Ok I made one of these long ago, however that post wasn’t very good and full of typos and bad grammar as I wasn’t as good with English as I am today (yes there will still be typos problably)
So most of us can probably agree, that demonology was better with Meta. Now I understand that Meta was in lore a demon hunter thing, I also understand it would play very similar to shadowpriest right now and I understand that Blizz wanted to reinforce the zoo fantasy, however I will take all of this into an account in this post and try to come with reasonable solutions in this.
HOWEVER just to note, this is very unrealistic and idealized and is not really meant to be guideline for updating warlock, but simply my opinion on how the class should look like.
I cant think of much more to say, so lets get right in. By the way I am making this from PvP perspective so keept that in mind and this is going to be heavier on the Meta side of things so don’t be surprised its so similar.
Now I know some people want to make something like this too, so I’d love to hear your own versions or corrections of mine.
Playstyle
Alright, so old demonology was all about generating as much fury as possible and dumping it into cool and interesting spells, while new demonology is all about summoning of demons to aid their master in his goals of destruction. As for how my demonology is played, the basic idea for me was. Take best of the both, and so I choose to combined the zoo playstile of demonology and use that as means to generate the resources to get into a state similar to what demonology was prior to Legion. I will now go in depth and look how that will work.
Resource
Demonic corruption-
Ok so while I underestand that Blizzard kinda wanted to streamline the resources of warlocks and even though I love the idea of soul shards, I am giving them up here, this might be very controversial, however looking at other classes, even pure DPS as mage, we can see multiple resources still being used across the spec and with demonology being very distinct from Destro and Affy, I think this is possible.
So Demonic corruption will be a resources whose sole purpose is to feed the passive ability of the same name. You will use your builder abilities to generate this resource like you did with demonic fury, it will be on a bar and will slowly go up with your skills, capping at 100.
Passives
Demonic corruption-
Now this is the Meta of new demonology. This ability may or may not be passive and may or may not be called like this, that is up to further discussion, however it is going to rely heavily on the source.
So, the idea is, as your Corruption (resource) increases, you will slowly start to get corrupted, with the visual effects increasigly visible on you.
(The way I imagine this is that the ground under your feet and around your hands burns in same shadowfel flame as corruption and you might gain extra features like Fel horns, Wings and maybe even claws, that will be purely cosmetic and will be magical/etherial not physical like those Demon hunters have, think Meta without the torso and legs)
When your demonic corruption reaches 100% this passive will either directly transform you, or allow you to transform into the fully corrupted form, which will change your abilities.
Soul link-
Same as now
Soul leech-
Same but now includes the Demon skin ability
Mastery-
Increases damage of your demons and gives Wild Imps and Hand of Gul’dan x% chance to summon x additional imps (like up to 3 so we aren’t getting ridiculous)
Wild imps/inner demons-
Gives you x% chance to summon imps while in combat (or even outside that depends on how it would be ballanced), this chance increases with how much Demonic corruption (resource) you currently have.
Sou leech-
Same stuff
Builders
So to get to higher demonic corruption, we of course need to build it up with our abilites, I have designated several abilities to do this, including abilities of your demons which will work as the resource now making you their master rather than the other way around.
Shadowbolt-
Classic ability, this will be literaly the same as it is, rather slow-ish, low damage ability which will generate low ammount of Demonic Corruption.
Call Dreadstakers or other DOT-
Next spell demo will use will be some sort of DOT that shall generate very low ammount of demonic corruption with each tick. Here I list dreadstalkers as an example but I am aware of their technical problems so it could be literaly anything else too.
Hand of Gul’dan
-This is going to be most likely isntant spell or one with short cast time. This spell is going to have two charges and summon imps.
Imps: (this also applies to wild imps)
-Imps from HOG will work as in Legion, however they will not
cost anything, imps shall periodically cast felbolt, when this
ability critically strikes, it will generate you additional Demonic
Corruption
Demonbolt-
Works like in BFA, your DOT ticks and imps will have chance to grant you stacks of demonic core. This is going to make this ability instant. The ability itself will function exaclty the same way, doing more damage and generating double the Corruption than Shadowbolt.
Spenders
Demonfire (though one with cooler animations than whatever our tyrant is doing rn)-
An ability dealing shadowflame damage, replaces shadowbolt while you are corrupted. Demonfire is going to be your big nuke on which you will be spending your demonic corruption. This is going to be single target ability with high damage. This ability may have CD or cast time so it is not spammable and requires some management if you want to pull as much damage as you can out of it. Now the base damage of this ability does not have to be so high, but it will take in account and increse its damage by x% for each wild imp/demon you have out.
