So how does Demo/Aff actually feel to play in BFA so far?

[Styxz]

My prediction:

- People jump on Demo hype train

- Aff's numbers take over by like 2%, plus they'll still be better on AoE/cleave fights anyway, so most people just reroll to that

- Aff remains braindead easy compared to Demo anyway, and people always prefer easy+boring specs that perform similarly to specs that require a bit more effort (there's a million examples of this in other specs, e.g. BM hunters, Frost DKs, Assa Rogues, and so on)

- Meanwhile, Destro players go by unnoticed, enjoying both fun gameplay and decent numbers.

- Aff players eventually reroll to Destro because it might end up scaling better, etc.

Basically, I'm really cynical and find it really annoying how pure DPS specs are the worst with bandwagoning

I'll admit a bit of bitterness when I'm running dungeons on beta and seeing all these other Demo locks. I was the only one in my guild in EN/ToV. I barely saw them at all on my server. I ran a 5 man last night on beta with 3 demo locks lol.

It's going to be Demo season come launch.

To the OP, Aff isn't quite as horrible as people say it is, but there's truth to the outrage on some level.

I appreciate the "fan service" aspect of reintroducing SB to the sepc, but without drain soul execute, it feels really strange. Like casting incinerate in early legion, back when it didn't generate shardes. It's no fun flinging bolts when they have no interaction with the rest of our kit. Deathbolt is dope though. Hits stupid hard (had a 17k crit at 113).

Demo is great, but they need to revisit some of the talents. Bombers, Vilefiend, Inner Demons, Nether Port (should be baseline and not cost 3 shards imo).

I'm not sure how to feel about destro using SF and CB.

[Lucrece]

Destro is the only spec I'm sorta enjoying in BfA. Demo still feels like bland crap with no visual appeal whatsoever to me. It's basically a ranged assassination rogue or feral druid, a ramp up single target turret, imp mother style.

If I can play flashover, reverse entropy, fire and brimstone, supremacy, and dark soul, I'll be fine. If the competing talents turn out better, I'll enjoy destro a lot less. Supremacy is not so appealing but it's the best out of the crap we have in that row.

I also don't want to go back to soul conduit, it's such a boring talent.

For me the nonstarters will be if they force eradication and internal combustion on the spec again. I can accept roaring blaze in place of supremacy, but it'll be pretty boring.

[evertonbelmontt]

Naaah, afflic will be good for dps, don't worry about it. It may not be the top dog but it will be good, in this I have faith in Blizzard. They have done an excelent job in balancing the specs overall, except some like demon and survivor because they probably think it's good that people don't play it because of the drastic changes coming (similar to WoD Demon story).

It's just as Cainium said, coming off Legion they doubled down on weaknesses and forgot to buff aff's strenght. I wanted soul swap soo much at this point =/

[skitzin]

Haven't played affliction on the beta yet but I will say demo is a lot of fun and fits with what I fell demo should be about - hordes of demons. It feels good to get a newer array of demon skins as well to better reflect the recent additions in legion.

Still playing around with talents with a current build being mostly 1s out of the 1/2/3 choices. Would love to hear from some pro demos what they are running.

[Chickat]

It also feels inflexible and single target oriented.

SP feels like a much better dot user.

And Showbolt. Heaven knows why any seasoned aff player would wish to be tied down to a piece of crap like that. A long cast that hits like a soggy noodle, the worst DPET spell in the game I believe.

I think they should add a talent that turns shadowbolt into Drain soul. Channel maybe 25% more dps than spamming shadowbolt, and works as an execute below 20%.

[DeadmanWalking]

I’m messing around the beta on a demo hordie as it will be a while before I get to do the horde side for story, usually I play destro but trying demo on beta. I’m trying to figure out the starting rotation and the right time to use Implosion and the demon commander.

[evertonbelmontt]

Haven't played demon much @Beta but I think I read in here somewhere implosion was bugged?

Don't bother with it for now I guess.

[Gaidax]

Why not bother? You can play it perfectly fine. There is an issue interacting between Implosion and some imps, but it's a beneficial bug, it's not like shit does not work.

[skitzin]

Demo plays perfectly fine without all your imps going up in flames. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see this be an accidental design choice since it stops the wasting of imps, it prevents our burst being too high and helps to ensure that we have some imps left over to pump out some dps.

- - - Updated - - -

I think they should add a talent that turns shadowbolt into Drain soul. Channel maybe 25% more dps than spamming shadowbolt, and works as an execute below 20%.

Too be honest I would hate to have a drain for demo. Kind of ruins the overall feel.

