[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[Deleted]

Well this new mastery is just Multistrike Legion style for us or crit chance on chaosbolts. I don't really see a problem with that and I might actually like a spec to want something besides mastery. I don't see anyone else crying about big nukes not critting and dealing 50% damage of a crit. Sure, guaranteed damage on our spenders might look good, but with a partially RNG resource income, getting 0 shards from immolate means that mastery adds 0, compared to it always working on everything like it is in Legion.

[Deleted]

If it's gonna have a long cast time, long travel time, and cost two shards it needs to hit like an absolute truck.

With Backdraft and Reverse Entropy talents for Destruction and the 4piece bonus, Chaos Bolt cast time is 1 second.

[Roujeaux]

It's sounding like Conflagrate damage and only Immolate crits generating one Shard, and Incinerate generating one fifth of a Shard would have been a much smoother foundation to start from.

[gruxxar]

It's sounding like Conflagrate damage and only Immolate crits generating one Shard, and Incinerate generating one fifth of a Shard would have been a much smoother foundation to start from.

you could work incinerate into shard generation as follows (since you obviously can't generate "partial shards"):

a new passive could be

Your incinerate hits tear at the fabric of the target's being, allowing you to cast your spells directly at the target's soul. Allows the usage of Soul Fire at 5 stacks.

Now, this would be a buff that stacks to 5, similar to the Shaman's maelstrom stacks (hell, you can even use a similar graphical warning in the middle of your screen).

Upon reaching 5 stacks you can then use Soul Fire, an instant cast that grants a soul shards when you use it.

(Also a nice way to re-introduce Soul fire)

[Deleted]

you could work incinerate into shard generation as follows (since you obviously can't generate "partial shards"):

a new passive could be


Now, this would be a buff that stacks to 5, similar to the Shaman's maelstrom stacks (hell, you can even use a similar graphical warning in the middle of your screen).

Upon reaching 5 stacks you can then use Soul Fire, an instant cast that grants a soul shards when you use it.

(Also a nice way to re-introduce Soul fire)

I like it, Chaosbolt is a bigger version of Soul Fire anyway . Sadly the spelleffect is crap, but I guess I can't have everything.

[Gaidax]

Honestly, there is no need for more shard generation, there are a few issues now, but shard generation is not one of them.

[Soulzar]

Due to the phasing issues I didn't get very far last night before I decided to give it another day. Hopefully its fixed up soon so I can log some time this weekend and get more familiar with the specs new feel.

Sucks, I want to get it to 110 to mess with the new world content. My demo is 108.... but Destro needs testing....so I've gotta start at 100 instead!

[Gaidax]

You just need to camp a bit, eventually Blizz gives it a restart and it fixes phasing for some time, so you can get over it.

The more annoying parts are things like some quest chains being broken due to phasing in the world, so you can't complete Valsharah and Highmountain for example now, guess they will fix this shit next patch.

Still managed to crawl to level 105 with fresh Destruction Warlock, despite Blizzard's best efforts to keep people from doing it.

[gruxxar]

Due to the phasing issues I didn't get very far last night before I decided to give it another day. Hopefully its fixed up soon so I can log some time this weekend and get more familiar with the specs new feel.

Sucks, I want to get it to 110 to mess with the new world content. My demo is 108.... but Destro needs testing....so I've gotta start at 100 instead!

i've heard from multiple sources u should be able to get more artifacts on 1 character now. However i wasn't able to do it on any of my warlocks (my warrior 105 could just take the other 2 artifact quest from Odyn though, dunno if locks are bugged)

So if anyone could shed some light on this matter, that would be great!

[Soulzar]

i've heard from multiple sources u should be able to get more artifacts on 1 character now. However i wasn't able to do it on any of my warlocks (my warrior 105 could just take the other 2 artifact quest from Odyn though, dunno if locks are bugged)

So if anyone could shed some light on this matter, that would be great!

