[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[Duckz0rs]

This doesn't even make any sense. The enjoyment comes from the fact that 1. it's troublesome and 2. it's rewarding. The act of doing something troublesome or bothersome or difficult for reward is what's fun to me. Again, if you prefer being lazy over optimization, there should be a passive alternative, but the optimal stuff should be the most difficult / troublesome / bothersome / restricting. If you don't want to do something uncomfortable, you shouldn't be rewarded with maximal damage. This is my firm belief. I'm the kind of a guy who'll do a 500% more difficult combo for 1% more damage in fighting games. Even if most tournament players would never use those combos and prefer the easier, more simple and reliable stuff, they still exist for people like me.

And yes, tuning doesn't matter in the slightest. It's amazing how many people talk about this. Even in spec feedback people can write 5 page essays where their main issues are tuning. Some people really don't seem to understand...

That sounds a bit contradictory. First you state you like harder mechanics for the sake of being harder because that's where you get your enjoyment. Then you say you do it for a marginal gain (500% harder for 1% more damage). It sounds like you wouldn't do it if there was -no- gain.

So that leaves me to wonder: Do you like min-maxing, or do you like difficult mechanics? Let's say every talent on the Mana Tap row does the exact same amount of damage in every scenario (hypothetically). Would you still take Mana Tap over the other two? If you wouldn't, you don't in fact like the mechanics, you just like high damage. Or let's reverse said scenario; if the passive option does more damage than Mana Tap, would you take Mana Tap or the passive?

Personally I'd only take Mana Tap if it was substantially better than the other options (which is all tuning anyway and thus not relevant yet). If it would be a marginal gain I'm staying well away from it even if I generally prefer more complex mechanics. Maintenance Buffs are just terrible gameplay in my opinion. There's nothing hard or challenging about playing with maintenance buffs, it just gives you another tedious weakaura to stare at every once in a while.

[Soulzar]

That sounds a bit contradictory. First you state you like harder mechanics for the sake of being harder because that's where you get your enjoyment. Then you say you do it for a marginal gain (500% harder for 1% more damage). It sounds like you wouldn't do it if there was -no- gain.

So that leaves me to wonder: Do you like min-maxing, or do you like difficult mechanics?

Why do these two things need to be exclusive and contradict? Usually they compliment one another, and for players who enjoy both the more active talent options as well as the min max results, its preferred when they do. Minmaxers will always go the best performance results route over favored play style, but that's not to say they wouldn't rather the more involved gameplay be part of what gets them to those results.

[Duckz0rs]

Why do these two things need to be exclusive and contradict? Usually they compliment one another, and for players who enjoy both the more active talent options as well as the min max results, its preferred when they do. Minmaxers will always go the best performance results route over favored play style, but that's not to say they wouldn't rather the more involved gameplay be part of what gets them to those results.

Ideally they should never be mutually exclusive, I completely agree on that. In this specific case I wanted to separate the two because the poster's phrasing left me guessing which of the two player types said poster actually is.
I assume that people who post on this forum generally fall under the minminaxers category. Yet there is a lot of dissent about the Mana Tap on this forum, even though theoretically the talent is designed to cater to the minmaxers. Shayuki is an exception to that trend: seemingly a minmaxer AND in favor of Mana Tap mechanically. I wanted to be sure that's actually the case, or if Shayuki is simply a fan of maintenance buffs in general (nothing wrong with that, simply a matter of taste), if that makes sense?

[Cyberthug32]

Finally Destro gets unlocked was just posted!!!

Now lets see what the delay was all about.

[Esinar]

Finally Destro gets unlocked was just posted!!!

Now lets see what the delay was all about.

artifact quest ofc :P

[-Gr-]

Finally Destro gets unlocked was just posted!!!

Now lets see what the delay was all about.

They said the delay was because of the artifact questline and the class itself wasn't really messed with because it didn't need to be messed with and they liked how the playstyle was. So most likely just soul shards returning and a few other tweaks.

[Baconeggcheese]

Finally Destro gets unlocked was just posted!!!

Now lets see what the delay was all about.

They already told us why:

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!

And one final bit of clarification.... When we set out to build 36 artifact acquisition experiences and weapon trait trees, we had to figure out the order in which we wanted to tackle that work. We decided to prioritize development of many of the artifact acquisitions inversely to the amount of change that was being planned for a given specialization.
We specifically wanted to get specializations like Shadow, Discipline, or Outlaw in to players' hands as quickly as possible to get feedback and have more time to iterate on what we knew were very large changes. On the other hand, specializations like Frost mage, Assassination, and Destruction didn't experience any sort of fundamental overhaul, so they felt like safer choices to leave until later in the Alpha cycle.

Which is what most people were guessing from the beginning. Destruction is relatively the same spec and already has one of the better designed kits in the game, where demo is a completely new spec and affliction got a fairly significant overhaul both of which were going to need faaaar more feedback than destruction.

[Cyberthug32]

I get that, and I know they explained it. But in reality you want to see really why the delay.

I won't lie i'm not impressed with the changes of the other two specs, so I'm hoping Destro changes are solid and the play style would be what I am looking for.

[Esinar]

Anyone else from EU staying up until alpha servers come back online just for destro?

[Deleted]

Anyone else from EU staying up until alpha servers come back online just for destro?

very tempt, 9 o clock maths lecture in the morning.... Challenge accepted.

[Cyberthug32]

I will probably be on late, i'm US though.

Cyberthug#1564

[Gnarilex]

Here's to hoping it's a badass artifact quest.

[Soulzar]

Going to be a long day tomorrow...... not many ZZ's tonight.

I've got a toon sitting in front of NPC waiting to pick Artifact quest with 5k AP items in bags to turn in. I'm ready!!

[Esinar]

Going to be a long day tomorrow...... not many ZZ's tonight.

I've got a toon sitting in front of NPC waiting to pick Artifact quest with 5k AP items in bags to turn in. I'm ready!!

I did exactly the same, then when I heard the quest was available for a short time earlier last week I did the quest but it broke and I had to delete the char and lost all the AP I'd gotten. RIP

[avahle]

Here's to hoping it's a badass artifact quest.

It is and a funny one too. It's got great lore as well.

[Gnarilex]

Going to be a long day tomorrow...... not many ZZ's tonight.

I've got a toon sitting in front of NPC waiting to pick Artifact quest with 5k AP items in bags to turn in. I'm ready!!

Need that portal and infernal feedback asap. SO many questions about the artifact traits.

[Soulzar]

Need that portal and infernal feedback asap. SO many questions about the artifact traits.

Yeah my plan was to go right for Doomfire trait since all the best ST talents are along the way.. but if its been removed/replaced now.. i'll have to reevaluate based on this builds changes.

Might need to just go for Lord of Flame for the cool factor.

[Esinar]

I'm assuming we can respec to Destro on the 110 PvP realms once the alpha goes live. You won't be able to do PvE stuff but at least you can test all the Artifact traits

[Roujeaux]

The official Destro feedback thread will be fierce if the Destro changes prove unpopular. All I want to see is how the devs will respond since they are so open to feedback at this point.

[Esinar]

The official Destro feedback thread will be fierce if the Destro changes prove unpopular. All I want to see is how the devs will respond since they are so open to feedback at this point.

Well there isn't an official Destro Feedback thread atm on the forums. Left a note in the new alpha build thread though so hopefully there'll be one soon lol.