Demonology Warlock DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Season 4

Welcome to our Rotation page for Demonology Warlocks. On this page, you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

If the rotations below seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our Easy Mode page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation with a much greater ease of use.

Since the content on this page is only relevant for PvE, we recommend the PvP page below in case you want specific PvP rotation information.

Demonology Warlock revolves around a system of generating demonic forces. The more active demons you have, the more damage you will deal. In addition to straight damage, you will also receive more procs of Demonic Core, which feeds back into more Soul Shard generation and, by extension, more demons.

By selecting talents and essences below, the rotations in this guide will update accordingly.

• Talents
  • With the Demonic Strength talent selected.
  • With the Bilescourge Bombers talent selected.
  • With the Power Siphon talent selected.
  • With the Inner Demons talent selected.
  • With the Doom talent selected.
  • With the Summon Vilefiend talent selected.
  • With the Grimoire: Felguard talent selected.
  • With the Summon Demonic Tyrant talent selected.
  • With the Soulbound Tyrant talent selected.
  • With the Implosion talent selected.
  • With the Guillotine talent selected.
  • With the Warlock Demonology 10.2 Class Set 2pc equipped and active.

1. Cast Grimoire: Felguard whenever available.
2. Cast Summon Vilefiend whenever available.
3. Cast Demonic Strength whenever available.
4. Cast Guillotine whenever available.
5. Cast Bilescourge Bombers whenever available.
6. Cast Call Dreadstalkers whenever available.
7. Cast Hand of Gul'dan if you have 4-5 Soul Shards.
8. Maintain Doom, paying attention to not be at 5 Soul Shards when it expires.
9. Cast Demonbolt if you have 2+ stacks of Demonic Core.
10. Cast Power Siphon with 2 or less Demonic Core.
11. Cast Hand of Gul'dan with 3 Soul Shards.
12. Cast Shadow Bolt to generate Soul Shards.

Summon Demonic Tyrant is our main cooldown. The Demonic Tyrant lasts 15 seconds and extend the lifespan of all your existing demons during its uptime and freezes the energy consumption of up to 10 Wild Imps (15 with Grand Warlock's Design). It also sports an aura that increases all of your demons' damage by 15% for the duration.

Summon Demonic Tyrant should not be used thoughtlessly. Setting up for the Demonic Tyrant is an important part of playing the specialization properly. Here is a list of tips before using each Demonic Tyrant:

• Ensure Summon Demonic Tyrant will occur while your Dreadstalkers are active.
• Ensure Summon Demonic Tyrant will occur while your Summon Vilefiend is active.
• Ensure Summon Demonic Tyrant will occur while your Grimoire: Felguard is active.
• Summon Demonic Tyrant should be the last cast before Nether Portal expires.
• Summon Demonic Tyrant should be the third to last cast before Nether Portal expires, followed by two Hand of Gul'dan (assuming 2 points in Soulbound Tyrant).

As a general rule, try to line up 1 or 2-minute trinkets with Grimoire: Felguard, and 1.5 or 3-minute trinkets with Summon Demonic Tyrant. When playing with Grand Warlock's Design every Tyrant cycle is every 1 minute, making the choice simpler instead.

In season 3 Grimoire: Felguard has a bigger emphasis in the rotation, therefore it is better to delay Tyrant in order to assure the highest uptime on Grimoire: Felguard.

The goal always remains to not waste potential casts of either those cooldowns, as such the approach is not as simple as treating Tyrant as a 2 minutes cooldown, but instead is to fit as many synced cooldowns while maximizing the amount of casts during a given encounter duration.

In its current implementation, Guillotine can be a little unintuitive to maximize. Below are the rules that define the spell behavior:

• Guillotine can NOT be cast while Felguard is performing Demonic Strength;
• During Guillotine Felguard will NOT cast Felstorm or Legion Strike, but can perform Soul Strike if talented.

Because of said rules, one sequence is easy to learn that does not require any addon tracking is the following (assuming Demonic Strength talented):

1. Start the engagement, allowing the Felguard to charge and start casting their Felstorm;
2. Try to cast Demonic Strength which will only trigger when the Felguard has finished Felstorm;
3. likewise try to cast Guillotine which will only succeed once the Felguard has finished Demonic Strength.

Alternatively, there are plenty of WeakAuras that can track Felguard actions.

Grand Warlock's Design substantially changes the timing of the spec and its cooldown management, offering a more intuitive and simple 1-minute loops that align naturally with 2-minute buffs/trinkets.

In order to achieve this loop in the most optimal way, there are a few things to consider.

• Always delay Summon Vilefiend in order to extend the demon with Tyrant.
• Always line up Grimoire: Felguard with a Tyrant extension.

