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

[Inshabel]

i playtested every single class and specc all up to lvl 120 and warlock seems awkward and from what i know, theyre pretty much done with class changes
reroll something else while you can

So Affliction is going live with a missing talent, cool story.

[Deleted]

Of course it's crap.

In your opinion.

Spec has issue with ramp... let's introduce mother of all ramps - execute as fix? Wut?

It's a way of compensating by having higher damage at one end for lower damage at the other. It's not idea, of course, ideally we'd just have less ramp at the start by dumping the ridiculous and archaic Agony mechanic, but there is no sign whatever of that happening ever, because the devs are wedded to it and I would also guess part of that ois that they feel it separates aff from SP, who have better and stronger dots and who apparently aren;t a problem when it comes to multi-dotting and PVP.

Baseline spells should be something that spec can't function without and it's certainly not execute for affliction.

There are loads of abilities that are baseline that all specs can easily do without; for example in BFA for affliction, Banish, Health Funnel, Unending Breath, Eye of Killrogg, Enslave Demon will be joined by Drain Life.


As to demonology and Doom, I think the intention is probably to give demo some council-fight damage, sinc eit's pretty hard to put "multi-dot" damage into specs without it being a glaringly obvious fix for same, as in "your pet also hits something on the other sid eof the room"

Demonology is very ST oriented (doom and bilescourge bombers both being talents), and some of that is due to it being reliant on guardian class pets which won;t switch targets unless th eoriginal dies, which in essence makes them dots

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So Affliction is going live with a missing talent, cool story.

It would have to be one humungous talent to change the state of BFA affliction. It feels awkward, the talents feel restrictive and it feels very lackluster outsid eof ST tunelling.

[Yhcti]

Demo sounds like dire beast BM hunter from what I'm hearing lol. #zoo

[Gaidax]

It's a way of compensating by having higher damage at one end for lower damage at the other. It's not idea, of course, ideally we'd just have less ramp at the start by dumping the ridiculous and archaic Agony mechanic, but there is no sign whatever of that happening ever, because the devs are wedded to it and I would also guess part of that ois that they feel it separates aff from SP, who have better and stronger dots and who apparently aren;t a problem when it comes to multi-dotting and PVP.

You don't "compensate" by making specs even more powerful in what they are already powerful. If spec has a glaring weakness at something, way more than acceptable - you fix that weakness, not make it up by making it even more OPAF at other things, because that results in severe nerfs and QQ, exactly how Aff is being treated in BfA now.

It's a simple common sense - spec has issues with ramp up... why make it have even worse ramp up where its full damage manifests at the end of the fight?

[Shandalar]

Can people stop with this "baseline" crap?

No - Doom does not need to be "baseline". Demo in Alpha is very nice and clean baseline and I'd rather have them keep it this way, instead of making same fatal mistake 3rd time and overloading it with unrelated shit.

Talents in part exist so that those who want "moar battanz cuz skiel" can plop those there and have their Dooms and what other nonsense to juggle around.

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As for the second point - I do, in fact, agree that Doom could have additional function. 30 seconds thing is a very strict condition for it effectively being just damage, albeit high damage. I also don't really see how it fits with Demonology idea, it's just some delayed nuke, what does it have to do with demonology?

Doom should pop a Doomguard when it ticks, like in the old times.

[Deleted]

Doom should pop a Doomguard when it ticks, like in the old times.

I agree, that would be very cool.

I still think that Summon Vilefiend should be replaced with something cooler though. We got enough melee demons that we barely see! The cool thing about Demo is seeing your demons shoot stuff at your enemies, like when you have a ton of imps out and the Tyrant. So instead of summoning another doglike demon why not summon an Inquisitor or a Dreadlord or something?

One thing I loved about the old Demo in BRF was the ST build, when you had the passive permanent Doomguard through the talent and another one through Service. That was awesome.

[Gaidax]

Doom should pop a Doomguard when it ticks, like in the old times.

I think that Doom should not be at all to begin with. If one would want some way to spawn Doomguard, I am sure there could be more interesting ways to do it.

[Deleted]

I think that Doom should not be at all to begin with. If one would want some way to spawn Doomguard, I am sure there could be more interesting ways to do it.

Why not though? It gives us at least a little spread dmg.

Personally I'd say go bring back Darkglare and make Doom baseline (replace Doom talent with talent that buffs Doom), those are some of the things that I actually like about current Demo. The Darkglare also looks cool and it's a ranged demon so we get to see it. It's also another thing to cast while on the move, as it's an instant cast.

