[Legion] Brusalk's Destro Guide

[Baconeggcheese]

Ended up being so frustrated I went affliction, but the boss damage was notably higher despite the lack of legendaries. Depressing, but hey - got to 18% on our first night so hard to complain too much. Felt like destruction couldn't do anything useful without padding on things that simply weren't needed though.

Destro's good for cleaving adds (potentially without losing boss dmg) when your guild needs it, especially in the last phase. If your guild doesn't need that damage though, not much point in it.

[Lucrece]

Not much point when you can be a frost mage and nuke the living shit out of adds, do top tier ST and good cleave, and with the Blizzard legendary do top tier aoe as well.

This ghetto they've put destro/demo in is so dumb. Neither excel at what they're supposed to excel in above all others given how marginal they are at their respective weaknesses (ST for destro, aoe for demo).

It doesn't help they stuck destro with the atrocity that is Cry Havoc, or the fact flame rift is an RNG rift you only cast on the boss anyways since it's a long ass ramp up dot easily wasted on most adds.

If Tomb is any indication about movement heavy encounters shitting on warlock yet again, it'll be affliction once again who suffers the least (and still way more than a mage with 2 blinks).

[Uzkin]

This ghetto they've put destro/demo in is so dumb. Neither excel at what they're supposed to excel in above all others given how marginal they are at their respective weaknesses (ST for destro, aoe for demo).

Destro has, indeed, been shoehorned exclusively into 2-target cleave in this expac and this is, indeed, dumb design. However, destro *does* excel in its niche. It can only do one thing, yes, but it can do it well. In NH this boils down to being very good at Elisande, and (mostly) sucking horribly at the rest of the bosses.

It's probably a good idea to main a more versatile / generally-useful spec and maintain a destro off-spec for that one fight per tier which is all about 2-target cleave (or rather, it *would be* a good idea if Legion supported maintaining off-specs) ((and if you could stomach the horrible gameplay and messy theme of the Legion destruction)).

[Lucrece]

Destro has, indeed, been shoehorned exclusively into 2-target cleave in this expac and this is, indeed, dumb design. However, destro *does* excel in its niche. It can only do one thing, yes, but it can do it well. In NH this boils down to being very good at Elisande, and (mostly) sucking horribly at the rest of the bosses.

It's probably a good idea to main a more versatile / generally-useful spec and maintain a destro off-spec for that one fight per tier which is all about 2-target cleave (or rather, it *would be* a good idea if Legion supported maintaining off-specs) ((and if you could stomach the horrible gameplay and messy theme of the Legion destruction)).

The problem is that destro is not ahead in Elisande or 2T fights anyway to the degree that it is behind others in ST and aoe.

Same goes for demo. If they are so utterly niche, they should be head and shoulders above everyone else in the single good thing they do, but they don't.

So instead you bring in a havoc demonhunter/frost mage/fury warrior who may not do as much ST as affliction or assassination, but they are close enough and do a metric shit ton more cleave and aoe (and it's burst delivery, to boot). Same goes for destro, other classes come close to their cleave but they do so, so much more ST and aoe.

And quite frankly, if warlocks are going to be that shit at handling mechanics because of their terrible mobility, they should at least pack a damn punch when they get to plant down and turret. Which they don't.

You have tools as demo/destro to alleviate movement, but you still lose far more damage than a frost mage whose 50%+ of their damage comes from ice lance and flurry, instant casts and who can easily grab orbs on Elisande without losing much on DPS.

[Deleted]

In NH this boils down to being very good at Elisande, and (mostly) sucking horribly at the rest of the bosses.

If you are looking at overall dps, then yes.
But keep in mind that there are a lot more class good at tunneling the boss than class able to deal efficiently with adds.

