[BETA] Demonology Warlock Discussion

[acf]

In a world where about 1 in every 12 bosses are Patchwerk style and the rest involves varied degree of movement, Demo locks have ZERO instant direct damage spell, the only instant being a "dot"

In a world where Outdoor content and 5-man are supposedly more important than ever, Demo locks have a portion of their rotational damage coming from this "dot" that takes effect after 20 seconds, meaning we are effectively constantly gimped 10%-15% when solo'ing and clearing trash (quest dps matters because those small time losses add up and trash dps matters in a world where time-racing challenge mode is the new norm)

In a world where you have DHs who dash around like Sonic the Hedgehog and even Ret Paladins got teleport, Demo locks are likely losing Demonic Leap and, again, have to STAND STILL AND CAST everything, likely only to be interrupted/LOS'd

And you know the saddest part? In THIS world, Demo locks are probably still better off compare to Destro locks... /facepalm

[Kirroth]

In a world where about 1 in every 12 bosses are Patchwerk style and the rest involves varied degree of movement, Demo locks have ZERO instant direct damage spell, the only instant being a "dot"

Don't assume too fast. Elemental Shamans have a no-cooldown instant-cast light-damage spell, but we only know about it because it also has a role in their core rotation. The Devs have said repeatedly that the previews are just that; a preview and not the entire baseline spellbook.

So chill it on the Chicken Little routine and wait till we have the full class info before you start wailing and gnashing your teeth over all the things the spec doesn't have, okay?

[Dietrik]

In a world where about 1 in every 12 bosses are Patchwerk style and the rest involves varied degree of movement, Demo locks have ZERO instant direct damage spell, the only instant being a "dot"

We have a channel on the move...

[Maleific]

I wonder how many Hearthstone cards will become talents...

[acf]

Don't assume too fast. Elemental Shamans have a no-cooldown instant-cast light-damage spell, but we only know about it because it also has a role in their core rotation. The Devs have said repeatedly that the previews are just that; a preview and not the entire baseline spellbook.

So chill it on the Chicken Little routine and wait till we have the full class info before you start wailing and gnashing your teeth over all the things the spec doesn't have, okay?

I will ignore your not-so-subtle attempt at dragging this to personal level and instead point you to the quote directly from the blog: "here’s a basic look at their core combat abilities". Get that? This is the current rotation design aka 90%+ of buttons you will be pressing. Unlike in the Shaman case where the dev specific mentioned it, whatever Talent and Artifact can add for Demo locks are likely either situational or has a minute+ CD

It's fine you have all this faith and optimism in Blizz, some of us choose to voice our concerns when we saw the previews and especially when the dev said themselves, I quote the blog again, "feedback will be essential in helping us to ensure that the new spec feels strong and enjoyable and that we’ve accomplished our goal of returning Demonology to its foundations".

P.S. For the other post, Demonwrath is an AOE, and a clunky one at that

[Tehterokkar]

Don't assume too fast. Elemental Shamans have a no-cooldown instant-cast light-damage spell, but we only know about it because it also has a role in their core rotation. The Devs have said repeatedly that the previews are just that; a preview and not the entire baseline spellbook.

So chill it on the Chicken Little routine and wait till we have the full class info before you start wailing and gnashing your teeth over all the things the spec doesn't have, okay?

Warlocks already have a massive advantage over Elemental, and that is being pure DPS with spec switching being 1 button away. Elemental is simply going to be benched for fights their spec is not suited for. Need strong cleave/priority burst? Go Destro instead of Demo. 1 button, 0 gear switching needed.

[Kirroth]

This is the current rotation design aka 90%+ of buttons you will be pressing.

Yes, and an instant direct damage spell for forced movement periods is a specialized non-rotational ability, which is exactly what falls into the other 10% of buttons pushes. Abilities like that and most AoE are exactly what didn't get shown in the preview. The Shaman one only got mentioned because in its empowered form it IS a rotational ability, not because they need it more.

Though on reflection, Demo is probably the spec least likely to get a moderately powerful movement friendly spell. Pets don't go away or stop attacking while you move. The buffs you cast on your pets don't go away or stop working while you move. Demonwrath can be channeled while moving, and while it's not a lot of single-target damage it might be enough damage when stacked on top of pet damage.

[TheCount]

Implosion, I think the idea of suicide imps is very long overdue

[Stacyrect]

looks fucking gayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Looks like I wont be coming back for legion.

Infracted

[Jessicka]

We have a channel on the move...

Which will take quite some time to build up the minion army to make worth pressing. Then unless the AI and pathing is fixed isn't necessarily going to follow you to the next target.

Also agree with another poster about the shard costs on abilities looking jumbled and unintuitive. That doesn't really fix anything about the spec being just that today.

Also looks like we're spending too much time summoning and channelling and not enough time actually taking part in the fight.

I can't honestly say I like the look of it.

[Kirroth]

Which will take quite some time to build up the minion army to make worth pressing.

