Destruction in BfA - feedback

[Baconeggcheese]

Destro still desperately needs a new cool mechanic. Something you can react to would be great, maybe a version of Fel Flame that procs off of something and has decent burst and a cool new graphic, somewhere around 25% more than a conflag. It could take Eradication's spot or be baseline. Shadowburn needs to be an execute again as well perhaps with some heal on kill, it's WAY too similar to conflag.

I think a lot of the draw of destruction for me was always that it was a spec about careful planning and managing slow building / really limited resources which set it apart from something like a fire mage which is more reactionary and proc oriented. Which is something to be very wary of as destro is always accused of being a watered down fire mage or fire mage lite. The last thing we'd want to do is push the spec towards playing more like fire.

What they did to a lot of the specs mechanics in legion (and are continuing in BFA) has taken a lot of that game play away, but that's what I'd like to see from the spec. Something more mindful, as opposed to reactionary.

[Warning]

I think a lot of the draw of destruction for me was always that it was a spec about careful planning and managing slow building / really limited resources which set it apart from something like a fire mage which is more reactionary and proc oriented. Which is something to be very wary of as destro is always accused of being a watered down fire mage or fire mage lite. The last thing we'd want to do is push the spec towards playing more like fire.

What they did to a lot of the specs mechanics in legion (and are continuing in BFA) has taken a lot of that game play away, but that's what I'd like to see from the spec. Something more mindful, as opposed to reactionary.

I guess what you're saying is something like saving shards and dumping them during a trinket proc+darksoul or vulnerability phase? That kind of stuff can be cool. Right now I feel like Chaosbolt is cast slightly too frequently and does somewhat too little damage to really feel like saving up and timing those things is sufficiently impactful.

When I say something to react to I mean something like an instant incinerate proc from backlash, which I really enjoyed in PVP when incinerate was actually doing fairly solid damage. Or, for a more broadly useable example, you could change Shadowburn to be an execute with some actual significant damage and then give Chaos Bolt hits a 10% chance to immediately allow its' use at any health level. That would be a way cooler and more satisfying version of Shadowburn than what we get now, and people that don't like procs can just spec for something else.

Simply put, it doesn't have to be proc city like an ele shaman or fire mage, but the option to spec into something that occasionally will let you press a non standard button would be nice. In a way that's what the artifact talent that grants portal charges back does, and I don't feel like that turned us into Fire Mages either.

[Baconeggcheese]

I guess what you're saying is something like saving shards and dumping them during a trinket proc+darksoul or vulnerability phase?

Yeah exactly that sort of thing.

I always use mythic archimonde in hellfire citadel as an example, where you had to be constantly managing your resources and cooldowns where you'd pre-apply havoc so you could squeeze out a second on the same target, manage resources because you NEEDED to burst every single doomfire or infernal in seconds or you wiped, had those add phases where you got to shadowburn snipe adds as they died.

The fight was pretty much the perfect example of all the reasons why you brought a destro lock to raid during mop / wod.

That kind of stuff can be cool. Right now I feel like Chaosbolt is cast slightly too frequently and does somewhat too little damage to really feel like saving up and timing those things is sufficiently impactful.

I agree, this also goes hand in hand with the effective cap being lowered since the cap is 2.5 chaosbolts instead of 4. That's why I said the changes have taken away that game play, a lot of the talents and ways certain mechanics changed make it a lot more spammy and mindless as opposed to slow and calculated.

When I say something to react to I mean something like an instant incinerate proc from backlash, which I really enjoyed in PVP when incinerate was actually doing fairly solid damage. Or, for a more broadly useable example, you could change Shadowburn to be an execute with some actual significant damage and then give Chaos Bolt hits a 10% chance to immediately allow its' use at any health level. That would be a way cooler and more satisfying version of Shadowburn than what we get now, and people that don't like procs can just spec for something else.

Simply put, it doesn't have to be proc city like an ele shaman or fire mage, but the option to spec into something that occasionally will let you press a non standard button would be nice. In a way that's what the artifact talent that grants portal charges back does, and I don't feel like that turned us into Fire Mages either.

Yeah that's true, though what something like the dimensional rift trait does do is effectively lower what you can bank making you only ever able to sit on 1 charge without the potential for munching.

Procs on things without charges (like the old tier bonus that gave chaosbolt multistrikes) won't change gameplay. Something that changes when you would use something could be neat though definitely. I worry about turning shadowburn back into a proper execute though.

I love the shadowburn gameplay of sniping an add right before it dies for resources as that's as warlock as it gets, but I don't necessarily fancy shadowburn being strong enough that you stop casting chaosbolt under X% and have to hyper focus cleaving shadowburns with havoc instead of chaosbolt whenever an adds around.