We aren't the best in overall dps, but we are in the best class to do the dirty job :
Best example is bota :
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#boss=1886
vs
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...metric=bossdps

Best dps to the adds :
Marksmanship : 118k
Destru : 109k
Shadow : 107k
Frost : 106k

[Lucrece]

Now compare destro's damage to frost for ST and aoe, and ask yourself what the point is then. Marksman does more ST than destro as well and far more aoe to boot.

Destro's niche isn't strong enough given the limitations of the spec. Same goes for demo.

[Orwell7]

Ugh, (Overall DPS - Boss DPS) does NOT equal to (Add DPS).
I know it sounds logical, but it's not.

The best Overall logs are ignoring the adds almost completely.
So taking the best Overall logs and calculating their Add DPS by subtracting the Boss DPS just doesn't show reality.

I don't know a metric that counts prio add DPS reliably.
It's up to Warcraftlogs to implement such a feature, like: best damage to Burning Embers on Krosus, Parasitic Lashers on Botanist, Empovered Eyes on Guldan, etc.

[Deleted]

True, but like you said : there is no data about it.

(Overall DPS - Boss DPS) EQUAL to (Add DPS).
=> but the logs taken to calculates "Overall DPS" and "Boss DPS" aren't (all) the same so the results are biased (reformulation of what you said).

My point is : we aren't the best class nor the worst, we are middle low.
+Pros : we are good at dealing with adds without loosing too much dps.
-Cons : If there are too much people dealing with adds, you will loose a lot of dps (both on boss and adds) => which i agree can be a big problem depending of your raid.

There are 3 locks in my raid :
*we can't all switch to affli/demo at the same time : adds won't die and we wipe.
*we can't all switch to destu at the same time : adds will die too fast and we aren't doing lot of dmg to the boss.

A solution would be to add more damage to spell not affected by WH
And it's exactly what bliz did when buffing the pets or adding the Flame rift.

My main problem is that I'm not feeling that we are scaling as much as other class with better ilvl or trait
*Cry Havoc is totally useless and badly designed (again)
*Flame rift doesn't have any interaction with other spells => only scale with ilvl.
*Except immo crit, we don't have many game breaking trait.

Other problem : Destru legendary are also badly designed.

[Lucrece]

I rolled demo specifically because it's the only warlock spec that didn't get utterly worthless paragon traits like cry havoc or sinister seeds.

[Baconeggcheese]

@Stryg the thing is, right this second there's literally no reason to have a destro lock in your raid. And I say that as someone who is 20 / 20 mythic purely as destro this xpac.

Besides soulstone and summoning stone for efficiency, the strongest kind of dmg we have across our specs is sustained single target. The two specs that do that are extremely poor at doing any kind of priority damage, and the one spec we have that does priority damage is fairly mediocre at it vs other classes while not being nearly as good at single target or aoe.

The class absolutely can do high damage and top meters etc etc, but for me personally it just doesn't excel at the kind of meaningful priority damage that I actually care about.

Here's hoping 7.2.5 does us justice.

[Count Zero]

With the AP refund I switched to Afflic. Which of course for the tuning patch this means it gets nerfed to the ground and Destro gets buffed to the moon.

You're welcome, Destro locks.

[Visyx]

With the AP refund I switched to Afflic. Which of course for the tuning patch this means it gets nerfed to the ground and Destro gets buffed to the moon.

You're welcome, Destro locks.

With currently zero sign from Blizzard addressing destruction fundamental changes, I don't think that it's going to happen honestly. Affliction for the most part has been getting the replies which is beyond me even as their parses are getting higher and higher.

What kind of reply has destruction gotten? Oh let's increase your base CB damage by 9%. Oh, there's a bug with your fel Imp glyph- here's a hot fix.

The problem, I think is, that they really tucked destruction design at the release of the expansion and now they're faced with two hard choices: completely re-do and rethink Destruction or just apply superficial damage tweaks that will cover it up for now only to have it resurface later when players realize that QOL isn't fixed.

Spoiler alert: there's really one choice there that's a heavy lift for blizzard and, in my opinion, the least likely option.

