New Warlock Spell - Cataclysm

[demonik]

i think the new spell seems pretty awesome, but then again I'm not a giant pvp player so I'm not quite sure how much it will help us when doing arenas or bgs

[paulywally]

I in all honesty don't know what people are complaining about.

This is an epic move.

Just have to learn how/when to use it.

Depends on the situation.

---------- Post added 2012-10-23 at 03:17 AM ----------

nowhere near other classes in terms of spikiness.

Edit: I believe the reason they have higher spike damage is because they have procs while we do not, in fact all the casters stated are based on proc related instants.

Yeah because 200-400k chaos bolts arn't "spikey enough"

I'm happy with the way destruction is.

In pvp at least. I don't PvE much. But we can't really change one without nerfing or buffing the other.

Get your PvP weapon, and stack pvp power to 45% and you'll see spikiness.

[Deleted]

I think what Destro needs to be less like the 1 shot powerhouse that it currently is and more where it needs to be to be competitive is the following -

Dark soul - 1 min CD 10 sec buff 30% crit

Chaos bolt damage reduced by (whichever % it needs to be to make the conflag change)

Conflagrate - Damage doubled

This would give us Much more spiky damage esp being able to double conflag and wouldnt make chaos bolt just as much of a problem as it is currently, Chaos bolt would still have its place ahead of conflag in burst damage (which can be combined ofc), conflag would hit a decent bit more than incin but be CD based and shadowburn would be our hard hitting finisher and most importantly we wouldnt rely on that 1 little period every 2 mins where we get to attempt a technical 1 shot.

[corebit]

I think what Destro needs to be less like the 1 shot powerhouse that it currently is and more where it needs to be to be competitive is the following -

Dark soul - 1 min CD 10 sec buff 30% crit

Chaos bolt damage reduced by (whichever % it needs to be to make the conflag change)

Conflagrate - Damage doubled

This would give us Much more spiky damage esp being able to double conflag and wouldnt make chaos bolt just as much of a problem as it is currently, Chaos bolt would still have its place ahead of conflag in burst damage (which can be combined ofc), conflag would hit a decent bit more than incin but be CD based and shadowburn would be our hard hitting finisher and most importantly we wouldnt rely on that 1 little period every 2 mins where we get to attempt a technical 1 shot.

This will never happen because Conflag is instant and requires no setup.

[Deleted]

This will never happen because Conflag is instant and requires no setup.

Yet this is one of the only simple ways to keep destro as it is and effectively bring it up to date with the pvp we see now and this is because as stated above destro has no spiky damage, its all or nothing and that just doesnt work.

The main cause of pvp being like this is healing, its just so absoloutely retarded that everyone has so much healing because it makes constant pressure almost a waste of time, if blizzard successfully manage to bring everyone's healing / cc / burst in line then destro would be 100% fine even without the addition of Cataclysm, its just that the current design does not keep up with world of instant cast craft.

Ohh and just while i remember, you need to make UR a 1 min CD and just remove the damage reduction component of it altogether, i really dont care if Destro becomes a glass cannon spec, i just dont feel that the CD on UR lets it do its job correctly (the aura mastery part)

[Tya]

Don't particularly like the interrupt immunity on Unending Resolve (AR).

The times when I need interrupt immunity rarely overlap with the times I need a shield wall.

I suppose this is part of the design though. Choosing between offence and defence.

[Grubjuice]

it would be nice to be able to separate unending resolve into two different abilities

one grants interrupt immunity
the other reduces damage.

[Jessicka]

it would be nice to be able to separate unending resolve into two different abilities

one grants interrupt immunity
the other reduces damage.

I'd rather keep the Interrupt immunity on-use and have the mitigation passive baked in.

[Sylar Hao]

I will say it again, although i know it was shot down before, i am strongly in favor of introducing a proc into the rotation,

something like fingers of frost+icelance but for Fel Flame instead. like: "periodic ticks of Immolate (or maybe just casts of incinerate/fel Flame) have a chance to make your next Fel Flame send 4 bolts instead of just one and cost no mana" and allocate some of the damage out of chaos bolt into this proc.

On the other hand, I think we don't need a proc at all, but another Filler spell that acts pretty different and that's stronger than Incinerate but a lot more expensive so you cannot spam or chain it but cast it every now and then to get those spikes moments to create that window oportunity to land a kill, without needing to wait 2 mins for DS + 4 Chaos.

That's, of course, just my opinion.

[Tya]

it would be nice to be able to separate unending resolve into two different abilities

one grants interrupt immunity
the other reduces damage.

Pretty sure that would be OP and just end up being macroed to Dark Soul. If you're going to do that, may as well just add x sec of interrupt immunity to Dark Soul.

Would feel like a very cheap solution though, and we rely on DS enough as it is.

[Grubjuice]

On the other hand, I think we don't need a proc at all, but another Filler spell that acts pretty different and that's stronger than Incinerate but a lot more expensive so you cannot spam or chain it but cast it every now and then to get those spikes moments to create that window oportunity to land a kill, without needing to wait 2 mins for DS + 4 Chaos.

