WoD Beta Demonology Discussion

[1Snail]

I've yet to see a sim or any testing using the non-glyphed model

Hope that helps.

[Xorn]

Welp. There's that then. Provided the APLs were correct, glyphed or unglyphed 4 is the way to go (according to those sims).

Though a link and not a ss would really be more helpful.

[1Snail]

Welp. There's that then. Provided the APLs were correct, glyphed or unglyphed 4 is the way to go (according to those sims).

Though a link and not a ss would really be more helpful.

Sure thing: http://snailsoft.me/results.html

[ComaCanadian]

I did a quick simc pass with the current apl/mythic gearset, to see how stat wieghts are coming along. any reason why haste is as high as it is?

Int 6.43
SP 5.66
Mastery 3.76
Haste 3.64
Crit 3.61
Mult 3.59
Vers 3.13

[1Snail]

I did a quick simc pass with the current apl/mythic gearset, to see how stat wieghts are coming along. any reason why haste is as high as it is?

Int 6.43
SP 5.66
Mastery 3.76
Haste 3.64
Crit 3.61
Mult 3.59
Vers 3.13

My guess would be because of these things:

- Faster casts = more fury
- Lowers DB debuff timer
- More time spent demon bolting
- Faster dot ticks, etc.

Probably other things that I'm forgetting.

[Xorn]

It's not recent, but it is what it is and it's not the only one I recall:


Source

It's only by not taking the Glyph that this ceases to be true (except you can cast 3 now). You get your 'niche burst' option on a fourth. The hat still fits.

It's only when you take the Glyph the fourth becomes a 'viable' cast because you're not losing 12s+ of DS uptime to Shadowbolting. So, again. There is a statement of intent. That statement still holds water if the Glyph isn't taken. The only difference is we can go for a third cast, but we still retain the option of a fourth for burst.

I'm not opposed to the Glyph model as a 'bursty' playstyle, but as I've yet to see a sim or any testing using the non-glyphed model, I'm not even sure it is the most optimal model, not least because the Glyph model has DB 'off cooldown' for about 30% of the time.

But let's put it the other way, if the Demonbolt was intended to go to four stacks in optimal play, why make the Glyph necessary to do that? Why not just tune it to properly replace SF and ToC over the full 20s?

Ok, that tweet is hella dated, lol. When that tweet was written, DB was still in the 'cast 2 at most model.' But since then, it's gotten a fairly extensive overhaul. We can't cling to what he said 2 months ago when things have obviously changed since then.

And yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you here. You Don't HAVE to only cast 3 DB without the glyph, nor do you have to "waste" time shadowbolting. You can fill the time with excess MC stacks as well. And, as the results above seem to suggest, it's still a dps gain to cast that last (incredibly strong) DB over 6 SF (the MAX number of SF you could get off under DS with haste/fury constraints).

Hell, let's do some rough napkin math. Let's assume we start DS with 1000 Fury. We can either cast:

4 DB, 800 Fury- 2145% SP
2 MC SF, 160 Fury- 326.4% SP
1 ToC, 40 Fury- 67.2% SP
Total: 2538.6% SP

or

3 DB, 480 Fury- 1485% SP
6 SF, 480 Fury- 979.2%
1 ToC, 40 Fury- 67.2% SP
Total: 2531.4% Sp

So, it's incredibly close either way, with 4 DB coming out ever so slightly ahead. That's where other factors like using MC to build Fury come into play, things that really have to be simmed in order to math out correctly.

The point is, is that not using the glyph does not mean you'll only cast 3, it could go either way, but looks to favor casting 4.

[Jessicka]

Your unglyphed sample sequence is weird. At 2:11 it's cancelling Meta and using a lot of Shadow bolts under Dark Soul instead of remaining in Meta and switching to Soul Fire with the remaining 500 Fury.

Like I said, the APL needs a lot of modifications, which is why I've not done it myself.

[Xorn]

Sure thing: http://snailsoft.me/results.html

Thanks!

That's actually a pretty good APL for modeling these scenarios. There's some minor flubs in the sample sequences, but nothing that should skew the results too poorly.

- - - Updated - - -

Your unglyphed sample sequence is weird. At 2:11 it's cancelling Meta and using a lot of Shadow bolts under Dark Soul instead of remaining in Meta and switching to Soul Fire with the remaining 500 Fury.

Like I said, the APL needs a lot of modifications, which is why I've not done it myself.