[Baconeggcheese]

What kind of reply has destruction gotten?

For one that they intend to shift our resource system mechanically back to embers, which is a massive core change to the spec that would require changing a bunch of other things. Such a high level of change would require a lot of planning and would likely be radio silent on the forums since they almost never talk about things until they're ready.

We'll see when / how that goes, but its slated for this xpac and we were told about it before 7.1.5 dropped so I can't imagine they'll wait until 7.3. Who knows though, 7.2.5 will tell.

[Visyx]

For one that they intend to shift our resource system mechanically back to embers, which is a massive core change to the spec that would require changing a bunch of other things. Such a high level of change would require a lot of planning and would likely be radio silent on the forums since they almost never talk about things until they're ready.

We'll see when / how that goes, but its slated for this xpac and we were told about it before 7.1.5 dropped so I can't imagine they'll wait until 7.3. Who knows though, 7.2.5 will tell.

That's a breath fresh of air. I didn't know that but I had come across folks mentioning it which had me confused.

Can you link that post by any chance?

[Baconeggcheese]

That's a breath fresh of air. I didn't know that but I had come across folks mentioning it which had me confused.

Can you link that post by any chance?

It was in a Q&A back before 7.1.5 dropped, not sure if they made a post about it. Watcher basically talked about going back to "embers" (mechanically, but aesthetically will still be shards), addressing soul effigy in some manner, and addressing demonic empowerment as they weren't happy with all 3. He basically said the team only has so much time to work on so many classes each cycle and they basically didn't have time for locks in loose terms.

[Lucrece]

With currently zero sign from Blizzard addressing destruction fundamental changes, I don't think that it's going to happen honestly. Affliction for the most part has been getting the replies which is beyond me even as their parses are getting higher and higher.

What kind of reply has destruction gotten? Oh let's increase your base CB damage by 9%. Oh, there's a bug with your fel Imp glyph- here's a hot fix.

The problem, I think is, that they really tucked destruction design at the release of the expansion and now they're faced with two hard choices: completely re-do and rethink Destruction or just apply superficial damage tweaks that will cover it up for now only to have it resurface later when players realize that QOL isn't fixed.

Spoiler alert: there's really one choice there that's a heavy lift for blizzard and, in my opinion, the least likely option.

There's a difference between being overtuned in numbers and being a mechanically shit spec.

Which affliction still is. It still has the same broken ass artifact with 2 gold traits that don't work in most encounters, a useless paragon trait in sinister seeds, and the one reason affliction is propped up is because rend soul exists and Malefic Grasp was put into the game to buff the shit out of UA since the other dots suck ass and now affliction is a single target tunnel class that can't even multidot like a shadow priest can.

People obsess over numbers, but the fact is even if destro was doing similar numbers, it would still be ass to play.

Life Tap would still exist (with Empowered Life tap). Lord of Flames would still exist. Rift RNG would still exist. We'd still have to talent to even have AoE where classes like demonhunter get aoe baseline in spades while also having great ST and their damage delivery is instant without the retarded ramp up.

The numbers are just a band aid for the damage they did to the specs.

Demo has the best traits of the two specs, but the worst mechanical issues by far as Doom is a pretty terrible dot prone to soul shard munching at the worst times with soul shard influx, demonic empowerment is a spammed mana hog of an empty cast just so your damn demons don't lose 40%+ damage and haste, and in rality demonology has ended up with a builder spell and a spender with a desynchronized dreadstalkers in what amounts to a spec that has to maintain short lived dots with 30 seconds worth of ramp up thank to expendables trait.

The class would still have no mobility whatsoever and be among the worst at managing mechanics without having to pay a talent for Burning Rush (kill yourself to get an inferior version of what mages have in mobility for free).

The three specs this expansion took a considerable turn for the worse. And I fear embers will just be a distraction to people obsessed with the wrong things that aren't even the main culprit of destro's ailing.

