Is demo viable in pve?

Classes Warlock
1

Hey. Just a quick question 'cus I’m unable to find any -updated- information on this.

Afflock is fairly boring for me and I’ve found myself losing interest in it before the raid even opens - in BFA I was a pure destro lock and demo before that. I probably like demo the most, and I was lucky enough to get the BIS conduits and legendary powers (I believe the affliction ones are all from the raid, so gg there).

Something about spending 10 GCDs to be able to do damage is just awful after playing destro for so long, and I know demo has ramp up time but at least it’s more interesting to play.

I’m sure no-one knows for sure what the best spec is gonna be, but is it close? I mean, am I gonna be gimping my raid by playing demonology instead of affliction, or is it just a slightly worse option?

Any tips would be appreciated here. I’ll stay with affliction if it really is the best option but I’d love for something else to keep me interested. I can’t bear going back to destruction after losing all that haste.

2

Absolutely, I love playing Demo, especially in PVE. Demo has both good AoE and single target.

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3

Demo has had a stigma around it for a long time, I very often top dps with my mythic group of a ret paladin and arms warrior on single target bosses. The spec is perfectly viable. It’s also pretty good in pvp all things considered

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4

I don’t feel all that competitive with the UH DK I run with, he destroys me in 90% of dps situations.

Though most other dps I at least feel competitive in both aoe and single target. More single target than the aoe though.

5

feels the best to play in mythics atm for me.

6

Demo feels great in pve.

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7

UH DK is not something you will ever be competitive, because right now Army of the Dead (our 6 min cd) is ridiculously broken for initial burst.

Every dungeon I’ve run as UH I’m bursting for 7k with AoTD and stabilizing at 4-5k DPS on a boss burn, far more than what other classes except MM hunter or a lucky frost mage can do.

I hope they understand that Army of the Dead is what’s pushing UH over and not the rest of the kit, so they nerf that and leave the reest of UH alone as when you don’t use that 6 min cd, your damage is on par or less than a frost mage and definitely less than a MM hunter while being an immobile melee spec.

8

Demo is great when you have a tank and healer to protect you AND you can free cast without having to move too much.

What does all that mean? Good in M+. Not so good in higher level Torghast solo. Definitely not so good in PvP.

10

Demo is good place right now. It is not commonly played like Aff or Destro because of two reasons… First, it’s not the meta, and second, it has a higher skill ceiling that Aff and roll your face across the keyboard Destro. It is also worth noting that due to the beta rankings Warlock is among the FOTM, so you should expect to see mostly Destro and Aff in groups.

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11

Demo Main here,

PvE definitely viable, solo play our Felguard is walking tissue paper even running the Fel Commando potency, reduces damage received by 10%, you’ll be re summoning him a lot.

But I hope he gets some sort of defence buff soon. Demo still nudes to be tuned a little to compete with Afflic and Destro, but we arnt so far behind that it’s a major problem, we will see when raid tuning hits in 2 weeks.

PvP all Warlock specs literally melt within seconds, I don’t know if we been stealth nerfed but our survivability is non existent… especially if someone gets ontop of you, one stun is a death sentence. Let alone Dark Soul is now able to be stolen by Mages if you go Afflic or Destro.

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12

it wasnt always like this right? I’ve been away from the game a while, but i swear there was a time when warlocks were a nightmare to see in a bg

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13

I’m telling you, we both stealth nerfed, I’m running demon armour as Destro and Afflic, I melt in 3 seconds to melee, Demonology 20% of my damage goes to Felguard with soul link, that’s if he’s alive, walking wet tissue paper, melt just as quickly.

Playing with WM ON, literally has zero benefits haha, Alliance get the jump on you, it’s time to run back to your corpse.

Felguard my love, needs more survability, I tested VW and Felguard in Revendreth pulled the exact same 2 mobs, the Void Walker survived way longer then the Felguard, and that’s with the Fel Commando potency making him receive 10% less damage.

14

For raiding…No. Demo is under tune atm.

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15

The class is just trash compared to other classes. It only seems to not be trash when borrowed power systems push it out of C tier into S tier in one release. Take corruptions for instance. The ability to hit haste cap was what made destro amazing. The toolkit still sucked it was just the capacity to chaos bolt someone to death before they could react.

