Quick Assessment on Felguard Raiding

So I spent a bit of time raiding as a Felguard spec 7/44/10. Granted I only did Gruuls lair (and Kara), but I did spend about 6 weeks as it and feel like I understand it well enough to give an assessment on it's level of performance and raid-viability.

Definitely raid-viable. Many raid leaders forbid Felguard specced Warlocks because they think that it is a non-raid-viable spec. Demonology is a PVP talent tree. They think that it does not do as much damage as Destruction (false), or that the Felguard can't survive raid encounters (false), or that the Felguard doesn't deserve to be healed or buffed (false). Demonology does a hell of a lot of damage, more than Destruction at many gear levels, much MUCH more at certain gear levels and specific bosses. In addition, the Felguard can survive most raid encounters perfectly fine with little need for extra healing. They are not much different than a BM Hunter, which I do not see anyone preventing Hunters from speccing BM. Buffing the Felguard further buffs the Lock. Being in a Shadow Priest's group is enough to keep the Felguard up most of the time.

Insanely High DPS. At my gear level (all T5 quality, but few T6 yet), Demonology was higher DPS than Destruction. Quite a bit higher too. I gained about 12% more DPS with the Felguard over Destruction. On some fights, Demo absolutely destroys. DPS is gimped a lot if you lose your Felguard to death (Felguard does 15-20% of your total damage), so any of the melee unfriendly encounters are going to also be unfriendly to your Felguard and be more difficult for you to maintain high DPS. But on other fights you can just send it in to attack and forget about it. It's like a persistent DOT.

Fun and Challenging. Unlike Destruction, where you are just spamming Shadowbolts for a minute or two before needing to refresh a curse, Demonology has a lot more to it. Since Sbolts do a bit less damage, Corruption and Immolate are likely better to keep up than not. And, obviously, micromanaging your Felguard is crucial to successfully raiding Demonology. It's a bit challenging at first, but not at all impossible to get the hang of it. Just move pet away if it is taking some damage. Pretty much follow what the melee is doing.

Lower Contribution to ISB Uptime. This is the only legitimate complaint about the Felguard builds. Because they spend less time casting Shadowbolts than Destruction Locks (75% compared to 90+%), there is less chance for you to crit and thus you provide lower uptime for the Improved Shadowbolt, which lowers overall raid damage (Shadow Priests and other Locks.) If you have enough shadow users, the loss in raid DPS will be greater than the gain in your personal DPS. In my case, we usually did not even have any Shadow Priests in the raid, thus it didn't matter. (This hurt my DPS, but that's another story.) You can exclude Immolate and Corruption from your spell cycle and just Sbolt spam of course. Your personal DPS goes down a lot, but you will get over 90% of your casting time on Sbolts, same as Destro, and contribute equally as them to ISB uptime. Depending on your personal gear and stats, Demo still may come out on top of DPS by a little.

Finally, making sure that your Felguard gets the full round of buffs that he deserves can be challenging, depending on the guild you raid with. They may be reluctant to give your demon buffs it missed due to being cast while you were still summoning it or if it died during trash. If you are lucky enough to be in a good guild, they should be understanding of this. But even if they are understanding, it is still a pain sometimes. It also uses up a lot of shards due to the need to sometimes resummon your pet to avoid a death (and in the process keep it's buffs.)

Once getting the 4pc T6 bonus, I would imagine Destro clearly outperforms Demo at that point as Sbolts scale best with Destro. Getting more crit and haste at that level would probably benefit Destro more too. But till that time, Demo should perform very well. A lot of early T6 fights are very melee friendly in fact, so Demo should be very good.

In conclusion, I discovered with many already have (see Raiding With Felguard) - that the Felguard is a very worthy Raiding spec. It is a very fun, challenging, and rewarding experience. It's also great for farming or doing Daily's or even PVP between raids. The added challenges and potential loss in ISB uptime, however, maybe make Destruction the better build for serious raiding. At the end of the day, when I joined a new raiding guild, I didn't even ask to raid with the Felguard. I went back to good old 0/21/40 Destruction just because it is easier. There are enough challenges in raiding - sometimes you don't want to add more.

PS. There are 3 "almost" necessities for successful Felguard raiding. 1 - Having the 2pc T5 bonus. 2 - Having the Voidstar Talisman. 3 - Being grouped with a good Shadow Priest. I unfortunately, dispite having seen it get disenchanted many many times, do not have the Talisman. I do have the 2pc T5 bonus, which helps keep the Felguard buffed, and normally, in a real raiding guild, would be grouped with a SPriest, which also helps with keeping the demon healed as well as restoring mana (which felguard uses to cleave.) If I ever get the Talisman, maybe I'll try out some Felguard raiding in MH/BT.