They did have that stipulation when they brought in the class hall campaigns that we would need to start new characters for them. Its possible my original Demo lock isn't eligible for a quest due to existing before certain quest chains. Currently one quest (to make acolytes) is bugged as the NPC doesn't exist to train from.

If that lock can pick up a new quest for another artifact, that would be perfect!

[Baconeggcheese]

I'm not too excited for Destro so far, but then again I know that Blizz has been pretty good about iterating based on feedback so far in this cycle so hopefully those of you that are on alpha are giving good reasoned specific feedback.

I feel like destruction has easily been the most solid of the specs right off the bat, as was expected. Not really sure what feedback you're expecting.

One thing that kinda stuck out to me, though was Chaos Bolt. If it's gonna have a long cast time, long travel time, and cost two shards it needs to hit like an absolute truck. It needs to be one of the heaviest hitting abilities in the game. Preach's video didn't give me that feeling at all.

They're making up for that with potential volume, and quicker cast times.

Also preach's video is in starter gear which has something like 3000 haste 1000 mastery and 500 crit on a spec that wants to stack crit over everything else. Not really sure why they gave locks gear that stacks nothing but haste instead of something more balanced.

Well this new mastery is just Multistrike Legion style for us or crit chance on chaosbolts. I don't really see a problem with that and I might actually like a spec to want something besides mastery. I don't see anyone else crying about big nukes not critting and dealing 50% damage of a crit. Sure, guaranteed damage on our spenders might look good, but with a partially RNG resource income, getting 0 shards from immolate means that mastery adds 0, compared to it always working on everything like it is in Legion.

The difference being that this mastery affects all of our spells that still deal with crit, where no one else has that additional layer of rng.

I'm still not terribly worried about it, but it doesn't feel good when I can an incinerate that deals more damage than the shadowburn I cast after it etc. It all works out fine in the end, but I cant say it *feels* good.

[Turturin the Warlock]

Feels bad that our burst CD's tradeoff against burst:
1. Service - Costs a shard
2. Doomguard - Costs a Shard
3. Soul Harvest - channel time that could be spent bursting. (because in real burst situations you're going to want to build 5 shards, spend 5, soul harvest, spend 5). the channel time feels like a lull in that burst cycle. Might be nice if immolate ticked for like 200% more damage while channeling soul harvest, or something.

I think Rain of Fire cost is way too high, and having to tab target immolate to aoe doesn't feel destruction-y or chaotic. It feels plodding.

As I've been leveling, I have enjoyed the mobility of the shadowburn build, and survivability (been using demon skin and dark pact) is really good. Haven't felt the need to use blueberry over imp, at all.

Demonfire is fun (graphically, thematically), but currently doesn't have that feeling of pwnage that it would need to make me want it over soul conduit long term. It should:
a) absolutely wreck my target's face
b) have longer cd if necessary
c) function with Havoc, or scale (at least partially) with # of targets.

It already has the downside of going on cd even if you break the channel, so there's some tradeoffs to taking it. The above may simply be tuning issues (I don't think (c) is though), but I think the tuning is going to be a big part of the feel.

[Seramore]

i've heard from multiple sources u should be able to get more artifacts on 1 character now. However i wasn't able to do it on any of my warlocks (my warrior 105 could just take the other 2 artifact quest from Odyn though, dunno if locks are bugged)

So if anyone could shed some light on this matter, that would be great!

Apparently a few people were saying that the other artifacts are accessible from the class hall missions, it sounds like it's similar to the Draenic Sea Chart part of the legendary quest, except you have a chance to get the thing that will start the artifact quest instead.

[Soulzar]

Apparently a few people were saying that the other artifacts are accessible from the class hall missions, it sounds like it's similar to the Draenic Sea Chart part of the legendary quest, except you have a chance to get the thing that will start the artifact quest instead.

Oh, I got one that mentioned the Harvester.... perhaps that's it. I didn't bother reading it since it was on my Demo toon and I only had the troops for the specific mission I had the quest for. I'll check it out tonight.

