5.4 Destruction Tips and Quirks

[Nobleshield 15]

"Permission Denied"

Need to make your logs Public then you'll be good to go!

Derp. Okay will do that ASAP. Been a long time since I used WoL for anything with my own account

EDIT: Should be visible now.

Edited May 21, 2013 by wayniac

[Owewa 3]

Soon, Fire and Brimstone won't be as clunky. In mass AoE situations like Tortos and Primoridus, you'll just leave Fire and Brimstone up allowing you to spam your spells harder. This will be a huge increase as trying to time it perfectly will sometimes cause you to fire out a single Incinerate instead of the FnB version. I REALLY welcome this soon-to-come change.

[in 5.3] Fire and Brimstone no longer requires a Burning Ember to cast. Instead, the spell causes Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate, and Curse spells to consume a Burning Ember when cast, and the effect remains active as long as the Warlock has at least 1 Burning Ember remaining.

So, the AOE sequence becomes

cast FIre and Brimstone

cast Rain of Fire

cast Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate

refresh Rain of Fire as necessary

Is this correct?

The effect of F&B when several embers remain and RoF is not cast to consume all the embers and terminate F&B?

Edited May 21, 2013 by Owewa

[Zagam 1,982]

FnB won't turn off so long as you have at least 1 Ember. Embers are calculated at execution, so as soon as you send 10 Incinerates out, you're getting back at LEAST 1 Ember. On Heroic Primordius, with FnB Immolate and Rain of Fire running, I had 4 Embers permanently no matter how fast I used them on FnB Incinerate. However, I had to toggle FnB constantly creating a small delay, so that delay won't be there anymore.

Basically sustained AoE will be to cast Rain of Fire, turn on Fire and Brimstone, Immolate, Conflagrate, Conflagrate, Incinerate x 6, go to normal rotation. So long as you have 1 Burning Ember, those spells will become AoE spells.

[Vile 9]

Why didn't they make it a "pure toggle"? I mean it could do the AOE version if it's toggled on and you have at least 1 ember, but not toggle off if you go below 1 ember. Now you'll have to keep an eye on the FnB anyway unless you're swimming in embers?

[Omaric 246]

Why didn't they make it a "pure toggle"? I mean it could do the AOE version if it's toggled on and you have at least 1 ember, but not toggle off if you go below 1 ember. Now you'll have to keep an eye on the FnB anyway unless you're swimming in embers?

On the other hand many people can argue that they forgot their toggle was on and all of the Chaos Bolt/Shadowburn embers have been being dumped into other spells during a single-target phase.

Either way, this way is easier than what we were used to, so yay!

[Zagam 1,982]

As Haste becomes a popular topic, I've decided to add cast times of Destruction spells and what Haste thresholds you'll see in order to avoid going under 1.000 sec casts on spells.

1.000 second cast requirements for each spell are below:

Incinerate

No Haste buffs: unobtainable

+5% Haste: unobtainable

+Bloodlust: 46.5% Haste = 19,763 Haste Rating

+Tempus Repit: 12.75% Haste = 5,419 Haste Rating

+Berserking: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

Incinerate + Backlash

No Haste buffs: 40% Haste = 17,000 Haste Rating

+5% Haste: 33.33% Haste = 14,167 Haste Rating

+Bloodlust: 2.6% Haste = 1,105 Haste Rating

+Tempus Repit: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

+Berserking: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

Immolate

No Haste buffs: 50% Haste = 21,250 Haste Rating

+5% Haste: 42.8% Haste = 18,190 Haste Rating

+Bloodlust: 10% Haste = 4,250 Haste Rating

+Tempus Repit: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

+Berserking: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

Chaos Bolt

No Haste buffs: unobtainable

+5% Haste: unobtainable

+Bloodlust: unobtainable

+Tempus Repit: unobtainable

+Berserking: 40.9% Haste = 17,383 Haste Rating

If you're a Troll, you can deliver a 1.000 sec Chaos Bolt under the RNG gods' blessings. Otherwise, it's noticeable to see that you'll passively hit the Immolate cap as well as the Backdraft Incinerate cap during Bloodlust or Tempus Repit. It's to note that in order to get 1.000 second Incinerate casts during Backlast WITHOUT Bloodlust/Tempus Repit, you need 14,167 Haste Rating. I would define this as the ABSOLUTE hard cap for Haste for Destruction Warlocks.

^^I've added this section to the main page. I'll be adding similar tables to Demonology and Affliction to find their HARD caps as opposed to the soft caps well known by the community. For theorycrafter crazies, I can email you the spreadsheet used to find these values.

[Owewa 3]

[in 5.3] Fire and Brimstone no longer requires a Burning Ember to cast. Instead, the spell causes Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate, and Curse spells to consume a Burning Ember when cast, and the effect remains active as long as the Warlock has at least 1 Burning Ember remaining.

Did this make it into the patch? I don't see any difference.

