Demonology Warlock 7.3

[Valks 2,373]

On 9/20/2016 at 4:53 PM, Guest Implosive said:

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. 

I'm still not sure what you're looking for, sorry. Perhaps I am being dense/stupid. Do you want a sim using each talent and the damage difference between the two or?

[Guest Curious Lock]

I would argue that Impending doom is quite useful. Even in single target. Since Call Dreadstalkers has a set cooldown of 15 seconds if your haste gets Doom to hit before that you are getting your imps out faster and if it is an aoe group a lot more imps. With double doom even on single target you can generate 2 imps. Improved Dreadstalkers locks your gain to just those two but say you have doom on adds during a boss. I just can't see how Impending Doom is being disregarded with that kind of shift in dps.

[Guest Implosive]

5 hours ago, Blainie said:

I'm still not sure what you're looking for, sorry. Perhaps I am being dense/stupid. Do you want a sim using each talent and the damage difference between the two or?

For the sims that you ran, what stat % did you run them at. So like 70% mastery 20% haste or something similar to that just to know at what point in stat % will one talent outweigh another, whether single target or multi . 

 

Hopefully that makes sense. So I guess another question in regards to that is what is the haste we should be aiming for if there is a haste cap.

[Valks 2,373]

6 hours ago, Guest Implosive said:

For the sims that you ran, what stat % did you run them at. So like 70% mastery 20% haste or something similar to that just to know at what point in stat % will one talent outweigh another, whether single target or multi . 

Hopefully that makes sense. So I guess another question in regards to that is what is the haste we should be aiming for if there is a haste cap.

When Furty is calculating the stats, he essentially tests a range of stat values to assess the synergy and scaling. He does it by inputting the direct values and scaling up to see where certain stats perform best.

For Demo, within our current available gear levels, the stat priorities stand as listed in the guide.

For you to find out what stat % you need for another to start outperforming, you will need to simulate your own character.

There is no haste cap listed, nor is there any that should be readily aimed for. As you start to feel like you are comfortable with your current Haste level, I would sim your character and then see what weights would provide the best increases for where you are now. I imagine Haste will stand as king at the very least until we are a far bit of time into this tier, unless a major change occurs.

[Valks 2,373]

6 hours ago, Guest Curious Lock said:

I would argue that Impending doom is quite useful. Even in single target. Since Call Dreadstalkers has a set cooldown of 15 seconds if your haste gets Doom to hit before that you are getting your imps out faster and if it is an aoe group a lot more imps. With double doom even on single target you can generate 2 imps. Improved Dreadstalkers locks your gain to just those two but say you have doom on adds during a boss. I just can't see how Impending Doom is being disregarded with that kind of shift in dps.

Impending doom on ST:

Improved Dreadstalkers on ST:

It's also worth noting that, now that we have access to raid logs, the most popular talent on every boss in Emerald Nightmare for this tier is Improved Dreadstalkers.

[Guest Sandals]

I am sitting at almost exactly 34% haste, 840ilvl, and I was having a lot of trouble with the Icy Veins build and rotation in the EN raid. The max I got was on Ursoc at around 155k DPS fully enchanted, food & flask. Most bosses, however, ranged from 100k to 130k. The problem with the suggested build is that if you cast a hand of guldan and empty your soul shards, and then have to move for 10~ seconds, you'll end up with zero shards, zero pets, and low damage for at least doom, 1 empowerment, 3 demonbolts, then HoG, then empower, then maybe another demonbolt, then improved dreadstalkers. ONLY at that point does your demonbolt do full damage again, however with that ramp up usually it wont be until a second cycle that you will be able to use a full power Thal'Kiels cast. HUGE waste of time. If you get caught in a bad cycle twice you've spent likely 2+ minutes without casting a single Thal'Kiels, which should be a major component of DPS. It's a never-ending spiral of ramping up that NEVER has a payoff.

 

Instead, I switched over to Hyper's Implosion/HoG Doom/Synergy build. No more dreadstalkers. Way more demonbolts, blowing up old imps right on time as I drop new ones, using Shadowflame to build shards like crazy after dropping HoG. Doom became WAY more consistent with the HoG application, and is now second/third highest on my damage list! I'm about 10 seconds from being into a rotation instead of 30+.