[Esinar]

Apparently a few people were saying that the other artifacts are accessible from the class hall missions, it sounds like it's similar to the Draenic Sea Chart part of the legendary quest, except you have a chance to get the thing that will start the artifact quest instead.

Yep this is true. Once you get to the point the campaign where you have access to imps, acolytes and that order resources spender tree thing you get more missions appearing on the board. One of them for me was a tome that basically started the quest for the affliction weapon (did demo first). It was just a quest item that you use that takes you to Calydus for info on it and he sends you to that guy in duskwood, which is where the affliction weapon questline starts.

[Elise the Seeker]

Please tell me there's a relic artifact to increase the amount of infernals summoned by rain of fire.
It's one of the coolest flavors the spec offers this expansion.

[garonne]

random observation, and curious what you guys think, but the classes with "pets" as their Main burst CD isnt really their "burst Cd". we may not be looking at it from the current view point. hear me out and let me know what you think. this will include other classes as well that fit this mold.

unholy - Army of the Dead/Gargoyle
their supposedly main CD (DT could be considered minor) but they have a row of talents that augments this playstyle.

Lvl 100 talent row
Dark Arbiter for single target burst... Defile for AoE Burst... and Soul Cleaver for sustained single target
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Ele Shaman - Fire elemental
their supposedly main CD but they have talents to augment this playstyle

Lvl 100 Talent row
Ascendance for single target burst.... Icefury for single target sustained.... Liquid Magma for Aoe Burst
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Enh Shaman - Spirit Wolves
their supposedly main CD but they have talents to augment this playstyle

Lvl 100 talent row
Ascendance for single target burst... Fury of Air for sustained Aoe.... Earthen Spike for Sustained Aoe
unlike the rest fury of aoe break this mold but still provides the augment
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Warlock - doomguard
their supposedly main CD but they have talents to augment this playstyle

Lvl 60 Talent row

Affliction
Siphon Life for sustained single target..... Sow of Seed for Aoe Burst.... Soul Harvest for single target burst

Destro
Eradication for sustained single target (dont chain cast CB, its more CB> spell > spell > CB to keep the 12% damage rolling)..... Cataclysm for AoE burst........... Soul Harvest for single target burst

Demo
Hand of Doom (honestly it doesnt fit but i guess could be sustained or burst AoE?).... Power Trip for sustained single target....Soul Harvest for Burst single target

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So the Pet as Main CD thing while annoying can be assisted with the augment of Talents. The pets are "supposed" to be good dps cooldowns themselves but with these extras improve that gameplay.

- - - Updated - - -

Roaring Blaze should be tied to incinerate instead of conflagrate. The immolate->2xconflagrate rotation it promotes just doesn't sit well with me. That way if you get unlucky with shards and have to spam incinerate at least you'll have a serious immolate rolling, plus conflagrate already has enough going for it due to the shard generation, haste scaling, artifacts, etc. It would also add some synergy to FnB+Cataclysm, though we already seem to have a decent amount of AoE options so it may become too powerful.

this would be awesome and preferable imo. let it stack to 2 (100% increase in damage), gameplay with FnB as stated and if Rain of Fire stacked? those would be great changes indeed.

[Violetti]

[Roujeaux]

Getting that sinking feeling that this will turn out to be yet another year + long expansion of wonky Destruction mechanics because the devs' "vision" for warlocks doesn't match very reasonable player expectations in several instances. Man I really hope I'm wrong.

[Shoeboots]

One thing I'm consistently seeing form people is that incinerate needs to have a chance to generate a soul shard. I agree with that for sure. At least then if you're shard-starved and conflag is on CD you still feel like you're doing something by casting incinerate

Maybe shard generation shouldn't be tied to abilities at all. Maybe it should be tied to crit. So like every crit generates a shard, or every crit has x% chance to generate a shard. I dunno. just a thought.