WoD Beta Demonology Discussion

[Xorn]

Like I said, I wasn't around for the testing, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that there isn't a 3 second window in which neither of the bosses is moving.

That being said, I'm sure Demonbolt is... an ok substitute at times, but unless it receives further tuning or a complete revamp, I can't see it being useful outside of that one boss. At all.

[Jessicka]

Won't disagree with that. Even with better tuning; on this fight, if you can pick your moments, Cataclysm would be a lot better just because of opportunities to hit both bosses. It's just difficult to pick up on those moments with 30mins face time while trying to get all the other movement down.

[Hellfury]

Here are the current stat weights we are seeing:

Does that crit state weight take in consideration that doom spawns a imp? (Corrently bugged in our beta build?

[Chrispotter]

If you had problems using cataclysm on that boss either your tanks were doing alot of unnecesary movement or you are not good at planning your movement / or at using KJC.

Really looking forward to next beta build to see what balancing changes they make, and maybe finally a fix to Doom spawning imps.

[Deleted]

Here's hoping that Demonbolt gets a nice injection to bump it comfortably ahead of Cataclysm for Single Target.

[gahddo]

It's a huge problem when it's completely unusable on an encounter like Hans and Franz last night.

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It's down to the low Haste at early gear levels, ToC doesn't scale at all as it's GCD capped to a 1sec GCD. It will fix itself later on.

You mean the 50% haste gcd cap that we will likely never reach? Yes, soul fire technically becomes more efficient over time compared to ToC as you approach this cap and ultimately greatly more valuable past it, but it's mostly negligible until you reach it.

Of course execute time matters...if I spend 0.5 seconds less on my dump every time i use it that gives me 0.5 seconds to generate more DF to use the dump. With 3 seconds of our 10 second dark soul being entirely taken up by cataclysm, we spend much less DF in DS compared to live. This means that the efficiency at which we use it outside of dark soul matters much more.

We aren't just talking about 'soul fire is a little bit less efficient.' It's literally 60% less efficient.

Side note, it isn't more damage per fury.

58.125 * 2 / 80 = 1.453125
69.03 / 40 = 1.72575

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Here's hoping that Demonbolt gets a nice injection to bump it comfortably ahead of Cataclysm for Single Target.

The issue isn't demonbolt. Demonbolt is a 9% dps gain over not having a talent. They nerfed CR into the dirt for having similar values.

The issue is that cataclysm is literally a 28% dps gain for demo in simc right now. It scales with mastery and meta, so the damage it does is MASSIVE compared to the other specs. It's also *SUPPOSED* to not cost 60 DF according to sparkle dragon. That mean's it's basically a free 60 DF every cast.

With demonbolt, mastery is really good until you get too much of it, then multi starts getting close to equal with it, and haste is JUST behind both. The issue here really is that cata is just poorly designed.


-- EDIT --

The APL ended up doing something weird an unintended without cataclysm, fixing now. Net result is demonbolt isn't nearly as bad as you all think it is. Cata appears to still be ~3.5% better, though.

[Jessicka]

No, I mean ToC is on a 1s GCD by default.

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Also, SFa coefficient hasn't been adjusted since the nerf and subsequent removal of the MC perk, expect it to get buffed.

[gahddo]

No, I mean ToC is on a 1s GCD by default.

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Also, SFa coefficient hasn't been adjusted since the nerf and subsequent removal of the MC perk, expect it to get buffed.

God I love when I forget about ridiculous hidden passives that shouldn't even exist....

And yes, it likely will be.

[cabana]

It was incredibly easy to time out when to Cata on Hans and Frans. Like for instance the moment one of them lands to join the other after the belt phase.

[Xorn]

With demonbolt, mastery is really good until you get too much of it, then multi starts getting close to equal with it, and haste is JUST behind both. The issue here really is that cata is just poorly designed.

Yeah, between the two Cata isn't the poorly designed talent here.

[Advo]

After trying it out for a bit, Demonbolt needs two things to make it at least competitive with cataclysm for single:

-Slightly higher base damage, or slightly higher scaling (say 25% per stack instead of 20%)

-Castable while moving


The idea I had before regarding this spell was that it could be something you could cast on your demon to drastically increase its damage output for a short time, but given how fragile pets seem to be these days it probably wouldn't work.

[Xorn]

No, what it needs is an overhaul. What it boils down to in it's current incarnation is the exact same thing as Cata: a strong spell that you cast about once per minute. It's weaker to use single target and has no aoe potential. All it has going for it is a fairly cool spell effect... that you will only see twice per minute. It doesn't add any interesting gameplay, and it can royally screw you over if you cast it too much (ie more than twice). Less experienced players have no way of knowing that though. It's exactly like Slam was before they capped the stacks: a trap. The need to fix this pile of shit before we're stuck with it.

