Destruction 5.4: Solution to Kil'jaeden's Cunning and RoF Ember Generation Nerf

[Deleted]

Bah, I told myself never leave Destro spec but no changes to Chaos Bolt cast time this close to patch actually making me wanting to respec to Demo/Affli even how much I dislike Affli. Running around creating chaos with green Rain of Fire, casting Green Incinerates of "-I will melt your face with this awesome looking spell", crazy green Fire and Brimstone Conflagrates on AoE pack seeing them all burn. Just writing this makes me abit sad that Im thinking about leaving Destro. With Green Fire its the single most awesome looking spec ingame ever and makes everyone know in raid and PvP that a very angry Lock is in tha house!
My signature is what I feel like when playing Destro...

[Deleted]

Bah, I told myself never leave Destro spec but no changes to Chaos Bolt cast time this close to patch actually making me wanting to respec to Demo/Affli even how much I dislike Affli. Running around creating chaos with green Rain of Fire, casting Green Incinerates of "-I will melt your face with this awesome looking spell", crazy green Fire and Brimstone Conflagrates on AoE pack seeing them all burn. Just writing this makes me abit sad that Im thinking about leaving Destro. With Green Fire its the single most awesome looking spec ingame ever and makes everyone know in raid and PvP that a very angry Lock is in tha house!
My signature is what I feel like when playing Destro...

Youre forgetting the most important thing mate!
You do these things while burning with fiery doom, YOURSELF.

Firelords unite!

[Deleted]

RoF for single-target Ember generation was never intended...so I wouldn't be expecting some magical thing where they give us something to make up for how we were using something unintendedly.

If it was never intended why did it even pass the beta?
Why did Blizzard test so little - while continuously bashing non-Blizzard simulation tools and always telling us they have the numbers & we don't- that RoF came the way it was?

Fact is if the present PTR is any indication you can forget destro for 5.4.

[dissidence]

GC has since started that he wants chaos bolt to feel special and not something to be spammed. it is now an intentional change and the only thing we will see changed will be the damage of the spells.

It's certainly going to feel special, as destro stands you’re not going to see it again in any raid environment, unless you can't afford the reforging bill to go to another spec. On the upside, affliction is more than viable as it stands, demo's also likely to be less rng around UVLS, so less hopping on one leg while trying to pat your head and rub your tummy while whistling/preying the blizzard pledge of allegiance in the vain hope of getting good procs from the truly awesome design that is RRPM.

N.B. You can't buff ember consumers like chaos bolt due to concerns the devs have around pvp, so that will not happen in 5.4 as some people have considered as a solution.

[Grizelda]

N.B. You can't buff ember consumers like chaos bolt due to concerns the devs have around pvp, so that will not happen in 5.4 as some people have considered as a solution.

Why not? Chaosbolt is nerfed against players anyway. 25% I think.

[Deleted]

N.B. You can't buff ember consumers like chaos bolt due to concerns the devs have around pvp, so that will not happen in 5.4 as some people have considered as a solution.

Why not? Chaosbolt is nerfed against players anyway. 25% I think.

If they buffed Chaos bolt for PvE they would just have to increase the PvP reduction, there is no issue there (except their apparent lack of motivation to do it ).

[Hatelocker]

I'm still personally hope for some kind of buff to destruction as I quite like the spec but am starting to lose hope. There have been soo many suggestions, and with the separate reduction for CB in pvp I just can't see how it would be that hard to give the spec some love. I can see where they don't want to it being top in single target because then it would be insane on SB/Havoc specs but as it stands there seems to be about zero reason to take the spec at all come 5.4. Even if it didn't seem horrible in some ptr testing its the spec that scales the worst with gear and all of those tests were 20 to 30 ilvl than lower than what people are going to be at come live. So, the gap between aff/demo and destruction is only going to be worse than what testing showed.

I would love to see whatever blizz has that shows destruction is in decent shape. It simply boggles my mind its possible the spec may be left as is 5.4.

[lunchbox2042]

Maybe there's just some hidden patch notes we can't see yet like with the Chaos bolt nerf in pvp last patch.

