Is Elemental a less Desirable Destruction Warlock in BFA?

[garonne]

Can someone do me a favor. Can you disprove to me that elemental is not a less attractive version of destruction warlock (from a damage dealing perspective)? It’s a bit of a read so I apologize ahead of time.

I want to preface this by saying, im asking to be disproved because i can’t see otherwise right now. I am not trying to be a naysayer and i'm hoping that maybe i am missing something, or maybe my correlation is a stretch. However, read the similarities and if i'm wrong, please explain it to me.

Base spells.
Destruction and Elemental are both builder/spender specs. This doesn’t say much as most classes are becoming a builder/spender spec but I’m just starting at the base here.

Single target
Destruction’s base spells are: immolate, conflagrate, incinerate and chaos bolt. Elemental’s base spells are: flame shock, lava burst, lightning bolt and earth shock (and frost shock but its not one of their rotational spell unless using a talent)
Flame shock and immolate are both 18 sec dots with very similar damage; immolate grants resource, flame shock is instant. Conflagrate and lavaburst are charged spells with similar damage that grant resource: conflag is instant, lavaburst is casted. Incinerate and lightning bolt are your basic castable fillers that add resource with similar damage. Earth shock and Chaos bolt are supposed to be the big damage spenders; Earth shock is instant and cost 60% of your resource, Chaos bolt cost 40% of the resource, is a long cast time but does almost twice the damage and is increased by crit.

Area of Effect
Elemental has chain lightning as a builder and Earthquake as a spender. Destruction doesn’t have a builder in their base rotation apart from their normal single target rotation with the added bonus of spreading immolate. The spender, Rain of Fire is similar to Earthquake in damage but cost only 60% of the resources compare to the 75% of Earthquake.

Cool Downs
Elemental has a 30 sec Fire Elemental on a 2.5min cd. The elemental causes flame shock to build resources, while Destruction has a 25 sec Infernal on a 3min cd that builds resources.

Misc.
Frost shock is good for movement while Destro doesn’t have much movement apart from conflag and destro has a pet that does a respectable amount of damage for the spec. The pet can help with movement but can also be buggy due to AI issues.

Talents.
For this section, I’m just going to show the similarities between a few talents form the destruction tree and elemental tree. These similarities aren’t 1-1 so they aren’t equal. Just throwing the information out there.

Cool Downs
Ascendance and Dark soul are similar because of how Chaos Bolt works. Chaos bolt is a guaranteed crit, however the spell is increased by Crit. Ascendance grants that same effect to Lava Burst and removes CD to increase the shamans Damage. Dark soul just adds the damage by increasing the crit chance.

Storm Elemental changes the main Cd of the shaman and increases its damage by granting more haste to the specs filler spell lightning bolt. This speeds up building so you can spend more, however they lose the passive resource builder in flame shock while the pet is active. Grimmoire of Supremacy does something similar by increasing damage of the Spender but keeps the passive regen.

Area of Effect
Cataclysm Is similar to Liquid magma totem; short cd aoe talents. LMT is a 1 min cd and instant while Cata is a long cast, 30 secs cd but applies immolation which builds resources. Destro also has Fire and Brimstone, which basically makes incinerate act like a chain lightning when other mobs are around. Destro has to talent for it while ele had it base. Inferno also gives Rain of fire a random chance to get fragments.

Single target
Eradication and exposed elements are similar in that we get a damage boost from the spec’s spender. Destro provides a 10% increased to all damage for 7 secs, while exposed gives an increase to lightning bolt by 200%.
Reverse Entropy grants 15% haste for 8 secs and Unlimited Power grants about 4-6% average. One could be up more than the other, haven’t tested the latter in a dungeon yet.
Soul conduit gives a 15% chance to get back resources after spending it, while aftershock is guaranteed but grants 30% of what was spent.
Primal Elementals grants a damage increase to the main cd of Ele and Sacrifice gets rid of the pet for Destro and adds the damage in a proc from the caster.

