Returning Destruction Warlock Advice/Thoughts

[Captain Marvel]

Heyas all -

I am returning to playing my warlock after a long hiatus. I last played him at the end of WotLK as destruction, and that spec always has a special place in my heart, so I wanted to return and level him as such.

Anyways, things have changed quite a bit. I have read up and watched a video or two, but I still feel like I am missing something vital. I mean, I do plenty of damage and such but I feel like I am fumbling a lot (I know this will change with time as it always does, but I just wanted to see what I could do to help myself).

First, something that is often left out in discussions: general leveling rotation/spells. What do you use when out slaughtering the unsuspecting inhabitants of Azeroth? I am at 83 right now for single target it is fairly simple imm/confl/incen till dead. Nothing exciting. Voidlord as pet. This seems to realtively successful, but I know when I reach 85 life will change as far as the difficulty goes, and I don't want to gimp myself with complacency.

Second, AOE. Fire and Brimstone seems to paralyze me with choices. Basically, what I do know is RoF, F&B Immo, and spam RoF. Thoughts? Suggestions? Obscenities?

Also, any other general advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[Netherspark]

There's not much point in casting Immolate on things that won't live very long, it's not needed for Conflagrate anymore. Chaos Bolt and Shadowburn are fantastic for killing quest mobs.

With AOE, if there are 5 or more enemies the best thing to do is keep F&B:Immolate up, Rain of Fire, then spam F&B:Conflagrate and F&B:Incinerate while refreshing Rain of Fire when it needs to be (in case you hadn't noticed you dont need to channel it anymore so you can continue with Fire & Brimstone at the same time). You can also get a few Havoc:Chaos Bolts off too.

Unfortunately when you get to max level you'll discover that Destruction is currently the weakest of the 3 specs in many situations. If you aren't planning to do serious (heroic) raids it won't be a problem though, it still does good damage.

[a little Kappa]

I play destruction in raids on every boss exept Elegon HC/Empress HC/Amber shaper HC, where affliction multidotting shines the most.

Destro is awesome if played right. Its burst is amazing, and havoc shines when used proper. Destro has a simple rotation, but its hard to master. Knowing when to chaos bolt, knowing when to pool embers, knowing when to abuse havoc, knowing when to fel flame.

This can't really be taught away as it is something you have to discover for yourself. However, I can give you some tips.

If you aren't gonna get more than 3 ticks of immolate, don't use it. Do not use chaos bolt unless you got procs up. Get an addon called ICDtracker to keep these in check. However, if you got over 3 embers closing in on the 4th, use a chaos bolt so you don't waste embers.

At under 20%, you're using shadowburn and not chaos bolt, however I prefer to use chaos bolt IF I got dark soul up as it will do so much more damage. Shadowburn non crit does less damage than a chaos bolt, but a shadowburn CRIT does way more than a normal chaos bolt. Take this scenario for example: Boss is at 20%, I got every CD up, 3 embers with the 4th coming up. I fire 1 chaos bolt, then shadowburn 2. I conflag once and get a 4th ember firing a 2nd chaos bolt.

Doing that, you get 2 massive chaos bolts with 2 shadowburns, if you're lucky they will crit.

You also don't want more than 3 backdraft stacks. Never use 2 conflags in a row in start of the pull, you want to precast chaos bolt with prepot as the boss is pulled so it lands at the same time as the tank charges in. You then immolate, conflag, 3 incinerate with dark soul. You then should have 1 ember with all the procs up. If you would use 2 conflags, you would need to use 3 more incinerates, meaning your procs might fall of, making you fire the 2nd chaos bolt with less procs. Meaning its a dps loss.

NEVER use 2 conflags in a row on a boss fight. You never know when the procs might come up and you want to make the most of it.

Abusing havoc:

Havoc is a fun spell and its my favorite spell as destro. It has so much potential on many fights, examples are on spirit kings HC, garalon, imperial vizier HC and wind lord.

Spirit kings HC: Qiang is on 20%, subetai is up. You got dark soul, havoc and 3 embers. Shit just got real. Havoc subetai, pop cds, 3 shadowburns on Qiang. Thats 700k-1.2 million damage per global cooldown times three.

Garalon: Havoc is ready, put it on the boss, walk into the leg circles, chaos bolt the leg (or shadowburn if you got more than 2 embers and the leg is under 20%)

Imperal vizier HC: Once the boss flies to another platform (80%). Havoc him QUICK, then chaos bolt the copy. You need lots of haste to pull this off as if an enemy gets too far away the spell will not copy. Meaning too far, meaning like 100% yards like he flies. You can hit him midair half way over to the next platform. I like to cheat and save 3 backdrafts for this.

Wind lord: Simple, havoc adds, go ham. On herioc modes however, I like to save 3 embers for when adds are going low, then havocing boss and 3 shadowburn on the adds before they die. I also keep rain of fire + F&B immolate up as often as I can. Granting me HUGE amounts of embers, often more than I can spend. During recklessness, 4 chaos bolts with dark soul will make you jizz in pants if you're a dps whore.

[Deleted]

I play destruction in raids on every boss exept Elegon HC/Empress HC/Amber shaper HC, where affliction multidotting shines the most.

Destro is awesome if played right. Its burst is amazing, and havoc shines when used proper. Destro has a simple rotation, but its hard to master. Knowing when to chaos bolt, knowing when to pool embers, knowing when to abuse havoc, knowing when to fel flame.

