[BETA] Demonology Warlock Discussion

[Kirroth]

While the things that you have to do in order to do damage are reasonably simple conceptually, I'm rating that it wouldn't take much to mess something up and get lost in the priority list while I'm running around dodging fire. I just remember having to put in an absolute arseton of time into MoP Demo to get to the point while I can do good damage while not messing up mechanics.

Well put. In my case, because I'm the raid leader of a more casual guild where people often struggle with personal responsibility mechanics, I have to pay attention to boss abilities that normally wouldn't involve me and watch timers more closely so I can call reminders. Demo looks really cool, but I'm worried the dance of cooldowns and optimal DemEmp use will be one that requires constant attention and punishes ill timed moments of distraction.

Which is great for the people who can pull it off. I remember the days when I wasn't even a guild officer and could enjoy juggling six different debuffs at once while watching my timers like a hawk. Today, though, I need a spec that lets me get away with those distracted moments while I'm reminding people not to kill themselves. So as awesome as these videos are, I'm waiting to see how Destro shapes out once it's finally released for testing.

[Coffeh]

Well put. In my case, because I'm the raid leader of a more casual guild where people often struggle with personal responsibility mechanics, I have to pay attention to boss abilities that normally wouldn't involve me and watch timers more closely so I can call reminders. Demo looks really cool, but I'm worried the dance of cooldowns and optimal DemEmp use will be one that requires constant attention and punishes ill timed moments of distraction.

Which is great for the people who can pull it off. I remember the days when I wasn't even a guild officer and could enjoy juggling six different debuffs at once while watching my timers like a hawk. Today, though, I need a spec that lets me get away with those distracted moments while I'm reminding people not to kill themselves. So as awesome as these videos are, I'm waiting to see how Destro shapes out once it's finally released for testing.

My viewpoint is one of payoff. Having a complex rotation is fine. Not for everyone, but a lot of people love to be tested. But what's the result? Is someone expected to juggle all this only to merely match (or even fall behind) an arcane mage pressing 4 buttons in a static rotation? That's the issue I have when there's such a scale of complexity between classes and specs.

[Yorindesarin]

My viewpoint is one of payoff. Having a complex rotation is fine. Not for everyone, but a lot of people love to be tested. But what's the result? Is someone expected to juggle all this only to merely match (or even fall behind) an arcane mage pressing 4 buttons in a static rotation? That's the issue I have when there's such a scale of complexity between classes and specs.

Ideally the easy to play hard to master comes into play. Whereby the average joe can pull X DPS which is relatively close to arcanes DPS at Y. But the mythic raider min/maxing god will pull Z DPS that out strips both the arcane and the average Joes DPS. Thats the ideal situation at least... It's unlikely to happen and instead demonology will be a very highly skill capped spec that ends up doing a galactic fuck tonne of damage for the mythic raider... and then gets nerfed to the floor because its "too hard" for poor Joe to play...

[wooters]

wow...the 2 set bonus for demonology seems weak and easily wasted. afflic looks for me(just glanced at it)...to have the strongest set bonuses. for now

destro looks good as well

[Fearsom1992]

I can see one of the skill caps of demo being a 3stack shadowflame while doing all this stuff xD

[Lucrece]

Ideally the easy to play hard to master comes into play. Whereby the average joe can pull X DPS which is relatively close to arcanes DPS at Y. But the mythic raider min/maxing god will pull Z DPS that out strips both the arcane and the average Joes DPS. Thats the ideal situation at least... It's unlikely to happen and instead demonology will be a very highly skill capped spec that ends up doing a galactic fuck tonne of damage for the mythic raider... and then gets nerfed to the floor because its "too hard" for poor Joe to play...

That's actually a backwards way to design. Mythic raiders make a tiny, tiny percentage of consumers of content. Designing a spec that only competes at a certain skill cap is a good way to waste your design assets.

Especially when it's casuals and hardcore wannabes who don't even clear mythic who are going to be the ones going to their raid mates who want to play Demonology "well, derp, Demonology is bad look at its DPS compared to this arcane mage, derp; switch specs please". It's just going to create unnecessary widespread discrimination and wrongful perception of a spec just like it has happened for Windwalker monks, which are a perfectly fine spec but for some reason a load of morons seem to not want to bring to raids/mythic dungeons based merely on perception.

[Deleted]

I can see one of the skill caps of demo being a 3stack shadowflame while doing all this stuff xD

more like when to use demonic empowerment for optimal burst from your spells and pets. cant really see playing with 3 stacks of shadowflame is going to be all that difficult or be such a big gain that its actually worth doing.

[Elise the Seeker]

So the dread stalkers come in different colors when summoned?

[Deleted]

That's actually a backwards way to design. Mythic raiders make a tiny, tiny percentage of consumers of content. Designing a spec that only competes at a certain skill cap is a good way to waste your design assets.

