Demo going into BfA

[Vynny]

Demo, I actually appreciate what they were trying to do - Demo historically was some sort of bastard spec where it was some mash up of fire, shadow and demons and it paid a price for it, because over they years it gathered so much random trash that it eventually turned into a mess in WoD. The good part about Legion is attempt to establish Demonology as just that - spec that is a Demonology in fact and not just in name.

Paid the price for it? WoD demo was the best spec I've ever played before they gutted its damage in HFC. I mean I started around the time of the AQ event and no other spec in the game flowed and worked quite as perfectly as WoD demo did. With the talent options, the kit, and how demonic fury allowed you to put your burst exactly where you wanted it or have awesome mobility it was the best spec ever. Sure it was complicated, but once you understood how each ability worked and what the trade offs were depending on whether you used the meta version or caster version then you had almost complete control of your damage in a way that was intuitive and fun to play with.

[Gaidax]

Paid the price for it? WoD demo was the best spec I've ever played before they gutted its damage in HFC. I mean I started around the time of the AQ event and no other spec in the game flowed and worked quite as perfectly as WoD demo did. With the talent options, the kit, and how demonic fury allowed you to put your burst exactly where you wanted it or have awesome mobility it was the best spec ever. Sure it was complicated, but once you understood how each ability worked and what the trade offs were depending on whether you used the meta version or caster version then you had almost complete control of your damage in a way that was intuitive and fun to play with.

WoD demo was a piece of garbage, I played Demo since WoTLK and it got progressively worse the more shit they added to it. WoD was a culmination, where your spells hit like wet noodles and you were literally saved by Chaos Wave spam in BRF.

[Ilir]

WoD demo was a piece of garbage, I played Demo since WoTLK and it got progressively worse the more shit they added to it. WoD was a culmination, where your spells hit like wet noodles and you were literally saved by Chaos Wave spam in BRF.

Quoted for truth.

Meta was garbage.

[Kithelle]

tbh I think the main problem with the 'imp farm' gameplay is just that you can't really see your imps (unlike MoP.) Summoning a bunch of little imps is a fine class mechanic thematically, but it's not very much fun when they're all in melee and you can't see them.

it would be nice for more 'greater' demons to be incorporated as cooldowns too

The Imps don't bother me much...DE is such a clunky pain in the ass...so many things you could do with it...make it a aura...change it to a cooldown...maybe add some damage mechanic to it so it feel more than a chore just to keep damage up.

- - - Updated - - -

Demo is fun. They just need to make some talents baseline and buff/nerf accordingly.

Also rework/remove Supremacy for demonology since it does not make any sense for demonology to have it since the spec comes with its own demon, the felguard.

I know this would never happen, but would love to see it changed so you could summon a second demon

[SpikeySquad]

To quote the front page "There most likely will not be complete class revamps again any time soon." So I don't know if that covers BfA but seems like we may be stuck with the current Demo. Of course it may still get some well needed quality of life changes.

[Gaidax]

To quote the front page "There most likely will not be complete class revamps again any time soon." So I don't know if that covers BfA but seems like we may be stuck with the current Demo. Of course it may still get some well needed quality of life changes.

I'm not sure it needs revamp, much of its voes can be handled by tweaking numbers, like moving much of the Imp damage to Dreadstalkers and HoG, imagine 3/4 of current imp damage moved to Dreadatalkers and HoG -
that would already make ramp quite shorter. Then they should drop Mana cost for spells across the board to reduce all the life tapping and make guardians target your HoG main target.

That should set much straight really and that's no revamp there.

The thing is Demo is functional, it does well in raids (by the 3 guys who play it), so moving damage from backloaded sources to frontloaded ones should help a lot for burst and M+ too. It would also make Empowerment less spammed because imp damage would be insignificant, so the optimal way could be just to empower Dreadstalkers and make sure it is up on Felguard.

Basically think Imp damage something like 2% of your DPS instead 25% and all that moved to HoG direct damage and stalkers.

[Khovan]

To be honest - there are 12 classes and if someone feels he does not like warlocks, he can try something else.

For me, for example, it's pretty simple - as of now - I like Destruction, I can't stand Affliction and I am indifferent-ish about Demo. I think WoD Destruction and Demo ultimately were better and Aff again don't care.

For Destruction, really not much needs to be done - it's fine as is, the things I would love is viable sacrifice and Life Tap removed, then Chaos Bolt being a bit less spammy and a bit harder hitting. But those are pretty minor and overall I think Destruction is in a good place for me gameplay-wise, besides it did gain nice things in Legion like sick opener burst and much more powerful Havoc, for example. I also aesthetically dig Lord of Flames - it's kinda awesome, IMO and I'd love to see it stay and actually maybe replace Summon Doomguard altogether with appropriate adjustments.


