[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[Deleted]

That depends, does the duration update dynamically? Might be worth a shot to test in Beta (don't have access myself): cast Soul Harvest and then Cata on several targets and see if the duration updates. I'd wager they're intended to work together because of the talent tier change between Cata and F&B, so I (possibly wrongly) assumed that would be the case.

logically speaking it shouldnt be dynamic cost you could potentially exploit the hell out of it if it were, coz you could wait until the duration of immolate was low, cast soul harvest, cast havoc(with wreak havoc talent) and cast immolate again, potentially gaining a few extra seconds added to soul harvest's duration and then when the duration of those immolates get low you could potentially further extend its duration by a few seconds again, so i doubt it will be dynamically updated and it would add a new gamestyle of metagaming which i dont think is intended, to meit would make most sense if it simply snapshots and thats it.

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Oh, and it's also somewhat poor design to fix the spec's inherent mobility issues via artifact talent. Sure, it might work between levels 10x -- 110 but not outside that. Incinerate will also feel really useless and boring during leveling since it won't have any interaction with the rest of the spec (no FnB, no Dimensional Ripper). Generally, the destruction mechanics, toolkit, and theme all became much worse upon the legion redesign.

you're assuming that destro is supposed to cast spells while moving, guess what? locks arent supposed to, blizz have stated long ago that they want locks to be stationary and tanky which we definately are, anything we get that we can actually cast while moving is a bonus.

[Uzkin]

you're assuming that destro is supposed to cast spells while moving, guess what? locks arent supposed to, blizz have stated long ago that they want locks to be stationary and tanky which we definately are, anything we get that we can actually cast while moving is a bonus.

Instant cast Dimensional Rift disagrees with you. Or are you saying that Blizzard wants destruction to be stationary *outside* the level range 10x -- 110?

[Deleted]

afaik dimensional rift is only usable from lvl 100-110, so you will be pretty stationary until then and even then, you get a very sizable hit to your dps when moving, and dimensional rift has a rather HUGE recharge timer of 45 secs, so unless you save your charges for when you move, there will be a good chance that you dont have many charges of it for when you move, just bcoz its instant doesnt make spammable.

[gruxxar]

mobility is more than fine with Rift added to the kit. Movement is something to think about and destro has always been about planning movement wisely.

(and below level 100 really doesn't matter 1 bit)

[Uzkin]

Yes, as I said it's somewhat poor design. Indeed, among all the issues the new destruction has, the fact that it only gets its movement tools via artifact talent at endgame is not a major one. Poor design, nevertheless.

[Baconeggcheese]

I feel like people are underestimating how limited a resource the rifts are. Destro is still very very immobile even with the instant rifts.

[Gaidax]

It is what we have now plus rifts plus Shadowburn 100-20. Quite a substantial boost, especially because these are not some shit spells like gel flame that only exist so you think you are doing something on the move, these actually do real damage.

Spending shard on Shadowburn on the move is not optimal, but it sure beats not doing anything, especially when shards are not such a rare commodity.

That combined with understanding that most mobility in the encounters is either sidesteps or movement you can prepare for and I don't see issue.

[Deleted]

I feel like people are underestimating how limited a resource the rifts are. Destro is still very very immobile even with the instant rifts.

yeah which was the point i was trying to make earlier, if you use all 3 it takes 135 secs b4 you get them all back, thats like half of a bossfight right there. almost all of destro's dps while moving comes from using shards and then you'll loose backdraft which is a better option for ST afaik and only gets better if you get the legendary item that generates a shard from firespells, it really causes some tough choices.

[Gaidax]

If you take backdraft you will have more rifts due to artifact trait that replenishes charges on rift.

It looks like a small chance, but it happens quite a bit.

Basically the point is, you need to do pretty much the same thing you had to do forever (except for MoP where Destruction was a brain dead OP spec) - use your head when it comes to movement.

We got extra viable paths now for that. If you are looking for no sacrifice mobility then roll melee or hunter.

I don't really understand what you people want, can you instead of booing everything just let know what you want? Except for full mobility, because it's not happening by design.

[Deleted]

I don't really understand what you people want, can you instead of booing everything just let know what you want? Except for full mobility, because it's not happening by design.

i think a lot of ppl played lock in MoP and feel they are entitled to play lock with the same lvl of movement, ppl can still do a decent amount of dps while moving but ppl will need to sacrifice other things to do it, which i think is a good thing, it makes you think about which choices are the best in a given situation and then have to weigh the pros and cons of those choices, and having choices is a good thing, not like now where you have 1 choice for the most time and then the rest of the time its highly situational.

personally, ive accepted that those days are long over, it was fun while it lasted,

[Gaidax]

Oh yeah the MoP days where we were 25% over everyone else in just about anything but pure single target.

