I appreciate your work, but unfortunately it's gonna be quite redundant as the tier13 bonuses are right around the corner. And as soon as you stick your head through those 2pc doors, that MWC is gonna skyrocket back up top on that charter for the enhanced duration. For me at least I'm currently using the 2pc and as demo I can't see any excuse not to.

Lominen, you are correct that my simcraft results are meaningless without considering the T-13 2pc bonus and if you have heroic trinkets already, your gear is probably much better than mine. I swapped in a T-13 helm just to pick up the T13 2pc bonus and used your trinkets.

My results still show better dps replacing MWC at least at my gear level. I guess the takeaway here is that ymmv in when to switch between MWC and other trinkets. For example, it is most likely optimal to use MWC and demon switch during Deathwing when you are guaranteed 2 full Doomguard durations. [edit: simcraft showed this not to be the case for BiS gear]


Here are my simcraft results:


Old DPS: 41237 (with 4pc T12)
New DPS: 42479 (with 2pcT12 and 2pc T13)

With T13 2-pc and replace DMC:V with CoC, ilvl = 410 and use MWC: 43,630
With T13 2-pc and replace DMC:V with CoC, ilvl = 410 and MWC with IoTCM, ilvl = 410: 43,770

Thus dropping pet twisting and dropping MWC can result in better Demo damage (in this case 140 dps).

I am only getting a ~1200 dps increase from 2-pc T13 with my gear, so perhaps better gear and pet scaling with higher stats are the reason your MWC sims so much higher.

Is Simcraft able to model the behavior where a pre-cast Soul Fire, immediately followed by a soulburn, causes the shard to be refunded? As much as I hate pet-twisting, I can imagine that this "trick" could prove useful. Has anyone attempted to model it?

If you soulburn that early, won't the buff (not the spellpower, but the actual soulburn effect) run out before you actually want to swap pets?

So I am currently running with VPLC:Heroic and IofCM:Heroic but only running with 2PT12 and 2PT13.

I am trying to work out if it is still optimal to pet-swap to achieve the greater Demon Soul which would also increase the value of MWC to the point where it would probably be worth using over VPLC:Heroic.

I am currently seeing an increase of DPS by pet-swapping with MWC and IofCM:Heroic equipped over using VPLC:Heroic, on a 6m simulation. Furthermore I simulated pet swapping without MWC which resulted in a decrease.

IofCM:Heroic and MWC with Pet Twisting: 45318 dps
IofCM:Heroic and VPLC:Heroic without Pet Twisting: 44682 dps
IofCM:Heroic and VPLC:Heroic with Pet Twisting: 43850 dps

I won't have my staff until next week, so I wouldn't know, but can the extra HoGs/incinerates/shadow bolts/soul fires proc'd from the staff cause impending doom? I know the mechanic is quirky with attonement priests, for example - so I am just curious.

Add in a GCD to get CoE up, *after* the tank has aggro so you don't pull the mob instead and any time needed for you and the FG to get into position and it becomes an exercise in futility on pretty much anything except Ultraxion. If you don't apply CoE yourself and wait for a potential Boomkin or DK to get it up then you're prolly gimping your first few spells anyway. The boomkin will be dropping 2 dots, starsurge and treants before bothering to cast wrath or starfire. If you're lucky they pre-place wild mushrooms but you certainly can't count on it. Don't know about DKs, I suspect they get Ebon Plaguebringer up pretty fast.

The first thing any unholy DK does is outbreak, applying both diseases and Ebon Plaguebringer. So it should be up almost instantly, so if you start with an immolate, the debuff will be up by the time you Immolate lands. If you start with a corruption or BoD, then it's just whoever did it faster. So I would start with Immolate to give the UH DK time to outbreak, then put your other dots up while you get into position, and commence to ruin the charts.

It doesn't matter if the target has the magic-damage-taken-debuff when you cast the DoT, only when it ticks, though Immolate does have an initial damage component as well so it's something of a special case.