Demo, I actually appreciate what they were trying to do - Demo historically was some sort of bastard spec where it was some mash up of fire, shadow and demons and it paid a price for it, because over they years it gathered so much random trash that it eventually turned into a mess in WoD. The good part about Legion is attempt to establish Demonology as just that - spec that is a Demonology in fact and not just in name.

Problem is that they fell short when it comes to actual gameplay - everything between the imp farm and ramp and limitations of guardians produced a very stiff and bland experience. Hopefully with them realizing this we can expect some interesting developments there, when Ion was talking about demo he seemed to get the idea of what people expect through, just need to see what happens next now.


Affliction? Needs some visuals badly, Affliction spells as a whole are very subtle, but for me the spec lacks this excitement where you pop all your shit and nuke things down like Destro does with Chaos Bolts, Infernals, Portals and what not. For Aff? You just wave your hands and have some cloud of smoke on a target... woo... That's why I pretty much never liked the spec, as it feels anemic to me.

This is the exact sum of all parts for me as well. As much as I would like to enjoy affliction...the lack of "anything" just turns me off. Desto, tons of stuff going on...green fire everywhere...colored portals doing their thing. Just lots of visuals to enjoy.

Demo...has the potential, but yes, that imp farm can DIAF.

[Drakile]

I always thought of early WoD Demo to basically be WotLK arcane mage, just building stacks to spam a spell. Side note I would love to see those new Sargeras hounds as felhunter skins. I could see TKC just being added to the spec, it feels like the last vestige of the fun in lining up your timers, missed that in WoD, I wonder if we will see more damage baked into demonwrath to make up for the loss of laughing TK aoe.

Maybe turn DE into a cooldown that cranks up all your pets, basically bestial wrath but for the your whole demonic posse, maybe have the lock gain energy from the demons attacking then you can use that energy to empower them, though that's probably more convoluted then it needs to be.

[therealbowser]

Definitely concerned about Demonology, but I am waiting until we have more context about class changes before I form an opinion.

[Deleted]

Here's a short summary of what needs to happen:

1) Demonic Empowerment turned into a cooldown, demon damage gets a baseline increase.

2) Hand of Gul'dan replaced as the filler with Imp Swarm, Imp Swarm summons the imps next to the player so you actually see them firing their fel bolts at your target. This is how it used to be. Them spawning at the enemy is ridicilous.

3) Hand of Gul'dan returns in its original version, a stacking aoe dot with strong initial damage.

4) Darkglare baseline, current talent replaced with Lord of Flames (current Destro trait).

5) Shadowflame replaced with some simplistic single target dps gain. Shadowbolt has a 5% change to generate 2 soulshards, doesn't matter just replace it with something.

6) Shadowy Inspiration reworked. While Demonic Empowerment is active Shadowbolt is an instant cast.

7) Finally, I'd add a new passive to the spec that reduces the cooldown of Doomguard and Infernal by x seconds for every soulshard spent. Basically make the legendary ring baseline.

With those changes the spec would effectively be restored as a strong burst aoe spec (Hand of Gul'dan/Implosion/LoF)) with decent cleave (Darkglare/Doom) and powerful ST with plenty of mobility, considering the Demonic Empowerement spam is gone and Darkglare, Hand of Gul'dan and Doom are instant casts. The spec would also be visually much more appealing in my opinion, as you'd actually see the imps firing at the boss and you'd often have a Darkglare out and the Doomguard more frequently too.

Now I also think Soul Link and Circle need to be baseline again for all specs. But that's a different story.

[Sarsoman]

It surprises me they still haven't changed Demo in Legion. I mean it'd be so easy to make the spec a lot more enjoyable. Remove Demonic Empowerement, buff the demon's baseline damage to compensate. Then you buff the damage of doom and the darkglare talent and the impact damage of hand of gul'dan to make the spec better at cleave and aoe. And if you really wanna go for the glory, make Channel Demonwrath generate shards more reliably so you're not fucked by movement nearly as much.

Easy enough. You'd still have this awkward spec constantly wanting to summon massive amounts of fragile imps near your enemy where you can't even see them, but it'd be playable.

My hope is that Blizzard realizes just how terrible and stupid just about everything about this spec is and completely reworks it again next expansion and that's why we haven't seen any of the changes at all. But who am I kidding?

These changes along with making Hand of Doom and Demonbolt baseline would've been made Demo a lot better. Instead of buffing Doom, I'd have preferred a talent that made Doom deal its damage instantly but its timer would be increased for the next tick (something along that line), that would've completely fixed Demos burst AoE issues, IMO.

My theory is that Blizzard gave up on Demo in Legion just like they did for Demo in WoD, but they couldn't nerf the spec into oblivion to stop the players that had put all of their AP and loot spec into Demo, so they're just keeping it as is and are working on a rework for BFA.

