Destruction in BfA - feedback

[Gaidax]

I figured that there is no Destruction thread here and it would be nice to have some discussion and feedback rolling, so I will start with mine and feel free to add your and hold discussion.


So my feedback based on Alpha/Beta playing mostly in Heroic Dungeons, which is not much, but something. Originally this was posted in EU forums, so it is sort of addressing Blizzard, bear with me because I am not about to refactor this book here. I post it here in hopes whoever gathers feedback will notice this, because I have little faith in EU forums, based on my sad experience in past with other Blizzard title.

Feel free to repost this in US forums too.


New visuals:

Great job overall. I hope some talents will also get a pass, such as Cataclysm, Burning Rush, Soul Fire, Dark Soul and Channel Demonfire (imo this one could use some of that Incinerate juice). Naturally I hope Green Fire versions will also get same treatment, as that's what most of Destruction people use really.

Things to improve, IMO, aside from above:

• Incinerate - when cast at single target lacks some volume it was having all these years. It seems to regain that the closer it is to the target, but the moment you let it out off your hands - it's a bit thin.
• Chaos Bolt- overall it is great, but IMO, it has lost a lot of character there with losing both the dragonfish head thing AND its curve. Would be nice if you would consider at least getting its signature curve while it flies back, to differentiate it from all the many other bland straight projectile nukes.

Baseline gameplay:

The kit itself seems fine, removal of Life Tap and reintroduction of Backdraft are good news, on the flip side - something I don't like is this:

My issue is that gameplay feels a bit way too stiff - in between a lot of hard casting and only one instant spell for movement on a moderate CD, every time I need to move - which happens plenty in dungeons, especially with that Secrets of the Deep Azerite Trait - I feel like I am missing out a lot of damage right there - it just feels plain poor that you run around effectively doing nothing because you don't have any extra spell to use on the move and all you can bank is 2 stacks of Conflagrate at best.

Likewise a lot of hard casting, especially with a 3 seconds cast spender and only 1 stack of Backdraft feels very slow. Haste may fix it, but until we get there we will spend a good chunk of expansion feeling like slogging through mud.

While removal of Life Tap is a welcome thing, this in addition to removal of Dimensional Rift really feels limiting both on the move and rotationally, because you can no longer toss a quick chain of several spells in succession to brighten up the hard casting periods.

Please consider to at least increase Backdraft to 2 stacks baseline and/or maybe reducing Conflagrate CD a bit, so we will have a bit more instants and haste in otherwise very restrictive and slow rotation. Chaos Bolt down to 2.5 seconds cast or maybe Incinerate at 1.5 baseline would liven things up too.


Talents:

The good: lvl 60 row is exactly how it should be - same purpose AoE row that both effectively ensures Destruction has decent AoE baseline and gives options for burst and sustain, although Inferno seems lacking and a bit unfun talent compared to nuclear explosion or waves of flames all around.

The not so good:

Level 15 row:

This row feels pretty poor to me and here's why.

• Flashover - while there is nothing inherently wrong with the talent itself, I have a strong feeling it should have been baseline due to reasons I explained above and because Backdraft forever was like that - two stacks, so it feels like we are being short changed here baseline from what we had forever just to make up a talent - something players don't really like, as you know.
• Eradication - to get this out of the way - we use it live because it's the optimal option, not because we love it. To be honest, while Eradication is something we can live with, it makes Destruction rotation way too orderly and more of a sustain fare contrary to what Destruction should represent - chaotic bursts of power. IMO, it's like Colossus Smash for Fury Warriors back in the days, where Fury Warriors felt way too orderly and structured for what they should really be.
• Soul Fire - my pet peeve of that row. To get this out of the way - it feels like burning a shortcut for pretty much copy paste version of Chaos Bolt with slightly modified parameters. Why? Just so there is a button to press? This spell has no character, it literally is Chaos Bolt that costs 1 shard and has the same DPET anyway due to obscene 4 seconds cast time. IMO, it should at least have some special function on top of what Chaos Bolt does anyway and more damage and 1 less shard cost is not that function. Honestly - you could have put "Improved Chaos Bolt" talent instead with something like Chaos Bolt does 10% more damage and has a chance to refund a Soul Shard at 1.2 RPPM and it would be the same thing, literally, I'd say would be better - no pointless waste of keyboard shortcut.

