Hello there, I’m back once again and I have once more come, as is my traidtion to give you the good old idea for redesign of demonology warlock.
So first of all, for those who haven’t been around back then I do this every once in a while (hencewhy 4.0) and it always looks like something similar, trying to reconicle current design ideas (those few that work) with old demonology as well as brining my own ideas into the mix. So first I’d like to make my arguments
This is part 1. I will split talents and other stuff off, since its already too long
Why new demonology is NEEDED
- Currently demonology is overeliant on pet damage
- Pet damage is very unreliable due to bad AI
- Contrary to a world where demonology has unreliable pet damage, a world used to exist in which demonology used to be good
- While it will need updating and moving forward there was nothing fundamentaly wrong with old demo
- Many old demo players have been alienated by change of their spec
- New demonology is a spec that is poorly planned out and works as an aftertought spec to be mostly ignored (as proof of this it is enough to say that demonology, very much like arcane had to start mostly from scratch and we can see until now that demonology is mostly pushed under the rug)
Solutions
I think while it is not players duty to find solutions for problems, I think it is beneficial to follow up my criticisms by providing solutions to prove that this is a constructive, good faith criticism
- Demo needs to become more direct spec
- However I do not mean to harm the puppetmaster identity either, therefore demons shall, however in very different position remain core part of the spec
- This directness as well as keeping the role shall be achieved by synthesis of some of the current ideas with the old demo and new ideas to tie everything together properly
Response to counterarguments
“Demon Hunter already has metamorhposis”
To compare demon hunter and warlock is merely semantics and it is not very good argument, our new “metamorhposis” shall be renamed, and while there will be certain aestehtic similarity it is not neccesarily bad and there is nothing too similar in playstle
This sounds too much like the shadowpriest
Yes there will be similarities with shadowpriests however this version of demonology is not to be purely DoT spec and ferals as well as rogues can coexist, and so can we !
I want demonology to be more pet based spec
This has proven unrelaible and I do try to solve the fact we can’t choose a pet for ourselves, however otherwise if you think this specify and I will tell you why exactly you are wrong
Chapter 1 - Core ideas
- Soul shards
- while they are cool and serve as part of current warlock identity, I absolutely insist they must be replaced for my vision of warlock to come to be, being completely irreconcilable
- If you want to argue around this keep in mind, same resources was part of Legion standardization which was attemtping something new on large scale, and while for some classes this could be good, Blizzard went back on it where it didn’t really work or wasn’t neccesary (Enchancement shamans don’t have malestrom unlike ele, balance druids also have different resources than others and always had, arcane mages too)
- What do we replace it with then? Demonic corruption
- Demonology warlock shall be one who went very far in studying demons and let the fel power corrupt him. Now he abuses this corruption to his advantage and often let’s himself fall to it. (This is diffrent from DH lore and I’d argue from shadowpriests as well who can be consumed by their insanity, while lock keeps it under control)
- Demonic corruption willl be reppresented by fel-yellow-green bar which will be filled by our abilities among other things.
- What will happen to demons?
- Many warlocks criticized demonology for too much imp focus, I do still however think imps are neccesary, I see imps as very good to be footsoldiers, weak but in large ammount, so yes imps are sticking around.
