Which Specc you gonna play when Legion hits

[Dalheim]

I didnt like Destruction on the PTR, I liked Demo but I dont know how to play it atm, I really enjoyed Affliction however so I might go Affliction for Legion.

[Deleted]

Demo. I was waiting a long time for a summoner, I liked the look of Metamorphosis, but I am glad it is gone. I will probably didn't change a spec for a whole expansion, unless demo will be a far behind other specs.

[Blandalf]

Think I will level as Affliction and pick up Destro asap for end game.

[Jessicka]

I didn't say they have to axe it...but there are ways they can spice it up and make it better...right now it's just a annoying buff you need to use every time you summon something because your pets are almost useless otherwise.

No, really, they should. The spell has absolutely no feedback mechanism, nothing to indicate that it's even giving you anything and the damage returns spread too thin to be even be particularly noticeable even if you look at floating numbers - but who actually has time for that? You can't see the pets in melee, which means the only "feedback" is if you start paying direct attention to your army of Imps; which you can't do because you need to worry about your own feet. Beyond that, it's a poorly conceived UI feature. You can't fix a spell with addons. Even if you could, that shouldn't be the answer.

I had my reservations about it from the outset, but held off until I actually tried it, and somehow it turned out worse than expected. I'm not a huge fan of maintenance buffs, but I'll tolerate them if they have a useful feel and feedback to them; I wasn't as resoundingly critical of Soulburn: Haunt as many other posters on here have been because of this; you cast a spell, it did damage, you got a decent graphic, and most of all you could see your multidotting benefit from it - and further, you had a ton of wiggle room to reapply in line with the rest of what you were doing to actually get the most from both it and Haunt. But DE is a maintenance buff done wrong in every conceivable way. It's nothing more than additional cast-time for existing spells because it literally offers nothing beyond making your pets do what they should be doing anyway and, being pets, would never be offering enough throughout to justify the ramp up. It's worse even than Mana Tap, which I'm really not fond of, but at the very least excuses itself by pretending to be optional.

The worse thing for me though, is that DE isn't even the worse thing about the spec.

[Gaidax]

Demonology is actually smooth as butter, it only needs some way to frontload damage and it will be fine.

Destruction is as good as ever, even better because now it suddenly has optionally great single target, decent mobility and can burst on pull nicely, it got some hit in AoE, but it's not AS bad as people say (probably because many did not figure out that RoF stacks now yet). You can even spec it in such a way to have most of the stuff in one package - clearly a frontrunner spec. It is also the only spec that does not have gimmicks like D.Emporwement or Soul Effigy and even Mana Tap and Soul Harvest are not the best options there let alone not mandatory and gimmicks it did have with Havoc and Shadowburn got huge QoL improvements. Heck, it even got cool new toys like rifts and Lord of Flames, which is hilarious at times.

I'd say my only two complaints with it are the fact that I have to use Imp for optimal single target and that it got the cool effects removed such as Verdant Spheres, power radiation and such.

Affliction is a bit bland however... there is just not much going on really and it's numerically seems weak too.

[Amorelie]

Demonology is actually smooth as butter, it only needs some way to frontload damage and it will be fine.

i agree.. Demonology is smooth, but just until you have to move, because u loose so much dps then. i think the damage atm is not worth the effort you put in to summon and buff your demons and time everything correctly.

[darkphiba]

I'll be going Havoc with vengeance off spec...

All joking aside, my Warlock will be Demonology, same as live, lucky enough to be in a guild that is happy for me to play a spec i enjoy rather than a spec i dont. That being said, we are currently unsure if we will need me healing again or not, so it could be holy pally, resto sham or misty monk.

Time will tell

[Jessicka]

i agree.. Demonology is smooth, but just until you have to move, because u loose so much dps then. i think the damage atm is not worth the effort you put in to summon and buff your demons and time everything correctly.

In respect to smooth, that translates to repetitive and deeply inflexible, which as you rightly say hammers it's mobility and dynamism in responding to fight conditions. That is the worse thing I was getting at.

[Anoregon]

No, really, they should. The spell has absolutely no feedback mechanism, nothing to indicate that it's even giving you anything and the damage returns spread too thin to be even be particularly noticeable even if you look at floating numbers - but who actually has time for that? You can't see the pets in melee, which means the only "feedback" is if you start paying direct attention to your army of Imps; which you can't do because you need to worry about your own feet. Beyond that, it's a poorly conceived UI feature. You can't fix a spell with addons. Even if you could, that shouldn't be the answer.

I'm inclined to agree with you. If they were to just remove DE entirely, buff the base stats of the pets to compensate, and return the demo mastery to being a passive pet damage increase, the spec would probably feel a lot better to play. This wouldn't solve the spec's other problems with mobility and multi-targeting, but it would be some improvement to ramp up time. There are of course other options to turn DE into something less onerous, but the chances of Blizzard doing that at any point prior to 7.1 (or even 7.2) seem very slim.

[demonicpanda]

I didn't say they have to axe it...but there are ways they can spice it up and make it better...right now it's just a annoying buff you need to use every time you summon something because your pets are almost useless otherwise.

- - - Updated - - -



Yeah, like demonicpanda said I was talking BM, Dire Beast is kinda similar to Dreadstalkers...shorter cooldown and duration...but DB is instant and it's proc can be reset, and doesn't need to be buffed to be useful...so it's like better in every way lol

To the first point, I guess I misinterpreted your bringing up other classes not having a DE mechanic as wanting it removed. I apologize. I'd kinda agree with removing it at this point though. They've had months and months of feedback on how it doesn't work in its current incarnation (and even worked worse with the previous charge incarnation) that I'd rather them just remove it, do a numbers tune on summons, and be done with it.

