So how does Demo/Aff actually feel to play in BFA so far?

[Echoherb]

I've seen the changes to aff and demo and they look pretty good. Do the specs actually feel good to play so far? I'm especially curious as to how it feels to use shadow bolt again as a filler for aff, and how the new demo rotation feels compared to the current one. I'm leveling a Nightborne warlock right now in anticipation of the changes going forward.

[Inshabel]

Demo feels bonkers, you're drowning in shards and demon summons, I love it.

Aff feels bland as fuck, apply dots, cast SB, sometimes you spend shards.

[Segus1992]

Demo feels bonkers, you're drowning in shards and demon summons, I love it.

Aff feels bland as fuck, apply dots, cast SB, sometimes you spend shards.

Pretty much this. Affliction is about the same as Legion minus some passive damage from the artifact (easily fixed). Shadow Bolt beats Drain Soul but that's about it.

Demonology is one of my favourite specs of all on the alpha right now.

[Inshabel]

Pretty much this. Affliction is about the same as Legion minus some passive damage from the artifact (easily fixed). Shadow Bolt beats Drain Soul but that's about it.

Demonology is one of my favourite specs of all on the alpha right now.

It's also missing Reap, and I enjoy Drain cycles a lot better then how it is on Alpha, but no one cares, because "muh shadowbolt"

[scrynlock]

Instant cast Soul Fires with Demonic Core proc is the fucking nicest feeling thing demo has had since ever.

Its amazing. Dont fuck it up blizz


Aff feels a little bit better.. as long as you didn't like the drain play style.

[Aggrophobic]

Demo feels ok at best. You don't do much damage but you have an insane amount of resources so you can spam thoes demons all night long. It's still a turret though and you still need to work more for what other specs do better. Demons are still buggy as heck and there is a good change that they won't do any damage during their duration.

Affli feels horrible in every way. Shadow bolt is much less intresting to use and the fact that you have to fully cast it to do any damage nerfs the movement of aflli by quite a bit. The synergy between dots and drain is also gone and that takes away some of the intresting parts of the spec. Whats also gone is your ability to AOE... at all. Seed is nerfed to the ground and affects less targets and without soul flame the spec has no place in dungones what so ever and overall it's a dead spec for anything but council-style fights. You also have no offensive CDs by default and contagion is build into UA leading to a very static playstyle where it never feels like you have any moment were you really shine.

So yeah, not that great.

- - - Updated - - -

Instant cast Soul Fires with Demonic Core proc is the fucking nicest feeling thing demo has had since ever.

Its amazing. Dont fuck it up blizz


Aff feels a little bit better.. as long as you didn't like the drain play style.

How is it better in any way?

[scrynlock]

Demo feels ok at best. You don't do much damage but you have an insane amount of resources so you can spam thoes demons all night long. It's still a turret though and you still need to work more for what other specs do better. Demons are still buggy as heck and there is a good change that they won't do any damage during their duration.

Affli feels horrible in every way. Shadow bolt is much less intresting to use and the fact that you have to fully cast it to do any damage nerfs the movement of aflli by quite a bit. The synergy between dots and drain is also gone and that takes away some of the intresting parts of the spec. Whats also gone is your ability to AOE... at all. Seed is nerfed to the ground and affects less targets and without soul flame the spec has no place in dungones what so ever and overall it's a dead spec for anything but council-style fights. You also have no offensive CDs by default and contagion is build into UA leading to a very static playstyle where it never feels like you have any moment were you really shine.

So yeah, not that great.

- - - Updated - - -



How is it better in any way?

Shadowbolt + Nightfall feels nicer than draining all the time, feels a bit faster, more apm etc

Deathbolt has some decent burst, old Haunt is back for those who enjoyed it, you still have SH if you want it.

It does suck losing Soul Flame and StS being cut in half isn't amazing, but there is still a missing talent which could be another potential AoE option.


Aff isn't quite finished yet and like I said previously, for people who don't enjoy draining and are fans of the older style of affliction, the current changes are definitely a step in the right direction

[Inshabel]

I wish draining was still an option atleast, one of the talent options to give you MG for a slighty higher damage boost then SE because you can't keep it up as much. I never saw the appeal in SB for Aff other then nostalgia goggles.

[Segus1992]

It's also missing Reap, and I enjoy Drain cycles a lot better then how it is on Alpha, but no one cares, because "muh shadowbolt"

I do indeed not care about losing Drain Soul all that much (would like it as an execute though) because Shadow Bolt feels better - higher skillcap, cooler animation, not as much number bloat, etc.

[Azelas]

Demoinology looks awesome, super fast paced and fun gaemplay. Affliction is the same as Legion, tbh, bar shadowbolt instead of drain soul (which imo is an upgrade). I just find Affliction to be boring as fuck in Legion so I didn't expect much in BfA tbh.

[Lucrece]

I do indeed not care about losing Drain Soul all that much (would like it as an execute though) because Shadow Bolt feels better - higher skillcap, cooler animation, not as much number bloat, etc.

lol high skill cap shadow bolt. Snort.

[Ooshraxa]

Demo is really fun to play, although I still see the need for stacking haste.
Once you get rolling with procs, though, you feel like shadow bolts are for plebs

That's not to say that you don't cast any shadowbolts - I did a 54 minute parse on a 102 dummy with a fresh 110 lock, to gather data for random demon summons via Inner Demons and Nether Portal. Lots of shadow bolts in that parse.

