6.2 Buffs/Nerfs

[Gnarwhales 0]

Looks like they are messing around with numbers. Hold on to your butts my friends.

• Mastery: Master Demonologist Increases all damage done by you and your demon servants by 7.7% 10.0%. Further increases the damage of your Touch of Chaos, Chaos Wave, Doom, Immolation Aura, and Soul Fire while in Metamorphosis by 15.4%. Warlock - Demonology Spec. 20.0%. Warlock - Demonology Spec.

[Curinir 4]

 

Looks like they are messing around with numbers. Hold on to your butts my friends.

• Mastery: Master Demonologist Increases all damage done by you and your demon servants by 7.7% 10.0%. Further increases the damage of your Touch of Chaos, Chaos Wave, Doom, Immolation Aura, and Soul Fire while in Metamorphosis by 15.4%. Warlock - Demonology Spec. 20.0%. Warlock - Demonology Spec.

 

To me, what that change mean is that we will have to put a lot more emphasis into staying in meta form, which means single target demonology is still not really viable as you don't build fury very fast at all. However, multitarget fights (Hellfire High Council especially) you will have a ton of fury generation, which will make that buff shine. Also fights with lots of burst aoe opportunities should be good as well. For sustained aoe, destro will obviously pull ahead.

[Liquidsteel 279]

It's not so much about staying in meta as it is being wise about how you spend your Fury. With the changes it will be even more important to play correctly.

 

Having said that, Demonbolt looks like it's coming back which trivialises things once again.

[Zagam 1,982]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/q6tPpzjTRcG7Da1V/#type=damage-done&source=19

 

What nerfs?

[Peepz 0]

Demo T18 4P and Archi's trinket is indeed stupid, I've been averaging 120k dps with GoServ/DS, not a single addon to keep track of the procs/buffs so I think a good demolock can get aroung 180-200k raid buffed and enchanted, that's insane, you just keep spamming your spells which deals near to no dmg and see your horde of demons obliterate your target. I don't think it'll go live, they might just cap the demons you can have at once with the T18 proc.

Edited June 8, 2015 by Peepz

[Zagam 1,982]

It is 100% bugged.  It won't go live like that.  

 

My linked parse was fully raid buffed, so I highly doubt anyone could achieve 180-200k DPS single target. 

[spikeysquad 50]

 

This may disagree with you though can't swear it's single target and it's a very short "fight" compared to your 5 minute. They may fall off again or get super lucky with the 4 big dudes and return to 265k! Even when fixed this will be too RNGified for my liking.

Edited June 8, 2015 by spikeysquad

[Zagam 1,982]

He finishes around 185k DPS with 2 charges of Dark Soul and Bloodlust in a span of 2 minutes.  That's the very definition of burst.  Most stable DPS tests need to be done in the range of 5-7 minutes.  

 

I didn't get a chance to test beyond Saturday morning because of weddings/real life shit.  Can't test tonight cuz of a baseball game and then I raid Mythic Blackhand for 3 nights.  I figure by the time I'm able to get back on the PTR, this will be resolved.  

[Liquidsteel 279]

I was doing 10 minute tests and averaging 110-120k.

[Zagam 1,982]

I was doing 10 minute tests and averaging 110-120k.

DB or Serv/Serv?  I only did 2 5 minute tests with no UI, no WeakAuras or anything that I typically rely on, so my play was likely shit.  Just knew that 180-200k was unrealistic.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Demonbolt with Synergy. A bunch of weakauras not working but enough to get by, I was basically casting DB on cooldown but had frequent spells of capping fury. I was primarily focussing on keeping all those Malchezaar's buffed with 5 stacks asap.

[Zagam 1,982]

That 5 stack is going to SUCK to maintain going into DB cycles with ANY movement.  Feels like you have to cast it with 3-5 seconds to go depending on how far back you are just to reapply.  Damn travel time.

[Soulzar 42]

I am not a fan of the demo 2p.

