[Legion] Brusalk's Destro Guide

[Baconeggcheese]

Mastery is fine, I have no idea where this Mastery is terrible BS coming from

This mostly: http://www.darklegacycomics.com/558

[Gaidax]

This mostly: http://www.darklegacycomics.com/558

Propose to buff Mastery by renaming it to Aptitude.

[Uzkin]

The near-equivalence of destro's secondary stats certainly makes destro upgrades feel more boring than what they were before (once a certain haste treshold has been reached). It also shows that destro scales quite poorly with secondaries. Since versatility is a fixed/equal damage multiplier for every class/spec it is easy to judge which class/specs scale well with the secondaries (= those, for which vers is much worse than their best secondary) and which do not (= those, for which vers is (almost) as good as their best secondary). Destro falls within the latter category.

Off-topic: The next page of that dark legacy comic was quite hilarious though:
http://www.darklegacycomics.com/559

[Baconeggcheese]

Frankly long term scaling is one of thee literal least important metrics that I frequently see people talk about and I really don't get why. If there's going to be some significant breakpoint for scaling within a particular tier that previously could not be gotten then yeah its a big deal... otherwise its completely irrelevant because blizzard does a tuning pass in-between every major patch.

Destruction was one of the shittiest scaling specs in the game in mop for instance, so they buffed it every tier until it ended up overbuffed in SoO. It truly doesn't matter.

[Uzkin]

Frankly long term scaling is one of thee literal least important metrics that I frequently see people talk about and I really don't get why. If there's going to be some significant breakpoint for scaling within a particular tier that previously could not be gotten then yeah its a big deal... otherwise its completely irrelevant because blizzard does a tuning pass in-between every major patch.

Destruction was one of the shittiest scaling specs in the game in mop for instance, so they buffed it every tier until it ended up overbuffed in SoO. It truly doesn't matter.

It can have its pros or cons, depending on whether Blizzard bothers to keep the spec tuned. Frost DKs, for example, have certainly suffered a lot in the past from poor scaling.

[Baconeggcheese]

Maybe once upon a time, but this hasn't been the case for the last 2 xpacs. If a spec is left under tuned within the last 2 xpacs it wasn't due to scaling but by choice.

[Gaidax]

It can have its pros or cons, depending on whether Blizzard bothers to keep the spec tuned. Frost DKs, for example, have certainly suffered a lot in the past from poor scaling.

You assume Destruction scales poorly, but is it truly the case in 7.1.5 compared to others, especially with tier and legendaries involved?

I don't think anyone can yet give anything concrete there to make claims.

And if worse comes to worst, Blizz can always dump a buff which will change it all.

[MrHappy]

Mastery is fine, I have no idea where this Mastery is terrible BS coming from, from all the sims and such it comes out only a tiny tiny bit less powerful than other stats at worst, certainly not something you want to sacrifice ilvl to avoid and it does come with some defensive properties, which is nice.

As a matter of fact, Destruction secondaries are very nicely balanced as long as you pass certain not very high haste threshold.

Why is mastery terrible? Because other stats directly increase your DPS in a consistent manner while with mastery the more you have it the more RNG your dps becomes. Over the long run you effectively have 50% of your mastery +/-5% as a percent to increase your damage done....which is terrible.

Here's what other stats do for you. Haste: better shard generation through more immolation ticks and faster conflag cd. Crit: direct buff to CB and improve shard generation with immolation ticks. Vers: same as mastery a flat %increase in damage but no rng bullshit and also improves your survivability albeit at a lower rate of increase per stat point.

If you have gear with High Crit and High Haste and some vers and no mastery you will find that you will perform better with a smother rotation. Don't believe me? Run sims and see for your self. Take your current gear and swap your highest stat on each item with crit and your 2nd highest with haste. (not including trinket and weapon obv). now add the World Boss trinket with all the stats on it (forgot the same it's the one from withered jim) and a haste trinket like Plague hive or chorno shard. and sim your dps. you'll be amazed at the difference.

