6.1 Demo: Not as bad as the Demonbolt nerf makes it look.

[Soulzar 42]

One thing I notice most about Servitude, is back to a Blah feeling opener in Demo.  At least my two doomguards are covering my ass and doing dmg for me while I toss some shadowbolts at the boss :D

[yibsu 1]

For constant multi-target fights like Hans&Franz (sorta), Iron Maidens and Blast Furnace where we'll take Cataclysm, DS Glyph or no? 20 seconds lets you get off more Chaos Waves and Soul Fires but the way Cata lines up with 1min Dark Soul seems really good also.

[Paracel 165]

For constant multi-target fights like Hans&Franz (sorta), Iron Maidens and Blast Furnace where we'll take Cataclysm, DS Glyph or no? 20 seconds lets you get off more Chaos Waves and Soul Fires but the way Cata lines up with 1min Dark Soul seems really good also.

Your fury burn phase with Cata is a bit longer than 10 seconds. Those spells could use some love from the unglyphed DS.

I'd say that if you would want some burst AoE(like on furnace) or targets are constantly switching from 2 to 1 like HanzFranz, glyph could have an edge.

Maidens are not about the burst, so the sustained damage of big glyph would pull over IMO.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Glyphed DS on Iron Maidens is pretty decent if you're using a lot of Chaos Wave, which is pretty nasty when it lines up with GSR and Synergy for 150k+ crits.

[Cardio33 3]

Re-posting my comment from mmo-champion forums.  Wanted to get the same conversation started here:

 

Feeling that Demonbolt Nerf

Ran through 9/10 heroic BRF bosses tonight and definitely feeling that demonbolt nerf. Tried adjusting playstyle (2xCB + CW on darksoul) and messing with talents (dropping DB for demonic servitude on Oregorger) and I couldn't remain competitive with our mages/rogues/hunters on single target dps-type encounters.

I usually pull 34k-35k dps on Gruul depending on procs and I felt like 30k was a struggle. In my guild, that's enough to take me from top 5 dps to bottom 3.

I don't mean for this to be a bitch thread, I still did really well on the Cataclysm encounters. I'm trying to start a discussion as to what we can do to post worth-while single target dps again.

As a guild that's about to start mythic encounters next week, I don't feel like bottom 3-5 single target dps is going to cut it.

I'm going to try to run normal BRF this week and dust off the rust with afflic, I feel that will be the way to go for single target in the future. Any thoughts or first impressions post nerf?

Edited February 25, 2015 by Cardio33

[Liquidsteel 279]

I'll be running Affliction on Gruul and Oregorger, and perhaps Blackhand.

 

Otherwise Demo w/ Cataclysm has served me very well, and is still just as strong as it was pre - nerf. I love the freedom of not being tied to Demonbolt.

[Cardio33 3]

Absolutely agree, point I'm trying to make is I don't see a use for demo bolt at all. At 680-685 ilevel I don't see demonology competing single target.

I'm goin afflic too

[Cardio33 3]

Looking over the stats and protecting a 10% demonology DB drop. I'm goin afflic for:

Gruul, Oregorger, Hanz/franz, black hand

Haven't decided about iron maidens and flame bender till more numbers come in.

[Paracel 165]

Singletarget is to be determined by an offspec of choice. Both CR Destro and Affliction are viable choices, it depends on your preference.

However, while damage is estimately the same(with the awesome Shadowburn potential, though), Destro loses a ton of mobility compared to Aff, even with the KJC buff. Think well about your choice depending on the encounter.

I'll stick to Aff as a main spec in 6.1 because it's pretty much all I wanted.
Can't think of Destro on Ore and Hans/Franz. Same goes for Blackhand, probably.

[Drexus 0]

Below are several images proving that there was indeed a buff to DS:

 

Live - no DS

 

Live - DS

Here you can easily see there is a 22.5% Mastery increase when popping DS (38.21 - 15.71 = 22.5).

 

Now on the PTR, we have the following (same exact gear):

 

PTR - no DS

 

PTR - DS

 

You can see there is a 30% increase in Mastery on the PTR when popping DS (50.95 - 30 = 20.95). This represents a damage increase of all abilities while in Meta by an additional 15% over live (including DB). So a Demonbolt during DS Meta that does 100,000 damage on live will do 86,250 when 6.1 launches - which is a 13.75% overall nerf.

