Lock Buffs, Rejoice!

[Liarparadox 5]

Affliction:

-DS dmg increased by 50% + causes dots to instantly deal 50% of their normal dmg (up from 40%)

-Haunt dmg increased by 25% and increases periodic dmg by 35% (up from 30)

 

Destro:

 

-CB, Conflag, Immolate, Incinerate and SB dmg increased by 5%

 

 

Nice straight up boosts

[Vartena 0]

Seems Blizz are doing their best to make us not play Demonology. Poor, poor Demonology.

[Curinir 4]

I think Demonology will still be the spec to play in mythic, but Affliction won't be in such a bad spot as it is now. These are surprisingly pleasant changes. 

[Liquidsteel 279]

What makes you think Demo will suddenly become the top spec on Mythic?

It was good on a few fights already, but these nerfs cement it as a niche burst AoE spec and even then the buffs to Destruction make it far more preferable anyway.

[Puns 3]

Affliction changes are based purely around single target and do nothing to remedy its multi-target issues. Putting more emphasis on DS uptime and timing haunts with procs properly... These changes are basically reverted nerfs from back in 5.4. Not complaining, this actually gives some small depth to the spec again, albeit its still arguably worst class design in the game right now. Flat 5% damage increase to destruction's single target is okay I guess, I highly doubt it will affect FnB. 

 

The main reason why demonology was "viable" at the beginning is that the other two specs (particularly affliction) were lacklustre. 12% aff dot buff and nothing for destruction. With these changes in mind there might be even less reason to play demo on progress.

[Serial 0]

More reason not to use the class trinket with affli now?

[Liquidsteel 279]

The buffs will benefit Destruction AoE as it's simply a modifier and not individual spell ratios. I'd be surprised if it was ST only!

[Zagam 1,982]

Destruction buffs will be incorporated into Fire and Brimstone.  Fire and Brimstone is a % modifier of your normally powered spells augmented by Mastery.  For example, if your tooltip of Fire and Brimstone says that your spells now deal 80% of their normal damage, the normal amount is being buffed by 5%, so the FnB version is buffed the same, albeit a smaller absolute number.

 

For example...

 

Prebuff Chaos Bolt = 200,000.  

Prebuff FnB Mod = 80%

Prebuff FnB Chaos Bolt = 160,000.

 

Postbuff Chaos Bolt = 210,000

Postbuff FnB Mod = 80%

Postbuff FnB Chaos Bolt = 168,000 (5.0% gain)

[Liarparadox 5]

So this buff should push aff sacrifice even further ahead now over supremacy. I've been using supremacy because of movement issues on fights. Guess I might have to rethink this.

[Curinir 4]

What makes you think Demo will suddenly become the top spec on Mythic?

It was good on a few fights already, but these nerfs cement it as a niche burst AoE spec and even then the buffs to Destruction make it far more preferable anyway.

Demonology still retains absurdly good single target damage in the form of demonbolt and will only gain ground when we get the legendary ring, as every third cycle of demonbolt has the buff if the ring is used on CD. I personally wouldn't take Demo on add intensive fights like Kilrogg and Gorefiend. But look at fights like Fel Lord Zakuun. All of the kill videos I've seen of the mythic difficulty of that fight are non-stop movement. Destro suffers greatly from long periods of movement like that, and it will kill your Dark Soul phases. On top of that, the Destro class trinket seems to be pretty ridiculous in that the debuff only lasts 10 seconds and refreshes when Inc hits the target. Demo's is far more reliable in that it provides great fury and MC procs to fuel your 2pc.

 

Aside from Demonbolt, I have heard (mostly from Furty) that serv/serv is also quite good at the moment, with the Grimoire lining up with the ring. I feel like Demonbolt will still be stronger, but if serv/serv for some reason is, then I will hop on that train.

 

5% Destruction buff is nice, but I don't think it will be able to compete with the Single Target burst that Demo puts out. Even this new Aff buff is useless since the only fight anyone should ever consider taking Affliction on is Zakuun, but all the movement there negates the DS buff.

 

On the first six bosses, Destro is an excellent choice, unless you want to go Demo AoE if your raid group for some reason lacks dps to kill hands. Demonbolt could be used on the Council as well, but I do prefer Destro there. Afterwards I would go Demonology on everything except Mannoroth, maybe XH, maybe Soc if I am killing adds, and maybe Iskar if adds stay up too long. The single target damage put out by demonology is too strong to ignore.

[Liquidsteel 279]

I'm on my phone at the moment so can't type out a proper reply, but I feel you are making some gross exaggerations on a few points.

I've stepped away from the game so my knowledge isn't what it used to be. Can you provide some hard evidence as to how Demonology will suddenly become the ST king when it wasn't better before the other two got buffed?

[Puns 3]

Destruction buffs will be incorporated into Fire and Brimstone. 

For some reason I was thinking of grimoire of sacrifice. Ignore me. >_<

 

@LiquidSteel I think he's referring to some Velhari logs where demonology can do more than 100k dps and seems to strongest of the 3 specs.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Puns

[Curinir 4]

Can you provide some hard evidence as to how Demonology will suddenly become the ST king when it wasn't better before the other two got buffed?

Hard evidence? Unfortunately not. I could look up statistics on Warcraftlogs but unfortunately we are not yet at the point in the tier where top guilds are releasing public logs and I don't think Heroic statistics are anything to judge by, as most people clearing the heroics are not exactly top end and do not represent the potential of each spec. On top of that, not everyone has 4pc and class trinket along with legendary ring, so we don't get to see the overall potential of the specs with these bonuses. Sims are woefully inadequate too, as they do not reflect an accurate raid environment.