Now that the corruptions are gone the haste cap is gone and BOOM like that Warlocks are back in 2018 sucking hard in a lot of ways.

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16

No. Demo is the worst ranged dps spec in game. No idea why people still defend it. Don’t listen to anyone that doesn’t post on a lvl 60 warlock currently in Demo spec with at least one Mythic gear on. They’re trolling. I’ve called people out before but starting to get boring so I stopped. If they say that demo is the best then why aren’t they playing it. Don’t trust anyone, try it yourself. I can’t wait for Mythic+ to come out to show that it’ll be the least played spec again for the 3rd expansion in a row.

4 Likes
17

No one has said it’s the best, they’ve said it’s viable in PvE content, PvP not so much, Felguard definitely needs a buff in survivability and definitely needs to tuned a little higher, but I’m hoping that comes after the heroic raid nerfs and buffs come before mythic as every expansion.

Granted Destro and Afflic are in a better position, but that doesn’t mean at all Demo isn’t viable in Dungeons (Personally I think we are decent), Torghast I’ve completed layer 3 solo as early as ilvl 143, now a lot easier due to being more geared (although I think I got lucky with anima powers), and solo content WQs and Maw.

I did Raid testing on Beta as Demonology, which is how we went live, yes, Demo was behind a lot of dps, within Warlocks we were last, Destro and Afflic definitely pulled ahead, but definitely not the worse, poor Feral Druids…

I’ve actually left a lot of feedback through the Months about Demonology on the Beta feedback which I’m sure everyone is able to read, and still currently posting there to give feedback.

In short, we are viable currently, are we the worst, no… do we need an overall buff, yes we do, Felguard definitely does and Demonology overall could receive a 5%-10% increase all round damage buff, is Destro and Afflic currently better, yes they are.

But to tell someone not to play Demonology is wrong.

Warlock (Demonology) main, been playing Warlock since November 2004.

18

Demonology was actually quite strong in Mythic+ last season. It’s looking like it’ll have another good season too.

19

In this post I’ve seen a couple of people say it’s the best, great, or in a good position. Straight up it’s the bottom dps for everything. It has been since the changes in Legion, not including when it was broken in BFA but people still played Destro more. Every spec in the game can do torgast layer 3 including survival hunter. They need to redo the whole spec. The wild imps are the biggest issue of the spec. Remove them and it’ll help the class scale better causing Bliz to balance it better. Quality over Quantity. I believe we’ve discussed this before. I change my transmog a lot, void elf ftw.

I started playing Warlock in the beginning of MoP cause I heard how fun it was in Cata. Demo instantly became my favorite. I quit lock for a bit cause of different reasons. Now that I’m back, I’m as disappointed as I was when they first did the legion changes. I keep trying Demo but it’s a dead spec where you’re a baby sitter for kids that may or may not do stuff. Did y’all ever recommend a command demon ability to force all demons to focus fire? I haven’t seen anything like that yet cause they don’t swap targets with the caster. I can think of 3 Mythic bosses off the top of my head where that’s needed. Waiting for people to get kicked from a mythic when they show up as Demo. Not because it’s not meta but because it’s the worst. I can’t think of the last time I ran a dungeon or raid with a Demo lock.

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20

Looking through Mythic IO at the top keys done for BFA season 4. Affliction had 5-7 higher keys done than Demo and Destro had 3-4 higher keys done than Demo. You can literally do a 20 on any class if you try hard enough. I know that’s the extreme but it’s like that every season. It’s also one of the least played specs. I played a different class in BFA and I did 10-14 like most of the non-hardcore people. Killed Heroic N’Zoth in the last few months as a fill for dps/healer/tank. I didn’t play with one demo lock even in LFR. It was mainly Destro. I even asked random locks and got a bunch of answers to why they didn’t play them. I truthfully can see people not playing with a Demolock for progression in the beginning because they’re not as people are claiming they are.

21

Anecdotal evidence isn’t very reliable. In general, people tend to gravitate to what everyone says is best. There are definitely fights in Castle Nathria that one could argue Demonology will do quite well in; however, time will tell. I’m looking forward to continuing to push high keys and mythic progression as a Demonology Warlock.

1 Like