How dumb would I be trying to play Demo?

[Takeshiren]

Hi guys,

505 lock with lots of experience in other classes and even the lock class, just started gearing this, this expansion and I really want to play my favourite spec in the whole game which is demo. BUT I've been laughed at and mocked for playing it? How hard is it to play and just how nerfed was it?

My armoury - http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...s/Gnuki/simple

Currently gemmed to destro casue I was so worried about Demo

Thanks!

[zoomgpally]

Unlike people would like you to believe, demo is not useless.

Example of a top guild(blood legion) bringing not 1, but 2 demo warlocks to their raid: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3451&e=3696

Edit: Note they brought 2 affliction and 2 demonology warlocks, destruction is useless.

[Jessicka]

Farm raid, everyone BiS, short fight to amplify opening burst...

Demo is okay, mid table spec in very good gear. You don't have the gear for it, and its unlikely you ever will. If you don't hit any roadblocks with progression you can get away with it, but the moment you do, questions will be asked because the other specs are better and won't make it harder. Up to you how you deal with that.

Also forgot to point out that parse is single target, and fails to show the inadequacy of Demo's toolkit outside of that relative to the other specs.

[Deleted]

Unlike people would like you to believe, demo is not useless.

Example of a top guild(blood legion) bringing not 1, but 2 demo warlocks to their raid: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3451&e=3696

Edit: Note they brought 2 affliction and 2 demonology warlocks, destruction is useless.

Demo is by far the worst spec of the three.

That said, if OP isn't exactly pushing for progression he or she really should play whatever spec he or she finds most entertaining.

Paragon is running a Demo spec now aswell. But as Jessicka pointed out, short fights, BiS gear makes more or less any spec viable.

[Kink]

Demo is my favorite spec of the three, but the amount of effort I had to put into playing the class to compete with numbers I could have been doing with affliction/destruction wasn't worth it in the long run, it was extra hard through ToT when I never got my hands on UVLS, but still parsed regularly. This tier demo has received some pretty decent nerfs to its overall damage by nerfing doom/imp swarm which make you have to put more work and hope for luck into your play, but as everyone says, play it right and you'll see results.

It's an amazing spec to play during Farm.

[Zharradan]

without legendary prepare yourself for 20-30% less dps than destruction. in full bis gear, it's not that much, but remember that destruction is a 5 button spec, it's a steady spec, has great aoe, and decent multitarget.

affliction is for people who have support from the rest of the raid, like tricks, and strategies (like dark shaman together, sha of pride stacked etc...)

[Soulzar]

Also forgot to point out that parse is single target, and fails to show the inadequacy of Demo's toolkit outside of that relative to the other specs.

Every time I move from MS Destro to MS Demo I miss the hell out of Ember tap. Every time I go from MS Demo to Destro.. I miss the hell out of Leap. But by far for me the biggest enjoyment for Destro is Shadowburn. Demo and Aff both lack that instant execute burst and I miss it so much when not Destro. both Demo and Aff obviously have Executes, but they are more sustained dmg executes and don't really do anything for burst.

And not related to the person I quoted, regarding that BL log.. Who in BL is really going to tell Shinafae she cant MS demo?

[Zinnin]

Unlike people would like you to believe, demo is not useless.

Example of a top guild(blood legion) bringing not 1, but 2 demo warlocks to their raid: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3451&e=3696

Edit: Note they brought 2 affliction and 2 demonology warlocks, destruction is useless.

We are 6 months into farm, we play what we enjoy. There is no reason for us to min/max random fights after killing them 20+ times.

without legendary prepare yourself for 20-30% less dps than destruction. in full bis gear, it's not that much, but remember that destruction is a 5 button spec, it's a steady spec, has great aoe, and decent multitarget.

affliction is for people who have support from the rest of the raid, like tricks, and strategies (like dark shaman together, sha of pride stacked etc...)

The only time ANY warlock spec is ever 20-30% less effective is Demo and Destro compared to Affliction on Protectors. Besides that one case all specs can and do preform fairly close.

If there was a piece of gear that you need to get solid numbers as Demo it would be either UVLS or Black Blood, the cloak effects all 3 specs very similarly.

As for parsing..good parses have almost more to do with number of trinket procs and when you get them then what spec you are playing. Or of course how much add pie you can eat up before the other people in your raid get to it.

[Zharradan]

We are 6 months into farm, we play what we enjoy. There is no reason for us to min/max random fights after killing them 20+ times.



The only time ANY warlock spec is ever 20-30% less effective is Demo and Destro compared to Affliction on Protectors. Besides that one case all specs can and do preform fairly close.

If there was a piece of gear that you need to get solid numbers as Demo it would be either UVLS or Black Blood, the cloak effects all 3 specs very similarly.