[some time later...] An auxiliary minipatch downloaded, and now it seems to work as blue described.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Owewa

[Zagam 1,982]

Yes. It. Is. AMAZING. You don't have anything to mess with, it's like a Toggle and you go with it. Beware that cancelling the "Aura" will stop casting. This might be unintended, but you can't turn it off mid-cast of something else.

[Cruzan 71]

Derp. Okay will do that ASAP. Been a long time since I used WoL for anything with my own account

EDIT: Should be visible now.

Hey man sorry I didnt get back to ya.

So The first thing I notice right away without logs is that you're really lacking a decent amount of Procs to works with. I'd definitely recommend getting lightweave on that backpiece of yours. Your essence of terror is an okay trinket for destro, but it doesn't give you a very useful proc for dumping chaos bolts. The more intellect procs you run, the more you'll notice your DPS increase. As is stands for me personally I have two (three sometimes) situation where I'll cast chaos bolts. When DS is active, and when Breath of the Hydra is up or Lightweave+Jade Spirit are active. Occasionally I'll get unlucky with RNG, but I usually have a significant proc to dump chaos bolts with.

For you you'll only have your LotC proc and your Jade Spirit (I'm assuming you'll be slapping a DS onto that fancy new weapon you got) to line up a CB with outside of when DS is active. This kind of gimps you a lot. You'll end up tossing out CB's without any procs occasionally which will hurt you. Get lightweave to help mitigate this a little bit. If you're really starving for trinkets, consider buying Relic of Yu'lon. Its 476, but the proc is amazing still and i think you can upgrade it now. The Valor trinket is another option as the haste proc is a lot better than Essence's, but still not optimal for Destro. Not bad though.

As for your logs. I'll probably stick to the protectors to analyze since the last 3 fights are a little hard to gauge performance on. Luckily, the protectors fights kind of simulates a lot of t15 fights. With fights like this with multiple targets it's generally okay to keep immolate rolling on at least one extra target for more Ember generation. You'll also want to be using Havoc+Immolate on cooldown to generate extra embers. The extra damage is technically padding on this fight, but its padding with a purpose so it's okay. Make use of Havoc as much as possible. Use a mouseover or focus macro for it and use it often. Havocing the Corrupted waters was good and they'll likely die too fast to get a shadowburn off of so do what you can to use all 3 charges of your Havoc before they die. I liked Havoc+CB right away, then shadowburn sniping as it died to regain that ember.

Make sure that Rain of Fire and Immolate are rolling during DS. You're missing out on massive ember gen opportunities if you are rolling both of those while firing off chaos bolts. You might even generate enough to fire an extra one if youre lucky. Your Shadowburn damage was low, but you had 11 of em with no crits so kind of unlucky there. Like chaos bolts, try to line up shadowburns with procs if you can.

I don't see anything else that really sticks out. Your average CB damage is pretty low, but thats caused by the lack of procs to line them up with which I mentioned before. You'll notice a large increase with that new weap. through the extra spell power alone. Enjoy .

Edited May 22, 2013 by Cruzan

[obleak 10]

Yes. It. Is. AMAZING. You don't have anything to mess with, it's like a Toggle and you go with it. Beware that cancelling the "Aura" will stop casting. This might be unintended, but you can't turn it off mid-cast of something else.

This made or aoe rotation 100x more manageable and our dps go UP UP UP - some people don't really see it as a up in dps, but when you're spending Half a global all the time to cast an aoe spell it makes a difference to only have to hit it a few times a fight. ((GOOD UPDATE BLIZZARD)) - i'm really getting sick of how long our Rain Of Fire stays out.. with my 14k haste or so i'm sitting at like a 3 second rain of fire.. It's really annoying to cast it that much :(

[obleak 10]

This made heroic horridon a lot easier with positioning i'm getting adds cleaved with boss and the PINK ANNOYING DINO FROM HELL making it easily mananged. We did this fight with a new tank and found it rather easy until last phase where only me and another dps was alive.. luckily my shadowburns and his lavabursts hit so retarded hard we got him down with minimal kiting

Change our aoe by making fnb spells do more and rain of fire channeled.. or like rain of fire damage nerf but spell time UP UP UP and i'd appreciate destro a little more.

** I LOVE SEEING GREEN FIRE EVERYWHERE THOUGH** :D

Edited May 25, 2013 by obleak

[gahhda 95]

This made heroic horridon a lot easier with positioning i'm getting adds cleaved with boss and the PINK ANNOYING DINO FROM HELL making it easily mananged. We did this fight with a new tank and found it rather easy until last phase where only me and another dps was alive.. luckily my shadowburns and his lavabursts hit so retarded hard we got him down with minimal kiting

Change our aoe by making fnb spells do more and rain of fire channeled.. or like rain of fire damage nerf but spell time UP UP UP and i'd appreciate destro a little more.

