Warlock Demonology Talent Suggestion
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2022 3:58 pm
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?
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?