Oh hey worgan. Ya know how I’ve told you that I will only ever tell you off in demo pve but cannot adequately speak to demo pvp?
Here is the thread to explain in detail why you think demo pvp cannot function as it exists. This is the guy that can confirm/deny your musing.
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I’m honestly confused how he thinks demo is a dot spec
I mean cata demo was 3m hand of guldan melee and immo aura garbage
Mop Imo was our best version late in the season… but if they were to “Bring it back” it would be a butchered version of its current state.
Wod was Basically a Destro/Arcane Lovechild with Mop Meta remnants and Stack Demonbolt. It required Heavy casting for strong burst.
Demo is viable atm not optimal but viable.
I play it at decent cr/mmr not insane but decent. There are demos above me and demos below me and the general consensus among the demos are “We are viable for mid tier and welfare glad but not r1 viable without a heavy grind and decent queues” meaning if you are failing to gain rating atm its more of a “Driver in the car” or your comp issue and less about the spec until you get much higher rated.
Hope that helps and if you have any demo related questions you can ask them here or at the Council of the Black Harvest discord in the PvP channel.
This comes from the old saying that Demo was Aff with faces on our dots but current demos demons actually pressure decently… I mean in my 3s we go every 45 with coil/stun VF/Stalkers+Soul rot or Dstrength and can usually snag cooldowns before the tyrant hit.
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I mean it’s not… It’s not a huge leap to call our demons dots. But they also aren’t.
Ok so bear me out.
Aff is not really a dot spec at the moment. Dots are not what deals damage, they are the fuel for the damage which is contained in MR.
Similarly our demons are the fuel for Tyrant. Only our ‘dots’ do more of our overall than Aff dots do. So we are sorta a dot spec, but if we consider demo a dot spec then we have to embrace that demo is THE dot warlock spec and aff really is the imposter in that regard.
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Way too much in-depth thinking before noon 
Say what you want. Demo fit its own niche and playstyle much better before Legion. Now there’s no reason to play Demo over Affliction or Destro literally ever unless it has significantly higher numbers.
You can argue that it’s viable. Sure it can be viable if you’re playing against people who don’t know enough about how Demo works. The second you face anyone who understands how Demo works it falls completely flat. The setup is so telegraphed and cookie cutter and the payoff (Tyrant) can just be line of sighted, outranged, CCd, etc. DB gives you another kill window which is nice but we lose that after SL and there’s still no reason to play with a Demo lock over an Affl or Destro lock at the end of the day.
Of course if an extremely good player is playing a spec, even if the spec is dog, they’re going to have some success. You saying Demo is loosely “glad viable” makes it seem like the spec is almost in a good spot. I think if Demo had really good numbers with its current design, it would be one of the most degenerate, disliked specs in the game. The fact that you can keep dealing most of your damage while in CC or while spamming Fear is a problem (Affl can do this too but at least you can cleanse DoTs. Also I’m pretty sure no one likes going against Affl locks). Being overwhelmed with NPCs is not fun to play against. I feel it needs significant changes to be in an objectively good position in PvP.
Also the reason Demons are DoTs in their current iteration is because there’s absolutely 0 meaningful interaction with them. One you summon them, that’s it outside of retargeting. They are essentially just glorified DoTs. At least in MoP/WoD Imps could give you MC procs which felt super meaningful when you got a big SF off. I mean that’s not much but it was better than what we have currently even though it was over 5 years ago. Dogs giving Demon bolt procs just feels like a crutch for the spec since we have 0 instant casts outside of it unless you talent for SS and they do about 0 damage outside of decimating bolt window which is again, gone after SL.
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I mean I am playing at 2600-2700 mmr 3s… most of those folks have a idea how it works and still die bc proper setup granted some comps feel hard but that can always be player error class error issues and less about Demo after 9.0.5. Mgodx played it at higher… Bewitch at higher… Sosseri at higher Kamahlen higher… I think that is where you are just a bit misinformed.
Now all of those experienced locks have said its viable… not optimal we crack jokes about our own spec and make comments about how we would love more but still agree that especially after 9.0.5 its viable… and still posts like these exist… so what you are saying is “you” don’t enjoy current demo and that is 100% ok. It still does not mean that the spec is not viable.
Just say what you really want to say “I don’t like demo” but if you are not succeeding with it in arena then its all on you outside the very very top of the ladder.
The issue is people go with the argument of “There is not a ton of high rated X” …never was… high rated demo is a pretty small community where most of us know each other but the specs never been super popular in arena compared to the other 2 and we have never really had a long period where we were Stronger.
Its ok to not like where the spec has gone etc. etc. but enjoyment and viability are 2 separate things.
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Ok sure. If you think it’s 100% viable then sure. Viability aside, what about every other claim I made in that post? I think a rework is very justified for Demo considering all of the deep-seated issues it has. Also of course I don’t like Demo in it’s current design? It’s worse at literally everything compared to pre-Legion. Significantly less mobility, 0 on demand burst, less burst in general, less control, less damage in your own hands, less reliable and consistent at setting up damage. I genuinely can’t think of a single thing that current Demo isn’t just inherently worse at, and most of it is by design and can’t be fixed with small changes. Not to mention its degenerate playstyle of overwhelming you with NPCs and still flooding you with damage even while in CC and while spamming Fear.
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If I’m a just a simple boomer who longs for the days of wod demo what class/spec do u recommend, father?
