State of demonology

Classes Warlock
61

Question, everyone seems to forget, Demo had swarms of imps in MoP, did we all forget about glyph of imp swarm?, just it was imps, lowest of demons we weren’t completely reliant on them how we are now…Demo was still a master summoner in MoP!

MoP Demo did literally everything we do now but better…in all aspects, yes…even in class fantasy.

Edit: all these people that say mop demo was bad (which I personally think those against didn’t main lock in MoP), saying I like being a summoner… we did that in MoP… and we still had Meta… Demo locks literally had swarms of imps, but we had the utility and mobility we need so bad.

Demo Locks Meta also plays perfectly in the direction Blizzard is taking WoW with M+ and everything being timed and rush rush… ramp up store demonic fury, pull trash quick meta into some chaos waves, pop back, hand of Gul’dan into demonic strength and implosion…

Warlocks are being punished now for being the slow, turret style caster they are, it’s realistically not viable for the general public in games, their will always be a few pros, look at epic burn currently only 1 of 2 Demo locks in PvP at high cr rating, but for the general public that’s unobtainable. Same goes for high end keys and raiding…

Even PuGing M+ is hell, why take a lock when Mages currently do everything we do but better??, Fire Mages burst single target and AoE is insane and requires no ramp and mobile as hell with an immunity. Let’s not forget cast while moving and instant crits under 30%.

Things need to change, big time for Demo Lock, I’m sure Blizzard has caught wind of our worries but let’s see if they do something about it…

#MoPDemoBestDemo

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62

Why did they change from MoP demo anyways?

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63

Honestly who knows, even through all of WoD until prepatch I think it was patch 7.2 when they removed Metamorphosis and changed Demo completely, Demo was amazing until then…still fun, still great…

Like I said, this excuse of being a summoner… we had that and more, I really don’t know the direction they taking Demo lock… it’s a complete mystery to me…and it seems a mystery to the Warlock community.

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64

Most likely because it was a nightmare to balance. I believe it was the only time A dev has openly stated they did not want people to play a spec.

65

I wish a blue would respond to this just so at least we know 1 person from Blizz is actually giving a crap.

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Does any dps spec have to sacrifice a big chunk of their dps to use a interupt(not a stun) like Demo Locks do, say with swapping felguard out for puppy? Now lets compound this with the 6 second cast time in shadowlands… I would really like a dev response on this one.

67

I hate that warlcoks all have to ramp up their damage, while every other class is on demand. It’s easily avoided in Pvp by interrupting and CCing until buffs drop, and in PvE you are punished for mobile fights

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I play lock too, but air you are asking too much implosion can be used to min-max bit it’s not a must if you don’t like it, I like the uptime buff mechanic but in some sims it’s a dps loss once your haste reach 30%

69

You do realize what i was talking about was something for the future with azerite traits going away and that buff no longer being a thing. What i was asking was for implosion to be removed and brought a suggestion as to what could replace it. I also dont play the current norm for demo I like having my army so i have a decent amount of haste and mastery so my talent setup for PVE is more of a firing squad style so I normally dont use implosion unless its in a M+ that would benefit from its use due to a good sized grouping. I currently have 30 unbuffed haste so the army attack squad style fits for me better than the imp sac style.

70

Yeah I read you all but bro asking for a free haste buff , free use energy for single target damage and free suicide explotion with a 100% energy explotion ratio, isn’t it a bit too much?

There are many “free” on that.

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Actually i was talking about reworking bilescourge talent to change the demons summoned from imps to bilescourge and at the end of their energy(the last 20% since imps cast 5 shots 20% energy each time) they would become the last bolt doing AOE. Im not talking about it being full damage fresh implosion klind of damage. im talking about the last hit of the bilescourge being an AOE hit rather than a ST hit.

I am also not talking about there being a haste buff so im not sure why your on that since my suggestion would be when the traits are gone and so would the buff. The only free thing about my suggestion would be that it would add in some free AOE to a ST rotation that isnt just HoG. This particular suggestion was without azerite traits as a thought since in shadowlands they are going away just like all “borrowed powers” each expansion.

72

For whatever reason, they just don’t want to let demo be good. I don’t know why since they’ve reworked it twice just for nobody to play it. It had less than 2 months of being OP in the past two xpacs, otherwise it’s been mediocre to bad.

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73

Then we have so many spells you have to place down, like that’s not fun, if you wanna add mechanics add sum demons, upgrade the ones we have, add more synergy to the class, demo has no reason to feel so bad, to play… and that’s the matter of the fact.

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74

Hmmm I think implosion is necessary for 2 reasons:

  1. on demand Burt’s aoe
  2. get rid of your imps if you “forsee” that the tank is not pulling any mobs in the next 2 seconds.

Why 2 seconds?
Because unless you have a demonic core/soul cleave or attack fel guard command binded.you.will.need to cast something so your pets start attacking.sometimes your tank can be slow and if you actively pull he can get pissed off.

Thats my reason to keep implosion.

For the haste buff it will start slow like other haste reliant classes such ret pally, we at least have a no cooldown fragment generator.

As for vileacourge… I have mixed opinions about them I personally use the other talent that commands fel guard to spin for 400%.

But when I used it just feels a bit wierd while implo its an instant cast and command offers more burst, for sustained aoe HOG it’s more reliable.

As for exploding imps I only use them as I see fit or to keep a buff uptime before tyrant window but vile could be reworked

My personal opinion about fel guard is he should have an interrupt talent and to balance that remove his stun, the int should be 40 secs CD but the int should be 15 yards range since switching tArgets to int takes time for the demon even with his charge.

The vilefiend seems lackluster until covenants power change it’s gameplay but for all kind of content soul cleave will be dominant deals more damage than shadowbolt it’s instant and “it’s not an spell” even while magic blocked you can command fel guard to do it this helps.dealing with mechanics and pvp.

My greatest concern would be if groups would take locks for m+, since our raidspot it’s secured.

So far had no problem with my lock but it definitely requires so skill and dungeon knowlege to be able to keep your pets alive before big pulls and explo before downtimes.

That being said I love all my “employees” and I like go crazy with a machine gun imp army at my back fel guard keeping them busy and the tyrant teaching me how do real damage is dealt I also want to say that battle Rez is our dps.

How?

When someone dies that soul is your to resurrect if they deal any additional damage it’s because the humble warlock god saved him from being on the dusty floor if you reflect about it and could change your class for any other that can’t b Rez and a guy dies no matter how high your dps is a lock + other class can pull more, therefore it’s a “silent buff” battle Rez just like health stones and portals and summoning ritual.

While yes they shine on dumb people or people who are not dumb but make a.mistake they also allow clever strategy’s as our battle Rez can be used before hand to cheese mechanics, while this is a generic warlock tool I believe we must consider ourselves lucky to a certain point to have such varied spellbook maybe the curse for spellcasting will have some niches to prevent a nasty cast?

To all locks don’t give up hope but embrace the power >:(

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Hey yall spitballing this wording from the compilation thread within the Demonology section:

any feedback or confirmation this is an accurate representation would be appreciated

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76

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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77

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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78

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)

79

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

80

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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