[5.4] Brusalk's Destruction Warlock guide

[Davidian]

So the single target rotation, would be to accomplish 3 embers ? Use Dark Soul + Trinkets + Racials, then spend the embers on chaos bolts, - and while DS and trinkets are on cooldown, should I generate 1 ember and spend it on a chaos bolt, or just generate embers and cast Chaos Bolst if I`m about to cap embers? Imsoconfused-

[Hatelocker]

The basic concept is to align as many chaos bolts with your biggest CDs. So, yes DS + Trinket + Racial is the biggest one but that is only up so often. You need to get a buff tracker to track your weapon proc, lightweave, skull banner and the rest of your trinkets. Keeping in mind DS and how long it is til that comes off CD (along with whatever other ICDs) depends on how many CBs you blow on each proc. If you don't have any of these short term buffs active you don't use CBs unless you are going to ember cap, at which time you use 1 CB and hope something procs soon. Just as an FYI - In general I find that most fights I never have to use CBs (on a purely single target fight) outside of any procs as different buffs proc often enough to always give me some window to pump out a few CBs.

[Davidian]

The basic concept is to align as many chaos bolts with your biggest CDs. So, yes DS + Trinket + Racial is the biggest one but that is only up so often. You need to get a buff tracker to track your weapon proc, lightweave, skull banner and the rest of your trinkets. Keeping in mind DS and how long it is til that comes off CD (along with whatever other ICDs) depends on how many CBs you blow on each proc. If you don't have any of these short term buffs active you don't use CBs unless you are going to ember cap, at which time you use 1 CB and hope something procs soon. Just as an FYI - In general I find that most fights I never have to use CBs (on a purely single target fight) outside of any procs as different buffs proc often enough to always give me some window to pump out a few CBs.

I was generally, building up to 3 and a half embers at the start of a fight, burn cds, cast 4 chaos bolts, and then (until cds came back) I was generating 1 ember and spending it on a chaos bolt, until I knew I could line up the next 3 and a half embers with my cds beein back up again.

[rezoacken]

So the single target rotation, would be to accomplish 3 embers ? Use Dark Soul + Trinkets + Racials, then spend the embers on chaos bolts, - and while DS and trinkets are on cooldown, should I generate 1 ember and spend it on a chaos bolt, or just generate embers and cast Chaos Bolst if I`m about to cap embers? Imsoconfused-

Usually you quickly know how much CB you can cast between DS uptimes while achieving 4 Ember when DS is up. I find this number quite constant, especially on single target so what I curently do is remember it and cast that number under procs in between DS.

For example:
-DS, I cast 5 CB during this and reach zero ember at the end of DS (do you guys manage to get 6 CB during DS (without haste buff) ?)
-I know I will have to cast 4CB before the next DS (or I would cap).
-I know when a proc is coming
-I wait (if possible) for the proc to come and as soon as it comes I dump as much ember (for a total up to 4) during that proc as I can. If I cannot wait for a proc (or I would cap) I just cast one to get more time before the proc.

Question of my own:
What is your rotation during DS (not the first one) to squeeze as much CB as you can ?

[Davidian]

Usually you quickly know how much CB you can cast between DS uptimes while achieving 4 Ember when DS is up. I find this number quite constant, especially on single target so what I curently do is remember it and cast that number under procs in between DS.

For example:
-DS, I cast 5 CB during this and reach zero ember at the end of DS (do you guys manage to get 6 CB during DS (without haste buff) ?)
-I know I will have to cast 4CB before the next DS (or I would cap).
-I know when a proc is coming
-I wait (if possible) for the proc to come and as soon as it comes I dump as much ember (for a total up to 4) during that proc as I can. If I cannot wait for a proc (or I would cap) I just cast one to get more time before the proc.

Question of my own:
What is your rotation during DS (not the first one) to squeeze as much CB as you can ?

On every DS I cast 4 CB while immolate is up on the target then conflagrate, incinerate and another CB-

When I´m waiting to DS to come off CD, I generate 1 ember, and spend it on a CB, constantly, until I know the amount of seconds I have left for DS to come up again, and start generating embers to have 3 and a half ready to use CDs and spam CB

[Deleted]

I ain't got much to say, just this: Brusalk, thank you for being so fucking awesome.

[Davidian]

Using the Fel Imp, I have to reforge Haste - Crit - Mastery or Haste - Mastery - Crit ?

[Deleted]

how many targets are you simming with to get mastery as your main stat?

Single Target patchwork fight.

I got different results now after regemming pure int. Now the values are crit=~ haste > mastery and seems to be going that way with higher ilvl gear sims.

[Deleted]

Can I just ask, why is it that Crit is ranked so highly according to the sims?

Even on my shit geared lock, at ~503 ilvl, crit is ahead of haste and mastery on both single target and 2 target fights (On single target fights it's crit > haste >>> mastery, whereas on 2 target fights it's crit > haste ~ mastery (with haste edging slightly ahead)).

Crit increases CB dmg, and increases ember generation from spells like Incin/Conflag/Immo etc, but isnt more crit rating required to increase crit chance by 1% compared to haste/mastery?

What is the relationship between crit dmg and CB dmg? Does 15% crit = 15% more dmg on CB? Assuming that's the case, even if you reforge heavily into crit CB's dmg will be increased by ~5% or so (for me). Now assuming SimCraft ranks crit so highly not only because of the dmg increase to CB, but also due to faster ember generation from Immo/Incin/Conflag crits, I wonder which would generate embers faster - Crit vs Haste. (Like 5% crit vs 20% haste for e.g.).

Input on this would be appreciated!