I was figuring that when they revamped BM we'd get a demon-themed copy of BM, with the way current Demo is, I'd ALMOST want one at this point. /sadpanda.

[joxur]

I will play whichever spec looks the best for damage across the most bosses (ie. single target vs cleave vs aoe). I would LIKE to play demo, as it's the most different in beta and I like the flow, especially after using some of the WeakAuras in the other thread that display the pet uptime and buff status. My fear is that balance tweaks mid tier will shift the specs a bit and i'll be behind the curve if I need to switch. Destro seems like the safest bet historically in that context, but I'm not crazy about the mastery.

Along the lines of my first point - has anyone done any analysis of the first two raid zones and the mix of single target, cleave and priority AOE? Am interested to see what the split is.

[Kithelle]

To the first point, I guess I misinterpreted your bringing up other classes not having a DE mechanic as wanting it removed. I apologize. I'd kinda agree with removing it at this point though. They've had months and months of feedback on how it doesn't work in its current incarnation (and even worked worse with the previous charge incarnation) that I'd rather them just remove it, do a numbers tune on summons, and be done with it.

I was figuring that when they revamped BM we'd get a demon-themed copy of BM, with the way current Demo is, I'd ALMOST want one at this point. /sadpanda.

Oh nah...just my point is everything they have is instant cast and it can be decently balanced...why can't Demo get a little flexibility like maybe the stalker instant or really fast cast.

I'd kinda like that...I was hoping maybe they would of made the Darkglare a permanent pet...which wouldn't be op...he wouldn't even be as effective as Hati.

[Xandrigity]

Affliction all the way, I can't wait

[nekobaka]

Likely demo for leveling and destro for group based content. Overall Demo does feel clunky though. I miss the spec of old. I do like the haunt mechanic being removed from Affliction. Hopefully I can find my way back to Affliction. I do like what the devs have done with the talent system. No longer just uber glyphs.

[striderZA]

Likely demo for leveling and destro for group based content.

Demo for leveling is an interesting choice, the Felguard is an atrocious tank.

[Deleted]

Demo for leveling is an interesting choice, the Felguard is an atrocious tank.

Why would you need a tank? You're tanky enough yourself. Even if you loose health, you're gonna be fresh for the next pull no matter what.
Going single target, having a pet tank is pretty unnecessary and for aoe pulls - just weave 2 sets of imps and implode. Splat.

I'm going demo for leveling as well. Just spam doom on everything you see, it doesn't even need to do damage to tag mobs. Plus, no matter the problems with demo, I will get my feet wet and test it out. If I need to abandon ship for mythic+ and raids, I will.

[striderZA]

Why would you need a tank? You're tanky enough yourself. Even if you loose health, you're gonna be fresh for the next pull no matter what.
Going single target, having a pet tank is pretty unnecessary and for aoe pulls - just weave 2 sets of imps and implode. Splat.

I'm going demo for leveling as well. Just spam doom on everything you see, it doesn't even need to do damage to tag mobs. Plus, no matter the problems with demo, I will get my feet wet and test it out. If I need to abandon ship for mythic+ and raids, I will.

Yes, you are tanky, but the mobs also hit a lot harder and you can't steamroll everything as much as you could for most of WoD leveling (given they also scale with your level). I've been sticking to FnB / Cataclysm / RoF stacking to burn things down, and running with the Voidwalker. Compared to the Felguard, his survivability is unquestionably better and he also cleaves for a decent amount of damage. Maybe that's just my experience though.

[Gaidax]

Tbh the only cases during leveling where you *may* need Voidwalker are group elites.

I found Felguard to be satisfactory enough as Demo and as Destruction I don't even use tank pet during leveling and it's just fine really, thanks to Shadowburn and Havoc you can simply just crater whatever mundane trash is attacking you before they get through your shield. Unless of course you pull like half a camp in which case you better have Lord of Flames up or at least Dark Pact and some rifts.

[Deleted]

Yes, you are tanky, but the mobs also hit a lot harder and you can't steamroll everything as much as you could for most of WoD leveling (given they also scale with your level). I've been sticking to FnB / Cataclysm / RoF stacking to burn things down, and running with the Voidwalker. Compared to the Felguard, his survivability is unquestionably better and he also cleaves for a decent amount of damage. Maybe that's just my experience though.

I won't argue with you, I haven't tried Destro in this situation.
I haven't done more than a level or so on the beta. But I never felt any problems with mobs hitting too hard as demo. Never had a felguard problem either, except if I accidentally leave him attacking several mobs alone. But I don't use assist just because of that.

The dealbreaker for me is obviously first and foremost that I prefer Demo and it's artifact, but also having a spammable instant dot for tagging. Live will be a massively different story than beta, with people everywhere*10. It's doable with conflag/shadowburn as destro as well, but at a cost.

Affliction will obviously be even better at this, together with even better survivability, but I just prefer demo. Both are dot classes, but at least there's something new about demo... no matter how poorly executed it may be.

[Elise the Seeker]

Choosing one spec seems so hard now. I'm scared to pick destro and get bored with it halfway, and then choose demo/afflic and get annoyed with it.