Demonology Warlock DPS Mythic+ Tips — Season 4

Mythic+ has become a large part of the World of Warcraft endgame, but the sheer amount of different variables has left many players feeling overwhelmed. The group composition, weekly affixes, the item level of the group, the keystone level, and the experience and comfort level of the group are just several of the factors that will influence how you approach each dungeon. The purpose of this page is to prepare you for the key differences that set Mythic+, apart from the typical World of Warcraft endgame experience, including talents and rotational anomalies that may not be obvious at first glance.

If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our Dragonflight Mythic+ Season 4 page below.

Demonology Warlocks have the potential to deal extremely high burst AoE damage after a proper setup, while also offering multiple short cooldowns that suit well the average dungeon pull cadence. With multiple abilities having some form of cleave effect, Demonology's damage profile is well-suited for dungeons, with the only negative of being limited by specific setup periods, and a slightly longer interrupt that shares a stun. The spec still retains all the class baseline toolkit comprised of Healthstones, Soulstones, skip-enabling Demonic Gateway, AoE crowd control abilities such as Shadowfury and Howl of Terror, and uncapped AoE spells.

While both single- and multi-target rotations do not differ substantially from the standard priority outlined in Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page there are few points worth noting:

  
• Starting a new pull without resources means a relatively long period of   a time where the damage will be low due to    Shadow Bolt being the only resource generator   outside of procs. This makes transitioning between pulls with Soul   Shards/Demonic Cores/Wild Imps are extremely important to maintaining a higher   DPS profile across the dungeon.
  
• While it may look tempting, it is generally better not to implode at the   end of a dungeon pack, trying to spend all the Shards on additional Wild   Imps, in order to regenerate 3 shards out of combat and being able to cast a   massive Implosion or Tyrant at the next pack.

While damage is the bigger reason to bring a Demonology Warlock, the class itself offers a noticeable amount of crowd control and various supporting abilities:

  
• Recently reintroduced, the Curses can offer some advantage against   specific dangerous enemies: Curse of Tongues can reduce the amount of   interrupts required by the group, while Curse of Weakness alleviates the   incoming damage on the tank from auto attacks. Last but not least,    Curse of Exhaustion can be used to slow targets in situations where   kiting is required. While these effects can be noticeable, it is better to use   curses on a few key targets, as the time spent to apply these effects is time not   spent doing damage.
  
• Healthstones have a 1-minute cooldown and heal for 25% of max   health, allowing for an emergency heal for each player.
  
• Soulstones offer a combat resurrection that can be used both reactively   and preemptively in the case of a death run.
  
• Demonic Gateway offers the unique ability to skip certain parts   of the map, depending on the dungeon in question, avoiding specific   pulls.
  
• Shadowfury helps alleviating pressure on the tank during big pulls as   it is a 3-second AoE stun.
  
• Fear and Banish are both spammable crowd control   abilities that can be used to interrupt a cast in a pinch or to temporarily remove a target from combat.

Below are the recommended talents for Mythic+. There is a certain degree of flexibility when progressing down the path, to accommodate for preferences or to meet specific requirements, as discussed further.

Generally, all output nodes are hard to give up, but fortunately, there are enough point to offer the choice of whichever utility options to pick instead.

  
• Demonic Inspiration;
  
• Wrathful Minion;
  
• Socrethar's Guile;
  
• Sargerei Technique;
  
• Soul Conduit;
  
• Grimoire of Synergy;
  
• Summon Soulkeeper or Inquisitor's Gaze.

Some other utility nodes are also too good to pass up, especially in the context of dungeons:

  
• Fel Domination;
  
• Mortal Coil;
  
• Dark Pact especially on 45s cooldown;
  
• Demonic Gateway to skip areas of the dungeon;
  
• Shadowfury as one of the few AoE stuns.

Due to a lot of AoE pulls throughout a dungeon run, leaning towards cleave and AoE is generally the safer choice, even in the case of a Tyrannical Week.

  
• Dreadlash, Carnivorous Stalkers, Dread Calling,    The Houndmaster's Stratagem will greatly amplify Dreadstalkers     damage while simultaneously offering high uptime on a damage increase     debuff on targets;
     
• Guillotine can provide a substantial source of damage on a   relatively short cooldown;
  
• Summon Demonic Tyrant increase the effectiveness of every   summoned demons;
  
• Grimoire: Felguard offers a substantial burst of both single and   multi-target while costing a single point;
  
• Implosion augments Demonology Warlock AoE   capabilities while also synergizing   with Imp Gang Boss, Spiteful Reconstitution, The Houndmaster's Stratagem   and The Expendables.

  
• Swap Malefic Impact for Imp-erator for more single   target damage at the expense of AoE.

  
1. Intellect;
  
2. Mastery;
  
3. Versatility ≅ Critical Strike;
  
4. Haste.

Worth mentioning that dropping Haste too low will hamper the single target output in comparison, so generally, seeking a balance between the stats offers a more well-rounded approach.

Simming item upgrades remains the preferable approach instead of relying on stats blindly.

You should be using your Felguard at all times as a Demonology Warlock.

When choosing your trinkets, we recommend simulating yourself on Raidbots using the Patchwerk option for raids and single-target, and Patchwerk with 4-5 targets or Hectic Add Cleave for an educated guess on multi-target performance in Dungeons. Usually, trinkets that proc stats are more versatile and better performers than single-target spell damage procs unless they are overtuned.

You can also get a quick overview of good Mythic+ Trinkets on our Gearing page, specifically the Simulation chart for multi-target scenarios.