Demo Locks Possible Rework Options

Classes Warlock
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I have some complaints and then below some possible solutions:

Demonic Calling and Master Summoner are stupid… they are absolutely required for demos to play smoothly in PvE and PvP, respectively and it’s not even to make us strong. It makes the pve rotation smooth by not having to cast everything we do and it is the only thing that makes us playable (not viable just playable) in PvP since we pretty much only have 2 closely related elements that we work with so getting spell locked is really easy and scary for us.

PvP specifically - Both Master Summoner and Call Felhunter are 100% needed unless you’re doing 2v2 arenas against melee/hunter dps only… literally the one situation you won’t run call felhunter is because there’s no one to interrupt which is so rare (even then you’d still want an interrupt for off heals like paladins or enhance shammys, cat druids yea you’ll be running this almost always)

You also need spell reflect for spell casters, death knights, demon hunters, shamans (those 3 classes so you can free cast for 3 whole seconds without getting interrupted)

You also need pretty much need succubus if you’re going demonbolt build for pvp (which you are unless you’re bad pet builds are so easily countered) since the dmg is so heavily nerfed in pvp you need every buff to demonbolt that you can get.

So that right there is 4 basically essentail pvp talents when you only have 3 to use. and then it gives us no room for the ‘flavor’ pvp talents that are available that actually makes us feel special as a demo lock in pvp.

Here’s my idea for helping demos out and i don’t believe it’ll make us super unbalanced and hell we haven’t been strong for the 4 years i’ve been playing demo exclusively so it’d be a nice twist to be strong without being bugged:

Remove Talents
Demonic Calling
Doom
Summon Vilefiend
Master Summoner (PvP)
Call Felhunter (PvP)

First… Doom was great when it was baseline not to mention it’s our only way of dealing with targets that aren’t clumped in a nice neat ball for us.

Replace that with Hand of Doom from legion so we have a talent option to multi-target dooms for dungeons rather than a talent that’s basically not ever going to be taken.

Next… Make dogs insta cast ffs. It’s obviously how we need to play and by just doing it then we wouldn’t have to worry about extra talents or proc’ing free casts. It’ll just be instacast and always cost 2 shards (which will improve the value of soul conduit slightly and greatly improve netherportal… the buff to demonic calling inherently nerfed netherportal as a free dog cast does nothing for that 3 min cd it just wastes time now with a global cast)

Demonic calling could actually keep the same name… but what about an option like hunters had in legion where you get a secondary pet? Like you can have the felguard as the guaranteed main pet and then run a weaker felhunter for interrupts/purges or a weaker succubus for PvP so you can take advantage of the shadow dmg buff, hell even the Imp would be nice then we’d have a reason to run singe magic pvp talent… crazy thought to have pvp talents that actually make sense to use. That’d be kinda neat and we’d feel more like a master summoner by being able to command more than a felguard (and you could have the succubus buff in pvp with soul strike to make your felguard stronger) and you wouldnt’ ahve to change demonic strength or soul strike for the people who’ve been complaining that it should go to other pets.

Summon vilefiend… i want it baseline because of PvP. It’s our only off element cast to bait the interrupts. However it’s still annoying to talent into a pet that you may not even be able to get off properly during your burst window… just to bait the interrupt so you can cast the rest of your moves with more freedom (ya know before the 30 seconds of stuns and incaps and other bs lol)

Giving us back Demonic Sac would be neat to fill this talent spot… i’d want it to sack the extra pet you’d summon with my suggested changed demonic calling perk so you still have a pet out for pvp tankiness and so you’re not removing demonic strength and soul strike as talent options

Call felhunter should just be baseline or removed completely if they give us demonic calling and demonic sac like i suggested above… absolutely no reason we should have to waste a PvP talent 99% of games just because we don’t have a good interrupt. Like seriously screw the axe toss being an interrupt for PvE but not PvP and just give us an interrupt. For aff and destro you can just run the fel hunter and still wreck demos dps in PvE why can’t we just have the interrupt?

One final issue for now… Corruption is terribad right now for demo lock. At least for destro in PvP you can use it as a bait cast for interrupts. But for demo if you get corruption interrupted it’s shadow so again we have the problem of no off element casting.

Simple fix in my opinion… either give us corruption rank 2 instacasts or give us seed of corrution so we can apply corruption in an aoe and at least then we’d use the ability.

Edit: There was another idea i had that i forgot to post the first time and it’s about Netherportal.

