Is it normal for destro to beat affl at 520 ilvl ish?

[Deleted]

Alright there lads. I have a ilvl 520 alt with, mostly lfr gear but with 4 peice bonus lei shen trinket ect and ive been playing destro mainly but when the patch hit i was under the impression that affl would wipe the floor with destro. Anyway i gemed and reforged for pure affl. i hit 9778 haste with a combo of reckless and quick gems and then went mastery with what i had left over but even with this reforge/geming aimed at affl, i noticed that im still doing more deeps by quiet abit as destro, am i doing something horribly wrong/being a baddie or is destro superior at those gear lvls? cheers lads. take care.

[Baconeggcheese]

It was this way in 5.2 - 5.3, not sure if the 5.4 changes would have changed that.

Aff's scaling is what makes it ridiculous where destro scales very poorly, so the worse your gear the better destro will be and the more you get the faster aff pulls ahead.

[Deleted]

I believe that destro is a lot better in the early ilvls. Although I'm not entirely sure trying to hit the 9778 breakpoint is that wise with 520 ilvl. I would most likely go for a lower breakpoint or even go demo. I mean you have the lei shen trinket, demo is quite nice atm. It doesnt beat affliction but it still pulls high numbers. Probably best to stay as destro untill you can easily reach the breakpoint without any trouble

[Aensland]

For me, afflic didn't start to pull ahead until I was 528ilvl, w/meta gem. Even then, it was still pretty close.

[Vuhdo]

For my 531 ilvl (w/o meta gem) destro is still ahead of affli according to Simcraft, though the difference is quite negligible (like 1k dps or so).
In 525 ilvl it was easily 15k dps difference.

[Deleted]

Destro was better than affli (and demo) on paper until 540+ itemlevels in 5.2, 5.4 buffed destruction more than the other specs due to the lack of scaling. So in theory with no facts to back it up, destruction should be even better at low ilvls now.

[announced]

destro wins hard vs aff on some fights like Galakras where adds can be clumped together and u can shadowburn spam kill them always keeping up embers for CBS on the main target. its not bad in some fights like protectors as well, but imo aff is still better. u need pure mastery and a tiny bit of haste though for aff to shine till u can get enough gear for bps.

[Potente]

I'm at 530ilvl, mastery> crit> haste destro and I'm pulling about 2-3k more than aff reforged properly with leg. Meta...

[Vzz]

How much you pull as destro there?

[Thugadin]

It can depend on any number of things, at 520 ilvl my lock as destro pulled more because at the time I only had the shado-pan assault trinket and UVLS (raid finder version), and due to neither of them having trinket procs, Affliction DPS was terrible. ToT was very unkind to me in terms of getting trinkets to drop. If you have two good int-proccing trinkets like breath/wushoolays or even Cha-Ye's, you will see an enormous difference in DPS even at the same ilvl. Once I had 522 breath (the day before 5.4...of course...) my dps as Affliction stayed the same as destro until I really began to utilize Woz's Warlock Weak Auras forum here on mmo-champ. Reacting to trinket procs ASAP and refreshing dots due to snap shotting became the difference between 100k dps and 150k dps. Also saving haunt for trinket procs and if you dont have trinket procs up (Weak Auras can also track trinkets new Internal Cooldowns), or if they are on Internal Cooldown, refresh dots with smaller int procs for increased dps, such as jade spirit, lightweave and the like. Affliction is more challenging to play than Destro was, but single target it destroys. Also, if you don't already use it, AffDots is a must have for affliction, it color codes your active dots, lets you know when to refresh if your current stats are better than when they were cast, and really helps maximize pandemic to keep your hardest hitting dots with your best int procs up for as long as possible.

[Werst]

Anecdotal is fine and good but the 540-2 simcraft is out w' the destro buffs and an updated APL (no more RoF/etc) so you can get a better idea now using that tool. If you lack the legendary meta I'd def consider destro/demo spec setup. That said aff did become stronger at lower ilvl than before BUT on my alt lock (530'ish) destro is still ahead of aff and behind demo (2/2 tforged UVLS/xxx).

[Alaira]

Until the hotfixes for today go live, that is. Specs are going to get closer together. Demo is taking a beating with imps and UVLS nerfed.

[Struggle]

Just started playing again about 2 weeks ago, up to a 500 ilvl and was playing Affliction. At lower ilvls I found my haste to be insufficient at keeping both enough shards for haunt and haunt up itself. Had to swap MG out with DS for about 35% of the fight above execute range. Just went destro within the last few days and am seeing waaay better numbers. I don't think Afflic is worth it until you've got some decent haste.