Demonology talents rework

Classes Warlock
1

The goal of this post is to provide a potentially quick to implement (as in it could be implemented by next patch) balancing changes to demonology warlock talents and abilities to make them more viable. I will do my best to not overbuff the abilities but some are severly underused and require strong buffs IMHO to become a consideration.

The format of the proposed changes is the following:
tier number:
#column ability 1: new effect
#column abiility 2: new effect
#column new ability #1: effect
etc.

Talents that are not mentioned are left unchanged.

Tier 1:
#1 Dreadlash: Gains the additional effect: your dreadstalkers melee attack now hits all enemies within 8 yards for 75 % of the damage.

Explanation: Dreadlash currently is considered rather weak, giving dreadstalkers more AOE utility I believe is a good way to buff it.

#2 Bilescourge Bombers: Gains the additional effect: after the portal ends 2 bilescourges stay behind to fight for you for 15 seconds.

Explanation: Currently the ability is overpriced and not-spammable which makes it rather useless unless you want an additional aoe ability every 30 seconds but even then the cost of 2 soul shards makes it feel like you are better of just doing another hand of guldan which not only helps with demonic core generation but also deals more damage (according to tooltip). Having 2 bilescourges stay behind plays well with the demon army master warlock fantasy that we have and IMHO justifies the cost of 2 soul shards and a cooldown. You can compare it with Call Dreadstalkers.

Tier 2:
#1 Demonic Calling: Gains the additional effect: Every time the Demonic Calling procs reduce the cooldown of Call Dreadstalkers by 5 seconds.

Explanation: Currently there is a high chance that you are sitting for a long time (10-20 seconds) with Demonic Calling buff up because it just happened to proc after you already cast dreadstalkers, this change is aimed to make such situations less likely to happen. You will be able to cast dreadstalkers more frequently which has synergy with Carnivorous Stalkers conduit and with Tyrant.

Alternatively make the buff last longer (30 seconds) and stack up to 5 times. This would also solve some issues with it.

#2 Power Siphon: Gains the additional effect: Sacrifing an imp grants 10 % movement speed bonus (stacks twice). Imps that have energy left but not enough for firebolt can also be sacrificed now. (refer to this if you don’t know what I mean Demonology ability and talent information )

Explanation: In my mind Power Siphon is the “mobility” talent. You sacrifice a strong Demonic Calling to gain more ability in the form of 2 instant Demonbolts so you can move slightly every 30 seconds. Additional movement speed could help with that.

#3 Doom: Gains an additional effect: After Doom expires on the target summon a Doomguard to fight for you for 18 seconds.

Explanation: No one cares about Doom in its current state, This change provides additional value to the talent in all kinds of content while playing into our demon army fantasy with additional synergy with Tyrant.

Tier 3:
#2 Burning Rush: new effect: Increases your movement speed by 50%, but also damages ALL YOUR SUMMONED DEMONS for 4 % of YOUR maximum health every 1 sec. If you have no summoned demons the effect damages you instead. Movement impairing effects may not reduce you below 100 % of normal movement speed. Lasts until cancelled.

Explanation: Currently in content that matters you wouldn’t ever pick Burning Rush because of the damage. I think this change could prove to be more beneficial in more movement heavy fights while still preserving the “sacrifice” theme of warlocks - now more suited for the current iteration of demonology.

#3 Dark Pact: new effect: Sacrifies 20% of ALL YOUR SUMMONED DEMONS current health to shield you for 100 % of the sacrified health for 20 sec. 1 sec cast.

Explanation: Similarly to above, a version more fit for the current iteration of demonology.

Tier 4:

#2 Soul Strike: gains an additional effect: replace shadowbolt with Soul Strike and Soul Strike has no cooldown.

Explanation: Mobility talent but potentially a double-edged sword because it ties your soul shard generation to your pet. Killing the pet now creates an interesting counter play to warlocks playing this talent hence why I think the removal of cooldown is justified. Besides you still suffer from pet AI issues etc.

#3 Summon Vilefiend: now baseline.

Explanation: Pretty much everyone (who plays demonology…) uses it, its a nice additional stronger demon - should be baseline.

#3 new talent Hand of Fate: Hand of Gul’dan can now consume up to 5 soul shards. Consuming 5 soul shards also commands 1 demon from the Nether to come out and fight for you for 10 seconds.

Explanation: Strangely enough demonology has no talent directly modifying HoG and it is our base spender. I thought a talent like this could be great for raids and offer extra variety to the demons we summon.

Tier 6:
#1 Soul Conduit: new effect: Every third Shadow Bolt that you cast will generate an additional Soul Shard. Additional you can accumulate now 7 soul shards.

