[BETA] Destruction Warlock Discussion

[n0n3]

Blizzard doesn't give better numbers to specs that are harder to play, doesn't matter if a spec requires you to press 2 button and the other one 5+, or if you are pure dps class or a hybrid, in the end all specs total DPS should be -/+5% between each other, that's their phylosophy since Wotlk, "Bring the Player Not the Class"...

[Gaidax]

Can anyone tell me the cast time of chaosbolt we can expect in Legion 110 gear? Without any talents?

You can check this live, there is no magic about it, cast time without talents is 3 seconds modified by whatever Haste you have.

In my case ilvl 855 25% Haste with Entropy it is 2 seconds cast.

That is the cast time you can expect at T19 start because Entropy is almost mandatory and Haste is something you WILL want to stack.

T19 bonus gives a Haste bonus to subsequent Chaos Bolt if you chain them fast enough.

[Orwell7]

Do you absolutely sure Havoc is OP?
In my experience in Beta, fotm specs easily outmatch our 2-target cleave. And let's be honest, there are almost zero encounters (not only bosses, but trash) where there are only 2 targets.
I sincerely think Wreak Havoc is not that good at 3+ targets, because with Soul Conduit you have a chance for your RoF's to be completely refunded, and when that happens its godlike damage.

Wreak Havoc, however loses it's value if you want to cast Immolate on 3-5 targets, and you will be swarmed with shards that way, which you will use on RoF and not on Chaos Bolts or Incinerates. Also, Havoc does not copy the damage of Rifts, our pets/guardians, demonic power or RoF's damage either. So it's pretty mediocre, no need to be nerfed.

[Uzkin]

Demo in current live is hilariously overpowered if you have the 4-piece and class trinket, though less so than it was a few days ago - they nerfed the chance of random demons being summoned by imp firebolts from 8% to 2% but couldn;t be bothered to put this change into the patch notes

Demo in liv eis nothing other than spam Shadowbolt, Hand of Guldan and Dmeonic Empowerment and coast at the top of meters. It is nothing like that in Legion. -snip-

Hilariously overpowered when compared to the other warlock specs, but below average when compared with the other classes:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/8/#sample=1

(The view in that link only shows post-nerf parses.)

BTW, as I expected, warlocks absolutely suck now in 5-mans (in live Legion prepatch). Switched to an alt for 5-man content for now, hopefully "artifact will fix it"(TM) but I'm not holding my breath.

[Gaidax]

It's godlike when you can abuse it enough, it's not like it is a default pick everytime.

But really IMO anytime you have most of the encounter more than 1 targets and it's not an outright balls to the wall AoE it's very good. Obviously 2 targets is most optimal, but at 3 targets or many targets that die fast it is better than anything else you can do and that is what many many Mythic + pulls are.

Stacking RoF is very powerful, but it needs at least 4 targets that will stay alive enough time to manifest its power.

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BTW, as I expected, warlocks absolutely suck now in 5-mans (in live Legion prepatch). Switched to an alt for 5-man content for now, hopefully "artifact will fix it"(TM) but I'm not holding my breath.

Find your Implosion button. It is hilarious in 5 mans now. Blam and half the trashpack dead on pull

[Uzkin]

Find your Implosion button. It is hilarious in 5 mans now. Blam and half the trashpack dead on pull

Oops, I meant to say *destro* warlocks as it's my spec of choice. I switched to my slightly less geared fury warrior and it outperformed my destro in pretty much every way. (Which is sad since destro used to be very good in 5-mans before the Legion changes/nerfs.)

[Deleted]

You can check this live, there is no magic about it, cast time without talents is 3 seconds modified by whatever Haste you have.

In my case ilvl 855 25% Haste with Entropy it is 2 seconds cast.

That is the cast time you can expect at T19 start because Entropy is almost mandatory and Haste is something you WILL want to stack.

T19 bonus gives a Haste bonus to subsequent Chaos Bolt if you chain them fast enough.

Well, I can't check it because my gear is ilvl 700 PvP stuff and it's a boosted character, when I ran timewalking, the cast time was so long that I could barely use it on trash, it would often never hit the mob due to the abysmal travel speed (in addition to the abysmal cast-time)
2s is really long, I hoped for something below that tbh. I expected higher haste than 25% in Legion too.

Makes me question how you deliver "burst" on lower HP targets as Warlock. I wonder how you damage/dps low HP targets in general, because I feel like literally every spell is inferior to what melees have to offer... even incinerate is annoyingly slow and Roaring Blaze seems to be mandatory in Raids.

[Baconeggcheese]

T19 bonus gives a Haste bonus to subsequent Chaos Bolt if you chain them fast enough.

I'm still kinda bummed about that set bonus, just seems completely negligible to the point where we could just pick more optimal pieces or ilvl or something.

