Concerns regarding the state of Demonology

[Shiennar]

I would like to start this post voicing my concerns about demonology as a whole by introducing myself. This thread was originally posted in the official EU Warlock forums, but to gather more opinions and to gain visibility I have decided to post it here.

My name is Shienna and I have been a proud warlock for the past 4 years. I started playing just as Tempest Keep was launched and I quickly fell in love with the class because of the diversity of the specs. One focusing on drains and curse, the other on demons and the third as a direct-damage component. When I became 70 and started exploring raids, quickly unraveling my path through Karazhan, Gruul and Serpentshrine Caverns I became aware of the powers given to demonology warlocks.

Not only did they have a very strong demon, the Felguard, but they also had the options to use the other specs abilities at a weakened state. As I discovered the suggestion of the spec 7/44/10 I began using it to improve my feeling of the playstyle. The strong Felguard aswell as the hardhitting dots filled a empty slot in my heart as I noticed it dealt acceptable and competetive damage back then. I loyally stayed that spec untill the Malefic set favourized the Sacrifice Succubus and spam shadowbolt spec.

However I became pleased when I saw that Demonology was going to get a niche in Wrath of The Lich King, the buffbot warlock was born. Demonic Pact was not worth as much as it was at the end of Wrath, improving friendly players spellpower by 600-800 depending on trinketprocs. It was apparant that there would only be one warlock in a raid dedicated for this role, as Demonology never have given much to the raid, and when I changed guilds in late Wrath a small tear formed in my eye as I had to wave my trustworthy felguard, Flaroon, goodbye and spec affliction.

I have allways loved the Gameplay of demonology, you have a strong pet empowered by the spec and it felt like a... Well thoughtout spec would be the phrase I looked for. The fact that you had to watch your demon aswell as your own rotation made it a bit of a challenge when you first tried out the spec, and I guess it was that which made me topple over in joy.

However, Im a bit concerned for our present situation. If it was not for the niche we had during Wrath we would have not been been able to deal competetive dps without speccing out of demonology and Demonology was never viable for arena either which made it a giant lackluster. It was perfectly fine for soloing and leveling, but apart from that it would seem like Demonology had no spot or presence in end-game content whether it was Player Versus Player or Raiding.

We still have the same problem as the cataclysm shook Azeroth:

- Demonology does not deal competetive single-target damage, which is being proven by logs. (stateofdps.com)
- Demonology excels at Area Of Effect fights, or fights where multiple adds are present. This has been rightfully nerfed, and with it our dps potential.
- The whole point for Demonology would be to use the Felguard and empower this as much as possible, however theorycrafting proves that the Succubus is doing more dps than our intended pet. Hopefully this is a oversight.
- The niche for Demonic Pact is being covered by totems, and therefore we have no real purpose in a raid as our dps-potential is as low as it is.
- Mastery is somewhat odd, but due to the recent buff to it Ill await the numbers before commenting on it as it used to be a stat we feared more than the pest. And I am still convinced the mastery buff is not enough to put it in front of other stats.





-- Disclaimer; This post is based solely on personal experience and points of view which has been gathered outside of the official forums. I know that the 4.0.6 patch is not fully configured yet, and that buffs mught be heading our way, the post is based on CURRENT information known.

[Szemere]

Played since wrath, always been demonology with at least an offspec.
I do indeed hate the fact that such a huge buff, is now being covered by totems passively, which sometimes makes me feel like it isn't worth having that buff, and also massing up on spellpower just to get the raid buff up in 25mans is now also useless, sadly...
I do not know whether or not the succubus has better dps, but i will never stop using my felguard, it is just too damn handy if you save up the felstorm for ads, and I still pulled off 20k dps nonetheless last night. Which was by far the highest in our 10man group. If they want nerf AoE damage tho, give me more single target damage to compensate, as the point where i am loved by the group is if i demo leap into a pack of ads that have to die, click 3 buttons, and watch them melt. I do not play on PTR atm, so i do not know how much this is changing. I am a bit disappointed by the range reduction on hellfire though, but at least i won't pull 2 additional packs in SFK anymore. The increased immolate duration we get in exchange is a bit silly though, as if you time guldan correctly, it should be up all fight. Maybe more of a PvP buff, i don't know.
Also, I am trying to get back to the 4.0 point at lvl 80, where i had 50% haste unbuffed (not on that scale ofcourse), which increased demon form uptime a lot, and this is in my opinion a huge way to increase dps by favoring mastery above crit (after hit ofcourse), because my demon form already pops almost every 1.5 minute.
I am pleased with current state of demonology, but i am sure when others get to my gearlevel, and the actually skilled few players are back from their break and start to compete with me in DPS, i would love that the "theorycrafted" dps is equally high for these specs.
Well, there you have my rant on it, based solely on my experience, as I am from a realm that has not too much skilled high end pve warlocks. Feel free to correct me if you think i am (totally) wrong.

