[5.4] Brusalk's Destruction Warlock guide

[Gorthan]

Are you using the iron star to finish off the adds? Just need to get them down to half hp and have them knocked back into its path.

Yes we did it. Maybe we are just not good enough.

[Deleted]

Yes we did it. Maybe we are just not good enough.

Well we have a ret pala yolo storming them and an ele with the cleave trinket so they kinda melt for us. I just FnB immolate and RoF them for embers.

[TheBGreene]

Just wanted to let you all know that I have some time this afternoon and I'm going to be doing some hardcore theorycrafting to figure everything out.

Looking very forward to this. Hope we get to see it before raid tonight

[Deleted]

At what point does burning primal diamond become better than LMG, compared to ilvl / mastery and/or crit rating?

Currently trialing in a guild where verdisha from Paragon is guild master in (eXample - ravencrest) and he tells me LMG is better than Burning Primal for destro, so needless to say im a bit confused.

Hope someone can clear this up for me.

[TheBGreene]

At what point does burning primal diamond become better than LMG, compared to ilvl / mastery and/or crit rating?

Currently trialing in a guild where verdisha from Paragon is guild master in (eXample - ravencrest) and he tells me LMG is better than Burning Primal for destro, so needless to say im a bit confused.

Hope someone can clear this up for me.

IIRC, the burning primal is better by a small margin. Some still stick to the LMG if you are swapping between Aff and Destro because aff is awful without it.

[Edit] Front page of this thread:

"•Burning Primal is now better (slightly) than Sinister Primal" [Edit]

[theshiningnova]

As an update, I decided to put in the money necessary to switch all of my stats and try a mastery/crit build and then sim to get my stat weights that aren't thrown off by having too much haste, and they are still weighing haste higher than anything else. This sim was done with only 2334 haste (lowest I could get).



As you can see it is still valuing haste higher than any other stat. Would love to find out why this is happening. As of this post, is exactly the gear gems and reforges that I had when I did the sim.

Having fixed amount of stat points you can spend on Haste, Crit and Mastery. You'll find that the more you spend on 1 stat(mastery for example, the more the other stats(e.g. haste) are worth. Your simc results illustrate that perfectly.

Consider a simplified model where mastery doesn't exist, 100haste rating = 1% haste and 100 crit rating = 1% crit. Your base damage multiply (1+ haste%) and (1+ crit%) gives you the final damage.

Now consider the following scenarios where you have 1000 total stat points, you can reforge all 1000 points of them and you:
1. reforge 800 to haste.
base * (1+8%) * (1+2%) = base * 1.1016

2. reforge 800 to crit:
base * (1+2%) * (1+8%) = base * 1.1016

3. reforge so that you have the same amount of haste and crit.
base * (1+5%) * (1+5%) = base * 1.1025

4. reforge everything to 1 stat
base * (1+10%) * (1+0) = base * 1.1

Of course, in the real world, 1% of haste is 425 haste rating and 1% of Crit is 600 crit rating. There are also some other mechanics involved that change how valuable each stat is to your class. However, it doesn't change the fact that the more you reforge into 1 stat, the more valuable the other stats will become *relatively*. You will have to balance it at some point. That is why your simc profile with everything reforged into crit and mastery will show haste becoming increasingly valuable. 3.83 or 3.89 vs 4.12.

Now that SimC is a widely used and trusted by many players. It is however no where near infallible. Many factors could lead to inaccurate results. There is also a possibility that haste is indeed more valuable than the other 2 stats with your current gear set.

[Aethilus]

(snip).

I considered the possibility of that situation, but it also seems (varying from stat to stat) that having too much haste (simming destro in my previous aff gear/gems/reforges), made haste weigh even higher. This was documented in my previous post. It is also worth noting that while I only took screenshots of the proposed stat weights, I also simmed stat scaling and reforge plots. Furthermore, the sim in the pure mastery/crit build came out 3k dps shy of the destro sim with aff gems/reforges. My main use of simcraft is to get base stat weights, and I play with things from that point. I'm well aware it isn't infallible.

It is probably worth note that I take skull banner out when I sim as well, due to raiding 10 man and not having any warriors in our composition. This lowers my personal value out of crit and the sim dps that others might get for my character, but gives me a more accurate presentation.

[thegaultman]

snip

I understand what you are saying, but my results do not agree.

552 ilvl with 4 pc.

haste(9778)>mastery>haste>crit (right at 10k haste)



crit=mastery>>haste (around 5k haste)



The only think I can think of is how high my dpet is for immolate:

[theshiningnova]

but it also seems (varying from stat to stat) that having too much haste (simming destro in my previous aff gear/gems/reforges), made haste weigh even higher.

I was actually trying to say the exact opposite is true. The more haste you have, the less valuable(weight less) it is compared to investing that haste into mastery or crit.

[thegaultman]

I was actually trying to say the exact opposite is true. The more haste you have, the less valuable(weight less) it is compared to investing that haste into mastery or crit.

Again, my results show the exact opposite.

[Alaira]

Again, my results show the exact opposite.

Logically, that doesn't make any sense unless SimC is pushing you toward a nearby haste breakpoint deemed worthwhile. Diminishing returns considered, haste would not perpetually gain weight by stacking more haste. This isn't Wrath-era Armor Penetration. Haste is only useful up to GCD cap.

The only caveats for Destruction are Immolate and Rain of Fire. Seeing as how you don't have RoF on your results, Immolate breakpoint is the only thing I can think of that would give you such a result.

Granted, I'm not huge into theorycrafting. I may be missing something. However, conventional wisdom is arguing against your point. Strange, indeed.