I don’t feel like writing anymore and I hope my point is coming across clear. Destro and Ele have their differences but are similar enough to be compared. Because of that comparison I’ve noticed that Ele feels like a less desirable Destro because they do things very similarly but it feels less rewarding on an elemental and am wondering if anyone else feels that way and if you don’t could you explain the reasons why.

[Deleted]

Attractive to who? Player or raid leader?

Personally I find Ele rotation more fun, you have a lot procs, bursts. Mobility is ok, gust of wind if definitely fun to use.


From raid leader perspective, Warlocks is uncomparably better. Ignoring throughput, warlocks bring raid utility, healthstones, gate, summons. They are have passive shield that auto-regenerates. Lock CC is superior, Banish is very useful on Aggramar.

[Kralljin]

Elemental is currently very much WIP on Alpha.

The issues are so blatantly obvious that you don't even have to raid to see the issues of the spec:

-AoE Damage is utterly undertuned, currently Cl is at best even with LB on two targets, EQ also down rather mediocre damage.
-Maelstrom generation pretty much not there, combined with the weak EQ damage obviously makes AoE damage worse
-Burst AoE without Stormkeeper (now a talent) is not there, even Stormkeeper itself is a shell of it's glory due the lack of the 200% damage multiplier
-ES damage is also rather bad, noncrit ES hits as hard as your standard (crit) Lava Burst, throw in the Overload and Lvb beats noncrit ES by a large marigin

Talents do not make much sense, Unlimited Power is a clunky Ancestral Swiftness that has negative synergy with multiple talents like Icefury.

The only thing that looks good is Lava Burst, with EotE,overloads and a decent Lava Surge proc you can take out the average mob rather quickly, without both you're in for a haul.

Aside from that, some of your comparisons are shaky at best, like comparing resource cost, side by side comparisons between spells rarely work, you have to look at the entire package.

I'm not defending the current design of Elemental but the state on Alpha is so damn broken that, as said above, you'll notice glaring issues even during questing.

[Aggrophobic]

Attractive to who? Player or raid leader?

Personally I find Ele rotation more fun, you have a lot procs, bursts. Mobility is ok, gust of wind if definitely fun to use.


From raid leader perspective, Warlocks is uncomparably better. Ignoring throughput, warlocks bring raid utility, healthstones, gate, summons. They are have passive shield that auto-regenerates. Lock CC is superior, Banish is very useful on Aggramar.

Gust is gone though.

[sosleapy]

ele shaman on alpha is SSSSLLLLLOOOOWWWW i find myself just standing there not doing anything but LB LB LB LB LB LB ow look FS is down put it up oh look LvB is off cd hit it oh look ES is up hit it then LB LB LB LB LB LB

it is so damn boring on Alpha. dont get an ES procs or LvB procs like live. i spent 30 mins on the shaman and stopped playing because of this.

[High Function]

From raid leader perspective, Warlocks is uncomparably better. Ignoring throughput, warlocks bring raid utility, healthstones, gate, summons. They are have passive shield that auto-regenerates. Lock CC is superior, Banish is very useful on Aggramar.

Not a very compelling argument you have here. You could just as easily argue that roots and shaman knockback are more important than banish for mythic Aggra. The utility for ele shamans is one of the best in th game, their biggest knock is the lack of defensives. From slows, stuns, roots, mass movement speed, insane ST/AOE burst (needed for adds on Vari/eonar/PK/HC).

To ignore throughput is your biggest mistake, the best thing about warlocks other than their survivability(not ignoring their SS/rocks/gate but just having one lock gives you all of that) is the fact that their throughout is top tier. Ele shaman are very RNG based and they can be neck and neck with an afli/destro, but they also can be at the middle or bottom depending on ES/Lava burst procs.

So no Locks are not incomparably better and simply ignoring throughput is your biggest mistake.

[Deleted]

Not a very compelling argument you have here. You could just as easily argue that roots and shaman knockback are more important than banish for mythic Aggra. The utility for ele shamans is one of the best in th game, their biggest knock is the lack of defensives. From slows, stuns, roots, mass movement speed, insane ST/AOE burst (needed for adds on Vari/eonar/PK/HC).

