I didn't realize Destruction (4.0) had so many buttons!

[Sirjeize]

I don't argue that affliction is hard singletarget. I'm arguing that affliction is alot more challanging to play good when there are 2 or more targets involved, if you argue otherwise you're just ignorant.

What he said.
Single target Destro > Aflli.
Multiple target Affli > Destro

[Deleted]

I only think its nice that a class that have 3 dps specs have one that is hard to play, that is also one of the reason i enjoyed being feral druid in wotlk, couse the meter really showed what druid that knew was he was doing and who didnt

[Dieselpower]

I don't argue that affliction is hard singletarget. I'm arguing that affliction is alot more challanging to play good when there are 2 or more targets involved, if you argue otherwise you're just ignorant.

Affliction is not challenging to play good when there are 2 or more targets involved.

[Sirjeize]

Affliction is not challenging to play good when there are 2 or more targets involved.

You can't even figure out how Destro single target works. I HIGHLY doubt you can manage afflie on 2+ targets. Or you're a very skilled troll.

[Imbashiethz]

Affliction is not challenging to play good when there are 2 or more targets involved.

I'm not saying its hard, I'm saying its more challanging then destro when theres 2 or more targets involved. It's funny you would say its not challanging though, as you don't know how to optimally play affliction when there are 2 or more targets involved, judged by your other posts.

[Dieselpower]

You can't even figure out how Destro single target works. I HIGHLY doubt you can manage afflie on 2+ targets. Or you're a very skilled troll.

Hurp derp...

Three dots for each target. You only have to apply them to every other target thanks to (Glyphed) Soul Swap.

[Nebthet]

anyone who says destro is harder then affliction is very ignorant.

so is who says that.
its more like affliction is a real rotation, destro is more like a priority system, no real rotation.. and executing destro priority perfectly is harder than affliction rotation.

[Sirjeize]

Hurp derp...

Point made. No more comment.

[Imbashiethz]

Three dots for each target. You only have to apply them to every other target thanks to (Glyphed) Soul Swap.

Thats not it, wrong answer.

[Dieselpower]

Great, humor me.

[Delia]

I might consider this. I think it's this plus BoA and Corruption that are pissing me off. In 3.0, they were useless to Destro, and now I have to fit them in somewhere.

You mean BoD? Should never be casting BoA as Destro... and if you were to drop BoD, corruption, and hard cast soul fires from your rotation, you'd be sacrificing way, way too much DPS, and I'd be force to call you a baddie.

As for 2 target Aff, its not the soul swapping that makes it challenging, its maintaining 3 stacks of SE on both targets at all times, while having to do fight mechanics, your regular rotation, AND soul swap.

Destro is more complicated single target than Aff for sure, but dual target Aff is slightly more complex than dual target Destro.

[Dieselpower]

As for 2 target Aff, its not the soul swapping that makes it challenging, its maintaining 3 stacks of SE on both targets at all times, while having to do fight mechanics, your regular rotation, AND soul swap.

Fair enough!

[Deleted]

I played as destro when I started raiding in Wrath around the time ToC hit and it was a really easy spec, pulled great numbers and flowed really nicely. I changed to Demo after my guild had put down the first 2 bosses in ICC and stuck with it until about 2 weeks ago not looking at any other specs. Now it may be because I played it for so long but I find Demo a very easy spec to play but it sucks on some fights like a lot of fights in BoT because there's so much movement involved. It's like Dots applied, start casting SB as a 2+sec cast, 1.5 seconds something causes you to have to move, abandon cast. BwD is totally different, I pull lovely numbers there as demo.

So I decided it was best to abandon my rarely used destro pvp spec(rofl) and spec for aff or destro as an alternative for fights like V+T and the council, hell even on Halfus if the whelps aren't up. I tried aff first and was shocked at how easy it has become, now I'm not talking about multi target stuff, obviously there's a lot more to think about there but as a single target spec it feels so much smoother than it used to be, things are coming off CD with ample time to refresh stuff and SB filler is great with the instant casts but it felt a little boring imo so I specced for destro.

