[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[Baconeggcheese]

Doesn't really feel much different. Will probably feel a lot slower to people who didn't play destro before this tier, but if you've been playing it since 5.0 its pretty par the course.

CB feels like it used to, everything else is pretty normal.

Kinda wish backdraft lasted longer, feels really hard to game.

[dark666105]

Not sure how one can discuss how Legion destro feels when the spec is disabled on alpha.

[Brusalk]

There's a number of different factors that make haste a more valuable stat in Legion for Destro. Weather or not it'll be better than mastery on the priority list remains to be seen.

I'd expect to see haste quite low on our priority.

If all of our damage is rolled into Chaos Bolt/Shadowburn, then we want to maximize that damage over other lesser portions such as fillers. Since our ember generation is limited to Conflag, which doesn't benefit from haste (iirc), then we'll want to maximize our resource spenders as much as we can. That means mastery, crit, etc which have an effect. Haste doesn't because it doesn't let us cast more Chaos Bolts like it does on live.

[Fallensaint]

I'd expect to see haste quite low on our priority.

If all of our damage is rolled into Chaos Bolt/Shadowburn, then we want to maximize that damage over other lesser portions such as fillers. Since our ember generation is limited to Conflag, which doesn't benefit from haste (iirc), then we'll want to maximize our resource spenders as much as we can. That means mastery, crit, etc which have an effect. Haste doesn't because it doesn't let us cast more Chaos Bolts like it does on live.

Chaotic Energy allows haste to reduce Conflag's CD, and as far as I can tell we no longer have a 1 second GCD. Our new mastery lacks the synergy and scaling which makes our current mastery so strong. Crit's going to definitely be one of our strongest stats, since it strongly influences our shard generation rate through Immolate on top of the static damage increase to Chaos Bolt. I doubt that haste will be our number 1 secondary, but I can see it possibly nudging out mastery in the number 2 spot.

[PickleballAce]

Not sure how one can discuss how Legion destro feels when the spec is disabled on alpha.

This is awkward.

[Kirroth]

Chaotic Energy allows haste to reduce Conflag's CD, and as far as I can tell we no longer have a 1 second GCD. Our new mastery lacks the synergy and scaling which makes our current mastery so strong. Crit's going to definitely be one of our strongest stats, since it strongly influences our shard generation rate through Immolate on top of the static damage increase to Chaos Bolt. I doubt that haste will be our number 1 secondary, but I can see it possibly nudging out mastery in the number 2 spot.

Keep in mind that Haste also influences how often Immolate ticks, so it's benefiting both of Destro's SS generation methods in the current setup. Barring significant changes I can definitely see it taking second priority after Crit.

[Baconeggcheese]

This is awkward.

Yeah its like that dude hasn't been keeping up with alpha at all. I mean, dude literally told people how to play it on the last page.

[Turturin the Warlock]

I'd expect to see haste quite low on our priority.

If all of our damage is rolled into Chaos Bolt/Shadowburn, then we want to maximize that damage over other lesser portions such as fillers. Since our ember generation is limited to Conflag, which doesn't benefit from haste (iirc), then we'll want to maximize our resource spenders as much as we can. That means mastery, crit, etc which have an effect. Haste doesn't because it doesn't let us cast more Chaos Bolts like it does on live.

Pretty sure they indicated haste would reduce CD on conflag.

[Baconeggcheese]

Pretty sure they indicated haste would reduce CD on conflag.

and on havoc, which is going to be awkward with the havoc talent.

[Kirroth]

It's also worth noting that stat priority is probably going to be simpler to figure out in Legion. Multistrike will be gone and Versatility will remain the lowest priority for everyone outside of PvP or certain tank specs. That leaves it just a matter of ranking Crit, Haste, and Mastery.

For Destro that ranking seems pretty simple, as things stand now. Crit is first because it has the most throughput effect on the scaling auto-crits of Chaos Bolt and Conflag while also increasing resource gen from Immo. Haste is second for increasing resource gen by reducing the cooldown on Conflag and increasing the tick rate on Immo. Mastery is third because it's a flat damage buff (with modest randomization) that won't effect things like pets or Summon Doomguard or damaging trinket procs.

Now, there's the usual disclaimers about the spec still being in a pre-Alpha state, but IMO either the changes would have to be fairly fundamental to alter that priority or the sims would have to pull out some really unintuitive scaling.

[dark666105]

Not seeing anything but demonstrations on it being played. I see no instructions on how to "unlock" it.

[Gaidax]

Not seeing anything but demonstrations on it being played. I see no instructions on how to "unlock" it.