[Challenge]

To the people claiming Demonology NEEDS another overhaul is overexaggerating. The theme and idea with demo right now is pretty good, its the execution that needs help.

A lot of it boils down to 2 things, visual and demonic empowerment. DE needs to be reworked and our minions should be more visible when we summon them (such as around our character with imps) and we should be able to summons more than 2 extra minions (that we normally already can summon). Everything else is more or less preference for each person

The things I absolutely think NEED to happen are these changes

1. Demonic empowerment changed to summoning single demon that automatically empowers any existing and future demons. It can be an Inquistor who does minor-moderate damage at range or a Mo'Arg in melee. The damage this minion deals doesnt even matter, but it would be more thematic by summoning a new demon and kill the summon demon ->empower rinse and repeat playstyle

2. Imps, I think imps are cool as a mass filler type of summoning spell, whether its from Imp Swarm or Hand of Guldan, but they should definitely spawn around the player so we can actually see them

3. Interrupt. With Felguard being the staple demo pet (and imp for desutrction) its time we give warlocks a baseline interupt. Doesnt even have to be the standard interupt, it can be something unique and different like balance/shadow

Now things i would LIKE to see happen

1. Demonbolt made baseline, if only for the visual(but the effect is good too). Shadowbolt is incredibly wimpy looking and feeling Also make the colors purple/green if you have the greenfire codex and not still purple/orange

2. Hand of Doom made baseline.

3. Darkglare made baseline as the primary means of dealing AoE. This goes in hand with the next suggestions

4. Remove demonwrath. Adjust hand of guldan to be the primary means of generating shards in AoE situations by removing the shard cost and lowering the damage (meaning you can always open in AoE pulls with hand-> darkglare. Generat

5. Add new ability called imp swarm, primary way to dump shards

1-4 Shards, summon 1-4 Imps to sttack your target. Instant. No cooldown

6. Remove life tap and mana. Its not very fun or interactive. Even mages dont need mana outside of defensive/utility abilities anymore.

7. Remove drain life and replace with something demo thematic like Twilight Ward. Let it absorb X amount of damage and return X amount back as health

8. Going into BFA i dont want to see our artifact return. Its not bad but its not something im attached to.

Wont go into talents, but the rotation would be

Fillers/Shard generators

Demonbolt single target
Hand of Guldan 2+ stacked targets

Shard spenders

Dreadstalkers single target cooldown
Darkglare AoE cooldown
Imp Swarm filler shard dump

Other
Doom
Summon Inquistor/Mo'Arg (aka demonic empowerment) still maintenance but not after every cast, just when it expires
Wrathstorm (Felguard)

Removed/Replaced
Drainlife -> Twilight Ward
Demonwrath removed
Artifact ability removed

[Ilir]

To the people claiming Demonology NEEDS another overhaul is overexaggerating. The theme and idea with demo right now is pretty good, its the execution that needs help.

A lot of it boils down to 2 things, visual and demonic empowerment. DE needs to be reworked and our minions should be more visible when we summon them (such as around our character with imps) and we should be able to summons more than 2 extra minions (that we normally already can summon). Everything else is more or less preference for each person

The things I absolutely think NEED to happen are these changes

1. Demonic empowerment changed to summoning single demon that automatically empowers any existing and future demons. It can be an Inquistor who does minor-moderate damage at range or a Mo'Arg in melee. The damage this minion deals doesnt even matter, but it would be more thematic by summoning a new demon and kill the summon demon ->empower rinse and repeat playstyle

2. Imps, I think imps are cool as a mass filler type of summoning spell, whether its from Imp Swarm or Hand of Guldan, but they should definitely spawn around the player so we can actually see them

3. Interrupt. With Felguard being the staple demo pet (and imp for desutrction) its time we give warlocks a baseline interupt. Doesnt even have to be the standard interupt, it can be something unique and different like balance/shadow

Now things i would LIKE to see happen

1. Demonbolt made baseline, if only for the visual(but the effect is good too). Shadowbolt is incredibly wimpy looking and feeling Also make the colors purple/green if you have the greenfire codex and not still purple/orange

2. Hand of Doom made baseline.

3. Darkglare made baseline as the primary means of dealing AoE. This goes in hand with the next suggestions

4. Remove demonwrath. Adjust hand of guldan to be the primary means of generating shards in AoE situations by removing the shard cost and lowering the damage (meaning you can always open in AoE pulls with hand-> darkglare. Generat

5. Add new ability called imp swarm, primary way to dump shards


6. Remove life tap and mana. Its not very fun or interactive. Even mages dont need mana outside of defensive/utility abilities anymore.

