Warlock • Demonology • PVE
Demonology Warlock (PVE)
A demon-focused spec that delivers consistent damage through powerful pets and strong survivability.
Talents
Demonology in TBC revolves around Summon Felguard and the massive power increase from pets scaling with your stats. Your Felguard becomes a true damage source—especially valuable on movement, CC, or downtime encounters—while talents like Soul Link, Demonic Knowledge, and Demonic Tactics boost both you and your demon. The result is a simple, consistent raid build that performs well early and scales as your gear improves.
Core Idea
Felguard Scaling in TBC
Demonology receives a major buff in TBC because demons scale with your stats. For every 1 Spell Power you gain, your demon gains 0.57 Attack Power and 0.3 Spell Power. Your demon also gains 0.3 Intellect per 1 Intellect and 0.3 Stamina per 1 Stamina, making your pet increasingly valuable as you gear up.
Demonic Knowledge Feedback Loop
Demonic Knowledge turns a portion of your pet’s Stamina and Intellect into Spell Power, creating a scaling loop where improving your stats also improves your pet, which then feeds back into more damage for you.
Pet Management Notes
Keep the Felguard Alive
Your DPS is heavily pet-dependent. If the Felguard dies, your output drops sharply until it’s resummoned. Use tools like Fel Domination and be mindful of avoidable damage to keep uptime high.
Mana Feed (1 point)
One point in Mana Feed is typically enough. Every time you Life Tap, your Felguard gains mana as well, letting it use abilities like Cleave on cooldown without running dry. With strong raid mana support, you can sometimes get away with fewer points here.
Flex Points
Improved Corruption (1 point recommended)
A single point in Improved Corruption reduces the cast time so Corruption better matches the global cooldown. Some players take two points, but keeping at least one is strongly recommended.
Where points can move
Points can be flexed between Destructive Reach, Shadowburn, Intensity, and Improved Corruption depending on preference. Intensity is a common place to add points for pushback protection if you find interrupts/pushback annoying.
Why We Take Destruction Talents
Improved Shadow Bolt
Improved Shadow Bolt is a major throughput talent even for Demonology. It increases the damage of your primary filler spell and provides additional raid value by boosting Shadow damage taken by the target.
Bane
Bane reduces the cast time of Shadow Bolt, directly increasing your damage output and smoothing your rotation. Even small reductions in cast time add up significantly over long encounters.
Devastation
Devastation increases the critical strike chance of Destruction spells. Since Shadow Bolt is classified as a Destruction spell, this talent provides a meaningful DPS gain through higher crit frequency.