Soul strike is really good for example re-connect a target after a root. Or to charge a target into a stun ro reduce the delay due to the travel time. And to as well swap target quickly if needed or to break a restealth from a rogue or a druid.
The vilefiend is really powerful for 2 main reason this ability is our only on fire school which can be used VS team like melee cleave to force kicks without being punished by not being able to use port/Wall etc…
And the second one is because he got a little CD and give you more dmg out of burst and can be empowered by the tyrant.
(but tbh soul strike is so good that I would like to be ble to get them both )
Love the post, but my main point here is that, we don’t need change of talents, we need a whole spec rework, we need to walk away from mass puppeteer gameplay, we need to focus not at quantity of our demons but rather of quality if them.
There is too much things that just doesn’t work right, and will never work well…simple example, inner demons talent is damage and utility wise not that bad, but imps and demons that it summons locks you in combat for 15 seconds or more, and this leads us to the point where our healthstone doesn’t start CD, because we can’t leave combat state.
Current demonology is a big fiasko, blizzard has tried to implement diablo 3 necromancer’s gameplay elements to us, but it doesn’t work right here, on WoW game engine. This whole puppeteer gameplay can’t be done right with current game engine/techology, it won’t work no matter how hard they will try.
MoP and Pre MoP had much more simplistic technological aspect of demonology, but it had more robust and reliable realisation, based on well thought gameplay design, and understanding of engine shortcomings.
I would love to see puppeteer gameplay in action when it’s done right, but let’s be real here…not on this game engine, not with current technologies that holds devs back.
Afternoon you darkness worshipping scary mage type figures!!
I still stand by one of my very very long time ago posts. I really like the current demo. There’s always something to press and something to keep in mind. Always little mini dicisions to make. Of course I’m as casual as you can get, but I decided to live my life according to enjoyment rather then maximizing certain numbers and efficiency. So that also extents to the game. I choose the talent’s that i like rather then what a guide or elite player tells me to.
Funny thing is, I’ll bet that if everyone just specs what he/she enjoys, you’d still be able to easily raid/dungeon Mythic content, it would just be harder, but let’s face it, after M+ 10 you’re just in it for the glory, so why not enjoy the extra challenge . Seeing as how raid’s are being beaten by top guilds within a few weeks, why bother if it takes one week longer (even doubt that it would).
I’m so tired of all this chat about optimizing/maximizing/efficiency gameplay… You should enjoy the game. So if the playstyle is something you don’t like that might be an issue, or simply change your class . For me affliction doesn’t do it anymore. Been my spec since tbc untill Legion.
If everything in this game (or life) would be optimized for every possible outcome, we’d all be the same class with the same spells… booooooring…
just my 2 cents
PS: not that I didn’t enjoy the ‘old’ demo… the one with transforming into a big awesome leet demon… I just like this as well. But then again; i’ve got a big imagination… so I see my lock summoning scary demons to engulf my oponent with… no chance in hell they are going to survive the menace
Don’t take it wrong but actually if you want to progress you have to play the top tier spec. Otherwise no ody wants to play with you.
Of course if you are casual it doesn’t matter but enjoying a spec and wanting it to be competitive is 2 different things.
I really like demonology but since the beginning of the game this spec as alllways be terrible far away behind the others dps spec and this is disgusting.
After all we pay the same price than the other right?
Well i started to play WoW on official servers since Cata pre patch, and i always was demo warlock, and i never felt that i had to play destro or demo in PvP and PvE (hardcore raiding) to be compedetive. In MoP i left raiding because for me it was too boring, and started to focus on PvP not a high tier godlike nolife style, but demo never felt like it was a “casual” tier spec, WoD was pretty much the same as MoP… and then came Legion, and suddenly demonology became a casual fun spec.
BFA made things a bit better in some areas of the spec, but still it is a techical mess.
I want if not revert to MoP desing, at least well thought redesign of the demo - redesign that will concider techical/engine shortcomings and will avoid such problems like current demonology.
And yes, i say at least about techical stuff, because this is first thing that class designers should concider when they start to plan desing of the class/spec, this is fundamental part of core design philosophy.
A simple example of devs who knew their shortcomings in most areas of their engine…and a little disclamer - i will not disscuss how that game was good or bad, or even if it was true for it’s roots.
Fallout 4 - devs decided on purpose not to implement player controlled vehicles.Reason for this was simple, their engine cannot stream data with enough speed to allow player seamlessly travel around the world without bunch of loadings.
So I have been playing Lock since I started in BC and have never looked back. However with the way PvP is atm Warlocks are in one of the worst places in my opinion.
All warlocks are forced to reroll to Destro plainly for the fact that Chaos Bolt is broken especially with the traits. I really enjoyed Classic WoW Demo and Affliction but now it just feels like they hit like a wet noodle!!!
Ps… If anyone wants to see any Warlock or other class PvP/other gaming content then check out my channel below!!!
