Is Demo Lock that bad?

hello and well met friends, I have been leveling and gearing my lock lately, I am getting close to being able to jump into M+ abd I have been dabbling in both demonology and affliction, I know affliction is the meta spec for locks atm but i REALLY enjoy the play style of demo a lot , however, I am coming over from a beast mastery hunter which is far and away the worst class for M+ in the game at the moment and I really dont want to go from one lemon that never gets invited to M+ to another.

so my question is simple, is demo really that bad? should I learn aff a bit more and roll with that? like i said i absolutely love the playstyle and visuals of demo but i dont wana go from bm hunter to bm hunter 2.0

tia for any guidance tips or help!

Do you really want to do M+, because there are other contents…
But if you want to be sure to be invited and not forming your own group, i suppose you have no choice. Affli is best followed by destro.
My lock is demo but i dont do M+
Delves are fun with Demo

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I thought I was a Demo main, I love the spec. But sadly Demo doesn’t perform as well as other specs or classes in both M+ and Raids at the moment.

You are better off learning Destro as it is consistently performing well (somewhat) in all content. But as it is, expect to see more under geared classes like Ret Pallies and Shammies to out DPS you in most fights.

Then stay demo. Play what you like because you’ll often be better at it.

Demo is more than fine, I’ve been doing pretty well with soul harvester demo, love the fantasy, pulling some pretty good numbers too.

The gap between a B tier and A tier spec this season really isn’t bad enough to pile into a meta spec unless you’re pushing CE content

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OR Pvp. It doesn’t do anything well. You know a spec is in a bad spot when they’re barely infront of aug evoker.

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Do you guys use Implosion?

I mean, I want to do AoE damage…soooo, yeah?

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I’m lvling a demo, wanted to know. On cool down or when we get a bunch?

Use implosion when you have 6+ imps, once you get used to the flow of demo you can usually get implosions with 10-16 imps pretty regularly

Cool, and defensives, besides port we only got resolve?

I wish implosion could deal slightly more damage on ST just for the on demand burst.

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10-16…i get around 25 imps

I mean it was just a generic example and yeah I get 20+ imps all the time but… cool, thanks I guess?

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You can spec into pact for a shield as well as having resolve

When my Wrathguard is the center of attention for mobs, yes, I use Implosion along with Bilescourge Bombers. Generally works well, at least in Delves.

I feel like I should preface my thoughts with the simple acknowledgement that Demonology AoE is no were near as dog crap as BM’s AoE. Demo’s issue is that their AoE takes a bit to ramp up, and then proves to be fairly strong. In low keys where mobs are going to die faster, Demo doesn’t have the ability to perform their ramp into AoE and classes that do better burst AoE with little to no ramp are going to perform better.

Plenty of folks also hate Demo’s renewed focus on casting Shadowbolt. I personally enjoy the play style because now I’m having to consider my usage of Demonic Core more carefully, as that’s going to be my primary way of dealing damage while I have to reposition. Other folks don’t like casting Shadowbolt, instead preferring the Shadowlands/Dragonflight era where you’d only cast Shadowbolt once in a blue moon. As a result, Demo further has this idea that the spec just isn’t very good.

Only resolve? Lol

Soul link
Dark pact
Teleport
Gateway
Healthstones
Fear
Mortal coil
Banish

Plus more

It because shadowbolt has 0 interaction, it’s a filler spell that you now have to cast to get some soul shards. If it did something else like maybe a debuff, haste increase for demons, idk something that didn’t have to be a 4 piece tier set (baseline to shadowbolt for demo) it might of been less disliked.

No caster wants to be force to cast a filler that does nothing but build up 1 resource. And its a bad looking spell visually which just adds on to the dislike of the spell. Maybe if it didn’t look like sparkle dust flowing in the wind with that weird curve it does maybe … A big maybe.

Fillers that don’t do anything additionally to enhance the spec are generally disliked across almost all players, especially when it’s forced on players through the reduced fluidity of your rotations by gated cores.

And personally it’s getting frustrating when all they know to do for running is here some more pet damage or demonbolt damage.

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And yet every other caster has at least one spell that does nothing but be a filler. Why on earth should Demo be special? I don’t get it. The only conclusion I can come up with is that folks got spoiled by Demo being the only caster who previously rarely had to cast their filler spell, and now that Blizzard wants Demo to behave a little more like other casters it’s the end of the world.

That being said, I can see Blizzard making the 4p into a talent at the start of Season 2, if only to appease the crowd that doesn’t want to be pressing a filler like every other caster has to.

Idealism is rarely applicable when functionality is impaired by design.

Idealism, functionality and design are interchangeable in that sentence and it would still be correct.

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