New dev insight on 7.1.5 Destruction

[Lucrece]

What's even more puzzling is the buffs to assassination rogues. They're already fucking broken in single target, to the point of shadow priests if not ahead. And somehow demo, which is far behind them and arms warriors gets nerfed despite being far more reliant on not moving at all or being targeted by mechanics (lol cloak of shadows+cheat death, what mechanics?).

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...962&dataset=90

Guarm mythic, how in hell is demo middle of the pack despite being good at NOTHING besides turreting a single target with little movement?

Demo has no aoe, no target switching, no mobility. What's the point of a spec like that if it can't dominate in single target under ideal circumstances?

With the changes to PTR it's going to be quite the exodus from demo to affliction if malefic grasp stays as is since it might actually be a spec that competes with assassination and arms and is not crippled by movements or now all the rampant knockbacks that interrupt a TKC window.

[Deleted]

My "we'd rather people not play demonology" sense is tingling. It's problems are to integral to the fundamental design I can't see any significant changes happening before the next expansion.

Affliction didn;t have anywhere near the mechanical issues - Soul Effigy sucks but it;s no thard to create more attractive alternatives, eeven if it means dredging some stuff up from past expansions. Affliction single target issues can be addressed with numbers its easy to buff ST without mutli-dotting going wildly OP.

Demonology, I don;t thinkthey really know what to do with it.

What's really funny is seeing melee do so wellon Guarm, when he has phases where he's running around all over the place. Somethin glike that should be a dotuser's dream where the dots tick whicilst he's charging around....

but no.

Without that effect affliction woul dbe every bit as low as destruction.

[Deleted]

What's even more puzzling is the buffs to assassination rogues. They're already fucking broken in single target, to the point of shadow priests if not ahead. And somehow demo, which is far behind them and arms warriors gets nerfed despite being far more reliant on not moving at all or being targeted by mechanics (lol cloak of shadows+cheat death, what mechanics?).

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...962&dataset=90

Guarm mythic, how in hell is demo middle of the pack despite being good at NOTHING besides turreting a single target with little movement?

Demo has no aoe, no target switching, no mobility. What's the point of a spec like that if it can't dominate in single target under ideal circumstances?

With the changes to PTR it's going to be quite the exodus from demo to affliction if malefic grasp stays as is since it might actually be a spec that competes with assassination and arms and is not crippled by movements or now all the rampant knockbacks that interrupt a TKC window.

I am puzzled by this too. The demo nerfs make no sense.

But they have said that number tuning is still due. So with the nerfs to haste, grimoire of synergy and demonbolt I expect that Demonology Warlocks are actually getting a very beefy buff with the number tuning phase. Blizzard simply has to realize that demonology has a long ramp up time and is affected harder by movement than any other class. Going by logic it would make sense that speccs with a high ramp up time like Demo and Affliction actually do more dps once a fight last long enough compared to classes that can instantly access huge damage by just pressing one button.

The affli changes definitively make the most sense out of the warlock changes so far.
Destro changes are clunky, but ultimately decided by number tuning. I am sad that they didn't touch mastery which is universally hated. I am also confused that they didn't touch immolate proccrate for soul shards since basically everyone, without feretory, was complaining about st soul shard generation. It would be a pretty easy fix bumping the chance from 15 to 25% and the crit chance from 30% to 50% or something along the lines.

One thing I would love to see them do for demo is decrease the mana cost of spells or increase mana regeneration or whatever. The first minute is fine, but after you have depleted your initial mana pool the frequency of which you have to use life tap just bothers me. It really feels like life tap -> 3 casts -> life tap

[Deleted]

If they don;t buff demo back up again the logic is plain: they dont; want people to play it because they don;t know how to fix what people dislike without rebuilding it from the ground up again.

Affliction's problems were trivial in comparison. Look how the dealt with Soul Effigy; just create new, better options and allow it to sit unused. Maybe they think about demo itself like that.

[Maleific]

Deathglare doesn't feel bad. They just need to do the same for imps, and remove the ridiculous cd of dreadstalkers where the cooldown is longer than the duration of the dreadstalkers themselves.

