[BETA] Demonology Warlock Discussion

[Deleted]

Well the Inquisitor does aoe damage so, I imagine that'll be the go to for multiple targets, while DB will be for single target. Demonic Servitude is just... there. For all three specs.

i just fear inquisitor will turn into something like infernal or hellfire, both of which are essentially useless talents, i hope that the dmg from inquisitor is more than worth the gcd you use on it, especially when you considering that it needs talent support to do properly fast aoe in hand of doom as it only hits targets with doom. it does seem that inquisitor can be used for ST dps as it has a 18 sec duration and a 25 sec cd atm, ofc the question will be if its going to be worth it.

also doesnt shadow bolt have 2,5 sec csat time on live? in http://beta.wowdb.com/talent-calculator#m it says it has a 2 sec cast time, might just be that im missing a demonology perk and it has been added to the spell in legion.

[Yorindesarin]

Inquisitor for AoE, Demonbolt for ST with a higher skill ceiling, Demonic Servitude for passive DPS gain. That's my take on it.

I think you're trying too hard to push your own agenda. We get it that you want to summon a big new shiny thing and that you don't like the new small shiny things, but at least acknowledge that Blizzard HAS added new Demons.

Hm I see.. Well yes fair enough they have added new demons... But... I somewhat dislike the talent mentality...? Like I'm okay with it happening to some spells.... But with some things its a bit odd... and a new demon to me as a talent has to be super uber shiny and make my gameplay sparkle rainbows when I use it... But then again I guess if it was baseline it would have a bigger chance of becoming null? But then again... Is it a CD or a guardian type pet..? Because... if it replaces felguard it's basically demonc servitude again.. so to speak.

i just fear inquisitor will turn into something like infernal or hellfire, both of which are essentially useless talents, i hope that the dmg from inquisitor is more than worth the gcd you use on it, especially when you considering that it needs talent support to do properly fast aoe in hand of doom as it only hits targets with doom. it does seem that inquisitor can be used for ST dps as it has a 18 sec duration and a 25 sec cd atm, ofc the question will be if its going to be worth it.

also doesnt shadow bolt have 2,5 sec csat time on live? in http://beta.wowdb.com/talent-calculator#m it says it has a 2 sec cast time, might just be that im missing a demonology perk and it has been added to the spell in legion.

As far as I know shadowbolts cast time was reduced in the alpha testing (not that anyone can actually test demo right now but I'm sure I saw something about a reduction to its cast time a while back?)

[Deleted]

another of my concerns is how demonwrath will work with our wilp imps. basically what it does it makes our summoned pets burst with something like a hellfire dealing 25% spellpower dmg pr sec for 3 secs. with wild imps being ranged the chances of us getting anything out of demonwrath from our wild imps is slim coz they dont generally go into melee, so at best only our dreadstalkers(only 2 out atleast based on talents, dont know if the artifact will add to that) and felguard will deal demonwrath dmg consistantly, i hope blizz will make it so that the wild imps go in close enough to their targets to also deal demonwrath dmg. doubt the tanks will appreciate us continuosly asking them to bring the boss and the adds into range of our wild imps lol.

[Jessicka]

Inquisitor for AoE, Demonbolt for ST with a higher skill ceiling, Demonic Servitude for passive DPS gain. That's my take on it.

I think you're trying too hard to push your own agenda. We get it that you want to summon a big new shiny thing and that you don't like the new small shiny things, but at least acknowledge that Blizzard HAS added new Demons.

Still not seeing where Demonbolt does anything for the skill ceiling, other than being smart enough to realise never to use it with Implosion. Unless it's possible to track the lifespan of the guardians relative to the DPET Demonbolt has stacked to, which is a path of add-ons.

Clearly the spec is deeply under developed, which is why it wasn't even open to play, and the artefact doesn't exist. There's not really a lot to be discussed beyond what we'd like to see from it, and more and new demons is a popular box that's clearly been checked. I'd personally like to see more balance between the talents between that and more spells and power for the character.. Right now I think there's too much passive, pretty much aesthetic talents in there, of which Servitude and Demonbolt are two, but it's very early days.

[Deleted]

Still not seeing where Demonbolt does anything for the skill ceiling, other than being smart enough to realise never to use it with Implosion. Unless it's possible to track the lifespan of the guardians relative to the DPET Demonbolt has stacked to, which is a path of add-ons.

Demonbolt requires you to be more conscious of when you summon demons. You'll want as many demons as possible during trinket procs/burn phases/priority add spawns because that's when Demonbolt will be hitting hardest. This might mean some clever pooling of resources or cooldowns. I suppose this style of play isn't anything new, but Demonbolt accentuates the importance of it.

