Will Demonology see a damage buff to make it more competitive in PvE?

How do you feel about the Felguard? Are you happy with its damage. I personally don't think the damage is too bad from the Felguard but the spec definitely needs more damage in PvE.

Are you cool with the pet being a fire and forget for the most part? It really feels like the Felguard needs a little some thing. Any thoughts on giving the Felguard some type of utility such as a snare on a cd, a pummel, or perhaps a bleed to buff the damage of Demonology?

Have you considered reducing Turn Evil's duration to 6 seconds, like Banish was reduced to?

I really like Demonology and it's cool to mess around with for fun in bgs but that's about it. It has a fairly simple rotation in PvE, which is fine but its damage is lackluster. Making the spec more viable in PvE would also probably make a lot of mages happy! The spec really lacks the tools to be effective in PvP. There's so much potential, the spec just needs a little attention! =)

The source of Demo's damage comes from Meta and Felguard.

From personal experience, as Destro I can crit conflag (in PvE) for around 10k, 13k tops with procs, and Chaos Bolt around 11k regularly, 12k+ with procs. That's with the gear I'm in (which isn't all that fantastic),

As Demo, I crit Shadowbolt (my spam spell) for 7k, and soulfire for around 8k. With Meta active, I add about 2k worth of damage to each. That's the only time I can approach what I was doing as destro without cooldowns. Felguard also adds a decent chunk of my DPS, but since I don't have recount (like i should), I don't know how much that is.

In other words, if you invest past a certain point in Demo you need Meta to be competative, and of course it's on a talented 2.1 minute cooldown. That means once every 2.1 minutes I can reach the damage I have as destruction most the time. But as Demo is more utility and survival, I don't have much of an issue with that.

Demo is a great spec to switch to if you keep pulling aggro off the tank. Lol.

EDIT: Also, it would still be awesome if Demo could be less Felguard-centric, and of course getting turned / banished during our awesome save-my-butt button isn't fun, but it should have a weakness anyway.

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Q u o t e:
The source of Demo's damage comes from Meta and Felguard.

From personal experience, as Destro I can crit conflag (in PvE) for around 10k, 13k tops with procs, and Chaos Bolt around 11k regularly, 12k+ with procs. That's with the gear I'm in (which isn't all that fantastic),

As Demo, I crit Shadowbolt (my spam spell) for 7k, and soulfire for around 8k. With Meta active, I add about 2k worth of damage to each. That's the only time I can approach what I was doing as destro without cooldowns. Felguard also adds a decent chunk of my DPS, but since I don't have recount (like i should), I don't know how much that is.

In other words, if you invest past a certain point in Demo you need Meta to be competative, and of course it's on a talented 2.1 minute cooldown. That means once every 2.1 minutes I can reach the damage I have as destruction most the time. But as Demo is more utility and survival, I don't have much of an issue with that.

Demo is a great spec to switch to if you keep pulling aggro off the tank. Lol.

EDIT: Also, it would still be awesome if Demo could be less Felguard-centric, and of course getting turned / banished during our awesome save-my-butt button isn't fun, but it should have a weakness anyway.

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The spec definitely needs a damage buff to be competitive in PvE but maybe they're happy with where it is.

GC said some time back that Demonology is suppose to be about the pets. I'm not sure how they feel about the spec now though.

Should Demonology locks be pulling out different pets depending on the situation or is the Felguard THE Demonology pet? There's nothing wrong with the Felguard being THE pet imo. He does pretty good damage. Imo, the Felguard could really just use some type of utility to give the spec another trick up its sleeve.

I don't understand why people feel that it's bad to put out decent dps and, put out the best by miles SP buff in the game. I regularly run as the Darkpact 'Lock for our progression raids. I'm still putting out competative DPS and increasing the raid dps.

One thing I don't understand is I can win vs. the other Locks in my raid on overall damage but still be behind them on the actual dps?

Would it be possible to help bring up Demo's damage through the other pets as well? Something like removing regent cost on the Infernal or letting you solo-summon the Doomguard and add a bit more scaling to them as a deep Demo talent.

Flavor wise, Demonology has always been the "Master of Demons" spec, should be able to get a little bit more out of it besides just using the Felgaurd 100% of the time. Or maybe something like Kindred Spirits from hunters where if your close to the demon you get spell power/crit and haste/crit/something when your out of range. Just a couple ideas.

What I'd picture it as is having a bit less sustained dps than say Affliction, but capable of burst on demand when the larger pets are pulled in.

If you are deep demo, it is the felguard or nothing. On fights that aren't pet friendly I'd wager that many demo locks switch to an offspec (assuming an elemental shaman in the raid). I know I do, I switch to affliction for yogg and mimiron. It isn't hard to keep the felguard up, but the uptime the he can attack is limited and thus negating the entire point of the spec.

All the pets should put out relatively equal damage, or at least the imp and the felguard should. That way a demo specced lock at least has the option of switching to a ranged pet and not lose 700 dps, which again negates the use of the spec.

