Demonic Circle has been quite a favourite of mine since it was first introduced to Warlocks. In Mists of Pandaria we got a new spell added, Demonic Gateway, which allows up to 5 people to teleport between two portals. Today I wanted to have a look at fights when these abilities can be useful for your raid.

Throne of Thunder

Jin’rokh the Breaker

On this fight, you can put down your Demonic Circle in the middle of the room where your raid will be stacking for Lightning Storm. If you want to, you can also put down a Gateway for the same, if you have people in your raid who are slow at moving out of the waters.

Ji-Kun

Put your Demonic Circle in the middle of the room so that you can use it for Down Draft and avoid getting kicked off the platform. Again, you can put down a Gateway in the same location if you want to help some raiders out who maybe don’t have any movement increasing cooldowns.

Iron Qon

Use your Demonic Circle to quickly get to the gathering for your group in the first phase. For phase two, you can put a Demonic Gateway down for a few people to quickly get away after Windstorm.

Terrace of Endless Spring

Sha of Fear

Put your Demonic Circle close to the tanks in the middle. This allows you to dps the adds more or less anywhere, and still teleport in time to avoid Breath of Fear. You can also put a Gateway inside the Wall of Light, with the other one outside where adds will spawn to help out your team mates.

Heart of Fear

Imperial Vizier Zor’lok

Put a Demonic Gateway between the first and second platform to allow people to move quickly across and avoid the pheromones. Make sure no dps gets across and starts attacking the boss before the tank though, since they will most likely die. Also, don’t let the tank take the Gateway, because they won’t be able to generate aggro for 15 seconds afterwards.

In the phases with Force and Verve, you can put down a Demonic Circle on one side and stand on the opposite. That way you should always have an easy way to get to a safe bubble.

Blade Lord Ta’yak

Place a Demonic Circle at the gathering-up spot for Unseen Strike. This allows you to stand fairly far away to place tornadoes aimed at you, and still gather up quickly enough when someone is targeted. Or you can use it to quickly get away from Blade Tempest on Heroic Mode.

A Demonic Gateway can be very helpful for people to move down the tornado alley quickly. Place it at the end of the room where you will first have to run towards (left side).

Grand Empress Shek’zeer

Use your Demonic Circle to get away if you get targeted by one of the adds in the transition phase.’

Mogu’Shan Vaults

Feng the Accursed

Place your Demonic Circle away from Feng to quickly get away after you’ve been gathering up for Arcane Velocity.

Gara’jal the Spiritbinder

You can put your Demonic Circle close to the boss to quickly get back to dps after returning from the Spirit Realm.

Elegon

If you’re lazy (like me), put a Demonic Circle on your gathering spot. That way you can easily get back there after the transition phase ends.

A Demonic Gateway makes for easy movement between the gathering spot and the sides during the transition for your raid members.

Will of the Emperor

Put a Demonic Circle on one side of the room where the Emperor’s Courage will spawn to quickly get behind him to dps. Then put a Demonic Gateway in the middle of the room to the other side, where the Emperor’s Courage will spawn. This way you can always get behind the Courage when it spawns and start killing it.

Do you have any tips to add to this list for when you can make use of Demonic Circle and Demonic Gateway?

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Recently we had a look at the glyphs available to us as Warlocks, and this week I wanted to take a closer look at our talent tree. What do our talents actually do, and when are they useful?

It’s going to be a fairly brief look, just to give us an idea of what they can be used for, with a focus on PvE content. For a more in-depth look at each talent, I suggest you head on over to Warlockery who is taking a much closer look and examining all aspects of the talents.

Tier 1 Talents (level 15)

Dark Regeneration
I’m personally quite fond of this talent. It’s a nice heal for yourself with a 2 minute cooldown, which means that you can choose when to use it yourself. In addition to healing you for 30% of your health (over 12 seconds), it also increases healing done to you by 25%. This means that you heal yourself and it gets easier for the healers to bump you up at the same time!

I usually use this on fights where I want some control over my own health, for example for Blade Lord Ta’yak and running down the whirlwind alley.