Wait, what? When?

[Netherspark]

Mudor, the guy's level 83 and asking for basic spells and levelling tips... not heroic raid strategies.

[kushlol]

Mudor, the guy's level 83 and asking for basic spells and levelling tips... not heroic raid strategies.

makes you wonder if he had that short story pre typed for such an occasion

[sundiemi]

um, think he's just returning and still leveling at the moment... right? Just thinking ahead...like no one else here does that? lol.

The fact the Mudor responded was actually very nice since not many Locks are playing Destro these days... I use destro (my alt at the moment) for soloing and anytime I have "single target" boss encounter because I do much better DPS than I do with affliction (yes, it could be I'm not as enthusiastic).

I haven't raided with my lock for a while because I wasn't sure if the dps was still "competitive"... But LFR ought to be a perfect chance to test out Mudor's advice...I challenge any of you affliction locks to "test the waters" of Destro on your "single target foes"... bet you'll be surprised ;-)

[Elutem]

I love destro, it's always my leveling/dailies spec, and I've been using it in 10man Normal modes quite a bit. I don't see much of a drop off from Aff except on Spiritbinder (aff just works for me in spirit realm). Unless you're going heroic progression, Destro is every bit as viable, and for me it feels more natural to play.

[Brusalk]

At under 20%, you're using shadowburn and not chaos bolt, however I prefer to use chaos bolt IF I got dark soul up as it will do so much more damage. Shadowburn non crit does less damage than a chaos bolt, but a shadowburn CRIT does way more than a normal chaos bolt. Take this scenario for example: Boss is at 20%, I got every CD up, 3 embers with the 4th coming up. I fire 1 chaos bolt, then shadowburn 2. I conflag once and get a 4th ember firing a 2nd chaos bolt.

Doing that, you get 2 massive chaos bolts with 2 shadowburns, if you're lucky they will crit.

No. Just... No. You don't ever want to use Chaos Bolt over Shadowburn in execute range. The damage that the abilities do are very similar yes, but Shadowburn is instant which means you have more time to generate additional embers with incinerate while you'd otherwise be casting Chaos Bolt.

Seriously, this is bad advice. In execute range you should aim to super-buff as many shadowburns as you can with Pot/Temp Procs. Casting Chaos Bolts not only means you're losing damage from not casting Shadowburn, but you're losing additional Shadowburn casts by wasting time casting Chaos Bolt when you could otherwise cast Conflags/Incinerates.

You also don't want more than 3 backdraft stacks. Never use 2 conflags in a row in start of the pull, you want to precast chaos bolt with prepot as the boss is pulled so it lands at the same time as the tank charges in. You then immolate, conflag, 3 incinerate with dark soul. You then should have 1 ember with all the procs up. If you would use 2 conflags, you would need to use 3 more incinerates, meaning your procs might fall of, making you fire the 2nd chaos bolt with less procs. Meaning its a dps loss.

NEVER use 2 conflags in a row on a boss fight. You never know when the procs might come up and you want to make the most of it.

Also no. You're spending your first ember with literally no procs or anything. If you spend the time to precast an immo, x2 Conflag, RoF, darksoul and then get down to 2 backdraft stacks, every single proc will still be up, and you can have anywhere from 2 to 3 almost fully buffed Chaos Bolts compared to just one. I'm not going to say that what I personally do is the most optimal rotation, but getting 2-3 fully buffed conflags off the start is certainly better than only 1 perhaps 2.

Imperal vizier HC: Once the boss flies to another platform (80%). Havoc him QUICK, then chaos bolt the copy. You need lots of haste to pull this off as if an enemy gets too far away the spell will not copy. Meaning too far, meaning like 100% yards like he flies. You can hit him midair half way over to the next platform. I like to cheat and save 3 backdrafts for this.

If you stand on the edge of the first platform you have no need to waste backdraft stacks to get the Chaos Bolt off, if you start casting it right as he's flying away.
On the second platform you can also do it just by standing near the 2nd platform. (One tip is to put your portal on the 3rd platform near the 2nd one, and then just port over to avoid running through the stuff. Doing this you can potentially get 2 bolts off if you dodge a few rings.

As for havoc tips, 1 shadowburn + >=1 Incin/Conflag is worth more than one havoced chaos bolt. On Garalon once he's under 20%, you can havoc a leg, stand in it and then cleave shadowburns for increased damage on the legs. You can also easily keep RoF on the legs/body throughout the fight.

---------- Post added 2013-01-22 at 12:54 PM ----------

I love destro, it's always my leveling/dailies spec, and I've been using it in 10man Normal modes quite a bit. I don't see much of a drop off from Aff except on Spiritbinder (aff just works for me in spirit realm). Unless you're going heroic progression, Destro is every bit as viable, and for me it feels more natural to play.

Destro is perfectly viable for heroic progression. I've been destro for all of our first kills except protectors (70% slow is needed) and will (where aff was miles ahead when we didn't have enough add damage to allow for a bit more wiggle room for shadowburn cleaving.

[Captain Marvel]

Thanks for the advice fellas. I see there is still a lot of good discussion going on about destruction. I have gotten over my first general anxieties about AoE'ing (a couple macros and easier to reach bound F&B seem to have done the trick). I suppose these things just take getting used (although it took me a while to figure out why my quickslot for the soul stone object wasn't working anymore ;-) , and I do miss lifetap).