[Cirous 2]

That 5 stack is going to SUCK to maintain going into DB cycles with ANY movement.  Feels like you have to cast it with 3-5 seconds to go depending on how far back you are just to reapply.  Damn travel time.

Getting close to destro's ISF in early Cataclysm..*chills*

[Zagam 1,982]

It's just going to be a new spell priority to mix into the fray.  Basically, you need to Soul Fire just before your DB cycle then Soul Fire coming out of it.  Since DB cycle tends to be Doom -> DB x4, you spend between 6 and 8 seconds doing that.  With Soul Fire's cast time and travel time, it leaves you around 3 seconds of wiggle room which is essentially two globals.  Messing it up and losing your 15% pet buff is going to be similar losses to letting Agony's 10 stack fall off.

[Liquidsteel 279]

I was casting 4x DB, 1x SF and then applying Doom to make sure. You still have DS up for the SF and gain an extra GCD by moving Doom later.

[Masc 0]

 

When I tried Normal Kilrogg last weekend. It was just funny to see all the demons smacking the hell out of Kilrogg, lol. I came here not knowing what to do, so I just went with DB+Synergy. All 4 other warlocks were using Serve+DServe. I'm not sure about the trinkets they were using.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Masc

[Zagam 1,982]

It's over.  They removed the proc bug AND nerfed the duration of our pets.  4pc is down to around a 3-4% gain.  Pretty standard and nothing to get excited over.  

[Liquidsteel 279]

Worth noting that it also cuts the value of the 2pc (or simply makes 4pc worse) as a 10s duration means 5 stacks per demon is all but impossible.

Will likely need to stand as close as possible too as the pets spawn on you.

[Zagam 1,982]

Worth noting that it also cuts the value of the 2pc (or simply makes 4pc worse) as a 10s duration means 5 stacks per demon is all but impossible.

Will likely need to stand as close as possible too as the pets spawn on you.

I actually was trying to augment a couple of simcraft models to see the value and uptime change as you stood 0 yards, 10 yards, 20 yards, 30 yards, and 40 yards from target.  I couldn't get it to model it well, so I just did it in Excel.  I calculated Soul Fire as taking 1.4 seconds to land from 40 yards out.  With 0% Haste and Molten Core under effect, cast time = 2.0 seconds, so 3.4 seconds baseline "reaction" time to apply a new stack to anything.  Considering you need 5 casts to get newly summoned pets up to 5 stack, I think this does a couple of things...

 

1. Sucks for 4pc bonus.  This isn't too troublesome for the Satyrs and Hellhounds, but for Prince, we basically can't get him ramped up.

2. Sucks for Grimoire of Service.  This will actually hurt this talent more than anyone has thought of yet because having to cast Soul Fire 5 times early in a fight on the pull with GoServ isn't doable.  Getting 5 charges up in 2 minute intervals is going to suck, too, because you typically want to be firing Demonbolts with Dark Soul, not Soul Fire.  So now you can't really line the two up.  This is why I believe that Demonology won't use GoService even if it looks good in Simcraft.  I think this lays towards Supremacy since the buff bonuses are multplicative (Wrathguard isn't 35% stronger at 5 stacks, it's 1.2 * 1.15 = 38% stronger) or Synergy.

 

The hope is that they just allow pets to inherit YOUR buff.  I think it was always a bug for the pet to have its own stack considering the buff is a part of the player's buffs, but we'll see how things look in the current PTR build.  If the pets do NOT inherit your stacks, the set bonus is trash for 4pc and GoServ.  If they do, it's workable.

[Recklessfear 33]

somebody may have posted it on their forums as well. They even have also said that if people have concerns to state it on their forums.

 

they shouldnt need fansites to know they gutted not only the most viable spec, but also the most fun-to-play spec.

 

I'm one of the main contributors for their own warlock board, and I can tell you the changes zag proposed at the time were not posted there.

 

Blizzard has said multiple times they use sites other than their own for class changes. Of course bug reports and such should absolutely be posted there, but I would never rule out them searching sites like IV, MMO-C etc. 

