Destro: Demon or no demon?

[IceTwenty 0]

Quick backstory: I've made this Warlock alt my main for WoD, having played Shaman in Wrath/Cata and Mage in MoP (for the two whole months I played MoP, anyway). I'm getting the hang of it, but compared to the time I've spent as a Shaman, I'm a total warlock nub.

 

In terms of spec, I've more or less settled on Destruction (Demo's my favorite but my DPS sucks in it, Affliction is boring to me now that Nightfall is a soul-shard-generator proc instead of a cool free shadowbolt proc), but now I'm trying to make this decision:

 

Grimoire of Sacrifice + Catacylsm/Charred Remains

 

vs

 

Grimoire of Supremacy + Demonic Servitude

 

So, basically, trying to figure out whether it's better to have a perma-Terrorguard, or have no demon but get the Sacrifice boost plus the extra talent ability (or if both of these choices are subpar and I should go with a different combo). Also, I'm assuming Charred Remains is better for single-target DPS (moar chaos bolts) while Cataclysm is for AoE fights, correct? If so, I'll take CR, because I'm trying to focus on improving boss DPS.

[Astynax 24]

Presently, it is nigh impossible for any charred remains build to keep up simply because of the massive amount of damage your terror guard represents.(25-30% of your total). As we gain more secondaries, charred remains will scale better. Even now, it can vary a bit fight to fight. But in general, charred remains is simply not there yet.

Edit: cataclysm is pretty shit for destro. In 99% of cases, you are better off with charred remains as a heavy AoE talent. I can't think of a scenario I would advise it over either of the other two talents. It's main usage is in demo spec, and occasionally aff... Sometimes.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Astynax

[Garmeth 2]

I sincerely hope that charred remains never becomes standard for destro in your standard single target + some cleaving fights. It is an abhorrently designed talent.

 

Who wants to cast chaos bolt every 4 seconds without KJC. Even with KJC the monotony would be extreme.

[Cedrin 3]

My terror guard did more dps than me on tectus lol. Yeah I had to move a lot and was a mess of a kill but was still out dps by terror guard. I did 17k I think, I under preformed but still see destro as lowest 90th percentile dps on that fight. Long story short really can't go wrong with supremacy , servitude at the moment.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Cedrin

[Astynax 24]

I sincerely hope that charred remains never becomes standard for destro in your standard single target + some cleaving fights. It is an abhorrently designed talent.

 

Who wants to cast chaos bolt every 4 seconds without KJC. Even with KJC the monotony would be extreme.

Aaa and the situation below you is better?? I mean really. Launching a ton of green dragon heads is sweet! Being dependent on your demon for a majority of your damage is not. At all.

[Garmeth 2]

Aaa and the situation below you is better?? I mean really. Launching a ton of green dragon heads is sweet! Being dependent on your demon for a majority of your damage is not. At all.

I certainly prefer it! I compare CR in my mind to affliction post snapshot removal, I liked saving up precious embers and unleashing them with procs, it feels less powerful with CR. 

 

Though AOEing a bunch of chaos bolts is hilarious.

[Astynax 24]

I certainly prefer it! I compare CR in my mind to affliction post snapshot removal, I liked saving up precious embers and unleashing them with procs, it feels less powerful with CR. 

 

Though AOEing a bunch of chaos bolts is hilarious.

The other way if looking at it is that DS is literally aff post snapshotting. That is: a mindless, literally thoughtless dps boost. Not to mention that you are your demon's bitch now.... I play warlock to control gel magics. Not have a deep voiced demon make me his pincushion to be competitive.

[Zagam 1,982]

I sincerely hope that charred remains never becomes standard for destro in your standard single target + some cleaving fights. It is an abhorrently designed talent.

 

Who wants to cast chaos bolt every 4 seconds without KJC. Even with KJC the monotony would be extreme.

It's really no better than spamming Incinerate.  The spec is very spammy.  I feel that they gutted Chaos Bolt's core damage because of the perk that reduces cast time.  They overnerfed it since most of the PvP talk is "oh, go ahead and let him cast Chaos Bolt, his Fear is more important to interrupt."  "Chaos Noodle" is another term I've heard.  In PvE, the lack of movement with Destruction just makes this bad.  The penalty to Incinerate and Conflagrate is too steep.

 

My terror guard did more dps than me on tectus lol.

This isn't unusual.