1. Pre-cast Demonbolt.
2. Pre-cast Power Siphon with 2 Wild Imps out.
3. Pre-cast Shadow Bolt.
4. Cast Shadow Bolt.
5. Cast Doom.
6. Cast Bilescourge Bombers.
7. Cast Demonbolt.
8. Cast Shadow Bolt.
9. Cast Shadow Bolt.
10. Cast Grimoire: Felguard
11. Cast Summon Vilefiend.
12. Cast Shadow Bolt.
13. Cast Shadow Bolt.
14. Cast Call Dreadstalkers.
15. Cast Demonbolt.
16. Cast Demonbolt.
17. Cast Shadow Bolt.
18. Cast Shadow Bolt.
19. Cast Hand of Gul'dan.
20. Cast Shadow Bolt.
21. Cast Hand of Gul'dan.
22. Cast Hand of Gul'dan.
23. Cast Shadow Bolt.
24. Cast Hand of Gul'dan.
25. Cast Summon Demonic Tyrant.
26. Cast Summon Demonic Tyrant.
27. Cast Demonic Strength.
28. Cast Guillotine.

The main goal is to trigger as many summoning events using the least amount of shard per summon. The following sequence works at 0% haste, but having more allows to fit additional Hand of Gul'dan casts inside the sequence.

Entering the Nether Portal sequence with multiple Demonic Core procs will provide a meaningful DPS increase.

Demonic Knowledge in conjunction with Soul Conduit if talented often enable to loop Demonbolt into Hand of Gul'dan for most of Nether Portal duration.

1. Pre-cast Demonbolt.
2. Pre-cast Power Siphon with 2 Wild Imps out.
3. Pre-cast Shadow Bolt.
4. Cast Shadow Bolt.
5. Cast Doom.
6. Cast Nether Portal.
7. Cast Bilescourge Bombers.
8. Cast Grimoire: Felguard
9. Cast Summon Vilefiend.
10. Cast Demonbolt.
11. Cast Shadow Bolt.
12. Cast Shadow Bolt.
13. Cast Call Dreadstalkers.
14. Cast Demonbolt.
15. Cast Hand of Gul'dan.
16. Cast Shadow Bolt.
17. Cast Summon Demonic Tyrant.
18. Cast Summon Demonic Tyrant.
19. Cast Summon Demonic Tyrant.
20. Cast Hand of Gul'dan.
21. Cast Demonbolt.
22. Cast Shadow Bolt.
23. Cast Hand of Gul'dan.
24. Cast Demonbolt.
25. Cast Shadow Bolt.
26. Cast Hand of Gul'dan.
27. Cast Summon Demonic Tyrant.
28. Cast Hand of Gul'dan.
29. Cast Demonic Strength.
30. Cast Guillotine.

Supplement the Shadow Bolt casts in the above rotation with Demonbolts where possible using your Demonic Core procs. If you get a lot of procs early, you can squeeze in an extra Hand of Gul'dan before activating Summon Demonic Tyrant.

The goal with Nether Portal is to hit the maximum efficiency in terms of demons summoned with the least amount of time spent generating shards. Talenting into Soulbound Tyrant allows to cast Tyrant when there are about 3 GCD left on Nether Portal in order to gain 3 additional random demons with just 1 Soul Shard generating cast.

Demonology has little variation in playstyle when multiple targets are present. Implosion is the only ability that is not a part of the single target rotation, which we must take note of. When dealing with multiple stacked targets, we will often use Implosion for additional damage. This also enables more Demonic Core procs in the short term, which we can use for more resources to fuel Hand of Gul'dan.

1. Cast Grimoire: Felguard.
2. Cast Summon Vilefiend.
3. Cast Call Dreadstalkers whenever available.
4. Cast Guillotine whenever available.
5. Cast Demonic Strength whenever available.
6. Cast Bilescourge Bombers whenever available.
7. Cast Hand of Gul'dan if you have 4-5 Soul Shards.
8. Cast Implosion to detonate Wild Imps on 2+ targets.
9. Cast Demonbolt if you have 3+ stacks of Demonic Core.
10. Cast Power Siphon to generate Demonic Core.
11. Cast Shadow Bolt to generate Soul Shards.

If there are a large number of targets and no damage priorities, such as during dungeon trash, and the Tyrant is on cooldown, you should no longer cast Summon Vilefiend (without Fel Invocation), instead opting to use your Soul Shards on more Hand of Gul'dan casts and more frequent Implosions. Always cast Call Dreadstalkers even in AoE, since you will gain Demonic Core procs.

If you have talented heavily into additional AoE, such as the talent Bilescourge Bombers, you should use such abilities more or less on cooldown, or when you judge you will get maximum benefit out of them.

It is most efficient to use Implosion every 2 casts of Hand of Gul'dan without any Demonic Core (or 3 with at least 2 Demonic Core procs) for 2 reasons mainly.

1. The Imps will deal a respectable amount of damage during their lifespan, but still generate Implosion damage before despawning.
2. Every cast of Implosion has the opportunity cost of 0.75 shards (where you could cast Shadow Bolt instead), meaning the optimal scenario is being able to implode every Imps with the the least amount of casts, without them fading away.

When The Houndmaster's Stratagem is talented, make sure to hit 2 Implosions each cycle, and to do so, get to 5 shards with 2 Imp sets out before casting Call Dreadstalkers followed by the first Implosion.

