Is Havoc to blame?

[Biomega]

The problem is "cleave" has never been a good niche because it's used so rarely. 1 target with intermittent add spawns isn't true "cleave", any time you can't use Havoc on CD wastes the ability's potential. Any time targets are spread out makes FnB completely useless. And any target beyond 2 is no longer "cleave" but no is "multi target", i.e. Affliction's playground. Just check Coven rankings to see what happens on 3 targets, a cool and casual 94 Affliction Warlocks in the Top 100 on Mythic. But heck, there's 70 of them on Hounds, too, and only 10 Destros. (And before someone cries HATER, I myself am in fact a very happy Affliction player and just because I personally would be fully content if Destro disappeared into a chaotic rift never to be seen again ever doesn't mean I don't empathize and understand it has problems)

Anyway, this whole notion of "cleave specialist" is just terrible design because it runs into too many limitations. It happens too rarely. Most fights are either predominantly single target (the same or with priority) or are multi target to some degree (intermittent or longer duration). True, sustained 2-target cleave is rare. Having the entire spec designed around that is, consequently, a fairly stupid thing to do if it comes at the cost of ST performance (since you can't exactly let Destro straight double up on 2 targets) or target limitations (with Havoc CD and FnB range).

MoP Destro worked because it wasn't put into that niche so hard, and because there was a lot more flexibility. You could toggle FnB, Havoc had charges, you had a greater selection of heavy hitters, one of which was perfect for intermittent add fights (Shadowburn). That still didn't fix the multi-target scaling of other specs but it sure meant much wider application for the spec. Remember Throne of Thunder? Destro had its place there despite the silliness that was UVLS-Demo, which was just absurdly good.

Also: burst! Why can't Warlock have more of that? Does it HAVE to be all DoTs and drains all day every day? Demo has terrible target switching right now, Affliction has ramp-up (though admittedly not even that much...), and though Destro is undoubtedly the best at bursting it isn't exactly spectacular at it, overall. Could it really be that all the problems come from them taking away Shadowburn?

I think it's fine if there's tendencies for classes, but this whole "specialist" notion has got to go. Yes it's more homogenization, but being great at something that just so rarely becomes relevant at the expense of everything else... to the degree where even that specialty ends up failing as a result... is just not great class design. We don't NEED the "2-target cleave specialist". That's just not a useful niche. Find something else.

[Baconeggcheese]

Destructions current big issue is poor scaling, less so Havoc.

Well, its scaled poorly for as long as I can remember. That was never its issue before though, because they would buff it at the start of each new raid to catch it up and make it relevant.

The biggest issue is they just didn't tune it up to make it competitive this time around.

The problem is "cleave" has never been a good niche because it's used so rarely.

The latter half isn't true, because cleave works any time there's more than 1 mob. That situation happens all the time, cleave would have been an amazing niche this raid if they didn't leave the spec under tuned.

That said, this made me think about how destro's niche really wasn't cleave for the last 2 xpacs. Yeah havoc existed and was something we uniquely could do, but really our niches were on demand burst (st or 2t) and sustained aoe. Cleave as a niche was very much on the backseat vs those two things.

Hopefully we get at the very least the on demand burst back next xpac as that's what really made the spec such a good progression spec and something the class just lacks right now.

[Biomega]

The latter half isn't true, because cleave works any time there's more than 1 mob.

Yes, and no. True 'cleave' is sustained - if it's just intermittent extra mobs then it's just ST with adds. Which is how most supposed 'cleave' fights actually work. And that's a direct detriment to things like Havoc in many cases, because the value drops with every CD use lost - and this can be both because of too few adds (sits off CD unused) and too many adds (CD not up for add spawn).

"Cleave" is just a needless complication of multi target. It doesn't need its own niche.

[Duckz0rs]

Yes, and no. True 'cleave' is sustained - if it's just intermittent extra mobs then it's just ST with adds. Which is how most supposed 'cleave' fights actually work. And that's a direct detriment to things like Havoc in many cases, because the value drops with every CD use lost - and this can be both because of too few adds (sits off CD unused) and too many adds (CD not up for add spawn).

"Cleave" is just a needless complication of multi target. It doesn't need its own niche.

Yes, true. But that's what Bacon was arguing - Destro's niche in MoP and WoD was on-demand cleave, not pure cleave. Aff was still stronger in regular cleave/council fights, Destro just won when a boss had adds that needed to be nuked ASAP. Destro shined when you could save shards, unload, and then finish the add of with havoc'd shadowburn. None of that exists anymore, severely hampering destro's on-demand damage niche in favour of a very mediocre cleave niche.

