I like destro so i’m ok playing lock, but demo feels so azz to play. I feel like I am just spamming casts, casts, casts, casts stand still, casts and the dps isn’t even impressive? it’s pretty garbo.
Would like to see the hound be an instant cast, as well as the pups, there is just way too much crud to cast with it. Instead of having fun summon demons, I feel like I am summing multiple and multiple cast bars to do - dmg.
I love Demo have since start of Dragonflight expansion. I only do BG’s though, don’t do any PvE but my damage is fine and I just find the spec fun. I played Affliction for a while this expansion but found it boring, and Destro has always been a snooze fest for me so Demo it is
Demo is my favorite spec for sure. I do agree that we cast too much, but I think the trade off is supposed to be how our minions are like pseudo dots. We have to cast an avoid mechanics, but the minions are mostly free to continue damage. Tyrant should 100% be instant cast though. Nothing feels worse than timing your vilefiend/dogs with 15 imps perfectly just to have to move before your tyrant cast finishes to avoid dying, losing your vilefiend and multiple imps. Throws the entire burst window and pretty substantially drops your damage. Instant cast tyrant would solve this pain point immensely.
Thematically it’s one of my favorite specs. It just looks and plays super neat to me. There’s something very appealing mechanically to me about having to pay extra attention to your positioning or future positioning in combination with the pet/buff management. Like if I know the group is going to move forward shortly then I’ll want to react appropriately by getting my vilefiend out early and make sure I have extra imps for power siphon to be able to get those insta demonbolt procs so I can maintain some level of DPS during movement. My only real gripe about it right now is that I wish the charhound you summon didn’t just sit there for a second like an idiot. I wish it acted more like the dreadstalkers and that it leaped forward - or better yet, flew to the mobs. And of course I wish that tyrant was an instant cast.
1000%. Big CD’s with cast times (think it’s actually just demo lock and spriest that have this) are so insanely archaic.
Conceptually - yes. Output in Mythic+ and hard cast times on Tryant? Absolutely not.
Last I checked doom is still bugged and people are just seemingly accepting it?
So for now Demo is completely off my radar.
Remember nether portal? I think it had like a 1.5 or 2 sec cast time on a 3 min CD. It felt awful to run with. I hope it never returns.
Yeah it’s unacceptable.
There’s not a single 1+ minute CD that warrants a cast time in a PvE environment.
Thematically, yes.
Mechanically, no.
To further clarify, this has nothing to do with numbers, the spec has several rng damage increasing mechanics rather than flat increases, this creates a lot of peaks and valleys & situations where you’re hoping you get lucky.
I don’t really like gambling to be fair.
Additionally, the excess cast times forced into every aspect of the spec is extremely punishing in most aspects of the game.
It is a slow moving ramp up spec and one would assume that alone would place it as the highest numerical throughput in the game but that’s not really the case either.
It’s like having your feet stuck in cement trying to fill an empty pool with water using only palmfuls.
This really is the problem with it.
It doesn’t even out damage many specs when finally ramping to 15 imps>big tyrant>Diabolists demons/doom stats proccing. Which if you’re ramping that much for that long, you’d certainly expect them to be “amongst if not the top damage dealer” during that window.
I actually really like the way all 3 specs play - each have their own strengths and weaknesses.
The tuning needs some work though. I always wonder how a class with 3 DPS specs can wind up with all 3 in the bottom half… and it happens so freaking often.
I find I’m liking Demo more than I thought. Caveat: I’m a casual scrub as I don’t have the time to play any ‘competitive’ stuff like M+ or raiding (job-life balance over the years etc). So I’ve been doing solo (delve) and world content only.
Demo has the most versatile kit for this type of play. I do feel very haste starved but that is just gearing available at the moment. Think 25% haste is the sweet spot for the rotation to smooth out.
Affliction is still my fav but I do wish for the other things echoed in other posts: A baseline interrupt and a voidwalker that can actually tank. The later is the one I just don’t understand why its not addressed. Not asking for more damage from the big blue sponge. Just more threat generation so it can hold mobs.
I really love Demo, the entire play style is fun for me. But I think it needs a little tuning dps wise at the moment in both raids and M+. Yes the Hounds are lazy and takes 2-3 seconds to jump on boss and sometimes when a mob dies they dont switch fast enough to the next one you are doing dps to. A few things like this blizz needs to fine tune still. But still out of the 3 I enjoy playing Demo the most.
11 years of Demo Here. Blizz has stomped on me, kicked me, thrown up on me, and thrown me down several flights of stairs.
But, there’re moments, where this “azz to play” specialization will make an entire raid group cry. My highest point was in BFA, Nya’lotha, no one, not a single person could top my damage.
Now I’m at the mercy of a Ret Paladin, but I’m okay with that.
I do love demo, because summoning demons looks cool, and the mogs are nice.
But even with demonic gates and such, the mobility is a bummer. Pretty much all our DPS depends on lining up our intial rotation successfully, (good number of imps, charhound and dreadstalker out) before casting tyrant and if you have to move for mechanics you are pretty much screwed the rest of the fight.
They really need to make tyrant instant cast, shorten the summon window on charhound, and that would help. Or perhaps spawn more imps. I shouldn’t need a minimum of 3 casts of Hand of Guldan to get a decent amount.
Demonology Warlock has been my main almost since the start, and I like my demonic army too much to change.
As for mobility, our shard generation was nerfed because the other Warlocks complained we were too mobile, go figure!
Love demo.
Soul harvester fantasy has me hooked, and diabolist is fun as hell minus the bugs in certain dungeons.
I can only speak personally, but the dps seems pretty good, hardly garbo unless you’re in lower keys where stuff is getting deleted faster than you can ramp.
Looking forward to these small buffs.