- However this is a good point and therefore imps shall be generated throguh passive ability, which will have interactions with your general abilities
- The more important demons shall be delegated to their own abilities, this way we can make imps a part of demo however let people summon better demons on thier own accord
2.Abilities
I. Passive
Soul leech and soul link continue existing as always
Inner demons
- Your Hand of Gul’dan and your ticks of Doom and Corruption summon Wild Imps
- There is 35% chance that instead of imp a stronger demon (such as those inner demons summons now or even Dreadstalkers) shall be summoned instead
Demonic corruption
This is your resource that shall work as bar filled by your builder abilities and by your imp attacks (however those do so at lower rate than abilities). I will refer to it as DC
Demonic core
- Still essentialy the same, whenever imp dissapears you have chance to gain a stack
- Likes wise to make up for no Dreadstalkers, every time corruption runs it’s duration (even if you refresh it) you gain a stack of demonic core as well
II.Builder abilities
Shadowbolt
- As always our good old shadowbolt
- Generates low/moderate ammount of Demonic corruption
Demonbolt
- Works essentialy the same
- Instead of 2 shards, generates double, if not even bigger ammount of DC
- Still reliant on Demonic core
Corruption
- Deals damage over time
- Ticks generate imps
- After corruption runs its roughly 12-14 second duration it generates Demonic core (This might look like worse deal since Dreadstalkers only ever take 12, however Dreadstalker AI being terrible you get much more value with corruption
- Could be replaced by another DoT, however I feel it thematically fits here
Doom
- Decided it will be fully separate from corruption
- Doom will work just as it used to, a big DoT with long apart but hard hitting ticks
- Helps with Inner demons, potentialy it could even be justified to make it general demonic cores
- Generates moderate ammount of DC
Hand of Gul’dan
- 2 Charges
- Instant
- Meteor of Shadowflame damage
- Instead of 1-3 imps of BFA or applying Shadowflame, each HoG now summons Lesser observer (Big eye that shoots at the target) , it’s bit quirky but it’s more reliable demon and it allows you to have turret of your own other than imps
II. Spender abilities
Dark Apotheosis
- You let your corruption overtake you, morphing your body and enchancing your abilities. I will sometimes refer to it as Meta but essentialy think of it the same way as the way the word “kick” is used.
- Aestheticaly it will look similar to Gul’dan’s phase 2-3 in Nighthold or the Feltotem Tauren of legion
- You gain horns with Fel green aura around them on your head (might be physical or not)
- Your hands become demonic, each shall also have their aura. Your right hand will have Fel aura (for your touches) and your left hand Purple aura. When you use your wave of chaos these colors will be combined in the ability
- You gain cool spikes on your back
To see my inspiration:
- Feltotem Tauren: https ://i.redd.it/v1mcqsaljmcz.jpg
- Gul’dan: https ://imgur.com/2LetBZq
Now for the effects
Shadowbolt - > Touch of Chaos
- Costs lower ammount of Demonic Corruption
- Does less damage and refreshes your Corruption
Hand of Gul’dan - > Chaos Wave
- Costs more DC, does lot of damage in cone before you
- Works slows down the targets hit (reduces moevment speed)
-This is my experimental idea but it will also reduce the tick time of doom on the target, essentialy taking few seconds of the ticking time, each time you hit, which would make you sometimes causing Doom to tick by force before it would normally tick-You will also be able to gain a special “meta” ability through the talent tree but more on that later.
III. Burst Cooldowns
Apart from bursting through Apotheosis you will also have several other cooldowns to press to do a proper burst.
Fel Infusion
- Empowers your main demon (Any of the three), giving them improved abilities (i.e, Felguard stun will become smth similar to DH stun rather than tossing axe with travel time
- This empowerment also increases damage
- This is nothing like Demonic empowerment, just in case, it is a cooldown, and only for your main demon, not spammable or required to make your demons work
Nethern Rift
-Instantly tears a rift in location of placement
-After 1-2 seconds of charging the rift erupts summoning several demonic legionaries to attack your targets
-Any enemies in the area of attack will be knocked back
IV. Other abilities
Demonic leap
-Basicaly works the same as it used to, activates apotehosis and launches you forward for a second.
-No it is nothing like the Veng DH one, as it only moves you forward and would be limited by CD
Alright I will get to you back with talents later, I am sorry for braggning on too much but I tried to create what I thoguht is the best way forward for demonology. While I know Blizzard probably does not care we must dream and strive forward, there are so many voices calling for change in Demo and one day they shgall hopefuly be heard,
I will get to talents later, so far I promise.
- Making succubus a viable choice as well as third permanent pet to choose from
- More temporary demons in the talent tree
That is all for now, Im goign to rest for a bit thank you