Cut down on the amount of demonic empowerment casts the warlock has to do, and the demons seem far less of a ramp up.

Remove the shard cost off doomguard/infernal and the grimoire of service summons.

For demonology, specifically. I'm more of a fan of cooldown demons and synergy between the warlock and his main demon. In MoP/ WoD demo even the imps you procced off doom crits/ demonic calling fed you fury instead of just being another source of damage, I just loved how everything just worked lol.

Totally agree on shard cost for summons.

I'm not sure how well DE could work as say...a cooldown/ charges etc..

[Violetti]

I'm not sure how well DE could work as say...a cooldown/ charges etc..

Every time I read a proposed change for DE by the community I feel like it wont rly improve the gameplay. With Soul effigy they could have taken the easy route and just make it worse than the other talents and reconsider once they have more time.
Most ppl dislike DE as a spell, but I cant see a change that wouldnt make demo even more monotone outside of lining up demons for TKC

[Deleted]

Every time I read a proposed change for DE by the community I feel like it wont rly improve the gameplay. With Soul effigy they could have taken the easy route and just make it worse than the other talents and reconsider once they have more time.
Most ppl dislike DE as a spell, but I cant see a change that wouldnt make demo even more monotone outside of lining up demons for TKC

I would love to see a new demon that grants the aura of DE it would fit to spec theme and would also give us more demons to summon

Also demo got a single target buff with the 20% felguard buff + service

[Deleted]

I would love to see a new demon that grants the aura of DE it would fit to spec theme and would also give us more demons to summon

that would be sweet.

maybe some sort of demon who is hitting the drums to rally the troops and lifting the banner !

[Baconeggcheese]

Guarm mythic, What's the point of a spec like that if it can't dominate in single target under ideal circumstances?

Mythic guarm has a fair bit of movement unless by some miracle you never get targeted by foam and the correct breath color lands on you every single time. Ideal would be patchwerk.

I imagine demo will get some love in the coming builds, and hopefully a little something to help it with movement in the future.

[Toastiekins]

Mythic guarm has a fair bit of movement unless by some miracle you never get targeted by foam and the correct breath color lands on you every single time. Ideal would be patchwerk.

I imagine demo will get some love in the coming builds, and hopefully a little something to help it with movement in the future.

On my guild's kill of Guarm I got 4 melee foams in a row. At one point I thought I was dead because I thought it got dispelled onto me. Running back and forth over and over munched my DPS. I ended the fight at ~410k as demonology.

[Baconeggcheese]

Yeah guarms far from ideal for locks unless you get incredibly lucky.

Frankly after odyn the last 2 fights aren't exactly ideal for locks. So much movement.

[Toastiekins]

Implying that outside of Hyrja and Hymdall uptime Odyn is a great fight for us too.

[Lucrece]

Phase 3 odyn is hell for demo as well ;(.

At least until 7.1.5 comes in and Norgannon's is changed ;>

[Deleted]

I would love to see a new demon that grants the aura of DE it would fit to spec theme and would also give us more demons to summon

Also demo got a single target buff with the 20% felguard buff + service

Yep, already suggested that: you summon some sort of demonic commander that does damage itself and increases the damage of the others. It fits with the theme. Blizz are always worried about making pet classes do too much of their damage via pets and like all casters they dont; want demo locks to ever be idle (not without losing dps anyway). It's always been that way. But demo has plenty to do with building resource via Shadowbolt and spending it again via HoG/Dreadstalers etc.

A Pit Lord would be fine. I don't really see demonology warlocks as masters of demons, not if all they can manage are some imps and two dogs plus the felguard which hasn't change dit seems like forever. Why does PVP get a fel-lord but pve doesn't?

Feck me but Legion is full of demons so why is demo turning out so badly? It's like Burning Crusade where no one played demo cos it sucked then too. Even when they rejigge dit for Wrath the only reason to play it was to be the raid 10% buff bitch.

That demo single target is really small. It doesn;t even begin to make up for the nerfs. It would have to apply to ALL the demons including the Guardian ones just as a start.

