[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[Gaidax]

Getting that sinking feeling that this will turn out to be yet another year + long expansion of wonky Destruction mechanics because the devs' "vision" for warlocks doesn't match very reasonable player expectations in several instances. Man I really hope I'm wrong.

What you like is not what everyone around you likes... might keep that in mind.

[Deleted]

does anybody have like a nice little video where some guy just shows off the spec and dpses a target dummy?

[Gaidax]

One thing I'm consistently seeing form people is that incinerate needs to have a chance to generate a soul shard. I agree with that for sure. At least then if you're shard-starved and conflag is on CD you still feel like you're doing something by casting incinerate

Maybe shard generation shouldn't be tied to abilities at all. Maybe it should be tied to crit. So like every crit generates a shard, or every crit has x% chance to generate a shard. I dunno. just a thought.

People are screaming bloody murder at Charred Remains and on Alpha we sometimes have generation that already rivals that one in dogshit gear. I don't think any more sources of shards are needed.

I think Incinerate on alpha is ok, it's a strong spell for being filler and you could say that this is it's mechanic on it's own. I don't think that every last thing we have should have some special ability tacked to it just for the sake of ticking off some imaginary checklist.

[bio347]

One thing I'm consistently seeing form people is that incinerate needs to have a chance to generate a soul shard. I agree with that for sure. At least then if you're shard-starved and conflag is on CD you still feel like you're doing something by casting incinerate

Maybe shard generation shouldn't be tied to abilities at all. Maybe it should be tied to crit. So like every crit generates a shard, or every crit has x% chance to generate a shard. I dunno. just a thought.

With the Dimension Ripper artifact trait, Incinerate basically DOES have a chance to generate a soul shard (just by a different name/mechanic). And honestly, with all of the potential random shards the spec can get I think it's probably okay that one of the proc mechanics works apart from them.

[Roujeaux]

What you like is not what everyone around you likes... might keep that in mind.

I wasn't being subjective, especially when I look back over our list of pruned spells and some of the implemented changes from WoD up until the present Alpha.

[Violetti]

So many talents that I dislike. It's gonna hurt even more once I have to unspecc the few I like.
God I hope Manatap will be bad, so we can specc into reduced casttime and manareg on chaosbolt 24/7.
The first Row isnt much better though, unspeccing either backdraft or shadowburn is gonna hurt, even though I'm not that happy how shadowburn turned out.

Grimore-Row bigger joke than its been already.

[raionyx]

One thing I'm consistently seeing form people is that incinerate needs to have a chance to generate a soul shard. I agree with that for sure. At least then if you're shard-starved and conflag is on CD you still feel like you're doing something by casting incinerate

Maybe shard generation shouldn't be tied to abilities at all. Maybe it should be tied to crit. So like every crit generates a shard, or every crit has x% chance to generate a shard. I dunno. just a thought.

Please, god no, not this. I played a Balance Druid in Wrath, and having resource generation as a chance on a chance (Like Balance used to generate Solar/Lunar Eclipse energy by a % chance on critical strike) is absolutely awful, and just ridiculously feast or famine.

Having WILD swings of DPS just because you got lucky or totally unlucky with resource generation feels absolutely awful, and I hated trying to explain to my raid leader why I was flipping between the top 3 and the bottom 3 on recount because I had crappy luck on a given pull.

[kendro1200]

Please, god no, not this. I played a Balance Druid in Wrath, and having resource generation as a chance on a chance (Like Balance used to generate Solar/Lunar Eclipse energy by a % chance on critical strike) is absolutely awful, and just ridiculously feast or famine.

Having WILD swings of DPS just because you got lucky or totally unlucky with resource generation feels absolutely awful, and I hated trying to explain to my raid leader why I was flipping between the top 3 and the bottom 3 on recount because I had crappy luck on a given pull.

