Demo Changes!

[MisterBigglez]

This is shaping up quite nicely. Has its clear strengths and weaknesses. Implosion baseline <3 Stil waiting for the mastery to change but its probably gonna be pet dmg.

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Why is Imp Swarm more fun than HoG? I like Imp Swarm, don't get me wrong, that spell alone is the reason I picked up the game back in SoO, but it doesn't add much to the spec when summoning 5 imps has become a core part of the rotation. Make it like a 10 minute cooldown to summon like 10 imps and I'll be impressed.

Plus burst is just numbers, make DC proportionally more powerful and we lose nothing.

20 imps mate. 20 imps. Thats an army right there.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

This is shaping up quite nicely. Has its clear strengths and weaknesses. Implosion baseline <3 Stil waiting for the mastery to change but its probably gonna be pet dmg.

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20 imps mate. 20 imps. Thats an army right there.

I like the way you think.

[Azelas]

I like these changes too. Imp Swarm felt unneeded with HoG imo. It's not like I feel like it should go, but I also don't feel anything now that's it's gone.

Bombers being instant is awesome, and Implosion to provide some AoE sounds good as well. I'm liking the way Demo is shaping up for sure.

[sugarfree]

Ummm, isn't Imp Swarm baseline? Check the spells and still there for 45 sec cooldown.

[Baconeggcheese]

Why is Imp Swarm more fun than HoG?

Because it could be cast back to back to have more imps out at the same time. You'd go from no imps to a bunch of imps in 2 casts.

[garonne]

Why is Imp Swarm more fun than HoG? I like Imp Swarm, don't get me wrong, that spell alone is the reason I picked up the game back in SoO, but it doesn't add much to the spec when summoning 5 imps has become a core part of the rotation. Make it like a 10 minute cooldown to summon like 10 imps and I'll be impressed.

Plus burst is just numbers, make DC proportionally more powerful and we lose nothing.

I wasn't saying it's more fun than hog, it's fun in tandem with the current rotation bc of the added utility to dps.

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Because it could be cast back to back to have more imps out at the same time. You'd go from no imps to a bunch of imps in 2 casts.

Not to mention bc of implosion we can cast hog > implosion > imp swarm > implosion for the added burst

[Prossy]

As one of the few who stuck with demo through legion they have made a few nice changes so far but to be honest all they done is polished a turd with abit of the old demo mechanics, sure they got rid of DE and lifetap which is great but we are still summoning imps with HoG and they are still limited duration and on top of that the imps are being made into a 2nd resourse for us to summon more imps and empower the commander (with talent).

The main problem wasn't just Demonic empowerment and constantly spamming lifetap, it's the dam soulshard system they forced on us! Sure they made it work for affliction and destro but for demo it was crap. All it is was is combo points for warlocks with poor damage as a net result and aslong we still keep it like this we will be reliant on stupid amount of haste to generate shards which means it's going to be a repeat of Legion where no one will take demo at the start because other dps will do better with less effort and be a massive ball ache to gear up for raids to get haste in every slot. Remove the shard system and go back to fury will solve everything.

Every big patch they make effort to give hunters several new pets to tame and just gave zandalari trolls bad ass druid forms, surely they can make time so Hand of Guldan can summon something else besides more pissing imps. It's one of the big reasons why alot of people rage quit the game/demo/warlock because summoning imps doesn't scream "Master Demon summoner"

[EnigmaVII]

I always thought Imp swarm should be the go to for massive amounts of imps..Hand of Gul'dan should function like it does in the Gul'dan fight.

Hand of Gul'dan: Calls down a demonic meteor to devastate your foes, upon impact a powerful demon emerges from the crater that lays waste to anyone who dares attacks its master, lasts 12 seconds. Random Greater Demons summoned: Eredar sorcerer, Dread Lord, Abyssal, and Doom Lord.

Deals up to [4 * (120% of Spell power)] Shadowflame damage on impact to all enemies within 8 yds of the target

2 sec casting time and cost 4x soul shards to cast. You many only have 1 Greater demon on the field for 12 secs any further HoG's during the greater demons presence will summon lesser demons instead (felguard/succubus/fel hunter).