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Yeah guarms far from ideal for locks unless you get incredibly lucky.

Frankly after odyn the last 2 fights aren't exactly ideal for locks. So much movement.

Sucks even more when melee do perfectly well on it, despite the charging phases which should screw them over.

Ironic that at the end of WoD the devs actually acknowledged that melee tends to get boned more by that sort of stuff than ranged, then they went and made demo which fares worse than melee ...

Guarm should be great for affliction with our dots ticking away and effigy all through that charging stuff. But affliction's single target is bad so...no.

[Lucrece]

Yep, already suggested that: you summon some sort of demonic commander that does damage itself and increases the damage of the others. It fits with the theme. Blizz are always worried about making pet classes do too much of their damage via pets and like all casters they dont; want demo locks to ever be idle (not without losing dps anyway). It's always been that way. But demo has plenty to do with building resource via Shadowbolt and spending it again via HoG/Dreadstalers etc.

A Pit Lord would be fine. I don't really see demonology warlocks as masters of demons, not if all they can manage are some imps and two dogs plus the felguard which hasn't change dit seems like forever. Why does PVP get a fel-lord but pve doesn't?

Feck me but Legion is full of demons so why is demo turning out so badly? It's like Burning Crusade where no one played demo cos it sucked then too. Even when they rejigge dit for Wrath the only reason to play it was to be the raid 10% buff bitch.

That demo single target is really small. It doesn;t even begin to make up for the nerfs. It would have to apply to ALL the demons including the Guardian ones just as a start.

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Sucks even more when melee do perfectly well on it, despite the charging phases which should screw them over.

Ironic that at the end of WoD the devs actually acknowledged that melee tends to get boned more by that sort of stuff than ranged, then they went and made demo which fares worse than melee ...

Guarm should be great for affliction with our dots ticking away and effigy all through that charging stuff. But affliction's single target is bad so...no.

Assassination rogues are so far ahead the other specs in single target outside spriest S2M shenanigans.

Assassination rogue is virtually an easymode feral, more payoff for half the effort. It has little ramp up comparatively to other classes, and it doesn't worry about tight snapshot windows like feral does.

[Tuskchi]

Hey guys, do you remember the times when NOT all 3 specs had viable PvE appliances?

I mean, come on, in the last 2-3 expansions, you could PvE with whatever spec u like ... but way back in my Days ... Demo was ABSURD to even consider for PvE. Soul Link was a pure PvP talent and full stop. In Vanila, TBC and even a bit later on, you could cross-tree a bunch of stuff and make very interesting builds, but demo was never wrecking face in PvE.

I haven't played much of WoD, or Middle of MoP with my wlock, but I've already given up on Blizzard giving us a TOP dps spec for each fight, which the wlocks to dance between. And that's what I see from most people. " I want AFFLI to be top on AOE, because sux for everything else" , " I want destru to be TOP ST, because U CAN ONLY CLEAVE WITH IT and no AOE " ... " I want DEMO to be top ST, because u are a turret " ...

I don't think that Blizzard would allow this from design perspective.

Also, take a look at the mage. They have Fire that's rocking the chars ... yeah Fire has good AoE and good ST, but what about Frost and Arcane? Put yourselves in the mages shoes ... Would you play a sub-par PvE spec, just because u don't want to be like 99% of your class ( or other reasons)? Hell No ...

I might be a big nostalgia freak, but I'm pretty chill with where the wlock is. I'm having fun playing it and I rly love the fact that it's the most underplayed class currently in the game. I'm relaxed and waiting for some buff in the next patches, where Blizz will break at least one of the 3 lock specs. =)

My 2 cents

[Orwell7]

Hey guys, do you remember the times when NOT all 3 specs had viable PvE appliances?

I mean, come on, in the last 2-3 expansions, you could PvE with whatever spec u like ... but way back in my Days ... Demo was ABSURD to even consider for PvE. Soul Link was a pure PvP talent and full stop. In Vanila, TBC and even a bit later on, you could cross-tree a bunch of stuff and make very interesting builds, but demo was never wrecking face in PvE.

