Is Havoc to blame?

[Baconeggcheese]

@Gaidax I went to respond to your specific points but I ended up getting to the heart of whats bothering me so I'ma just focus on that.

What gets me now is that the way destruction does damage now makes its damage just not matter in the way it did for the last 2 xpacs.

Destruction wasn't the meter glory spec, destruction was the spec you played when you wanted to make sure the boss died. Affliction doing more is not new, affliction pretty much always outscaled destro for the last 2 xpacs and had a much higher ceiling to cheese up to. But that didn't matter, because the way destruction did damage and its mechanics made it a phenomenal progression spec. The kind of spec that you gave jobs to, that made you super important to the success of the fight.

That just doesn't exist with the spec anymore, yeah it can keep up for the most part with the less FOTM specs, but its just not doing meaningful damage in the way that it did. You don't have to plan around swapping the destro lock out anymore, because the destro lock isn't doing any damage that matters. The other generic dps that'll get slotted in will do whatever damage the destruction lock was doing just fine.

I always go back to archimonde because I feel like that fight was almost tailor made to showcase why you bring a destro lock to raid, and how a legion destro lock could do none of the things that made destruction such a boon to have on that fight.

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

Yeah I've been doing my part giving feedback trying to beg for those 2 things the whole xpac. If it were up to me destruction would be petless by default, and the pets would be talents or something.

and I whole heartedly think lifetap just needs a complete redesign because the mana return or maintenance buffs they keep giving it just aren't fun and haven't been for a very long time.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

Yeah I never understood why people thought what you just typed here, it was really straightforward. Certain trinket procs like BBOY were just stronger than basically everything else, you really didn't need to know anything besides what the right trinkets were and *you should probably snapshot that 10 stack and then not overwrite it*.

Affdots just made it so people didn't have to do research or think at all, but it was by no stretch of the imagination needed. People were doing the same with weak auras and about 5-10 minutes of research the entire time.

I still to this day think aff is less fun to play since it lost its snapshots. I'd love to see them reintroduce snapshots as a specific mechanic for aff. That looked like what they were trying to do with compound interest before they gutted it.

[Lucrece]

imo Life Tap should function akin to Mistweaver's Thunder Tea, where you use it and it gives empowerments to particular spells by giving them additional elements.

Destro could also use some spell leech to offset the HP sink of life tap as the single spec with no selfhealing whatsoever rotationally. It's fine that aff and demo have better net survival since they are ramp up specs and ramp up specs should always be defensively superior to burst specs for the sake of pvp to allow their damage delivery delay to work compared to burst specs, but destro is a little bit on the extreme side where it is basically a dead pvp spec.

I also want my damn flaming aura back already. The shards also look like ass compared to my previous verdant spheres.

[Sylar Hao]

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

We'll see Destro changes 2 months before release, then we'll provide tons of good feedback that'll get ignored and we'll get fixed by 8.2 or 8.3. The same time when maybe we get our spells visual update.

[Gaidax]

@Gaidax I went to respond to your specific points but I ended up getting to the heart of whats bothering me so I'ma just focus on that.

What gets me now is that the way destruction does damage now makes its damage just not matter in the way it did for the last 2 xpacs.

Destruction wasn't the meter glory spec, destruction was the spec you played when you wanted to make sure the boss died. Affliction doing more is not new, affliction pretty much always outscaled destro for the last 2 xpacs and had a much higher ceiling to cheese up to. But that didn't matter, because the way destruction did damage and its mechanics made it a phenomenal progression spec. The kind of spec that you gave jobs to, that made you super important to the success of the fight.

That just doesn't exist with the spec anymore, yeah it can keep up for the most part with the less FOTM specs, but its just not doing meaningful damage in the way that it did. You don't have to plan around swapping the destro lock out anymore, because the destro lock isn't doing any damage that matters. The other generic dps that'll get slotted in will do whatever damage the destruction lock was doing just fine.

