[MoP] Misc Demonology Notes

[Phoenexis]

And has anybody tried any war games, take a look at how things are doing? I understand that it's beta and doesn't determine anything mostly, but you could get a good idea of what PvP has become like: how dispels impact the spec, does the ramp-up impend demonology a lot and is that short duration of meta worth it?

[Brauhm]

And has anybody tried any war games, take a look at how things are doing? I understand that it's beta and doesn't determine anything mostly, but you could get a good idea of what PvP has become like: how dispels impact the spec, does the ramp-up impend demonology a lot and is that short duration of meta worth it?

There is no ramp up if you use the glyph that gives you the alter form (which you should), basically you generate fury from using your demonic slash and unleash it through soul fires, dooms, etc. Glyph of Army of Imps (not the real name) also gives you amazing burst and insane molten core procs. Basically, you just gen energy the entire time and unload it, similar to how the spec should be played imo.

[Phoenexis]

There is no ramp up if you use the glyph that gives you the alter form (which you should), basically you generate fury from using your demonic slash and unleash it through soul fires, dooms, etc. Glyph of Army of Imps (not the real name) also gives you amazing burst and insane molten core procs. Basically, you just gen energy the entire time and unload it, similar to how the spec should be played imo.

Well in that case, what's the downside of Dark Apotheosis, other than being in melee range?

[Grizelda]

If you switch to meta for any reason, you'll lose all the fury you generated. That's about the only downside.

[Grizelda]

That is what I meant. Thank you for making it clear.
But if you pop imps it really doesn't take that long to gain decent DF. Not that long of a CD either.

Unfortunate that porting and Demonic leap consume DF.

[Chimera-Lothar]

That is what I meant. Thank you for making it clear.
But if you pop imps it really doesn't take that long to gain decent DF. Not that long of a CD either.

Unfortunate that porting and Demonic leap consume DF.

All of these little things, like Demonic Leap and Teleport, need to lose their DF cost completely, of if that doesn't work in the system, drop them to costing 1 point each. DF drops fast enough as it is without it hating on movement too.

[Brauhm]

Well in that case, what's the downside of Dark Apotheosis, other than being in melee range?

I believe the damage bonus for meta does not transfer, but the caster bonus does. So you're missing like... 35+% of your damage when using DA instead of meta.

[Phoenexis]

One last question, is the glyph of demon hunting viable, or are there too many other glyphs that "can" provide a "better" bonus? What I'm trying to say is: Do we have space for the glyph of Demon Hunting? Because if that's the case, it could make for an awesome defensive cooldown in PvP.

Thanks for the replies!

[Deleted]

The last notable Demo change appeared on 2012-05-08. (Chaos wave)
Since then it is only numbers crunching.

The last build was a week ago.

If next build will not bring something changing spell mechanics, I would not hold my breath to see other improvements than number changes.

[Chimera-Lothar]

The last notable Demo change appeared on 2012-05-08. (Chaos wave)
Since then it is only numbers crunching.

The last build was a week ago.

If next build will not bring something changing spell mechanics, I would not hold my breath to see other improvements than number changes.

I think you may be jumping the gun a bit. This is still Beta and it will continue to be Beta for a few months yet, just because they decided to let the dust settle for 2 or 3 weeks to see where things are at doesn't mean they're not gonna come back radically change things up. In fact, a delay may mean that they ARE working on another big change, so big it isn't ready to be tested yet. (But that may just be wishful thinking).

You might be right, but I think it's more likely we won't know what warlocks are *really* gonna look like for another month or two.

[Xelnath]

I think he's right. I see no motivation to change Demonology again right now.

[Jtree]

I think he's right. I see no motivation to change Demonology again right now.

They may have settled on the model they want to send into endgame, then. We'll see where it's at after a couple weeks of testing in heroics and raids.

[Jessicka]

I think he's right. I see no motivation to change Demonology again right now.

There's still a lot of talk about Moonkin changes with regard to Insect Swarm and such, so it's not inconceivable that things could as yet be stripped or added. I wouldn't expect changes to the foundations in place now however (which to be fair are quite solid). I wouldn't expect a Beta patch to be delayed or waited on for changes with a single class or spec either, as such things can be worked on in parallel on internal builds and added later - as I expect probably 99% of changes are.

[Deleted]

I call it a day.

Definitely looking forward to stance dancing, only form exclusive spells and three resources.

Meh. Maybe I will be liking it more than I think now. Probably not.

[Jessicka]

Latest build, Molten Core now caps at 10 stacks. Touch of Chaos is less buggy.

Also worth noting that since the global Mana regeneration buff, mana has felt like much less of an issue.