I dunno, I can picture some decent snap AoE just from the abilities they showed.

Tanks pull the mobs together. You drop a 5 SS HoG on the pack, which does strong AoE damage and spawns 5 imps. Your felguard charges in. You cast Demonic Empowerment and then channel a 6-demon Demonwrath into the pack while your felguard does an empowered Felstorm on it. Demonwrath generates more SS so you can cast a new HoG when the first wave of imps expires. Repeat until trash dies.

That's not maximum possible AoE, but it's a fast and reliable AoE for trash packs or predictable boss add waves.

[kushlol]

Demo looking trash as ever with some clunky awful aoe and more damage ramp up time than ever lmao. Everytime some idiot comes along and says demo is getting back to "its roots" or back to it's core gameplay I wanna punch a hole in the fucking wall because they obviously have not come anywhere near a warlock in the past 7 years nor did they play one in bc/vanilla where all we had was fucking demonic empowerment and we brought spell power to the raid lol.....but yeah lets get back to all that summoning of demons and buffing of demons we always had.

[wholol]

Just send our trusty skull artifact to bite the boss while we're moving, I mean why not at this point.

[Jessicka]

I dunno, I can picture some decent snap AoE just from the abilities they showed.

Tanks pull the mobs together. You drop a 5 SS HoG on the pack, which does strong AoE damage and spawns 5 imps. Your felguard charges in. You cast Demonic Empowerment and then channel a 6-demon Demonwrath into the pack while your felguard does an empowered Felstorm on it. Demonwrath generates more SS so you can cast a new HoG when the first wave of imps expires. Repeat until trash dies.

That's not maximum possible AoE, but it's a fast and reliable AoE for trash packs or predictable boss add waves.

How you dump a 5 stack of Imps when you start at 1 shard?

[Kirroth]

How you dump a 5 stack of Imps when you start at 1 shard?

That would be a hitch, if that's how it works. Have you got a reference for it? I've been following the reports pretty closely but I don't remember seeing that detail before.

Edit: To be clear, I did see a reference to SS regen happening naturally while out of combat, so I'm assuming that they work like WoD SS and not WoD Embers. Having 5 SS ready for every pack of mobs isn't automatic, but I was thinking of a "big pull coming, pool your resources and save Felstorm so you can blow it up fast" situation where strong fast AoE actually matters.

[Deleted]

That would be a hitch, if that's how it works. Have you got a reference for it? I've been following the reports pretty closely but I don't remember seeing that detail before.

Edit: To be clear, I did see a reference to SS regen happening naturally while out of combat, so I'm assuming that they work like WoD SS and not WoD Embers. Having 5 SS ready for every pack of mobs isn't automatic, but I was thinking of a "big pull coming, pool your resources and save Felstorm so you can blow it up fast" situation where strong fast AoE actually matters.

I think this assumption came from the destro thread, but I couldn't find any valid statement from Blizz regarding this topic.

Regarding the demon empowerment.
"It can affect your primary demon pet, Infernal or Doomguard, Grimoire of Service pets, Dreadstalkers, and Wild Imps"

So it seems that you have at least 10 Demons temporarily (maybe you can HoG twice with 5 shards so that you will have 10 Wild Imps) and 1 or more permanent (depends on the functionallity of GoServ).
Hopfully GoSac is no option for the two other specs, my Imp need some love and Destro without Imp is :/ .

[Kirroth]

I think this assumption came from the destro thread, but I couldn't find any valid statement from Blizz regarding this topic.

I'd lay decent odds that even if all three specs use SS they don't all use them the same, and Destro SS decay to 1 while Afflic/Demo SS recharge to 5. No wait, Destro SS decay to 2, that way you still start with one Chaos Bolt available.

[Jessicka]

I'd lay decent odds that even if all three specs use SS they don't all use them the same, and Destro SS decay to 1 while Afflic/Demo SS recharge to 5. No wait, Destro SS decay to 2, that way you still start with one Chaos Bolt available.

How many soul shards do each of the Warlock specs have and are there ways to regen them out of combat?
Maximum of 5 for all specs. 1 regens out of combat. There are other sources, including out of combat, in talents. (WarcraftDevs)

Seems pretty clear to me.

[Deleted]

How many soul shards do each of the Warlock specs have and are there ways to regen them out of combat?
Maximum of 5 for all specs. 1 regens out of combat. There are other sources, including out of combat, in talents. (WarcraftDevs)

Seems pretty clear to me.

He only says that you refund one shard out of combat and also you have some talents for in and out of combat regen.
No word about that you only start with 1 for every spec.

[Jessicka]

He only says that you refund one shard out of combat and also you have some talents for in and out of combat regen.
No word about that you only start with 1 for every spec.

1 regens out of combat. It's right there, same as 1 Ember or 100 Fury generate out of combat today. There might be talents to start with more, but how many more, we don't know; I'm doubting full though since they want to tame opening burst which is why we start below the cap as it is.