7.1.5 Ptr Changes

[Baconeggcheese]

Well sure. Destruction is a warlock spec, and all warlocks rely on pets, guardians, and DoTs to some degree.

And, of course, describing a spec as "relying on" things that are optional talents ("empowered dots" in particular, since very few people are actually taking RB) is disingenuous as all hell.

In fairness what drew myself (and many others) to destro these last 2 xpacs was the lack of pets, guardians, and the de-emphasis on dots. You almost exclusively used gosac outside of very specific times, and the spec was all about heavy direct dmg and burst.

[Uzkin]

In fairness what drew myself (and many others) to destro these last 2 xpacs was the lack of pets, guardians, and the de-emphasis on dots. You almost exclusively used gosac outside of very specific times, and the spec was all about heavy direct dmg and burst.

Exactly this. It's why destro was my preferred spec pre-Legion.

@Socronoss: I got the quote from my head.

[Deleted]

Destruction; a specialization which relies on a multitude of pets and guardians (imp, goserv, lof, doomguard, rifts), empowered dots, and channels to deal with its enemies.

I'm glad the devs have such a clear vision for destro.

I don't agree with Blizzard on class fantasy and design, but that is not the point here.
I actually think that many speccs, even non-warlock speccs, are a rather big failure in terms of design with LEGION. (I didn't play WoD).

There is LOTS I would change, but I don't expect change from Blizzard for LEGION.

I would love to play without pets, without rifts, without dots and just bursting things down with huge crits. But sadly I am no developer.

[bio347]

In fairness what drew myself (and many others) to destro these last 2 xpacs was the lack of pets, guardians, and the de-emphasis on dots. You almost exclusively used gosac outside of very specific times, and the spec was all about heavy direct dmg and burst.

I think that's totally fair. It was probably a bit inevitable for change there, given the whole "going back to roots" thing they've got going on for class fantasy, and I can appreciate that the direction is unappealing to people.

It does not, however, mean that Blizzard doesn't have a vision for the spec (which is what was implied). Just because one doesn't like the direction does not mean that the direction does not exist. It's one of those things that slips from "constructive criticism" to "just whining", and we can still do with less of the latter.

[Uzkin]

I think that's totally fair. It was probably a bit inevitable for change there, given the whole "going back to roots" thing they've got going on for class fantasy, and I can appreciate that the direction is unappealing to people.

It does not, however, mean that Blizzard doesn't have a vision for the spec (which is what was implied). Just because one doesn't like the direction does not mean that the direction does not exist. It's one of those things that slips from "constructive criticism" to "just whining", and we can still do with less of the latter.

I didn't mean to imply that Blizzard lacks vision for destro; just that Blizzard's current vision for destro sucks. In contrast, their vision for destro back in MoP and WoD was very good.

BTW, when you tried to handwave the issue away by stating that Legion destro relies on pets/guardians/dots to some degree, that was disingenuous as all hell. Current destro design relies MASSIVELY on those things and that is (one of) the problem(s) with the design.

[Deleted]

Why argue semantics? He said nerfed the proc rate (as in reduce) by 5%. 20% down to 15% is a 5% reduction.

You're both right but why even throw that in there?

Because people were complaining about the mage bracers not being nerfed when they were actually nerfed quite hard. A 5% nerf is small: a 25% one isn't.

[bio347]

Current destro design relies MASSIVELY on those things and that is (one of) the problem(s) with the design.

This, quite honestly, news to me. No sarcasm or anything. I missed the memo that we were also complaining about DoTs and pets, in addition to RNG and the shards/embers thing and probably CB's damage still. I suppose I should have figured, what with the whole "complaining about everything" gimmick we're running on, but I've tried to avoid that stuff as best I can lately.

I apologize for intruding, I'll let you get back to it.

[Uzkin]

This, quite honestly, news to me. No sarcasm or anything. I missed the memo that we were also complaining about DoTs and pets, in addition to RNG and the shards/embers thing and probably CB's damage still. I suppose I should have figured, what with the whole "complaining about everything" gimmick we're running on, but I've tried to avoid that stuff as best I can lately.

I apologize for intruding, I'll let you get back to it.