 

I certainly prefer it! I compare CR in my mind to affliction post snapshot removal, I liked saving up precious embers and unleashing them with procs, it feels less powerful with CR. 

 

Though AOEing a bunch of chaos bolts is hilarious.

Tried Charred Remains for one pull on Heroic Imperator Mar'gok - I felt like I was doing better AoE spamming FnB Incinerate than weaving Chaos Bolts in.  It looks sweet but watching CB hit for 30k is disheartening.

 

The other way if looking at it is that DS is literally aff post snapshotting. That is: a mindless, literally thoughtless dps boost. Not to mention that you are your demon's bitch now.... I play warlock to control gel magics. Not have a deep voiced demon make me his pincushion to be competitive.

Your pet beating you will change as you grow in power.  Pets never scale as well.  I would imagine by the time people get to 680ish, SB:Haunt will take over for Affliction but I can't see Charred Remains doing shit for Destruction with scaling.  Cataclysm will always be a niche spell.  The cooldown just doesn't facilitate usefulness.  Destruction and Affliction right now are mindless filler spam (Incinerate and Drain Soul) while your pet pushes your limits to see if you can beat him with one ability.

[Astynax 24]

Your pet beating you will change as you grow in power.  Pets never scale as well.  I would imagine by the time people get to 680ish, SB:Haunt will take over for Affliction but I can't see Charred Remains doing shit for Destruction with scaling.  Cataclysm will always be a niche spell.  The cooldown just doesn't facilitate usefulness.  Destruction and Affliction right now are mindless filler spam (Incinerate and Drain Soul) while your pet pushes your limits to see if you can beat him with one ability.

 

Right. It's the same thing we were seeing in SoO before the changes to mltistrike with GoSac becoming the most useful at a decent ilvl + KTT. Only now pets gain multistrike as well. Once we start being more reliant on the secondary stat gain from gear, we can stop being our pet's bitch. Cata and destro feel like a really poor combination, and you have to do something crazy with that 1 min CD for a immo app to make it feel good. Destro and Aff feel so bad right now. My only enjoyment out of it has been trying to make aff feel good in CMs during heavy multi-dot trash pulls. Even then it's painful.

 

Curious as to why you don't see charred remains surpassing our doomguard? Most of the parses I've seen haven't bee pushing that much lower than him, and I haven't seen any ridiuclous levels of mastery yet out of anybody that isn't crazy top-tier.Just don't think we can sacrifice that constant damage/the movement-light nature of CR will catch up with us? Or is the initial value just that crazy high? 

[Cedrin 3]

Zag is like the clean up hitter. Just came in and owned this topic lol

[Astynax 24]

Zag is like the clean up hitter. Just came in and owned this topic lol

 

It's not done yet. Locky has yet to post a "You have been served." pic/gif.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Astynax

[Zagam 1,982]

Curious as to why you don't see charred remains surpassing our doomguard? Most of the parses I've seen haven't bee pushing that much lower than him, and I haven't seen any ridiuclous levels of mastery yet out of anybody that isn't crazy top-tier.Just don't think we can sacrifice that constant damage/the movement-light nature of CR will catch up with us? Or is the initial value just that crazy high? 

Charred Remains lets your Incinerate and Conflagrate do 40% of their initial damage and generate 3 Burning Ember bits per hit, 6 on a crit.  CR is directly tied to the damage of Chaos Bolt since a larger percentage of your damage will be CB.  The problem with CB is it doesn't hit hard enough to make CR worthwhile.  Even with scaling, you're still doing atrocious DPS between Chaos Bolts. 

 

I swapped to CR last night on Imperator for just doing the adds.  I was outpaced and destroyed by an Enhancement Shaman spamming Fire Nova.  I never fell out of Fire and Brimstone and my rotation included Dark Soul and Copeland's usage.  It just doesn't push AoE like it used to.  Mastery scaling with boost FnB a bit, but the AoE CBs are kinda crap right now.  I think for a sustained, heavy AoE fight, CR will have some value, but it feels like it just falls behind.

[Astynax 24]

Charred Remains lets your Incinerate and Conflagrate do 40% of their initial damage and generate 3 Burning Ember bits per hit, 6 on a crit.  CR is directly tied to the damage of Chaos Bolt since a larger percentage of your damage will be CB.  The problem with CB is it doesn't hit hard enough to make CR worthwhile.  Even with scaling, you're still doing atrocious DPS between Chaos Bolts. 

