WoD Beta Demonology Discussion

[Nighthaven-]

Demo's niche is obviously being clunky at everything it does.


On a serious note,
didn't they state that they were moving away from static AoE 'rotations' ?
Carrion swarm was nice mass-interrupt utility too.

As for Shadowbolt, it feels slow: It was only second-half of the of the expansion that demo felt 'fluid.'
At max 2.2s cast for Shadowbolt with a proportionate damage nerf (also secretly buffs resource generation).

GCD capped Soul-fires are also wrong: they did adjust Elemental's Lava Burst for that reason.
A damage buff would be more appropriate.

[Deleted]

As long as Demo can be competitive or on top on single target, and comparable or close to Affliction in council style fights, I'll be happy. Fights with lots of executable adds or constant AoE will likely favour Destruction, but I'll be ok with that if there are some clear cut fights where Demo is strongest.

I would loathe for another tier where Demonology becomes the "play it if you like it but the other specs do just as good or better for much less effort" again.

[Deleted]

As long as Demo can be competitive or on top on single target, and comparable or close to Affliction in council style fights, I'll be happy. Fights with lots of executable adds or constant AoE will likely favour Destruction, but I'll be ok with that if there are some clear cut fights where Demo is strongest.

I would loathe for another tier where Demonology becomes the "play it if you like it but the other specs do just as good or better for much less effort" again.

well, you cant really deny that all specs havent had their day in the sun, all specs have been good at one point or another during this xpac. i wouldnt keep my hopes up for a few encounters to have demo top meters coz that tends to be harder to achieve, but it is entirely possible to have a tier where demo is right up there but i think we can both agree that it could be a lot worse for all of our specs.

[Deleted]

It was only really good because of a trinket though. I'd rather the spec have stood up on its own merits.

Also just to clarify, I enjoy tiers where it is optimal to change specs multiple times based on the encounter at hand. For this reason I wish there to be certain Demonology favoured encounters where the other 2 would be less optimal. At least that way I don't have to think I could be doing more DPS with a different spec, as is the case now with Affliction and Destruction in SoO.

Selfish reasons, but I'd love it to turn out this way.

[Deleted]

It was only really good because of a trinket though. I'd rather the spec have stood up on its own merits.

Also just to clarify, I enjoy tiers where it is optimal to change specs multiple times based on the encounter at hand. For this reason I wish there to be certain Demonology favoured encounters where the other 2 would be less optimal. At least that way I don't have to think I could be doing more DPS with a different spec, as is the case now with Affliction and Destruction in SoO.

Selfish reasons, but I'd love it to turn out this way.

yeah, it was mainly due to a trinket and you're right, it would have been better if demo could have done that well without resorting to a broken trinket, and it would certainly be great if there were encounters where that favored demo more than than afflic and destro this tier but you have to agree that as locks we have it very well, as we have 2 specs that perform very very well, unlike other classes that only have 1, but i do agree with you, some fights that favor demo would be nice for those dedicated demo locks out there, personally, i dont play demo, i hate it, feels too slow and clunky, but i prefer all our specs to have encounters where they perform very well rather than now where afflic and to a lesser degree destro, reigns supreme, i think the biggest problem is that demo doesnt really have anything that stands out compared to our other specs, except maybe, as have been mentioned b4, its ability to somewhat reliably do dps while moving and in WoD that might turn out to be a good thing but that depends on raid encounters and whether or not fel flame returns which i hope it does, if it does then blizz needs to look into a way to give demo a niche instead of being a "jack of all trades master of none" type of spec.

[Deleted]

Yeah, you'd have to be pretty deluded to believe locks haven't had a fantastic expansion.

[Biruta]

Average? It's literally within the bottom 4 overall for 25HM SoO and bottom 3 for 10HM. It's underperforming overall
Looking at rankings for Demo is entirely deceptive, because most of the top Warlocks are Aff/Destro. (Celestalon)

Any demo buffs? Literally no demos on ladder. Feels bad, man.
That's a tuning issue. (And to be fair, it's a tuning issue with Aff/Destr, not Demo).We haven't done tuning yet. (Celestalon)
It is a tuning issue with demo, actually. Demo has little ability to kill and little pressure against other players.
Oh, apologies, I was talking PvE. (Celestalon)
So does this mean demo is going to stay same and des/aff is going to be slightly nerfed?
It should come as no shock to hear that Aff/Destro are overpowered on live. (Celestalon)
It's HIGHLY underrepresented in medium to top end guilds, that isn't a coincidence
Demo is underrepresented because the Warlocks up there strongly favor Aff/Destro, not because it's weak (Celestalon)
lolwut. It's underrepresented because it underperforms compared to Destro/Aff.
That's... exactly what I just said? (Celestalon)
You can re-read your last post, if you'd like, to see where you're wrong.
Yeah, I don't get it. Demo is not UP; Aff/Destro are OP (in PvE). Thus, top guilds' Warlocks are mostly Aff/Destro. (Celestalon)
While they are OP, Demo is underpowered compared to almost every other single spec in the game. Again, bottom 4 25HM/bottom 3 10
And again, those rankings are useless. (Celestalon)

Is Celestalon a Troll??