The biggest change? Instead of sitting at 130k DPS average, on a target dummy without flasks or food I hit a burst of 200k DPS, and average over time to about 160k DPS- and I realize I was forgetting to hit Thal'Kiels. More testing needed!

Without Dreadstalkers! I will see how it goes over the next few days but either something is wrong about the guide's recommended talents & rotation, or someone is lying about Demonology being the highest DPS warlock spec for raids. Destro locks were definitely ahead of me when I had the Guide build/rotation.

[Valks 2,373]

1 minute ago, Guest Sandals said:

More testing needed!

In order to properly assess a probable cause, we'll need a log of what you're doing with the Dreadstalkers build we have listed. We can then assess if this is simply a player problem or something with the actual build. 

It's worth nothing that, as I said above, Dreadstalkers is currently the top talent for that tier on every boss.

[Guest Sandals]

2 minutes ago, Blainie said:

In order to properly assess a probable cause, we'll need a log of what you're doing with the Dreadstalkers build we have listed. We can then assess if this is simply a player problem or something with the actual build. 

It's worth nothing that, as I said above, Dreadstalkers is currently the top talent for that tier on every boss.

Isn't that a chicken and egg scenario? One of the top sites for class information pushes that people get a talent, people use the talent, and then that site uses the fact that people use it as justification.

Even if you say that people with other talents do worse, your sample is already tainted because often the best, highest performing players will seek guides, while poor players do not.

It's as if expensive sports health doctors started telling their high profile clients to drink a Coke each morning, and then used the fact that all the top, highest performing players drink Coke to say Coke has a special property that will make you a better athlete.

I will continue testing this though because I think the there has to be a way to eke more damage out of Demonology (until they inevitably- and I guarantee you, inevitably, break the dependence on a shard/pet rotation and its connection to demonbolt damage).

Demonology warlocks build up pets AND soul shards to deal damage reliably, and the pets expire. It was a neat idea but running two systems simultaneously (shards and pets) and trying to make them intersect was a pretty obvious mistake. Then add in a sad maintenance spell like demonic empowerment and you've got the perfect storm for a rotation breakdown.

[DirtyJose 1]

I was under the impression that Dreadstalkers were the priority over HoG in the given rotation.
 

7 hours ago, Guest Sandals said:

and low damage for at least doom, 1 empowerment, 3 demonbolts, then HoG, then empower, then maybe another demonbolt, then improved dreadstalkers

In the example given, you're building up for HoG first.  I'm curious if that is partly responsible. 

It's still true that moving is very unforgiving for Demonology.  

[Nytemare 2]

With the change how we start with 3 shards now. what is the opener now like.

4. Opening Sequence

1. Precast  Demonic Empowerment at 3.0 seconds on the countdown.
2. Use  Potion of Deadly Grace.
3. Precast  Demonbolt/ Shadow Bolt.
4. Apply  Doom.
5. Cast  Summon Doomguard.
6. Cast  Grimoire: Felguard.
7. Cast  Demonic Empowerment.
8. Cast  Demonbolt/ Shadow Bolt.
9. Cast  Summon Darkglare (if talented) and cast  Demonic Empowerment.
10. Cast  Demonbolt/ Shadow Bolt.
11. Cast  Demonbolt/ Shadow Bolt.
12. Cast  Demonbolt/ Shadow Bolt.
13. Activate  Soul Harvest.
14. Cast  Call Dreadstalkers.
15. Cast  Hand of Gul'dan.
16. Cast  Demonic Empowerment.
17. Cast  Thal'kiel's Consumption.
18. Maintain  Doom.

This was of course the old one, with one shard. I thinking you doing

1,2,3,4,5,6,67,8,10,14,15,16,17. This pretty much just removed Darkglare, and all the extra SB/DB casts, and soul harvest, since you say to use Hand of Doom for Raid, AE, and General now.

[Valks 2,373]

12 hours ago, Guest Sandals said:

Isn't that a chicken and egg scenario? One of the top sites for class information pushes that people get a talent, people use the talent, and then that site uses the fact that people use it as justification.

Even if you say that people with other talents do worse, your sample is already tainted because often the best, highest performing players will seek guides, while poor players do not.

Well, by simulation, it is the highest damage talent in that tier, hence why we have that listed. Due to this, it's likely that you are doing something wrong in the rotation, hence why it performs worse for you.

Can you show us a log so we can see what is going wrong?

