Warlock Demonology Talent Suggestion

[Brokehoof]

There's a talent in the Demonology tree that's always bugged me, in that it's very useful at end game but seems to defeat the purpose of the whole demonology tree itself. If you're spec'd in Demonology, the idea is that you'd use demons that are stronger/tougher/wilier than normal. So why would you pick the 'pet spec' tree if you're just going to sacrifice it for a buff and play pet-less?

The sacrifice talent is the one I'd propose replacing.

In its stead, I'd maybe put soul link as the 5th tier talent, or even axe that talent completely.

The "Capstone" talent in the tree would be one of two ideas.

The first one is a general pet buff - something that boosts pet DPS/utility/threat/durability. The extravagant way of doing this would be to make the normal summoned pets into an advanced version. Even fancier models maybe! For example, the MoP Voidwalker with its visible armor additions could take the place of the normal blueberry. Ability wise - maybe the voidwalker threat skill has double its normal value - making it an actual single target threat holder at higher levels, which it fails to do currently. The succubus might have its seduction ability turned into a non-channeled, single cast spell, so that it can be used to CC and then continue dps'ing. Felhunter might have a faster recharge on its Spell Lock. The imp could.. I'm not sure. Maybe turn it into a shadow imp, doing shadow damage instead of fire?

The other way of treating the pet buff without changing any of the default pet abilities is to grant them something like a 40% damage buff, and a linked debuff on the warlock of something like minus 10-15%, maybe dependent upon spell power. The idea is that overall you'd get something like a 5% dps increase, but by offloading the dps to the pet, rather than the warlock. The numbers would have to be crunched to get a better % spread between pet/lock.

The second option for a capstone would be something like the 'possession' ability from the wow-clone Rift's necromancer tree. Basically you'd take possession of your demon and use its abilities instead of yours for the duration. In Rift the ability could be used for 15 seconds everyone 1 minute but honestly it wasn't really worth the trouble. Losing your skill sets and adjusting to the new possessed pet would take a few seconds and you couldn't do too much before losing the whole thing. I'd propose a 30 minute duration, and the abilities of the pets would have to be beefed up by quite a bit to make up for having none of the regular lock abilities.

It could be a situational thing - giving the warlock the ability to be, at times, a mediocre melee DPS (succy), tank (void), high resists melee spell interruptor (felhunt), and .. honestly I don't see how the imp would be a good choice for a possession in its current state. Maybe if it did shadow damage instead of fire and had a group health return based on a % of its damage, like a Shadow Priest's Vampiric Embrace. Just an idea.

Thoughts?

Another easy replacement for Sacrifice would be to put in a regular Felguard summons, but wouldn't that be kind of boring after everything else I just mentioned?

[Pantheon]

So why would you pick the 'pet spec' tree if you're just going to sacrifice it for a buff and play pet-less?

As a Warlock, this also kind of frustrated me as well. Sacrificing your demons should help in the other 2 trees. Increasing DoT damage and Shadow Damage. Makes sense.

In the spec where we are suppose to have a demon tho, why sac the demon and not have one?

[Rhedora]

I think if you will sacrifice your demon something really good must happen for a pet talent tree, for example if you sacrifice your imp your fire rain (dont remembert the name) become a cast spell and will cast aoe fire damage in the zone (you can cast on diferent zones to make a burst fire damage but get out of mana) voidwalker you make your drain life become aoe to surround and drain life of all enemys surround you, etc etc I know see too powerfull but what I mean sacrifice your demon can be a very good spell of 1 use or a pretty good buff after you use it you cant summon a new demon for 30 seconds for example

[Reploidrocsa]

Or just nerf the buffs and duration of the sacrificed demons while allowing you to summon a demon right away with no penalty

[Paledot]

Seconded. It always bugged me as well. People who thematically want to play as demonologist probably don't want to play WITHOUT the demon.

I think the good and simple solution would be to keep that effect as a buff from your summoned demon (like Blood Pact) instead of killing your demon for it. And probably nerf a little then.

Also make troll warlocks real, please

[Froll]

Return demons to demonologists :) Are there any experts who will explain that this is how it should be?

[Pantheon]

Seconded. It always bugged me as well. People who thematically want to play as demonologist probably don't want to play WITHOUT the demon.

I think the good and simple solution would be to keep that effect as a buff from your summoned demon (like Blood Pact) instead of killing your demon for it. And probably nerf a little then.

Also make troll warlocks real, please

This would be the path to go. Make your summoned demon give you a buff like you said similar to Imp's Blood Pact, but nerf it a bit to balance out the fact you have a summoned demon.

[Darkgestalt]

I agree, Demonic Sacrifice sounds more like something a Destruction warlock would do, destroying even his servants to gain more power. Would help Destro's become more focused on just throwing hurtful things at people.

[Ishilu]

I love sacrifice!

Not only for lvl 60 raid dps, but also while leveling as a demo. Want to reg fast? sacrifice voidwalker or felhunter. Want to do huge fire AE? sacrifice imp :-). Combined with master demonologist, I think of my warlock less as a "caster with a pet" than as a "caster with 8 different stances", and that's relly cool

[Phoenixphire]

Honestly don't care how they do it the demo lock tree needs a large rework, I know its "viable" to sac for endgame, but it entirely defeats the purpose of the tree itself, needs to get a look from the devs.