Warlock patch 5.4 discussion

[demonik]

I'm confused about what ghostcrawler tweeted. isn't dps directly connected to ember generation? not to mention a few important utility spells we use and depend on are related to ember generation(ember tap,fire&brimstone,flames of xoroth).

not having decent/good emeber generation really cripples us. because embers are not only used to increase dps but to help us with survivability and utility.

[pokeadott]

Not sure how providing what data I can easily link is childish? Sorry, there aren't scores of PTR destro reports to link. Considering the spec is bad in Live and it's no better on the PTR, not sure how linking a large sample size of parses is bad data.

Let's pretend that RoF nerf doesn't even change dps and the immo buff means a net dps increase from live - well that would be about a 1 or 2% dmg boost for us. Since we're at the bottom of played specs in all of those instances linked by a substantial margin, it's certainly valid directionally to say that Destro is low on Live and is still low on the PTR. Is it really that hard to extrapolate from that data and the PTR notes that there is no way that Destro is going to make up existing ground in 5.4?

[sasofrass]

Not meaning to sound bad, but to the average viewer what you just said is simply just a theory and sounds... well, a bit childish. Linking ToT logs then saying "See these? Well, 5.4 will be lower." without actually giving the conclusive evidence to back up the claims just isn't going to hold much weight to the matter. What should be shown are SoO logs from those who have them from the PTR to show where Destro is at. Yeah, GC should already know 10% to immo won't help squat and the spec suffers from horrible scaling issues and such, but treat him like an idiot and show him exactly what he wants for 5.4 numbers. They have their own internal testings (hi2u2 WW Monk blind idiocies) which hardly reflects Live. Even Simcraft rarely reflects the true state of dps and I'd consider that more accurate than blizz (which isn't saying much lulz).

when the only change we have gotten is a nerf to cut or ember gen by a third and a small buff to our dot (which everyone got) the overall change is a nerf. he has a valid point to use tot logs since nothing changed but now we have 2/3 the embers we had before, which is a HUGE nerf that wasn't needed at all

[PickleballAce]

The problem is with Demo and Aff parsing as high as they are (putting aside the 5.4 changes), GC's just going to say that good players are flocking toward those specs and creating a sampling bias....even if we know that Destro could use some help in reality. That's kind of been their excuse du jour for this expac.

[Fuiking]

I should make some screenshots of my dps done on bossfights, link 'em here (on live, and as semi-bad player, or well more decent, but not top notch)

[Lou Sanders]

Does anyone personally feel that while Shards and Demonic Fury work nicely with their respective specs, that Embers just feel plain awkward for Destro? I'm not saying they should get rid of it; rather maybe change how a few things work.

One thing I thought of was to change the visual from 4 embers to 8, having Chaos Bolt now technically cost 2 embers, but have things like Fire and Brimstone and Flames of Xoroth cost 1 ember (which would be 0.5 embers in the current setup).

[pokeadott]

The problem is with Demo and Aff parsing as high as they are (putting aside the 5.4 changes), GC's just going to say that good players are flocking toward those specs and creating a sampling bias....even if we know that Destro could use some help in reality. That's kind of been their excuse du jour for this expac.

Eh, I think when you look at the 'All parses' data, you end up with a pretty significant data set. Not everyone killing 25H bosses is an allstar, but there's enough representative data. Ie - on the fights linked above the Destro/Aff/Demo # of parses are 989/1137/1820 on jikun, 391/765/2066 on Qon, and 301/521/1807 on twins. Destro is unsurprisingly in the minority, but there are a large enough sample size of parses to validate some directional trending. Moreover, I'd argue that Destro is easier to min/max than Demo/Aff. So skill becomes less of a factor.

Regardless, it's not very hard to see how Destro performs on Live with RoF. It's also very easy to see that the spec will continue to be out of line on dps with the nerf to RoF embers and the far less talked about but massively impactful MF nerf. The few niche fights that we have in ToT would be toned down dramatically in a 5.4 RoF/MF world.

I'm not sure why it's so hard for the devs to see.

[Moggie]

Not sure how providing what data I can easily link is childish? Sorry, there aren't scores of PTR destro reports to link. Considering the spec is bad in Live and it's no better on the PTR, not sure how linking a large sample size of parses is bad data.

Let's pretend that RoF nerf doesn't even change dps and the immo buff means a net dps increase from live - well that would be about a 1 or 2% dmg boost for us. Since we're at the bottom of played specs in all of those instances linked by a substantial margin, it's certainly valid directionally to say that Destro is low on Live and is still low on the PTR. Is it really that hard to extrapolate from that data and the PTR notes that there is no way that Destro is going to make up existing ground in 5.4?

