Demonology Warlock PvP Guide (Legion 7.3)

Table of Contents

• 1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta
• 2. Gear
• +3. Artifact Traits
  • 3.1. First Golden Trait
  • 3.2. Second Golden Trait
  • 3.3. Remaining Traits
• 4. Relics
• +5. Talent Choices
  • 5.1. Regular Talents
    • 5.1.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
    • 5.1.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
    • 5.1.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
    • 5.1.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
    • 5.1.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
    • 5.1.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
    • 5.1.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 5.2. Honor Talents
    • 5.2.1. Tier 1 Talents
    • 5.2.2. Tier 2 Talents
    • 5.2.3. Tier 3 Talents
    • 5.2.4. Tier 4 Talents
    • 5.2.5. Tier 5 Talents
    • 5.2.6. Tier 6 Talents
• +6. Racial Bonuses
  • 6.1. Horde
  • 6.2. Alliance
• +7. Playstyle
  • 7.1. Before Gates Open
  • 7.2. Offensive Rotation
    • 7.2.1. The Opener
    • 7.2.2. Burst Damage
    • 7.2.3. Sustained damage
  • 7.3. Defensive Techniques
• 8. ChangeLog

Introduction

This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to play a Demonology Warlock in a PvP environment. The guide will cover everything from talent choices, artifacts, gameplay and rotation, and useful racial bonuses. It is most applicable to Arena content, but most talents and racial bonuses will work in Rated Battlegrounds and skirmishes.

About The Author

This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2300 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.

1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta

Demonology Warlocks are the strongest Warlock spec right now. They have the same crowd control as all the other specs, but they are much harder to kill. They have utility in the form of Fear and a passive defensive, Soul Link, that makes them a bad target to focus. If the Demonology Warlock is left unchecked, they can easily burst an enemy down in seconds.

2. Gear

With regards to gear, the biggest change in Legion is that there is no more PvP gear. Your strength in PvP will be determined based on the average item level of your gear (as displayed on your character sheet). For example, the base item level at level 110 is 800, so your stats in PvP will be adjusted accordingly. For every 10 item levels you gain, your stats are increased by 1%.

The implication is that it does not matter where your gear comes from, and all that matters is its item level. Gear from quests or PvE content is just as good as gear you get as a reward from PvP (which, in fact, will be very similar to PvE gear; there are no more PvP stats on gear).

Practically, you will simply look to collect gear with the highest item levels possible, and the stat distribution on the gear will not matter.

3. Artifact Traits

Below, we will explain what the recommended order for artifact traits is, if you wish to maximise your PvP potential. It is quite possible that your artifact path (at the time of reading this guide) differs from our suggestions. If this is the case, do not worry, and use the information below to help you understand your traits and guide your future choices.

If you have suddenly decided that you want to turn to PvP, the best thing to do in your artifact progression is continue to your closest Golden trait, and then follow the recommendations below. Picking up the most useful traits ( Soul Skin, The Doom of Azeroth, Doom, Doubled, or Firm Resolve) along the way is a great way to boost your potential.

3.1. First Golden Trait

The first Golden trait you want to reach is Stolen Power.

1. Take Breath of Thal'kiel.
2. Take Summoner's Prowess.
3. Take Imp-erator.
4. Take Open Link.
5. Take Stolen Power.

3.2. Second Golden Trait

The second Golden trait to go for is Odyn's Champion.

1. Take Maw of Shadows.
2. Take Infernal Furnace.
3. Take Doom, Doubled.
4. Take The Expendables.

3.3. Remaining Traits

After this, you should head for your last Golden trait, Thal'kiel's Discord, picking up any remaining traits after that. Although there is no particular order to go, taking Soul Skin and The Doom of Azeroth is highly recommended.

4. Relics

Relics are disabled in PvP, so they are not a concern to you.

5. Talent Choices

Regular talents work in both PvP and PvE content (although they may sometimes work differently in the two environments, which is indicated by their tooltips). In other words, they are always active.

On the other hand, Honor talents are inactive outside of a PvP environment.

5.1. Regular Talents

5.1.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents

Shadowflame is the best choice in this tier. Use this ability when you have been interrupted or to generate Soul Shards.

5.1.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents

Impending Doom is the best choice in this tier. This talent makes Doom tick faster. Taking this talent is an overall damage increase.

5.1.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents

Demonic Circle is the best choice in this tier. You will be the primary target for many teams and this will allow you to have an easier time to survive.

5.1.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

Power Trip is the best choice in this tier. This makes it easier and quicker to generate Soul Shards.

5.1.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

Demon Skin is the best choice in this tier. This increases your survivability greatly. It synergizes well with the passive Demonology Warlocks have, Soul Link.

5.1.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

Grimoire of Service is the best choice in this tier. This talent grants your demons special abilities. The pets you will primarily be using it for are the Felhunter (to interrupt a cast) or the Felguard (to stun an enemy).

5.1.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

Summon Darkglare is the best choice in this tier. This is a very strong cooldown. Try to have Doom on as many targets as possible before using it. If you are struggling with maintaining your Dooms or generating Soul Shards, Soul Conduit is great for having a chance to refund Soul Shards.

5.2. Honor Talents

5.2.1. Tier 1 Talents

If you are an Orc or plan to sit a lot of crowd control, Relentless is the best choice in this tier. This will help with getting out of stuns and all crowd control much quicker.

If you are any other race or want to have control over when you leave crowd control, Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier. This is the standard PvP trinket. Adaptation is the best non-Orc choice against teams with very little crowd control.

5.2.2. Tier 2 Talents

Mind Quickness is the best choice in this tier. Most Demonology abilities have a cast time, so increasing your Haste will make casts shorter, increasing your overall damage.