 

I swapped to CR last night on Imperator for just doing the adds.  I was outpaced and destroyed by an Enhancement Shaman spamming Fire Nova.  I never fell out of Fire and Brimstone and my rotation included Dark Soul and Copeland's usage.  It just doesn't push AoE like it used to.  Mastery scaling with boost FnB a bit, but the AoE CBs are kinda crap right now.  I think for a sustained, heavy AoE fight, CR will have some value, but it feels like it just falls behind.

 

 

Sooo, potentially dumb question on the way:

 

Is that then to say that more of our damage is tied up in our filler spells now? I remember back in SoO I, as a poorly geared, noob destro lock, had parses and fights of chaos bolt being 40%+ of my overall damage, followed relatively quickly by shadowburn. Lots of this was, admittedly, the add-centric nature of SoO encounters, but it doesn't feel like highmaul is that much different. I realize that 15% haste, 25% crit, and 110% mastery are inconceivable numbers at the present, but   it feels like we're moving that direction quicker than not. Am I just crazy? Or did they actually change the physics of destruction since then? Or am I not giving enough creed to the power that was wrapped up in our ability to havoc + shadowburn/chaosbolt? 

[Zagam 1,982]

Not a noob question.

 

Right now, if you look at our damage distribution, Incinerate is hitting on average about 1/4 of what Chaos Bolt does.  Doom Bolt closely matches Incinerate.  Immolate seems to be a low damage portion, but the BE effect is what motivates the 100% uptime.

 

In MoP, your dungeon blues started at 463.  By the end of the expansion, you were at 589 at BiS, a difference of 126 item levels.  However, from blues to MSV, you went up 13 item levels.  From HoF/ToES to ToT, you went up 26 item levels (496->522) and the game introduced Thunderforged.  In SoO, you went from 522->553, a jump of 31 item levels along with the introduction of Warforged. 

 

In WoD, you start at 630 blues.  However, because of the new lockout system, you actually have 4 tiers of gearing you can do EVERY WEEK which is absurd.  In the past, you could only do normals or heroics, not both, in conjunction with LFR.  So right now you can replace your 630s with 640s from LFR/CMs, 655s from Normal, 670s from Heroic, and finally 685s with Mythic.  You can theoretically go up 55 item levels, 61 if it's Mythic Warforged!  Never in WoW have they allowed you to soar up 61 item levels in the first tier - and the tier isn't even over!  We will have access to item level 701 gear when BRF comes out that will give a power jump of 71 (SEVENTY ONE!) item levels in the first tier.  To give you an idea of how big gear is in comparable terms, it'd be like having you go in MoP from 463 blues to 534 gear before you left ToES while the highest item level you could get back then was 509 with select items being higher if you did the first boss of ToES the hard way. 

 

Power growth is a real thing and it's why gear is a serious playing factor.  This is why those guilds that have cleared Mythic used the repeatable raid system to gear up 4 players per raid funneling all gear to them.  My guild wants to skip Normals and go right to Heroics and then Mythic because they're stuck in the old mindset that if you can do Heroics, Normals have no value.  This is why my guild spreadsheet is so handy - it highlights all of the 630s and 640s in our guild's gear to show that Normals DO have upgrades even after 2 weeks of clearing normal and heroic.  Upgrading from 630 to 655 is a legitimate gain.  They're slowly getting it watching some of the people go from 640 to 660 almost double their burst DPS and sustain over 50% higher than they did at 640. 

 

To answer your question, since I sidetracked a bit for context, it's not the design of the classes that feels the power creep - it's completely attributable to gear. 

[Gnar 26]

Chaos Bolt got a massive chunk of its *SP mod removed. Something like 40% knocked off what was only 260%. Multiply that by the other *1.24 mod and you have like a loss of 50% of your spellpower going into its damage.  Heafty loss when you then add in stats. I believe the biggest reason for this was the addition of multistrike but that my speculation.

 

Edit: This is its base damage as well, ie before it crits

Edited December 16, 2014 by Gnar

[Astynax 24]

Chaos Bolt got a massive chunk of its *SP mod removed. Something like 40% knocked off what was only 260%. Multiply that by the other *1.24 mod and you have like a loss of 50% of your spellpower going into its damage.  Heafty loss when you then add in stats. I believe the biggest reason for this was the addition of multistrike but that my speculation.

 

Was not aware. TYVM.

[Saifadin 0]

Not a noob question.

