Are you guys happy with the new demonology?

[Deleted]

I had such high hopes for this spec. When they said it was gonna focus on demons and summoning them i was very excited. And what did we get? summoning dogs and imps which only last 12 secs.

This is from the website ''Demonology Warlocks are the masters of demons, summoning them forth to do their bidding. With the Skull of the Man’ari in hand, they are able to command and empower the greatest of these malefic beings''. I don't think imps and dogs are the greatest of these malefic beings.

[roflwaffle]

i love the spec honestly, ive always been a fan of the wild imps. the hounds are a neat bonus

[Nemah]

It's ok. I don't hate it. I don't love it as much as I thought I would. I miss (our) mobility/toolkit from the previous xpacs, but things change.

I didn't have access to the beta, so I'm reserving judgment until I see how it plays with the artifact weapon. Currently running aff/demo.

What I had hoped for was something more along the lines of the way the Rift necro played(plays?).

[Rameth]

And what did we get? summoning dogs and imps which only last 12 secs.

So in other words a warlock beastmaster hunter? Sounds almost identical. + a few dots for you.

[Extremities]

It's about damn time they made the Demonology spec about their pets. We haven't had a solid pet class in any MMO in a long time(Since EQ1). It's a step in the right direction. It feels kind of "slow" but maybe it'll just take some time adjusting to the changes and getting Legion gear.

[Gaidax]

The idea is good, but there are some issues they need to address - ramp up is significant.

Maybe if they would allow Demo to start with full shards it would be better or some sort of "Demonic Calling" buff that comes up passively every 30 seconds and makes Hand of Gul'dan spawn extra couple of imps or Call Dreadstalkers call some additional demon or two.

I also think it needs *something* to help with target switching, because apart from Implosion or having Consumption up - there is nothing you can do to burst priority adds.

[Schmilblick]

No, it's boring to play.

[Grinthe]

Yes and no. On one hand, I really enjoy the pet army aspect and the feeling of swarming down my enemies. On the other, the ramp up time is awful, so is the target swapping and having to cast your empowerment after literally every demon you summon feels pretty clunky.

I think that they will be a lot more enjoyable if those few issues are addressed. Empowerment becoming a temporary aura / buff you need to keep on yourself, a way to command all pets to attack a new target, I think even just those two things would be a world of QoL.

I also think getting the legendary where your Call Dreadstalkers becomes a shard generator is going to be a godsend for the ramp up issue, but I don't really know how they could address that specific issue. Some way to start the fight with more than just our one pet.

[hiramloram]

If you enjoy casting Demonic Empowerment, you'll enjoy demo.

[Warsfeil]

Nope. I don't like being a buff bitch of a couple of worthless demons.

[Dawnseven]

I just had an argument about this with a friend. I was always affliction and decided to go demon for Legion. I said I didn't like it and was going to respec. When he asked why I said "all I do is summon and buff demons" and he stared at me with his mouth hanging open. "What???" "That's the whole point!!" he yelled. Yeah well ... I don't like it. I fully understand why people do, and I thought I would, but... I don't. Different strokes, different folks.

[Deleted]

Meh.

The idea is very good, better than the Morph one (I kind of had a love/hate relationship with it). But it has ramp up on the ramp up, and the demons last for too short.

[Nadiru]

Things I like:

-Summoning tons of Demons feels really swag
-You crap out damage once you get going

Things I dislike:

-You aren't doing damage until you've gotten multiple casts off; the ramp-up time is hardcore
-Demonic Empowerment is a boring maintenance buff spell when Blizzard has explicitly been trying to get away from that.
-Blizzard giving Demo Warlocks haste breakpoints when Blizzard has explicitly been trying to get away from that.
-Doom is an incredibly boring damage spell that doesn't really interact with the rest of Demo's kit when Blizzard has been explicitly trying to get away from that.

Demonic Empowerment should have been a self-buff that gives you the Demonic Empowerment buff as an aura for your demons, and ideally for more than 12 seconds at a clip. It could have even been a sweet 3 minute cooldown. Doom ought to have summoned a Wild Imp on hit, and a Dreadstalker on crit.

[Deleted]

I like the idea of a summoner spec.

The problem is that what's fun about it right now at 100 isn't gonna be around at 110. Simply because the Class Trinket & Set Bonus currently make the spec. With barely any Imps at 110 and only the two Hounds, Fel Guards and the Doomguard, it's not only boring visually, but also mechanically (which it already is at 100 with Empowerment and the utterly snorefest rotation).


Honestly, it feels half-assed. I'm having a hard time liking any of our current Specs due to all of them feeling like that. Switching to a DH Tank for this expansion, I guess. Gonna keep the Lock as my main alt, due to having played the same character for all of WoW now.



