Demonology Warlock DPS Talent Builds and Glyphs - Wrath of the Lich King Classic

By Zephan Updated: 2023/03/07

Talent Builds for Demonology Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich KingIncinerateSoul FireMolten CoreDecimationFelguardDemonic EmpowermentUnholy PowerMaster DemonologistDemonic TacticsMetamorphosisImmolation AuraShadow CleaveDemonic PactDemonology 0/56/15 Warlock DPS Talent BuildFel SynergyImproved HealthstoneFel SynergyImproved Demonic TacticsSuppressionFelguardDestructive ReachCorruptionIntensityConcentration AuraSeed of CorruptionImproved Demonic TacticsMana FeedFelguardCorruptionCorruptionSeed of CorruptionImmolateAftermathTalents for Demonology Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich KingAffliction Tree Talents

Suppression

Suppression is another slightly revamped talent, which greatly sees improved use. Instead of only increasing the spell hit chance of Affliction spells it now also increases the hit chance of other specialization spells, such as Destruction. There is also some mana cost reduction for Affliction spells, but that is not impactful. Extra spell hit rating allows us to gear differently, this most notable makes an impact in the earlier phases of the game.

Improved Corruption

This talent is a good option to spend spare talent points to further increase the damage from Corruption and increase the crit chance of our main AoE spell Seed of Corruption.

Demonology Tree Talents

Improved Healthstone

Improved Healthstone increases the health gained from our Create Healthstone, and multiple different versions of Create Healthstone can be held at the same time thanks to Improved Healthstone. The biggest benefit of this comes during progression where every little bit of health counts.

Demonic Embrace

Who doesn't like more health? Demonic Embrace increases our total amount of stamina. The added benefit of this is that our demon also gains 75% of our stamina, which in turn with Demonic Knowledge results in spell power.

Fel Synergy

Keeping our pet alive to deal damage and provide us with Demonic Pact is important. The upgrade to Avoidance already helps with this, and Fel Synergy helps soften the load further for our healers.

Demonic Brutality

Whilst a stronger Voidwalker Sacrifice is always useful, the biggest benefit from this talent is the increase to Attack Power grained from our Felguard Demonic Frenzy.

Fel Vitality

Just as with Demonic Embrace, anything that increases either stamina or the intellect of our Felguard results in more spell power for us thanks to the synergy with Demonic Knowledge. A tad bit more mana for us also doesn't hurt.

Soul Link

Soul Link is one of the more iconic Demonology talents, feared by all that stands before us. The 20% damage funnel to our pets isn't all too significant for PVE. However, it is a must-have talent to unlock the rest of the Demonology talent tree.

Fel Domination

Fel Domination is a huge quality of life spell, it allows us to significantly faster summon our demon. This can also be a life safer when our previous pet has died or we are in dire need of another sort of demon for the specific situation we find ourselves in.

Demonic Aegis

This effectively makes Fel Armor give us 39% spell power instead of 30% for every spirit we have. Keep in mind the more spell power we have the more the raid has thanks to Demonic Pact.

Unholy Power

Unholy Power increases the damage of all of our demons. Additionally, it also opens up Mana Feed and Master Demonologist further down in the Demonology tree.

Master Summoner

Aside from faster summoning in general this also causes our summons to be instant cast in combination with Fel Domination.

Mana Feed

The usefulness of Mana Feed mostly depends on what content we are doing. In raid situations, there is enough mana regen from buffs and debuffs and it is unlikely that our Felguard would ever run out of mana. However when solo playing or in group content the chance exists that our Felguard runs out of mana and no longer can cast Cleave.

Master Conjuror

Three times as many haste rating on our Grand Spellstone provides a significant amount of essentially free cast speed.

Master Demonologist

Depending on which demon you have out Master Demonologist provides a different buff. For PVE we mostly care what our precious Felguard provides, namely extra damage done for all of our spells.

Molten Core

Molten Core affects a wide range of our spells and affects our rotation. It causes Immolate to last 3 ticks longer along with Corruption being able to proc a buff also called Molten Core. This buff causes both our Incinerate and Soul Fire to deal more damage along with increasing the crit for Soul Fire and the cast speed for Incinerate. This causes us to use Incinerate instead of Shadow Bolt whenever it procs.

Demonic Empowerment

Demonic Empowerment is an on-use cooldown that buffs the DPS from our demon. What is unique however is that it doesn't occur a global cooldown. Meaning we can effectively use it in combination with any other spell. We want to use this spell as often as possible, and can potentially macro it together with another spell so we can set and forget about it. The only exception is that we don't want to use it when our Felguard is still moving into position.