It's worth also looking at what user DirtyJose has said as well:

5 hours ago, DirtyJose said:

I was under the impression that Dreadstalkers were the priority over HoG in the given rotation.

In the example given, you're building up for HoG first.  I'm curious if that is partly responsible. 
It's still true that moving is very unforgiving for Demonology.  

That's already one error in the rotation.

[Valks 2,373]

4 hours ago, Nytemare said:

With the change how we start with 3 shards now. what is the opener now like.

I've passed this on to Furty, I'll try to get back to you with an answer ASAP! Since raids are now out, replies might be slightly slower from the writers/reviewers due to preparations for progression.

[Guest JPax]

shouldn't the value for crit start to drop after 35%?

[Guest JPax]

17 hours ago, Guest Sandals said:

I am sitting at almost exactly 34% haste, 840ilvl, and I was having a lot of trouble with the Icy Veins build and rotation in the EN raid. The max I got was on Ursoc at around 155k DPS fully enchanted, food & flask. Most bosses, however, ranged from 100k to 130k. The problem with the suggested build is that if you cast a hand of guldan and empty your soul shards, and then have to move for 10~ seconds, you'll end up with zero shards, zero pets, and low damage for at least doom, 1 empowerment, 3 demonbolts, then HoG, then empower, then maybe another demonbolt, then improved dreadstalkers. ONLY at that point does your demonbolt do full damage again, however with that ramp up usually it wont be until a second cycle that you will be able to use a full power Thal'Kiels cast. HUGE waste of time. If you get caught in a bad cycle twice you've spent likely 2+ minutes without casting a single Thal'Kiels, which should be a major component of DPS. It's a never-ending spiral of ramping up that NEVER has a payoff.

 

Instead, I switched over to Hyper's Implosion/HoG Doom/Synergy build. No more dreadstalkers. Way more demonbolts, blowing up old imps right on time as I drop new ones, using Shadowflame to build shards like crazy after dropping HoG. Doom became WAY more consistent with the HoG application, and is now second/third highest on my damage list! I'm about 10 seconds from being into a rotation instead of 30+.

The biggest change? Instead of sitting at 130k DPS average, on a target dummy without flasks or food I hit a burst of 200k DPS, and average over time to about 160k DPS- and I realize I was forgetting to hit Thal'Kiels. More testing needed!

Without Dreadstalkers! I will see how it goes over the next few days but either something is wrong about the guide's recommended talents & rotation, or someone is lying about Demonology being the highest DPS warlock spec for raids. Destro locks were definitely ahead of me when I had the Guide build/rotation.

 

Dreadstalkers are incredibly important for your shard economy! With the improved dreadstalkers, it 's 4 pets for -2 shards - or possibly even no, or +2 shards with the legendary!

That's an 80% damage buff to your demonbolt from a very cheap cast.

 

I personally found that visual queues from addons like weakauras really helped me improve my cast rotation, meaning I wasn't bar watching at all so I could move easily in between casts.

 

Incidentally, why did you have no shards when you had to move? I'm not saying 'preparation is key' at all, but I am saying - Demonwrath lets you cast it while moving....

[Valks 2,373]

9 minutes ago, Guest JPax said:

shouldn't the value for crit start to drop after 35%?

Is there a reason it would?

[Guest JPax]

24 minutes ago, Blainie said:

Is there a reason it would?

Theoretically, after 50% crit, the values of crit chance relative to other stats should start to fall, and seeing as our artifact weapon grants 15% bonus crit to our most used skills, it's value should start to relatively fall at 35% (35 + 15 = 50%) critical chance.

 

my reasoning for the 50% mark is that as you improve critical it's value decreases as the relative damage increase as to what you already have reduces:

example being 100 damage at 2x critical damage.

Crit%      Avg. Damage         Relative dps increase % to previous tier

10%         110                            ---

20%         120                            9.09%

30%         130                            8.33..%

40%         140                            7.69%

50%         150                            7.14%

60%         160                            6.66..%

70%         170                            6.25%

80%         180                            5.88%

90%         190                            5.55%     

100%       200                            5.26%

 

 

As you can see, crit loses value the more you have of it, so there should be a sweet spot where crit becomes less or equal in value to mastery.

