Demonology Warlock PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / Patch 9.2)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilizes your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Demonology Warlock, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Demonology Warlock PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Demonology Warlocks
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.
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.
Damage Rotation
Generating and Spending Soul Shards
Understanding how to generate and spend Soul Shards is crucial to maximizing your damage output as a Demonology Warlock. Here are the spells that will generate Soul Shards:
Shadow Bolt generates 1 Soul Shard and is your primary generator. Use this whenever you get the chance to cast if if you are low on Soul Shards.
Soul Strike is a Regular Talent that should be used when you are playing against teams with many kicks. This ability is instant and generates 1 Soul Shard. Similar to Shadowbolt, this should be used often to generate Soul Shards.
Demonbolt generates 2 Soul Shards. This has a very long cast time, but is instant when you get the
Demonic Core buff. This should be used when you need the Soul Shards and when it is instant.
Summon Demonic Tyrant generates 5 Soul Shards. This should be used when you have 0 Soul Shards available and want to deal large amounts of damage.
Now that you know how to generate Soul Shards, is it important to know how to spend them. Here are the abilities you will be spending Soul Shards on:
Call Dreadstalkers costs 2 Soul Shards and is instant with the PvP talent
Master Summoner. This should be used when you have 2+ imps active.
Hand of Gul'dan costs 1 to 3 Soul Shards. This will summon imps based on how many Soul Shards you spend (summons 2 imps if you spend 2 Soul Shards). This is a great way to summon imps for important spells like
Power Siphon or
Implosion.
Summon Vilefiend costs 1 Soul Shard and will be used off cooldown if you are using this Regular Talent.
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 place your
Demonic Circle in a safe spot
behind a pillar.
This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.
- Cast
Demonic Gateway from one side of the map to the other.
- Use
Demonic Circle to make it easier to get away from enemies.
- Use
Fear to get away from enemies or on the enemy healer.
- Generate Soul Shards by using
Shadow Bolt and
Soul Strike.
- Use
Call Dreadstalkers off cooldown.
- Use your Felguard's special ability,
Felstorm off cooldown.
- If you are playing the
Pleasure through Pain PvP talent, you should be using
Summon Succubus pet.
- If you are playing the
- Use
Demonbolt when you get a
Demonic Core proc and you have 3 or less Soul Shards. This is so you do not generate more Soul Shards than you can have.
- Cast
Hand of Gul'dan when you have 3 or more Soul Shards.
- Hand of Gul'dan will summon Wild Imps for each Soul Shard used to cast it. This means that if you have 3 Soul Shards, it will consume them all.
- Get crowd control on the enemy healer (you can use
Fear,
Mortal Coil,
Axe Toss or have a teammate do this).
- Use your burst rotation.
Burst Damage
When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.
- You will want 2+ Wild Imps active and a few Soul Shards before you start your burst rotation.
- Use
Power Siphon.
- With 2 Wild Imps, you should get 2 stacks of
Demonic Core.
- With 2 Wild Imps, you should get 2 stacks of
- Use
Demonbolt.
- This is instant from the
Demonic Core proc after using
Power Siphon.
- This is instant from the
- Use
Call Dreadstalkers.
- Use
Demonic Strength, as long as the AoE damage will not break crowd control.
- Cast
Hand of Gul'dan if you have 2+ Soul Shards.
- Use
Demonbolt.
- Cast
Decimating Bolt if you are Necrolord to deal strong damage and increase the damage of your
Demonbolt.
- Use
Shadow Bolt to generate Soul Shards.
- Use
Hand of Gul'dan.
- Cast
Summon Vilefiend if you are using this talent.
- Cast
Summon Demonic Tyrant.
- Use
Hand of Gul'dan
- Use
Demonbolt if you get the
Demonic Core buff.
- Cast
Hand of Gul'dan.
- Use
Implosion if your target is at low health.
The great part about Demonology Warlocks, is that you do not have to wait
long to use this burst rotation again. This rotation, except for
Summon Demonic Tyrant, can be used extremely often.
Sustained damage
Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.
- Generate Soul Shards by using
Shadow Bolt and
Demonbolt.
- Use
Soul Strike off cooldown if you are using this talent.
- Use
Call Dreadstalkers off cooldown if you have multiple Wild Imps summoned already.
- Use your Felguard's special ability,
Felstorm, off cooldown, if you are not using a Succubus.
- Use
Demonic Strength, as long as the AoE damage will not break crowd control.
- Cast
Decimating Bolt if you are Necrolord to deal strong damage and increase the damage of your
Demonbolt.
- Use
Shadow Bolt to generate Soul Shards.
- Use
Demonbolt when you get a
Demonic Core proc and you have 3 or less Soul Shards.
- Use
Power Siphon to get the
Demonic Core buff.
- Use
- Cast
Hand of Gul'dan when you have 3 or more Soul Shards to summon more Imps.
- Cast
Summon Vilefiend if you are using this talent.
Cooldowns/Defensives
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.
Healthstone should be used when you are at very low health and
your healer does not have defensive cooldowns to keep you alive.
Demonic Circle, should be placed away from the enemy
team, but close to your healer. Make sure you coordinate when you will be using
this, so your team can position themselves accordingly. You will want to use
this when the enemy team is using their offensive cooldowns and you need to
create distance between you and them. Use the same concept when you need to
take
Demonic Gateway.
Curses
Curses allow you to weaken a target based on which curse you use on them. Effectively using a curse on an enemy could prevent a lot of damage that the target will deal. Below are the curses that you have and the best time to use them.
Curse of Weakness increases the time between the enemy's attacks. This should be used on a melee DPS to prevent incoming Physical damage.
Curse of Tongues increases the cast time of all spells the enemy casts. This should be used on a caster DPS to prevent or slow down incoming spell damage.
Curse of Exhaustion reduces the target's movement speed. This is a very flexible Curse and can be used to slow down melee DPS or slow down enemy healers to make them easier to crowd control.
Macros
It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.
Changelog
- 28 Feb. 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.
- 26 Nov. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 09 Aug. 2021: Updated sustained and burst damage rotations.
- 08 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 18 Dec. 2020: Updated Rotations to have Covenant Abilities buff the correct spell.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Rotations to include Covenant Ability.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 27 Oct. 2020: Added Generating and Spending Soul Shards section.
- Updated all damage rotations.
- Updated Defensives section.
- Added Curses section.
- 20 Jan. 2020: This page was checked for Patch 8.3 and no update was deemed necessary.
- 13 Jan. 2020: Page added.
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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