[BETA] Demonology Warlock Discussion

[Yorindesarin]

I was expecting exactly this response and yes, I disagree. I had 2200 in arena if you care about things like that.


It is true, it just depends on the point of view. Demonology had demonic fury and metamorphosis precisely because players couldn't play demon hunters, so this was the way to at least partially enable the cool Warcraft III visuals and themes, however at the expense of spec identity in my opinion.


Yes. Why should I care about raiders. Even better, why should I care especially when these problems really affect only a small portion of them, while others will be mythic wannabes pretending that 5% difference matters in normal. The gameplay of demo in Legion sounds interesting to me and that's it. I can't wait to try it out and I am glad the spec is shifting from that turn on cooldowns and try to instakill a player and then be a walking papercut that doesn't matter stupidity. I don't care about the arbitrary ladders and boring theorycrafts, I don't have a time for that and I rather spend it by playing something I enjoy and is in my opinion interesting.


What AI does a corruption, or doom or agony have?

So you disagree that damage is a requirement to win in arena? So you'd take demo into 3s at 2.2k rating do 0 damage and tell me it's okay because the 5% for raiders doesn't matter? Bullshit.

Its QoL. If a pure DPS spec does bottom end dps. Does it go into arena? Does it raid? No. You bench it in both activities.


And it doesn't matter if its a small % or not. If blizzard suddenly went "you know what we don't care about PvP DPS' dealing damage the entire of arena is now based on healing and tanking damage" 100% sure any pure dps class would be up in arms about that.

If youcan't understand the basic lore of Warlocks and the thirst for ever greater power. Then it's pointless. The ultimate Demonologist power is having abilities akin to the demons you seek to become stronger than. Aka metamorphosising due to the power you contain. Now obviously the illidan model shouldn't be demo's. But that doesn't mean we can't have wings/horns and have it as a stance like boomkin form. I don't get people who can't grasp that. Or that it can be different than what it has just been. It doesnt have to be another set of skills. It can be a cosmetic/cooldown/whatever.

[Arthas242]

I am excited..... originally been hoping for a demon hunter spec to allow demo to be about summoning!!!!!!!

well we got the DH class and then demo warlocks all about summoning! we even get a floating skull!

[Deleted]

It had meta because the lore was written in a way where anyone who abuses fel enough transforms into a demon.

It makes 0 sense from a lore perspective that we're going to lose that. It makes 0 sense that DH's have horns and scales and we don't. Even from a spec identity perspective it still makes no sense to drop meta because demonology (the study of demons) logical conclusion considering the application of fel would absolutely end with you trying to become a powerful demon as opposed to you trying to control weak ones.

I'd love if we could select visuals that are reflective of the fel energies used by warlocks. We can only discuss how much the warlocks we can play as are abusing the fel and how much should they be affected, but from lore standpoint the player is a hero of iron will, even if using corrupting forces he himself is not corruptible.

Demon hunters most likely have skin options to reflect the fact they are demons while warlocks are only using demonic energies. I think demo warlocks only borrowed what was supposed to be a theme and a set of skills of a different class and since now that class is implemented, they have to give it back. What the Blizzard is doing is logical in my opinion as the lore says those abilities are fitting the theme of demon hunters, who actually are demons that consistently transformed into metamorphosis in the past.

I also think demonology as a study of demons is a study of control rather than transformation. Transformation is the theme of demon hunters who are willing to sacrifice their soul and body to gain power of their enemies, to face the legion with the legion's weapons, to become fire combating fire. Warlocks are only playing with fire to combat fire. If you watch the development ideas of legion, you'll notice the differencies between destro warlock and fire mage and affliction warlock and shadow priest not only in mechanics, but their power source and overall theme despite some similarities. Logically a demo warlock couldn't stay in its current iteration next to demon hunters and is going back to the original but failed intent.

So you disagree that damage is a requirement to win in arena? So you'd take demo into 3s at 2.2k rating do 0 damage and tell me it's okay because the 5% for raiders doesn't matter? Bullshit.

Its QoL. If a pure DPS spec does bottom end dps. Does it go into arena? Does it raid? No. You bench it in both activities.

Yes, of course it is okay. This is very wrong and I am surprised I have to even explain this. As an example Burning Crusade MM hunter had very low damage output, but had very strong cc train that was in synergy with resto druids and a powerful mana drain that could be remedied only by two healers and even then not reliably since hunters used scorpions with stacking poison dot and the poison dispel often targeted this.

It's not about dps, it's about damage on demand, about control, about survival abilities of the class, about utility in general. Even a spec that is doing a 5 or 10% less damage in raids can be doing an amazing job in pvp in general, or in arenas if you consider arenas to be the alpha and omega of pvp (which I don't).

Regarding the warlock lore, read my reaction to Baconeggcheese.

[Baconeggcheese]

I'd love if we could select visuals that are reflective of the fel energies used by warlocks. We can only discuss how much the warlocks we can play as are abusing the fel and how much should they be affected, but from lore standpoint the player is a hero of iron will, even if using corrupting forces he himself is not corruptible.