 

What I could do is link youtube videos of top guilds killing the mythic bosses. Furty went Demonology on quite a few fights, and his videos are all up. But I do think he is the only one (with the exception of Method's warlocks going demo on Mannoroth for the add damage). Method's warlocks went Destruction on the majority of the fights, and from what I remember, Furty had them beat. I don't think this is the evidence you are looking for, however.

 

The reason Demo wasn't top is because we don't have everything available to us (trinket, tier, and ring, as stated earlier). Aff is terrible and still will be terrible after this nerf, as it doesn't have the toolkit to deal with the fights this tier. But think about the potential Demo has over Destro with the shiny gear we will eventually be getting. Demo automatically saves DS charges for every two minute mark because it has no other choice. Destro, however, pops DS at a more random time on a lot of fights due to trinket procs and the ability to build embers so fast. This makes a hassle for destro trying to line up procs with DS, as they want to save DS for the ring now. Demo, however automatically lines up with the ring, no matter what talent choice you play.

 

TL;DR no, I don't have any evidence for you, but that is because I do not feel like the information currently out there accurately represents what Mythic will actually be like when everyone has the gear they need.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Having looked at the logs from last night in the US (small sample size I know) I think Affliction has proven itself as far from useless, and certainly isn't being beaten on single target by either spec, let alone crushed by Demonology.

 

We'll have to see how things pan out once more people get the legendary ring and more logs appear (and more people trying Demonology) but aside from Tyrant Affliction is looking top dog on single target, which was already the case before the buffs happened.

[vaeevictiss 17]

i figured the only fight that Aff was worth a damn anymore was fel lord

[Liarparadox 5]

If you mean for mythic, I don't know; I'm not a mythic raider. If you mean anything less than that then affliction is far from useless. It's certainly "worth a damn". Depending on your guild's strat, you can use it quite well on a number of bosses. My guild has enough people to blow up low health adds/aoe/cleave, though oddly enough we don't have very many great ST dpsers to push boss phases; so I've now started to switch to Aff for the following fights: Fel Lord, Soc, Reaver, Council, Tyrant, Xul. Granted I don't have my Fragment trinket yet, so maybe that will all change when I finally get it. But in the meantime, Aff is working out quite well on a number of fights. And that buff to ST aff was pretty sweet. At least for me and my guild's strengths/weaknesses, aff is awesome for these fights.

[Liquidsteel 279]

The bottom line is that Affliction wasn't useless before the buffs and certainly isn't useless after. Nor is Demonology useless from not being buffed because it retains its burst AoE niche but logs aren't showing this Mythical Demonology takeover that was suggested. Destruction remains versatile and continues to perform well on every encounter, but lags behind in overall DPS on some fights.

[Stunlocked 8]

Furty is using all three specs depending on the fight.

[Curinir 4]

Okay, sorry I haven't posted back in a few days. Work has had me busy as heck.

 

Addressing the Aff conversation first, you guys are definitely right in that it's not useless. It's just in a spot where guilds with a good balance of dps will never need to use an Affliction warlock. Addressing the fights Liarparadox listed, the only ones I would ever take Aff on are Zakuun and Socrethar, provided I wasn't dpsing down ghosts. On heroic Reaver and Council Aff is definitely fine, but on Mythic I'd want Destro for the bombs on Reaver and Demo for the priority damage on Council. Tyrant is a decent Aff fight, but if your guild is having close wipes, Demo for sure because the execute damage is so much better. Xhul is pretty ballsy for Aff, I feel like that the multidotting in p1 and p2 would be great, but add damage would be terrible. Of course, you did say that adds are taken care of in your guild.

 

Overall, Affliction feels like a nightmare to me right now. Your set bonuses and this new buff want you to be casting your drain soul a lot, however the class trinket is horrendous in that you are nonstop recasting dots. The spec clashes a lot with itself and I personally will never use class trinket with it because of that.

 

As far as Demo being the best spec, what I am saying is that it will be better suited to a lot of the later fights in the instance. I am definitely not saying Destruction is trash either. It is doing fantastic and I am still playing it on many fights. For me, what makes Demo great this tier is the synergy between the class trinket and tier bonuses, as well as the synergy between the mechanics of the spec and the legendary ring. Destruction simply lacks these things, but makes up for it in raw cleave potential with Havoc. The two specs are extremely close and each have their niche fights (i.e. I will never go anything but Destro for Kilrogg). But Demonology is good for a lot more than burst aoe. It still has insane execute damage, and with Demonbolt you can easily compete in single target damage.

[Soulzar 42]

The main issue with Demo is honestly not just its output potential as much as the designs of the fights just do not suit it as well.

 

Previous tier, outside of a few fights that required burst single target (cannons on Thogar, pillars on kologan 2.0) all adds were just fluff.  You padded if you focused and it was stressed to passively cleave them more than anything.

 

This tier?  Just about every fight has "has to die asap" adds.  On a few fights, despite the nerfs...Demo's burst aoe in combination with the old 4p still made it superior for dealing with a few niech encounters such as kormrok hands, Manno imps, Xul Imps...But outside of those cases, the snap cleave of Destro mechanically is superior to Demo demonbolt because of the frequency of your dmg burst cycle in relation to the fight mechanics.

 

Simple example, on Archi you can Melt a Doomfire with a DB cycle, but then you've got nothing but filler for the Deathcaller a few seconds later.  Destro on the other hand can dump some CB's and a Shadowburn and have the resources already to do it again seconds later.