[BETA] Demonology Warlock Discussion

[rhorle]

The should just make DE an Aura on the pets that lasts for 12 seconds. So when a new pet comes into range of one when DE was cast it gets the buff for how ever much is left. It means we still have to watch it if the position of imps change for the fight but most will still get it under normal circumstances but we still have to watch it for upkeep. We still need to cast it every 12 seconds but not after ever demon summon.

[Yorindesarin]

Having DE instant would mean CDS is buffed instant, but HoG Imps would mis out, as they spawn 0.8s later.

- - - Updated - - -



DE is like putting Curse of Elements on the boss with a "next damage spell" limitation. You press a button and nothing/no damage happens until you do something else.

That's why DE probably feels like ability bloat/wasted GCD as the ability feels wasted unlike casting a SB or HoG/CDS.

As it stands, Call dreadstalkers misses DE uptime due to you having a 1.5 second cast time and them being in the fray immediately...? I know Id rather have 0.8 seconds lost than 1.5 seconds...? If that makes sense. It just seems odd. Yeah the buff has 12 seconds, demons have 12 seconds. But as soon as you remember that dreadstalkers are instantly ticking down but imps aren't... Because from what I understand you manage to snapshot the first imps fireballs w/ DE with them spawning after 0.8 seconds? cause 0.8 sec + 1~ sec for their cast > 1.5 sec? I just feel that DE is a punishment mechanic.. like affi on live right now. If you don't have haunting spirits up. You may as well not be there. I know its possible to have like 100%~ uptime on it.... But without it you're useless. And without DE your pets are useless... Where as other pet specs don't suffer so much?

Also, I feel the fact you have to Summon -> De -> Summon -> DE is an extreme wasted cast scenario...? The second DE in theory is "less" effective than the first. The first one having buffed your felguard/DG/Darkglare + imps/dreadstalkers and the second one merely refreshing 4~ seconds on whats up and adding to your new summons...? I guess thats something everyone is saying they feel. But alas, I mentioned that DE needed to be changed in alpha... but was told "Don't worry its only alpha! Theres tonnes of time for it to be tweaked/changed!" or "Its fine I dont know whats wrong with you". But here we are... almost at prepatch... andddd DE hasnt changed at all other than the original Power Trip bake in... If in prepatch I find little to no enjoyment in demo (because apparently its the strongest of our 3 specs in prepatch to my knowledge)... Ill definitely be considering rerolling... from a class I have thoroughly enjoyed since Mists... I hold high hopes though... that blizzard will make some tweaks to the gameplay... Better that they do it now than once it hits live and we end up with a meta demo situation "Oh oops we dont like how this plays right now because little bobby needs too many addons! We'll just nerf you to the floor until we get around to fixing the spec!" that would suck for anyone whose spent time putting into the demo artefact.

Wall of text OP.

I mean don't get me wrong, I get why we cast DE after every summon... but... no other class has such a wasteful play style..

[Xelectra]

I think another issue with DE is the fact that we are built around it, so if you are in a position where you can't pop it you're just going to be hitting like a wet noodle, it doesn't feel like "oh man my demons are super powerful now" it feels like "oh I gotta press this button so my pets do as much damage as everyone else's pets"(UH, BM) there is no reward there only punishment.

Also I personally feel this new demo will suffer from the same thing old demo did, with so many sources of damage there is no real super rewarding spell to hit, and you have no real button to look forward to pressing, but of course that's just my opinion and it really generally shows in pvp more then pve

So Demonology didnt feel rewarding because there was no spell that just did a tone of damage? Thats why I loved Demonology, every spell is vital to your rotation to keep up your DPS, but usually it was Soulfire so I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about.

- - - Updated - - -

How does Demonology perform in terms of damage now? I realize that may be a hard question to answer at this point. I am concerned about performance in five-man dungeons, where there may not be time to ramp up shards and imps.

