[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[Tramzh]

What would an opening sequence look like for Destro? I suppose we couldn't know until tuning but just thinking about it, it seems odd to wedge in a Doomguard costing a shard.
Also seems weird to try and fit in portals from our staff.

Talent setup:
Backdraft/Roaring Blaze*
Mana Tap
Eradication
GoServ (worth mentioning that even if you choose to not press the GoServ ability a single time during an encounter, it's still better than any other option on single target.)
Soul Conduit**

Opener:
-5 Mana Tap
-4 Life Tap
-3 Incinerate
-1 Immolate
0 Conflagrate (assuming you run Backdraft don't just throw these out whenever, you want to try follow it up with Chaos Bolt + Incinerate (that's currently all you can fit into one proc) and try to avoid back to back usage of both charges, this is an exception to be able to DG + Imp right away with your opener procs)
1 Doomguard
2 GoServ Imp
3 Incinerate until 3-4(?) shards are available, start CBing and try fit in as many as you can until procs are gone.

Standard rotation:
CB 2-3 fillers CB, to try to keep as high up time as possible on Eradication.
Weave in immolate, mana/life tap, conflag as needed.
Keep a 100% uptime on immolate and Mana Tap and never cap charges of Conflagrate, DG and GoServ imp as they come off CD.
The Eradication buff works very similar to previous Demonology shadowflame clipping where you cast HoG, then you cast 2-3 spells then you cast your 2nd HoG to get maximum uptime on shadowflame.
Don't just throw out single CBs randomly, always sit on a few shards and try to streak at least 18 seconds of Eradication each time, the better RNG you get, the longer you will keep the debuff up each time. (we have so much RNG, RNG won't matter amirite)
Try to time your Mana Taps before you Life Tap as Mana Tap is based on your current mana %, making it more efficient at lower mana.
Dimensional Rift seems weak and not even worth using a global on atm, expect that to change though.

*I'm not too sure what to pick here, both seems underwhelming as the buff from Backdraft currently only lasts 3 seconds instead of the 5 seconds that is mentioned in the tooltip which might make Roaring Blaze the better choice on single target, however playing Roaring Blaze forces you into the old dot refreshing style where you can't rely on pandemic dots, it also requires you to hold a conflag charge for every immolate refresh to instantly buff it up.

**Channel Demonfire is garbage, on multiple targets Wreak Havoc looks very strong on first sight, but remember that we no longer gain much single target damage with Havoc making Soul Conduit the superior choice in a lot of of scenarios more than just single target assuming 1 target is more important than the other, Wreak Havocs main use is on a fight where 2 targets are of equal importance in priority and at least one lasts a certain amount of time before dying.

This is just my initial "theorycrafting" after trying out the spec for a few hours on alpha and I have personally not completely mastered the playstyle, don't hang me if something is incorrect.

[gruxxar]

Talent setup:

**Channel Demonfire is garbage, on multiple targets Wreak Havoc looks very strong on first sight, but remember that we no longer gain much single target damage with Havoc making Soul Conduit the superior choice in a lot of of scenarios more than just single target assuming 1 target is more important than the other, Wreak Havocs main use is on a fight where 2 targets are of equal importance in priority and at least one lasts a certain amount of time before dying.

This is just my initial "theorycrafting" after trying out the spec for a few hours on alpha and I have personally not completely mastered the playstyle, don't hang me if something is incorrect.

I feel the same way. boss fights with adds could work better with Soul Conduit + Cata/ROF occasionaly and on trash, i feel like Wreak havoc shines very nicely together with FnB (cause u know, stuff constantly moves out of RoF IMO). Keeping in mind ofc it's not a 2-3 council fight, where wreak havoc would indeed be nuts.

[Baconeggcheese]

But why? The only reason I can see someone not finding Legion destro not fun is because they like CR, which to that I can't say I am sympathetic. CR destro is a weed that needs to be pulled out of the spec and I'm glad they're doing it.

Outside of that, Legion Destro plays very similarly to MoP destro sans the overpowered rain of fire and fire and brimstone

Same people who complained mop destro wasn't fun or was too easy etc etc.

They want it to be a different spec.