It might seem an over-complication when you call it cleave. The differentiation here would be between on-demand burst (MoP/WoD destro) and cleave being sustained multitarget (Aff). Sounds like arguing semantics, but those are two very different situations. Aggramar vs Coven for example. Havoc might lose charges depending on add spawn time, but that's not it's main purpose. It's main purpose is being up as often as possible for intermittent adds to nuke them quickly. Consistent cleave would and should favor Aff.

[Gaidax]

I still stand by my assessment that Destruction itself is just fine now and the main issue is that Aff is just way too strong. Destruction itself is doing well overall.

[Blamblam41]

I'll be honest I didn't believe some people when they said how dumb Affliction warlock was compared to the other two specs, and after having leveled and poured AP into all of the weapons I am just fucking amazed at how they can let Affliction be so stupidly inbalanced.

Sure they can all pull good numbers, and kill most things pretty quickly. The difference is in the ease of play and the fucking passives on the artifact weapon, especially in cleaving situations where 2 dots are a majority of your dps. The only time Demo even compared to that kind of cleave is a full demon party+HoG+felstorm+demonwrath while also being far, far more taxing when setting up.

Which I think is afflictions problem. Strong numbers, broken artifact traits and ease of play have made the spec pretty much defacto among everyone of my warlock friends despite their love for destro or demo. Shit, I was looking to get some green fire usage in this expansion, something I'll probably save for raids and turret bosses.

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I still stand by my assessment that Destruction itself is just fine now and the main issue is that Aff is just way too strong. Destruction itself is doing well overall.

Yeah see, I like the way destro plays in Legion. It's definitely the fact that Affliction has got some heavy favoritism going on in the development team. I cannot fucking understand how this is what they mean when they say 'class balance'.

[crimsonhead]

I'll be honest I didn't believe some people when they said how dumb Affliction warlock was compared to the other two specs, and after having leveled and poured AP into all of the weapons I am just fucking amazed at how they can let Affliction be so stupidly inbalanced.

Sure they can all pull good numbers, and kill most things pretty quickly. The difference is in the ease of play and the fucking passives on the artifact weapon, especially in cleaving situations where 2 dots are a majority of your dps. The only time Demo even compared to that kind of cleave is a full demon party+HoG+felstorm+demonwrath while also being far, far more taxing when setting up.

Which I think is afflictions problem. Strong numbers, broken artifact traits and ease of play have made the spec pretty much defacto among everyone of my warlock friends despite their love for destro or demo. Shit, I was looking to get some green fire usage in this expansion, something I'll probably save for raids and turret bosses.

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Yeah see, I like the way destro plays in Legion. It's definitely the fact that Affliction has got some heavy favoritism going on in the development team. I cannot fucking understand how this is what they mean when they say 'class balance'.

I feel like it is definitely a combo of both. As a staunch destro lock with many alts I have seen some of the toolkits of other classes (baseline) and it really does puzzle me how blizz dropped the ball in a lot of areas for simple QoL things. If they made Cata baseline or gave us a "seed of destruction" type of spell, perhaps gave us a chance at insta chaos bolt or something (backdraft comes to mind albeit incinerate) - I would absolutely be thrilled with a comeback of Shadowburn. Shadowburn sniping was one of the more fun mechanic and it allowed for a surplus of shards. There are a lot of little things here and there that make destro be "almost" good - like another poster said sadly Aff can just do it better. I'd love for destro to have a talent that allowed us to do more dmg to 35% hp or lower targets - instead we get a stripped and pruned havoc. I don't know what their issue is and why destro can't get SOME love - just a few QoL tweaks would be the best.

[Biomega]

I think the reason they went away from MoP-like Destro is simplicity? Havoc simple duration instead of charges, one "spender" spell, no toggle on FnB... Even the extra spells like Rift or Channel Demonfire are just cooldowns you press with fairly little thought that goes into them. Smart play mechanics apparently confuse new players or whatever.

[Baconeggcheese]

I still stand by my assessment that Destruction itself is just fine now and the main issue is that Aff is just way too strong. Destruction itself is doing well overall.

I disagree, I don't feel like destruction shines outside of the first 30~ish seconds of the fight on pretty much anything. You look at a fight like hounds which should be where destro shines and its still a pretty meh spec. It doesn't need to be brought up much for it to be just fine now, but as is there wouldn't be much of a reason to bring a destro lock to your raid even if aff didn't exist.

And that's to ignore that mechanically it still leaves a lot to be desired.

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I think the reason they went away from MoP-like Destro is simplicity?

Something like that, all the changes they made to destro streamlined things and almost systematically removed a lot of its depth. Which is odd, because the spec was the poster boy for "easy to learn, hard to master".