Don't take what I said offensively since it's not. Simply put, they keep stating they're basing dps on 5.4 data, not 5.3. And we all already know raidbot tends to be uneven since it's sample size is actually pretty small comparatively. However, there are logs out there and plenty of them with all the testing which have taken place in both Flex/10/25 normals and heroics for SoO. You may not have this so maybe get those who do have some to throw them at the Devs. Simply saying "5.4 will suck for Destro because of past logs" for the sake of it without actual PTR numbers to back things up just isn't gonna cut it. Most of those who write the guides and such already know this. I'm sure they already have submitted all these things but making blanket statements, no matter how true without the evidence won't ever cut through GC's thick skull. Hell, even with evidence (hi2u2 betas) it tends to be lost on them.

when the only change we have gotten is a nerf to cut or ember gen by a third and a small buff to our dot (which everyone got) the overall change is a nerf. he has a valid point to use tot logs since nothing changed but now we have 2/3 the embers we had before, which is a HUGE nerf that wasn't needed at all

Need to stop getting hung up on the word nerf. Where exactly is Destro in a 10N/H environment on the PTR? Where is it in a 25N/H? Besides exactly one screenshot of a very out of date simcraft ranking (again, simcraft can only go so far towards how things are in the actual game), the most I've heard from raiders is it's just not that competitive. It may be not doing so well vs. affliction or Demo (some of the fights work superbly with Demo iirc), but in the grand scheme of all the specs tested it does have some niche fights where it's excelling. Yes, they took away RoF from single target and didn't really compensate except for a 10% dmg increase to Immolate. Do they need to buff it to be top of the chart so all 3 specs can do whatever? They [blizz] may try saying they don't want players to feel pigeonholed into one spec but the reality is it's simpler for them to do that then try getting every tree on the same level.

I'm not attacking either of y'alls opinions but take what he said at face value. He simply stated "Any source or data we can look at for Destro DPS being low on PTR?" Keyword: PTR. Then all that was given back was "Live is low therefore destro must be low" Is it? Can you back up how destro is on the PTR vs. the raid group? It doesn't even sound like you've tried it on the PTR yet or are going by word of mouth. If you're going to open the channels, be prepared to back things up with actual PTR data. That's it.

[Gohzerlock]

It's kind of a slap in the face that the lock community can see where dest is atm and what is going to happen in 5.4 and yet somehow blizz does not have there own logs to support this. It's like he needs us to prove to them, even though they know what is going to happen to dest dps. Shit I'm still worried about aff/demo without UVLS.

aff will be fine without UVLS

[sasofrass]

your opinions do not have any evidence to back them up. you also must not be sure how 5.3 destro is working at the moment. the only reason destro can even moderately perform is because of reason of fire and the massive amounts of embers it provides. this allows us to chaos bolt so frequently that our damage is on a competitive level in MULTITARGET encounters. in a single target encounter, though rain of fire is still used, we do not have the ability to use a lot of chaos bolts so we don't have the damage to keep up with other class. our single target is one of the lowest in the game without question.

now, scaling is another issue. since haste is near useless for us, once you obtain the meta our dps begins to lag behind nearly every other dps in single target. that means when we get more gear, we do not scale nearly as well as, let's say, affliction.

now to 5.4- the only thing keeping us viable in 5.3 was taken away. we can no longer rapidly fire bolts so now even our multitarget dps is suffering. they have us a 10% buff to immolate, which is maybe a 1-2% increase at the most. so, take your current dps as destro, take out 33% of your chaos bolts and shadowburns, and increase your immolate by 10% and your going to tell me that dps is acceptable as single target? no way in hell. it's low on live and a shit load lower on ptr. gear won't fix it or make it competitive. the class is just in a very poor state on ptr and desperately needs to be looked at

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in fact, try dpsing without using rain of fire. lmk if that is acceptable.

[Deleted]

the problem is that removing 1/3 of destro's ember generation causes an intangible dps nerf that cant be shown as proof on logs, it is something that can only really be argued logically, coz if 30% of destro's dps comes from embers, then logic dictates that the removal of RoF's ember gen will be atleast a 10% dps nerf and as i said it isnt something that shows up in logs, coz there is no "ember usage" part in those logs that definitively shows a reduction in usage and as a result a dps nerf, so what we'll be forced to do is show destro's single target dps which is already behind most other dps specs except those class got bufffs, so yet again destro should be getting a buff or fall further behind. its not really rocketscience, take a car, reduce its gastank by 33% and that car will only go 66% of its normal range, its very logical, sadly ember usage isnt as logical as that but any1 with half a brain would see that removing the embers gained from RoF without getting compensation would be a dps nerf but no1 said blizz understood logic.