The destro mastery and cry havoc trait are still there.

Meanwhile I'm staring at our frost mage do assassination rogue levels of single target DPS, with way better aoe with the Blizzard legendary, and the top two damage sources for frost mage are fucking INSTANT CASTS on a class with two blinks, while all warlock specs have wimpy ass instant cast damage spells (and in the case of demo and affliction, no instant cast nukes to speak of; no, don't bring up the gimped Demonwrath into this, it can't even do its function of aoe).

[burek]

And I fear embers will just be a distraction to people obsessed with the wrong things that aren't even the main culprit of destro's ailing.

This sums it up nicely. People wanting ember bits or shadowburn back are obviously not even playing the spec at the moment and have no idea what it needs. I can't believe these shit changes are getting positive feedback

[Deleted]

This sums it up nicely. People wanting ember bits or shadowburn back are obviously not even playing the spec at the moment and have no idea what it needs. I can't believe these shit changes are getting positive feedback

Why?

Problem is Wreak Havoc holding back ST: getting fixed.
Problem is Chaos Bolt casts feeling meaningless: getting fixed.
Problem is Havoc usage involves no planning or skill: getting fixed.
Problem is Soul Shard generation being RNG far too much: getting fixed.

Of course, a lot of this depends on how they are going to implement these changes and how they are going to tune things and knowing Blizzard they will probably fuck it up anyway but as a concept, these changes sound very good to me as a Destruction main since WotLK.

Sure, we still have the mastery. We still have baseline abilities and passives as talents, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

[burek]

Problem is Wreak Havoc holding back ST: getting fixed.
Problem is Chaos Bolt casts feeling meaningless: getting fixed.
Problem is Havoc usage involves no planning or skill: getting fixed.
Problem is Soul Shard generation being RNG far too much: getting fixed.

Problem is we are stuck in the two spread target niche, whether it is with wreak havoc or something else it doesn't matter, they intend to keep our single target damage shit. 1.4m compared to 1m chaos bolt will not feel any more meaningful, especially since we will be casting much less of them, which will result in other damage sources having a higher share in our overall damage. Havoc is gonna feel great when you can use it on every third priority add that spawns, might as well remove the spell instead of giving it a fucking 45s cooldown. You will have to 'plan' on which add wave you will suck and on which you will be able to do something, amazing! And our souls shard generation is really high at the moment, there isn't a situation where an add spawns and you can't chaos bolt it, so there aren't really issues with bad rng.

[Duckz0rs]

Why?

Problem is Wreak Havoc holding back ST: getting fixed.
Problem is Chaos Bolt casts feeling meaningless: getting fixed.
Problem is Havoc usage involves no planning or skill: getting fixed.
Problem is Soul Shard generation being RNG far too much: getting fixed.

Of course, a lot of this depends on how they are going to implement these changes and how they are going to tune things and knowing Blizzard they will probably fuck it up anyway but as a concept, these changes sound very good to me as a Destruction main since WotLK.

Sure, we still have the mastery. We still have baseline abilities and passives as talents, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Wreak havoc holding us back in ST will not get fixed, because they've stated they want 2-target cleave to remain our niche, for which havoc is the only option available.

Chaos Bolt casts feeling meaningless is getting fixed, but will be in permanent famish mode with most of our generators only generating 1/20th (instead of the 1/10th we're used to from MoP) of the resource.

Havoc usage will still require no planning or skill whatsoever. With a 45 second cooldown you'll simply use it on cooldown if there's adds up. Still no use in pre-casting, still no synergy with Shadowburn, which is where the skill-cap came from in the first place.

Soul Shard generation will not be entirely RNG. RNG will still be involved as crit doubles the bits generated. It's just shifted from being baseline RNG to stat-dependant RNG.

Please try to look a bit further than the surface of these changes. The whole post by Blizzard is rather contrary to itself if you read closely.