MoP: Destruction Warlock Guide and First Week Gear List

[Szemere]

I was looking at another sites and they say:

Intellect > Spell Hit (15%) > Mastery > Crit > Haste

But this guide says:

Intellect --> Spell Power --> Hit (Up to 15%) --> Haste >= Crit --> Mastery.

Which one of these for Destruction PVE should I follow? And the other site is:

http://www.noxxic.com/wow/pve/warloc...reforging-gear

Noxxic hasn't ever been a great guide to follow unless you're fine with just doing LFR and post-nerf normalmodes, for example, at 85 Destruction should gear hit(1742)>haste(2.6kish softcap)>mastery>crit>haste, when you were over 397 ilvl. However, they simply listed hit>haste>crit>mastery, which was the prio in FL gear.
And really, if you only plan on doing some LFR and perhaps normals, just get hitcapped and then get items that have most int on it if you include gems.

---------- Post added 2012-10-15 at 05:35 PM ----------

Thanks for the helpful info. Point for point isn't it also cheaper to get a mastery point verses everything else? ie: Per 1% mastery it is less than haste/crit. I like killing off the little bastard and hell after pathing issues killing them off is a blessing. That and Demo should be an alright offspec. Damn you Affliction!

You should be looking at how good a point of rating is, not how good a full 1 Mastery/ 1% Crit/ 1% Haste is, as those all require different amounts of rating.

[Bloodfire]

I was thinking about switching from afflic to destro.
Can smb give me UI screen what spells should me on 12345 and binds?

[Szemere]

I was thinking about switching from afflic to destro.
Can smb give me UI screen what spells should me on 12345 and binds?

Use Fire and Brimstone on your Soulburn button, Chaos Bolt on the Haunt button. Immolate on Unstable Affliction or Corruption, Conflagrate on the other one of those 2. Shadowburn on Drain Soul, Incinerate on Malefic Grasp. Havoc on on Soul Swap (Exhale). You'll have the Agony button free, bind those to Ember Tap or something (I usually don't bind Flames of Xoroth). You can also bind Immo or Conflag to Agony depending on your setup and personal preferences, of course.

[Bloodfire]

Use Fire and Brimstone on your Soulburn button, Chaos Bolt on the Haunt button. Immolate on Unstable Affliction or Corruption, Conflagrate on the other one of those 2. Shadowburn on Drain Soul, Incinerate on Malefic Grasp. Havoc on on Soul Swap (Exhale). You'll have the Agony button free, bind those to Ember Tap or something (I usually don't bind Flames of Xoroth). You can also bind Immo or Conflag to Agony depending on your setup and personal preferences, of course.

Cool, that means less binds and less button bashing :P

I've got more questions:
1) Other resources say that crit mastery is more worthy then haste. Is it true?
2) As for the tier 5 talent, is Grimoire of Sacrifice better than supremacy?
And last:
3) Is it better to go for destro on Elegon?

[Szemere]

1: Crit is in no build better than both mastery and haste, in GoSac builds Mastery pulls ahead due to more damage being focused on yourself (pet doesn't benefit off mastery), in GoSup Haste pulls ahead due to your pet's energy regen benefitting from this. Crit is always middle stat if I recall correctly, but you know what they say: Not 100% sure? Sim it! If you reforge to what a sim says, you then sim again, and it still says the same, you're basically good . Otherwise keep reforging slightly to what the sim says etc etc. (I don't think reforge plots work very well, I can't work with em that well at least, awesome for you if you can).

2: Sup has been said to usually be ahead, but Sac is supposed to not be a bad choice either (apparantly they're really close, but I have yet to see someone grinding out a full gearset optimized for both to tell us more precise numbers, most posts are rather vague.). Don't know why GoServ falls so far behind, I guess there's very little fights at the moment that require on-demand burst where it's okay to sacrifice DPS during the rest of the fight (read: no spine as of yet)

3: Keeping in mind the 30% nerf to the speed of the adds, which equals to 1.5 waves more or less (20% speed per wave): I can get 5 waves post-nerf with Affliction, but seemingly infinite with Destruction (6 was easy enough pre-nerf). For the rest of the fight, Affliction is better. So I would say, if you're 25man, and you can be assigned so that there are others able to compensate for your shit DPS in P2, go Affliction definitely. If you're in a 10man, and you really need to get more waves in P2 than you can pull off, go Destruction, getting 1 or 2 extra waves on both transitions equals 20-40% more DPS on the boss for the entire raid during the second and third P1. Considering more than just me had the problem of only being able to handle 5 post-nerf, I just stuck with Affliction. (Perhaps I could've done better if I had looked up some Affliction specialists guides on soloing a single Charge, but Destruction is obviously easier, single Chaos Bolt and Conflag usually did most of the job)