Level 30 row:

• Internal Combustion - this is surely one annoying talent. I played with it plenty and it feels like the same issue as Demonic Empowerment - it makes you spam Immolate way too much to make sure your Chaos Bolts buffed all the time. I think it's a degenerate, annoying gameplay in the same way as DE spam was, really.[/li][li]Shadowburn - is this one intended to be in addition to Conflagrate? If that is the case, then I just have to ask simple thing, in same fashion as Soul Fire. Why? Just so there is one more button for pretty much slightly modified carbon copy of base spell? Another "Improved Conflagrate" kind of talent - your Conflagrate has 4 charges now and gives extra shards on kill. IMO, guys, if you make an active talent, at least try to make it a bit unique at least in some reasonable way and not a literal copy of what we already have anyway with a tiny numbers play.

Level 90 row:

To get this out of the way, I like the idea behind Supremacy, even if it makes gameplay even more strict and movement even more punishing and Roaring Blaze - I see as some sort of sustain option or alternative where Supremacy is not reasonable to use (although I loathe more dots in Destruction, but at least there is no annoying DoT management gameplay here).

• Grimoire of Sacrifice - the red-headed step child talent of Legion. Honestly, I don't understand this crusade against GoSac, you guys are waging since Legion launch. As Destruction we have been using GoSac for many many years and we enjoyed the fact that we could get rid of the pet to empower our nukes - which is a signature part of Destruction experience we like. Suddenly in Legion with this Class Fantasy push we find out that apparently being a warlock means you have to have a pet and GoSac was kept on some sort of life support as a talent nobody took because it was balanced out of any reasonable reason to pick.
  
  I can't help but see you follow the suite in BfA, while you did add the pet ability back to it, which is a step in the right direction - from my testing - it is still basically the same as not taking a talent at all that row. What's the point of that? Can you please make it an actually viable choice to use and not do the same thing as in Legion where you kept it pretty much unviable for Destruction whole expansion?

Grimoire Supremacy + Dark Soul combo:

I am not sure about this one, aside from annoying desynched cooldowns, which seems to be a new pet fad for Blizzard I can sort of understand, this combination seems to be putting an obscene amount of power in a small window of opportunity to use it.

IMO, it's like playing with a balancing nightmare fire that will result in nerfs which in turn will likely kill it off right there. So while I, personally, would certainly enjoy arcane doom nova-like bursts of power (albeit not that instantaneous), I do think a fair warning about what it may cause is in order.

Other than that - I am not a big fan of how in dungeons using that talent combination there are situations where I want to use it but can't because boss fight is soon and if I use this, I'll be effectively neutered for the boss.

Of course, one may say - that's the point of the talents and I agree, but IMO Destruction is already restrictive enough in BfA (as previously pointed out) without piling in more restrictions on it on top of that.

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Conlusion

Overall I am glad there is no another "re-imagining" of Destruction happening in BfA, because as you guys know from Legion launch experience with warlocks - better not fix what is not broken. New visuals are ace and overall kit is fine both baseline and talents, with hiccups I mentioned above.

I'd say all the wall of text aside:

TLDR - things look good, but mobility and gameplay are a bit too stiff because we lost plenty of instants with Rift and even Life Tap (no complaints about Life Tap loss, mind that!) and as such mobility is a big big pain. 1 stack of Backdraft baseline and only 1 instant against a ton of hard-casted spells feels too restrictive and slow.

It is manageable, but I think that Conflagrate needs to lose 2-3 seconds off CD, Chaos Bolt needs to go back to 2.5 seconds cast (or alternatively, consider 1.5 sec cast Incinerate to spice things up) and Backdraft needs to be 2 stacks baseline, so that the rotation won't feel this extremely slow, as it is in Beta.

[Deleted]

I don't have much bad to say about it. It's a pretty decent well rounded spec with great visuals, mostly.