I think one of the other main design philosophies which were prevalent and loved in MoP was that your talent choices actually mattered and made meaningful changes to the way in which your class functioned. My suggestions are thus:
Your level 15 and eventually level 110 talents effectively dictate what sort of demonology warlock you are.
One talent basically pushes your playstyle in the direction of summoning lots and lots of demons.
Another pushes you in the direction of a select few demons being powerful.
And finally the final line pushes you towards your demons simply being a means to an end, empowering you and being the fuel for your spells.
This, I think, should be the best of both worlds because from what I’ve seen some people liked the Legion demo lock where it was all about summoning loads of demons, some just want our main pets to be stronger and others prefer the whole idea of demonology being about your demons being a means of you going beast mode like we did back in MoP and WoD.
This can be as simple as:
‘Dark Apotheosis: Attacks from all demons now grant you demonic energy. At full energy you can activate Dark Apotheosis to gain empowered versions of your skills.’ These skills being old skills like chaos wave from old demonology as well as skills which work like thal’kiels consumption.
Not taking it wrong at all! It’s a forum, it’s meant for discussion.
On top of that I’m so arrogant to claim that the mindset of most of the wow players (actually, most of the world, this is not just wow related) is wrong . For some reason everyone globally sees the need to rush towards a target/goal instead of just enjoying getting there. I’m from Holland, at one point during my education I had to travel to Jerez (Spain). Me and a friend of mine decided to go by car since we like driving. What would be more fun, driving there with 300km/h being heavily focused on the road having no time for anything else and getting there within a day (2600kms), being exhausted then btw because of the effort . Or just driving and enjoying the scenery…
That’s what’s wrong in my opinion with the world nowadays. Why do you want to optimize so badly instead of enjoying the boss fights? If the goal is all that matters then very extremely said only time attending is what gives you your epix. Then there might just as well be a button sequence you have to press for 20 mins in order to get the boss down.
The reason you ‘have’ to be competitive in talent trees and azerite traits (read: what the wow community wants you to do) is because of the general mindset of focusing on nothing but a goal instead of the road to get there, once again being struck by the instant gratification fever (imo). If left entirely up to the players base the game’s mechanic would disappear… you’d port into the instance, press 1 button and get your reward… Where’s the fun in that…
I’m starting philosophy here… but you get what I mean.
To the point of the game and talent’s/spec etc… I wonder how your raiding would go if you simply took your standard raiding team you play with every week and let them spec the way they want… I would not be surprised if it didn’t slow you down by a significant amount. But you’d all have a blast!!!
In pve demo works. Many of the problems mentioned here are annoying problems (namely pet control and changing targets, felhunters really should have like 200-300% speed, there’s no reason not to), but it works. Tyrant isnt a simple cd, but it has room for decision making, especially with azerite making it give 5 shards, meaning you can use it suboptimally when cds dont perfectly align to still get some good burst st/aoe vs hard pulls/priority mobs.
The problems are hugely excarbated in pvp, where the pet ai can be exploited by players. Felhunter 200% speed would solve some of it, but the issue of target switching and line of sighting shouldnt completely wreck a tyrant/pack of wild imps like it does today.
For what its worth, i would be happy to see current demo work in pvp. Its a fun specc with cool visuals. I also enjoyed mop demo and would have no problem at all if they brought it back (come on not like dh or locks care that much if we both have metamorph, dh metamorph is a repeating dmg cd whereas mop metamorph is basically a cooler void form with more choice).
But whatever blizz does, its solvable, just have to recognize the issues. Make felhunters fast in pvp and maybe have tyrant ignore line of sight, tune the dmg in pvp a bit and things can be decent. (Not mentioning mobility and survibability issues cuzz thats a problem for all warlocks vs hyper mobile melee, not just demo whos actually the best equipped to survive and deal with interrupts currently).
I’m afraid that speed boost for dreadstalkers won’t solve many problems. Engine cannot provide hardcore-puppeteer enough tools for being viable. I doubt that i had many issues with current demo if it worked well in PvP, but sadly it doesn’t.
That is why i want MoP/WoD demo back, because it was design that worked well, and with same navmesh issues with our main demon it wasn’t that bad like now.
![:blush:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/blush.png?v=6" ":blush:")
)![:slight_smile:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
. Seeing as how raid’s are being beaten by top guilds within a few weeks, why bother if it takes one week longer (even doubt that it would).![:wink:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/wink.png?v=6" ":wink:")
. For some reason everyone globally sees the need to rush towards a target/goal instead of just enjoying getting there. I’m from Holland, at one point during my education I had to travel to Jerez (Spain). Me and a friend of mine decided to go by car since we like driving. What would be more fun, driving there with 300km/h being heavily focused on the road having no time for anything else and getting there within a day (2600kms), being exhausted then btw because of the effort ![:rofl:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/rofl.png?v=6" ":rofl:")
. Or just driving and enjoying the scenery…![:smiley:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")