[WoD][PvP] Demonology Shadowbolt vs Drain life 6.2

[Gnomatron]

Right now Shadowbolt does about 25% more dps than drain life ( talented) and fury generation is about the same.

In 6.2 almost all Demonology spell will be nerfed by 25%, does that mean we can just use Drain life with the talent as our filler move? If it does the same damage then I would think Drain life has an advantage because it also heals you, and if you have to move mid-cast then you wont lose as much damage as you would with Shadowbolt.
Ofc with Drain life you wouldn't be able to summon wild imps but you can use molten core proc's for that (during burst I go for Demonbolt), use ToC from time to time or just weave in 1 Shadowbolt every now and then

What do you guys think?
 

[Poonxo]

shadowbolt's still the filler.

[Gnomatron]

Care to elaborate on that? Seems to me that when we get 6.2 and Demo will be nerfed that they do pretty much the same damage.

[Gnomatron]

Also not sure if you noticed but I am talking about PvP here. You won't get much time to finish a cast so 1 or 2 ticks from drain life while also healing a bit is better than nothing while you are on the run and/or trying to juke interrupts

[Remolkeman]

Demon will be nerfed on 6.2 but it's scaling with mastery will rise, so the damage will be the same and even more.

[Gnomatron]

Yeah but mastery increases all damage in caster form, so increased mastery works for both Shadowbolt AND Drain Life. So with the 25% dmg nerf the base dmg on Shadowbolt and Drain life ( talented) will be about the same, and the increased mastery scaling will be the same for both. Perhaps Drain life will be a little lower but it can't be that much, and it's dmg is more reliable since its channeled AND gives you healing. 

The only time I would take Shadowbolt over Drain life is if you have to take a different talent than Harvest Life. But with Harvest life there is just no reason to use Shadowbolt for anything other than summoning Imps (Wich wouldnt even work if you use Imp swarm glyph) . Unless I am missing something here. But I looked from it from every angle I could think of and the only thing that is keeping me in doubt is that it is odd that your healing spell could completely replace your main filler spell. 

And even now in pvp I often think it's easier to get a few ticks of Drain life while also healing myself instead of gambling for a shadowbolt wich can be easily interrupted since the main use for the spell is generating demonic fury for your burst.

[Poonxo]

I thought you were talking about PvE, but yes, in pvp too, you use shadow bolt as a filler whenever you can. Wild Imps are better and you'll mainly always have a healer (2s/3s/bgs/rbgs) to top you off, as well as,  the WImps you get generate you demonic fury so it's overall more useful to fill with shadowbolt.

[Gnomatron]

Do you even read my whole posts or just a part?? You only can spawn a wild imp every 20 something seconds, and they also proc from SF and ToC and even if they wouldn't you could do with just 1 Shadowbolt every 20 seconds so wild imps won't be an issue. The healing might not be a problem ( though i think double dps combo's are more fun) but it might be nice to help your healer so you won't die when he's CC'ed. Or when the enemy puts too much pressure and for some reason your healer cant keep up, and your healing will be pretty good and free.

But even if you forget about the healing and the wild imps (wich you don't nescecarily need to spam Shadowbolt for) then I would assume Drain life gives better damage. With the 25% dmg nerf on Shadowbolt and the Harvest life talwnt the DPS for BOTH spells is about the same and they also have about the same fury generation. But the main difference is that when you have to move midcast or get interrupted is that with Drain life you will at least have had some ticks of dmg.

I really think there is no reason to use Shadowbolt other than to spawn a wild imp every 20 seconds if you don't have MC proc's. 

The only reason I can think of is that Shadowbolt will scale better with spellpower than Drain life, but right now my gear doesn't show me that. But even then, wouldn't the added utility of drain life outweigh the minor dmg loss? Shadowbolt dmg isn't really what you are relying on in pvp fights anyway.

 

[Gnomatron]

Why doesn't this forum have "edit" buttons?

