Destrolock, Grimoire of Sacrifice and the DI conundrum.

[mmomuir]

Re: Soul Fire, DI and freedom of choice.

Suggestion: Grimoire of Sacrifice.
".......also gives your Immolate and Rain of Fire ticks a chance to reduce Soul Fire cast time by 10%. Effect stacks up to 10 times."

Or:
With Grim of Sac changes Shadowburn tooltip "if your target dies within 5secs of Shadowburn you now gain a 25% chance that your next SF will be instant cast".

Soul Link becomes Demo only and Blizzard find a new cool mitigation spell for this tier that doesn't rely on pets.

Problem solved?

Currently if you choose Grim of Sac if also means you HAVE to take Dark Bargain, since the other two tier talents are pet based. If I HAVE to take DB then I'm probably going to take Dark Reg to mitigate it.

So in the current state: if I choose Grim of Sac I lose DI and insta/short cast SF AND I lose choice in two talent tiers.
Blizzard absolutely need to fix this. And us locks need to be vocal about on all the forums.

Yes I'm aware of the irony in choosing to Sacrifice and then QQ about loss.

If others have thought of alternate ways to get around this massive oversight please post your thoughts below.

[Azithrom]

You can still take Sacrificial Pact instead of Dark Bargain, it uses your own health instead.

[deviantcultist]

Yay for promoting destro sacrifice

Your ideas are pretty nice and blizz should keep in mind to tune Destructive Influence and the demonic fury pet supply according to the possibility of picking sacrifice instead of supremacy.

[Arcontes]

Man, you gotta post on bnet foruns if you happen to think about something that should be done, there's a chance they'll see it there. The shadowburn idea's not really good imo, but the immo/rof could use some work and go live.

[Takanami]

IMO. Destructive Influence should be dropped, soul fire should just be given a 2 second cast time. DI is plagued by a plethora of problems. One is the fact that we will be pet reliant. No more pocketing the puppy at our side so it doesn't get zerged and no chance of picking up sacrifice.

Further more, the new mechanics remind me of our current ISF and how cumbersome it is. Only, now it is worse due to having to sometimes cast multiple soul fires. The spec feels like sprinting straight into a brick wall with the fast/slow casts. DI will not help this. Even with casting an instant, you still have to cast another SF or two to give your mana time to regen. Destro really needs to be reworked already.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. No fast pet summons for destro if the pet dies; this just exasperates the issue.

---------- Post added 2012-03-26 at 07:15 PM ----------

Man, you gotta post on bnet foruns if you happen to think about something that should be done, there's a chance they'll see it there. The shadowburn idea's not really good imo, but the immo/rof could use some work and go live.

On this note, http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...4455832?page=1 is a topic concerning such issues of destro. If you want to post on bnet forums I imagine it is a good a place as any.

[Hellfury]

Sacrifice should be scrapped altogether period.

[Deleted]

Sacrifice should be scrapped altogether period.

I disagree completely.

[PsyBomb]

Sacrifice should be scrapped altogether period.

I also disagree. The mechanic is a good one, since some players just don't like having a chunk of their DPS be outside of their easy control. It just needs to be fixed so that Destro can take it.

[Evillocksp]

warlocks r a dark caster pet class that uses demons dont want to use a playstyle that was popular for one tier when BC was out demon pets look cool add a substantial amount of dps on the move and have helped out in my raid situations over the last two expansions and different tierss makes no sense to me u want to play a warlock with no pet ive been playing one since vanilla and hated the demon sac shadowbolt spam days loved when we got the felguard tho dark magic, hellfire, felflames and demon pets make us the most noticeable class during a raid if u dont want to use a pet and go back to those shadowbolt days fire mages rite now r exactly like that right i myself hope they make destro rotation hard and make it so people just cant pick it up and play that only the warlock vets can play it well

[Takanami]

Sacrifice should be scrapped altogether period.

I also disagree. I actually enjoyed it back in bc. I think it is just the spell to really show that separation between hunters and warlocks concerning pets. They love their pets. We use ours in whatever way we see fit to accomplish our goals. Keep in mind, it is still very much optional and no one just has to take it.

And concerning what Evillocksp said.. A few periods some capitals and some real words would help us to understand what you are trying to say.

[Netherspark]

Oh, and I forgot to mention. No fast pet summons for destro if the pet dies; this just exasperates the issue.

We can instantly "revive" our last pet by using a Burning Ember.

