Demo lowest represented pvp spec in the game.

[Lucidious]

Title says it all...

What are the thoughts about the Nerfing of a spec that was arguably the best pvp spec at the start of MOP for warlocks to the now watered down version which is arguably the worst pvp spec in the game?

And what would it take to make the spec viable again?

The Fel flame nerf to its mana cost has made most of us that still play the spec life tap ourselves to death since casting shadow bolt is not an option. The nerf to imps on top of the early MOP nerf to chaos wave has really hurt our burst as well and with no pressure damage it seems like the spec has no damage at all and that's the biggest problem I'm finding.

[ChocoboMog123]

Keep in mind that every time that damage and healing are nerfed, Life Tap does "more" damage to you, while our self healing does not scale upwards enough to compensate for the healing nerfs. Basically Battle Fatigue and Resilience are nerfs on top of nerfs on top of nerfs, mechanically, for Warlocks, due to our unique percentile scaling.

[Lucidious]

I just hate being "forced"to play affliction x Pac after x pac just to be "viable" because all the affliction nerds who play in the pro tourneys prefer the spec. While the other specs get nerfed into the ground with instant hot fixes while warrior's run rampant for entire patch cycles without being touched.

[Terahertz]

Demo burst is still there though. Except it's a bit more spread out instead of BAM in your FACE. I mean, when a demo lock pops his cooldowns shit becomes really scary, even with the imp nerf.

I mean, cmon... Chaos Wave was critting for literally 100ks begin MoP if not higher. Imps pre-nerf were also doing a shitton of damage. Like 7-9k PER IMP, not even to mention it seemed like the imp's duration is endless.

[Lucidious]

But now that the scary burst is gone were is the damage? We drop our own health pool as much as our opponents with life tap since our dots are weak, Fel flame has an INSANE mana cost, and our spec specific pet barely hits harder then our pets in the other 2 specs. I agree that demo burst needed toned down early in MOP. But I think it has been overnerfed. It would have been better to give it some "pressure" damage to compensate for the burst nerf but instead we got nerfed to where we still have no pressure and our once feared burst is mediocre at best. Which leaves us with a spec that can't kill anything. And therien lies the dilema.

[Volitar]

I just hate being "forced"to play affliction x Pac after x pac just to be "viable" because all the affliction nerds who play in the pro tourneys prefer the spec. While the other specs get nerfed into the ground with instant hot fixes while warrior's run rampant for entire patch cycles without being touched.

Warrior is either dog crap or immortal god.

[Deleted]

i think it's a mix really, demo burst was nerfed, but then as the xpac has gone on burst in general has become less effective, so demo got hit twice as hard. then they made fel flame cost a silly amount.

don't get me wrong, some classes can still blow you up pretty fast, but nothing close to the situation at the beginning of MoP

[Xanatas]

every hot-fix= huge demo nerf = lowest represented pvp spec in the game

[sugarfree]

Reasons why Demo is the worst:

1. Imp Nerf
2. All the small nerfs caught up
3. KJC being nerfed. It was what made the spec viable. With having Shadowbolt and Soulfire as two of your resource regen being affected by this, your Meta Form is practically reduced in uptime. These 2 spells are also not worth their cast time seeing the former hits for like 9-13k for a 2.4 second cast and Soulfire crits for like what, 25k? Both of them gets overshadowed by Incinerate which hits for 22k on a much faster cast time and gives you MOBILITY when specced to KJC.

Demo was my spec 5.0-5.2. I still use it from time to time in 5.3 but by that time, I needed something new. Then 5.4 came and the spec got gutted.

Seriously, Shadowbolt should just be instant, seeing as how it's not much of a reward in getting it off in PvP. Soulfire should hit as much as Lava Burst or slightly less. This whole allocation of damage from the Imps and the pet are such BS. Why not try and these 2 spells worth casting in PvP? The damage sources from this spec is pathetic. It would've been OK if Shadowbolt is easier to get off, given its irrelevant damage, but no, we have to give it a 2.3 sec cast time.

