Redesigning demo for BFA

[Challenge]

Just want to note this is all fan made. And to keep in mind that tuning is not the spirit of this, its more about the fun aspect. Tuning is something that can come after.

Goals:
Improve talent tree
Increase variety of demons summoned
Simplfied and streamline AoE
Decrease button bloat
Base demons once again relevant.
Quality of life by making certain spells baseline
Make survivability more flavourful


Base kit changes

1. Demonic Empowerment replaced with a similiar spell called Call Dreadlord. Call dreadlord will deal a minor amount of damage to the target you are attacking, but empower all existing and new demons pets, increasing their health, damage, and haste by X%. Last 25 seconds with a 40 second cooldown
2. Shadowbolt replaced with Demonbolt baseline
3. Demonwrath removed. Hand of Guldan now generates 1 Shard per target hit, with an increased cast time, rather than consuming shards.
4. New spell imp swarm. Will consume up to 4 shards to summon 1 imp per shard. Instant, no cooldown
5. Drain Life and Unending Resolve Removed. Both Replaced with Twilight Ward, which reduces your damage taken by 25% and absorbs X amount of damage for 6 seconds. 30 second cooldown.
6. Felhunter Interupt is now baseline
7. Demonic Portal baseline
8. Demon Skin baseline
9. Mortal Coil baseline
10. Thalkiel's Consumption does not carry over to BFA.
11. Hand of Doom baseline, now also applied by Demonbolt, but the actual ability for doom is removed
12. Mana removed and life tap removed
13. Succubus, Imp, and Felhunter now all do equal damage along with equal health and armor. Largely up to utility which which you want to use.
14. New Felhunter passive ability: Magic Dampening, which applies the lesser 10% healing debuff with auto attacks

Altered- Demonic Empowerment, Shadowbolt, Hand of Guldan, Doom
Removed- Drain Life, Demonwrath, Life Tap, Unending Resolve, Thalkeil's Consumpion
Added- Imp Swarm, Magic Dampening
Baseline- Mortal Coil, Demon Skin, Demonic Portal, Spell Lock

Talents



Tier 1-General Benefits, completly new

• Nether Reach- Demonbolt and Hand of Guldan have an increased ranged of 8 yards. They can also be casted on the move but reduce your movement speed by 50% while doing so

• Demonic Knowledge- Dreadstalkers, Doomguard, Infernal, Darkglare*, Demonic Rift*, and Summon Demon no longer cost soul shards, but 5% of your maximum health.

• Thal'kiels Cunning- Increases your movement speed by 10%, and your demons movement speed by 50%

Tier 2-Imps. Only Implosion changed

• Impending Doom-Same
• Improved Dreadstalkers-Same
• Legion of imps- Demonbolt and Hand of Guldan has a 10% chance to make your next imp swarm cost no shards

Tier 3- CC

Each warlock spec should get one CC baseline (Demo mortal coil, Destro shadowfury, Affliction howl of terror) and then each spec can either choose to talent into one of the other 2 spec's CC, or gain something new.

• Howl of Terror- Same
• Summon Jailer- Summon a jailer who will imprison on you target after 1.5 seconds,disortienating them for 20 seconds (8 PvP). 15 second cooldown. Instant. Replaces Fear
• Shadowfury- Same

Details: Jailer basically will cast fear on your target, like you would. The benefit is Imprison does not cause your target to run, is instant, and does not put yourself in combat.The Jailer can be interupted in PvP as it does have a cast time, however its an interupt on the Jailer, not yourself allowing you to still cast abilities. The downside is it replaces fear and has a cooldown, meaning it can no longer be spammed.

Tier 4-Sustain damage

• Demonic Servitude- Increase the duration of all your demon summons by 2 seconds
• Power Trip- Summon Dreadlord automatically grants 5 soul shards and the cooldown is reduced by 10 seconds
• Demonic Rift- Summon a demonic rift that will instantly summon a random demon and 2 more every 10 seconds for 20 seconds to attack your current target. 2 minute Cooldown. 2 Soul Shards

Details: By random, it can summon one of your primarily or secondary(T6) demons. The chance is divided by each possible choice, so normally its a 5 Possible choices (Imp, Felhunter, Succubus, Voidwalker +T6 Choice. Summon Darkglare from the T7 Choice can also be summoned making it 6 choices. Normally its a 20% chance per demon, with the T6 or T7 Choices being the "high roll" summons.