Havoc immolate is better now that you're not restricted to charges so I'd argue the return on resources is potentially better. I think the loss of charges with havoc does indeed lower some aspect of skill, but I don't think it's as severe as the very existence of CR. I'm 100% behind removing charges on backdraft though. It's totally nonsensical to have a buff that benefits a spell that you don't want to use it on

I think the charges should just be made the same regardless of spell. It being a duration means you lose time to conflag's gcd, you shouldn't use it for movement that's longer than a GCD, and you should never cast it back to back even if you wanted to say... capitalize on the burst from a conflag of chaos proc.

They can get the exact same effect while giving it charges which comes with QoL. They may want it this way though as it punishes us harder for movement and destro is fairly immobile.

I'd say havoc losing charges only lowers skill when you have the wreak havoc talent. Without it we're still basically playing in the same mindset as when we are trying to 3x sb a havoc. We're looking to pool and fit as much into that window instead of just tossing out havoc and casting a single CB.

[Xandy]

It really hasn't changed, the same core is still there.

And conflag is a guaranteed source of shards, so its not exactly RNG.

I mean... okay sure it's not EXACTLY RNG but it is largely RNG... that's my point, I don't enjoy sitting there waiting for shards, at any point... lol I mean that's one of the reasons I hate Affly single target so much

[Soulzar]

With all the buzz about RNG shards on Immolate.. I am surprised nobody is complaining about Soul Conduit and Soul Snatcher..... :P

[Baconeggcheese]

I mean... okay sure it's not EXACTLY RNG but it is largely RNG... that's my point, I don't enjoy sitting there waiting for shards, at any point... lol I mean that's one of the reasons I hate Affly single target so much

Chaos bolt is not filler, nor is it like sitting there waiting for shards with aff to maintain soulburn haunt. They're not even remotely comparable.

- - - Updated - - -

With all the buzz about RNG shards on Immolate.. I am surprised nobody is complaining about Soul Conduit and Soul Snatcher..... :P

I did on the alpha forums, I'm not terribly concerned with the RNG aspect of it so much as we are currently drowning in shards most of the time. I find myself casting more CB's on alpha than I do on live with CR.

[Gaidax]

Yes, I barely even cast Incinerates, I would not be surprised if I actually have 1-to-1 ratio of Incinerate to Chaos Bolt being casted, that said - Incinerate is not even that bad compared to live with CR. It's doing nice damage for being a filler.

[Terryn]

Current gripes with destro

1) Cast times are literally eternity. Specifically Fillers and cata. 3 seconds is just silly. Can't even imagine what that's like for pvp. I actually find myself going from 3-cap shards very regularly while leveling
2) demonic teleport, but that's just a story for another day
3) channel demo flame spell is really weak atm and. Feels kind of weird. I don't see this ever being stronger than Soul Conduit atm

[Gaidax]

Well Channel Demonfire used to do 1500% damage, was nerfed to 750%, but they will probably buff it or nerf Conduit.

[bio347]

At 4% or 5% is currently irrelevant. Compared to the alternatives (teleport, dark pact), there is no situation beyond running around in dalaran that would make burning rush a good choice. Even if they buffed it to 3%, it wouldn't be worth taking. I think they could give us back burning rush at 5% baseline, and put another defensive/mobility talent in it's place (e.g. dark bargain), and the world wouldn't end.

No situation other than, y'know, needing to move somewhere fast more often than every 30s. Or needing to move fast to places that aren't necessarily predetermined. There's plenty of usage cases for Burning Rush.

[Soulzar]

I did on the alpha forums, I'm not terribly concerned with the RNG aspect of it so much as we are currently drowning in shards most of the time. I find myself casting more CB's on alpha than I do on live with CR.

Its basically to highlight that RNG shard generation while casting a spender seems to be ok for people, but RNG shard generation from our maintained dot isn't.

We don't see Shards from Immolate as a bonus, we see every tick that doesn't generate shards as a negative.

Yes, I barely even cast Incinerates, I would not be surprised if I actually have 1-to-1 ratio of Incinerate to Chaos Bolt being casted, that said - Incinerate is not even that bad compared to live with CR. It's doing nice damage for being a filler.

Yeah I noticed several times when looking at my dmg breakdown that CB and incin were fairly even. A far cry from the CR days of 90% CB damage. What I hated about CR was not so much how it devalued the feel of CB being a special spell, but that your filler was artificially weakened to balance it. nice to have a filler that does dmg back!

[Deleted]

It is really nice to not have chaos bolt being 90% of our damages.

[dholland662]

It is really nice to not have chaos bolt being 90% of our damages.

