[5.4] Brusalk's Destruction Warlock guide

[Deleted]

I use elvui, but have detached the resource bar and placed it closer to the middle of my screen, along with Gnosis for a cast bar, surrounded by my weak auras.

[Deleted]

Hello folks, its me again requesting some more help. Having arrived at Paragons 25hc I'm a little staggered about the amount of movement required. How is it possible to maintain competitive dps on that fight?

Logs if needed: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/4jr3xavwgJGN6MfY

[Woz]

Hello folks, its me again requesting some more help. Having arrived at Paragons 25hc I'm a little staggered about the amount of movement required. How is it possible to maintain competitive dps on that fight?

Logs if needed: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/4jr3xavwgJGN6MfY

If you aren't "padding" on the parasites with FnB/RoF and Havocing on CD you won't be able to "compete" with the dotters. Otherwise plant your feet as much as possible and (if you need to) use Backdraft on CB's if you have the procs to use. Don't be afraid to use your Havoc on another mob for Ember generating spells (Incin/Conflags) instead of just nuking the healing boss with CB.

[Xanattos]

No problem.

Also at 10.4k haste you can still fit in Chaos Bolt and Immolate in your 5 second 4pc window without needing to consume 3 stacks of backdraft.

Just make sure you are tracking both your ember bar and the ICD of your 4pc buff and you can plan a few casts ahead.

If you have other procs rolling and can plan for your 4 pc proc I like to go with an immolate refresh and 2 chaos bolts during 4 pc even if I have to consume 3 backdraft charges.

[Crisius]

Hello folks, its me again requesting some more help. Having arrived at Paragons 25hc I'm a little staggered about the amount of movement required. How is it possible to maintain competitive dps on that fight?

Logs if needed: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/4jr3xavwgJGN6MfY

I am assuming we're talking about actual damage on the targets you want to DPS, and not pure padding like a lot of affliction warlocks I've played with on that encounter in particular.

Destruction has loads of things in its arsenal for this fight, which pretty much should ensure you a top spot provided you're equally geared to other players of your raid.

First off, you'll want to keep immolate ticking on all 3 targets (preferably with your 4-set, but timing will not always allow for it).
Secondly, you want to keep rain of fire up on the boss you are DPS'ing, as long as there either is another boss near enough for ROF to hit two targets, or especially if there are parasites up.
Thirdly, you'll want to use havoc on cooldown. Not to chaos bolt, but to immolate, incinerate or conflagrate. This, coupled with immolate and ROF, will provide you a high, steady flow of embers.

[Azantrox]

Evening peeps,

I was wondering if anyone could help me out with the simcraft of my destro lock. Ive watched the vid from Evrelia about the simcrafting, however I'm getting some weird results for my lock and frost mage. For my warlock on a patchwerk fight with 1 or 2 targets it suggest dropping around 16% mastery in favor of 15% haste. So Int > Hit > Haste > Mastery > Crit. Armory ain't working atm due to connected realm stuff, but I'm only in flex/normal gear, 556 ilvl with 93% mastery unbuffed. I was under the impression that I'm not where near the point yet that I need to drop that much mastery in favor of another stat?

Any help is appreciated

[Atlasgrudge]

I can't conceive of any time that you'd want to trade mastery for another stat. Simcraft has a tendency to overvalue haste, and with more than one target the value of haste goes up. I honestly wouldn't take Simcraft results to heart at this point in time. Stack mastery, and after that go for haste or crit per your preference.

[Deleted]

hey, I haven't been here for a while but i have a question about using proccs, this is something i read in the demo forum, when you're proccs are about to fade you don't have enough time for another SF, you would use drain life

does that work for destro as well? or would it be better to use fel flame instead of drain life when your proccs are about to fall off and you don't have time for chaos bolt?

[Crisius]

hey, I haven't been here for a while but i have a question about using proccs, this is something i read in the demo forum, when you're proccs are about to fade you don't have enough time for another SF, you would use drain life

does that work for destro as well? or would it be better to use fel flame instead of drain life when your proccs are about to fall off and you don't have time for chaos bolt?

The drain life trick does not apply to destruction. To question number two, you're much better off trying to time your conflags for those instances.

[FurtyIRL]

hey, I haven't been here for a while but i have a question about using proccs, this is something i read in the demo forum, when you're proccs are about to fade you don't have enough time for another SF, you would use drain life

does that work for destro as well? or would it be better to use fel flame instead of drain life when your proccs are about to fall off and you don't have time for chaos bolt?

