at this point I'll take uptime > damage IF the lock can do the damage. Right now it can't which is the problem.

Since dev time (and intererest) is probably at a minimum for something like this I'd lean towards the minimum effort/coding necessary to do the job. Thus a punchlist might look like:
*Fel flame refunds 80% of its mana cost when striking player targets
*Chaoswave always crits, scales with crit, 33% nerf reverted *vs player targets only*
*Pursuit = freedom
*ToC damage increased 33% vs player targets only
*Imp Swarm Glyph nerf reverted
*DF gains vs player targets increased 20-25%

While I'd love to see demo as a pressure master who wears a team down w' an army of imps and then pops CD's for a kill its just too much effort. However the above punchlist would be easily doable and barely touch pve whatsoever. Granted it wouldn't upset the applecart at high end pvp but for sub 2K play and definitely 2's where most people play for FUN it would be a world of difference.

[Rocksteadee]

EDIT: Totally posted this in the wrong thread :/ Should be in the destro thread sorry.

[Werst]

Not really sure, only thing I can think of is that if a guild is still doing normal modes they are doing everything before it heroic (or were doing achievements/holidays/etc) so they largely overgear it. Thus the fight is shorter. Thus aff's strong opener on a short fight does well. Also consider aff has the potential for the most cheese with dot snapshotting and good RPPM RNG. There are only so many chaosbolts you can launch due to embers....you can roll super dots for a whole fight and have near full haunt uptime.

That said if you are looking for parse coaching that is dealt with in other threads...at least in so far as spec specific ones that don't deal with demonology.

EDIT: Another thought I had was that you could very significantly buff the impact of pvp power when it came to warlock spells. We are at the end tier so itemization is sort of as swollen as its going to get. Right now afaik nobody uses the stat compared to either secondary stats (mastery/haste/crit or even primary stat stackers with the occasional defensive resil stacker). If pvp power very significantly buffed the healing and damage of warlock spells it would be a tuning knob to try to readjust things. That said it would be a rebalance effort of nearly every spell/ability. How that works out in terms of dev/programmer person hours vs the changes listed above which would work within the game as its stands is debatable.

[Nighthaven-]

Demo PvP output is not weak, in 522 PvP (gear and for PvE higher ilvl also) Demo DoTs are superior to anything else. There are a few issues though, but here's what you need to do:

1. Run with high haste and then maximize mastery (int is equally good at that ilvl for pvp) 7097 Corruption or 10.5k shadow flame (reachable but no boot speed enchant, but you get desired socket bonuses))(no haste buff) to offset the slow fury generation.
Corruption is still your primary damage source in the long run in % (2-3 targets sustained). Put up Doom anyway, you have the extra global for it - since if they dispel it, you can fear without having to cast it twice.

You need to haste to put everything up in a very short window.
Imps > HoG > DS+ trinket > Service Felguard > Corruption/ Fel flame *2 > HoG > Pet Axe Toss > Meta > Mannoroth's Fury + Immolation Aura > Toc / Soul Fire > Mortal Coil. You will _melt_ people this way.

Use Mannoroth's Fury and stack HoG *2/meta and not Chaos Wave - Chaos wave is inferior in damage output. Use Immolation aura (with MF) single target (stack fury for it).
No reason to use Wrathguard. Service deals superior burst and its not like you don't have the healing debuff, only a weaker version of it (also emergency peel). Glyph of imp swarm is not necessary anymore (unless for 'I need fury now' short skirmishes) just ToC whenever you have the buff (use Weak Auras).

With i522 gear: You should get 10.5k Shadowflame ticks and 10.5k Immolation Aura ticks every 0.8s on PvP targets. That is twice as good as Affliction DoT and your filler is superior (ToC) (MC'ed Meta Soul Fire can actually be worth it if you can get it off during DS). Your DoT's don't have 100% uptime unlike affliction, but your DoTs are unmatched in pure power.
HoG/ Shadowflame is your highest DPET (aside from Doom, but this is pvp) just as SimC says (just watch your pie chart in recount).

But here are the issues:
1) Shadowflame is not split like they did with Warriors bloodbath - the snare and DoT. It is trinket-able/ similar. Force trinkets (especially in 2's) Demo has enough pressure alone to do that if executed properly.
2) You can no longer cleave with HoG (HoG glyph and MF) and hit multiple targets accurately. (In 5.2 (or 5.1) 3s (2.15k~ rating) Shadowflame was my highest damage source, but not any longer). Due to no passive MF HoG radius.
3) Pets are inferior compared to huntards (why is already covered above). Minions of WoW hell are weaker than forest rabbits/ hunter pets. (Which means lore wise that forests mobs are stronker than the burning legion).
4) Life tap (already covered).

edit// post revisit: moved a sentence from the wrong spot to the correct one.