Imp Gang Boss in its current iteration does not influence Implosion rotation.

Warlock Demonology 10.2 Class Set 2pc and Warlock Demonology 10.2 Class Set 4pc do not impact the rotation in single target, however, there is a degree of optimization that can be achieved in multitarget scenarios with Warlock Demonology 10.2 Class Set 2pc. At the beginning of a fight it is advisable to cast Demonic Core Demonbolt on different target as to apply multiple Brands, which will detonate subsequently, as opposed to only focusing a single target to shorten the Brand timer.

We have a dedicated Mythic+ page if you want specific information about the best M+ Demonology Warlock rotation.

All Warlocks use Soul Shards as their primary resource. Properly managing your Shards is crucially important to success, as they control the size of your demon horde. Incorrectly dumping Soul Shards at the wrong time can have domino effects that reduce your damage output, particularly around the time Summon Demonic Tyrant is coming off of cooldown.

Keep a careful eye on your Call Dreadstalkers cooldown, as you will always want to have a pair of Soul Shards ready. One important change from Legion is the Soul Shard cost of Hand of Gul'dan; this spell now costs a maximum of 3 Soul Shards. The important takeaway of this is that with maximum Soul Shards, we can now cast Hand of Gul'dan and Call Dreadstalkers back to back.

If you are talented into additional summons, such as Summon Vilefiend or Grimoire: Felguard, be sure to take their Soul Shard cost into account when approaching a Summon Demonic Tyrant cast. Typically, you want to get these summons out fairly early, squeeze in a Call Dreadstalkers cast as well as 1-2 casts of Hand of Gul'dan, then activate your Demonic Tyrant. Demonic Core management, along with your use of Power Siphon is the crucial variable that determines how many demons you can make ready for this powerful cooldown.

Demonic Core is our main proc and almost a secondary resource of the specialization. If you played Demonology in Warlords of Draenor or earlier, you will notice Demonic Core and Demonbolt are almost exactly the same as Molten Core and Soul Fire. Demonic Core enables the use of Demonbolt, which, in other words, enables us to generate a lot of Soul Shards quickly. Demonic Core has a maximum of 4 stacks, which makes proper management of this ability a necessity for skillful play.

Each time you are approaching a Summon Demonic Tyrant usage, you will want to have at least 2 stacks of Demonic Core. This will allow you to quickly generate Soul Shards to pump out as many summons as possible leading up to Demonic Tyrant. If you are using Power Siphon, you should use it to add an extra pair of Demonbolts to put towards a few extra Hand of Gul'dan casts.

If you are in a situation where you are making frequent use of Implosion, you can be a lot more liberal with your use of Demonic Core stacks. Your damage will benefit a lot more from the increased Wild Imps you can fling at the adds rather than having a maximum power Tyrant. You will still want to ensure your Tyrant is powering up a few waves of un-detonated Imps, but you should not feel like you have to save stacks of Demonic Core that you could be using for cleave.

In general, you do not want to pool more than 2 charges of Demonic Core, else you risk losing potential stacks; however, whenever you need a burst or a quick switch, do not hesitate to plan ahead and hold more charges.

Always use a Felguard, your Demonology-specific demon. Your Command Demon ability is now Axe Toss, which should only be used if you need a stun. It is recommended that you leave the Felstorm, Legion Strike and Soul Strike abilities on auto-cast. If you want to optimize cleave and AoE, however, Felstorm can be separately keybound as used tactically for a larger-than-average amount of targets.

Remember to turn off your Felguard's Threatening Presence when in party or raid environments.

While it is difficult to describe the best ways to position and move during a dungeon or raid encounter, it is essential to your success as a Demonology Warlock. Demonic Gateway can be highly effective in many encounters and is under-appreciated by many players and raid groups. Think of Demonic Gateway as a raid cooldown that can instantly teleport your entire raid group 40 yards, and the potential this ability holds quickly becomes clear. Ask your group if they want Demonic Gateway anywhere specific; if not used for your strategy, use it instead as a personal cooldown.

Demonbolt can be used strategically to cover movement, as it is the only instant cast we have access to. You can mitigate the need to move by positioning in locations central to fight movement. For instance, if a boss is being kited in a circle, you should stay on the inside of the kite path to ensure minimal movement. You should also determine how your Demonic Circle can make a fight easier for you. There are many boss mechanics that can be trivialized with a clever portal, which can free you up to deal a lot more damage.

Soulburn used in conjunction with Demonic Gateway offers a quick way to cover large distances and can be used in a rush when the need to reposition is immediate.

Many players will unconsciously move during fights, despite it being unnecessary. For example, sometimes the boss or adds will be moved by the tank a couple of yards, and though you are still in range to cast, you subconsciously mirror that movement, costing you global cooldowns. Consciously work to "quiet" your movement, and reduce unnecessary movement to a minimum. The best way to see this in action is to take a video of your raid, then watch yourself play. Most players will be surprised by the amount of wasted movement they commit. When you are forced to move, make your path as direct and decisive as possible.