Secondly the amount by which you "gimp" your first few spells has to be offset against the opportunity cost of applying CotE yourself. At a practical amount of haste it's not a personal loss to wait for someone else to apply it if it they manage to do so within 13 seconds or so, but the loss for the rest of the raid is a bit more serious and likely warrants popping it on yourself.

Finally, if your demo locks are "ruining the charts" then you're probably doing something wrong ;-)

Hi everyone,

After many tries, i couldn't build a macro i wanted for an almost perfect pull in demo spec.

I would like to : Use a volcanic potion, use moonwell chalice, demon soul, meta, replace my moonwell trinket by another one and eventually switching my pet with soulburn.

Is it possible or there is too many elements ?

Thanks !

That's true, it's when the dot ticks. With that in mind, you should first put up corruption or bane of doom, during that time frame your boomkin or unholy DK will already be giving you the bonus, then you can proceed to cast immolate and have it's initial damage component take advantage of the bonus as well.

And yes obviously if you're the only one who can supply it, you should CotE.

Well, if you're a demo lock and you're ruining the charts, you're doing everything right, and everyone else is doing everything wrong There are a few fights where demo locks really do shine though. Heroic Yorsahj is one for example where meta/immo aura and hellfire catapults you to the top during black slime phases, which are almost everytime. Even more so if you have a yellow combined with the black for double adds. But yes, in general demo locks aren't at the top of the charts, nor are they are the bottom however.

Probably, since Meta does a snapshot of our stats at the moment we use it, so it would keep the mastery buff.

I usually play Affliction, the The OP statement that reaching the haste threshold for an extra corruption tick is something that should be achieved is got me a little confused. Following offsite from the Aff thread I got this little tidbit;

So thats what 2 extra Incinerate casts? Is that really the reason we want to reach that Haste threash hold? or is there some other synergy going on, say with felstorm or immolation aura?

Maybe you should try to read these threefolded range lines advicing which haste thresholds to head for like: 'Almost any reasonable reforging within this range of ilvl will most probably put your haste rating near <haste threshold> anyway. So do yourself a favour and stay on top of this very rating, as you gain an extra GCD every xyz recasts'. E.g. wowreforge has put my lock (ilvl 392) to 1575 haste rating with just 'hit to cap and mastery>haste>crit' setting after optimization run. There's a 'Your mileage may vary' disclamer given before.

And yes, this comes down to just a free Incinerate roughly every 2.5 minutes, assuming we are still talking about rather pure patchwork-like encounters.

However it is only the corruption thresholds that have any bearing on single target dps since under normal circumstances immolate is only cast once and then refreshed incidentally with HoG for the remainder of the fight.

So currently, Pet-twisting is only optimal with Moonwell Chalice. However, there are certain fights where you hold off on meta for increased damage burn phases, with this in mind, do you think it would be viable to pet twist during these scenarios?

A perfect example would be Zon'ozz. In general, people are delaying meta to line up with his increased damage burn phase. Do you think it would be worth hard-casting a felguard out ~6 seconds before the burn phase, then demon soul/meta going into the burn burn phase?

I plan on running some LFR tonight to get a few Zon'ozz kills trying the pet-twisting strategy, and not, then comparing them to get a better idea whether this will perform better dps or not.

Hey folks, its the first time posting here, if any of it does not fit the demo topic then i am realy sorry & if the question has been asked already then once again i am sorry.

Now from one lock to many i sit with a question. Yesterday we did Spine hc but i am not a demo fan at all.
Its been told to me a demo i great at the Tendons but i am not realy that convinced, weither it is gear related or not remains a questionmark for now.

We are with 2 demo locks, me who has an ilvl of 391 and a demo lock of ilvl 401 i believe.
Our damage on the tendon is obviously different but then i am talking about a gap of 600-900k from me and 900-1.5m from him.
You only have like what ? 19 seconds to burn the tendon ? So ye a demo lock has to pop he CD's like 2-3s before the tendon reveals itself and then start to burn it but the question now is how can i approach this properly ?

me and the other lock had a chat and came to the conclusion doing the following
Pot -> Trinket -> Demon Soul -> Metamorph -> Incin 1x -> BoD -> DG -> Felstorm -> Leap -> Immo Aura -> Soulburn Felpup -> Incin spam

We didnt do it this way yet and well if you only have several seconds the time to burn the tendon, wouldnt Destro be bether ?

