[Destro] Immolate - Past, Present, and Cast Time

[Jessicka]

I am. I'm comparing it to every other 1.5s or lower cast time spell, 2 of which off the top of my head are DoTs: Vampiric Touch and Unstable Affliction.

[pokeadott]

I am. I'm comparing it to every other 1.5s or lower cast time spell, 2 of which off the top of my head are DoTs: Vampiric Touch and Unstable Affliction.

Except those are secondary DoTs of DoT-specific specs. Both of which have an instant cast DoT which is a better comparitor for Immolate. Also, does immo silence/dmg on dispel? As I said, I can make an argument for VT being instant with the removal of Sin&Punish (UA equiv for spriests), but I think they want DoT specs to have some baseline casts.

Flame Shock, Living Bomb/NetherTempest, Serpent Sting, Moonfire, Corruption, SW:P.

See the above list and tell me why Immolate deserves a cast time again?

[Jessicka]

Mind Blast, Mind Spike, Haunt, Demonic Circle, Mass Dispell, Flash Heal, Regrowth, Flash of Light... the list goes on and on. All 1.5s cast times or lower, all with nominal, if any secondary effects. Removing the cast time wont improve throughput, but it does prevent moving while casting and that is the purpose of the cast time.

[Xelnath]

There absolutely is, and it's the exact same reason any nominal cast time exists in the game, and there are a great many of them, and that's to prevent the spell being cast while moving.

Correct. Also flavor, experience differentiation (homogenization is something we have to fight everyday) and power deltas.

[helheim]

by flavor, he/she/it means that it tastes like shit, and you will keep paying for it, and you will like it.

dat cloud look like da warchief.

[Slyver]

Correct. Also flavor, experience differentiation (homogenization is something we have to fight everyday) and power deltas.

Sometimes there are bad flavors. Sometimes a different experience is also a bad experience. When that is the case, maybe "flavor" and "experience" shouldn't be put in, but rather, go with what you know works (so called, homogenization. Don't be afraid of "sameness" when a deviation from sameness leads to a feeling of "unfairness"). Building a spec that has differences is great, putting in flavor that is worse than every other comparable ability feels punishing.

The other two cast time dots have extra abilities attached to them (both have negative impacts on a dispeller). This bonus takes away the "punishment" factor. There is a reason that these spells have a cast time and you can feel it when you cast it. It no longer feels punishing, because you are not casting a dot, you are casting an anti-dispell mechanic, that protects most of your other damage that also has the added benefit of doing substantial damage itself. It feels good to cast those spells.

Casting immolate feels exactly as pokeadott has described. It feels like someone forgot about immolate when they made all the other dots instant; an artifact of a previous time. It feels unfair that all the other specs have their dots instant. It feels punishing.

How it feels is important. How it compares to other classes similar abilities is important. If only one spell, or ability out of many has a worse mechanic, with no compensation, it feels like someone "up there" hates you. As an aside on the flip side, if only one spell out of many similar is better, the one that is better feels good, and the others do not feel (as) punishing (if the mechanic could feel this way).

As for mobility, destro is the least mobile spec in the game. I don't think there is too much to worry about with an increase in their pvp mobility. To even suggest that is a joke. It also means you have never played real pvp as destro.

[Jessicka]

You can't judge spells 1:1 or like for like, because they never truly are. You have to look at the whole package and I can assure you my Shadow Priest would love more mobility in PvE, let alone PvP now that Devouring Plague is tied to Orbs (perhaps that could be fixed by letting 'From Darkness...' stack to more than twice).

I was actually going to post something on the CC thread about using DB/UR offensively being because of our lack of mobility - then I remembered KjC and I think that's going to end up a very important talent.

[helheim]

I was actually going to post something on the CC thread about using DB/UR offensively being because of our lack of mobility - then I remembered KjC and I think that's going to end up a very important talent.

nevermind the shit sandwich of KJC that snares you, and that snare stacks, or that it makes that stupid long chaos bolt take like 400000 years to cast. yeah, that talent smells like a certain "dev" response, which i believe in turn smells like, well, shit.

there is literally zero justifiable reason for immolate to have a cast time now that it isn't leashed to conflag, and it only serves another way for melee to school lock destro in pvp. it's a dick move to keep the cast time.

then again, blizzard and their devs are shit, in my opinion, so whatever.

[whi]

Correct. Also flavor, experience differentiation (homogenization is something we have to fight everyday) and power deltas.

Is destruction's mobility in a good place then? Is it's multidot damage on par with affli/demo? Pve-wise.

[Slyver]

You can't judge spells 1:1 or like for like, because they never truly are. You have to look at the whole package and I can assure you my Shadow Priest would love more mobility in PvE, let alone PvP now that Devouring Plague is tied to Orbs (perhaps that could be fixed by letting 'From Darkness...' stack to more than twice).