I always go back to archimonde because I feel like that fight was almost tailor made to showcase why you bring a destro lock to raid, and how a legion destro lock could do none of the things that made destruction such a boon to have on that fight.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...one&target=237

These are your infernals in Tomb of Sargeras KJ. As you can see Destruction still does quite a bit more to key adds that anything else, especially considering I did not really focus 100% on that in this parse. I am pretty sure same picture would be on Argrammar with big adds

Just as in WoD if you want to do damage damage on specific key adds you can do it very well and if cleave is involved you can do it better than most other specs - 2 target for short lived adds - nobrainer Destruction is still best.

Preset burst on one add a-la Kingaroth reaver things, again Destruction is amongst the best.

I just don't see how that changed? You mean to tell me in WoD Destro had best burst period? That's not true. Plenty of specs could go higher, but not in split 2-target situation and Destruction still uniquely retains that power, even if Aff for whatever reason breathes on its back.

The only real loss for Destruction compared to WoD is AoE which went from amazing to passable if talented. On the other hand Destruction has much better opener now, which plays its part on Kingaroth where you can delay stuff like service and even Doomguard and have that or a bit weaker opener on adds every two minutes.

Another loss is Shadowburn, it was very useful for short lived adds, although you can return it in some capacity by slotting SB, which nobody does so not really a thing. I'd like to see some faster shard spender back in toolbox, because Chaos Bolt is sort of inadequate for stuff like bats or varimathras adds.

[Deleted]

@Gaidax

For other specs to burst higher, they would most likely have to hold cooldowns, previous incarnations of destro would just hold shards/embers without having to sacrifice bigger cooldowns, or could still burst way higher in situations where those cooldowns were not available.

I think the point bacon is making is that in previous expacs the gap on frequent phase where you are bursting adds down was massive in comparison to what other classes could achieve in such a short time window multiple times during an encounter. Not only this but as such you could assign your destro to tasks like this and others could concentrate on pure boss damage/other mechanics. Take MoP for example, no one was getting near you if you were setting up a 4 ember burst window with added shadowburns in at the end.

That level of consistent burst damage is no longer available with CB being 2 shards and a lot of the damage being spread out into other abilities where it is just not realistic to be holding on to those in a controlled manner, especially with horrible talents like eradication, so the damage is watered down quite a lot in comparison, meaning there is no longer such a big gap which basically means that other classes can do similar, yes not quite as good damage, in those phases so that if you were to remove the destro lock you could still get by, ergo why it makes the spec feel less meaningful as a whole (some would argue that change is good because you would be gimped without a destro lock).

Trouble being is if you were to take someone playing the spec who is new to legion, then these are really not issues for them and the vast majority of them really enjoy the current iteration of the spec as they have no nostalgia to look back on. There is plenty wrong with destro for me as a player (jesus, petless MoP spec would be instant re-roll from affliction without even a thought) but for how the spec fuctions right now it is in a decent place and the only reason it is being eclipsed atm in Antorus is the fight designs and artifact weapon scaling for affliction is just plain too strong which cant really be fixed this late into the expac without breaking the spec.

[SpikeySquad]

@Gaidax I went to respond to your specific points but I ended up getting to the heart of whats bothering me so I'ma just focus on that.

What gets me now is that the way destruction does damage now makes its damage just not matter in the way it did for the last 2 xpacs.

Destruction wasn't the meter glory spec, destruction was the spec you played when you wanted to make sure the boss died. Affliction doing more is not new, affliction pretty much always outscaled destro for the last 2 xpacs and had a much higher ceiling to cheese up to. But that didn't matter, because the way destruction did damage and its mechanics made it a phenomenal progression spec. The kind of spec that you gave jobs to, that made you super important to the success of the fight.

That just doesn't exist with the spec anymore, yeah it can keep up for the most part with the less FOTM specs, but its just not doing meaningful damage in the way that it did. You don't have to plan around swapping the destro lock out anymore, because the destro lock isn't doing any damage that matters. The other generic dps that'll get slotted in will do whatever damage the destruction lock was doing just fine.