Hellfire-
Replaces HoG when corurpted. You know how that works. This ability will deal AOE damage in all directions, while periodically draining it your demonic corruption.
(this works nice due to the periodic loss, it looks good with the fantasy too. I dropped any DOT refresment as that is already present for Spriest voidbolt and all the same I dropped abilities applying doom when you are corrupted since people would compalin it’s “too complex”)
Other abilites
-Summon Felguard/Wrathguard
-Shadowfury - now also instacast
-Demonic cirlce- yes that is supposed to be there
-Demonic tyrant- Now just deals same damage doomguard style, increases crit of your demons (to increase Corruption generation) and makes them last longer, however is not the core of your burst.
-Demonic command- Allows for target switching by commanding the imps to attack the target of this ability.
-All the other abilities we have rn
Talents
Alright so, lets look at talents tier by tier
Tier 1-lvl 15
Wild wild imps (look I can’t make up good names)
-Your DOT has chance to summon wild imp whenever it ticks
Demonic strenght
-Same burst CD as it is now. It might, or might not replace Felstorm when chosen. I dont find that important but apparently some people do.
Bilescourge
-I have chosen to keep this ability here. The idea I have for this is it shall replace Hellfire with a cheaper AoE ability that can be put into whatever location you want, however has a CD. The point in this is you can now control your AoE and drain less Corruption, however on the other hand this ability won’t be usable as often.
Tier 2- lvl 30
Demonic leap-
I admit I put it here because I wanted to include it and had nothing for this particular spot, however I like this ability and think it deserves a spot.
This ability works exactly as it did before legion and allows you to jump a little. Perhaps it would be too similar to some other abilities or too much mobility but thats up to you to decide.
Power siphon-
Works good in BFA so I am keeping it as it is.
Doom
-Maybe give this talent a little buff but I think it can be kept as a sort of execute in a weird way.
Tier 3-lvl 45
Dark regen-
Demon skin is now part of soul leech as it should be and to substitute for passive x active defense dichotomy I have decided to replace that with one focused around healing x burst. So I put this little heal here in case someone wants to choose this over Dark pact and decides healing themselves is for some reason more beneficial than soaking the damage into shield.
Burning rush
*Yeah it stays
Dark pact
-In case you don’t want to heal, the shield is still available for you
Tier 4- lvl 60
Imp swarm
-Stops wild imps passive isntead giving you on demand imps for your personal use. Not sure about the exact number but should be enough to kinda match the number of imps you are going to generate through wild imps, only giving them at one time instead for some bursty stuff.
Soul strike
-Works the same expect for generating corruption instead of SSs obivously.
Summon vilefiend
-I don’t understand this ability that well since Im am not PvEer but I think it should stay. In PvE you don’t have problem with boss running around pillars to my knowledge so this talent is fine even despite the technical problems of Demo in PvP.
Tier 5- lvl 75
Howl of Terror
-Exactly the same as in pre-legion days. AoE CC for pretty decent time that is meant to actually CC people.
Mortal coil
-This stays. its excelent talent that can have many different uses and should remain for the game until the very last day.
Unstable rift
-Demonic gateway is created instantly and upon use either grants movement speed buff or defenive buff.
Tier 6- lvl 90
Chaotic core-
Upon hiting enemy demonbolt has chance to refresh demonic core. This chance is lower, the more cores you have. (but it isnt too high on 1-2 either or you’d be getting 3rd free core all the time)
Demonic inspiration
-Everytime you spend Demonic corruption your imps gain increased chance to critically strike
Grimoire of (I do not recall the name)-
The one that le’ts you summon aditional demon, right now only felguard is avaliable and I understand adding more might class with stuff like call felhunter so either this needs to be somehow handled or we just stick to felguard
Tier 7-lvl 100
Soul engine
-Whenever an imp experies, gain stack of haste buff up to x stacks
Deseperate power (yes I stole Azerite trait name)
-Every 20 points of the corruption you loose, when in corrupted form increases the damage of your demonfire
Dark Soul: Supremancy
-Generates x corruption per second and increases your corruption generation by x% for 20 sec
Honor talents:
I’d keep mostly the same though maybe give us Demon armor, tho I feel like demon armor is so mandatory it should be baked into the baseline spec but either way I’m fine with or without it anyway.
Alright that is all, I might expand on this in future. Please give your ideas on your own overidealized version of demo.