[FertsBlert]

My prediction:
Blizz knee-jerk nerfs Demo and Destro into the ground in the pre-patch (maybe in the last tuning pass before the pre-patch) because people are doing stupidly well with those two specs. Then Aff which was left alone and is still shit but is slightly LESS shit than the other two becomes the goto spec until gear gets the other two back where they should have been probably somewhere around 8.2
Possibly in 8.3 Aff goes back to being the goto because stats (and Azerite traits) have scaled it to the point it is literally better in every way than Demo or Dest as a reaction to it being so bad during 8.2

[Chickat]

Demo plays perfectly fine without all your imps going up in flames. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see this be an accidental design choice since it stops the wasting of imps, it prevents our burst being too high and helps to ensure that we have some imps left over to pump out some dps.

- - - Updated - - -



Too be honest I would hate to have a drain for demo. Kind of ruins the overall feel.

I meant for affliction.

[skitzin]

I meant for affliction.

Ah okay. Then yeah drain soul would be nice. I would love to see it used in afflic as an execute. So lile at 20%hp swap from sb spam to ds.

[evertonbelmontt]

Why not bother? You can play it perfectly fine. There is an issue interacting between Implosion and some imps, but it's a beneficial bug, it's not like shit does not work.

He's trying to figure it out when to use it as in "rotation". What's the point of doing it if it isn't working as intended?

The little time I spent trying demon I never felt the need to use it too. Demon seems overpowered (compared to afflic at least) and the talent that increases felstorm takes care of all trash.

[Gaidax]

I prefer dreadsralkers AoE Dreadbite, because it is available each pack. Implosion certainly is more than great, as you can waltz into a pack with your army of imps and do 1 GCD nuclear explosion for ridiculous damage.

You also naturally what to use it last moment of boss fight.

Demo has great AoE overall, although I think Destruction is more powerful simply because it also has decent AoE (Cataclysm is actually very good) and it stomps Demo on bosses.

Naturally tuning will change it, but I don't see how Demo vs Destruction on dungeon bosses will change, Destruction has way too much boss damage in dungeons because of CD stacking.

[evertonbelmontt]

Naturally tuning will change it, but I don't see how Demo vs Destruction on dungeon bosses will change, Destruction has way too much boss damage in dungeons because of CD stacking.

AoE is a big part of M+, but nearly every class has decent or great AoE and a great deal of them (nearly all melees) have AMAZING AoE already. I agree with you that destruction will be king for dungeons this tier, if nothing changes, just because it does something bursty and is excels at it once again.

As for raiding I want something like WoD when it comes to balance. I remember using Demon for Butcher, Afflic for twin ogros, Destro for Imperator, Demon for that Ogre Magi (because demonbolt bypassed the shield IIRC), Aff or Demon for that Rock Golem and Destro for Kargath first raid. But back then if you didn't or couldn't swap specs you should be able to play whatever you liked more instead of legion (obviously, because of the artifacts and AP) but because of the talent tree too.

The classes felt complete back then and you could just improve it with talents and it worked great with a variety of raid encounters that seemed almost tailored to each spec/talent combination.

Talent tree nowdays and in BfA is so bland... in MoP they nailed it with every talent being a choice of gameplay instead of what you should be able to do "ST or AoE, movement or defense".

DeepShades wrote his thoughts about this recently ( https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...d_suggestions/) and I think beyond class design is mostly on a very personal level of what he wants for the game, but his class design review was on point IMO.

[SpikeySquad]

I know a lot of specs have had their AoE nerfed but until Destro actually gets better than "decent" AoE damage (compared to all classes) then no, boss/priority damage alone will not carry it enough to be a top dungeon spec in my opinion.

Though yes our other two specs could be worse post tuning.

[Gaidax]

I know a lot of specs have had their AoE nerfed but until Destro actually gets better than "decent" AoE damage (compared to all classes) then no, boss/priority damage alone will not carry it enough to be a top dungeon spec in my opinion.

Though yes our other two specs could be worse post tuning.

To reiterate Destruction AoE is very solid in dungeons, there is a caveat here too - if you pop Infernal on AoE pack it's literally becoming the best AoE ingame by faaar, but that's long CD so you need to plan accordingly.

They also seem to have buffed Cata nicely, Cata crit does about 1.5xdamage of your run off the mill Chaos Bolt. Plopping this on a pack, especially with Dark Soul is very bursty.

I was using F&B a lot, but I switched to Cata now and I'm not sure what's better actually aside from Cata having function in ST, it's basically a free Chaos Bolt once in 30 seconds and it's DPET is clearly better, aside from Supremacy shenanigans.

[Ooshraxa]

Nether Port (should be baseline and not cost 3 shards imo).

There's no way that we're getting Nether Portal baseline. You can already stack two CDs if you take nether portal, having a buffed tyrant + nether portal would be... problematic

[EnigmaVII]

They should at least remove the shard cost on nether portal.

[drinoff]

Demo is absulutely broken... does insane aoe burst + is top SIngle target in Raid testing and Dungeons at least for me. Will be nerfed for sure

Aff - They can delete this spec.. RIP aff