WoD Beta Demonology Discussion

[Deleted]

The most disturbing thing is the lack of transparency behind their decidions. Simply saying "You're wrong" when so many of us are clearly worried about what our data is showing us is not fair nor helping us assess the situation. Where is their data they keep referring to? Celestalon should spend more time convincing us instead of coming with statements which have no apparent basis on our end.

Would also like him to explain why, as of the recent patch, I should ever bother casting a Demonbolt. Really liked that spell but now it seems useless.

[Rayaleith]

It is really alarming they do not fix the imp afking bug. I mean, how this can be so low in the bug fix priority?

- - - Updated - - -

	Stacks	CT	Fury	D (1kSP)	D+Mastery	DPCT	DPFC	DPCTPFC	DPFCPCT
SF		2	80	680	802.4	401.20	10.03	5.02	5.015
DB	0	2	80	1500	1770	885.00	22.13	11.06	11.0625
DB+1	1	2	160	1800	2124	1062.00	13.28	6.64	6.6375
DB+2	2	2	240	2100	2478	1239.00	10.33	5.16	5.1625
DB+3	3	2	320	2400	2832	1416.00	8.85	4.43	4.425
DB+4	4	2	400	4500	5310	2655.00	13.28	6.64	6.6375
DB+5	5	2	480	3000	3540	1770.00	7.38	3.69	3.6875
DB+6	6	2	560	3300	3894	1947.00	6.95	3.48	3.476785714
DB+7	7	2	640	3600	4248	2124.00	6.64	3.32	3.31875
DB+8	8	2	720	3900	4602	2301.00	6.39	3.20	3.195833333
DB+9	9	2	800	4200	4956	2478.00	6.20	3.10	3.0975
DB+10	10	2	880	4500	5310	2655.00	6.03	3.02	3.017045455
TOC		1	40	400	472	472.00	11.80	11.80	11.8

So ToC is still almost 2x as effective as Soul Fire, and importantly, even more effective than Demonbolt now. /facepalm

It is ok. They will nerf ToC as well in the near future. Don't worry!

[Deleted]

It is ok. They will nerf ToC as well in the near future. Don't worry!

this!

but lets test the mythic bosses.. mainly in PVP premades and not some broken copy shit. Maybe that helps them for their data to bring the specs on parr.

[Crisius]

Seems the design-philosophy right now revolves around nerfing "A" because "B" is overpowered, then promptly nerfing "B" because "A" felt too weak.

[Jessicka]

It is ok. They will nerf ToC as well in the near future. Don't worry!

To achieve parity with Soul Fire, the damage coefficient needs to be reduced from 40% of spellpower to 17%, a 57.5% nerf. I don't think anyone wants to wake up on 14th November to a hotfix that says "Touch of Chaos damage reduced by 60%". But that is how overpowered it is. And it's not without precedent - Searing Pain within 12 hours of 3.3 anyone?

[Unknowndiv]

Jessicka, could you explain to me, how do you determine DPFCPCT and DPCTPFC?
Don't you need to DPCT/FCPCT?
I just do not understand simple math, I guess. ToC's CT is 1 sec, FC per CT is 40. SF's CT is 2 sec (with MC) and FC is 80, but FC per CT is 40... So, wouldn't it be
ToC's effectivness=472(DPCT)/40(FCPCT)=11.8 and SF's effectivness=401.2(DPCT)/40(FCPCT)=10.03?
With 1 execute of SF (2 sec) I do 802.4 DMG and it costs me 80 Fury, and for same amount of time (2 sec) I do 2 executes of ToC resulting in 472*2=944 DMG and it costs me 80 Fury. Same goes for DB.
Am I missing something?

[Deleted]

Jessicka, could you explain to me, how do you determine DPFCPCT and DPCTPFC?
Don't you need to DPCT/FCPCT?
I just do not understand simple math, I guess. ToC's CT is 1 sec, FC per CT is 40. SF's CT is 2 sec (with MC) and FC is 80, but FC per CT is 40... So, wouldn't it be
ToC's effectivness=472(DPCT)/40(FCPCT)=11.8 and SF's effectivness=401.2(DPCT)/40(FCPCT)=10.03?
With 1 execute of SF (2 sec) I do 802.4 DMG and it costs me 80 Fury, and for same amount of time (2 sec) I do 2 executes of ToC resulting in 472*2=944 DMG and it costs me 80 Fury. Same goes for DB.
Am I missing something?

