Soul Fire the new Destro filler nuke?

[threegreenpears]

The thing that's confusing about the Destro filler nuke is that the tree buffs so many different filler spells (hello, Imp SB, Imp SF, Fire and Brimstone) that it's completely confusing which talents are intended for Destro and which ones are intended to be picked up by other trees. Is PvE Demo supposed to skip cremation for Emberstorm and Imp SF and use it as a filler? If that's the case then why even bother introducing Demonbolt? With the talents so shallow in the tree it seems to imply that's the design. I can see Fire and Brimstone being reworked to make SF filler for destro what with Afterburn buffing the spell as well; but the desirability of a 4 sec cast time reduction on a 6 second spell makes it automatically seem to scale better due to coefficients than almost any other spell available to warlocks, which means that almost every spec (certainly demo, if not affli) will want to be using these talents so they can use SF as a filler as well.

All in all, my guess is that Emberstorm, and possibly Imp SF will be moved to deeper into the tree and the spells that buff incin will either be removed (making Incin aimed primarily at Demo to be used under MC and possibly for when Backlash procs if talented into by pve'ers) or changed to include SF. Basically with NINE talents buffing SF in destro (12 if you include that backlash effects it as well) compared to the five or so talents that buff Incin it seems that yes, Destro ought to be using SF come cata. Still, I think the trees are really a mess with all of the SF talents at the bottom, given that Locks don't even learn it until 48 (though that could change, of course) and Blizzard wants the early talents to be useful to low-level players.

[Overwelm]

Improved Shadow Bolt is going away last I heard. They are doing away with the +5% crit debuff all together. I cannot provide a source at this time, but I remember reading that somewhere.

To the guy freaking out for no reason, allforone, it's obvious the talent trees aren't finished. I'm pretty sure that most people understand this and have read the blue posts concerning it. However, that does not mean discussion cannot take place over what is there, it doesn't hurt anything. Calm down.

Your most likely right, I am just going off of what the talent trees look like atm. Though blizz probably said that it's going away.

The thing that's confusing about the Destro filler nuke is that the tree buffs so many different filler spells (hello, Imp SB, Imp SF, Fire and Brimstone) that it's completely confusing which talents are intended for Destro and which ones are intended to be picked up by other trees. Is PvE Demo supposed to skip cremation for Emberstorm and Imp SF and use it as a filler? If that's the case then why even bother introducing Demonbolt? With the talents so shallow in the tree it seems to imply that's the design. I can see Fire and Brimstone being reworked to make SF filler for destro what with Afterburn buffing the spell as well; but the desirability of a 4 sec cast time reduction on a 6 second spell makes it automatically seem to scale better due to coefficients than almost any other spell available to warlocks, which means that almost every spec (certainly demo, if not affli) will want to be using these talents so they can use SF as a filler as well.

All in all, my guess is that Emberstorm, and possibly Imp SF will be moved to deeper into the tree and the spells that buff incin will either be removed (making Incin aimed primarily at Demo to be used under MC and possibly for when Backlash procs if talented into by pve'ers) or changed to include SF. Basically with NINE talents buffing SF in destro (12 if you include that backlash effects it as well) compared to the five or so talents that buff Incin it seems that yes, Destro ought to be using SF come cata. Still, I think the trees are really a mess with all of the SF talents at the bottom, given that Locks don't even learn it until 48 (though that could change, of course) and Blizzard wants the early talents to be useful to low-level players.

Introducing demonbolt was to give demo a mobile nuke as we don't have many and to increase the damage of our pets.

[Aesahaettr]

With the trees as they stand at the moment, there would be no point, as Dest, to cast any filler other than Soulfire. Not even sure if it would be worth casting anything else for any spec, as they could all reach down to most of the SF buffs.

As pointed out though, the trees and skills are still unfinished. I can't see Soulfire replacing Incinerate entirely, but I'm personally expecting Soulfire to be the optimum nuke during Backdraft, but not worth casting out of it. So after conflag you use Soulfire x3, then back to the usual rotation. This is pure speculation though, I could be way off.

[xionkarl]

With the trees as they stand at the moment, there would be no point, as Dest, to cast any filler other than Soulfire. Not even sure if it would be worth casting anything else for any spec, as they could all reach down to most of the SF buffs.

As pointed out though, the trees and skills are still unfinished. I can't see Soulfire replacing Incinerate entirely, but I'm personally expecting Soulfire to be the optimum nuke during Backdraft, but not worth casting out of it. So after conflag you use Soulfire x3, then back to the usual rotation. This is pure speculation though, I could be way off.

