Warlock Demonology Guide by Sparkuggz – Method

  • introduction

Welcome to the Warlock guide for the Demonology spec in Warlords of Draenor

*NOTE* There will still be updates during WoD and i will add video guides together with more detailed playstyle tips and tricks as we go along.

This guide will try cover many different areas to help you improve your play, do note that many things can change and rotations, stat weights, priority lists and all these sort of things can differ a lot. Always read guides with a grain of salt, but use it for what it’s worth.

 


T17 Mythic gear list suggestion 

SLOT ITEM NAME DROPS
Head Shadow Council´s Hood Kromog
Neck Gruul´s Lip Ring Gruul
Shoulders Shadow Council’s Mantle Operator Thogar
Chest Shadow Council’s Robes Flamebender Ka’graz
Waist Seeking Ember Girdle Beastlord Darmac
Legs Shadow Council’s Leggings Blast Furnace
Boots Cavedweller’s Climbers Gruul
Wrists Bracers of Darkened Skies Trash drop
Gloves Toothbreaker Grips Oregorger
Finger Uk’urogg’s Corrupted Seal Iron Maidens
Finger Spellbound Runic Band of the All-Seeing Eye Quest item
Trinket 1 Goren Soul Repository Oregorger
Trinket 2 Blackiron Micro Crucible Blackhand
Back Runefrenzy Greatcloak Kromog
Weapon Inferno-Flame Staff Gruul

 

Trinket List

Done with standard T17 Mythic profile

demotrinketlist

 

15talents

Dark Regeneration – Instant 30% of maximum health for you and your pet plus 25% increased healing taken over 12 seconds. A very good talent for a survival phase with damage taken over a short period of time, but not superior on fights with steady damage taken.

Soul Leech – The passive healing talent for our main attacks.

Harvest Life – Drain Life deals 50% more damage and 100% more healing.

When-to-use guidelines:

  1. Dark Regeneration – By far the best talent you can pick, strong healing cooldown and increased healing done to you.
  2. Soul Lech – Way worse talent in WoD than we know it from MoP.
  3. Searing Flames – Mainly a PvP talent, not so much use in PvE

 

Howl of Terror – Aoe fear with no use in PvE

Mortal Coil – Deathcoil with a 11% heal

Shadowfury – AoE stun without much use in PvE

When-to-use guidelines:

  1. Shadowfury – Small stun, often times other classes bring more reliable and longer lasting stun
  2. Mortal Coil – 11% health for a GCD
  3. Howl of Terror – Not much use besides PvP

 

Soul Link – No longer shares health pool with your pet, instead 20% of all damage you take is split to your pet. Additionally, 3% of all damage you deal is converted into healing on you and your pet.

Sacrificial Pact  – A very solid absorb shield, which sacrifices 20% of your pets health to give a 400% shield of the sacrificed health. This talent can even be used in certain situations without a pet as you will lose 20% of your health for 400% of the lost health turning into a shield.

Dark Bargain – Absorbs all damage for 8 seconds and when the shield fades you take 50% of the damage over 8 seconds. Risky if you take a lot of damage and suddenly will get bursted down when the absorb fades.

When-to-use guidelines:

  1. Soul Link – Passive 20% damage reduction is really good, espeically if we also use the Unending Glyph for 10% more
  2. Dark Bargain – Very good “oh shit” talent, that can save us in a lot of dire situations and works well with soaking
  3. Sacrificial Pact – This talent can be very good to take with high pulsing AoE’s at certain times in a fight, the shields are very big

*Soul Link still increases your health pool if you don’t have a pet and use Grimoire of Sacrifice, but most of the time you would want to run with another talent then depending on the fight.

 

Blood Horror  – When activiated any time a enemy melee attacks you and deals damage, the enemy will run in horror for up to 4 seconds

Burning Rush – 4% of maximum health per second for 50% movement speed.