Explanation: Old Soul Conduit is sometimes used but damages the flow of rotation for demonology. This talent is supposed to help with SS generation in a predictable way so that you can plan your big tyrant combos better.

#2 Inner Demons: buff: passively summon a Wild Imp every 6 seconds instead of every 12 seconds, and have a 15 % chance to also summon an additional Demon to fight for you for 15 seconds.

Explanation: This talent exists to make rotation simpler and give you some passive demons generation which I think people could enjoy more. It also feels better to walk around with an army of demons around you. Currently this talent isn’t really used that much and I think a buff is needed.

#3 Grimoire: Felguard now baseline

Explanation: additional stun, demon and aoe burst in one cooldown, pretty much everyone uses it - it should be core of the spec.

#3 new talent Master Demonologist: You are able to summon a second permanent pet of your choosing (Felguard, Succubus, Felhunter, Voidwalker, Imp) to fight for you that will occasionally use its special abilities to help you in combat. You can’t have 2 of the same pets.

Explanation: Would be really cool to be able to use other pets apart from Felguard and this is one way around it.

Tier 7:
#1 Sacrified Souls - now also increases damage of hand of gul’dan by 4 % per summoned demon.

Explanation: Realistically there is no reason why wouldn’t it. HoG isn’t that much of damage either way and this would be another nice passive talent for people who want to have some easier time.

#2 Demonic Consumption - now baseline

Explanation: its pretty much the default now and imho fits the fantasy hence why it should be a baseline ability of the spec. Currently tyrant requires a lot of setup to use well and this change makes him stronger with potentially very high burst damage.

#2 new talent: Metamorphosis: Consume life from all your demons sacrificing them to empower yourself and transforming into a demonic form for 20 seconds.
4.5 min cooldown, 1.5 sec cast time.
You gain:

  • 5 % increased armor per every demon consumed.
  • 5 % increased damage done by shadow bolt and demon bolt per every wild imp consumed, 7.5 % per every other temporary demon.
  • 10 % increased damage done and haste per permanent demon consumed.

Explanation: A returning metamorphosis playing better into the current iteration of the spec. Currently the way to play demonology is to spawn as many demons as possible and get them buffed by Tyrant to have a 15 second burst window. The idea behind metamorphosis is that every 3 tyrants you have an option to massively buff yourself (and feel like a master of demons) by sacrificing your summoned demons. Ideal way to use this ability would be to cast it at the end of Tyrant window which is a moment when your damage goes down a lot. The highest damage bonus boosts your generator Shadow Bolt and Demon Bolt which creates the feeling of actually doing damage yourself while that damage is miles behind what a fire mage or destruction warlock can pull off.

#3 Nether Portal: now costs 5 Soul Shards, has 3 second cast time, has the same effect but also gains a new one: opening a nether portal will summon copies of all your permanent demons to fight for you for 12 seconds (Felguard, Succubus, Felhunter, Voidwalker, Imp). These demons will use their special abilities: Felstorm, Whiplash, Spell Lock, Shadow Bulwark, Singe Magic.

Explanation: Probably the heaviest buff in this prosposition. The idea behind this is mostly flavor. Its cool too see all your permanent demons out even if for 12 seconds. It adds immediate value to nether portal which can be enhanced further by spending soul shards like it is currently to summon weaker demons. The concern could be that combined with Tyrant that ability could be too strong for pvp and in that case I would propose reducing the damage done by the summoned demons to compensate. But even without the nerf there are still counter plays to it and 3 seconds cast time is a lot.

That concludes my proposed demonology changes. I think this suggestion achieves the following:

  • More viable movement options while still having heavy movement as a big downside of demonology warlocks
  • Popular go-to choices of talents made baseline
  • More variety in the summoned armies that you command
  • More damage outside of Tyrant window which is a popular complaint
  • More talents as interesting viable choices and actually being able to have many different builds according to your liking
  • Passive talent options for people who desire simpler gameplay or less demon managing
  • Increase in flavour and class fantasy through Metamorphosis and more varied demons
  • IMHO not going too overboard with damage buffs, tyrant windows is still the 15 second window demonology does most damage in, and the temporary nature of demons doesn’t allow to summon too many additional demons before buffing them with tyrant (compared to live)
  • IMHO these changes if implemented on live won’t make demonology top 1 pick out of all warlock specs but definitely would move it from the bottom it currently is in all types of content to above average. There would still exist situation where you prefered affliction or destruction but being a demonology wouldn’t be perceived as a handicap that it currently is.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. If anyone liked the changes and wants to create a more visual representation of the changes that would be marvelous.

