[5.4] Brusalk's Destruction Warlock guide

[Alaira]

Pretty sure the nerf to imps + the nerf to UVLS will take it out of contention vs SoO trinkets... Immolate is what 10-12% of damage done so a 30% buff is about a 3% gain give or take. 5% off haunt's damage plus this immolate change probably will not be enough to make it mainstream.

Probably not mainstream, but it will at least allow Destro to not suck a bit more. For fights where there's a bit of sustained AoE, this should put Destro up there with Affliction and Demo.

[OokingDooker]

So if we were to roll affliction main, we can't possibly optimize our gear for destro. We'd need to swap meta gem first of all then change geming and reforge into mastery >= crit >> haste, whereas mastery and haste are best stats for affliction + the meta gem.

[pokeadott]

It's not ideal, but this change also ups the value of haste for destro slightly - so that helps a bit with gear sharing.

[OokingDooker]

So is it that big of a deal that I dont swap the meta gems? How much of a dps loss is it? I main affliction, but still want to play destro on certain fights.

[Brusalk]

So is it that big of a deal that I dont swap the meta gems? How much of a dps loss is it? I main affliction, but still want to play destro on certain fights.

It's a few k. If you only have one helm you'd lose less for Destro by having the leg meta, than you'd lose for Aff by not having the leg meta.

[OokingDooker]

It's a few k. If you only have one helm you'd lose less for Destro by having the leg meta, than you'd lose for Aff by not having the leg meta.

good to hear. So what about reforge priorties? Have mastery ready, and reforge between haste and crit between affliction and destro?

So overall, destro can only compete with affliction on burst AoE fights right? anything else, you'd go affliction?

[Demensia]

After spending three hours tonight on Spoils of Pandaria, we finally downed it! Woot!!

I did the testing on stat priorities earlier (see above in thread around page 109) and had originally settled on Mastery >= Crit >> Haste.

It was very apparent once in the raid that it wasn't working AT ALL! Having haste as the last priority killed my casting speed to the point of being unplayable.

Mid-raid, I want back and reforged Mastery >> Haste > Crit, and I saw a huge jump in both DPS and damage, and it felt right with my play style.

You can theorycraft and sim all day long, but in real-world progression raiding, I will stick with this build as it proved to win in battle.

I did keep the gemming (as I had no time to change these out), so I'm still heavy mastery and a decent amount of crit, but haste takes precedence.

I'm at about 100% mastery, 20% haste and 18% crit and it's working for me.

Good luck guys! Ciao!

[Arrogant Bastard]

So overall, destro can only compete with affliction on burst AoE fights right? anything else, you'd go affliction?

Yes.

Affliction will be superior single-target and multi-target. Destruction will shine during AoE and when you can Havoc/SB snipe all the time.

[Deleted]

was anyone figured out if the destro 4p was got an internal cooldown? Just got 3 pieces now and wondering how good it´s going to be

[Delequoi]

Yes it's got an ICD, not entirely sure how to track it yet though

Also wondering if it'd be worth casting a chaos bolt every time you got the 4p bonus up, even without any other buffs

[Deleted]

Yes it's got an ICD, not entirely sure how to track it yet though

Do you know the duration of this ICD?

[Deleted]

I might be getting ahead of myself since i dont have access to sims right now but I recall immolate being very high dpct. Will this buff make it more valuable to game immolate instead of CB on the 10 stack of our precious trinkets? Lets start it off easy by saying full use of pandemic.

[Entarium]

Hi, I'm in a raiding guild and we're progressing through SoO, despite all the changes at the beginning of the patch, and all of that before, I've stuck with destro, turns out, it's now in a pretty good spot, which is sweet because I've always hated aff/demo playstyle.

Anyway, down to the questions.

I recently got the shoulders/gloves noted in my armory (tier gloves, flex shoulders)

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ztharot/simple

and replaced them from normal mode last tier, had two piece. I was wondering if the stat gain (shit tons of mastery, int, stam) is worth it over losing 2 piece. It would be noteworthy that the shoulders were double upgraded, and the gloves had no upgrade.

Is it worth it If i double upgrade the tier gloves i got? Or should i revert back to 2 piece.

Also, going to get my meta gem this week. been reading that the burning primal is better than the legendary meta for destro

True?

Thanks guys, long time lurker, barely any posts, but i love the lock forum.

edit: last tier, of course

Moved your post to the Destruction sticky. Next time use this thread if your question is strictly Destruction-related. :-)

- Alarinth

[ZaneBusby]

Do you know the duration of this ICD?

10 seconds.

