State of demonology

I agree on most of not all your points I’m willing to sacrifice my stun for a 40 sec CD single target interrupt.

The double demon sadly seems unlikely since demonology pumps as much damage as a fire mage. < This bro is a complete idiot and have no idea how things are.

No I’m not: https://youtu.be/FD093KyV2Ps

Yeah our class is complicated but didn’t we knew this from the beginning?

I mean handling casting, instants, pets, soulshards, portals, non flash of light/shaman/druid/monk quick cast heals in fps specs, have the responsibility to battle Rez since dks can’t lose a single runic power.

I mean man warlocks aren’t supposed to be noobfriendly and I’m not calling anyone here noob or anything on the contrary I love you all people that have you know the feeling the personal like of controlling a “bad guy” honestly warlocks are not meant to be on the good guys teams but w.e man.

We play a hard class with alot of potential and in bfa it’s still super strong and scales really well and I’m sure in shadowlands we can raid in pretty much any spec and perform great so long we have the skill required to play such complicated class, as a bonus we have another 2 dps specs if comes to worse.

And there is a small ray of hope for us: game changing mechanics and legendarys

Perhaps the new game will have the need of a ranged player more often like wod days(don’t hate me please) but in wod we needed people to deal with brakenspore flamethrower mechanic, we needed people to deal with turrets in iron maiden encounter, we needed ranged players to fight blackhand and archimonde and in some dungeons ranged had a great role to play such everbloom and shadowmoon graveyard as they could deal alot of free dps during rune phases on first boss or deal damage to the giant wyrm while “,getting stuck” on the bones.

This might not help not having an interrupt but this game design made sure you had at least a couple of ranged players on your group and a battle Rez and warlock candy for many(including myself when I play pally on any of my specs) it’s a “we need this dude”.

Ok yeah but he can’t int? So no

Ok you are right he can’t int and we are MLG players brez it’s useless if we don’t die and our healer heals 1000000m so we don’t need warlock candy, but in a party with mvpncomp people still forget to interrupt so forgoing lock int for ranged power and on demand burst aoe and sustained scaling damage most of the time is a more desirable feat to bring to the team, they also have potentially 2 instant hard cc (talent fear that heals forgot his name) and felguard stun they also have aoe cast stun, yeah it reduces the lock dps but it’s there for those bold enough to sacrifice their dps for the group success and experienced tanks notice this things and re-invite or even add to bnet.

I say we could use a buff friends but if we don’t get any changes on interrupts I can live with that and curses can be a thing if certain encounters allow them to function or certain trash packs.

I’m specially exited for curse of tongues this can make essential y our “pre interrupt” like before the cast even happen this npc will take ages to cast and when he is about to cast the deadly spell anyone can Interrupt it or he would be dead, another possibility is just tongue focus it with our exelent implotion/hand of guldan cleave and when he is cursed and about to cast stun with a decent group can be done without our stun being used.

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Firstly fire mage destroys warlocks in every aspect and in all specs, the utility and mobility and quick short burst windows on a fire mage is insane, and when combust is up forget about it.

Demonology problem is that our major cooldown is attached to crap pet AI, it can’t change targets on the fly, so if a priority target spawns like a lot of fights in Mythic Nylotha where adds need to die and fast…your useless if it’s already out, we have no control… and that’s the problem, that’s what sets us from every other spec, we are attached to this horrible ai… hunters can even change targets in a instance.

Tiqqle a content creator and mains warlocks as an alt, suggested why not just make us the tyrant? Why can’t we decide who he attacks, we need more control.

Warlocks have never been in a bad spot dps wise, no one is really arguing that, regardless we will always have a spec that’s somewhat viable, like Destruction as boring and mind numbing the spec is, it does pretty decent. Although I’d argue in High Keys warlocks are trash for the general public.

But I think that’s why people and even myself loved the MoP iteration of Warlocks, especially Demo because we had the control, we could swap in a instant on who we need to dps down and fast, which hasn’t been like that all through legion and BFA.

