Demonology Warlock 7.3

[Furty 51]

On 8/18/2016 at 3:44 PM, Guest prophet001 said:

 

 

Did you mean to  say "superior"? You recommend we take that talent for both general use and raid environments.

No, Power Trip is only good currently when you're using the outlined cheese build. As this is going away in a few days with Legion launch the guide should be a lot more coherent as the presence of multiple builds/gear levels will evaporate. Wouldn't worry too much about the pre-patch itself as everything is super wonky and not indicative of future playstyles. Sorry for the confusion.

On 8/18/2016 at 8:32 PM, Guest Felokahn said:

Hi furty,

I've heard the name and been referred to this site by some Guildies of mine. My questions don't really involve anything in regards to these guides. I'll just be blunt. What do you think of warlocks?  During HFC I reigned supreme over my guild whether I was the aoe/cleave king as destro or the single target destroyer as affliction. There was not one encounter where locks were bad. All I've seen lately are Nerfs. All I have heard and read is that warlocks are being driven into the ground. With you being one of the top players I just want your perspective on our class.  I've played locks for 12 years and now that this amazing expac is coming out i feel like we are getting destroyed. I've actually been debating class changing from the class I love. Please let me know what you think. 

Personally I find them miserable to play on Beta and weaker than all other ranged currently, barring Elemental Shaman. This really saddens me as Warlock has always kept me entertained. In tiers past.

[Guest Xelocraz]

You guys have missed a very important aspect to the Tier 4 Hand of Doom Talent: it doesn't apply/reapply YOUR Doom spell- it's a completely separate one from your own. While your and the imps Doom spells will only appear as 1 debuff on the target, you can pull up the tick in your legs/soul shard gain for reference.

Hand of Doom is awesome. It's not meant to negate you using Doom, it's meant for an overall increase in your damage and soul shard gains.

[Furty 51]

12 hours ago, Guest Xelocraz said:

You guys have missed a very important aspect to the Tier 4 Hand of Doom Talent: it doesn't apply/reapply YOUR Doom spell- it's a completely separate one from your own. While your and the imps Doom spells will only appear as 1 debuff on the target, you can pull up the tick in your legs/soul shard gain for reference.

Hand of Doom is awesome. It's not meant to negate you using Doom, it's meant for an overall increase in your damage and soul shard gains.

It's a damage gain because it saves global cooldowns, basically.

[Guest Witherwax]

" Power Trip is inferior to both talents in all situations. "

" Power Trip is great for single target "

Which is it?

[Guest Xelocraz]

On 8/14/2016 at 8:45 PM, Guest Hyper said:

Thank you for the response. I'm sorry that you didn't understand it, but not everything is worth wasting a GCD that can be much better spent in other area's. Shadowflame is only garbage if you're just not casting it. Dreadstalkers aren't worth casting short from legendary items, they're very clearly a dps loss. Shadow Inspiration makes SB or DB instant when you cast DE, so you've got Shadowflame (100%sp+140%sp) vs (80%sp * 1.2 per pet) For the damage to overtake it, assuming you don't take the 'best option' per this guide, which makes Shadowflame clearly at least 3x better even if you don't do it well.

Tier 2 is equally as straight forward. Keeping it simple on single target, Impending doom is 1 imp every 15s ish, Improved Dreadstalkers is 2 if you cast a bad spell. After just testing, my Wild Imps are doing around 6.1k dps each over 12s, casting Implosion does 250k damage on an average hit. That's about 73k vs 250k. With extra imps, that's 146k vs 250k, still not close. That's assuming to pop it instantly. Even if you use it with 5s left on it, you've still got 43k, so the reality of it is 293k vs 146k. 

Doom dealing 500%sp shouldn't be a low priority at all, for a single GCD, or better yet, not require casting at all. That's huge. Saving a GCD, which can be used to cast a spell that would generate a share, beats a 50% to generate a shard. 

Logic is only inconsistent if you can't follow it.

Can you explain your basic rotation using this kind of build? Are you completely ignoring casting Dreadstalkers in place of always x4 shard imps? I'm curious for testing purposes so I can make comparisons in respect to the different builds mentioned.

[Guest Bolocks]

The discussion I have been reading here is that haste is top priority. Every upgraded piece I have received, up to ilvl 800, have diminished my haste, I was at 23% at 728 ilvl, and if I equip all my top ilvl gear it would be 14%at 769 ilvl. I thought the new system would give us the stats we needed?

[Guest Cragul]

Hi,

I very much appreciate the information you've put together here. I'm very confused as to which spec to main, which is slightly more problematic this expansion than in previous ones because of the investment into artifact power.

