So been running keys 8-9 and noticed pulls where i do the normal opener of shadow bolt, charhound, bolt, dread stalkers, guldan, shadow, and demonbolt spam till 3 seconds left on char hound, then tyrant with 10+ imps nets me far less dps than just acting as if i didnt have tyrant and using implosion before any imps expire.
So question is, unless its in a situation where the trash is gonna live long enough for the ramp to matter, should i just ignore the imps part of tyrant and only use it to extend char/dreadstalkers?
On Tyrant rotation I definitely wouldn’t worry about the number of imps you get with Tyrant. Just spread doom between HoG casts. Summon Tyrant at 6+ imps and extend your ch/dogs. It’s definitely a bit clunky either way.
With Tyrant, I’m pretty sure there’s a white list point system for your demons with major demons worth 2 points and imps worth 1 for a maximum of 10 or 15.
You just need to try and grt as many imps out with your Dogs and Hound active before you pop Tyrant. Demo has a really bad issue with consistency ATM with Tyrant ramps where you could 5 imps for Tyrant or 15 for no rhyme or reason. Also use Demonic Strength AFTER you Tyrant because the Felguard will be empowered.
All of this advice is on the right path, but not necessarily all super correct.
You’re thinking of the old reign of tyranny which is no longer in the game. This current one takes all your demons currently summoned + up to 15 imps and adds 10% extra damage to your tyrant cast per summoned demon. This would mean that you can have at max 190% extra damage (15 imps + gfg + 2 dogs + vilefiend).
This is partially correct, however is only correct under the assumption that you are:
- either starting a key
- entering a pack without any imps
The emphasis here is that you should have some stockpile up imps moving into a new pack so that you can eliminate the need for hand of gul’dans before you cast tyrant. Ideally you are watching your tyrant cd and stockpiling imps before walking into a new pack. You do not lose implosion damage doing this since you will implode the imps anyway in the ensuing pack
Yes and no. Kalamazi has slightly overblown how inconsistent demonology is by not correctly assuming that every ramp will have at the least 2 demonic cores, while simulteanously failing to adapt demonology gameplay to what it was like during shadowlands (where you would hold core procs for tyrant ramps). Five imp tyrants should never happen period, unless it is on purpose – if you do get five imp tyrants, you are severely misplaying. If anything, demonology is as consistent as the other specs currently if you play it optimally (I’m only assuming you’re mentioning consistency as kalamazi talked about this recently which I disagree with him about). The issues with demonology lie elsewhere, while also having an extremely steep skill cap this season.
Long story short, all three of you guys are correct:
- On your first tyrant ramp of the key, it’s completely fine to only cast hog 1-2 times (6 imp tyrant) to allow for your charhound to do most of your damage on the first pull of the dungeon.
- The following tyrants should always have some sort of reserve of imps that allows you to shorten your rotation and give you 11+ imp tyrants with only 1-2 casts of hog.
- Imps retain their value from pack to pack, not imploding one pack means you should get to use the remaining value of the imps in the following pack, that damage that are saying you are missing will automatically be applied to the pack that your group will be running to next.
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Yeah I can agree with this. The start of a key is always the ramp period and my damage always tends to be the lowest. This is with Tyrant rotation early. The extended CH and dogs is the real value you get early because of the ramping for imps. Usually second pull I’ll end up with a stockpile and end up doing much more damage in aoe. It’s hard to put it to words because the flow of the packs can change and sometimes you end up with a lot of stockpile, while other times you end up with nothing. But with 1 minute Tyrant, every pull is usually equivalent to at least 1 tyrant and I won’t worry too much about getting to the 15 imp breakpoint as I’m mostly trying to get 6+ implosions rotating.
Also yes, holding your core procs for the next pack is a useful and important way to get through the rotation fast enough to get ch/dogs, imps and Tyrant to a reasonable place. I’ll try to always DB the lowest mob towards the end of the pull for the AoE damage and DG proc, prepping for next pull as well. Typically I can power siphon at the beginning of each pull, using it as I’m running towards the pack so I always have reserves. The biggest glaring issue I see with Demo is that we have too many things to cast to ramp up. Tyrant should just be instant cast and this problem would be alleviated immensely. We could push our CH/Dogs to ~1 second which would make capping imps much more reliable and consistent, especially in high movement scenarios.
Yes you are correct, I did did reference Kali and he is partly correct. Saying demo can have 5-15 without reason is over dramatic.
Which you stated right here. The part he is correct on in that video is how locked down with concrete shoes we actually are as demo. Charhound, Dogs and Tyrant all have a base castime of 2 min (that is with 0 haste). With my stats I am at 22% haste aka 14k haste and those 3 spells are at a 1.6 sec cast. Sure Demonic Calling makes dogs an instant cast but anyone who has ever played Demo before knows that, that spell is consistently inconsistent.
I would like some sort of help with that IMO. I feel like Dogs and Hound being a 1 sec cast and then Tyrant being a 1.5 sec cast would be healthy and allow us to maintain flow and still have skill expression.
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Instant cast tyrant. Nothing else will be acceptable. Haste should also scale more aggressively with our summons. 1.6 with 24% haste is such a slap in the face. Demonic Calling should proc more frequently as well, but that’s a different subject. All in all, the casting would be fine if our go button was instant like the other two specs.
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This is something I also disagree with, although I doubt people will dig through my post history but I was unfortunately one of the people advocating for more shadowbolt and less demonbolt.
If tyrant was instant cast demo would be as mobile if not more than the other specs. I think that having tyrant be interuptable in pvp or having poor timing during movement abilities is what’s causing people to think demo isn’t mobile (which it is, especially if you consider pets attacking while you move).
The person above is also correct about instant cast tyrant.
bunch of tyrant stuff that isn't 100% targeted at the replies
However, haste also does not scale as well as people think with demo tyrants, or increasing the ability of people having more time to add imps to their tyrant. The common misconception is that haste is strong for demo so that it can get better tyrants through more casts, but imps scale linearly with your haste so you actually get the same amount of time as your haste increases for tyrant ramps.
Where haste is good for demo is scaling tyrant itself through the ability of your imps to fit in more casts that do not disrupt their energy (which is why for years since BFA onwards pi was incredibly strong for demo, and dropped off after 10.1.5 and the tyrant changes not affecting all imps).
You can get 11 imps at 0% haste and casting no shadowbolts while constantly moving aside from the tyrant cast/VF. This was something I helped TC back at the end of shadowlands for simulations.
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Yesh. Haste should be scaling alot better for casters we shouldn’t need to wait till the last 2 seasons of an expansion to feel good with casting.
It can always scale less once you get more.
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