To ignore throughput is your biggest mistake, the best thing about warlocks other than their survivability(not ignoring their SS/rocks/gate but just having one lock gives you all of that) is the fact that their throughout is top tier. Ele shaman are very RNG based and they can be neck and neck with an afli/destro, but they also can be at the middle or bottom depending on ES/Lava burst procs.

So no Locks are not incomparably better and simply ignoring throughput is your biggest mistake.

Comparing throughtput is as useful as comparing weather in two cities.

[Stormspellz]

Alpha shaman is a giant mess of boredom atm

[High Function]

Comparing throughtput is as useful as comparing weather in two cities.

Again, compelling argument you got there. Why do raids not bring Demo locks? Their throughput is not good. Why do you have meters to see who is doing good dps? You are saying that damage does not matter when comparing classes, that is totally wrong if everything else is equal (assuming the comparing classes stay alive the same amount of time because obviously if someone dies they won't do more damage.) Again, you are wrong in saying they are incomparable and you have not proven me wrong.

[Cyanu]

well OP you're exaggerating by a considerable margin in fact in some cases ele has more utility than destro

ele wins on the CC department: between a selection of aoe stun/root/knockdown/knockback, incapacitate and an excellent ranged interrupt few specs can claim to match ele on CC

ele has purge and a limited application decurse spell

ele has bloodlust and some off heals

ele has reincarnation and rez

ele has better mobility with ghostwolf, (i hope) gust of wind and some minor stuff like wind rush totem etc, in pvp ele is a considerably better kiter than destro (at least on live)

survivability is an issue and complains about it would be valid, ele has medicore defensives

DPS is a matter of tuning and can change from patch to patch but overall ele is a solid spec provided the DPS is on par with other specs, if your overloaded super crit lava bursts end up doing crazy amounts of damage one can argue that destro spamming incinerates to build soul shards feel very underwhelming

[Socialhealer]

well OP you're exaggerating by a considerable margin in fact in some cases ele has more utility than destro

ele wins on the CC department: between a selection of aoe stun/root/knockdown/knockback, incapacitate and an excellent ranged interrupt few specs can claim to match ele on CC

ele has purge and a limited application decurse spell

ele has bloodlust and some off heals

ele has reincarnation and rez

ele has better mobility with ghostwolf, (i hope) gust of wind and some minor stuff like wind rush totem etc, in pvp ele is a considerably better kiter than destro (at least on live)

survivability is an issue and complains about it would be valid, ele has medicore defensives

DPS is a matter of tuning and can change from patch to patch but overall ele is a solid spec provided the DPS is on par with other specs, if your overloaded super crit lava bursts end up doing crazy amounts of damage one can argue that destro spamming incinerates to build soul shards feel very underwhelming

this all sounds amazing, then you see the mythic plus dungeon invitational and it's like 40 warlocks 2 ele shamans,

and thats all i need to know who the better spec is, yes im aware they're affliction but who the fuck would spec destro to just be worse?

[Cyanu]

this all sounds amazing, then you see the mythic plus dungeon invitational and it's like 40 warlocks 2 ele shamans,

and thats all i need to know who the better spec is, yes im aware they're affliction but who the fuck would spec destro to just be worse?

ele is undertuned and suffers from poor survivability while losing considerable DPS on the move so yes

in PvP due to the reasons i mentioned it reached the status of No 1 caster in legion for a while, it got nerfed and it's still solid

[High Function]

this all sounds amazing, then you see the mythic plus dungeon invitational and it's like 40 warlocks 2 ele shamans,

and thats all i need to know who the better spec is

Two things need to be said to your comments.
First, just because a class does well in an MDI that does not mean it will do well in raids. Outlaw rogues do very well in mythic plus but they do not perform well at the highest level compared to the other two specs in raids. Just like resto shamans do avg. in mythic plus but can excel due to their mass raid CDs in raid. This is NOT to say that resto shamans and outlaw rogues can't top the charts in raids but that generally speaking you will take a holy pally over a resto sham in a mythic plus, but you would take an sub rogue over an outlaw in raid. There are tradeoffs and things that each class excels at that might not show on the dps charts. For example, CC, stun, slow, ST/AOE burst, defensives and so on.

