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  1. #1

    Simple Suggestion for Destruction

    Without getting too much into whether to they're fun or not, easy or not, or if their damage is weak or not, it seems like a lot of Warlocks feel that Destruction leaves a little bit of something to be desired. I think what it needs is a little bit of unpredictability.

    While there's a tiny bit of unpredictability with criticals generating extra Burning Embers, Destruction follows a pretty rigid playstyle. Refresh Immolate once ever 15 seconds, cast Conflagrate on cooldown, and spam Incinerate until you have a Burning Ember to blow on Chaos Bolt or Shadowburn.

    Elemental Shaman and Balance Druids have a random chance to instantly reset the cooldowns of Lava Burst or Starsurge (respectively) and causes them to be instant cast.

    What I am about to propose will speed up Destruction's gameplay by greatly increasing Burning ember generation, spread the importance of Destruction's various spells out a little bit more evenly, and mix up the rotation to make it more engaging.

    I think Destruction could use something like that for Conflagrate, and it's proc should be tied to Immolate.

    Whenever Immolate deals damage, there is a chance to reset the cooldown of Conflagrate. If there are already two charges of Conflagrate available, the Warlock gains a third charge. Likewise, Backdraft can have up to 9 stacks.

    Immolate, as it stands, is only useful because it deals more damage than one Incinerate (but not more than two), and if the stars align, possibly generating more Burning Embers than a single Incinerate. And while I feel that Conflagrate's damage is still a little too low in the grand scheme of things (but hey, at least it hits harder than Incinerate now!), it's at least pretty important to the rotation because of how powerful Backdraft is.

    If by some chance these changes were to happen, Conflagrate will account for a decent bit more of the Destruction Warlock's overall damage. And while Immolate's damage will still be a fairly insignificant portion of Destruction's damage, it will at least become a more important spell to cast.

    These changes could potentially make Destruction a little too strong (even though they are in need of a damage buff), so some of the damage from Chaos Bolt can be shaved off to make up for it.

    These changes would make me play Destruction in a heartbeat.

    What are your opinions?

    It would also be nice to have Chaos Bolt's cast time lowered to, say, 2 seconds, but honestly, 2.5 isn't a deal breaker for me. And I would also love to see Corruption return to the rotation, I can appreciate that the developers want Destruction to be fire-centric and rely heavily on Nukes rather than DoTs.
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  2. #2
    Destruction really doesn't need to be redesigned at all, and its numbers are basically fine as they stand. One thing that people seem to be forgetting is that Destro scales linearly with two separate secondary stats, as well as Intellect.

    What this means in the long run is that Destruction is going to scale exceptionally well with gear - especially once critical strike chances are around 33% or more in a raid environment. With more embers, we'll be throwing out more Chaos bolts. More mastery will enhance the "oomph" behind those chaos bolts, and more Intellect will beef up all of the spells we cast in the first place.

    As far as Tier 14 has been going, Destruction is doing perfectly well as we are. Most people see the disparity between Affliction and Destruction's parse numbers on SimC and think that it's accurate. The truth is, SimC's Destruction action priority is horrible, and doesn't reflect proper play of the spec at all.

    All that being said, Destro is fine like we are.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Veyne View Post
    Without getting too much into whether to they're fun or not, easy or not, or if their damage is weak or not, it seems like a lot of Warlocks feel that Destruction leaves a little bit of something to be desired. I think what it needs is a little bit of unpredictability.

    While there's a tiny bit of unpredictability with criticals generating extra Burning Embers, Destruction follows a pretty rigid playstyle. Refresh Immolate once ever 15 seconds, cast Conflagrate on cooldown, and spam Incinerate until you have a Burning Ember to blow on Chaos Bolt or Shadowburn.

    Elemental Shaman and Balance Druids have a random chance to instantly reset the cooldowns of Lava Burst or Starsurge (respectively) and causes them to be instant cast.

    What I am about to propose will speed up Destruction's gameplay by greatly increasing Burning ember generation, spread the importance of Destruction's various spells out a little bit more evenly, and mix up the rotation to make it more engaging.

    I think Destruction could use something like that for Conflagrate, and it's proc should be tied to Immolate.

    Whenever Immolate deals damage, there is a chance to reset the cooldown of Conflagrate. If there are already two charges of Conflagrate available, the Warlock gains a third charge. Likewise, Backdraft can have up to 9 stacks.

    Immolate, as it stands, is only useful because it deals more damage than one Incinerate (but not more than two), and if the stars align, possibly generating more Burning Embers than a single Incinerate. And while I feel that Conflagrate's damage is still a little too low in the grand scheme of things (but hey, at least it hits harder than Incinerate now!), it's at least pretty important to the rotation because of how powerful Backdraft is.

    If by some chance these changes were to happen, Conflagrate will account for a decent bit more of the Destruction Warlock's overall damage. And while Immolate's damage will still be a fairly insignificant portion of Destruction's damage, it will at least become a more important spell to cast.

    These changes could potentially make Destruction a little too strong (even though they are in need of a damage buff), so some of the damage from Chaos Bolt can be shaved off to make up for it.