[Deleted]

He's right though. Demo is NOT a bad spec.

On short single target fights Affliction is broken, same as any fight which allows extension of uber DoTs via Soul Swap.

A lot of SoO fights also cater directly to Destruction's strengths, namely multiple adds to Shadowburn snipe and FnB/Chaos Bolt spam.

On Single Target and Council type fights, Demonology is certainly a match for Destruction, it just requires way more effort and knowledge, and only a handful of players truly enjoy it enough to accept that trade-off.

[Rayaleith]

This guy has some serious issues with locks. He could have just deal with the lock that hurt him somehow and leave, us the rest, alone.

[Soulzar]

Lol, I saw the front page today and was like "Oh wow, multiple responses to lock questions"

Then I find its just a bickering match between Celstelon and some player about locks being OP, as per tradition...

Disappointed again...

[Jessicka]

Doesn't change.

Anyhow. Posted a wall of text over on the US Beta class forums about this spec. Clearly not everyone can or will visit there, so through the power of Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V...
_____________________________

The good:
Not too much changed, but then we've just had a major revamp in MoP where we'd seen significant changes. Basic standstill stuff feels much the same.

Particularly enjoying the Cataclysm talent, makes stepping into Meta feel like a huge deal when you open your burst up phase with this.

Glad to see Meta-twisting for Shadowflame gone too.

The meh:
Loss of Twilight Ward, a nice short defensive cooldown. Long term I can probably live without it, but it was nice while we had it. Was really looking forward to the Glyph that would make it more useful.

Imp Swarm. I'm not sure if this is meant to be deleted or what, but it's currently not functioning. It's one of my favourite things about the spec, offering a little bit of a DPS cooldown, or on-demand Fury generation, without being a temendous impact on overall throughput. As a completely optional playstyle decision, it's probably about the most perfect in game. On top of that, it's always an awesome visual moment, and general cool thing to do. In terms of buttons though, Cataclysm basically replaced it on my action bar, but I'd still have plenty of room for it now Curses are gone.

Molten Core perk. I just don't like it, it's too strong. I don't think there's any situation where bringing a cast time spell under the global cooldown actually feels good; on the contrary it just gives a feeling of lack of responsiveness. This has been an issue for high-haste builds as Destruction with Backdraft for years, I'm disapointed that you guys thought it would be a good idea to bring to Demo.

Demonbolt. Aside from having a terrible name, I'm not sure of the merit of a spell to cast roughly once a minute at the start of a burn phase, that we can't use on the pull, and can't once cast, really afford to 'stop' burning Fury. In most cases, we simply do not empty our Fury pool in this way. Either the floor for the refund needs to be raised, or some other mechanic, maybe a timer, found to refund it instead of the current method. It just feels bad, which is disapointing for a talent that actually seemed so interesting.

The bad:
Grimoire of Sacrifice. I don't even know who came up with this, but it's self evidently not someone with a thorough understanding of the spec. The spec values Crit quite highly, because critical Doom ticks spawn a Wild Imp, which in turn generates Fury and Molten Core procs. This therefore slows Fury and MC proc generation, which isn't good. On council-type fights, this only gets worse as Doom and it's Imps' contribution becomes more important. There is literally no reason I can see why you'd want to cut your own crit chance and slow your Fury generation for what is effectively in terms of actually playing, a second passive option on a talent row when we already have Supremacy for that.

Fel Flame. We only have 2 DoTs, Doom which is a minute long, and Corruption we try to maintain through Touch of Chaos; while HoG/Shadowflame have a very particular deployment. Not having Fel Flame then basically pushes us right into Meta, for a very suboptimal spend of precious Fury for mobility as there is just nothing else but Life Tap - which we can Glyph out of. After a burn phase, that's not necessarily even an option. With Shadow Bolt being such a long cast, it's a very big deal for caster-form mobility to be just so rooted. Further, Fel Flame allows us to generate Fury a little faster, at the expense of Wild Imp procs, and a little sustained in order to be ready for particular burn phases or switches.

Glyph of Life Pact. I just don't think this is a good idea, it's basically going to be considered 'mandatory' for the GCDs is saves and it's not the player being penalised, it's their healer. 'Free damage' like this does not have a place in the Glyph pane. Especially when elsewhere we've moved away from 'taking more damage to do more' mechanics are stripped away because of the behaviour it promotes.

Curse of Exhaustion. Granted, I never had much use for it as primarily a PvEer, but in terms of a 'defensive ability' in PvP, rather than using a defensive cooldown on yourself (or your ally as you would as Hybrid classes tend to), then it adds another dimension by placing the debuff on the aggressor. As a passive with '100% up time', I agree, there's not much gameplay but I think Curses are definitely something that could and should be revisited, as they are so iconic to the class.