Good catch, I kind of missed that one. Though it could have been due to a lack of MC procs, which the cast 3 strategy is HEAVILY reliant on. I feel like that's yet another advantage casting 4 DB has: not needing procs to efficiently spend half your Fury. I mean, look at my napkin math above, 3 casts is already marginally behind 4, what do you think is going to happen if you don't have 6 MC procs for DS?

I imagine fixing the APLs will close the gap a bit, but the results should be about the same.

[1Snail]

Thanks!

That's actually a pretty good APL for modeling these scenarios. There's some minor flubs in the sample sequences, but nothing that should skew the results too poorly.

Your unglyphed sample sequence is weird. At 2:11 it's cancelling Meta and using a lot of Shadow bolts under Dark Soul instead of remaining in Meta and switching to Soul Fire with the remaining 500 Fury.

Like I said, the APL needs a lot of modifications, which is why I've not done it myself.

Yeah it still has a few minor issues that need to be worked out, I believe it was doing that to refresh corruption + no MC procs like Xorn said. Also do any of you two know the answer to my original question at the top of this page?

[Deleted]

Was just about to post the same. The unglyphed APL does strange things. It activates dark soul, casts meta, 3x db, then cancels meta, refreshes corruption, hand of gul'dan, casts two shadow bolts, reactivates meta, immediately cancels it, casts another HoG and continues with shadow bolt.
During that period it remains above 500 fury, doesn't spend any on soulfire and instead builds up new fury, which even results in ToC-furydump before the next sequence of 3 demonbolts takes place.

That's very odd. Is the setbonus interfering with the APL, making it randomly leave meta to refresh HoG?

What it should do:
Cast demonbolts whenever the debuff expires, but
a) cast 3 demonbolts during dark soul and spend the rest of dark soul casting soulfires in meta
b) cast as many demonbolts as possible if dark soul is not up

what it does:
casts 3 demonbolts whenever the debuff expires and doesn't get the soulfire-thing right.

[Xorn]

Does anyone know if green fire applies to demon bolt's orange fire particle?
Does it also apply to cataclysm?

If so, anyone have a video of each?

Not sure, haven't seen any green cata videos, only red. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist though...

Was just about to post the same. The unglyphed APL does strange things. It activates dark soul, casts meta, 3x db, then cancels meta, refreshes corruption, hand of gul'dan, casts two shadow bolts, reactivates meta, immediately cancels it, casts another HoG and continues with shadow bolt.
During that period it remains above 500 fury, doesn't spend any on soulfire and instead builds up new fury, which even results in ToC-furydump before the next sequence of 3 demonbolts takes place.

That's very odd. Is the setbonus interfering with the APL, making it randomly leave meta to refresh HoG?

What it should do:
Cast demonbolts whenever the debuff expires, but
a) cast 3 demonbolts during dark soul and spend the rest of dark soul casting soulfires in meta
b) cast as many demonbolts as possible if dark soul is not up

what it does:
casts 3 demonbolts whenever the debuff expires and doesn't get the soulfire-thing right.

It isn't. Soul Fire during Meta is a higher priority than HoG. The only reason it would cast HoG over SF is if it didn't have any MC procs. Which I kind of went into detail about above.

However, where there IS a problem, is that it should have a stipulation to cast ToC in Meta if DS is up. Right now there isn't one which is why it's popping out after running out of MC procs.

[1Snail]

Working on both of those problems right now, give me a few minutes.

[Xorn]

Working on both of those problems right now, give me a few minutes.

Another thing that may help (a lot) with the 3 cast model is to use the Imp Swam glyph. That will increase the number of MC procs dramatically during DS, and might give it enough to cast SF for the duration of DS.

- - - Updated - - -

To be clearer, you should use the Swarm glyph for ALL of the conditions, in order to be sure than any increase to the 3 cast isn't just from it using the glyph over the 4 cast not using it. The glyph should be a dps increase as it is, so we need to make sure that the differences in each condition are solely the result of the APL differences, and not due to some using Imp Swarm and some not.

[Deleted]

Why does it run out of MC proccs in the first place? For example between 0:25 and 0:35 it casts soul fire while not in Meta 5 times, instead of just using shadow bolt. That uses up all the mc proccs just before the first demonbolt-debuff wears off and the second dark soul burn begins. Can't imagine that this is a good strategy.

Shouldn't it always save at least a few mc proccs when dark soul + demonbolt is about to be ready?
During the second burn at about 0:40. Shortly before entering metamorphisis, it uses up all the mc-stacks, then casts 3 demon bolts during dark soul, cancels meta despite having one mc procc up and casts another three soulfires.