** I LOVE SEEING GREEN FIRE EVERYWHERE THOUGH**

Hardcasted RoF can die..in a fire...AHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

Serious face. Never, ever, ever, again, will I hard cast RoF. If they make RoF hardcast I will reroll mage.

[obleak 10]

What i meant by changing it is really by making ROF worthless like it is for affliction.. if that change that to hardcast but buff our other spells to cover it we should be ok :)

[Kravn 5]

I'm wondering if it's worth casting Immolate during Fire and Brimstone on short-lived targets - Like Nether Wyrms on Heroic Magaera. I have looked at some logs for other warlocks and it seems they just conflag + incinerate forgoing Immolate entirely on burst targets. Understandably, this would not be ideal when the adds were longer-lived.

[Omaric 246]

I'm wondering if it's worth casting Immolate during Fire and Brimstone on short-lived targets - Like Nether Wyrms on Heroic Magaera. I have looked at some logs for other warlocks and it seems they just conflag + incinerate forgoing Immolate entirely on burst targets. Understandably, this would not be ideal when the adds were longer-lived.

How short lived is short lived? Immolate increases the damage of your RoF and boosts the rate you get embers. Win/win for me.

[obleak 10]

How short lived is short lived? Immolate increases the damage of your RoF and boosts the rate you get embers. Win/win for me.

I would only not Immolate if they're going to die within like 1 or 2 conflags/incinerates

[Netheris 0]

Didn't see this on the main class guide and I know your guide doesn't have macros...That I remember seeing anyway. If it helps someone all the better. I've got a macro I use if you have a focus set, IE: boss and there's a lot of adds in the fight that you have to burn down or one stronger trash mob with many weaker mobs. Makes it easier to use shadowburn with havoc when the adds are getting burned down quick. Plus it helps ember generation. I apologize if it's been mentioned. I didn't recall it being.

/target focus

/cast havoc

/targetlasttarget

[Deathly 0]

I have a question. I have just hit 530 ilvl and am playing destro. I have read threads that suggest to go back to GoSac at this level? Is this higher damage for me now? Also, I have the Unerring VIsion trink, but I have read that is is garbage for a destro lock? is this true? I have been using Breath of the Hydra and CHi thunderforged together.

Thanks for your help!

Best,

Deathly

[Sifon 25]

Hello Deathly, goSac is only benefical on the fights where you can spam Shadowburn and Chaos Bolt or the fights where burst matters. On Horridon, Megaera, Primordius you have crazy ember regen, especially on Primordius. Also Jin'rokh and Ji-kun are the fights where burst matters because of the temporary damage buffs, you can prepare 4 embers for those buffs and have a high Chaos Bolt/Shadowburn % on your damage. Also on Ra-den, you need to burst Anima Orbs as fast as you can, goSac can be an option for it but most of the times you cannot full ticks from Chaos Bolt DoT because orb dies. Fel Imp with Glyph of Demon Hunting is another option for that fight.

Btw, if you are only playing Destruction, it starts to fall behind on your current item level. Best you can do is have Affliction or Demonology(especially Demonology since you have UVLS) main spec and Desturction for add fights and Ra-den.

[Deathly 0]

I haves played affliction in the past so could go back to it. I have never been that great with demo.. I guess because I have never played it for long so I would use go sup with affliction and the UVLS?

Thank for your help btw:) I appreciate it!

[Sifon 25]

UVLS is risky with Affliction but provides best damage on best RNG situation, Wush + Breath is the safe combo.

[tassadar 1]

Hello, fellow warlocks. Could you please assist me in improving my DPS? I have a recent log of Qon, Twins and Lei Shen here: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/8si0p9754btvjnlo/

 

Here is my armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/ru/character/%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B8-%D1%88%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F/advanced

 

Any tips to improve?

[JvChequer 43]

You russians really have an awkward language.

I know Portuguese it is not that easy and stuff but come on! Look these symbols.

[Zagam 1,982]

Yeah, it's going to be too complex to decipher those logs.  If you can convert them to English, perhaps?  Here are some basic checks for you:

 

Immolate uptime: above 95%?

Chaos Bolt: are you using it properly?  with buffs, etc?

Havoc: are you using it?

Rain of Fire uptime: keeping this up?

Shadowburn: using this?

 

If you say yes, yep, yeah, yes, and yeah, then you're more than likely fine. 

[tassadar 1]

Damn, that's a problem with language. Can't find a way to translate the log presentation, unfortunately. Anyways, thanks for the checkpoints, will analyze myself.

 

BTW, how do I measure RoF uptime in WoL? I don't see a number in the column. Do I have to calculate total possible ticks and compare with real ticks?

 

 

 

You russians really have an awkward language.

I know Portuguese it is not that easy and stuff but come on! Look these symbols.

You most probably lack russian fonts in your system. All out letters are cute and attractive.

Edited August 28, 2013 by tassadar