Tier 5- Survivability.

Each spec has the option to Dark pact or Fel Armor, and then a third option which improves a spec specific option for each one (Improve Ember tap for destruction, Drain Soul for aff, Nether Ward for demo

• Fel Armor- Increases your maximum health by 30%, but reduces healing gained from other sources by 30%
• Dark Pact- Same but always uses your health
• Nether ward- Will now heal you based on the amount absorbed by Twilight Ward

Tier 6- Secondary Demon Tier.

Permanent second demons like hati is for beast mastery hunters.

• Call Mo'arg- A permanent Mo'arg will fight alongside you. Mo'args deal heavy sustain single target damage.
  Active ability- Perform a heavy ground smash, dealing X damage to its target and 1 nearby enemy. 45 second CD.

• Call Inquisitor- A permanent ranged Inquisitor will fight alongside you. Inquisitors spam Shadowfrost bolt, which bounces to 2 nearby targets for reduced damage.
  Active abitlity- Cast a curse on the target, dealing X damage to its target over 1 minute. 1 minute CD

• Call Felguard- A permanent Felguard will fight alongside you. Felguards cast Legion Strike, which cleaves to all nearby enemies.
  Active Ability. Felstorm, dealing X amount of damage over 6 seconds to all nearby enemies. 1 minute CD

Tier 7-Specialty Demons

• Summon Darkglare-Same

• Summon Pitlord- Summon a Pitlord, dealing MASSIVE damage. Will cast rain of fire if 2 or more targets are stacked together. Replaces both Infernal and Doomguard. No longer costs a soul shard, but 25% of your maximum health. Last 30 seconds. 3 minute CD

• Summon Imp Mother- Summon a Imp Mother. Imp mother will summon 1 imp for every imp you summon to attack your target. Last 20 seconds. 1.5 Minute CD

If you also had some ideas, I'd like to hear them. I look foward to seeing what class changes blizzard can make for BFA Demonology

[Verazh]

These are some lovely suggestions indeed.

As it is currently, even this old lock from vanilla doesn't want to touch demo.

[Challenge]

Thanks, although the current design of summon demon > empower rinse and repeat is pretty dumb, im glad they decided to embrace the summoner spec rather than the previous meta design. I love pet classes and demonology is the most pet of all 3 (unholy demo bm)

[Snes]

I actually kinda like Demonwrath + HoG for AoE. Although it would be cool to see Implosion baseline - that was hella fun when it first came out in HFC.

[Challenge]

I like demonwrath for high target sustain aoe. The RNG really turns me off in lower number cleave and its really weak in snap or short lived adds such as in dungeons

[Deleted]

That's some sick ammount of work dude, great job.

Nevertheless, those changes are, imho, an ideal world situation (and this is not an ideal world). But i'd love to see some tunning on these and get them on live for the next expansion if not ASAP.

Thank you for your hard work.

[Dastreus]

I can say, summoning pit lords and dreadlords is a terrible idea. They aren't demons to be taken lightly (dreadlords especially, with their cunning). Neither would ever bend to the will of a mortal.

[Challenge]

I can say, summoning pit lords and dreadlords is a terrible idea. They aren't demons to be taken lightly (dreadlords especially, with their cunning). Neither would ever bend to the will of a mortal.

I disagree, at this point in the time the PC warlock is more than capable of enslaving and controlling more intelligent demons, especially now that the legion is largely in disarray, there are many demons unemployed. We are already able to summon fellords, who are pretty high ranked as far as regular demons go

[Halwyn]

I disagree, at this point in the time the PC warlock is more than capable of enslaving and controlling more intelligent demons, especially now that the legion is largely in disarray, there are many demons unemployed. We are already able to summon fellords, who are pretty high ranked as far as regular demons go

Fel Lords, for all their might, are just the commanders of the Felguard, who are, in turn, normal foot soldiers of the legion, so while summoning one is impressive, even if all he does is standing still and cleaving every once in a while, that's about it. If anything, summoning a Fel Lord will make more sense to your design of summoning a Dreadlord, since the former ARE the demonic field commanders.

On the other hand, Dreadlords and Pit Lords are, in a sense, are an elite forces answering directly to KJ and Archimonde respectively, so they're FAR above the normal demons in hierarcy. And between the sheer power of a Pit Lord and the magical knowledge and intelligence of a Dreadlord, chances of normal warlocks summoning and binding one, especially in a middle of combat and with a creature actively resisting it are kinda slim.

Also, so far the only warlock that managed to summon a Pit Lord completely on his own is fel-empowered Karenthad (and it's up to one's guess if he was controlling that Pit Lord at all), so it'll take a helluva lot of power to repeat that feat, especially now with our artifact weapons gone. My guess, a best pet is to summon a Pit Lord is "Stampede" kind of way, he pops up from a portal, does a massive swing/rushes through a straight line and dissapears before he can cleave the warlock's ass in two. Bonus flavor points if the warlock is caught in Pit Lord's attack, he gets damaged too.

As for the Dreadlords... come on. Those guys spent millenia learning magic, especially demonic arts. There's no way a demon with that kind of experience and intelligence can't find a flaw in the Warlock's spellwork to turn the tables.

[Kithelle]

Some really cool ideas!

The only thing I think I dislike is the Demonbolt baseline...I'd hate to lose my classic shadowbolt since Demo is the only spec to use it now.

[Deleted]

Awesome job dude. However, i dont quite see where the AoE is coming from? What i dislike from the current demo, is the shitty ramp-up. They fixed it a bit with the HoG buff.
Could you elaborate how it would pan out? I'm much of an AoE guy here which i feel is an integral part of the best specs in the game.

[Challenge]

Fel Lords, for all their might, are just the commanders of the Felguard, who are, in turn, normal foot soldiers of the legion, so while summoning one is impressive, even if all he does is standing still and cleaving every once in a while, that's about it. If anything, summoning a Fel Lord will make more sense to your design of summoning a Dreadlord, since the former ARE the demonic field commanders.

On the other hand, Dreadlords and Pit Lords are, in a sense, are an elite forces answering directly to KJ and Archimonde respectively, so they're FAR above the normal demons in hierarcy. And between the sheer power of a Pit Lord and the magical knowledge and intelligence of a Dreadlord, chances of normal warlocks summoning and binding one, especially in a middle of combat and with a creature actively resisting it are kinda slim.

Also, so far the only warlock that managed to summon a Pit Lord completely on his own is fel-empowered Karenthad (and it's up to one's guess if he was controlling that Pit Lord at all), so it'll take a helluva lot of power to repeat that feat, especially now with our artifact weapons gone. My guess, a best pet is to summon a Pit Lord is "Stampede" kind of way, he pops up from a portal, does a massive swing/rushes through a straight line and dissapears before he can cleave the warlock's ass in two. Bonus flavor points if the warlock is caught in Pit Lord's attack, he gets damaged too.

As for the Dreadlords... come on. Those guys spent millenia learning magic, especially demonic arts. There's no way a demon with that kind of experience and intelligence can't find a flaw in the Warlock's spellwork to turn the tables.

I still disagree. On the pitlord part, its a matter of perspective. Back in Vanilla when summoning a Doomguard with a ritual that required many people and it auto killed people and could barely be controled, was considered the ultimate demon we could summon. Nowadays, we have them as permanent pets without thinking twice on it like a common imp or felhunter.

In wows current age, the PC is far more powerful than in Vanilla, and with the legions current state after Antorus, a lot of demons have lot a significant part of their power. I dont think its undereasonable for a demonology warlock to be able to temp summon a pit lord.

As for dreadlords, we had it was a spell for a while in Legion alpha. It was originally where summon Darkglare was (which before that was summon inquistor). So Blizzard isnt against us using them either entirely. (36 seconds, IDK why it isnt going directly to the time stamp)



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Awesome job dude. However, i dont quite see where the AoE is coming from? What i dislike from the current demo, is the shitty ramp-up. They fixed it a bit with the HoG buff.
Could you elaborate how it would pan out? I'm much of an AoE guy here which i feel is an integral part of the best specs in the game.

