Q&A - Demonology confirmed failed experiment

[FertsBlert]

@FertsBlert For me the issue has always been that the "master of X pet" archetype doesn't fit warlocks at all thematically. Warlocks are not hunters, where a beast master will go out and tame a powerful pet and play off of its strength, warlocks empower themselves and subjugate their demons. Demons are pawns for us, and by that very nature need to be weaker than us so we can enslave them. So having a spec revolving around summoning and relying on them is antithetical to what warlocks are.

A proper demonology spec would be us using them as cannon fodder and making us stronger (things like implosion), not relying on them to do our killing for us since we're already more powerful than they are. They tried to go the route of the demons doing the heavy lifting and *us* empowering *them*, which is backwards for the "class fantasy".

I don't disagree that thematically Warlocks have always been about taking whatever power they needed and forcing it to their will but Blizz wanted to go the other way and what I outlined is the archetype of a Master summoner which in a game like WoW is pretty much impossible.

A proper Demonology spec was what we had when Soul Link and demonic sacrifice were staples of that tree, forcing our enslaved demon to either shoulder the damage we were taking or outright sacrificing it so we could use it's power for ourselves (and ressing it so we could double dip, which is why my lock was an Eng.. good times). Clearly this does not fit at all with Blizz's class fantasy and it's an utter failure.

Warlocks are not nice, warlocks are pretty much bastards who happen to be on the 'right' side or that is what they had been up until Legion.

[Restors]

And I hope this isn't leading into more demands for meta back.
Meta was never associated with warlocks before its appearance in the demo spec.

Blizzard toyed with a fun mechanic they could not introduce to its established place.

speak for yourself! Metamorphosis was and should always be part of warlocks. I will still always consider demon hunters in WC3 as current WOW warlocks.

[Deleted]

@FertsBlert For me the issue has always been that the "master of X pet" archetype doesn't fit warlocks at all thematically. Warlocks are not hunters, where a beast master will go out and tame a powerful pet and play off of its strength, warlocks empower themselves and subjugate their demons. Demons are pawns for us, and by that very nature need to be weaker than us so we can enslave them. So having a spec revolving around summoning and relying on them is antithetical to what warlocks are.

A proper demonology spec would be us using them as cannon fodder and making us stronger (things like implosion), not relying on them to do our killing for us since we're already more powerful than they are. They tried to go the route of the demons doing the heavy lifting and *us* empowering *them*, which is backwards for the "class fantasy".

I feel the opposite way. A master of demons to me is one who manages to summon and control beings more powerful than himself, but only more powerful within certain strictly defined limits - not necessarily by dominating them, but by making a pact. Or simply by the use of greater intelligence, wit and skill.

That has traditionally been the idea behind magicians summoning demons - beings who are greater in power and able to do things the magician cannot do himself, accomplishing it by using complex rituals that are difficult and fraught with risk as the demon escapes control if you get it wrong. And by paying the price in return for having the demon's service.

For example, you could imagine that a warlock would have made a pact with a ruling demon in hell, in return for the ability to summon lesser, yet very powerful, demons as servants.

The class fantasy can still be maintained. A Fel Lord of even greater demon might be very powerful within certain limits - much more powerful than the warlock himself within those limits - but otherwise subject to dominance, for example, the Fel Lord is subject to mental dominance. That to me is the essenc eof demonology, it is a matter of our will vs the demon's will, not a case of mere physical power. One of the concepts about demons is that whilst they are very powerful, they are not necessarily very bright.

Kind of like, we can command a robot that is far stronger than a human, physically.

So a smart demo lock with a strong will can use complex rituals to summon a very powerful demon, subjugate it's will to ours and then use to to wreak havoc via it's own very strong abilities. We are a master of demons, not necessarily a master of combat.

Also, I;d say a warlock could summon much more powerful demons than we currently do, and they;d still be weaker (and already can in PVP).

At the moment demo doesn;t fel like a "master summoner" when it can only summon and control the lowest of demon forms, which the Legion treats as expendable arrow fodder.

The OP is right, the intractable problem with a pet class is that Blizz have to try to resolve the dilemma that very strong pets = the ai doing everything for you. They want lot sof player involvement, to keep things interesting and to make player skill the determinant in performance.

WHich is, of course, the whole reason for demonic empowerment.

[Deleted]

The Bargain idea is a pretty common trope for the warlock/summoner type character. However we are fighting the masters of the masters in WoW. Gods/titans and currently the Legion which is a group of the badassed demons there can be. Who do we pact with?

I like the idea of bring my own raid team to the raid. But how does a warlock become a summoner and survive the ordeal if all his power lies with his summons? to follow the ABC of casters, what should summoners do when they have 1 or more pets out attacking the enemy? We don't want to steal the hunter mechanics of "order pet to do X" really. But maybe curses/debuffs in the form of "next pet hit is X dmg/moredmg/etc" that can be stacked. Those can be named curses to be thematic.

To get the feel of an army, we should have temporary summons that act like Imps in MoP/WoD. Be with us for X attacks and only despawn after Y minutes. Same with other mechanics that interact with summons. That way we can easily bring our effort from 1 mob to the next and we don't get this ratrace spec we have now where haste and being able to cast a sequence of spells determines everything.

