[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[JV Chequer]

I am not even sure why are you raging... Legion Destruction has tons of strong AoE options of all kinds and flavors, it's as if you are tooth and nail fighting to distort reality for whatever silly reason that is.

Burst, Sustainable, Burst and Sustainable - whatever really. I see you do not challenge that plopping Cataclysm + RoF is a frikkin' great burst AoE, then what is your problem? Sustain? F&B + GoSac gives excellent sustained AoE. And that is not even talking about Infernal as a CD or GoSup.

I think your only problem is that you can't run some cookie-cutter spec anymore and have to switch some talents after like 5 years of derping it with 1 spec cover all.

Some ppl just want to have all at the same time without even make any choices or lose anything.

Well, after all that grumpy rage he'll probably just gonna reroll Fire mage and make a wall-text about it how Warlocks sucks on Legion.

[Halwyn]

By that point with Blizzard seemingly finishing polishing "class fantasy" for specs one can start to wonder, when it'll hit them on the head to replace Doomguard with Archimonde's Doomfire for Destruction. No really. Doomguard seems off...

[Fearsom1992]

You know whats funny idk which grimiore to take as affliction because service felhound will not do more dmg than UA ;-; and are they gonig to buff doomguard later on because he does sad dmg for a 3min cd?:]

[Gaidax]

and are they gonig to buff doomguard later on because he does sad dmg for a 3min cd?:]

Most likely... it's seriously pathetic in Alpha, I think it's like 3% of the DPS on average boss fight in Alpha for Destruction at least. For Demo it is beast, but because of getting ridiculous boost from DE/Mastery when it's up.

That said, there is a legendary that makes you do +40% damage for 20 seconds after you pop Doomguard/Infernal, but I'd rather indeed have as Destruction this appear as Doomfire Spirit instead, would be much cooler.

[avahle]

That said, there is a legendary that makes you do +40% damage for 20 seconds after you pop Doomguard/Infernal.

That seems way too OP. I am guessing most of the legendaries are going to get some sort of nerf. That said, it would make me so happy if like 25% of that was baseline. Say a +10% dmg equivalent when we pop the Doomgaurd. Not from the pet but from what we do. Increased damage from a pet for a CD seems so passive and unappealing to me.
I know they said they are moving away from that offensive CD mentality where your spec feels awesome for 30 secs and not so awesome for the next 2 mins; but I loved those bursts. Popping Dark Soul and going to town was honestly my favorite thing to do in the game. Overlapping that with the ring in WoD, a trinket proc and a boss debuff phase made me feel like the embodiment of what a destruction warlock was.

[bio347]

On average, 40% for 20s every 3m is probably pretty analogous to what Dark Soul gives us right now. The extra minute on the cooldown and lack of Archimonde's Darkness probably makes DS come out ahead compared to the legendary, honestly.

[Xorn]

Most likely... it's seriously pathetic in Alpha, I think it's like 3% of the DPS on average boss fight in Alpha for Destruction at least. For Demo it is beast, but because of getting ridiculous boost from DE/Mastery when it's up.

That said, there is a legendary that makes you do +40% damage for 20 seconds after you pop Doomguard/Infernal, but I'd rather indeed have as Destruction this appear as Doomfire Spirit instead, would be much cooler.

Yeah, I don't get that legendary. They might as well add "and makes 1 talent completely worthless without external timers" to the description.

[Deleted]

That seems way too OP. I am guessing most of the legendaries are going to get some sort of nerf. That said, it would make me so happy if like 25% of that was baseline. Say a +10% dmg equivalent when we pop the Doomgaurd. Not from the pet but from what we do. Increased damage from a pet for a CD seems so passive and unappealing to me.
I know they said they are moving away from that offensive CD mentality where your spec feels awesome for 30 secs and not so awesome for the next 2 mins; but I loved those bursts. Popping Dark Soul and going to town was honestly my favorite thing to do in the game. Overlapping that with the ring in WoD, a trinket proc and a boss debuff phase made me feel like the embodiment of what a destruction warlock was.

The only time I think destro was seriously bursting was at Soo with a combination of two of those trinkets: woosholai/BBoY/Multi strike from Dark Shamans where you could rival arcane mage with those crazy 8 c @ 9-10 stacks.
Nowadays lock burst is nothing compared to PC arcane, unlike DS demo that would open the fight 3-4 times higher than anybody else

[Turturin the Warlock]

The only time I think destro was seriously bursting was at Soo with a combination of two of those trinkets: woosholai/BBoY/Multi strike from Dark Shamans where you could rival arcane mage with those crazy 8 c @ 9-10 stacks.
Nowadays lock burst is nothing compared to PC arcane, unlike DS demo that would open the fight 3-4 times higher than anybody else

None of that has anything to do with destro in current alpha build or in Legion. Appreciate it if we can stay on topic.

