[5.4] Brusalk's Destruction Warlock guide

[Brusalk]

Am a very skilled Warlock that doesn't need any sort of tips or help..Saw a comment on how Glyph of Havoc is a DPS loss, which is bullcrap. Depends on the fight, but on fights like Fallen Protectors where you can time a extra CB cleave with trinket procs it's a DPS increase. Especially in the opener with every proc that extra CB alone will hit for 2.9million+...Which is vastly superior to 3 incinerates that would have done 800-900k. Sry man.

Glyph of Havoc lots you concentrate more embers when it counts. Also the duration to 1 minute works perfectly with dark soul and many other trinket procs that generally come back up again every 1-2min. In a hands of a skilled warlock it's a rather big increase to keep getting that extra huge hitter CB every minute.


Also depending on your trinkets Sac can be a rather big DPS loss, i have yet to have a SAC spec even come close to beating me single target with SUP. Especially if you have Black Blood since your CB is split into 3 ticks of damage, which is just one example on a big dps loss.

What?

Why are you comparing 1xChaos Bolt to 3xIncinerate? It's not like you'd cast 3 incinerates if you were looking to maximize overall damage with or without the glyph. You should be comparing 2 buffed Chaos Bolts to getting out more unbuffed Chaos Bolts more frequently. A extremely basic calculation would be something like the following:

With Glyph: 2 Chaos Bolts per Minute.
Without Glyph: 2.4 Chaos Bolts per Minute (2 Chaos Bolts per 50 seconds = 2.4 Chaos Bolts per Minute (2/50 * 60)

Thus in order for glyph to be worth it, you'd need to be getting more than .4 Chaos Bolts worth of damage out of your second Chaos Bolt. However, that assumes procs, and obviously you'll be getting procs for both Chaos Bolts in both cases (potentially), so overall it'd depend on your likelyhood to get procs on your second non-glyphed Chaos Bolt. It's somewhat close, but I'm not sure I'd call it better in all cases. I especially don't get your comparison to 3 incinerates.

Even with the glyph I doubt you'd be using it on CD if your aim was to get both buffed with trinkets, which only decreases it's worth compared to un-glyphed.


As for Sac, your observation is based on personal experience with people who may be playing at a skill level far beneath your own. Not exactly a valid comparison.

As for your comment on 3 ticks of damage, I don't think you properly understand DoT snapshotting nor how GoSac works. When your CB hits it does full damage, and applies a DoT that ticks 3 times for a percentage of the original hit. The DoT is snapshotted based on how much damage the original hit did. There's no damage loss to GoSac inherent in that nature, nor is it a big loss if you get the cast off during Black Blood. The only argument you could potentially make would be Skull Banner, since the crit damage is only boosted while you have the buff, but that's such a small and infrequent case, and the damage you'd lose is so small that it's really not even worth considering.

[Bonkura]

Am a very skilled Warlock that doesn't need any sort of tips or help..

Then you shouldn't be posting here.

[DarkArchon]

Even if only 1 of those Chaos Bolts had good procs it would hit just as hard or harder then 2 unbuffed Chaos Bolts. Since the first one was buffed the 2nd one being buffed as well is almost certain. Since Chaos Bolt scales so drastically with any sort of buff accomplishing the .4 extra is basically effortless.

Right off a pull my 2nd Chaos Bolt normally hits for 3.3 million which is about 4 unbuffed Chaos Bolts in one which is already vastly ahead of the .4 That's with skull bunner, both trinket procs, dark soul.

For Sac that's more then likely the case.

[Xephyria]

Even if only 1 of those Chaos Bolts had good procs it would hit just as hard or harder then 2 unbuffed Chaos Bolts. Since the first one was buffed the 2nd one being buffed as well is almost certain. Since Chaos Bolt scales so drastically with any sort of buff accomplishing the .4 extra is basically effortless.

Right off a pull my 2nd Chaos Bolt normally hits for 3.3 million which is about 4 unbuffed Chaos Bolts in one which is already vastly ahead of the .4 That's with skull bunner, both trinket procs, dark soul.

For Sac that's more then likely the case.

You're kidding me. Why would you even wanna cast unbuffed chaos bolts even without glyph of havoc in the first place? Talk less, logs please.