I however strongly dislike the Grimoire of Supremacy talent, it's so obviously the go to talent, it completely overshadows the other too. As somebody who'd love to go petless I'm pissed. They should change that talent or tone it down significantly. Movement is a bit of a problem, I agree, with Shadowburn it's okayish though. But to be honest I have no idea how it compares to the one that gives you haste as a proc (forgot the name).

Soulfire is a talent that needs to be axed, it's weird and awful. Same goes for Eradication, the worst talent ever conceived for this spec as it completely shits on the secondary resource system, as it makes banking shards for procs a dps loss.

Channel Demonfire and green fire in general need to be updated or I will be very disappointed. Fel magic is what destruction warlocks use and it's green, not red. And we should expect them to update our green fire. It's fundamental to our class and particularly to this spec. We didn't bitch for almost a decade just to now be forever stuck with ancient animations and visuals the moment we actually use fel.

[Gaidax]

I however strongly dislike the Grimoire of Supremacy talent, it's so obviously the go to talent, it completely overshadows the other too. As somebody who'd love to go petless I'm pissed. They should change that talent or tone it down significantly. Movement is a bit of a problem, I agree, with Shadowburn it's okayish though. But to be honest I have no idea how it compares to the one that gives you haste as a proc (forgot the name).

Yep, I am also pretty concerned about this one, that's why I had some separate words about it there.

And yes, I would love good old % sacrifice that is competitive.

[FertsBlert]

On one hand you are complaining that you 'don't have an extra spell to use on the move' then you pan the 2 charge Instant cast Shadowburn?

You just don't like Shadowburn do you?

I mean you ask for exactly what you complain the talent is, whaaaa?

Overall though I agree with most of your point but Destro has pretty much always been about the hard casts to do the big numbers, even in the glory days you only cast incinerate while moving so you had the resources to stop and blast out some big fat juicy Chaos Bolts.

Destro is quite playable, quite 'fun' and only really needs a couple minor tweaks but even those aren't really necessary they would just take the final couple rough edges off.

[Gaidax]

On one hand you are complaining that you 'don't have an extra spell to use on the move' then you pan the 2 charge Instant cast Shadowburn?

You just don't like Shadowburn do you?

I mean you ask for exactly what you complain the talent is, whaaaa?

Overall though I agree with most of your point but Destro has pretty much always been about the hard casts to do the big numbers, even in the glory days you only cast incinerate while moving so you had the resources to stop and blast out some big fat juicy Chaos Bolts.

Destro is quite playable, quite 'fun' and only really needs a couple minor tweaks but even those aren't really necessary they would just take the final couple rough edges off.

My point is simple - Shadowburn is literally copy/paste Conflag with a minor adjustment and shittier damage. What's the point making it a separate keybind and not simply make Conflag have 4 charges which would be virtually be same thing?

And let's not even begin talking about how it's not competitive with anything that row.

[Wondercrab]

It sounds like Destruction's still suffering from all the same post-Pandaria problems. Dull gameplay while moving and a lack of thematic flair. MoP Destruction was one of the best designed specs the game's ever seen in terms of its overall playstyle and identity, and it looks like they're still falling short of that.

[bio347]

I would add Inferno to the "???" talent pile. Its niche is... what, large-scale, sustained, static-mob-position AoE situations where you're not able to stand still for F&B to work? I'm not sure that's ever going to occur, and even then I'm not sure it'd beat the alternatives.

On GoSup: I do wonder how it shakes out in longer fights. It's obviously completely busted in short encounters, but longer ones will certainly mitigate that somewhat. I think I mathed it as, like, only around a 10% average CB damage increase over the whole three minute span (math subject to verification). If it turns out that it really IS Just That Powerful, then I think my preference would be to do the Backdraft Compromise and make it partially baseline because it's a pretty cool and thematic thing.

thematic flair

Honestly... the new animations do this pretty much on their own.

[Warning]

Normal Talents

I think Soul fire could be changed to dimensional rift, that would be a lot more attractive choice with a cool visual that's currently lost. Soul Fire as has been said is just a "better chaosbolt".

Shadowburn could maybe gain an extra effect, like healing us for damage dealt or healing on kill, or increased damage against low hp targets so it's differentiated from Conflagrate a bit more.