3 Likes
2

I like the concept. And while it may sound maybe a bit too powerful in some cases that can be easily adjusted by doing a %dmg reduction or w/e. So I’d love it. BUT ALSO PET AI FIX PLS XD

3

The AI is the main problem, just fix it by command pet attack

3 Likes
4

All the problems are main problems.

2 Likes
5

Thank you for making a post, while I may disagree with some ideas here ,I appreciate people care about warlock, I do criticize some things and have my own counter-vision but I still am glad people care about locks and want to make them better, some of your ideas were really good too so yeah thanks

Im sorry if this is too long for you to read I just want demo to be better and I think discussion is good

While I think current Demo is unsustainable in the long run I definetly do agree that changes are neccesary for this spec to work properly for now, I do not particulary have any investment in M+ myself, however in PvP the spec has many shortcomings and I honestly think there is lot that should be done to fix it.

1 Dreadlash: Gains the additional effect: your dreadstalkers melee attack now hits all enemies within 8 yards for 75 % of the damage.

Explanation: Dreadlash currently is considered rather weak, giving dreadstalkers more AOE utility I believe is a good way to buff it.

I think this is fair, Dreadlash is kinda meh. In PvP I can think of barely any sitatuions where it would be good and it feels vastly inferior in PvP as well.

#2 Bilescourge Bombers: Gains the additional effect: after the portal ends 2 bilescourges stay behind to fight for you for 15 seconds.

Explanation: Currently the ability is overpriced and not-spammable which makes it rather useless unless you want an additional aoe ability every 30 seconds but even then the cost of 2 soul shards makes it feel like you are better of just doing another hand of guldan which not only helps with demonic core generation but also deals more damage (according to tooltip). Having 2 bilescourges stay behind plays well with the demon army master warlock fantasy that we have and IMHO justifies the cost of 2 soul shards and a cooldown. You can compare it with Call Dreadstalkers.

Making them stay behind would work I guess but seems like bit clunky solution, esp for an AoE spell and considering the current AI.

I would honstly definetly take the shard cost away though, I don’t see why an ability needs to cost both shards and have CD. I think the CD is fair but shards just add into current repetetive nature of Demo cast and make it overall bit worse. I think that playing around with how it currently exists might be better way to tackle this, especialy considering Dreadstalkers themselves are to me probably the most contorversial part of current demo kit.

1 Demonic Calling: Gains the additional effect: Every time the Demonic Calling procs reduce the cooldown of Call Dreadstalkers by 5 seconds.

Explanation: Currently there is a high chance that you are sitting for a long time >(10-20 seconds) with Demonic Calling buff up because it just happened to proc after you already cast dreadstalkers, this change is aimed to make such situations less likely to happen. You will be able to cast dreadstalkers more frequently which has synergy with Carnivorous Stalkers conduit and with Tyrant.

Alternatively make the buff last longer (30 seconds) and stack up to 5 times. This would also solve some issues with it.

This is very good idea actually.

2 Power Siphon : Gains the additional effect: Sacrifing an imp grants 10 % movement speed bonus (stacks twice). Imps that have energy left but not enough for firebolt can also be sacrificed now.

This is an ok idea, I think we do need mobiltiy and thouhg I think we need it separately from power siphon that is an issue for a more throuhgout rework that Blizzard will not likely agree to at least yet.

I would honestly say this could be a good idea and nice improwement, though I’m not sure Blizzard would be aprticualry fond of it.

3 Doom : Gains an additional effect: After Doom expires on the target summon a Doomguard to fight for you for 18 seconds.

Some people run it in PvP but yeah doom is kinda undertuned. Problem with this idea is that Dom already takes pretty long, I guess this would be useful in PvE but still waiting like the 18-ish seconds doom already takes makes it kinda tiny utility buff than anything that would really change much.

I think Doom should be left alone for the bigger rework I hope we’ll see one day, I had my ideas for it but that’s not the point right now. I don’t think summoning doomguard would be an issue though, I just don’t really think it would massively boost doom and likewise I don’t think there’s really need to eqaulize all talents that much tbh.

2 Burning Rush : new effect: Increases your movement speed by 50%, but also damages ALL YOUR SUMMONED DEMONS for 4 % of YOUR maximum health every 1 sec. If you have no summoned demons the effect damages you instead. Movement impairing effects may not reduce you below 100 % of normal movement speed. Lasts until cancelled.