Secondly, you are clearly not understanding that afli is NOT always head and shoulders above destro. Speaking from someone who raids with one of the top affli locks in the world and is currently in the MDI as an affliction lock, he along with all warlocks go destro for optimal damage on mythic argus. So yes, affli is overall better at throughput but why just play a class that does better overall dmg?(all about tradeoffs) If that was the case then everyone would be an affli lock or a fury warrior.

At the end of the day play the class you want to play and if you do it well you will do well in MDI, Raids, pvp or whatever you do in the game.

[Kralljin]

this all sounds amazing, then you see the mythic plus dungeon invitational and it's like 40 warlocks 2 ele shamans

M+ is an even greater imbalanced shitshow than Raids or even PvP.
If you're Rogue or Warlock, you're a god, anything else can just fuck off on those 22+ keys as the incoming damage on Dps is simply way too high.

Mythic dungeons in Legion were not designed with that incoming damage on Dps in mind, without those abilities that hit for like 90% of your total health there might be other classes / specs as well.

One of the reasons why i'm not fond of this competitive M+ stuff, some classes are without hope there.

[Gaidax]

this all sounds amazing, then you see the mythic plus dungeon invitational and it's like 40 warlocks 2 ele shamans,

and thats all i need to know who the better spec is, yes im aware they're affliction but who the fuck would spec destro to just be worse?

You have a small mistake there buddy - those 40 warlocks are Affliction. Destruction M+ is not very good at all, most definitely not better than Elemental.

As a Destruction Warlock I scoff at this little list in OP - I see it as the usual case of glorifying neighbor's grass while humbling your own stuff.

As a Destruction Warlock - I don't have the mobility, the array of AoE CC or even just CC shaman has, heck to even have interrupt means I have to lose DPS by using utility pet. I don't have 30 min CD get out of jail free card that does not burn brez charge.

Earthshock is an instant cast spender that can do and does more damage than Chaos Bolt, which is a 3 seconds cast baseline a fact that is not to be underestimated especially when Chaos Bolt being interrupted locks all the spells in Destruction spellbook.

Destruction has its own can of worms to worry about, for example it was literally dead in the water spec at the beginning of expansion to the point that Blizzard actually had to rework it's resource system in the middle of expansion, which is unprecedented.

Right now Destruction is super solid (even if completely overshadowed by hilariously OP Affliction), but long cast times on spenders, ridiculous mastery and mobility issues are still all there.

Heck tell me how this mastery sounds to you? "Your spells deal 36% additional damage plus a random amount up to 36% additional increased damage. You take 8% reduced damage, plus a random amount up to 8% additional reduced damage." Nice, RNG versatility - very exciting and good mechanic there. And you know what is the fun part? Versatility is actually better because it affects pets and guardians, while mastery does not. Just one of the issues, for example.

- - - Updated - - -

And one word on throughput - who knows how it will all end up, it can again be the case of Destruction being shit half expansion until Ion graced us with his attention like it was in Legion.

Mechanics-wise - not all well in our kingdom either, while some stuff you have that you scoff at is envious for us, like you know... having baseline movement speed increase without having to kill yourself for one or actual interrupt that does not cost you a ton of DPS.

[Socialhealer]

Two things need to be said to your comments.
First, just because a class does well in an MDI that does not mean it will do well in raids. Outlaw rogues do very well in mythic plus but they do not perform well at the highest level compared to the other two specs in raids. Just like resto shamans do avg. in mythic plus but can excel due to their mass raid CDs in raid. This is NOT to say that resto shamans and outlaw rogues can't top the charts in raids but that generally speaking you will take a holy pally over a resto sham in a mythic plus, but you would take an sub rogue over an outlaw in raid. There are tradeoffs and things that each class excels at that might not show on the dps charts. For example, CC, stun, slow, ST/AOE burst, defensives and so on.