That's, of course, just my opinion.

in pve those would work out to be a low mana filler and a high mana filler, this would make destruction's mana management akin to a hunter's focus management, alternating between Arcane Shot (high focus filler) and Cobra Shot/Steady Shot (low focus filler)

Maybe searing pain could be brought back and alternated with incinerate.
One spell costs 20% mana and does 2X damage and the other spell is mana free and does 1X damage and Felflame is instant costs 20% mana and does 1X damage.

say you use searing pain to burn off mana, incinerate to build mana back up, fel flame when have to move, and conflagrate on CD.

---------- Post added 2012-10-23 at 10:10 AM ----------

I'd rather keep the Interrupt immunity on-use and have the mitigation passive baked in.

yeah but unending resolve is only worth 40% mitigation for 8 second out every 160 second. if you averaged that out thats like 1.7% passive mitigation. I am guessing you want something like 10% or 15% passive mitigate which would be an insane buff to mitigation and necessitate the removal of passives like Fel Armor which increases health/healing/armor. Although my guess is you would be perfectly willing to make that trade.

I wish we had two armors again. Demon Armor reduces all physical damage taken and increases all healing recieved by 10%, Fel Armor reduces all Magic Damage taken and increases total health by 10%.

[Jessicka]

Maybe it's just me, but the more I read and think about this whole thing, it just looks like a bunch of thrashing about to find a replacement to Death Coil. I mean, it was a 3 minute cooldown that would get melee of your face if you needed it, or could be used offensively to complete a CC chain to finish someone off.

*shrug*

[pokeadott]

Maybe it's just me, but the more I read and think about this whole thing, it just looks like a bunch of thrashing about to find a replacement to Death Coil. I mean, it was a 3 minute cooldown that would get melee of your face if you needed it, or could be used offensively to complete a CC chain to finish someone off.

*shrug*

Pretty much. I'd be fine with the old death coil back in the arsenal, although I think its CD should be in the 45-60sec range to compete with other similar abilities. Can ditch the healing/dmg component too, just need the CC.

But we do need an evaluation of our damage delivery as well. Destro CD burst is OP, but its non-CD burst is crap. Need some better consistency

[Supernex]

ok so this is going for extremes, so bare with me a bit and let's test this theory out shall we.

how does it go if : first you buff incinerate/FF dmg by 5-10% and reduce inci's cast time by 0.2-0.4 secs and buff incinerate to generate twice as many embers as it used to, so 2 normal hit and 4 crit,then Chaos bolt gets a 20-30% dmg nerf, and having it become instant cast but with a 10-20 sec cd, same ember cost, then you change the way mana works in destro since CB is instant and wont be filling mana anymore so you add to any ember consuming ability a 15% instant mana return, similar to shadowburn, and since CB is instant that beats the point of having shadowburn have an ember for the same effect ( or just a bit more dmg) so remove the ember cost on shadowburn but give it a cd , let's say 10sec similar to hunter's kill shot.
This along with the addition of cataclysm should more than fix the issue ( especially since I have high hopes for that new prototype of KJC ).

how does that sound ? the cooldown on CB makes it so it cannot be chain casted if stacking embers, but the overall playstyle should be great since we'll have an abundance of embers which will in turn leave room for cataclysm/ember tap which will increase survival, of course % dmg buff/nerfs and cd/cast times can be fixed accordingly to keep pve balanced etc.

I think something like this could work wonders, but it's unlikely that they'd want to re-work the spec to such an extent at this point in time. :/

[Phoenexis]

Pretty much. I'd be fine with the old death coil back in the arsenal, although I think its CD should be in the 45-60sec range to compete with other similar abilities. Can ditch the healing/dmg component too, just need the CC.

But we do need an evaluation of our damage delivery as well. Destro CD burst is OP, but its non-CD burst is crap. Need some better consistency

It wasn't really used for the healing during Cata anyways. I think the 1.5 minute CD was great, very balanced indeed. Destruction obviously needs to be less "extreme" if there are any hopes of it being balanced, otherwise it will only be OP or unbearable. When you have something as potentially powerful as Chaos Bolt, you can't actually find a middle ground.

---------- Post added 2012-10-23 at 03:24 PM ----------

ok so this is going for extremes, so bare with me a bit and let's test this theory out shall we.

how does it go if : first you buff incinerate/FF dmg by 5-10% and reduce inci's cast time by 0.2-0.4 secs and buff incinerate to generate twice as many embers as it used to, so 2 normal hit and 4 crit,then Chaos bolt gets a 20-30% dmg nerf, and having it become instant cast but with a 10-20 sec cd, same ember cost, then you change the way mana works in destro since CB is instant and wont be filling mana anymore so you add to any ember consuming ability a 15% instant mana return, similar to shadowburn, and since CB is instant that beats the point of having shadowburn have an ember for the same effect ( or just a bit more dmg) so remove the ember cost on shadowburn but give it a cd , let's say 10sec similar to hunter's kill shot.
This along with the addition of cataclysm should more than fix the issue ( especially since I have high hopes for that new prototype of KJC ).

how does that sound ? the cooldown on CB makes it so it cannot be chain casted if stacking embers, but the overall playstyle should be great since we'll have an abundance of embers which will in turn leave room for cataclysm/ember tap which will increase survival, of course % dmg buff/nerfs and cd/cast times can be fixed accordingly to keep pve balanced etc.