Testing this today though brought my mind back to this post:

Jessicka: I'd agree with that goal. I'm sure there's far more on the tip of your tongue than that though.

I am generally hearing from you that you feel uncomfortable, almost stripped bare by the unfamiliarity of the changes. Yet, if you look at the history, it's pretty clear numerous recent changes - the return of a stacking, 2 sec cast time fire spell, two DoTs instead of one, the increased flexibility of the metamorphosis timing - are all things you have explicitly asked for at some point.

Yet, you have never acknowledged these, instead continuing to blindly push for the return of a spec that was more about bending to the whims of a puppetmaster designer who picked your ability and cooldown timings, rather than deciding for yourself when to use them.

I greatly prefer freedom to choose over bondage. You?

It feels like the spec is ever more bound to the whims of a designer than it does on live. I don't choose when I want to use Meta. That moment is chosen by the need to at least refresh Doom, or if I were to do it 'properly', Corruption too (although, I actually like to cast my dots myself, not have them auto refreshed, especially not by an auto attack, regardless of whether it's a DPS loss). It's chosen by when I have stacks of Molten Core to use up. It's chosen by the cooldown of Dark Soul. Rarely, it's chosen because I'm close on the Fury cap. That's more things deciding when I use Meta even than live, where I am simply at the mercy of Impending Doom, anything else I can stack is a bonus. Ironically, because of all these secondary controls, it is Fury that is bordering on irrelevence as a determining factor; other than for the fact that there simply isn't enough of it to actually make much use of Meta for the brief periods you use it.

Reading again through others' comments there still seems to be a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty about some things; take the fifth poster in this thread of feedback on the US forums - this player seems to be under the impression that because Soul Fire doesn't change during Meta, that the spell receives no benefit from Meta. The 'Master Demonologist' buff still appears in the combat log at 500 Fury, so regardless of whether it's doing anything it's clearly giving the impression that it is.

That of course ties in to a response a post here where I explain that the change of spells in Meta, to spells serving an entirely different while in Meta purpose is adding further confusion to the spec. It's better clarity of purpose, not just for the role of the spec, but for each and every spell in our arsenal.

[Zinnin]

Warlocks have never been exactly a clear class to just pick up and learn, we generally have some mechanics that aren't clear cut how to be used and I think that is part of the fun of the class, the ability to mix our rotation up to test different things. Unlike some specs that have extremely clear cut mechanics like a arcane mage where it is fairly obvious what your rotation is going to end up being, we get to actually juggle things around to find different ways to play optimally, this is part of why I keep playing my warlock over other classes.

As for not having control over meta, I've said it before, give us TOO much flexibility (making it so we can literally just go into meta whenever we want) and you turn the specs skill cap down considerably. Without a reason to use meta at specific times you make it so that there is no penalty for misusing a button. Currently the dps gain from going in fairly often to refresh corruption is small enough you can actually make a choice "would it be optimal for me to use my fury for single target, do I want to save up some for some AoE in a bit, or do I need it for a burn coming up soon". Get rid of a rotational reason to ever cast meta and it becomes just "Do I want to use it now, or later, because it really has no impact on my dps at all"

On live you have the very strict constraint of having to press it on cooldown, or you are wasting uptime and Impending Doom procs, saving it for even a few seconds could lead to missing out on a fury proc and it being the difference of getting 2 metas during a fight and 3. On Mists you might have some required uses for part of your total fury allotted to you in a fight, but not all of it. If you look at resource tab in simcraft you can see that in between Dark Soul cooldowns you hover between 800-900 fury for quite a long time before dumping it, so you do actually have some options on what to do with it, where as live you really don't at all. If your don't think that mists is far more flexible you are blind.

As for posters on the official forums, there is still people that swear up and down that nightfall for affliction just gives a free haunt, when it has always just given a shard. Giving that kind of player any merit isn't worth the time. If they can't figure out how a mechanic works when its obvious like that, how do you expect them to figure out subtleties of rotation.

[PickleballAce]

Reading again through others' comments there still seems to be a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty about some things; take the fifth poster in this thread of feedback on the US forums - this player seems to be under the impression that because Soul Fire doesn't change during Meta, that the spell receives no benefit from Meta. The 'Master Demonologist' buff still appears in the combat log at 500 Fury, so regardless of whether it's doing anything it's clearly giving the impression that it is.

If it's post #5...I think you're misreading that one. There's nothing in there about Soul Fire not receiving any benefit from Meta, only how it fits in as part of a DA rotation.

Are you referring to the fifth individual to reply to the OP? The seventh post? That actually seems to refer to Soul Fire changes and 500 Fury, etc. I don't know what to make of that one.