[Xanattos]

I understand the stat weights are more about personal preference however, I was curious if there was any significant single target gain in dropping from 10437 haste (I like the 2 extra ticks of immolate during meta and lust) down to 10124 haste. I do have an off spec of affliction but have high haste pieces I switch in order to reach the 13737 haste cap on there. I have tried to simcraft this myself but can not get it. I can not get simcraft to accurately match my stats after the simulation is complete, is this a bug or something that I am doing wrong? I have gone through and double checked every piece and compared it with in game, armory, import page and the results page. All but the results page match.

Also, for single target does Sup vs Sac make a significant difference, we are still progressing on 25H and I find that GoSac gives me more survivability with shadow bulwark.

Respectfully,

[JV Chequer]

What a noob I'm, i could swear it was best 3x incinerate havoc than 1x Chaos bolt because of the embers generation.

About the glyph, I'use only in Thok nowadays and on Paragons for the opening (but maybe change that ).
For me the main problem of non-glyphed Havoc is waste so many GCD with it, feels odd.

Btw, Thanks for the tip guys.

[Turturin the Warlock]

I understand the stat weights are more about personal preference however, I was curious if there was any significant single target gain in dropping from 10437 haste (I like the 2 extra ticks of immolate during meta and lust) down to 10124 haste. I do have an off spec of affliction but have high haste pieces I switch in order to reach the 13737 haste cap on there. I have tried to simcraft this myself but can not get it. I can not get simcraft to accurately match my stats after the simulation is complete, is this a bug or something that I am doing wrong? I have gone through and double checked every piece and compared it with in game, armory, import page and the results page. All but the results page match.

Also, for single target does Sup vs Sac make a significant difference, we are still progressing on 25H and I find that GoSac gives me more survivability with shadow bulwark.

Respectfully,

Short answer is, no, haste breakpoints don't matter. (They don't actually matter in any situation where you don't let dots expire, i.e. single target, but that's another story.)

Second short answer is that Sac and Sup are roughly equal, with sac pulling ahead at very high levels of mastery. Given the survivability advantages and equivalent damage, most people would agree with your choice.

[Xanattos]

Ty Sir, confirmed my thoughts and findings.

[Bonkura]

Short answer is, no, haste breakpoints don't matter. (They don't actually matter in any situation where you don't let dots expire, i.e. single target, but that's another story.)

Of course they matter. It's just not as important because of Pandemic. A good reason to grab breakpoints is that you get longer duration on the dots so you have to refresh them less often.

[Deleted]

What glyphs i need for challenge mode gold runs? also what talents?

[Turturin the Warlock]

Of course they matter. It's just not as important because of Pandemic. A good reason to grab breakpoints is that you get longer duration on the dots so you have to refresh them less often.

For the sake of argument let's pretend you're right about that for a moment. You'll still be refreshing immolate more often than once every 22 seconds (more like every 15-16 secs on average in order to roll high crit immolates from the 4pcT16. Whether your pandemic makes the Dot last 21 or 23 seconds is not really relevant.

[Brusalk]

Even if only 1 of those Chaos Bolts had good procs it would hit just as hard or harder then 2 unbuffed Chaos Bolts. Since the first one was buffed the 2nd one being buffed as well is almost certain. Since Chaos Bolt scales so drastically with any sort of buff accomplishing the .4 extra is basically effortless.

Right off a pull my 2nd Chaos Bolt normally hits for 3.3 million which is about 4 unbuffed Chaos Bolts in one which is already vastly ahead of the .4 That's with skull bunner, both trinket procs, dark soul.

For Sac that's more then likely the case.

My point is that you can't assume that you're going to always get buffed Chaos Bolts in either situation. It's more likely that you'll be able to game it for unglyphed than glyphed which is why I believe you really need more than just that .4's worth of damage. I admit that in certain situations it is entirely possible that it'll be better, however in practice I'm not convinced that it works out like you say.

I think the more important considering on whether to use the glyph or not is whether or not you'll be able to use unglyphed or glyphed more often due to fight mechanics. On a fight like Thok the glyph is obviously superior, but I'm not sure that the glyph would be better on a fight like Sha of Pride for example.