I think I get what you're saying. My memory is too bad for previous expacs and though I did main Destro in EN for me it was always the spec I turned to on progress for both heroic and mythic to burst down some adds. Cenarius, Ursoc, Elisande, Botanist and Gul'dan are the ones that come first to mind. I raid pretty casually now but the last two tiers I have not found a single boss yet that I felt the need ever to spec Destro (to be clear I didn't get to KJ on mythic) and that is a sad state of affairs. It would be fine if it had another niche where it shined but it does not.

[Deleted]

Havoc has been crazily op over this xpac. Dominating Nighthold, TOS and now Antorus. And being best dps for mythic+ where currently nearly 90% of 25+ groups use a warlock (probably all affli).

When i log in, we sometimes saw 6/10 people on their warlocks. The power level is insane. Sadly it kills any offspec potential. Destro is good - but you cant play it cause affli is so overpowered.

[Baconeggcheese]

@Gaidax osanger put it well, if you break down and look at what you did to do that damage in that circumstance it isn't at all applicable to what we were able to do on archimonde.

For context when I say archimonde I mean the archimonde I killed in august of 2015, which was a completely different fight than what existed months later. I imagine we're talking about two different fights if you thought I meant specifically infernals when I talk about archimonde, since there was so much more to it than just the infernals.

[Lucrece]

I would enjoy the spec a lot more if lord of flames burned in the fiery pits of hell, and doomguard and grimserv didn't cost shards on top of making either cataclysm or fnb baseline.

[Deleted]

Why? It would play no different than now?

Because then you would do almost the same damage as single target as you would on say 5 targets for all that extra effort, then they would have to buff single target through the roof as the spec strength is supposed to be multi dotting.

Afflictions single target simwise is firmly in the middle of the pack, its mediocre at best, the reason they are doing so well is the encounter design and fight mechanics propped up by the artifact weapon.

If you took away its ability to do good damage on multi-dot you would totally cripple the spec beyond play-ability. The problem is how the spec scales with the artifact and ilvl, which cannot really be fixed this late into the expansion without breaking the spec.

[Baconeggcheese]

Pretty much that lol. You don't HAVE to pick the most optimal spec unless it matters for raiding competition you have. It has been proven many times that if you are just raiding for sake of raiding and eventually you end up clearing mythic - pick whats the most fun for you without being completely shit at it.

You'd be surprised the enormous amount of peer pressure players face, especially those that *aren't* participating in high end mythic raiding. When the gap is as large as it is it becomes increasingly difficult to get into groups or for guilds to take you seriously when you're playing the sub-optimal spec. It can definitely take away from the fun.

[Caolela]

I miss MoP Destruction, yep i know i'm swinging the lantern but it was such a great spec to play, just really don't know why they felt the need to change it.

They did the same thing to Demo back in MoP and the UVLS trinket - when they decided it was time to nerf the shit out of it. Ion or one of the devs came out and said (paraphrasing) that Demo had had it's time in the sun as OP and now sorry, it's gonna get the nerf hammer.

It's easy to see if you're paying attention, it's no great mystery. This cyclical bullshit just causes more FotM rerolling which means people stay logged in longer...which means profits for Blizz. Same reason racials are so fucked up and goes back & forth between factions every xpac or so - people spend money on race & faction swaps.

[Biomega]

You'd be surprised the enormous amount of peer pressure players face, especially those that *aren't* participating in high end mythic raiding. When the gap is as large as it is it becomes increasingly difficult to get into groups or for guilds to take you seriously when you're playing the sub-optimal spec. It can definitely take away from the fun.

To be fair, it's not entirely unreasonable. While of course there is the issue of "I want to have fun", it's always a complicated negotiation when other people are involved. Sure, you may enjoy something else more - but what about the 19 other people you're running with, and what THEY want? Can you justify worse performance in a 20-people group just so 1 person can have more fun by themselves?

[Biomega]

I just couldn't take it anymore that almost literally everyone thinks how someone else thinks and not with their own heads.