Especially when it's casuals and hardcore wannabes who don't even clear mythic who are going to be the ones going to their raid mates who want to play Demonology "well, derp, Demonology is bad look at its DPS compared to this arcane mage, derp; switch specs please". It's just going to create unnecessary widespread discrimination and wrongful perception of a spec just like it has happened for Windwalker monks, which are a perfectly fine spec but for some reason a load of morons seem to not want to bring to raids/mythic dungeons based merely on perception.

well there will always be disparity between players, your average player wont be able to compete with a mythic raider even in equal gear and this disparity will always be there, but i do think that blizz' intentions is to reduce this disparity as much as possible so that through all this streamlining and pruning that we've seen lately will result in this disparity being reduced to a lvl where the difference wont be that too big.

[Kirroth]

well there will always be disparity between players, your average player wont be able to compete with a mythic raider even in equal gear and this disparity will always be there, but i do think that blizz' intentions is to reduce this disparity as much as possible so that through all this streamlining and pruning that we've seen lately will result in this disparity being reduced to a lvl where the difference wont be that too big.

The goal isn't the make the performance difference small, it's to make it gradual. They want the normal mode raider to be able to pick a spec that mythic raiders use and get performance that's lower but still competitive for their play level. They don't want a normal mode raider to pick up a spec and do less DPS than the tanks because the spec has some complex and binary performance thresholds where you fall straight from doing godly DPS to nonviable DPS if you do it wrong.

[Kyoda]

So the dread stalkers come in different colors when summoned?

Yeah, check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKJLNp8ajAk

Also, Wild Imps can come in different colours too!

[Yorindesarin]

That's actually a backwards way to design. Mythic raiders make a tiny, tiny percentage of consumers of content. Designing a spec that only competes at a certain skill cap is a good way to waste your design assets.

Especially when it's casuals and hardcore wannabes who don't even clear mythic who are going to be the ones going to their raid mates who want to play Demonology "well, derp, Demonology is bad look at its DPS compared to this arcane mage, derp; switch specs please". It's just going to create unnecessary widespread discrimination and wrongful perception of a spec just like it has happened for Windwalker monks, which are a perfectly fine spec but for some reason a load of morons seem to not want to bring to raids/mythic dungeons based merely on perception.

Its actually the way they design. The entire philosophy of "easy to play hard to master" is the point I was making. In that it would end up with the top players getting the best out of the spec. Which is what happens... What I'm saying is they don't design for the 1%. However their ideal philosophy works in the favour of the 1% so to speak. Demo is going to realistically have a high skill cap and there for the average normal/herioc raider will get lower DPS than that of a mythic raider. However, the lower DPS should realistically be equivalent to that of the arcane mages that they are raiding with so to speak. Kirroth has made what I meant a lot clearer tbh.

- - - Updated - - -

wow...the 2 set bonus for demonology seems weak and easily wasted. afflic looks for me(just glanced at it)...to have the strongest set bonuses. for now

destro looks good as well

Eh Affi's set bonus' imo are kind of redundant... Why do you need set bonus' to change how the spec plays when the spec has literally just been redone..? The set bonus' for Demo imo at least insofar as 4 set looks to be a very big QoL change... Those extra 6 seconds will allow you to get out more imps more easily and get demonic empowerment up on absolutely everything for its full duration.

[dholland662]

Well, looks like we get Fel Lords.... as an immobile pvp guardian.

Fel Lords? Like Zakuun? So an advanced Felguard

[Fearsom1992]

Demonolgoy bugs so far and help if you guys post this to blizzard their pretty big xD
Grimoire of Supremacy doesn't buff the doomguards hp
Demonic Empowerment buff doesn't increase the demons hp (try it out yourself)
Demonic Calling procs but its like veryy rare like few hrs rare
Shadowy Inspiration doesn't proc
Vaulet of the Wardens Ash'Golm during ice phase the dreadstalkers will jsut stand by your side and do nothing if you resummon them.
Doomguard and Service double dip soulshards like affi ..
Third Dreadstalker from the perk ( Dread of Night) doesn't have an imp on him from the talent Improved Stalkers

bugs i have seen so far ^-^ the hp ones are huge

[Woz]

Demonolgoy bugs so far and help if you guys post this to blizzard their pretty big xD
Grimoire of Supremacy doesn't buff the doomguards hp
Demonic Empowerment buff doesn't increase the demons hp (try it out yourself)
Demonic Calling procs but its like veryy rare like few hrs rare
Shadowy Inspiration doesn't proc
Vaulet of the Wardens Ash'Golm during ice phase the dreadstalkers will jsut stand by your side and do nothing if you resummon them.
Doomguard and Service double dip soulshards like affi ..

bugs i have seen so far ^-^ the hp ones are huge

Just to add to this --

Shadowy Inspiration procs off HoG and not Shadow Bolt/Demon Bolt.
Thal'kiel's Consumption is very likely bugged as well since the damage of it is very low (but could also just be related to Demonic Empowerment not actually buffing demon HP).
Dark Pact shield doesn't increase when you Empower (again related to the DE bug).
Implosion has a bug while you're in Dreadscar rift where you can spam Implosion forever and ever for the normal duration of the Wild Imp(s) but does not occur in any other zone.
Stolen Power is not working at all.