Point is, it was OP as fuck and if you want that back then we would be hammered with a lot of nerfs for that.

I prefer reasonable balance to exist so that when I am doing good it happens because I do right things at the right time and not roll my face over the keyboard and top like in SoO. I am much rather game around weaknesses I can acceptably live with, because that is where the fun is - kicking ass despite some handicaps.

Besides that, Destruction is shaping up to be real good in Legion, we have a lot of tools others can only dream of and as I see it, mobility is one of the not many disadvantages we have and even that is in line with most other casters now with the Legion changes up from being terrible in WoD.

But hey, I get your drift, godmode is amusing for some time if that's your thing. I remember was driving guildies nuts with megalomania power trips in guild chat.

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Side note, Lord of Flames being a debuff now that is removed on death opens up some interesting possibilities... I don't remember it being that way last time I tried it some time ago.

[Uzkin]

Besides that, Destruction is shaping up to be real good in Legion, we have a lot of tools others can only dream of and as I see it, mobility is one of the not many disadvantages we have and even that is in line with most other casters now with the Legion changes up from being terrible in WoD.

"Shaping up to be real good"? I played GoSac/Cata in WoD whenever I could get away with it, and it was better than the Legion design in almost every way. And by better I mean mechanics- and gameplay-wise. WoD destruction had...

* better mastery (in particular, WoD mastery felt the better the more you stacked it; Legion mastery in contrast feels WORSE the more you stack it)
* better benefit from procs and similar effects
* 1 sec GCD
* nice, interactive, predictable resource system with a cool visual effect; no spell felt useless or boring (except maaaybe RoF, but it was pretty much the only thing that needed attention)
* impactful, powerful shadowburn execute
* soulshatter
* versatile AOE mechanics, FnB affecting several spells
* conflagrate daze / aoe daze
* personal 2 min cooldown baseline, very fitting for spec identity, flexible with 2 charges
* no need to life/manatap
* general emphasis more on the player and less on the pets
* well-designed grimoire of sacrifice which also provided a useful command demon ability
* ability to precast havoc (and backdraft) stacks, higher skill cap
* baseline FnB, shadowburn, backdraft; all very iconic, spec-defining abilities
* instantly applicable aoe in RoF and aoe conflagrate
* demonic teleport baseline and consisting of two buttons
* ability to store enough embers for up to four consecutive chaos bolts; this in part contributing to the higher skill cap and "depth" of the spec
* instant shadowfury providing nice utility
* no shoehorning into a single pet
* no resource cost for cd summons; destro is about building resources for nukes, wasting those on pets feels bad
* no pointless button-bloat spells such as Channel Demonfire (which is completely disjoint from the rest of the rotation / toolkit and serves no purpose but to inflate the amount of buttons)

This list is by no means exhaustive; I just decided to list the first 20 things that came into my mind (in no particular order) which contributed to the spec feeling better in WoD than what it will be in Legion.

[Gaidax]

Sounds like a bunch of QQ to me.

I personally enjoy Legion Destruction quite a bit and I believe you are trying way to hard to hate on it, which causes me to wonder whether you are even objective or just like to blow steam. Basically half of your list is an attempt to make elephant out of a fly and another half has analogy in Legion. Maybe some very few things there are valid, most others - just trying too hard.

[Uzkin]

Sounds like a bunch of QQ to me.

I personally enjoy Legion Destruction quite a bit and I believe you are trying way to hard to hate on it, which causes me to wonder whether you are even objective or just like to blow steam. Basically half of your list is an attempt to make elephant out of a fly and another half has analogy in Legion. Maybe some very few things there are valid, most others - just trying too hard.

No QQ, I just cannot agree about the spec "shaping up to be real good" when almost everything that has changed has changed for the worse. It might still be playable but it is certainly worse than what it was, in many ways.

[Gaidax]

I disagree, I am simply going by basic things...

Our usual strengths of direct damage and fast switching are retained, we got mobility improvement and we have amazing frontloaded burst now something we lacked previously, cleave got boosted as well (and can be ridiculous with talent if you wish it to be so). AoE took a hit.

