3.3.3 Demo changes

[Deleted]

I've added the following to the Demonology FAQ.

What changes with 3.3.3?

Immolate: The damage-over-time component of this spell can now produce critical strikes.
Life Tap: This spell no longer scales with spirit, and instead scales with spell power.


Demonology:
Demonic Pact: This effect now has a 45-second duration, up from 12 seconds, and a 20-second internal cooldown.

Immolate:

More DPS for us, and there is now absolutely no question as to whether Immolate should be maintained during the execute phase, since at all levels of crit it will have a higher DPCT than Soul Fire. Do not Glyph for this, our glyph choices remain the same.

Life Tap:

Whether or not this is a buff or a nerf will depend on your current gear. rDPS geared 'locks with very high levels of spirit may find that they are getting less mana returns than prior to the patch.

Demonic Pact:

This is the interesting one. The increased uptime minus the cooldown means that there is now a 25 second window in which our pet can refresh the buff, rather than 12. In theory this means that our pet only needs half as much crit to maintain the same uptime as prior to the patch.

This means that Demo locks can now afford to consider dropping the 2/3 Improved Demonic Tactics which has, until now, been considered more or less mandatory.

The possibilities for alternatives are:

Suppression - 2% hit. Very useful if your raid comp or gear mean that reaching the hit cap is a struggle.

Improved Corruption - +4% damage on corruption. Corruption is about 7% of our damage, so this is a DPS increase of ~0.3%.

Aftermath - +6% periodic damage on Immolate. The periodic component of Immolate is again around 7% of our damage, so we're looking at ~0.4% dps increase.

Cataclysm - 4% reduction in mana cost for destruction spells.

Destructive Reach - 20% threat reduction and 20% range increase for detruction spells. The threat reduction may be very useful, dependent on the tanks you tend to run with. The need to keep corruption up (especially if you are running with substantial haste and GoQD) reduces the value of the range boost, especially as all our destruction spells have cast times. However, that's not to say you'll never enjoy any benefit from it, but don't let it be your motivation for taking this talent.

Improved Demonic Tactics - ignoring the benefits to Demonic Pact uptime. It's difficult to give a figure for this, but assuming you have about 50% crit raid buffed, and your felguard does around 14% of your damage, this is a dps gain of around 1.2%.

Intensity - 70% pushback reduction for destruction spells. This is situationally dependent, but potentially very useful. On fights where there is frequent pushback Demo obviously suffers a lot, due to long casttimes and lack of instants.


The numbers quoted above are very rough values, but it should be clear that if you are not having issues with hit rating, mana consumption or threat management, then you should stick with Improved Demonic Tactics as it provides a more substantial DPS boost than any of the alternative dps enhancing talents.

The cookie cutter 00/56/15 will, therefore, still be the standard spec, it maximises dps and DP uptime (if only slightly). Variance from this is only justifiable in terms of adjusting to raid comp - reaching hit cap, reducing threat or mitigating mana consumption issues (e.g. if your healers are struggling).

[Kvn]

I actually put those 2 points into Intensity in the destro tree, because I HATE pushback (personal preference). It's a dps increase on many fights and it very well could outweigh demonic tactics at a certain # of pushbacks per fight. Though now that I think about it, it may not be worth it. Either way, it'd be good to mention.

[Deleted]

I didn't think of that... /facepalm. Should be an obvious choice really given Demo's vulnerability to pushback.

[seven_of_nine]

According to elitist jerks, Suppression if "low" gear and Improved Demonic Tactics if using BiS. This is using the simulation tool....

Here's the link http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t37474-d...4/#post1568405

[Noonie]

Nice post, I was doing my build again as not going to do the 0/56/15 anymore, but now

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0Gc...sgzAoE00Vb:nqo

Still debating life tap glyph over Immolate now as I will have that up 100% of the time and I also made a very nice Shadowbolt and Soul Fire macro that I use with immolate to refresh on PTR, it was AMAZING.

[Kvn]

Nice post, I was doing my build again as not going to do the 0/56/15 anymore, but now

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0Gc...sg0AoE0oVb:nqo

Still debating life tap glyph over Immolate now as I will have that up 100% of the time and I also made a very nice Shadowbolt and Soul Fire macro that I use with immolate to refresh on PTR, it was AMAZING.

You should probably drop that point in mana feed for... Summon Felguard

And also, from a raid dps perspective, life tap is FAR superior to immolate. You want all the spellpower you can get. What is this macro you talk about?

[Noonie]

You should probably drop that point in mana feed for... Summon Felguard

And also, from a raid dps perspective, life tap is FAR superior to immolate. You want all the spellpower you can get. What is this macro you talk about?

I have mostly icc gear which has hardly any spirit on it hence why I am wanting to remove the Life Tap Glyph.

The macro is in game, I have to w8 for servers to come online.

Good point on mana feed, I am seeing no use for it lately, but can't go down in tree if not taken so mostly a filler.

[Kvn]

I have mostly icc gear which has hardly any spirit on it hence why I am wanting to remove the Life Tap Glyph.

The macro is in game, I have to w8 for servers to come online.

Good point on mana feed, I am seeing no use for it lately, but can't go down in tree if not taken so mostly a filler.

Glyph of immolate does nothing for the raid, glyph of life tap, even if only giving 80 spellpower is 8 spellpower to the raid. It doesn't sound like much, but in a 25 man where 7 other people benefit it boosts your spellpower scale factor to a MUCH higher number. The dps difference between life tap and immolate for YOU may be only double digits but when you add in all the dps gained through the raid by using the LT glyph it will be in the triple digits, well above Immolate.

