Demo inferior to Aff/Destr in most situations, Celastalon confirms

[Jessicka]

"That's not to say that it hasn't ended up inferior to Affliction/Destruction in most situations; it has. But not underpowered." Link to source.

As Warlocks have three specs to choose from, and one is said to be inferior in most situations it doesn't really matter what that third's power level is relative to the other 20 DPS specs on other classes in the game because they aren't what it's in competition with - it's in competition with Affliction and Destruction. Players are told and encouraged to pick the spec that will perform better in most situations by other players, by the community and by their own desire to be the best; "Which is the best spec" is probably the first question anyone asks when picking a new class. That tweet linked above will be on the front of this, and other websites in the next few days and it the only words that matter in it are inferior to Affliction/Destruction; resounding confirmation from a developer of the spec's position.

Anyone who had any doubts about the spec just had them confirmed, whether it's players who wondered if they might be underperforming, or their raid leaders who thought they might do better with another spec; they're going to switch. Hardly anyone is going to come into the spec afresh. If there's no intention to act on it, then it was a really, really stupid thing to say with so long of the expansion left.

Venting aside, going into WoD though, what are the shortfalls that need fixing? Target switching? Sustained AoE? Multidotting? Cleave? How to fix?

[kardacz]

I was always wondering why Blizzard won't simply hire some people to browse through logs/parses/simcrafts/whatever on each level of current content to analyze how each spec is doing in comparison to the rest and apply small +2-5% changes each week to see how it will affect it.
Their reasoning that frequent changes will negatively affect progression isn't very sound. Instead of buffing/nerfing abilities by 30% damage each three months why not just shift the percentage a bit each week to see how it work out. I mean is this really hard to do? Sooner or later you will hit the sweet spot.
Instead if the spec you like sucks you're stuck in this void of mediocreness until the next expansion comes out, because that's the only time they implement major changes to the class gameplay.

[Paarthurnax]

Demo works when it hits that sweet spot on fury generation. Everything it can or can't do is related to that. ToT already proved what exactly demo needs to be successful.

[evertonbelmontt]

That honesty and respect you called stupidity is what a developer should aim for, and what many players apreciate.

I'm gonna sum it up for you:
"Demo is fine, destro/aff is overpowered."
Everyone knows that, people who don't know yet, honestly don't care or don't want to SEE it. You even got yourself a meme some days ago, remember?

[Baconeggcheese]

Venting aside, going into WoD though, what are the shortfalls that need fixing? Target switching? Sustained AoE? Multidotting? Cleave? How to fix?

How to make demo competitive with aff / destruction again can be done 6 ways from sunday and could be as simple as revert some of the nerfs they just finished doing while keeping or making UVLS even less effective for warlocks.

If you saw any competitive demo play in ToT without UVLS vs the other specs all 3 were in a very good place with destruction only being competitive with its own gimmick. I don't really know what they want demos niche to be, and that would decide how they *could* go about making it more competitive.

WoD will change much though, so all specs are going to be in shambles for a while and who knows where anything will end up. The changes to dot mechanics alone are going to make it a different world for aff. The removal of reforges also favors demo / destruction in their current state since both specs don't really care what secondaries they have as all 3 are insanely close where aff absolutely hates crit.

[Jessicka]

That honesty and respect you called stupidity is what a developer should aim for, and what many players apreciate.

I'm gonna sum it up for you:
"Demo is fine, destro/aff is overpowered."
Everyone knows that, people who don't know yet, honestly don't care or don't want to SEE it. You even got yourself a meme some days ago, remember?

Just no. They've been quite clear no specs will be nerfed unless it's a bug fix from this point; Aff/Dest can be considered the top end of acceptable. Demo was generally considered the 'not played enough so doesn't have enough data', but some people are doing good with it so 'meh'.

If it's something they plan to fix, then sure the honesty is laudable - I don't see any evidence of that, however. What I do see now, is even more players abandoning the spec because it's officially less powerful than the other two; why is that stupid? Because it takes any defense a player might previously have had against the peer pressure to switch away which can only result in bad experiences for those on the receiving end - it makes them to blame for lost progress for picking the wrong spec. That is why it's a stupid to statement to make in the vacuum in which it was made.

[Baconeggcheese]

The statements not wrong, its just an unfortunate side effect that people take the word of people who barely play this game yet alone at a competitive level and run with it like crazy.

Any half decent guild knows that this late into a tier if you're not killing a boss it isn't simply because one specs dps is slightly** lower than the others. The only people that this would realistically effect are people who play this game at a rather low or "casual" level who might still be playing demo purely out of enjoyment and or ignorance and now their guilds are pressuring them otherwise.