The drain life trick does not apply to destruction. To question number two, you're much better off trying to time your conflags for those instances.

It works identically, it's just not worth it — the primary reason this is feasible for Demonology is the significant damage bonus of being in Metamorphosis.

[Deleted]

I hear pretty much everywhere how easy destro is but vaguely remember brusalk answering a post on that topic and that destro has a lot more depth then people give it credit for but cant seem to find the post

[Xanattos]

I hear pretty much everywhere how easy destro is but vaguely remember brusalk answering a post on that topic and that destro has a lot more depth then people give it credit for but cant seem to find the post

Destro is fairly simple to get the basics of but has a good deal of skill required to squeeze the most out of it.

[FurtyIRL]

Destro is fairly simple to get the basics of but has a good deal of skill required to squeeze the most out of it.

Same is true with literally any spec in the game. As far as specs go it's pretty cut and dry though.

[britishbubba]

I hear pretty much everywhere how easy destro is but vaguely remember brusalk answering a post on that topic and that destro has a lot more depth then people give it credit for but cant seem to find the post

The people that say it is easy think it's just build embers, then hurp durp CBs whenever you want. Embers are a resource, and any resource spec does require some degree of thought in order to get the most out of it due to being limited in the amount you'll get. You could get 40 CBs off in a fight, and still do less dps than someone in the same gear as you, who only gets 10 off just because they used their procs right.

It's certainly not an insanely challenging spec, but it's not as overly simplistic as some people would say.

[Brusalk]

Same is true with literally any spec in the game. As far as specs go it's pretty cut and dry though.

There's not that many specs faced with decisions that are not cut-and-dry correct or incorrect on a routine basis. Destro (and most Warlock specs) is (are) one of the few that faces such decisions many, many times in one encounter.

Many specs don't have decisions with heavy trade-offs and opportunity costs associated with those decisions.

[Xanattos]

Same is true with literally any spec in the game. As far as specs go it's pretty cut and dry though.

On a gross comparison sure but not really too many that are as polar with results or inability to recover from a mistake as warlocks in general. I've not mastered every spec but have played most at a decent level and the margin for error on any warlock spec is much smaller.

[FurtyIRL]

On a gross comparison sure but not really too many that are as polar with results or inability to recover from a mistake as warlocks in general. I've not mastered every spec but have played most at a decent level and the margin for error on any warlock spec is much smaller.

That's exactly my point though; what mistake can you possibly make as destro that you can't recover from?

[Deleted]

That's exactly my point though; what mistake can you possibly make as destro that you can't recover from?

Sitting on 4 embers and "forgetting" that you're capped, at the same time you have pboi and ktt procs up with skull banner

[Deleted]

Sitting on 4 embers and "forgetting" that you're capped, at the same time you have pboi and ktt procs up with skull banner

I think that's a pretty bad example, as the same can be said for a few other specs as well, e.g:

Arcane Mage gutting his DPS by spamming blast and depleting his mana excessively, or a Fire Mage munching too many of his procs. I guess also shadow priests forgetting that they are at 3 orbs and using orb generators like MB and SWD? Probably some others (warrior sitting rage capped).

I think the better argument to be made for Warlocks being more 'complex' is that we stand to lose a lot more from improper planning and management of our resources (you kind of said this, but from a reactionary PoV, I'm talking more about being proactive). Demonology packs a lot of its damage into burst windows in Meta. If you mismanage your Fury and can't react to trinkets properly because your low on Fury, you stand to lose a ton of damage. Same with Destruction if you say burn all your embers on a KTT proc and immediately after get DS and PBI up. Similarly, our resources are often much slower to build up, if we compare the time it takes to get max fury/embers to max rage/arcane charges it's quite a difference.

It's that awareness and pre-planning which I think sets warlocks apart in terms of complexity. I'm not saying it's hard and takes a lot of skill, but I do think it adds more to the class/specs than some others have.

[FurtyIRL]

Sitting on 4 embers and "forgetting" that you're capped, at the same time you have pboi and ktt procs up with skull banner

Sorry, but in what way is that 'a lot more depth than people give it credit for'? If you forget to cast chaos bolt when all your procs are up AND you're ember capped you're probably a brain dead vegetable. You can basically sum up the entire spec is 3 or 4 bullet points and that's about all the 'depth' there is. It's extremely forgiving and easy to grasp, but like any spec in the entire game a good player will be able to distinguish themselves.