We break down all the reasons you should consider playing Demonology Warlock in Patch 10.1 and even throw in a few reasons of why you might not. From all the changes since launch to the new tier set bonuses coming in 10.1, join us as we explore Dragonflight Season 2 Demonology Warlock!
Why You Should Play a Spec in Dragonflight Season 2 Series
Blood DK
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Arcane Mage
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Mistweaver Monk
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Dragonflight Season 2 Warlock Tier Set
Why You Should Play Demonology Warlock in Dragonflight Season 2 (and Why You Shouldn’t)
Demonology Warlock has continued to have a stable position in raiding despite going through some waves of being “meta” and then falling out completely. We are going into Season 2 on a high note with a lot of things looking our way after some talent changes and our new tier bonuses.
| Why You Should | Why You Shouldn’t |
Why You Should Play Demonology Warlock in Dragonflight Season 2
Demonology Warlock in Raiding and Mythic+
Demonology is looking to be very strong in raiding in particular bringing even more priority damage than before with some changes to our talent tree. The inclusion of Immutable Hatred, the additional buff to Reign of Tyranny and the synergy we get with Grimoire: Felguard and our tier bonuses is very strong with a looping damage effect between the tier bonus and Summon Demonic Tyrant damage increase for our demons.
These buffs to our talents in conjunction do also make us a prime target for Power Infusion and actually being so good for it that you will likely see Priests holding it to sync with our Summon Demonic Tyrant casts. We are back to the older playstyle of Demonology where we have big damage from our Demonic Tyrant thanks to now speccing into Reign of Tyranny instead of going for the shorter cooldown.
There are a good portion of fights in Abberus that will favour Demonologys damage profile given they are predominately all single target oriented with some stacked cleave:
- Kazzra: Pure single target, Patchwerk type fight
- The Amalgamation Chamber: While we are not favoured (typically) in Phase 1, Phase 2 is single target focused and we (again) bring a strong presence for that type of encounter
- The Forgotten Experiments: Full single target on Heroic and stacked cleave on Mythic, allowing us to play a hybrid AoE/Single Target build
- Assault of the Zaqali: Demonology brings strong priority damage for the shielded adds and the ability to easily take Implosion for the stacked cleave
- Rashok: There is some high movement requirement for this fight and will typically favour Demonology the most
- Zskarn: With enough stacked cleave and single target priority throughout the encounter another hybrid build will be favourable
- Magmorax: Another high single target DPS check plays extremely well into our favour
- Echo of Neltharion: With a mixture of single target and spread cleave (stacked cleave is possible but riskier), this encounter only slightly favours Demonology
- Scalecommander Sarkareth: Without testing we are only able to analyze the Dungeon Journal; that being said it seems there might be some stacked adds but will be predominately single target encounter
In terms of Mythic+, Demonology is still favourable due to our easy flexability into our AoE talents without losing out on a major source of priority damage making it ideal to play in any affix. You have the option of going high single target still while dropping Nether Portal in favour of Implosion for more stacked AoE.
Evolution of Demonology in Dragonflight
With overall few changes to our talent tree Demonologys evolution so far has been very smooth and overall remains the same playstyle and casting priority. Our toolkit expanded greatly with the addition of Immutable Hatred and the buffs to Reign of Tyranny, allowing us to move out of Grand Warlock’s Design and back into a hard hitting Summon Demonic Tyrant giving flashbacks of Demonic Consumption. There is a lot of familiarity with Demonologys overall playstyle that you will still get to enjoy because of this and further leans into the fun of being a main recipient for Power Infusion due to how powerful our cooldowns are again.
Why You Shouldn’t Play Demonology Warlock in Dragonflight Season 2
Overall there are not many reasons not to play Demonology Warlock for Season 2; many raid encounters favour our toolkit, Mythic+ we still bring good utility for all affixes but there are still some downfalls to Demonology that we can explore.
The Power Infusion Problem
As explored previously Power Infusion is extremely strong for Demonology this season and it is going to become a problem, quickly. Between lobbying for the external in the first place and quickly being a source of contention for damage meters, Power Infusion can become problematic. Not only do the Priests casting it not get the ability to use their cooldown on cooldown because we will want it synced with Summon Demonic Tyrant at all times but there is also the social issue of leaning all your Priests cooldowns into one or two Demonology Warlocks in your raid period.
In previous expansions this has also been an issue but players (for the most part) just wanted to see Power Infusion go to the player who would get the most use out of the cooldown. However now that Priests also get the take advantage of the buff after casting it on a party/raid member there is more than just one player to think about; how does holding the cooldown affect raid damage, the Priests damage, other peoples damage who are candidates for the buff. Do you hold the cooldown despite it being available, do you use it on someone else every other cast? The Power Infusion Problem is back and here to party for Season 2.
Nether Portal and playstyle changes
Nether Portal has been around long enough and has changed our mid combat playstyle long enough that most players are not too affected by this ability. However since you will still by in large be playing with it through Season 2 new or returning players will still have to adjust to what is arguably the clunkiest gameplay in a talent across any spec. The adjustment needed once every 3 minutes for 15 seconds can be jarring and as I have said for a long time, should be adjusted to summon a demon per Soul Shard used and not summon a demon every time you spend a Soul Shard. The duration of Nether Portal would likely have to be increased (or the demons summoned have their damage buffed) for this to happen and remain balanced with other talents but would increase quality of life tremendously.
Talent issues
Currently there are two talents that are bugged or just aren’t worth taking (as of this article) at rank 2; Umbral Blaze and Pact of the Imp Mother.
Umbral Blaze: The damage from this talent is extremely lackluster for having high talent investment requirement and being a two rank talent. Typically even at rank 2 the damage you receive from this talent is below the DoT effect your Summon Vilefiend casts once every 45 seconds. This is notably bad because you only get 1 casts of Vilefiends DoT per summon compared to the amount of Hand of Gul’dan you cast.
Pact of the Imp Mother: At rank 2 you do not actually get the 15% chance to proc an extra Hand of Gul’dan. Despite rank 2 seeming to be bugged and not working properly, even at rank 1 the extra casts do not seem that impactful, having 3 or 6 extra Wild Imps for your Demonic Tyrant is good and all but simply not good enough to warrant taking over other options that are available to you that late into the talent tree.
Season 2 Tier vs Season 1 Tier
Season 2 bonuses:
Season 1 bonuses:
Our tier bonus in Season 2 is extremely strong compared to Season 1. Where Season 1 bonuses were bland, did not really impact gameplay and had almost no synergies with talents Season 2 tier bonus is all about talent synergy and making gameplay interesting.
Speaking more towards the Season 2 bonuses we still get the feeling of Grand Warlock’s Design but instead of it applying to Summon Demonic Tyrant it applies to Grimoire: Felguard. The reduced cooldown of Grimoire: Felguard is something that players have been asking to get for quite a long time ever since they extended it to a 2 minute cooldown. Generally speaking this tier bonus allows you to get the cooldown to match that of Summon Demonic Tyrant combining for a very strong cooldown combination. It’s easily one of the strongest tier bonuses in all of Season 2 and is something that you can a look forward to obtaining as opposed to Season 1 where you wanted it but didn’t it wasn’t a priority for it to be given to you by your guild, etc.
About the Author
| I am known around these parts of the internet by my in-game name of Not. I have been playing a Warlock since the start of Cataclysm and have not really deviated from it since. I was the founder/creator of Lock One Stop Shop, a website that was made for Warlocks, by Warlocks. |
For more information on playing Demonology Warlock, please see our class guide updated for Dragonflight:
Demonology Warlock Guide
