WotLK Classic Demonology Warlock Guide

Demonology Warlocks, unlike previous expansions, are not only one of the coolest looking specs in the game, but also extremely powerful. No other class compares to their AoE and their single-target is right up there with the best of them.

The biggest thing about them is that they bring the best Raid buff in the game in Demonic Pact, which buffs your entire raid with 10% of your Spell Power when your pet crits. There is more to it than that and there is some finesse with it, but we will get into that in a later section. Demonology is also a very good mix of all that a Warlock can bring. You have hard-hitting damage-over-time abilities that must be kept up at all times, alongside major and much-needed utility, and even powerful cooldowns like Metamorphosis, which turns you into an unstoppable Demon with its own special abilities. You are also one of the only Specs with an execute ability, meaning when the boss gets low enough in health (35%) you get to spam fast-casting and free Soul Fires that Hit for a ridiculous amount of damage. And let us not forget about the almighty Summon Felguard, who has come back even stronger than before.

There are generally two types of Demonology Warlocks. You have the ones who are purely there for support, whose job is to 100% do everything they can to supply the largest Demonic Pact buff that they possibly can for their Raid, even at the loss of their own personal DPS. On the contrary, you have the guys who are not there to buff the raid and are there to just deal as much damage as they possibly can. Whether there are multiple Demonology Warlocks in the raid and they can just blast, or the guild does not mind them taking more of a DPS role and losing out on some Spell Power from Demonic Pact, Demonology has a real choice to make. This is talked a lot about in the Warlock community and which one you choose is completely up to you and more importantly, up to your Raid Leader.

The difference in gameplay differs slightly, but not much at all. Your rotation more or less stays the same outside of you never ever holding your Felguard back and you use Potions of Speed for the Haste, rather than Potions of Wild Magic for the 200 Spell Power.

The bigger difference between support and Personal Demo is the gearing, or more importantly the stats. Without getting too deep into it since there is a section about it later, the most common difference objectively is as a personal DPS Demo, you would choose Haste and would gear more like an Affliction Warlock would for the most part, Whereas a full support Demo chooses the pieces of gear that give up that Haste for a healthy amount of Spell Power, Spirit, and to a degree even Hit Rating. There are some gear sets where you can sacrifice a good chunk of Hit, but get an even bigger amount of Spell Power or Spirit. Thus giving up a good bit of personal DPS in return for some bigger Demonic Pacts.

If you are the only Demo lock in your raid, then I would suggest a nice middle ground, giving up Haste pieces for some Spell Power and Spirit pieces and giving up a couple percent of Hit to achieve the same thing. But at the end of the day, this decision is solely up to you. Just know that if you are the only Demo lock in your raid and they are gearing you up specifically for that reason, then I personally think it is fine to give up some stats to buff your raid.

For a better understanding of where Warlocks are in regards to other classes and specializations in Wrath Classic, you can check out our PvE DPS rankings below. However, ultimately, you should not let these lists dissuade you from playing what you enjoy.

The best race for Warlock is Human, if you are Alliance, and Orc, if you are Horde.

For Alliance players, Human grants you an excellent PvP racial in the form of Will to Survive, as well as additional Spell Power via Fel Armor, Glyph of Life Tap, and the bonus Spirit Humans gain from The Human Spirit.

For the Horde, Command and Blood Fury are both very strong for a Warlock, making Orc by far the best choice.

Overall, Demonology Warlocks have a few viable options for professions and which you choose depends on which one you want. You can go Tailoring for the big Lightweave proc, which will more often than not proc on pull with your trinkets and whatever else, allowing you to snap a very big Demonic Pact, which at the end of the day is why you are in the Raid. If you go Jewelcrafting instead, you get straight Spell Power, rather than the proc, giving your raid a nice static amount of Spell Power from Demonic Pact the whole encounter. Which one you choose is up to you and they are so very close to each other, so you can choose which to use based on your preferences and the economy of your server for gold-making.

If you are instead playing a pure support Demo, Tailoring and Jewelcrafting have the most Spell power you can give to your raid considering both Tailoring and Jewelcrafting supply more Spell Power, meaning more value out of Demonic Pact. The issue with this is that you cannot go Engineering. Engineering is pretty standard and is even required among many guilds. But, this is not an issue for a lot of people. So if your Guild does not require Engineering and you feel like you can live without the Nitro Boosts and Explosives, then I urge you to go Tailoring and Jewelcrafting and be the best Support you can possibly be.

Engineering is extremely strong and is the best profession you can get in terms of damage. You get an insane Haste enchant called Hyperspeed Accelerators on your Gloves that gives you 340 Haste for 12 seconds and it is only on a one-minute cooldown. This is an absolutely amazing ability and is worth Engineering simply for that. You can pop this with your Trinkets and all your other cooldowns.

You also get the infamous Nitro Boosts, which are put ON your current Boots. It is not a separate pair of boots like it was in Classic and TBC. They not only give you some much needed mobility, but the boots can get you out of many sketchy situations, allowing you to very quickly get away from things or get to things and continue pumping. One thing I really like about them is that I am constantly trying to seed, which naturally has me falling back every so often, so I love to use the boots to catch quickly back up to the raid and continue seeding.

Another perk to Engineering is what has been known for years: the explosives. You have Global Thermal Sapper Charge, Saronite Bomb, and even a Frag Belt, all of which you must be Engineering to use and all of which also will give you a solid boost in your overall damage.

You also get a cloak enchant called Springy Arachnoweave for 27 Spell Power and also has the ability to turn your cloak into a parachute cloak.

Tailoring allows you to enchant your cloak with Lightweave Embroidery, which is a proc chance of 295 Spell Power for 15 sec with a 60-second internal cooldown. This is phenomenal for Demonology as it allows you to get some massive Demonic Pacts off, especially on the pull since that is typically when most guilds Bloodlust/Heroism and pop their cooldowns.

With Jewelcrafting you get the lovely ability to use JC-only gems called Runed Dragon's Eye. You can use three of them, which totals in an extra 60 Spell Power in comparison to what gems you would be using if you were not Jewelcrafting. This is a very solid static Spell Power increase that you can always count on for all of your Demonic Pact.