Demonology:
Dressing Up Like Illidan Since 2008
Contents
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1. Overview: So I'm a demo lock, what am i supposed to do?
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2. Talent Build, Some Notable Talents, and Glyphs: The Molten Demo Lock Spec and the Felguard vs. Imp Question
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3. Gems, Enchants, and Gear: Being Selfish vs. Loving the Raid (Or somewhere in between)
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4. Spells and Timing: The World of Priorities and The Secret to Good DPS
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5. Summary: Useful Macros, Addons, Known Bugs, and Some Closure
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Overview: So I'm a demo lock, what am i supposed to
do?
A demo lock is an extremely useful tool in a raid's toolbox. You are one in many things. A raid buffer, a good dps, and an important raid utility that can provide an extra life and a boost of health when healing is short (healthstone and soulstone ofc). Now your main function believe it or not is not dps. As a demo lock your purpose is to provide a raid buff called Demonic Pact. Demonic pact will take a portion of your spell power and when you demon crits, the buff goes up for the raid. This buff can potentially provide a substantial dps and healing increase for your raid, which is a really good thing. A skilled demo lock can not only give a large buff, but put out a lot of dps, making demo locks a force to be reckoned with.
Talents and Glyphs: The Molten Demo Lock Spec and the
Felguard vs. Imp Question
Your Build
The best possible demo lock spec for molten is this one:
Demonology: 0/54/17
Intensity is used because currently push back is bugged on molten unless you want to lose a large amount of dps where there is a lot of raid wide damage, then take Intensity. If need be, you can put some points into Suppression if you are under the hit cap.
Notable Talents
Here are some talents you should be aware of:
Molten Core (MC) This is a buff that will proc off of your corruption damage. It increases the damage of incinerate and soul fire by 18% (@ rank 3) and increases the cast time of incinerate by 30% and the crit strike chance of Soul Fire by 15%. This is an important talent and contributes quite a bit of dps.
Decimation This buff procs off the damage of your shadow bolt, soul fire, or incinerate when your target's health is below 35%. It reduces the cast time of your soul fire by 40% for 10 sec and under the effect your soul fire's cost no shards. This is the source of a most of a Demo lock's dps
Demonic Pact Increases your spell damage by 10%, and your pet's criticals apply the Demonic Pact effect to your party or raid members. Demonic Pact increases spell power by 10% of your Spell Damage for 45 sec. This is pretty much the sole purpose of a demo lock. This talent is what allows us to give out amazing and OP raid buff.
Metamorphosis You transform into a Demon for 30 sec. This form increases your armor by 600%, damage by 20%, reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 6% and reduces the duration of stun and snare effects by 50%. This is a demo lock's most important cool down. Mastering when to use it is the key to successful dps as a demo lock.
Now these aren't the only talents that you have. One of the best things that you can do is to READ YOUR TALENTS. You can learn so much from them so read them.
The Felguard vs. Imp Question
Recently there has been a lot of debate about using Imp instead of Felguard as the minion for demo. Based on all of my experience from raiding as a demo lock and other warlocks experiences in guild and from around molten, Felguard is the minion you should be using. Here are the reasons. Imp gives 5% damage and 5% crit to only fire spells unlike the 5% total damage buff that felguard gives. 5% more damage overall is better than the 5% fire and 5% crit. Period. I have tested this several times in icc and raiding and have always gotten more dps with felguard. Also Felguard gives more of a spell power buff than the imp does which not only increases your dps but the overall raid dps. Finally, Felguard damage now has been fixed according to the bugtracker.
So pick felguard.Originally Posted by dtgulab
Glyphs
Use these glyphs: Glyph of Metamorphosis, Glyph of Life Tap, and Glyph of Quick Decay
Here are the reasons: Glyph of Life tap provides a nice spell power buff especially if you are the "Spirit Stacking" type of lock. Quick decay provides more corruption ticks and therefore more Molten Core procs. Now there is some debate on using Glyph of Felguard over meta. As of now glyph of felguard is broken, so using it would be a complete waste. If it were fixed, meta would still be a better choice because of the current state of warlock pets (see below in Section 5). Meta is a really good glyph. More time in meta = more dps.
As far as minor glyphs goes, they are all pretty bad.
