[LEGION] Destruction vs. Target Switch

[Wenoxar]

It is said, thought and believed that Destruction is great at nuking important targets. Is it, though?

In Wod when we had to switch target, we would just use 4x Chaos Bolt and the damage of 4x Chaos Bolt was really juicy.

In Legion, we no longer have that big of a control with our new shitty shard resource. On top of that, we have to start with immolate so that's another ~1,5sec of time. On top of that, thanks to perfectly designed Mastery: Chaotic Energies spell Chaos Bolt will surely do zero damage if it doesn't proc and will do "ok" damage when it procs nicely. I feel like Choas Bolt isn't really Chaos Bolt anymore.

Yeah, sure, Conflagrate and Incinerate does some bigger damage than zero right now, but it takes time to cast those spells, right? Before you just could 4x Chaos Bolt and then worry about conflagrate / incinerates / shadowburn.

I mean, how exactly Destruction is good at burning down important targets in Legion? I can see that it's the only warlock spec that can do it, but just because it can do it doesn't mean it's good at it, right?


EDIT: Just for fun wanted to compare new chaos bolt to old chaos bolt. Before prepatch I used sandman+DSI and the weakest chaos bolt I got was 210k minimum damage (flask, rune, 125mastery food but no procs like weapon enchant or trinkets or ring). Just fought a dummy for 10min with same trinkets (DSI doesn't affect minimum damage now, but had to use it) and the minimum Choas Bolt I got was 76k damage with Eradication talent turned off. Imo, low numbers.

[Deleted]

heres the priority list

1) log out
2) log in to fire mage
3) perform better.

[Wenoxar]

heres the priority list

1) log out
2) log in to fire mage
3) perform better.

Thanks for that tip but I have already rerolled to mage ^^ But I still kinda care about lock, for some reason

[JV Chequer]

You can bank 5 shards for something that important + 2~3 Conflagrates + Shards proc + DR = That's around 4 Chaos Bolt or more with some little luck.

Or you just don't bank it because does not matter that much and just take care on Shadowburn sniping and immolating.

[Wenoxar]

Agreed, that's definitely the go-to rotation for nuking things down in Legion. Yet still, to cast 4 Chaos Bolts it took like 7 seconds assuming you weren't speeding them up with Conflagrate. I really, really doubt legion destro will do so much burst in that 7 seconds.

Obviously, legion destro is big improvement compared to wod for cleave, because of havoc and wreak havoc improvement. But it really seems that it's downgrade for quick-quick bursting.

BTW! About new Conflagrate vs old Conflagrate. People think "oh wow, conflagrate grants whole shard, so powerful!!". Yes, it is better now. In WoD conflagrate would give us 0,3 of Chaos Bolt (Ember) and 0,4 of Chaos Bolt if it was crit. In Legion it is 1 shard which is 0,5 of Chaos Bolt. Improvement - yes! But not as some of people might actually think :P Hopefully no need to mention that Conflagrate does actually do damage now without Charred Remains.

[Ghries]

Is Demonology that bad at target swithing?

[Fearsom1992]

I mythic tested and on fights like botanist I rekt the little adds and flame orbs

[Lucrece]

Is Demonology that bad at target swithing?

You sink a bunch of shards to temporary demons tied to the target you put them on. On top of already being the highest ramp up spec in the game.

[Gaidax]

Destruction can target switch just fine in Legion, of all things to complain - this one is non-issue. I'd say it's even extremely powerful at it because Wreck Havoc exists and allows you to keep nuking the boss, while you nuke all the crap around it.

You know what Destruction does not have compared to WoD? Burst AoE... everything else is the same or better.

[benjaminandjen]

Destruction can target switch just fine in Legion, of all things to complain - this one is non-issue. I'd say it's even extremely powerful at it because Wreck Havoc exists and allows you to keep nuking the boss, while you nuke all the crap around it.

You know what Destruction does not have compared to WoD? Burst AoE... everything else is the same or better.

I'm really looking forwsrd to all this legion magic and good times. Because on live, by the time I havoc, immolate, and woops the ad was taken down by everyone else. Trash and ads make you feel useless on live. Then you get whispers "why are you destro?" And I'm like, well, it's strong in legion, sooooo I want to focus on this spec. So awkward

[Gohzerlock]

Destruction can target switch just fine in Legion, of all things to complain - this one is non-issue. I'd say it's even extremely powerful at it because Wreck Havoc exists and allows you to keep nuking the boss, while you nuke all the crap around it.

You know what Destruction does not have compared to WoD? Burst AoE... everything else is the same or better.

Was gonna say, is the op joking?! I know warlocks have a lot of concerns, but tossing havoc on a boss and nuking a priority target isn't one of them. I suppose maybe if the priority target happened to be the only thing out it may be a bit more difficult.. not sure if there is any fight like that in legion though.

@benjaminandjen

ya it sucks but things die extremely quick when it's the end of an expansion.

[Bullarkie]

Destruction can target switch just fine in Legion, of all things to complain - this one is non-issue. I'd say it's even extremely powerful at it because Wreck Havoc exists and allows you to keep nuking the boss, while you nuke all the crap around it.

You know what Destruction does not have compared to WoD? Burst AoE... everything else is the same or better.