Soul Leech
When specced into Soul Leech some of your offensive abilities (depending on your specialisation) will heal you for 20% of the damage done. It’s nice for fights with continuous damage as it will continue to passively heal you as you dps throughout the entire fight.

Except for times when either of the other two talents might be useful, this is most likely your best choice.

Harvest Life
This turns your Drain Life into an AoE drain that heals you a bit and does some damage to all enemies within 15 yards. There are few, if any, boss fights where this will truly shine since neither the healing or dps is all that much.

Personally I do find it a fairly fun talent though, but I’ll mainly use it for soloing or in dungeons with huge trash packs. I don’t think I’ve used it for any boss fight so far.

Tier 2 Talents (level 30)

Howl of Terror
Your standard AoE fear of up to five enemies. This would be a PvP talent more than a PvE talent since there are few, if any, situations in PvE where you’d need a fear.

Mortal Coil
The new version of our old Death Coil, which causes the target to run in horror for 3 seconds and heals you for 15% of your maximum health. While the horror effect won’t work on bosses, the heal will and means that this is one of the most useful talents that you can take in this tier. Self-healing is never a bad thing!

I use this talent on pretty much every boss fight where I don’t feel that Shadowfury is nice.

Shadowfury
This ability stuns enemies within eight yards for three seconds. It’s nice for PvP, but there are also a few boss fights where this may be useful. Usually ones where there are adds that can be crowd controlled. Personally I use this talent on fights like Will of the Emperors to stun the Emperor’s Rage mobs as they come running, or  stunning adds on Elegon etc.

Tier 3 Talents (level 45)

Soul Link
If you have a demon up, you and your demon will share all damage done to you, as well as all healing done. Your demon’s health will be reduced by 50% though. If you use the Sacrifice talent, and don’t have a demon up, you will instead receive a 20% health bonus. It’s actually really useful, since all of our self-healing abilities are based off of max health. With this talent our health (with sacrifice) is higher, which means our healing is higher! Also, remember that this talent replaces Health Funnel.

This talent I use on any fight where I don’t feel that I need Dark Bargain.

Sacrificial Pact
This causes your demon to sacrifice 50% of its health to provide a 10 second shield that absorbs 200% of the health sacrificed. If you don’t have a pet, it will take the health off of you instead. One possibility is to use this during an AoE phase, since your demon generally will take a lower amount of AoE damage, so the lost health won’t kill it – and instead you get a nice absorption.

Since I tend to run with the Sacrifice grimoire I admittedly haven’t ever used this talent. I haven’t found a time when I would choose it over either of the other talents, but for a spec with a demon out, there may be times when it’s useful.

Dark Bargain
Using this gives you a full absorption for eight seconds, where you take no damage. After the eight seconds, you will take 50% of the damage you absorbed as a DoT over eight seconds. This can be really useful in some fights to prevent you from large damage, as long as your healers are aware that you will need some healing after it wears off.

One fight where I’ve been using this, for example, is on Feng the Accursed. If I get the Arcane Resonance and can’t run to the boss during Arcane Velocity. It’s a life-saver for moments like that!

Tier 4 Talents (level 60)

Blood Horror
This is an instant cast ability that lasts for 1 minute, with a 30 second cooldown. When someone hits you with a melee attack, they are basically feared (it counts as a horror effect though and won’t apply dmr for Fear) for 4 seconds. It only has one charge though, so you’ll want to time it well. It’s mainly a PvP ability.

Burning Rush
Increases your running speed by 50%, but drains 4% of your health every second while active. This ability can be really neat at times when you need to move quickly, but don’t necessarily have to worry about taking damage.

I sometimes use it on Will of the Emperors to quicker get into range of adds, or moving up and down the whirlwind alley on Blade Lord Ta’yak.

Unbound Will
Costs 20% of your max health and removes magic effects, movement impairment and loss of control. For example it can be used to break out of the fear on Grand Empress, or the Amber Prison on Wind Lord, or the Petrification by trash in Mogu’shan.

Another time when it can be useful is on the first boss in HoF. While it won’t break you out of his mind control, the 20% health removed will help your raid members to quicker get you below 50% to free you.