Even curses are super niche, even in alpha most warlock users say it’s not worth it having it on the GCD, Corruption utterly useless outside of affliction.

Problem is Azerite traits and essences is what helps the spec flow and feel good, god I tried demo without using Baleful and implosion and no vision of perf, let’s just say I’d rather shoot myself then go through that again.

So far literally the only thing good for shadowlands is that we get demonic circle baseline… literally that’s it.

Another thing you mentioned is that our class isn’t easy, so why do we suffer when other classes have easier rotations and literally outperform us when we have to work even harder to be mediocre at best… that’s called bad class design… we shouldn’t be penalised while other classes get free rides.

You keep saying about old dungeons and raids… WoW is going from that direction, WoW is more about mobility, utility and short pocket bursts now and from the looks at shadowlands they continuing that trend.

Our problem now is, why bring a warlock when most classes do what we do better. Even my guild we currently prog in Mythic Nylotha, most have gone Demonhunters, Firemages because life is easier and consistently do better with us as we rely heavily on rng procs on Visions of perfection to do decently. I’m one of two locks left, if the other guy goes on his lock…

I think with Shadowlands, and removal of our traits and essences which we heavily reliant on for our dps, Demo should get 2 Felguards to compensate.

Pepino - Barthilas ilvl 478 PvE, 477 PvP is my Lock.

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Bro i said maybe they going that direction maybe not for dungeons.

Supposing they somehow make again the full melle meta locks will do the same as always there has not been an expansion where a particular melle outperformed or performed similar as warlock with alot less effort we are the hard class.

As for the short burst and rng most if not all meta locks including me use worldvein resonance which is not rng based and vision for minor if you think I’m lying check Warcraft logs myth dificulty locks in all encounters.

You can control when and where you spawn ur fragments and this essence it’s “bis” for many specs on secondary and in some on main.

For secondary only if 3+ people bring it which with you it’s now 1 less person on that requirement list, this essence supply’s conflict and strife for those unable to pvp (for any reason which is common in pve guilds)

Vision of perfection is used for the CD reduction.

This might change your perspective on locks and the vid I posted it’s just and example many locks outperform others in demo with those essences as the meta requires burst as you said having a 1 min CD on demon command spin 400% damage 1 min on worldvein resonance which is one of the few essences OFF the global cooldown which allows a suit cast for tyrant.

Now for another point we are not punished as much as other rng classes and we don’t deal with downtimes we can do utility which can’t be replaced such healthatones and portals, the brez is valuable but can be don’t with a dk or druid.

And guilda always need a more range since all plays melle.

As for the class itself you can switch demons in a second by binding “attack command” on a key it will force ur felguard and all ur demons switch faster than any cast in the game, you can also use a demon bolt proc, soul cleave, summon felhunters proc, hog if overcapping shards, implotion if imps about to expire so yeah switching is not hard at all.

For the tyrant thing bro I miss the meta of demonoly which made 1 of your spells a spam instant autofest but was tied to a “purple fury demon bar” so maybe transforming or giving us some sort of avatar/wings is not bad but kinda ruins class fantasy(or not?) For not having a bunch of demons but performance wise yeah the ai sometimes it’s stupid and gotta turn off/on passive mode to make guard teleport to me if he goes missing and I can’t soul leave my target(does not happen me often)

At the very least couldn’t they just make mortal coil work as interrupt if the mob is fear resistant?

I like that idea but why not make that true for the felguard’s “axe toss” for mobs immune to stun effects. Specifically if they are going to continue to require us to use that specific demon for everything really.

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not baseline, also we still don’t know if they actually intend on keeping Tongue Tied as a PVE Talent rather than move it to PVP and replace it with something else (eg azerite trait)

I summarized it in the Compilation thread as:

but its hard to determine which is the majority preference for the community or which is better from a design standpoint

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The problem is the interrupt even a minute CD I terrupt would be better than no interrupt at this point

Among all the things we need fixed (mobility, interrupts, flow of class), they are trying to increase summon time of pets to 6 sec which is completely insane. It affects all areas of gameplay (swap pet on the fly in combat, resummon a killed pet because my specialized pet is less tanky than a generic hunter pet?) but didnt blizzard state that our pets are supposed to be disposable? Isnt the cost to resummon our pet already enough at 2 sec cast and a soul shard?

