I love the way Demonology plays now. Why are they doing this? Who is asking for these changes? Why does the spec need to be slow paced? Why do we need to neuter instant casts? Why do we need to be less mobile? Who ever said we have too many major cooldowns? Why does it seem like they’re butchering the spec? Do they not want people to play Demonology anymore… again? All of this seems so insane to me. Demonology isn’t even overtuned in any regard. Why are these things regarded as problems when we’re middle of the pack at best? There is absolutely no way these proposed changes line up with actual player feedback.
9 Likes
“Everyone hated that”
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Someone at Blizz for some unknown reason seems to think having as many instant cast Demonbolts as we do is problematic. So for that reason they’re reducing them. Why do they think it’s problematic? Who knows.
This entire paragraph is mind boggling to me. Are Demo locks really too mobile? It sure doesn’t feel like it a lot of the time. We have 2 GCDs of Demonbolt instants before we need to stand still to cast HoG or we overcap shards, is that really a problem? And wanting Demonbolt to be “a moment” basically means “We want you turreting Shadowbolt” which is a sentence literally no one in the game would want to hear about their spec.
I don’t have Alpha so I can’t test the changes but on paper they sound really unfun. Demo might be tuned to be our best spec for most of an expansion again, but if that means turreting Shadowbolts for half of a fight, that sounds really awful.
9 Likes
And then after months of complaining, they’ll decide to do a rework of the spec, which will take another few months until it’s on PTR, and if it still sucks then they’ll ignore all feedback and push it regardless.
This needs to be stopped before it goes any further than it already has.
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Current Demo is great. I’m much happier doing damage all the time instead of just during nether portal / tyrant like it was in S2. There seems to be plenty of demonbolt procs in my experience.
If they nerf it more it’ll just make the spec feel bad. It should flow and be fun. Nobody wants to be a shadowbolt turret.
Back in SL Demo was a spec that had to string everything together in a big wave centered around our Tyrant every minute.
In S2 they pushed this to the extreme with a massive burst every 3 minutes with NP.
Then in S3 they gutted NP and Tyrant but we got Doom brand.
There needs to be some sort of middle ground. I miss my burst with Tyrant and think the fact that the “naked” Tyrant build being a thing is kinda sad. They just keep cutting off anything fun or interesting in our tree that that is deemed problematic by god-knows-what.
Imp Gang Boss? Too many implosions, take a nerf.
Blood bound imps? Removed but at least its coming back with Soul Harvester, so there’s that.
I dont see how demonic knowledge’s 10% proc chance was pushing the envelope, but at least we’re getting another generic passive damage node to compensate . . .
We have so many filler node it’s getting very obnoxious. Why can’t our S1 4pc be a talent? I’d love it for keys or high mobility fights. Whoever is in charge of these changes has so vision for the spec and keep slapping on duct tape after mucking around the tree.
Did Demo have problems? Maybe. We definitely had a ton of core procs, as much as I miss our 3rd dog, and the S2 playstyle was very much unhealthy. But replacing everything with boring % damage talents? It’s so lazy.
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What’s weird they put a talent to go into tyrant that doesn’t synergy at all for aoe.
Like idk but this dev really doesn’t check over their own work when they introduce new talents. Is going to the point that we might not even want to talent tyrant anymore.
Soul shards for one should already be built into the the tyrant CDs.
Someone tell this dev to chill with the damn boring passives. We now have two talents that increase hand of guldan damage like a damn copy paste almost right next to each other.
Shadows bite is pretty useless yet it still there, unvral braze no one takes anymore and imp gang boss was killed off by them for who knows what reasons. And I was right apparently this dev created this new thing with doom to be a competing CD against tyrant. 
Our dog dread bite ability ( dev renaming it for some weird reason) that we now have on 3rd row was made a 10th row ability and it requires two points waste into either umbral braze or the gimp imp gang boss.
Idk how someone says too many cores and then re adds bloodbound imps into the hero tree that directly affects demo, this specific talent generated cores procs and was removed for their reason that we’re are generating too many cores. Demonic knowledge was an awesome idea, that talent went from shadow lands from 15% to 30% due to not being powerful enough and then this team just went off to completely neutering it to 10%.
This dev is seemingly taking out almost all the talents that interact with our abilities and replacing them with more passives damage to pets / demo bolt or the weird fixation on casting shadow bolt.
Not even exciting looking or even lukewarm affect looking at the new demo tree just alot of meh or what is this mindset.
Just no idea what this person is doing. This should be exciting and the new talents should interact with our spec in some way not this junk of passives all over the tree.
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What’s strange is you’d think the dev would have a clue that we don’t want so many passives damage since the start of this rework back in season 1 I think.
But this person is tripling down on that idea and just going overboard with it. I don’t wanna feel like I’m playing BM.
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Unhealthy? Based on what?
What is “unhealthy” about generating a lot of demon cores, and having 3 dogs?
Ultimately the only thing that matters is that, that version of demo was far more fun to play than this one.
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They just keep taking and taking… But, we’ll evolve again, Goodbye My Love Netherportal, they may’ve not understood you. But, I always will, Like I understood Metamorphosis, and Decimating Bolt.
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Careful for being a pure dps class we already do room temperature dmg. They will make us even closer to bottum.
Side note be worse the wow devs in charge of warlock keep adding lame anoying reticle drop circles to lock and destro, destro already has like 4+ compared to demonology 1 so could be worse. They shouldn’t even be in game ruins flow and dps potential. Need to revert to just casting on target.
