8.1 Destro buffs

[Deleted]

Warlock class was fun since vanilla, and it still is. What happened in mop was that we were brokenly op, not 'more fun'. If you compare the designs from every single expansion, only mop would stand out where too much was given to players. It was bad and shouldn't have happened.

True (and i played since vanilla and only at the very start we suffered alot from qol stuff, pet gone when taking fly path etc..) but don't you think the 180 turn they did in legion was a little to harsh? Lost meta that for some was the end of the world , lost a lot of rp/visual stuff given to other classes ...

The reality here is that people want to be op again and then cry how their feedback is being ignored.

Can be, and i do hope they realise that being op is only fun in the first week... But i can also understand that feedback from blue is very little and stuff that was told in legion beta was dismissed until half way legion to be fixed (= to long tbh)

Defendly the isues demo has, since legion is still a problem

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For me the only stuff that i truly want to see back to destro (and would be subed again) is the way f&b toggle game play was. The mass incins or chaosbolt was rly .drool.

And was a heaven to have the ability to quick go from st to aoe. Now with f&b tallent you gimp yourself way to much when its 1 target

[wholol]

Warlock class was fun since vanilla, and it still is. What happened in mop was that we were brokenly op, not 'more fun'. If you compare the designs from every single expansion, only mop would stand out where too much was given to players. It was bad and shouldn't have happened.


The reality here is that people want to be op again and then cry how their feedback is being ignored.

Imo, I've found that locks are tied to how resilient to damage (tankiness) they are in relation to fun, the less we feel squishy the more enjoyable the gameplay is in most aspects outside maybe raiding.

If you go back in time one expansion at a time you can see that locks get less and less tanky with every passing expansion and coincidentally so does their fun aspect, the only exception to this was mop because it revamped the gameplay and mechanics of the class , so it was more interesting in a way but also happened to be OP throughout the entire expansion numbers wise so people's point of views might be skewed, after the specs were brought down to more acceptable number lvls the lack of tankiness really started being apparent and sorely missed.

That's my opinion at least.

[Baconeggcheese]

The ones in denial are people expecting mop back and idiotic things like casting on the move. Destruction is fine and in a pretty good place now, better than it ever was in legion.

I can't say I've seen many people seriously think that had any chance of coming back over the years. Now if you said fel flame, hooooooooboy did people want fel flame back.

I can't speak for others, but I absolutely disagree its in a good place now and better than legion. I'd say its objectively worse than legion since its pretty much identical except it has worse movement and instead of having a few spread out CD's they packed all of the specs dmg into 1 CD. Though I'm not a fan of either iteration.

I just want the on demand burst spec that destruction was back, along with a compelling aoe design. I mean... the specs design is objectively worse since the legion overhaul. There's nothing destruction brings to a raid that you wouldn't be better suited bringing something else for.

Hell, I was playing destruction on mythic fetid and you'd *think* it would be the bees knees for blowing up 2 of the small adds, but nah... you wanna sit the big add and cleave onto the boss exactly the same as affliction because the specs are so homogenized at this point and destruction pretty much does damage the same way as aff.

Overall tuning wise I don't have much of a problem with the spec, it was always worse than aff at 1-3 targets, it was just disgustingly good at burst ST and sustained aoe which made it a powerhouse for progress. And more importantly I actually enjoyed playing it, where now even if aff does well I can't stand playing it. It makes playing feel like a chore.

[Deleted]

Warlock class was fun since vanilla, and it still is. What happened in mop was that we were brokenly op, not 'more fun'. If you compare the designs from every single expansion, only mop would stand out where too much was given to players. It was bad and shouldn't have happened.

Did you start playing in MOP?
MOP was the START of pruning, not the beginning of some bountiful harvest of abilities. The only thing given to the players was an over inflated damage meter, destruction and affliction were both mindnumbingly simple, the problem is every expansion following MOP has been more and more pruning and streamlining / simplification in some fashion or another.

The only way MOP looks like it "gave us too much" is if you loath the attention as much as me or if you're basing your view entirely on MOP being the comparative highpoint to how much has been axed since then.

Constantly brining up KJC as a strawman for denying MOP is absolutely retarded when it's not what any sane man wants and completely glosses over the myriad other things MOP had from it's toolkit with baseline things like circle, coil and slows, a completely different AOE system and a far better resource system with 1 ember chaos bolts and 4 embers max, a cycle that dumped chaos bolts in procs instead of willy-nilly besides an absurdly loaded burn phase, the difference between timed Backraft and charged Havoc or the (apparently very contentious) Shadowburn / Fel Flame that some people throw a fit about mentioning or a talent tree that had ONE damage row instead of 4.