Minor correction. WotLK Balance didn't have solar or lunar energy, elcipse was a cooldown. Your two spells had a chance to proc eclipse, lunar required a starfire crit and solar required a regular wrath hit, iirc. The chances were then scaled accordingly and the icd's for each were seperate, to encourage cycling between the two, but if you weren't getting lucky with one it sometimes felt better to go to the other, or at certain gear levels you fished for one primarily.

edit: I think the thing that best matched the class fantasy was back in early MoP, when you would hit fire and brimstone and start spamming incinerate in every direction and just keep spamming it, watching fire go everywhere, while it rained fire down, and stuff died. You were a spout of flame, and everywhere turned to ash around you.

From what I saw with alpha videos it seems more like damage numbers weren't tuned right, and that is why people are wanting higher shard generation. It seems far more likely that people want to cast chaos bolt and what not more often because it actually does more than a 1% of a mob's health in damage on each cast.

My more important question is why "chaos" is the spec fantasy for destruction? The only 'chaos' related thing to destruction is chaosbolt, which is just suppose to refer to the damage type of "chaos damage" from the old rts, where chaos damage bypassed all kinds of armor, and how chaosbolt would penetrate through nearly all kinds of defense. The actual theme for destruction should be fire...and well destruction. The Council of the Black Harvest went to the Firelands and tried to learn about how to cause fiery death better. There should be huge emphasis on using fire and fel magic to cause death. There should be fel volcanoes, infernals falling from the sky, and fire flying everywhere. This whole theme of randomness and portals is insane, note that the WC3 heroes Firelords and Blood Mages were a huge part of the toolkit for the base warlock fantasy back in vanilla. These are the big fire themes, that for whatever reason are being shoved exclusively onto mages. Kirin Tor mages were big on arcane and frost magic, and fire magic was a sparsely practiced art up in Silvermoon. So why are mages getting all of the fire toys and warlocks are getting phased out of it?
It's like the Death Knights taking Death Coil away, granted originally a Death Knight ability but the first Death Knights were Warlocks possessing Human warrior bodies, and Demon Hunters being able to summon demons (the fel pups). The Warlock class identity is getting heavily watered down in many aspects in Legion, despite the big claim that the intent is solidify class fantasy. Destruction thematically doesn't feel like it's out to cause destruction, it looks more like a D&D sorcerer with a hard-on with prismatic spray. "I am going to cast my most powerful spell on you, maybe it'll hurt you, maybe it'll blind you, maybe it'll send you to another plane, I don't know because I don't get to choose, I roll this die and whatever happens then we do what the list tells us. I could have picked another spell at this level that could have converted an entire castle into my fortress, or create demiplanes where I am a deity, but instead I chose to show pretty colors because I like chaos and I'm unpredictable!"

[Deleted]

The difference being that this mastery affects all of our spells that still deal with crit, where no one else has that additional layer of rng.

I'm still not terribly worried about it, but it doesn't feel good when I can an incinerate that deals more damage than the shadowburn I cast after it etc. It all works out fine in the end, but I cant say it *feels* good.

Elemental Mastery says hi , but I get your point, we get double crit chance on all our spells with our mastery. Good theme for chaos, could be anoying when you see a x4 diffrence in dmg from filler spells. In the end it's all about chaosbolt anyway, and that always crits so I think we will be fine.

Shadowburn does look like it is only there to get more shards when adds die, unlike now when it deals about the same damage as a chaosbolt if it crits. I'm terrible at snipeing adds so I personaly like this being a talent I can avoid (damn murderhobo raider friends).

- - - Updated - - -

People are screaming bloody murder at Charred Remains and on Alpha we sometimes have generation that already rivals that one in dogshit gear. I don't think any more sources of shards are needed.

I think Incinerate on alpha is ok, it's a strong spell for being filler and you could say that this is it's mechanic on it's own. I don't think that every last thing we have should have some special ability tacked to it just for the sake of ticking off some imaginary checklist.

Well, no matter the damage of incinerate, I think it would be nice if it did something to help us besides passing the time between chaosbolts. Maybe the classtrinket effect in some form (5% crit per stack, max 2-3 stacks), insta proc soulfire (maybe 50% chaosbolt dmg, and free), increase the immolate shard chance for the next tick. Something to tie it to our spec.