I do like the general idea of having something make you want to use something you wouldn't normally use in a given situation though.

[Warning]

Procs on things without charges (like the old tier bonus that gave chaosbolt multistrikes) won't change gameplay. Something that changes when you would use something could be neat though definitely. I worry about turning shadowburn back into a proper execute though.

I love the shadowburn gameplay of sniping an add right before it dies for resources as that's as warlock as it gets, but I don't necessarily fancy shadowburn being strong enough that you stop casting chaosbolt under X% and have to hyper focus cleaving shadowburns with havoc instead of chaosbolt whenever an adds around.

I do like the general idea of having something make you want to use something you wouldn't normally use in a given situation though.

Yeah I agree that just spamming instants at low health and removing Cbolt from your rotation doesn't feel right, you might remedy that by keeping Shadowburn on a short (~6sec) cooldown or something, with the procced version not triggering the CD and kills perhaps still resetting it.

[Lucrece]

Or shadowburn at execute could serve as a combo ability where if it hits a target below a threshold your next chaosbolt becomes instant cast and does not consume a soul shard. Obviously this would require shadowburn to have a reasonable cd like 12-15 seconds.

[Netherspark]

Destro still desperately needs a new cool mechanic. Something you can react to would be great, maybe a version of Fel Flame that procs off of something and has decent burst and a cool new graphic, somewhere around 25% more than a conflag. It could take Eradication's spot or be baseline. Shadowburn needs to be an execute again as well perhaps with some heal on kill, it's WAY too similar to conflag.

I just really want Gul'dan's Fel Efflux ability. I think it would be cool if we had a talent where say every soul shard you spend builds up a stack and when you have 10 stacks you can unleash a massive fuck-you channelled blast of fel power.

[Amonthar]

A little off subject but I feel there will be a lot more Warlocks during BFA. Destruction is a nice spec and green fire feels right, how much will the Sealed Tome of the Lost Legion sell for on the AH? I bought one a month ago for 40k and plan on saving it until BFA and trying to jack the price up a lot. I see one (and only one) on the AH now for 200k, which I think will not touch the low end on it next expansion. Farming for this is not fun.

[Gaidax]

Yea we know, you like specs that could be played by a simple macro.

If that would be the case, I'd play Affliction.

Keep your bullshit out of here. If you have actual things to say - do so, there is no need to start tossing wild assumptions about what people you don't even know like or not.

As for why I don't want random procs and reacting to shit glued on to Destruction out of whack - you got explanation by the other guy. I prefer structured Destruction where I am in charge of when I go ham in psychotic bursts of power and not being ruled by some imaginary dice.

Reason 2 - every time Blizzard starts adding this shit because "we think it's cool shit lets toss it in" we end with a soup of everything spec that inevitably has to be pruned to shit to even resemble anything decent.

[evertonbelmontt]

The visuals are astonishing at least.

I'll keep playing afflic for BfA and I'm very excited for the pre patch to hit, even though I haven't killed Argus yet and this probably means the Cutting Edge is gone.
We're stuck in argus because it seems spreading out before rage and fear comes is too much for my team, but considering all the self heal from afflic will be really gutted, destro might be a better choice for everything, I expect to see a LOT of destro warlocks and demons once the patch hits.

[Lucrece]

The visuals are astonishing at least.

I'll keep playing afflic for BfA and I'm very excited for the pre patch to hit, even though I haven't killed Argus yet and this probably means the Cutting Edge is gone.
We're stuck in argus because it seems spreading out before rage and fear comes is too much for my team, but considering all the self heal from afflic will be really gutted, destro might be a better choice for everything, I expect to see a LOT of destro warlocks and demons once the patch hits.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...t=90&boss=2092

I mean, there is no reason whatsoever why you should be playing aff over destro for Argus. That fight is pretty much tailor made for destro, especially the last phase.

Destro and demo outperform affliction in a sizable number of Antorus bosses yet for some reason we have this retarded meme that affliction is the most OP spec ever just because it can pad a couple of fights.

[Warning]

If that would be the case, I'd play Affliction.

Keep your bullshit out of here. If you have actual things to say - do so, there is no need to start tossing wild assumptions about what people you don't even know like or not.

As for why I don't want random procs and reacting to shit glued on to Destruction out of whack - you got explanation by the other guy. I prefer structured Destruction where I am in charge of when I go ham in psychotic bursts of power and not being ruled by some imaginary dice.

Reason 2 - every time Blizzard starts adding this shit because "we think it's cool shit lets toss it in" we end with a soup of everything spec that inevitably has to be pruned to shit to even resemble anything decent.