Well now you know, glad to be of help. For example, back in WoD 80+% of destro's damage came from DD nukes whereas in 7.1.5 it could be as low as 30% (according to the most recent ST simcraft). This is a massive thematic shift away from the established spec identity towards some homogenized affliction/demonology hybrid bastard.

But as I said, this is just one of the faults in the Legion destro design, and from your message I can see you too are aware of some of the others.

[Baconeggcheese]

It does not, however, mean that Blizzard doesn't have a vision for the spec (which is what was implied). Just because one doesn't like the direction does not mean that the direction does not exist. It's one of those things that slips from "constructive criticism" to "just whining", and we can still do with less of the latter.

I don't completely disagree with the notion because blizzard is basically trying to have many different visions within a single spec through talent choice. That was the stated goal early on, and it causes a lot of the mess of being very in-between.

One of my biggest criticisms of destruction right now is that the spec is very incoherent, especially when it comes to aoe. Instead of having abilities that play off of and compliment each other, a lot of the kit directly competes with each other for priority. It's exactly the reason why I don't think RB will be as powerful as people think it will be with the tier bonus, because trying to fit all the competing things within the kit together and still seeing their full benefit is unrealistic. The kit is very disjointed because its trying to be a lot of different things at the same time.

Personally I struggle to see the direction with the spec, it doesn't have that heavy direct dmg / burst that it used to have, but its not quite sustained either. Its very clear where it stands on 2 target cleave, but outside of that it very quickly goes all over the place.

[bio347]

If I wanted to be silly, I'd argue that "schizophrenic" is totally true to Destruction's identity over the long view. One might even say... chaotic. :V

Seriously, look at this. Destruction goes through three pretty distinct phases of gameplay:
- In Classic and BC, it was all about pressing one button to do tons of damage. Classic had a passive imp, BC sacrificed.
- In WotLK and Cataclysm, it was all about fast casts and tons of different damage sources. Both used an active imp.
- In MoP and WoD, it was all about building those Chaos Bolt burns. Both sacrificed.
And then laid over top of that, you've got the second half of the game (from Cataclysm onward) where the idea of Havoc cleave became added to the spec.

For myself, my nostalgic point of reference for Destruction is WotLK first, MoP second (and I actually liked Cata Destruction), and I think Legion does a fine enough job of that for me. It's also possible that I'm just a sucker and easily pleased, I wouldn't necessarily discount that.

[Baconeggcheese]

I'm not so much concerned with the total history, as opposed to what the spec had / has become. I think it a mistake to go one direction for 4 years and then make a hard turn away from it all at once. It's not really surprising that people are as frustrated / hyperbolic as they are about the state of locks.

I've been mostly content with our performance in raid (not so much in dungeons), but I'm definitely not enthralled with the direction the specs have been moving. They seem to have missed the mark on what made each spec compelling. I guess that's why you see people like the dude who asked ghostcrawler if blizzard has anyone who actually plays the classes in reference to the state of locks.

[Uzkin]

I'm not so much concerned with the total history, as opposed to what the spec had / has become. I think it a mistake to go one direction for 4 years and then make a hard turn away from it all at once. It's not really surprising that people are as frustrated / hyperbolic as they are about the state of locks.

I've been mostly content with our performance in raid (not so much in dungeons), but I'm definitely not enthralled with the direction the specs have been moving. They seem to have missed the mark on what made each spec compelling. I guess that's why you see people like the dude who asked ghostcrawler if blizzard has anyone who actually plays the classes in reference to the state of locks.

Yeah, WoD/MoP destro was awesome fun in dungeons with its superfast, hard-hitting cleaved shadowburns and fully-functional FnB shenanigans. Not any more.

[Turturin the Warlock]

I'm not so much concerned with the total history, as opposed to what the spec had / has become. I think it a mistake to go one direction for 4 years and then make a hard turn away from it all at once. It's not really surprising that people are as frustrated / hyperbolic as they are about the state of locks.

I've been mostly content with our performance in raid (not so much in dungeons), but I'm definitely not enthralled with the direction the specs have been moving. They seem to have missed the mark on what made each spec compelling. I guess that's why you see people like the dude who asked ghostcrawler if blizzard has anyone who actually plays the classes in reference to the state of locks.