You just go by some bullet points there, but guess what the whole package is just fine. I'll tell you what, I don't need 4 Chaos Bolts in the row when my Incinerate does about 3 times the damage it does live with Charred Remains and I have stackable Dimensional Rift which is has pretty crazy DPCT. And if you somehow believe that having Imp or even Doomguard around with their measly contribution somehow means that there is less emphasis on you doing good, then you are mistaken. Same with Sacrifice, I guess you are merely ignoring how stupendously powerful it is in cleave and AoE, heck I'd say it would be default choice for just about anything minus pure single target.

And there is one more cool thing about it - Chaos Bolt is no longer pretty much the only spell that is doing damage for us and that is a bloody +1 right there from me.

There are a lot of cool things there, which you happily ignored in your huge effort of trying to make everything look bad, that is why you are simply not objective.

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Point is simple, just think about it for a moment:

Leaving individual spells aside, compared to what you have live, what kind of functionality in raid you actually lost? My answer - only AoE is truly a downgrade, but on the other hand just about everything else was boosted, on-demand burst, cleave, single target, mobility, survivability - all of that got improved.

[gruxxar]

Destro has all it needs atm, altough i wouldn't mind a different way to spread immolate

The thing that really annoys me is the 'no changing talents' whenever, but we'll see how that pans out with the reagents ..

[bio347]

I do wonder about this "four consecutive Chaos Bolts" thing.

Realistically, you're only saving up ~3.5 CBs in WoD. To do otherwise is to potentially waste embers from a stray crit or Immolate tick. So you're almost never going to deliver four consecutive, it's more like three consecutive plus a filler or two and then the fourth one. (Pedantic, sure, but being accurate and specific is important in feedback.) In Legion, you can only save 2.5 CBs in pure resource, though again you probably don't want to because of potential Immolate shards. But you can also pool two charges of Conflag that equate to an extra CB, so you've really got a potential reserve of 3.5 CBs (pre-RNG).

This is also ignoring that Legion CB has ~50% more spellpower scaling (360% compare to 227.5%) as well as a higher critical damage multiplier and chance to refund a shard from the artifact, and that the secondary stat smoothing will mean you have higher crit and mastery at lower gear levels. It also ignores the existence of talents that you may have, like Mana Tap or Eradication or Soul Conduit, and the ability to save Rift charges or the occasional Conflagration of Chaos proc for a burst as well.

All in all, I think it's definitely important to be aware of the complete package. If banking Embers for burst situations in WoD is "skillful" (it's actually really easy a lot of the time!), then I can only imagine that saving for burst in Legion with its larger amount of moving parts and higher RNG navigation requirements will be even moreso!

[Halwyn]

I do wonder about this "four consecutive Chaos Bolts" thing.

It's not that unrealistic, actually. DS/Lust/OOV or GSR proc and even one Immolate can easily refill the remaining shard bits on it's own. Not to mention 4t18 procs.

[Gaidax]

Well if we play that game, potential to chain Chaos Bolts in Legion is even higher with multiple shard refund passives and Immolate capable of generating whole shard on ticks. Although with Eradication, chaining Chaos Bolts would not be the best practice.

But really, that's just nitpicking. The main idea that overall we are indeed pretty much the same in the meaning that we have our core strengths retained and some side stuff traded around. Basically we can accomplish absolutely same goals as live with different tools this time.

[Wondercrab]

Oh yeah the MoP days where we were 25% over everyone else in just about anything but pure single target.

Point is, it was OP as fuck and if you want that back then we would be hammered with a lot of nerfs for that.

It's unfortunate that people default to thinking about how overpowered Warlocks were in MoP when talking about that expansion, when mechanically Destruction was one of the most beautifully crafted specs the game has ever had back then. It was just an absolute joy to play: smooth and fluid, unhindered by many clunky mechanics, simple to pick up but hard to master. It's an absolute travesty that the design devolved so much over the course of WoD (and continuing into Legion), when all that was necessary was a degree of tuning and tweaks to make Destruction less powerful in areas it wasn't supposed to be.

Mobility is one that always comes up, and it's baffling to me the way WoW handles it with a lot of casters. Having no engaging rotation, or sometimes even no buttons to press at all, makes for horribly clunky, frustrating gameplay compared to the alternative. The minigame of managing movement and positioning can still exist in a world where a class has plenty of things to do while moving -- you simply have to make sure that those things result in a severe damage penalty so as to incentivise standing still as much as possible.

I'm incredibly despondent about Destruction going into Legion at present. It feels like the wonderful gameplay the spec had in MoP has been intentionally dismantled piece by piece in favour of something far less mechanically enjoyable, along with losing a ton of the flavour and identity it used to have.