Demonology Warlock PvP Rotation and Playstyle — Midnight Season 1

The opener refers to your team's opening sequence of abilities as soon as you get out of the gates and enter combat. The main goal in the opener as an Demonology Warlock is to maintain max distance while applying your DoT effects.

Now that you know how to generate Soul Shards, it is important to know how to spend them. Here are the abilities you will be spending Soul Shards on:

• Hand of Gul'dan costs 3 Soul Shards. This will deal some damage as well as summon imps.

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.

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. Use Fear to get away from enemies or on the enemy healer.
4. Start generating Soul Shards.
5. Use Call Dreadstalkers off cooldown.
6. Use Demonbolt when you get a Demonic Core proc and you have 3 or fewer Soul Shards. This is so you do not generate more Soul Shards than you can have. Make sure you cast this on a target that does not have Doom.
7. Cast Hand of Gul'dan when you have 3 or more Soul Shards.
8. Hand of Gul'dan will summon Wild Imps
9. Get crowd control on the enemy healer (you can use Fear, Mortal Coil, Axe Toss or have a teammate do this).

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

1. Generate Soul Shards by using Shadow Bolt and Demonbolt.
2. Use Call Dreadstalkers off cooldown
3. Use Shadow Bolt to generate Soul Shards.
4. Use Demonbolt when you get a Demonic Core proc and you have 3 or less Soul Shards. Make sure you cast this on a target that does not have Doom.
5. Cast Hand of Gul'dan when you have 3 or more Soul Shards to summon more Imps.

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

1. You will want at least 4 Soul Shards before you start your burst rotation.
2. Cast Call Dreadstalkers
3. Cast Grimoire: Fel Ravager
4. Cast Summon Demonic Tyrant
5. Cast Hand of Gul'dan
6. Cast Demonbolt if low on Soul Shards and you have Demonic Core charges. Make sure you cast this on a target that does not have Doom.

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.

Dark Pact is a relatively short cooldown at 45 seconds if you are talented into Frequent Donor. As a result, since it also has a duration of 20 seconds, this can be used whenever you are attacked by enemies. In general, however, it is good practice to use this when you are not able to use Demonic Circle or are in a stun.

Unending Resolve is your biggest defensive cooldown, providing 40% damage reduction as well as immunity to interrupts. This should be used when you are unable to create distance from enemies attacking you and your healer is in a CC chain.

Healthstone in combination with Soulburn is an excellent defensive cooldown that will heal you as well as increase your maximum health for a short period. This is excellent to use when you are low and your healer is in a CC chain.

Demonic Circle: Teleport is the primary mobility spell available to Demonology Warlocks. This should be used on cooldown when attacked to activate the Abyss Walker talent. In addition, if used with Soulburn, this will give you a short freedom where you cannot be slowed.

Soul Rip is a situational PvP talent, which is especially good against set up comps or double melee. This should be used any time offensive cooldowns are used by the enemy.

Curse of Exhaustion is useful against enemies as it acts as a 50% snare in PvP. This is helpful to kite, create space, or slow down enemies from chasing you or your teammates.

Curse of Tongues is one of the best spells in PvP. This spell will not only reduce the enemy's casting speed, but also reduces their haste (global cooldown). As such, this should always be used against any caster. While useful against healers, sometimes there are not enough globals to maintain.

Curse of Weakness is relatively weak against melee classes, and should not be used. However, against Marksmanship Hunters, this curse reduces their attack speed and therefore makes their spells such as Aimed Shot slower. This is a very niche use case, but is very helpful in reducing damage output.