I'd like to think most decent heroic guilds know better than the usual kneejerks by now. I mean... even blood legions warlocks are STILL playing demo despite the nerfs and I doubt their guild is yelling at them for being sub-par all the time.

[Jessicka]

The statements not wrong, its just an unfortunate side effect that people take the word of people who barely play this game yet alone at a competitive level and run with it like crazy.

Any half decent guild knows that this late into a tier if you're not killing a boss it isn't simply because one specs dps is slightly** lower than the others. The only people that this would realistically effect are people who play this game at a rather low or "casual" level who might still be playing demo purely out of enjoyment and or ignorance and now their guilds are pressuring them otherwise.

I'd like to think most decent heroic guilds know better than the usual kneejerks by now. I mean... even blood legions warlocks are STILL playing demo despite the nerfs and I doubt their guild is yelling at them for being sub-par all the time.

Those aren't the guilds I worry about, nor is mine. It's the much more casual, mediocre ones with mediocre players who will try and try to optimise to the nth degree and blame anything but their own ability for their lack of progress. There's an awful lot of them out there. Just look at the number of threads about which pet to use, and the zealous assertion of 'Observer or you're bad' replies that come into it; an official statement from a Blizzard developer, rather than a player built stack rank is a lot harder to defend against, and that's a decision that makes far less difference to your throughput and how you play the game.

[Baconeggcheese]

I'd imagine in those situations those people are soooooo quick to follow the kneejerks of the community and all the regurgitated hardly understood statements that people heard via forums and whatnot not unlike the observer thing that they probably don't get into these situations much if at all.

You look at most people at that level and either they're in a friendly happy guild thats perfectly cool with doing normals and letting people do what they want, or they're in a very frustrating guild pretending to be what they're not and they're already "min-maxing" totally inconsequential differences. YOU HAVE TO BE A TROLL / ENGI / HERBALISM OR YOU CANT KILL BOSSES I SWEAR!

I mean how often do you look at normal mode raiders and see them playing anything but destruction for the majority of this entire tier, coming into these forums wishing they could play aff or something else. Happens constantly, this statement would just be icing at this point hardly the straw.

[Netherspark]

You missed out this tweet:

The community thinks the Demo nerfs were way more crippling than they were. There are still Demo locks doing very very high DPS.

You are jumping the gun about people jumping the gun....

[Turturin the Warlock]

Those aren't the guilds I worry about, nor is mine. It's the much more casual, mediocre ones with mediocre players who will try and try to optimise to the nth degree and blame anything but their own ability for their lack of progress.

So you're worried about guilds that don't objectively evaluate their issues finding more reason to not objectively evaluate their issues? You said it yourself, they will blame anything but their own ability for lack of progress, so why does it matter which irrelevancy they choose to focus on?

[Paarthurnax]

You missed out this tweet:

The community thinks the Demo nerfs were way more crippling than they were. There are still Demo locks doing very very high DPS.

You are jumping the gun about people jumping the gun....

The blizzard balance machine moves too slowly, especially in a game where they are vastly increasing the rate of which new content is released. Demo just needs some fury generation love and it would be more then fine. There is talk demo will be reworked in WoD anyways so when they do get around to fixing stuff it will come in the form of another rework.

[Baconeggcheese]

So you're worried about guilds that don't objectively evaluate their issues finding more reason to not objectively evaluate their issues? You said it yourself, they will blame anything but their own ability for lack of progress, so why does it matter which irrelevancy they choose to focus on?

I lol'd

.......

[Werst]

Just because BL's locks play demo doesn't mean its on par with aff/dest. It means they are some of the best players in the world and have things heavily on farm by now so they have more flexibility than any of us mortals on what to use or play. Demo is the most challenging spec so to avert boredom its works. Were those same players using demo > aff/dest when they were on the world first progression race? (granted demo was nerfed mid race) but after those nerfs I doubt they were. Citing BL's making a spec competitive is like saying the economy is great due to a cherry picked collection of billionaires...

Demo was overbeaten pve and pvp just fubars it. I wish they'd make some minor changes to help the spec in pvp if nothing else. Especially since we are going to have to endure another season and they seem fine with all warlocks having to wear a warrior shaped buttplug. You could do most of the needed pvp changes with no/negligible pve impact. That said you could probably make some minor changes to give demo a bit back in pve as well which gives devs more latitude in "fixing" demo in pvp. If we are to have 6-9 months more of SoO/MoP it really wouldn't be out of line for them to do some minor things to spruce things up a bit.

[Baconeggcheese]

@werst: The hell are you talking about, no one was saying demo isn't over-nerfed... Read whole posts before you respond.

