Destruction's burst concern...

[Sylar Hao]

I barely have free time so I play as a casual, LFR and random bg's. I only play 2 chars, feral and destro, they've both got about the same ilvl (485 or so). The druid has a little better gear overall but the weapon is only 470 (months and months of LFR and weapons refuse to drop) and feral is all about the weapon, and the warlock has a little worse gear but way way better weapon. They're both fully enchanted and gemmed.

Here's the thing. I play them both pretty well I think, but my concern comes when blowing CD's to burst. Destruction's burst is supposed to be one of the strongest (and easiest) in game, but the slow cast of Chaos Bolts while Instability is up doesn't seem any strong to me. In fact, with such a crappy weapon, I still manage to deal about double the damage I can deal with warlock in the same amount of time of burst with my feral.

I understand that warlock CD are shorter than feral's (2 min vs 3min) so it's logical that feral's burst should be stronger, but not by such a big margin. So I've ended up thinking I'm doing something wrong during Instability. So I'm looking for some advice.

This is what I usually do: Pop DS + Synapse + trinkets + Grimoire: Imp, then I refresh Immolate and start casting the 1st CB. After casting it I cast RoF to try to get and extra Ember and so an extra CB. I keep casting CB's and weaving in between Conflagrates. I usually manage to land 5 CBs, 2 Conflagrates, 1 or 2 RoF and end refreshing again Immolate.

I think what I do is pretty neat, but the dps I do is quite disappointing. So... what am I doing wrong? Or it's just my low ilvl and it gets better as ilvl rises?

[Necrocakes]

You are losing dps when you use your backdraft charges for choas bolts, other than that you have the right idea when you are unloading your embers. Ideally you wana have your conflags on cooldown and your backdraft charges need to be used or under 2 charges by the time you reach 4 embers to pop cooldowns and unload your choas bolts. Also optimizing your stats is a big deal, destruction is kind of crit heavy right now with the priority being; int > hit cap (15%) > Crit > Haste > mastery. keep in mind too if you are not using grimoire of service off cooldown with ds you are also losing dps, grimoire of supremacy with the observer is much easier to manage and the damage difference isn't even noticeable. This is all asuming you are optimising for pve.

[Deleted]

you could try to get 6 backdraft stacks before popping DS
Conflagrate during DS to speed up CB´s is only useful if you struggle with embers
CB3sec cast /1,3 = 2,3 sec Casttime with backdraft + 1 GCD = 3,3 Sec
flat CB 3sec casttime
0,3 sec lost for 1-2 embers gained (more time lost with taking haste into consideration)

maybe start like this (popping DS:I with 35-40embers)
Conflagrate
Conflagrate
RoF
DS:I
Immolate
CB
CB
RoF
CB
CB
Conflagrate
CB
Immolate
CB (if enough embers)
DS:I Ends

if you do not have the T15 2pc it may be hard to get the embers for the 6. CB unless you hit multible targets with the RoF

with enough haste you could try to squeeze in another RoF but it is hard to get the 6. CB off then.

Good Luck, maybe try some different rotations on a dummy

[Alarinth]

Hi. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say something I am not 100% certain of, but not far from it.

While the burst of Destruction is strong, it's far from one of the strongest in the game. There are other classes which trump our burst by far, and these are mages, hunters, rogues, afflocks, demolocks, and surely a lot of other specs too. When I say burst now, I mean the initial burst on the pull, where everyone starts fresh with a minimal amount of resources. It's imo the only fair way to measure a universal burst DPS. What makes destruction strong however are the situations where you have 40 embers and cooldowns ready. Then you quite certainly will ravage the other classes in terms of bursty dps. :P

[Sylar Hao]

Thanks guys for the replies. I'll switch to GoSup as Necrocakes have suggested and I'll try to practice that combo Eierdotter has mentioned. Unfortunately I don't have that awesome T15 2pc bonus yet... Let's hope I get some luck this weekend in the LFR. I'm actually going for hit > mastery > crit > haste, seems like I was wrong in that aspect :S, time to some reforges.

I'll let you know if I improve my burst damage

Thanks again!

And yes, totally agree with Alarinth, a feral can blow up everything right at the beginning and deal gazillions of damage in those 15-30 secs, while Destruction has to first reach +35 emberbits, which requires some time.