[Deleted]

Still not seeing where Demonbolt does anything for the skill ceiling, other than being smart enough to realise never to use it with Implosion. Unless it's possible to track the lifespan of the guardians relative to the DPET Demonbolt has stacked to, which is a path of add-ons.

Well you already answered most of the reasonings; it's about having to actively think rather than just being a completely passive option. Don't use it with Implosion, get an addon for tracking your active demons (yes Blizzard said they want go do away with addon reliance but they can sometimes be shortsighted), perhaps even focus on 'pooling' demons a bit like an Assassination Rogue. If you know you have to move in 5s or you're waiting for a high HP add or fishing for a trinket proc, wait a bit before dropping Call Dreadstalkers, HoG, Soul Harvest, HoG and spamming the fuck out of Demonbolt.

I'm sure some people will come up with theorycraft surrounding it, however I definitely feel it will be a high-er skill ceiling than Demon Servitude, as it should be. It might be a simple case of just tracking your demon count and reacting accordingly. Even that is enough to warrant a slightly higher throughput potential in the right hands (and lower in the wrong).

- - - Updated - - -

Demonbolt requires you to be more conscious of when you summon demons. You'll want as many demons as possible during trinket procs/burn phases/priority add spawns because that's when Demonbolt will be hitting hardest. This might mean some clever pooling of resources or cooldowns. I suppose this style of play isn't anything new, but Demonbolt accentuates the importance of it.

What he said.

[Deleted]

Demonbolt requires you to be more conscious of when you summon demons. You'll want as many demons as possible during trinket procs/burn phases/priority add spawns because that's when Demonbolt will be hitting hardest. This might mean some clever pooling of resources or cooldowns. I suppose this style of play isn't anything new, but Demonbolt accentuates the importance of it.

tbh i dont get that feeling, to me demo feels very rotational coz that is the only way to consistantly get a high amount of pets out at a time and for your cds to line up. as i see it you will spend 12ish secs to generate shard, spend those to summon imps, spec 3ish secs to generate 2 more shards to summon dreadstalkers and you'll have 8-9 secs where you'll have 10+ demons out, then rinse and repeat. when to use demon bolt will be an after thought bcoz you know you'll have the max possible amount of pets out the next few secs.

[wooters]

another of my concerns is how demonwrath will work with our wilp imps. basically what it does it makes our summoned pets burst with something like a hellfire dealing 25% spellpower dmg pr sec for 3 secs. with wild imps being ranged the chances of us getting anything out of demonwrath from our wild imps is slim coz they dont generally go into melee, so at best only our dreadstalkers(only 2 out atleast based on talents, dont know if the artifact will add to that) and felguard will deal demonwrath dmg consistantly, i hope blizz will make it so that the wild imps go in close enough to their targets to also deal demonwrath dmg. doubt the tanks will appreciate us continuosly asking them to bring the boss and the adds into range of our wild imps lol.

Imho that's not how I see this spell work. my take on it in current format is.. the channel will dish out 25% Sp of our dmg to any enemy within 10 yds of our demons. so its irrelevant if there are 9 demons close a target or 1 demon. Dmg done will remain the same. so in that sense IF I am correct... the spread of demons, melee and/or casters are not a disadvantage for more dps(for unwanted pulling it might be though)

edit. this is how it have to be..as 25% per demon would be vastly OP aswell

[Nadiru]

another of my concerns is how demonwrath will work with our wilp imps. basically what it does it makes our summoned pets burst with something like a hellfire dealing 25% spellpower dmg pr sec for 3 secs. with wild imps being ranged the chances of us getting anything out of demonwrath from our wild imps is slim coz they dont generally go into melee, so at best only our dreadstalkers(only 2 out atleast based on talents, dont know if the artifact will add to that) and felguard will deal demonwrath dmg consistantly, i hope blizz will make it so that the wild imps go in close enough to their targets to also deal demonwrath dmg. doubt the tanks will appreciate us continuosly asking them to bring the boss and the adds into range of our wild imps lol.

Imps pop out of Hand of Gul'dan, which means they spawn close to melee range. It'll be a thing where we don't want the boss to move away from your set up, but it's not that unforgiving since you'll spawn new imps every ~20 seconds.