Destro and Afli are suboptimal for damaging tendons.
For max perfomance of demo following gear is very helpfull: 4 t13, moonwell chalice, either of the badge use trinkets, enough gear for 2000+ haste, everithing else reforged to hit cap and mastery.
The best priority for tendons is following:
For 1st, 3rd and 5th opening, Felguard active:
-At 10-15% of amalgamation use chalice,
-3 seconds to the end of chalice buff pot is used (best bet 3rd tendon, 5th opening)
-use doomguard on the 1st and 5th opening with 2t13, else on 5th opening (i don't use any intellect buffs for this pet on this boss, it's not worthwhile for 19 stconds of tendon)
-use meta
-use macro with soulburn, use trinket and orc buff (this should happen after death of amalgamation, second before opening tendon
-use immo aura
Tendon opens:
Inci (for 5% crit debuff) - doom - felstorm - immo - corr - hog - shadowflame - inci - inci - ....
When felstorm finishes you should change pets with active soul burn to felhunter with the active assist, it will bite tendon twice.
For 2nd, 4th and 6th opening, Felhunter active:
Chalice cd will be up shortly before tendon, so use it when amalgamation dies
-use meta
-use macro with soulburn and orc buff
-use immo aura
Tendon opens:
doom if target 40%hp+, if less don't bother - Inci (for 5% crit debuff) - immo - corr - hog - shadowflame - inci - inci - ....
In order to have meta each opening, you need at least 2000 haste, some luck and higher pririoty for fillers (inci - soulfire - hog) on amalgamation and blood.
Have log of 6,3 million damage to tendon in 25 ppl, which was the best result for demo warlock in world of logs two weeks ago World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis
PS Everything i wrote works only if you main goal is to damage tendon, overall damage is horrible.

A couple of clarifying points to Rublik's post above:
1. You actually want to use potion/blood fury/spellpower trinket prior to soulburn in your macro to get the most out of the 10% spellpower increase from 4pc T13, then pop demon soul.
2. Use the doomguard prior to the appearance of the tendon, his duration is longer than the tendon's so there is no point to using that GCD while the tendon is already out.
3. macro your first ability (CoE, incin, or BoD depending on your raid comp) with petattack like this: /target Burning Tendon/petattack/cast [spellname]. Clear your target prior to the tendon appearing and spam this macro to ensure the most possible uptime on your target for you and the pet.
4. on lifts 2 and 4 make sure you use soulfire before the soulburn runs out so that your shard is refunded.
5. Spec incinerate. Unglyph metamorphosis in favor of corruption glyph for nightfall procs.
6. try to spread some immolates and corruptions around right as the amalg is dying/during nuclear blast. Additional molten core and nightfall procs will help your dps.
7. Hardcast your FG directly after the 2nd and 4th lift when the plate flies off and don't forget to reapply soul link.

I have been simming trinkets and various gearing plots between my present gearing (394'ish ilvl) and theoretical BiS setups. In both 0/31/10 and 3/31/7 specs I'm seeing heroic insignia + heroic cunning coming out ahead of the traditional cunning+heroic will by a couple hundred dps. 432-1 simcraft, 450 duration, vary 20%, elite skill, all raid buffs/debuffs, 10K iterations, standard/default priority. Not having to stack will might be a small gain but as I understand it h.will is modeled as being at full stacks in simcraft. Am I missing something?

Due to rounding I guess, 1993 isn't the corruption breakpoint. At 1994 I was getting 24.99% haste with DI and Mind Quickening, at 1995 I get 25.00% and my corruption increases in duration.

Edit: disregard this post, Keldion is correct. With 1993 haste, 3% from DI and 5% from the aura my character sheet haste is 24.98% but my corruption does indeed still get the extra tick.

With DI and the 5% haste aura, Corruption spikes to a 19.2 second duration at 1993.