[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[Seramore]

I'm sure bugs are playing a large part in Destruction not being in the Alpha right now, I'm just mostly curious about the philosophy behind not wanting to launch a spec until the Artifact questline is ready as Blizzard stated in their post earlier today. I don't really care too much about it because I don't have Alpha, it's just genuine confusion that I have that I'd like to have cleared up.

[Gaidax]

Just be patient, we won't die and most likely Destruction will be in next build seeing they are almost there as they say.

[Seramore]

Again, I don't really care since I don't even have access, it's just curiosity. I have faith that it'll be in the next build.

[Deleted]

I think they are trying to make something unique and fun with the rifts on the artifact and try to get a world destroying feel to it that just isn´t there yet.

However I secretly hope that destro being the last isn´t just a coincident but there are some real lore to the quest and we´ll get to see the big guy, we are going to wield his scepter after all. And to have had destro out earlier might have been to much spoilers and blizzard will do some sort of event of it.

[Dnusha]

FnB and SB together is the best news. At least we won't be picking MT in AoE situation. (I still think MT is an awful talent). Roaring Blaze has lost its niche and probably a dead talent in its current state.(sb for aoe/cleave, backdraft for single target why would we ever want to pick a RB?).

Immo has a 15% chance to generate a shard on hit and twice of that on crit. Well thats almost twice as much as Nightfall atm w/o crit. What can I say? Nightfall for everyone, we love it so much, right guys? (meh but it could be worse)
Eradication nerfed to 12% from 20%. Probably because chaotic instability(15% cb crit dmg) has been added to the artifact traits.
Chaos bolt damage changed to Chaos. Fuck all of you retarded fantasy lovers. It's so great to be locked in every damn school when someone interrupts you, right?

Meanwhile Demonic Circle is still a one button talent. 30 sec CD. How fucked up is this?

[Esinar]

TBH, it wouldn't surprise me that the only reason we can't play destro is because they're still working on the artifact questline.

Sorry Destruction warlocks! Saving the best for last. Just to clarify something that we should've clarified a long time ago, in the vast majority of cases, when a specialization has been unplayable, it's because we've still been working on that spec's artifact acquisition and traits. We need to get feedback and testing of the spec as a functional whole. We're almost there, so thank you for your patience thus far!

Fucking knew it. What a terrible excuse. This doesn't explain why we can't get it on 110 realms where we already have the artifact weapon. Pfft.

[Grizelda]

Conflagrate has the charges, and it's only your assumptions that are most likely incorrect.

It was a question, not an assumption.

I hope that havoc Conflags still generate multiple shards.

[zurm]

I don't have the Alpha so I apologize for the potentially ignorant question. I'm sure they're still working on the entire spec, but I'm seeing a few people on this page (and Blizzard) saying that the spec is mostly down due to the Artifact. What makes them not just enable the spec and wait to enable the Artifact/Artifact Quest in a future build? I know that it's Alpha and would understand if the spec isn't even functional in the code yet, but I just don't really get the thought behind delaying it for the Artifact.

Blizzard is treating classes on the alpha as a complete package with their baseline talents/abilities AND the artifact. They will likely be balanced as a package as well (meaning you can expect balance to be thrown completely out the window during the 7.0 prepatch, since no one will have their artifacts yet).

Some classes are terrible until they get certain specific artifact traits... others don't get as much from their artifact. As such, their not really interested in just unlocking the spec on its own until artifact acquisition and traits are complete (ish).

[Baconeggcheese]

Chaos Bolt now does Chaos Damage...for all the good and bad that will bring.

Chaos dmg just means that when we get interrupted it locks all the spell schools. People usually equate chaos damage with piercing bubbles but it doesn't inherently do that.

Only time it made a difference in the last 2 xpacs (demo has chaos spells) was on ko'ragh where it would cause it to go through his magic absorb shield which wasn't necessarily a good thing.

It's just a (mostly pvp) nerf, unless they decide to put the piercing mechanic back on it.

Also looks like Fire and Brimstone (15->30) and Roaring Blaze (30->15) swapped places in the talent tree. At least FnB and Shadowburn won't be mutually exclusive.

Mana tap was the only aoe option on the 30 row, this seems to be their solution to that feedback.

[Soulzar]

FnB and SB together is the best news. At least we won't be picking MT in AoE situation. (I still think MT is an awful talent). Roaring Blaze has lost its niche and probably a dead talent in its current state.(sb for aoe/cleave, backdraft for single target why would we ever want to pick a RB?).