We should also have some kind of skill/mechanic that focuses our summons to 1 target and allows for target switches. Mechanically I liked the D3 Necromancer's Skelletons skill which summons them and focusses them with a press of a button. But this could also be "attack the highest stack of debuffed enemies" with maybe a ranged and melee dmg curse to make sure melee pets aren't running between mobs they can never hit because of a ranged pet .

[Deleted]

I would like to see Demo more about sacrificing demons for power and damage. As stated by bacon demo locks are not hunters and the way we exercise our power over demons should be cruel and cold blooded for our own pure gain. Warlocks after all are mages who's lust for power has driven them to seek it elsewhere.

I like the Thak's consumption ability, however i dont think it should take a portion of summon'd demons health, i think it should out right kill them!!

Implosion is another good example of a spell i think does fit thematically, HoG summon's a butt load of imps they dps the target for a little while then you mercilessly kill them.

Another avenue is that killing demons could be what builds a resource for you, call it blood of the sacrificed for now. Once you reach a certain level of blood other abilities become available (no not meta) but a short duration powerful demon that you summon and enslave for only a small amount of time before it breaks the link and falls back into the nether.

There is plenty of scope for having something that not only fits thematically but is different to the other two specs.

[Cazz17]

I enjoy playing Demonology which sucks :P only problem I have is always having to spam Life Tap, not fun gameplay at all.

[satimy]

Legion was a failed experiment as well.

MoP and even WoD demonology were essentially a flawless spec

[Maleific]

Legion was a failed experiment as well.

MoP and even WoD demonology were essentially a flawless spec

MoP yes. WoD no.

In Warlords they shoved the level 100 talents into a spec that didn't neex it and worked better without it. Without demonbolt your ST was meh. Without cata your burst AoE was limited.

Demonic Servitude was the closest you could get to MoP demo in WoD. But once you had the legendary ring it wasn't really an option.

Ofc by that point they'd already decided to gut the spec, perhaps in an attempt to ween us off it for Legion lol.

I really did like how our imps weren't just damage sources. They funneled us fury and MC procs.

[Baconeggcheese]

I feel the opposite way. A master of demons to me is one who manages to summon and control beings more powerful than himself, but only more powerful within certain strictly defined limits - not necessarily by dominating them, but by making a pact. Or simply by the use of greater intelligence, wit and skill.

The thing is I'm not talking about how I imagine a master of demons, I'm more talking about what warlocks have been established as in the game. The "summon and controls things more powerful than oneself" doesn't fit what warlocks do in the lore. The ones that do attempt to do that usually just get themselves killed.

A master of demons can absolutely be that in the grander sense, but it just isn't what warlocks in the warcraft universe have been established to be. Again, we aren't like hunters which fit that archetype, the relationship with warlocks and demons is either they're enslaved or they have some kind of mutual benefit (like the observer loving the shit out of the magics it gets to eat by traveling with us). There's a reason most of our demons have voice lines that they're pissed off that we summoned them.

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MoP and even WoD demonology were essentially a flawless spec

Mop / wod demo was the epitome of hard to learn easy to master, and just filled to the brim with unintuitive "clunk". It was easily our worst designed spec.

Still could be fun though, but from an objective view point it was very very flawed.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I wonder if something fun could be done with the idea of "Power Overwhelming" from Hearthstone.
Cooldown cast on your demons. Demon is superpowered by a ton of fel energy, does a ton of damage. Then it dies. Horribly.
It could trigger an explosion that does AoE damage or something.
Main issue is I'm not sure how to make it feel impactful and interactive from a gameplay perspective. High shard cost? Channel? I'd suggest building it up based on your casts during a window but we already have that mechanic in Consumption. Perhaps that could be reworked into something like this?

[wholol]

Dw guys, devs' are just playing some spec roulette with demo, I mean who doesn't enjoy the fruits of constantly changing gameplay?

Next up on demo changes: flying demon rabbits shooting lazers out of their eyes and spammable RNG ability with very low chance of success but mandatory cast cause overpowered when luck smiles on you, who doesn't love luck and gambling amirite?

[Deleted]

Honestly, if shoulders went back to being 2 soulshards and demon bolt demo was significantly less cancer to play than most of the specs Ive played - destro and affliction are completely destroyed compared to how they use to be so much so that I cant play warlock anymore now. I enjoyed demo a lot during NH. The other two have been garbage from the beginning of legion.

[Syegfryed]

i hope they bring some other thing, not just a blindly demon master, warlocks are master of the fel and dark magic in general, i would do like more offensive speçls like we had before, like thatl, soul flare? Soul burning? don't recall but it was pretty funny

i know they want to bring some new class fantasy thing, but i was rly fine with demo just summoning more powerful demons

[Deleted]

The thing is I'm not talking about how I imagine a master of demons, I'm more talking about what warlocks have been established as in the game. The "summon and controls things more powerful than oneself" doesn't fit what warlocks do in the lore. The ones that do attempt to do that usually just get themselves killed.

