6.1 Demonology Guide

[Adrammalech 2]

Hybrid tax has never been THAT big of a thing - they don't intentionally make warriors, paladins, DKs, monks, druids, priests, and shamans suck at DPS. They haven't done that since Vanilla, when you literally couldn't get gear for those classes to DPS.

 

Actually hybrid tax was a thing until WotLK. They balanced it so that nonhybrids did approx 5% more dps than hybrids back in the day. It was intentional. I don't agree with it however, and don't feel like they should bring it back. IF they ever get balancing correct to where we are within a few % points of each other, then nonhybrids will have a  slight edge in dps because they would be able to pick the spec that performs best on a given type of encounter. 

[Furyio 3]

Well I went through SOO heroic last night with a pickup group and didn't feel in anyway weak, although obviously there wer enerfs in place.

 

I was keeping with the normal rotation(again I'm not clear from previous pages if nerfs meant a change to rotation) but I was happy with what I was putting out, especially considering my gear and the competition I was against (ilvl wise)

 

I'm still getting used to managing my meta shifts to be optimal when I get procs, but feel when I get that nailed down and comfy, I'll be fine.

 

Calls of warlocks being in big trouble feel misleading. That Simcraft graph from WoD data is being taken to literally by so many, misinterpreting what simcraft does. I'm fully comfortable going into WoD with my Warlock, and don't feel my raiding spot under jeapordy.

[Soulzar 42]

Well, nerf was def felt in my clear last night.  Still did decent, but with 2 minute fights its hard to judge since Demos ramp up hinders it.  We have no real opener anymore without snapshotting and no demon bolt.  Chaos Wave and HoG still letting me pad like a champ but single target was noticeably lower in comparison to everybody else.

 

I'd like to see us go back up 5% at least and Wars still need to come down.  Our Warriors still ran away with things, Brostorm all day.

 

Destr did very well on the fights I played it.  Our Aff Lock seems to be doing very well too

Edited October 23, 2014 by Soulzar

[Hurtlocker 11]

According to Celestalon, there is a bug with SF while casting it in meta.  Damage will be off until they fix it.

 

"However, there is one known issue with it: Soul Fire is being doubly nerfed in Metamorphosis. This is a *bug* and will be fixed soon."

Edited October 23, 2014 by Hurtlocker

[Zilthy 36]

According to Celestalon, there is a bug with SF while casting it in meta.  Damage will be off until they fix it.

 

"However, there is one known issue with it: Soul Fire is being doubly nerfed in Metamorphosis. This is a *bug* and will be fixed soon."

 

Only if one was casting soulfire in meta.   I was doing the ToC dump, so if doing that route, that particular fix will not change anything.

[Gnar 26]

Only if one was casting soulfire in meta.   I was doing the ToC dump, so if doing that route, that particular fix will not change anything.

 Well the ToC method isn't the ideal method (speculation). It is more than likely supposed to be tuned so that SF in Meta is the way to dump if you are going purely single target. Until it gets fixed, all I can say is that I am playing differently, it isn't that bad, but it's different.

[Kazistrasz 216]

 Well the ToC method isn't the ideal method (speculation). It is more than likely supposed to be tuned so that SF in Meta is the way to dump if you are going purely single target. Until it gets fixed, all I can say is that I am playing differently, it isn't that bad, but it's different.

You can do both, and both work just fine.

 

Pull up almost any of our logs from last week and you'll find that we almost NEVER had the same top 3 damage sources on a fight between myself, Zag, and Locky. Yet, on most fights we were very close -- hell, on Garrosh Locky and I were less than 52 DPS apart. I usually had way higher SF damage than them, because I used it more during Meta and used less ToC than they did. We all did roughly the same DPS given RNGscrew. It's supposed to be tuned so that you can play the spec the way you play the spec. 

[Liquidsteel 279]

I'm curious if the ToC method was propped up by more free Chaos Waves. It's currently (or before the hotfix at least) doing shit tons of damage which wasn't the case before, and I highly doubt will be the case in WoD. I believe it's down to how inflated our mastery is in current gear?

[Zilthy 36]

I would agree Liquid.  Mostly due to 4 pc proc and high mastery.

 

I sat out tonight, but last week my ToC was hitting for average of about 9.5 - 10.5k each, varying by fight.   Granted, that's not a huge number, but it's a number that happens every GCD, and can also proc a Chaos Wave, and can be freely cast while moving... it really adds up.

 

But then again, this will not be the case in WoD.   Then again, neither ToC or Soulfire will be the preferred fury dump when 100 and demon bolt is available. :D

Edited October 24, 2014 by Zilthy

[Zagam 1,983]

ToC is higher because of 4pc.  Chaos Wave is/was overpowered as hell.  Not much will change when you get Demonbolt.  You STILL won't be dumping with Soul Fire.  Only way you'll dump with Soul Fire is if you take Cataclysm or Demonic Servitude.

[zumator 0]

Hi all, been reading your guide and posts for a while now and I'm wondering if anyone knows if the current simcraft build reflects on the Soulfire overnerf or is it still simming with how soulfire should have been?