It would be nice if they would just make Cataclysm or Rain of Fire better. I don't understand why Cataclysm is a 45 sec cool down, 3 second cast time AND 8 yard ground targeted when abilities like Barrage are on a 20 sec cool down, instant, targeted with a ~40 yard spread AND do more damage. I also don't understand why Rain of Fire is 3 shard and does shit damage.

[Zerach8]

It would be nice if they would just make Cataclysm or Rain of Fire better. I don't understand why Cataclysm is a 45 sec cool down, 3 second cast time AND 8 yard ground targeted when abilities like Barrage are on a 20 sec cool down, instant, targeted with a ~40 yard spread AND do more damage. I also don't understand why Rain of Fire is 3 shard and does shit damage.

RoF is shit damage? who are u kidding? ofc it wont outperform CB on 3 or 4 targets, but its good aoe altho not bursty...i do agree that if it were to cost 2 shards, the rotation would be much smoother imo

Also worth noting that Sacrifice damage is very good aoe once u get the 50% damage node in artifact

[Zerach8]

yes...and i dont understand why they suddenly decided to put it on GCD when it was off GCD for so long...

[Tehterokkar]

It's on the GCD because it's infinitely more powerful than WoD Havoc was.

Though, I agree it should not have GCD as the non-talented option. But with Wreak Havoc it should have the GCD.

[bio347]

Havoc was never off the GCD, anyway. It had a shorter one (0.5s in WoD), sure, but "short GCD" is not "off GCD".

[Lisa Frank Succubus]

It would be nice if they would just make Cataclysm or Rain of Fire better. I don't understand why Cataclysm is a 45 sec cool down, 3 second cast time AND 8 yard ground targeted when abilities like Barrage are on a 20 sec cool down, instant, targeted with a ~40 yard spread AND do more damage. I also don't understand why Rain of Fire is 3 shard and does shit damage.

I don't like to complain (even though I end up doing it sometimes) but I don't get barrage in comparison to cataclysm and rain of fire. I was soloing stuff with my friend on his hunter and it was just silly, I'm way better geared than him and stuff dies if you fart on it anyway but I felt so useless because rof has a cast time now and costs a shard and it didn't help cataclysm has the 45 CD and seems to have a shorter radius than I remember. Best "room clearer" I had was fire and brimstone incinerate and I kept thinking "Man...why can't I have F&B conflag anymore?"

I'm well aware my above complaint is pretty much garbage in the grand scheme of thing but I just wanted to bitch about barrage I guess. I'm just venting. I remember having such godly burst aoe in WoD and it feels like I lost a lot while the other classes didn't? Please correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not one of these people who claims to be an expert on everything. I just remember F&B chaos bolt with dark soul was so much fun on HFC trash or timewalking and I really enjoyed the conflag combo for generating embers, it feels weird losing that..its nice that F&B is free now with incinerate but it just doesn't feel like a worthy change to me. I feel like destro was mostly fine in WoD and didn't need many changes IMO but me saying that is like saying I wish the tide would never come because blizz is always going to change every spec with every new expansion. I always adapt but I feel really weird this time.

I'd honestly prefer rof had stayed the same if given the choice because it was at least nice for knocking people out of stealth in BGs or clearing old content if you were really lazy. The shard cost+cast time just doesn't feel good but maybe its good damage, I admit since the patch I haven't done any raiding, timewalking or much of anything on my warlock, just invasions.

[n0n3]

To fix destro they'll need to make certain talents baseline, fire and brimstone, shadowburn and RoF cost 2 shards instead of 3. It's a common thing for locks on all 3 specs, you can either do single target or AoE, never both, main reason why fire mages and hunters are far better than warlocks is the fact that they dont have to sacrifice neither to do good ST, aoe or burst(our burst cd dark soul is also a talent now, you see combustion or trueshot a talent?)
It would be fine if when speccing for ST or AoE we would gain 5-10% more compared to the other classes but we don't, AoE and single target is tuned by blizzard separately. Overall it's bad design and blizz devs had no clue what to do with warlocks this expansion.
I wish we had Xelnath back...

[Scathbais]

Also worth noting that Sacrifice damage is very good aoe once u get the 50% damage node in artifact

So I was in beta today and my Impish Incineration tool tip (not active/fresh 100) does not mention what it does with Grim Sup or Grim Sac. It only says "Increases imp's firebolt damage by 18%. Do I need to have the other Grimoires chosen or have the artifact ability unlocked to see the text?

Did they remove it (sorry nub question, but I only got into beta very recently.)

[Zerach8]

So I was in beta today and my Impish Incineration tool tip (not active/fresh 100) does not mention what it does with Grim Sup or Grim Sac. It only says "Increases imp's firebolt damage by 18%. Do I need to have the other Grimoires chosen or have the artifact ability unlocked to see the text?

Did they remove it (sorry nub question, but I only got into beta very recently.)

You need to pick the talent for it to change (18% doom bolt dmg as GoSup, 18% imp dmg as GoServ and 50% more dmg from the explosion thingie if u have GoSac)
No effect for Infernals which makes me sad...would love to see a dmg increase to its immolation aura, would make it a compeling choice for sustained aoe as its dmg isnt that bad at all...also making lord of flames that much stronger :>