[Arcontes]

I myself thought about ways of reworking DI, what I have right now is:
1: Immolate ticks give DI charges instead, 1 charge for tick, 2 charges for crit tick >> at 25% crit it means -1.3 sec cast for every 30 secs of immolate
2: Consuming a backdraft would grant -0.2 sec cast on soulfire, stacking >> it means -1.5 sec cast for every 30 secs, casting conflag on CD
3: Each unstable ember generated through Fel Flame casts would grant -0.2 sec cast on soulfire, stacking >> you don't really need that fast cast on PvE so it would be ok, since you won't be spamming FF. For PvP it would mean you have a reason to use FF, because just being able to move don't justify losing that much damage over incinerate.
4: New spell: 1 minute cd, off the GCD. Makes your next Soulfire instant and grants 20% of your total mana back or something. Or just make it instant, it's good enough.

I personally liked 3 and 4, but I really think destro needs a new spell for PvE besides that.

PS. If someone would post this on us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4254455832?page=1 I'd be thankful, my subscription is canceled until june, so I can't post there anymore, hopefully someone will take a look at it.

[MastaKwaa]

I posted an idea on the official forums and figured I'd put the link here as well to see what you guys think.
us.battle . net/wow/en/forum/topic/4254455832?page=3#60
[reconstruct the link]

Here's the meat of it:

Warlocks want to avoid long cast times that plagued ISF, and get some burst back.
But the devs and other classes want to avoid the S7 burst of multiple hard hitting spells in roughly a single time stamp.
So how can the spec be fixed for both PvE and PvP... and be fun? Glad you asked...

There have been several good ideas that can be added in combination to "save" this spec:
1. Change Destructive Influence to a Decimation style passive that makes Soul Fire 2 sec when an ember is used, and that using an "ember Soul Fire" returns a significant chunk of mana. (Note: without an ember, SF still can be cast, it just costs a lot of mana and is a 4 sec cast).
2. Add functionality to Flames of A'lar so that if used when you have a living (or sacced) pet, it gives a burning ember (instead of instant pet summon), so Fire and Brimstone can be used in aoe situations where there's not a ramp up to build embers.
3. Bring Chaos Bolt back, 1.3 sec cast, is not affected by Backdraft, make it a guaranteed crit (dmg can be controlled down to roughly an incin crit), gives 2/10 ember, pierces absorbs, on a 10 sec cd.
The Glyph of Chaos Bolt would add a 1 sec Chaotic Confusion (horrify), but increases the cd to 25 sec.
4. Modify Aftermath so Conflagrate hits hard on targets that can't be snared (PvE), which allows it to do reduced damage against players (PvP).
If the target can't be snared (PvE), "Wild Fire" will trigger. Wild Fire has a small chance to trigger an instant resource free Soul Fire, but if the roll fails, it gives a non-dispellable charge (like Lightning Capacitor) that increases the chance that Wild Fire will trigger an instant SF per stack (RNG with increasing odds).

The Soul Fires are shorter cast in normal rotation so there's no boring lulls or pet dependence, while keeping the mana enforced SF rotation. An ember can be created on demand once a min so aoe will be more consistent, but at the cost of a potential pet rez to deter its use in PvP. Chaos Bolt returns to make the rotation more entertaining without being too complex, and providing a destro only glyph that sort of mirrors Affliction's Soulburn: Fear. Conflagrate will give big numbers in PvE, but not in PvP so there's not a time stamp burst issue.

Anything I might be overlooking? Sound more fun?

[Arcontes]

1. Change Destructive Influence to a Decimation style passive that makes Soul Fire 2 sec when an ember is used, and that using an "ember Soul Fire" returns a significant chunk of mana. (Note: without an ember, SF still can be cast, it just costs a lot of mana and is a 4 sec cast).

2. Add functionality to Flames of A'lar so that if used when you have a living (or sacced) pet, it gives a burning ember (instead of instant pet summon), so Fire and Brimstone can be used in aoe situations where there's not a ramp up to build embers.

3. Bring Chaos Bolt back, 1.3 sec cast, is not affected by Backdraft, make it a guaranteed crit (dmg can be controlled down to roughly an incin crit), gives 2/10 ember, pierces absorbs, on a 10 sec cd.
The Glyph of Chaos Bolt would add a 1 sec Chaotic Confusion (horrify), but increases the cd to 25 sec.

4. Modify Aftermath so Conflagrate hits hard on targets that can't be snared (PvE), which allows it to do reduced damage against players (PvP).
If the target can't be snared (PvE), "Wild Fire" will trigger. Wild Fire has a small chance to trigger an instant resource free Soul Fire, but if the roll fails, it gives a non-dispellable charge (like Lightning Capacitor) that increases the chance that Wild Fire will trigger an instant SF per stack (RNG with increasing odds).