Currently all lock specs are terrible in 5 mans just because of our lack of AOE and ramp up time for ST DPS (More specifically Demo)

[Yorindesarin]

So Demonology didnt feel rewarding because there was no spell that just did a tone of damage? Thats why I loved Demonology, every spell is vital to your rotation to keep up your DPS, but usually it was Soulfire so I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about.

With Demo in WoD we went from DB doing insane damage, to cataclysm + chaos waves doing insane damage. Soulfire was really effectively filler inside/outside of meta and did reasonable damage through out the expansion. Is what I believe he means. With legion Demo there is no spell that effectively hits like a truck. (A chaos bolt equivalent so to speak). Instead every spells is required to do reasonable DPS. And that rotates entirely around one spell...

[Duckz0rs]

With Demo in WoD we went from DB doing insane damage, to cataclysm + chaos waves doing insane damage. Soulfire was really effectively filler inside/outside of meta and did reasonable damage through out the expansion. Is what I believe he means. With legion Demo there is no spell that effectively hits like a truck. (A chaos bolt equivalent so to speak). Instead every spells is required to do reasonable DPS. And that rotates entirely around one spell...

That massive nuke is Thal'kiel's Consumption. And yes, it has a 45 second cooldown, but that's only 5 seconds longer than Demonbolt's cooldown in WoD.

[Deleted]

With Demo in WoD we went from DB doing insane damage, to cataclysm + chaos waves doing insane damage. Soulfire was really effectively filler inside/outside of meta and did reasonable damage through out the expansion. Is what I believe he means. With legion Demo there is no spell that effectively hits like a truck. (A chaos bolt equivalent so to speak). Instead every spells is required to do reasonable DPS. And that rotates entirely around one spell...

to be fair, demon bolt in legion has pretty good potential.

[Yorindesarin]

That massive nuke is Thal'kiel's Consumption. And yes, it has a 45 second cooldown, but that's only 5 seconds longer than Demonbolt's cooldown in WoD.

Well, that depends entirely on your haste and when you use DB though doesn't it. TC isn't effected by haste at all. Yeah its great the artefact is a big dick DPS cooldown... but that doesn't mean the rest of the spec has to feel underwhelming for this "summoner" fantasy.... Which imo blizzard has fallen completely flat on their arses with... They seem indecisive about so much of the design.. I personally would have given more power to the summoner whilst not on burst windows.. but hell thats just me... Why make the player feel like they are actually doing stuff when they can spam DE like theres no tomorrow and feel like they are doing nothing?

to be fair, demon bolt in legion has pretty good potential.

Oh yeah. But its a filler spell... So there is obviously a limit as to how high/hard it will hit. And not just that it's a filler spell on a spec where the caster is suppose to do 0 actual damage themselves... Though it could be the exception I suppose.

[Gaidax]

Well, that depends entirely on your haste and when you use DB though doesn't it. TC isn't effected by haste at all.

Thal'kiel's Consumption is affected by Haste more than you may realize and more than Demonbolt ever was. A lot of haste means you have a lot of demons out and this in turn directly boosts TC damage a lot.

I would not be surprised if Haste ends up being top stat for Demonology.

[Deleted]

Thal'kiel's Consumption is affected by Haste more than you may realize and more than Demonbolt ever was. A lot of haste means you have a lot of demons out and this in turn directly boosts TC damage a lot.

I would not be surprised if Haste ends up being top stat for Demonology.

In addition to haste being increadibly strong for imps since they already have 30% crit. Also benefits Doomguard a lot, and I am fairly convinced it will be the go to stat for Demonology.

[Kyoda]

Sorry to interrupt the topic, but I would like to ask some "silly" things, since I'm not in Beta:

1 - Is the Glyph of Wrathguard working? And if it's working, can you put a weapon from your bag? And if you can, is it dual wielding with one weapon from your bag?

2 - Is the Demonbolt animation working well on Undeads, specifically on male? I'm asking this, because on PTR there is a delay when you launch the bolt and there is even a "damage" animation on the character.