As for parsing..good parses have almost more to do with number of trinket procs and when you get them then what spec you are playing. Or of course how much add pie you can eat up before the other people in your raid get to it.

this may be the case for high end warlocks like you, but for your everyday lock out there demon is harder than destro, delivers less, and causes drama on most guilds, unless they really respect you.

as for legendary, the legendary gem is not as important for destro as it is for affliction and demon, so with lower lvl gear it just gets worse.

my opinion is even tho i loved demon back on 5.0 and it had a good dps/effort ratio, I can't possible play it on progression knowing that destro or affliction can pull more with less effort, of course after we are on farm, no one cares either way.

I don't see how recommending demon to low ilvl characters is a good idea.

[Zinnin]

I don't see how recommending demon to low ilvl characters is a good idea.

I don't recommend playing Demo to anyone, but if you want to put in effort and learn to play the spec I think it is 100% fine. If you expect to put in 5 minutes and play Demo as well as you do Destro, yea of course it isn't going to look like a strong spec. Played well however it can be just as strong as the other two specs on the majority of fights.

Playing Demo really has nothing to do with iLvl either, you just need strong trinket procs to use with DS / Doom (Int procs > Haste procs, BB / UVLS for Doom). At all ilvls with a properly setup profile it is only going be about 5% behind Destro and at higher ilvls with shorter fights Demo's stronger opener can allow it to preform higher.

Again, Demo may be harder to play, but in the majority of fights played well it will do just fine if played well. There are of course a few fights where Destro's mechanics will allow it to preform higher then Demo, but the same is true in reverse as well.

[Deleted]

I definitely get the most reward out of playing Demo, but can safely say I'm still miles away from perfecting it.

Thok is a decent example where both Demonology and Affliction are pretty good, yet my best parses are over 50k apart (408k Demo vs 460k Afflic).

Can definitely improve on Demo by quite a bit, but doubt I'll ever surpass my mediocre Affliction parse with even the best Demonology one. Fortunately I'm in a position where I can play what is fun, and I don't feel Demo is tied quite as hard to RNG as Affliction is, so there's room to gauge improvement between kills.

[Killem]

It is possible to play Demo and it excels at quite some fights in SoO, but there are some fights, were Destro or Affliction provide simply a better suited toolkit for those fights.
But on some fights, I consider Demo as the superior choice. (Maybe this is influenced by my raid comp, which contains some damage whores even, when we progress some fights...)
The specc can deliver good burst when needed, but has it's weakness on targets with a short to medium lifespan (that life too long for ignoring Dots completely, but too short for Doom to be benificial).

[Deleted]

I can't help but wonder, who exactly is laughing and mocking you OP? Seems like you have a thin skin or friends with a very unnuanced way of playing this game.

[kardacz]

Unlike people would like you to believe, demo is not useless.

Example of a top guild(blood legion) bringing not 1, but 2 demo warlocks to their raid: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3451&e=3696

Edit: Note they brought 2 affliction and 2 demonology warlocks, destruction is useless.

Comment of the year.

In my experience Demo without proper gear is frustrating to play. Try it out, maybe you'll have fun with it, if you do stick with it unless your guild is pushing for progrssion. On the other hand with enough gear Demo isn't that bad, although not as op'ed as the two other specs.

[Hellfury]

My advice, dont focus on Demo only, play the other 2 specs if you cant be arsed atlest play destro so in case you ran into troubles with demo you just switch to destro.

Demo has alot of cavets that destro just doesnt have

[Styxz]

When you play this game long enough you'll eventually stop giving af about what that loud ~15% of the player base says is "viable."

Demo is behind for sure (in context ofc). But if your raid is wiping because you lost 50k dps switching to demo, especially this late in the xpac, you all have much bigger problems.

Even for those world first folks, you've got to remember they are class stacking and cheesing/exploiting mechanics. That is to say, these guys are doing bleeding edge raiding. Very niche stuff. Frankly, most of are not in a position where we can't play a spec because of its output... not anymore at least.

TLDR: play what you want.

[Tripping]

Ive been playing demo recently, and I find it competative with the other classes. As the Blizz devs keep saying, Demo is not a bad spec, the other two are just too good. Demo only seems to be good now with decent gear, I would wait until 560ilvl before having it as a main spec. I hate affliction, I dont find it fun at all

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

Ive been playing demo recently, and I find it competative with the other classes. As the Blizz devs keep saying, Demo is not a bad spec, the other two are just too good. Demo only seems to be good now with decent gear, I would wait until 560ilvl before having it as a main spec. I hate affliction, I dont find it fun at all

Wasnt it bindings, black blood and 570 ilv for demo right now?

[Deleted]

Wasnt it bindings, black blood and 570 ilv for demo right now?

There isn't an exact threshold where suddenly Demo pulls its head out of the sand. It's not a Magikarp.

[Belloc]

Unlike people would like you to believe, demo is not useless.

Example of a top guild(blood legion) bringing not 1, but 2 demo warlocks to their raid: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3451&e=3696

Edit: Note they brought 2 affliction and 2 demonology warlocks, destruction is useless.

Demo should never be played on progression content -- only farm content or old content.