Tier 5 Talents (level 75)

Grimoire of Supremacy
With this talent your demons are replaced with stronger ones, that deal 20% increased damage and have slightly different abilities. It’s currently a good talent that will provide nice dps for a Destruction Warlock. You can use it as Demonology as well, but Service is generally preferred.

Grimoire of Service
This will summon a second demon that will fight for 20 seconds, on a 2 minute cooldown. Demonology Warlocks currently fare very well with this grimoire since it allows them to time it with their other cooldowns and abilities and get some good burst numbers.

Grimoire of Sacrifice
With this talent you will sacrifice your demon for a buff to your own damage. It means no micro-managing your pet, and with the current scaling it has proven to yield the best dps results for Affliction Warlocks.

Tier 6 Talents (level 90)

Archimonde’s Vengeance
This talent has an active and a passive ability. The active ability makes you reflect 25% of the damage you take back at your target for 8 seconds, with a 2 minute cooldown. The passive ability reflects 5% of the damage you take back at the attacker. The passive ability generally doesn’t work for AoE effects (that are considered environmental).

Using this talent is quite neat on fights where you take large spikes in damage at times, that you can reflect back to the boss. Blade Lord Ta’yak for example.

Kil’jaeden’s Cunning
Out of our top three talents, I will admit that this is my favourite. It allows you to move while still casting. As you do so though, your movement speed will be reduced, but it’s usually not a big deal. For most fights that require movement, this will be your go-to talent. Not having to cancel casting for moving out of fire, or repositioning, is just too yummy to pass on.

Mannoroth’s Fury
This makes the radius of your AoE spells about five times bigger. Not a big deal, necessarily, but useful on some fights. For example it can be used to place a well-timed Soulburn: Seed of Corruption on Elegon to make it hit all of the sparks during his phase shift (if you’re Affliction).

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Today we will have a look at the Minor glyphs that are available to us. These are mainly cosmetic or fun glyphs, so choosing which ones you use is entirely up to you.

Carrion Swarm (Demonology)
With this glyph your Carrion Swarm will no longer have a knock-back, something that will most likely be appreciated by tanks in instances.

Crimson Banish
This turns your Banish from green to red. Since we’re getting green fire soon, I think we should keep our Banish green!

Enslave Demon
Not much use to this glyph. It reduces the cast time of Enslave Demon by 50%. Maybe if they added a fight where Warlocks had to enslave some big, bad demon? Please Blizzard??

Eye of Kilrogg
This glyph can actually be quite fun. It allows your Eye of Kilrogg to fly around, and seems to let it do so even if you cannot (not indoors though). So if you’re leveling in Pandaria, it can actually help you by flying up hills and placing your Portal.

Falling Meteor (Demonology)
With this you can use Demonic Leap while falling to not die. You still take damage though. If the fall would have killed you, you end up with 1 health. If you time Demonic Leap correctly though, you will take 0 damage even without the glyph. However, this provides you with a bit of a fail-safe if you have high latency, so that if you time it wrong you won’t die. (Just almost!)

Felguard (Demonology)
Make your Felguard look all stylish by giving him different weapons! Do note that it appears that the weapons have to be in your actual Backpack (the original starting one).

Gateway Attunement
This glyph means that your Demonic Gateway will activate when you’re close to it, rather than having you click on it. It could be useful, but I have to admit it makes me worried about getting too close and sent across when I don’t want to be!

Hand of Gul’dan (Demonology)
Allows you to target your Hand of Gul’dan spell where you want it, rather than it hitting your targeted mob.

Health Funnel
This makes you instantly heal your demon for 15% of your health, rather than channeling. However, it gives Health Funnel a 10 second cooldown. To be fair, you could probably heal your demon quicker with Soulburn+Health Funnel as an Affliction Warlock, but it may be nice for the other two specs.

Nightmares
Your Dreadsteed and Felsteed can now run on water! Not only that, but they leave a trail of fire behind them as they do so!

Shadow Bolt (Demonology)
Changes your Shadow Bolt into three smaller bolts. This used to be useful because each bolt had a chance to cause procs. However, it seems these days they don’t seem to proc much more, and there may be other glyphs that are more useful. (It still looks pretty cool though!)