3 - Is the 1st model/colour of the Skull and the Dagger matching in colour? I'm asking this, because I've seen videos from Youtubers, showing stuffs from Legion, and they were mismatching, like, mixing the colours from the 1st model of the 1st two colours.

That's it for now, thanks in advance for the attention!

[Xelectra]

In addition to haste being increadibly strong for imps since they already have 30% crit. Also benefits Doomguard a lot, and I am fairly convinced it will be the go to stat for Demonology.

Thal'kiel's Consumption is affected by Haste more than you may realize and more than Demonbolt ever was. A lot of haste means you have a lot of demons out and this in turn directly boosts TC damage a lot.

I would not be surprised if Haste ends up being top stat for Demonology.

I thought the same so I asked Gahddo what the sims looked like for demo and he said ~40% across the board for all specs is probably going to be mandatory pre-raid which isnt hard to get. I don't like that the demo mastery is so under whelming, it feels so disconnected and the second you let it drop or don't buff a new set of demons with it you lose the whole point of it. I really can't get over Blizzard changing destro's mastery because "It was boring" yet our mastery only increases pet damage, and I know before our mastery increased our damage, our pets damage and our meta damage but at least then when I got a piece of gear with mastery it felt good.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry to interrupt the topic, but I would like to ask some "silly" things, since I'm not in Beta:

1 - Is the Glyph of Wrathguard working? And if it's working, can you put a weapon from your bag? And if you can, is it dual wielding with one weapon from your bag?

2 - Is the Demonbolt animation working well on Undeads, specifically on male? I'm asking this, because on PTR there is a delay when you launch the bolt and there is even a "damage" animation on the character.

3 - Is the 1st model/colour of the Skull and the Dagger matching in colour? I'm asking this, because I've seen videos from Youtubers, showing stuffs from Legion, and they were mismatching, like, mixing the colours from the 1st model of the 1st two colours.

That's it for now, thanks in advance for the attention!

Yes, Glyph of Wrathguard is working and you can put weapons on it through the felguard glyph im 98% sure because I think I did it, dual wields with the same weapon.

Demonbolt animation seems fine

Haven't tested the skull and dagger thing, have my dagger transmogged because it looks like shit imo

[Drakile]

So Demonology didnt feel rewarding because there was no spell that just did a tone of damage? Thats why I loved Demonology, every spell is vital to your rotation to keep up your DPS, but usually it was Soulfire so I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about.

- - - Updated - - -

I like that every spell is vital, the problem is the way its set up is you need a good 10-15 seconds of ramp up time just to be doing damage comparable with other classes, which is where I feel the spec would/might suffer in PvP, yes if you have your dreadstalkers, imps, felguard, darkglare, and extra felguard all on your target and buffed you will be doing average to good damage, but think about how long that set up time is. This is all opinion based on previous experiences so nothing written in stone just voicing worries.

[Xelectra]

- - - Updated - - -

I like that every spell is vital, the problem is the way its set up is you need a good 10-15 seconds of ramp up time just to be doing damage comparable with other classes, which is where I feel the spec would/might suffer in PvP, yes if you have your dreadstalkers, imps, felguard, darkglare, and extra felguard all on your target and buffed you will be doing average to good damage, but think about how long that set up time is. This is all opinion based on previous experiences so nothing written in stone just voicing worries.

I agree with you, another issue with this is the fact Soul Harvest only lasts 12secs if popped with Doomguard which is ideal however I can only get a 4shard HoG, Dreadstalkers and a service pet out with lust, without lust I have to postpone my Soul Harvest for at least the first DE after Doomguard. Another problem is since it takes that long to start if there's any mechanic to deal with we pretty much lose the whole opener.

[Kyoda]

Yes, Glyph of Wrathguard is working and you can put weapons on it through the felguard glyph im 98% sure because I think I did it, dual wields with the same weapon.