I'll hold out hope that by 8.0 they reworked the Specs to be more fun. Demo could really benefit from a core rotation choice like Windwalker has right now. Use spell X after Y to get this demon, use Y after Z to get another one. Then again, so could Affli with it's debuffs. Or any Spec, really. Maybe Demonic Empowerment could be rolled into a Dreadlord summon CD, so we finally get that?

[Irian]

I went into demonology extremely optimistic. What I got:

A lot of short-duration demons that deal tiny amounts of gradual chip damage and are tied to weak attacks. Before minor theorycrafting I could not tell you which demons were actually did how much damage because it barely even mattered. They don't do anything, they're not tied to anything and they're essentially just visual buffs since they take no additional actions past auto attack.

No synergy between said demons at all.

Demonic Empowerment being probably the most...awkward buff I've seen. I swear I've seen similar stuff in betas and alphas of past WoW expansions that usually get cut because they feel too clunky, but somehow this made it in as is...

Implosion, which is probably the most awkward talent in the game considering it gives almost no visual feedback, has no CD to prevent fatfingering or confirming that the spell went off, a range tied to your character instead of your imps and it also seems to have a bizarrely high fuckup rate in PvP.

Ramp-up time on virtually every aspect of the spec. Want to AoE? Ramp up. Want to ST? Ramp up. The initial burst after said ramp-up can be good but that's literally the only thing demonology is good at, and it doesn't make up for how....downright atrocious demonology is at dungeons, and only passable at raiding. Affliction has it beat in PvP, destruction has it beat in PvE. There is no real reason to play demonology. I know this is a complaint commonly used in DPS specs but it's often unfounded due to unique playstyles, different situational advantages and talents that allow for varying degrees of power at certain aspects (fire vs. frost mage, etc) but other than simply for fun, there is no reason to play a demonology warlock that I can see. It has no advantages over the other two specs.

[Thrif]

Not really. I do enjoy it a whole lot more than the old version, but I had hoped that it would be about your demons, as in the 5 standard one, and buffing them and using them accordingly, a bit more like BM hunter. Instead, we get to summon imps and dogs that only lasts 12 seconds. While the summoner/army theme might fit some, it wasn't what I had hoped for when I first heard they would make it about demons again.

Also it feels a bit clunky and lacking utility, and the pets are worthless without being empowered 100% of their uptime.

[Nadiru]

But you yet have to get Skull of the Man'ari. Artifacts give you new spells. But other than that how many demons do you want to summon? You have felguard (or some other pet/demon), fel imps, dreadstalkers. You can use imps to aoe explode. I think that is good enough how they explained it.

If I'm going to be a shitty caster, I better have a ton of backup that I can pull directly from my butt. It doesn't help that the backup Demo summons right now is just there for a little while so you don't get the sweet aesthetic of having an Imp swarm follow you from mob to mob. Why do imps stay for a period of time instead of X casts, again?

[Deleted]

If I'm going to be a shitty caster, I better have a ton of backup that I can pull directly from my butt. It doesn't help that the backup Demo summons right now is just there for a little while so you don't get the sweet aesthetic of having an Imp swarm follow you from mob to mob. Why do imps stay for a period of time instead of X casts, again?

Clutter. The reason you see so few Summoner specs with tons of pets in MMOs is that all the pets just basically produce a shitton of visual noise and targeting problems if they are in the melee camp. Also performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfmNBTZsWOA <- I wish that was Demo right now q.q

[Violetti]

Feels way too much like a very lame Hunter, without its upsides

Fill your Soulshards and dump them in a fast cycle(way faster than the other 2 speccs, and the complete opposite of the glory-demo days pre shitty lvl100 talents) and watch out for having the required shards for short cds (doggys and darkglare) and Service&doomguard so you dont have to waste time casting the most lame filler ingame.

And then there is Demonic Empowerment

[Deleted]

Things I like:

-Summoning tons of Demons feels really swag
-You crap out damage once you get going

Things I dislike:

-You aren't doing damage until you've gotten multiple casts off; the ramp-up time is hardcore
-Demonic Empowerment is a boring maintenance buff spell when Blizzard has explicitly been trying to get away from that.
-Blizzard giving Demo Warlocks haste breakpoints when Blizzard has explicitly been trying to get away from that.
-Doom is an incredibly boring damage spell that doesn't really interact with the rest of Demo's kit when Blizzard has been explicitly trying to get away from that.

Demonic Empowerment should have been a self-buff that gives you the Demonic Empowerment buff as an aura for your demons, and ideally for more than 12 seconds at a clip. It could have even been a sweet 3 minute cooldown. Doom ought to have summoned a Wild Imp on hit, and a Dreadstalker on crit.

I couldn't have explained it better.