My play is less than optimal, since I was mostly focused on putting out as many shards as possible during Nether Portal windows.
And I'm new at this iteration of demo, obviously

While levelling, Power Siphon into a mob debuffed with For the Shadows with Legendary shoulders (RIP soon ) is an immensely satisfying opener, since you do:
Power Siphon -> Dreadstalkers -> Instant Demonbolt -> 3 shard HoG -> Instant Demonbolt -> 3 shard HoG.

After that sequence, you have a good chunk of imps, dreadstalkers out, and can proceed to blow up all of the mobs with your forthcoming DC procs

[Aggrophobic]

Shadowbolt + Nightfall feels nicer than draining all the time, feels a bit faster, more apm etc

Deathbolt has some decent burst, old Haunt is back for those who enjoyed it, you still have SH if you want it.

It does suck losing Soul Flame and StS being cut in half isn't amazing, but there is still a missing talent which could be another potential AoE option.


Aff isn't quite finished yet and like I said previously, for people who don't enjoy draining and are fans of the older style of affliction, the current changes are definitely a step in the right direction

No, it sure as heck does not mean the spec feels faster. Shadowbolt was removed for a reason. A pretty good reason. Besides, whatever the new talents is, it's going to be in the same row as nighfall so you're still hardcasting that boring spell all the darn time should you be right about the missing talent being AOE focused.

And again, the lack of a offensive CD worth anything means the spec is very static, simple and boring. No way around that. Heck, you can't even stack UA anymore as you need to keep the contagion up at all times.

Affli is without a doubt in the worst state it has ever been in. Not sure whos working on that spec but it can hardly be someone that actually plays the game.

- - - Updated - - -

Demoinology looks awesome, super fast paced and fun gaemplay. Affliction is the same as Legion, tbh, bar shadowbolt instead of drain soul (which imo is an upgrade). I just find Affliction to be boring as fuck in Legion so I didn't expect much in BfA tbh.

It was not that fun in Legion but at least the spec worked and had a place. Thats no longer the case.

[Pendraeg]

I wish draining was still an option atleast, one of the talent options to give you MG for a slighty higher damage boost then SE because you can't keep it up as much. I never saw the appeal in SB for Aff other then nostalgia goggles.

Not really. With Drain Life/Drain Soul, it feels like a shadow priest, though I grant the new void-form mechanic has differentiated them. The other part is that SB allowed for a small amount of burst damage that just wasn't there with the channeled spell.

[xuros]

Pretty much this. Affliction is about the same as Legion minus some passive damage from the artifact (easily fixed). Shadow Bolt beats Drain Soul but that's about it.

Demonology is one of my favourite specs of all on the alpha right now.

NO NO NO NO none of this! We all have to say we hate it so that Ion says "Demos in a good place right now" and it doesnt get nerfed into the ground and has all things "FUN" removed! lol

[AwkwardSquirtle]

NO NO NO NO none of this! We all have to say we hate it so that Ion says "Demos in a good place right now" and it doesnt get nerfed into the ground and has all things "FUN" removed! lol

Or they'll break it because we say it's unfun. Sometimes they actually do listen to feedback. DE had charges on the PTR for Legion, which was a far worse system, even if the implementation we got wasn't exactly ideal either.

[Baconeggcheese]

Demo is in a good place in that it can have as much or as little going on as you want and can go from basically the same thing as legion minus the worst parts all the way to something that's potentially convoluted (which isn't a bad thing). There's ways things interact that concerns me a lil bit, just cause things can potentially cause unfun moments but eh. Frankly my biggest concern with demo is its a sustained damage spec that has a ton of flexibility in its kit where the other two specs don't. Its basically the same formula that set up aff to just dominate the entire xpac since it needed to be overtuned for it to be relevant. I can see this happening with demo as things stand.

Aff doesn't feel terrible different than live, which is a bad thing imo. SB doesn't bother me, but I do find that I miss drain soul sniping adds as they die. Sniping adds as they die for resources is so fundamental to aff and destro that it just feels off without it. To this day I haven't gotten used to destro not having shadowburn.

Or they'll break it because we say it's unfun. Sometimes they actually do listen to feedback. DE had charges on the PTR for Legion, which was a far worse system, even if the implementation we got wasn't exactly ideal either.

and it only affected 3 demons at a time unless talented :/

[Lucrece]

#killtheimpmother

Just, please, do something about the imp zoo.

[Ooshraxa]

#killtheimpmother

Just, please, do something about the imp zoo.

You can. It's called Implosion

[Segus1992]

lol high skill cap shadow bolt. Snort.

Undeniably higher than Drain Soul. I didn't say high, I said higher - takes a moron to not see the difference.

Now if we could have Drain Soul as an execute ability, we'd have the perfect balance between Shadow Bolt and Drain Soul as far as skillcap is concerned (without making it stupid).

- - - Updated - - -

NO NO NO NO none of this! We all have to say we hate it so that Ion says "Demos in a good place right now" and it doesnt get nerfed into the ground and has all things "FUN" removed! lol

I may be easy to please though, I'm just happy that imps spawn around the caster now rather than in melee range, so that it feels like you're actually commanding an army a la MoP rather than just passive pet-related psuedo-DoTs a la Legion. The rest of the stuff (albeit great) is just a bonus.