There are demons to slay! And do other stuff to, if you’re a demonology warlock. But wait, patch 4.3 hit recently – what to do, where to start with 4.3 demonology? If you’ve got a metaphorical question mark over your head then look no further than this post, as we go over your stats, rotation and priorities, talent spec / build, enchants, glyphs and more.
Updated Nov 29th, 2011, for Patch 4.3
Changes to Demonology Warlocks in Patch 4.3
Demonology Warlocks have seen a couple of changes in Patch 4.3, most of which appear to be side-swipes from the epic Destruction Warlock changes. Impending Doom is now triggered by Soul Fire, meaning that Soul Fire can trigger a reduction in your Demon Form cooldown. Soul Fire has also had a buff to how it scales with Spellpower. Finally, Master Demonologist now grants slightly more bonus damage to your demons and your demon form per Mastery point.
Given Mastery was already our best stat after Hit, this doesn’t change our stat priorities. And whilst the buffs to Soul Fire are nice, they don’t appear to be major enough to warrant using it differently in our rotation. A bug to Incinerate was also fixed, but again, current theorycrafting is that it doesn’t change our rotation.
Demonology warlock rotation
Demonology warlocks use a FCFS (First Come First Served) priority system, not a rotation. So don’t spam these in order, always hit the highest in the list that isn’t on cooldown.
Metamorphosis > Demon Soul (if you’re using felguard) > Immolate > Hand of Gul’dan > Demon Soul (if you’re using Felhunter) > Bane of Doom > Immolation Aura > Corruption > Shadowflame > Incinerate (if Molten Core procs) > Soul Fire (if Decimation is active) > Shadow Bolt
Aoe situations: For maximum DPS, use your Felguard’s Felstorm (or summon an Infernal if it’s off cooldown), then use Metamorphosis, Immolation Aura, and spam Hellfire.
And remember to keep Dark Intent up – probably on one of your healers if you’re on progression content, otherwise on one of your fellow DPS.
If you do not have an Unholy DK, Assassination Rogue or Boomkin (Balance Druid) in your party or raid, also use Curse of the Elements on your target at the start of the fight.
For a more complex, alternative priority system, take a look at the comments from reader Wolferene, below.
Which warlock demon should I use?
- Single target/boss fight: Felhunter
- Trash: Felguard
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Demology talent spec
Stats, reforging and gems as a Demonology warlock
Stats order: Intellect > Hit (until hit capped at 1742/17%) > Haste to 1993 > Mastery > Critical Strike Rating
- Reforge Haste/crit into Hit until hit capped, after that reforge Haste until you have 1993 Haste, then reforge into mastery
- Gem Intellect unless the socket bonus is 20 Int or 30 of another stat or better, in which case gem Int/Haste (Reckless Ember Topaz) or Int/Hit (Veiled Demonseye)
Demonology Warlock enchants
Remember to check if your profession enchants are superior to these options! (It’s likely to be obvious if so).
| Head | Arcanum of Hyjal |
| Shoulders | Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone |
| Back | Enchant Cloak – Greater Intellect |
| Chest | Enchant Chest – Peerless Stats |
| Wrist | Enchant Bracer – Mighty Intellect |
| Hands | Enchant Gloves – Greater Mastery |
| Belt | Ebonsteel Belt Buckle |
| Legs | Powerful Ghostly Spellthread |
| Feet | Enchant Boots – Lavawalker |
| Weapon | Enchant Weapon – Power Torrent |
| Off-Hand Weapon | Enchant Weapon – Superior Intellect |
Glyphs
Primes: Immolate, Metamorphosis, Corruption.
Major: Life Tap, Shadow Bolt, and Soulstone if you’re going to be Combat Ressing, or Fear if you’re going to be CCing.
Minor: your choice.
Links
- Paragon guide to Dragon Soul Normal as a Warlock – very interesting.
- EJ Demonology in Cataclysm – not updated for 4.3 yet.
- WoW insider’s Warlock column – useful for extra warlock information
- MMO Champion’s Demo guide – not yet updated for 4.3 but good.
- Cynwise’s Warlockery – a bunch of useful articles about aspects of Warlockery.
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{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Why do you gem int/haste instead of int/mastery when it is ”mastery > haste”? since there is a gem called artful ember topaz that gives int/mastery.
I think it’s because Haste is over Mastery until 1993.. so if your haste is 1993+ then you probably should use int/mas.