Demonic Knowledge

Demonic Knowledge is a huge source of spell power. Demons inherent 30% of our intellect and 75% of our stamina, this is further boosted by Blessing of Kings (both on the player and the pet), Fel Vitality, Demonic Embrace, and buffs on our pet.

Demonic Tactics

Who doesn't like more big yellow numbers on their screen? This talent not only increases our crit chance but also that of our pet, which is beneficial for Demonic Pact.

Decimation

Soul Fire has always seen limited use in PVE in both Vanilla and The Burning Crusade. Decimation makes sure to change that, it essentially makes Soul Fire our finisher spell once a target reaches 35% health.

Improved Demonic Tactics

Improved Demonic Tactics isn't a mandatory talent, but depending on your gear level one of the better single-target DPS ones that you can pick up. The more crit rating you have the more chance your pet will have to crit and deal additional damage.

Summon Felguard

Felguard is a mans best friend, or at least a Demonology Warlock's best friend.

Nemesis

This talent significantly lowers our most important cooldowns Demonic Empowerment and Metamorphosis. Fel Domination being on a shorter cooldown is nice too.

Demonic Pact

Spell power is essential for all magic users, Demonic Pact aims to spread the joy that Demonology Warlocks have thanks to their plethora of spell power. Demonic Pact provides 10% of spell power to the rest of the raid, making it the strongest spell power buff in the game. Aside from that it also increases the damage of all spells we use by 10%.

Metamorphosis

Finally, our dreams come true, we can talk to our best friend the Felguard, all the while we look like Illidan. All jokes aside Metamorphosis is an incredibly powerful cooldown that introduces a lot of anticipation to make use optimally. On top of that, we gain a bunch of cool new abilities to use such as Shadow Cleave, and Immolation Aura.

Destruction Tree Talents

Improved Shadow Bolt

Whilst we are Demonology Warlocks, a major part of our damage still comes from the time in between when we are applying our damage over time debuffs. This time we fill up with Shadow Bolt spamming. This does mean that a good portion of our damage still comes from Destruction spells and as such we want to boost that wherever we can. Improved Shadow Bolt not only increases the damage from our Shadow Bolt, but it also causes Shadow Mastery which increases the spell crit chance against the target, benefiting Corruption and Unstable Affliction via Pandemic.

Bane

It is self-explanatory why reducing the cast time of our main filler spell Shadow Bolt is a big boost in damage. The more Shadow Bolt we can cast in the same time frame, the more damage per second that we can deal out.

Ruin

Ruin helps us increase the critical damage caused by our filler spell Shadow Bolt. The bigger the yellow numbers, the better the parse... that's how the saying goes right?

Aftermath

The points we have left after spending them on the essentials can potentially be used in Aftermath to further increase the damage our Immolate deals.

Intensity

You could put 2 points into Intensity for the reduced pushback, along with Concentration Aura from a Paladin this removes the possibility of pushback occurring, aside from Seed of Corruption for AOE.

Destructive Reach

Another option would be to put them into Destructive Reach the issue with that is that you still need to move closer to use Corruption and your curse.

Glyphs for Demonology Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich KingMajor Glyphs

Glyph of Life Tap

Spirit is more valuable than ever before, partly thanks to Glyph of Life Tap (and Fel Armor). Life Tap converts spirit into spell power for a duration of 40 seconds. This makes Glyph of Life Tap one of the strongest Glyphs for all the Warlock Specializations. It should be stated that you can Life Tap before combat, to start an encounter with the buff already up.

Glyph of Felguard

Our Felguard is good for roughly one-fifth of our total damage, being able to boost his Attack Power by 20% is nothing to snuff at.

Glyph of Quick Decay

Whilst Corruption isn't the biggest source of our damage, this is one of the better glyphs we can use to boost our total damage.

Glyph of Metamorphosis

This glyph increases the duration of our Metamorphosis by six seconds. We mostly would use this instead of Glyph of Felguard, when our Felguard can not deal any damage in the fight.

Minor Glyphs

Glyph of Drain Soul

Glyph of Drain Soul is the only minor glyph that has any noticeable impact, we spend plenty of time casting Drain Soul, and in turn, spending all the Soul Shards we can get. This reduces the requirement to farm Soul Shard. All other minor glyphs aside from this one do not provide any real impact.

Glyph of Unending Breath

Swimming a tiny bit faster is always welcome whenever we go for dipping our toes.

Glyph of Souls

It doesn’t happen too often that you will need to summon closely before combat, so the benefit of this is rather a small bit of convenience.

Demonology Warlock DPS Talent Builds and Glyphs - Wrath of the Lich King Classic

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