It's horrible. I can see exactly what OP is saying, it is now the plate spinning spec. Nothing flows nicely, it's clunky and unpleasant and hard cast soul fire is the most horrible mechanic we've ever had. That said it's awesome for high movement fights, less than 2 sec filler and loads of options for when your moving, it's really upped my DPS in BoT and on atramedes, heck BoH even upped my DPS on Halfus WITH the whelps out. It's also the most forgiving of the three specs, if you miss a refresh of a dot by a couple of seconds or have ISF off for a couple of seconds you only drop a little DPS. I'm still learning all the tricks with it and I still do things like forget to leave BoH on the last golem before the switch at omnitron etc but my numbers have been encouraging since I started using it.

tl/dr, I agree completely with OP, it's a hard spec too play and is not an enjoyable one but if you put in some time to practice it, it's output is very rewarding especially in high movement fights. Fel flaming atramedes, popping conflag on cd and refreshing corr during the air phase while you run around will totally bring a smile to your face.

[Lovestar]

I'm just toying around with Warlock for fun, and as a beginner, I can tell you that Affliction feels nice and smooth — almost too simple, once you get the hang of it, and very fun on multiple targets since it has a clear and intuitive order to everything.

I swapped to Destro tonight to try it out, and it's stressful enough to make me want to cry. There are too many trivial little things that need to be micromanaged and kept in order. I'm pretty sure that if I did this every day for 1 month, I wouldn't even think twice, but when you first come to Destro — especially from Afflic, which is nice and orderly — it just feels outright insane.

I'm also running the default Blizz UI without any addons. I can do pretty well with Afflic, it's very orderly and everything important to keep track of is in one spot (the enemy debuff slots). The one significant cooldown, Haunt, even has a 4 second window of forgiveness — unlike Conflag, which needs to be nailed promptly every time it comes up.

Destro, on the other hand, has all sorts of random misaligned timers and clashing priorities going on in 3 different spots (lots of cooldowns to monitor on the action bar, ISF buff in your buff area, and then dots on the targets). It makes me feel completely insane trying to look all over the place in my UI to keep the priority straight, and still pay attention to what's going on in the game field.

If I had a timer mod organizing all this random information in one simple place (dot durations, ISF buff, notifications for Conflag/CB/Shadowburn coming off CD) I would probably feel about 5000% more comfortable with Destro. It really feels like a spec that is not designed to be played without addons — but, maybe I'm just not a twitchy enough gamer.

[Garretdejiko]

And then of course there's the schizophrenic demo rotation...

i disagree, kind sir. Demo is the easiest, then comes aff, imho

[aztr0]

It's really not that hard to keep track of..

The only thing that is a pain is hard casting SF to keep up ISF buff

Truth right here.

[Deleted]

Just to chip in as another subjective opinion.
I recently tried affliction a few times after being destro since 4.0 and I have to say after putting the dots up and spamming sbolts I honestly said out loud "What, this is it? This is easy!". My fellow raiders can attest that I was wondering out loud why aff was nerfed to be easier then destro. It used to be the other way around.

I do agree aff gets a lot harder to keep up on 2 targets (or more) but so does destro. Aff has se stacks to keep up which is harder then just the 5% crit debuff for destros, but destro has to keep up immo+corr separately whereas aff has soulswap for all it's dots. So overall it evens out with the caveat that the single target spam in between is more complex for destros.

Then there is of course the issue with AE where RoF still isn't all that great on less then 9 targets where SoC starts being efficient at 4 or more targets (plus the ability to Soulburn seed for a decent dot on all the mobs). It's just another sign that aff is slightly easier then destro.

But they're still both warlock specs and both typically harder to get the most out of then most other classes.
I like my destro and the difference between aff and destro dps isn't enough for me to switch currently. Though I might do it for our Sinestra attempts where every little bit of dps counts.

[Aedail]

I'd be completely happy with Destro "rotation" if you only had to cast SF during improved imp procs... hard cast soul fires can go f*** themselves.

^ this. I hate "clunky" lock priorities, and this is perhaps the clunkiest element I've ever encountered as a lock. Yep, I'm including demo single target in that assessment tyvm.