[Deleted]

If they buffed Chaos bolt for PvE they would just have to increase the PvP reduction, there is no issue there (except their apparent lack of motivation to do it ).

why increase the pvp reduction? if you let a lock cast it you diserve the damage, it's not even that bad.. starsurge (instant), obliterate (instant),etc all do more than chaos bolts and require much less set up

[Deleted]

why increase the pvp reduction? if you let a lock cast it you diserve the damage, it's not even that bad.. starsurge (instant), obliterate (instant),etc all do more than chaos bolts and require much less set up

Maybe, I don't PvP at all, but they spent the whole expansion nerfing its damage because of PvP : I doubt they will start doing the opposite.

[Medieve]

I get the impression they haven't done much balancing with any of the lock specs yet, not just destro. All I see are general mechanic changes and some tweaks to compensate for those, nothing that says to me they're doing numbers. Maybe they are internally, but I don't see it yet. Still feels a bit premature to start freaking out over numbers.

[Deleted]

The time of all 3 specs being perfectly viable in end-game pve seems to be over.

I'm just happy that it wansn't affliction that got hit, what seems to be, so hard.

[Belloc]

I get the impression they haven't done much balancing with any of the lock specs yet, not just destro. All I see are general mechanic changes and some tweaks to compensate for those, nothing that says to me they're doing numbers. Maybe they are internally, but I don't see it yet. Still feels a bit premature to start freaking out over numbers.

They started working on the numbers at least a couple weeks ago. That's why most of the patch notes lately have been increases and decreases in damage. Granted, they still have a little over two weeks to adjust the numbers further, but they should be getting close to final.

I think a large part of the issues in threads like these are simply matters of perception. I haven't seen any threads lately where anyone is posting actual, confirmed DPS numbers. I've only seen people linking meters from 10-man testing videos (pre-numbers pass) and people making blind assumptions. It seems like most people are completely ignoring the fact that some classes are going to have new priorities, rotations, and stat weights and that a lot of current PTR testers haven't learned those yet. Indeed, if I were going to take any of these numbers complaints seriously, I'd want to see some of the top theorycrafters setting up PTR test sessions where they set up a group with all raid buffs and work on a variety of bosses (Not training dummies, of course. Training dummies are well-known for having weird behavior with various abilities) for patchwerk style results and movement results.

Until high-skill players start testing numbers in real world situations (NOT SIMS!), figuring out new priorities, rotations and stat weights, and flat out experimenting, none of these complaint threads really mean anything.

[cabana]

The time of all 3 specs being perfectly viable in end-game pve seems to be over.

I'm just happy that it wansn't affliction that got hit, what seems to be, so hard.

What is seriously wrong with everyone? Has anyone actually used Destro on PTR? It's amazing for a fight like Hellscream which is about as end-game as you can get. It was also amazing on Spoils and Galakras.

[Alienshroom]

If choas bolt apparently hits so damn hard why cant they just nerf the amount of damage it does to player characters instead of accross the board. I dont see how its any worse then 1 shot macros.

[Werst]

Chaosbolt has always been a double standard in MoP. A CB with CD's might hit for 100K for a 3 sec base cast. Any ole firemage in this season's gear can do 4x auto crit pyro's for 100K each. Each one of those being instant and due to deep/shatter will crit while the victim can't fight back. That isnt' even counting the periodic effects which are considerable when you add combustion. Ele's burst is way higher than destro with no casting. Hunters have a powershot as an uninterruptable chaosbolt that knocks back and doesn't have a resource cost (but does have a CD). Frostmage shatter combos do instantly more than what CB is as a cast but its just how devs "feel" about chaosbolt.

Its abundantly clear that even with the 25% vs players nerf blizz will continue to nerf it anytime it so much as feels uncomfortable to enemy players. Thus there is zero excuse for why they can't let it hit appropriately hard in pve.

The only time destro is "good" is when its riding the niche of havoc/shadowburn sniping. I feel its a bit narrow to call destro "fine" when it only ever exists to play to a niche mechanic and is utterly lame the rest of the time. Yes good players find ways to maximize that but its poor logic and even more flawed class design to build it that way.

[Deleted]

im inclined to agree, i remember in wotlk during icc when mages were OP as hell, and every1 knew it but blizz couldnt be bothered to nerf them untill next xpac and i fear it will be the same for destro except they need a buff, not a nerf. personally, ive always had an ambivalent relationship with destro and demo and i hope that destro atleast is worth playing in 5.4 since demo's dmg seem a bit wonky but it needs some serious love to achieve that.

Mages werent more op, we were just 6k dps more skilled than everyone else trolol. But ot destro needs an ember buff, especially in pvp. And i would like to get a cb off in 3' every new moon aswell,cb needs a changeo