    These changes would make me play Destruction in a heartbeat.

    What are your opinions?

    It would also be nice to have Chaos Bolt's cast time lowered to, say, 2 seconds, but honestly, 2.5 isn't a deal breaker for me. And I would also love to see Corruption return to the rotation, I can appreciate that the developers want Destruction to be fire-centric and rely heavily on Nukes rather than DoTs.
    I don't think destruction needs a proc. There is already a lot of complexity in the spec regarding when you use your Embers and how you utilize Havoc/backdraft, so I don't see the need to make Destruction anything other than what it already is. Adding in RNG to the rotation is just that, RNG. Part of the reason I like Destruction is that while there is a bit of RNG inherent in ember generation, you're able to accurately plan ahead on when the best time to use your embers is, which when running Sac/Mastery builds is the most fun and most important thing you can do.

    The only part of Destruction's rotation that's not all that interesting is spamming Incinerates while building up embers. You could easily spice that up a bit by adding another rotational ability (Say, Soul Fire for example) that has a cooldown and is casted (somewhat like Mind Blast for spriests). That said, I don't think Destro needs it at all. The playstyle is extremely fun as it is, and while numbers could use some slight altering to bring destro up to Aff/Demo levels for single target, I don't think it needs any large changes to the playstyle.

  4. #4
    Bloodsail Admiral kushlol's Avatar
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    Just tossing out ideas i thought of in 20secs without much thought but here it goes:
    just flat out buff immolate dmg by a lot
    Give incinerate a debuff that either increases dmg of incinerate or maybe toss in an ignite style debuff from crits
    Maybe bring back shadowflame in some form for desruction( that was a really fun spell to use imo)
    possibly bring in fel flame into the rotation via procs
    buff dark soul for destro I think it's shit compared to the versions demo and affliction get.


    that's all I can think of right now lets hear some more ideas

    Made by dubbelbasse

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Brusalk View Post
    The only part of Destruction's rotation that's not all that interesting is spamming Incinerates while building up embers. ... That said, I don't think Destro needs it at all. The playstyle is extremely fun as it is, and while numbers could use some slight altering to bring destro up to Aff/Demo levels for single target, I don't think it needs any large changes to the playstyle.
    I think the Incinerate spam is just fine. It gives me space to check the situation and plan my next few actions. How many Embers am I at, how close to ready are my cooldowns, is there a boss event I'm about to need to react to? If I were busy playing whack-a-mole with procs it would be that much harder to stay aware and plan ahead. Destro gives you that opportunity, and rewards you for using it to line up multiple cooldowns and procs with a string of Chaos Bolts. It's a large part of what I find attractive about the spec.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Kirroth View Post
    I think the Incinerate spam is just fine. It gives me space to check the situation and plan my next few actions. How many Embers am I at, how close to ready are my cooldowns, is there a boss event I'm about to need to react to? If I were busy playing whack-a-mole with procs it would be that much harder to stay aware and plan ahead. Destro gives you that opportunity, and rewards you for using it to line up multiple cooldowns and procs with a string of Chaos Bolts. It's a large part of what I find attractive about the spec.
    Exactly, I agree with you. The only part of the spec that I'd change, if I was forced to decide on 1 change to make with no option to not do anything, would be switching out Incinerates a little bit more. Procs are a no-no. What I was suggesting as a forced change would be a spell like mind blast that has a higher DPCT than an un-backdrafted incinerate but has a CD. I don't think it needs it at all, but if we were forced to add something to the spec, that'd be what would fit in with the spec most imo.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    I agree with the last posters. I harassed Xelnath during beta for at least one more spell, but after playing it for three months I think the spec doesn't really need it in the end.
    Now if the devs came up with some sort of flamethrower I wouldn't spit on it either...

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Zumzumzum View Post
    I agree with the last posters. I harassed Xelnath during beta for at least one more spell, but after playing it for three months I think the spec doesn't really need it in the end.
    Now if the devs came up with some sort of flamethrower I wouldn't spit on it either...
    Your idea of the flame thrower made me realize that destro doesn't have any AoE abilities that can be used for AoE that don't require Embers. RoF doesn't really count because you can't use it more than once in an area. I don't think it's a problem, but I certainly wouldn't reject a flamethrower AoE that doesn't require embers :P

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 12:41 AM ----------

    Heck, recolor the old Shadowflame (or Breath of Gul'dan or whatever) animation to look firey and there you go :P

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Brusalk View Post
    Heck, recolor the old Shadowflame (or Breath of Gul'dan or whatever) animation to look firey and there you go :P
    Then we would have a green flamethrower after 5.2. I'm on board! Holy shat!

  10. #10
    The best thing about destro is that it is reliable.

    No procs. No randomness. No frustration when you get no nightfall proc for 40 sec. Nothing.

    I love it.

  11. #11
    Started the expansion of as Affliction, took Destro to go along with it for the Elegon fight. Been having a ton of fun with it ever since. Destro is fine, nice numbers, fun to play especially with multiple targets. No need to fix anything.

