WoD Beta Demonology Discussion

[Jessicka]

The apparent design is using it once at high fury = sustained damage, but chaining it back to back will provide the most burst.

Regarding the latter, I'm interested to see where the cut off point is where Soul Fire > Demon Bolt.

I did figure it was about 500 Fury, but that was while I assumed the 'additional 25%' bonus on the Molten Core perk wasn't additive to result in a total 75% reduction in Fury cost and cast time. It's probably going to end up about 700, which means you'll really only ever be casting 1. Given those 1s Soul Fires, that's going to be pretty incredible burst without thinking about DB. And again, think how often Service was used by the other specs as a 'burst option' this expansion; it just never happened so chaining them is just incredibly unlikely to ever have any real worth.

[Deleted]

Makes sense.

I guess the next thing to consider is how many MC procs we'll actually have.

I played Demo like once in t14, but I seem to remember it was on the low side.

If we only have say 3-4 going into a burn phase, assuming max fury, we'll Demonbolt once, then fire 3-4 soul fires. We'll still be at like 500 fury then, ish. Right?

What do we do then, just ToC? Perhaps it would be better to Demonbolt twice, then expend our MC charges.

Ehh wtb Beta, going round in circles in my head.

[Rayaleith]

Have you noticed that the wild imps do not attack? Only the last one attacks. When you go to the next mob, it is added to the rest of the idle wild imps :S

[Jessicka]

Have you noticed that the wild imps do not attack? Only the last one attacks. When you go to the next mob, it is added to the rest of the idle wild imps :S

They do, so long as you stay in combat, as soon as you leave combat, they won't re-enter combat so only the latest ones attack.

I miss Fel Flame so badly

[Zinnin]

Ok, more info dump from Beta.

Demonic Servitude pets do not give fury from their attacks like our normal pets.

Cataclysm doesn't actually cost fury, it just charges you for every Doom that is applied. So 5 targets = 300 fury.
If you don't have enough fury to Doom all targets, it will Doom random ones.

I have a feeling Cataclysm will be viable at lower numbers of targets then I originally though, maybe 2 if the fight is short enough. No more then 3.

Glyph of Dark Soul isn't currently working with Archimonde's Darkness, which makes AD a dead talent since the Glyph is almost required right now.
Along that Note we will require an addon to track Doom unless they put its tick timer down to 10 seconds just for Dark Soul, to make sure we don't miss buffing a tick of Doom duing DS.

Not sure if this was noted, but it bothered me because I missed it: Shadowflame no longer slows and the glyph does nothing.

Glyph of Felguard (Weapon Glyph) Now pulls the weapon from anywhere in your bags instead of just your main Backpack.

Server changes has made Demonic Leap noticeably more responsive (probably the only thing I'm happy about so far this beta cycle...)

If anyone is curious about something they want tested let me know.

_____

The cost of Soul Fire is 40 with the perk. It still gives 30 fury in caster.

Hellfire still does more damage to us then the enemies.

You WILL run out of mana using Glyph of Life Pact, however it will take like 10 minutes, and by then waiting a fraction of a global for mana would still be worth using the glyph...

Drain Life seems to be doing less the half of its tooltip damage, not sure what is going on there. (Which puts it under 50% of shadowbolt)

Harvest Life seems to just not be working at all, 0 damage increase.

Health rations between Caster and Pet are same as live, where Felguard has 50% of your health.

Mortal Coil went from 15% -> 11%

Glyph of Shadow Bolt doesn't even register as 3 attacks anymore, just one.

[Schirmy]

Zinnin, how does Fury generation feel in general compared to live?

[Nighthaven-]

@ Zinnin, glyph of Hand of Gul'dan travel time, no MF active...

[Rayaleith]

Zinnin, most of these seem like bugs (hopefully). Why do you think Glyph of Dark Soul is almost a must now?

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and I hope you opened bug report for these :P

[Brusalk]

Zinnin, how does Fury generation feel in general compared to live?

Much slower IMO, but then again it's the beginning of an expac numbers vs end of an expac numbers.

[Zinnin]

Zinnin, most of these seem like bugs (hopefully). What do you think Glyph of Dark Soul is almost a must now?

