MoP: Destruction Warlock Guide and First Week Gear List

[weakdots]

recently i went back to affliction for progression on heroic protectors, regemmed full mastery and reforged back to the 4717 haste mark (previously as affliction i used the 6151 mark as goblin but wanted to be more mastery built for when i swap back to destro on farm fights) i am noticing a signifcant performance increase playing destro with 4717 haste,72% mastery and about 11.5% crit, compared to when i was gemmed/reforged for destro with full int gems, sitting around 19k intel, 13.5% crit, 59% mastery and only about 2400 haste. Even though simcraft still value int over mastery for me at 502 ivl is it possible the higher haste and full mastery could actually be better IRL?

[Ravon]

recently i went back to affliction for progression on heroic protectors, regemmed full mastery and reforged back to the 4717 haste mark (previously as affliction i used the 6151 mark as goblin but wanted to be more mastery built for when i swap back to destro on farm fights) i am noticing a signifcant performance increase playing destro with 4717 haste,72% mastery and about 11.5% crit, compared to when i was gemmed/reforged for destro with full int gems, sitting around 19k intel, 13.5% crit, 59% mastery and only about 2400 haste. Even though simcraft still value int over mastery for me at 502 ivl is it possible the higher haste and full mastery could actually be better IRL?

Well I tried to run your setup IRL and went outside to test it out on my car. No Chaos Bolt or nothing...=/ then I went inside and reforged abit and then went outside to test again. Nothing again!! Not even a scratch!!

OT though lol, when I was playing Destro for the past 2 weeks, I found running Int>Hit/Exp> Mastery>Crit>>>>Haste to work for me and was getting better results than my Affliction setup.

Are ya weakdots from Arthas?

[weakdots]

Well I tried to run your setup IRL and went outside to test it out on my car. No Chaos Bolt or nothing...=/ then I went inside and reforged abit and then went outside to test again. Nothing again!! Not even a scratch!!

OT though lol, when I was playing Destro for the past 2 weeks, I found running Int>Hit/Exp> Mastery>Crit>>>>Haste to work for me and was getting better results than my Affliction setup.

Are ya weakdots from Arthas?

yep the same weakdots. What i noticed when doing destro as my old afflic setup (6151 haste, 65% mastery) i was constantly going oom from the incinerate spams, and wasnt having good ember generation to dump a cb here and there to prevent going oom in between DS buffed CB dumps. When going full int gems and reforging out of haste for crit and mastery was sitting at about 13.5% crit and 60% mastery but a really low haste, i felt very lethargic in all my fights, i spent about 3 weeks using this setup on the heroic fights we had on farm an was getting better as each week went by, but with the haste so low ~2400 ish i couldnt find the sweet spot of ember build up+ not going oom and having enough to get off a solid 3 buffed cb's during DS.

just last night after our attempts on hprotectors i switched back to destro but still using the 4717 haste and 72% mastery everything felt so smooth, there was a lot more synergy as far as ember build, i never went oom, and was having plenty of Cb's to dump off in between DS bursts. I also ran a few lfr's for valor using this setup and it just felt much better then in the past 3 weeks when doing full int/crit/mastery setup

[Ravon]

I stayed away from haste since I didn't see any real benefit from it except getting mana starved on single target fights. I didn't gem full Int though. I gemmed +160 Int in red sockets ofc. +80 Int/ +160 Mastery in yellow and +80 Int/ +160 Hit in blues.

<--- Ravon, didn't last long in Inappropriate eh?

[FluFF]

Just coming back from WotLK and got a few questions.

- When exactly do you cast Chaos Bolt ? i know ingame it states '' when u got a burning ember '' but i find it hard to believe you would just flick through 1 ember instead of pooling like 3 of em and just use Chaos bolt not to cap 4 ?

- When i'm reaching the point where Dark Soul is coming of CD , do you just pool max embers and spam 4x CB / Shadowburn in a row ?

- When you reach 20 % do you just spam empty your saved embers on Shadowflame and then maintain a rotation where you get 1 ember and use Shadowflame ?