I haven't played much of WoD, or Middle of MoP with my wlock, but I've already given up on Blizzard giving us a TOP dps spec for each fight, which the wlocks to dance between. And that's what I see from most people. " I want AFFLI to be top on AOE, because sux for everything else" , " I want destru to be TOP ST, because U CAN ONLY CLEAVE WITH IT and no AOE " ... " I want DEMO to be top ST, because u are a turret " ...

I don't think that Blizzard would allow this from design perspective.

Also, take a look at the mage. They have Fire that's rocking the chars ... yeah Fire has good AoE and good ST, but what about Frost and Arcane? Put yourselves in the mages shoes ... Would you play a sub-par PvE spec, just because u don't want to be like 99% of your class ( or other reasons)? Hell No ...

I might be a big nostalgia freak, but I'm pretty chill with where the wlock is. I'm having fun playing it and I rly love the fact that it's the most underplayed class currently in the game. I'm relaxed and waiting for some buff in the next patches, where Blizz will break at least one of the 3 lock specs. =)

My 2 cents

TBH this is the best comment nowadays. I should change my mindset about this "game" and just go with the flow. There is no fun in min/maxing anymore because it gets more and more frustrating for me.
But if I play just to have some "chill", I'm sure there are sooo much better games for that.

[Tamurello]

Quote Originally Posted by Tuskchi View Post
Hey guys, do you remember the times when NOT all 3 specs had viable PvE appliances?

I mean, come on, in the last 2-3 expansions, you could PvE with whatever spec u like ... but way back in my Days ... Demo was ABSURD to even consider for PvE. Soul Link was a pure PvP talent and full stop. In Vanila, TBC and even a bit later on, you could cross-tree a bunch of stuff and make very interesting builds, but demo was never wrecking face in PvE.

I haven't played much of WoD, or Middle of MoP with my wlock, but I've already given up on Blizzard giving us a TOP dps spec for each fight, which the wlocks to dance between. And that's what I see from most people. " I want AFFLI to be top on AOE, because sux for everything else" , " I want destru to be TOP ST, because U CAN ONLY CLEAVE WITH IT and no AOE " ... " I want DEMO to be top ST, because u are a turret " ...

I don't think that Blizzard would allow this from design perspective.

Also, take a look at the mage. They have Fire that's rocking the chars ... yeah Fire has good AoE and good ST, but what about Frost and Arcane? Put yourselves in the mages shoes ... Would you play a sub-par PvE spec, just because u don't want to be like 99% of your class ( or other reasons)? Hell No ...

I might be a big nostalgia freak, but I'm pretty chill with where the warlock is. I'm having fun playing it and I rly love the fact that it's the most underplayed class currently in the game. I'm relaxed and waiting for some buff in the next patches, where Blizz will break at least one of the 3 lock specs. =)

My 2 cents.

I kind of agree with you in that we cannot expect the 3 specs to all be top dps however i think the issue was that none of the 3 lock specs was competitive and they were all arguably broken in one way or the other. In previous expansions we have always had at least 1 viable option however now there is the elephant in the room, artifact power.

At the very least we should get an AP refund post patch

edit: actually don't think thats possible due to the way the weapons are designed.. doh

[Deleted]

A big problem with niche specialists is that they get taken where they shine and benched where they suck.

[Pokeypenguin]

I kind of agree with you in that we cannot expect the 3 specs to all be top dps however i think the issue was that none of the 3 lock specs was competitive and they were all arguably broken in one way or the other. In previous expansions we have always had at least 1 viable option however now there is the elephant in the room, artifact power.

At the very least we should get an AP refund post patch

edit: actually don't think that's possible due to the way the weapons are designed.. doh

The real PROBLEM from a raid perspective is that I have no idea which spec will be the best next patch/tier. In expos past that's no big deal because you can quickly adjust your gear to the new spec, but this expo with ap and more importantly legendaries, its almost IMPOSSIBLE to switch specs without months of farm or extreme luck.

Honestly Id rather there just be one spec at this point with current game design.