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I understand the stat weights are more about personal preference however, I was curious if there was any significant single target gain in dropping from 10437 haste (I like the 2 extra ticks of immolate during meta and lust) down to 10124 haste. I do have an off spec of affliction but have high haste pieces I switch in order to reach the 13737 haste cap on there. I have tried to simcraft this myself but can not get it. I can not get simcraft to accurately match my stats after the simulation is complete, is this a bug or something that I am doing wrong? I have gone through and double checked every piece and compared it with in game, armory, import page and the results page. All but the results page match.

Also, for single target does Sup vs Sac make a significant difference, we are still progressing on 25H and I find that GoSac gives me more survivability with shadow bulwark.

Respectfully,

Sac vs Sup/Serv makes no difference as long as you're using the correct priority for each. Sup/Serv relies on Haste >= Crit >> Mastery, while Sac relies on Mastery > Haste == Crit. They're basically even under each of their respective situations. You'll lose damage if you're Sac reforged and using Sup/Serv, and vice versa.

As for breakpoints, it'd help to understand that the benefit of breakpoints comes from the extension of the DoT back up to it's full base duration. For destruction not only is our main dot quite low damage and low base duration (which reduces the benefit of a breakpoint for Immo), the main benefit of Haste is in increased ember generation which eclipses the potential benefit one would get from going for a breakpoint. That's the real reason breakpoints don't matter for Destruction. You'll gain some non-zero damage in losing haste for another stat breakpoint-wise, but you'll lose more than what you gain due to reduced ember generation.

What do you mean by Simc not matching your stats?

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What a noob I'm, i could swear it was best 3x incinerate havoc than 1x Chaos bolt because of the embers generation.

About the glyph, I'use only in Thok nowadays and on Paragons for the opening (but maybe change that ).
For me the main problem of non-glyphed Havoc is waste so many GCD with it, feels odd.

Btw, Thanks for the tip guys.

3xIncinerate is best for single target damage where the primary target is the only one where damage matters. An example of this is Paragons or Megaera. Cleaving Chaos Bolts is more overall damage. Think of cleaving Incinerates/Conflags as a single target boost, while Chaos Bolts are a overall/secondary target damage boost.

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Short answer is, no, haste breakpoints don't matter. (They don't actually matter in any situation where you don't let dots expire, i.e. single target, but that's another story.)

That's not true. Part of the benefit is being able to cast more spells between refreshes. If you want an example, Shadow Priests get a marginal benefit in going for the point where they can get an even number of Mind Flays in between Mind Blasts. In a DoTs case think of the Mind Blast CD as the refresh time of a DoT, and Mind Flay as our Incinerate. If you can spend less time recasting a DoT in a given minute then you gain a significant amount of damage in the spells you cast instead.

Second short answer is that Sac and Sup are roughly equal, with sac pulling ahead at very high levels of mastery. Given the survivability advantages and equivalent damage, most people would agree with your choice.

I wouldn't say Sac pulls ahead at very high levels theoretically, however in practice it's quite superior in basically every fight type, and even on single target so why not use GoSac if you're good at optimizing when to cast your consumers?

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For the sake of argument let's pretend you're right about that for a moment. You'll still be refreshing immolate more often than once every 22 seconds (more like every 15-16 secs on average in order to roll high crit immolates from the 4pcT16. Whether your pandemic makes the Dot last 21 or 23 seconds is not really relevant.

That's specifically with reference to Immolate and Destro. In general however breakpoints do give a tangible benefit, even on single target.

[Turturin the Warlock]

Well, this is the destro thread, so i gave an example that is destro specific. I'm not sure that you and I are disagreeing.

When i play shadowpriest I'll use breakpoints both for the reasons you cited as well as the fact that it often does make sense to let dots expire (due to procs on current dots or SWI priority)

On GoSac, yes, my point was essentially there's no reason not to use it. So again, we agree. But I'm also saying that it becomes a more obvious choice as mastery increases (it could also be said the skill required to make sac perform better decreases the more mastery you have).

[Brusalk]

Well, this is the destro thread, so i gave an example that is destro specific. I'm not sure that you and I are disagreeing.

When i play shadowpriest I'll use breakpoints both for the reasons you cited as well as the fact that it often does make sense to let dots expire (due to procs on current dots or SWI priority)

I was mostly just interested in clarifying that it can be worth it for single target for specs other than Destruction. The way you said it would make it seem to someone who missed the context that it was never worth it for anyone, which isn't true.