For mobility, give me demon leap back and ill be happy. Not even targeted, just a set distance i can rely on. It is ABSURD that the class that deals with portals has the least mobility (circle is ok, but the nature of fights now makes it unreliable in normal circumstances, same with gateway).

As far as complexity. Where is our reward? How am I supposed to be satistfied at how MUCH I have to put in compared to say a demonhunter who took my abilities, to have comparable damage? My bars are littered with abilities I have to use to be comparable. The best way for a warlock to excel is knowing the fight and moving as little as possible. Speaking of abilities, how absurd is it that we dont even know how much damage a single imp or dreadstalker does, or that the tooltip doesnt even mention their dreadbite, its only implied in talents.

Seriously. Warlock since the first day, raiding every expansion (first 2 mythics last night, beating the roster boss)… and it still feels like my class is in beta. Mechanics taken and give back. The original design philosophy of warlock was Risk vs Reward. Do i summon that demon and have it break midfight? These days the only risk is being a warlock. Ill never turn my back on demo. On warlock. But I dream of so much more.

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hey man i remember abit of that risk reward thrme i thinknwas in cata a spell that let uou deal unlimited aoe but with your hp as cost and mana was a thing so life tap for extra mana

Good old hellfire I remember that…now just the tiny imp mobs in legion seem to do that. :face_vomiting:

Because the whole idea you can supplement 36 specs with temporary power every 2 years is absurd. They need to throw that concept away. It’s nigh impossible to implement something of that scale at that pace and hit it consistently. They’ve failed every time they’ve tried it.

Instead each should be a consistent cross-expansion theme. Is a spec good as-is? Good don’t touch it. Instead find ways to improve what it is and if that means giving players more flexibility between the complex versus simple access that’s fine but do not under any circumstances overhaul something that is fine as-is.

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implosion maybe, but I dont want demo to be just a one and done cool down centric spec, we already have that in destro and aff.

The theme of demo should have one focus. more demons.

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I feel you, honestly I like how atleast now with Visions of Perfection, Tyrant is a 1 min cooldown. I’ve said this before no class or spec regardless if Warlock or not should be tied to a long cool down to perform well… ala Destro…

People have mentioned that as Demo ramps up, so should our demons, imps become other demons, dreadstalkers change, as we ramp the demons we summon become stronger and stronger.

Then for example it be player skill to hold the ramp up to continue high damage, for M+, the skill would be not to reset back to summoning imps again.

Shadow priest try stay in void form as long as possible, a good player will keep that going so they the haste stacks out of form to push back into void form quicker…Demo could do something similar where we try to hold and keep up our ramp to keep stronger demons spawning.

So atleast with all this M+ and rush rush style of play that WoW is heading we can adapt too.

Or… they can just remove tyrant, give us meta and our Fel resource back and go back to Meta dancing for on demand bursts and utility… like how MoP was, my favourite style for Demo Lock… and let tyrant just be a demon we summon when we ramp up…

I always imagine how Demo would be if they kept metamorphosis in today’s game, m+ would be awesome, trash gets pulled, demonic strength, implosion, meta pop chaos wave, then could demonic leap to the next trash and finally not be the slowest class in the game, keep up with priest shielding themselves for movement, Mages blinking… can always be in the fight instantly.

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I’ve never understood why Tyrant is the only cooldown with a cast time. No other spec in the game has to deal with such absurdity.

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I prefer impswarm over hand of guldan version.

Although it was on a 45 sec cd. It was used on the right moment for burst. Those 5 imps were way stronger than the 20 imps we summon now.

Hand of guldan should summon larger demons and we should have impswarm back.