I think demonology is the most interesting spec to play, but on the target dummies right now it seems to pull 70k less dps single target than destruction (at my 817 ilevel) which is a pretty huge loss considering demo is supposed to be the king of single target among these three mediocre warlock specs. This 4-set that people keep quoting as the reason to play demo - is it the new Legion 4 set? Is it worth the pain of being terrible in demo until that 4 set is obtained? I basically just want to play the best PvE DPS, and I will of course be duel speccing.

 

As an aside, Demo seems to work tremendously well in PvP, and I consistently top BG damage and win duels. Strange, considering the damage appears so low on a meter.

Cheers

[Furty 51]

23 hours ago, Guest Bolocks said:

The discussion I have been reading here is that haste is top priority. Every upgraded piece I have received, up to ilvl 800, have diminished my haste, I was at 23% at 728 ilvl, and if I equip all my top ilvl gear it would be 14%at 769 ilvl. I thought the new system would give us the stats we needed?

Your stats always go down as you level up, that's how the game works (as you need more rating to achieve 1% in a stat).

10 hours ago, Guest Cragul said:

Hi,

I very much appreciate the information you've put together here. I'm very confused as to which spec to main, which is slightly more problematic this expansion than in previous ones because of the investment into artifact power.

I think demonology is the most interesting spec to play, but on the target dummies right now it seems to pull 70k less dps single target than destruction (at my 817 ilevel) which is a pretty huge loss considering demo is supposed to be the king of single target among these three mediocre warlock specs. This 4-set that people keep quoting as the reason to play demo - is it the new Legion 4 set? Is it worth the pain of being terrible in demo until that 4 set is obtained? I basically just want to play the best PvE DPS, and I will of course be duel speccing.

 

As an aside, Demo seems to work tremendously well in PvP, and I consistently top BG damage and win duels. Strange, considering the damage appears so low on a meter.

Cheers

Demo is best in PvE for single target currently, and does have some use on other encounters and in Mythic dungeons. Definitely the 20 points in Demo, 16 points in Aff, and 16 in destro build.

[Guest Angenavive]

Where oh where has my Hellfire gone?

 

[manofthelaw3 0]

So seeing as how the stats go on crafter gear now... what would the dps be if you managed to get a full 850 set with nothing but haste on it? would it be too much haste?

 

[Guest Crimsonfang]

" Implosion is good for burst AoE damage, but not much else."  This is a massive oversight. When the 4 imps from your Hand of Gul'dan is about to expire, you can pop implosion free damage. In fact it's so much free damage that it does more damage, even on single target, than the 2 extra imps total damage, even if you empower immediately. Something to think about.

[Guest Crimsonfang]

I'm not sure why you think Grimoire of Synergy is better than Grimoire of Supremacy. Not only does the doomguard do more damage than any of your pets, even with the 40% buff, but Synergy only applies to your main demon and only has a 1.333 PPM. Which gives you a 1/3 uptime. You're massively underestimating just how much damage the doomguard does.  I'm not sure why you think Grimoire of Synergy is better than Grimoire of Supremacy. Not only does the doomguard do more damage than any of your pets, even with the 40% buff, but Synergy only applies to your main demon and only has a 1.333 PPM. Which gives you a 1/3 uptime. You're massively underestimating just how much damage the doomguard does. 

[Furty 51]

On 9/7/2016 at 9:02 PM, manofthelaw3 said:

So seeing as how the stats go on crafter gear now... what would the dps be if you managed to get a full 850 set with nothing but haste on it? would it be too much haste?

 

Nah that would be fine.

 

On 9/13/2016 at 4:28 AM, Guest Crimsonfang said:

" Implosion is good for burst AoE damage, but not much else."  This is a massive oversight. When the 4 imps from your Hand of Gul'dan is about to expire, you can pop implosion free damage. In fact it's so much free damage that it does more damage, even on single target, than the 2 extra imps total damage, even if you empower immediately. Something to think about.

It's a single target loss, so no. Definitely fine for 3+ though, as noted.

 

On 9/13/2016 at 10:24 AM, Guest Crimsonfang said:

 You're massively underestimating just how much damage the doomguard does. 

No, I'm not. 

[Fairyboy 0]

I know the change just went into effect but does the change for the shard effect out opener? now that we can start with 3 shard hopefully we can ramp up a little faster. 

 

Truly this is not an attack on you this is just me trying to get more information. About implosion damage I know a lot of times someone recommends something contrary to the guide they are usually shot down due to the fact that there is not enough logs to support there theory. I personally like using implosion because I feel like I am getting more dps even in single target. So i assume there is logs on this sight to back up all of what is in the guides I just cant seem to find them. could you point me i the right direction? I love all your guides and normally take all information at solid rule I just feel different about this one is all. 

