Destruction Nerf Inevitable

[Zagam 1,982]

Well, I hope you guys are staying versed in other specs.  Trends are showing Destruction picking up and taking off to the point that it can't be left unchecked.  Here is some of the data...

 

Source: http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Score/10H/100/14/60/default/#1111111111111111111111100000000000

 

10m H Top 100 Parses DPS

Overall Score: #1 (5 percentage points over #2) 

 

#1 Immerseus (67k over #2)

#1 Norushen (2k over #2)

#1 Sha of Pride (34k over #2, Fury Warriors, and 58k over #3)

#1 Galakras (28k over #2, Elemental Shamans)

#1 Dark Shamans (33k over #2, Affliction)

#1 Spoils of Pandaria (29k over #2, Fury Warriors)

#2 Iron Juggernaut (9k behind #1, Affliction)

#2 Nazgrim (14k behind #1, Affliction, still well above average)

#2 Malkorok (3k behind #1, Affliction, 11k over #3, Fury)

#4 Thok (#1 is Affliction)

#7 Fallen Protectors (#1 is Affliction by a landslide)

 

NO DATA on Siegecrafter, Klaxxi, and Garrosh.  Seeing that many fights where Destruction is that far ahead is discerning.  When Destruction isn't the best, Affliction is, which is more concerning overall.  Personally, I think it's because most of the good players gravitated away from Demonology in why that spec isn't performing well on Raidbots. 

 

Situation isn't the same with 25 man.  Apparently in 25s, Fury Warriors are leaking to the top with the ocassional Destruction/Affliction appearance.

 

Personally, I can't see how it's justifiable to leave Destruction where it's at.  It's getting out of hand like Demo and Arcane did in ToT.  Do NOT be surprised if you see a nerf coming in the next week or two.  I'd estimate taking something away from Immolate.  It is hitting so hard right now, it's unreal.  Affliction is still creeping up and will continue to do so as heroic raiders gather more gear.  Demonology is going to make a climb back into the ranks if a nerf is announced to either Affliction or Destruction.  I'm going to be working on Demonology in the next couple of weeks because I think most skilled Warlocks are just avoiding the spec all together, especially without PBI. 

 

Also, for those that are like 'well, that's just Heroic top parses"...it's happening in normal, too.  It's happening everywhere, all the time.  I think Destruction is as overpowered in PvE as Warriors are in PvP right now.

 

TL;DR: Brace yourself, I think nerfs are on the horizon.

[Omaric 246]

If anything they'll nerf warlocks in general.  We can switch to a different spec for most fights and still kick ass.

 

I don't see many more balance passes coming along though unless it gets absolutely ridiculous.  They're working on their next expansion and probably figuring out how to tune all classes with the "stat smush".

 

Personally I avoided Demonology after the UVLS nerf because everything Demonology had previously been doing well, Affliction was then doing better.  Then the Destruction buffs kicked in, making it viable, and eventually extremely good.  I'm sure there may be another Demonology shift, but it's still more of a pain in the ass spec than the other two to play correctly.

[Zagam 1,982]

Yeah, I agree, but I think this data represents the very idea of absolutely ridiculous.  They validated it back in ToT when Arcane and Demo got out of hand, and now it's Destro and Aff getting out of hand with Fury Warriors being a close 3rd on fights with low movement. 

 

Tuning won't be difficult with a stat smush.  The difference between 3k DPS and 3.5k DPS will be the difference between normal and heroic raiders, similar to what 300k and 350k is now.  The thing is we've been mathematically trained to see 500 as a negligible number, so seeing all the DPS between 3k and 3.5k will feel fine until we actually feel it.  It'll also make the difference between good and great players SEEM smaller while still being percentage-based impactful. 

[Rakupenda 15]

You're right about the lack of Demo locks out there right now. Still a bad taste from the UVLS nerf that they are sticking to what they know is good vs trying out the "new" Demo. When more guilds start to full clear every week, you'll start seeing some experimentation for top parsing.

 

When I get PBI I'll be dropping Affi for Demo and running a Mastery/Crit build.

[Omaric 246]

I guess the question is then, are we "exploiting game mechanics" ?  :P

[Zagam 1,982]

I'll probably be 'exploiting' by playing Demo.  Still going Destruction for my farm of Cho'gall residents on the Timeless Isle tonight.  Bitches beware, soon as I'm done carving my pumpkin, I'll be slaying thee.  Nothing better than one shotting two kiddies with Havoc Chaos Bolt then seeing the DoT carry over as a rage in general chat.

[Rakupenda 15]

I'll probably be 'exploiting' by playing Demo.  Still going Destruction for my farm of Cho'gall residents on the Timeless Isle tonight.  Bitches beware, soon as I'm done carving my pumpkin, I'll be slaying thee.  Nothing better than one shotting two kiddies with Havoc Chaos Bolt then seeing the DoT carry over as a rage in general chat.

Priceless.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Doesnt shock me. Saw it coming a mile away. As long as Blizz keeps up with this total lack of understanding for how warlocks work we'll keep seeing this up and down ride.

 

Makes me wonder though, being as Warlocks have one of the best communities and really there are no other classes that can even come close to ours, other than maybe Prot Pallys and a very small group of rogues, would the other classes be in a better place both in overall DPS and in making more out of less, if they had a community like ours?

 

Is it the warlock class that is OP or is it the community that fuels it OP?

 

Imo, it's 80% community 20% class. Maybe 70-30.

[Sagnuts 1]

Nerf locks. It's needed. I'm over the flavor of the expac aspect of warlocks now. They gave way too much attention to them this expac. 

