[MoP] Misc Demonology Notes

[PsyBomb]

I haven't been on Beta, but how long is a full-power Demon Form lasting these days? I can't imagine that it goes over a minute or so if you're actually casting flat-out, so not being able to cast Bane of Doom (as opposed to the semi-Doom via the glyph) in-form is more or less a moot point.

Speaking of the Corruption-Doom, we BADLY need to see what its tick rate is going to be like and if it will generate Demonic Fury (and if so, how much). That glyph could become an instant necessity to free up time (not to mention the scale factors could be incredible, as posted on the front page it will scale with fully four times your spell power). Not to mention it would make that Corruption cast go, again, for a full minute. Enough time to pop the DoTs off, hit your Cooldowns and go Demon, only to finish up well before you need to worry about refreshing.

EDIT: forget what I said about scale factors, after some digging in WoWDB I found that this works out to be identical with Corruption over the course of a minute (Corruption is 120% over 18 seconds). Still might be worthwhile for saving you a GCD every 20 seconds or so, if the DF generation rates are the same or at least close.

[Jessicka]

I suspect the Doom glyph is one of those 'lower DPS, better QoL' glyphs they've been talking about implementing, where the QoL improvement for a lot of players should end up being a DPS increase, where a more skilled player would (if ToC no longer refreshes Corruption, or remains a melee ability and you're expecting to be at range) drop Meta to refresh Corruption to maintain optimal DPS. That said, it's pretty retarded to that we might have to glyph for that, rather than simply be able to cast dots while in Meta; I could probably understand if it was just BoD that wasn't castable.

In terms of Meta uptime, I'm getting roughly 45s, with about 70s downtime without abusing the Legendary glitch (it can go on and on with it), this feels a decent amount without getting to the point of feeling it's the norm.

[OOMM]

• Shadow Bolt damage has been increased by 40%. Now scales from 175% of Spell Power, up from 125%.
• Soul Fire damage has been increased by 40%. Now scales from 175% of Spell Power, up from 125%.
• Shadowflame is now Breath of Gul'dan - Targets in a 10 yard cone in front of the caster take 1,015 to 1,122 Shadow damage and are afflicted by Shadowflame. (Shadowflame - Reduces movement speed by 30% and deals 1,284 [+ 20.0% of SP] Shadowflame damage over 6 sec. Generates 10 Demonic Fury every time it deals damage.)
• Hand of Gul'dan now lands after 1.5 sec, down from 2.5 sec. Now applies Shadowflame to all enemies within 6 yards instead of Guldan's Grasp.
• Metamorphosis now disables the use of damage over time spells.
• Molten Core (Passive) - When your Shadow Bolt and Demonic Slash abilities are used on a target afflicted with Shadowflame, you have a 30% chance to trigger Molten Core. (Molten Core - Reduces the cast time of your Soul Fire ability by 50%.)
  
• Glyph of Demon Hunting now reduces damage taken by 10%. Up from 5%.
• Glyph of Lash of Pain replaced with Glyph of Doom - Teaches you the ability Doom. (Doom - Inflicts impending doom upon the target, causing ((1,068 + Spell Power) * 4) Shadow damage over 60 sec. Replaces Corruption.)
• Glyph of Shadowflame now increases your Shadowflame's slow by 30%, but Hand of Gul'dan and Breath of Gul'dan no longer have charges.

I'm quoting the notes here for easy reference. I did some tests on premade and some on my raid geared level 86. I tried to mention it where it might matter.

Here are the new Dark Apotheosis graphics.

