State of Destruction - Beta discussion (PvE focus)

[n0n3]

That would break all the cc near us for a middling piece of damage, and force us to melee optimal range.

Then make it work like a dot, if the warlock has cremation on him, the next time he casts something he'll place the same debuff on his target.

[Sylar Hao]

I want to know what guild YOU were in that let a Warlock actually fire his wand. Warlock class leader in mine would take people off the raid team if he spotted that and you couldn't give a good reason why.

Anyway, on topic, I heard it suggested that Destro get a buff that cuts Soul Fire's cast time by 25% for each Greater Ember you have. I actually really like this, for a few reasons.

1) Gives a legit reason to hold 1-2 embers whenever possible, something to oppose the price of having the ember
2) Anyone at the 4-ember mark will still have plenty of regen time, by firing 2-3 Soul Fires without capping.
3) Would make finding the "sweet spot" mana/ember/life equilibrium into a very achievable sustained-DPS goal.

That's possible the best idea so far. Simple, elegant and effective. It's a way to suggest you to go for 2 embers or more and it's rewarding since the very first second you reach the full 4th ember you can unleash an instant Soul Fire, which is great. Now we only need a way (a low cd spell would be the best, imo) to increase our "cinders" generation and a way to get instantly a full ember without sacrifying our pet and we'll have an awesome spec.

[Deleted]

That's possible the best idea so far. Simple, elegant and effective. It's a way to suggest you to go for 2 embers or more and it's rewarding since the very first second you reach the full 4th ember you can unleash an instant Soul Fire, which is great. Now we only need a way (a low cd spell would be the best, imo) to increase our "cinders" generation and a way to get instantly a full ember without sacrifying our pet and we'll have an awesome spec.

Now that they've fixed the mana regen of destro, isnt the entire idea of a long cast soulfire so that we're not always oom? If we constantly nuked until we had 4 embers then instant SF'd we'd constantly have no mana left.

[Mindcrime]

Being forced to hardcast a 4 second Soulfire in order to regen mana is a terrible design direction, and would break destruction for me personally. I hope they move away from the non-gcd capped model they introduced and get rid of the mana changes all together.

The one thing that pops into my head is; .3 seconds left on that soulfire and... oh fuck world and flames.. better move.

[Micke]

Perhaps make an embered soul fire return X amount of mana? Then cast time wouldn't matter

[PsyBomb]

The thing is, under the cast-time buff idea I posted, if you have 3-4 embers you simply fire off the Soul Fires until you have reasonable mana back or find and equilibrium somewhere, instead of saving up a few and just blazing away your entire load (unless the fight calls for an extended burst phase)

[Sylar Hao]

Now that they've fixed the mana regen of destro, isnt the entire idea of a long cast soulfire so that we're not always oom? If we constantly nuked until we had 4 embers then instant SF'd we'd constantly have no mana left.

Exactly, that's why I was thinking about being around 2 Embers almost all time, and when you think it's necessary go for all 4 Embers to burn them when needed. E.g.: haste increases our mana regeneration, so in Bloodlust (with that idea added) we could possibly go from (3rd to 4th ember + instant Soul Fire) rinse and repeat all 45 secs without going oom.

[PsyBomb]

Exactly, that's why I was thinking about being around 2 Embers almost all time, and when you think it's necessary go for all 4 Embers to burn them when needed. E.g.: haste increases our mana regeneration, so in Bloodlust (with that idea added) we could possibly go from (3rd to 4th ember + instant Soul Fire) rinse and repeat all 45 secs without going oom.

That was, in fact, the idea. The thought is that, as Haste builds, you need less and less time to build mana. The equilibrium point at opening raid might be going between two and one or three and one Greater Embers, but by the time we're nuking Garrosh the top-end guys will have found a breakpoint with some clicky trinket to make it 4-3 or 4-2 for short amounts of time (dropping a 4-0 rush if burst is needed).

This leads to Destro not immediately reforging everything into Crit, by making Haste valuable as a stat. Mastery becomes raw damage throughput and Crit/Haste each govern a resource, which I find quite accepable.

[Nfariessence]

don't be so condescending, 'high end' PvE guilds have been taking lifetapping Warlocks for years.

'High end' PvE guilds didn't bring warlocks who Life Tapped before Decimate, Massacre, or at all on General Vezax. But I'm sure that since Blizzard prevented Life Tap from killing warlocks on those fights that they'll obviously prevent Burning Embers from killing warlocks on all the future fights. Right?

