Is anyone playing Demo?

[Fyla]

I disagree and think lifetap is one of the few things remaining that makes warlocks stand out as a caster. A warlock is power hungry enough that they are willing to sacrifice their own life force to fuel their spells when their magical "well" runs dry. Shadow has insanity, mages (especially arcane) have to manage their mana or they run dry, warlocks will continue to fight as long as they have life, or their allies can heal them.

On top of that, outside of class fantasy, you would need to rework other aspects if lifetap is gone. No sacrificing health? Well, then there's no reason to have these big absorb shields or so much self healing. Removed too much self healing, since it couldn't be justified with lifetap? Better provide some more mobility since it's no longer the tanky caster. No built in breaks from lifetap? Better adjust the damage of every spell down since it's balanced around an expected amount of lifetap downtime. Used to planning lifetap around movement to have minimal dps loss? Too bad, that takes too much effort and needed to be dumbed down, no sense rewarding strategic play.

Lifetap is used too often in the demo meme build, but that's not lifetap's problem, that's a demo problem, specifically DE. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's outdated and needs to be removed. The greatest warlock design lead we had felt very strongly about health as a resource for the class, the few things that remain from his time are some of the only things that separate warlock from "shitty wannabe mage."

yeah well thats not the fantasy that comes along with the first warlocks in story .. they draw their power from draining the life of their enemys .. not their own (remember thousands of draenei sacrificed to open the dark portal? well gul'dan surely didnt cut himself to open that damed portal)

mages run on mana? one specc does it .. frost and fire can only go oom if you spam spellsteal - no other way for them to ever even drop below 70% mana

funny that you talk of our beloved warlock lead designer and life tap .. i cant really remember usin life tap often in soo .. if at all - as destro i didnt use it .. probably because it didnt have it .. you know what it had? a spell that healed us for about 50% of our life with no cd .. not really life as a ressource if you ask me .. as aff i remember spamming soul swap lad refreshing dots - mainly maintaining soulshards - i believe you used lt like five times a fight .. so again nothing about health as ressource

LT is a crappy design .. it has to be used to often in all specs and by far to often in demo of course

[xuros]

So, your suggestions for improving the demo include removing life tap, an iconic warlock spell that the other specs also use, that fulfills the class fantasy of making health a resource. In fact, warlocks are the only class that uses health as a resource, making it truly unique, but you want to remove it.

Your suggestions also include making dogs instant, a PvP tree talent, which would virtually guarantee tuning adjustments to dogs since they are not designed for instant cast PvE.

DE needs to be looked at, how it functions, the reasons why spamming or "weaving" it became prevalent, how it "feels" to cast, and how much mana it consumes, but I'd rather not see an iconic spell that the class has had since vanilla, that makes the class truly unique from a resource perspective, be removed just because you have trouble managing it or you believe it's outdated.

Like Death's embrace right???? Insta dogs wouldnt need shit done to it since all it would do is give you something to do while moving thats meaningful. Dog damage isnt high at all compared to everything else and with the hamfisted IMP nerf it would help out a bit.

Far as lifetap removal goes, its not like we need to keep a mindful eye on health these days. With healers wanting to rank they are more than happy to keep our health up. Iconic isnt something that I think of these days when i think of lifetap.

[asil]

Honestly, life tap is probably one of the worst game mechanics I've ever experienced. Early in the game it had a real purpose - it gave us something other casters didn't have, infinite mana while others casters would oom or have to manage their mana.

But Blizzard realized this wasn't very good design for other casters and just made it pretty much impossible for them to oom, and for some reason, decided to leave life tap in. They need to seriously redesign the ability or just remove it.

Not fun.

Not interesting.

Life tap is the 1 reason I will never play demo again as long as that meme bolt spec exists, I absolutely hate mashing life tap.

This isn't even getting into the pvp aspect of life tap. Warlock self healing this xpac is not even close to high enough to justify life tap. It's just all around a poorly designed ability.

And people have been telling blizzard this for years - life tap has been on this path since fucking wrath of the lich king and they just refuse to listen.

[Biomega]

Have to agree. Life Tap is the perfect example of where class fantasy messed with gameplay in unacceptable ways. DPS casters are no longer designed around mana as a resource, but around other resources (with the exception of Arcane Mage). Mana for DPS casters is essentially infinite, and used solely to limit utility spells like dispel, spellsteal etc. most of which is because of PvP. Having Warlocks not only lose GCDs but also life just to get what all other casters get by default is ridiculous. It's not even like our mana makes us make MEANINGFUL choices - you don't change your rotation based around mana costs, or your spell selection, or your talent choices. Literally all it does is add "press this button every so often just to keep doing what you're normally doing", which is as bland, boring, and tedious as it ever gets.

And MUH KLASS FANTASEEEE is not an argument, because you can just find ways to integrate these things WITHOUT being a pointless chore. Heck, warlocks could use a BIG overhaul in the class fantasy department to begin with, since none of it really makes sense with our mechanics. We don't bargain with demons, we don't make sacrifices to obtain more power (just to maintain the status quo, what are we, withered?!), we don't tap into dangerous knowledge. We're mages with better transmogs and more clunky mechanics.