[garonne]

As one of the few who stuck with demo through legion they have made a few nice changes so far but to be honest all they done is polished a turd with abit of the old demo mechanics, sure they got rid of DE and lifetap which is great but we are still summoning imps with HoG and they are still limited duration and on top of that the imps are being made into a 2nd resourse for us to summon more imps and empower the commander (with talent).

The main problem wasn't just Demonic empowerment and constantly spamming lifetap, it's the dam soulshard system they forced on us! Sure they made it work for affliction and destro but for demo it was crap. All it is was is combo points for warlocks with poor damage as a net result and aslong we still keep it like this we will be reliant on stupid amount of haste to generate shards which means it's going to be a repeat of Legion where no one will take demo at the start because other dps will do better with less effort and be a massive ball ache to gear up for raids to get haste in every slot. Remove the shard system and go back to fury will solve everything.

Every big patch they make effort to give hunters several new pets to tame and just gave zandalari trolls bad ass druid forms, surely they can make time so Hand of Guldan can summon something else besides more pissing imps. It's one of the big reasons why alot of people rage quit the game/demo/warlock because summoning imps doesn't scream "Master Demon summoner"

It literally doesn't matter what the resource is. All it's there for is asthetic. They could change it to fury, make it 1000, shadow bolt gives 100, sf gives 200 and imps cost 800 and it Changes absolutely nothing. The reason why soul shards "work" for aff and destro are the mechanics of the spec. How resource is built and spent.

Destro is basically a 50 shard system that requires 20 shards to cast a chaos bolt.
Aff is rng so we have no control over building and it basically only has 1 spender.

In demo, everything cost soulshards and a cast time so we need to generate them faster. And because of that, our dependence on haste hightens.

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Been thinking of a solution. Let me know what y'all think.

Dreadstalkers should go back to 12 sec duration / 15 sec cd. Cost and cast the same

Make vilefied or another demon baseline (cleaving optional) with a 15 sec duration/ 45 sec cd. Instant , 2 shards.
Demonic calling will be baseline and affect the new summon on shadowbolt/molten core crit. Reset cd and cost is free.

Imps stay the same, soul fire stay the same, mc proc chance increased to 20/25 % to offset less imps.

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This adds some importance to crit, the mastery will probably be demon and caster damage and takes some of the dependence off haste by having a strong static demon who's summoning and cd isn't affected by haste (outside the norm)

[Deleted]

Does feel a bit bad that 1 shard can summon 1 Imp with HoG or 1 Felguard/otherdemon. Though if I think of options I quickly come to a second resource needed to diffrentiate between Imps and Biggers stuff and we already have shards/MC and some mana that doesn't get used. Tbh Mana should be removed/renamed to something more warlocky. Mana is what weak mages use to cast their feeble spells. We should use shards for shadow stuff and fel energy for fire stuff .

I get that SB -> Dogs/HoG with MC into SF as a basic rotation looks good. However it would be nice if we could store more then HoG + 1 shards. Add a bit of variation to the rotation by being able to store 8 or 10 shards and not feel like a rogue with combo points.

[Orloth]

Honestly, I'd prefer they change HoG to an AOE generator and/or rotational cooldown, and make Imp Swarm the Shard Spender, but that's mainly thematic. Not sure why HoG is pulling double duty as a nuke and a demon summon when you could make a more interesting rotation with two separate spells. Also need talents that replace "Summon four Imps" with "Summon a single bigger demon" as Enigma's example. An imp army is cool, but having talent options to have a more elite demonic strike team instead would also be cool to my mind. That said, one of the key reasons that having the Imp army feels more powerful in BfA is (in my opinion) that they are right there with you clearly visable. Even your Felguard/Wrathguard gets lost in the melee jumble, but your Imps are hanging out there with you as part of your posse. Having more ranged minion options than just the Imp, for a more diverse army would be better than another melee model that just gets lost in the pile.