Nope, you are correct. That table assumes, that Soul Fire drains 80 fury per second, which it doesn't.
Also, DPCT/FCPCT = Damage/Furycost, as cast time within one cast is always the same.

You should compare damage/cast-time (DPCT) and damage/fury-cost (DPFC) seperately.
The most efficient spell will always be the one with the highes DPFC, the one with the most dps (not necessarily the same as best DPFC) will be the one with the highest DPCT.
Now you could obviously come up with arbitrary examples where neither DPCT, nor DPFC of two spells are close to each other, making a simple decision for which one to use less obvious. If one of those values is the same for both casts you obviously go for the one that has the higher value in the other coefficient.

Arbitrary example:
Soulfire does 2k damage, 2sec cast time, costs 100 fury: DPCT = 1000, DPFC = 20
ToC: 1400 damage, 1.5 sec cast, costs 60 fury: DPCT = 933.33, DPFC: 23.333

In this scenario ToC would be the more efficient spell, but soulfire would yield more dps. It would drain your fury faster but less efficient, aka better burst.

We could still try to compare both spells, by building DPCT_sf/DPCT_toc and DPFC_sf/DPFC_toc, to see that SF-dpct is hardly better than ToC in this example, but soulfires dpfc is much worse than ToC. That would basically be:
(DPCT_spell1 * DPFC_spell1) / (DPCT_spell2 * DPFC_spell2). If that value is greater than 1, then spell1 would be better "overall", otherwise it's "worse" in that kind of comparison.

However. Blizzard stated, that they want SF > ToC in meta to be true if you can afford to stand still. So I would expect, that soulfire will always win this last comparison if they tune everything right. If that changes however, then, depending on how bigger or smaller than 1 that last coefficient is, SimC should be asked if ToC>SF isn't an overall dps gain. You can't simply rule that last question out on paper, because you can't determine the value of higher meta-uptime for DoTs and faster fury-gain in caster-form from soulfire very easily.

Note: English is not my native language, so I'm sorry if i'm bad at describing equations that a pretty simple on a piece of paper. Also remind that the numbers I used were completely made up for simple calculations and the sake of argument.

[Jessicka]

Jessicka, could you explain to me, how do you determine DPFCPCT and DPCTPFC?
Don't you need to DPCT/FCPCT?
I just do not understand simple math, I guess. ToC's CT is 1 sec, FC per CT is 40. SF's CT is 2 sec (with MC) and FC is 80, but FC per CT is 40... So, wouldn't it be
ToC's effectivness=472(DPCT)/40(FCPCT)=11.8 and SF's effectivness=401.2(DPCT)/40(FCPCT)=10.03?
With 1 execute of SF (2 sec) I do 802.4 DMG and it costs me 80 Fury, and for same amount of time (2 sec) I do 2 executes of ToC resulting in 472*2=944 DMG and it costs me 80 Fury. Same goes for DB.
Am I missing something?

I am glad someone actually checked this. While your maths shows Soul Fire to be less bad than I'd calculated, it's still not better in terms of DPS or DPFC than ToC. I should have normalised it using Damage/(Fury Cost/Cast Time).

If they'd left the 42.5% coefficient on Soul Fire, then SF would be the better option, both ahead of ToC and a 3rd Demonbolt - exactly as Celestalon described was the intent. /sigh

	Stacks	CT	Fury	D(1kSP)	D+Mas	DPCT	DPFC	DPFCPCT
SF		2	80	680	802.4	401.20	10.03	20.06
DB	0	2	80	1500	1770	885.00	22.13	44.25
DB+1	1	2	160	1800	2124	1062.00	13.28	26.55
DB+2	2	2	240	2100	2478	1239.00	10.33	20.65
DB+3	3	2	320	2400	2832	1416.00	8.85	17.70
DB+4	4	2	400	2700	3186	1593.00	7.97	15.93
DB+5	5	2	480	3000	3540	1770.00	7.38	14.75
DB+6	6	2	560	3300	3894	1947.00	6.95	13.91
DB+7	7	2	640	3600	4248	2124.00	6.64	13.28
DB+8	8	2	720	3900	4602	2301.00	6.39	12.78
DB+9	9	2	800	4200	4956	2478.00	6.20	12.39
DB+10	10	2	880	4500	5310	2655.00	6.03	12.07
TOC		1	40	400	472	472.00	11.80	11.80

[Baconeggcheese]

My problem is I can't fathom why they would continue to balance this way if it doesn't "make sense for a few builds". What reason is there for it besides testing the water to see if they like it balanced this way? I seriously cannot fathom why they would intentionally put nonsensical balance patches through several times before it all magically makes sense.

