ADDRESSING ISSUES
While I think most people can agree that Demonology in its current state is an extremely cool idea in a vacuum, it quite obviously has many glaring issues.
Summoning MASSIVE armies of imps, and other demons is a fun idea, but it doesn’t really work when you take different factors into consideration. There’s a reason why demo isn’t really ever played in PvP. It relies on the AI of countless minions to do your damage for you, and requires ridiculous uptime to be able to do reasonable amounts of damage. This obviously isn’t only a problem in PvP, and spreads to PvE encounters where even minimal movement is required.
Another issue with Demonology is the entire reason the spec was reworked in legion was because Demon Hunters were added to the game, and they had an ability with the same name. However, this issue could have easily been resolved by just renaming Metamorphosis to Demonic Infusion and making it empower both you and your demons rather than transforming you into one. As someone who mained Demo since I started playing in early Wrath, all the way up until Legion, this felt devastating.
Here is an idea that I’ve thought of that can potentially appeal to fans of both new and old Demo alike.
NEW DEMONOLOGY CONCEPT: CORE ABILITIES AND KIT
Soul Shards - Resource
Each soul shard contains 10 soul shard fragments, and you may have up to 5 Soul Shards. While out of combat, you lose 2 Soul Shard fragments a second.
Demonic Servitude - Passive
Allows you to summon a second demon in addition to your Felguard. The second demon will be instantly sacrificed, granting you their Command Demon ability.
Mastery: Master Demonologist
Increases the damage your demons deal by 15% and increases the critical strike chance of Shadow Bolt and Demon Fire by 10%.
Shadow Bolt - 2 Second Cast
Deals shadow damage. Generates 5 Soul Shard fragments.
Soul Strike - Instant Cast - 15 Second Cooldown
Command your Felguard to strike into the soul of its enemy, dealing shadow damage and causing your next Shadow Bolt to duplicate itself on the target.
Wild Imp - Passive
Every 20 seconds your next Shadow Bolt summons a Wild Imp. Wild Imps cast 6 Firebolts before departing into the Twisting Nether. Each Firebolt generates 2 Soul Shard fragments Only 1 Wild Imp can be active. Shadow Bolt critical strikes increase the amount of Firebolts they are able to cast before departing by 1, and Demon Bolt increases the amount by 2.
Demon Fire - 6 Second Cast
Deals heavy fire damage and increases you and your demons’ critical strike chance by 10% for 20 seconds. Always deals a critical strike. Damage further increased by your critical strike chance. Generates 5 Soul Shard fragments.
Shadowflame - Debuff
Deals shadow damage over time and generates 1 Soul Shard fragment each time it deals damage. Shadowflame causes your Shadow Bolt and Demon Fire spells to deal 25% of their damage to enemies near your target.
Molten Core - Passive
Reduces the cast time of Demon Fire by 10% stacks up to 5 times. Your Wild Imps’ Firebolts grant you 1 stack of Molten Core. Doom damage grants you 5 stacks of Molten Core and may cause it to stack up to 10 times. Casting Demon Fire consumes all stacks.
Hand of Gul’dan - 2 Second Cast - 10 Second Cooldown
Deals moderate shadow damage to enemies within 8 yards of your target and inflicts Shadowflame to targets hit for 18 seconds. Shadowflame deals shadow damage over time and causes your demons’ attacks to deal 20% extra damage to all targets afflicted with Shadowflame. Shadowflame damage generates 1 Soul Shard fragment, and Hand of Gul’dan generates 1 Soul Shard fragments per target hit.
Curse of Doom - Instant Cast
Deals very high shadow damage after 30 seconds. Can only be active on 1 target at a time. Curse of Doom damage generates 20 Soul Shard fragments and has a 5% chance to summon a Doomguard to fight for you for 25 seconds.
Demonic Infusion - Instant Cast
Empowers you and your demons with Demonic Vigor to increase the effect of mastery from all sources by 30% and increases your Wild Imp cap by 1 for 20 seconds. During this time Soul Shard generation is halted outside of Curse of Doom damage. When this effect ends you can reactivate this ability within 5 seconds to cause your Wild Imps to violently implode around your target and grant you 1% haste per Firebolt cast your Wild Imps had left for 10 seconds.
Costs 5 Soul Shards.
Summon Doomguard - 3 Minute Cooldown
Summons a Doomguard that hurls Doom Bolts at your target for 25 seconds.
CONCLUSION
These changes are meant to help Demonology by reducing their reliance on summoning massive hordes of demons for damage, and shifts more of the damage towards their Felguard, the new Wild Imp, and themselves with the new Demon Fire in hopes to increase their viability in PvP and maybe make the spec a bit less volatile to balance.
Obviously new talents could be introduced to make the spec behave a bit more similar to how it does currently on live for people who really enjoy the way the spec functions now.
I hope that this concept appeals to fans of both new and old Demonology Warlock, and I would be interested in hearing your opinions about an idea like this. I understand that at this point, Blizzard will most likely not be doing any more major class changes on the Alpha / Beta than have already been stated, but we can still hope for the future. Maybe if the community’s opinions are loud enough, some of our ideas can be integrated into the final design of Demonology for Shadowlands, whether they be my ideas or not, so speak up!