[Deleted]

As I said, I think that's the intention of Doom, to give spread damage. That's hard to implement in a spec that is so reliant on guardian-grade pets without it being a really weird looking fix, you can;t really have the pets they have implemented in demo hitting widely spaced multiple targets, Legion Strike is more cleave. Particularly as the Darkglare has been removed - and even with that, you had to mark targets with Doom. If you didn;t but just had a pet that hits everything then that's uncontrolled aoe damage, which can be problematic. I suspect that the demon commander has the potential to be torublesome if peopel just cast it when it;s off cooldown

[Gaidax]

Of course you can, there are dozen ways to make it a thing.

Anything from Havoc-like talent that makes Imps strike multiple targets on CD, to talent which makes all your pets and guardians switch to another target for extra damage for a short time, to something like Darkglare-like demon that deals increasing split damage between all targets range, to something like Demon version of Storm Earth and Fire.

Doom? That's just both lame and not matching the spec.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Of course you can, there are dozen ways to make it a thing.

Anything from Havoc-like talent that makes Imps strike multiple targets on CD, to talent which makes all your pets and guardians switch to another target for extra damage for a short time, to something like Darkglare-like demon that deals increasing split damage between all targets range, to something like Demon version of Storm Earth and Fire.

Doom? That's just both lame and not matching the spec.

Actually, doom could function as the "command all pets to focus this target" button that we've been missing. Forget the delayed damage, you're doomed because an army of demons wants to tear you apart.

[Gaidax]

Actually, doom could function as the "command all pets to focus this target" button that we've been missing. Forget the delayed damage, you're doomed because an army of demons wants to tear you apart.

Even that. That would be cool.

[Deleted]

Actually, doom could function as the "command all pets to focus this target" button that we've been missing. Forget the delayed damage, you're doomed because an army of demons wants to tear you apart.

I like that. It's something that still bugs me about demo. Sure we got implosion now but what about the other demons?

[garonne]

the lvl 60 demon (forgot the name) switches targets when you switch targets, haven't checked the other demons.

[Baconeggcheese]

Actually, doom could function as the "command all pets to focus this target" button that we've been missing. Forget the delayed damage, you're doomed because an army of demons wants to tear you apart.

No I already named that, its supposed to be called "Imp-erative"!

[Ooshraxa]

Last time I tested it, extending Doom messed up it's damage (doesn't go off after 30 seconds). I've bugged it in each build that I've seen it.

The alpha version of Doom is odd in the same way as Shadowbox is odd on affliction: No interaction with anything else, just thrown in there.
Also - 30 seconds? On live, I believe my doom ticks at 15.something seconds, so obviously affected by haste. They couldn't do that to alpha Doom, at least?

[Deleted]

I suspect that the game engine doesn;t support such target-switching for guardian class pets. The Darkglare used Doom as a marker for it's 'cleave' but that has been removed. You can;t logically have that sort of attack for a melee pet without having it's attacks turn into ranged.

Also, there coul dbe PVP issues if you had something liek the Imps doing it; they'd turn into undispellable dots.

Meanwhile, it looks like the classes are prety much set as they are going into BFA, which is bad news for affliction.

[Ooshraxa]

Meanwhile, it looks like the classes are prety much set as they are going into BFA, which is bad news for affliction.

I hope that the missing talent is Drain Soul (minus the healing). It's on a single target row, sort of, so it could happen.

[Gungnir]

Honestly, as someone who played Warlock up until WoD, this is the most excited I've been for warlocks in general in a long time.
Demo is just a ton of fun and even with 11% haste on the beta character, it still manages to feel fluid and nice if you spec into the Dreadstalker proc.

I suppose CB could do more damage seeing as MM hunters crit harder and the Pyro proc for mages crits for over twice as much.

[Deleted]

I suspect that the game engine doesn;t support such target-switching for guardian class pets. The Darkglare used Doom as a marker for it's 'cleave' but that has been removed. You can;t logically have that sort of attack for a melee pet without having it's attacks turn into ranged.

Also, there coul dbe PVP issues if you had something liek the Imps doing it; they'd turn into undispellable dots.

Meanwhile, it looks like the classes are prety much set as they are going into BFA, which is bad news for affliction.

Doom hits quite hard, afaik it was my hardest hitting ability. Even topping the Demonic Tyrant with the t100 talent that buffs its damage. It ticked 3.6k every 30 seconds which equates to 120 DPS, which given I was doing 3.2k dps without Doom isn't that great at 110. It's a really boring talent and needs some flair or some interaction.