I don't like Grimoire of Supremacy because I don't like having big chaosbolts hidden behind TWO gigantic cds: They're already hard to get off in PVP and I'm afraid being balanced around those CDS could hurt destro viability too much, they have to actually be threatening way more often than once every 2 minutes or so, especially now that burst is extremely telegraphed due to GCD change.

PVP talents:
Drain Essence is a PVP talent that no one should ever use, drain life is almost never a good cast in arena, very rarely you might cast it on a pet while los'ing. I would much prefer if instead of Drain Essence we got the old backlash back, where we got instant incinerates from melee attacks occasionally. That would be a much more fun and viable option against melee trains.

Fel Fissure) + Entrenched in Flame might be too powerful to ever not both be taken. It might be better to change the heal debuff to a 25% reduction that debuffs the target rather than something you stand in so it doesn't synergize with the root so extremely well.
The root allows a lot of skillful plays and should certainly be kept.

Casting circle is strong but I still don't like it cause it's clunky as hell casting it and our spec is already kinda slow.

Nether Ward is strong and very fun as it allows some of the best skill plays.

Cremation is strong but imo promotes a playstyle that is kind of bad/faceroll in particular when it is paired with Fire and Brimstone. I think it would be better to cut the immolate application and just make this a larger buff to conflagrate. (Should do about 10% of someones health with this talent).

Bane of Havoc not really usable in arena but it's sorta fun in BG.

Curses: Fragility is very good for burst playstyles. Tongues is useful for dampening set ups and slowing crucial CC. Imo weakness isn't strong enough for its long CD, I think replacing it with Exhaustion (slow) or removing it's cooldown might make it a viable choice, but otherwise I don't think it'll see much use.

PVP talent suggested replacements:

Cut Casting Circle, cut Drain Essence.

Instead of these two:
Reintroduce Backlash: chance for instant incinerate on being hit with a melee attack.
Introduce new talent: Swift Decimator (or w/e): Reduces the cast time of incinerate and chaosbolt by 0.5 seconds, but Chaosbolt now has a 6 second cooldown.

These two talents would fill the role of "anti tunnel" in a much more fun and effective way, while maintaining the setup and burst playstyle.

[Wondercrab]

Honestly... the new animations do this pretty much on their own.

But how much cooler would they have been if we still had stuff like embers, the "catching on fire" effect, verdant spheres, and ember tap. Destruction used to have this super awesome chaotic fel fire theme going on, whereas now it just blends together way more with the other Warlock specs.

[Deleted]

Make GoSac great again!

[Maleific]

I agree with you on 2 charges of backdraft baseline and sac viability (would much rather have the damage buff there) but as long as it is a viable alternative I am happy.

I'd like eradication removed and put reverse entropy in its place.

And in reverse entropy's place put conflagration of chaos, but with +1 charges of conflagrate on top of its current effect.

Regarding Soulfire, I don't like it in its current state. Some ideas for it i've been thinking about are;

1. It replaces incinerate with a 2 sec base cast time and generates an extra shard bit.

2. Make it instant nuke with 3 charges that deals moderate/ high fire damage and generates half a shard. (Basically what our portals do now).

3. Replace it with fel flame which can be cast on the move to generate shardbits.


Anyway, that's just some things i've thought of in regards to destro and what I would like to see.

[Dastey]

If only there already was a thread for discussing Destruction in BFA

[Bridius]

Bring back Shadowburn and Destruction easily becomes the most fun spec in the entire game.

[Maleific]

If only there already was a thread for discussing Destruction in BFA

But we're in beta now?

[Ophenia]

[*]Eradication - to get this out of the way - we use it live because it's the optimal option, not because we love it. To be honest, while Eradication is something we can live with, it makes Destruction rotation way too orderly and more of a sustain fare contrary to what Destruction should represent - chaotic bursts of power. IMO, it's like Colossus Smash for Fury Warriors back in the days, where Fury Warriors felt way too orderly and structured for what they should really be.

I agree, tthematically this buff should be completely random (like the Incanter's Flow talent for Mages, but with values bumping from 5 to 20% randomly every second or so maybe), but the problem is that it's hard to be balanced with everything randomized. Either it ends up good/great and the 2 other talents are forgotten for the complete expac, or it sucks hard and you don't even consider it.