Unbound Will – Removes all magic and impairing effects

When-to-use guidelines:

  1. Burning Rush – Useful speed boost in many situations, you can nearly always find a use for it
  2. Unbound Will – Very cool self dispell, but only has its place on a few fights
  3. Blood Horror – Purely PvP talent, not much use in Pve

 

75talents

Grimoire of Supremacy  – 20% more damage from our pets and they turn into different versions of themselves

Grimoire of Service – Summons another pet of your choice  for 25 seconds

Grimoire of Synergy – When you or your demon deal damage, there is a chance to trigger Demonic Synergy, granting the other one 15% increased damage for 15 sec.

When-to-use guidelines:

  1. Grimoire of Service – Single target talent, you use Service together with Demonic Servitude and summon a Doomguard every 2 minute for 25 seconds.
  2. Grimoire of Synergy – Used for multi target fights together with Cataclysm or Demonbolt.
  3. Grimoire of Supremacy – Yields nearly the same DPS as Synergy, pick whatever you prefer.

 

 

Archimonde’s Darkness – Your Dark Soul has two charges

Kil’jaeden’s Cunning – You can cast while moving

Mannoroth’s Fury – Increases AoE by 500% and the damage from Hellfire by 100%. 60 sec CD, 10 sec duration.

When-to-use guidelines:

kjcvsad

  1. Archimonde’s Darkness – Basically the talent you pick in whatever situation, it gives us a better management of when we want to use Dark Soul and Dark Soul is a far stronger cooldown for Demonology than Destruction.
  2. Kil’jaeden’s Cunning – We don’t have much use for KJC on most fights with AD being too strong. Worst case scenario you can use Touch of Chaos inside Metamorphosis on the move.
  3. Mannoroth’s Fury – Very bad for talent after the Hellfire / Immolation aura nerf in WoD, more or less useless.

 

 

100talents

Demonbolt – Launch of ball of demonic energy at the target, dealing Chaos damage.

Cataclysm – An AoE ground attack that applies Immolate to all targets it hits

Demonic Servitude – Makes you able to permanently control a Doomguard or Infernal

When-to-use guidelines:

  1. Demonic Servitude – Makes our Doomguard permanently, strongest single target talent right now for single target Demonology
  2. Cataclysm – Best talent for multi target fights together with Grimoire of Synergy/Supremacy.
  3. Demonbolt – Still a viable talent, but movement fights Service & Servitude outweighs it by miles, not worth the trouble for similiar / lower DPS.

Difference of talent setups (Syn/AD/Cata vs Syn/AD/Demonbolt vs Service/AD/DemonicServitude)

difftalents

The only glyph we need to pay attention too as Demonology is  Glyph of Dark Soul.

With Grimoire of Synergy/Supremacy and Cataclysm we want to pick Glyph of Dark Soul to make Dark Soul a 1 minute cooldown and line up with every Dark Soul.

With Grimoire of Service and Demonic Servitude we want to not use the Glyph so we gain a 20 second Dark Soul every 2 minutes together with our Grimoire of Service Doomguard.

 

* Glyph of Imp Swarm

Some people prefer to play with Imp Swarm and some people don´t. The difference is nothing important but you can use Glyph of Imp Swarm with a lot of haste procs and lower the CD which also brings nice “on demand” burst.

impglyph

– Simulated on a 6+ minute fight with Troll Racial in T17 Mythic Gear

Major Glyphs

 Glyph of Eternal Resolve – If no major cooldown is needed, 10% passive reduction is really nice together with 20% from Soul Link.

 Glyph of Siphon Life – Passive healing with not many alternatives to pick

 Glyph of Healthstone or Soulstone – 3rd option you pick and choose depending on the fight

 

Stats are a very touchy subject, so to determine what stats we want we need to know what they actually do and bring.

Critical strike chance for extra effectiveness on attacks. Critical doom ticks summons a Wild Imp.

Mastery Increases all damage done by you and your demon servants. Further increases the damage of your Touch of Chaos, Chaos Wave, Doom, Immolation Aura, Demonbolt, and Soul Fire while in Metamorphosis.

Haste increases attack speed and spell casting speed. Works for your pet as well.

Multistrike is our new stat in WoD and it gives a % chance to deliver 30% extra attacks of a spell. Doesn´t scale as well with pets specs and talents.

Versatility is also a new WoD stat and it increases the damage done by a %. The value of the stat is rather low, so we don´t really want to go towards Versatility.