• Bane of Doom has been removed.
• Corruption turns into a spell called "Doom" and ticks for 9k dmg every 13.5s over 60s in my premade's gear, 60f every tick. So it looks like it continues to scale with haste unlike the old BoD.
• The button Doom turns into Corruption while in Meta, it is not castable. The Doom debuff stays on the target.
• Dark Apotheosis has Corruption available even while glyphed. It is castable in this form.
• Corruption and glyphed Corruption can't be cast in Meta.
• Corruption unglyphed is 11k over 18.7s. 12f per tick.
• There is a weird fury bug, it doesn't seem to decay right, or just generates some small amount on its own while I stand there idling in Meta.
• HoG has 2 charges now, these are shared with Breath of Gul'dan (and Carrion Swarm)which also has 2 charges. Hog costs 6k mana and BoG 7.2k (at level 86.)
• HoG and BoG have a 15s cd if at 0 charges.
• HoG and BoG slowing debuff only stacks to 30%
• HoG and BoG do 7 ticks and give 10f per tick. (This was at 11% haste)
• BoG does about 26k dmg in my 402ilvl gear. HoG does 25k. Seems like the only reason to use HoG is for the ranged AoE.
• Glyph of Shadowflame is NYI and doesn't appear to do anything.
• Glyph of Metamorphosis is still Glyph of Demon Hunting.
• Dark Apotheosis's graphic is now translucent Metamorphosis wings on the back of your character.
• You can mount and stay in DA. The wings fade though.
• Dark Apotheosis isn't currently a stance. Metamorphosis is the only button on that bar.
• Dark Apotheosis doesn't have a cooldown or put Meta on cd.
• Meta still has a cd and puts DA on cd. Leaving Meta doesn't trigger a cd.
• Dark Apotheosis casts Shadow Bolt. Demonic Slash doesn't appear to be available.
• Demonic Slash in Meta seems to give 100f on one of my warlocks and cost 40f on the other.
• Meta and DA do have the Touch of Chaos autoattack but there seems to be a bug with autoattacking in general.
• Molten Core procs randomly while Shadowflame debuff is up, this is supposed to be from casting a Shadow Bolt or Demonic Slash, but Shadowflame alone will do it.
• Soul Fire doesn't have a debuff (Decimation is gone) and its cast time is 4s.
• Soul Fire will buff Molten Core if it hits a target below 25%. Molten Core reduces the cast and mana cost by 50% and gives 20f.
• Molten Core can stack to at least 4. The tool tip stacks the fury bonus, 20/40/60/80, but doesn't ever actually give more than 60.
• There might be a different bugged version of Molten Core, this version gives 25% cast time and mana cost reduction.
• Fel Flame gives 15f now. I also got a Burning Ember from it. Only in the combat log, but weird.
• Soul Fire seems to be instant sometimes. There is no buff to indicate this, but once you cast you gain Molten Core. My test for this was to shoot a mob with Fel Flame until about 5k hp, then shoot Soul Fire, it would be instant. Is this actually Destruction spec mechanics spilling into Demo?
• Shadow Bolt does about 5k more damage (from 16k to 21k) on my 402 ilvl lock.
• Soul Fire does more damage, I didn't record the numbers though.

Doom seems like the way to go for Demonology since we don't have to worry about refreshing in Meta. Corruption gives about 10% less dps, but about 5% more fury in exchange for harder micro management and two more globals.


Tell me if I got anything wrong, some things were inconsistent between the premade and my copy. A lot of little bugs made it hard to figure out what is really going on.

[Jessicka]

While I welcome the shared cooldown of Breath and Hand of Gul'dan, the new Molten Core is sounding like an (exactly) half arsed Hot Streak. Why must I work for a living ;_;

[OOMM]

A couple of other notes:

Neither HoG nor BoG can be used in Meta.

Touch of Chaos does scale with haste too, I hadn't noticed or thought about that before.

Soul Fire's fury cost under Molten Core is 50f and it generates 60f with a loss of two Touch of Chaos (5f) per Soul Fire, so it really zeros out. With a pet on the boss generating fury and nothing but Soul Fire, Wild Imps, and Immo Aura to cost fury, we might actually use IA during execute if we can stay in Meta through its high cost.

[Jessicka]

A couple of other notes:

Neither HoG nor BoG can be used in Meta.

