Why are they reworking the only warlock spec that doesn’t need a rework. We don’t want to cast shadowbolt it feels like crap. Demo is fine how it is unless we’re going back to meta. It’s the most fun it’s been in three expansions. Revert the changes and throw them in the trash.
Also delete fel covenant extra hard and then neuralyze the talent from every single players’ mind. Due to the mental stress and damage it has caused.
This part of the patch note was madenning. It’s a constant thing that tends to pop up too.
We want to return Demonology to a place where Shadow Bolt is frequently cast, Demonbolt damage feels impactful, and the number of instant casts available is a bit more limited.
Bolded the key word. It’s akways what they want, but not what the players need in order to have fun playing.
Standing stationary casting Shadow Bold fits nowhere even within the scope of what players need.
EDIT: Forum somehow duplicated the post above. Odd.
it also fits nowhere with their dungeon and raid design, and even less PvP. Complete disconnect from the game they are making themselves.
Them: “Wot is swirlie HURRR DURRR”.
I can not articulate it any better than that.
When I gave WoW another try last year, demolock was the spec I picked to level - and its the class/spec combo that made me fall in love with WoW’s gameplay. It’s my favorite class/spec in the game - and I’ve given most a try by now (or have some at max).
It wasn’t awful at the tail end of SL, but it has certainly been in such a great place for most of DF. It feels amazing to play as is; the proc-based gameplay and heavy AoE emphasis has made it incredibly fun to do dungeons with, and especially feels good when you get a chain reaction of Demonbolt procs back to back. It also has made it incredibly mobile compared to things like Arcane Mage (my first M+ class which has since been hung up and relegated to old content farming, due to how antithetical it is to Blizzard’s dungeon and raid design lately).
I recently re-leveled the character I started with (wanted a new race, didn’t wanna pay for race change, plus leveling is fun). Decided I may as well swap back to playing demolock for content, rather than boomie - after all, it’s my favorite class/spec and comes to me naturally at this point.
You can imagine the sheer anger and frustration I felt reading all those changes. Like thanks for taking the wind out of my sails and killing my excitement to start doing M+ on my demolock, Blizz!
every patch feels like a rework to demo tbh, its constantly changing how the spec feels to play.
Pretty much this, if they rework to give us meta back I’m all in, but Demo is currently feeling amazing to play, these changes seriously shocked me and seem ridiculous.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
The circus part of this is that casting shadowbolts does not fit with how they are currrently desgining the entire game. Raids/mythics +/pvp/ or just casual.
No where does casting a filler spell fit into any part of the game.
The only spec that needed some mild touches was afflic.
No one asked for demo gameplay wise to change. Stop with the damn passive talents please not that bs again.
I feel that pain as a spriest. It feels like they want all casters to be turret classes. 
In classic Blizzard fashion take something that works and ruin it. Now the question is do we regrind for a new main or just quit for a better game.
They should hard focus that ReWork energy on Affliction.
Again. Warlocks took nerfs back-to-back to back because Tier Bonus AND PI AND bugs that were still in the game.
Where is upper management?
Every warlock player is going MALD rn. I agree though, the reason demo feels good is because we have a lot of instant casts, demonic core is great. The spec is actually very nice to play and doesnt need rework at all.
Please Blizzard consider reverting these changes with minor tweaks instead. It’s not broken, why would you fix it? Affliction needs some love…
This might be the first time since I started playing this game back in Vanilla that I’ve ever wrote on one of these posts, but I have to agree with the other demonology comments posted on here, reddit, and elsewhere – the proposed changes are lazy, add unnecessary uncertainty to a rather strict rotation, reduce the benefit of playing the spec skillfully, and overall make the spec less fun and rewarding to play well.
Playing demo well is all about managing a variety of timers (imp and imp gang boss tradeoff for implosion, demons and CDs to ‘snapshot’ with tyrant, spenders for nether portal, and dreadstalkers to have clarity into near-term core generation). This playstyle is actually very fun in my opinion and can be challenging and rewarding to play in stressful encounters.
First off, to put it plainly, if you have even glanced at logs you can clearly see that the ‘peaks’ and ‘valleys’ of demos damage do not come from a rotational ability that has 60% uptime (I’m talking about dreadstalkers aka ‘dogs’ here)… they come from the significant cooldown reliance that the spec has around Tyrant and Nether Portal. For color, in the first boss of Aberrus which is effectively a target dummy, my overall dps is around 88k (421ilvl), during Nether Portal that dps is >300k. In PVP being able to maintain your dreadstalkers on CD can be a material differentiator in damage between less apt players and decent players.
While a lot of the proposed changes I believe have issues, the proposed change to Ripped through the Portal is a glaring issue that I hope does not get implemented.
Reducing Ripped through the Portal from certainty to a 50% chance
This change is simply terrible, I am not sure I’ve ever seen a change this unnecessary and counterproductive.
Dreadstalkers are a very important part of your rotation and something that in both PVP and PVE is important to have the highest uptime possible with. Having a chance at 2 dogs vs 3 also creates material uncertainty around your tyrant – the random 50% chance for 3 fewer stacks of Reign of Tyranny can effectively be a 10-15% reduction in tyrant damage (not to mention extending 2 dogs instead of 3) and the only way to mitigate this is not through skillful play but instead to delay tyrant, vilefiend, and grimoire in the hopes that the next cast in 20sec yields 3 dogs… not very rewarding play and not worth it.
If devs are concerned about dog damage, then it is materially better to keep the number dogs summoned consistent and instead just apply a flat damage nerf to them. To be fair, I do not see any remote evidence that their damage needs to be changed.
I also do not understand the intention of limiting instant casts and then instead buffing pure passive damage through your felguard… it is not like you have to cast your felguard’s damage anyways – at least the instant casts marginally make you manage your globals and demonic core resource.
I think some of the proposed changes are fine, namely the:
removal of Demonic Knowledge
Change to Inner Demons
Not very material, but these following changes do not make much sense to me.
Cavitation
Dirty Hands/Shadowflame Acolyte/Umbral Blaze
I think the current iteration of demo is pretty dang good, but if you wanted to make the spec a little more fun, I think you could make a couple changes.
Give pitlord a ranged ability.
Add a Doomguard somewhere into the toolkit.
I’ve played demo for years I agree that it’s great fun right now, definitely the most fun I’ve ever had playing the class(not just the spec). the changes would be an insult to everyone who finally enjoys the spec after years of it being near obsolete. I have no idea why you’d try to rework such a unique spec rather than balance it. Please stop doing what YOU WANT and do what the PLAYERS WANT. We all just have to quit again then they’ll understand for another year at least.
I havent seen a single person comment positively about the changes. That shows how little the devs know about their game wich is supposed to be fun. But they make it unfun.
funny thing is they still havent posted a feedback thread for demo changes lol.
Being a turret is fine if they design the content with that in mind.
We all know they will not and I was going to start running keys with my guild but I’ll stick to lfr.
Because they’re going to double down and ignore our feedback.
i hate demo with a passion, but it would be fair to leave it alone and just make aff better.
Well, they’ve brought back Demonic Knowledge and Shadows Bite, which is good, as well as damage buffs. The removal of the shard cost for Bilescourge Bombers is …intriguing.