For E.N. - Destro or Demo?

[TheDiscoEffect 0]

Circa 840 iLevel mainly Destro warlock here (16 traits in, with 2 gold for Destro artifact) and have been dabbling in Demo as well.  I find Demo harder to do than Destro, mainly cause I haven't played it much.  Just wondering if going Destro on all the Emerald Nightmare bosses is ok or should I get more proficient with Demo? I find Demo is constantly casting Demo Empowerment, etc, I feel like I'm spinning several plates on sticks at a time lol.

And Affliction is worthless I assume now?

[Valks 2,375]

If you want to see what people are generally choosing for each fight, we now have the wonderful tool of Warcraft Logs. 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/10#class=Warlock

At the link above, you can see the top 10 players in DPS for each boss fight and then see which specs are performing the best from that. It should also tell you if it's possible to perform very well with all the specs or if one is destroying the others.

[spikeysquad 50]

Demo is also much more punishing if you mess up the rotation and/or have to move. Take a look at:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#difficulty=3&boss=1853 Where it says all bosses flick through each fight. The main fights that people  do a little better with Demo are the single target ones. I have left it at 75th percentile because I am only an average player but feel free to change that if you are aiming sky high. The difference there is more but then they do more overall as well.

Anyhow, at the 75th the difference between Demo and Destro is less than 15k which is nothing (well in my opinion). One miscast could cost you more than that so personally until I am better with Demo I will most likely get much better numbers with Destro.   

I personally do not see a need for Affliction yet (it's single target is one of the worst) but if you play it a lot better you may get better results. Of course the tuning pass may tip everything on its head so it is good to keep on top of all specs at this point in time.

Edited September 23, 2016 by spikeysquad

[Valks 2,375]

Please remember that these 75th percentile links are VERY unreliable at the moment. You have nearly double as many parses as Destro than you do as Demo on Nythendra, for example. So, on Heroic, you would be compared the 150th top Demo players vs. the 300-325th top Destro player.

Need to wait a lot longer for these 75th percentile things to become reliable.

[Stunlocked 8]

58 minutes ago, Blainie said:

If you want to see what people are generally choosing for each fight, we now have the wonderful tool of Warcraft Logs. 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/10#class=Warlock

At the link above, you can see the top 10 players in DPS for each boss fight and then see which specs are performing the best from that. It should also tell you if it's possible to perform very well with all the specs or if one is destroying the others.

Well, you have to take anything in WCL for the 'top players' with a grain of salt.  No offense to them (I'm sure they're all much better than I am) - but most of the really good guilds don't publicly release their logs this early.    

 

The general consensus going into the opening of raids was that both Destruction and Demonology are good for EN, but Destruction probably shines on more fights than Demonology does.  Just from what I've seen Dragons of Nightmare, Cenarius, and Xavius provide some great opportunities to use Havoc.  

Edited September 23, 2016 by Stunlocked

[spikeysquad 50]

Yeah absolutely Blainie but there will always be more of one spec no matter what level. What percentile would you say is better to look at?  Or are you saying avoid then all? I personally don't like the 90 plus because they can get far more out of a spec than I can. Some will be "lucky" parses that have say 50% trinket uptime rather than the usual say 20%, they never have to move for an ability or potions that bug out. Not trying to take anything away from the top skilled players but the highest parses often have very good RNG as well.

If you take another look at your link Blainie people might think that for Il'gynoth Demo is the one to play as its top 3. Ah maybe I am wrong but I doubt that most people would do better in that spec after looking at the 1-200 results. 

Edited September 23, 2016 by spikeysquad

[Valks 2,375]

I'm basically saying that everything at this moment in time should be looked at beyond just face value. When looking at the top 10, as you say, you should actually open up the boss' log and see more than just top 10.

For the 75th percentile, keep in mind actual parse numbers etc.

There's way too many right now that are simply quoting this stuff as bible, like with the Outlaw vs Assass thing.

[spikeysquad 50]

Ok that makes sense Blainie and I agree so perhaps I should have put a disclaimer on it. I'm pretty used to looking at logs but someone who isn't may not appreciate what they really show. Either way though those 6000 odd results over all 3 specs (and that's just one percentile range) are much better than me saying well my guildy beat me with Demo or my friend as Affliction is beating all the Destro locks he sees.

Ah I have no clue about other classes/specs but indeed sometimes the logs change with more parses and yeah some top guilds may be holding their logs back. So yeah take some salt people just in case. 

[Valks 2,375]

It's definitely better than just simple X vs. Y comparison, people just jump to conclusions too quickly! Thanks for contributing anyway :)