Touch of Chaos does scale with haste too, I hadn't noticed or thought about that before.

Soul Fire's fury cost under Molten Core is 50f and it generates 60f with a loss of two Touch of Chaos (5f) per Soul Fire, so it really zeros out. With a pet on the boss generating fury and nothing but Soul Fire, Wild Imps, and Immo Aura to cost fury, we might actually use IA during execute if we can stay in Meta through its high cost.

Taking Service will likely offer that extra Fury then?

Given this note however:

# (Designer Notes) - Demonology's DPS rotation is being adjusted. In the end it will do just as much as Affliction/Destro. Don't panic.

It's probably fair to say they're aware they've had to revisit the drawing board for Demo and we'll be getting more things to do in future builds, rendering any speculation at this point is pretty meaningless. Here's hoping for Immolate back (now that Destro seems to have Corruption), and that SB is simply the placeholder 'procer' for Molten Core until that happens.

[Paraclef]

Neither HoG nor BoG can be used in Meta.
Dot can't be used in Meta

So.... we have a great gameplay here... rotation two buttons

Corruption and BoD merge + Hog and Shadowflame merge = rotation three buttons

BS


There is nothing fair Jess

[Jessicka]

Don't get me wrong, seeing "Don't panic" in designer notes, 3 weeks into a Beta that's had a good couple of years of development time thrown at it worries me. It worries me a lot. On the other hand, the fact it's there at all does imply someone may have just woken the fuck up.

[OOMM]

Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what is going on now so we know what needs to be changed at least. Demonology is basically NYI.

The rotation is broken but it should be something like this for now:
Doom
Soul Fire if Molten Core
BoG
Shadow Bolt
Meta at 1000
Touch of Chaos
ImmoAura
Demonic Slash
Drop Meta at 500

Writing that out makes it more complicated than it is. Being in Meta isn't even a dps increase because the only spell that gets buffed is Hellfire. Slash is better than Sbolt, but we miss all the other spells. I hope the next patch is soon, but I don't think Blizzard knows what they want to do with this class/spec.

One other side note is that Dark Apotheosis costs 100f to enter now.

[Fallensaint]

Don't get me wrong, seeing "Don't panic" in designer notes, 3 weeks into a Beta that's had a good couple of years of development time thrown at it worries me. It worries me a lot. On the other hand, the fact it's there at all does imply someone may have just woken the fuck up.

I'm not really surprised that Blizzard's Devs and CMs feel the need to use non-direct forms of communication to give feedback to the class given the MASSIVE backlash the community throws at them, even for GOOD changes. The recent patch changes are significant in how they affect Demo, but they aren't huge mechanically. HoG and BoG function similarly to how they did before the patch, though their new effects change up our otherwise lackluster single-target rotation (which is something many demo 'locks have been concerned about). Losing a DoT is a significant DPS loss, and HoG still feels clunky to use on single-targets, but I'm pretty confident X is aware of this and has a firm direction in mind for these changes.

"So we'll hate him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight."

[Count Zero]

Don't get me wrong, seeing "Don't panic" in designer notes, 3 weeks into a Beta that's had a good couple of years of development time thrown at it worries me. It worries me a lot. On the other hand, the fact it's there at all does imply someone may have just woken the fuck up.

Couple years of internal development, sure -- but only a few weeks of player feedback. We'll probably see level 90 opened up some time early May, and raid testing through May/June ... so I'd say we probably have until mid/late June before we can say "well I guess this is what they're shipping with". Assuming they're printing/shipping discs in July for us to be able to buy in August ... and even then, chance for last-minute alterations that would come with the installation patch via download.

I don't think they would have included the "don't panic" thing if they weren't both a bit ahead in their internal build but also looking to at least consider incorporating some feedback-based changes.

[huth]

Given all the weirdness going on, i'd say just wait for the next build. They seem to have been caught in the middle of changes here.