 

For a fight where DB is 33% of your total damage (taken from our last heroic Gruul kill as an example), this means there is a total nerf of 4.5% on pure single target, just looking at the DB nerf. If you also consider that there was a 15% buff to all other abilities while in Meta during DS, the nerf would be decidedly less than 4.5%.

 

Overall I don't think the sky is falling with this nerf (but it should have been no more than 15-20% imo). I think what blizzard's intent was with this is that you can't have super strong cleave AND super strong single target. For fights like Operator or Beastlord, if you aren't using DS with Demonbolt but rather for cleaving adds, it will hit like a wet noodle in 6.1. However, on pure single target, DB will still be very strong as long as it is paired with DS every single time.

 

p.s. Hopefully the maths check out, let me know if you see any errors.

 Ok your last paragraph confused the hell outta me.. how can you pair demonbolt and Demonic servatude if they are on the same tier????

[Liquidsteel 279]

He means Dark Soul.

[Soulzar 42]

I'll be running Affliction on Gruul and Oregorger, and perhaps Blackhand.

 

Otherwise Demo w/ Cataclysm has served me very well, and is still just as strong as it was pre - nerf. I love the freedom of not being tied to Demonbolt.

 

I gave the first Pull on Gruul last night to CR and blah.  I did terrible, granted my muscle memory for the spec is a few months dated now.  Went back to GoServ/Servitude for next pull and did much better. CR Destro will take some practice before it will out pace Demo for me.  They are close enough I may not even bother with CR.

 

 Ok your last paragraph confused the hell outta me.. how can you pair demonbolt and Demonic servatude if they are on the same tier????

 

Dark Soul, not Demonic Servitude.

[KoragonArt 0]

So I actually did better ST on gruul (H) post 6.1 than I did with demonbolt. To be fair, however, I went up four item levels last night...

 

But I still feel like I'm not playing that spec optimally. AOE fights are a breeze obviously. Crazy how strong demo still is on those. But for the DB-less demo priority list I still feel like I'm missing something.

 

Basic idea from what I understand is: if you have procs, pop demon and toss out some soul fires or ToCs. When CDs are about to become available, pool fury for a long burst phase, correct?

 

I think what I'm failing to understand properly is how much fury it's okay to use when you get procs. Pooling for CDs for a burst phase is easy, but procs require being a little more dynamic and I don't feel like I'm playing that well.

 

Otherwise I think demo+servitude+service can be a good spec.

[Cardio33 3]

I can't see how GoServ/Servitude can be a viable option for demon. Adds nothing to aoe on most encounters and I feel like go supremecy would win on st. Losing terror/DG on bloodlust feels awful for demon openers.

I'll try afflic thurs and report back.

[KoragonArt 0]

I can't see how GoServ/Servitude can be a viable option for demon. Adds nothing to aoe on most encounters and I feel like go supremecy would win on st. Losing terror/DG on bloodlust feels awful for demon openers.

I'll try afflic thurs and report back.

It wouldn't be used on really any fight with more than one target.  Service feels really good, but I'm not sure about the spec as a whole without DB for single target.

[HeadBeeGuy 11]

I can't see how GoServ/Servitude can be a viable option for demon. Adds nothing to aoe on most encounters and I feel like go supremecy would win on st. Losing terror/DG on bloodlust feels awful for demon openers.

I'll try afflic thurs and report back.

You'd have TWO Doomguards on lust with DemServ/GoServ, though I believe it's only good for pure ST. Two or more targets and I think Cata would win.

[Paracel 165]

 Ok your last paragraph confused the hell outta me.. how can you pair demonbolt and Demonic servatude if they are on the same tier????

DS means Dark Soul, obviously.

Demonic Servitude usually abbreviated as DemServ, for clarity.

[Alkeir 1]

So has anyone simmed whether affliction or DemServ/GoServ play parses higher? I would do it myself, but I have difficulty understanding the program.

[Zinthar 2]

So has anyone simmed whether affliction or DemServ/GoServ play parses higher? I would do it myself, but I have difficulty understanding the program.

 

For me, my sims have DemServ/GoServ parsing higher than Afflication (and for Aff I'm finding that DemServ is still beating out SB:H for my gear).  I even went ahead and assumed that I would change my enchants and gems from Mastery to Haste (and assumed +125 Haste food buff) and Demo's DemServ/GoServ still came out ahead by around 3-4%.