[Werst]

MF does line up with the on use pvp trinket well...though having 10 sec of "pressure" isn't quite the same as burst with every other one being darksoul'd or at least darksoul + imps + service FG. Since you can't cast shadowbolt shifting to ToC is the only way you are getting any imps without the imp swarm glyph. I could see going for HoG x2 vs CW since the damage return just isn't there post nerf but that puts everything on ToC or immo aura. You have any vids of decent 5.4 demo pvp in rated play? I'd be curious to see this in action.

Honestly my crappy geared (496 isle welfare, honor bits/wep, etc) hunter feels like a superior nuker than my fully geared warlock in terms of pvp these days. Aff can tickle a crowd but finish nobody. Destro can have a fantasy about casts that just don't happen and when they do are what others would do with instants. Demo (thus far) feels like its damage belongs to last expansion pvp wise. Hell even our non tank form pays the full tank tax but doesn't get the full tank kit. Would be nice to have a better option.

I'm not saying locks are complete shit in pvp. Just saying we don't have anything we can actually pick up and go kill someone with on equal footing to other classes. Thus we are lowest repped in 2's. We can be a CC bot for an OP class (eg warrior/mage/ele) in 3's but as support not as a killer. As "fun" as some people might find that it isn't exactly why many people roll a pure dps. Its also a playstyle we've been shoved into on the whole for some time now. Its "okay" if a mage blows someone up in a deep...but IF a lock were to do it that easily they'd hotfix things so fast they'd yank the server cord out of the wall.

[Nighthaven-]

I just recently stopped playing. I was PvEing HC my last days a week ago, and I'll most likely be unable to provide any videos in the future if I'll be back this season/ tier.

Demo is a lot of small numbers. Small numbers that are applied very often. This is not very 'attractive' but it should be on an equal footing if you do it right.
Demo cleave (just as in PvE) is superior in output, but very awkward to apply - due to the tiny radius of HoG and Immolation Aura. Players/ mobs need to be stacked - AND you need to have your primary abilities ready: HoG off cooldown, and enough fury for IA. And unlike other classes, you can't sit on your AoE abilities as you use these for single target as well (fury spent on other things).

This is quite retarded design from Blizz - as your output will be inferior if you do not have these ready. Your dps is based around stars-aligning (even aside from trinkets) - yet they do not outperform other classes at best; who have a much easier time applying their dps.

Take doom for example, your competitive dps is based around having an artificially powered doom up, yet when don't have it your dps is sub-par for target switching/ new targets. Not only that - the target also need to live long enough for doom to be worthwhile.

There's no compensation for the troubles you have for driving your problematic car, and the others just perform as good when you're at your best. Same applies to PvP.

[dawawe]

Has this been updated for 5.4? It says master>haste>crit but simcraft is telling me crit>mastery>haste

[Deleted]

any ranged spec where you have to go into melee to fully aoe is faulty design imo, they could easily make it proper ranged where you would target a mob and then have him be the center of the hellfire instead of youself.

[dawawe]

any ranged spec where you have to go into melee to fully aoe is faulty design imo, they could easily make it proper ranged where you would target a mob and then have him be the center of the hellfire instead of youself.

or set your pet on fire

[Zinnin]

Has this been updated for 5.4? It says master>haste>crit but simcraft is telling me crit>mastery>haste

Disclaimer:
So one of the things that players generally want right away in a guide is a quick and simple run down of what stats to gear for. For Demonology this is basically impossible because our secondary stats are so close together that depending on what trinkets you are using, what talents, if you have four piece, of just the level of you gear that Crit, Mastery, and Haste can all rotate being your top stat.

There is a reason I posted that disclaimer on the guide. Also take Simcraft stat weights with a grain of salt.

[Deleted]

There is a reason I posted that disclaimer on the guide. Also take Simcraft stat weights with a grain of salt.

that too altho that would rule out the grimoire of sacrifice for demo and as long as we have that as an option for talents i doubt that will happen but i will say that it fits to the spec.

[Bloodfire]

Question.
Simcraft shows Aff behind all specs. Is it useful to switch from affliction to Demo now when gear is 570+?
AFAIK the rotation and priority are the same except some things about glyphs and others.