I looked at the damage on each spell some more and once Shadowbolt is nerfed by 25% I think it does about 5% more damage than Drain life, wich is nice for PvE min/max 'ers but I doubt it will have much impact on pvp, and Drain life will get on top if you get interrupted a lot or have to cancel the cast because you need to move.

So my final conclusion:

- For PvE : use Shadowbolt for a little bit more dmg ( But Drain life is not a big dps loss if you use it when you get a lot of dmg)

- For PvP : Use Shadowbolt when you need to spawn and imp and don't have a Molten core proc, or when you are at or near max health and are sure you can get the full cast off ( the cast time is pretty long). Use Drain life with Harvest life for a safer playstyle.

- If you don't use the Harvest Life talent then use drain life only when you really need the healing and Shadowbolt for DPS.


I hope people agree on this ( If you don't please do reply) and if someone else is looking for an elaborated answer : here it is!

Edited October 8, 2015 by Gnomatron

[Hecks]

Drain Life is only badass in affliction, talented and glyphed, cause affli mostly stack haste and get more benefit from Drain Life.
I've met a warlock who were affli and told me he does Drain Life cause it does more dmg, and i was like wtf?! Drain Soul maybe does less dmg, but it makes our dots tick for 40% dmg, all of it.... so does shadow bolt works for Demo locks like this. Demons benefit from mastery and all shit, imps = pressure, more imps = more pressure,  eShadowbolt never meant to be like a burst spell.  

As for demo, i think Dark Regeneration is better, cause it heals the demon too, and it's like more important for Demo to keep pet alive. 200 Fury for a pet i think a bit too much when u need ur fury for burst. Regeneration also very good combo with Health Stone

[Gnomatron]

I got glyphed health funnel wich works really well. Dark Regeneration is nice but  on a 2 min cooldown so it might not be enough anyway. If you take dark regeneration then Shadowbolt is stronger for sure. 

And sure more wild imps is better, but people seem not to realise that wild imps has a cooldown and can also be procced by other spells. So you can mainly use drain life and stil get all the wild imps you can get. ALso mastery increases damage of pets AND the caster. and further increases it in demon form, but that means even in caster form you get more dmg from mastery

Edited October 9, 2015 by Gnomatron

[Hecks]

I got glyphed health funnel wich works really well. Dark Regeneration is nice but  on a 2 min cooldown so it might not be enough anyway. If you take dark regeneration then Shadowbolt is stronger for sure. 

And sure more wild imps is better, but people seem not to realise that wild imps has a cooldown and can also be procced by other spells. So you can mainly use drain life and stil get all the wild imps you can get. ALso mastery increases damage of pets AND the caster. and further increases it in demon form, but that means even in caster form you get more dmg from mastery

you can choose between dmg and surviving, still u wont make it through 3v1 with drain life , and even i stil fail w drain life 2v1 if ppl are like bm and warr come at me all together  its just not enough to keep u up 

[Gnomatron]

Yeah in the end it won't matter much maybe but when it does the healing might come in handy. For those situations dakr regeneration might be a better option, in wich case you won;t have harvest life and shadowbolt will be the filler spell

Also what I am trying to say is you dont have to choose between damage and healing because iboth spelsl will have pretty much the same dmg if you take the harvest life talent ( Only AFTER the nerf in 6.2 though)

Edited October 12, 2015 by Gnomatron

[Hecks]

Yeah in the end it won't matter much maybe but when it does the healing might come in handy. For those situations dakr regeneration might be a better option, in wich case you won;t have harvest life and shadowbolt will be the filler spell

Also what I am trying to say is you dont have to choose between damage and healing because iboth spelsl will have pretty much the same dmg if you take the harvest life talent ( Only AFTER the nerf in 6.2 though)

M8 u should master demonology be4 u actin like an affli lock. Tbh.  Thing is demo works different than affli and glyph for drain life for demo is imho crazy.  Demo with soul link and dark regen should keep u up for good, ofc health stone glyph is a must imho. together that 2 must work well

[Gnomatron]

 

