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