 

Of note: I have 2 pc tier and only tested with that, and the 4 pc for Aff benefits its ST DPS much more than Demo's does.  Also, I've been strongly prioritizing Mastery gear for months now and even if I were to change all of my enchants and gems over to Haste, I'd still have more Mastery than Haste. 

 

The patchwerk sims for 6.1 that have come out assume 695 BiS gear, and Aff ST may not shine (even though it was still only mid-pack overall) until that point.  When using SB:H, the return on additional Haste becomes enormous relative to the second best stat (Mastery), while they're pretty close to each other when running DemServ.  If we continue to gear primarily for Demo, I'm not sure if Aff will ever overtake it for ST unless people are interested in carrying a second set of gear full of haste enchants that's of similar ilvl to their main set. 

 

I didn't even bother trying CR Destro because my gear doesn't have much Crit and I suspect I'd quickly hit a wall where I'd be ember-starved as a result.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Zinthar

[HeadBeeGuy 11]

I didn't even bother trying CR Destro because my gear doesn't have much Crit and I suspect I'd quickly hit a wall where I'd be ember-starved as a result.

I'm only Highmaul LFR geared/mastery enchanted and it was hard for me to not cap embers with CR/GoSac. That said, Demo/Aff is what I'll be sticking with. Demo because AoE/fun, Aff because it's a bit more forgiving when your LFR tank runs laps around the boss room like he's trying out for the Olympics.

[Drafty53 17]

Granted its one log from a guy who posted over at MMO and there guild over-gears heroics but his demonbolts were still hitting nicely and his dps was pretty damn good with DB.  I'm not a master log reader and I know the length of the fight had a big deal for the #s but still...what do you guys think.  Has anyone still had some favorable parses with DB?

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/YkRHgcjXZC2mG9tx/

[mythlock 0]

I checked out warcraftlogs today and sorted the top 200 parses by date and only considered those killed this week (I don't see a way to filter by date, else i would just look at 6.1 kills):

 

 

For Heroic Gruul this week, 20 of the top 200 parses were this week. Of those 20:

• 11 Affliction (SB:Haunt)
• 2 Destruction (Grim:Sac), gogo old-school shadowbolt chaos bolt spam!
• 7 Demo (top one was still running demonbolt; others running Service+Servitude)

Mythic Gruul parses are still dominated by Demo Locks this week (roughly 50/200 top parses, all but 6 were demo), with a smattering of Afflocks and no Destro locks. Looks like a mix of both demonbolt and service/servitude specs for the demo guys.


Mythic Oregorger has a lot higher Afflock rep and a decent Destro population, but that makes sense due to the box phase multi-dotting. Demo with Serv/Serv still dominates.

Mythic Flamebender is dominated by Demo Locks running either Cata or Serv/Serv

Mythic Hans/Franz is Demo Locks + Cata.

 

 

 

tl;dr: Demonbolt is still present, Demo locks are still the most represented, but other specs are making viable appearances.

[Liquidsteel 279]

I tried out Affliction a bit this week. It's ok but honestly it kind of does the same as Demonology ST and just gets out classed as soon as you add more, so really it feels kind of a pointless spec atm.

 

I did 43k with Demonbolt last week on Gruul, and with sick RNG only managed 41k as Affliction this week. I have fantastic gear and was about 3ilvl higher as Affliction, so we're definitely feeling the nerf.

 

Having said that, I played Demo Cataclysm a bit more than most on progress as we didn't have the luxury of stacking Boomkins, so some AoE was needed, and I actually was ASKED to spec Cata on Flamebender ^^

 

I will continue to enjoy Demonology on most bosses, and will only really touch Affliction if I'm feeling bored. 

 

With that said I might even drop it for Destro for some AoE Chaos Bolt fun on some farm bosses next week.

[Recklessfear 33]

 

I will continue to enjoy Demonology on most bosses, and will only really touch Affliction if I'm feeling bored. 

 

This. I'm playing demo pretty much full time still.

 

Demo is life.

[warlokoko 0]

Hello . I have problem with rotation in new build (GoServ/Servitude). Anybody can tell me how to dps in this build ?