Do you think we underperform in dungeons in the absolute sense? Or is it just relative to melee. I tend to think it's the latter - except for fire mages being an outlier I don't think there's a clear "best" ranged overall, most specs have situations (particular dungeions/affixes) where they shine. But I do think many melee specs are overpowered (Unholy, WW, Rogue, et al). They just have answers for every dps situation, stuns/interrupts, and basically no drawbacks in dungeon content

[Baconeggcheese]

@Turturin the Warlock I'd say its a matter of having burst vs not having burst. All of the warlock specs were built around sustain, which means the more we out gear content the worse we perform relative to these burst classes. It's probably why you see people like myself saying our numbers are good since I'm killing content under geared vs people who do that same content weeks / months later with significantly more gear / ap / etc. That's a real issue with design since the majority of the community over gears content.

I can see you feeling it a melee vs ranged difference since melee don't have to cast, but really what it comes down to is burst vs no burst. That's why fire mages or hunters are fine, and other ranged like locks are lagging behind.

[Turturin the Warlock]

@Turturin the Warlock I'd say its a matter of having burst vs not having burst. All of the warlock specs were built around sustain, which means the more we out gear content the worse we perform relative to these burst classes. It's probably why you see people like myself saying our numbers are good since I'm killing content under geared vs people who do that same content weeks / months later with significantly more gear / ap / etc. That's a real issue with design since the majority of the community over gears content.

I can see you feeling it a melee vs ranged difference since melee don't have to cast, but really what it comes down to is burst vs no burst. That's why fire mages or hunters are fine, and other ranged like locks are lagging behind.

No I agree it's about burst, but also about utility (in dungeons). Mobility matters a little bit, mostly on volcanic.

I do think fire mages are outliers. Certainly hunters were too at start of expansion, but whether it's gear or nerfs recently they haven't seemed out of line.

So yeah it's about burst, I just don't see any ranged burst other than fire's as consistently superior. So yeah I think it's mostly a melee problem.

Fire is also getting nerfed a bit in 7.1.5 though I'm not sure to what extent it will manifest in dungeons

[Lucrece]

Shadowpriest burst is also stupid strong in short fights, beating my demo burst quite easily on fights shorter than 3 minutes in mythic+ even without StM.

Then there's also the fact they removed shadowfury from being an instant while most melee got a free instant aoe baked in or some other utility.

Doomguard/Infernal as class cooldown is also the biggest downfall to the class since our DPS cooldown is not an amplifier, and is held back by balancing concerns from grimoire of supremacy.

I won't complain about melee, it's about damn time they feel wanted for a change instead of the ranged stacking nonsense. The problem with warlock is not melee having things, it's warlocks having a ton of their own things pruned out and put back as competing talents in an expansion where many classes got brand new talents.

However you look at it, warlocks alongside druids are the class with the largest pruning, and among the most damaging prunes as what they pruned wasn't fluff abilities but really valuable abilities like demonic circle, burning rush, shadowburn, haunt.

Shamans also get to have the better version of heroism that is superior to drums, but warlocks get the shitty version of health pots with their inferior healthstones. It's ass backwards.

[Turturin the Warlock]

And then you trounce the spriest on trash, where most of the dungeon time is spent.

If your jealous of spriests in mythic+, that's probably a bit of a player issue. They are pretty weak there overall.

[Modzy]

And then you trounce the spriest on trash, where most of the dungeon time is spent.

If your jealous of spriests in mythic+, that's probably a bit of a player issue. They are pretty weak there overall.

Shadow is actually really fuckin strong in m+ in 7.1.5

[JV Chequer]

Warlock T19 Destruction 2P Bonus: Casting Chaos Bolt reduces the cast time of your next Chaos Bolt by 30% ->> 40% for 4 sec.

Nice buff for our 4tp.

[Deleted]

Warlock T19 Destruction 2P Bonus: Casting Chaos Bolt reduces the cast time of your next Chaos Bolt by 30% ->> 40% for 4 sec.

Nice buff for our 4tp.

any other changes?
maybe affliction tier set?