God I hope this is not the case. Molten Core makes Demo feel so clunky, I'd rather not have that same feel with Destro.

I feel that in the next build, Improved Soul Fire and Emberstorm will be moved down the tree a bit, and that Destro will end up using Soul Fire as their filler nuke.

Improved Soul Fire seems like it's designed mainly to just increase our initial burst on targets (adds) and not for us to switch up and cast a Soul Fire just for 15% haste. Though I could be wrong, but I'm hopeful. With Soul Fire no longer costing a Soul Shard it opens the ability up to some pretty interesting applications and I would like to see it used by the "fire" spec.

[Jessicka]

Except this thread is not about Demonology, Affliction, or the talent tree's being unfinished. I acknowledged the talent trees not being complete.

I was emphasising just how bad the whole shabang is. As I said, Destruction is too busy in the first two tiers in terms of 'does this to that spell' talents; that's entirely contrary to what GC has said they want - ie to keep the first couple of tiers simple, but at the same time define the gameplay of the tree. At the moment, it does far too much to 'define' without anything being straightforward.

I would not expect SF to become the Destruction filler entirely as doing that would render Incinerate completely pointless beyond being a proc charge spell for Demonology at >35%. At the moment, SF is in a pretty nice spot for Demo, but I agree it could use more utility in Destruction. I expect they'll build more mechanics around both to make switching between Incinerate and Soul Fire situational. Simply replacing Incinerate with SF is a pretty dull change to a pretty dull spec.

Like I say, all the trees still have a very long way to go.

[evan_s]

The current destruction tree definitely has some issue.

Having to pick up things like Imp searing pain, Aftermath or backlash just to get up the tree doesn't seem like choice to me.

Looking at the new Soul Leach I can't imagine that they will want Soul Fire to be our filler spell. Gaining 10% of our health and mana every cast of Soul Fire with it being our standard filler spell would just be completely OP. Soulfire's cost is 9% of base mana, so even with out any gear we'd be actively gaining mana by spamming our filler spell and since Soul Leach is total mana, not base mana, it would scale up as our mana pool increased. The other 2 spells covered by Soul Leach both have CDs (15 or 12 seconds).

Unless they add a CD to Soul Fire, and tweak decimation to remove it, they are definitely going to have an interesting time trying to balance Incinerate vs Soul Fire.

I think destruction does need something else to add a little bit more to what is going since it is fairly simple currently. Make sure you have a curse and immolate up, use Conflag/chaos bolt every time you can and spam incinerate. You really aren't watching for procs or reacting to anything. You are just maintain the dots and using stuff as it comes off CD.

[xionkarl]

The current destruction tree definitely has some issue.

Having to pick up things like Imp searing pain, Aftermath or backlash just to get up the tree doesn't seem like choice to me.

Looking at the new Soul Leach I can't imagine that they will want Soul Fire to be our filler spell. Gaining 10% of our health and mana every cast of Soul Fire with it being our standard filler spell would just be completely OP. Soulfire's cost is 9% of base mana, so even with out any gear we'd be actively gaining mana by spamming our filler spell and since Soul Leach is total mana, not base mana, it would scale up as our mana pool increased. The other 2 spells covered by Soul Leach both have CDs (15 or 12 seconds).

Unless they add a CD to Soul Fire, and tweak decimation to remove it, they are definitely going to have an interesting time trying to balance Incinerate vs Soul Fire.

I think destruction does need something else to add a little bit more to what is going since it is fairly simple currently. Make sure you have a curse and immolate up, use Conflag/chaos bolt every time you can and spam incinerate. You really aren't watching for procs or reacting to anything. You are just maintain the dots and using stuff as it comes off CD.

Destro has enough to manage, it is not just managing two cooldowns, unless of course, you don't want to excel. You chould be paying attention to your cooldowns and timing them to get optimal use of out Pyroclasm and Backdraft procs. Paying attention and clipping the last tick of an Immolate because you have an Empowered Imp proc is also something else you can do.

Destruction is all about single target direct damage casting. When I think of destruction I think of it being powerful, but not that complex. Warlocks are heroic class of Mage, so when it comes to direct damage they should be able to be more powerful while not being so complicated.

If you want complex, go Demo, Affliction will get super easy in Cataclysm.

Disclaimer: "Super easy" means compared to what it is now, with the new talent letting Drain Soul refresh BoA and UA. I am not saying Affliction is easy in general.