[Sylar Hao]

Most likely... it's seriously pathetic in Alpha, I think it's like 3% of the DPS on average boss fight in Alpha for Destruction at least. For Demo it is beast, but because of getting ridiculous boost from DE/Mastery when it's up.

That said, there is a legendary that makes you do +40% damage for 20 seconds after you pop Doomguard/Infernal, but I'd rather indeed have as Destruction this appear as Doomfire Spirit instead, would be much cooler.

Isn't it quite sad and disappointing that our only damage CD is that bad (we all know how bad AI the doomguard has, sometimes he just likes to stare) that it's also unfair that Demo gets a superior advantage from it due to its mechanics and mastery, (which makes sense because they are the spec focused on demons, but you get my point)?
Also, I was wondering, do Destruction pets benefit from mastery? Would be nice. Although then affliction would fall behind when it comes to minion contribution to DPS.

[Ninthelora]

How do you guys in alpha feel about RoF with a cast time? I think instant RoF is something that should really stay, now it's just like a mages flamestrike.
Instant RoF is just a great tool to get rogues/ferals out of stealth.

I really dont like they way they are going with shadowburn as a real "burn" spell (although it suits the name). I think it should stay as an execution spell.

[Jessicka]

Isn't it quite sad and disappointing that our only damage CD is that bad (we all know how bad AI the doomguard has, sometimes he just likes to stare) that it's also unfair that Demo gets a superior advantage from it due to its mechanics and mastery, (which makes sense because they are the spec focused on demons, but you get my point)?
Also, I was wondering, do Destruction pets benefit from mastery? Would be nice. Although then affliction would fall behind when it comes to minion contribution to DPS.

Nope, pets don't benefit from Mastery, it's why they've fallen behind Sac for the spec as gear improved over the expansion. Same is true for Affliction. The change to Sac was to address this scaling issue.

[Sylar Hao]

Nope, pets don't benefit from Mastery, it's why they've fallen behind Sac for the spec as gear improved over the expansion. Same is true for Affliction. The change to Sac was to address this scaling issue.

And thus the emphasis on Imp for Destro and Felhunter for Affli... Meh... Now I'm even more disappointed.

They should make Doomguard/Inferal the big CD for demo, keep them as "small CD" for the other two and give them back Dark Soul or something else. I mean, mages have different big CDs per spec, same goes for every dps spec in the game but warlocks that share the same CD that doesn't benefit them evenly.

[Lucrece]

That's actually what I like and prefer they keep on warlocks.

I don't want my warlock to get compartmentalized.

Warlocks are about demons, souls, shadow magic/void, and fel flames. I loved demonology in cataclysm because it combined everything that means to be a warlock. You used corruption, incinerate, soulfire, hand of guldan. You are a shadowflame caster that uses demons.

I don't want there to be a spec that doesn't care about demons or curses or soul shards. I think strong demons fit the bill of a warlock cooldown perfectly. They just need to get the tuning and AI done right.

[Baconeggcheese]

Isn't it quite sad and disappointing that our only damage CD is that bad(we all know how bad AI the doomguard has, sometimes he just likes to stare) that it's also unfair that Demo gets a superior advantage from it due to its mechanics and mastery, (which makes sense because they are the spec focused on demons, but you get my point)?

No it's perfect that way. A classes damage is balanced to whatever blizzard wants it to be regardless of allocation. Which means the weaker the CD is the stronger our baseline is. Meaning we don't need to be in a CD window to do strong damage like on live.

Locks used to be this way in the past, I'm perfectly happy going back to having consistently strong damage vs having a guardian on a 3 minute cooldown be a major portion of our damage.

Also demo doesn't get an unfair advantage, because again any class is balanced around these things. It just means their baseline will be that much weaker since the cooldown is that much stronger.

How do you guys in alpha feel about RoF with a cast time? I think instant RoF is something that should really stay, now it's just like a mages flamestrike.
Instant RoF is just a great tool to get rogues/ferals out of stealth.

I really dont like they way they are going with shadowburn as a real "burn" spell (although it suits the name). I think it should stay as an execution spell.

For pve it feels fine, for pvp its obviously going to be basically unusable.

Nope, pets don't benefit from Mastery, it's why they've fallen behind Sac for the spec as gear improved over the expansion. Same is true for Affliction. The change to Sac was to address this scaling issue.