I honestly missed the glyph system. They removed the glyph system and they keep trying to replace major glyphs and tiers with borrowed power.

I personally hated borrowed power because once you lose it you have to start playing your class differently every expansion. There is no fix or stable foundation that these devs have done for classes.

I mean look how they ignore feedback because they are so blunt and ignorant to revert from the mistake they created. Their is only one solution andthat is to revert. Just admit it that they suck at fixing warlocks and move on

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I will say I miss Legion “Hand of Guldan” where the imps spawned would be at the target rather than moving back to you taking about a second or 2 away from their uptime.

However we also have to deal with that with the current talent of “Summon Vilefiend” where just summoning it for its 15 seconds it takes 3 of those seconds to position itself to pounce at the target. I do wonder why it can’t be light our "Call Dreadstalkers and just instantly lung at the target.

I would truly enjoy the idea of “Hand of Guldan” summoning random demons like the talens we have such as “Inner Demons” and “Nether Portal” even if they didnt change the uptime I would be fine with that. Particularly if they made it so taking “Inner Demons” would add that to “Hand of Guldan” but only summon one random demon in addition to the imps so it wouldnt take away from implosion for AOE purposes.

In all honesty, scrap nether portal, it never worked well, spamming 1 shard Gul’dans is horrible play style and feels even worse.

Just bake the talent into Demo baseline, 15% when spending a soul shard you rip a demon from the twisting nether to assist for 10 seconds.

Replace it with Metamorphosis, that replaces our tyrant, 1.5 min cooldown, 30 sec uptime, Metamorphosis turns shadow bolt into demon fire, and implosion into chaos wave. Could even turn demonic circle into demonic leap for the nostalgia and mobility.

Make demon fire generate a soul shard hits slightly stronger and chaos wave aoe another spender of shards, so single target you hand of guldan get as many imps possible on them, in AoE you chaos wave burst…dreadstalkers and Felguard still play the same. Stack procs of demonbolt for shards and enjoy the play style we once had.

Boom, I just saved Demonology… if you don’t like that play style, demonic consumption and sacrificed souls are still their.

Doesn’t even have to be called metamorphosis, Demonic Possession or Demonic Rage, whatever it’s a name.

But atleast gives a similar alternate play style that a lot sorely miss and love.

People who love being a imp mother, nothing changes, people who liked meta back in mop early WoD, we got you, gives us variety within the spec.

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Nether Portal is cool concept wise, but it just doesn’t make sense to not have it 1 demon per soul shard spent. I like the idea that we are continuously summoning hordes of a supposed private army that includes a former raid boss because reasons.

Inner Demons becoming Demo Mastery would be cool tbh yes.

“Wrath of Gul’dan”, modeled after his fel-power-up during the raid. Guldan basically became a Tyrant.

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Reading through these replies, it reinforces why we can’t have nice things. Oh well, I’m pretty happy with my warlock, just hope Demonology gets an interrupt outside of the felhunter or Demonic Strength and Soul Strike are adjusted to work with the other pets as well. Mythic Xanesh isn’t fun right now as Demonology and our team needing interrupts.

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This is why you need a spectrum of potential with each spec. The poles should be accessibility vs control on the y axis (for all specs) and then some variance flavor on the x axis (in the case of demonology that is summon vs sacrifice).

In my mind that’s how it would differ from the MoP talent system. For example row 1 in the talents has 3 different types of damage with two of them being on demand. These aren’t really competitive so I’d change this. Row 1 would be just two:

  1. Dreadlash
  2. Bilescourge Bombers

Baseline Demonic Strength.

This fits both the x and y axis idea as explained above. A third choice isn’t needed here. It also adds some strength to the base spec and clears up some confusion about what the differences are supposed to mean.

Then all the other tiers would work like this. Tier 3 which is a defensive tier would be:

  1. Demon Skin
  2. Dark Pact

That also follows the x and y axis idea from earlier. Baseline Burning Rush. Just more of the same in most of the other tiers.

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