Warlocks have been reworked from top to bottom in World of Warcraft: Forever, and Demonology has come out of it looking like one of the most fun leveling specs in the game. Pets now scale from your stats, Soul Shards are far easier to get, and a new set of talents means you no longer have to throw your demon away to get the most out of the tree.
What Changed For Warlocks
Before getting into talents, here are the baseline changes that shape how Demonology plays:
- Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom are now Banes. You can only have one Bane per target, but it no longer competes with your utility curse.
- Curse of the Elements now affects all magic damage, and Curse of Shadows is gone.
- Firestone and Spellstone are now weapon imbues that stack with things like Wizard Oil.
- Life Tap scales with Spirit.
- Drain Soul has a progressive chance to grant a Soul Shard on each tick, until one is guaranteed.
- Pets scale from your own stats.
Talents start at level 10, with gold medal milestones at 11, 16, 21 and 31 points. Dual Specialization unlocks at level 40, so you can pick up a second spec for dungeons or PvP later on. Blizzard also showed off a lot of this in its class rework video for Druids, Warlocks and Priests.
How Demonology Plays Now
Demo now has more of the Beast Mastery Hunter feel with your pet doing roughly 35% of your total damage. The two talents that define the spec are Demonic Brand and Demonic Energies. Which honestly is nice and fits the fantasy of controlling powerful demons more now.
Demonic Brand makes your Searing Pain brand the target, causing your pet's next two attacks to deal Fire or Shadow damage. Blizzard tweaked its threat so that only tanking pets like the Voidwalker get the extra threat from Shadow damage. Demonic Energies heals your pet for up to 15% of your spell damage and sends up to 100% of your Life Tap mana to your demon, which keeps your pet alive and casting through long pulls.
The other big change is Demonic Pact, the new 31-point talent. It keeps your Demonic Sacrifice buff active even after you summon a different demon.
Talent Order
Here is the talent order I would use for leveling:
- Five points point in Improved Corruption in Affliction. (can change this later, helps early leveling. You can wait till mid thirties to go into demonology as well.)
- Unholy Power, Demonic Energies, Improved Voidwalker, Master Summoner and Improved Succubus.
- Fel Domination at level 29.
- Demonic Sacrifice at level 30.
- Demonic Knowledge, Fel Vitality and Master Demonologist.
- Demonic Pact at level 41.
- Finish Improved Corruption, then push into Affliction for hit, Fel Concentration, Curse of Exhaustion and Nightfall.
A word of warning: Blizzard's latest Warlock deep dive lists Grim Reach among the removed Affliction talents, so if your talent calculator still shows it, it is out of date. Suppression is now where Affliction gets its hit chance. Blizzard's notes also say Demonic Knowledge grants up to 33% of your level as spell damage, which is lower than some community tables show, so double check it in game.
Which Pet To Use
- Succubus: Great for early leveling damage. Lash of Pain scales with spell power, while the Voidwalker's Torment does not. I will probably use this all the way to 60 unless there is a lot of PvP or certain mobs needs Felhunter.
- Voidwalker: The best choice for two-target cleave and once Demonic Pact is online.
- Felhunter: A strong pick on PvP servers.
- Imp: Weak for leveling right now outside of Fire Shield and Blood Pact, which is why it is the one to sacrifice.
Time saving tip: Since Soul Shards are much easier to get, it is often faster to resummon a hurt pet than to heal it. Much like hunters you need to control your pets, so use focus-target pet macros and binding pet attack and follow commands to your mouse.
Curses And Rotation
Because Banes are separate now, your utility curse is free real estate. At low levels, Curse of Weakness rank 1 removes a flat 4 damage from each enemy hit, which is huge. At level 14, Curse of Recklessness costs 35 mana and strips 175 armor, which can be about a 10% boost to physical damage against a mob with 200 armor. That makes it great for your pet to do some real damage.
The basic rotation is Bane of Agony, Corruption, your utility curse, Searing Pain, Immolate, keep Demonic Brand rolling and finish with your wand. Take enchanting and try to get your enchanting wands early to speed things up, make a little money possibly and save mana. You can also work on picking up a Gravestone Scepter as an early wand for some good power and mana saving.
If you are still choosing a race, Blizzard's final racial tuning pass brought back Orc Command, which boosts Warlock and Hunter pet damage by 5%. That makes Orc a strong Demo pick on the Horde side if you are looking into more PvE, however I would choose Undead for PvP personally.
Are you planning to level a Demonology Warlock in WoW: Forever, or are you going Affliction or Destruction?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.