Stupid mechanics that provide limitations without big rewards are stupid. Give us big rewards (DPS) or reduce the limitations.

[Rustjive]

Am I the only one who thinks the great deal about destruction is the poor rotation/resource management?
Warlocks are really coping with the idea of becoming fiery arcane mages... and I find that sad.

It is worse than Arcane. Arcane mana management (because of Mastery) is something that can be managed very closely, and when you do, you are rewarded. There's no reward for managing mana 'finely' or Embers - right now optimal Ember dumping theory is seriously 'do it whenever you want!' (excepting Shadowburn and AoE).

[Sylar Hao]

It is worse than Arcane. Arcane mana management (because of Mastery) is something that can be managed very closely, and when you do, you are rewarded. There's no reward for managing mana 'finely' or Embers - right now optimal Ember dumping theory is seriously 'do it whenever you want!' (excepting Shadowburn and AoE).

Again... warlocks are not fiery arcane mages... they manage mana, we don't. That's why we have Life Tap or Chaotic Energy. If anything, we manage our health.
You may think there's no depth in current state, but I disagree. It probably just needs 1 more spell to make it funnier an more rewarding, but we're still in beta after all and things may (will probably) change.

I really love our mana-energy bar, I love Burning Embers (even if we generate them way too slow), I love our AoE because we use the same spells as in regular "rotation" (even if Fire and Brimstone's GCD is clunky as hell and should be removed)...

In my opinion, Destruction warlocks (or warlocks in general) don't look like anything else, not even arcane mages.

[Deleted]

'High end' PvE guilds didn't bring warlocks who Life Tapped before Decimate, Massacre, or at all on General Vezax. But I'm sure that since Blizzard prevented Life Tap from killing warlocks on those fights that they'll obviously prevent Burning Embers from killing warlocks on all the future fights. Right?

Stupid mechanics that provide limitations without big rewards are stupid. Give us big rewards (DPS) or reduce the limitations.

world first Vezax HM had a Warlock, world first Chimaeron HM had two. anyone who Life Taps before a mechanic like that is an idiot, and bleeding edge guilds don't take idiots. as it stands the only reason to hold on to 3-4 embers is for impending burst phases or AOE phases for SF or FnB. 10 seconds til Massacre? use your embers. you don't lose out on DPS, there's no difference between a one ember soulfire and a three ember soulfire.

we are not limited by Embers. Affliction locks on live realms take more friendly fire damage than Destro sitting on 4 embers on Beta. we won't be sitting on 4 embers and the damage is completely under our control. remember as well we will have access to one of the most powerful self-heals in the game as it stands, with ember tap.

[Rustjive]

If anything, we manage our health.

That would be fine if we actually 'managed' anything. It's easy to see this because people constantly bring up Life Tap. Does anyone consider Life Tap to be 'managing' health? There is a way to Life Tap incorrectly, but the margin for error on tapping is huge (ie, you can almost do it at any time), and there's no reward for doing it closer to the best time (and there's no such thing as a best time). This is exactly how the interaction for Cauterize Master + Burning Ember damage can be summed up right now. If I Cauterize Master at 60%/70%/80%/90%, is there a difference in DPS for any of those numbers? Absolutely not. There is no reward for doing it 'perfectly' - there isn't even a way to do it perfectly!

You may think there's no depth in current state, but I disagree.

You don't provide any supporting arguments for depth. Do you do anything besides cooldowns, Conflag, 3x Incin, Fel Flame, Soul Fire in a Patchwerk fight? IS there anything you can do to play it better? I can say without a doubt that in its current state MoP Destro has the least depth out of any spec in the game.

[Deleted]

You don't provide any supporting arguments for depth. Do you do anything besides cooldowns, Conflag, 3x Incin, Fel Flame, Soul Fire in a Patchwerk fight? IS there anything you can do to play it better? I can say without a doubt that in its current state MoP Destro has the least depth out of any spec in the game.

it's certainly an easy spec, but have you ever played combat rogue or ele shaman? O_o

[Rustjive]

it's certainly an easy spec, but have you ever played combat rogue or ele shaman? O_o

No to combat rogue, yes to Ele Shaman. Lightning Shield charges and the shared Shock CD, along with a true RNG proc for LvB make Elemental Shaman far more complex than the 4 button class that Destruction is right now, where you don't have to react to anything, and you have a HUGE margin for error when it comes to decision making (oh I got 10 Embers, do I use it now? In 10 seconds? In 40 seconds? On Ultraxion, does it matter at all? Nope.)