Demonbolt animation seems fine

Haven't tested the skull and dagger thing, have my dagger transmogged because it looks like shit imo

Thanks for the answer!

Ah, Shadowflame is also having the same issue on PTR.

[Yorindesarin]

Thal'kiel's Consumption is affected by Haste more than you may realize and more than Demonbolt ever was. A lot of haste means you have a lot of demons out and this in turn directly boosts TC damage a lot.

I would not be surprised if Haste ends up being top stat for Demonology.

Somewhat an indirect effect I suppose. But I can't imagine haste effecting your cast times in such a way that you could have 4-5 sets of imps a set of dreadstalkers DE on all of them + TC. So I mean... theres a really big limit on how much haste effects TC really?

- - - Updated - - -

I thought the same so I asked Gahddo what the sims looked like for demo and he said ~40% across the board for all specs is probably going to be mandatory pre-raid which isnt hard to get. I don't like that the demo mastery is so under whelming, it feels so disconnected and the second you let it drop or don't buff a new set of demons with it you lose the whole point of it. I really can't get over Blizzard changing destro's mastery because "It was boring" yet our mastery only increases pet damage, and I know before our mastery increased our damage, our pets damage and our meta damage but at least then when I got a piece of gear with mastery it felt good.

I feel like our mastery doesn't need to be connected to DE at all... If it was flat pet damage + some caster damage... It would feel so much better. I've been told in this circumstance that we "wouldn't cast DE at all because it only effects imps" which I say is a load of bs.... If your felguard is white hitting more often you do more damage... Same with dreadstalkers... Having a non retarded linked up mastery would actually benefit the spec massively. Instead of these huge ramp up windows until we do damage... we would do average DPS all the time and then BOOM DE is up and we spike damage that little bit more...

[Xelectra]

I feel like our mastery doesn't need to be connected to DE at all... If it was flat pet damage + some caster damage... It would feel so much better. I've been told in this circumstance that we "wouldn't cast DE at all because it only effects imps" which I say is a load of bs.... If your felguard is white hitting more often you do more damage... Same with dreadstalkers... Having a non retarded linked up mastery would actually benefit the spec massively. Instead of these huge ramp up windows until we do damage... we would do average DPS all the time and then BOOM DE is up and we spike damage that little bit more...

Yeah I agree, they should've just left the mastery the same and reworked the meta part, I'm fine with being super reliant on pets but linking mastery as well to them? just makes me feel like without any pets out I'm doing no damage, which is totally true. I feel like when they come to tune demo next (I'm hoping they haven't got around to it because I'd really hate for it go live like this, let alone warlock in general) they'd need to do something with demonbolt or something with the traits, the old stolen power I thought was cool, randomly hitting for like 700k sometimes more with crits? that felt good, shame they had to nerf it to 50% SP.

[Drakile]

Stolen power is kind of odd to me, seems to be garnering more of a random aspect than a controlled one, I'd love to see stolen power become an active ability. Still keeping the stacking nature of it, but once it stacks to 100 that button would become active, so we could better choose when we wanted that extra oomph, you'll still want to hit it sooner rather then later to let the stacks start building again. To me I think it would better sell the fantasy that we are draining our pets like a battery to better buff ourselves.

[Gaidax]

A button for making a base ability hit a bit harder? No thanks... people really tend to give those "let's just make a button for every little shit we do" solution - they are bad.

It's a small damage bonus with a twist, treat it as such. There is no need for buttons for every damned proc or deviation from the norm.

[Deleted]

We double dip allot with Haste tbh. We generate more shards = more IMPs. and our pets do more dps because they attack more times during their uptime.

I'd prefer is DE was just the haste/hp buff and mastery was always active. DE sure looks like such a big boost of minion damage that we need to cast it way too many times, feeling like we do nothing.

[Gaidax]

Well that's what being summoner means in many cases, that's why I always disliked concept - it feels too passive.