5.2.3. Tier 3 Talents

If you are planning to one shot an enemy, Curse of Fragility is the best choice in this tier. Using this before you use your burst cooldowns can catch a team by surprise and almost guarantee a kill.

If you are playing against a team with a caster on it, Curse of Tongues is the best choice in this tier. Use this ability to prevent incoming crowd control or if the enemy is casting a strong damaging ability.

If you are playing against a team with melee on it, Curse of Weakness is the best choice in this tier. This will prevent enemy melee from dealing their maximum damage when they use burst cooldowns.

5.2.4. Tier 4 Talents

If you are playing against a team that could cast crowd control with a cast time on you, Nether Ward is the best choice in this tier. A few examples of castable crowd control are Fear, Polymorph, and Cyclone.

If you are not playing against a team with melee on it, Casting Circle is the best choice in this tier. This will allow you to cast, even if the enemy team is focusing you.

5.2.5. Tier 5 Talents

Call Felhunter is the best choice in this tier. Having an interrupt in Arena is important. Call Felhunter is primarily to be used on enemy healers to prevent them from healing.

5.2.6. Tier 6 Talents

If you are playing against a team with at least one melee, Call Fel Lord is the best choice in this tier. This ability is crucial against melee who try to ignore it. This also increases your survivability if you stand by your Call Fel Lord.

If you are playing against a team with two casters, Call Observer is the best choice in this tier. If the enemy casters try to avoid this while they are using cooldowns, they will be punished with a lot of damage from your Call Observer.

6. Racial Bonuses

Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction.

6.1. Horde

Orc is the best race for Demonology Warlocks, thanks to the passive Orcs have ( Hardiness) reducing all stuns greatly improves survivability.

6.2. Alliance

The Human bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to escape stuns.

7. Playstyle

The Demonology Warlock has one role when in an Arena: survive. Demonology Warlocks have powerful crowd control in the forms of Fear, Mortal Coil, and Axe Toss. On top of this, they have passive defensives, such as Soul Link, that make them very hard to kill. Although they focus on surviving and peeling for their team, they also have strong sustained and burst damage. If a Demonology is able to free-cast abilities, they can easily use their pets and artifact weapon to quickly kill an enemy.

7.1. Before Gates Open

Have a plan for who you will be mainly using your crowd control on. Demonology Warlocks have Fear, which is very powerful.

7.2. Offensive Rotation

7.2.1. The Opener

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns.

If the enemy healer uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. In the opener, Demonology Warlocks should focus on putting down a Demonic Gateway and start putting Dooms on the enemies.

This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.

1. Cast Demonic Gateway from one side of the map to the other.
2. Use Demonic Circle to make it easier to get away from enemies.
3. Maintain Doom on all enemies, even pets.
4. Use Fear to get away from enemies or on the enemy healer.
5. Generate Soul Shards by using Shadow Bolt and Demonwrath.
   • If the enemy team is stacked, use Demonwrath.
   • If the enemy team is not stacked, use Shadow Bolt.
6. Get crowd control on the enemy healer (you can use Fear, Mortal Coil, Axe Toss or have a teammate do this).
7. Use your burst rotation.

7.2.2. Burst Damage

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.

Ideally, you will want to be at 5 Soul Shards before using burst cooldowns. However, you can generate Soul Shards while using cooldowns, so you do not always have to be at 5 before starting.

1. Use Curse of Fragility, if talented into it.
2. Cast Call Dreadstalkers.
3. Use Shadowflame to generate Soul Shards.
   • If Shadowflame is on cooldown, cast Shadow Bolt or Demonwrath to generate Soul Shards.
4. Use Summon Darkglare.
5. Use Shadowflame to generate Soul Shards.
   • If Shadowflame is on cooldown, cast Shadow Bolt or Demonwrath to generate Soul Shards.
6. Cast Hand of Gul'dan at 4 Soul Shards.
7. Cast Demonic Empowerment.
8. Cast Thal'kiel's Consumption.

7.2.3. Sustained damage

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.

1. Maintain Doom on all targets, even pets.
2. Cast Call Dreadstalkers off cooldown.
3. Cast Summon Darkglare off cooldown if you have this talent.
4. Cast Demonic Empowerment.
5. Use Shadowflame on your primary target to generate Soul Shards.
6. Cast Shadow Bolt if you need to generate Soul Shards and you want single-target damage.
7. Use Demonwrath if you need to generate Soul Shards and the enemy team is stacked.

7.3. Defensive Techniques

Soul Link is your main defensive ability. This ability splits the damage between you and your pet. For this reason, it is very important to keep your pet alive. If you find that the enemy team is focusing your pet, try to get away and re-summon it or have your healer keep it alive.

Call Fel Lord is another strong defensive ability. If you are being focused by two melee, use this and stand in the ring. The Call Fel Lord will consistently stun and deal damage. If the enemy team tries to ignore it, they will likely have to run away or use important defensive cooldowns.

Fear also has defensive uses. It might be hard to cast this if the enemy team is focusing you, but try to use it when they do not have interrupts available. Use this to help you or your teammates get away from an enemy.

Use Demonic Gateway when you are overextended or to create distance between you and the enemy team. Using this effectively can completely negate an enemy team's cooldowns.

8. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 21 Sep. 2017: Several changes made for Patch 7.3
  • Removed Artifact Trait descriptions.
  • Changed recommended tier 4 and 7 regular talents.
  • Changed recommended tier 3 honor talents.
  • Updated burst and sustained damage rotations.
• 01 Jul. 2017: Updated recommended Tier 3 regular talent and added Demonic Circle as something to do in the opener.
• 26 Apr. 2017: Guide added.