I get what you’re trying to do here but it’s like with how Dark pact worked in Legion, suddently it jumps between either too much consequences and drawbacks for you, or none at all (4% health per second probably wouldnt be that severe. But yeah I guess, haven’t really used that talent myself ever seriously and last time I even tried using it for fun was like in Legion, so it might need a buff of some sorts yes.

3 Dark Pact : new effect: Sacrifies 20% of ALL YOUR SUMMONED DEMONS current health to shield you for 100 % of the sacrified health for 20 sec. 1 sec cast.

Again I would have to disagree just on this not really doing anything. I doubt that really your imps are constantly blasted by stuff and even if they are they wouldn’t likely survive that anyway already so loosing 20% health beforehand probably doesnt do too much. In PvP all the same, people really care abt your main demon and tyrant at most and they’re already pretty easy to kill.

I think more elegant solution would be making dark pact take 20% of your maximum health, since it’s kinda underwhelming how currently it only works well if you are on full health

Also I would have to kinda disagree about sacrificing demons being your fantasy. I think this is one of the reasons Demonic consumption doesn’t kill imps anymore, Demo lock already has trouble building imps, god forbid loosing them !

2 Soul Strike : gains an additional effect: replace shadowbolt with Soul Strike and Soul Strike has no cooldow

If your pet gets killed you will already have hard time at this point. Plus tying stuff to unreliable pets is kinda problematic. Shadowbolt also feels far more satisfying to play and being able to just spam soul strike for shards not only would feel very soulless and disconnected but would probably also be far too quick way for generation. And yes you still do suffer from pet issues either way but this amplifies them even further tbf.
Soulstrike is fine as it is, unless we are talking about much bigger demo revamp Id leave it.

3 Summon Vilefiend: now baseline.
Explanation: Pretty much everyone (who plays demonology…) uses it, its a nice additional stronger demon - should be baseline.

I disagree with the premise, used by majority = baseline. Lot of stuff had been prunned into talents ye but Vilefiend is not really like inbuilt part of demo (it has no real like groundbreakign synergy with anything past tyrant), so you are not missing out on core of your spec by not having it, so I still prefer that while you will pick it most of the time, that you are making a sacrifice insofar as not being able to pick smth else.
Also lot of people in PvP run Soul strike even though yes lot also run vielfind nowadays, but again I feel like it has lot to do with countering kicks, which is again utility and not core of the spec, so you sacrficie somethig.

3 new talent Hand of Fate: Hand of Gul’dan can now consume up to 5 soul shards. Consuming 5 soul shards also commands 1 demon from the Nether to come out and fight for you for 10 seconds.

I disagree this is going back to what I criticized in Legion, really back then you had 4 shard HoG and you had to grind back at least one shard (with this kind of talent it would be two) to get back to dreadstalkers, only increasing rampup (big problem) and the grindy nature of current demo.
If you want fun interaction, just have change for HoG to cast for second time like the legendary or smth that has chance to make your next HoG instant idk. Also keep in mind essetialy all minor summoned demons will do the same stuff, it’s just aesthetics, not that they werent important but not this important.

2 Inner Demons: buff: passively summon a Wild Imp every 6 seconds instead of every 12 seconds, and have a 15 % chance to also summon an additional Demon to fight for you for 15 seconds.

Now we are talking about talent that should also be baseline. Would lower the demonology rampup and make the spec flow much better while letting you pick other stuff.

3 Grimoire: Felguard now baseline

Nah inner demons should be baseline instead, this is more of a choice thing and legitimate alternatives could be considered to this, while inner demons are more baseline.

3 new talent Master Demonologist : You are able to summon a second permanent pet of your choosing (Felguard, Succubus, Felhunter, Voidwalker, Imp) to fight for you that will occasionally use its special abilities to help you in combat. You can’t have 2 of the same pets.

I will admit, I flirt with the idea of second or alternative demon in my unfinished draft im too lazy to release but this is kinda OP in this way. I think what we’re looking for is the old grimoire of service (I think, it changed name between WoD and legion if i recall correclty). An ability that lets you ondemand summon a minion to perform special ability. It lacks the aestehtics of two demons and I think there should be option to have 2 demons but the grimoire is something that should definetly come back.

1 Sacrified Souls - now also increases damage of hand of gul’dan by 4 % per summoned demon.

Explanation: Realistically there is no reason why wouldn’t it. HoG isn’t that much of damage either way and this would be another nice passive talent for people who want to have some easier time.

Well to be fair, HoG is not meant to deal too much damage. Like adding this wouldn’t be that bad but it feels bit out of place especialy since Demonbolt which it buffs is builder, whereas HoG is spender so it would just give you crapton of damage more which might be problematic.