[Puns 3]

From 13/06/15 QA with Watcher.

 

Q: Why are you nerfing Demonology warlocks to the ground?

A: "Because we'd rather you not play demonology" - We aren't bad at math, we didn't overshoot in the beginning. We are just concerned about how the spec plays - it's not super intuitive, and hard to juggle debuffs. We saw Aff and Destro mostly drift over to Demonology. We weren't happy that this was the spec people were forced to play. Also a bit of a trap - most complicated but read that it was the best spec. Guides were complicated/long or just plain wrong. Demo is still viable but probably not the best spec. "I apologize if it's your favourite spec." There is an ebb and flow, now it's your turn to be not the best spec, Demo locks.

 

source: http://www.wowhead.com/news=247922/developer-q-a-with-ion-hazzikostas-and-wowhead-recap

 

I am furious. They ignored warlocks at the start because of the MoP revamp, now they give us this shit of not liking demo playstyle? What about those of us who prefer demo over destro/aff?

[Alkeir 1]

From 13/06/15 QA with Watcher.

 

Q: Why are you nerfing Demonology warlocks to the ground?

A: "Because we'd rather you not play demonology" - We aren't bad at math, we didn't overshoot in the beginning. We are just concerned about how the spec plays - it's not super intuitive, and hard to juggle debuffs. We saw Aff and Destro mostly drift over to Demonology. We weren't happy that this was the spec people were forced to play. Also a bit of a trap - most complicated but read that it was the best spec. Guides were complicated/long or just plain wrong. Demo is still viable but probably not the best spec. "I apologize if it's your favourite spec." There is an ebb and flow, now it's your turn to be not the best spec, Demo locks.

 

source: http://www.wowhead.com/news=247922/developer-q-a-with-ion-hazzikostas-and-wowhead-recap

 

I am furious. They ignored warlocks at the start because of the MoP revamp, now they give us this shit of not liking demo playstyle? What about those of us who prefer demo over destro/aff?

I'm furious as well. I'm extremely passionate about demonology and it's the reason I play a warlock. An extra slap in the face is that they give us new demon models right before we play Sacrificial Pact in destro or affliction for a tier.

[spikeysquad 50]

http://www.twitch.tv/wow/v/6142985Go to about 46:15 for the lock stuff. Well at least they have finally broken silence on their decisions. I am disappointed as I am not really enjoying CR Destro (I doubt that Affliction will be decent on all bosses) but will have to wait and see how Demo performs in specific boss fights  

[Lockybalboa 618]

I think  this is mostly due to the bug in BRF (that they have never acknowledged or fixed) of DoTs doing damage to targets that are already dead. This hugely inflates Demo numbers and gives them grounds for bad ideas.

 

Demo is the most complex spec, at least for warlocks and arguable the game, I also agree that I don't think that it is playable to max without some addons. Demo is far from intuitive and can be down right weird to juggle sometimes, but that was the appeal of it.

 

Demo is made to look worse then it is because of how gutted Aff and Destro became. Aff is absolutely the most brain dead spec there is now, you can't even really Multi-DoT and without snap shotting there is NOTHING to do in the spec. Give me an afternoon and a semi-trained rottweiler and I can teach him to play Aff.

 

Desto isn't really all that much better, it is slightly more complex but not by very much at all.

 

Over all Aff is a -20 on a scale of 1-10 of difficulty and Desto is maybe a 4/10. Then there is Demo sitting there at a 8.5/10. The answer here, IMO, isn't to nerf Demo but rather buff (skill level and complexity, not numbers) of Aff and Destro. The sad part is this kind of overhall is never going to happen in a mid-xpack patch.

 

Blizzard also didn't help the situation with the failure that Demonbolt was. I don't know who on the Dev team thought that one up or who approved it in the face of every respectable warlock begging them not to do it, but ya...that was dumb.

 

 

This is the demo we're getting people, nerfed to hell and back to drive the community away from it. Get out your drool buckets for when you play aff and ready your poor Incinerate finger for destro. Welcome to patch 6.2.