[Jessicka]

Warlocks are heroic class of Mage, so when it comes to direct damage they should be able to be more powerful while not being so complicated.

Anything you wrote before I thought may have been serious discussion has just been invalidated. No class should be innately more powerful than any other beyond the scope of the Hybrid Tax. Simple Soul Fire spam is not going to be a staple of Destruction; have you read anything GC has written about how they envisage all specs to be more involved in terms of reacting to procs and such, rather than relying purely on a simple rotation? Have you noticed we have zero 'spare' talent points, and zero 'utility' talents to spend those 'spare' points on?

Warlocks aren't finished. They're barely even started.

[Drogoth]

Well, i doubt they'd get rid of incinerate.

Notice the 'above 80%' clause in the SF talents. That lead me to believe incinerate is your main filler, while SF is your opener.. Soulfire is such a dead spell as far as locks are concerned. Never used in pvp, only in demo's execute, yet its supposed to be this BA awesome move. I doubt that blizzard is making soulfire awesome just so they can make a different spell almost as unseen as soulfire is now.

[sugarfree]

Seems like soul fire is now a strictly pve spell for both demo and destro. Instant soulfire is all it will be in pvp, no more no less.

I hope they'd make adjustments to SF in future builds. I still want to cast Soul Fire as destro pvp. Not actually giving 2 sec SFs, but give me a window to actually have a reason to cast this. 5 sec is too much. But then again, with the tools destro is getting, I doubt it.

[xionkarl]

Yeah it doesn't seem like the Improved Soul Fire talent will be useful at all for Destro. A 5 second cast just to proc 15% haste?

[frester]

Yeah it doesn't seem like the Improved Soul Fire talent will be useful at all for Destro. A 5 second cast just to proc 15% haste?

4s i think as emberstorm reduces the cast time by 1s + you will get instant sf from imp. imp proc, but 15% haste for 15s is quite huge methinks so it may be worth to cast it using last stack of backdraft or something, will see once there are any numbers to crunch

[sugarfree]

4s i think as emberstorm reduces the cast time by 1s + you will get instant sf from imp. imp proc, but 15% haste for 15s is quite huge methinks so it may be worth to cast it using last stack of backdraft or something, will see once there are any numbers to crunch

I think he's referring to destro pvp...i'm not sure.

[frester]

if he is then true, 4s cast won't be to hot in pvp, and pvp with imp is probably not the best idea too

[terrorlord15]

First, the trees are not remotely close to being done.
Second, Soul Fire will still cost a Soul Shard. So casting it three times means you can't use Soul Burn or Demon Soul since you'll be out of shards.

The Destro tree is a bit of a mess right now, and isn't close to being in a state in which it can be taken seriously. Given the information we know so far, Incinerate will still be the filler for Destro locks.


DK

why are you such a retard? were you dropped on your head as a child, we have told you time and time again.

[Rédempteur]

Maybe they are trying to make warlocks use different fillers in each spec. Aff: sb, Dem: inc, destro: SF.

[evan_s]

With the most recent changes it looks like Affliction and demo will both be using SB as their filler and Destruction will use Incinerate. Demo will switch to incinerate at Molten Core procs and Soulfire for decimate. Decimate might need to be buffed up a little bit on it's haste for soul fire since with the talent changes it will be a 5 second cast. With only 40% haste from decimate it will be a 3 sec cast with out other haste effects which seems a little slow. Destruction will use Soulfire on Imp procs so will have a proc to watch now and gets the nice 15% haste buff for the initial burn.

[xionkarl]

I was referring to PvE, not PvP, I should have made that clear. Soul Fire will be a 5 second base casting time, it is currently 6 seconds, and with current talents you get a 1 second reduction.

Even during Backdraft it would be a 3+ second cast, but of course that's going off of the base cast time. With haste levels it may come down to sub 3 seconds during Backdraft which may make it more appealing, but why spend 2 talent points on something that only works for the first 80% of the fight? I don't know, maybe boss health pools in Cataclysm will make this talent worth it. I don't even see anything else that would be worth picking up anyway.

[Deleted]

why are you such a retard? were you dropped on your head as a child, we have told you time and time again.

Relax, he didn't insult you in any way and did nothing retarded, he just did what the majority of people on mmo-champion does, he read the title and made his response based on that, so no matter how many times you've said something in the thread, he will not have read it.

so chill out and don't get angry over little things.