Demo Warlock - How to counter?

I have been playing wow for many years now, so I have played most classes and understand how to counter all specs, except Demo Lock. I have NO idea how the spec works, spesifically in a pvp setting.

I do arena as BM with a Rdruid 2v2.

Whenever we face Demo/Heals we just have no idea what to do, and I faced 3x Demos last night.

Would anyone be so kind as to just give me some kind of idea how to play against them, what to look out for, what to interupt etc.

Just a starting point for my research so that I can hop onto Google and carry on from there.

Thanks community.

Absolute wall of text inc. I played and adored Demonology in Legion/BFA, but if anything huge has changed in Shadowlands I may be wrong.

Demo is one of the most hard-cast centric specs in the game, playing around Soul Shard generators (Shadow Bolt, Demonbolt). They have two spell schools, Shadow and Shadowflame.

Their sustained damage rotation essentially just consists of generating Shards and then dumping them with Hand of Gul’dan (Shadowflame, up to 3 Shards, Imp per Shard), and Call Dreadstalkers (20 second cooldown, 2 Shards, Shadow).

Their burst involves summoning as many demons as possible, ideally a set of Dreadstalkers and 6 Imps, alongside possibly a second Felguard via Grimoire: Felguard, before casting Summon Demonic Tyrant, which buffs the damage of all existing demons, extends their duration, as well as does some damage of his own.

Summon Demonic Tyrant itself is a cast. When they attempt to burst, make sure to kick or otherwise delay Summon Demonic Tyrant as this will not only stop the cast, but also often cause them to miss the timing as their other demons begin expiring.

If they aren’t bursting, aim to kick Hand of Gul’dan, as this will lock out their entire kit. If you kick Shadow Bolt, they will still have access to Hand of Gul’dan and Implosion.

With regards to fighting them, they are vulnerable to all of the same mechanics that all pet classes are. Verticality will significantly hamper the damage of the pets, and line of sight is particularly effective against their Imps and Demonic Tyrant.

Killing their main Felguard will significantly reduce their pressure, as they lose access to its sustained damage and Mortal Strike. This will also disable Soul Link and make them super squishy. Fel Domination can be used on a 3 minute cooldown to cheat out a new pet, once that’s down it’s pretty much game over.

You probably won’t have much luck simply PvE’ing them midfield as BM. Despite how horrendously clunky they are, the amount of damage they can output if allowed is probably one of the most slept on aspects of arena.

Abuse line of sight to deny them hard casting on you, as they have no real mobility or slow. Demonology has a large array of CC, but it really wants to use it to secure kills, not to get damage out in the first place.

1 Like

Just kill the pet twice and then he can’t play the game for the next 3minute dying like a chips.

1 Like

I said the same thing to cervantes when he played Frost dk/hpala with snowmixy

He said “Sure bro I wish it was that easy” he literally killed the pet during the games and for some reason let the demo lock hardcast his pet summon right infront of him.

He lost.

1 Like

Name me a better duo.
I’ll wait.

I wouldn’t know I rarely watch streamers the only one I’d prefer to tune into is Drainer

Yes, imagine thinking pets are unkillable especially in sl… xD

Honestly as soon as I saw the pet summon changes going into Shadowlands I knew I had to drop my Lock.

Love the class through thick and thin but it’s only gotten more frustrating to play over the years and the idea of my pet getting dribbled down and then trying to resummon it with a 6 second cast time was the final straw.

There’s something funny about Blizzard nerfing the most underrepresented specs (Demono, Survival, Mistweaver) whilst only adding new Arms buffs continuously throughout the season AND in the next patch.

Like, I’m not even mad at the situation. It’s just comical at this point.

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.