On GoSac, yes, my point was essentially there's no reason not to use it. So again, we agree. But I'm also saying that it becomes a more obvious choice as mastery increases (it could also be said the skill required to make sac perform better decreases the more mastery you have).

That is a fair assessment. I wasn't disagreeing with your conclusion, I was disagreeing with your intermediate explanation to get to that conclusion.

[Xanattos]

Sac vs Sup/Serv makes no difference as long as you're using the correct priority for each. Sup/Serv relies on Haste >= Crit >> Mastery, while Sac relies on Mastery > Haste == Crit. They're basically even under each of their respective situations. You'll lose damage if you're Sac reforged and using Sup/Serv, and vice versa.

As for breakpoints, it'd help to understand that the benefit of breakpoints comes from the extension of the DoT back up to it's full base duration. For destruction not only is our main dot quite low damage and low base duration (which reduces the benefit of a breakpoint for Immo), the main benefit of Haste is in increased ember generation which eclipses the potential benefit one would get from going for a breakpoint. That's the real reason breakpoints don't matter for Destruction. You'll gain some non-zero damage in losing haste for another stat breakpoint-wise, but you'll lose more than what you gain due to reduced ember generation.

I have tried a mastery > haste > all build with the thought process that the extra tics on adds would be beneficial, the faster gain from rain of fire on adds and the faster cast time on chaos bolt for high movement fights. I was concerned that I was mistaken, thank you for clearing it up.

What do you mean by Simc not matching your stats?

When I import my character (Xanattos - Alleria in pvp gear and spec atm) my stats will say I have "X" haste "Y" mastery, etc... I confirm the import with in game comparison and armory comparison. After running the sim I wanted to review the information on the graphs and verified that the stats listed were in fact mine. Upon reviewing the stats, with the exception of hit, they were all lower than my actual stats. I attempted several different characters and different specs each having the same result. I have updated simcraft, uninstalled and reinstalled simcraft, both of which provided no remedy. Considering the advice you provided to my previous question I am not overly concerned with it for my character anymore, however, I do run optimizations for others and have become somewhat annoyed by it.

Again, thank you.

[Deleted]

What enchants i need for items? I dont know the names of any enchant.

[Deleted]

What enchants i need for items? I dont know the names of any enchant.

Click the Armory button at the bottom of Brusalk's posts..

[Xanattos]

What enchants i need for items? I dont know the names of any enchant.

I took this as a troll initially, if not I apologize, but yes you can armory most any warlock to get an idea or read this guide to get a better understanding. Also there are many you tube guides from several locks that can also provide some insight.

[Deleted]

So, I just coined heroic warforged BBoY yesterday and I already had heroic toxic totem. I'm not quite sure which one to use for destruction. Simcraft shows slightly better results with BBoY (about 2k), but I don't know, how Simcraft treats BBoY. Does it assume that I can always optimally use the procc, which would be lining up chaos bolts with my remaining embers in a way that leads to the last chaos bolt being cast with 10 stacks of the procc? Or does it use the procc in a rather stupid way and just fire off chaos bolts when the procc occurs?

What can be done in actual bossfights lies somewhere inbetween. While you can always make intelligent use of the procc and line up your chaos bolts somewhat good towards the higher stacks of the procc, you obviously can't guarantee to always get that 9-10 stack chaos bolt.

During progression I had to stick with a lfr BBoY for a very long time, until I got my heroic totem. While I kind of mastered the use of the BBoY-procc for destruction, my dps went up tremendously when I looted the trinket. Aside from the very big jump from flex bboy to hc ktt in terms of stats and procc power, I thought the main reason would be that the heroic trinket seems to procc a lot more often than the flex version.
So.. how does simcraft handle BBoY? If it goes utopia-mode, I wouldn't consider those 2k theoretical dps to be worth it.

[Turturin the Warlock]

HWF Toxic Totem > HWF BBoY > HC Toxic Totem

RNG around movement is such that HWF BBoY can be (quite a bit) better in any given situation, but if you are talking about overall, consistent results, a toxic totem will be better than a black blood at equivalent ilvl.

As the ilvl of your BBoY is higher than your KTT, I would personally go with the BBoY and live with it's occasional frustrations, as I do think it would perform slightly better in the long run.

All that said, the difference won't be large either way on average, so it's sort of up to your preference/comfort