But hey, let's just talk about how we shouldn't how we had one broken talent row, amusingly one where KJC wasn't even remotely optimal for most of the expansion. It's about as disingenuous as when people bring up organic hardmodes and Blizzard haul Mimiron's Big Red Button out, because it's easier to say that was boring than actually admit there were a heap of good designs.

WOTLK and Cataclysm were the peak of design, the reason warlocks have felt like such a shitshow imo since the unwaranted revamp is because Blizzard have refused to look back at previous iterations for inspiration and have instead marched on with a shit design for affliction despite obvious problems, Destruction was the one spec that came out of the revamp in an obviously superior state - the last thing the class needs is people telling Blizzard not to look back at that because of one shit talent row when the only argument against it is KJC and the raw damage output.

[Deleted]

the last thing the class needs is people telling Blizzard not to look back at that because of one shit talent row when the only argument against it is KJC and the raw damage output.

Perfect :thumps up:

[Gaidax]

WOTLK and Cataclysm were the peak of design.

Cataclysm - peak of design? You must be mad.

Cataclysm Destruction was such a clusterfuck that it begged to be axed - it was literally a spec where you threw everything you just had in your spellbook from what currently is distributed to all 3 specs at things. It amounted to what Affliction is now with 3 DoTs + Eradication lookalike + running to melee for Shadowflame + shitty old soul shards system and the issues they brought and what not. Peak of fucking design bois...

MoP Talent redesign and pruning were nothing short of brilliant - it literally saved Destruction.

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As a whole MoP talent system rework pretty much saved many classes from being overloaded with trash and snowballing into random mess like Cata Destruction was.

Cataclysm was that expansion where Blizzard pained themselves into a corner due to constantly adding abilities unchecked for years.

[Uzkin]

Timeline of destro design and enjoyability:

WotLK:     ok
Cataclysm: bad
MoP:       great
WoD:       good
Legion:    bad
BfA:       bad

[Deleted]

I started playing Destro again and I don't understand how anyone can enjoy it. Maybe I'm missing azerite traits, but it's more boring than retri paladin.
Numberwise Destro seems to be fine in raids, but what about M+? There aren't many videos around.

But I have to admit, I really, really liked Shadow Burn. Yes, Destro was worse than Affli in ST, but enjoyed playing different specs for different encounter.

[Benomatic]

I levelled as affliction for the first time ever this expansion. At max level I soon switched back to destro.

Affliction was alright in the end of legion when I started experimenting, but the dot, dot, dot, cast, cast, cast channel repeat got very dull.

With azerite traits I have chosen I feel very tanky again. Great AoE when pulling large packs, great survivability but I must admit maneuverability is sorely lacking and is a royal pain. Having to cancel casts 2/3 near completion gets tiresome. Some mobility is sorely needed.

Voidwalker and Infernal combo is great, just a shame I end up being a tank in expeditions or having to swap form imp to voidwalker to help out a tank in outdoors content.

A return to mob destro would be very nice though.

[Baconeggcheese]

WOTLK and Cataclysm were the peak of design

I skipped wotlk, came back at the tail end of cata and almost didn't play warlock because of how bad the design was even though I had wanted to play warlock for years and finally had one all capped and geared up.

I actually really liked the way aff was designed then, I think the way gaidax explained destro was fairly apt. It was very much a *throw everything and the kitchen sink at them!* spec that had no identity and you just used everything you had for tiny tiny dps increases for each spell. The MoP redesign was the peak for destro.

Demo I'd say WoD was peak for, since I feel like snapshots made for really awkward unintuitive play for the spec and WoD's removal of snapshots made it make a lot more sense. I have mixed feelings about demonbolt, while it did completely take over your resource management I can't say the alternatives were all that interesting either.

Whenever I hear about things from wrath design for locks its always super degenerate playstyles that I'd never want to have to experience.

[Sylar Hao]

MoP Destruction was the best designed spec ever, including all expansions, classes and specs of the whole game. So smooth, such a nice gameplay, the looks were amazing (engulfing in flames while getting embers, bigger and wider FnB...), thematically speaking it was nailed, some much needed mobility... and those Chaos Bolts hitting for 5 or 6 times my whole hp bar... Even PvP, historically a very bad spot for destruction due to being auto-targetted by every single melee, was enjoyable and you could do pretty fun things with it.

You may like or not, but no one can say that it was near perfection when it comes to design. I'm still scratching my head wondering why they couldn't just leave it as it was, tweaking here and there and tuning numbers when needed.

I can't decide if I like more the Legion or the BfA version of the spec, but they are certainly "meh" compared to MoP. Gee, I'd even be super happy if they brought back the WoD version (as much as I hated that expansion, the design was pretty close to the MoP one).

