So, this isn’t exactly a secret but Blizz kinda really just obliterated Destro lock in arenas when they removed Demon armor. What’s worse is that we didn’t get any compensation for it, they just made the 10% health that armor gave us baseline, then a few weeks later buffed dark pact but the issue with that is that dark pact just gets very easily shredded through by basically the entire meta at the moment. Hunters break it within moments, DKs obliterate it so fast it’s like you never even used it, warriors do the same thing. Sepsis rogues also do the same thing. Keep in mind these are physical DMG dealers, all of which are impacted by the fact that demon armor was removed. So basically what happened is all those classes just started doing a flat 15% increases dmg to us, since very few things in their kits actually “magic dmg” for DKs it’s all about slappy hands and their pets, the pets the big one because you can avoid slappy hands by hugging a pillar when he uses it. It’s the pet constantly beating you up for 4k+ every melee attack during dark transformation. Then I obviously you got hunter DMG, which also mostly physical, between pet DMG and MM aimed shots. You also got ferals, with their bleeds (also physical) warriors, again more physical DMG. You also have demo locks and their felguard pet that does nasty DMG. And see here’s the biggest problem destro has and why the armor removal hurt it more than it did affliction. The difference is that destro has to do setups, stand still and be able to cast to do any DMG whatsoever, whereas affliction doesn’t really have that problem. You tab target and throw out instant dots and the dots do the DMG for you, almost no casting involved most times until you cast UA or something. Add on top of that, affliction also has inevitable demise, basically it’s a fat heal for them with high stacks with the drain life legendary. Destruction doesn’t have access to that. We get double coils, which were only healed for the impact of 1 coil by the way, and a single cookie that heals for 25% same as the other specs.
Possible fixes for this could be buffing our passive effect of soul leech big time in PvP, Returning Demon Armor as a baseline ability as it shouldve always stayed, or buffing the DMG reduction that our mastery stat gives us.
For all you cry baby whales out there, let me specify that I don’t want destro to be a unkillable tank spec, that’s not what I want. I, along with several other destro mains, just want to actually be able to play the spec on ladder and actually stand a fighting chance. Because as it is right now, we don’t stand a fight chance UNLESS we’re fighting a double caster team, which if you haven’t noticed don’t exist as this is a melee meta.