[Jessicka]

I don't think the buff to Mastery is really intended to buff our DPS, but rather to address the problem that that particular stat is just so weak currently that it is being completely disregarded and leading to people not taking upgrades in gear level across tiers because of it.

In a week or so once they have new data on how it's performing on PTR, as with the other two trees, they may well tweak some numbers; it's just that while we're now pushing different buttons with new talents, they can't simply project our current performance as a best guesstimate as to where and by how much our abilities need buffing without the high risk of having to re-nerf all over again and causing further torrents of tears.

Regards Mastery itself, I'm not keen on it either. It leads to a risk of being in a position whereby our damage is far too dependent on the Metamorphosis cooldown, and potentially massively overpowered while it's up, but horribly underpowered without.

[angry bastard]

I predict that with the ISF nerf, demo will be pretty strongly competitive again in raids for DPS. Honestly, I feel like all three specs are just stylistic choices at the moment, and that you don't really have to fear for your raid spot if you can perform well in any one of them.

Mastery is a poor stat for all three specs, and I don't think that will change with the buff it's getting, but it is also a pretty unavoidable stat given the itemizing that has been done this tier. So basically you'll just be less punished by the fact that this tier has been itemized by clowns. First tier of each expansion has always been kinda dumb, so you can't really expect much more than that.

The Succubus is a DPS upgrade from the felguard on single target fights, but burning a shard to summon the felguard on AoE fights (Maloriak, for example), is an awesome trick to do. This will probably be the case post-felstorm nerf as well.

I don't know how you can justify saying the increased immolate duration is dumb, since it could be tricky to keep it up without any "dead air", it's a great change if you intend to not cancel other casts just to keep it up.

I've already gotten a demo offspec in preparation for 4.0.6 and I am brushing up on those skills I left behind after raiding demo for all of ICC and then switching to FOTM through cata so far, since Demo as stated earlier didn't really have any real purpose in a 25 man raid. I'm quite hopeful for 4.0.6, although I had just gotten used to Aff with ISF and had really committed it to muscle-memory but c'est la guerre.

[Shiennar]

I predict that with the ISF nerf, demo will be pretty strongly competitive again in raids for DPS. Honestly, I feel like all three specs are just stylistic choices at the moment, and that you don't really have to fear for your raid spot if you can perform well in any one of them.

This is a fair point, due to dualspec we can easily switch between the two specs we like the most without any further problem. It might be a bit selfish of me to say "Why should we even have to respec to stay competetive?". Demonology should be useful in a raid, it should have competetive damage or at least a small niche where we fit it. This is what I request as currently we have no such thing. Ill be glad to say that Im not the worst of all the warlocks I know, and I know my rotations - but the damageoutput from demonology is still too low for singletarget encounters to (comfortably) fill the dpsrole.

The Succubus is a DPS upgrade from the felguard on single target fights, but burning a shard to summon the felguard on AoE fights (Maloriak, for example), is an awesome trick to do. This will probably be the case post-felstorm nerf as well.

To me it would be silly that we have to adjust like this to get the best out of our spec. The fact that the Succubus is stronger than the felguard is what I would call a flaw in the design of demonology. I honestly believe with all the fibers in my body that the pet ONLY available to demonology should also be the one we are using unless specific mechanics limits the use of it. So to say that we have a unique pet but a pet given to all specs is overpowering it seems itchy to me.

I don't know how you can justify saying the increased immolate duration is dumb, since it could be tricky to keep it up without any "dead air", it's a great change if you intend to not cancel other casts just to keep it up.

I wouldnt say that the increased immolate duration is a buff per se. It gives us a more forgiving rotation seeing that a few seconds of movement could disrupt the HoG refresh unless Fel Flame was used, but apart from that it doesnt increase our utility or damage in any way.

[angry bastard]

No, the immo duration isn't a direct buff, but anything that creates more leniency in your rotation or making movement more forgiving, especially given the fight mechanics of current tier raid encounters, is going to buff your damage output on meters. It just is.

About the succubus vs felguard, I just see it as an opportunity. People are being very pessimistic about something that's just an extension of yourself, and I don't know what makes people so attached to polygons on a screen. Maybe you are playing the game for different reasons than I am, but I'm just in it to win it, and do as much damage as I can with what ever tools I am given and I don't care how exclusive it is. It's a choice we're being given, and I feel like most people just don't like it for reasons I've yet to hear explicitly detailed from them. And Destro still use the imp, by the way, just in case there was some confusion about the succubus being the go-to pet for ALL specs now, it's not.