  12. #12
    If I were to change Destruction somehow I'd would just add a new filler. I already made this suggestion back when beta was up, but I'll share it again as imho (I could be wrong, though) it could work pretty good for Destruction:
    - Incinerate as the cheap and "weak" filler.
    - Disintegrate as the expensive and strong filler. It should cost a lot of mana so you can only chain 2 or 3 tops before oom. It would be the spell you cast right at the start of a fight or after chaining a few Chaos Bolts as your mana should be (nearly) full, or under Bloodlust or haste procs. I'd like it to be a channeled flamethrower-like (animation) dealing damage every 0.5 sec so it's not just a stronger version of Incinerate, but it could work as a regular casted spell too. Finally, I could be affected by Backdraft as well.
    So you play with mana management. This would add that preasure I see and feel Destruction lacks without Dark Soul. And it adds something else to push aside the Incinerate spam. Also, this idea scales well with gear, at a starting level gear, you can barely toss Disintegrate, but with high end you'll end casting it more often.

    As for the OP idea, I agree with what others have stated in this thread, we don't need procs nor more Backdraft or Conflagrate charges.
    Last edited by Sylar Hao; 2013-01-02 at 12:03 PM.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by kushlol View Post
    buff dark soul for destro I think it's shit compared to the versions demo and affliction get.
    Don't know if it's the typical way to do things or not, but I generally hoard my Burning Embers until I have within 1-2 Incinerates/Conflagrates from a fourth Ember, and then I start casting Chaos Bolt, with the possibility of Immolate ticking and proccing a Burning Ember to fill the last one up mid-Chaos Bolt cast. If I don't get a Burning Ember from Immolate, no big deal.

    I keep myself at ALMOST four Burning Embers so that whenever my cooldowns are available, I can recast Immolate (higher crit chance = more Burning Embers) and then spam 4x Chaos Bolts, followed by 1-2 Incins/Conflags and recasting Immolate before Dark Soul wears off. Even though the cooldown itself is RNG based, it's a pretty big baseline damage boost to those 4 Chaos Bolts, which is what I spend a majority of the time during Dark Soul casting.

    Is this wrong?

    Anyway, was just some thoughts. I've been removed from the Warlock community, so I didn't realize that people had become so comfortable with Destro after so much frustration during Beta/Start of the expansion. I've just recently started playing mine again, and to be perfectly honest, Conflag generating Burning Embers, somehow, someway, makes the rotation feel a lot more fluid and enjoyable.
    Quote Originally Posted by Novakhoro View Post
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  14. #14
    The only changes I would like to see for destruction would be:

    Chaosbolt only consumes 1/2 Stacks of Backdraft.
    Conflagrate charges recharge at the same time, not one after another.

    And, maybe for movement and PVP purposes:
    Casting Fel Flame reduces the remaining cooldown on both Conflagrate charges by 1 second per use.

  15. #15
    Stood in the Fire Bloodfire's Avatar
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    In my point of view, destro needs a little buff on single target fights, and yes, the idea about some kind of nuke when conflag is on cd is also worthy of attention.

  16. #16
    The only thing I want from Conflag is to have its CD reduced by Haste.

  17. #17
    I've always felt that destruction can't really do anything in the start of the fights, and only start doing damage after we get the 4 embers. I don't really like that. Then again I can't really come up with anything that could fix it other than getting a cooldown which pops up 2-4 embers instantly (like moonkins).

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by The Great Aku View Post
    Destruction really doesn't need to be redesigned at all, and its numbers are basically fine as they stand. One thing that people seem to be forgetting is that Destro scales linearly with two separate secondary stats, as well as Intellect.

    What this means in the long run is that Destruction is going to scale exceptionally well with gear - especially once critical strike chances are around 33% or more in a raid environment. With more embers, we'll be throwing out more Chaos bolts. More mastery will enhance the "oomph" behind those chaos bolts, and more Intellect will beef up all of the spells we cast in the first place.
    Affliction scales better than Destruction does - not only is this what scale factors represent, a quick comparison of T14H and T14N raid numbers off of SimCraft has a 27.6% DPS increase for Affliction as opposed to 25.1% for Destruction.

    The truth is, SimC's Destruction action priority is horrible, and doesn't reflect proper play of the spec at all.
    Every Warlock spec has this issue - I think that actually Destruction's APL should be the easiest to get correct.
    http://darkcontent.wordpress.com/ - blog (updated Oct. 8, 2013). Latest post: T16H Affliction Trinket Rankings in Combination, done in SimC 540-4.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by neubs986 View Post
    The only thing I want from Conflag is to have its CD reduced by Haste.
    Been thinking this should be done, would increase haste scaling and give a small dps boost.

  20. #20
    I've been messing around with using RoF on single target to generate embers when I have no backdrafted Incins up, Conf is on CD and I'm waiting on procs for Chaosbolt. I have no idea if its a DPS loss or gain yet (or rather no hard numbers) but it seems to really boost ember generation.
    If GoSac is going to be nerfed I really feel Destro should get a buff somewhere else. Immolate is an obvious place but maybe RoF could be buffed and it could enter our standard rotation.
    That being said I'm really happy with how Destro turned out as well. Thanks Xelnath.

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