I think roaring Blaze needs to be reworked to increase the duration of the Immolate dot rather than its dmg. Having to cast conflag immediately after Immolate removes the flexibility of when you use your conflag charges, however now that it no longer conflicts with Backdraft that's mitigates it some. The other issue is refreshing immolate in the pandemic window drops the dot back down to base value nullifying the benefit from Roaring Blaze, which is not good design.

Not having F&B competing with Shadowburn is really nice and having the choice to use Backdraft with F&B is also a nice change.

Roaring Blaze never could have competed with mana tap single target on that tier anyways. I do wonder about that second row now though as Reverse Entropy seems a bit lost. Would you ever pick 1s cast time reduction on RoF over Backdraft/F&B combo or Mana Tap? Are you casting CB enough single target to ever have that cast time reduction and mana refund trump 10% flat dmg to everything? Sadly, just like affliction (Absolute Corruption/manatap) Reverse Entropy would synergize really well with mana taps mana consumption, but they compete with each other.

[avahle]

Sorry Destruction warlocks! Saving the best for last. Just to clarify something that we should've clarified a long time ago, in the vast majority of cases, when a specialization has been unplayable, it's because we've still been working on that spec's artifact acquisition and traits. We need to get feedback and testing of the spec as a functional whole. We're almost there, so thank you for your patience thus far!

Fucking knew it. What a terrible excuse. This doesn't explain why we can't get it on 110 realms where we already have the artifact weapon. Pfft.

Because they are still not done with the artifact traits which is part of a functionally complete spec.

But I get your point. I don't understand why they can't prioritize getting the baseline talents/traits worked out and push it to alpha for all specs and then work on artifact quests and spec iterations. The time difference that different specs have had to iterate on is just ridiculous. 3+ months is too big of a difference.

[Rayaleith]

What will they do if (starting to doubt about that) there will be another expansion after Legion with the artifact and the balance around it? Resign classes/specs once more?

[Gnarilex]

What will they do if (starting to doubt about that) there will be another expansion after Legion with the artifact and the balance around it? Resign classes/specs once more?

My assumption is we'll bring our artifacts with us and gain a bunch of new skins (maybe even change what weapon type they look like for diversity) or once moving onto the next expansion's content the traits will then become baked into each spec (i.e. after lvl 110 since the artifacts play a role in Legion's story, 1-100 would still play as if they didn't have them). If it isn't one of those options they'd probably have to redesign the specs a little bit again.

[Deleted]

What will they do if (starting to doubt about that) there will be another expansion after Legion with the artifact and the balance around it? Resign classes/specs once more?

I can't find it currently (though only looked for 30 seconds) but a couple of months ago I believed they referenced artifacts as a 'legion' thing like garrisons and farms were limited to their own expansions. I think it was spun off a query about not being able to have artefact skins transmogged onto other non-artefact weapons. So I'm not sure they'll carry over to future expansions. Granted we're still VERY early days with such things.

[Soulzar]

They'll just prune some, bake a few in, and the rest can fall into the "Hundreds of new Talents" category again. lol

[PickleballAce]

Chaos dmg just means that when we get interrupted it locks all the spell schools. People usually equate chaos damage with piercing bubbles but it doesn't inherently do that.

Yeah, I'm not really on the Chaos Damage bandwagon. I guess at least when Fear gets kicked we can still Chaos Bolt but other than pleasing the people offended by it not doing Chaos Damage...not really overwhelmed by this change.

[Deleted]

We'll probably have to 'sacrifice' our weapons' power or something on the last boss of the expansion in order to fit the lore of not using them in the next one.

[Gnarilex]

We'll probably have to 'sacrifice' our weapons' power or something on the last boss of the expansion in order to fit the lore of not using them in the next one.

That'll be real awkward if it's gone after the first run.

[Deleted]

That'll be real awkward if it's gone after the first run.

Haha that would be.... interesting. Better get mythic as your first kill then. I wouldn't mind if they did that much to explain loss of the artifacts as opposed to 'new patch boom nerfed to shit'. How it lingers around very easy to just say 'its power will linger for a while longer but will fade in time...'.

[Netherspark]

Yeah, I'm not really on the Chaos Damage bandwagon. I guess at least when Fear gets kicked we can still Chaos Bolt but other than pleasing the people offended by it not doing Chaos Damage...not really overwhelmed by this change.

I think they're expecting (and rightly so) that in PVP most people will take Shadowburn. And if you're in the position that you're likely to be interupted while casting Chaos Bolt, you shouldn't be casting it at all, regardless of what type of damage it is.