[BETA] Demonology Warlock Discussion

[Gnarilex]

Love the feel of the new Demo lock! Thinking about main switching from huntard :x but... so hard to part from my very first character ever since BC! ;~;

Go for it if you're looking to have fun. Summoner specs are usually a blast to play in games and it's about time demonology was switched over to one. Not how I would have translated that idea into the game, but it gets the job done. But if you're in a position where performance outweighs your enjoyability, you'll probably want to stay as a hunter. At least for now.

Honestly with just a few tweaks to bring up its weaknesses, it could be a solid spec. Something like scrapping current demonic empowerment and buffing pet damage could do a lot. Keep DE as a mini heroism/bloodlust cooldown for pets. Although since it functions like a DoT spec with more DoTs than usual target switching will probably always be an issue. A button to switch all your demon DoTs over to a new target would probably help. Maybe if they just functioned as visual DoTs instead of pets and guardians AI issues wouldn't exist?

Demon Wraths overlapping damage to an extent could help AoE not be so dependent on implosion and wouldn't negatively affect single target damage. Maybe turn it into an 8 second duration with an identical cool down so other spells could be cast during it and it would function like other AoE spells (Rain of Fire, Blizzard, I think barrage functioned like this at one point, etc.). I think a talent or spell to say, make all your imps' fireballs do splash damage or dreadstalkers passively attack up to 2 or 3 additional targets for x% of the damage done to the main target could really help with cleave situations.

Personally I'd like to have a playstyle within the spec that revolved around sacrificing demons to increase your own power, but that's just not the direction they went for and balancing the two options would probably be a nightmare.

[Rayaleith]

It's one of demo's big weaknesses, guardian pets suck and they won't switch, if their target dies they just sit there..or despawn

I guess that it's considered too demanding to have all pets being proper ones that you can control.

So they do not follow main pet's target? And if you cast a /petpassive the guardians continue to attack the target?

[Zerach8]

They dont stop, they do however switch to the last target u attacked if their current target dies, at least imps do

[Cheze]

the do switch to the target you're attacking, but since they don't do it automatically and there's no way to manually direct them, they often wind up wasting a lot of their uptime

[last1214]

Does anyone happen to know if Recurrent Ritual (not aloud to post links, but they are the legendary lock shoulders) works with the demonic calling talent when it procs (so, essentially giving you 2 extra soul shards on a proc, even though your call dreadstalkers was free to cast)?

What are people's thoughts on which legendary has the most DPS potential from the equip effect alone?

[ThePhantombox]

Well these two look ridiculous together, Sin'dorei Spite Wilfred's Sigil of Superior Summoning

Btw it doesn't say it on wowdb but the in game tooltip puts the three minute cooldown on the first item as only if you're running supremacy.

[Deleted]

Well these two look ridiculous together, Sin'dorei Spite Wilfred's Sigil of Superior Summoning

Btw it doesn't say it on wowdb but the in game tooltip puts the three minute cooldown on the first item as only if you're running supremacy.

There's no way that those will work together. Even if it says Supremacy on the 3 minute note, it must be for clarification purposes. So people understand that they can't abuse it with Supremacy.

[last1214]

Yeah they look like a good combo. The only ones that looked very lackluster for a demo lock are Norgannons Foresight (instant cast spells have a chance to make your next spell castable while moving). If you spec hand of doom and don't take summon darkglare, or shadowy inspiration (or shadow flame I guess), I don't think you are left with any instant casts in your normal rotation. Though on a movement fight you should probably take shadowy inspiration.

They look much better for afflition though.

The boots are on lined out on the first post, were they scrapped or still a possible drop?

[ThePhantombox]

There's no way that those will work together. Even if it says Supremacy on the 3 minute note, it must be for clarification purposes. So people understand that they can't abuse it with Supremacy.

Idk Blizz has let dumber stuff go in the past, I think we'd just have to wait and see. Though to be fair those items are quite strong on their own already.