I really want the BFA stuff to start rolling so we can see whats in store (and have mountains of discussion and feedback).

[Gaidax]

I disagree, I don't feel like destruction shines outside of the first 30~ish seconds of the fight on pretty much anything. You look at a fight like hounds which should be where destro shines and its still a pretty meh spec. It doesn't need to be brought up much for it to be just fine now, but as is there wouldn't be much of a reason to bring a destro lock to your raid even if aff didn't exist.

And that's to ignore that mechanically it still leaves a lot to be desired.

I think some moderation in statements is needed. If being 3rd out of 24 on the totem pole is meh spec, what does that make the rest 21 specs?

Yes, cleave fights is where Destruction shines, it does not matter that there is 1 or two other specs which are equal or better. It is a very real niche for spec and the problem in case of Hounds is again Affliction being a bit too good at everything rather than Destruction. Same with Coven albeit it makes more sense for Aff to actually be good there, but Destruction is still head and shoulders above 20 other specs or so.

We have the statistics and Destruction does pretty well, especially considering the few parses it has, it does exceptionally well on 2 encounters which play to its strengths and it has decent presence in others, except for trash boss.

Saying that Destruction is not up to par is the same as saying that all Mages, Rogues and Hunters are even worse, considering Destruction on average outdoes them all in Antorus with 1/10 of their parses.

That's why I say some chill pill is needed, Aff being ridiculous does not make Destruction itself bad or having issues.

As a whole Destruction could use some nice things like Sac being a thing, Life Tap not being a thing and maybe some extra niche, but overall it appears to be fine now.

[Turturin the Warlock]

I think there's several things that went on here:

- Overall Item design. Destro used to work by leveraging procs from items. Int, crit, and mastery procs were guaranteed damage scaling for your chaos bolt. There are far fewer (and overall weaker) procs now for destro leverage, only two stats provide guaranteed extra damage (int, crit), and chaos bolt chains during procs involve fewer chaos bolts due to shard cost rework.

- Burst became a shared niche. Destro was previously unmatched in the amount of on demand burst it could deliver among warlock specs. The advent of Unstable affliction as a massive damage/short-duration dot, shorter CB chains, and removal of shadowburn changed this. Depending on the time window, affliction puts out as much or more burst than destro.

- Depletion of AoE, lack of ST compensation. They briefly, in Tomb, made destro's ST competitive or slightly better than afflictions. This is where it needed to be to make destro competitive given the other mechanics of the specs. They didn't do this for Antorus = Destro not competitive.

- Multi Dot is both extremely valuable in Antorus and also overtuned. Adds requiring very short burst windows are not prevalent in Antorus. DoT classes are equal to or better than other specs on every mythic fight except varimathras (and maybe kingaroth if you have trouble with add damage, but I think that's a stretch).

[bio347]

I think Havoc may be part of the problem... but not in the way that you think.

The thing is, Havoc's current implementation is quite a bit stronger than it ever was in MoP or WoD. The charges and the one-CB limit kept the amount of cleave you could do in an average fight down to manageable levels, back then. Three Shadowburns was strong, yes, but it was also occurring in a fight that would probably be considered in-niche for the spec and so it's allowed to look a little better there.

Think about it. Three CBs and a (CoC-) Conflag are trivial to fit into one Havoc today Even with the baseline 45s cooldown, that's already more damage over the interval than you'd get out of Havoc in any of the previous expansions (again, minus SB)! And then WH takes you to 50% uptime and it's just woah. Ironically, in making the spell easier to use they basically busted its power level.

[Gohzerlock]

I wish they'd revert it to mop destro but realistically as gaidax said, remove lifetap and make sac viable would make me happy.

[Lucrece]

You do realize there are specs with better 2 target cleave than destro, that doesn't require much banking and is more frequently available, right?

Havoc isn't what's holding destro back.

Shit ass tuning on a spec with shit single target and shit aoe with modest cleave is what's holding destro back.

Lord of Flames can also go fuck itself, it's so badly designed it should have been a button of its own like sindragosa's fury and a 5 minute cooldown. Rain of Fire should either have no shard cost or have its radius increased to that of starfall and its damage buffed or fire and brimstone be made baseline (or alternatively, cataclysm).

Doesn't help they gutted the destro bracers to hell, but that is their modus operandi. Gut the few strong thing a spec has in hopes the garbage options look better by comparison by making all options garbage.