I am also pleased by this

[Grizelda]

Granted that 90% is high (and maybe hyperbole) but it IS a burst spec. Meaning that you leverage all your effort and resources into one surgical strike.

The more sources of damage we have the less damage CB can be allowed to do.

The fun is (or was) making the best of those damage flash points.

[Xandy]

Chaos bolt is not filler, nor is it like sitting there waiting for shards with aff to maintain soulburn haunt. They're not even remotely comparable.

There's no SB:Haunt in Alpha? and you're right, chaos bolt is not filler? Not sure what your getting at dude... All I'm trying to say is in ST (granted my artifact isn't close to being full as Destro) I get bored, quickly; same with Affly. And yes, more bored than I usually get on live playing those specs in ST which I guess isn't saying a whole lot but it's a personal feeling which I've seen echoed by others.. it's subjective dude and I'm not looking for a constant argument on subjective semantics.

[Baconeggcheese]

Its basically to highlight that RNG shard generation while casting a spender seems to be ok for people, but RNG shard generation from our maintained dot isn't.

We don't see Shards from Immolate as a bonus, we see every tick that doesn't generate shards as a negative.

Not at all, you should be looking at the difference between the t17 2p and the t18 4p. They both effectively do the same thing, but the t18 4p is a huge QoL difference.

You first have to generate the resource, and then as you spend it you potentially get the resource back which doesn't affect play in the same way that the t17 2p did where it caused you to have to sit at 2 embers on the off chance that you'd just randomly pop a full ember.

They both net a similar end result assuming they're tuned to proc around the same amount, but one is waaaaay better game play.

[Soulzar]

With Dimension Ripper and Dimensional Rift, I felt like I had icy flows.

[Turturin the Warlock]

Granted that 90% is high (and maybe hyperbole) but it IS a burst spec. Meaning that you leverage all your effort and resources into one surgical strike.

The more sources of damage we have the less damage CB can be allowed to do.

The fun is (or was) making the best of those damage flash points.

You (and some other posters) seem to be conflating two ideas that are separate:
1. Overall Damage Contribution of Chaos Bolt
2. Time spent casting chaos bolt

This is leading a focus on the trying to ask for adjustments to #1, when gameplay wise, it's #2 that really determines the feel/reward of the spec and casting CB.

These two things may appear to be directly related, but in reality it's not necessarily so. It's actually a function of shard income and tuning.

It's totally possible to spend only 10% of TIME casting Chaos Bolts, but have it do 50% of my damage: e.g. MOP

It's totally possible to spend 50% of TIME Casting Chaos bolts and have it do 90% of my of my damage: Charred Remains

On alpha its something (ballpark) like 30% of time casting Chaos bolts for 50% of damage.

It should be (mathematically) obvious that the MOP scenario provided the most leverage on any individual CB cast. In other words the procs you had up at the time mattered the most, because the ratio of damage output to # of casts was highest.

So you want the same thing as I do, namely for chaos bolts to matter more. But the way to get that is to LOWER the number that you cast. You should see from the alpha scenario that lowering the number of damage output from chaos bolts isn't necessarily sufficient.

[Brusalk]

It is really nice to not have chaos bolt being 90% of our damages.

I'd like to take a second and remind people that Chaos Bolt was only ever anywhere near that large a portion of our damage specifically because of Charred Remains. Baseline Destro from MoP through to WoD consisted of around 50% and higher CB damage as item levels increased during expansions.

Incinerate has always been a significant source of damage for Destro, prior to Charred Remains. It was actually such a significant source of damage for Destro that I spent time (seriously) trying out simc profiles that tried to prioritize Incinerate/Immolate damage over Chaos Bolt. There was a point in time where one of the PVP tier sets had a bonus to Incinerate damage, and that actually only came out 5-6% under "normal" tier-based spender Destro.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, because of the new way mastery works and with the change to FNB, the more our damage comes from Incinerate and not Chaos Bolt, the more AoE damage we will be able to do.

[Grizelda]

You (and some other posters) seem to be conflating two ideas that are separate:
1. Overall Damage Contribution of Chaos Bolt
2. Time spent casting chaos bolt

.

An important distinction to make, to be sure. My concern (and I assumed the point of the poster I was responding to) was the addition of new spells like Dimensional Rifts and how our damage will be allocated.

But yes, thank you for reminding me of that.