[Gobuchul]

Latest build, Molten Core now caps at 10 stacks.

This is not even remotely true - it still appears to have no cap at all. I've had it beyond 100.

[Jessicka]

Warlocks have never been exactly a clear class to just pick up and learn, we generally have some mechanics that aren't clear cut how to be used and I think that is part of the fun of the class, the ability to mix our rotation up to test different things. Unlike some specs that have extremely clear cut mechanics like a arcane mage where it is fairly obvious what your rotation is going to end up being, we get to actually juggle things around to find different ways to play optimally, this is part of why I keep playing my warlock over other classes.

As for not having control over meta, I've said it before, give us TOO much flexibility (making it so we can literally just go into meta whenever we want) and you turn the specs skill cap down considerably. Without a reason to use meta at specific times you make it so that there is no penalty for misusing a button. Currently the dps gain from going in fairly often to refresh corruption is small enough you can actually make a choice "would it be optimal for me to use my fury for single target, do I want to save up some for some AoE in a bit, or do I need it for a burn coming up soon". Get rid of a rotational reason to ever cast meta and it becomes just "Do I want to use it now, or later, because it really has no impact on my dps at all"

On live you have the very strict constraint of having to press it on cooldown, or you are wasting uptime and Impending Doom procs, saving it for even a few seconds could lead to missing out on a fury proc and it being the difference of getting 2 metas during a fight and 3. On Mists you might have some required uses for part of your total fury allotted to you in a fight, but not all of it. If you look at resource tab in simcraft you can see that in between Dark Soul cooldowns you hover between 800-900 fury for quite a long time before dumping it, so you do actually have some options on what to do with it, where as live you really don't at all. If your don't think that mists is far more flexible you are blind.

As for posters on the official forums, there is still people that swear up and down that nightfall for affliction just gives a free haunt, when it has always just given a shard. Giving that kind of player any merit isn't worth the time. If they can't figure out how a mechanic works when its obvious like that, how do you expect them to figure out subtleties of rotation.

Actually, the overwhelming majority of Arcane Mages pick up the rotation 'Blast Blast Blast Missiles on proc...' which actually has dire output and have to ask why it sucks so badly. Similarly, Shadow Priests, a great many of them start out only using Mind Blast on proc rather than on cooldown. I don't think it's bad for it to be possible to get it wrong, picking it up and learning it is as you say, a big chunk of the fun. It's ok for a couple of things to work 'backward' in that respect, but when your whole suit of spells changes purpose entirely on changing stance it is going a bit too far.

Having so much flexibility to use it isn't giving you a choice, because by enabling you to use it rotationally, it's promoting it's use rotationally. I loath using it for Corruption, so I don't, part of that is because playing from the UK on a US based Beta server the latency sometimes means it screws up and my stance doesn't change unless I do it slowly (at 120ms too, so...). I can't ignore it with Doom. That means any bleeding off of excess Fury happens when that needs refreshing: that's not flexibility, it's just running everything to a 60s timer (which just happens to line up nicely with DS and Imps).

Your argument then comes down to 'it'll make it too easy and without it, there isn't much else to do with the spec', it's the same argument people gave for ISF and are giving for RoF in Destruction's single target rotation. In part I agree, there isn't enough else going on, but I don't think stance dancing to apply DoTs is what's needed to fill that hole in the same way ISF wasn't, and RoF isn't.

As for posters on the official forums, there's precious little feedback on Demo as a DPS spec as it is either on the EU or US forums, and what there is is often based on misapprehension on how the spec's played. If people are doing it wrong and telling Blizz that way feels good, then isn't there a risk that Blizz will take that as thinking they got something right?

This is not even remotely true - it still appears to have no cap at all. I've had it beyond 100.

Weird, RNG must hate me at 10.

If it's post #5...I think you're misreading that one. There's nothing in there about Soul Fire not receiving any benefit from Meta, only how it fits in as part of a DA rotation.

Are you referring to the fifth individual to reply to the OP? The seventh post? That actually seems to refer to Soul Fire changes and 500 Fury, etc. I don't know what to make of that one.

Sorry, post 7.

4 - seems like you want the player to Soul Fire ONLY in caster form, but Soul Fire is the burn spell of the warlock and in burn phase the ideal should be Soul Fire on Meta...(but it would last 3s of Metamorphosis...) or turn Demonic Slash the Burn phase skill On Meta.

[Gobuchul]

Not sure what point that post is trying to make exactly, but it is a fact that, apart from during the execute phase, it is currently optimal to only cast soul fire outside of metamorphosis, due to its exorbitant fury cost.