[Jessicka]

No to combat rogue, yes to Ele Shaman. Lightning Shield charges and the shared Shock CD, along with a true RNG proc for LvB make Elemental Shaman far more complex than the 4 button class that Destruction is right now, where you don't have to react to anything, and you have a HUGE margin for error when it comes to decision making (oh I got 10 Embers, do I use it now? In 10 seconds? In 40 seconds? On Ultraxion, does it matter at all? Nope.)

I think that's kinda the problem they're hitting with the spec now. If we take an analogy using the Destruction priority system as packing a case, you want to get as many things in there as you can, with certain things given a certain priority. On live, Soul Fire is like a Brick someone put in there, you've ended up having to carry it one way or another, but it severely limits what else you can pack in around it, and if it shifts, then it just makes packing harder. For me, the answer to fix that in MoP would be to take the brick out and put some smaller, more useful things in there; Blizzard's approach however has been to leave everything else behind to make carrying the brick easier. At the end of the day though, the spec is still carrying a brick. I guess that's the direction Blizzard want to go for the spec, that it be centered around these 'Slow Fire' casts, rather than the fast paced nuking the spec became popular for in Wrath.

[Nfariessence]

world first Vezax HM had a Warlock, world first Chimaeron HM had two. anyone who Life Taps before a mechanic like that is an idiot, and bleeding edge guilds don't take idiots. as it stands the only reason to hold on to 3-4 embers is for impending burst phases or AOE phases for SF or FnB. 10 seconds til Massacre? use your embers. you don't lose out on DPS, there's no difference between a one ember soulfire and a three ember soulfire.

we are not limited by Embers. Affliction locks on live realms take more friendly fire damage than Destro sitting on 4 embers on Beta. we won't be sitting on 4 embers and the damage is completely under our control. remember as well we will have access to one of the most powerful self-heals in the game as it stands, with ember tap.

To paraphrase Jules Winnfield: Reading comprehension, mother&*#!, do you speak it?

Those warlocks >knew< when to Life Tap and could control when it happened, and as a result they did fine. Destro Warlocks can't control when they accumulate Burning Embers and still be effective. They are either doing damage to themselves or they are gimping their rotation, it's that simple. When presented with a choice like that, it's also simple: play a different spec or bring in a different class.

[Sockmaster]

Being forced to hardcast a 4 second Soulfire in order to regen mana is a terrible design direction, and would break destruction for me personally. I hope they move away from the non-gcd capped model they introduced and get rid of the mana changes all together.

The one thing that pops into my head is; .3 seconds left on that soulfire and... oh fuck world and flames.. better move.

Wait, so what's the problem with that? You're not really losing DPS even if you interrupt soul fire. You still have that ember. You move and start spamming fel flame to keep from being mana-capped, which would be a DPS loss. You also gain more embers. Seems like a reasonable situation to me.

[Deleted]

To paraphrase Jules Winnfield: Reading comprehension, mother&*#!, do you speak it?

Those warlocks >knew< when to Life Tap and could control when it happened, and as a result they did fine. Destro Warlocks can't control when they accumulate Burning Embers and still be effective. They are either doing damage to themselves or they are gimping their rotation, it's that simple. When presented with a choice like that, it's also simple: play a different spec or bring in a different class.

you've got a nerve to have a go at me for 'reading comprehension' when you apparently ignored my post. yes, you can control when you accumulate burning embers. on Beta there is ZERO difference in DPS between casting your Soul Fire at one ember, and at four embers. there is no 'gimping' of any rotation.

[Jessicka]

Wait, so what's the problem with that? You're not really losing DPS even if you interrupt soul fire. You still have that ember. You move and start spamming fel flame to keep from being mana-capped, which would be a DPS loss. You also gain more embers. Seems like a reasonable situation to me.

Depends, if you're hitting that SF because you're OOM or Ember capped, then it's a bigger loss than than it would otherwise be. You're being punished twice over, which is exactly the problem with ISF on Live. Say what you want about 'better management' because that same thing is true on live, and simply isn't always possible when dealing with mechanics like Prison Traps etc. That they put so much slush in between those extremes to compensate by removing everything else is just yet another problem with the spec.