When you create warlock on Alpha, during artifact questline when you chose weapon you can chose destruction weapon, it will write some "not implemented yet" mumbo jumbo, but it will switch your spec to Destruction.

Clear instructions in this thread...

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Doesn't really feel much different. Will probably feel a lot slower to people who didn't play destro before this tier, but if you've been playing it since 5.0 its pretty par the course.

CB feels like it used to, everything else is pretty normal.

Kinda wish backdraft lasted longer, feels really hard to game.

What kind of silly comment is this? I main warlock for 10 years now and by slow I mean bloody TBC slow when we were spamming the crap out of Shadowbolt and were tapping once in a while. It's THAT slow.

We lost both backdraft baseline and our GCD is 1.5 seconds now. Most of spells we cast have 2 seconds + cast time, of course it's bloody slow even before I'm talking about shards.

Pretty normal? Yes maybe if you were in a bloody coma for 4 years and just woke up.

I can definitely see Haste raising to be more important in Legion.

[Baconeggcheese]

What kind of silly comment is this? Pretty normal? Yes maybe if you were in a bloody coma for 4 years and just woke up.

You alright friend?

[Gaidax]

You alright friend?

Absolutely, try not to toss irrelevant comments if you don't want to trigger people.

[Deleted]

Absolutely, try not to toss irrelevant comments if you don't want to trigger people.

I think youve already been triggered. How about everyone chills a bit and try to keep the discussion articulate? I really don't see what there is to get wound up about.

[Baconeggcheese]

Absolutely, try not to toss irrelevant comments if you don't want to trigger people.

No what I said made perfect sense, you just seem to be having a bad day. It's alright, I understand.

[Gaidax]

I just realized that Chaos Bolt actually has 3 seconds cast on Alpha, it's just starter character has a gear with a lot of haste already, that's insane really - it better really scale into a monster which is I hope the intent.

GCD does seem to be still 1 second on better measuring.

Channel Demonfire does not have LoS or facing requirements, does not work with Havoc.

Mastery seems to be scaling ok-ish (1000 mastery at level 100 translates into up to 18% extra damage), weaker than now, but the caveat of course that it is "up to" instead of flat %, on the other hand it affects all spells including Cataclysm, which hits really bloody hard.

Imp is pretty powerful (or rather incinerate is bloody weak), definitely better than sacrifice for single target.

[effs]

I'm interested in seeing what changes they've made baseline with backdraft/demonic circle/shadowburn being talents and how they've taken a lot of our self healing away (ember tap). So far it seems destro is about as mobile and defenceless as a weathered pillar. xD

[Kirroth]

I'm interested in seeing what changes they've made baseline with backdraft/demonic circle/shadowburn being talents and how they've taken a lot of our self healing away (ember tap). So far it seems destro is about as mobile and defenceless as a weathered pillar. xD

There's going to be some sort of passive or rotational self-healing to match Soul Link and Drain Life, both to keep the class fantasy and offset Life Taps. There has to be. The fact that it's still missing is probably a decent part of why the spec isn't officially enabled yet.

[Gaidax]

I'm interested in seeing what changes they've made baseline with backdraft/demonic circle/shadowburn being talents and how they've taken a lot of our self healing away (ember tap). So far it seems destro is about as mobile and defenceless as a weathered pillar. xD

Well, to be honest with the way it is now - all real damage is actually on the move, shard generation is tied to instants and quick cast immolate and Shadowburn is usable always and not only sub-20%, Conflagrate also does like 2/3 of Shadowburn damage and is on 8 seconds CD. You can actually be very mobile now, as literally the only spell now worth of hard casting besides Immolate is Channel Demonfire (which requires no LoS btw) and Cataclysm (which won't be taken for PvP, as there is shards talent there which is much better for it), both Incinerate and Chaos Bolt are pretty worthless now, I am sure there will be a lot Chaos Bolt propping going on to make it worth casting in PvP.

If we have fully leveled Artifact + Eradication + Chaos Bolt legendary, then Chaos Bolt will make sense and even then only as an opener IMO. But of course numbers balancing is not done, Blizz can easily make Chaos Bolt be 700% spell damage or something making it nobrainer choice. I do hope they will at least make it 2.5 sec cast baseline, 3 seconds is almost comically slow.

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There's going to be some sort of passive or rotational self-healing to match Soul Link and Drain Life, both to keep the class fantasy and offset Life Taps. There has to be. The fact that it's still missing is probably a decent part of why the spec isn't officially enabled yet.

It's not missing - there is Drain Life and it does pretty okay job for healing - damage is literally 0, think Rain of Fire ticks. It also eats mana like no tomorrow.