The only thing demos mastery does is buff pets, so yes he's correct in what he's saying.

[Gaidax]

Well, I'm sure they will up damage contribution of Summon Doomguard for Destruction during balancing, right now with my ilvl 830 gear in Alpha the total damage it does is about 350k over its duration, which is basically one weaker Chaos Bolt. Chaos Bolts go all the way up to 650ish K depending on Mastery roll.

Stats are 38% Crit and 85ish% Mastery with 20k intellect. I use those OP JC rings with ridiculous stats that will get nerfed soon, so that's why these silly stats.

As a whole there will be a lot of balancing to do, some specs in Alpha do ungodly damage simply due to not being balanced around their new toys yet like Spriests and DHs.

[Deleted]

It doesnt have to be that way tbh, as long as the overall damage of the spec is competitive theres nothing wrong with having asymmetrical damage distribution across 3 specs, which means that in turn you will have a weaker post DE DG compared to demo, perfectly fitting both spec design.

[Baconeggcheese]

Well, I'm sure they will up damage contribution of Summon Doomguard for Destruction during balancing, right now with my ilvl 830 gear in Alpha the total damage it does is about 350k over its duration, which is basically one weaker Chaos Bolt. Chaos Bolts go all the way up to 650ish K depending on Mastery roll.

Sounds like shadowfiend, which is again where I'm hoping it stays.

DG will never scale like our spells do unless they fundamentally change how / what stats guardians benefit from. Which is one of the biggest bits of feedback people gave right off the bat when they heard about the change. They'll have to tweak the thing every patch like they did with gosac to keep it relevant if they want it to be any significant portion of our dmg.

Here's hoping they don't.

85ish% Mastery

Sigh, we're totally gonna be pushing well past 100% mastery at this rate, unless that secondary reduced scaling thing hits hard after the initial gearing stage. Just gonna have wildly varying numbers on individual spell casts, which is pretty gross. It'll work out fine but it won't feel great.

[Uzkin]

No it's perfect that way. A classes damage is balanced to whatever blizzard wants it to be regardless of allocation. Which means the weaker the CD is the stronger our baseline is. Meaning we don't need to be in a CD window to do strong damage like on live.

Locks used to be this way in the past, I'm perfectly happy going back to having consistently strong damage vs having a guardian on a 3 minute cooldown be a major portion of our damage.

Having a dps cooldown such as Dark Soul is MUCH preferable to having a consistent flat output: plenty of fights have burst requirements, plenty of fights have vulnerability phases, plenty of fights last for a very short time (e.g. all dungeon bosses, rare elites in solo content, raid bosses during farm...), plenty of potions, trinkets and other equipment (e.g. the Legendary ring) give you a large temporary buff to damage --- in all such situations and encounters the character benefits MASSIVELY from having dps cooldowns. The removal of Dark Soul from destro is a horrible nerf to the versatility, depth, fun, and class identity of the spec. Among all the awful changes/nerfs the spec has had to suffer in Legion the removal of DS is one of the worst.

[Baconeggcheese]

Having a dps cooldown such as Dark Soul is MUCH preferable to having a consistent flat output: plenty of fights have burst requirements, plenty of fights have vulnerability phases, plenty of fights last for a very short time (e.g. all dungeon bosses, rare elites in solo content, raid bosses during farm...), plenty of potions, trinkets and other equipment (e.g. the Legendary ring) give you a large temporary buff to damage --- in all such situations and encounters the character benefits MASSIVELY from having dps cooldowns. The removal of Dark Soul from destro is a horrible nerf to the versatility (and to fun, and to the class identity) of the spec. Among all the awful changes/nerfs the spec has had to suffer in Legion the removal of DS is one of the worst.

Wasn't talking about dark soul, was talking about the DG cd. Please follow the conversation.

Having all your dmg dependent on a specific tiny window is cancerous to the game and game play. Boomkins especially in mop were a great example of this where you were a god for upwards of 30 seconds and then had 2.5 minutes to go to the bathroom / get a snack because you were basically just tickling things with your feathers. This was especially bad for them if their CDs didn't line up within reason with the fight mechanics.

What makes dark soul so strong is that its on not only a 2 minute CD but also has the flexibility of archimondes darkness. Having that kind of control over a power boost that significant is fairly game breaking, so of course its preferable. But is that healthy for the game? Especially when you have spells that hit like a dump truck before the CD.

Also we have plenty of things to stack for vulnerability phases / burst. Dump your portals + service + dg + banked shards into a rare elite while leveling and see what happens to it. It blows up