[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[Deleted]

I would guess this will lower the value of haste and the Backdraft talent quite a bit... looks like yet another short-sight in the legion destro redesign (in this case, due to the removal of the -0.5 sec gcd modifier along with Chaotic Energy).

About crit rating; Conflagration of Chaos makes Conflagrate scale better with crit than the other spells. This might not be enough to "save" crit's scale factor, though, due to the +crit talents lowering the value of crit. That, together with the "gcd effect" lowering the value of haste, might make mastery the best stat for destro. Apparently, not only did Blizzard create a highly disliked mastery design for destro, but they are also making sure the destro players are forced to stack it <333

Why does +crit talents lower the value of crit? Is there some mechanic I'm unaware of?

[Deleted]

Why does +crit talents lower the value of crit? Is there some mechanic I'm unaware of?

1% increased crit with 10% base crit gives you 10% extra chance to crit.
1% increased crit with 50% base crit gives you 2% extra chance to crit.

As Destro doesn't really have many "on crit" effects, most of the crit rating effect just adds more damage. The same with haste/mastery/versa.

If all stats would be equal, our DPS would be spell rotation * mastery * crit * versa / haste. The best outcome would be all stats being equal as that gives the highest number.

[Deleted]

1% increased crit with 10% base crit gives you 10% extra chance to crit.
1% increased crit with 50% base crit gives you 2% extra chance to crit.

As Destro doesn't really have many "on crit" effects, most of the crit rating effect just adds more damage. The same with haste/mastery/versa.

If all stats would be equal, our DPS would be spell rotation * mastery * crit * versa / haste. The best outcome would be all stats being equal as that gives the highest number.

Ah, true, didn't keep in mind that immolate 30% shard chance is the only thing crit does for us. That effect alone probably won't be nearly enough to keep up with diminishing returns :<

Edit: Conflag crit = 2 shards would go a long way in that regard. Perhaps some % chance on crit for incin to generate a shard. To be honest, it kinda looks like they are tuning us around having 4 piece bonus + 2 legendary effects. Havoc legendary got reduced to 8% by the way.

[sugarfree]

Now the spec has become a dot spec. What is up with all the buffs to Immolate directly or indirectly?!?!?! Seriously, like this is a burst spec, what is up with having a powerful dot here?

This is becoming Cataclysm destro again, no burst just all backhanded damage.

[wooters]

Hilariously enough, with a full artifact, I think it does by a small margin. On average, at least, because of crits. (Without artifact talents, Incinerate wins. Immolate just has ridiculously strong artifact bonuses.)

That doesn't take into account Dimension Ripper, though, which will probably edge the competition in Incinerate's favour at the end of the day. Incinerate will also be slightly more mana efficient, because it costs the same as Immolate but casts a bit slower.

Still, a couple troubling numbers changes.

been of the opinion the burning hunger trait(with relics) + shadowburn will be a powerful combo if things stay as is..and I stand by that. not only providing consistent decent dmg with a strong dot and SB..but superior mobility as well..running midcast CBs gets old fast in certain fights.. with an improved roaring blaze as well..we got viable options in that tier. if they now only could hand shadowburn a more visual sinister effect and maybe design incinerate with a chance too prolong immolate(without ruining blaze) id say this spec is allright(although ofc..things could always better/more advanced and I'm crossing fingers destro develops further)

[Tabrotar]

Ah, true, didn't keep in mind that immolate 30% shard chance is the only thing crit does for us. That effect alone probably won't be nearly enough to keep up with diminishing returns :<

Edit: Conflag crit = 2 shards would go a long way in that regard. Perhaps some % chance on crit for incin to generate a shard. To be honest, it kinda looks like they are tuning us around having 4 piece bonus + 2 legendary effects. Havoc legendary got reduced to 8% by the way.

Could Blizz please stop doing such things? I mean why balancing a class around something that not even all will be able to get (speaking of the legenberrys)? What´s the logic behind this fuckinmg stupid course?

[Soulzar]

Could Blizz please stop doing such things? I mean why balancing a class around something that not even all will be able to get (speaking of the legenberrys)? What´s the logic behind this fuckinmg stupid course?

You have to balance around the gear people can acquire and will be wearing.