Both Demonbolt and Cataclysm are used basically every minute, the Glyph ensures that every use of our 90 Talents get buffed with DS.

@ Zinnin, glyph of Hand of Gul'dan travel time, no MF active...

Same as live I believe, 1.5s. At least it felt the same.

Zinnin, how does Fury generation feel in general compared to live?

Slow, the whole spec feels slow. It takes ~Minute to cap fury, compared to maybe 35-40s on live.

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Soooooooo, basically Demonbolt is garbage right now and they can't really make it hit harder.

5 Minutes with Demonbolt: 16.4k DPS
http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/LMqdtrjBP4mxaCD9/#

5 Minutes with Cataclysm (Not even pressing it on CD): 16.8k
http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/DMrvnhbPzA8a6GHC/#

I have a feeling if I tried to parse at longer durations Demonbolt would start to get ahead, but right now here is the main things I see wrong:

-You can't use it until ~a minute into the fight, means it is at the end of a minute instead of the front. Automatically behind cataclysm
-While it is technically 'free' you can't use your fury with any sort of freedom at all, which means that any fight with movement you'll take cataclysm.
-Cataclysm is essentially free. It doesn't cost any fury by itself, it just charges you for the Dooms that you apply.
-Fury cycle time is just too long

I think for Demonbolt to really be a viable talent they need to essentially cut the fury bar to 500 fury from 1000 so the cycle time is shorter and you actually get more use out of it.

[Brusalk]

Both Demonbolt and Cataclysm are used basically every minute, the Glyph ensures that every use of our 90 Talents get buffed with DS.



Same as live I believe, 1.5s. At least it felt the same.



Slow, the whole spec feels slow. It takes ~Minute to cap fury, compared to maybe 35-40s on live.

------------------

Soooooooo, basically Demonbolt is garbage right now and they can't really make it hit harder.

5 Minutes with Demonbolt: 16.4k DPS
http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/LMqdtrjBP4mxaCD9/#

5 Minutes with Cataclysm (Not even pressing it on CD): 16.8k
http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/DMrvnhbPzA8a6GHC/#

I have a feeling if I tried to parse at longer durations Demonbolt would start to get ahead, but right now here is the main things I see wrong:

-You can't use it until ~a minute into the fight, means it is at the end of a minute instead of the front. Automatically behind cataclysm
-While it is technically 'free' you can't use your fury with any sort of freedom at all, which means that any fight with movement you'll take cataclysm.
-Cataclysm is essentially free. It doesn't cost any fury by itself, it just charges you for the Dooms that you apply.
-Fury cycle time is just too long

I think for Demonbolt to really be a viable talent they need to essentially cut the fury bar to 500 fury from 1000 so the cycle time is shorter and you actually get more use out of it.

What are your thoughts on the 40 fury refund limit? When I was testing out Demo I couldn't avoid shifting out of Meta before I got the refund.

[Zinnin]

What are your thoughts on the 40 fury refund limit? When I was testing out Demo I couldn't avoid shifting out of Meta before I got the refund.

So on one hand I think it should be higher, but then you'll just never get under that amount of fury becuase you'll want to start to cycle again.

I almost think the talent needs to do max damage at 750, and return its fury at 250. This gives you the 500 cycle that I was saying, but also some give to use some fury / wait on cooldowns without losing massive amounts of damage.

Right now if you cap fury with 10 seconds till dark soul you basically just throw away some fury, or if you need to use some fury for movement you basically never will get capped on the 1 minute timer again. 1 Minute Dark Soul means you don't really use it more then every minute anyways so I see no reason not to let it have some flexibility. Bonus points if 1 Minute Dark Soul becomes baseline.

The biggest thing is it needs to have a sizable dps perk to even warrant using. There are almost no single target fights ever (haven't look at WoD at all) and just one use of Cataclysm with 2+ targets means it isn't worth your time at all to use Demonbolt.

[Brusalk]

So on one hand I think it should be higher, but then you'll just never get under that amount of fury becuase you'll want to start to cycle again.

I almost think the talent needs to do max damage at 750, and return its fury at 250. This gives you the 500 cycle that I was saying, but also some give to use some fury / wait on cooldowns without losing massive amounts of damage.