So currently, lets just say you're in a dungeon about to approach a 3 group trash pack. You have your standard 3 shards. You also talented into Darkglare. You have a few ways to approach it.

Hand of Guldan to use all your shards and spread doom, demonwrath and hope for fast RNG, darkglare, empower, back to DW and HoG weaving
Doom 1 target, Darkglare, empower, doom the other 2 targets, demonwrath till 4 shards and HoG weave
Darkglare, empower, hand of guldan > demonwrath hog weave

None are really ideal.
The first one relies on adds living long enough to get going. (not to mention waiting on doom to proc). Unless you're doing high keystones this isnt the case normally.
The second one requires a lot of uneeded globals to accomplish the same goal
The third one wastes a good 3 ish seconds on the darkglare just doing nothing

Outside of this, the AoE rotation is really just demonwrath, hope for rng, hog with shards, and felstorm from felguard

The way I changed it

Hand of Guldan doesnt spend shards, it generates it. Shards are primarily spent on imp swarm, which is instant and summons the imps normally from HoG.

So the AoE rotation on normal would change from

Demonwrath > HoG rinse and repeat
HoG > (Darkglare if talented) > Imp Swarm rinse and repeat

Reason why I think its better is because it allows you an easier way to spread doom without relying on shards, and it greatly helps snap aoe with darkglare because you can just freely Hand of Guldan into Darkglare using only 1 shard instead of 5. Hand of Guldan would also always generates a shard per target hit so no more relying on the RNG of demonwrath.

Similar to sub rogues. Your snap aoe is improved a good deal by in terms of spreading Doom, getting darkglare going, and generating shards, but your sustained AoE would be nerfed.

HOWEVER, even though your overall aoe damage may be lower without demonwrath in the rotation, your AoE HoG spam fuels your single target to be higher because of being able to HoG > Imp swarm repeatedly so your single target improves (where demo should shine) just like sub rogues use shuriken to fuel their single target further.

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Some really cool ideas!

The only thing I think I dislike is the Demonbolt baseline...I'd hate to lose my classic shadowbolt since Demo is the only spec to use it now.

I would miss it, but just aesthetically. Maybe it could be a glyph? Shadowbolt used to feel really good back with old nightfall affliction procs, but it feels really wimpy now.

[Kithelle]

Demonbolt just bothers me a little, mostly because I wish it would use green fire instead of orange, even with green fire active it still goes orange.

[Challenge]

Great ideas. Sadly, we probably won't even get 1% of this.....

Betting that all we get is demonic empowerment instant cast and thats all the changes we get for the entire expansion

[benjaminandjen]

I’m thinking spell animations will come after class redesign. No sense in developing new spell animations when so much about demo will probably change.

[Crimsonfiend76]

Betting that all we get is demonic empowerment instant cast and thats all the changes we get for the entire expansion

Considering my first toon I rolled back in BC was a lock (second being hunter) I've always enjoyed pet classes and seeing what's become of demo this xpac, gutted, and abandoned after the shitty redesign just didn't quite work, really killed my enjoyment of legion. With the slightly less shitty but equally disappointing redesign hunters were given, its no wonder I took almost a year off before coming back a couple months back. If it wasn't for demon hunters (a class I was hoping and praying we would get ever since DKs were released) I wasn't sure I'd come back at all.

All that said, I do like a lot of the ideas presented in this thread, particularly the last 2 talent tiers. I do wonder why we even have to stomach that abortion of a talent - Demonic Empowerment? With or without a cast time, I thought demo locks, aka summoners, should have access to more powerful demons at their disposal, why the need to further clutter the rotation adding a talent to

enhance

our currently summoned demons? Honestly, between that and demonswrath, I'd rather just have hellfire, soulfire or the awesome chaos wave. At the risk of borrowing from BM hunters, they get the option to tame exotic pets which in addition to providing more damage passively, they also add visual options as pets, and often come with unique abilities as well.

Similar to the green fire questline back in MoP, I wouldn't even be opposed to locks having their own challenge tames (ok enslavement) if it meant we could add those demons to our arsenal. Why should only hunters get to enjoy the class fantasy denied to locks, using the same tired demons we've had forever (going back to the old class quests of acquiring our mount and other demon pets)?

/rant

[Deleted]

pretty cool