[Deleted]

I am currently playing haste mastery crit with supremecy + not sure about it im a little confuzzled as you would say

[Woz]

Me likey the new headers. Props to Kink!

[Myzou]

I grouped with a warlock today in LFR.

He would drop Rain of Fire on single target all of the time. He said it was an amazing Embers generator. I thought he was joking.

Then I looked at the recount for Elegon. He had ~50 incinerates cast the entire time. He had 151 Chaos Bolts cast. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how he built up 151 Embers in the time it took to down LFR Elegon where we even got him to 6 stacks of the debuff.



^ His damaging skills. I know it's not the best, but I didn't think ahead to snag more info. :S I was hoping someone might know what the hell I'm talking about though. To note: It happened on the other bosses as well.

Also: I still cannot for the life of me get Supremacy to do more than Sacrifice. I've tried Mastery builds, haste builds, and crit builds. Every time, Sacrifice pulls ahead by 1-10k dps. :S

[Kael]

Then I looked at the recount for Elegon. He had ~50 incinerates cast the entire time. He had 151 Chaos Bolts cast. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how he built up 151 Embers in the time it took to down LFR Elegon where we even got him to 6 stacks of the debuff.

^ His damaging skills. I know it's not the best, but I didn't think ahead to snag more info. :S I was hoping someone might know what the hell I'm talking about though. To note: It happened on the other bosses as well.

Since you're using Skada (I believe? Looks like it), scroll over that CB. You should see a minimum hit of <100k for the dot applied by GoSac - no CB hits THAT lightly, and 151 CB x 100k (really silly low) would still be 15.1M damage - more likely, that's ~30 CB (30 embers spent on CB - maybe more? Not sure how many ticks are in the sac debuff), which is a lot more manageable than 151. I'm terrible at destruction, though, so I can't tell you how to get more damage out of destro.

Edit: as for why sup is under Sac for you, make sure you're using the pet the right way (e.g. not neglecting an important command demon ability or trying to make a melee demon run 60y+ constantly to reach its target). If you're having issues past that, you'll probably need logs. I should really sleep when I can't tell someone's asking about pets and not destruction -.- back to bed for me.

[Medieve]

I'm not sure it's that nobody wanted to address it, just that it's a difficult question that requires a lot of thinking and testing. (Of which I am in short supply of right now with finals next week, and starting an internship at the beginning of April.) I'm pretty much the only one that either does theorycrafting about destro, or at least the only person that does AND shares his results.

I can't be of much use to anyone in terms of complicated theorycrafting until next week.


However, my gut feeling is that if you get to the point you have sub 1sec Incinerates in any circumstance, you should reforge some of that haste to crit.

I've got some work in, probably just confirmation of what we already know. Dropping your spell casts under 1 second introduces a wait period into your rotation, effectively stopped any additional DPS gain from haste. It's literally a wall where only Immo gains small dps far down the line, so really not worth it. This wall crops up any time you pass that threshold, so if you have a trinket, backdraft, lust, or any combination of the three that'll push you past the wall, you're losing potential DPS by hitting it. Crit seems to become insanely good as you approach the wall in single target, where mastery becomes insanely good for AoE, meaning that as our haste gets better down the road, there will most likely be a hard cap that we'll want to reach as well as reforges based on type of fight if we want to optimize. Probably not what people wanted to hear.

I haven't done single target with RoF, but I don't see it changing much. I'm still playing around with trinkets, Volatile Talisman is asking some interesting questions with its short duration, but I hope this helps get you started, at least. Not being able to cast effectively caps where haste is useful, and bloodlust capping for its duration is a loss. I'm trying to pin down exactly where that balance tips. My theory right now is at a certain % of the fight, dipping past the wall is a loss, but I'm not sure where that % lies. I'm not sure if backdrafted Incins are that terrible during lust, but it looks like we want to avoid it. Volatile talisman is probably going to take me most of the day to really get a handle on. RPPM sucks, and it's a lot of freaken haste at random intervals.

Good luck on your finals! Wish mine were done so soon >.<.

[Micke]

Volatile is not rppm

[Medieve]

Volatile is not rppm

Missed that, should make things much easier.

[Deleted]

When using GoSup, with the observer, should I bound tongue lash to every spell I do, or just let him cast automatically? I ask this, and of course I might be wrong, 'cause the pet doesn't seem to maximize the amount of tongue lashes he could be doing.

[Aruotnof]

Brusalk,

I don´t know if my point of view about stats is correct, but like a lot of people here, my simulations and real tests about this is the same with GoSup.

Single target: Haste==Crit>Mastery
AoE: Mastery>Crit>Haste

But the DPS difference between crit and mastery in single target, is very small with my gear! However, in AoE mastery is much better than crit... So, for who don´t want to reforge in each fight, "maybe" is better go with mastery>Crit.

With this, I lose a small dps in single target (+/- 1%), but when the fight requires AoE or Cleave or GoSac, my reforges will go fine!

Remember... It´s only my opinion!

Thanks!

[rezoacken]

How much CB do you guys squeze into DS and what is your order to get as much as possible ? Can you manage to do sometimes 6 ? (without bloodlust/talisman).

[aevitas]

How much CB do you guys squeze into DS and what is your order to get as much as possible ? Can you manage to do sometimes 6 ? (without bloodlust/talisman).

6 is very do-able.

Pop DS as soon as you have about 3.8 embers, cast RoF / CB - conflag - CB - CB - RoF - CB - -conflag - CB - CB

I can almost always fit in 6 CB's, I'm just not sure if it's a dps gain to spent conflags on CB's during DS.