Perfect. But if anything Chaos Bolt shouldn't be instant. A 1.5 sec cast time seems great. A cooldown would be great and necessary, as you've explained in the 2nd paragraph.

[wrensh]

Just going to preface this with that I rather like the turret "feel" of Destro. It's completely different than the spell slinging of a fire mage. It just feels more powerful sort of in the way that ye olde Shadowfury had more oomph because you had to stop for that half second cast time.

With that out of the way: Destro could use a tad more cast protection than just UR.

Now while this suggestion is blatantly too strong I think having Backdrafted casts be protected from interrupts is a good place to cut down from. This would set us up in a situation where we could rely on hard casts while being trounced. I believe this is a decent trade off as well because you rely on moving some of your stacking-on-the-end burst to the front of the chain for protection on your hard cast(s). Just my two cents.

[Sylar Hao]

in pve those would work out to be a low mana filler and a high mana filler, this would make destruction's mana management akin to a hunter's focus management, alternating between Arcane Shot (high focus filler) and Cobra Shot/Steady Shot (low focus filler)

Maybe searing pain could be brought back and alternated with incinerate.
One spell costs 20% mana and does 2X damage and the other spell is mana free and does 1X damage and Felflame is instant costs 20% mana and does 1X damage.

say you use searing pain to burn off mana, incinerate to build mana back up, fel flame when have to move, and conflagrate on CD.

Searing Pain would be another casted spell, I was thinking about a different spell, so the monotony of spamming Incinerate turns more enjoyable. I still like the idea of a short (2 sec?) Channeled Flamethrower-like (animation) spell that deals damage every 0.5 sec and generates a set amount of Embers, maybe 2 and 3 or 4 if one of the hits crits, and it would cost a lot of mana, so you only cast it at the beginning of a fight and after Chaos Bolts or moments where you stop casting for whatever reason (like being CC'ed, phase transition in boss fights...)

Searing Pain would work too. I would prefer Soul Fire though if it must be a casted spell (with reduced cast time of course), such awesome animation, and it fits the whole Destruction niche, as it always crits and increases damage with critical strike rating, so those spikes (outside of DS+4Chaos) would be dangerous enough, but would also burn a lot of mana.

[Nikijih]

I in all honesty don't know what people are complaining about.

This is an epic move.

Just have to learn how/when to use it.

Depends on the situation.

As I was trying to explain earlyer, its not about wether or not the skill is powerfull at what it does. Its that the skill doesnt do what we need it to be doing. We are gaining another Defensive CD when our issue is our inability to create casting opportunities reliably, a problem it doesn't adress at all.

[wrensh]

short (2 sec?) Channeled Flamethrower-like (animation) spell that deals damage every 0.5 sec and generates a set amount of Embers

I love this idea so much.

[PickleballAce]

Just to throw my feelings out there:


I like the way Unending Resolve is right now. A little bit of extra passive mitigation would be nice, but I prefer it being active for both PVP (CDs popped and ready to burst you down) and for PVE burst raid damage phases (I'd like to be useful on Ultraxion fights without having to spec into a very short term mitigation talent, Boomkin and Spriests don't have to trade passive survivability for active damage reduction). The choice between using it defensive and offensively is at the same time problematic and interesting, though.


I know Xel is sick of it but I have to throw my hat into the "Destruction could really use a proc" ring, and I think the most appropriate way is through Fel Flame. Whatever the trigger is, have it let you cast X number of Empowered Fel Flames that will always crit and cost no mana. Helps break up the monotony of Incinerate spam, and helps Ember generation in PVP. Finding a trigger for it could be tricky. Attaching it to Immolate ticks makes dispels hurt. Conflag probably has too much downtime for it. A proc on Incinerate requires too much hardcasting. Maybe the devs wouldn't want more instant casts in pvp? I know Xel has covered this, so I'm not expecting anything of it....just an opinion.


I think a return of Death Coil could work and co-exist with the Mortal Coil talent. Death Coil (or whatever new name it would take) would be like the old baseline spell, while the Mortal Coil talent would exist to upgrade it to shorter CD and greater effect. Though I suspect that with a baseline DC the other talents in that tier may be more attractive instead.


I don't get the sense that Warlock survivability is something they're looking at, but I suppose if this were an issue, an additional avenue to take could be to turn the Stam +Healing bonus from Fel Armor into straight percentage Damage Reduction like Shadowform and bake the Stamina Bonus from Blood Pact into Dark Intent. This would have little effect if you were already running with an Imp out, but it would allow us to use other pets for their utility while not having to rely on others for the Stamina buff.