I really hope the next expansion takes a good look at class/spec identity in general, and is more careful about their performance aspects when it comes to lore and fantasy. Pure DPS classes are one of the biggest problems right now, where many just have one spec that trails far behind in various ways. Just make Demo a tanking spec, like people have been demanding for the past 5 years.

[Drakoes]

I don't like Life Tap either. I dislike complaining but this is one of the biggest examples of an ability in its current shape and form that has no place here. It's archaic, isn't fun and we shouldn't be punished or forced to spam a button just for "playing" a spec normally like everyone else and no other class is forced to do this either. The fact that our spec drains our mana pool like crazy doesn't help either, but you could say that's due to other maintenance spells like DE.

It, along with Demonic Enpowerment, simply adds to how clunky our gamestyle is given how often we just spam these abilities just brainlessly for the sake of it so we can actually do damage.

[Deleted]

I love our demo spec, but I am desperated, when I realizace, how much Blizz ignores Demo. Just look, how long it has been since the bug of our main demo visual - our floating head. it is bugged since 7.2 and word from Blizz about fixing that. What's the point to go hunting demons without our friend - Thal'kiel?

[Deleted]

To balance any spec with life tap, every GCD wasted on life tap means we need selfheal/dmg from our other abilities to be equal to another caster.

I hope they look at the D3 necromancer for inspiration. Skeletons would translate to a swarm of imps running behind you. Blood spells would feed the life force caster fantasy. Something like drainlife/mortal coil would allow us to replenish, filler. We would have our fellguard doing fellguard things. Use our shards for importal things. spend it on DE, summon our DG/Infernal, transform ourself into a demon, the big plays.

Maybe kill all imps to summon big stuff as a sacrifice. Normally you would think a summoner (like D2 or Path of Exile) would be the more mobile spec of a warlock. But I would not mind casting for 4-5sec to summon something awesome that is going to wreck faces.

[Biomega]

D3 can serve as an inspiration, but keep in mind that many mechanics have limitations in WoW. Health as a resource in particular is way too easily negated by healers, which makes it either a) irrelevant; b) overpowered; or c) so dangerous it's frustrating.

[Bullettime]

D3 can serve as an inspiration, but keep in mind that many mechanics have limitations in WoW. Health as a resource in particular is way too easily negated by healers, which makes it either a) irrelevant; b) overpowered; or c) so dangerous it's frustrating.

Which is why I wish they would just explore the Life Tap theme in other ways, such as giving it a cooldown and letting us tap for resources like shards or something.

As a mana throttle it just feels awful. Demonology during Hero/Lust feels like you have a non replenishing Energy bar with how quick you go through it.

[Deleted]

I hope Demo gets more revamp in new xp. It has too many rough edges that need polishing and DE is one of them. I expect them to do something about it seeing as how Demo was rushed due to Demon Hunters. Maybe it's a part reason to why we don't get new spell effects while others do.

Not sure about you, but I don't feel great about summoning imps as "master" demonologist. Additional felguard we summon with GoServ, Darkglare etc, are cool. Imps is something lvl 1 would summon. Would love to have that Fel Lord outside PvP talents... (and him being immune to CC).

P.S.

Blizz's idea about DE gameplay was one ofthe worst thus far.

[Bullettime]

I hope Demo gets more revamp in new xp. It has too many rough edges that need polishing and DE is one of them. I expect them to do something about it seeing as how Demo was rushed due to Demon Hunters. Maybe it's a part reason to why we don't get new spell effects while others do.

Not sure about you, but I don't feel great about summoning imps as "master" demonologist. Additional felguard we summon with GoServ, Darkglare etc, are cool. Imps is something lvl 1 would summon. Would love to have that Fel Lord outside PvP talents... (and him being immune to CC).

P.S.

Blizz's idea about DE gameplay was one ofthe worst thus far.

Imps themselves aren't that bad, it's the sole focus.

There's nothing wrong with summoning a swarm of imps to blast a target. It shouldn't be basically the only damn thing we spend shards on.

[Deleted]

Imps themselves aren't that bad, it's the sole focus.

There's nothing wrong with summoning a swarm of imps to blast a target. It shouldn't be basically the only damn thing we spend shards on.

I'd rather have imps be basically summon 5 implode them all baked in 1 skill :P. That's what what they are good for

[Gohzerlock]

Lol @ someone defending lifetap, we shouldn't even have a mana bar we have soul shards. Also, kinda of disappointing they did nothing to demo for 7.3... not surprised, but again disappointed. Just change demonic empowerment, everyone knows it needs to be done. I believe the old tier bonus was for it to be instant or something along those lines, then that was abandoned.

Just... remove it.

The only thing cool about demo is using the Ruk'mar's memory costume and having the head from the artifact supersize.

[Gav391]

I actually started playing demo because if was the best ranked dps spec at the start of the expansion. I actually started as destro, but my heart was always in demonology. I love the idea of summoning hordes of demons (I think my best was like 23 demons) and standing back as my minions devour my prey. I find the playstyle to be really fun.