[Bloodfire]

1: Crit is in no build better than both mastery and haste, in GoSac builds Mastery pulls ahead due to more damage being focused on yourself (pet doesn't benefit off mastery), in GoSup Haste pulls ahead due to your pet's energy regen benefitting from this. Crit is always middle stat if I recall correctly, but you know what they say: Not 100% sure? Sim it! If you reforge to what a sim says, you then sim again, and it still says the same, you're basically good . Otherwise keep reforging slightly to what the sim says etc etc. (I don't think reforge plots work very well, I can't work with em that well at least, awesome for you if you can).

2: Sup has been said to usually be ahead, but Sac is supposed to not be a bad choice either (apparantly they're really close, but I have yet to see someone grinding out a full gearset optimized for both to tell us more precise numbers, most posts are rather vague.). Don't know why GoServ falls so far behind, I guess there's very little fights at the moment that require on-demand burst where it's okay to sacrifice DPS during the rest of the fight (read: no spine as of yet)

3: Keeping in mind the 30% nerf to the speed of the adds, which equals to 1.5 waves more or less (20% speed per wave): I can get 5 waves post-nerf with Affliction, but seemingly infinite with Destruction (6 was easy enough pre-nerf). For the rest of the fight, Affliction is better. So I would say, if you're 25man, and you can be assigned so that there are others able to compensate for your shit DPS in P2, go Affliction definitely. If you're in a 10man, and you really need to get more waves in P2 than you can pull off, go Destruction, getting 1 or 2 extra waves on both transitions equals 20-40% more DPS on the boss for the entire raid during the second and third P1. Considering more than just me had the problem of only being able to handle 5 post-nerf, I just stuck with Affliction. (Perhaps I could've done better if I had looked up some Affliction specialists guides on soloing a single Charge, but Destruction is obviously easier, single Chaos Bolt and Conflag usually did most of the job)

Hmm.
1) That means if i use GoSac, i need to reforge haste for mastery and crit?
2) Ye, we're going 10ppl, i'm having problems in P2 with killing 4th sphere. I was thinking that it would ve been easier killing it with Chaos bolts, since it crits anyway :P
3) As for glyphs, Burning Embers is mandatory, What would u recommend for 2nd and 3rd? I was thinking about Siphon Life and dnk what 2nd.

[Grubjuice]

siphon life is not very good for destro because immolate's dot does not add up for much compared to Corruption for AFF or Corruption+Doom for Demo. (addendum, but there is no real reason NOT to take it if you want it, and on fights where you will multi-dot, like the Puppies, it becomes more valuable).

I recommend:
Soul Stone (if you have to Battle Rez for your group)
Healthstone (multiplies with Dark Regeneration for crazy self healing)
Conflagrate (for soloing and pvp between raids)
Dark Soul (If AND ONLY IF you sit on your dark soul cooldown for more than 30 seconds because you anticipate a burst phase, I use this for soloing and dungeons but replace with with Soul Stone for raids)
Demon Training (if you take Grimoire of Supremacy, you might as well)
Demonic Circle (sometimes it makes sense, but not often)

[Szemere]

siphon life is not very good for destro because immolate's dot does not add up for much compared to Corruption for AFF or Corruption+Doom for Demo. (addendum, but there is no real NOT to if you want it).

I recommend:
Soul stone (if you have to Battle Rez for your group)
Healthstone (multiplies with Dark Regeneration for crazy self healing)
Conflagrate (for soloing and pvp between raids)
Dark Soul (If AND ONLY IFyou sit on your dark soul cooldown for more than 30 seconds because you anticipate a burst phase, I use this for soloing and dungeons but replace with with healthstone for raids)
Demon Training (if you take Grimoire of Supremacy, you might as well)

The last 2, not so much (Devour Magic or it's equivalent doesn't ever on bossfights get anything, and you're always using obs/felhunter, at least usually. as for Dark Soul, if you anticipate a burstphase, why'd you want to lose out on 3% crit on that burstphase itself? If it would be worth hanging on to Dark Soul, you'd want it to be as good as possible, if it isn't worth or important hanging on to it that much, you should use it off cooldown.), but 2 of the other 3 combined with the obvious/mandatory Burning Embers glyph are indeed the best options.

[Deleted]

Glyph of Soul Consumption is very nice for questing, mass AoE farming and Gara'jal Spirit World. Well until they remove SB from it in 5.1

[Grubjuice]

i have already weaned myself of Soul Consumption so it won't be a shock later.