[Deleted]

You may like or not, but no one can say that it was near perfection when it comes to design. I'm still scratching my head wondering why they couldn't just leave it as it was, tweaking here and there and tuning numbers when needed.

A lot told it was because of the ego of devs that wanted to dismiss al what Xelnath did. At first i never believed that such a company would do such stuff. But i started to wonder to why they took a 180 turn ... And slowly believe that it maybe could be that a billion dollar company let the ego of current devs be bigger than the enjoyment of there player base.

[wholol]

I skipped wotlk, came back at the tail end of cata and almost didn't play warlock because of how bad the design was even though I had wanted to play warlock for years and finally had one all capped and geared up.

I actually really liked the way aff was designed then, I think the way gaidax explained destro was fairly apt. It was very much a *throw everything and the kitchen sink at them!* spec that had no identity and you just used everything you had for tiny tiny dps increases for each spell. The MoP redesign was the peak for destro.

Demo I'd say WoD was peak for, since I feel like snapshots made for really awkward unintuitive play for the spec and WoD's removal of snapshots made it make a lot more sense. I have mixed feelings about demonbolt, while it did completely take over your resource management I can't say the alternatives were all that interesting either.

Whenever I hear about things from wrath design for locks its always super degenerate playstyles that I'd never want to have to experience.

Same, I really liked the way affli worked in wotlk, it just felt good playing it, especially in pvp.

[Gaidax]

A lot told it was because of the ego of devs that wanted to dismiss al what Xelnath did. At first i never believed that such a company would do such stuff. But i started to wonder to why they took a 180 turn ... And slowly believe that it maybe could be that a billion dollar company let the ego of current devs be bigger than the enjoyment of there player base.

Quite frankly, this is a bunch of bull.

Why MoP design had to change? Because it gave birth to S-tier specs with quite literally no weaknesses that shat on everyone else.

It has nothing to do with Xelnath hate or other similar bullshit conspiracy theories - MoP snowballed into something that simply could not be sustainable and had to be changed for the sake of the game.

[Werst]

Gaidax, you aren’t the only one here to play at a high level now or previously. Stop acting like it’s some currency for your logic or toxicity. Experience is useful but you crutch on it a bit hard and swing that crutch at lots of people’s heads to try to say it nicely. You might parse or IO but people make up an element of this game perhaps both you and blizzard have forgotten?

Who cares about the past - we need to focus on the future!

If you think we or I am so whack job look at the simple math feedback section of one stop. They all whack jobs there too? They just not as brilliant as you? Come off it dude...you like this iteration and like pissing down on people even more. All they do there is provide a mathematical basis to balance the talents so you could choose presently without massive traps. Such blasphemy I know...

Numbers aside I don’t think a nuke spec should be hardcasting a weak’ish but mechanically critical dot in 2018. Period dot flipping com it’s horrible gameplay in any AoE situation. I would define AoE as 3+ targets. While not your favorite niche of mythic raiding it is the now ever more popular m+ very critical. RoF is already weak for its cost plus mechanically iffy...want to debate that math or fact?

Destro being balanced around mobility is a terrible throttle. It means when you get lucky (yes some skill but we know RNJesus can hate or love you) but beyond taking those steps your parse comes down to being screwed with during cooldowns. Or the binary pendulum of fight length vs cooldowns. You call that perfect design? Too good standing still and worthless when forced to move with terrible mobility is not fun to play and gets weaker the more interesting the fight gets.

I call it lazy design that has aff and destro 3 minute ST monsters with demo some identity confused sibling; two of which suffer mobility issues, all three of whom suffer gaping holes balance wise in their talent trees. Asking blizzard to fix the trap talents is hardly nonsense.

[Gaidax]

3 first paragraphs of your random ramblings aside...

You seem to invoke LOSS... then here's the feedback by those who run it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...hread/e82l7y3/

It aligns my vision perfectly, so maybe get educated on what LOSS contributors think before you run your mouth.


This is proper state of affairs and feedback, unlike your average MMO-C scrub's "Desto is shiiiit, make spells castable on the move and rollback to MoP" crap.

Destruction is in a much healthier place than in any expansion to date from a tuning standpoint. The nerf to havoc allows the spec to have high single target damage, justified by its complete lack of mobility, without being completely broken on cleave. The spec feels smooth to play, and rewards careful planning and preparation. There are 3 main categories of issues for Destruction: Cooldown Balance, Talent Balance, and AoE mechanics.

Infernal is numerically too powerful. You hit the button and are a god for 30 seconds, and then immediately hit withdrawal and feel like a wet noodle for 2.5 minutes. The 30 second duration also makes players feel obligated to stand still perfectly still for a long period in order to maximize their DPS. We’d like the duration to be reduced to 25 seconds and its damage nerfed, so that Chaos Bolt can be buffed in its stead.