[Fearsom1992]

Idk Roaring Blaze is pretty strong and even stronger with tier bonus

[Kirroth]

I managed to get onto the new 7.0 PTR and get a little basic rotation practice in, despite the place being crazy town and not being able to copy my live realm character over.

After some dummy testing I found the talent array that felt best was Backdraft - Reverse Entropy - Eradication - Channel Demonfire. Backdraft and Reverse Entropy mean your Chaos Bolts cast crazy fast, which makes it easier to stagger them for greater Eradication uptime. Demonfire is a decent cooldown on a reliable timer which I liked better than Soul Conduit's very random results. Soul Conduit worked okay for my Demo testing, when I was gaining and spending SS faster, but was frustratingly feast or famine with Destro. With Demonfire I could either weave CB - CDF - CB for high burst, or if the shards weren't available I'd just use CDF in place of a couple Incins and move on.

Again, this is just my two cents after an hour of dummy testing. But people seem hungry for first hand reports, so there you go.

[Dastey]

Question:

If I look up Sin'dorei Spite on wowdb or wowhead it says it is only winnable by demonology warlocks. Does anyone know anything about how reliable this is? Cause as it looks atm. we might have to choose demonology as our loot specialization in order to get that specific item

[Deleted]

Question:

If I look up Sin'dorei Spite on wowdb or wowhead it says it is only winnable by demonology warlocks. Does anyone know anything about how reliable this is? Cause as it looks atm. we might have to choose demonology as our loot specialization in order to get that specific item

not if demo is the only spec that gets the benefit, then it becomes a moot point but i do agree, the sindoret spite is much better than what destro get in that spot and is worth farming after assume you dont have to be demo to get the benefit. just imagine having soul harvest up along with the legendary buff+mana tap+eradication thats a 72% dmg buff almost causing your spells to deal quadruple dmg on crits lol.

[Tabrotar]

You have to balance around the gear people can acquire and will be wearing.

Yeah but i remember Blizz says that they´ll be hard to get. And then if we can only equip 2 after quite some time that won´t be any better. And no being gimped for quite some time just to be "good" after i will be lucky is not really my meaning of goog gameplay/design.

[Maleific]

Soul Leech doesn't seem to be absorbing Life tap/ Burning rush damage anymore.

[Jessicka]

Yeah but i remember Blizz says that they´ll be hard to get. And then if we can only equip 2 after quite some time that won´t be any better. And no being gimped for quite some time just to be "good" after i will be lucky is not really my meaning of goog gameplay/design.

And so has raged the debate over set bonuses since forever. Now we'll have RNG on their drops as well as legendaries to worry about.

[Entricks]

Anyone else feel like the Imp passive/trait is just pointless anyway, because we're either using Sacrifice or Doomguard? Service is such a bad talent, not sure why they even left it in the tree. I would absolutely LOVE if the Imp was the pet of choice in almost every encounter; it's so cool and it was how it was in Cataclysm. But making it obsolete by giving us a talent that gives us a permanent Doomguard just ruins it entirely. No one is going to use the poor little imp when we have a Doomguard pet

I just want Shadowburn to be a baseline execute again. It feels so dumb just being there and being so unbalanced compared to Chaos Bolt right now. The fact that people even need to do the maths to see what does more damage just shows how weak Chaos Bolt is and now unbalanced Shadowburn is right now.

Eradication is a nice touch to the playstyle, but it would be even better if we could reliably build and spend resource. Right now, soul shards just feel so clunky and uncontrollable, it's so difficult to plan ahead due to the spontaneous resource generation, or even more frustratingly, the lack of control we get actually generating shards when we need them. I love pooling embers waiting for procs to line up, but now I just see Destro as more of a 'Chaos bolt when you can in case you cap on shards too quickly' kind of rotation. Going from 40 emberbits down to 5 shards really ruins the smooth and predictable control we had of resource generation.

[Criptos]

Anyone else feel like the Imp passive/trait is just pointless anyway, because we're either using Sacrifice or Doomguard?

That trait also buffs sacrifice and supremacy doomguard.