[gahddo]

Yeah, between the two Cata isn't the poorly designed talent here.

Why are so many so highly apposed to the idea of demonbolt? It isn't just 'use until 2 stacks and forget' like they said it would be. It's much more complicated then that. The amount of efficiency lost per stack decreases as number of stacks increases. You can effectively dump insane amounts of DF into it with very little consequence for incredible nuking potential.

Look at it this way, demo could have gotten SB:Haunt or CR. Or you know, we could be warriors.

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No, what it needs is an overhaul. What it boils down to in it's current incarnation is the exact same thing as Cata: a strong spell that you cast about once per minute. It's weaker to use single target and has no aoe potential. All it has going for it is a fairly cool spell effect... that you will only see twice per minute. It doesn't add any interesting gameplay, and it can royally screw you over if you cast it too much (ie more than twice). Less experienced players have no way of knowing that though. It's exactly like Slam was before they capped the stacks: a trap. The need to fix this pile of shit before we're stuck with it.

Citing that it is weaker in terms of damage before a numbers pass is going to happen THIS WEEK is a bad argument. Also, it is only weaker because cataclysm can't be tuned for all specs at the same time. They have to put a demonology specific SP coefficient on it because it benefits from demonology mastery. Either that or they need to make it not benefit from mastery, which will fuck up stat values even more.

[Xorn]

Yeah, that was only one part of my argument. I mostly focused on it's shitty design, and how it's a trap. But go ahead and ignore that part of the post.

Also, it's inefficiency doesn't decrease with casts, it increases. It becomes more and more inefficient as you cast it. It isn't complicated at all. I don't know why you seem to think that it would be a good idea to "dump insane amounts of DF into it" because you can get more damage spending the fury on ToC or SF. The consequence is less damage overall. I don't see how this "very little consequence" idea of yours is going to play out.

[gahddo]

After trying it out for a bit, Demonbolt needs two things to make it at least competitive with cataclysm for single:

-Slightly higher base damage, or slightly higher scaling (say 25% per stack instead of 20%)

-Castable while moving


The idea I had before regarding this spell was that it could be something you could cast on your demon to drastically increase its damage output for a short time, but given how fragile pets seem to be these days it probably wouldn't work.

Demonbolt isn't bad in any way. It doesn't need a buff. Cataclysm needs a nerf. Hell, both of them probably need nerfs. They're INCREDIBLE dps gains over not having any talent. Yes, 100 talents should feel powerful, but they're accounting for 20%+ of our dps right now (without the bugs currently on beta). Demo just needs a buff to compensate for nerfing the 100 talents.

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Yeah, that was only one part of my argument. I mostly focused on it's shitty design.

Using logic that states that you can only use it twice per minute? When I literally just explained why that is false in the same post?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...E5A/edit#gid=0

Efficiency loss per stack added decreases as stacks increase. Each additional stack past the first decreases efficiency by less and less each time. The difference between using it at 2 stacks and using it at 3 is only 16%.

[Xorn]

Sure, from stack to stack it decreases, that's how exponential curves work. But what's your fucking point? What possible use could this serve?

[Lovestar]

Non-rhetorical:

If usage of the spell differs from point-blank stated dev intentions, what should be assumed though? That the 'complication' will be pruned/sledgehammered, or that the devs are just high when they Tweet?

[gahddo]

Sure, from stack to stack it decreases, that's how exponential curves work. But what's your fucking point? What possible use could this serve?

Using a blanket statement that makes it sound like using it at 2 stacks is somehow the be all and end all of the ability is like saying that an arcane mage has to clear his arcane charges at 4 everytime he hits it regardless of having AM stacks to spend. It's a bad way to think about anything.

[Xorn]

Using a blanket statement that makes it sound like using it at 2 stacks is somehow the be all and end all of the ability is like saying that an arcane mage has to clear his arcane charges at 4 everytime he hits it regardless of having AM stacks to spend. It's a bad way to think about anything.

No, it isn't. Arcance Mages have to clear their stacks when it becomes a dps loss to continue further. Sometimes that's right at 4, sometimes they can push it. Demonbolt doesn't have the flexibility. There is a hard line where continuing to cast it becomes an overall dps loss. This is not the case with Arcane. They are completely different mechanics with a MINOR similarity.

[Baconeggcheese]

Using a blanket statement that makes it sound like using it at 2 stacks is somehow the be all and end all of the ability is like saying that an arcane mage has to clear his arcane charges at 4 everytime he hits it regardless of having AM stacks to spend. It's a bad way to think about anything.

The only time it would be acceptable to cast more than 2 is if you need to burst something specific down your overall dps be damned and you won't have time to dump that fury on other spells.

We don't have furyvocation to get our entire fury bar back, the management is entirely different.