My dps is very competitive with the destro locks in my guild, when I pop meta, but I can't keep up when I am outside of it.

Soulfire weaving helps as an execute but a lot of hard mode positional requirements make a 1:1 weave a nightmare. In the end, I personal believe the spec is absolutely boring.

I did pull 21k dps last night on AoE trash.

I am happy with demo, but it is because my gear is garbage and it lets me do 2.5k dps in heroics. I hate seeing locks who have horribad gear like mine but spec destro and pull 1k. Does demonology just not scale as your gear gets better?

Having a scaling raid buff on one class exclusive to a nonscaling raid buff on another class is just weird.

Propose change:

Totem of Wrath increases spell damage of each raid member by 10% of that individual raid member's spell damage (doesn't scale off a number or the shaman).

Demonic Pact does the same thing, over 5 talent points, but also increases personal and demon damage by 10%, over 5 talent points.

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Q u o t e:
I think blizz should just give it up on the pets, and stop trying to make them the focus of the demo spec, they are never going to get them to work right.
Too many pet unfriendly fights, PVP durability problems, crazy pathing issues...

Just let them be "extras" for the class.

I don't know.

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As it is now, Demonology still doesn't pull out other pets. I'm curious if GC still wants Demonology to be about the pets or is it now about the Felguard. I also wonder if they're happy with how Demonology performs in both PvE and PvP. I personally think the rotation is find in PvE, the spec just needs a little buff in damage. I also don't think the spec isn't too far off from being a solid spec in PvP too.

They're happy enough to have released it in this expansion despite a pretty overwhelming show of dissatisfaction by beta testers and early WotLK players. GC did write a couple posts about Demo over the past few months, most of them basically saying "some people like having a talent tree that doesn't change your playstyle" or "we know Demo sucks, but that's because it's a pet tree."

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Q u o t e:
They're happy enough to have released it in this expansion despite a pretty overwhelming show of dissatisfaction by beta testers and early WotLK players. GC did write a couple posts about Demo over the past few months, most of them basically saying "some people like having a talent tree that doesn't change your playstyle" or "we know Demo sucks, but that's because it's a pet tree."

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Heh, ya I was there for beta. I actually think Metamorphosis came out well from that huge thread we had going with GC on it. Shadow Cleave probably wouldn't be too bad if it actually did decent damage but Challenging Howl really doesn't fit. =/

The playstyle really isn't that bad and when you get to 35% your rotation changes anyways. It could be more interesting but it isn't THAT bad. One of the worst things about the tree is the boring pet and maybe this is what BM hunters suffer with too? Maybe the PET trees' pets need more interesting talents/spells. I like the idea of building up a power house pet for the BM and Demo trees, it just doesn't feel like our pets really are that special.

Finally, please fix pet survivability, it's still rather bad. (Talking PvP here) =(

Demonology is in a large part boring and underpowered BECAUSE people remain clinged to this idea of it being this great pet tree. Pets are boring. Raid utility is boring. Putting out big numbers on the charts is not boring. This is one of the big reasons why people switch to specs such as destro, even those like myself who played as demonology for most of the time spent on their locks.

Demonology doesn't need the other pets. The felguard is fine. What could possibly be the point of buffing other pets situationally and yet keeping the felguard as the most powerful and a 41-pt talent at that? And how would buffing other pets in any way help out our pve or pvp situations? Blizz has situated a few pets as being oriented towards different specs, and that is a philosophy they should probably stick with.

The absurd focus on pets is what has also hindered any design changes for the spec. We can't have pets that are too powerful because players don't want to have to kill another player, multiple times. Pets dying is not the main reason that demonologists are having such a hard time keeping up on the dps charts, and it isn't what is keeping them out of pvp. You might start with how the spec gives you a mediocre increase in survivability in exchange for absolutely weak dots and nukes. Or that all the damage dealing mechanisms in the spec feel clumsy; ie. a pet with a stupid ai, a loaded rotation, and awkward positioning and rotation changes that range from soulfire weaving to melee-range meta w/ immolate aura. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of both decimation and meta (they are about the only two things that make demo more fun), but the implementation is much less than ideal.

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Q u o t e:
I am happy with demo, but it is because my gear is garbage and it lets me do 2.5k dps in heroics. I hate seeing locks who have horribad gear like mine but spec destro and pull 1k. Does demonology just not scale as your gear gets better?

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many of the coefficients on abilities change as you spec in destro and same for shadow in affliction, however demo puts most of your power into your demons and relies less so much on your gear. sure with higher spell power and hit your dps is going to go up, but it wont be amplified as much as it will be in destro or affliction.

so technically yes demo doesnt scale with gear as well as destro and affliction does.

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Q u o t e:

GC said some time back that Demonology is suppose to be about the pets. I'm not sure how they feel about the spec now though.