 

Last question. In the part that talks about demonic empowerment it mentions that it is okay to overlap Longer CD like felgaurd or Doomgaurd but what about the shorter ones? Lets say I have 4 shards and a proc for Free Dreadstalkers should I Hand of Guldan then dreadstalkers then DE or since they are both a short CD should I DE in between both?

 

Thanks again for all your work on these guides! they have been a god sent in me (someone who has sever ADD and cant pick a main to save his life) to help narrow down and finally pick a main! Keep up the great work!!!!

Edited September 15, 2016 by Fairyboy

[Valks 2,373]

20 hours ago, Fairyboy said:

I know the change just went into effect but does the change for the shard effect out opener?

You will probably see a tiny increase in total DPS (less than 1K), but yes it will change your opener. This will be reflected in the next update to the guide.

20 hours ago, Fairyboy said:

Truly this is not an attack on you this is just me trying to get more information. About implosion damage I know a lot of times someone recommends something contrary to the guide they are usually shot down due to the fact that there is not enough logs to support there theory. I personally like using implosion because I feel like I am getting more dps even in single target. So i assume there is logs on this sight to back up all of what is in the guides I just cant seem to find them. could you point me i the right direction? I love all your guides and normally take all information at solid rule I just feel different about this one is all. 

The sims generally are not posted unless for things such as trinket sims, since there are hundreds of different talent combinations and so you would need full pages of essentially useless information.

You can simply use SimCraft to simulate your character using the 2 different talents in a single target situation. I'm not sure if Furty has the sims to hand, but it can easily be done by you as well.

For your last question, I'm not well versed enough in Warlocks to give an answer for that. Hopefully someone else or Furty can help.

[Fairyboy 0]

4 hours ago, Blainie said:

You will probably see a tiny increase in total DPS (less than 1K), but yes it will change your opener. This will be reflected in the next update to the guide.

The sims generally are not posted unless for things such as trinket sims, since there are hundreds of different talent combinations and so you would need full pages of essentially useless information.

You can simply use SimCraft to simulate your character using the 2 different talents in a single target situation. I'm not sure if Furty has the sims to hand, but it can easily be done by you as well.

For your last question, I'm not well versed enough in Warlocks to give an answer for that. Hopefully someone else or Furty can help.

Awesome thanks so much for getting back to me fast keep up the great wok guys!

[Valks 2,373]

43 minutes ago, Fairyboy said:

Awesome thanks so much for getting back to me fast keep up the great wok guys!

No problem, it's what I'm here for! If you have any other questions, just ask.

[Guest Exlock]

So I tried the demo build Furty has up, using hand of doom. I agree with his reasoning. BUT i use more than one hand of guldan before one full doom ticks. therefore it refreshes the doom making it so doom does no damage and just keeps refreshing. How can that work?

[Guest EsperothVIII]

40 minutes ago, Guest Exlock said:

So I tried the demo build Furty has up, using hand of doom. I agree with his reasoning. BUT i use more than one hand of guldan before one full doom ticks. therefore it refreshes the doom making it so doom does no damage and just keeps refreshing. How can that work?

If i'm not mistaken, the Doom that you are overlapping with Hand of Guldan Doom is still there.  It still ticks even though it looks like you just refreshed the Doom.  I don't believe you can refresh your hard-casted Doom manually though with another hard-casted Doom.

Doom mechanics seem a bit ambiguous right now.  Can someone confirm if the above is correct?

[Fairyboy 0]

2 hours ago, Guest Exlock said:

So I tried the demo build Furty has up, using hand of doom. I agree with his reasoning. BUT i use more than one hand of guldan before one full doom ticks. therefore it refreshes the doom making it so doom does no damage and just keeps refreshing. How can that work?

The doom tick will happen automatically in x amount. example if doom has 14 seconds before it ticks and you re-aply it at 7 seconds it will still tic seven seconds later regardless of how man times it is reapllied it will always maintain a sec time to tick. Hope that helps

[Valks 2,373]

Thanks for picking up those replies guys.

[Guest Implosive]

Still wondering on improved ds vs implosion. I'm assuming the sims are being run with raid gear as well as artifact level 22+ as that's where you. Just would like some numbers is all based on your general sims.

[Valks 2,373]

23 hours ago, Guest Implosive said:

Still wondering on improved ds vs implosion. I'm assuming the sims are being run with raid gear as well as artifact level 22+ as that's where you. Just would like some numbers is all based on your general sims.

By this, do you mean you'd like to see a numerical difference between the two talents?

[Guest Implosive]

Just want to know the scaling of talents to be more specific given stats. As this rotation is optimal only if you have the correct stats it seems. 

[Guest Smokeyy90]

Hey there, is there a haste cap we should stop stacking haste at as Demo? If so, what is it?

Thanks :)