MoP: Destruction Warlock Guide and First Week Gear List

[Grizelda]

It's the total antithesis of what Destro is supposed to be. We work our butt off to build power and unleash it in a burst. Now we work our butt off to get a DoT?
Wrong direction.
The great thing about the burst is being able to direct our energy where it will do the most good at the right moment. This dilutes what we can do with the stored energy. When something needs to die "right this moment!" We used to be able to do that. Yeah it's a three second cast, but now it's a three second cast and time for the DoT to run.

[Medieve]

It's the total antithesis of what Destro is supposed to be. We work our butt off to build power and unleash it in a burst. Now we work our butt off to get a DoT?
Wrong direction.
The great thing about the burst is being able to direct our energy where it will do the most good at the right moment. This dilutes what we can do with the stored energy. When something needs to die "right this moment!" We used to be able to do that. Yeah it's a three second cast, but now it's a three second cast and time for the DoT to run.

If I understand the complaint against CB properly, and as a general principle I agree with it; stacking buffs and procs to deliver one huge blow isn't really fun game play. CB does a ton of damage, and with GoSac its past the 50% health pool point when done properly, on two targets no less. That's from one lock. Granted, it takes some setup and teamwork, but it's getting close to the old days of "stars align and you global someone" (with your team's help, but same philosophy as doing it solo) which wasn't really fun gameplay then either, for both player sending and player receiving. Going under that same philosophy, I can understand rolling some of the stacked buff into the same total damage amount, but dispersed a bit over time to be a good move.

I'm not saying it's good for other classes to be that powerful either, mind you. I'm solely stating that as a philosophy, it's better for gameplay and balance, if done across the board between classes. Essentially the total damage done should be the same, and it shouldn't change the rotation at all. Bosses that need to die right now will be burnt with SB, and adds should be cleaved with SB to the boss anyway. We don't really have a Spine type window yet, but if we do, we can simply change from GoSac/Mastery to GoSup/Crit if the DoT becomes that much of a liability.

[Grizelda]

If I understand the complaint against CB properly, and as a general principle I agree with it; stacking buffs and procs to deliver one huge blow isn't really fun game play.

Hells yes it is. That's why I play Destro. If you like layering and maintaining DoTs there is Affliction.

I don't think this change is a result of complaints from locks.

[Szemere]

Hells yes it is. That's why I play Destro. If you like layering and maintaining DoTs there is Affliction.

I don't think this change is a result of complaints from locks.

Agreed. We aren't Shadow Priests. They save up points to unleash in a big DoT. And seriously, if Chaos Bolt hits too hard with GoSac, distribute the extra damage of GoSac better or something, but as a long cast with long flight-time and long build-up and dispellable buffs, making it a DoT is just bad design.

[Medieve]

Something I learned last night doing Zor'lok (and this may already be common knowledge, I just didn't see it anywhere), don't Havok one MC'd player and nuke a 2nd. When the MC'd player becomes friendly again, you still copy the spells cast to them. DoT's are another big no-no, which is pretty well known. I didn't think Havok would follow the same rule until I blew up my healer.

[Grubjuice]

the DoT issue is not about flavor.

To say Destruction should not have DoTs because they are not Shadow Priests is just as useless an argument as the one that Destruction Locks shouldn't have had their DoTs corruption and Bane of Doom taken away in 5.0 because they are not Arcane Mages.

Arguments for and against the viability of the Mechanics of Chaos bolt itself, those are valid topics of concern.

the DoT added to Chaos Bolt only affects one grimoire and will ultimately only affect pvp burst. and hey pvp burst needs a teensy weensy nerf (assuming it is compensated with a slight buff to sustained damage). Really too much damage is packed into one spell that is too difficult to use. Warlocks get annoyed at how hard it is get off; and their pvp apponents get annoyed at how much damage it does when they fail to counter it (although come one, it's their own fault when they don't counter it). Every one gets upset about chaos bolt.

Theoretically the DoT added to Chaos Bolt shouldn't affect PvE, because if the target dies before the DoT finishes the Target is dead so who cares? you would probably have overkilled the target anyway and overkill is not real dps. I am confident that the DoT will roll damage like Explosive Shot and Devouring Plague so that we won't lose any pve dps through clipping. basically clipping is being removed from the game on all fronts either through dot rolling or passives like Pandemic.