As a 3 min cd i feel it’s burst window should blow away the tyrant burst window…which between it’s buff and once Tyrant’s soul becomes a thing that should be the case. However i feel there should be bad luck protection for what demons come out of the portal so we get the prince more often… or just so that overall you get some more flavor then 5 demonic eyeballs shooting laser beams.

There are more issues that will come to pass throughout this expansion, like the night fae being considered the best because of the haste buff but only affliction will truly enjoy the covenant because of the aoe inevitable demise… whereas the other 2 specs don’t even use drain life lol

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There was a lot to pick apart here, but I think the easiest way to fix this is to just give us separate PvE and PvP talent trees. Like would PvP would get weird because both maybe would be active. I just think too many of there odd balance decisions lately are to fix arenas and the like, but it damages PvE and vice versa.

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Fair, and I had quite a few ideas for sure…but i feel the fix with the dogs and call fel hunter are a must in some way.

Like in PvE it’s been impossible to even look at the other options on the demonic calling talent line because it’s instacast dogs. the extra movement is crucial and, aside from maybe your first cast it’ll basically be proc’d anytime you use it. It was BiS when it only cost 1 shard now the proc makes it free so unless you’re a necrolord you won’t even look at either of the other 2 options unless maybe in battlegrounds (for the dooms).

Also, that would be way too much investment unless it’s an idea for future expansions. i was jus tlimiting the scope to demon locks not every class/spec in the game.

Making Doom baseline and adding hand of doom as a talent at least gives us another option for mythic dungeons or aoe fights in general then demonic calling even if they don’t get rid of that talent or change it.

The Demonic calling change paired with grimoire of sacrifice as i suggrdted i feel would make the class feel complete then you could just get rid of call fel hunter and master summoner for pvp and all would be swell.

Vilefiend being baseline may not be necessary but it still feels like a wasted talent it’s not that strong and they could slightly nerf the dmg if they made it baseline. Make the class the most enjoyable/viable it can be then tweak the numbers so it’s not overpowered.

Would a PvP talent tree be a cool idea sure but that would require some work.

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I did mean in the future a PvP tree would make there job balancing easier, I think anyway. Some of your suggestions make sense, but I feel that because things like instant dogs are a PvP talent so people can also take Doom it reinforces what I said about separate trees. I like the Doom baseline and Hand of Doom bring the talent choice as that would be an interesting option

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exactly… in pve there’s a talent that you almost 100% must take for instant cast dogs and in pvp there’s a talent that you 100% must take for instant cast dogs… and because of that especially in pvp it takes away from other pvp talents that are super enjoyable and unique to the spec but you never see them because if you don’t run insta dogs with call felhunter plus succubus or netherward you’re a feeder.

so just make dogs instacast and boom lol. ntm the problem it causes with netherportal is annoying as well running demonic calling… but not having instacast dogs is a dps loss so wtf :stuck_out_tongue:

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Also, a way to have another permanent pet out even with half damage would fix some utility and as the only “pet” spec without a talent for another permanent pet I feel like we got snuffed. Both BM hunter and Unholy DK get a perma pet talent so I feel it should at least be an option.

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yea and that would be far more enjoyable then the current demonic calling for instacast dogs.

There was another idea i had that i forgot to post the first time and it’s about netherportal.

as a 3 min cd i feel it’s burst window should blow away the tyrant burst window…which between it’s buff and once Tyrant’s soul becomes a thing that should be the case. However i feel there should be bad luck protection for what demons come out of the portal so we get the prince more often… or just so that overall you get some more flavor then 5 demonic eyeballs shooting laser beams.

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I also view master summoner and call fel hunter as mandatory. My third is observer, it makes the spec beat destros in most 1v1’s.

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Oh yea that’s good for countering magic users and demo dueling is usually pretty good but you can’t build for duels in actual pvp because of garbage master summoner and call fel hunter.

It could open up room for bane of fragility to stack with necrolord’s decimating bolt we may actually have kill potential :smiley:

It could also open room for singe magic with an imp if we could get an additional main pet.

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I think Warlocks need to be in line with other classes that use pets.

Playing my Hunter or Unholy dk my pet provides great utility and damage.

It’s also nice that for Hunter you cannot really go wrong with what main pet you pick. With unholy you get the only one pet but it has a leap, stun, transforming it does wonders and you have abilities which work with the pet.

Warlock doesn’t have that, it’s a mediocre perm pet that has to be felguard and mediocre temp summon spells. Not much feels like I’m enhancing my demons nor does it feel like my demons really enhance me like my DK or BM/SV hunter does.

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