 

 

 

 

[Guest JPax]

10 minutes ago, Guest JPax said:

Theoretically, after 50% crit, the values of crit chance relative to other stats should start to fall, and seeing as our artifact weapon grants 15% bonus crit to our most used skills, it's value should start to relatively fall at 35% (35 + 15 = 50%) critical chance.

 

my reasoning for the 50% mark is that as you improve critical it's value decreases as the relative damage increase as to what you already have reduces:

example being 100 damage at 2x critical damage.

Crit%      Avg. Damage         Relative dps increase % to previous tier

10%         110                            ---

20%         120                            9.09%

30%         130                            8.33..%

40%         140                            7.69%

50%         150                            7.14%

60%         160                            6.66..%

70%         170                            6.25%

80%         180                            5.88%

90%         190                            5.55%     

100%       200                            5.26%

 

 

As you can see, crit loses value the more you have of it, so there should be a sweet spot where crit becomes less or equal in value to mastery.

 

 

 

 

I mean, in fairness this applies to all of the damage stats, but it's pertinent in this case because crit/mastery are close together in scale, whereas I can see from the value difference that haste will always be our primary stat as Demonology warlocks. The only issue being that Mastery applies to a portion (although the lions share, granted) of our damage, missing out on demonbolt/shadowbolt, doom and Thal'kiel's Consumption.

[Valks 2,373]

11 minutes ago, Guest JPax said:

Theoretically, after 50% crit, the values of crit chance relative to other stats should start to fall, and seeing as our artifact weapon grants 15% bonus crit to our most used skills, it's value should start to relatively fall at 35% (35 + 15 = 50%) critical chance.

Just now, Guest JPax said:

I mean, in fairness this applies to all of the damage stats, but it's pertinent in this case because crit/mastery are close together in scale, whereas I can see from the value difference that haste will always be our primary stat as Demonology warlocks. The only issue being that Mastery applies to a portion (although the lions share, granted) of our damage, missing out on demonbolt/shadowbolt, doom and Thal'kiel's Consumption.

I'm just letting you know that I've read and seen this, but can't test it right now through sims. I'll do it later today, just need to get on with some other stuff first. Will post updates here later today!

 

[Guest JPax]

7 minutes ago, Blainie said:

I'm just letting you know that I've read and seen this, but can't test it right now through sims. I'll do it later today, just need to get on with some other stuff first. Will post updates here later today!

 

That's not a problem and perfectly understandable! I'm not sure about it now, but simcraft used to post up scale graphs with value which showed when the stats would meet/transpose their relative weighting priority.

[Guest JPax]

incidentally, I've found similar results as a previous poster, Implosion is doing far too much damage to be ignored, even on single target. Even though dreadstalkers adds 2 more pets into the mix, the cooldown on it doesn't out weigh the massive and regular damage from implosion. The only downside is that it means your peaks with demonbolt and thal'kiel are lower, but although the latter is amazing damage, it's got a 45 second cooldown. That's maybe why I'm leaning towards a soul conduit/implosion build with minimal dreadstalkers. Gotta be more testing. Are you sure that the sim version of implosion isn't taking the damage in the tooltip as it's total damage, when in fact it'd be 4x or more?

[Nytemare 2]

12 hours ago, Guest JPax said:

incidentally, I've found similar results as a previous poster, Implosion is doing far too much damage to be ignored, even on single target. Even though dreadstalkers adds 2 more pets into the mix, the cooldown on it doesn't out weigh the massive and regular damage from implosion. The only downside is that it means your peaks with demonbolt and thal'kiel are lower, but although the latter is amazing damage, it's got a 45 second cooldown. That's maybe why I'm leaning towards a soul conduit/implosion build with minimal dreadstalkers. Gotta be more testing. Are you sure that the sim version of implosion isn't taking the damage in the tooltip as it's total damage, when in fact it'd be 4x or more?

I can't figure out how to use Implosion if I gaining shard super fast. like if I land a 4 shard hand, then say in like 2 second have 4 shard again. Do I blow up imps after I cast another hand but before that hand lands, or let it land, now given me 8 imps. Then we face the fact that when first 4 about to die, and I need to use Implosion, later 4 go with it, when it not there time. I really wish spell only killed the imps with less then X% remaining. So Imps last 12 seconds, and the spell would only kill imps that have less then 4 second left or even those under two.  