You don't like procs, you don't like channel demonfire, you don't like portals you don't like lifetap. Give me an example of a rotational ability they could add to the basic Immolate, incinerate, chaosbolt and conflagrate setup that you would find acceptable then, because it seems like to you anything but those are "glued on" in your book. The truth is non of that is glued on, they're just part of a spec that has historically been more complex and that had a large amount of tools but has recently become less so, greatly to its detriment.

[Gaidax]

Destruction has been historically more complex? You are out of whack, pal. The only expansion where Destruction was complex was Cataclysm, because it was a mess of everything which had to be redesigned.

MoP Destruction is precisely what Destruction should aim for and it had no portals, no life tap, no CDF and no procs. Guess what? It was the best Destruction iteration we ever had. See how you don't need either of these things to have a good clean spec?

You want to add something to satisfy your "gotta add something maaan" boner? Add Shadowburn, just limit it to not become the spammed bullshit it devolved into in WoD where you had fights with more Shadowburn casts then frikkin CB and Conflag combined.

[Duckz0rs]

Destruction has been historically more complex? You are out of whack, pal. The only expansion where Destruction was complex was Cataclysm, because it was a mess of everything which had to be redesigned.

MoP Destruction is precisely what Destruction should aim for and it had no portals, no life tap, no CDF and no procs. Guess what? It was the best Destruction iteration we ever had. See how you don't need either of these things to have a good clean spec?

Then again, there was also the part where you had to use RoF in your ST rotation for a while, KJC to help with movement, a better functioning FnB and SB sniping galore. It didn't have procs in its spec, but on the other hand was heavily built around "reacting" to procs from trinkets. It had a lot more going on for it than in BfA ability-wise without feeling as tacked on as some of the things added in BfA (hello Soulfire, I can't wait to see you pruned again).

[Warning]

Destruction has been historically more complex? You are out of whack, pal. The only expansion where Destruction was complex was Cataclysm, because it was a mess of everything which had to be redesigned.

MoP Destruction is precisely what Destruction should aim for and it had no portals, no life tap, no CDF and no procs. Guess what? It was the best Destruction iteration we ever had. See how you don't need either of these things to have a good clean spec?

You want to add something to satisfy your "gotta add something maaan" boner? Add Shadowburn, just limit it to not become the spammed bullshit it devolved into in WoD where you had fights with more Shadowburn casts then frikkin CB and Conflag combined.

Pretty much every single iteration of warlock before WoD/Legion had a ton more tools. Whether it was DoTs, felflame, soulburn, more CC, lifetap, curses, we have ALWAYS had many more tools than this. There were certainly moments where the RAID gameplay was simpler (ie sacrifice/ruin), but the CLASS has always had way more to offer. So no, I'm not "out of whack", rather, you're dead wrong and/or looking at it through a very narrow lens. Excessive pruning has made the class much more sterile and frankly quite stale.

[Gaidax]

Then again, there was also the part where you had to use RoF in your ST rotation for a while, KJC to help with movement, a better functioning FnB and SB sniping galore. It didn't have procs in its spec, but on the other hand was heavily built around "reacting" to procs from trinkets. It had a lot more going on for it than in BfA ability-wise without feeling as tacked on as some of the things added in BfA (hello Soulfire, I can't wait to see you pruned again).

You will have more than enough reacting to procs in BfA, if that's your cup of tea - half the bloody Azerite traits are basically play around temporary stat boosts either pure RNG or if you do something on top of trinkets.

As for ST RoF and KJC - I don't think I need to point out issues with either of these, ST RoF by itself is a travesty and KJC while great, was an overkill right there. Honestly, I'd have to add how people praise KJC in the same sentence they ask for more complexity, because two are mutually exclusive, since KJC pretty much removed all movement management caster spec had before.

Basically what I am saying - people looking to tack on shit for god knows what reason and on top of that saying it's "desperately needed" seem to not be learning from the past mistakes, because every time trash was added just because reasons it ended up being either 5th wheel or effectively made spec worse which is what CDF and Life Tap are respectively.

CDF is pretty much like attaching 5th leg to a dog - it's a pointless spell that has no interaction or purpose in Destruction toolkit - it does not generate resources, it does not do anything you can't do already - basically it's a waste of time spell people pick just because it parses. Life Tap - simply making spec worse for sake of adding something to satisfy those who keep prancing around destro being fire mage bullshit - here have a difference, happy?

- - - Updated - - -

Pretty much every single iteration of warlock before WoD/Legion had a ton more tools. Whether it was DoTs, felflame, soulburn, more CC, lifetap, curses, we have ALWAYS had many more tools than this. There were certainly moments where the RAID gameplay was simpler (ie sacrifice/ruin), but the CLASS has always had way more to offer. So no, I'm not "out of whack", rather, you're dead wrong and/or looking at it through a very narrow lens. Excessive pruning has made the class much more sterile and frankly quite stale.