But I agree that Destrolock should never be played like an Arcane Mage. You're not supposed to plan anything as a Destrolock.

[Deimosphobos]

Hey all, glad to see some good Destro discussion!!! I had asked a few questions in another thread and some of them were answered, so I appreciate that, so now that...

This is primarily at Gaidax, but everyone feel free to answer...i see and respect your points about the lvl 15 talent row, but have a cpl of deeper points I want to talk about...so is RE gonna be able to be used at all? Or is IC (I feel ya on DE spam...and it seems lesser than actual DE spam..but still) too strong to not be taken for ST? Also from any kinda testing have you found a good use for SB? Will it be mandatory on any kind of add fight? I see Alot of potential with Destro for pvp...any thoughts on a Soul Fire, SB, Roaring Blaze, Dark Soul build?? Soul fire sadly is not what it used to be, but if the setup is done correctly Destro on the surface has some strong nuke potential for pvp (as always) another talent question, is FnB gonna be the go to default or can Cata have a place too?

[Deleted]

The lack of flexible spells you cant cast in the times when you have to move is what are stopping me from playing Destruction.

DR's were great - they looked good, had good damage and you could bank 1-2 for when you needed to move.

A lot of artifact abilities have stayed in the game - that one needed to stay, too. If i did, Destruction would look awesome, but they fumbled that one.

[Gaidax]

Hey all, glad to see some good Destro discussion!!! I had asked a few questions in another thread and some of them were answered, so I appreciate that, so now that...

This is primarily at Gaidax, but everyone feel free to answer...i see and respect your points about the lvl 15 talent row, but have a cpl of deeper points I want to talk about...so is RE gonna be able to be used at all? Or is IC (I feel ya on DE spam...and it seems lesser than actual DE spam..but still) too strong to not be taken for ST? Also from any kinda testing have you found a good use for SB? Will it be mandatory on any kind of add fight? I see Alot of potential with Destro for pvp...any thoughts on a Soul Fire, SB, Roaring Blaze, Dark Soul build?? Soul fire sadly is not what it used to be, but if the setup is done correctly Destro on the surface has some strong nuke potential for pvp (as always) another talent question, is FnB gonna be the go to default or can Cata have a place too?

It is all about balance patches, really. Not only there are no decent tools yet up to actually measure it beyond napkin math, but balancing simply did not go through yet and I expect them go ham on Destro nerfs because it's a tad ahead of the curve in Beta, at least as I see it.

You ask a lot of questions that are hard to answer without that balance patch and tools. I, personally, hope IC won't be a thing, but nothing mathed out yet. Shadowburn, as of now, is worthless, unless maybe a shitton of movement encounter where it will literally double our movement options (that's not saying much about that really).

Basically really, if you are in Beta - try everything and give feedback on what you don't like, rather than trying to fish in a murky pond attempting to predict what Blizz will nerfbat/uplift.

As for Cata - in current balancing, I expect it to be the go to talent that row.

[Dastey]

Bursting Flare - Casting Conflagrate on a target affected by your Immolate increases your Mastery by 19 for 20 sec, stacking up to 5 times.
Chaotic Inferno - Chaos Bolt deals 124 additional damage, and has a 25% chance to make your next Incinerate instant.

Both being azerite traits and both being somewhat nice on the gameplay. First one increasing the damage of all your spells by a decent amount when fully stacked, and since it has 20 seconds duration it is not likely to fall off.
Chaotic Inferno however imo is exactly what these azerite traits need to be. Sure it increases the damage of your chaos bolt by a bit which is always nice to give it a little more oompf, but in reality that instant incinerate once in a while is just so good. It feels so good, speeds up the rotation and gives us a chance to reposition a little bit when it proccs at the right time

[Amonthar]

I just looked up Grimoire of Sacrifice and am disappointed they won’t just give a steady damage boost to getting rid of the pet. Their pet AI is still awful to this day. Let me sac my pet for the 15% damage boost. I get tired of having to resummon it from some random death or changing a level somehow and it goes away. I do not understand this dev team and some of the awful decisions they make.