We're simply not the people who decide what kind of mechanics are tweaked and what is the best way to play the class, and I think way too much energy is put in to complaining about how it's not living up to our ideal, energy which if put into actually just trying to exploit every change with every patch would render like 70% of the playerbase absolutely extraordinarily good at their class. I've played the game for so long now that I know I won't really have a great influence on the Blizzard design team (I've tried), so instead I just go to a training dummy every patch, read the relevant theorycraft, and deal with it. Thinking and wanting and wishing doesn't really improve the situation, it just makes you dwell an inordinate amount on how much you're displeased by it.

[Shiennar]

Most of your post is actually fairly true. But implying that we do not update ourselves on the relevant patch information and adapt to it was quite a long shot. Thinking, wanting and wishing is what makes a difference. Given in a decent post where constructive critiscism is more likely to get a relevant comment than no criticism at all.

On the felguard versus succubi topic, it feels clunky as its a tool given to demonology, it has been their core pet since Vanilla. And yet it is being slightly surpassed by the Succubus due to a glyph. Sure, we can adapt and suck it up, but it does not change the fact that the intention around it is flawed.

Our goals are quite similar, however I like to be the best of what I am by having fun playing the game as I want. Sometimes thats not going happen because of varying reasons, but when the reason is clunky mechanics and flaws in the game that we dont even know is intended, I personally find it better to voice my opinion about them.

[angry bastard]

Sure, it's fine to voice your opinion, but if you expect change to be realized because of your opinion, you're very likely going to be disappointed. That's basically all I'm saying.

[Szemere]

maybe the increased immo duration is then a little helper for some people, but as soon as i have hand of guldan available as next cast i cast it always (because i thought it was the best damage-per-casttime spell), and rarely does immolate drop off, unless boss mechanics prevent me from keeping it up. Also, when moving, and not needing to reapply dots, i always spam fel flame, better than doing nothing imo. but if some peole have an irritating amount of haste which makes them cast their hand just too late, i guess it has some use after all:P.
also, saying that we should not complain about felguard being useless in most bossfights would be strange. i'm pretty sure it is the key ability we get when we pick this spec, and i do not know any spec (correct me if im wrong again) that has little use for that certain ability.

[Runc]

Personally I like the fact that as Demonology I get to choose the most appropriate minion to summon for a fight. Given the number of calls for yet another minion before the Cata details were released it seems barely any time before folks are getting upset about the fact that there's a case for using more than one.

Where you see "the whole point" of demo being to summon one particular demon, I think a true demonologist should summon a range of demons depending on circumstance - I'd love it if it could be made that for some kinds of fight we'd do better with the felpup, or imp (hmm, that makes me wonder about the amount of time atramedes spends up in the air...)

[gherkin]

Szemere - some of us are at a gear level (either higher or lower than you) that will prevent Hand of Guldan from refreshing Immolate 50% of the time, due to cast overlap.

Demonology is currently balanced in T12 content, as the more haste and mastery we get the more our Demon Form becomes badass. They just need to find a way to keep us decent now without making us gods later.

---------- Post added 2011-01-14 at 08:56 AM ----------

Also, I admire the conviction some of you have towards your Felguard, but that kind of love is better suited for a Hunter. Use the pet that best suits your needs, and if swapping a glyph and summoning a succubus gets you better dps on Atramedes, Chimaeron, Nefarian, Conclave, Al'akir, Twins, and Council then you should do it.

Also, you should realize that in a caster-heavy group the succubus is an even larger dps increase because there is no physical damage debuffs or armor debuffs on the target, whereas lash of pain bypasses armor.

[Grievance]

Also, you should realize that in a caster-heavy group the succubus is an even larger dps increase because there is no physical damage debuffs or armor debuffs on the target, whereas lash of pain bypasses armor.

Well sweet. Didn't know that.

Imo demo is fine until you get up to the top parses, which makes it seem much worse. I've been pulling 1st or 2nd dps in my guild since the onset of Cata as demo, and am especially useful on a variety of fights including Magmaw and Council where my AE and my burst can really shine when needed.

As for the state of mastery, and the felguard not even being our best pet. I do think it's kind of absurd. It's on the same ground of destruction not using conflag because it's a shitty spell, or afflic not using ua. I don't really care that much, as I like having my succ out to knock shit out in raid and then complain in vent asking 'Who keeps knocking shit back!' because no one knows about it O.o BUT: As a lock, i do value using all of my demons in their special ways, especially as demonology.

No answers in that paragraph, but it sums up what I think many locks are feeling, not sure whether to be attached to their felguard, or be attached to all of their demons, what's the point of the spec, Blizz?! I disagreed with felguard in bc when it came out because I though demo would simply turn into: Use this demon while using these spells! Just like dest. Give us something neat about the demon, let us turn into demon for 100%, do something >,> it's a nuke spec that relies on CD's, not demons. Cooldownology.