2 Demonic Consumption - now baseline

Explanation: its pretty much the default now and imho fits the fantasy hence why it should be a baseline ability of the spec. Currently tyrant requires a lot of setup to use well and this change makes him stronger with potentially very high burst damage.

I kinda agree honestly thouhg if we are talking fixing demonology, in short term tyrant first and foremost needs to be instant and sadly for the cool looking guy in the long run, gone as it is pretty clunky way to do burst.

2 new talent: Metamorphosis : Consume life from all your demons sacrificing them to empower yourself and transforming into a demonic form for 20 seconds.
4.5 min cooldown, 1.5 sec cast time.

Metamorphosis should first be renamed to Dark apotheosis, and in long run this should be baseline and core of our spec, replacing the clunky tyrant, I made whole post of that but I don’t want to j*rk myself off too much here so I won’t really talk in lenght about that.

3 Nether Portal : now costs 5 Soul Shards, has 3 second cast time, has the same effect but also gains a new one: opening a nether portal will summon copies of all your permanent demons to fight for you for 12 seconds (Felguard, Succubus, Felhunter, Voidwalker, Imp). These demons will use their special abilities: Felstorm, Whiplash, Spell Lock, Shadow Bulwark, Singe Magic.

I think it should be instant honestly if we are going for it.

I will link my own post at hte end but you don’t need to pay heed to it, I just want to in case show my own opions but it would take long to talk about them

6

I honestly love the idea of demonology being able to have felguard as just a permanent guardian demon that you summon with the felguard ability. It would give players a much needed damage boost and give them the utility that the other primary demons can provide.

My other idea was generally that demonology summoning other demons should go with the pleasure through pain pvp talent concept applying to other demons so that if people do go with the felguard talent it would A, make it so that you lose the felguards buff even though you keep its interrupt and B, by making the felhunters buff weaker than those of other demons on purpose it would lower the chances of people just going felhunter/felguard for double interrupts.

To be honest my ultimate want for demonology warlock would be if talent wise it worked a bit more like necromancer summoning talents in GW2 work, summoning more permanent demons at the cost of losing access to other talents in the rows, giving demonology warlocks the opportunity to either run around with loads of temporary demons, sacrifice demons on the regular or run around with a bunch of permanent demons.

7

Hey thanks for the long reply. I read your post about your vision of demo as well while our ideal visions of demo differ my changes here are a proposition for “fixing” demo in the nearest future - and from programming’s perspective many effects that I have introduced to the abilities also exist somewhere in the game so really if the developers wanted to playtest this it shouldn’t really take more than a day or two to implement.

Despite pet AI being bad I don’'t think that overreliance on it is a problem, in that sense demonology is a unique spec - I would rather have the AI fixed than rework demonology once again into something else.

While i loved demonology when it still had metamorphosis i like the current iteration as well. The mastery of demo spec relies on keeping track of multiple resources (imp’s casts, number of demons, time left on summoned demons, soul shards) so I do think that in a lot of ways it is complex to play extremely well - but it has other problems that I tried to fix with my suggestions.

Making them stay behind would work I guess but seems like bit clunky solution, esp for an AoE spell and considering the current AI.

So I agree with what you wrote about CDs and SS being bad, because why would you need both these restrictions on an aoe ability that doesn’t do that much damage. For me 2 scourges staying behind isn’t clunky because every talent in this tier offers some kind of single target advantage, dreadstalkers damage bonus, empowered felstorm - they both are good options for increasing single target damage. Bilescourge however doesn’t, if it spawned 1 or 2 demons suddenly there is a lot of combo value and justification for cost and cd.

This is very good idea actually.
Thanks :slight_smile:

This is an ok idea, I think we do need mobiltiy and thouhg I think we need it separately from power siphon that is an issue for a more throuhgout rework that Blizzard will not likely agree to at least yet.

So what I was also trying to accomplish with these changes is - not make demonology like every other spec/class - we lack mobility - thats our weakness and main pain point and I think it should remain this way. It would be cool and probably more fair to have way more mobility but I’m fine with options for it for specific encounters.

, I just don’t really think it would massively boost doom

It is once again a lot of combo value and additional extra demons that you can play around - I also think that having demons spawned after a period of time adds another element of mastery to the spec where you can manage these spawn times to combo with tyrant.

It is true. Maybe it could damage demons more - I think it could be turned into some kind of Kil jaeden’s cunning ability that used to exist. Maybe drain your demons of 10 % health per second but increase your movement speed and allow casting while moving? Now that would be an interesting thing to manage and I guess because we are talking about demonology it wouldn’t be op really.