Side note: Yes some of BL's warlocks used demo during like all of progression including paragons. Them guys love demo apparently.

Double side note: I've been on farm for two and a half months, I'm just bringing alts to raid to deal with boredom and I play 1 spec for the entire instance out of pure laziness.

[ComputerNerd]

The community always pushes towards theoretical minor gains.
There will always be winners and losers regarding specs, as some will simply math out better in some encounters.
Whether it is one spec consistently, or it varying the result is the same.
The community is making the spec "bad", not the design.

[Deleted]

Just because BL's locks play demo doesn't mean its on par with aff/dest. It means they are some of the best players in the world and have things heavily on farm by now so they have more flexibility than any of us mortals on what to use or play. Demo is the most challenging spec so to avert boredom its works. Were those same players using demo > aff/dest when they were on the world first progression race? (granted demo was nerfed mid race) but after those nerfs I doubt they were. Citing BL's making a spec competitive is like saying the economy is great due to a cherry picked collection of billionaires...

or there is nothing wrong with demo and ppl have just jumped on the banwagon with so many other ppl, if you look at their dps you'll definately see that demo can hold their own and isnt really as underpowered as ppl, and blizz apparently, is lead to believe, and if BL's locks can perform extremely well as demo then in theory other ppl should as well and if they dont then we need to consider that it might be a l2p issue and no amount of buffs to demo or nerfs to aff/destro will counter that.

and just for the record, blizz devs have made statements that just havent been true and im inclined to think that statement is another one in a long line of bogus/clueless statements made by blizz.

[Mazda]

Roughly, the better guild you're in (aka fast kill times) the better Demo will perform. When adds start living a shorter and shorter amount of time, Demo starts to look good with respect to other specs. Also, Demo scales so, so much better in 25m.

[Barnabas]

"That's not to say that it hasn't ended up inferior to Affliction/Destruction in most situations; it has. But not underpowered." Link to source.

As Warlocks have three specs to choose from, and one is said to be inferior in most situations it doesn't really matter what that third's power level is relative to the other 20 DPS specs on other classes in the game because they aren't what it's in competition with - it's in competition with Affliction and Destruction. Players are told and encouraged to pick the spec that will perform better in most situations by other players, by the community and by their own desire to be the best; "Which is the best spec" is probably the first question anyone asks when picking a new class. That tweet linked above will be on the front of this, and other websites in the next few days and it the only words that matter in it are inferior to Affliction/Destruction; resounding confirmation from a developer of the spec's position.

Anyone who had any doubts about the spec just had them confirmed, whether it's players who wondered if they might be underperforming, or their raid leaders who thought they might do better with another spec; they're going to switch. Hardly anyone is going to come into the spec afresh. If there's no intention to act on it, then it was a really, really stupid thing to say with so long of the expansion left.

Venting aside, going into WoD though, what are the shortfalls that need fixing? Target switching? Sustained AoE? Multidotting? Cleave? How to fix?

Sorry your OP is really reaching and pulling twitter comments out of context. You're acting like the people you are describing. Demo does very very high dps in raid. Is around or over a 1 million on fights in 25 man acceptable? So if a raid leader decides to take that comment as more than a grain of salt then that is their problem for reading into a single comment too much without seeing the rest of the discussion and/or just not knowledgeable about warlocks? Celastalon didn't resoundingly confirm anything.

Only thing needs fixing in WoD is make affliction rewarding for playing it correctly again. I don't know why the developers have their head's shoved so far up their ass over that concept? It gives players a goal to achieve for the respective spec and class they are playing. Then once players achieved that they can feel rewarded for mastering their spec or class. It'd at least give people some more incentive to play a decade old game. Blizzard's attitude seems to end up siding with the fans that take posts out of context and they demand changes that aren't needed. Are you using this to ask for buffs cause demo isn't working out for you for some reason?

[Jetjaguar]

Side note: Yes some of BL's warlocks used demo during like all of progression including paragons. Them guys love demo apparently.

This was well before nerfs though, so it doesn't mean much.

Also, I'm not really sure why people are in denial about the fact that demo is the worst out of the 3 specs. It gets firmly outclassed in multidotting by aff and is comparable to destruction or better depending on the amount of targets. And for single target, aff and destro are both clearly better. Demo's niche is burst aoe which is why Immerseus is probably one of the few fights where you'll see higher demo lock parses than the other two specs. Funniest thing is when you go look at Sha of Pride parses and see aff is comparable to demo but only because all the aff parses don't really abuse aoe like demo does. Really the only thing you can say is that demo is still a good dps spec in relation to other classes. But it's not really true in relation to the other specs of the class.