A) You absolutely can measure things directly. This isn't an peaches vs. apples here, they are both peaches. You can call one a nectarine and one a peach, but they are still both peaches.

B) You can look at the whole picture of destro and the whole picture of all the other classes, and make comparisons that way as well. In fact, you must. You can also look at the minutia of the destro spec and say, without any problem whatsoever, it is the least mobile of all specs. Adding instant immolate to the spec is not only a good thing, I would say it borders on a necessary thing (for pvp). I say this after having compared all similar classes, both in a semi-detailed analysis of all their mechanics taken in part, and as a whole, and after having played almost all of the classes and specs a great deal in pvp over the past 7 years (as well as in MoP beta).

You see, this game boils down to a set of abilities. Modeling the system is not actually that hard, if you have the experience to understand the nuances of an arena environment (and coordinated pvp in general). With this model, and the experience, in some cases, it isn't difficult to look at individual abilities and say whether or not they are good or bad (both with respect to the class specifically, and the game as a whole).

At the very least, I feel qualified to make statements about these things, both because of my vast experience with WoW, and being a software developer myself. I even used to be a game developer (for Ubisoft), before making an academic lifestyle change.

So please don't suggest that I, or anyone else with good, well thought out input, can't make these judgements, because I assure you, we can, and we should. That's what developers want. They want this input. (Well, maybe not this input, but you get my drift.) Developers need feedback. Hell, at Ubisoft we had huge rooms of people whose main purpose was to play the games and give exactly this type of feedback.

At the same time, i respect your feelings that it is fine as it is (if indeed that is your feeling, it's a little unclear to me what your stance is). But I can see what you say, and I can give you my feedback on things, from my experiences, and hope to clarify things if you do not know, or maybe just provide a different viewpoint than yours.

I was actually going to post something on the CC thread about using DB/UR offensively being because of our lack of mobility - then I remembered KjC and I think that's going to end up a very important talent.

Unfortunately, KjC, in its current implementation, is a counterintuitive ability with its drawbacks, and how they play together. It was very smooth before, even if I felt it was excessively punitive. It got changed, and I don't know why, but atm, it kinda sucks (imo). In fact, the change to its current state was the last straw in my decision to not play a warlock for MoP pvp (unless substantial changes occur).

---------- Post added 2012-09-18 at 03:49 AM ----------

Is destruction's mobility in a good place then? Is it's multidot damage on par with affli/demo? Pve-wise.

No, and no.

But it isn't supposed to be on an even footing in multi-dotting. It does have havoc, and with the change to a 25s CD, its quite effective at two targets. There is nothing wrong with destro in this regard from my experience (which admittedly is limited; I didn't do any real raiding with it, but I have used it a bit in pvp testing).

Destro's damage, to me feels fine. Maybe even too good in some cases. It's its capacity to do damage in a pvp environment (both by not being dead, and before being dead) that is the issue I have.

[summons inc]

Just simmed it with and without cast time: 108251 vs 108850 dps T14H.
I don't think that the "on-the-run-ember-generating-dot" part would be gamebreaking.
The change would actually be quite nice, even though I doubt it will ever happen.

Hi, umm yea...PvE is different from PvP. I enjoy how you think sims can determine whether or not something would be "balanced" in PvP.

Anyways, having an instant dot which generates embers for you in PvP would make destro absolutely broken if they would keep the ember generating portion of it. To balance it they would either need to make it not generate embers which would be a huge nerf to PvE or increase the mana cost to be the same or a little more than fel flame.

TLDR: Sims don't decide whether or not something is balanced in PvP. Don't remove the cast time of immolate. I don't like unicorns.

[whi]

No, and no.

But it isn't supposed to be on an even footing in multi-dotting. It does have havoc, and with the change to a 25s CD, its quite effective at two targets. There is nothing wrong with destro in this regard from my experience (which admittedly is limited; I didn't do any real raiding with it, but I have used it a bit in pvp testing).

By multidot I mean a 2 target fight that ain't cleave(cleave is where destruction will supposedly shine in 5.1), and I was more interested in how the devs view it, as our own sims suggest that destro might be simply subpar(compared to single target destr gains 20k, affli 25k, demo 30k dps when a second target is available, destro might be low, as it's single target is low) and even though instant immolate won't help our multidot dps that much, it's at least something. Obvious advantage of instant immolate's mobility doesn't need any discussion I guess, question is do the devs think destro is lacking in this area as much as we do?

Anyways, having an instant dot which generates embers for you in PvP would make destro absolutely broken if they would keep the ember generating portion of it. To balance it they would either need to make it not generate embers which would be a huge nerf to PvE or increase the mana cost to be the same or a little more than fel flame.