[Szemere]

the DoT issue is not about flavor.

To say Destruction should not have DoTs because they are not Shadow Priests is just as useless an argument as the one that Destruction Locks shouldn't have had their DoTs corruption and Bane of Doom taken away in 5.0 because they are not Arcane Mages.

Arguments for and against the viability of the Mechanics of Chaos bolt itself, those are valid topics of concern.

the DoT added to Chaos Bolt only affects one grimoire and will ultimately only affect pvp burst. and hey pvp burst needs a teensy weensy nerf (assuming it is compensated with a slight buff to sustained damage). Really too much damage is packed into one spell that is too difficult to use. Warlocks get annoyed at how hard it is get off; and their pvp apponents get annoyed at how much damage it does when they fail to counter it (although come one, it's their own fault when they don't counter it). Every one gets upset about chaos bolt.

Theoretically the DoT added to Chaos Bolt shouldn't affect PvE, because if the target dies before the DoT finishes the Target is dead so who cares? you would probably have overkilled the target anyway and overkill is not real dps. I am confident that the DoT will roll damage like Explosive Shot and Devouring Plague so that we won't lose any pve dps through clipping. basically clipping is being removed from the game on all fronts either through dot rolling or passives like Pandemic.

Elegon adds that need to die instantly, when you run with GoSac. How does that not affect that?

---------- Post added 2012-11-01 at 04:53 PM ----------

Something I learned last night doing Zor'lok (and this may already be common knowledge, I just didn't see it anywhere), don't Havok one MC'd player and nuke a 2nd. When the MC'd player becomes friendly again, you still copy the spells cast to them. DoT's are another big no-no, which is pretty well known. I didn't think Havok would follow the same rule until I blew up my healer.

Havoc the boss and nuke the MC'd player, same effect, tho much safer.

[Grubjuice]

Elegon adds that need to die instantly, when you run with GoSac. How does that not affect that?

it allows you to use shadow burn and thus recoup the cost of the chaos bolt

the last thing you would ever want is to have chaos bolt be the spell that killed the target. Such a waste.

[Szemere]

it allows you to use shadow burn and thus recoup the cost of the chaos bolt

the last thing you would ever want is to have chaos bolt be the spell that killed the target. Such a waste.

Last time I checked Shadowburn doesn't get refund on those adds, as they don't count as targets that give honor or XP. It might perhaps give the 1 ember back it costed (although I am 90% certain it didnt the very first week), but doesn't end you up with +1 ember like it does when questing. And really, on 10man, when soloing waves, wave 5+ will take you too long to bring to under 20% without using Chaos Bolt. And considering Shadowburn doesn't make you get more embers than you had, why would you want the add to survive more than a Chaos Bolt and perhaps a Fel Flame/conflag right after? How precisely is that a waste? As destruction, either something gets through 20+%, or it doesn't. Chaos Bolt killing the target on wave 5+ is just fine on 10man.

[Medieve]

Elegon adds that need to die instantly, when you run with GoSac. How does that not affect that?

---------- Post added 2012-11-01 at 04:53 PM ----------



Havoc the boss and nuke the MC'd player, same effect, tho much safer.

That's what I started doing after I noticed myself critting our healer for 100k incins. I thought I was being SO clever breaking 2 MC's at once too. Just thought I'd bring it up in case others didn't know.

As far as Elegon, we might have to reforge crit/haste and use GoSup for that fight if the CB change goes live. The only reason I personally run GoSac/mastery is so I can run as afflic with minimal reforging/gear swapping between fights. The variance I'm getting between the two reforges are well within the range of DPS variance I'd get from biffing a cooldown or miscounting backdraft stacks and using CB.

[Grubjuice]

the point is with any nerf you have to compare it to what it could have been
having the 25% bonus turned into a DoT is not as bad as having CB removed from GoSac altogether which was what a lot of us assumed/feared would happen.

is the lesser of very large number of potential evils, and it certainly won't break the spec as such, just reduce its effectiveness.

