Demo raiding... why?

[Afflictor]

to start, this is not a QQ thread, this is not a bitching thread, this is my serious opinion and idea's on why Felguard is not a viable high end raiding spec at all.

ok so its christmas break, half the guilds not online and we are taking time off from farming illidan. so i have had the last week and next two weeks to stay perma arena spec. 7/43/11 Felguard.

so i have no arguement this is a great pvp and arena spec, its almost broken, no one can kill me, the only negitive really is no anti interrupts to DL or SB but thats getting off topic.

so i do a few heroics in this last week, a karazhan and a ZA with my guild out of true boredom, for random badges and to gear alts.

what i notice is Felguard spec is more a pain than pleasure. in ZA especially its just a pain to my raid group. on dragonhawk boss our melee complained that it was chaining chain lightnings and causing a lot of damage since it doesnt know how to spread out, but the biggest pain was during hex lord that i had to resummon him about 5 times since he gets ownd in the face during the shard volley part, taking soul link damage and his own. he also seems to die a lot jst from trash cleaves, boss cleaves, random aoe and healers not wanting to heal him.

this brings me to my arguement of why demo should not be a raid spec.
1. the math has provem that 41/0/20 and especially 0/21/40 are suprerior specs in terms of damage

2. it has no group buff or debuff, it gives neither the SE, melediction and afflictions to support other locks DL's nor the pure dps and isb uptime of succy sac destro

3. gear limitations - you really need a void star talisman and 2piece tier 5 to make this spec work or else your pet will just get ownd, now i know theirs some people here that are still in t5 or that thats their best trinket, thats fine, but i also see posts of people being felguard for all of BT/hyj, thats why im posting, i myself would rather kill myself than go back to 2pt5 ( break 4pt6 ftl) and gimping with void star.

4. pain for healers - so if i were to not get 2pt5 or even if i did, he's going to be taking a lot of damage, i can imagine anetheron, rage, azgalor, najentus, teron, counsil and illidan all being fights where he would take aoe or outside of SL damage of some sort, and let me ask you, how many healers actually keep pet frames out outside of pvp? and how many healers are actually going to care about your pet enough to heal it. not many, and i wouldnt blame them at all.

so to conclude i just want to ask why? why would soo many insist to be a spec that is known to not be the best in damage, known to not bring anything to the table, have gear setbacks, be a pain for the rest of the raid and overall be more trouble than its worth.

[Xaos]

I often get asked this question, so here goes.

Originally Posted by Afflictor

1. the math has proven that 41/0/20 and especially 0/21/40 are suprerior specs in terms of damage

i'll agree on the 0/21/40, im yet to find an affliction lock that can out damage me without havign way better gear, or being on a really anti demo fight.

does every raid paladin spec holy ?
is every raid druid a tree ?
are there only resto shamans in raids ?

"this spec is best" is not a very good argument for spec's unless your class does exactly the same role in the same way in every spec (like mages)

warlocks spec's all deal damage, yes
but each one has a very different playstyle to it.

affliction is highly mobile, doesnt loss too much dps when encounters force movement, has great mana reserves and brings improved raid wide debuffs.
Destruction is almost the dead opposite, you want to stand still for as long as possible and lob out silly SB crits.

Demo walks the line between both, it is more mobile than destruction, yet can stand/nuke harder than affliction. but its key factor is raw base damage and survivability.
it is also the best spec for those rare encounters where locks tank something.

Originally Posted by Afflictor

2. it has no group buff or debuff, it gives neither the SE, melediction and afflictions to support other locks DL's nor the pure dps and isb uptime of succy sac destro

in my guild at least, we have a high number of melee in most raids... i enhance this by being the CoR warlock (we raid with 3 locks so CoE/CoS are up anyway)
CoR gains nothing from any talents, and boosts my felguards damage in addition to the melee raid memembers.
my crit is only slightly below our Destro locks, i keep ISB up a lot.

Also having 3 or more affliction locks gets very messy in raids, particuarly if oyu throw 2 shadow priests into the mix.. debuff slot overload = sucky DPS for dot based spec's.

likewise while 0/21/40 certainly wins the numbers game, its fragile in the extreme and prone to spiky crit aggro... which can be a nightmare in some places.

Originally Posted by Afflictor

3. gear limitations - you really need a void star talisman and 2piece tier 5 to make this spec work or else your pet will just get ownd, now i know theirs some people here that are still in t5 or that thats their best trinket, thats fine, but i also see posts of people being felguard for all of BT/hyj, thats why im posting, i myself would rather kill myself than go back to 2pt5 ( break 4pt6 ftl) and gimping with void star.

you most definatly do not need the void star or 2 tier 5, they do however make life easier.