[theshiningnova]

Logically, that doesn't make any sense unless SimC is pushing you toward a nearby haste breakpoint deemed worthwhile. Diminishing returns considered, haste would not perpetually gain weight by stacking more haste. This isn't Wrath-era Armor Penetration. Haste is only useful up to GCD cap.

The only caveats for Destruction are Immolate and Rain of Fire. Seeing as how you don't have RoF on your results, Immolate breakpoint is the only thing I can think of that would give you such a result.

Granted, I'm not huge into theorycrafting. I may be missing something. However, conventional wisdom is arguing against your point. Strange, indeed.

I think you are right about the next break point. The next break point is at 10437 or something like that for a human.

[Waroverlord]

I think you are right about the next break point. The next break point is at 10437 or something like that for a human.

If your haste is around 4-5k at its lowest, bindings is around 3200 haste and simc might be pushing you to the 10128 breakpoint and then the 18200 as you add more.

[thegaultman]

Before I left work I messed around with a few different haste values. Haste was still ahead at the 10437 break point, but, interestingly, somewhere around 13500 haste starting dropping and all three were even. By 14000 it was behind mastery and crit and my haste values were still dropping. Is there some sort of break point that I am unaware of around 13500?

I am using reg wushoolay's and flex bindings.

[Waroverlord]

Before I left work I messed around with a few different haste values. Haste was still ahead at the 10437 break point, but, interestingly, somewhere around 13500 haste starting dropping and all three were even. By 14000 it was behind mastery and crit and my haste values were still dropping. Is there some sort of break point that I am unaware of around 13500?

I am using reg wushoolay's and flex bindings.

14000 base + about 3200 from bindings = 18200 breakpoint and the 16675 with LMG. Just fast napkin math.

* Perhaps tinker on gloves is procing haste during other proc times

[Aethilus]

14000 base + about 3200 from bindings = 18200 breakpoint and the 16675 with LMG. Just fast napkin math.

* Perhaps tinker on gloves is procing haste during other proc times

Where are you getting 3200 haste from bindings? even heroic warforged only does 8% increase, and 8% of 14000 haste would only be 1120.

- - - Updated - - -

I was actually trying to say the exact opposite is true. The more haste you have, the less valuable(weight less) it is compared to investing that haste into mastery or crit.

I know what you were trying to say, if you look at my first post in this thread I screenshotted several stat weights of sims where I was simming for destro in aff reforge/gems, which means I had over 9778 haste. When I dropped all of that haste and simmed again, haste was still high. I'm saying it was high in both circumstances.

[traumabrew]

Here is what I am getting from SimC. It puts mastery at the bottom. This is weird. Has anyone tried a high haste build in 5.4? If so, what was your results?


Scale Factors for Skyaan Damage Per Second
Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery
Scale Factors 0.00 0.00 0.00 3.83 4.54 3.49
Normalized 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Scale Deltas 1000 1000 -1000 1000 1000 1000
Error 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.18 0.18
Gear Ranking

[Darkulous]

Here is what I am getting from SimC. It puts mastery at the bottom. This is weird. Has anyone tried a high haste build in 5.4? If so, what was your results?


Scale Factors for Skyaan Damage Per Second
Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery
Scale Factors 0.00 0.00 0.00 3.83 4.54 3.49
Normalized 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Scale Deltas 1000 1000 -1000 1000 1000 1000
Error 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.18 0.18
Gear Ranking

I'm not a simcrafter but something happened with my destro this patch. The Mastery build felt like it was hurting my dps all of a sudden. I've recently tried a Haste>Mastery>Crit build with Sac talented. My dps went up and my rotation definitely feels a lot smoother. My ilvl is only 525 so I'm curious what others will experience with this build.

[BatteredSausage]

All this sim stuff is beyond me, ive come to the conclusion by reading this thread that everyone has diff ideas at whats best for destruction...including myself. Does anyone know whats best or not i wonder.
Im At that point now where i have just about lost interest with destro..warlocks tbh, too much bullshit everytime a patch hits.

[Count Zero]

All this sim stuff is beyond me, ive come to the conclusion by reading this thread that everyone has diff ideas at whats best for destruction...including myself. Does anyone know whats best or not i wonder.
Im At that point now where i have just about lost interest with destro..warlocks tbh, too much bullshit everytime a patch hits.

People tend to blow things out of perspective, and most folks don't seem to realize the variance the theorycrafters are talking about.

It just seems much less niche than it actually is, because there's very little point theorycrafting on anything but full BIS, because below that you're having to take so many different gear combos into consideration. But even at the full BIS level, we're talking maybe a few thousand dps difference between "optimal" reforging and proper talent choices, and suboptimal reforging/talents.

In real terms, most of the differences fall within the realm of rng. You're simply never going to have circumstances you can replicate during actual raids. No one's latency will be exactly the same, no one's procs will be exactly the same, no one's reaction time will be exactly the same, etc, etc, etc ... and even if you could guarantee all those variables, how many times do you even kill a given boss in a given tier ? Maybe 30 times if you start early and stay late ?

Of course folks who know what they're doing and are good at math and all that will be able to eke out more than most, but, yeah ... you see different perspectives because nearly every possible build is viable and several have strong niches. I'd say just give it a couple weeks after a given patch and you'll see the conversation distill down to a couple/few builds that work for the various situations you'll find in a given tier (I think we might be another week of gearing and mathing before the dust settles on this tier)

Unless by too much bullshit you mean from the developers radically changing Warlocks so often through MoP. Yeah ... hope that roller coaster is over with MoP, but ... guess we'll see.