[Szemere]

the point is with any nerf you have to compare it to what it could have been
having the 25% bonus turned into a DoT is not as bad as having CB removed from GoSac altogether which was what a lot of us assumed/feared would happen.

is the lesser of very large number of potential evils, and it certainly won't break the spec as such, just reduce its effectiveness.

that is assuming that the debuff stacks like ignite.

[Deleted]

Quick question :

gems - 160 int vs 320 mastery , very small diff isn't it ?
(looking for values which work both with affli & destro)

[Nivrax]

I don't believe any other class could one shot their spark either, while it will still be possible for us (except for last wave where you may need to conflag it or something). I also don't see them adding treshhold damage mechanic and then tuning it around the biggest possible nuke in game. I'm actually looking forward to it after getting Cosmos off lfr, 15% on dot tick don't give best uptime with immo as only proccer.

[Szemere]

Quick question :

gems - 160 int vs 320 mastery , very small diff isn't it ?
(looking for values which work both with affli & destro)

Even for affliction the int one is better than mastery until very high gearlevels (read: full heroic), and for destruction int is king too, just gem int IMO.

---------- Post added 2012-11-02 at 01:35 PM ----------

Also, we've been talking about the so-called DoT for so long, but I can't seem to anywhere find anything about Chaos Bolt in any patchnotes whatsoever... Did it just go onto the PTR without being noted in patch notes, or are we just speculating, or am I just blind?

[Deleted]

loggued on PTR yesterday, the dot part of CB is active already

[Medieve]

It's on the PTR, but the most recent GC tweet said Destro damage is being looked at, but no plans to change it right now. Hopefully they're just looking at how the DoT performs and the DoT won't make it live.

[Szemere]

Indeed, in the PvP balance thread, and in the official patchnotes, it nowhere says anything regarding GoSac or CB, nor does it get mentioned in the balance thread. And really, in PvE this is an unnoticable nerf at best, where Destruction according to simcraft is somewhat behind (although I personally still have my doubts about the Action Priority Lists they provide)

[Deleted]

Hi guys, (sry for my english, I hope I'm understable )

I'm a fresh new 90 warlock and I'm raiding !
I have a little stuff (iLvl470) and I'm raiding in R10 group. I'm always searching advices for more experimented players and I hope you can help me.
So, in Msg I play destro and affli (for some fights), my dps is around 42-45k.

Some more infos 'bout my character :
15% hit (hit + exp)
10.77% crit
46.6% mastery
2.6% hast
And GoSac

My biggest problem is to know when use my embers, when use CB ? I've read a lot of things here so, I'm not sure 'bout the good thing to do with my embers.
Dark Soul increase the damage of CB, so I suppose we need to cast CB combined with Ds if it's possible. I suppose too that's better to manage my embers to get 4 (with glyph) and spell all of them at the same moment during Ds buff.
But many many times I have my 4 embers but I'm waiting my Ds cooldown. I know that's a bad thing (really bad) but I always hesitate to cast Cb before Ds is up. And in this case, just one Cb or the fours ?
Another problem with my embers is when the boss is in execute phase (below 20% life). My embers are used faster than I can recreate it (shadowburn debuff during some few seconds).
In fact, after use my 4 embers on Sb, I can use 2 or 3 more before the boss die and I need to wait a lot time to get one more.
(Sb -> waiting debuff end (with immo, conflag, inci) -> when debuff fade Sb agin -> immo (if needed), conflag, inci during debuff -> when debuff fade Sb -> ...... in loop)
Is it a better way to use my embers on Sb during execute phase ?

Advices ?

I hope you will understand what I'm explaining. If not, j'irai ennuyer Zûmzum.
Thanks guys

Bye bye

[Aruotnof]

Sorry for my english too! But I will try! XD

Last week, I changed my Affliction spec to Destruction and in the beginning, I had the same problem with my DPS... Waiting burning ember stacks (~3,8) to use DS.

So, I did some changes and while my DS is down, I use 1xCB (during some proc) always when I have 2 embers. When my DS is missing a few seconds to be ready (+/-40sec), I try to get at least 3 embers and use all during DS buff. I dont know if what Im doing is the better way to manage my embers, but doing this my DPS increased. But Im new with this spec. Let´s wait a expert Destro lock opinion! =)

Thanks!