What hits more than Shadowbolt? A lot of spells. Spamming Fel Flame gets you more action than this.

[Zookrewkilla]

I like the burst of demo but in between bursts your damage is horrific low. That being said i still like to play demo from time to time in some bg's but i haven't had the guts to try anything rated with demo

[wholol]

Are you guys seriously wondering why demo was nerfed? are there still people who don't know that blizzard balances based around pve ? strange...

Demo was very strong in pve so it got nerfed, that's the only reason there is.

Affliction was too strong in pve ( still is ) and it got nerfed a few times this season.

Blizzard balances around pve, if only they'd split the way spells work in pvp/ pve then they could balanced based on the meta instead of a single environment.

And yes I do feel demo was the only MOP flavor spec we had, now that it's gone affliction/ destro feel like a gimmicky ex- expansion spec that we are forced to play even though it feels outdated in terms of what's going on today.

[6kle]

Blizzard did say that their goal was/(is?) to balance affliction for pvp/pve and other specs for pve only. They were basically apologetic at the start of MoP when affliction was not a good spec for warlock pvp. I know it sucks for anyone who dislikes affliction pvp but the other two specs have always been second rate pvp specs by design. They do this simply because it's easier to balance only one spec, much less work for them.

[Deleted]

Demo was broken at the start of mop. In fact, all of the lock specs at the start of mop did NOT had any changes that would work positive for the pvp side. Affliction was kinda fixed (still a horrible gameplay) but demo still suffers a lot. And demo was very tied to UVLS in pve in being among the top dps, but convince the devs that it was it, instead they overnerfed the pvp part.

And yes I do feel demo was the only MOP flavor spec we had, now that it's gone affliction/ destro feel like a gimmicky ex- expansion spec that we are forced to play even though it feels outdated in terms of what's going on today.

If anything affliction is the only one that shits on the game mechanic and got the best of it via the dispel change.

[Xanatas]

Are you guys seriously wondering why demo was nerfed? are there still people who don't know that blizzard balances based around pve ? strange...

Demo was very strong in pve so it got nerfed, that's the only reason there is.

Affliction was too strong in pve ( still is ) and it got nerfed a few times this season.

Blizzard balances around pve, if only they'd split the way spells work in pvp/ pve then they could balanced based on the meta instead of a single environment.

And yes I do feel demo was the only MOP flavor spec we had, now that it's gone affliction/ destro feel like a gimmicky ex- expansion spec that we are forced to play even though it feels outdated in terms of what's going on today.

make some spells +% VS pvp target, this not change pve but improve pvp. Problem solved. Chaos bolt in pvp hit -25% less.

Make touch of chaos +% vs pvp target for example, or soulfire

[Lucidious]

I think making Fel flame cost an absurd amount of mana was the nail in the coffin. Not having a viable filler hurts the specs damage a lot. Shadow bolt has a cast time that just makes no sense with its damage output. And Fel flame makes you hurt yourself with life tap MORE than the damage it does to an opponent. Mix that with weak dots and the spec has no damage output. I think they should lower the cast time of shadow bolt for starters. And a pvp dot buff would make the spec playable again.

[Werst]

Demo's problems have been listed but keep in mind demo is still fresh in the minds of devs who are fond of beating the snot out of it with the nerfbat. Thus anything you do has to not muck with pve. In that regard I think the changes demo needs for pvp are a mix of some mechanics and some inverse versions of how chaosbolt gets handled. My list?

*Doom dispels grant an imp and refund the DF cost of doom
*FF refunds 75% of its mana cost when striking a player target, pet, or guardian
*Chaoswave always crits and the damage scales with crit (soulfire/CBolt treatment)
*FG damage vs player targets increased 40%
*FF extends corruption duration vs player targets.
*ToC hits player targets 25% harder
*Soulfire hits player targets 25% harder
*CoE/CoEn auras are undispellable and both last 2 mins.