[Gaidax]

Well, I can't check it because my gear is ilvl 700 PvP stuff and it's a boosted character, when I ran timewalking, the cast time was so long that I could barely use it on trash, it would often never hit the mob due to the abysmal travel speed (in addition to the abysmal cast-time)
2s is really long, I hoped for something below that tbh. I expected higher haste than 25% in Legion too.

Makes me question how you deliver "burst" on lower HP targets as Warlock. I wonder how you damage/dps low HP targets in general, because I feel like literally every spell is inferior to what melees have to offer... even incinerate is annoyingly slow and Roaring Blaze seems to be mandatory in Raids.

Shadowburn and CoC Conflag - both hit pretty hard and are instant and are spammable together. You don't spec Shadowburn? Too bad then, that's how talents work.

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I'm still kinda bummed about that set bonus, just seems completely negligible to the point where we could just pick more optimal pieces or ilvl or something.

2 piece is godlike though, especially with CoC.

[Deleted]

Extremely dumb question, but I am correct that Implosion damage increases the more imps you have? The tooltip is not clear.

Of course, Implosion now will be benefitting from our having eight imps not five.

[Smog]

Extremely dumb question, but I am correct that Implosion damage increases the more imps you have? The tooltip is not clear.

Of course, Implosion now will be benefitting from our having eight imps not five.

Implosion tooltip damage is per imp. It's great aoe dps.

[Baconeggcheese]

2 piece is godlike though, especially with CoC.

Ofc, but the 4p is still doo doo. I guess its a good thing ultimately since it'll let us snag 2p during progress and then not have to worry about picking up 4p until other people have theirs.

Still not excited about the prospect of that set bonus being completely underwhelming to get though.

[Deleted]

Shadowburn and CoC Conflag - both hit pretty hard and are instant and are spammable together. You don't spec Shadowburn? Too bad then, that's how talents work.

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Shadowburn doesn't feel like it hits hard at all, especially since I use the PvP set right now.
I'd rather spec Backdraft before I spec Shadowburn (with my stuff), if I want to nuke something, unless I'm looking for the shards, which means there have to be more than just a few targets.

And that's how talents work? Really? Really cool that you have to give up significant ST damage to nuke adds and the occasional low HP mob slightly faster/better.
That's trash design since I can't change talents inside a dungeon/raid anymore, it's even worse if I use the group tool to find a random dungeon and I can only figure out what dungeon I'm going to once it's too late.
The way talents work right now is: They don't work... but that's true for pretty much every class, not just warlocks. I don't want to feel like shit at encounter A, and then like a boss at encounter B. It's a horrible feeling and really not fun design.

[Smog]

but the 4p is still doo doo.

One of the class's foremost experts, ladies and gentlemen.

[xxalissonxx]

Guys, you who are playing in beta legion, tell me:

Warlocks dps are good ? i mean in pre-patch we are weak (after demon nerfs).

Or mage still top GOD DPS and something like this ?

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Why haven't they fixed green fire for the updated spell effects like our flaming hands and incinerate itself?

Are we really going to go into this expansion without burning embers aura, stripped out of all our visuals?

I also hope they change Demonfire to scale according to targets affected, devaluing it with more targets around is just horrible and I really don't want to use soul conduit or the other boring crap in that tier.

I also want to use whatever damn demon I want, not a miserable imp that didn't even receive a meaningful model update. I'm willing to be that a lot of people who are using grimoire of supremacy probably do so because they hate being stuck with an imp or felhunter instead of the pet of their choice.

Destro complaining about green fire? Demo and Aff have literally nothing.

[Baconeggcheese]

Destro complaining about green fire? Demo and Aff have literally nothing.

Woah hey, they have burning rush!

[Smog]

Woah hey, they have burning rush!

And infernal, and dread steed.

edit: I really don't understand what the complaint is concerning green fire for these specs. It represents fel fire, and thus affects fire/chaos spells. Affliction and demo use mostly shadow(void) magic, so what spells, exactly, do people think should be green? An argument could be made for demonbolt and your imp's bolts, I guess, but if they just turn every spell in the warlock kit green because OMG GREEN FIRE, it will no longer be special.

If you want your kit to be green, play the spec that actually utilizes fel fire.

[Baconeggcheese]

@Smog Well in fairness its a quest to grab up a bunch of fel energy, not specifically fire. Game play wise blizzard only did it for fel fire, but really there could be fel versions of shadow spells that could be green.

Aff barely has spell animations to begin with though (which is a problem in and of itself), so it'd need those before they could modify them, and new demo would need something quite different like augmenting the pets that are summoned or something. Neither of which is worth the time / effort for blizzard so. Meh.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I totally get why they aren't there in most cases, but we had a fel touched meta form before, so fel touch to shadowflame spells or something would be nice, and Affli definitely needs to have some animations put in during the caster animation pass they've mentioned. It's just amusing to me to see destro complaining about their green fire.