As it stands, Demonology Warlocks face several challenges in PvP that hinder the spec’s fluidity and effectiveness. We no longer have the instant-cast Dreadstalkers that the talent once provided, and the instant-cast Tyrant, which could provide a much-needed burst, is also unavailable—despite Affliction and Destruction Warlocks enjoying instant-cast capstone demon summons. To make matters worse, the removal of the Fel Obelisk PvP talent further limits our toolkit.
Demonology is currently one of the most stationary casters in the game, and we’re punished far too harshly by interrupts, stuns, and crowd control. When we’re under these effects, our demon timers continue to tick down, forcing us to scramble to get a Tyrant out to maximize damage. This constant juggling of cooldowns and timers, all while being locked down, makes the spec feel clunky and punishing.
To address this, I believe the Master Summoner PvP talent should be buffed to improve the spec’s fluidity. A cast time reduction of 25-40% (up from the current 15%) would make a significant difference and allow for smoother gameplay without compromising balance. This change would help restore some of the pacing and enjoyment that Demonology players are currently missing.
There’s literally no reason in the current meta why Dreadstalkers, Tyrant, and Vilefiend shouldn’t all be instant cast. They’re minions, so they already have a downside of needing line-of-sight and to be within range of their targets to do damage effectively. Plus they already have a cooldown AND cost soul shards. Target swapping is also a pain with how slowly the lesser demon’s move and the way pet targeting works.
It’s a lot of casting, which can be easily disrupted by anyone who understands how demonology burst works. To compensate, they could reduce lesser demon’s damage slightly, and buff Hand of Guldan’s upfront damage so that our damage profile still requires casting to get maximal damage. Hang of Guldan is just not a very scary spell to enemies, and it’s shadowflame, so it’s especially punishing if you get kicked.
I just don’t like having so many prerequisites to do damage while most other classes just dump out burst.
I miss early-Legion demo. It was mostly based on summoning and then empowering + extending your existing demons with other active abilities. Now, our only real active ability that empowers demons is Demonic Tyrant, which just feels boring.
I totally agree, it’s way too many casts / prerequisites just to get off our burst. It also doesn’t help that every spell we cast is shadow now (when did vilefiend change from fire to shadow??); so kicking anything we do is a good option.
Returning to the game I lost the interest in playing Demo for PVP at all after Dreadstalkers couldn’t be insta cast anymore. Having that gated behind a proc is simply awful.
I wonder if the developer who designed this actually tested the spec in PVP and said to themselves “Yeah… That sounds just right!”.