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From my understanding the new shard system is supposed to solve this (partially at least)

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Q u o t e:
Should Demonology locks be pulling out different pets depending on the situation or is the Felguard THE Demonology pet?

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This is what I'd like to see...right now its pretty much Felguard for general DPS (read most of the time) or the Void Walker for the shield etc, for a Demo lock the rest of the pets are almost forgotten...I hardly use the Felhunter , the Imp or the Succubus, I dont think the Felgaurd should replace the other pets %100 of the time.

One thought that comes to mind is if we could get a talent similar to Demonic Empowerment deeper in the tree which adds more utility to our default Pets, thinking more along the lines of extra CC or support abilities, here are some Examples:

Imp: your imp calls a pack of lesser imps who attack your targets for 12 seconds (think lesser Army of the Dead)

Succubus: causes the target to damage themselves for %20 of the damage they do.

Void Walker: protects your group members with a shield which absorbs damage equal to %15 of the voidwalker's health.

Felhunter: the felhunter is surrounded with an Anti Magic shield for 12 seconds.

Pets aside, there is Meta to think about, yesterday there was a thread were few of us were talking about the possibilities of lock tanks using meta etc and on top of all that there is the question of how to make a Pet centric tree more interactive than it currently is.

My guess at the moment is that there is work in progress to solve some if not all of the issue above but until someone from Blizz discloses information all we can do is speculate and discuss things.

Just my 2c

Edit: Thread is not Threat =\

This spec needs less faceroll pets, the Felguard needs a lot of ultility/dps buffs, and the other pets need to play a role. Pet UI needs work. Pets need to jump off of things much better and etc.

A spec named Demonology shouldn't have pets that only give a small benefit more than non-Demonology Specced Warlocks' pets. Demonology should be all about Demons, and if you don't like it, you probably shouldn't be speccing Demonology or wanting to spec it in the first place. Go play Destruction and Affliction and let Demonology become true pet spec that can succeed.

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Q u o t e:
This spec needs less faceroll pets, the Felguard needs a lot of ultility/dps buffs, and the other pets need to play a role. Pet UI needs work. Pets need to jump off of things much better and etc.

A spec named Demonology shouldn't have pets that only give a small benefit more than non-Demonology Specced Warlocks' pets. Demonology should be all about Demons, and if you don't like it, you probably shouldn't be speccing Demonology or wanting to spec it in the first place. Go play Destruction and Affliction and let Demonology become true pet spec that can succeed.

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That's the problem though... Our pets really don't improve by putting more points into Demonology. You can improve the Succubus by putting points in Demonology but that has more synergy with Destruction PvP. You can improve the Imp by putting points in Demonology but that has more synergy with Destruction PvE. You can improve the Voidwalker by putting points in Demonology, which actually works out ok for Demonology only because it improves the Felguard's damage.

IF Demonology is about having the right pet at a given moment, the spec lacks a feasible way to get the right pet. Due to how squishy pets are, you can't just waste Fel Domination on switching pets. Also, due to the way the pet talents are in the Demonology tree, they really don't improve the pets for a Demonology warlock.

Some people think the Demonology tree should be centered around a power house demon, the Felguard and putting points in this tree improves the Felguard.

Others think the Demonology tree should be centered around all of our demons and putting points in this tree improves all of our pets. If this is the intention, the other pets need to be more special for a Demonology lock, so as they're not the same as an Affliction or Destruction lock. Demonology locks would also need a more reliable way to switch pets.

Either way, the Felguard or a Demonologist's other pets need to be more unique to this tree/offer more utility to the Demonologist. A Demonologist needs more tools!

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Q u o t e:


That's the problem though... Our pets really don't improve by putting more points into Demonology. You can improve the Succubus by putting points in Demonology but that has more synergy with Destruction PvP. You can improve the Imp by putting points in Demonology but that has more synergy with Destruction PvE. You can improve the Voidwalker by putting points in Demonology, which actually works out ok for Demonology only because it improves the Felguard's damage.

IF Demonology is about having the right pet at a given moment, the spec lacks a feasible way to get the right pet. Due to how squishy pets are, you can't just waste Fel Domination on switching pets. Also, due to the way the pet talents are in the Demonology tree, they really don't improve the pets for a Demonology warlock.

Some people think the Demonology tree should be centered around a power house demon, the Felguard and putting points in this tree improves the Felguard.

Others think the Demonology tree should be centered around all of our demons and putting points in this tree improves all of our pets. If this is the intention, the other pets need to be more special for a Demonology lock, so as they're not the same as an Affliction or Destruction lock. Demonology locks would also need a more reliable way to switch pets.

Either way, the Felguard or a Demonologist's other pets need to be more unique to this tree/offer more utility to the Demonologist. A Demonologist needs more tools!

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what i dont understand is why don't any of our demons learn any new abilities while speccing deep demo. heck you dont even learn any new abilities for the most part you end up a 0/0/0 warlock with some passive buffs and defenses.