Soulwell
This makes your Soulwell glow with eerie light, as it says. I personally like this glyph because it makes the Soulwell much easier to see and less likely for your raid members to ignore.

Subtlety (Affliction)
Purely cosmetic, since it makes your Soul Shards not show out of combat. Nice for those who may not like the look of them.

Unending Breath
Lets you swim 20% faster with Unending Breath. Always nice, since swimming is soooo boring and slow!

Verdant Spheres (Affliction, Destruction)
Purely cosmetic, changing the looks of your Soul Shards into Verdant Spheres.

Personally I tend to run with Verdant Spheres, Soulwell and Nightmares.

Which minor glyphs are you enjoying the most?

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Mists of Pandaria brought along with it some changes to our glyph system, leaving us with only Major and Minor glyphs. I wanted to take a look at the glyphs available to us, and what they do. Today we will have a look at the Major glyphs.

Conflagrate (Destruction)
With this glyph you no longer need to have Immolate on the target to trigger the snare. This can be quite useful in a PvP setting.

Curse of Exhaustion (Affliction)
Using this, your CoEx will reduce the movement speed by 70% (instead of 30%), but will only last half as long and receive a 10 second cooldown. There are few PvE uses for this, but it can be useful in PvP.

Dark Soul
This glyph can be a dps gain in fights where you won’t use your Dark Soul ability on every cooldown. Say, if you’re saving it for a recurring phase where the boss takes extra damage.

Demon Hunting (Demonology)
This is the so called “tanking-glyph” of the Demonology Warlock. However, it should be noted that you’re definitely not a tank, you just gain a taunt and become a bit harder to kill. It’s a nice glyph for soloing, and it might work for you to pop it and briefly tank something while the real tank is being resurrected. It’s quite a bit of fun though, and you look pretty cool, getting to run around with demon wings!

Demon Training
When using this glyph your demons’ special abilities will be “improved”, but truth be told it’s not really much better. I’ve seen little to no use for this glyph in PvE since it doesn’t seem to have any dps increase. However, it might be nice for soloing, since it does increase the Voidwalker’s armor by 10%.

Demonic Circle
This glyph reduces the cooldown on your Demonic Circle ability by 4 seconds. In PvE there are few fights (if any) where I have found myself needing a shorter cooldown, so I would say this is more useful in a PvP/Arena setting.

Drain Life
When using this glyph your Drain Life spell heals you for an additional 30%. It should be noted that this does not seem to apply to Harvest Life, if you’ve specced into that.

Ember Tap (Destruction)
With this glyph your Emper Tap will heal you for an additional 5% of your health, but it will do so over 10 seconds rather than instantly. Personally I generally prefer the instant heal, but this can be useful during a fight where you know there is sustained damage or a DoT you can negate with the over-time version.

Everlasting Affliction (Demonology, Affliction)
With this glyph your DoTs will last 50% longer, but do 20% less damage. It’s not really a good deal for us, in either Demonology or Affliction since 20% is quite a bit less damage and your up-time should be fairly decent. However, in a multi-target fight, this might become useful simply because it might be hard to keep DoTs running on several targets at once. If you’re having issues with your DoTs falling off one or more targets, then using this glyph may increase your dps on that fight.

Fear
This glyph probably would not be used much in PvP, since the 5 second cooldown could be quite bad. However, it can be useful if you’re doing a controlled dungeon run where you need good crowd control. It will be nice to not have your feared target running around the entire room pulling the next five or so packs. Do remember though, that unlike other CC abilities, your Fear does still trigger combat!

Healthstone
Your healthstone will restore double the amount of health, but will do so over 10 seconds. I personally prefer the one-time use on my healthstones (especially since it can crit, which I’ve not seen this do), but there might be fights where this is useful. If you know you’re not going to take more damage for a while, or there’s some sort of DoT on you, then maybe this is nice.

Imp Swarm (Demonology)
This teaches you an ability to summon 5 imps, which will all deal damage to your target. However, you won’t be able to spawn any new Wild Imps while this is active. (The ones that are already up when you pop them remain though.) It can be nice for when you need extra burst damage. They seem to provide you with Demonic Fury when attacking as well, so with 5 of them, you should get a fair bit while they’re up.