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The closest spec I’ve found to old Demo is Balance druid. Everyone says Spriest is the closest because of Voidform but that’s such a loose connection and they’re also a DoT spec. Balance has good upfront damage, mobility, on demand burst, reliability, CC, and tankiness. The only thing I’ve found that’s even close to mimicking old Demo. No specs have stance dancing or different functioning abilities during burst anymore so nothing can really be all that close.
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Yeah I felt that with old spriest but not so much anymore. Think I’ll just stick to demo until they buff the demonbolt spec. I absolutely loathe the tyrant
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I despise Tyrant. Just give us back Doomguard, make it strong, and remove the ramp required to “set it up”. Give Nether Portal that ramp functionality Tyrant currently has if that’s what some players want. Heavy reliance on ramp has absolutely no place in WoW in its current state.
Most of your claims were about disproving the viability by trying to use AI exploitation and pet manip as a reason its not.
Dogs give Dbolt procs… but so do your other demons… imps are a 5% chance on death I believe the more active you are the less actual shards you have to generate with sbolt.
You then spoke about Deci bolts and we won’t have that after SL etc etc… again we won’t know what the spec turns into after SL… could be same could be drastically different… kinda the path Demo locks walk.
I mean a rework? again? lol we change pretty substantially from xpac to xpac… this is the closest we have stayed in 2 xpacs hence why every new expansions we lose just as many demos as we gain outside a few hardcores and the bottom line is blizzard has no idea what they wanna do with demo. We could complain nonstop and get something far worse who knows.
If you like Fat demonbolts go Necrolord and play the demonbolt spec ive seen people pull some gnarley stuff with 31k+ dbolts. The setup blows a bit but the reward is pretty funny.
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Do u have to play Balespiders I’m assuming? I wonder if synergy would work
Bale gives you the largest bang with that spec for sure.
If you are going that route… go all in pimpin.
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Idk man if you don’t think those things are a problem then you must have never played any other spec. I don’t understand how someone who’s genuinely good at the game and understands the spec could argue that it’s fine and doesn’t have major flaws. Even still, if you think the current design philosophy and spec fantasy is good, you should still be fighting to make it as well designed as possible. (I genuinely don’t understand how anyone could like this current design better than MoP/WoD or anything else Demo could be designed around). If you care please read the post I made about Demo. Demonology Warlock (A thread for Issues, Fixes, and Future Reworks)
I talked all about the functional problems, design flaws, missed opportunities, and possible better reworks/designs. If you fundamentally disagree with me after reading through it then I’m not sure what else to really say.
Edit: Also I’d like to clarify I’m a fan of your content and I think it’s cool that you’re sticking to Demo and trying to make it work. I just can’t agree with the idea that the spec is well designed right now especially when you compare it to any of its previous iterations. I’d take Legion design over current in a heartbeat.
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Lol… you make sweeping generalizations all over the place. I know pet issues can be a problem… I am happy for the AI change… I know there are other issues. Multi glad as multiple specs over multiple xpacs.
Allow me to post a few observations.
- No one cares how long you have played demo or that it was your favorite puppy in the store etc if you don’t even post on your demo or warlock because it reeks of not having enough confidence for people to just not go “You don’t understand anything about the game”
- No one is saying that Demo’s current iteration is better then its predecessors. I loved MoP demo… Enjoyed WoD Legion was decent I actually enjoyed the end of BFA and Its not too bad currently… but do you notice… I said its not too bad… its not great and it could obviously use tweaks but thats kinda general opinion. I am talking playstyle not viability obv.
- Wanting it to “Return to what it was” could horribly backfire bc again its been drastically different over multiple xpacs.
- No one… is going insane over tyrant… the AI change helped a lot but no one is suuper excited about having a NPC be our burst.
- Last but not least… I never once said that current demo mechanically is fantastic or that It could not enjoy a tweak I said a mid xpac rework… is highly unlikely considering we are “Reworked” every xpac.
Glad you enjoy the content I just feel like you are not actually reading what I posted you were just trying to get me to look at your list of changes… and I thought I was making it work 
edit; cleaned it up a tad didn’t want to come across as aggressive.
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That’s fine man I respect your opinion and thank you for responding and being civil. I didn’t post on my lock because I haven’t touched arena with Demo since Legion and I quit him this xpack at level 52. I definitely still understand the spec. I follow all of the changes every expansion in hopes that it will be fun again one day and I read posts and discuss Demo a lot. Maybe it’s one of those things where it’s extremely obvious that it has flaws on paper, but in practice when you have partners to help you CC and setup they can be mostly negated. I still stand by my belief that Demo has fundamental design flaws that need to be addressed.
Also ya, I definitely don’t like the new design at all. I won’t beat around the bush. There is not a single thing I like better about the current design than literally any of its past post-BC designs including Legion. It’s definitely really frustrating that the reasons we got reworked in the first place are completely nonsensical. We had a strong toolkit that did its job extremely well and a completely unique playstyle and design philosophy. To just completely change that playstyle entirely right out from under us without offering a similar playstyle in any other spec just feels terrible.
Just keep doing what you do man and hopefully one day Demo will get the shadow priest treatment. I don’t think the current design could ever work without having a few major flaws but I’d at least like blizzard to try and prove me wrong instead of sitting in complete silence. We need dedicated class devs back. Having 2-3 devs who rotate between classes means we almost never get changes and when we do, they’re almost never enough. Class design is the most important aspect of the game.
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I think you are greatly doing yourself a disservice by only paper crafting it and not actually dipping your toes in.
Its hard to accurately gauge things from a paper perspective. In the worst case you could go “yep still not for me” but you might enjoy yourself.
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Hard is underselling imo. Next to impossible.
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