[Duckz0rs]

Well, no matter the damage of incinerate, I think it would be nice if it did something to help us besides passing the time between chaosbolts. Maybe the classtrinket effect in some form (5% crit per stack, max 2-3 stacks), insta proc soulfire (maybe 50% chaosbolt dmg, and free), increase the immolate shard chance for the next tick. Something to tie it to our spec.

It has a chance to recharge charges of Dimensional Rift through the Artifact. It should feel much better once you get that trait, or is that not the case?

[Gaidax]

Well, no matter the damage of incinerate, I think it would be nice if it did something to help us besides passing the time between chaosbolts. Maybe the classtrinket effect in some form (5% crit per stack, max 2-3 stacks), insta proc soulfire (maybe 50% chaosbolt dmg, and free), increase the immolate shard chance for the next tick. Something to tie it to our spec.

Sounds like more reasons for random people to whine "clunky" and such. No thanks, besides yes it has function with Artifact trait.

[Netherspark]

I don't think Incinerate needs to interact with Soul Shards, but I do agree it feels like it should do something interesting.

[Maleific]

@Soulzar

I like your ideas on Conflagration of Chaos and Demonic Portal. I really dislike it being a talent and think that slot/ gateway talents would be good places to put talents that augment the spell ( small speed boost, damage reduction, heal etc.).

I wouldn't mind Soulfire finding a place in destruction's talent tree either as a stand alone spell or something to replace/ augment Incinerate.

I.e. Replaces Incinerate. 2 sec cast, your immolate ticks have a chance to proc Empowered Soul Fire! Making this spell instant cast / auto crit/ crit damage increased by crit rating etc. or anything really.

Roaring Blaze > conflagrate refreshes Immolate to its full duration and spreads Immolate to nearby enemies.

Backdraft baseline - Empowered Backdraft now grants X% critical strike rating to affected spells instead of haste.

Also would really like a baseline interrupt if we're to use the Imp as our main pet, even more given mythic+ dungeons.

Edit: Soul Harvest > Instant grants 1 shard every 2 secs for 10 seconds. Or something

Just my 2c n silly ideas.

[Netherspark]

I wouldn't mind Soul Fire replacing Soul Conduit in the talent tree - something like a 20sec cooldown high damage spell that generates 3 soul shards

[Maleific]

I wouldn't mind Soul Fire replacing Soul Conduit in the talent tree - something like a 20sec cooldown high damage spell that generates 3 soul shards

I like your Soul Fire idea, but tbh I wouldn't like it replacing Soul Conduit. Maybe in place of Soul Harvest? Or mana tap lol.

I like Channel Demonfire but something needs to happen to make it worth taking over conduit/ havoc. Maybe it could generate shards over its duration?

[Sylar Hao]

Roaring Blaze replaced with SoulFire.

Soul Fire: replaces Incinerate. Same cast time as Incinerate and is affected by any talent or trait that affects Incinerate. It always crits and critical strike chance increases its damage.

or

Soul Fire: Gaining a Soul Shard causes your next Incinerate to turn into Soul Fire. (Same, more damage, always crit, etc).

These wouldn't change the rotation, you just keep casting Incinerate when needed but get extra damage and a really cool animation.

[Felpacino]

Guys if you haven't noticed, Burning Rush got nerfed, but I don't know when

[Capsupplier]

Soul Fire: Gaining a Soul Shard causes your next Incinerate to turn into Soul Fire. (Same, more damage, always crit, etc).

This sounds like a nice visual change, with or without the additional mechanics. Incinerate currently is a bobbing, weaving string of fire, but then every so often becomes ball of fire that heads straight for the target. Nuke that is ever changing. Could fit the theme. The only issue would be a green Soul Fire and Chaos Bolt appearing too similar to some players (big green nuke), and if the devs already have something else in mind for Soul Fire in the future.

[Calfredd]

Guys if you haven't noticed, Burning Rush got nerfed, but I don't know when

What's the nerf?

[bio347]

Guys if you haven't noticed, Burning Rush got nerfed, but I don't know when

Burning Rush's tooltip on both wowhead and MMOC is the same for both Legion and Live. What changed?