1 - Not good IMO, ember already increases damage of soul fire by ~180% and reduces mana cost by 100%. Making it reduce it's cast time by 50% and return mana would be a bit over the top.
2 - Initial AoE is a real problem (aka. fire and brimstone), that Flames of Al'ar idea seems really nice.
3 - Not sure about chaos bolt... it just feels like incinerate, don't think it's coming back, and I hope it doesn't. The glyph idea seems weird for me, 1 sec horror? srsly?
4 - That's the same as Deep Freeze. The difference is that Deep Freeze is a main burst both in PvE and PvP (see, frost crits/mastery). If you make it a hard hitting PvE spell and weak on PvP it would simply feel wrong.

Just my oppinions.

Also, I'm pretty sure destruction needs +1 spell for the rotation. Having to choose between FF and Incin every now and then doesn't feel like a real challenge... Give us something to pay attention rather than falling asleep.

[Deleted]

There is a far easier solution for the "4s cast problem": reduce the cast time by 1-1.5s and shift the damage from Soul Fire to Immolate. This will also reduce the problem of those insane crits in PVP. Immolate is currently dealing nearly no damage (3k initial and 3k per tick), so buffing this is not a problem. As we will then spend less time casting Soul Fire and therefore regenerate less mana, we will probably need another source of mana regeneration. That could be done by refunding a set amount of mana when a Burning Ember is consumed.

This does not solve the problem of AoEing without ramp up time, but... that is an entirely different discussion.

[Jessicka]

None of this fixes GoSac for Demonology or with Soul Link or the Demon training glyph and some in themselves raise further issues:

1: Immolate ticks give DI charges instead, 1 charge for tick, 2 charges for crit tick >> at 25% crit it means -1.3 sec cast for every 30 secs of immolate

This would cause a more rapid build up through multidotting, potentially promoting GoSac ahead of other talents in even the most basic multi target fight.

2: Consuming a backdraft would grant -0.2 sec cast on soulfire, stacking >> it means -1.5 sec cast for every 30 secs, casting conflag on CD

A good idea, but wouldn't generate Embers at a high enough rate without some other mechanism.

3: Each unstable ember generated through Fel Flame casts would grant -0.2 sec cast on soulfire, stacking >> you don't really need that fast cast on PvE so it would be ok, since you won't be spamming FF. For PvP it would mean you have a reason to use FF, because just being able to move don't justify losing that much damage over incinerate.

I think PvP offers more than enough incentive to use FF just through mobility, even with the new level 90 talent. Again, as with Conflag it would require some other generation mechanism to keep pace with the basic DI.

4: New spell: 1 minute cd, off the GCD. Makes your next Soulfire instant and grants 20% of your total mana back or something. Or just make it instant, it's good enough.

Could tie in with MastaKwaa's idea of bringing CB back; I'd like to see some incarnation of it, but it's current implementation is a little dull as a short cooldown nuke. A medium cooldown Ember Dump/Emergency Mana regen ability would actually be pretty nice.

All that said though, I think looking for elaborate fixes for the talent by adjusting everything else to accomodate it probably isn't the right way to go. As I said above, none of this would help the incompatability with Demo, or the incompatability with other talents and glyphs. All that considered, it would be easier to accept the problem begins and ends with the talent itself, and the easiest, most logical means of fixing it would be to just have a different talent altogether. I came up with an alternative some time ago, and that was to take the Abyssal and Terrorguard off the Supremacy Grimoire and put them on their own, that way offering the choice between flat damage from Supremacy, a medium term burst cooldown from Servitude, and a more powerful long cooldown on Sacrifice's replacement; all offer different situational utility, and all could be reasonably better balanced in terms of overall output.

[Warsfeil]

dont promote destro lock with no pets please. if i want to play fire mage i would open a fire mage. warlocks should be with their pets.

[Deleted]

I disagree to be honest, the demon isn't the defining nuance of the warlock class (none of the new class setups look ANYTHING like a mage) and personally I find it rather tedious to micromanage them and have a chunk of my dps out of direct control (Yor'sahj, for instance, just something else I have to keep track of). And yes, I was an advocate for a pet-less MM hunter tree too.

In an ideal world GoSac would be balanced with the other options, but something's going to be superior in the majority of situations- I wouldn't worry if I were a pet lover tbh, if one talent has to be superior it'll probably end up being GoSup leaving GoSac for fights like Alysrazor and Hagara, during which our demons really are more of a hindrance than a help.

[MyriadofLies]

I think the new talent, Grimoire of Supremacy, might create some problems. In fact, that whole tier needs to be reworked since, no doubt, a lot of warlocks out there will take the talent just because they want new demons. Check it out: