Anyone else raid as destruction?

[Abominatus]

I'm interested to know if we should be expecting any DPS balance adjustments in forthcoming 5.1 changes, or whether the existing balance is deemed satisfactory. I like destruction as a spec. I enjoy the playstyle. But I doubt I'll be able to justify continuing with it unless something is done about the scaling disparity which is starting to make itself felt as we progress from entry-level gear toward T14H gear levels.

[Xelnath]

What I said means that any given player is likely capable of achieving a realistic, high dps value with any of the three specs.

[Rayaleith]

What I said means that any given player is likely capable of achieving a realistic, high dps value with any of the three specs.

.... although with equal skill the other two specs will perform better... ?

[Jessicka]

.... although with equal skill the other two specs will perform better... ?

Depends what level that equal skill is. I think the skill 'windows' allow a lower skilled person to perform better with Destruction than the other two specs, but the other two offer greater potential for more highly skilled players. That was very much the case in Wrath, and generally people were happy with that model.

[Rayaleith]

Depends what level that equal skill is. I think the skill 'windows' allow a lower skilled person to perform better with Destruction than the other two specs, but the other two offer greater potential for more highly skilled players. That was very much the case in Wrath, and generally people were happy with that model.

Since they give you three different specializations to choose from, they have to balance it as they have done to other classes. It is fine to have a spec performing better to different situation but having a single spec lagging back by such a large margin as teh gear progresses is not right design in my opinion.

You cannot have the spec for "noobs" and the spec for the "good players". Imagine one that wants to play destruction. A good player that PREFERS to play destruction. How would she ever persuade the raid leader? And the raid leader will be right to demand a switch since it is not 1K dps we are talking here...

[Jessicka]

Since they give you three different specializations to choose from, they have to balance it as they have done to other classes. It is fine to have a spec performing better to different situation but having a single spec lagging back by such a large margin as teh gear progresses is not right design in my opinion.

You cannot have the spec for "noobs" and the spec for the "good players". Imagine one that wants to play destruction. A good player that PREFERS to play destruction. How would she ever persuade the raid leader? And the raid leader will be right to demand a switch since it is not 1K dps we are talking here...

The margin is not as big as you think it is, and if it allows a player to perform better than with Demo or Aff, then I'm more than happy to have them in the raid. DPS is not the sole job of a DPS class, and about the only thing that's made me genuinely ventrilo-rage were DPSers in PuGs, who while pulling decent numbers, and having had prior experience of an encounter, have wiped us because they were slack on (and in some cases genuinely had no understanding of) encounter mechanics. Being tight on mechanics will get almost anyone through an encounter and that is far more important than anything.

[Rayaleith]

ok but i think we covered that by saying equal skilled

[Jessicka]

ok but i think we covered that by saying equal skilled

At what level of skill? Here's a purely representative and subjective picture of where I think the specs are at relative to skill. There's no scale, and the gaps are over-represented for the sake of effect.

[Jenerena]

You cannot have the spec for "noobs" and the spec for the "good players". Imagine one that wants to play destruction. A good player that PREFERS to play destruction. How would she ever persuade the raid leader? And the raid leader will be right to demand a switch since it is not 1K dps we are talking here...

I'm not normally one to make generalisations but I always wonder why people bother playing pures if they only like playing one particular spec. I played elemental for a long time and I used to hate not having the flexibility of playing different specs.

Besides, if you're in a raid group where the leader needs convincing that you can play the lower DPS spec, are you in the right group? If your guild is serious about getting bosses down and getting to the end of the tier then you should be playing the highest performing spec.

It all comes down to how you play the game. When it comes to raiding, you need a certain mindset.

[Rayaleith]

And are you satisfied with this? If you -for instance- are a capable player and prefer to play destro, you are gimping yourself and the raid. This is not balanced. Balanced is for example picking affli because it performs better at heavy movement fights, destro for single target with an add etc. But overall being close in damage done. And scale almost the same ofc course.

[Jenerena]

The margin is not as big as you think it is, and if it allows a player to perform better than with Demo or Aff, then I'm more than happy to have them in the raid.

This is also true, so it really depends. It's all opinion really.

[Rayaleith]

What I like from a pure is to be able to play the game in any spec I like. Since I cannot change role, I would like to change spec in a way that

1. it will be different like the other - check, GJ here. They even have different secondary resource
2. they will perform similar - Not GJ here since this is exactly what can kill the variability.
3. do good damage as any - Well, ok here. All can do ok damage.

Why can't they solve the second one and all be happy to play a spec-balanced class?

[Abominatus]

The elephant in the room which I think most people are ignoring is that the assessment currently being made regarding relative spec performance is being done at a specific gear level, which is for the most part nowhere near the BIS level for the tier. Both simulation and log analysis shows the same thing: Destruction is becoming less and less competitive as gear level increases.

It seems to me that 5.1 is the opportunity to fix the scaling issue which sees Destruction fall progressively further behind as we approach the T14H gear-level. What is acceptable variance in mostly heroic blues and a few pieces of VP gear is not neccessarily so in ilvl 509 gear, or beyond.

The usual Blizzard response about scaling is "we'll worry about it when we get there". The problem is that, in this case, "there" is not far beyond 5.1's release. If they're going to wait until the next full raid tier to make adjustments, it's going to be too late.