[Zerach8]

Id say Kazzak's Final Curse shouldnt be taken lightly, doom is doing a lot of dmg as is right now without any artifact traits. i would pair Wilfred's Sigil of Superior Summoning with Kazzak's Final Curse...i guess it should be simmed to se whats better in patchwerk, but i guess the ring will take over the bracer in aoe situations because u can get the infernal down more often.

OT: anyone knows how to show the items tooltip here on the forum instead of having to click the thing?

[Deleted]

Well these two look ridiculous together, Sin'dorei Spite Wilfred's Sigil of Superior Summoning

Btw it doesn't say it on wowdb but the in game tooltip puts the three minute cooldown on the first item as only if you're running supremacy.

Because Supremacy gives you a permanent Doomguard or Infernal, so I would guess that the effect triggers every three minutes, otherwise it is tied to the Summon Doomguard/Infernal, which has a three minute cooldown

Otherwise you could dismiss your Doomguard and resummon it to keep the buff up forever


That tooltip is terribly worded though

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Honestly with just a few tweaks to bring up its weaknesses, it could be a solid spec. Something like scrapping current demonic empowerment and buffing pet damage could do a lot. Keep DE as a mini heroism/bloodlust cooldown for pets. Although since it functions like a DoT spec with more DoTs than usual target switching will probably always be an issue. A button to switch all your demon DoTs over to a new target would probably help. Maybe if they just functioned as visual DoTs instead of pets and guardians AI issues wouldn't exist?

Demon Wraths overlapping damage to an extent could help AoE not be so dependent on implosion and wouldn't negatively affect single target damage. Maybe turn it into an 8 second duration with an identical cool down so other spells could be cast during it and it would function like other AoE spells (Rain of Fire, Blizzard, I think barrage functioned like this at one point, etc.). I think a talent or spell to say, make all your imps' fireballs do splash damage or dreadstalkers passively attack up to 2 or 3 additional targets for x% of the damage done to the main target could really help with cleave situations.

Personally I'd like to have a playstyle within the spec that revolved around sacrificing demons to increase your own power, but that's just not the direction they went for and balancing the two options would probably be a nightmare.

Well, Demonic Empowermen tis a sort of Bloodlust - but what you suggest Blizzard won;t do, because if they made the pets that strong you'd be left with your character well, not doing very much

I very much agree about Demon Wrath, it is extremely weak, and could be improved greatly by allowing overlapps, so that a target can be hit multiple times - at the moment it is more useful as a shard generator or better-than-nothing to cast whilst moving.

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So they do not follow main pet's target? And if you cast a /petpassive the guardians continue to attack the target?

They may or may not, and no, you have absolutely no control over the secondary pets, they are "guardian" types and you cannot issue commands to them.

One of demonology's weaknesses is that it is tied so heavily to pets, leaving you at the mercy of the flaky AI, which can be really bad at pathing and target switching.

The guardians usually target swtich if the current target dies and you go toa new one, otherwise, they won.t

They are essentially DOTs, once cast, that's it.

[ThePhantombox]

Because Supremacy gives you a permanent Doomguard or Infernal, so I would guess that the effect triggers every three minutes, otherwise it is tied to the Summon Doomguard/Infernal, which has a three minute cooldown

Otherwise you could dismiss your Doomguard and resummon it to keep the buff up forever


That tooltip is terribly worded though

Well my point is that if the cooldown is just tied to Doomguard without supremacy, then you can reduce that cooldown with the sigil and gain the buff more often.

[Gnarilex]

Well, Demonic Empowermen tis a sort of Bloodlust - but what you suggest Blizzard won;t do, because if they made the pets that strong you'd be left with your character well, not doing very much

I very much agree about Demon Wrath, it is extremely weak, and could be improved greatly by allowing overlapps, so that a target can be hit multiple times - at the moment it is more useful as a shard generator or better-than-nothing to cast whilst moving.

I was thinking more along the lines of buffing pets up to 20% or 30% health and haste and then having a cooldown that boosted it the 50% it currently gives. Although I'd rather they turn DE into another summon that applied the buff to all your demons while it was out. Keep it 12 seconds like current DE so it's still an active part of the rotation but doesn't need to be cast after every time you summon some demons. But maybe make it instant instead of having a 1.5 second cast time.

