[MoP] Misc Demonology Notes

[CoachBob]

Also the instant summon of a pet in Meta/DA causes all pet summons (instant or hardcast) to be on a 1min cooldown.

[Deleted]

I just checked the simcraft for warlocks and noticed this mechanic i dont like and i really hope wont make it to live
summon_felguard,if=buff.grimoire_of_sacrifice.stack<2
Basically what this means is that for maxdps u need to take grimoire of sacrifice and keep 2 stacks of it up or at least try, and u do that by instantly summoning a pet in demon form every 15s or so.

No, like Gobochul said, grimoire of Sacrifice got a 2minutes cooldown. so you are sacrificing it, and after the 15 sec buff expire, you are instant resummoning your pet and play with your pet until your grimoire is ready again.

Also the instant summon of a pet in Meta/DA causes all pet summons (instant or hardcast) to be on a 1min cooldown.

This built isn´t using the instant summon of meta (yeah, its instant, but its NOT free. its fury costs are damn high), its using the demonic rebirth skill of demo which lasts 20 seconds and gives you an instant and free pet resummon after your pet dies.

[n0n3]

I just hope they change this so it wont be possible and needed for maximum dps to have to summon/kill your pet mid fights.

[Grubjuice]

I just hope they change this so it wont be possible and needed for maximum dps to have to summon/kill your pet mid fights.

if all we have to do is kill and and then (instantly) resummon our pets once every two minutes and it's average dps benefit is roughly similar to/balanced with summoning a second pet once every 2 minutes (GoServ) then i am ok with it.

If we have to kill and then hard cast resummon or instantly resummon at the cost of 1/4th our secondary resource in midcombat i am just gonna say "fuck-it" and use Grimoire of Supremacy for the awesome Demon Models.

[Kaizers]

if all we have to do is kill and and then (instantly) resummon our pets once every two minutes and it's average dps benefit is roughly similar to/balanced with summoning a second pet once every 2 minutes (GoServ) then i am ok with it.

If we have to kill and then hard cast resummon or instantly resummon at the cost of 1/4th our secondary resource in midcombat i am just gonna say "fuck-it" and use Grimoire of Supremacy for the awesome Demon Models.

"summon_felguard,if=buff.grimoire_of_sacrifice.stack<2" is down the list, the way Simcraft is playing is that it pops Sacrifice whenever it can and when the 30% buff runs out it resummons the Felguard in any way it can. Sometimes it can resummon instantly (Rebirth) but when Rebirth is on cd it can't so it is basically a hard cast. I think the reason this is so good is that it might have to do with Glyph of Everlasting Affliction and somehow rolling a 30% buffed Doom for the entire fight.

I posted in the beta class balance analysis thread because I don't really want to be stuck with this mechanic, if you have a beta account and think this is a problem you should do the same.

[Fallensaint]

GoSac doesn't affect DoTs or AoE, only direct damage (Shadowbolt, Demonic Slash, Soul Fire, and Fel Flame). Also, the tooltip's bonus has been inaccurate for ages, Demo gets 30% to all direct damage per stack of GoSac, so with the double buff you're getting 60% damage. Given that Demonic Slash is Demo's highest DPET direct nuke, that 60% is a pretty considerable buff while in Meta.

[Jessicka]

I posted in the beta class balance analysis thread because I don't really want to be stuck with this mechanic, if you have a beta account and think this is a problem you should do the same.

I honestly don't think Blizzard give two shits about a 'more complex rotation that offers slightly more DPS'. Most likely working as intended, some people did after all like pet twisting.

[Kaizers]

GoSac doesn't affect DoTs or AoE, only direct damage (Shadowbolt, Demonic Slash, Soul Fire, and Fel Flame). Also, the tooltip's bonus has been inaccurate for ages, Demo gets 30% to all direct damage per stack of GoSac, so with the double buff you're getting 60% damage. Given that Demonic Slash is Demo's highest DPET direct nuke, that 60% is a pretty considerable buff while in Meta.

That is a good point, I forgot what exactly Grim: Sacrifice effected for demo. Still seems like a strange way to play Demo imo.

[Teye]

"summon_felguard,if=buff.grimoire_of_sacrifice.stack<2" is down the list, the way Simcraft is playing is that it pops Sacrifice whenever it can and when the 30% buff runs out it resummons the Felguard in any way it can. Sometimes it can resummon instantly (Rebirth) but when Rebirth is on cd it can't so it is basically a hard cast. I think the reason this is so good is that it might have to do with Glyph of Everlasting Affliction and somehow rolling a 30% buffed Doom for the entire fight.

I posted in the beta class balance analysis thread because I don't really want to be stuck with this mechanic, if you have a beta account and think this is a problem you should do the same.

Rebirth and Sac are on the same CD. In other words, its pet twisting 2.0. I've been doing it on beta for weeks.

[Grubjuice]

Rebirth and Sac are on the same CD. In other words, its pet twisting 2.0. I've been doing it on beta for weeks.

twisting does not seem like the right word because you are not switching one pet type for a different pet type.
It's more like "Pet Hawking" or "Pet Pawning" or maybe "Pet Payday-loaning"

[n0n3]

Well tbh if this makes it to live and is working as intended by blizz i'm pretty much re rolling another class, i hated to hard cast pets during 4.2 since not all encounters had breaks to do it.