You do realize that immolate generates embers only on crits, right? As in, a 15 second dot with 6 ticks - first being "instant" - will on average generate 1.5 little ember with *current* crit rates --- a 1/10 of a chaosbolt every 10 seconds, per target.

[Slyver]

Hi, umm yea...PvE is different from PvP. I enjoy how you think sims can determine whether or not something would be "balanced" in PvP.

Anyways, having an instant dot which generates embers for you in PvP would make destro absolutely broken if they would keep the ember generating portion of it. To balance it they would either need to make it not generate embers which would be a huge nerf to PvE or increase the mana cost to be the same or a little more than fel flame.

TLDR: Sims don't decide whether or not something is balanced in PvP. Don't remove the cast time of immolate. I don't like unicorns.

Can you speculate as to how this OPness will occur?

First: Ember generation from immolate, especially in the first tier gear levels is very low.

Second: Instant cast immolate wouldn't actually increase its capacity to perform this function (at sufficiently high haste levels). It only makes it easier to cast. If left alone to cast, it would be almost exactly the same.

This change request is to allow us to use it as it seems to be intended, which is to actually cast on our target. The potential for ember generation would remain (mostly) unchanged.

[Naojirou]

I am exploding my head over here to understand how people can ignore known or told facts in this topic:
1. It is for people to interrupt some spells: Really? Like they dont have Incinerate and Chaos bolt. Like most of our damage isnt tied to cast time spells already.
2. It is to prevent movement: Really? Like you have something really worthy to do while moving. Conflagrate and Felflame, tho correct me if I am wrong (!) Incinerate and Chaos Bolt are the signature spells of the spec.
3. It is an incredible dmg boost: Really?.. People brought you many numbers about what kind of an ember-dmg increase that is, yet those people stubbornly made posts right after the number posts saying "It will be a big dps boost, dont forget dis and dat." If you can raise your head a bit up, assuming you are using a max 22" monitors, it is quite easy to see the numbers are not absurd with the change, yet I smell people going for the blind destruction yet again.
4. Xelnath's flavor thingy: Could never understand the devs, will never be able to understand the devs. Flavor of a spec that has to stand COMPLETELY still. Unbind your WASD buttons guys. You just dont need them.

Edit: Typo

[Grubjuice]

i am really worried that this thread is descending into profanity and intractable yelling.

[Jessicka]

A) You absolutely can measure things directly. This isn't an peaches vs. apples here, they are both peaches. You can call one a nectarine and one a peach, but they are still both peaches.

No, you're comparing Immolate to Corruption, when you should be comparing it to UA/VT. I'd give you the facing issue, because neither of the latter have a facing requirement - that needs fixing.

Your issue with multidotting would be valid in the old game, but with the cooldown on dispels, multidotting is in itself much stronger than it has been previously. You have Havoc, which is instant and potentially far more powerful than other instant cast DoTs. So why you then need another instant DoT, when that 3rd player should be under CC I'm not entirely sure.

[Rustjive]

No, you're comparing Immolate to Corruption, when you should be comparing it to UA/VT.

Why? Everyone has made the proper point that UA has dispel protection, and Immolate doesn't. Immolate generates resources - Embers - much like Corruption generates resources - Shadow Trance. And like pokeadott said, since VT no longer has dispel protection, and is also a resource generator - mana - it too should be under review for instant status. Dispel protection is a very strong justification for cast time. Flavor (perhaps the worst justification over fun/balance), experience differentiation (since presumably the experience of your spec doesn't hinge on a weak cast time DoT), not so much.

[nightfalls]

Definition of flavor and experience differentiation: Your "experience difference" is being shit on by interrupts, and your "flavor" is a total inability to generate resources for your actual class nukes... sounds about right. Destruction seems to have plenty of cast-time abilities as it is, and definitely (due to embers) feels different compared to similar classes (arcane mage, elemental shaman).

Now being able to actually use said abilities (the main ember generator, with a total inability to keep up with dispels from immolate, seems to be fel flame)... that's a different story.


In PvE the cast time is rarely a hindrance... that said, it also means removing it won't be a significant PvE buff. Nor a damage buff (and immolate damage can be slightly reduced to make up for the difference).

[Phoenexis]

Am I the only one that would rather have more mobility/CC spells than getting instant immolate?
I have to agree that there's too much homogenization right now. Destruction barely has anything left that makes it Destruction.

[Killem]

Destruction barely has anything left that makes it Destruction.

Destru has a few good looking spells and too much empty space in the actionbar, which makes me sad, because the core of destruction, flexibility and the tools to adapt to almost every situation is lost. It feels like a dead husk of it's former self, but with fancy looking spells. =(