[bio347]

There's almost no way Demonwrath stacks. The wording ("all enemies within 10y of any of your demons take X damage") and the circumstances suggest this pretty strongly: If Demonwrath stacks, then it will pretty trivially do about 5x the DPS of Shadow Bolt (25% spellpower per demon, ten demons (five HoG imps, two talent imps, two dreadstalkers, felguard), 1s ticks VERSUS 94.5% spellpower, 2s cast). That's just not happening.

[Deleted]

There's almost no way Demonwrath stacks. The wording ("all enemies within 10y of any of your demons take X damage") and the circumstances suggest this pretty strongly: If Demonwrath stacks, then it will pretty trivially do about 5x the DPS of Shadow Bolt (25% spellpower per demon, ten demons (five HoG imps, two talent imps, two dreadstalkers, felguard), 1s ticks VERSUS 94.5% spellpower, 2s cast). That's just not happening.

why is that not happening? its how every aoe works, and we dont have any control over those pets plus when you aoe you should pretty trivially do several times more dps than your filler if you didnt what would be the point of even trying to aoe.

[bio347]

why is that not happening? its how every aoe works, and we dont have any control over those pets plus when you aoe you should pretty trivially do several times more dps than your filler if you didnt what would be the point of even trying to aoe.

You misread me. Demonwrath would do five times the DPS of Shadow Bolt to a single target if every demon pulsed to every target. It'd also have greater shard generation, because you'd be getting ~ten 15% chances per second compared to SB's 100% per two seconds. That's patently ridiculous, and is NOT something that occurs on live servers.

As it is, with current numbers DW does merely half the DPS of SB on a single target, which means it's potentially worthwhile on as few as two targets, though your shard generation will suffer somewhat until you have a couple more. It's also able to be channeled while moving, which is significant.

The tooltip could probably stand to be clearer so that it's not so easy to misread, but it almost definitely works like: "If there is at least one demon within 10y of the target, it takes blah blah blah" and NOT: "For every demon within 10y of the target it takes blah blah blah". The latter is totally busted.

[Deleted]

You misread me. Demonwrath would do five times the DPS of Shadow Bolt to a single target if every demon pulsed to every target. It'd also have greater shard generation, because you'd be getting ~ten 15% chances per second compared to SB's 100% per two seconds. That's patently ridiculous, and is NOT something that occurs on live servers.

As it is, with current numbers DW does merely half the DPS of SB on a single target, which means it's potentially worthwhile on as few as two targets, though your shard generation will suffer somewhat until you have a couple more. It's also able to be channeled while moving, which is significant.

The tooltip could probably stand to be clearer so that it's not so easy to misread, but it almost definitely works like: "If there is at least one demon within 10y of the target, it takes blah blah blah" and NOT: "For every demon within 10y of the target it takes blah blah blah". The latter is totally busted.

yeah, but you're also assuming that all demons will be within 10 yards of the boss but i get your point, it would end up horribly OP if each demon would deal the dmg on 1 target but at the same time i feel it will be very weak otherwise as it would essentially make it into a weaker version of hellfire when used for aoe and we all know how useless that spell was coz you'll basically end up with demon bolt being a better option(assuming you have 10ish demons out) instead of doing aoe with demonwrath coz dealing a total of 150% spellpower to 6(25% spellwpoer*6)mobs every sec for aoe is very underwhelming. ofc it can be solved with adding something that makes it scale for each enemy hit, so that it does crap dmg on 1-2 targets and then it does double dmg to 3+ targets or something like that.

[bio347]

It's actually not a weaker version of Hellfire at current numbers. HF is 12.6% spellpower plus caster-form mastery per second. Mastery is... what, +25% or so at high gear levels? So DW is ~60% stronger than a max-geared HF (give or take).

Worthwhile to note, too, is that DW isn't the only thing you do for AoE. Primarily, you also have HoG, which does 150% spellpower at maximum soul shards and does damage in its usual 8y radius. There's also Doom multi-DoTing on things that will live for its duration if you haven't taken the talent that makes HoG auto-apply it. And finally, there's Implosion and Summon Inquisitor if talented.

So for currently-designed Demo, your AoE "rotation" involves DW spam to generate the shards to cast HoG, HoG enables Implosion, and you spawn the Inquisitor on its cooldown and potentially multi-DoT Doom. Oh, and Felstorm and GoServ and Demonic Empowerement (for your Inquisitor) and maybe finding time to Call Dreadstalkers (probably depends on number of targets) and maybe using your cooldown on an infernal instead of a doomguard. It also scales pretty sharply with the number of targets, because DW's wording suggests that every damage instance has the 15% chance at a shard (and Doom generates shards too). Lots of guys = tons of shards = HoG spam(ish) = moar Implosions.