And put that point in master summoner instead of mana feed, it's not filler that's basically a required talent. Your pet dies that's a MASSIVE loss in dps, not only to you but the raid. You have to get it up and going ASAP

[Shadowviper]

Loving how we have 2 points to float around where is needed. Imho I'm thinking the pushback reduction will be the WIN. For me at least. Damn Demo and it's long cast times.

[kneeo]

I've been rolling with 2 points in Destructive Reach instead of imp Demonic tactics for some time now, simply because I tried without demo tactics and I saw little to no difference in the uptime of Demonic pact. So I probably won't be changing specs when the servers are up. (: Although I never thought off Aftermath or Imp. Corruption as viable alternatives for whatever reason. Maybe I'll try that... But maybe not, because I really, really like the 20% threat reduction and increased range.

[Deleted]

I never thought off Aftermath or Imp. Corruption as viable alternatives for whatever reason. Maybe I'll try that... But maybe not, because I really, really like the 20% threat reduction and increased range.

They're not. They're actually a dps loss compared to Imp DT. I added them to the list to show that, I should probably make that clearer.

[Tripnut]

hey guys personaly for 3.3.3 id go for the reach having the 36 yard will be a god send on most fights couse having to move couse the tank goes just that bit out of reach is well so grrr for me seems to be best option for id say 60% of fights were a tank is moving or we have to move from a effect or aoe .

yours tripnut of NAGRAND

[kneeo]

They're not. They're actually a dps loss compared to Imp DT. I added them to the list to show that, I should probably make that clearer.

Ah. Well, nevermind anything I said then.

[harky]

hey guys personaly for 3.3.3 id go for the reach having the 36 yard will be a god send on most fights couse having to move couse the tank goes just that bit out of reach is well so grrr for me seems to be best option for id say 60% of fights were a tank is moving or we have to move from a effect or aoe .

yours tripnut of NAGRAND

The problem with this is that we need to be at 30 yards anyway. Yes, it might get us an extra Shadow Bolt once in a blue moon, but it only increases the range on Destruction spells, so we need to be inside 30 yards for Corruption/CoD. The threat reduction is nice if you have lazy tanks though (or tanks who think threat is still as easy as it was in Naxx/Ulduar).

[Jenerena]

I guess it depends. We haven't been running our 10mans with our rogue much recently, so threat has been a problem without tricks. If it continues I may invest in Destructive Reach. Also I have a hit trinket taking care of alot of my hit so suppression would be a little awkward to take as I would probably still be over cap. The pushback talent does look tempting. A few examples of where it would be useful:

• Stinky with his annoying passive AoE
• Deathwhisper
• Phase transition on the LK

The best thing to do is to run some wowhead profiles with different talents. If you are stuck with some badly itemised hit gear suppression may be the better option. This may be the case with 25man raiders who don't have room for a hit trinket what with the trinkets that are available to them.

[Bakis]

Not alot of fights demanding pushback decrease tho? BLIZZ got rid of it at Fester which was the hellhole so hubba, where exactly is it so badly needed, ie. that its not take into account in the design already.

[Jenerena]

Well no, not really. I just ran through a load of profiles and it seems nothing will beat Imp. demonic tactics. I'm gonna respec anyway though, I think it's about time I took master summoner rather than improved healthstone.

[vision2]

I just wanted to say that Destructive Reach is absolutely worthless to Demo.

In ICC I rarely have "range" problems and corruption has 30yards anyways.

And as you already have a 20% threat reduction called Felguard, you don´t need another 20%.
It is simply impossible for a Demo to draw aggro. If you do, get rid of your tank.
Oh and also get rid of your fellow DD´s as they are more likely to pull aggro if they would do decend DPS.

In which ICC fight is pushback reducion good?

Marrowgar - Fire (yes I usually finish my current casts before moving)
Marrogar - Bladestorm?? does it even have a pushback ?

Deathwhisper - death and decay?
deathwhisper - Ae bolt?

Gunship....nobody care about this right ^^ ?

Saurfang? is there anything that pushes you back?

Festergut? nothing or?

Rotface? I think here are a lot of pushbacks arent they?

Professor - The green slime on the floor

Blood Princes- I don´t know I´ll just do the orbs, but I gues there´s plent of AOE

Blood Queen - Do her random Fireballs have Pushback?

Valeria- AE Frostbolts suck -_-

Sindragosa - I think thisone is pushback free ?

LK - hmm can´t remeber^^

[infinitis]

Spec/glyph didn't change in any BIS sim.

And while it would be nice to drop lifetap glyph, demo still uses alot of mana/ gives raid more damage anyway so might as well stick with that


ps: glad that they didn't fix hunter lk bows doing 500 dps, when my arena team was going tonight.. was getting lit up by hunters all night.

[Deleted]

And as you already have a 20% threat reduction called Felguard, you don´t need another 20%.
It is simply impossible for a Demo to draw aggro. If you do, get rid of your tank.
Oh and also get rid of your fellow DD´s as they are more likely to pull aggro if they would do decend DPS.

Not everyone is going to be in a perfect raid set-up, some people may severely outgear their tanks.

Advice is given such that it is useful. If you are in a very serious top-end guild then getting rid of your tank may seem like a more sensible option than redistributing one talent point to reduce threat by 10%. For most people, however, it isn't.

I'm not a big fan of the philosophy that advice should be there only for the pros and everyone else should quit. Apart from anything else the pros are all far more pro than I am, and don't need my advice :P