More info on Destro in Mists, very interesting

[xskarma]

From the info thread on official forums:

Question: How does Destruction’s Ember system work?

Answer: Basically, you build embers with some spells, and then spend those embers with Soul Fire, Ember Tap, or Fire and Brimstone.

Internally, this is how it works:

Immolate – DD + DoT on the target
Incinerate – generates 1/10th ember, or 2/10ths if it crits an immolated target.
Fel Flame – generates 1/10th ember, or 2/10ths if it crits an immolated target.
Conflagrate – triggers Backdraft and has a 12 second cooldown.

Soul Fire – consumes one ember instead of mana.
Fire and Brimstone – costs 1 ember and has no cooldown.
Ember Tap – costs 1 embers.

Each full ember costs 0.33% of your maximum health per second. If you stay below 1 ember, you take no damage.


And just 2 posts down from that:

Question: How does chaotic energy work?
Answer: We are experimenting with a resource-driven, rather than time-limited, caster model on the Destruction warlock.

In a nutshell, Destruction warlocks are not GCD locked. In fact, chain-casting spells as a Destruction warlock is less important than spending all of your resources.

Keep in mind this is all subject to change, but here is how Destruction flows at the moment:

• Start of Fight: Full mana bar, Empty Ember bar

1. Immolate the target
2. Conflagrate to trigger emberstorm
3. Incinerate to generate embers
4. Continue until you are low on mana

• Middle of Fight: Empty mana bar, ~2 Embers

1. Soul Fire
2. Soul Fire
3. Mana bar is mostly full (Soul Fire costs embers, so your mana refills during the Soul Fires)

In addition to increasing your base mana regen, Chaotic Energy increases mana regen even more with Haste. This means the ability to cast spells scales smoothly with gear.

As long as the warlock never lets her mana bar fill up and burn her embers, she's maximizing damage. This is very different from the standard caster model where priority is placed on casting at all times and ordering spells based on cooldown.

Our hope is that the Destruction Warlock will attract players who are interested in a playstyle that rewards spending resources at the right time, rather than constantly casting.


This all sounds extremely interesting, thoughts?

[kabshiel]

Sounds like they're making Destruction into Warlock's Arcane spec, at least as far as resource management goes.

[Xorn]

It sounds... very much like a rogue in the sense of resource management. It's a very interesting model, and if they truly don't want us to be continually casting I now understand the place of auto-wand in the rotation.

What I really want to know is how Fire and Brimstone works. I'm hoping it's a toggled ability like Blade Flurry in that once activated it lasts until we turn it off, as the trade off of one ember for one aoe Incinerate isn't all that great as of right now, but as a toggled ability I think it would be fairly useful.

[Obsidian9]

It looks fairly good, and will be interesting to see in practice. If it successful it will be a nice bit of separation from the other two specs (and its current state) as it is not revolving around juggling numerous dots and cds. I only hope that in practice it doesn't end up being too simple.

[Ihnasir]

This sounds like it's worth a shot, I like the new resources.

[Deleted]

Sounds like " Gameplay for Apes " or mage but u know.

GW2 will give more " decision making ".

4 Buttons, really....... this is a WHOLE BULLSHIT !!!

[Obsidian9]

Sounds like " Gameplay for Apes " or mage but u know.

GW2 will give more " decision making ".

4 Buttons, really....... this is a WHOLE BULLSHIT !!!

Number of buttons does not speak to how easy the spec is. As it is right now its more like a game of whack a mole than playing a class.

[Netherspark]

It looks very awkward to me.

Basicly it looks like it's going to take a long time to build up an Ember, then you'll expend it immediately. I don't see how they expect us to charge more than 1 Ember at a time, why wouldn't we spend it on Soulfire? It would just be a DPS loss to hold on to them.

Fire & Brimstone cannot be used when you need it, which sucks. You'll have to cast Incinerate 10 times before you can activate it.

[Count Zero]

Oh well, guess I'll be starting with Afflic and Demo then ... man, I was really looking forward to new Destro, too. Meh, guess I should reserve judgement until it's actually in a playable beta to get some real feedback.

[SvetlanaSvetlana]

I like Destro, and I like the changes...

... but there is NO WAY IN HELL I am playing it if Auto-Wand makes the cut. This isn't Harry Potter, and Warlocks aren't Hunters.

[Penguin FTW]

incinerate – generates 1/10th ember, or 2/10ths if it crits an immolated target.
Fel flame – generates 1/10th ember, or 2/10ths if it crits an immolated target.

I knew I wasn't making this shit up

[Wondercrab]

I like the idea a lot, I've always thought the idea of a caster with something more like an energy bar would be cool. o.o
The only potential problem is if we end up with nothing to cast at times, although I'm fairly sure they'll give us some sort of filler spell that costs little to no mana for those situations.

[Netherspark]

... but there is NO WAY IN HELL I am playing it if Auto-Wand makes the cut. This isn't Harry Potter, and Warlocks aren't Hunters.

It's more likely they just couldn't think of a better name for it. "Auto-cast" would have given the wrong impression.

[Deleted]

Number of buttons does not speak to how easy the spec is. As it is right now its more like a game of whack a mole than playing a class.

Ghostcrawler's crap.

[Last Starfighter]

Number of buttons does not speak to how easy the spec is. As it is right now its more like a game of whack a mole than playing a class.

No, it's called being a dot class. And it looks like we'll be playing "whack a mole" still in MoP. Just with CD's. Look how many cd's we're getting.

[personn5]

One question I've been wondering, how many embers can you have at a time? 3? or is there no "limit" to them?

[Cemila]

One question I've been wondering, how many embers can you have at a time? 3? or is there no "limit" to them?

I believe there's not going to be a limit, simply because having an ember burns your health. If you start stacking embers up high your health is going to start getting burnt up pretty fast.

[Netherspark]

I'm going to assume it's capped at a maximum of 3 Embers.

[Last Starfighter]

HoG, SB, Inci, SF for demo only.

Honestly, this is awful, awful

People can say whatever they want about MoP, but the game is being geared for another type of audience. It's no coincidence. Foolproof talent trees, pillow soft rotations, Pandas, gear slots reduced, pet battles, no big bad. Blizz would never admit to it. But it's fairly obvious.

[HatsHatsHats]

I feel like this will over simplify things
Currently I feel like destro is a fast paced spec where I cast fast, hit a whole lot of buttons and have fun with it, but auto-wanding seems really boring, and if they expect me to sit there auto-wanding instead of casting nonstop, then I might as well change specs, and if it ever comes down to destro is top dps, just switch mains, because I like to keep active when playing, not hit auto attack and watch

I was also hoping embers would be more numerous, like incinerate generated 1, 2 if crit, and then it would be up to you if you wanted to fire off a soul fire at 10, 20, 30 or just as soon as it was like a 1.5 second cast with the imp talent, not keep incinerating till you can fire a soulfire off at 1 ember