[Deleted]

Anyone else feel like the Imp passive/trait is just pointless anyway, because we're either using Sacrifice or Doomguard? Service is such a bad talent, not sure why they even left it in the tree. I would absolutely LOVE if the Imp was the pet of choice in almost every encounter; it's so cool and it was how it was in Cataclysm. But making it obsolete by giving us a talent that gives us a permanent Doomguard just ruins it entirely. No one is going to use the poor little imp when we have a Doomguard pet

I just want Shadowburn to be a baseline execute again. It feels so dumb just being there and being so unbalanced compared to Chaos Bolt right now. The fact that people even need to do the maths to see what does more damage just shows how weak Chaos Bolt is and now unbalanced Shadowburn is right now.

Eradication is a nice touch to the playstyle, but it would be even better if we could reliably build and spend resource. Right now, soul shards just feel so clunky and uncontrollable, it's so difficult to plan ahead due to the spontaneous resource generation, or even more frustratingly, the lack of control we get actually generating shards when we need them. I love pooling embers waiting for procs to line up, but now I just see Destro as more of a 'Chaos bolt when you can in case you cap on shards too quickly' kind of rotation. Going from 40 emberbits down to 5 shards really ruins the smooth and predictable control we had of resource generation.

Uhm... Imp is actually really strong. Service or GrimSac should be your talent when not soloing, and they do just fine when soloing as well. I just like having the infernal when I'm soloing for the stun.

Chaos bolt is probably too weak right now. Havoc is the culprit, and I think the days of having competitive DPS for single target while having insane DPS for two targets are over. For destruction at least. Having semi-weak single target DPS and very competitive / best DPS for two targets is much more likely.

Immolate artifact traits certainly help with shards, and the legendary that gives a 15% chance for a shard helps as well. Unless things change around a lot, immolate is going to be your go-to filler for 1-2 targets, simply because it generates a lot more shards, and is the only way to generate shards without conflag / ticks on a single target that isn't dying (Shadowburn). Immolate also hits like a truck with roaring blaze, and it will at least be a tiny bit more interesting to make sure you don't waste roaring blaze or shards, which means using immolate as a filler in the right situation (Not having 2/3 conflag charges).

All in all, destruction still has some way to go to feel complete, in my opinion.

Edit: Oh god I hope they make burning rush eat into barrier damage again, I've been loving that. :<

Sidenote: Anyone else concerned with the fact that we need to use drain life to restore health as destruction? Being the tanky immobile caster doesn't really help much if we need to be topped off nearly as much as everyone else.

[Soulzar]

Anyone else feel like the Imp passive/trait is just pointless anyway, because we're either using Sacrifice or Doomguard? Service is such a bad talent, not sure why they even left it in the tree. I would absolutely LOVE if the Imp was the pet of choice in almost every encounter; it's so cool and it was how it was in Cataclysm. But making it obsolete by giving us a talent that gives us a permanent Doomguard just ruins it entirely. No one is going to use the poor little imp when we have a Doomguard pet

http://legion.wowhead.com/spell=2152...h-incineration

Increases damage dealt by your Imp's Firebolt by 18%.

Grimoire of Supremacy: Increases damage dealt by your Doomguard's Doom Bolt by 18%.
Grimoire of Sacrifice: Demonic Power damage increased by 50%.

They changed it to give bonus when you have the other pet grimoires.

That row works well. Lots of movement you can shift dmg to your pet with Doomguard. Burst or ST you have Service. And AoE you have Sac.

Services should be tuned to beat Doomguard Single target.

[Duckz0rs]

Wait, so, Immolate is our filler now after the recent changes? Does that mean Immolate's initial hit flat-out does more damage than Incinerate? That sounds really, really wrong.

[Soulzar]

Sidenote: Anyone else concerned with the fact that we need to use drain life to restore health as destruction? Being the tanky immobile caster doesn't really help much if we need to be topped off nearly as much as everyone else.

We have Sac Pact, Eternal Resolve, and Demon Skin/Soul Leech. We have so much Dmg absorption our need for emergency healing will be very low if we use our cooldowns correctly. The ability to have an unlimited "oh shit" heal is far superior IMO than something that's instant and goes on cooldown. Stopping your perfect rotation for a few seconds to make sure you don't die should never be a problem. Not sure why a channeled heal is so offensive for people on Destruction.