My Demonology Spec

[Rekuul']

Ok, after much thought and some number crunching ive decided how I am going to spec my warlock:

*Demonology*

Improved Imp Rank 3
Demonic Embrace Rank 5
Fel Intellect Rank 5
Improved Succubus Rank 3
Fel Domination Rank 1
Fel Stamina Rank 5
Master Summoner Rank 2
Demonic Sacrifice Rank 1
Unholy Power Rank 5
Soul Link Rank 1
Demonology Total: 31

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*Destruction*

Cataclysm Rank 5
Bane Rank 5
Improved Firebolt Rank 1
Improved Lash of Pain Rank 2
Destruction Total: 13

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*Affliction*

Improved Corruption Rank 5
Improved Life Tap Rank 2
Affliction Total: 7

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Now, I imagine a bunch of people are going to call me crazy or just plain stupid for suggesting that as a viable PvP build, but I have some very good reasons for making this build.

There are some *key* abilities that I left out and I will give explanations for each.

First off, Dark Pact:

While being absolutely tremendous as a means to gain a nearly unlimited source of mana, this spell has one major short coming. Time. You have to sit there and spam it for 10+ seconds at 150 mana a shot. 1.5 second cooldown x10 uses = 15 second wait for 1500 mana. The benefit of course is that you can use it on the run while other classes have to stop and regen for their mana.

My plan is to replace this through the use of Lifetap. I can Lifetap myself down and then either have a party member heal me, or use bandages. This is obviously less effective but it is a *functional* solution for mana on the go.

Next up, Nightfall and Life Drain:

Nightfall is great... I love to see it proc. The problem is that it rarely procs when I need it to. In PvE shadowbolt is about the least effective thing I can use, even if it is instant. In PvP you can have it going a lot just because of all the dots you spam. Still, that just makes it easier for me to spam an inefficient damage spell and I will find myself out of mana before a fight of any length is over. Its use in PvP is reminiscent of my Druid spamming MF... it gets the job done, but you just blew all your mana on one of your least effective spells (although in the case of MF it can be effecient if you let the dot play out).

Life Drain. The only reason I use drain is to proc nightfall which I have realized is just a bad idea all around. I certainly shouldnt be using the spell to heal myself when im in a tight spot (because ill die, its just not that good) and im certainly not using it for DPS purposes because in that regard it sucks compared to most everything... especially Mindflay if you care to draw a similar skill comparison.

So instead of using nightfall to frontload my damage ill be spending my mana DOTing/debuffing everyone in sight and relying on my teammates and my pet to make sure no one gets away.

Last, Shadowburn:

Strangely enough my discussion with Nisstyr made me decide to scrap this spell. At the cost of one soul shard, this spell is hardly worth it. You wont be getting that soulshard back in PvP... ever, so its like throwing a shard away everytime you use it. This spell has no PvP longevity whatsoever and so it has no place in my tree.

Which brings me to the focus of this tree: Longevity in both an actual battle and over the course of an entire PvP session... (back and forth skirmishing for hours... you know what im talking about).

I can bring as few as 10 shards with me PvPing and shard costing pets out for hours on end. If I do eventually run out of shards I have a very buffed up Imp to be my pet which will not undermine the talent points I invested.

The Soul Link ability allows me to flat out live longer in combat if I become a target. If fear is countered/interrupted warlocks are up shit creek without a paddle in terms of escaping damage. This spell is salvation. (Obviously the only other solution is the Voidwalker... and having that out for its one good PvP ability once again... results in another thrown away shard).

Flexibility is also a strong point of this talent build because the strength of my focus pets (Imp, Succubus, and indirectly the Felhunter) allows me to have the right kind of pet for my group. Also the general power of the pets in this build is enormous, with almost every possible improvement - invested in. Do the math on the succubus alone and you will see that its DPS more than doubles as a result of this build (it actually nearly triples, if I remember correctly). This is where my burst dmg is going to come from. This lets me have my pet target the main (called, primary, whatever) target while freeing me up to DoT/Debuff everyone else.

The *instant* pet every 15 minutes is a cookie. Im not going try and make it out to be something its not. I probably wont use it very much but when it does get used it will almost definitely be immediately after or before saccing a VW and using Hellfire.

Which brings me to the two talents that I really wish I could put in. Intensity and Pyroclasm. AoE ownage in the extreme with those two talents, but sadly, as fun as that is... its not enough to make me want to design a talent build around them.

If I didnt go with this build, I would go with something extremely similar to what Nisstyr uses... but I dont want to do that because id rather try something different. This is the most effective build I could concieve of without going all the way into Affliction tree and letting my pet be a walking mana battery instead an offensive tool. I just refuse to give up abilities like seduction, counterspell, and even my imps improved firebolt so I can blast out more crappy shadowbolts, and thats what this really boils down to.

-Rek

[Av]

The problem with pet tree in pvp is the fact that you won't get shards, unless you're raiding a capital (guards are too low level otherwise - this is if you're lvl 60).

I'll stick to my affliction build =]

[Rekuul']

There are only 5 talent points in that build that arent going to be useful if I dont have stones. I can live with that.

