Dimensional Rift/Mastery Changes?

[Drewid]

So, while a friend and I having one of our normal conversations about class balance woes and whatnot, some ideas dawned upon us in the realm of changes for Destro lock. Of course, these do not solve all of the issues plaguing the class, however, I feel these are not bad ideas, and I would like to get second opinions on them. Who knows, maybe someone will see it if we complain enough LUL(not that Blizzard has a habit of listening to what we want, from what I've seen). Anyway, now for the changes!

Dimensional Rift - Perhaps giving us the ability to determine what sort of portal we will spawn next? For instance, the same premises as New Moon: starting on the Shadow Rift and then cycling through each one. Or, if we really were being wishful, having three different buttons for the different portals. So, instead of having the ability "Dimensional Rift" it would be the shadow, chaos bolt, and green jizz fire rifts as independent abilities that all share a cooldown.
Reasoning behind this, from what I've seen and experienced, nothing is more frustrating than pooling Rift charges for a priority add that comes up, swapping to it, opening the rift, and then two shadow ones spawn. Add dies really fast, and then the portals just despawn and you get screwed out of damage/uptime from the legendary shoulders. Overall, a QoL buff. Only a damage buff if you have the shoulders and stagger out the spawning of shadow rifts.

Destruction Mastery - Make Chaos Bolt benefit from your maximum mastery percentage all the time. Sure, yes, our 4 set for tier 20 is this, but only after chaining our Chaos Bolts together. Not always possible, however, due to the RNG that is our shard generation. I can see this being an issue with Wreak Havoc, due to it being one of the strongest cleave talents in the game. Though, there are really only two fights in Mythic that allows for Destro to outshine the others(Elisande and Gul'dan. Maybe Augur during execute phase?? Not sure, haven't killed the bosses). Quite honestly, I would almost prefer a nerf to Wreak Havoc(replicate 80% of damage from CB??) so that this change can be implemented. Chaos Bolt, for the amount of class resources it spends, should be hitting much harder CONSISTANTLY.

I genuinely love the class, and I really don't want to have to deal with the, "We'd prefer if you didn't play Destro...", comment that can be coming any day now from Ion and the gang("RE 6.2 Demonology: Josh Allen and Ian Hazzikostas" on youtube). So please, any serious ideas/comments/criticism is greatly appreciated.

[Harsesis]

But Destro is about chaos and chaos is random. You wouldn't want to mess with class fantasy would you?

[Werst]

The destro model of layered RNG not only blurs actual performance metrics but is just frustrating bad design. A layer is one thing but too much and it feels like a loot coin roll not solid execution. Balance is always subjective but fire mage has been overtuned many times in history as a RNG heavy spec, just the subjective balance viewpoint is locks don't.

Rifts need to be something like pets (they are already guardians) such that you can pick a rift you want and balance each so they have a use. OR just have the flame rift be universally better all around (like Felguard) than the other rifts. That way just like summoning a pet for its utility (burst, cleave, sustained) based on fight needs.

Havoc will keep destro a gimp spec that is hard to balance. I'd almost like to see the talent get turned into a half cd havoc or do the popular simple route of handicapping any havoc spell by X%. That way there is some skill/timing more than pure nerfs so execution can shine brighter than RNG. Even on cleave fights destro underperforms within its niche.

Mastery should have always been a flat number defensively, offensively the mechanics are already RNG so making a second crit/layer is just a frustrating step. As much as you spend on CB and it being one of the longest in combat casts it should have been hitting for upper end of its mastery potential bonus. Maybe narrow RNG range offensive bonus baseline to 75%'ish of potential then the 4 set can still shine. After T20 is done it would be a better mechanic to keep.

All this would be less an issue if locks could afford to keep 2-3x artifacts up at the same cost hybrids do one. The "AP barrier of entry" is too high to keep competitive in regards to others. Either make all 3 lock specs more well rounded or give us some AP help to secondary and tertiary specs since they fill the same role.

You basically can't keep up within the realm of having a life (if I wanted that I'd still play US top 20...) keeping all 3 roughly even and we lack the toolkit in any spec to perform up to our peers mechanically. Gear is already a barrier of transition, the leggo and AP throttle severely impair that further to the point of it being unreasonable time commitment needed.

[sheggaro]

The destro model of layered RNG not only blurs actual performance metrics but is just frustrating bad design. A layer is one thing but too much and it feels like a loot coin roll not solid execution. Balance is always subjective but fire mage has been overtuned many times in history as a RNG heavy spec, just the subjective balance viewpoint is locks don't.

Rifts need to be something like pets (they are already guardians) such that you can pick a rift you want and balance each so they have a use. OR just have the flame rift be universally better all around (like Felguard) than the other rifts. That way just like summoning a pet for its utility (burst, cleave, sustained) based on fight needs.

Havoc will keep destro a gimp spec that is hard to balance. I'd almost like to see the talent get turned into a half cd havoc or do the popular simple route of handicapping any havoc spell by X%. That way there is some skill/timing more than pure nerfs so execution can shine brighter than RNG. Even on cleave fights destro underperforms within its niche.