While i found your rotation a nice starting point, i found that it had a lot of room for improvement. I stood for days on end trying to make this work before switching around a few things and maximizing the true dps of this spec. Your rotation would max out at around 15=17k DPS in 364 gear. While this isn’t horrible, it just isn’t what you want to see in your top raiding group for the guild. With the changes i made, i found it totally possible to maintain 19-22k single target, and the world is your oyster in large trash groups. Chaos i call it…. no warlock is ever complete without a tank pulling more than he should…which plays into our hands like butter on bread. i’m not going to give the trinket names that i use because i have found this rotation to be just as effective with or without them. The added bonus of the trinket only gives around 1.4k more dps anyway. Here is my rotation, which i have freely given out on my server, and it has completely changed the way people view a Warlock in groups.
For a single boss – Always use your felhunter (i will leave the demon switching rotation out of this because it takes a lot of getting used to this rotation in order to understand what’s going on while doing it.) Just remember that if you start with a lot of trash and usually wind up in a long drug out fight with the boss “grind,” you can switch to from felguard to felhunter in the midst of battle without missing a tick.
CoE, Demon Soul, Metamorphasis, Bane of Doom, Soulburn, Soul Fire, Immolation Aura, Immolation, Corruption, Hand of Gul’Dan, Shadow flame (should be in melee range with the Immo Aura on), Incinerate, then spam Shadow Bolt until one of the Dot’s or CD’s tick. After that, it’s just all about keeping the dot’s on the critter and refreshing.
Multiple targets – One would almost be remiss to forget about this…. This is where the Warlock makes his money! If i’m looking at trash that has around 250k each…such as the beginning of BoT…. this will end the fight within 10 seconds and you’ll wind up with around 45-110k depending on your gear. That’s not overall damage folks….that’s 110k on the meter and people will hate you for it! Let the tank pull while you sit there thinking about kicking everyone’s rear in DPS. Once the trash gets to you, immediately cast Metamorphasis, immolation aura, and fel storm with your felguard. While he’s spinning around cast Hellfire and the battle will be over in seconds. If it’s trash with a lot of health…..go through the single target rotation and cast fel storm between Immolation and Hand of Gul’dan. These two spells take a few secs to get off, so even if you mouse click your spells you should have plenty of time to get it off.
The reason this rotation works for the most part is because it starts out low and builds quickly. It avoids pulling too much aggro from the tank….unless he was worthless to begin with. By the setup, you can easily refresh corruption every time you refresh Hand of Gul’dan, rather than having to go all over the action bar/speed pad reaching for spells. It aids to quickness in casting times and will always put you in the top two in DPS unless you’re a little less geared than those around you.
I always eat baked rockfish, use the flask of the draconic mind, and use volcanic potions as quick pick me up’s along the way.
The talent tree only has 2 points in corruption, everything except demonic rebirth maxed in Demo, and the top line maxed in destro. I have been thinking about changing one of the top in destro for rain of fire stuns in the Beth fight, just haven’t done it yet. In the end the spec is 2 / 31/ 8. Hope this helps a little
-Stormy
That’s a guenilney impressive answer.
@Wolferene – Edit to the above…..after rechecking my spec, i noticed that i also left improved health funnel blank in demo as well. Before any fight or even target practice, ensure you have your buffs up. Dark Intent on a Balance Druid if one is available, if not put it on a healer. Soul Link yourself, and fel armor and git at it.
@Wolferene – That’s a really great, and detailed, comment – thanks very much!
As you alluded, our guides are only intended as simple starting points. There’s a lot more than a good player can get out of any class and spec. Your suggested alternate rotation is a great one for players who want to move on from a simple basic priority system. Thanks for taking the time to detail it for everyone!
Hi, I really appreciate this guide, I’m going to test it and let you know how it works, but seems that it’s bullet proof
I have one doubt, why are you using a major glyph for Life Tap and not the felhunter one?
Also, what is the reason to make the felhunter for bosses instead of the felguard, isn’t the Felguard the best dps demon?
Thank you.
Been using this for a while, definitely works great. I missed the first rotation part though, wrote is all down and following. Just was not following it, only getting around 8-9k. With felstorm and trash lol minimum 12k. Just gotta gear up and g2g!! Thanks again!!
hey Wolferene
if i max out everything except demonic rebirth i still don’t have enough points to max out the top line in destro
Yah, i am taking a look at this as well. Few things i think are not necessary. I don’t think healing your pet is that important when you could summon midst fight ( if needed) with out losing your rotation, lose that and gain 2 points for something more beneficial. All in all seems to work well, get your enchants, potions, buffs. Gem correctly and your ready to go!!!
@Wolferene –
The information you provided in your reply looks good, aside from a few things that I might change a bit. Hand of Guldan should be higher on your priority list since its our highest DPCT nuke and we want to get off as many of them as we possibly can over the course of a fight. Baked rockfish seems like a strange choice of food when severed sagefish head is available and gives us +90 int which is our best stat.