My main issue is that most guides , while telling you what to use and when , don't say anything about the amount of embers you are best ''sitting on'' and when its ok to either stack or blow empty.

Thx
And i don't to habit a certain rotation which in the end turns out to be subpar,

[nipil]

Blow your embers only when you have procs/cd up, or are about to cap.

[Kirroth]

The short and dirty version.

Priority #1: Don't cap on Embers.
Priority #2: Cast as many Chaos Bolts or Shadowburns as possible during major procs or cooldowns.

For example, with my setup my major controlled cooldowns are Dark Soul (2m) and Static-Caster's Medallion (1m). So my optimal setup is to have three Embers ready every minute when one or both of those is ready, while bleeding off extra Embers in between when I have an uncontrolled proc up.

The advanced course gets into situations where you're using Havok, but for now just focus on getting the above down well.

[jason1975]

Just coming back from WotLK and got a few questions.

- When exactly do you cast Chaos Bolt ? i know ingame it states '' when u got a burning ember '' but i find it hard to believe you would just flick through 1 ember instead of pooling like 3 of em and just use Chaos bolt not to cap 4 ?

- When i'm reaching the point where Dark Soul is coming of CD , do you just pool max embers and spam 4x CB / Shadowburn in a row ?

- When you reach 20 % do you just spam empty your saved embers on Shadowflame and then maintain a rotation where you get 1 ember and use Shadowflame ?

My main issue is that most guides , while telling you what to use and when , don't say anything about the amount of embers you are best ''sitting on'' and when its ok to either stack or blow empty.

Thx
And i don't to habit a certain rotation which in the end turns out to be subpar,

For a single target fight, as stated above, you're looking to unload embers when you have procs up. Your biggest one will be DS, smaller ones will be trinket/weapon enchant/profession enchants. For openers single target, I usually build up to 2 embers (you start with one), blow DS + trinkets, and get 3 CBs total in that span. Then I'm building embers up to about 2.5. Over about 2.5 embers, I'm looking to bleed them off if DS is far out (if it's close I'm looking to get to just under 4 by the time it's ready). This "bleed period" is when you're looking for procs to happen. If I get my on equip trinket proc +int and my synapse springs (engineer glove enchant +int proc), then I'm firing off CBs or SBs. Try only bleeding off embers during procs and you'll get a feel for it.

For Multi-target fights, you want to use CB every time Havoc is off cd. If you can Havoc your main target (typically a boss) and spam one or more SBs instead (with incinerate or conflag as filler for the unused Havoc charges), that's also awesome (Will is a great fight for this).

[nipil]

I have just seen on the 5 feb ptr patch note that Fire and Brimstone range was reduced from 15 yards to 10 yards.

Does it really affect the current AoE range compared to the current feeling ? (ie approximate diameter of Rain of fire reticle)

[Brusalk]

I have just seen on the 5 feb ptr patch note that Fire and Brimstone range was reduced from 15 yards to 10 yards.

Does it really affect the current AoE range compared to the current feeling ? (ie approximate diameter of Rain of fire reticle)

I'm unsure how wide the AoE circle is for RoF, but it is a 33% nerf to our AoE range for everything but RoF.

If they were concerned by the AoE slow in battlegrounds with Manno's Fury, why wouldn't they just remove the snare component from FnB-Conflag rather than doing a pretty significant nerf to destros AoE.

[Grizelda]

The nerfs they choose are really strange.

Sac, for example. They came up with this good thing, and now too many people like it. Nerf it. There will always be a talent people like best. Instead of ruining the one we like, improve the others.
FnB. Why shouldn't we be snaring people? It doesn't last all that long and we need to use a glyph slot to make it useful. No one else can snare people? It's just us?

They give us good things. They work, we like them, then they ruin them.

I need coffee.

[Scathbais]

I'm unsure how wide the AoE circle is for RoF, but it is a 33% nerf to our AoE range for everything but RoF.

If they were concerned by the AoE slow in battlegrounds with Manno's Fury, why wouldn't they just remove the snare component from FnB-Conflag rather than doing a pretty significant nerf to destros AoE.