Curse of Elements. As with Exhaustion, it's not very interesting as a target debuff with 100% up time. Again though, this could be revisited as a raid cooldown to make it more interactive.

[Hellfury]

I feel shadowbolt should refresh Corruption, without weaving we wont go to meta as much and have to bank fury for procs and Demonbolt, there are times we have to refresh Corruption manually. Its not that its a big deal thou.

Going into meta to fire a TOC to refresh might be the better approach sure, but to me that's is more clunky than weaving.

To me seems the design of corruption as demo is a fire and forget dot once fight starts, so SB should refresh Corruption

[Deleted]

I forgot, did they buff Chaos Wave's damage to be equal to Hand of Gul'Dan ?
I remember reading about it a while ago, but that would mean no more stance dancing Hand weaving for more damage, Im gonna miss that :/

[Jessicka]

I forgot, did they buff Chaos Wave's damage to be equal to Hand of Gul'Dan ?
I remember reading about it a while ago, but that would mean no more stance dancing Hand weaving for more damage, Im gonna miss that :/

Yes. But Shadowflame still generates Fury and more potential MC procs (rather than the guaranteed one from CW), so will still be a preferred cast. You won't pop Meta right after dropping HoG though, since Shadowflame will not gain Meta's benefit.

[Deleted]

Ah yeah forgot about the Fury regen part. Now one can only hope that Demonic Servitude pets also generates Fury for Demo.
Don't want to be pigeonholed into Demon Bolt, it's a cool spell but options are always nice.

[Deleted]

This guy has some serious issues with locks. He could have just deal with the lock that hurt him somehow and leave, us the rest, alone.

It seriously feels like it doesn't it. What he is essentially saying is that destro and affliction are going to be nerfed into the ground.

The really annoying bit is he doesnt seem to understand that the ONLY reason these specs are overpowered is because soul swap is broken and dot snapshotting makes affliction really strong. Destruction is good with shadowburning and aoe.

I suspect what will happen is that they will overnerf locks in WoD and then in 6.1 they will buff us again because of how shit our dps will be in 6.0.

[Zathrendar]

His comments border on being retarded. It's not UP, because affli/destro are "OP"... the fact that is the bottom of all specs is brought up and he just repeats the same mantra, rubbishing the rankings. Is he making the silly assumption that the difference is down to the top specs attracting the top players? He really makes Ghostcrawler seem saintly.

- - - Updated - - -

I suspect what will happen is that they will overnerf locks in WoD and then in 6.1 they will buff us again because of how shit our dps will be in 6.0.

A.k.a back to business as usual.

[a C e]

@people who are worried about GoSac

Lets not forget that GoSac scales exceptionally with gear and will eventually catch up to GoSup and GoServ. Its scaling has always been a target of nerfs and it will always be a very strong talent with good gear.

[Gohzerlock]

Average? It's literally within the bottom 4 overall for 25HM SoO and bottom 3 for 10HM. It's underperforming overall
Looking at rankings for Demo is entirely deceptive, because most of the top Warlocks are Aff/Destro. (Celestalon)

Any demo buffs? Literally no demos on ladder. Feels bad, man.
That's a tuning issue. (And to be fair, it's a tuning issue with Aff/Destr, not Demo).We haven't done tuning yet. (Celestalon)
It is a tuning issue with demo, actually. Demo has little ability to kill and little pressure against other players.
Oh, apologies, I was talking PvE. (Celestalon)
So does this mean demo is going to stay same and des/aff is going to be slightly nerfed?
It should come as no shock to hear that Aff/Destro are overpowered on live. (Celestalon)
It's HIGHLY underrepresented in medium to top end guilds, that isn't a coincidence
Demo is underrepresented because the Warlocks up there strongly favor Aff/Destro, not because it's weak (Celestalon)
lolwut. It's underrepresented because it underperforms compared to Destro/Aff.
That's... exactly what I just said? (Celestalon)
You can re-read your last post, if you'd like, to see where you're wrong.
Yeah, I don't get it. Demo is not UP; Aff/Destro are OP (in PvE). Thus, top guilds' Warlocks are mostly Aff/Destro. (Celestalon)
While they are OP, Demo is underpowered compared to almost every other single spec in the game. Again, bottom 4 25HM/bottom 3 10
And again, those rankings are useless. (Celestalon)

Is Celestalon a Troll??

Contradicts himself how many times? Seriously... starts out with "looking at rankings" ends with "those rankings are useless" completely disregards why demo/aff is even viable or op because of snapshotting/trinkets. *mind boggled*

[Deleted]

the fact that is the bottom of all specs

Demo is actually extremely competitive with most other specs on Single Target fights like Iron Juggernaut, and it does pretty well on Council Fights like Fallen Protectors too.

It cannot compete with Affliction, but everyone and his dog knows how broken that spec is right now.

Demonology is not underpowered. Sure, it doesn't have the tools to compete on stuff like Spoils and Galakras, but the spec is not weak, nor is it underpowered.