[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[Zerach8]

wouldnt conflag one be worth it because of the set bonus and theres the increased immolate damage node which buffs roaring blaze? altho u would be wasting 3 points on the drain life node

[striderZA]

I was thinking more along the lines of the Lord of Flames route because of the Immolate crit damage trait and the increased damage to Fireball / Demonic Power. But like @Baconeggcheese said, the traits leading up to Dimensional Ripper seem to be really good.

[Baconeggcheese]

@Ptolemay We won't be getting the set bonus until suramar palace afaik, which almost certainly won't be until early next year. When we test the suramar bosses they fill out our artifact tree, so the assumption is we'll be done with the primary tree and just dumping points into the %dmg trait by then.
@striderZA He asked for after lord of flames.

[Zerach8]

ah so similar as to how it was in Highmaul

On the other topic, what relics are we looking at? which traits to buff?

[Baconeggcheese]

I honestly haven't even looked up what relics are available from where because ilvl is going to matter more, but I'd assume CB dmg > immolate crit / dmg > other stuff.

(hopefully someone has done more homework than me in that dept.)

[Deleted]

Is there any really good website with a warlock guide or tips/tricks where I don't have to read through 140 pages of posts?

Sparkuggz seems to have stopped / quit. That was where I used to get my "top-notch" info previously.

Things like
- rotation
- which trait path to choose first
- talents choices
- theorycrafting on numbers.

[Baconeggcheese]

@Socronoss I haven't seen any well done guides for legion *yet*. Sims are still in the baby stages so concrete rotations etc aren't laid out and people are mostly going on intuition.

The trait path that looks most likely is lord of flames -> dimensional ripper -> conflag of chaos.

Talents are situational, use the appropriate talent for the appropriate situation.

[striderZA]

@striderZA He asked for after lord of flames.

Ohh alright I misread then.

[Duckz0rs]

@Socronoss AFAIK Furty said he was going to create guides for all 3 specs (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) and put them up on Icy Veins (possibly here as well). He's definitely a "top-notch", reputable source.

[Djuntas]

Are destro the go to spec at level 100? This alt is just gonna be lock-out clearing, casual stuff etc. Just another in the row....

I found affliction which I started out with to be extremely crap, but destro was defiantly better? Affi literally did no damage...so so bad I was afraid to get kicked in 5 mans from low dps.-. jesus! We'll its lvling...guess affi is better on 100 ?

[Smog]

Can't say for sure but its looking like dimension ripper purely because the path leading up to it is so strong.

Really? The breakdown is:

7 Points / 19445 AP
18% Immolate damage, which will compound with Roaring Blaze
Golden Dragon (Conflag of Chaos)

11 points / 87745 AP
15% CB soul shard refund chance
7.5% CB crit strike damage
Golden Dragon (Dimension Ripper)

So the second option, which doesn't look that much worse than the first, costs literally 22.2% of artifact power that Dimension Ripper does.

If you compare just the artifact power, by the time you got Conflag of Chaos and finished that route, you'd only have the 15% soul shard refund on the other and still have 68300 AP to go before you could actually get to Dimension Ripper. This is of course assuming you don't take the 1 point detour for Impish Incineration (which I will), because that skews the point difference between the two even further.

There's little doubt that the dimension ripper track is stronger, but it's almost five times as expensive. I'm going Conflag of Chaos second unless some math comes out that shows Dimension Ripper to be way, WAY stronger than both Conflag of Chaos and the Immolate damage trait, which I don't think it will be.

[striderZA]

That's if you take them in that order, isnt' it?

[Baconeggcheese]

@Smog there's an incinerate trait, 30s off of UR, as well as the 2 cb traits (or the other incinerate trait) in that path leading up to dimensional ripper. All of which are extremely useful, literally every trait on that path.

Whereas conflag of chaos literally has just 3 wasted levels that don't do anything, and then just the immolate and CoC trait. CoC itself just doesn't seem that exciting to me as opposed to going down the other path.