[Werst]

Immolate had a similar DPET to chaosbolt before the 30% buff. Its probably a solid bit of logic to use a chaosbolt during the 4xT16 proc if you are about to cap on embers (say on a dry spell of trinket procs or spend worthy events) since that's a short enough cycle to be able to sync with. Thus if you aren't in an ember dump mode the best things to cast w' the 4xT16 are either immolate if its in the refresh window or a chaosbolt if you are capping embers.

[Caolela]

Yu'lon's Bite seems to be truly awful for Destro. It does give stronger Bolt hits but sustained DMG and AoE is worse. I went back to the 510 Wush's (with Amp trink) for now until something better drops. Let the Fire Mages have YB. :P

Stat wise I was doing M > C > H, but after a Neck upgrade I went to M > H > C, staying gemmed heavy for Mast. Seems counter-intuitive to much of what I've been reading lately, but it's working well in real fights. Perhaps there's a synergy between Mast & Haste that gets broken when Crit gets pushed too high above Haste. (?)

[xuros]

After spending three hours tonight on Spoils of Pandaria, we finally downed it! Woot!!

I did the testing on stat priorities earlier (see above in thread around page 109) and had originally settled on Mastery >= Crit >> Haste.

It was very apparent once in the raid that it wasn't working AT ALL! Having haste as the last priority killed my casting speed to the point of being unplayable.

Mid-raid, I want back and reforged Mastery >> Haste > Crit, and I saw a huge jump in both DPS and damage, and it felt right with my play style.

You can theorycraft and sim all day long, but in real-world progression raiding, I will stick with this build as it proved to win in battle.

I did keep the gemming (as I had no time to change these out), so I'm still heavy mastery and a decent amount of crit, but haste takes precedence.

I'm at about 100% mastery, 20% haste and 18% crit and it's working for me.

Good luck guys! Ciao!

Those your buffed or unbuffed stats?

[Brusalk]

After spending three hours tonight on Spoils of Pandaria, we finally downed it! Woot!!

I did the testing on stat priorities earlier (see above in thread around page 109) and had originally settled on Mastery >= Crit >> Haste.

It was very apparent once in the raid that it wasn't working AT ALL! Having haste as the last priority killed my casting speed to the point of being unplayable.

Mid-raid, I want back and reforged Mastery >> Haste > Crit, and I saw a huge jump in both DPS and damage, and it felt right with my play style.

You can theorycraft and sim all day long, but in real-world progression raiding, I will stick with this build as it proved to win in battle.

I did keep the gemming (as I had no time to change these out), so I'm still heavy mastery and a decent amount of crit, but haste takes precedence.

I'm at about 100% mastery, 20% haste and 18% crit and it's working for me.

Good luck guys! Ciao!

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

How often were you AoE'ing versus Chaos Bolting? What were you using Backdraft stacks on? What were you using Havoc charges on? How was your guild pulling the boxes? What side did you hero on and when?

All of these factors and more can drastically influence your stats for a given fight.


I've personally tried Mastery >> Haste > Crit and with proper gaming of Shadowburn and AoE Cleave I've gotten tons better results with Mastery >= Crit >> Haste than the other strategy.

[Akakishin]

Hi, I'm in a raiding guild and we're progressing through SoO, despite all the changes at the beginning of the patch, and all of that before, I've stuck with destro, turns out, it's now in a pretty good spot, which is sweet because I've always hated aff/demo playstyle.

Anyway, down to the questions.

I recently got the shoulders/gloves noted in my armory (tier gloves, flex shoulders)

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ztharot/simple

and replaced them from normal mode last tier, had two piece. I was wondering if the stat gain (shit tons of mastery, int, stam) is worth it over losing 2 piece. It would be noteworthy that the shoulders were double upgraded, and the gloves had no upgrade.

Is it worth it If i double upgrade the tier gloves i got? Or should i revert back to 2 piece.

Also, going to get my meta gem this week. been reading that the burning primal is better than the legendary meta for destro

True?

Thanks guys, long time lurker, barely any posts, but i love the lock forum.

edit: last tier, of course

that much of mastery isn't something you avoid for all 3 specs.

about meta gem true. it was already worthless for destru. the only reason you could want it before 5.4 was for RoF. now its nothing but loss of 3% priceless crit.

[theshiningnova]

Can someone please quantify some of the statements?

"You're getting Haste as being good because it's using RoF which is what gives Haste value"
Why? How does haste benefit RoF any more than other spells? On single target, RoF still does more DPCT than incinerate when immolate is on, does comparable ember gen so if you have plenty of mana in reserve, why not?

Ppl also say haste drops off in value the more targets there are. Why?