[Baconeggcheese]

Especially when it's casuals and hardcore wannabes who don't even clear mythic who are going to be the ones going to their raid mates who want to play Demonology "well, derp, Demonology is bad look at its DPS compared to this arcane mage, derp; switch specs please".

So, in BRF virtually every mythic raider played demo on basically every fight. What ended up happening is derp felt obligated to play demo because all the mythic raiders were doing it, but demo was / is a complex spec and derp wasn't able to get the expected results out of it, and instead everyone was just frustrated because it was clearly the better spec because mythic raiders were performing so well with it. So instead of switching specs, derp just beat his head against a wall and his guild mates thought less of him.

Easy to learn hard to master is the optimal spec design for all specs in the game. You can build the complexity into eeking out min-max levels of dps, but making a specs baseline too complex for the average user is just bad design.

I think the new demo is fairly straightforward, and you have to find the complexity with lil min-max bits. So it looks like its new design is fairly well off, unlike afflictions.

[Kirroth]

So instead of switching specs, derp just beat his head against a wall and his guild mates thought less of him.

To say nothing of the times poor derp's guild mates are the ones who pushed him to respec Demo, because duh it's obviously the best spec just look at the numbers the mythic raiders are posting with it all the guides say it's the top choice, and then blame derp for performing so poorly with a spec he isn't any good at and didn't even want to play. It's no good for the game or the class when that happens, because it just ends up with Warlocks either being benched or traded for alts.

Or, for an example from my own guild of things going the other direction, we have a very long time Warlock player who's favored Demo since vanilla. We twisted his arm to get him to swap to Destro in BRF and his DPS instantly went up by 50%. Would he have rather stayed Demo? Heck yeah, but for the good of the raid he couldn't, because the skill level required for basic proficiency was over his head. I'm sure he's going to leap at the chance to go back in Legion.

[Yorindesarin]

To say nothing of the times poor derp's guild mates are the ones who pushed him to respec Demo, because duh it's obviously the best spec just look at the numbers the mythic raiders are posting with it all the guides say it's the top choice, and then blame derp for performing so poorly with a spec he isn't any good at and didn't even want to play. It's no good for the game or the class when that happens, because it just ends up with Warlocks either being benched or traded for alts.

Or, for an example from my own guild of things going the other direction, we have a very long time Warlock player who's favored Demo since vanilla. We twisted his arm to get him to swap to Destro in BRF and his DPS instantly went up by 50%. Would he have rather stayed Demo? Heck yeah, but for the good of the raid he couldn't, because the skill level required for basic proficiency was over his head. I'm sure he's going to leap at the chance to go back in Legion.

Forget waiting for Legion to go back to Demo... I'm almost certain I can play demo on literally every fight in HFC. And have done this farm clear thus far. And I'm generally not near the bottom of my guilds DPS either! Though I do look forward to being able to play the spec I want to play and not have it nerfed into the floor due to Blizzards over sights again. >.< Thus far of what I have seen of Legion Demo... It's probably what is going to keep me playing warlock... That may seem like a bad thing... But demonology was what got me into warlock to begin with... even if the class fantasy is changing from imo something it has been since the days of Warcraft.. The play style seems like it's going to be pretty solid... And I'm hoping for a few minor changes by the time beta rolls around. But... I somewhat hope it stays the way it is... I dislike static rotation play styles... And demo to me feels like I have choice/dynamic decisions to make to get the most out of the spec.

TL;DR Summoner Demo thus far = win.

[Polarity]

Just to add to this --

Shadowy Inspiration procs off HoG and not Shadow Bolt/Demon Bolt.
Thal'kiel's Consumption is very likely bugged as well since the damage of it is very low (but could also just be related to Demonic Empowerment not actually buffing demon HP).
Dark Pact shield doesn't increase when you Empower (again related to the DE bug).
Implosion has a bug while you're in Dreadscar rift where you can spam Implosion forever and ever for the normal duration of the Wild Imp(s) but does not occur in any other zone.
Stolen Power is not working at all.

This may be more of a UI bug than a Demo-specific bug, but I've noticed that occasionally the Felguard-specific abilities (Felstorm, Axe Toss) will disappear from the pet action bar and need to be re-added.

[DrIvoRobotnik]

Being that Demon bolt and Tha'kiel's consumption work directly off how many pets you have active. Unless they change it, wont [Shard of The Dark Star] become a very powerful trinket, all the way to end game for demo?