I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if it goes live pretty much just like this...

Honestly after the first round of the warlock community all echoing the same mechanics feedback and nothing getting changed by the time they got around to tuning I fully expect everything to go live pretty much as is which is why I stopped bothering with feedback.

[Hellfury]

Not to forget that the very short pulls because of mythic testing also skew Demo results because Doomguard its a huge source of damage on a 2-3min duration fight but not as much in a 10min fight.

[Cvadam]

What was the context for not "making sense for a few builds"? I don't typically browse MMO-C forums so I apologize if it's somewhere in the thread.

Pertaining specifically to Demo tuning, I understand and agree that Demo was performing too well. But these changes seem way overdone.

[Baconeggcheese]

It was something I believe celestalon had said a little bit back.

[Fullmetal89]

Seems the design-philosophy right now revolves around nerfing "A" because "B" is overpowered, then promptly nerfing "B" because "A" felt too weak.

Hasn't this always been the design philosophy, not just for locks but everyone.

[Jessicka]

What was the context for not "making sense for a few builds"? I don't typically browse MMO-C forums so I apologize if it's somewhere in the thread.

Pertaining specifically to Demo tuning, I understand and agree that Demo was performing too well. But these changes seem way overdone.

There were several bugs, most notable of which was Mastery only effecting Nature damage. Clearly, as big users of Nature damage that was actually quite a big deal - that we could more than compete in spite of that would suggest some downtuning was going to be necessary. There are several other bugs like Imps leaving combat that cause damage to drop off too.

The twitter thread

[Cvadam]

There were several bugs, most notable of which was Mastery only effecting Nature damage. Clearly, as big users of Nature damage that was actually quite a big deal - that we could more than compete in spite of that would suggest some downtuning was going to be necessary. There are several other bugs like Imps leaving combat that cause damage to drop off too.

Have they acknowledged the imp issue and figured out a fix? It's been happening all beta long, and I don't recall a single tweet/post that confirmed it was being fixed.

[Baconeggcheese]

He's said its already fixed on their end a few builds back and for some reason it never gets fixed on the beta.

[Crisius]

Hasn't this always been the design philosophy, not just for locks but everyone.

Not as bad as with the current design team.

[Apoxas]

I'm not sure if anyone here cares aout PvP, but i just had the honors of testing some on a AFK Disc priest.

Non demon Form
- Shadowbolt ~4k hits
- Soulfires ~2.2k crits
- Hand of Gul'dan ~3.4k hits

Demon Form
- Touch of chaos ~2.5k hits

Are you fucking kidding me?

I was ToC'ing players for 5k hits and HoG'ing for above 10k crits... This wasnt already high to begin with...

Meanwhile Obliterate crits you for 80K....

[luckydevours]

I knew it: Ridiculously strong Cataclysm damage was going to fuck this class and especially Demo into oblivion ... now we have turret dps in PvE and three shitty specs for PvP. I cannot believe how single-mindedly they have managed to ruin playstyle and mechanics of this class after such an overall successful redesign in MoP ...

[DesireKT]

Have they acknowledged the imp issue and figured out a fix? It's been happening all beta long, and I don't recall a single tweet/post that confirmed it was being fixed.

He said Imps spawning from Doom crits was fixed a while back. Which it was. Them going AFK was not. However it does appear to be fixed right now. They seem to be changing targets and entering combat again. Need to do some more testing with the glyph because the first time I used it looked like they didn't re-enter combat but it was towards the end of there duration they might have been in despawn mode or simply a bug with first time using the spell. Subsequent uses of the glyph have all been working as intended thus far.

They do seem to despawn slower than on live as in they finish there last cast then run around back in idle position around me then despawn ~1-3 seconds later.