Lock is the hated step child of wow has been for a long time. Devs make casting a spell at a target more complicated, make rotations longer, make stat weights on weapons less effective compared to pther classes I.E upgrading a lock weapon does minimal dmg up compared to hunter, pally, druid, rogue etc. I.E equivalent gear locks to pther classes do less dmg on logs. Entire class needs a rework not just specs. Demo was great but a little long rotations, Destro was amazing till they made rotations longer, and the stupid drop circles “we arnt artillery” if we are up the dmg. Wile devs lack consieration of longer cast times on most boss fights drastically hurting dps wile they make most other dps insta cast or 1 secon casters. And this is just approaching War within with locks plummeting to bottum of wow logs, being a pure dps class makes no sense that all hybrids to better. Whens the last time we saw a lock exclusive legendary? Like the 2h axe.
I think war within it’s just going to get worse, more complicated, less fun, devs dont seam to listin to locks. And they dont follow logs or consider effort required to match same 3 button smash of some classes. We need some love to. Ditch drop circles even macroed, because you cant @target it simcrafts lower dps to other classes.
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This forum whines too much honestly
These changes are mostly fine. Doom has me raising an eyebrow tho
Sustained damage is king. Demos damage only went up after its mini rework. They said less peaks and valleys and they did it.
its “unhealthy” because it is hard to balance…
Well not hard, it is just that it would take actual effort.
Well effort, and a slightly more than passing knowledge of the background maths of warlock (which again takes effort).
That and it goes against the “design plan” of whoever drew the short straw and got forced to work on 'locks.
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can the warlock dev actually have a dialogue with us or interview to explain your vision, cuz from our perspective you’ve just fumbled in the dark for an entire expansion. You’ve made an entire class much less enjoyable and added very little.
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The only casters that are allowed to barely cast while being immortal and having unparalleled utility and mobility are mages.
Warlocks are stuck being aggravating turrets screwed over by every possible forced movement mechanic.
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It’s such a disaster.
I enjoy destro and demo so much less than compared to s1.
But demo is the worst offender.
The changes since aberrus are an ABOMINATION. It’s shameful what has been done to warlock.
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My biggest issues rn with demo is that we don’t really feel like a true summoner class anymore. The whole NP fantasy was amazing, summoning demons from a rift that created some insane visuals and the summoning of an army, which looked cool and had a major impact on our damage profile. Now it just feels like imp army (until I implode them to death in AoE), doggies, a larger clone of my current pet, and oh… hey tyrant… if you didn’t extend my fel guard, you probably wouldn’t even be here.
Not a fan of the new changes to the talent tree in alpha, too many passive nodes, too many 2 point nodes, and not enough impactful choices. It feels uninspired and slow. Please buff tyrant or make it more relevant. Make our capstone choices more impactful, useful and most importantly, make them accessible. RoT feels useless, GWD feels useless, and that shouldn’t be the case, and unfortunately naked Tyrant build has been meta since S3 started, which is too long to go with a single capstone, in my opinion.
Blizz should take inspiration from the Aff changes so far, which look promising, and give demo a tree overhaul that moreso fits the class fantasy and also allows more accessibility and variety in gameplay without making the player feel forced down specific paths.
For longer term changes, and just thinking about the direction of the spec in years to come - I would love if they leaned into the demon summoner fantasy more and also took inspiration from the shadow priest tree, which imo has one of the coolest deigns out there. Much like the old god capstones they have, give us capstones that derive from each of the major demon families. Give us one for Antoran Fel Guards, one for Hounds, one for Imps and maybe a fourth for inquisitors or pit lords. How sick would it be if we could summon an inquisitor or jailer to buff our imps or spell casting, or somehow summon a pit lord on the field (not just sitting there channeling a spell like Diabolist). Just some ideas for the long term/future.
4 Likes
Please just nerf us. I would be fine being the worst performing spec if I can keep the best gameplay. I’ve only played demo for a decade (starting in Warlords, right before they told us not to play demo.) It was clunky with Demonic Empowerment in Legion, so I played a lot of affliction, but since then, it’s been wonderful.
The effect (looking up the name now) that grants 2 charges of demonic core when the dogs expire gives the rotation so much natural flow, and power siphon allows for high skill expression in carrying procs during downtime.
I played every spec in the game during legion, I’ve played most of them since then, and I spent a year trying every job in Final Fantasy XIV. Demonology is my favorite damage spec to play by a significant margin. I can play it for a long time without getting either bored or tired. And the visuals of the imp firing line are top-tier.
As for nether portal: do all talents have to be balanced? I started using nether portal for outdoor content (faction assaults especially) in BFA. Finishing an encounter and watching my huge, diverse demon army all fall in behind me was fantastic. It’s hard to play optimally, but even sub-optimally it’s a huge amount of fun. Maybe if it’s gone, we could get a glpyh or something to turn imps into random demons with the same power?
To sum: the spec is super fun to play. Tune it. Nerf it if you have to, but the pace and rhythm of the play are a big draw for me and some of my friends.
P.S. If you ruin Demo I’ll create AIthereum.
2 Likes
Agree on most points and your taste but they’re not even coming at it from a “this needs to be nerfed” perspective. Demo wasn’t particularly overrepresented on any Mythic logs outside of the last two bosses if I recall. They just seem to really hate what they or some former dev made with demo and now it MUST be badly changed, one misstep at a time. Only demo’s mplus gameplay (arguably obviously) improved with 10.2, the single target rotation is absolutely shameful, naked tyrant is a joke, it’s just another stand and spam class in single target and outside of the few implosion windows if any on most primarily ST fights. Great.
1 Like