Secondly, you are clearly not understanding that afli is NOT always head and shoulders above destro. Speaking from someone who raids with one of the top affli locks in the world and is currently in the MDI as an affliction lock, he along with all warlocks go destro for optimal damage on mythic argus. So yes, affli is overall better at throughput but why just play a class that does better overall dmg?(all about tradeoffs) If that was the case then everyone would be an affli lock or a fury warrior.

At the end of the day play the class you want to play and if you do it well you will do well in MDI, Raids, pvp or whatever you do in the game.

yeh i know it's pretty shit in raids as well lol.

- - - Updated - - -

You have a small mistake there buddy - those 40 warlocks are Affliction. Destruction M+ is not very good at all, most definitely not better than Elemental.

second sentence i literally say yes they're all affliction, but why be destro? that would be like playing BM in MDI, when MM AoE is fucking tier 1 in MDI. as well as some sickening ST burst.

[High Function]

yeh i know it's pretty shit in raids as well lol.

Nothing you have said makes sense. If they are so bad then why are you 3/11 mythic on an ele shaman? Why not go be an affliction lock that you seem to love so much? Your point is why play a bad class if you can play a good class. If done well both classes offer many different pros/cons. Just saying a class is better than another class does not prove anything.

[Socialhealer]

Nothing you have said makes sense. If they are so bad then why are you 3/11 mythic on an ele shaman? Why not go be an affliction lock that you seem to love so much? Your point is why play a bad class if you can play a good class. If done well both classes offer many different pros/cons. Just saying a class is better than another class does not prove anything.

i quit raiding during ToS because i didn't think the game was made for me anymore, ToS was about bring the immunity not the player which in 2017 is a fucking insult devs can be so blind. my 3/11 is pure pugging, i have friends in 11/11 and 10/11 guilds i could join but im bored of raiding atm and BfA doesn't look any better for elemental so for for foreseeable future i will just be playing to clear heroic and spend the time i would be raiding playing a multitude of other pc/ps4/switch games that i kind of didnt have time for when raiding 3-4 nights a week.

nothing to do with loving affliction just bored of bad design giving pures retarded survival & utility while gutting hybrids time after time, mage/rogue/hunter/warlock all have the best survival of any dps in the game, the hybrid tax is alive and we pay for it because we can spec tank/heals, we bring the dps but we don't bring the survival.

just look at WoD mages given amp magic and hunters given aspect of the fox because blizzard thought no-one would bring those classes, instead it made them too desirable, so blizzard took away both abilities then made both specs so good most guilds were killing archimonde mythic with 5 hunters 5 mages and fill in the other spots with anyone because this shit is so OP you can't lose!

when the game is back to being like MoP, minus warlocks being broken but just loads of fun abilities utility for hybrids mobility off-healing etc. that will make me want to raid mythic, but BfA seems to be more of the same shit.

the games still fun, just not worth the time in 2018 bigger and better games coming out if i really wanted to raid mythic i probably would re-roll warlock, demonology on alpha seems to be their new love child no doubt it's going to be OP in august.

[Gaidax]

I think for being such a veteran player your outlook is a bit strange. You are jumping to premature conclusions based on hearsay in Alpha not even before we see results of actual usual tuning.

The whole balance thing swings wildly from patch to patch, for example this expansions Spriests and Fire Mages started out as gods and Warlocks were in the gutter aside from Nightmare Dragons Aff shenanigans. Then suddenly everything reversed by the end - Warlocks rule the skies, while Mages grovel in dirt. Spriests are OK now, but also went through shit phase.

So I, personally, don't understand which basis you have to conclude that somehow Demo is the love child, what because it gets attention since they messed up Legion Demo so bad nobody plays it? As for further example - Affliction you rush to crown so much is outright in the gutter in Alpha and nobody knows whether it won't be a repeat of Legion in raiding first tiers. In short the things are as volatile as ever and nobody really knows where it will land live, so dramas are premature.

[Volitar]

When was the last time Elemental wasn't an absolute dumpster fire the first tier of an expansion?