[Grubjuice]

I would also add that the line up of the Cooldown of GoSac and Demonic Rebirth seems more intentional than Cataclysm pet twisting did. Cataclysm pet twisting was for all intents and purpose an exploit. Whereas lining up two 2-minute cooldowns seems more designed, especially since GoSac only lasts 15 seconds and Demonic Rebirth lasts 20 seconds. that's a safe window.


I am not that skilled a player, so what simcraft says is more or less irrelevant to me because i cannot execute flawless play, thank god.

I will probably choose whichever talents matches my skill level.

If i can instantly and resource-freely re-summon after the GoSac debuff wears off, i may take it, but if i have to hard cast pet summons in combat i am not going to bother.

[Micke]

Well tbh if this makes it to live and is working as intended by blizz i'm pretty much re rolling another class, i hated to hard cast pets during 4.2 since not all encounters had breaks to do it.

The other grimoires should be just as balanced to pick, stop overreacting :P

also, post above ^

[Xorn]

Well tbh if this makes it to live and is working as intended by blizz i'm pretty much re rolling another class, i hated to hard cast pets during 4.2 since not all encounters had breaks to do it.

Ok you clearly aren't understanding the core concept here. You start with a pet, then sac it, one global, if that. Fifteen seconds later you resummon it instantly. Two minutes after that you sac it again, etc. There is no hard casting involved.

[Grubjuice]

you know what will be awesome, TWO Felguards felstorming while I have Immolation Aura up and am casting Harvest Life (with Dark Soul, Mannaroth's Fury, and Blood Fury all up). Go go gadget Grimoire of Service.

GoSac does not work on AoE abilities.

[Gobuchul]

GoSac doesn't affect DoTs or AoE, only direct damage (Shadowbolt, Demonic Slash, Soul Fire, and Fel Flame). Also, the tooltip's bonus has been inaccurate for ages, Demo gets 30% to all direct damage per stack of GoSac, so with the double buff you're getting 60% damage. Given that Demonic Slash is Demo's highest DPET direct nuke, that 60% is a pretty considerable buff while in Meta.

The tooltip says all single target damage, not all direct damage. If it's only direct damage (and that's not just a bug), the sim is inaccurate.

[Fallensaint]

The tooltip says all single target damage, not all direct damage. If it's only direct damage (and that's not just a bug), the sim is inaccurate.

Oh? Hm, I'll double-check to see how it works.

edit: So far it looks like i was correct, nearly all DoTs and AoEs aren't affected by GoSac. Touch of Chaos doesn't seem to be affected, but Void Ray is. I did a brief combat log naked (to limit procs and crits), and can post that if you'd like to sift through it. Oh, and I found out something else that surprised me, apparently GoSac's double buff lasts 25 seconds, not 15. Not sure if that's Demo-only or for all specs. In any case, they really need to update that tooltip.

[Count Zero]

I am not that skilled a player, so what simcraft says is more or less irrelevant to me because i cannot execute flawless play, thank god.

I will probably choose whichever talents matches my skill level.

I think this is a very good matter of discussion and probably deserves its own thread.

I don't consider myself a "great" Warlock but I do consider myself a "good" Warlock ... every now and then I can have world-class performances, but it's hard for me to stay consistent over long periods of time. I can make use of a great deal of the for-the-elites tactics, but not all of them, and not consistently.

But then, I haven't had nearly the amount of free time I used to in order to just hit the target dummies for a long time each day, sim every possible itemization (gearing, reforging, etc) choice I had available and hit the dummies as each one, etc, etc ... I did a lot of that (well, mostly just the dummies, and my initial class research) when I realized I was terrible as a dps-er (for what I wanted to do -- but, hey, at least I took the time to research what I needed to do to get to where I wanted).

And also when I realized that with proper knowledge and while properly-utilizing addons and such, I could play at or even above the level of the people who helped me understand how bad I was and helped me get better, I really dug into the simming and such, hitting the dummies as each spec in each gear/forging combination to see how each sim compared to real data (relatively-speaking of coursre, considering the differences between a Patchwerk encounter and the target dummy).

Bleh, I gotta get back to work ... but, yeah, I hope with the intentional attempt to somewhat close the theoretical gap between the floor and the ceiling of dps performance for various specs, particularly the Warlock ones (how much or little they succeeded remains to be seen, when we get release builds, I guess), that the point on the spectrum I currently occupy is still in about the same relative spot, rather than the level of performance I can give isn't enough to cross a threshold between decent and elite that with the squeeze actually skews towards a lower ratio of players able to perform at the higher levels.

[6kle]

I don't believe for a second that the use of sacrifice and resummoning is by design. A mechanic like that just looks and feels very ugly. Does anyone seriously think the developers would be like "hey that's a great idea, they could kill their pet every two minutes for a short while and then resummon!".

It's just another thing they couldn't envision when making changes and it will go away at some point. I won't be missing it either.

[Jessicka]

I don't believe for a second that the use of sacrifice and resummoning is by design. A mechanic like that just looks and feels very ugly. Does anyone seriously think the developers would be like "hey that's a great idea, they could kill their pet every two minutes for a short while and then resummon!".

It's just another thing they couldn't envision when making changes and it will go away at some point. I won't be missing it either.

They think changing stances to use an ability is bad design for Death Knights and Warriors, but it's good design for Warlocks. Go work that one out.