What you say can be distilled into - spec had a ton of trash in it which weighed heavily on it and could be replaced and consolidated by actual effective stuff. Gotcha. Basically - you said nothing of worth. I remember your Cata dream - where it was throw everything and the sink at things - in reality 80% of that was simply not needed as MoP proved handily. Next.

[Deleted]

After having a permanent Infernal as pet it doesn't feel right or fun to go back to an Imp.

[Warning]

What you say can be distilled into - spec had a ton of trash in it which weighed heavily on it and could be replaced and consolidated by actual effective stuff. Gotcha. Basically - you said nothing of worth. I remember your Cata dream - where it was throw everything and the sink at things - in reality 80% of that was simply not needed as MoP proved handily. Next.

What an insanely simplistic thought. MoP "proved" these things are not effective? You don't understand game design and you don't understand proof. I can make the warlock spec effective with 1 spell. It's called "Incinerate the world" and does all the DPS of a legion warlock in a single spell, it's extremely effective.

Cata destro wasn't perfect, some things should've been removed, but it was a ton of fun. MoP was less fun but still offered a decent amount of the tools, then they pruned more stuff for people like you who need it to be extremely simple and made it worse still. If you'd have your way demonfire would be gone as well. Some people however have a capacity for using niche tools extremely effectively, for example in PVP where something like proper use of curse of tongues or soulburn teleport could decide a fight. Those moments are very rewarding and fun and should be preserved.

The thing you don't seem able to grasp, which is evidenced by your rant against channel demonfire is that the ultimate goal of class design is making a fun class, not having all the pieces interact. If players get bored but all your pieces fit together the spec design is worse than if they don't all fit together but the spec is fun. Demonfire adds another button which mixes up your regular rotation, has a cool effect and can be exploited for greater effect when mobs stack. That makes the spell interesting and fun, which in turn serves to make the spec more interesting and fun: that is it's purpose.

[Gaidax]

I think the one who does not understand the game design is you.

You can prance around and do about faces on how Cataclysm Destruction "design" was apparently more fun, but we both know that is bullshit and we both know what people want for Destruction - which basically is its MoP iteration - where they started with clean slate by removing the trash and it worked well and guess what people enjoyed it a lot, as opposed to Cata Destruction which was frustrating at best and not popular for sure.

Adding pointless shit for the sake of adding shit is what bad design is. CDF is a bad design right there, it neither has interaction with spec and neither is "fun", because it's simply a glorified F&B incinerate that does not even generate shards.


I think after eepteenth Warlock rework you ought catch onto that fact, guess some don't really learn from mistakes.

[Warning]

I think the one who does not understand the game design is you.

You can prance around and do about faces on how Cataclysm Destruction "design" was apparently more fun, but we both know that is bullshit and we both know what people want for Destruction - which basically is its MoP iteration - where they started with clean slate by removing the trash and it worked well and guess what people enjoyed it a lot, as opposed to Cata Destruction which was frustrating at best and not popular for sure.

Adding pointless shit for the sake of adding shit is what bad design is. CDF is a bad design right there, it neither has interaction with spec and neither is "fun", because it's simply a glorified F&B incinerate that does not even generate shards.


I think after eepteenth Warlock rework you ought catch onto that fact, guess some don't really learn from mistakes.

So you're saying go back to MoP and add more stuff like baseline shadowburn, fel flame, ember tap, baseline darksoul, curse of enfeeblement, curse of elements, Twilight ward, backlash procs and more CC. Thanks that's more than what I even asked for, my work here is done.

[evertonbelmontt]

I mean, there is no reason whatsoever why you should be playing aff over destro for Argus. That fight is pretty much tailor made for destro, especially the last phase.

There's a reason, you just don't see it because you're not there /heh
But meh, I'm used to killing the boss after nerfs. In my realm there haven't been a realm first YET. ehUHEAUH

Warning

So you're saying go back to MoP and add more stuff like baseline shadowburn, fel flame, ember tap, baseline darksoul, curse of enfeeblement, curse of elements, Twilight ward, backlash procs and more CC. Thanks that's more than what I even asked for, my work here is done.

No, he's saying he likes this version of Destruction better because having a million things to press being baseline doesn't help the spec. And he is right about this.

What I said in response and what you should agree too is that if you want more options, they should be there as TALENTS. Already had this argument with him btw, he only fears the talents that are annoying become mandatory, like Empowered Life Tap is now for destro. I think annoying talents or talents that you can use should be better yes, but about 3% each at max performance, this way if someone wants 5 more buttons to press, he would be at best 15% better and this is already too much.