[Deleted]

your opinions do not have any evidence to back them up. you also must not be sure how 5.3 destro is working at the moment. the only reason destro can even moderately perform is because of reason of fire and the massive amounts of embers it provides. this allows us to chaos bolt so frequently that our damage is on a competitive level in MULTITARGET encounters. in a single target encounter, though rain of fire is still used, we do not have the ability to use a lot of chaos bolts so we don't have the damage to keep up with other class. our single target is one of the lowest in the game without question.

now, scaling is another issue. since haste is near useless for us, once you obtain the meta our dps begins to lag behind nearly every other dps in single target. that means when we get more gear, we do not scale nearly as well as, let's say, affliction.

now to 5.4- the only thing keeping us viable in 5.3 was taken away. we can no longer rapidly fire bolts so now even our multitarget dps is suffering. they have us a 10% buff to immolate, which is maybe a 1-2% increase at the most. so, take your current dps as destro, take out 33% of your chaos bolts and shadowburns, and increase your immolate by 10% and your going to tell me that dps is acceptable as single target? no way in hell. it's low on live and a shit load lower on ptr. gear won't fix it or make it competitive. the class is just in a very poor state on ptr and desperately needs to be looked at

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in fact, try dpsing without using rain of fire. lmk if that is acceptable.

All of that doesn't change the fact, that we will need actual hard data from the PTR to start any form of conversation with the devs.
btw: I play destro on live servers, my ilvl is 550 and I am well aware of its extremely poor single target performance. But the devs will only listen to actual PTR data.

[sasofrass]

that's why i hope if we keep giving them logical reasoning they will listen. otherwise they will see how shit it is on live servers and hopefully hotfix it

[Deleted]

Where can we find someone with actual PTR logs? I hate to see yet another spec go down the drain, because the devs "think" it's ok. Can't someone contact world class warlocks? It may sound stupid, but that's what I have as an idea right now.

[Kagecamia]

Where can we find someone with actual PTR logs? I hate to see yet another spec go down the drain, because the devs "think" it's ok. Can't someone contact world class warlocks? It may sound stupid, but that's what I have as an idea right now.

Sparkuggz would be glad to offer some insight. However he is still waiting for his trinkets to proc.

[rijn dael]

Did they revert the "felflame is now a casttime" change on ptr?

I can't find any patchnotes to that effect, but it is still gcd instant for me atm.

[PickleballAce]

Did they revert the "felflame is now a casttime" change on ptr?

I can't find any patchnotes to that effect, but it is still gcd instant for me atm.

They reverted that a long time ago.

[Nerraw]

Did they revert the "felflame is now a casttime" change on ptr?

I can't find any patchnotes to that effect, but it is still gcd instant for me atm.

They did remove the cast time on it. IT's now doing a bit more damage than it is on live but no longer refresh dots. Though I do believe they're adding a glyph to put the dot-refreshing back in.

[sasofrass]

They did remove the cast time on it. IT's now doing a bit more damage than it is on live but no longer refresh dots. Though I do believe they're adding a glyph to put the dot-refreshing back in.

no sign on that glyph, though

[Werst]

Considering GC did jack all nothing when he had beta MoP logs for destro I think this is just a stall/deflection tactic. When you take resource generation down 30% single target (even more multi target) and compensate with a 1% buff (10% buff to 10% of our dmg) its going to be abysmal. Unfortunately that level of reasoning seems lost on the devs who I think literally forgot to compensate the RoF change. It made sense to not have it single target rotationally however they did such a hamfisted hackjob of it now the spec can't aoe 4-6 mob packs which are the most common size.

So far I'm banking on 3 parts apathy, 1 part ignorance.... After SoO has been out for 3 months GC still will not actually admit he was wrong no matter how much data we can point to since he didn't care last go round. How much data is out there from heroic ToT (closest in ilvl) for destro being weak? Oh wait...its not dominant so the top locks don't play it logic right? What about players like Brusalk? Clearly one of the best and makes destro work but in 5.4 the gap is going to be so large its not something you can work around or cheese ember snipe enough into viability. Besides what kind of **** devs would be proud of a playstyle based around only functioning when you can spam your execute?!? I highly doubt any endorsement or logs we can point to on the PTR will actually make a dent. Certainly the entire collective wisdom of the lock community is flawed. He needs a little more coffee and a lot less gin.