 

Single target (based off BiS gear list w/ Grimoire of Service + Demonic Servitude):

Int > Mastery > Haste > Mult ~= Crit > Vers

– For single target you should aim for items with Mastery / Haste on them as priority as pets scale well with Haste.

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Multi target fights (w/ Grimoire of Synergy + Cataclysm)

Int > Mastery > Haste > Crit > Vers > Mult

multitarget

Above calculations are done on a constant 3 target fight, it´s just to give you an idea of how stats act with Cataclysm and multiple targets. It gives us a good idea for when we gear for more “realistic” fights in Blackrock Foundry.

* All simulations are done with the standard Mythic profile on a 6 minute fight.

 

Single target stat weights

If you want to find your stat weights and specific values for purely single target fights (not reflected so much in Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry fights) you can use Simulationcraft to determine how to gem and gear. Remember that it doesn’t apply on AoE, multi or single target fights with burst mechanics.

Gems are helping us boost stats we choose, that also means that there is no determined gemming. If we want more of a stat for certain fights, gems are where we can find those stats. So obviously always pick the stat you prioritize on your gear

Stat Gem
Critical Strike Greater Critical Strike Taladite
Mastery* Greater Mastery Taladite
Haste Greater Haste Taladite
Multistrike Greater Multistrike Taladite
Versatility Greater Versatility Taladite

 

Professions

Professions doesn´t give you any DPS increase anymore in Warlords of Draenor, therefore you can pick whatever professions you want

Consumables

 

Here is a list of the key damage spells for Demonology, next section contains more detailed use of them.

Demonology Resource

 Demonic Fury

Dots

  [Corruption] /  [Doom] (Applied in Metamorphosis)

Casterform 

 [Shadowbolt]

 [Soul Fire]

 [Hand of Gul´dan]

Metamorphosis spells

 [Touch of Chaos]

 [Chaos Wave]

Cooldowns

 [Dark Soul]

 [Grimoire of Service: Doomguard]* (Talent)

AoE/Multi target abilities

 [Hand of Gul´dan] /  [Chaos Wave]

 [Hellfire] /  [Immolation Aura]

Rotation priority

 [Dark Soul] (Use on cooldown together with Grimoire of Service)

 [Grimoire of Service] (Use on cooldown)

 [Hand of Gul´dan] (*)

 [Corruption] /  [Doom]  (**)

 [Soul Fire] /  [Touch of Chaos] (***)

 [Shadowbolt] (****)

  •  [Soul Fire] under 25% make sure you replace Shadowbolt with Soul Fire

 

(*)   Hand of Gul´dan

Hand of Gul´dan no longer scales up if you enter Metamorphosis after casting it. That doesn´t mean we still don´t want to stack 2x Shadowflame debuffs.

You always cast 1x Hand of Gul´dan followed by 2x Shadowbolts/Soul Fire, if you don´t have enough haste you cannot do 2x Shadowbolts, but 1x Soul Fire 1x Shadowbolt or Life Tap / Corruption or other globals. Make sure you cast the second Hand of Gul´dan so it lands before the Shadowflame stack expires and you will renew the debuff stacking it up to 2x Shadowflame debuffs.

 

(**)   Corruption/  Doom

Always have Corruption up (Casterform)

Always apply Doom (Metamorphosis)

 

(***)   Soul Fire vs.  Touch of Chaos

Without Demonbolt we want to use Soul Fire´s in Metamorphosis, that means we will stack them up from Molten Core procs during the fight. Always save 6-9 procs for our Dark Soul cooldown.

Touch of Chaos scales badly with stats like haste and is inferior to Soul Fires. It´s a good thing to use on movement fights if needed to maintain DPS.

 

(****)   Shadowbolt vs.  Soul Fire outside Metamorphosis

Always use Shadowbolts as a filler spell, we only use Soul Fire if we get too many Molten Core procs or we are about to hit 25% execute, where we have endless Soul Fires.

 

* General tips on the rotation with Demonic Servitude and Cataclysm

– Do your opener as optimal as possible, the more MC procs the better, you are allowed to go back into Metamorphosis before Dark Soul ends to use Molten Core procs.

