Searing Flames Fucntionality

[Dalmasca1]

Searing Flames: Gives you 150% of Ember Tap's base heal for 1/2 of the ember cost, but you need twice as many GCDs to benefit from this.

Would the talent be better if it simply said:
"Your Ember Tap heals for 300% of its original value"
(Alternative phrasing: "Ember Tap heals for an additional 200%")

This would not change total healing done per ember, but would take one less GCD. The "drawback" from the current design is that it requires a whole ember.

1. Do you think this is more attractive functionally?
2. Do you think this phrasing makes it easier to understand the full benefit of the talent?
3. Is the granularity of using half-embers to heal worthwhile, or do most people want to use this spell when they need a sizeable burst of on-demand healing [at a high cost]?

- - - Updated - - -

As a follow-up, remember that the value of a free GCD is actually quite high. It's the damage done/prevented with the next spell, plus the resources generated/saved.

Example A: Next cast is Conflagrate. You get:

• Damage
• 1-2 embers -- this is already 20-40% of the benefit that Searing Flames' refund currently provides (5 embers returned out of the 10 used to cast Ember Tap)
• Snare on target

Example B: Next cast is Fear. You get:

• Interruption of your target's damage/healing for the duration of the CC
• The ability to chain a second CC behind the Fear
• The opportunity to freecast at the target (potentially)

In either example, you may also spare your team/mates from having to use a valuable cooldown, because you were able to do a reasonably sized heal to quickly get yourself out of trouble.

[Tya]

The problem is that Ember Tap, Charred Remains and Searing Flames all form a triangle of stupid design. Ember Tap is balanced around having both the aforementioned talents and so it pretty much heals the same as in MoP, only you need to spam it to get the same effect.

The talent is always going to be messy while Charred Remains exists, and in all honesty the talent itself is not worth designing around. It's boring.

I'd like to see both Charred Remains and Searing Flames get axed, and the class balanced around not having them.

[Dalmasca1]

Remember, the tweak I mention above wouldn't change the healing or ember cost, just the number of GCDs used. It's independent of Charred Remains and Ember Tap's base heal.

That being said, I think the base heal needs a big buff too (~100%):

• It needs to be at least close to the amount of damage you lose from casting on a single target. If you include Havoc in the balancing act, you are losing out on even more damage.
• It needs to be enough to counter an equally valuable spell; one that consumes built-up resources (i.e. Eviscerate, Devouring Plague, Templar's/Final Verdict, Pyroblast, etc.). E.g. Ret pally's can deal the damage of a non-Searing Ember Tap heal with just one Templar's Verdict (non-crit), every ~6-7 sec -- that's not including the damage they do with other spells! A warlock can generate an ember in that amount of time with Charred Remains IF both Conflagrates crit and they get two Immolate crit ticks.
• It is much harder to generate Embers than any of the resources used by the aforementioned specs and they are a bigger portion of Destro's damage. That needs to be factored in.

[Deleted]

I was half-way through writing a reasonably long post, but, honestly, I really don't want to get into a drawn-out balance discussion about a PvP talent/ability. I will mention this though:

1. Searing Flames is fine. Adding an extra (free) GCD to it is unnecessary and would be an unjustified buff.
2. Compare Ember Tap's (with Searing Flames) healing/opportunity cost to other, similar abilities before deciding on its viability. Good examples are Word of Glory, Recuperate and Conversion.
3. Keep in mind that, with patch 6.2, the PvP 2pc will provide 1 free Burning Ember when getting CCed with a 15 sec cd.
4. Remember that CR not only exists, but is also being very heavily balanced around. Making Ember Tap's healing too good would potentially lead us back to the days of immortal Warlocks.

p.s. I would still approve making Ember Tap usable when you only have 0.5-0.9 embers. I think this is mostly a "quality of life" change than a real buff.

[Grizelda]

It's not like we have a ton of instants to be casting while running from melee anyway...

[Dalmasca1]

1. Searing Flames is fine. Adding an extra (free) GCD to it is unnecessary and would be an unjustified buff.

Why is it "unjustified"? Destro is doing terribly in the current melee-heavy metagame. Don't forget that while you gain an extra GCD, you lose some margin for error.

2. Compare Ember Tap's (with Searing Flames) healing/opportunity cost to other, similar abilities before deciding on its viability. Good examples are Word of Glory, Recuperate and Conversion.

Well, you can't compare spells in a vacuum like that, because e.g. Paladins also have heals like Flash that are less costly. Even still, I have done just that comparison anyways:

• Recuperate -- Heals the rogue for 30% hp over 30 sec (3%/3 sec x10 ticks, or glyphed to 4% per tick). CPs are generated more quickly than Embers (depending on spec) and can even be created on-demand (Premeditation and Marked for Death). Additionally, rogue finishers make up a smaller portion of their overall damage, so the opportunity cost is lower.
• Word of Glory -- Heals for ~10% of my paladin's health per cast, and an additional ~7% if you have Eternal Flame. The 3 holy power can be generated in ~6-7 sec. A Warlock can generate a full ember in that same amount of time IF they get two Conflag crits and two Immo tick crits while playing Charred Remains. Needless to say, healing is a large part of the paladin kit, and they have several others to use as well.
• Conversion -- Heals for 2%/sec for 15RP/sec. A full runic bar can replenish ~12% of the DK's health. Additionally, you can hit Death Strike for simultaneous healing/damage and additional runic power generation. Both of these effects can be improved by 20% when switching to Blood Presence. It's definitely a large damage decrease, but still arguably not as large as the warlock who spams the same number of GCDs for less total healing and a loses a resource that is harder to recover.

3. Keep in mind that, with patch 6.2, the PvP 2pc will provide 1 free Burning Ember when getting CCed with a 15 sec cd.

Well, we'll see if they stick with that design. It's helpful, but if you are getting trained, but not CC'd (i.e. they CC your healer/teammate instead), then it doesn't help you stay alive.

4. Remember that CR not only exists, but is also being very heavily balanced around. Making Ember Tap's healing too good would potentially lead us back to the days of immortal Warlocks.

I think everyone can agree with this point. CR is fun for altering PvE rotations, but is too strong in PvP relative to the bonuses provided by the other talents on that tier.

p.s. I would still approve making Ember Tap usable when you only have 0.5-0.9 embers. I think this is mostly a "quality of life" change than a real buff.

I assume you mean getting to use partial embers for partial heals? I'm okay with that too, actually. It could read "consumes up to 10 Burning Embers to heal you..."