Demonology Feedback
New Talents
Personally, I feel that the new talents that were introduced in the most recent Alpha build are uninspiring. Too many talents in this tree are passive damage increases. If the talent’s primary verb in the talent description is “increases,” there is just nothing fun or inspiring about that. In this build there are currently 14 talents (list below) with a primary/only goal of increasing damage of an ability/existing talent or a secondary stat with no other real features or implications.
- Annhilan Training
- Fiendish Prowess
- Rune of Shadows (borderline)
- Shadowcaster
- Fel and Steel
- Malefic Impact
- Imp-erator
- Spiteful Reconstitution
- Improved Demonic Tactics
- Demonic Brutality
- Cavitation
- Antoran Armaments
- Mark of Shatug
- Ferocity of F’harg
I would imagine most people would like to see different features from these talents than generic stat or damage increases. We did this with Affliction in 10.1 I think, where we replaced talents with basic damage increases to Malefic Rapture and Seeds and Unstable Affliction. They become mandatory talents to take but also add nothing to the gameplay. It’s uninspiring. Talents should feel special. They should change gameplay to a degree or add class fantasy. A great example is Umbral Blaze. It gives Hand of Gul’dan a chance to burn the target. A cool feature that adds damage, not just a generic “Hand of Gul’dan damage is increased by 5%.” Demonic Calling is also an excellent example of what a talent should be. It actively improves the quality of life of the spec. Bottom line: I feel no excitement looking at these new talents.
Doom
The new iteration of Doom is a nice new direction. I am unsure about the cooldown though. It feels like it could be a clunky mess if the CD is not synced with the Demonic Core duration reduction. The current S3/S4 tier set seems like it could have worked better with Demonic Core consumptions applying the Doom Brand. Or perhaps Hand of Gul’dan could apply the Doom Brand. Spreading Doom Brands in S3/S4 is a nice “mini-game” in M+ and something else to do besides keep track of cool downs and imps.
Talent Points
When I look at Demonology’s tree, it can be overwhelming at times. There are so many talents and probably too many 2-point talents that just don’t feel like they should be 2-point talents. For example, Imp Gang Boss could easily be a 1-point node. Demonic Brutality should be a 1-point node. If we’re going in this direction with flat damage and stat increases as talent points, then they most certainly should not be a 2-point node. There is nothing exciting about spending limited talent points on these types of nodes. Furthermore, the pathing needs quite a bit of improvement. There are a few different builds that barely leave you 10 points for your capstones which makes you feel like the spec is missing something. What I could assume would be a primary AOE/M+ build barely leaves you with enough points to take Summon Demonic Tyrant. From what I can tell right now, we can’t get to Guillotine and Pact of Ered’ruin on the same build without sacrificing so much within the tree… which leads me to my next point.
Tyrant and Soulbound Tyrant
Tyrant is basically the identity of Demonology. Its feature, its goal, and even its aesthetic is what the spec is built around. When was the last time anyone played Demonology without taking Summon Demonic Tyrant? This talent should be so much higher in the tree (maybe where Doom is on Live). The capstones should therefore be reworked to enhance what Tyrant does or how it’s played. There is no world where someone plays Demonology and does not take Tyrant. Secondly, after playing two seasons of “Naked Tyrant” being BIS spec for both AOE and Single Target, I can confidently say that Soulbound Tyrant just feels so much better and is 100x more fun to play. Ramping and stacking imps to use Tyrant but then just left to build shards via Shadow Bolt feels so anticlimactic. There are times where I am so bored of it that I will take Soulbound Tyrant just to feel that feeling of “pumping.” If Soulbound Tyrant is going to be removed from the tree, then at a minimum it needs to be part of baseline Summon Demonic Tyrant as it was before Dragonflight.