Regarding movement, why is there so much movement and yet we have no way to over come it other then to use Demowrath? that much movement, we should have KJC even if it worked like mages Icy one, where it only gave us to cast one spell per use under X seconds. Either that, or we need some of our stuff to be come instant, or passive/auto. Like I wouldn't mind if Demonic Empowerment was auto applied to any new demons that came in, as long as one demon currently has it. 

So it would work like this. Cast it at the start of the fight, then not have to cast it again. Could even have rules, like if no new demons are summon in X seconds, it turns off and you have to manually cast it again. We just in a super bad spot with all the movement EN requires. and my team as already cleared 7/7N and 1/7H. Yeah I know that very weak, but most members are new to raiding / teaming up.

[Valks 2,373]

23 hours ago, Guest JPax said:

That's not a problem and perfectly understandable! I'm not sure about it now, but simcraft used to post up scale graphs with value which showed when the stats would meet/transpose their relative weighting priority.

Done some simming. 

Found the following:

It looks like Crit does drop in value around that 35% mark to Vers, but it then rises back above it until you reach around 55% crit, at which point it plummets and Vers takes over.

Haste remains king the entire time. I'd say that your stat priority will fluctuate between these two lists depending on gear level:

Haste > Crit > Vers > Mastery

Haste > Vers >= Crit > Mastery

Given the changes that are about to hit the game, I'm not sure if this will stay true, but for now, it looks like, realistically, crit is still the best second stat until you reach much better levels of gear.

[Valks 2,373]

17 hours ago, Guest JPax said:

incidentally, I've found similar results as a previous poster, Implosion is doing far too much damage to be ignored, even on single target. Even though dreadstalkers adds 2 more pets into the mix, the cooldown on it doesn't out weigh the massive and regular damage from implosion. The only downside is that it means your peaks with demonbolt and thal'kiel are lower, but although the latter is amazing damage, it's got a 45 second cooldown. That's maybe why I'm leaning towards a soul conduit/implosion build with minimal dreadstalkers. Gotta be more testing. Are you sure that the sim version of implosion isn't taking the damage in the tooltip as it's total damage, when in fact it'd be 4x or more?

For Implosion, I'm yet to complete simulation that supports Implosion doing more damage. It also looks like people in Emerald Nightmare are performing MUCH better with Dreadstalkers, rather than Implosion. This might change with the new update, so will wait for that and Furty's changes to the guide before commenting further.

[Valks 2,373]

Generic comment being mass posted over the comments threads guys.

We are aware of the changes and our writers are working hard to update the guides to suit what has changed. Currently, there is a lot of work still to be done and it's unlikely that every guide will be up-to-date immediately. Expect a flood of updates over the coming days that will answer all of your questions about what is now best after X change, in time for the reset next week.

Thanks for your understanding and patience.

[Guest Sandals]

So I've learned a lot about the implosion build as I've used it. I don't have logs yet (not sure if/when they will be uploaded by another player), but with the implosion build I got out of the 130k DPS ghetto (sometimes as low as 100k if things go badly, I get a debuff that interrupts my rotation, etc), and now I am charging up to 165-170k DPS with the same gear (approx 840 ilvl).

Here's some tips for implosion players:

1. For single target, you may have read to let the imps go as close to their full duration as possible before using implosion. This is incorrect- the goal of the implosion build is to charge up to 4-5 shards as quickly as possible, use HoG and then blow up the current imps ASAP.

2. You should still use demonic empowerment despite the fact that you aren't keeping the imps out for long and you aren't using dreadstalkers. This keeps it in your rotation for when you use your doomguard, and of course very importantly it buffs your felguards DPS.

3. Don't shy away from Thal'Kiels. Use it as much as possible even though it doesn't generate a shard.

4. Try to keep a 'flavor' spell for each buildup. I usually do my first HoG ASAP, then during the next buildup use my Doomguard, then the next buildup use Thal'Kiels, then if I have time during the next one I'll actually send out some dreadstalkers (but that rarely works out based on fight mechanics).

5. Shadowflame is used to burst up to 4-5 shards during each buildup. Don't use it unwisely because without it you won't have time to use your flavor spells.

 

I'll install whatever logging addon is needed before my raid tonight so maybe I can get more data, but especially with these buffs that should be going into effect (20% to HoG, 15% to implosion and 10% to doom is music to my ears), I am going to try to crack 200k DPS on a boss but we'll see how this works out!