It also never casts 4 demon bolts when dark soul is not up, despite having enough fury to do so.

Can you make the APL save mc proccs for DS? I suppose an intelligent player could always decide to save up on mc proccs if the next DS is about to become ready. Maybe the APL should only spend mc stacks outside of meta if it has more than 6 or 7 OR, if it really needs to get some fury for the next non-DS demonbolt burn.
Maybe the amount of mc-proccs or fury just doesn't support that playstyle, but right now the APL seems to waste soulfires pretty often. It even caps fury sometimes. For example leading up to the ds-phase around the 4:00 mark, it could as well just pop DS and potion as it reaches 1k fury, pop into meta and spam some soulfires before the demonbolt-debuff finally wears off, then cast 3 db and finish the ds-procc/remaining fury with additional soulfires. Instead it decides to cap fury and wait for that demonbolt to become ready before entering meta.

So I guess there is room for improvement on that unglyphed APL and considering how close both versions are right now, I could very well see the unglyphed version pull ahead.

[1Snail]

Another thing that may help (a lot) with the 3 cast model is to use the Imp Swam glyph. That will increase the number of MC procs dramatically during DS, and might give it enough to cast SF for the duration of DS.

- - - Updated - - -

To be clearer, you should use the Swarm glyph for ALL of the conditions, in order to be sure than any increase to the 3 cast isn't just from it using the glyph over the 4 cast not using it. The glyph should be a dps increase as it is, so we need to make sure that the differences in each condition are solely the result of the APL differences, and not due to some using Imp Swarm and some not.

Why does it run out of MC proccs in the first place? For example between 0:25 and 0:35 it casts soul fire while not in Meta 5 times, instead of just using shadow bolt. That uses up all the mc proccs just before the first demonbolt-debuff wears off and the second dark soul burn begins. Can't imagine that this is a good strategy.

Shouldn't it always save at least a few mc proccs when dark soul + demonbolt is about to be ready?
During the second burn at about 0:40. Shortly before entering metamorphisis, it uses up all the mc-stacks, then casts 3 demon bolts during dark soul, cancels meta despite having one mc procc up and casts another three soulfires.

It also never casts 4 demon bolts when dark soul is not up, despite having enough fury to do so.

Can you make the APL save mc proccs for DS? I suppose an intelligent player could always decide to save up on mc proccs if the next DS is about to become ready. Maybe the APL should only spend mc stacks outside of meta if it has more than 6 or 7 OR, if it really needs to get some fury for the next non-DS demonbolt burn.
Maybe the amount of mc-proccs or fury just doesn't support that playstyle, but right now the APL seems to waste soulfires pretty often. It even caps fury sometimes. For example leading up to the ds-phase around the 4:00 mark, it could as well just pop DS and potion as it reaches 1k fury, pop into meta and spam some soulfires before the demonbolt-debuff finally wears off, then cast 3 db and finish the ds-procc/remaining fury with additional soulfires. Instead it decides to cap fury and wait for that demonbolt to become ready before entering meta.

So I guess there is room for improvement on that unglyphed APL and considering how close both versions are right now, I could very well see the unglyphed version pull ahead.

That was due to using parts of the 4DB APL which does that, fixed it (I think) in these new results located here: http://snailsoft.me/results.html

It's still randomly cancelling meta sometimes and it's not due to the APL, I think that might be a bug with simcraft.

Edit:

Also noticed that they (and the default profile) weren't using SF under 25% for some reason so I fixed that as well.

[Santoisms]

Does anyone know if green fire applies to demon bolt's orange fire particle?
Does it also apply to cataclysm?

If so, anyone have a video of each?

Cataclysm definitely is green, and Demonbolt I don't believe is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpzfmKTZp8U -- FATBOSS Heroic Highmaul - Kargath Bladefist

The demo lock in this video uses cataclysm with green fire.

[1Snail]

Cataclysm definitely is green, and Demonbolt I don't believe is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpzfmKTZp8U -- FATBOSS Heroic Highmaul - Kargath Bladefist

The demo lock in this video uses cataclysm with green fire.

I see, thanks. I hope they add green fire to demonbolt though.

[Santoisms]

I could see it but probably not until the demand is higher, sort of like the Felsteed.

[Gihelle]

2p nerfed from 4% to 2%.

At this point they might as well remove this and make another 2p.

[Baconeggcheese]

2p nerfed from 4% to 2%.

At this point they might as well remove this and make another 2p.

Explains why they buffed the fuck out of HoG to compensate.

Totes okay with them buffing our baseline and compensating with nerfs to set bonuses.