Fair enough, though I think it's also a point to concede that individuals rarely equal the productivity of a collaborative effort. Saying "think for yourself!" is all well and good, but many questions we think about in that context are very complicated and complex and take more than some pondering to solve. Rather than eyeballing talent X vs. talent Y, it's only natural people come up with systems like Simcraft to get more in-depth answers. While I definitely advocate thinking for yourself as a general rule (and your own brain is the most important component of Simcraft as well), it's deluded to think you can just come up with a better answer than dozens of people pooling resources and math. Exceptions aren't unheard of, but admitting the existence of a .01% case only too often leads to everyone thinking THEY must be that .01%.

All that being said, I also 100% agree that personal enjoyment is a very important factor - but how you handle that enjoyment vs. the enjoyment of other people you play with is another matter entirely, as I already mentioned. Me personally, I like to decide based on the individual approach. If someone blatantly refuses advice or gets hostile at the mere mention of better alternatives, I honestly question why I or other group members should compensate for their lack of performance. I like to imagine it like this: you're playing a game of tug-of-war, 20 vs. 20. But one member on your team only uses one hand; not because they have a disability or whatever, they just like only using one hand because "it's more fun for me that way". What is the rest of the team going to say to that?

[FelPlague]

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.

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

[Caprix]

Not sure if serious there... have you seen the encounters?

[Halwyn]

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

It is. And half of that chart you posted is wrong, mainly Eonar, Hasabel, King and Aggramar.

[FelPlague]

It is. And half of that chart you posted is wrong, mainly Eonar, Hasabel, King and Aggramar.

what?
the whole point of the eonar fight is there is a fuck ton of mobs to cleave
hasabel summons imps and spiders during the whole fight, allowing you to havoc her then wreck adds
kinggaroth spawns adds alot, and there will allways be one that comes out near full health, meaning you can cleave onto the add from the boss
and aggramar has his division phase where he has lots of adds, 2 specificly that stay alive for a long time.

[Gaidax]

Destruction is frikkin' useless on Eonar. I mean, really - I am a well known Destruction lover, but let's face it - it's just pointless there. Yes there are adds to cleave, but the problem is there are WAY too much adds and Destro cleave has huge downtime. Shit moves all the time so can't even AoE properly.

If old Shadowburn and 15s Havoc was a thing, then maybe it was decent there.


Same story with Hasabel - shit dies WAY too fast for you to actually make use of Havoc. If there was Shadowburn it would be no issue, but without it - you simply have no time to really do any sort of real damage to adds that evaporate.

Argrammar and Kingaroth - yes, but the cleave happens once in 2 mins or so, so it's almost a non-factor, IMO. You do make great use of it, but then you have 2 mins of pure ST.

[Halwyn]

what?
the whole point of the eonar fight is there is a fuck ton of mobs to cleave
hasabel summons imps and spiders during the whole fight, allowing you to havoc her then wreck adds
kinggaroth spawns adds alot, and there will allways be one that comes out near full health, meaning you can cleave onto the add from the boss
and aggramar has his division phase where he has lots of adds, 2 specificly that stay alive for a long time.

Your main confusion point: Cleave =/= AoE.
Eonar: AoE, simply by sheer number of mobs in group spawns, the only exception is one Robot/2 Fel Lords combos. That is, Affliction is better at it by fight design and utility by a large margin.
Hasabel: same thing, adds spawn are too numerous to just hit one. AND, if your raid is decent, they are getting exploded before you can even think about winding up a CB
King: I'm not in the best raiding guild around, but even on Mythic, we never saw the last robot walking out with more hp than 60-65%. That means I get ONE havoc per 2 mins. And the rest of the fight? Pure ST.
Aggrammar: If you're actiely attacking little ones, it's either Normal, or you want to mess up your exploding rotation. If it is the big ones... It is a total of two spawns, which never live long enough to make it to the 2nd havoc. As with Kin'garoth, why calling something "fair cleave fight" when 90% of it you are doing ST damage?