 

Right now, if you look at our damage distribution, Incinerate is hitting on average about 1/4 of what Chaos Bolt does.  Doom Bolt closely matches Incinerate.  Immolate seems to be a low damage portion, but the BE effect is what motivates the 100% uptime.

 

In MoP, your dungeon blues started at 463.  By the end of the expansion, you were at 589 at BiS, a difference of 126 item levels.  However, from blues to MSV, you went up 13 item levels.  From HoF/ToES to ToT, you went up 26 item levels (496->522) and the game introduced Thunderforged.  In SoO, you went from 522->553, a jump of 31 item levels along with the introduction of Warforged. 

 

In WoD, you start at 630 blues.  However, because of the new lockout system, you actually have 4 tiers of gearing you can do EVERY WEEK which is absurd.  In the past, you could only do normals or heroics, not both, in conjunction with LFR.  So right now you can replace your 630s with 640s from LFR/CMs, 655s from Normal, 670s from Heroic, and finally 685s with Mythic.  You can theoretically go up 55 item levels, 61 if it's Mythic Warforged!  Never in WoW have they allowed you to soar up 61 item levels in the first tier - and the tier isn't even over!  We will have access to item level 701 gear when BRF comes out that will give a power jump of 71 (SEVENTY ONE!) item levels in the first tier.  To give you an idea of how big gear is in comparable terms, it'd be like having you go in MoP from 463 blues to 534 gear before you left ToES while the highest item level you could get back then was 509 with select items being higher if you did the first boss of ToES the hard way. 

 

Power growth is a real thing and it's why gear is a serious playing factor.  This is why those guilds that have cleared Mythic used the repeatable raid system to gear up 4 players per raid funneling all gear to them.  My guild wants to skip Normals and go right to Heroics and then Mythic because they're stuck in the old mindset that if you can do Heroics, Normals have no value.  This is why my guild spreadsheet is so handy - it highlights all of the 630s and 640s in our guild's gear to show that Normals DO have upgrades even after 2 weeks of clearing normal and heroic.  Upgrading from 630 to 655 is a legitimate gain.  They're slowly getting it watching some of the people go from 640 to 660 almost double their burst DPS and sustain over 50% higher than they did at 640. 

 

To answer your question, since I sidetracked a bit for context, it's not the design of the classes that feels the power creep - it's completely attributable to gear. 

 

Hi mate,

 

I agree with you 100% and its all just logical and I can feel the DPS upgrades. But I have one question, which doesnt just concern warlocks.

If I lets say have a 630 iLvl (mastery+crit) shoulder and I get a iLvl 655 one from highmaul with lets say tempo+versatility. What would be the best action if I would go for crit+mastery in my stat priority? Should I exchange it or just keep my 630 iLvl shoulder on? We have been discussing this a lot in my guild and we are not completely sure about.

The lack of reforging makes this difficult to answer. Especially because int has a much higher scaling then the secondary stats, if we believe simcraft.^^

 

I would be happy about your answers!

Edited December 16, 2014 by Saifadin

[Lockybalboa 618]

Int/Agl/Str is always everyones best stat right now. ilvl of anything more then 5 or 6 > stat priority *in most cases for most classes*. Secondary stats are so close to each other for just about all classes that the int/agl/str gain will out weigh it.

 

In the heroic blues to Highmaul normal range, the 25ilvl gain is CLEARLY more important then the secondary stats.

[Saifadin 0]

Int/Agl/Str is always everyones best stat right now. ilvl of anything more then 5 or 6 > stat priority *in most cases for most classes*. Secondary stats are so close to each other for just about all classes that the int/agl/str gain will out weigh it.

 

In the heroic blues to Highmaul normal range, the 25ilvl gain is CLEARLY more important then the secondary stats.

 

Thanks this will help our guild immensly in terms of DPSing and progressing. 

[Zagam 1,982]

The only time I'd bypass an item level upgrade is if it was a warforged option or a gem option. 

 

For example, let's say you have 655 shoulders with Crit/Mastery as Destruction.  Let's say 661 shoulders drop that are Haste/Versatility.  I'd keep the 655s.  However, if 670 shoulders drop with Haste and Versatility, I'm going with them. 

 

By contrast, if I have 661 shoulders and a 665 that is similarly itemized with a socket, I'm going with the socket because I get to pick extra secondary stats, and it's likely to offset the small change in Intellect. 

 

TL;DR: If the item level difference is 10 or more, upgrade to higher item level.  Otherwise, evaluate and decide - the difference will be small.