[taek]

Felguard was not the signature Demonology pet since Vanilla.

The core of the original vanilla demonology talent tree was Improved Imp, Improved VW, Improved Succubus + Unholy Power (increase all pet damage) + 50% Soul Link and optionally Master Spellstone. It was very much a tree based around using any & all of the pets. Felguard didn’t even exist in vanilla IIRC.

To balance the game so that 1 pet has the best mobility, the best stuns, the best AE, and also the best single target DPS invalidates the entire philosophy of warlock pets, for me personally. I realize that's just an opinion, but i think it's shared by more than a few locks.

[gherkin]

I share that opinion too. Thinking about which pet is interesting to me, albeit a tad more skill dependant (now i have to change my macros!)

[Grievance]

Felguard was not the signature Demonology pet since Vanilla.

The core of the original vanilla demonology talent tree was Improved Imp, Improved VW, Improved Succubus + Unholy Power (increase all pet damage) + 50% Soul Link and optionally Master Spellstone. It was very much a tree based around using any & all of the pets. Felguard didn’t even exist in vanilla IIRC.

To balance the game so that 1 pet has the best mobility, the best stuns, the best AE, and also the best single target DPS invalidates the entire philosophy of warlock pets, for me personally. I realize that's just an opinion, but i think it's shared by more than a few locks.

Did someone say it was the signature pet since vanilla? Confused.
Honestly, I remember going into demo and NOT getting felguard for particular reasons (don't remember) but right now, Demonology locks are felguard locks. (This is in BC)

I agree with you that Blizzard's point for the Demonologist spec was to harness all the powers of demons, and I reeeeally dig that they're spread out, I think it's an awesome idea/spec that they pulled off. Until they made a special demon for them =\.

Now it's not defined. It's not 'Felguard lock' or 'Use all pets jack of all trades lock'. It's neither and kind of confusing on a macro level. But hey, I'm having fun playing it so it's really not that big of a deal to me either way.

[Loveletters]

I share that opinion too. Thinking about which pet is interesting to me, albeit a tad more skill dependant (now i have to change my macros!)

Thinking about it..

"Is it single target? if yes succubus, if no felguard."

---------- Post added 2011-01-15 at 01:57 AM ----------

Felguard was not the signature Demonology pet since Vanilla.

The core of the original vanilla demonology talent tree was Improved Imp, Improved VW, Improved Succubus + Unholy Power (increase all pet damage) + 50% Soul Link and optionally Master Spellstone. It was very much a tree based around using any & all of the pets. Felguard didn’t even exist in vanilla IIRC.

To balance the game so that 1 pet has the best mobility, the best stuns, the best AE, and also the best single target DPS invalidates the entire philosophy of warlock pets, for me personally. I realize that's just an opinion, but i think it's shared by more than a few locks.

I know you didn't bring it up, but vanilla is irrelevant regarding any spec; partially because of all the changes since then and partially because of all the changes to locks during that time. Regarding the best stuns and best AoE, since it is the only demon with those..it seems pretty likely it would be the best at it. You're almost making it sound overpowered, when in pve it is far from it, except in a very few cases. As far as PvP, there is surely a way to balance it so without making it overpowered while increasing single target damage. Many of us wouldn't care if they nerfed its *stun* or nerfed its AoE more...we would like it to have more single target damage. Given that it is *the* Demonology spell, I don't think that's too much to ask for. Also, one could argue that since you have to be demonology to get the pet, perhaps it should be the best at multiple things.

We are NOT asking for an all powerful, completely overpowered Felguard...We want the core ability that we get for speccing into demonology to be a core part of playing the spec, just as UA is for affliction and Conflag is for destruction.

[Jessicka]

Removing, or nerfing the Felguard's stun would cripple Demonology in PvP; similarly further nerfing Felstorm would have a similar effect.

---------- Post added 2011-01-15 at 12:58 PM ----------

Thinking about it..

"Is it single target? if yes succubus, if no felguard."

More thought than /cast summon Felguard

[Deleted]

Has anyone found yet, if there's a point where the amount of Mastery you have makes the Felguard more attractive DPS-Wise than the Succubus? Even if it's levels we won't get until Tier 13. Or do they scale evenly?

[Drakile]

On a tiny tiny sidenote, i kinda feel if they were to add a bit of a cd to Lash of Pain then it would lower the Dmg the succy did /shrug

[Shiennar]

Has anyone found yet, if there's a point where the amount of Mastery you have makes the Felguard more attractive DPS-Wise than the Succubus? Even if it's levels we won't get until Tier 13. Or do they scale evenly?

Mastery scales the damage of all demons evenly, so there is no point in even getting out the felguard anymore unless the combat has AOE-phases in it.