7. Remove drain life and replace with something demo thematic like Twilight Ward. Let it absorb X amount of damage and return X amount back as health

8. Going into BFA i dont want to see our artifact return. Its not bad but its not something im attached to.

Wont go into talents, but the rotation would be

Fillers/Shard generators

Demonbolt single target
Hand of Guldan 2+ stacked targets

Shard spenders

Dreadstalkers single target cooldown
Darkglare AoE cooldown
Imp Swarm filler shard dump

Other
Doom
Summon Inquistor/Mo'Arg (aka demonic empowerment) still maintenance but not after every cast, just when it expires
Wrathstorm (Felguard)

Removed/Replaced
Drainlife -> Twilight Ward
Demonwrath removed
Artifact ability removed

This is one of the only sensible post in this thread.

A note on imps spawning next to us tho : it could be a nerf. While it is really cool looking (hi Krosus and Avatar) the fact the imps spawn at melee range means we don't get that awkward moment when your imps are out of range and you lose your number one source of dps for X sec until the target is in their range again. This stuff can happen sometimes with the Doomguard.
An easy fix would be to increase the imps range but I don't think blizzard is fond of it.

[Kithelle]

This is one of the only sensible post in this thread.

A note on imps spawning next to us tho : it could be a nerf. While it is really cool looking (hi Krosus and Avatar) the fact the imps spawn at melee range means we don't get that awkward moment when your imps are out of range and you lose your number one source of dps for X sec until the target is in their range again. This stuff can happen sometimes with the Doomguard.
An easy fix would be to increase the imps range but I don't think blizzard is fond of it.

Yeah...I never got why it's so bad they're in melee...you never really have to worry about them being out of range and potentially losing dps if you're fighting a moving target or something dies.

[Shandalar]

I'm not sure it needs revamp, much of its voes can be handled by tweaking numbers, like moving much of the Imp damage to Dreadstalkers and HoG, imagine 3/4 of current imp damage moved to Dreadatalkers and HoG -
that would already make ramp quite shorter. Then they should drop Mana cost for spells across the board to reduce all the life tapping and make guardians target your HoG main target.

That should set much straight really and that's no revamp there.

The thing is Demo is functional, it does well in raids (by the 3 guys who play it), so moving damage from backloaded sources to frontloaded ones should help a lot for burst and M+ too. It would also make Empowerment less spammed because imp damage would be insignificant, so the optimal way could be just to empower Dreadstalkers and make sure it is up on Felguard.

Basically think Imp damage something like 2% of your DPS instead 25% and all that moved to HoG direct damage and stalkers.

Demo needs to get free of spam DE, getting some instant cast and fix the talents.

[Gaidax]

Demo needs to get free of spam DE, getting some instant cast and fix the talents.

Honestly, that's saying nothing - "getting some instant cast and fix the talents" said a player of every caster spec of every class ever.

I do think that it needs less Life Tap and less DE, just like I said in quoted post. These abilities are too passive to be spammed as much as they do now.

[Gohzerlock]

Honestly, that's saying nothing - "getting some instant cast and fix the talents" said a player of every caster spec of every class ever.

I do think that it needs less Life Tap and less DE, just like I said in quoted post. These abilities are too passive to be spammed as much as they do now.

I think pretty much every spec would be better off without both lifetap and mana entirely.

[Gaidax]

Well I am not a huge fan of Life Tap either. It used to be amazing back many years ago, but in a world where Mana is no longer limit for almost all specs and with secondary resources it outlived its usefulness.

IMO if they are so adamant on keeping Life Tap, it could instead become some sort of moderate-ish CD which gives you full shards, something like 1 min CD at 20% current HP cost. It could help a lot with ramp as well, naturally.

[Shandalar]

Honestly, that's saying nothing - "getting some instant cast and fix the talents" said a player of every caster spec of every class ever.

I do think that it needs less Life Tap and less DE, just like I said in quoted post. These abilities are too passive to be spammed as much as they do now.

Dreadstalkers should be instant. Life tap removed, and DE a big CD, or at least something to use with a little of management, nor the clunky spamming thing it is now.

[Vynny]

WoD demo was a piece of garbage, I played Demo since WoTLK and it got progressively worse the more shit they added to it. WoD was a culmination, where your spells hit like wet noodles and you were literally saved by Chaos Wave spam in BRF.

What? Did you even play demo in BRF? First of all, Hand of Gul'dan did more damage than Chaos Wave if they lived through the entire dot, and you were stuck at 3 charges at most, so you didn't really spam it. Secondly, if it was more of a single target encounter then using Chaos Wave was awful and you should've been using Demon Bolt. Lastly, maybe it's different strokes for different folk's, but having a robust toolkit for sustained AoE, burst AoE, and single target in one spec was amazing to me. I loved how you had to use your HoG/CW charges differently depending on whether it was sustained or burst and how you had to think about how to best use Cataclysm depending on if you wanted it to apply corruption or doom. Then you throw in Demonic Leap and touch of chaos for mobility and you legitimately had a spec which had answers for every single encounter they could throw at you.