Mastery should have always been a flat number defensively, offensively the mechanics are already RNG so making a second crit/layer is just a frustrating step. As much as you spend on CB and it being one of the longest in combat casts it should have been hitting for upper end of its mastery potential bonus. Maybe narrow RNG range offensive bonus baseline to 75%'ish of potential then the 4 set can still shine. After T20 is done it would be a better mechanic to keep.

All this would be less an issue if locks could afford to keep 2-3x artifacts up at the same cost hybrids do one. The "AP barrier of entry" is too high to keep competitive in regards to others. Either make all 3 lock specs more well rounded or give us some AP help to secondary and tertiary specs since they fill the same role.

You basically can't keep up within the realm of having a life (if I wanted that I'd still play US top 20...) keeping all 3 roughly even and we lack the toolkit in any spec to perform up to our peers mechanically. Gear is already a barrier of transition, the leggo and AP throttle severely impair that further to the point of it being unreasonable time commitment needed.

All they need to do in the typical Blizzard lazy fashion is to turn Wreak Havoc into a talent that grants you a second charge of Havoc, while buffing ST damage.

[Sylar Hao]

But Destro is about chaos and chaos is random. You wouldn't want to mess with class fantasy would you?

Not sure if ironic... but I'll bite.

Destruction is not equal to chaos. You can be destructive without being chaotic (MoP), and you can be chaotic without being destructive (Legion). It's not bad a couple of RNG mechanics involved, but right everything is RNG and what is worst: passively RNG, you have 0 control over it.

[Xeranath]

Not sure if ironic... but I'll bite.

Destruction is not equal to chaos. You can be destructive without being chaotic (MoP), and you can be chaotic without being destructive (Legion). It's not bad a couple of RNG mechanics involved, but right everything is RNG and what is worst: passively RNG, you have 0 control over it.

#classfantasy


Honestly, if they'd change havoc to deal 50% damage to the debuffed target, and increased all damage to compensate, I'd be happy.

[Sylar Hao]

#classfantasy


Honestly, if they'd change havoc to deal 50% damage to the debuffed target, and increased all damage to compensate, I'd be happy.

#wrongspecfantasy is what we got, IMHO.

I'd rather be able to use Havoc single target, and make Wreak Havoc disable this effect. This way we can improve our single target in a fun way (double Chaos Bolt what?) without nerfing our niche.

[Xeranath]

#wrongspecfantasy is what we got, IMHO.

I'd rather be able to use Havoc single target, and make Wreak Havoc disable this effect. This way we can improve our single target in a fun way (double Chaos Bolt what?) without nerfing our niche.

Lol would be fun. Until the pvp community drowns us in tears, and we get nerfed once more.

[Sylar Hao]

Lol would be fun. Until the pvp community drowns us in tears, and we get nerfed once more.

How so? Have you done pvp as destro? The moment any melee notice you are destro, you can't get rid of them. You can't cast, you can't do pretty much anything because of the perma cc and constant interrupts, even with Casting Circle. And in the very rare case you can manage to cast a Chaos Bolt... you'll feel disappointed of how little damage it does, even with Eradication and Focused Chaos talented.

[Deleted]

How so? Have you done pvp as destro? The moment any melee notice you are destro, you can't get rid of them. You can't cast, you can't do pretty much anything because of the perma cc and constant interrupts, even with Casting Circle. And in the very rare case you can manage to cast a Chaos Bolt... you'll feel disappointed of how little damage it does, even with Eradication and Focused Chaos talented.

this is sadly true.

[Deleted]

How so? Have you done pvp as destro? The moment any melee notice you are destro, you can't get rid of them. You can't cast, you can't do pretty much anything because of the perma cc and constant interrupts, even with Casting Circle. And in the very rare case you can manage to cast a Chaos Bolt... you'll feel disappointed of how little damage it does, even with Eradication and Focused Chaos talented.

pretty much true for any caster, except maybe mages who have far more tools to put distance between themselves and melee. Even their toolkit is not enough, though as they are generally less tanky and die quicker when the melee actually does catch up.

World of Meleecraft, what do you expect.

[Deleted]

For me the biggest joke is the Focused Chaos talent. It's existence is absurd and an affront to all Destro Warlocks. You build this cool template thing where you can tweak damage across the board or for specific spells in PVP, but nooooo using it would make too much sense so if you want your MAIN NUKE to hit for anything you have to take a PVP talent. It's ridiculous.

[Deleted]

How so? Have you done pvp as destro? The moment any melee notice you are destro, you can't get rid of them. You can't cast, you can't do pretty much anything because of the perma cc and constant interrupts, even with Casting Circle. And in the very rare case you can manage to cast a Chaos Bolt... you'll feel disappointed of how little damage it does, even with Eradication and Focused Chaos talented.

And that is IF u manage not to die within 2 seconds of your defensives being on cooldown