[Jessicka]

And are you satisfied with this? If you -for instance- are a capable player and prefer to play destro, you are gimping yourself and the raid. This is not balanced. Balanced is for example picking affli because it performs better at heavy movement fights, destro for single target with an add etc. But overall being close in damage done. And scale almost the same ofc course.

Oh my, you really are clueless. If you're on a heavy movement fight, Affliction is so not the way to go; your DPS is chained to channeling MG, you can't do that while moving. Demo's mobility is unparalleled with so much instant casting; even Fel Flame in caster form isn't a significant DPS loss.

If you feel you're gimping yourself by playing Destro, then well done; you can play Affliction or Demo better. It has nothing to do with overall potential except at the absolute highest level - what it is about is your own personal potential. If you're not playing within the bounds of your own limits as a player, you're the absolute worst kind of player because you're gimping the raid with your own ego.

[Rayaleith]

Oh my, you really are clueless. If you're on a heavy movement fight, Affliction is so not the way to go; your DPS is chained to channeling MG, you can't do that while moving. Demo's mobility is unparalleled with so much instant casting; even Fel Flame in caster form isn't a significant DPS loss.

If you feel you're gimping yourself by playing Destro, then well done; you can play Affliction or Demo better. It has nothing to do with overall potential except at the absolute highest level - what it is about is your own personal potential. If you're not playing within the bounds of your own limits as a player, you're the absolute worst kind of player because you're gimping the raid with your own ego.

Man really.. You spoil the conversation. I said for example. I didn't give concrete example. For fuck sake... Anyway. No need to talk about it any more with you. I need a calm conversation not some raging kid here. God... And something else. Scaling says hi.

[whi]

Jessicka - we should be changing our spec of choice because of fight gimmicks if we want to excel in that particular area on that particular fight, not because the most elementary thing - single target dps, is lacking. Being newb-friendly doesn't mean it needs to go against the rule that gc so loves to repeat - easy to play, hard to master, i hope? For example - destruction players can cast their chaos bolts along with trinket procs and/or dark souls to gain a lot of damage that a new player wont do - problem is, even with those kind of optimizations it doesn't look like we're able to close the gap. I would hope too, that if you master the class as a whole it doesn't mean you're pigeon-holled to one, best spec? Why would those people lose the ability to choose affli because they like that evil-ish theme or just dots, or demo, because hey, they like demons - they don't like to feel alone while doing all those dailies due to specs not being balanced good enough. People that commit more to the game shouldn't be somehow in a worse situation than a new player, i hope, again.

On another note - lower skilled players won't notice the difference, and don't need optimal or balanced dps across all the specs for the content they are doing - even if one is harder or easier to master they'll choose affli because they like evil-ish spells, a channel as a filler or whatever, not because the easier one does 10% more dps on that level - and rightfully so, they don't need that kind of optimization. That's why the game should be balanced for the best, elite skilled or whatever you wanna call players that can push all the specs to their limits imo.

Click http://www.simulationcraft.org/505/Raid_T14H.html , and look at warlocks, now look at mages, and again at warlocks. Yeah yeah, sims aren't bla bla bla. Simc is our best tc tool for few expansions now, and our fellow warlock dev knows his stuff, + there are more people debbuging those numbers, than at blizzard working on their so called "tools" i recon, which happened to be wrong during beta, and by a huge margin, too!


On a side note, any chance you could check the new alchemist's stone *again*? It just loves to skip it's 2nd, 3rd, etc. chance to proc and behave like it's on a 2-3 minute icd instead of the real 55 second one(at least for destruction). I don't think it procs as it should for my rogue alt aswell, thanks!

[Deleted]

You don't even read the whole thread... The best destro have posted in this thread... and I don't think he can be considered as a burden in his guild and by anyone outside. Go to WoL and L2R... spanked kid.

2. they will perform similar
3. do good damage as any

Do you smell you own contradiction... captain obvious fragrance.

[Jessicka]

Jessicka - we should be changing our spec of choice because of fight gimmicks if we want to excel in that particular area on that particular fight, not because the most elementary thing - single target dps, is lacking.

I don't disagree, there are plenty of points in this thread exactly where Destruction's stengths are being pointed out as a place to shine, just as there are places for Demo to shine.

Let's look at the argument another way though - take a look at that graph, and suppose all three points meet at the same place - what reason would anyone ever have to play Affliction or Demonology if the effort for the greater complexity wasn't rewarded? We've just sat through an entire expansion of complaints about that being an overarching concern for the class as a whole.

The fact is, they perform far closer than people are prepared to accept; Destro has it's niches (although there are too few fights right now to show that), but one spec does necessarily have to fill that line of the smoothest curve.

[Abominatus]

I'd be interested in seeing some opinions on the idea of making the CD of conflagrate scale with haste. I haven't mathed it out extensively, but it seems to me that this would immediately fix the scaling issue. The problem is that it might actually be too good, particularly in PvP where the slow is relevant.

[Jessicka]

I'd be interested in seeing some opinions on the idea of making the CD of conflagrate scale with haste. I haven't mathed it out extensively, but it seems to me that this would immediately fix the scaling issue. The problem is that it might actually be too good, particularly in PvP where the slow is relevant.

Would definitely make burst too strong. The only buff I'd give it, if I were to give it a buff would be to bring Burning Embers back and have it applied by Conflag or CB.