It is doing one important thing - you need to have your demons setup to benefit the most from it. If you don’t have many demons up you won’t gain that much absorbtion shield (only from Felguard basically).

Does it? I die a little bit inside every time I need to cast Shadow Bolt, it deals virtually no damage, the only purpose it has is to generate soul shards - I would gladly have its damage component removed if it reduced the cast time to like 0.5 seconds.

Yes perhaps I should have said that the other talents have virtually no use or simply get outclassed. And to me it feels like having another “big” demon to summon is within the fantasy of the spec. I have other ideas for demonology but I don’t think there is much merit to talking about this here, wish we could talk with the warlock class designer.

What you say about ramp up is partially true. The way I see it you cast HoG less often but once you cast it for 5 SS you get 5 imps and a bonus demon - thats once again a lot of combo potential and high damage output. So in a way I think it reduces ramp up but I agree that having to spam more shadowbolts would be annoying - also having more imps would increase the chance of getting demonic core and actually reduce the number of shadow bolts that we cast and our ramp up.

Maybe an on-use ability that makes the next HoG instant, and spawn 2-3 times as many imps? With a longer cd that could help with ramp up time and be kinda cool.

I agree and that would be overall cooler to run around with multiple demons even small imps.

Is it though? The thing is in my mind the pet will use their abilities randomly (“occasionally”) but the warlock would have no control over them hence not so OP imho. I see it more as a second permament demon that sometimes does something different than just casting one ability or doing basic attack.

It is true but otherwise there isn’t really much point in using the talent IMHO. At least currently I don’t think there is any use for it - maybe you could try to combo with Demonbolt legendary and Power Siphon and Decimating Bolt from necrolords to deal high damage with demonbolt but still it doesn’t deal enough damage compared to what other classes/specs are capable of.

In a way I kind of like spawning as many demons as possible, casting Tyrant and then knowing they are doing a lot of damage so I can move and have some time for myself to maybe do mechanics or focus on CC. So unsure really if Tyrant should be instant or if should be removed - I think its a nice way to do damage and extend duration of pets. I would probably lean towards an idea that you have multiple tyrants that buff your demons and you in different ways. Maybe a tyrant that spawns an imp for every demon you have and also increases duration of other demons, maybe another tyrant who buffs only melee/ranged demons or only one specific demon (and increases duration by a lot).

The name to me doesn’t matter all that much, we have different visions for metamorph but the one i propose plays into the current iteration of demo.

Then it would be overpowered with the number of demons it spawns, the cast time is there to introduce issues with getting too many demons into tyrant window and to give a possibility of counterplaying. You cannot really counter an instant cast spells.

1 Like
8

Your ideas are good, but first improve should be no cast time for the summons. And reduce Soul Shards for dreadstalker and imps. Sorry but a master summoner that needs 1 Soul Shard for 1 Imp and 1 for 1 dreadstalker. Same cost for 1 Felguard? Where is there the master? As master 1 Shard = 3 imps ; 2 Dreadstalker ; 1 Felguard etc.

Oh I forgot, improve the AI!

2 Likes
9

hi, my suggestion that could have immediate effect is that nether portal could be instant cast. According to the current meta in pvp which is rather fast and explosive there is no reason for this to have so big cast time and doing nth on its own.
It would be slightly boosted in pve which is off the meta being weaker than tyrant also.
Another change that would make the build better is to be able to play defense/assist stance button that would apply to all pets as an on off switch because currently the mellee pets are on assist and ranged pets are on defense stance, which causes problems in raid boss and that’s probably the reason why devs are giving up on the specc.
There could be a more suggestions but that’s two i can think of right now that would be lovely for any demonology player like me.
PS. we need a slight dmg boost

1 Like
10

Hey thanks for the long reply. I read your post about your vision of demo as well while our ideal visions of demo differ my changes here are a proposition for “fixing” demo in the nearest future - and from programming’s perspective many effects that I have introduced to the abilities also exist somewhere in the game so really if the developers wanted to playtest this it shouldn’t really take more than a day or two to implement.

Thank you too. Yeah I understand, though I would argue lot of these changes are still preeetty big so would probably have to lead to a bigger overhaul, but yes I’m also thinking of ways to improve current demo and I think that lot of the ideas here are good and have merit.

Despite pet AI being bad I don’'t think that overreliance on it is a problem, in that sense demonology is a unique spec - I would rather have the AI fixed than rework demonology once again into something else.