No one has actually come out and said it is a pvp nerf. My first thought was that they didn't like us being able to solo clear the spirit realm on H:Gara'Jal.

[Brusalk]

No one has actually come out and said it is a pvp nerf. My first thought was that they didn't like us being able to solo clear the spirit realm on H:Gara'Jal.

But you can solo clear that realm as affliction no problem (they just die after you come out). I can't really see any reason to nerf it like this beyond a PvP reason.

[Aruotnof]

IMO, this change occurred because pvp.

Destro AoE is one of the main utilities in RBG. Dark Soul+trinkets+F&B+Conflagrate and Incinerate is amazing!

I´m really worried about this change.

All time when a PTR Notes is released, I think destro will gain some buffs, but most often it is the opposite!

Brusalk: I´m using destro spec in farm raids and now I got excellent results when the fight have adds. Thanks for your videos! But with affliction, I always get top dps in my core... It´s hard to change my main spec! But I´m trying!!!! hehehe

[Scathbais]

But you can solo clear that realm as affliction no problem (they just die after you come out). I can't really see any reason to nerf it like this beyond a PvP reason.

Sigh, you are probably right.

On a separate but Destruction-related question, I don't see a video on your youtube page for Spirit Kings. I usually do this fight as Affliction because I am worried that the timing of my cleaves might get me in trouble.

Any advice for this fight as Destro?

Edit: Just noticed that Simcraft now shows Int>hit>CRIT>Mast>Haste. Has anyone tried running as destro while stacking crit?

[Brusalk]

Sigh, you are probably right.

On a separate but Destruction-related question, I don't see a video on your youtube page for Spirit Kings. I usually do this fight as Affliction because I am worried that the timing of my cleaves might get me in trouble.

Any advice for this fight as Destro?

Edit: Just noticed that Simcraft now shows Int>hit>CRIT>Mast>Haste. Has anyone tried running as destro while stacking crit?

Did I seriously miss a spirit kings video? /sigh Guess I'll record one next clear :P


As for crit>mastery>haste, I personally haven't seen that result, but it's entirely possible. How much haste/mastery/haste do you have on your gear non-reforged?

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 02:30 PM ----------

IMO, this change occurred because pvp.

Destro AoE is one of the main utilities in RBG. Dark Soul+trinkets+F&B+Conflagrate and Incinerate is amazing!

I´m really worried about this change.

All time when a PTR Notes is released, I think destro will gain some buffs, but most often it is the opposite!

Brusalk: I´m using destro spec in farm raids and now I got excellent results when the fight have adds. Thanks for your videos! But with affliction, I always get top dps in my core... It´s hard to change my main spec! But I´m trying!!!! hehehe

You're very welcome! I know it's hard to go destro after having great results as affliction, but Destro is so fun so who cares about farm content! :P

[Kazumichan]

If you take a look at the thread that I started, I found out today that with my current gear, it doesn't really matter what I stack according to simcraft.

[Brusalk]

If you take a look at the thread that I started, I found out today that with my current gear, it doesn't really matter what I stack according to simcraft.

Unless you specifically tell it otherwise, simcraft only sims single-target. We already know that there are two completely viable and nearly identical output strategies in Sup/Serv w/ Haste, and Sac w/ Mastery. The mastery/crit w/ Sac however is way better the second you can havoc something, as sac increases havoc damage while the other two talents do not.

Not to belittle your work, which is appreciated, but I just don't find it all that surprising that there's not a huge difference in the two strategies single-target.

[Kazumichan]

That is true, I did forget to try out a Sac setup, and multi-target fight.

[squidbear]

I hadn't realised until yesterday that, because I don't raid with Mastery or Spell Haste buffs ('-.-), Destro sims within 1.5k of Affliction in my gear, so I've respecced Destro for the rest of the tier. with that in mind, I'm curious as to how you guys are opening when starting a bossfight with 1 ember, I remember seeing Brusalk or Zumzumzum posting their opener at one point but no amount of searching can find it.

also, is it still optimal to weave Incinerates between Chaos Bolt to avoid DoT clipping from G:Sac?