[Lockybalboa 618]

I *Think* it is how it should be, not how it is. Gahhda will know for sure.

[San 0]

Hello alls....long time reader first time poster. First of all thanks for all the help last couple years, following the forum guides here has helped my dps immensely.

 

The idea I wanted to post here is that for anyone like me that's new to demo: spamming ToC during meta allows for mobility...which has been the toughest thing for me switching from KJCDestro. It's made a big difference and is making the transition easier.

 

Once again thanks for all you guys do for the lock community.

Edited October 25, 2014 by San

[Gruxa 1]

Is there anyone who has done some Beta raiding where they found themselves using ToC quite often just because he/she had to move constantly? :>

[Liquidsteel 279]

Using ToC for movement is viable, but personally I think the balance should be so that it is a clear DPS loss to do so vs Soul Fire on patchwerk, the caveat being that you are trading some direct throughput in favour of taking less of a hit due to movement.

 

When Demonbolt gets thrown into the mix, we will have to be quite frugal with Fury usage, especially before we start accumulating a decent amount of Mythic gear (i.e first 2-3 weeks).

 

This is, of course, assuming that 4x Demonbolt every 60s comes out as the optimal way to play. I can't comment because all I'm going off is a bunch of spreadsheets people have made.

[Kazistrasz 216]

Using ToC for movement is viable, but personally I think the balance should be so that it is a clear DPS loss to do so vs Soul Fire on patchwerk, the caveat being that you are trading some direct throughput in favour of taking less of a hit due to movement.

 

When Demonbolt gets thrown into the mix, we will have to be quite frugal with Fury usage, especially before we start accumulating a decent amount of Mythic gear (i.e first 2-3 weeks).

 

This is, of course, assuming that 4x Demonbolt every 60s comes out as the optimal way to play. I can't comment because all I'm going off is a bunch of spreadsheets people have made.

 

When I was playing around on the beta, I was finding that even 7% haste with no buff was enough generate 850 in 50 seconds and have about 100 extra to play with. This was in 660 PvP gear, so we'll definitely get more and more leeway in how we use our fury as time goes on and we get more gear.

[Liquidsteel 279]

When I was playing around on the beta, I was finding that even 7% haste with no buff was enough generate 850 in 50 seconds and have about 100 extra to play with. This was in 660 PvP gear, so we'll definitely get more and more leeway in how we use our fury as time goes on and we get more gear.

True, but you also need to throw in a Doom refresh half way through.

 

I generally found enough time to refresh Doom with maybe one burst of 2-3 ToC's and still have the required 800+ fury.

 

This was standing still on the Dummy. If you need to interrupt casts here and there or run from a to b without going into meta, your Fury generation will suffer.

 

Likewise the addition of a secondary target will provide higher Fury generation from the extra wild imps and corruption and potential HoG cleave. 

[Soulzar 42]

How much do you think the Bugged Wild Imps impacted your Beta raid testing when it came to Fury income?  I don't know if they were ever working quite right during all those test times.  

[Liquidsteel 279]

Not too sure to be honest, I know at the start they were useless, but I think they were more or less working the last time I checked, which admittedly was well over a month ago now.

 

Regardless, in entry level gear of around 630 blues Fury isn't exactly plentiful, but I think once we're comfortably into Mythic Highmaul it should ease up a bit. Similarly, gaining the 4 set (they've been switched) for the additional HoG's is very nice, but we won't have that until January / February at the earliest.

[Adrammalech 2]

Soul fire fixed

 

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/status/527150054121799680

[KoragonArt 0]

Felt like it was hitting harder.  Yay.

[Zagam 1,983]

Yep, confirmed to be based on calculations.  Tooltips are still wonky - hope to see a tooltip update soon.

[Furyio 3]

I'm a sucker for gear lists. Especially coming into a new expansion.

 

I love forming a kinda personal BIS list for various gearing gates. So dungeons, then heroic dungeons, then raiding. 

 

Has anyone created any BIS or gear lists going into WOD? I'd like to have a look at maybe what other people are doing. Havn't made mine yet, planned to do it this week. Considering the time before raids open, I'm hoping to have an optimal heroic dungeon set of gear on me going into raids

 

AskMrRobot enabled their WOD preview. I'm a big fan of AMR, was involved in alpha and beta and while it always has some issues during a new expansion, it usually ends up being very reliable. At the moment though it has haste priorities on everything, so not exactly confident of the gear lists its throwing up :) 

 

I'm hoping to be 100 by Thursday evening, then spending Friday and the weekend gearing like crazy 

Edited November 5, 2014 by Furyio

[Adrammalech 2]

I have my BiS list set up for pre raid including what 3 items I will be crafting and upgrading. I have about 150k saved up so it should be no issue for me to get everything set up before raid. I have the list at home, I can post it when I get there. I will be raiding as demo unless the other specs are just clearly ahead come mythic being released. 

[Zagam 1,983]

My boy Berlinia (Mage moderator) has a comprehensive Excel spreadsheet he put together showing all pieces of gear.  It has Mage stat weights on it, so you can ignore that.  I'll see if I can get him to post it.