Too me relying on RNG to do good dps has never been a good idea. Having more consistent sources of damage will almost always be better unless you need to omgkillthisnow burst but there are few fights where that actually matters and there are classes that at better suited for that anyways (looking at you ret pallies)

[Gaidax]

So, you dump shit on Mastery, yet praise such a mediocre trinket like Plaguehive because it has miniscule amount of haste and sims say so?

OK, buddy.

In a perfect world one would certainly go to gear shop and stack only gear with Crit and Haste, but when you have to chose between ilvl 890 piece that gives Crit and Haste and ilvl 895 that gives Crit and Mastery, the ilvl will win out, because the gap between stats is insignificant and is easily covered by extra int and stat.

The only exception is jewelry, really and even there it's pretty much a wash as long as you hit certain stat points.

Mastery is about as much RNG as your precious Plaguehive or Crit, in general, is. And really when in any sort of decent encounter you are looking at something like 60 Chaos Bolts cast if not more, somehow saying that Mastery is RNG is pretty laughable, you will average out just fine.

Also, don't use plaguehive if you have decent stat stick alternatives, it's not as good as you think it is.

[Brusalk]

Hi All!

Life's been super busy at work and the holidays and all that, but I finally got some time to update the guide to be ready for 7.1.5.

As of right now the guide is exclusively for 7.1.5!

---

Changelog:

1.1.0 (1/03/2017) - 7.1.5

• Updated guide for Patch 7.1.5
• Large overhaul to talent section
• Corrected many inaccuracies resulting from changes in patches 7.1 and 7.1.5
• Added a few helpful macros
• Added DoomShards as a recommended addon
• Added a second spreadsheet which calculates whether Infernal or Doomguard is better for given Haste and Number of Targets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=2007338505
• Consolidated the spreadsheets into one Spreadsheet with multiple tabs -- Look at the bottom to change to the different sheets I've put together!

If you'd like to see a detailed breakdown of literally everything I changed just now, you can take a look here: https://github.com/Brusalk/destro-gu...1.0.4...v1.1.0 (You can see everything I changed, even down to individual character changes!)


Like always, please don't hesitate to contact me if you see any inaccuracies or you're concerned with anything that I've stated in the guide. I want the guide to be as up to date and as accurate as possible! If you think I've got something wrong, or you think I should add something, please let me know!

[Turturin the Warlock]

I think you may be underselling soul harvest and overselling cataclysm a bit. At least when it comes to raid encounters. Just from a practical standpoint usability and desirability of a damage CD will tend to trump a spell whose targeting, cast time, and cooldown all tend to be problematic in raid encounters.

[Duckz0rs]

Soul Harvest is slightly more problematic than it looks too; it lasts for only 18 seconds on ST and the 2 min cd means it doesn't line up with our other cooldowns (doomguard/infernal).

[Uzkin]

You assume Destruction scales poorly, but is it truly the case in 7.1.5 compared to others, especially with tier and legendaries involved?

I don't think anyone can yet give anything concrete there to make claims.

And if worse comes to worst, Blizz can always dump a buff which will change it all.

I wasn't making any assumptions or predictions about the future patch(es). Nor about the future tier bonuses or legendaries. So stop with the straw-men.

I simply stated that destruction scales quite poorly with secondary stats (once a moderate haste treshold has been reached). Yes, this may change in the future patches. Yes, it may be compensated by good tier/legs. Yes, it may be fixed by tuning/hotfixes. But what I said was a statement about destro as of now, no "mays" or "will bes".

[SpikeySquad]

Hi All!

Life's been super busy at work and the holidays and all that, but I finally got some time to update the guide to be ready for 7.1.5.

As of right now the guide is exclusively for 7.1.5!

---

Changelog:

1.1.0 (1/03/2017) - 7.1.5

• Updated guide for Patch 7.1.5
• Large overhaul to talent section
• Corrected many inaccuracies resulting from changes in patches 7.1 and 7.1.5
• Added a few helpful macros
• Added DoomShards as a recommended addon
• Added a second spreadsheet which calculates whether Infernal or Doomguard is better for given Haste and Number of Targets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=2007338505
• Consolidated the spreadsheets into one Spreadsheet with multiple tabs -- Look at the bottom to change to the different sheets I've put together!