That would get demo where it needs to be. If the buffs sound big just look at the gap between what a BM pet, hunter themselves, or unholy DK all do. Compare the toolkit and damage sources to nearly any semi competitive pvp spec let alone one of the dominant ones *cough warrior cough*. I tested demo in pvp gear vs pvp gear and the highest crit I was able to see from chaoswave was 70K with a perfect storm of lightweave, on use, darksoul, jade, etc. Most of the realistic hits were less than half that and now that MF doesn't impact the ability you can't hit multiple targets anymore. You also have a sub 2% chance to double crit which is why I advocate the "always crits" thing so you can balance the chaoswave damage. Before the problem was the swing between 0 crits and double crit was too large a swing to balance around.

[ToshMifune]

I miss playing as a demo

[Akkyaks]

I miss playing as a demo

I second that buddy

[fiestatastic]

Demo burst is still there though. Except it's a bit more spread out instead of BAM in your FACE. I mean, when a demo lock pops his cooldowns shit becomes really scary, even with the imp nerf.

I mean, cmon... Chaos Wave was critting for literally 100ks begin MoP if not higher. Imps pre-nerf were also doing a shitton of damage. Like 7-9k PER IMP, not even to mention it seemed like the imp's duration is endless.

Chaos Wave was never that good. Touch of Chaos was ALWAYS for all of MoP at least 2x better, Chaos Wave was just for the lazies. That being said, warlocks are in a terrible spot right now for pvp. I can still win a fair amount of duels, but that's just because most ppl are baddies.

- - - Updated - - -

Are you guys seriously wondering why demo was nerfed? are there still people who don't know that blizzard balances based around pve ? strange...

Demo was very strong in pve so it got nerfed, that's the only reason there is.

Affliction was too strong in pve ( still is ) and it got nerfed a few times this season.

Blizzard balances around pve, if only they'd split the way spells work in pvp/ pve then they could balanced based on the meta instead of a single environment.

And yes I do feel demo was the only MOP flavor spec we had, now that it's gone affliction/ destro feel like a gimmicky ex- expansion spec that we are forced to play even though it feels outdated in terms of what's going on today.

THIS. Blizzard does not care about pvp, the class changes are all based on pve.

[DarkWolf]

Demo's problems have been listed but keep in mind demo is still fresh in the minds of devs who are fond of beating the snot out of it with the nerfbat. Thus anything you do has to not muck with pve. In that regard I think the changes demo needs for pvp are a mix of some mechanics and some inverse versions of how chaosbolt gets handled. My list?

*Doom dispels grant an imp and refund the DF cost of doom
*FF refunds 75% of its mana cost when striking a player target, pet, or guardian
*Chaoswave always crits and the damage scales with crit (soulfire/CBolt treatment)
*FG damage vs player targets increased 40%
*FF extends corruption duration vs player targets.
*ToC hits player targets 25% harder
*Soulfire hits player targets 25% harder
*CoE/CoEn auras are undispellable and both last 2 mins.

That would get demo where it needs to be. If the buffs sound big just look at the gap between what a BM pet, hunter themselves, or unholy DK all do. Compare the toolkit and damage sources to nearly any semi competitive pvp spec let alone one of the dominant ones *cough warrior cough*. I tested demo in pvp gear vs pvp gear and the highest crit I was able to see from chaoswave was 70K with a perfect storm of lightweave, on use, darksoul, jade, etc. Most of the realistic hits were less than half that and now that MF doesn't impact the ability you can't hit multiple targets anymore. You also have a sub 2% chance to double crit which is why I advocate the "always crits" thing so you can balance the chaoswave damage. Before the problem was the swing between 0 crits and double crit was too large a swing to balance around.

CW is an aoe, nothing good can come out of this.
less promoting ins damage in PvP with ToC.

I really liked the rest, just need to think about change that will not make it OP.
about 70k crits, you just go Ork+GoS to maybe kill with double CW as before, but that is just bad mechanics...