Well I think it’s pretty big problem and it all really depends on the technicailities, I personally don’t really understand programming so I don’t know how well they even can fix the AI (though I think Tyrant is kidna impossible to fix and this is through what I want to “push” to reintroducing meta). And I still do think overreliance is problem, I still haven’t done talents for my version of Demo but really lot of people like to play Succubus in PvP, likewise in M+ the dungeoneers lack interrupt, so I think variation is good.

Despite pet AI being bad I don’'t think that overreliance on it is a problem, in that sense demonology is a unique spec - I would rather have the AI fixed than rework demonology once again into something else.

While i loved demonology when it still had metamorphosis i like the current iteration as well. The mastery of demo spec relies on keeping track of multiple resources (imp’s casts, number of demons, time left on summoned demons, soul shards) so I do think that in a lot of ways it is complex to play extremely well - but it has other problems that I tried to fix with my suggestions.

I do get it, I do enjoy demo too sometimes, even though I really do not have much time or means to play however I think that in the long run this spec is both irreconciable with good playstyle as well as inferior to the old demo, and I think it’s unfair too, as being demo lock in Legion meant that you had your spec taken from you and replaced by something else which is kinda alienating.

I still think that it’s not good in the end though, it does not really excel in anything (Expect for torghast, which isn’t really equal to other gamemodes). And especialy if you look at other specs, demo requires lot of setup to do inferior results to both aff and destro and in like large scale bgs or whatever it’s not that playable at all, and I dont want to simplify it, no but it’s still unnacetable that Demo is once again “afterthought spec” (similar to arcane in classic demo was essetnialy utility specialization with little real identity and only wotlk meta saved it)
Again current demo has it’s merits but I think we can do better and it wouldn’t take long either.

Does it? I die a little bit inside every time I need to cast Shadow Bolt, it deals virtually no damage, the only purpose it has is to generate soul shards - I would gladly have its damage component removed if it reduced the cast time to like 0.5 seconds.

Oh don’t get me wrong I am not saying that shadowbolt is particulary satisfying, just that Soul strike feels completely disconnected from the player to be fair.

Is it though? The thing is in my mind the pet will use their abilities randomly (“occasionally”) but the warlock would have no control over them hence not so OP imho. I see it more as a second permament demon that sometimes does something different than just casting one ability or doing basic attac

I think I was admittably pretty hyperbolic with that yeah, it definetly wouldn’t be so bad and I think honestly that it should be an option. However the problem with the occasionality is that making the demon use the ability randomly is, well… random, and I think control is kinda neccesary tbh.

It is true but otherwise there isn’t really much point in using the talent IMHO. At least currently I don’t think there is any use for it - maybe you could try to combo with Demonbolt legendary and Power Siphon and Decimating Bolt from necrolords to deal high damage with demonbolt but still it doesn’t deal enough damage compared to what other classes/specs are capable of.

As I ssee it demonbolt is first and foremost sort of just an improvement to lock playstyle more than anything but yea I think that if they did something to put more focus on demonbolt it would be pretty beneficial.

In a way I kind of like spawning as many demons as possible, casting Tyrant and then knowing they are doing a lot of damage so I can move and have some time for myself to maybe do mechanics or focus on CC. So unsure really if Tyrant should be instant or if should be removed - I think its a nice way to do damage and extend duration of pets. I would probably lean towards an idea that you have multiple tyrants that buff your demons and you in different ways. Maybe a tyrant that spawns an imp for every demon you have and also increases duration of other demons, maybe another tyrant who buffs only melee/ranged demons or only one specific demon (and increases duration by a lot).

I am honestly biased towards PvP but I’d say it should be removed. I really like how he looks like and it was definetly a solution to legion demo but currently I think it doesn’t work very well.
I think for now however is that if we are talking about immidate changes, I think making it instant is good idea.

The name to me doesn’t matter all that much, we have different visions for metamorph but the one i propose plays into the current iteration of demo.

Yeah I didn’t intend to be obnoxious, just wanted to put that out because Metamorphosis as name was given to DH and I don’t really want to draw much compraison, despite how different our version of Meta would be anyway.
The mechanical problem I’d have with this verison is sorta, since we already have burst currently it would run parallel with it and having two ways to burst is kinda weird, plus the CD would make it reaally probably bit too long to make it viable, I’m bit tired so I cannot really draw any comparisons right now, maybe I’m wrong on this but I feel like having burst abilities you can use in shorter intervals is better and more fun.

Then it would be overpowered with the number of demons it spawns, the cast time is there to introduce issues with getting too many demons into tyrant window and to give a possibility of counterplaying. You cannot really counter an instant cast spells.