I raid MH and BT perfectly fine without either, and on average lose Haatom once an hour (90% of the time to trash)
Only fight i feel gimped in is Naj where i have to imp.. but so does our 0/21/40 lock and he's a lot worse off then than me.

Originally Posted by Afflictor

4. pain for healers - so if i were to not get 2pt5 or even if i did, he's going to be taking a lot of damage, i can imagine anetheron, rage, azgalor, najentus, teron, counsil and illidan all being fights where he would take aoe or outside of SL damage of some sort, and let me ask you, how many healers actually keep pet frames out outside of pvp? and how many healers are actually going to care about your pet enough to heal it. not many, and i wouldnt blame them at all.

short answer: Chain heal + shadow priest

long answer: since chain heal now auto jumps to those that need it most, and the commonplace of shadow priests in raids now, keeping your FG alive without 2 T5 is actually not that hard at all, it just requires you being awake and knowing the encounter well.

this is done with 1 shadow priest in my group, and my FG has 10k life buffed.

Anetheron: FG on boss the entire fight, never drops below 90%
Rage : Fg on boss all fight, pull out for Death and Decay then send back.
azgalor : I keep my Fg on the doomguards.
najentus : gimpp fight indeed, demo suffers here as I have to imp.
teron : Fg on boss entire fight (or till im ghosted) never dies.
counsil and illidan : not tried yet, but yes i hear its not that nice.

Originally Posted by Afflictor

so to conclude i just want to ask why? why would soo many insist to be a spec that is known to not be the best in damage, known to not bring anything to the table, have gear setbacks, be a pain for the rest of the raid and overall be more trouble than its worth.

Why ? well theres lots of reasons... i'll get the "elitist ones" out first.

- your the best lock tank spec in the game that can also normal raid dps well.
- in resist fights you have to gimp your dps less
- your base damage on SB far supasses any affliction build
- your dot power is far better than 0/21/40
- you are the middle line, flexable, durable, and played correctly powerful.

Those out the way, my more personal reasons.

- Its damn fun !
- Its a challenge, i have to be awake and paying attention or things go wrong.
- No one else is (rest of our raid locks are afflic/destro or DS/S&F
i like being the odd one that still produces the DPS.

- It's one spec for everything, it raids, it pvp's, it solo farms.. saves on respec.

that all said, your partly right..

Affliction/Destro and DS/S&F are better for pure raid DPS but the mix of playstyle, survivability, enjoyment and attention required makes Demo a spec you either love or hate, either your great at or you suck at hard.

on a final note: ZA is EXTREMELY ANTI DEMO currently.. going there is a million times worse than MH or BT as a Felguard lock..
the trash.. the bosses everything about ZA is just painful for me, while MH/BT are great fun.

and you dont resummon a felguard more than once in a fight.. if its diying that much you swap to imp, kiss 10% damage away, say hello to -20%threat. bloodpact, and keeping DK. not ideal, but much better than wasting boss time resummoning again and again.

[doogless]

Originally Posted by Afflictor

1. the math has provem that 41/0/20 and especially 0/21/40 are suprerior specs in terms of damage

This is the only point I disagree with. The Felguard can put out 250+ DPS of his own. On fights where he can be used effectively, a Felguard build can put out truly impressive damage.

[Majestrix]

Originally Posted by Afflictor

what i notice is Felguard spec is more a pain than pleasure. in ZA especially its just a pain to my raid group. on dragonhawk boss our melee complained that it was chaining chain lightnings and causing a lot of damage since it doesnt know how to spread out, but the biggest pain was during hex lord that i had to resummon him about 5 times since he gets ownd in the face during the shard volley part, taking soul link damage and his own. he also seems to die a lot jst from trash cleaves, boss cleaves, random aoe and healers not wanting to heal him.

All of your points here come down to you not being used to raiding as demo spec. If you want to raid as demo you need to micomanage your pet. If all you do is send your pet in to attack the boss you will fail.

As someone else said why would you resummon him 5x in one fight? That is just plain foolish. If my FG dies it is almost always because I am not familiar with a particular encounter or I failed to properly anticipate something. Raiding with the FG is almost like playing 2 chars, you need to be aware of your position and his, you need to be aware of damage that effects melees as well as damage that will effect you as a caster...

It sounds like demo is not the raiding spec for you, but last time I checked I'm not the one trying to tell you how to play. If you want to play destro or aff, go for it. I hope you enjoy it.