M8 u should master demonology be4 u actin like an affli lock. Tbh.  Thing is demo works different than affli and glyph for drain life for demo is imho crazy.  Demo with soul link and dark regen should keep u up for good, ofc health stone glyph is a must imho. together that 2 must work well

Sure it's nice to have dark regeneration but outside of it's cooldown you are completely vulnerable. This is assuming you are not near a healer in a random bg OR playing double dps in arena. I am aware that if you playwith a holy paladin that healing is his job and you should be doing damage. But that stil leaves the issue that Shadowbolt does sh*t for dmg anyway and can;t be used a lot in pvp sinceyou won;t get to turret a lot. At least with drain life you can get 1/3rd of the cast off then run away and at least have some damage done and some demonic fury gained. In this scenario you will miss out on the dark bargain talent but SacPac can help you avoid burst pretty decently and it can be used while in CC.

So once again, Drain life for damage instead of Shadow Bolt, not for the healing( though its just an added bonus) because drain life is much more reliable damage and it's about the same as Shadow bolt dps. Shadowbolt ( or soulfire) only once every 20 seconds to spawn a wild imp

Now that I think of it, you don't even need the glyph since that just adds healing, and if you want to use drain life for damage only then all you need is the talent.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Gnomatron

[Gnomatron]

ALso the difference from Affliction is that this is just a spell to try and safely build demonic fury until you are ready to burst. And while in demon form you can use touch of chaos over drain life ofc.

[Hecks]

Try fake cast with drain life lol , but using drain life for dmg , as filler is like wtf. Reminds me when  a guy in arena told me, who was affli and doin drain life spam " it does more dmg than drain soul" and i was like wtf?! Seriously?  

Edited October 16, 2015 by Hecks

[Gnomatron]

I think for affliction it does more dmg indeed, unles you have all your DoT's on the target. and when you combine it with haunt then it's really nice to use drain soul.

ANd yes I thought about this earlier, fakecasting is indeed harder with with drain life. But I am not very good with fake casting now anyway and I use molten core proc's to fish for enemy's interupts/ or I use molten core proc;s when I am shadow locked. But other than this I see little downside to using drain life. Ofc using drain life as a filler is kind of odd but it just shows how oddly WoD is designed.

[Poonxo]

The idea behind drain soul is to use it when you have all your dots on the target..

[Gnomatron]

Yeah I know, thats pretty much what I said. But without Dot's drain life will do more dmg I think. + it gives added healing wich is a nice bonus.

Edited October 17, 2015 by Gnomatron

[Bestlockever]

 

Right now Shadowbolt does about 25% more dps than drain life ( talented) and fury generation is about the same.

In 6.2 almost all Demonology spell will be nerfed by 25%, does that mean we can just use Drain life with the talent as our filler move? If it does the same damage then I would think Drain life has an advantage because it also heals you, and if you have to move mid-cast then you wont lose as much damage as you would with Shadowbolt.
Ofc with Drain life you wouldn't be able to summon wild imps but you can use molten core proc's for that (during burst I go for Demonbolt), use ToC from time to time or just weave in 1 Shadowbolt every now and then

What do you guys think?
 

Soo... (sry for that) but i have a question. I play demo and i am new in this PvP business, si i have only few macros so what macros do u use ?? (i have the focus fear and focus spell lock... of course)

[Bestlockever]

 

Right now Shadowbolt does about 25% more dps than drain life ( talented) and fury generation is about the same.

In 6.2 almost all Demonology spell will be nerfed by 25%, does that mean we can just use Drain life with the talent as our filler move? If it does the same damage then I would think Drain life has an advantage because it also heals you, and if you have to move mid-cast then you wont lose as much damage as you would with Shadowbolt.
Ofc with Drain life you wouldn't be able to summon wild imps but you can use molten core proc's for that (during burst I go for Demonbolt), use ToC from time to time or just weave in 1 Shadowbolt every now and then

What do you guys think?
 

So... I am new in this PvP business and i play demo but my question is.What macros do u use ? (i know the focus fear and focus spell lock... of course) I am lookin for the something like one shot macros and this stuff...