Gems, Enchants, and Gear: Being Selfish vs. Loving the
Raid
(Or somewhere in between)
There are really two (or three I guess) styles of demo locks, the greedy ones who only really worry about there dps, the "Spirit Stacking" ones, and the middle of the road kinda lock (so i guess that is 3). So depending on what you want to do, your gear and gems will vary. Here is a collection of bis gear for the two extremes of the different styles:
The Selfish Sort (Maximizing DPS)
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Head: Sanctified Dark Coven Hood
Neck: Amulet of the Silent Eulogy
Shoulders: Sanctified Dark Coven Shoulderpads
Back: Cloak of Burning Dusk
Chest: Sanctified Dark Coven Robe
Bracers: Bracers of Fiery Night
Gloves: Sanctified Dark Coven Gloves
Belt: Crushing Coldwraith Belt
Legs: Plaguebringer's Stained Pants
Feet: Plague Scientist's Boots
Ring1: Valanar's Other Signet Ring
Ring2: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
Trinket1: Phylactery of the Nameless Lich
Trinket2: Charred Twilight Scale
Main Hand: Bloodsurge, Kel'Thuzad's Blade of Agony
Off-Hand: Shadow Silk Spindle
Wand: Corpse-Impaling Spike
*Please note for this set if gear it is mandatory that you use two Veiled Ametrine so that you are not below the hit cap
The "Spirit Stacker"
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Head: Sanctified Dark Coven Hood
Neck: Bone Sentinel's Amulet
Shoulders: Sanctified Dark Coven Shoulderpads
Back: Greatcloak of the Turned Champion
Chest: Sanctified Dark Coven Robe
Bracers: The Lady's Brittle Bracers
Gloves: Sanctified Dark Coven Gloves
Belt: Lingering Illness
Legs: Plaguebringer's Stained Pants
Feet: Plague Scientist's Boots
Ring1: Valanar's Other Signet Ring
Ring2: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction
Trinket1: Phylactery of the Nameless Lich
Trinket2: Charred Twilight Scale
Main Hand: Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas
Off-Hand: None
Wand: Nightmare Ender
*Please note for this set if gear it is mandatory that you use three Veiled Ametrine so that you are not below the hit cap.
Now for the "third style", you can use a combination of both of these balancing the spirit items with the max dps items. Its all up to you.
As for gems, the standard gemming still applies for the dps style and the mixed style:
Red: Runed Cardinal Ruby
Blue: Purified Dreadstone
Yellow: Reckless Ametrine or Veiled Ametrine (if below the hit cap with gear and enchants)
Meta: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond
If your decide to just love the raid then just use Runed Cardinal Ruby in all of sockets. However use Purified Dreadstone and Reckless Ametrine in the correct sockets only if there is a spell power bonus of 7 or more (only use Reckless Ametrine in yellow sockets. Also thank you Eber)
The kinds of enchants are constant for all three styles:
Head: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Storm (or the inscription equivalent)
Back: Greater Speed (or Lightweave Embroidery if you have tailoring)
Chest: Powerful Stats
Bracers: Superior Spellpower
Gloves: Exceptional Spellpower
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle (socketed with Runed Cardinal Ruby)
Legs: Brilliant Spellthread (or the tailoring equivalent)
Feet: Icewalker
Rings (only if your are an enchanter): Greater Spellpower
Main Hand: Mighty Spellpower
Staff (Only applies to "Spirit Stackers"): Greater Spellpower
Now you won't always have BiS gear (unless you buy it :)) so the best tool you should use to tell you what gear to get or to compare gear as you work towards BiS is a program called Rawr. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND downloading this program. It is extremely useful.
Spells: Welcome to the World of Priorities
Here are the spells you will be using as a demo lock:
Fillers:
Shadow Bolt (SB) Used when target's health is greater than 35% and you do not have Molten Core
Incinerate Used only when you have the Molten Core buff
Soul Fire (SF) Used under 35% health
Curses:
Curse of Elements (CoE) Used only when there is no Unholy DK or Balance Druid in the raid to apply the 13% magical debuff
Curse of Doom (CoD) This is your main curse. It should be used when there is a class that can apply the 13% magical debuff and when the boss will be alive for it to tick (1 min.)
Curse of Agony (CoA) This should be used when again there is a class that can apply the 13% magical debuff and when the boss will die before Curse of Doom will be able to tick
Demon Form Spells:
Shadow Cleave This is a melee spell that you use when in meta. After activating meta you should charge and use the spell. It will attack on your first melee attack.
Immolation Aura This is an AoE spell that deals a lot of damage. When activated it creates an aura that burns nearby enemies. You should use this after you charge in and cleave the target.
Demon Charge This is a typical charge like what a warrior has. It stuns the target. This should be the first thing you do after you activate meta to charge in.
Other DoTs, procs, and spells:
Immolate This dot adds some dps for you and if you have the 4p set of t10 it gives a really good buff from the set bonus
Corruption This is one of your most important DoTs. It procs the buff Molten Core. Molten core increases your incinerate damage by 18% and reduces the cast time of your next 3 incinerates by 30%. This buff provides a huge dps increase so it is essential for you too keep that DoT up.
Life Tap (LT) Life Tap not only insures that you will never run out of mana, but when glyphed, it provides a decent spell power buff.
Molten Core (MC) This is a buff that will proc off of your corruption damage. It increases the damage of incinerate and soul fire by 18% (@ rank 3) and increases the cast time of incinerate by 30% and the crit strike chance of Soul Fire by 15%.
Decimation This buff procs off the damage of your shadow bolt, soul fire, or incinerate when your target's health is below 35%. It reduces the cast time of your soul fire by 40% for 10 sec and under the effect your soul fire's cost no shards.
Now to use these spells:
There is not rotations with a demo lock. Instead we rely on a priority system. This is it:
Life Tap > Corruption > (=*) Immolate > Curse > Shadow Mastery (applied by Shadow Bolt) > Shadow Bolt > (**) Soul Fire
*Corruption is = to immolate in priority when you have the 4 piece t10 bonus.
**Soul Fire > Shadow Bolt only when Decimation is up. If the boss is at 35% or less cast 2 Shadow Bolts then Soul Fire. The Reason for 2 is that there is travel time for the SB and if you wait until you have the buff to start dpsing, you will lose some dps. Also if you happen to miss the first one, there is another one to apply Decimation.
Timing: The Key To Good DPS
The thing that makes demo lock a hard spec to do good DPS isn't the priority system or having a Filler/Nuke system, it's getting the timing right. Now that isn't just keeping your dots up and not clipping them, its managing your cooldowns. This takes more than just knowing your class, it takes knowing the encounter, how good your raid dps is, and some luck. Demo lock really is unforgiving. If you mistime your meta, you will lose a substantial amount of dps. Here are some general rules that I use for timing meta:
1.) The 3 Minute Rule
Meta is best saved for when you have decimation because that is where a majority of demo's dps comes from. So its always best to pop it at around 35% boss health. Now meta has a 2 min 5 sec cool down (with the talent build that I gave you). Now because it is best used in decimation, you should save it for decimation. Now based on my observations, if the fight is going to take more than 3 minutes, it is you will usually be able to pop meta once at the very beginning of the fight and then by the time the boss reaches 35% heath, the CD will be up and you can pop it again. So based on that, you should pop meta at the beginning of a fight, and subsequently thereafter ONLY if the boss will take 3 minutes or more to kill. Otherwise, you won't have it for decimation which from my experience tends to be a dps loss in comparison to when you have it for decimation.
2.) Boss CC's: Learn to Adapt
Now a lot of bosses have some annoying CC's that, when used can kill your meta and leave you up the creek without a paddle (lol its bad i know. ADAPT). So what you need to do ofc is adapt to it and learn to avoid burning your CDs when you have a high possibility to get CCed. Sometimes it is unavoidable due to RNG but thats ok. So the best way to do this, is to KNOW YOUR BOSS FIGHTS!!!!!! For example, on BQL a bad time to pop meta is right before she fears the raid and goes into her air phase. Something simple like that can be avoided if you know your fight. Also knowing what to do will make you a better raider so your killing 2 birds with one stone there.
3.) Meta and Bloodlust/Heroism: When To and When Not To
Now it may be your natural reaction to automatically when you get BL/Heroism(idk if there is some abbreviation i just don't play ally:p). HOWEVER sometimes its best not to. What you need to do is to think about the 3 Minute Rule. Despite BL/Heroism's dps increase using meta during decimation will give you a bigger dps boost than using it during BL/Heroism. So if you can use meta during BL/Heroism and than again at 35%, then do it. Otherwise follow the 3 minute rule.
So here is what you should be getting as dps*:
*Note: This is as a non-donor lock and not full bis (for a non-donor. My armory link is at the bottom of this thread). I would expect that with full bis you would do a little bit more dps. Donors should be doing upwards of 20 - 21k dps.
Summary: Useful Macros, Addons, Known Bugs, and
Some Closure
Macros
Now there are many different ways to make macros and many different choices on what you can choose to macro in and why but i will show you what i chose to do.
Shadow Bolt
This will cast sb, while telling my pet to attack and having it use demonic empowerment. This is useful because your pet will always attack your target and will use demonic empowerment whenever it is off cd. This macro can be reused for whatever spell you want. For example if you want to do the same thing with soul fire, then all you need to do is change where it says shadow bolt to soul fire. You can also remove parts if you only want something bound to a certain spell. Its up to you.#showtooltip Shadow Bolt
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/petattack
/cast [pet:Felguard] Demonic Empowerment
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast Shadow Bolt
Immolate:
I included this one specifically to bring up a point. It is best not to have demonic empowerment bound to every single spell because your pet will be getting to the target a little bit after you use the buff. This is an overall dps loss. Immolate is one of my starter spells so when I attack i usually use this first (i have my reasons. There is no set "starting rotation"). Also if you just want to send it your pet, this can double as a pet attack macro.#showtooltip Immolate
/petattack
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/Script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast Immolate
Meta: All Demon Skills in One
Personally i don't use all of the demon skills (trying to taunt the boss of the tank is generally a bad idea). This macro will cast meta and then on the next mouse click, charge u to the boss. Then on automatically u will hit the boss using Shadow Cleave. If you hold control and click it, you will use Challenging Howl and if you hold shift Immolation Aura. So how you should use this (unless you decide to take up tanking (i don't recommend it:D)) is to go into meta, charge, and then hold shift click it again and use immolation aura. This will give you a nice dps boost all in wonderful clean package :D#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Challenging Howl(Demon)
/cast [modifier:shift] Immolation Aura(Demon)
/cast [nomodifier] Metamorphosis
/cast [nomodifier] Shadow Cleave(Demon)
/cast [nomodifier] Demon Charge(Demon)
Quick Summon In One Button
This is extremely useful for when your pet dies. Its just one click (or key smash) and your pet is alive and kicking again.#showtooltip
/cast Fel Domination
/cast Summon Felguard
Now there are other possible macros that you can create and use. These are just the ones that i recommend that you have.
Addons
There are a few addons that I extremely recommend when playing demo lock:
Power Auras
Power Auras is an extremely useful addon for a lot of things with not only demo locks, but locks in general. Specifically for demo locks, you can use it to keep track of your procs. I have auras for life tap, molten core, meta, and decimation so that i can keep track of when these buffs are up, how much time they have left, and to make sure that the buff doesn't fall off. So I extremely recommend using this addon. It will make everything a lot easier.
Buttontimers
Buttontimers is what I use for my DoT timer. I just like it cause it doesn't bug out like all of the other DoT timers that i had. However, having a DoT timer is extremely important for keeping up all of your buffs and is MANDATORY for a demo lock. (Alternatives to Buttontimers are dottimer, forte Xorcest, lockdots, ect.)
Grid
Grid is a raid frame that just has all the raid in tiles in a little box thing. Its useful for locks pretty much for targeting people to ss them. Not mandatory but useful.
My UI: LUI
LUI is my UI. It is made up of a combination of different addons. The only thing that can be a problem is that it can tend to be a bit of a memory hog, so some people may not be able to use it and still have playable fps.
Some Bugs
Here are all of the known pet bugs for warlocks. As a demo lock we rely heavily on our pets. Probably the most important bug you should be aware of is the bug with dynamic stat changing with pets. For the moment it is broken. So to deal with this all u need to do is resummon your pet after buffs and you will be fine.
Some Closure
Now my suggestion to you is not to just use this as your sole resource for playing demo lock. There are so many other places that can give good info from a different perspective. There are many different ways to play a class and the same can be said for anything else in life. There are many different ways to teach and learn violin for example. This guide is just how I play lock and it works very well for me. So don't be afraid to go look for more information, watch some videos, and read different guides.
Ill start your off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieGnHENE7JQ (Courtesy of Bloodipeich)
Also another suggestion I have for you is to READ YOUR TALENTS before asking some questions. So many questions can be answered when you read and this goes for all of the lock specs.
So this is it. Hopefully I did my job well and told you all you need to know about demo lock. The one thing I want to emphasize is that demo isn't and easy spec so don't expect to just be able to do amazing dps right off the bat. Like anything really it takes practice so give it some time. If you have any questions/comments/concerns just feel free to pm me and ill answer and post any changes here.
Credit for the info in this guide goes to:
The Warlock Section of this Forum
Elitist Jerks
Myself ofc xD
and some of this thread