[Jessicka]

Couple years of internal development, sure -- but only a few weeks of player feedback. We'll probably see level 90 opened up some time early May, and raid testing through May/June ... so I'd say we probably have until mid/late June before we can say "well I guess this is what they're shipping with". Assuming they're printing/shipping discs in July for us to be able to buy in August ... and even then, chance for last-minute alterations that would come with the installation patch via download.

I don't think they would have included the "don't panic" thing if they weren't both a bit ahead in their internal build but also looking to at least consider incorporating some feedback-based changes.

I don't doubt that they have changes in mind, but to have had so long to develop things internally, then to have got things so wrong as to have to return completely to the drawing board straight away is not a good sign. They've ended up with 3 months to do something they've had over 2 years to work on; it's a very bad position to be in; and we all know too well how Blizzard like to take their time with things.

Also, when someone says 'Don't panic', that's exactly when you need to start worrying.

[OOMM]

To me, it seems like we are in Alpha. They just called it Beta to have enough time fit in enough waves where the subscribers get in to have a look around and get bored and leave in time for the next wave of invites. I trust that they can do a decent job with the class, we are just getting a chance to see all the rejected models first hand.

[nipil]

They are testing the big parts now (content, load, back-end) :
- it's hard to make many iterations on big parts, as it takes a huge load of time
- thus you have to be very carefull and plan things good for these big blocks

Class mechanics is a small parts (implementation-wise) :
- it's easy to test many many small parts, laid out in many iterations
- thus you can implement/design things progressively and loosely, straightening things up as you go

IMHO most of the current beta effort is not yet put into the class mechanics, they have "more important" things to do.

[OOMM]

Soul Fire's fury cost under Molten Core is 50f and it generates 60f with a loss of two Touch of Chaos (5f) per Soul Fire, so it really zeros out. With a pet on the boss generating fury and nothing but Soul Fire, Wild Imps, and Immo Aura to cost fury, we might actually use IA during execute if we can stay in Meta through its high cost.

It's possible that this was a bug, but more likely that I didn't test things correctly. Soul Fire in Meta is not granting any fury. It does cost 50f (with Molten Core) and stops Touch of Chaos though.

[smegdawg]

To me, it seems like we are in Alpha. They just called it Beta to have enough time fit in enough waves where the subscribers get in to have a look around and get bored and leave in time for the next wave of invites. I trust that they can do a decent job with the class, we are just getting a chance to see all the rejected models first hand.

Been telling my guildies who are crying about not being in Beta yet this exact same thing.

The only thing that saddens me about this is that the game probably won't release until October- November, and the nat that point they might say hey lets just release it in December.

Really not sure if I can stay interested in grinding out achievements till then.

[ComputerNerd]

Couple years of internal development, sure -- but only a few weeks of player feedback. We'll probably see level 90 opened up some time early May, and raid testing through May/June ... so I'd say we probably have until mid/late June before we can say "well I guess this is what they're shipping with". Assuming they're printing/shipping discs in July for us to be able to buy in August ... and even then, chance for last-minute alterations that would come with the installation patch via download.

I don't think they would have included the "don't panic" thing if they weren't both a bit ahead in their internal build but also looking to at least consider incorporating some feedback-based changes.

Yet warlocks specifically, and that one spec is the only location where such a note exists.
Therefore yes I would say we have good reason to question just what the intent has been with warlocks.
Yes blizzard are truly lost as to what to do with warlocks, each and every expansion.

[Count Zero]

Yeah, maybe you guys are right. I just really had a hard time believing they would put that line in if they didn't have something up their sleeves that would make us go "oh, they were right that we shouldn't have panicked", but I guess it's hard to argue against the historical trends when there's not really any current evidence to suggest it'd be different this time ...

Maybe I just wanted to believe we wouldn't be going through major iterations for the entire expansion yet again

[Xelnath]

I'm pretty sure "Don't Panic" is a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.