In addition to this, the main thing that demo benefits from most right now is the way that our doomguard works. If you can line up as many int and mastery procs as you possibly can before you pop doomguard, you will get tremendous benefits. Doomguard “snapshots” your int and mastery when he is summoned, meaning that he maintains the added benefit from those procs for his entire duration. So for example, with my warlock I have tailoring’s lightweave proc (+580 int), power torrent proc (+500 int), darkmoon card volcano (+1600 int) and the on use moonwell chalice trinket (+1700 mastery). All three of the aforementioned will proc within the first 15 seconds of the fight guaranteed, and you can then use the moonwell chalice trinket. Once moonwell is popped and all three of the other procs are running you can then pop your doomguard and you will get anywhere from 1mil to 1.5mil damage from him alone.
With my lock, currently 382 ilvl during bloodlust (with doomguard) single target I generally get anywhere from 60k-70k and in some situations with some lucky molten core procs I’ve gotten from 80k-90k.
may i also be harsh and make sure u only talking about opener and filler here, cuz THERE really isnt any precise rotation if u want to max your dps… i do 42k dps singletarget with only ilvl 373, and u really just need to be focuzing on a PRIORITY so u get all proccs right…
I have the same gs but my dps sucks like 14k max i have not enchanted yet…also to max my hit rating i need much more than 1720 is that right I want to be good…I know how to play this is just my first lock and i know their dps should be rediculous
@Oathbreaker –
also good to know that its not only Doomguard that snapshots stats, metamorphosis also snapshot so use it b4 doomguard for an even grosser dps-boost!
I usually play Demo with my Lock, who is my main, but I can’t seem to get my DPS higher than 13k-14k. Even on boss fights I am low on the charts, but I follow the instructions of the websites. Should I switch to another spec, or… What IS the best spec for a raiding Warlock? Thanks!
(ilvl 368)
@Jake – That’s a difficult question to answer without knowing more about how you play.
Obvious things that occur to me:
1) are you keyboard-binding your abilities or mouse-clicking them?
2) What’s your latency like?
3) Is this on Heroics or raids?
Your info is wrong. Since 4.3 your rotation and spec changed due to incinerate now scaling better (with immolate up). So you can ditch the talents in bane, get improved corruption. And spam incinerate as filler, dropping shadowbolt entirely.
Source:
http://www.paragon.fi/guides/warlock-guide-43-normal-modes
@Rekijan – Awesome! Thank you very much. I’ve been looking for a really comprehensive guide for Demo 4.3 to add – I’ll look at the Paragon guide and look at the changes you mention.
Update – I’ve looked into the changes you suggest. Currently it appears the difference in DPS is at best minimal between the two. I’ll revisit this in a month or so after the theorycraft has settled down, but for now, I’d say stick with the tried-and-true rotation until hard numbers suggest a significant improvement from the Incinerate option, particularly given the issues with multi-DOTing.
Note for readers – if you want to try to absolutely maximise your single-target DPS at the cost of multi-add DPS, replace Bane with Improved Corruption in the talent tree, and replace Shadow Bolt with Incinerate in the priorities. The single-target DPS gains are minimal – 200 or less – from current stats.
Source – http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1032943-Demo-Shadowbolt-or-Incinerate
Only question I have is why use Felhunter when best suited demon to use as a Demo Lock is Felguard?
@David Lindqvist –
I’m glad someone else notice this. I was about to ask the same thing.
@Cristelle G – It’s one of those things, like Frost DKs using Unholy presence. The theorycraft says Felhunter does better DPS on single-target fights.
@painweaver – Yep, that was a typo – you actually need Haste by priority up to 1993 Haste rating. Hence, Haste gems are a good choice.
I’ve chosen to leave Master Summoner, Improved Health Funnel and Aura of Foreboding blank, seeing as in a fight I don’t think they would have a DPS increase.
However I do have 2/2 in Emberstorm for those Soul Fire spam sessions.
I’m at 372 ilvl and I’m only around 12-14k but I’m not enchanted…am I doing something wrong or once I’m enchanted I’ll be pulling more.
Lack of enchants will make a huge difference. Have you gemmed/reforged?
Yeah ive reforged but I pretty much had to reforge everything to get hit capped…but like i said I haven’t enchanted so we’ll see how much of a boost that is…I’m following the rotation exactly i’ve also gemmed for straight int unless the socket bonus is +20 then I go int haste or hit
Why ghostly spell thread and not powerful we have no need for spirit?
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