[Turturin the Warlock]

@Smog there's an incinerate trait, 30s off of UR, as well as the 2 cb traits (or the other incinerate trait) in that path leading up to dimensional ripper. All of which are extremely useful, literally every trait on that path.

Whereas conflag of chaos literally has just 3 wasted levels that don't do anything, and then just the immolate and CoC trait. CoC itself just doesn't seem that exciting to me as opposed to going down the other path.

Yeah, I'm even considering going down the path but forgoing the dimension ripper trait until I have other area filled out . All of those traits that lead up to it really are that good

[Baconeggcheese]

I mean, once you're at that point I don't see the purpose in not getting the dimensional ripper trait

[Bjarkan]

How difficult of gain Artifact Power is?

Because, depending of it, maybe it worth take one path or another... For examples, Immolation would be our B&B all the way from lv100 to lv110, for questing, maybe there would be quest where CB is no worthy, and for early dungs (or even some quest), Immolation traits also works with Cataclyms... So, to me is not just that cleary...

[Turturin the Warlock]

I mean, once you're at that point I don't see the purpose in not getting the dimensional ripper trait

Because it's not very good. It's quite possible that one rank of the +immolate dmg trait is better.

[Gaidax]

Because it's not very good. It's quite possible that one rank of the +immolate dmg trait is better.

Let's not get too excited, it is not a terrible trait. Gold traits are not huge boosters, it's just that they usually tend to give the best bang for 1 buck.

[Fallensaint]

How difficult of gain Artifact Power is?

Because, depending of it, maybe it worth take one path or another... For examples, Immolation would be our B&B all the way from lv100 to lv110, for questing, maybe there would be quest where CB is no worthy, and for early dungs (or even some quest), Immolation traits also works with Cataclyms... So, to me is not just that cleary...

I've seen a lot of people throwing out different numbers, but here's my take on it:

Right now I'm at 26/34 perks (one point away from all 3 gold perks, because I decided to nab Impish Incineration) and I'm at Artifact Knowledge level 13. I've been playing the beta semi-casually for a while, so I've been getting one point every couple days. I could push harder by clearing all world quests and spamming heroic dungeons but I'd hit a scaling wall pretty quick. So, I figure I'd probably get to 34/34 by the time I hit AK level 18 or so (IF I do, since beta might close before then). Normally, AK research takes 5 days each, so it would take 90 days of research to hit AK 18. About 3 months of semi-casual play sounds about right to fill out one artifact, and the other two would quickly come up to speed after that. Obviously more active play will earn you more AP, but AK and scaling costs are going to be the biggest limiter on unlocking traits.

That said, your first 15 or so traits should come quick via the AP you gain from leveling since the scaling doesn't really ramp up until the 13th perk and you get a fair amount of AP from questing. That's enough to hit 1-2 golds before you start really needing AK to progress, depending on what route you take.

[Shubert]

There is a lot of QQ in this thread. Now that the final iteration is approaching closer and closer I have to say I am happy with the job blizz has done with the warlocks. Each spec seem to have its current WoD limitations addressed. Yet there is a subtle niche affinity for a type of fight for each spec. I was wanting to love and like the new demo but after many iterations I have to say I am favouring destro as it seems to offer a just a few more options.

Havoc is just as OP as ever. FnB incinerate hits very hard for AoE and keep in mind that it is not diminished in Legion. RoF also hits very hard. If one is truely concerned about the need for hard burst AoE - practice using cataclysm properly. In a current Kormrok like fight it will demolish any faceroll bladestorming warrior.

However my only current obsession/dissapointment with min/maxing my Destro spec is that I am getting the lowest numbers out of the 3 warlock specs on a pure single target fight. I was kind of hoping they will tune this a bit with number balancing. However it seems that the vision from blizz is to have Destro balanced around the use of Havoc. I guess I will have to accept that each spec spec is not going to be OP at everything.