[Szemere]

I actually never used Soul Consumption

[Bloodfire]

Hm.
Tested on dummy, only 40 45k.
Am i doing smth wrong? I start with immolate>confagrate then x3 incinerate and again.
What's the optimal rotation?

[Grubjuice]

without Havoc and Shadowburn and a really long test period, Destro does not show well on a test dummy. Most of Destro's Damage is in Chaos Bolt timing, Shadowburn (either as a true execute, or cleaved with Havoc, or used as an ember generator on adds), and Havoc Cleaving.

[and don't forget Curse]

You also need to learn to optimize Chaos Bolts with Trinket and Enchantment procs while still always having at least 3.8 full embers ready for each Dark Soul.

[Szemere]

Indeed, Destruction relies heavily on Chaos Bolts doing their job well. I usually open CoE>Dark Soul>Immo>Conflag>Incin (to not waste backdraft)>ChaosBolt>2Incin>Conflag>More Incin. Then Chaos Bolt as soon as possible to have a second Chaos Bolt benefitting off Dark Soul, and after that Dark Soul usually ends. Then it reverts to "use Chaos Bolts when out of Backdraft and when you don't need to save up for when X comes up, when you want to have as much Embers ready as possible".

[ashin]

1: Crit is in no build better than both mastery and haste, in GoSac builds Mastery pulls ahead due to more damage being focused on yourself (pet doesn't benefit off mastery), in GoSup Haste pulls ahead due to your pet's energy regen benefitting from this. Crit is always middle stat if I recall correctly, but you know what they say: Not 100% sure? Sim it! If you reforge to what a sim says, you then sim again, and it still says the same, you're basically good . Otherwise keep reforging slightly to what the sim says etc etc. (I don't think reforge plots work very well, I can't work with em that well at least, awesome for you if you can).

3: Keeping in mind the 30% nerf to the speed of the adds, which equals to 1.5 waves more or less (20% speed per wave): I can get 5 waves post-nerf with Affliction, but seemingly infinite with Destruction (6 was easy enough pre-nerf).

Regarding #1, I've not seen that on any of my sims. I run with GoSup and Haste is tied with Mastery as my worst secondary. The exception I found was making sure you get the 7th immolate tick, and then a slight bump for getting the 9th tick during timewarp. If you've reached those breakpoints, which are pretty easy to do, then Crit pulls way ahead. I did notice that mastery did better when I was GoSac, but I haven't simmed that recently. I think Crit will still come out on top.

Regarding #3, Why do you say infinite? I noticed we do not get an ember back when we shadowburn. I don't think you can generate enough embers in between waves to ensure that you'll always have a chaos bolt available, especially one the waves start getting shorter. So I don't think Destro can hold the orbs for so long like you say.

---------- Post added 2012-10-15 at 04:56 PM ----------

Then Chaos Bolt as soon as possible to have a second Chaos Bolt benefitting off Dark Soul, and after that Dark Soul usually ends.

I have seen several people say this, and I do not understand why.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=113858

Our Dark Soul gives us +30% crit chance. Chaos bolt automatically crits. Therefore if you cast Chaos bolt during Dark soul, you are wasting a portion of the Dark soul. You're eating up 2 or 3 seconds casting a spell that will not benefit from it.

I tend to treat Dark Soul as a time to build my embers, due to the enhanced crit chance. Spend embers outside of Dark Soul, not during.

[xskarma]

I have seen several people say this, and I do not understand why.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=113858

Our Dark Soul gives us +30% crit chance. Chaos bolt automatically crits. Therefore if you cast Chaos bolt during Dark soul, you are wasting a portion of the Dark soul. You're eating up 2 or 3 seconds casting a spell that will not benefit from it.

I tend to treat Dark Soul as a time to build my embers, due to the enhanced crit chance. Spend embers outside of Dark Soul, not during.

I'll give you a link too: Chaos Bolt

Notice the part where it says the damage gets increased by your crit chance? THAT is why people use their CB's during DS

[ashin]

/facepalm

Thank you Xsk.

[Szemere]

edit:nvm, already pointed out

[Count Zero]

And with regard to the damage increase, it's actually the only time you're removing the possibility of wasting DS. You could have DS up and get absolutely no crits if you're not using CB. For Afflic and Demo there is no rng involved with DS.

[Tietoso]

how much haste should i have as destro? im currently sitting at 11.16% (4,743 haste) i'v seen posts in here saying the soft cap is 2k ish, i just want to make sure.
and after that, reforge to mastery?