But as I only really play my Warlock for nostalgia anymore, my opinion may not carry that much weight. =P

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Does feel a bit bad that 1 shard can summon 1 Imp with HoG or 1 Felguard/otherdemon. Though if I think of options I quickly come to a second resource needed to diffrentiate between Imps and Biggers stuff and we already have shards/MC and some mana that doesn't get used. Tbh Mana should be removed/renamed to something more warlocky. Mana is what weak mages use to cast their feeble spells. We should use shards for shadow stuff and fel energy for fire stuff .

I get that SB -> Dogs/HoG with MC into SF as a basic rotation looks good. However it would be nice if we could store more then HoG + 1 shards. Add a bit of variation to the rotation by being able to store 8 or 10 shards and not feel like a rogue with combo points.

Seems simple enough: Make Shards granular, like they are for Destro, and buff all our Demon summons to compensate for them being summoned less frequently. Currently you're looking at one SB = one Demon. Which in turn, makes the individual demons necessarily weak. If the balance was closer to 3 SB = one Demon you might feel better about each demon summoned, but you'd also have more SB casts to pool up resources for significant resource dumps, like Affl and to a lesser extent Destro do.

Also, the only reason Demo summons different demons on live is cooldown limitations. If there were some other reason to maintain different demons, like interactive bonuses (Felhounds increasing Imp's damage being a live example. But having say a succubus summon increase the chance for Imps to give you Molten Core, or a Felhunter that returns SSs when it kills an enemy) than that might lead to a more dynamic rotation than just summon the things on cooldown, else Imps.

[Prossy]

It literally doesn't matter what the resource is. All it's there for is asthetic. They could change it to fury, make it 1000, shadow bolt gives 100, sf gives 200 and imps cost 800 and it Changes absolutely nothing. The reason why soul shards "work" for aff and destro are the mechanics of the spec. How resource is built and spent.

Destro is basically a 50 shard system that requires 20 shards to cast a chaos bolt.
Aff is rng so we have no control over building and it basically only has 1 spender.

In demo, everything cost soulshards and a cast time so we need to generate them faster. And because of that, our dependence on haste hightens.

- - - Updated - - -

Been thinking of a solution. Let me know what y'all think.

Dreadstalkers should go back to 12 sec duration / 15 sec cd. Cost and cast the same

Make vilefied or another demon baseline (cleaving optional) with a 15 sec duration/ 45 sec cd. Instant , 2 shards.
Demonic calling will be baseline and affect the new summon on shadowbolt/molten core crit. Reset cd and cost is free.

Imps stay the same, soul fire stay the same, mc proc chance increased to 20/25 % to offset less imps.

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This adds some importance to crit, the mastery will probably be demon and caster damage and takes some of the dependence off haste by having a strong static demon who's summoning and cd isn't affected by haste (outside the norm)

Your part right but It actually does matter since resourses dictate how smooth the rotation is and the flow, a clunky resourse system is going to result in a clunky flow and rotation and that is how it is on live, clunky like a limp hand shake from someone using his foot, sure it does the job but it's awkard and weird.

I'd prefered Demonic fury not just because of the flow but also flexiblity to open up Demo to other mechinics they can't do with 5 shards, they can bring back old demo's bursting phase or use Gul'dan empowerment mechanic plus it gives the feeling of master summoners by not having a limitation of needing a shard to summon demons. Also it will be like them giving us meta back without actually giving us meta since gaining fury gave us wings/horns and demonic aura.

[Deleted]

Why oh why did they leave Implosion. It's such as horribly designed spell. I mean, Imps are our main DMG (re)source. And we have to destroy them to deal AoE damage. Imagine if affliction had do blow up all of their dots on enemy to deal AoE....

I like it being a baseline spell. Imps are our 3rd/4th resource in BFA Demo.

[MisterBigglez]

Why oh why did they leave Implosion. It's such as horribly designed spell. I mean, Imps are our main DMG (re)source. And we have to destroy them to deal AoE damage. Imagine if affliction had do blow up all of their dots on enemy to deal AoE....