Demo and destro also suffer because they all bite the warlock's shittiest feature: lack of mobility. Lock is trash at not losing DPS from mechanics for both these specs, and if the antorus fights were not multitarget fests, malefic grasp affliction builds are also pretty much turret specs but at least they still don't lose as massive an amount of dps from movement as destro and demo do.

[calanos]

I've played Destro for just about forever and finally pulled the plug and swapped to Afflix this morning.

Legion version of destro is...OK. Its super clunky to have to play around ELT or Eradication, Erad rotation in particular is just literally the opposite of what Destro used to be about (saving shards and burning through them during proc windows etc), changing it into a quick-generation machine that wants to throw out wimpy Chaos bolts ASAP. Taking Shadowburn away was just an awful decision that significantly hinders any complexity. New Havoc is also alright, I guess, but I think the old version made more sense.

The biggest Destro issue is that AffDots broke DoT class balance across the board in MoP. It trivialized a core component of all DoT specs, letting even terrible players achieve a level of DPS that took much more attention and skill prior. Blizz had to remove DoT snapshotting, and add goofy-ass mechanics like UA to let DoT classes have depth when their core abilities essentially became passive damage. Because they have had to do that, balancing DoT-specific classes has become nearly impossible. Spec mechanics that make you decent at ST can easily slide to make you massively more powerful anytime multiple targets are up a lot.

Destro's number 1 issue, by far, is that Affliction is terribly designed and currently OP on the fights in Antorus. It is just good at absolutely everything. Tankiest DPS class? Check. Perfectly fine single target DPS that ramps up quickly with any sort of adds for extra Shard/Soul generation? Check, and Antorus just throws those types of fights at you over and over. UA for priority burst? Works just fine. Multi-target? Best spec in the game. Its just the most well rounded spec overall, and outshines Destro even on the fights Destro is supposed to be better than Affliction on.

Otherwise I generally agree with what a lot of folks are saying, I think the biggest problem actual Destro issue is the lack of scaling, but really I feel like old Destro should have been a prime example of what to do when they were starting Legion ability-paring...come up with a spec that was easy to learn but difficult to master and squeeze every drop out of. For BFA, they could really just revert the changes to FnB (and maybe Havoc), slide some damage to CB from everything else, and re-introduce shadowburn and the spec would be great to play again. To balance it they would just need to buff it a bit with each new tier to make sure it scaled up, even if they left it as is. They would also have to figure out something else to do for Affliction, because its currently just too good at everything.

Even with all that, the spec honestly isn't in a bad spot, its still fine.

But don't worry, now that I am taking the plunge they will nerf Aff .

[exjay]

I wonder if blizzard will gut affliction for bfa, like they did in Wod to demo so that no one wouldplay it anymore since it’s so OP over the other 2

[skynet88]

It's again about the choice - you play what you enjoy or what you have to (RL asks, encounter demands, or just wanna hit the top of recount). I gain no fun pushing 2 buttons SoC and agony on high command and eonar (these are the only two where I respec) and end up at top three dps (assuming I'm a mediocre affli player)

I'm far more satisfied being somewhere in the middle but with well designed playstyle (No trolling). I seriously consider destro gameplay way more ballanced. It probably lacks mobility, and some utilities like interrupt, stun (not mentioning the one you have to pick in the talents and then cast for 1.5 sec). But as soon as exactly "dealing damage" is concerned I feel that I have more control over gaining and spending shards, buffs like erradication and well-timed portals; Not to mention spell animations - you push buttons and feel the power of flame! In comparison with this, well, yes, i'm one of those who thinks affli gameplay is boring.

I doubt that they should either up destro or nerf affli, solo at least. Probably add some mechanics (not effigy-like though) make it more dynamic and thus slightly more difficult to execute (haunt?). Because otherwise, as mentioned above, once you deal decent damage to 1 target, as soon as 2+ targets appear your damage doubles, triples... at a cost of so little effort.

[VyersReaver]

I thought this was another Demon Form cry thread

Sincerely, Demon Hunter.

[Baconeggcheese]

The biggest Destro issue is that AffDots broke DoT class balance across the board in MoP. It trivialized a core component of all DoT specs, letting even terrible players achieve a level of DPS that took much more attention and skill prior.

Or just knowing how to use weakauras or another tracker, really just that. There was almost no skill involved, just a very minimal amount of knowledge.

[Lucrece]

I'm glad Blizzard decided to ignore people who thought snapshots were some brilliant mechanical design. All it did was contribute to more UI clutter.

Snapshotting was completely unintuitive, and as a result terrible design since you needed UI elements to calculate behind the curtains which combination of procs were worth ovewriting a dot for. It also made the spec live or die by trinket proc timings during encounter phase shifts.

It's the very definition of abstruse design.