We're going to be holding artifacts like the very staff that destroyed outland or this skull of the man'ari which might as well be the skull of gul'dan that gave illidan meta in the first place.

Pretty sure we've long since past the point of trying to make excuses about how much fel we're playing with there.

and: Fel energies is described as the dark magic of demons,[19] evil immortals who feed upon magic and life.[20] All creatures who use the power of fel magic, willingly or otherwise, slowly take on the appearance of demons.[21] Willing or not, a creature is transformed into a demon when its body is saturated with fel energy.[22]

It's not up to the user whether or not they transform, it happens if you use fel period. Honestly that's how all the magic works in the warcraft universe, even arcane has physical effects. All magics change eye color at a minimum.

Demon hunters most likely have skin options to reflect the fact they are demons while warlocks are only using demonic energies.

That'd be incorrect though, again according to the lore the user doesn't get a choice in the matter and appearance is only based on degree of use. And we use the fuckshit out of it.

I think demo warlocks only borrowed what was supposed to be a theme and a set of skills of a different class and since now that class is implemented, they have to give it back. What the Blizzard is doing is logical in my opinion as the lore says those abilities are fitting the theme of demon hunters, who actually are demons that consistently transformed into metamorphosis in the past.

You realize demonhunters are just night elves take on warlocks right? They just took the warlock archetype and made it melee and night elf and everything else overlaps.

That is why warlocks got most of the WC3 DH hero classes kit, because lore wise its the same shit we use. The reason blizzard is taking it away isn't for any lore justification, they just can't have the new shiny thing sharing abilities with another class as It'd look bad and take away from that class. It'd also be extremely expensive to make new meta forms for every race / gender which is likely why they limit race on DH's as well and not any of these other reasons they're giving us.

I also think demonology as a study of demons is a study of control rather than transformation. Transformation is the theme of demon hunters who are willing to sacrifice their soul and body to gain power of their enemies, to face the legion with the legion's weapons, to become fire combating fire. Warlocks are only playing with fire to combat fire. If you watch the development ideas of legion, you'll notice the differencies between destro warlock and fire mage and affliction warlock and shadow priest not only in mechanics, but their power source and overall theme despite some similarities. Logically a demo warlock couldn't stay in its current iteration next to demon hunters and is going back to the original but failed intent.

The original intent evolved exactly how the lore evolved with the game.

We're basically just going backwards in lore and pretending like the logical outcome never happened. Literally every big bad warlock in the game controlled demons and then ultimately became one by gaining more and more power. That is the entire idea behind warlocks you do it to gain more and more power, not giving a shit about anyone or anything else. Our demons are slaves, that we don't give the mildest shit about and just use for our own benefit.

Warlocks originally being a legion thing as well, so the idea behind demonhunters is copying the legions warlocks to.. fight fire with fire...

[Deleted]

its really too early to make any educated guesses about the spec, until we get more feedback its really any1s guess as to how the spec will play.

[Deleted]

It's not up to the user whether or not they transform, it happens if you use fel period. Honestly that's how all the magic works in the warcraft universe, even arcane has physical effects. All magics change eye color at a minimum.

That'd be incorrect though, again according to the lore the user doesn't get a choice in the matter and appearance is only based on degree of use. And we use the fuckshit out of it.

I understand your point, but my point is rather a resources and gameplay reason. What would be the remedy to this? Should all warlocks change their shape into fel forms over time against their will as a logical consequence, or should every warlock playable race have cosmetic options that are demonic in appearance?

Or should the resources be spent on something more meaningful and have the demon hunter, a new hero class, have these options to mimic the theme of their class and create clear, unique option?

You realize demonhunters are just night elves take on warlocks right? They just took the warlock archetype and made it melee and night elf and everything else overlaps.

I remember fighting Illidan in the Black Temple and he was using metamorphosis to cast shadowbolts and his normal form to fight in melee. The two classes clearly overlap and I actually enjoyed MoP demo warlock, but I personally believe that giving the existing abilities to a class that fits the theme, while creating original spec (legion demo iteration) is a better option than just having two similar specs.

Understand that I am not defending Blizzard, but I disagree with the view that these steps are not logical. I know I have the easy position here, since I have a soft spot for a unique summoner class, a mook maker, if my nick is any clue. Which is something WoW doesn't offer yet.

[Baconeggcheese]

I understand your point, but my point is rather a resources and gameplay reason. What would be the remedy to this? Should all warlocks change their shape into fel forms over time against their will as a logical consequence, or should every warlock playable race have cosmetic options that are demonic in appearance?

Or should the resources be spent on something more meaningful and have the demon hunter, a new hero class, have these options to mimic the theme of their class and create clear, unique option?

I'd say you do the more meaningful thing and not give the middle finger to an entire class's audience by taking away some of their most iconic abilities of the last 8 years and putting a nice handful of things they've been asking for for years on another class.

I remember fighting Illidan in the Black Temple and he was using metamorphosis to cast shadowbolts and his normal form to fight in melee. The two classes clearly overlap and I actually enjoyed MoP demo warlock, but I personally believe that giving the existing abilities to a class that fits the theme, while creating original spec (legion demo iteration) is a better option than just having two similar specs.