If you'd like to see a detailed breakdown of literally everything I changed just now, you can take a look here: https://github.com/Brusalk/destro-gu...1.0.4...v1.1.0 (You can see everything I changed, even down to individual character changes!)


Like always, please don't hesitate to contact me if you see any inaccuracies or you're concerned with anything that I've stated in the guide. I want the guide to be as up to date and as accurate as possible! If you think I've got something wrong, or you think I should add something, please let me know!

Thanks Brusalk for doing this!

[Gaidax]

I wasn't making any assumptions or predictions about the future patch(es). Nor about the future tier bonuses or legendaries. So stop with the straw-men.

I simply stated that destruction scales quite poorly with secondary stats (once a moderate haste treshold has been reached). Yes, this may change in the future patches. Yes, it may be compensated by good tier/legs. Yes, it may be fixed by tuning/hotfixes. But what I said was a statement about destro as of now, no "mays" or "will bes".

Based on what you state that Destruction scales poorly? On your irrelevant knowledge of 7.1? We're in 7.1.5 in like two weeks from now tops, how do you even know how it will scale there?

I certainly don't.

Scaling talk is simply irrelevant because of both no idea what 7.1.5 will end up like and because ultimately nobody gives a damn as balance is far from static, especially in between the tiers.

[SpikeySquad]

So assuming Backdraft is still going from 3-2 spells has anyone done sims on how much further ahead Roaring Blaze is now? Ideally on ST and Cleave with and without belt etc.

Loss of RE and the (possible) addition of RB and CDF are really not filling with me enthusiasm...

Also curious about how the Grimoires will play out now.

[Deleted]

Hi. Did I get it right, that with 7.1.5 summon Doomgard will be better on ST than summon Infernal even with the Lord of Flames perk?

[SpikeySquad]

Hi. Did I get it right, that with 7.1.5 summon Doomgard will be better on ST than summon Infernal even with the Lord of Flames perk?

From the guide: "With Lord of Flames available, Summon Infernal will do more damage than Summon Doomguard... It will do more damage than a Doomguard will single-target, so if the fight has no opportunity for using Lord of Flames on multiple targets, you should use Summon Infernal on the pull."

So that is a no unless it is on cooldown (the 10 minute debuff).

[Uzkin]

Based on what you state that Destruction scales poorly? On your irrelevant knowledge of 7.1? We're in 7.1.5 in like two weeks from now tops, how do you even know how it will scale there?

I certainly don't.

Scaling talk is simply irrelevant because of both no idea what 7.1.5 will end up like and because ultimately nobody gives a damn as balance is far from static, especially in between the tiers.

Chillax dude. I know my earlier post might be seen as minor criticism towards destruction and, therefore, is bound to trigger an immediate tunnel-visioning white-knight mode in you... but the statement of mine you got fixated on was simply an analysis of how destruction scales with secondary stats. I used present tense so it wasn't an attempt to predict the future (7.1.5 or further). I can only view your repeated references to 7.1.5 as a straw man.

And I already answered your first question. Versatility is a good reference point if you want to quickly see whether a spec scales well with secondaries or not. Vers is a simple %-increase of damage so its relative value is roughly the same for all dps specs. The logic, then, is very simple:

vers > ha,cr,ma --> spec scales very poorly with secondary stats
vers = ha = cr = ma (approximately) --> spec scales quite poorly with secondary stats (destro is in this category)
ha or cr or ma > vers --> spec scales well with (the selected) secondary stats

So in order to justify my statement about destro scaling it suffices to show that for destro vers = ha = cr = ma (approximately, after a "certain not very high haste treshold" (sic) has been passed). To achieve this, I only have to refer to the knowledge of our outstanding destruction authorities (instead of my poor irrelevant (sic) personal knowledge), see below:

Mastery is fine, I have no idea where this Mastery is terrible BS coming from, from all the sims and such it comes out only a tiny tiny bit less powerful than other stats at worst, certainly not something you want to sacrifice ilvl to avoid and it does come with some defensive properties, which is nice.

As a matter of fact, Destruction secondaries are very nicely balanced as long as you pass certain not very high haste threshold.

[Gaidax]

Really?

So mind sharing scaling factors for Destruction and let's say Fire with equal gear in 7.1.5?

You know, for the sake of argument.