Life Tap
When using Life Tap you no longer lose health, instead you absorb healing done to you for 30 seconds (in my current gear it absorbs 63 230). It can be a nice glyph for not giving your healers a heart attack, but it also means you have to pay a bit more attention to the fight. There are times when you really won’t want to Life Tap, but to be fair that’s the case when it costs health as well. However, it should be noted that when you’re out soloing and maybe not being hit (cause your demon is), it will essentially mean a free Life Tap, since you won’t need heals and it won’t use your health.

Shadowflame (Demonology)
Different from previous expansions Shadowflame is now an effect caused by Hand of Gul’dan, and this glyph increases the slow to 70%, but leaves your HoG with only 1 charge instead of 2. In PvE it’s not a very useful glyph since you’ll usually want that second charge of HoG. However, it can be quite useful in PvP.

Siphon Life
This will make your Corruption or Immolate heal you for 20% of the damage dealt. A useful little healing boost throughout the fight.

Soul Consumption
I would say that this is a leveling glyph (or possibly for questing/soloing), since it heals you for 20% of your health when killing something that would give you experience or honour. PvP may also be quite a nice use for this. However, you need to kill them with a specific ability depending on your spec. Affliction – Drain Soul, Destruction – Chaos Bolt or Shadowburn, Demonology – you have to be in Demon Form (Dark Apotheosis seems to count for this as well.)

Soul Swap (Affliction)
Using this glyph you will leave your DoTs on your target when you Soul Swap them over to the next one, but you will incur a 30 second cooldown on the ability when doing so. It’s generally considered a dps increase, even with the 30 second cooldown. It makes it much easier to keep DoTs running on more than one mob.

Soulstone
With this the target you Soulstone will come back to life with 100% health. It’s quite a nice glyph, and if you often find yourself being the person battle rezzing (ie. you have no Druid or DK), it may be well worth it to keep your healers happy in raids.

Unstable Affliction (Affliction)
This will cause Unstable Affliction to deal damage to both the target and the person dispelling them, but removes the silence effect. Possibly nice for PvP, but little to no use in PvE. (This glyph is most likely changing in the next patch.)

Which Glyphs Should I Use?

It’s pretty much to each player’s preferences to choose which glyphs to use this expansion. I will list my own choices, but remember that you have to choose what works best for your own play style. Also, it should be noted that at times it can be useful to switch glyphs for specific fights.

Affliction

Soul Swap
This glyph I chose because I like having my DoTs ticking on both targets, rather than moving them from one to the other. It’s supposed to be a bit of a dps increase as well.

Siphon Life
In a raid setting, I just don’t see there ever being a bad time for a bit of extra healing. We have other people that usually handle our resurrections in combat, or I probably would have switched this for Soulstone. But since it takes me a couple of seconds to resurrect someone, while the other classes do it instantly, we usually have them do it.

Healthstone
Getting more healing out of your healthstone is never a bad idea. If there’s no other glyph that works better for the fight (some are quire situational after all), then this is always a nice go-to glyph.

Destruction

Soulstone
Destruction doesn’t seem to have many Major glyphs that make a big impact, so I’ve just gone for ones that provide some utility. Should I ever need to Soulstone someone, having them return with full health is usually appreciated.

Siphon Life
In a raid setting, I just don’t see there ever being a bad time for a bit of extra healing.

Healthstone
Getting more healing out of your healthstone is never a bad idea. If there’s no other glyph that works better for the fight (some are quire situational after all), then this is always a nice go-to glyph.

Demonology

Demon Hunting
While not necessarily very useful in a raid setting, I just love this glyph that turns me into a mini-tank. It’s proven quite fun to have in Scenarios.

Imp Swarm
What can I say? I love having my own little army of imps! Also, it’s nice to be able to time it for a nice little dps increase.

Siphon Life
In a raid setting, I just don’t see there ever being a bad time for a bit of extra healing.

As mentioned before, it’s largely up to you to choose which glyphs you use, and you can even change them depending on the fight. Which glyphs are your favourites?

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