-Rek

[Gigashadow]

"The Soul Link ability allows me to flat out live longer in combat if I become a target. If fear is countered/interrupted warlocks are up shit creek without a paddle in terms of escaping damage. This spell is salvation. (Obviously the only other solution is the Voidwalker... and having that out for its one good PvP ability once again... results in another thrown away shard). "

Well since you said you'll have the imp out in PvP, I'm not sure how much this will help, since the imp has very few hp. Also, apparently soul link shares your pets damage with you, and not the other way around (unknown if this is intentional or bugged).

One plus about Fel Domination, btw, is that you should be able to summon the appropriate pet on the spot; e.g. you are leveling, see a caster, and 1.5 + 0.5 seconds later, you have a felhunter out.

"Do the math on the succubus alone and you will see that its DPS more than doubles as a result of this build (it actually nearly triples, if I remember correctly)"

I don't think the succubus's damage doubles or triples. She gets 25% more melee damage, and does LoP twice as often for 25% more damage. So LoP goes from 99 every 12 seconds (8.12dps) to 99*1.25 every 6 seconds (20dps). Her melee damage will go from ~ 50dps(?) to 62.5dps. So her overall dps would go fromy58dps to 82dps for all those talent points you spent, which is only a 41% improvement, not a 200% or 300% improvement.

The problem with demonology is that it spreads you very thin across multiple pets. Also, since shards are hard to get in pvp, concentrating on anything other than the Imp seems pointless. Demonic Embrace + Improved Imp are good talents.

I think demonology is more of a solo PKer's or PvE'ers tree. Between Demonic Embrace and Soul Link (and the ability to summon another pet in 2 seconds), you could be practically unkillable. Having huge amounts of stamina is not very group friendly, though.

One interesting demonology build would be an Imp Demonic Sacrifice / Destruction build. You could get up to demonic sacrifice for +15% fire damage, and up to 5 Inferno, 4 Immolate, Holocaust. However, this would mean nothing in Affliction, not even Improved Corruption.

You would have some hellacious fire damage though. +20% initial immolate damage, +10% to all fire, +15% from sacrificed imp, +5% crit chance, 100% crit damage.

Base immolate does: 258+485 = 743

With the above it would do: 258*1.2*1.1*1.15 + 485*1.1*1.15 = 392+613 = 1005. And that doesn't count crit damage. Not too bad for 351 mana. Basically you'd be using immolate and searing pain mainly.

It's scary to think how much damage Soul Fire would do... 792*1.1*1.15 = 1001 damage on average, plus a good crit chance (~8% of doing 2000 damage).

The imp runs out of mana so quickly that you may be better off without it, and having it increase your fire damage instead.

[Nisstyr]

hey bro, the 150 on dark pact is just the first level of it, at rank 3 its 250 a shot, and i do it like once out of every 2-3 spells i cast so its not just like drinking water standing .

oh yea and like that guy said, its not a one way street with the soul link thing, its if you take dmg it shares with pet, and if pet takes damage you split it, and considering how often my pet dies in pvp im not sure if i like that idea.

I REALLY wish there was a viable build other then the affliction one.

Also on the nightfall thing, in pvp when you toss corruption everywhere i proc nightfall an obsene amount, and i think of nightfall as basicly a shadowburn. What i find myself doing in pvp is tossing corruptions and curses all over the place, and when nightfall procs i'll assist our main assist guy generally the warrior and toss an extra 500-700 dps at the main target.

ps.s i completely agree about shadowburn being bullshit in pvp, they REALLY need to get their head out their ass and allow us to get soulshards in pvp we're the only class that is completely gimped in pvp because we cant use 20% of our good spells.

[Rekuul']

Well, soul link does work as intended. I share 50% dmg with my pet. The idea is that between the improved imp and fel stamina even my imp will be able to soak a decent amount of damage.

Also, the increase to the succubus dmg is actually 45% not 25%. You forgot to factor in the increased power talent. Also If I play an orc that makes it a flat 50% percent increase to dmg with an ability that goes off twice as often. And a 50% increase to regular attacks. So thats 25dps from lash and 75dps from regular attacks. 100 - 58 =42. So I guess I exaggerated the difference but that is still nearly double the damage.

Soulstones just do not seem like that much of a problem with a pet build. Unless im constantly dying and forced to resummon, I can have the same pet out for hours.

Dark Pact... didnt know that Niss, that may change my decision again =(.

I dunno, I may not do this... Im wishing I had a capped Lock so I could test it at that point, but thats not gonna happen before release. As for the Destruction build... that reeks of a wannabe mage. Im not saying its bad... it just seems that a mage can do that kind of damage regularly without having to dump a bunch of talent points. Besides, I dont want my PvP to be spamming the same two spells over and over (Immolate, Conflagarate.)

[JonChron]

Considering most of your fights will probably be large scale in battle grounds, improving your AOE's can prove to be quite useful and fun.

You will gimp your affliction tree a bit, but I found I was still powerful enough to do alot of debuffs and dots while keeping a sufficient amount of mana via longe range and lifetaps.

By going with AOE's, you keep their healers busy and quite frequently stun casters midspell.

I have alot of fun letting my buddies stack snares on an enemy zerg, AOE fearing, and usin the shield/hf strat. ;)

IMO shadowburn is really only good for small group or solo pvp. If I had some shards that time up in darkshire, I think Tiv woulda been a little more dead a few times :)

None the less, you can't go wrong with mostly affliction.