I disagree because that might be the inteniton of the devs but the talent is barely used and apart from costing a lot of shards, the reason is that it just takes time as well but I’m not neccesarily opposed to it as I guess it could work pretty well in PvE.

Again this is just my opinion and I believe that change is neccesary sometimes and that we definetly need to look to fixing the immidate problems first.

11

Revert it to MoP Version, fixed. It could be so easy.

2 Likes
12

Assuming we are stuck in this design changes I’d like personally

Demonic strength: make it do an empowered ability of what ever demon is out rather than just felguard, for felguard it’s fine but I’d like this to do something on every demon- maybe succubus gets a 15 yard range splash aoe that snares or knock back with small spike damage, imp does a flurry of three felbolts in a chain, felhunter does a large bite, voidwalker does an aoe that debuffs targets hit to do less damage to him?

Soul strike: were as demonic strength empowers an ability, soulstrike empowers a basic attack giving a soul shard. Succubus does a single 15 yard range whip lash, imp does a instant empowered bolt.

Reasons for the above- I like the idea I’m a demonology warlock, not just a felguard keeper it feels like a waste to not make these talents be about making warlock more about commanding his main demon better. I couldn’t care less if overall the felguard was still the strongest option dps wise via these abilities but at least the others might find situational play with this kinda design.

Doom : made baseline, replaces corruption - talent changed to “impending doom” like legion (maybe without the duration shortened) or “hand of doom” exactly like legion

Nether portal: ether costs no shards to summon it OR no cast time but takes 1 seconds to fully open in animation- it’s a bit much and rarely sees play even when it could be fun to use, its not like we ain’t gonna be hard casting lots to make use of it already

Sing magic : removed or given another effect on top of what it does- you are already losing a lot using an imp over felguard both in dps and personal survival (soul link on an imp sucks) .

Fel lord : just buff this guy already hes pathetic, the fact he costs soul shards is almost insulting considering how awful he us.

Observer : ether buff him or make him able to be placed within 20 yards , as of currently he sucks even when he should be strong just like fel lord

Pleasure though pain: this is mostly fine but maybe make her take a little less damage from physical if this talent is taken? Like she can be blown up in a gcd without major cooldowns

1 Like
13

Pleasure trough pain could also count for all pets. Not just succubus. But we have a lot of talents, conduits that are just for specific pets.

I also would love to see changes to our mastery. It should also increase our dmg. Like if we have 30% mastery, our pets get the 30% and we get 15-20% dmg.

14

As much as I get where you are coming from I actually like pleasure though pain as it’s a knock back to the original demonology buffs which had different demons grant bonuses to the warlock succubus giving shadow damage and being part of the classic wow shadow bolt build. Originally succubus was the offensive pet and I think this talent is actually good as is- the only issue I find with it is she dies near instantly to classes with raw cleave damage without being focused due to being low hp pet.

Maybe a reduced damage from aoe so people can still focus her (which is fair) but prevents her just dying from aoe would work well but I’m not sure how that would play out considering a lot of aoe applying single target effects is likely the main cause

My largest disappointment with the current talents is both demonic strength and soul strike could easily of been talents that focused on making more value of all our pets not just felguard, I like to think a demonology warlocks felhunter is more potent than an affliction or destro locks felhunter in both its damage and utility it provides, same goes for all the demons.

1 Like
15

All pets need more survivability. Mit only succubus.
If I would decide anything, we would have MoP warlock back.

1 Like
16

Maybe but that’s not going to happen, I love the idea of mop/wod demo back but to be honest I’d be happy with a design more like legion- after coming back to my warlock I think I finally worked out what is really off about it.

Affection- does dot and drains, it’s big I AM WARLOCK spell is a demon summon, it feels impactful to use darkglare ,

destro -same deal with infernal

Demo - you already summon hundreds of pets and as much as the devs probably felt tyrant looked cool, ultimately hes just more of what you already for 24/7 , hes not exciting to use.

I think demos ultimate ability shouldn’t be a summon but something more like the legion artifact ability, it felt great to have a ability like that in the kit because demonology isn’t just a “pet keeper”

Who really feels great about dropping tyrant out when you already have been throwing demon dogs imps and felguards at your enemy? Imagine making affliction ultimately long cd a 1.5 min cool down dot and I think you can imagine how lack luster it would feel too

17

We will know by tomorrow what they want to do. As a demo only I’m thinking to quit this class if tonight they fail to address issues. Same with dh, the 2 class I play. So soon enough we will know

18

I would prefer a buff to us and demons that we deal chaos dmg for 20 seconds. Could come with the Tyrant

19

Shadowfury talent should make the cast instant instead of reducing cooldown

20

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.