A master of demons can absolutely be that in the grander sense, but it just isn't what warlocks in the warcraft universe have been established to be. Again, we aren't like hunters which fit that archetype, the relationship with warlocks and demons is either they're enslaved or they have some kind of mutual benefit (like the observer loving the shit out of the magics it gets to eat by traveling with us). There's a reason most of our demons have voice lines that they're pissed off that we summoned them.

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Mop / wod demo was the epitome of hard to learn easy to master, and just filled to the brim with unintuitive "clunk". It was easily our worst designed spec.

Still could be fun though, but from an objective view point it was very very flawed.

I can't really agree with the last part. Sure it had rough edges and some "unintuitive cluck", but so did DoTs back in the day (refresh is new powercalculation).

If they removed the double stacking of shadowflame, that would solve most of it. And/or make it clear when the meta version of HoG was better.
Maybe change DB a bit, because at first it would seem you want to stack that up to 10.
Maybe do something with Corruption changing into Doom, but this is part of basic stance dance mechanics.
Remove the 10s cooldown of meta, so when you forget or make a mistake you can switch back easy.

Can't really remember what else was hard to understand.

[Baconeggcheese]

I can't really agree with the last part. Sure it had rough edges and some "unintuitive cluck", but so did DoTs back in the day (refresh is new powercalculation).

It had "clunk" on a level that far surpassed the other specs, and again was the epitome of "hard to learn, easy to master" which is the opposite of how you want a spec designed.

Imo dots snapshotting at the time of application is more intuitive than not, considering that's basically how every other spell in the game works. When I cast a CB and clip the end of a buff the CB doesn't suddenly lose the buff mid air, it snapshots at the time of cast. If all other spells do that, its frankly more weird that dots are the only ones that don't.

If they removed

Frankly they removed the majority of the bigger issues by removing snapshots in wod. That made the more annoying things go away like hog weaving, or not fucking up your corruption with ToC. The spec was still hella confusing for new players though since it had so many moving parts while becoming even easier to master.

I'd take wod demo over legion demo any day, but it was still a poorly designed spec.

[Halwyn]

Legion was a failed experiment as well.

MoP and even WoD demonology were essentially a flawless spec

It was good, but WoD Demo had one major flaw - it was TOO good (partially thanks to t17 set bonuses). It had tools to deal with nearly every situation you can think of, either baseline or via talents (looking at you, Cataclysm), survivable as f**k, and even had a good answer to on-demand mobility - in the end, you didn't really need other specs, other than for M Kromog if you had issues with the pillars, or on a sustained-aoe fights (and there was none in HM or BRF, if you count out Margok's little adds). Not trying to downplay it, but I do understand where the nerfhammer came from, both because of its power and in preparation to DH release.

[satimy]

It was good, but WoD Demo had one major flaw - it was TOO good (partially thanks to t17 set bonuses). It had tools to deal with nearly every situation you can think of, either baseline or via talents (looking at you, Cataclysm), survivable as f**k, and even had a good answer to on-demand mobility - in the end, you didn't really need other specs, other than for M Kromog if you had issues with the pillars, or on a sustained-aoe fights (and there was none in HM or BRF). Not trying to downplay it, but I do understand where the nerfhammer came from, both because of its power and in preparation to DH release.

I think in HFC warlock was pretty broken, but destro, affliction were both better than demo unless you were cheezing air damage. Affliction and Arcane mages were the highest dps at the end iirc.

[Halwyn]

I think in HFC warlock was pretty broken, but destro, affliction were both better than demo unless you were cheezing air damage. Affliction and Arcane mages were the highest dps at the end iirc.

IMO, I've found HFC to be pretty balanced between Destruction and Affliction, even if it turned out better for latter eventually, with everyone going into "Pop Ring - ST Zerg" style tactics, which Affliction handled better. Still there was a lot of switching to be done, and you still had decent enough burst AoE with glyphed DS and Charred Remains. Not the absurd numbers 6.1 Cataclysm/Triple Chaos Wave Demo had, but still.

[Lucrece]

I just want demo to be repositioned into a master of harnessing the energies of the Twisting Nether. If Gul'dan could develop demonic features, why can't a warlock? So did Kil'jaeden.

It doesn't need to be a metamorphosis like demonhunter's. It can also just be a visual as our energy system increases and we gain empowerments with demonic attunements.

I think they can do a lot with the concept of shadowflame and demonic empowerments where we summon an aspect of a demon that empowers our spell in one way or another.

[Baconeggcheese]

I just want demo to be repositioned into a master of harnessing the energies of the Twisting Nether. If Gul'dan could develop demonic features, why can't a warlock? So did Kil'jaeden.

It doesn't need to be a metamorphosis like demonhunter's. It can also just be a visual as our energy system increases and we gain empowerments with demonic attunements.

I think they can do a lot with the concept of shadowflame and demonic empowerments where we summon an aspect of a demon that empowers our spell in one way or another.

Honestly feels like locks are on the cusp of a retcon after DH's were introduced into the game since so much of what we were was wrapped up in that fantasy.

We're just in such an awkward place because of all that. There's so much push pull between us wanting to actually get and be all the things that people messing with fel and shadow magics are while trying to strongly differentiate from demon hunters or spriests.