[Cheze]

it would be nice if empowerment were retuned around having a shortish CD, rather than just being something you spam every time you summon pets. Then it could be useful for bursting specific targets.

have to come up with a new design for Power Trip, though

[Sinj]

Maybe I'm just playing poorly (most likely), but I can't seem to do more single target dps with Demonbolt/Soul Conduit than with Darkglare?

Comparing dps over a 3 minute period (target dummy) and subtracting cleave, I get (roughly) the same numbers across all three 100 talents. Only benefit of demonbolt/soul conduit was the less clunky rotation with one less pet to manage.

No T18 or trinket here, btw.

Anyone got similar results?

[Deleted]

This would fit with Blizzard's philosophy of making tier talents equally attractive so they are a "style choice" rather than being mandatory.

The only exception to this is where talents on the same tier are intended to be situationally driven, which historically they have not been, but most definitely are for Legion.

My guess would be that Demonbolt and Soul Conduit are largely intended to be equivalent choices, possibly with Demonbolt being aimed at providing higher burst facility, but otherwise representing two you can choose without feeling either ar emandatory.

[Sinj]

This would fit with Blizzard's philosophy of making tier talents equally attractive so they are a "style choice" rather than being mandatory.

The only exception to this is where talents on the same tier are intended to be situationally driven, which historically they have not been, but most definitely are for Legion.

My guess would be that Demonbolt and Soul Conduit are largely intended to be equivalent choices, possibly with Demonbolt being aimed at providing higher burst facility, but otherwise representing two you can choose without feeling either ar emandatory.

Clarified my original post. I meant that I was doing just as much with Darkglare as with Demonbolt/Soul Conduit, which is weird to me since it would mean that there would be no reason altogether to pick those two talents over Darkglare. If Darkglare is competitive with those two talents on single target, then that'd only get compounded with more adds in any given encounter, effectively making darkglare the only viable talent?. I just have a hard time figuring out why one would go with demonbolt/soul conduit over Darkglare as it stands.

Maybe it's because I have really low haste (9%) and I'm not summoning enough imps for demonbolt to matter?

[Deleted]

Without the class trinket, I dont think demonbolt is the way to go: Since you don't generate the additional 3 imps, demonbolt will not hit as hard. That's probably why those 3 result in roughly the same DPS for you. Haste is of course also a factor.

[elcapone]

It's terribly because

(a) your main pet is a melee with the problems this implies, if it's a "adds enter from across the far right" type fight he will spent ages running to them (odds on bet being he won;t have the energy to use charge)
(b) your othe rpets are guardian ones, with an even dumber AI that half the time won't target switch at all
(c) even if they will, two of them are also melee ones (which is why they made the Dreadstalkers leap when they are first summoned)
(d) demo has horribly long rampup times - even worse than affliction, and affliction was always one of the worst at switching, but demo beats that record

People say use Implosion, but this is contingent on your having a decent number of imps up, it is in essence a burst cooldown because you can only do it once then you have to build up shards to do it again, plus it craps all over your sustained dps because of course all your imps instantly die which is a buttload of lost damage

You wouldn't use the darkglare he only attacks Doomed targets, doesn;t do much damage and of cours eis exclusive with better talents

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Demonic Pact? Yeah, I was the "utility warlock" for a while too, when my old guild folded and I joined a new one.

Indicentally, I wouldn;t mind betting that Implosion is going to get nerfed again. It has so much more utility and damage in many situations it makes th eother two talents look poor by comparison, they already nerfed it once did they not. They don;t like go-to talents, why they bother I don;t know because there are always talents that have the edge

does anyone have a video of the bad pet AI. I want to get a feel on it. I know they don't target swap if the previous target is alive.

[Smog]

does anyone have a video of the bad pet AI. I want to get a feel on it. I know they don't target swap if the previous target is alive.

This is something that's much easier to see and feel if you actually play the class. Spec demo, do some random quests/dailies, pull multiple mobs from several directions, and you'll very quickly see what the fuss is about.