[Kirroth]

Exactly. While both Destro and Demo can burst powerfully, it's important to remember that neither bursts well from a cold start. They need time to build resources, THEN pop cooldowns and go to town.

This is fine in LFR, when it just means your peak DPS starts slightly further into the fight, but as you've noticed it can be an issue in random BGs. Destro in BGs shines when you have friends to screen and peel for you, so that you have time to build up your Embers and then make two or three people explode. If you're not getting that in a pug it can be a very frustrating experience.

I've actually switched to Affliction for PvP, because all else aside it bursts very well from a cold start and can usually refill most of that burst on a kill. If you're smart about it you can chain from kill to kill all BG long.

[Deleted]

Thanks guys for the replies. I'll switch to GoSup as Necrocakes have suggested and I'll try to practice that combo Eierdotter has mentioned. Unfortunately I don't have that awesome T15 2pc bonus yet... Let's hope I get some luck this weekend in the LFR. I'm actually going for hit > mastery > crit > haste, seems like I was wrong in that aspect :S, time to some reforges.

I'll let you know if I improve my burst damage

Thanks again!

And yes, totally agree with Alarinth, a feral can blow up everything right at the beginning and deal gazillions of damage in those 15-30 secs, while Destruction has to first reach +35 emberbits, which requires some time.

enhancement shamans can also do some sick dps from a cold start, ive seen them peak at close to 500k dps during pull which is about twice as much as i can do from a "cold" start, ofc this is with their totem of fire elemental that does the majority of their dmg but it is still pretty insane.

[Nicola]

Doesn't synapse springs like place a 30 sec cooldown on your other on-use trinkets?...
As said above, don't use backdraft for chaos bolt and while Destro burst is strong, it ain't that strong. Several speces have far better burst at the price of really shitty sustained damage.

[Deleted]

Doesn't synapse springs like place a 30 sec cooldown on your other on-use trinkets?...
As said above, don't use backdraft for chaos bolt and while Destro burst is strong, it ain't that strong. Several speces have far better burst at the price of really shitty sustained damage.

Functions as a on use trinket, which means it give other on use trinket a cd equal to the duration of the buff it gives (10 sec).

[Kirroth]

When people talk about "Destro burst" in PvP, what they really mean is "I wasn't paying attention to the Warlock and went from 70% to Dead in three seconds when he popped cooldowns and unloaded Chaos Bolt -> Conflag x2 -> Shadowburn on me". It feels super bursty on the receiving end, but when you're trying to actually play it you find out just how much works it takes to build up to that and how little you have outside of those three seconds.

[Deleted]

for PvP, never cast a Chaos Bolt outside of Backdraft. for PvE, the following sequence always nets me a decent burst:

pre-pot
pre-cast immolate
doomguard
dark soul + any other trinkets/racials
RoF
Conflag x 2
Incinerate x 4
RoF
Chaos Bolt x 2
Immolate (last few seconds of Dark Soul)
and you might have embers for a 3rd CB here with some SP buffs still active.

I've hit a few 1mil+ non-gimmick Chaos Bolts during this opener and usually bursts between 200-240k, but other posters are right when they say we're not really a burst DPS class, not compared to Enhancement Shaman with Primal Elementalist for example, doing 500k when they BL at the pull. However, we do have a decent cleave and it's hard to catch up with a Destro lock if the fight has adds to RoF, Havoc and Shadowburn, plus unlike Ferals we have a strong execute too, so we peak higher at the end of the fight. a 4x ember Dark Soul/Skull Banner/Potion/Trinkets execute phase can net you nearly 5million damage in 4 GCDs if you get lucky, so it's not a big deal if we don't burst early.

edit - I should add, I'm running an Mastery heavy Sacrifice build if you're calling bullshit on those Shadowburn/Chaos Bolt numbers.

[Zinnin]

Destro's burst is strong when it was in short windows, say 3-6 seconds. In terms of damage windows that are small it is one of the highest controlled burst specs in the game. It however is not super strong in burst windows that are 10-30 seconds, specs like Demo or Druid DPS specs fill those roles more aptly. It is also really strong for zero-ramp up burst, in that if you have the embers you can just unleash it at will and don't have to worry about DoTing or other debuffs.

I also don't think that it was mean't to be, or should be, the strongest in the 'longer' windows of burst.