Understand that I am not defending Blizzard, but I disagree with the view that these steps are not logical. I know I have the easy position here, since I have a soft spot for a unique summoner class, a mook maker, if my nick is any clue. Which is something WoW doesn't offer yet.

Its logical from a business standpoint, it's completely illogical from everything they've set up in the game. Or in other words from the players perspective.

[timesmash]

So. Much. Casting! Terrible for PvP already.

Cast your feldog, ok now cast empowerment, nope lol your pets already lost a few seconds of their duration waiting for you to cast.

[Deleted]

So first impressions is that Demonology appears to have become a ranged rogue. We generate combo points through Shadowbolt and send via summons and variable HoG dumps.

Honestly this doesn't sound too bad. I know people are apprehensive over becoming a glorified imp master but I'm fairly confident talents and Artifact will provide at least 2 powerful summons between them.

Roll on the beta.

[Baconeggcheese]

I think it'll be good at movement because pets but I think it'll be bad at target switching because pets with cooldowns / buildup.

I mean... this kind of thing really ends up just being another dot spec mechanically. Having 2 dogs attack a target for 12 seconds and then buffing those dogs isn't really any different than applying a dot for 12 seconds and the buffing that dot unless there's a lot of micro going on which I just can't imagine them doing if they don't want the spec to be even more unintuitive than its already looking like it's going to be.

Iono, I hope beta is as soon as people are speculating up in the legion section. Really just want the bigger picture and hopefully to get to mess around with all this stuff. It'll be nice if they give everyone who's killed the mythic end boss beta again xD

[PickleballAce]

Re-posting from Destro thread. Making us even more reliant on guardians as our main class CD is problematic.

[Xorn]

Re-posting from Destro thread. Making us even more reliant on guardians as our main class CD is problematic.

Ugh, especially since they don't scale with all of our stats as Destro/Aff. At least it'll be good for Demo... in theory

[Kirroth]

I think it's a great change. Better for Demo, because you can buff them with DE which also benefits from Mastery, but good for all three specs. A short cooldown means you can use it on every dungeon boss and multiple times per raid boss. So we'll be able to do things like drop an Infernal on an important AoE phase and still pop the Doomguard later for the execute phase.

Also important it what removing Dark Soul means for gameplay. I expect it will improve on-demand burst, since we don't have to build secondary resources before hitting it. Heck, no more "pool resources and then try to blow everything while DS is up" gameplay, which I won't be sad to be rid of.

[PickleballAce]

They absolutely HAVE to improve the AI. Think about a burn scenario where you're killing different priority targets. The Doomguard doesn't mind attacking the target you cast it on, but once that target is dead all bets are off.

[Dnusha]

I think it's a great change.

If you like to be on the bottom, then yes, it's a great change. Every class that lacks cooldowns is destined to deal dmg like shit in wow. You can't change it.

[Kirroth]

They absolutely HAVE to improve the AI. Think about a burn scenario where you're killing different priority targets. The Doomguard doesn't mind attacking the target you cast it on, but once that target is dead all bets are off.

Very true, but I'm already assuming guardian pet AI will be improved. If it hasn't been then the Doomguard will be the least of our concern, because the entire summoner-Demo revision will be worthless.

The Devs aren't stupid. They know that guardian AI needs improvement for all of this to work. The question will be in their improvements do what's needed, not if they try to make them at all.

[Count Zero]

Very true, but I'm already assuming guardian pet AI will be improved. If it hasn't been then the Doomguard will be the least of our concern, because the entire summoner-Demo revision will be worthless.

The Devs aren't stupid. They know that guardian AI needs improvement for all of this to work. The question will be in their improvements do what's needed, not if they try to make them at all.

There was a response to a Hunter matter a bit ago that leaves me deeply concerned about this

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...legion/cwtlcqf

Spoiler: 

So, question on Dire Beast. Since it's BM's only chance to regain focus now, are we extra-extra-extra-screwed on fights where our pets simply can't reach a valid target? This happens every now and then (sometimes bugs/glitches, sometimes valid pathing issues like the target flying) and I'm not sure its avoidable in WoW's engine. It's going to really suck if we've got the same limitations as a melee class when these situations arise.

Fair point, may look into a solution that doesnt require Beast to attack, maybe just a focus per second while guardian active kinda deal.

[Archmage Arugal]

They'll probably work around it at first by making all the possible summons have a ranged attack

[Soeroah]

I think it looks pretty good. If I get into beta I might even focus on a Demo Lock rather than my mains.

[volrat]

I think it looks pretty good. If I get into beta I might even focus on a Demo Lock rather than my mains.

This is the real state of this community, lot of of ppl who disliked it may be interested to try it...

Really great design, really great respect of those supporting previous blizzard work...

If company is happy theyr IP is handled this way, there is no feedback we may give wich will improve the class into legion, Imnick and all of his minions are coming, for a short time perhaps, still the time needed to just support blindly all the simplest ways for designers, the final result really do not metter, all that is needed is that the DH feels too cool for the first months.