Hi guys.
As an all-time Destruction fanatic and specialist, in a Heroic raiding environment, even when the spec wasn't considered viable, I now managed to get beta access from a mysterious guildy, so I wanted to share with you the awesomeness that is Destruction on the beta.
I'll bookmark this thread and answer any questions if anyone has any, but I'd also love to discuss the abilities and gameplay with other Destruction warlocks on the Beta in here.
I made a thread about my current thoughts on the EU beta forums here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3554369483
As you can see, I complained about mana regen not being enough. As people pointed out in other Destruction summaries, it is supposed to be much like energy. However, energy that only replenishes 1 or 2 energy per second, is obviously not gonna do much for a rogue.
For those not in the Beta: At 85 everyone has 100k baseline mana, not increased by Int, and in Destruction you regen 1k-1.5k mana per second. Incinerate costs 17.5k mana, Immolate costs 8.75k mana, Drain Life costs 2k mana + 2k mana per second channeled (and channeling this definitely makes you go OOM, altho slowly). Cooldowns you pop also cost quite a bit of mana, your Unending Resolve (Shield Wall) being 10k mana (doesn't cost GCD, Twilight Ward being 4k mana, and Dark Soul being 5k mana (and doesn't cost a GCD either).
Just comes down to: Everything you do requires you to spend about 3-10 seconds doing nothing or spending Burning Embers or casting Conflagrate, thus you're doing nothing half the time.
Apart from that, I can say Destruction feels nice, and the burst that Burning Embers give is INSANE.
szemere