PvE Demonology Warlock Rotations & Cooldowns

PvE Demonology Warlock Rotations & Cooldowns

Playing a Demonology Warlock in Mists of Pandaria involves rotating between two different phases, first building Demonic Fury and then spending it in Metamorphosis. You’ll also be managing your DoTs and your demons, and maybe even acting as a backup tank when the moment calls for it.

Spell Priority

Metamorphosis is the core of your build, and your rotation will change based on whether it’s active or inactive.

Always have your felguard icon Felguard or wrathguard icon Wrathguard pet active and attacking in either form. (Summon Wrathguard replaces Summon Felguard if you have the Grimoire of Supremacy talent.)

Outside Metamorphosis

  1. Cast Curse of the Elements to apply and maintain it if you are responsible for this debuff.
  2. Cast Corruption to apply and maintain the DoT.
    • This debuff will usually be refreshed by Touch of Chaos, but you will sometimes need to reapply it manually.
  3. Cast Felstorm/Wrathstorm (pet ability) on cooldown if it will hit 2 or more enemies.
  4. Cast Hand of Gul’dan in the following circumstances:
    • You have two charges available, or will have the second charge available within the next 5 seconds.
    • You have one charge and Shadowflame is on the target, and will expire within the next 4 seconds. This will allow you to add a stack of the debuff and extend its duration right before it expires, and buff them both with an immediate Metamorphosis.
  5. Cast Soul Fire if you have at least 8 stacks of Molten Core.
    • You can cast this at lower stacks if you feel that you need to generate more Demonic Fury.
  6. Cast Hellfire if it will hit at least 4 targets.
  7. Cast Fel Flame if you have to move.
  8. Cast Shadow Bolt otherwise.

When to Use Metamorphosis

You will deal increased damage while you are in Metamorphosis, but you will be burning Demonic Fury to do so, and you will have a limited window to take advantage of this each time you transform. Your goal therefore is to maximize the damage you can deal while Metamorphosis is active. To do this, you will aim to use Metamorphosis whenever you have a buff or a proc that will increase your damage. Then you’ll to maintain it until either you have spent all of your Demonic Fury, or the buff or proc has ended. If you don’t have any good buffs up, canceling Metamorphosis early will allow you to save Demonic Fury for its next use.

Outside of these increased damage periods, you can use Metamorphosis immediately after your second Hand of Gul’dan cast to buff your 2nd stack of Shadowflame. This works because there is a delay between when Hand of Gul’dan goes off and when the animation lands and Shadowflame is applied. As long as you transform immediately, you should be in your demon form when the debuff lands, and it will therefore benefit from your increased damage. You can then refresh your DoTs with a Doom cast and a Touch of Chaos if you need to before reverting to your caster form until it makes sense to transform again.

Note that you can also use Demonic Leap to transform into Metamorphosis if you need to move at the same time.

During Metamorphosis

  1. Cast Immolation Aura if it will hit at least 3 targets.
  2. Cast Aura of the Elements to apply and maintain Curse of the Elements if you are responsible for this debuff.
  3. Cast Doom on targets who will survive for at least 2 ticks under the following circumstances:
    • It’s missing from the target or has less than 30 seconds left.
    • You have a buff or proc that has increased your damage since its last application.
  4. Cast Touch of Chaos to refresh Corruption if it is about to expire and/or before you leave Metamorphosis.
  5. Cast Soul Fire whenever you get a Molten Core proc.
    • When your target is below 25% health, Decimation will make this spammable as long as you have enough Demonic Fury available.
  6. Cast Void Ray if it will hit at least 7 targets.
  7. Cast Touch of Chaos otherwise.

In situations where you need to quickly burst down enemies that won’t live for very long, you can throw in 2x Chaos Wave followed by Carrion Swarm (being mindful of the knockback if you aren’t using Glyph of Carrion Swarm). These abilities are not worth using otherwise.

demonology warlock core abilities window

Tanking With Glyph of Demon Hunting

Glyph of Demon Hunting gives you the Dark Apotheosis ability, which makes you capable of tanking while it’s active. Your Mastery: Master Demonologist improves this stance, further reducing any damage you take. The Warlock Tank dream is alive and well in Mists of Pandaria – but of course, it has some caveats.

Your taunt doesn’t work on bosses, for one thing. You also won’t have many of the other tools or stats that “real” tanks have. Don’t expect to be main tanking your raid, but you can definitely step up in a pinch and maybe even have some fun in dungeons with this glyph. Keep in mind that you will sacrifice some DPS while Dark Apotheosis is active, primarily due to the way it changes your main filler spells.

Dark Apotheosis replaces some of your spells with ones that make more sense for tanking:

You’ll also be able to use these abilities outside of Metamorphosis:

Snapshotting

The damage that each tick of your DoTs deals is based on your character’s stats at the time the DoT was applied. Thanks to your Pandemic passive effect, you can refresh your DoTs as early as halfway through their duration without wasting any of their existing duration. This gives you a lot of freedom to refresh your DoTs while under the effects of temporary buffs, a method that is known as snapshotting. Effective snapshotting will result in higher DPS than if you just refresh your DoTs right before their expiration every time.

As a Demonology Warlock, you will want to refresh your DoTs during Metamorphosis to snapshot the increased damage that is provided in that form. You’ll do this by re-casting Doom and using Touch of Chaos to refresh Corruption. WeakAuras or other addons can help you keep track of both your DoTs and your buffs so you know the best time to refresh.

Demon Pets

Demonology Warlocks gain access to a unique demon pet through Summon Felguard, which will provide the best DPS for the build. If you have the Grimoire of Supremacy talent, you will use Summon Wrathguard, which replaces it. You’ll also use Summon Abyssal or Summon Terrorguard as DPS cooldowns. We cover those in the cooldowns section below.

Other demon pets are available and can offer some niche utility when needed, but otherwise you should stick with the Felguard/Wrathguard pet for dealing damage.

Standard Demons

Grimoire of Supremacy Demons

Important Cooldowns

In addition to your core rotation spells, you have a number of abilities with longer cooldowns that you’ll want to utilize in opportune moments.

Damage Cooldowns

  • Dark Soul: Knowledge
    This is your main DPS buff as a Demonology Warlock, improving all of the effects of your Mastery: Master Demonologist by 30% for 20 seconds on a 2-minute cooldown. You’ll want to use this on cooldown with Metamorphosis to maximize your damage. If you’re using Glyph of Demon Hunting, it can double as a defensive cooldown with Dark Apotheosis.
  • Grimoire of Service (Talent)
    This talent allows you to summon a second demon for 20 seconds every 2 minutes. It will use one of its abilities immediately when summoned, making this both a DPS cooldown and a utility spell. You’ll typically use this to summon a second Felguard since double Felstorms are pretty powerful. The abilities each demon will use when summoned: Grimoire: Felhunter, Grimoire: Imp, Grimoire: Succubus, Grimoire: Voidwalker, or Grimoire: Felguard.
  • Imp Swarm (Glyph)
    This active ability replaces your Wild Imps passive if you are using Glyph of Imp Swarm. You’ll want to use this as often as possible if you have it, always lining it up with Metamorphosis and ideally with other buffs.
  • Summon Doomguard/Summon Terrorguard (Talent)
    Your other big DPS cooldown, which shares its long 10-minute CD with your other big summon below. This one hits very hard and should be used for single-target damage. He does more damage when the target is below 20% health. You’ll want to cast this right before Bloodlust so it can benefit from the buff.
  • Summon Infernal/Summon Abyssal (Talent)
    This demon summon shares its long 10-minute CD with your other big summon above. Use this guy when you are fighting more than 7 targets; otherwise the Doomguard/Terrorguard will do more damage. Cast it right before Bloodlust so it can get the buff when it goes out.
  • Mannoroth’s Fury (Talent)
    This talent lets you dish out some big AoE damage once every minute. Use it with Immolation Aura and cackle as your enemies explode.

Defensive Cooldowns

  • Dark Bargain (Talent)
    Your version of a Pally bubble, but with a big downside. If you use this to absorb massive damage, be prepared with some other defensives or heals, because you’re going to take half of that damage as a DoT once it expires.
  • Dark Regeneration (Talent)
    A self-heal for you and your demon pet on a 2-minute cooldown that offers a bonus of increasing the healing you received for the next 12 seconds.
  • Mortal Coil (Talent)
    You have other Fear abilities, so if you use this talent, you’ll usually be using it for the 15% health it restores to you on a 45 second cooldown.
  • Sacrificial Pact (Talent)
    Your demon gives up 25% of its health and you gain a nice big absorption shield equal to 100% of its health. Line this up ahead of a big damage spike and you’ll be good to go. With a 20 second duration and 1-minute cooldown you can have pretty good uptime on this one.
  • Twilight Ward
    If there’s Shadow or Holy damage on a fight, you can mitigate some of it with this buff. Its cooldown and duration are both 30 seconds, so you can maintain very good uptime on this if needed. If you have Dark Apotheosis active from Glyph of Demon Hunting, this ability becomes Fury Ward.
  • Unending Resolve
    Your basic damage reduction cooldown, which can be made even stronger with glyphs. Glyph of Unending Resolve will let you use it more often, but at a reduced effect, so if a fight has regular damage spikes that happen more than every 3 minutes you can choose to use that. Glyph of Eternal Resolve further reduces the effect but makes the ability passive, allowing you to better handle fights with constant ticking damage. If you’re not using the passive glyph, remember to use this ability often to get the most out of it.

Mana Cooldowns

  • Life Tap
    When your mana gets low, you can tap into your health to fill it back up. Be careful when and how you use this. Avoid using it if it will make your health dangerously low or if a big damage spike is about to go out. You should also cast it outside Metamorphosis so as not to waste the buff while it’s up.

Utility Spells

Demonology Warlocks have access to a variety of useful spells that are also worth mentioning.

Heals

Crowd Control

Movement

Buffs

Debuffs

Dispels

Revive

 

About the Author

Luxrah

I've been playing World of Warcraft on and off since vanilla, usually as a healer or caster and often as a guild leader. I play both retail and classic. I also love RPGs, sandboxes, and sims.
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