[Kazistrasz 216]

Doesnt shock me. Saw it coming a mile away. As long as Blizz keeps up with this total lack of understanding for how warlocks work we'll keep seeing this up and down ride.

 

Makes me wonder though, being as Warlocks have one of the best communities and really there are no other classes that can even come close to ours, other than maybe Prot Pallys and a very small group of rogues, would the other classes be in a better place both in overall DPS and in making more out of less, if they had a community like ours?

 

Is it the warlock class that is OP or is it the community that fuels it OP?

 

Imo, it's 80% community 20% class. Maybe 70-30.

 

This. There's nothing inherently OP about Warlocks. It's the fact that we have, and have almost always had, the best community of any class in terms of theorycrafting, leading to the best distribution of data on how to properly play the class.

[leech6590 1]

I still play with UVLS (reg)and PBI (H) as demo and even when my trinket procs more than 2x a fight, my imps do so little dmg its embarrassing :( 

[Liquidsteel 279]

I took a look at raidbots last week and yeah, suffice to say, destruction ruling the roost at the top.

 

I'm not convinced they will gut the spec though, they've been trying and trying to get it to work for a while, especially this patch. I'd probably see them do a final balance tweak in 5.5 rather than apply major hotfixes. If they do, it will just be a minor tweak to immolate as Zagam said - I really don't see another drastic measure. The two main nerfs we've seen were aimed at demo with t15 trinket (and imps) and arcane with t15 4 set, which both addressed (for the most part) issues with previous tier items being better than current tier equivalents. 

 

That said, a few hours I picked up demo again and will play it on malkorok and then thok progression on sunday. Primarily because we have no other alternative to the mortal strike debuff which is apparently quite important. 

 

I'm quite happy to see it brought back if destro gets the slap on the wrist, in BiS gear it seems to hold up, though it currently sims a whole 20k lower than destruction. Like always, sims dont mean anything, and having to move really fucks destro whereas the others can adapt accordingly.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Liquidsteel

[Omaric 246]

You guys honestly think it's the community that makes our class good? Cuz, I mean, I was pulling retarded DPS in MSV before I even thought about checking out other locks.

If you believe that's the case though, let's all go play Marksman Hunters and test out the theory!

P.S. We're OP and Blizz can't deal with the massive changes that were made to Warlocks in MoP. However, many people swapped to Warlocks this expansion because of how awesome they became (myself included) and they're almost obligated to keep them really competitive. It doesn't take a genius to play Destruction well, as an example.

Edit: Absolutely *not* saying our community isn't stellar though, it's easily one of the best.

[Vreivai 0]

Doesnt shock me. Saw it coming a mile away. As long as Blizz keeps up with this total lack of understanding for how warlocks work we'll keep seeing this up and down ride.

 

Makes me wonder though, being as Warlocks have one of the best communities and really there are no other classes that can even come close to ours, other than maybe Prot Pallys and a very small group of rogues, would the other classes be in a better place both in overall DPS and in making more out of less, if they had a community like ours?

 

Is it the warlock class that is OP or is it the community that fuels it OP?

 

Imo, it's 80% community 20% class. Maybe 70-30.

If this is the case, what the fuck happened in Dragon Soul?

[Lockybalboa 618]

If this is the case, what the fuck happened in Dragon Soul?

 

 

I wasn't playing warlock then so I have no idea either way. I was speaking strictly post-5.0

[Calol 5]

A nerf to destro will hurt 25m where I raid. But it doesn't seem that blizzard doesn't pay attention to the majority of raiders they look at the data of the low percent of 10m heroic. This patch is still to new for even 25% of raid groups to be clearing 12/12 heroic.

[Ilion 8]

Lol, no, they won't nerf destro.

 

They will nerf PBI for locks AND destro.

 

 

EDIT: Oh, and agree with Locky, the warlock community is simply amazing.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Ilion

[Calenthaurin 1]

I wouldn't mind seeing demo above destro on all fight tbh as the demo rotation is much more complicated.

 

Btw I think Blizz made a terrible bet by trying such novelty trinket : UVLS, and now PPBI and multistrike ones... The balancing of such trinkets per class/specc is god damn hard so yea, they made their own balancing work much more complicated suddenly.

[Brown 14]

If this is the case, what the fuck happened in Dragon Soul?

Wasn't playing back then but I recall reading that warlock DPS back then required using like 4-5 dots, 3-4 cds, 2-3 debuffs and pet-swapping to do solid dps when any other DPS class had half as many buttons to do just as much DPS (the breakdown was like 21 abilities for lock v. 10-11 for mage IIRC).

 

Blizzard made a lot of terrible bets. Like relying on a marine biologist to be lead dev when there are better options available (the better options who are now in charge of developing next expansion).

[JvChequer 43]

Gosac nerf for destro is pretty much on the line.

[Moozedude 47]

Am I the only one who's with Omaric and thinks it'd be funny if we actually DID all make hunters?  Just for S&G?

[Kazistrasz 216]

Nah, let's all do a class no one pays much attention to: WW monks. Everyone roll a WW monk.

[Ilion 8]

Anyway, Destro's DPS is really inflated, most of our Shadowburns' damage is not really useful but we still cast them because of the embers (oh, and because meter padding is cool too).

[Brown 14]

Am I the only one who's with Omaric and thinks it'd be funny if we actually DID all make hunters?  Just for S&G?

I can't afford to be drunk all the time to bring myself down to the intelligence level (or lack thereof) required to play a hunter.

[Vreivai 0]

Gosac nerf for destro is pretty much on the line.

 

That would be most in line with what's been happening this expansion. It's actually viable single target and at high levels of mastery better than the other two, and Ghostcrawler seems to hate the talent.

 

Probably would be the best route to nerf it through, though, were the nerf to happen.