Rain of Fire has many QoL issues preventing it from feeling good to use, and can be changed in any number of ways without significantly impacting its DPS to improve this.

Cataclysm is an AoE talent, on an AoE talent row, but is the only talent on that row that is a DPS gain ST. We’d like to see the damage reduced to 1/3rd of what it is now, but with the additional effect of dealing 200% increased damage if it hits 2 or more enemies (similar to the Arcane Mage talent Resonance).

Soul Fire, Shadowburn, Fire and Brimstone, Roaring Blaze, Grimoire of Sacrifice, Soul Conduit, and Channel Demonfire are all numerically weak.

Bottom line - Destruction right now legit does not have that many issues and people who have a clue do understand that mobility weakness is warranted, because the strengths that cover for it are both strong and not reliant on crutches - something I am trying to get through your skulls for months now.

That's why instead of keeping pushing your "lazy design" narrative, you instead should ponder on the achievements for the spec stated above, chief of which top notch performance without being overpowered as fuck, smooth gameplay and weaknesses covered by strengths that allow personal skill to show.


This is exactly why I am terrified of this "feedback" we have in this shit thread, because by off chance Blizz may listen to it and ruin everything either by introducing Shadowcrutch back or cutting our power to shit just to toss in some mobility so mouthbreathers can pretend to be frikkin' Narutos running around tossing spells that do shit damage.

[Warning]

The LOSS post is really just another opinion but I guess I'll go over it quickly.

I agree with the comments about Havoc, I never much appreciated being put into this niche of being a 2 target cleave spec. I like destro to have big single target burst every 12-15 seconds, and ideally would like it to have a really scary burst roughly every 1 minute. 2 charges on darksoul & 1 min PVP trinket was pretty close to delivering that.

I don't really have any issue with RoF except that it doesn't hit hard enough. It's a friggin instant cast AoE so there's no QoL issue with that. You could say the lack of an AoE generator is a QoL issue I guess, but obviously there's a talent for that.

Cataclysm is also fine, it really isn't a problem to cast a 30 second AoE in single target sometimes and in fact it feels pretty good to chaosbolt someone in PVP and then cast a cata underneath them so both land at exactly the same time. The only real issue with that tier is that the other choices are garbage. Right now its: Sustained choice/sustained choice/burst choice. With the burst choice pretty much always being better. I would suggest changing it to Utility choice/Sustained Choice/Burst choice. With the redesigned left talent granting some kind of debuff to rain of fire that makes it attractive in PVP and M+. Other than that it's numerical tweaks.

Soulfire and Shadowburn are tough because I feel like they both try to fill pretty much the same role but will never be attractive because the other choices on the tier make the spec feel so much better. I'd rather they baseline felflame or shadowburn execute or both and change these two.

I would change roaring blaze to a passive that greatly increases incinerate damage and maybe slightly reduces the cast time on cbolt, because that would make it a nice sustained option as an alternative to Grimoire's burst. Sacrifice can stay as a convenience thing and can remain suboptimal but shouldn't be too far behind.

Anyway I don't think output is an issue and really the biggest problem isn't talents either because what I enjoy playing is well tuned anyway. At best I'd gain some equally well tuned alternatives that I probably wouldn't use anyway. The real problem is versatility and depth of play in the game as whole. No baseline curses, no shadowflame, no fel flame, no shadowburn, no soulburn, no baseline port. We just need a bit more baseline utility back so we have more options and the play is more interesting.

[burek]

The real problem is versatility and depth of play in the game as whole. No baseline curses, no shadowflame, no fel flame, no shadowburn, no soulburn, no baseline port. We just need a bit more baseline utility back so we have more options and the play is more interesting.

There is currently around 25 abilities/stuff you need to have keybinds for in a typical m+ run. What's the point of having more? Why would you need 35? Would that be enough depth? Or 50?

[Warning]

There is currently around 25 abilities/stuff you need to have keybinds for in a typical m+ run. What's the point of having more? Why would you need 35? Would that be enough depth? Or 50?

A typical M+ run doesn't require a lot of binds, maybe 20 unless you're counting basic movement. I mentioned 5 specific things in addition to the non specific "curses". I also mentioned we need "a bit more" which would suggest that not all of that had to come back so maybe you could extrapolate from that. But I'll answer directly if that helps. I think 2-3 extra things from that list would be enough.

[The Stormbringer]

Timeline of destro design and enjoyability:

WotLK:     ok
Cataclysm: bad
MoP:       great
WoD:       good
Legion:    bad
BfA:       bad

I wouldn't say it was bad in Legion, just 'ok'. It's definitely bad in BfA, though. Lack of my precious portals and other fun benefits, plus nerfs to multi-target and such.