Thats like saying frostbolt is your main source of damage but you have to stop casting frostbolt to use blizzard for aoe. aoe is not supposed to be doing the same damage as ST. Heavy dot classes like affliction usually don't do as much damage on ST besides this expansion where the spec has been broken throughout legion.

If you ever used Implosion, you would realise how much damage it can actually do. It's burst aoe, which is what the spec is shaping up to have. Good ST and Burst aoe but shit cleave.

[Oldmind]

In demo, everything cost soulshards and a cast time so we need to generate them faster. And because of that, our dependence on haste hightens.

Haste is main stat becouse it affects both resours generation (ammount of SB casts) and damage of spender (damage from single imp).
If you cast only SB and HoG, increasing you haste by 10% will increase you dps by about 20% (10% more imp * 10% imp attacks)
The main reason for adding DE in Legion, IMHO, was an EASY way to adress haste scaling by increasing "baseline" haste of imps by 50% with DE, as they didn't have time to make good spec mechanics for demo.

And crit was bad stat only becouse of baseline 35% crit of wild imps trait.

I really want to see some good feeling and good working mechanics for demo in BfA, but "combo point" resource system, when you as warlock are not banking soul shards, probably will not go away.

[Shandalar]

I still can see imp swarm as a demonology spell.

[Xanatas]

i hope imp swarm remains, it is very important for pvp vs melee

imp swarm > power syphon > raging imps is a must

[drinoff]

I always thought Imp swarm should be the go to for massive amounts of imps..Hand of Gul'dan should function like it does in the Gul'dan fight.

Hand of Gul'dan: Calls down a demonic meteor to devastate your foes, upon impact a powerful demon emerges from the crater that lays waste to anyone who dares attacks its master, lasts 12 seconds. Random Greater Demons summoned: Eredar sorcerer, Dread Lord, Abyssal, and Doom Lord.

Deals up to [4 * (120% of Spell power)] Shadowflame damage on impact to all enemies within 8 yds of the target

2 sec casting time and cost 4x soul shards to cast. You many only have 1 Greater demon on the field for 12 secs any further HoG's during the greater demons presence will summon lesser demons instead (felguard/succubus/fel hunter).

I think when the demons crawls from the crater of HoG , maybe one demon buffs one spell another demn buffs another spell. That is how there is gonna be a little bit of fun element and forcing us to change the gameplay depending ot what crawls from the crater . It is a bit RNG thing but still...

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and i think they will give us another demon. Trust me i can smell it. They are just hiding it... it is gonna be boooooooom.

[Mokrengar]

Demonology in Legion, and likely in BfA, differs considerably from MoP/WoD Demonology in that the playstyle now consists of spending resources as soon as they are acquired; in MoP/WoD, one stored up resources over significant time intervals (30-60 seconds) and spent them strategically (which means that they should have been spent when procs were active). In essence, what is sorely missed is the strategic accumulation and spending of resources that MoP/WoD Demonology embodied. With the BfA talents, it is possible to tune the gameplay to a similar style, but frankly, I think that only a small fraction of WoW players appreciated the intricacies of strategic accumulation/spending, and thus, it will never return.

Bluntly, to all those clamoring for new talents, demon models, etc: recognize that the spec is wretched to play because the resource pool (Soul Shards) is small, and that for complex, rewarding gameplay, a large resource pool is needed; and yes, in the current "demon master" framework, it is possible to tune both resources and pet damage so that the Demonology playstyle is strategic like in MoP/WoD.

[rhorle]

Bluntly, to all those clamoring for new talents, demon models, etc: recognize that the spec is wretched to play because the resource pool (Soul Shards) is small, and that for complex, rewarding gameplay, a large resource pool is needed;

While I think a return to fury or a different resources is needed I disagree with that assesment. If that were the case then all classes that have small resource pools would suck. They don't. The problem isn't a small resource pool but the way that 3 soul shards interact with the spec/class. Even Destro has to "break" the 3 shard rule by using shard fragments.