Myself on the other hand, I love demo. It is the single most flexible warlock spec I have played and I will gladly sacrifice what I consider to be minor issues for the ability to handle any situation without having to respec for any given day depending on what I want to do.

Maj

[Strasiak]

Its easyto abuseaspec or anything else without further investigation...
nut to put my few views in it...

Demo is a spec which can do asmuch damage as any lock spec there is even morebut it needs practise, pet managment and own dps managment..

When i started to raid as demo i was useless.. but now im the main damage outputter on most 25man raidsin game...

few days ago me and my guild went magtheridon for .... my friend asked moe to show what i got...
to make it shorti did 987k damage all in all during the fight while i also clicked the fight toolaround 8minutes or so...

so you see demo is viable usefull spec toraid with it just needs to havemaxed outyourpersonal skill in pet,dps, aggro and movement management..

[Afflictor]

besides the fact that i dont know the ins and outs of pet control, who cares, that is not the biggest part of this

its the fact that you DO need to manage your pet, and felguard is not as good damage as destro, its just not, so dont argue it. look at how i mentioned that it brings nothing as well, its a complete personal spec.

sorry strasiak but.. magtheridon isnt rly high end raiding..

[Xaos]

Originally Posted by Afflictor

besides the fact that i dont know the ins and outs of pet control, who cares, that is not the biggest part of this

Actually thats a huge thing, if you cant handle your FG right it dies, if it dies not only do you lose MD/DK/DT/SL and its damage.. you also lose all its buffs when you summon a new one,
no buffs at all my Dk gives me around 139 +damage +10% all damage + 180 +/- dps
fully buffed up (me+pet) it gives me 210. +10% all damage, +250 +/- dps
dead felguard = Major Issue

Originally Posted by Afflictor

its the fact that you DO need to manage your pet, and felguard is not as good damage as destro, its just not, so dont argue it. look at how i mentioned that it brings nothing as well, its a complete personal spec

Thats the general idea... most people that play demo tell you its because it demands micromanagement.. i find destro and affliction boring.

as for being a complete personal spec, who gives a damn if im on CoR duty.. show me a spec that boost's CoR

and as for out damaging destro, your right.. it cant out dps if you compare 2 equal geared/skilled locks, under therotical perfect conditions..
however when was the last time anyone had "perfect" conditions in MH/BT things go wrong, and adaptability and survivability (without having to gimp for stam gear) is a large bonus.

but your already in the "it fails" mindset.. so theres no point really debating it anymore,
you say it doesnt work.. lots of high end guilds agree, but lots disagree.

[Afflictor]

we run 3 warlocks, 2 melediction aff and me , the highest geared , destro

i am cor duty. you say who cares if you are cor duty, well still demo lock vs destro lock on cor duty... im still gonna put out more ISB because felguard lock actually uses dots in their rotation thus not sb'ing as much, that alone is the difference, we can leave dps of the specs aside for this even.

[doogless]

Originally Posted by Afflictor

and felguard is not as good damage as destro, its just not, so dont argue it.

A Felguard puts out 250+ DPS, completely independent of the Warlock. In order for a Destruction build to out DPS that, they need to do 250 more DPS than a Demonology Warlock can do through Shadow and Flame and Demonic Sacrifice. Perhaps with the absolute best gear in the game this is possible, but for anything before that you simply can't make up for how much damage the pet puts out.

[Afflictor]

Originally Posted by doogless

A Felguard puts out 250+ DPS, completely independent of the Warlock. In order for a Destruction build to out DPS that, they need to do 250 more DPS than a Demonology Warlock can do through Shadow and Flame and Demonic Sacrifice. Perhaps with the absolute best gear in the game this is possible, but for anything before that you simply can't make up for how much damage the pet puts out.

ok i just put my gear setup into leulier spreadsheets.

for destro shadowbolt spam spec i got 1857 dps ISB uptime of 77%
7/44/10 spec i got 1724 dps with ISB uptime of 64.6%
1/44/16 spec i got 1729 dps with ISB uptime of 70.86%
41/0/20 spec i got 1580 dps with ISB uptime of 63% (so i take back that aff beats it in dps, but definately utility)

this was done with gear as the following:
1570 + damage ( fully raid buffed and shaman totem + 3% crit wrath) hit capped, no haste, 19% crit before talents.

so aff would have the same damage, 27% crit
destro 1600 +damage 30% crit
first demo spec has 27% crit
second has 32% crit ( both demo specs added 130+ damage from demo knowl )

so with high end gear destro pulls ahead of demo not only by more than 100 dps but keeps up ISB 7% more.