– Always pay attention 30 sec – 1 minute before cooldowns come back up. We need to make sure we have 6+ MC procs for next burst phase, this is very important.

– Right after cooldown use, we can go into Metamorphosis for trinket procs (non haste) and use a few MC procs. Most fights allow higher fury generation, which forces us to spend fury during the fight. We would rather spend the “extra” fury on trinket procs inside Metamorphosis than casting Shadowbolts to generate and eventuelly cap / get forced to spend fury without them.

– The extra charge of Dark Soul from Archimonde´s Darkness is often times best used during execute where we won´t run out of MC procs or if we get lucky trinket procs during good moments of the fight.

 

* Rotation with  Demonbolt 

With Demonbolt the rotation is the same, except we only use Demonic Fury to cast Demonbolts. We aim to always cast Demonbolts as soon as the debuff fades, except if we are close to any of the plateaus for being able to cast 1x extra Demonbolt

 Demonbolt pr stack total plus doom
#1 stack 80 80 140
#2 stacks 160 240 300
#3 stacks 240 480 540
#4 stacks 320 800 860
Doom 60

 

Opener w/ Grimoire of Service and Demonic Servitude 

 Pre pot + Pre cast   [Soul Fire]

 [Grimoire of Service: Doomguard]

 [Dark Soul] + Racials and Trinkets

 [Hand of Gul´dan]

 [Corruption]

 [Shadowbolt]

 [Hand of Gul´dan]

Enter Metamorphosis

 Doom

 [Soul Fire] with Molten Core procs and/or  [Chaos Wave] /  [Touch of Chaos]

 

Opener w/ Cataclysm

* With Cataclysm you just apply Cataclysm when you entered Metamorphosis instead of the step Applying Doom and skip the Grimoire of Service step and use your 10 minute  Doomguard cooldown instead

 

Opener w/ Demonbolt

 Pre pot + Pre cast   [Soul Fire]

 [Doomguard]

 [Hand of Gul´dan]

 [Corruption]

 [Shadowbolt /  [Soul Fire] if Molten Core proc]

 [Dark Soul] + Racials and Trinkets

 [Hand of Gul´dan]

Enter Metamorphosis

 2x [Demonbolt]

 [Chaoswave] and/or  [Doom] and Continue normal rotation

 

AoE burst or fast dying packs

 [Chaos Wave] >  [Hand of Gul´dan]

 [Immolation Aura] *

 

Multi target (2-3 targets)

Keep rolling  [Hand of Gul´dan] with 2x Shadowflame stacks as much as possible

You can use  [Chaos Wave] to not cap Demonic Fury or together with procs.

Apply  [Corruption] and  [Doom] to all targets

Continue normal Single Target DPS roation

 


Best races for Demonology Warlock

Horde: Troll Berserking
Alliance: Gnome Nimble Fingers

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Differences are minimal and doesn´t really matter unless you min max to the fullest

 

Blackrock Foundry talent suggestions

 

Oregorger ( Grimoire of Service /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Demonic Servitude)

Hans’gar and Franzok ( Grimoire of Service /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Demonic Servitude) or ( Grimoire of Synergy /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Cataclysm)

Beastlord Darmac ( Grimoire of Synergy /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Cataclysm)

Gruul ( Grimoire of Service /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Demonic Servitude)

Flamebender Ka´graz ( Grimoire of Synergy /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Cataclysm)

Operator Thogar ( Grimoire of Synergy /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Cataclysm)

The Blast Furnace ( Grimoire of Synergy /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Cataclysm)

Kromog ( Grimoire of Service /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Demonic Servitude) or ( Grimoire of Synergy /  Archimonde´s Darkness / Cataclysm)

The Iron Maidens ( Grimoire of Synergy /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Cataclysm)

Blackhand ( Grimoire of Service /  Archimonde´s Darkness /  Demonic Servitude)

* General guidelines, if your guild needs specific damage or need you to fill a specific role, spec whatever makes sense for your progress.

 

Link to original page: http://sparkuggz.com/wod-demonology-guide/

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