Right now if you cap fury with 10 seconds till dark soul you basically just throw away some fury, or if you need to use some fury for movement you basically never will get capped on the 1 minute timer again. 1 Minute Dark Soul means you don't really use it more then every minute anyways so I see no reason not to let it have some flexibility. Bonus points if 1 Minute Dark Soul becomes baseline.

The biggest thing is it needs to have a sizable dps perk to even warrant using. There are almost no single target fights ever (haven't look at WoD at all) and just one use of Cataclysm with 2+ targets means it isn't worth your time at all to use Demonbolt.

I agree it's really inflexible in it's current incarnation. Is warcraft logs working for beta? I'd like to get some concrete results on my testing more than my current eye-balling.

Interestingly, in my Destro testing I was finding an opposite problem. In terms of pure damage from Cataclysm vs Charred Remains, Cataclysm doesn't seem like it can compare for AoE situations. AoE Chaos Bolt hits about as hard as Cataclysm, and the increased ember generation means you're getting off a ton of them, compared to one slow one every minute. The biggest downside at the moment is your AoE damage is greatly reduced due to less Incin/Conflag damage, but when you can cast a FnB Chaos Bolt every 6 seconds, Cata doesn't seem like it'll be worth it.

[Zinnin]

Is warcraft logs working for beta?

Yep, it's working just fine.

[Jessicka]

Went to bash some dummies today, Demonbolt while pretty is very weird to use, I'm not sure the refund really works as a gameable mechanic, because you just don't empty your Fury pool so as Zinnin says, it does feel rigid and limiting; something I mentioned as a potential concern before. It could almost either use an active mechanic (recast after a cooldown?) to refund it, or a 10-15s timer, or other conditional like 'when you leave Meta'...

Cataclysm felt strange initially to get in to the opener, but once you get used to it it feels and looks good, really like it. Hoped it would be strong enough to default to, and Zinnin's testing bears that out so I'm happy with that.

Overall, the new systems make the game much more responsive, which for Demo's dancing is a huge QoL improvement.

[Skayth]

So, can someone with beta access go ask the devs on the beta forums, or more likely going to get answered if tweeted, if they would properly change our aoe to ranged? I know, I know, some of the player base would not like the change, but it is a huge QoL issue for mythic raiders =(

Currently, they are trying to make ranged classes stay ranged, and be turrets (mainly). No to mention, abilities aimed solely at Ranged, even if they are in melee. This means that we are currently the only class that runs into melee in order to AoE, and then have to leave. Not to mention in mythic, we will be taking damage going into melee, specially with our lowered survivibility. It is not a defining aspect of the class, rather an annoyance. A change would be a huge QoL in favor of the Demo Lock.

[Nighthaven-]

A passive MF AoE radius increase will solve most of it. Push for a revert of 5.4 MF

[Skayth]

A passive MF AoE radius increase increase will solve most of it. Push for a revertion of 5.4 MF

yes, but then that would push us into a single talent, which we do not want. We actually want to have some diversity.

[Nighthaven-]

yes, but then that would push us into a single talent, which we do not want. We actually want to have some diversity.

I assume Warlocks will not have any overhaul and any of these spec specific issues won't be addressed for at least 6.0. - Sadly.
Look at patch notes so far: nothing, nothing, nothing. Only "my green fire is not shiny enough", "my meta form is not pretty enough".
We already had our overhaul, which is unfortunate.

I also wish that Warlock talent's were not that: 'you have this one option for this fight for that spec' either. Much of the blame can be turned towards those who find 'having no choice' acceptable.
I doubt we'll have resources dedicated to us to fix Warlock spec specific issues, so you'll have to push for what you can reach.

[Jessicka]

yes, but then that would push us into a single talent, which we do not want. We actually want to have some diversity.

Do we not want? It's not like that's even true right now. KJC effects AoE spells, making is awesome for Siegecrafter, AD effects AoE spells making it still useful on fights where there's like 1 phase of AoE burst if you want to use it for that. MF is just AoE, and just every minute. Fights don't work like that. It's shit. It should be 3 abilities that help in all circumstances, just like the alternatives.