Definitely seems pretty involved and interesting to me.

[Deleted]

except many ppl complained about demo aoe being way too many buttons and now they have effectively done the same to an even more extreme degree, its interesting for sure but having to use DW, HoG, Inquisitor, implosion, felstorm, GoServ, demonic empowerment for optimal aoe is prolly 4-5 buttoms too many as is.

also we dont know if DW gives you a 15% pr target that it hits or if each tick collectively gives you a 15% chance for a shard(like how you only get 1 nightfall proc from the most recent applied corruption and not a chance for each multiple corruptions), so it could potentially be very few shards, as i see it, the way you say that DW should work would only give you a 15% chance collectively for shards no matter how many it hits. ofc dmg wise it could work the way you say it works but shard generationwise it works the way i think it works

[Yorindesarin]

except many ppl complained about demo aoe being way too many buttons and now they have effectively done the same to an even more extreme degree, its interesting for sure but having to use DW, HoG, Inquisitor, implosion, felstorm, GoServ, demonic empowerment for optimal aoe is prolly 4-5 buttoms too many as is.

also we dont know if DW gives you a 15% pr target that it hits or if each tick collectively gives you a 15% chance for a shard(like how you only get 1 nightfall proc from the most recent applied corruption and not a chance for each multiple corruptions), so it could potentially be very few shards, as i see it, the way you say that DW should work would only give you a 15% chance collectively for shards no matter how many it hits. ofc dmg wise it could work the way you say it works but shard generationwise it works the way i think it works

I never knew going into meta form and pressing Chaos Wave was such a difficult AoE rotation :/

[Deleted]

I never knew going into meta form and pressing Chaos Wave was such a difficult AoE rotation :/

hmm, i never said it was difficult, i said it was too many buttons. and if you think that was all you did as demo then you did it wrong ofc i can just be remembering it wrong and confuse the current demo with the old demo.

[Yorindesarin]

hmm, i never said it was difficult, i said it was too many buttons. and if you think that was all you did as demo then you did it wrong ofc i can just be remembering it wrong and confuse the current demo with the old demo.

Nope. Thats effectively all you did. Two buttons too many? OMG HARD LIFE. But seriously... Cata -> pop meta -> chaos wave x a billion whilst immo aura' in the add wave -> rinse repeat. Man demo's current/"old" AoE is hard... a whole 4-5 buttons.. Oh ofc gotta remember that using felstorm correctly made the skill cap uber high.

Don't get me wrong I know you aren't saying you found it hard. I'm being quite sarcastic.

It's ridiculous... The summoner demo definitely has more buttons and a higher complexity level than current demo... I don't really understand how blizzard function at all..

[Deleted]

Nope. Thats effectively all you did. Two buttons too many? OMG HARD LIFE. But seriously... Cata -> pop meta -> chaos wave x a billion whilst immo aura' in the add wave -> rinse repeat. Man demo's current/"old" AoE is hard... a whole 4-5 buttons.. Oh ofc gotta remember that using felstorm correctly made the skill cap uber high.

Don't get me wrong I know you aren't saying you found it hard. I'm being quite sarcastic.

It's ridiculous... The summoner demo definitely has more buttons and a higher complexity level than current demo... I don't really understand how blizzard function at all..

nah, i was just remembering pre t17 demo aoeing which had so many buttons you had to use for aoe while being in melee for it to be half way decent.

especially after blizz made posts about how complex demo was and wanted it simplified and then they go and make it have even more buttons, i wouldnt say that single target demo is going to be particularly complex, the aoe however do seem quite complex but at the same time, we still have to wait until we get to play it and see what we get from the demo artifact.

[bio347]

I think it's probably fine, honestly. At the basic level, it's just channel DW -> HoG. A lot of the extra complexity is optional and/or min-max-y (or both, given that passive options tend to be slightly less powerful than active ones).

Felstorm is a long-ish cooldown, and you can opt out of Doom multi-DoT (Hand of Doom), GoServ (pick one of the others) AND Summon Inquisitor/infernal cooldown (DServ). You probably don't want to opt out of Implosion if you're serious about AoEing, but it's pretty easy to use: Either it kills the imps (this is my guess for likely case, fwiw) in which case your rotation becomes DW -> HoG -> Implosion, or it doesn't and you either immediately spam it until they fade out or wait until you have a certain number of imps and then spam it until they fade out (depending on how strong it is).

Call Dreadstalkers likely phases out at some number of targets, too, though you'll want to continue using Demonic Empowerment regardless (either for the inquisitor or the infernal).