Yeah, so first off, stop running the “Meta” build for both ST and AoE off the sites. I’ve run sim after sim as well as considering all fight elements, and Demonfire/Soul Fire are completely useless for a variety of reasons.
ST:
And you NEVER cast Shadowburn, it is specifically picked just to unlock the 2/2 Conflag of Chaos.
This build sims higher and is more functional because you aren’t wasting time utilizing moves that yield 0 to less soul shards.
Casting 2 Incenerates w/ Diabolic Embers yields more soul shards than a single soul fire, and even w/ soul fire’s damage buff it doesn’t matter because playing off of Burn to Ashes yields far more damage when incenerating a target affected by your Conflag debuff (incenerate will literally crit for as hard as a 2nd casted chaos bolt AND gives you shards vs same hitting damage from soul fire w/ less overall shards).
Additionally Conflag of Chaos talent makes your Conflag absolutely smash. It starts critting for the same damage as the initial chaos bolt before it gets buffed by Madness.
So now all of a sudden you have 2 moves in your kit that hit just as hard as Chaos Bolts, cast faster/instant, AND build shards. You will get far less jumbled up cutting casts off mid way and wasting damage, and you stay in shard gen far faster.
Run the numbers. The amount of chaos bolts you’ll get with conflag and incenerate damage will out damage soul fire even with the 50% marker and demonfire.
Now let’s talk AoE
I have been running this in my mythics and getting good results. I am still testing but believe I am onto something.
I like my builds to NOT make me useless in boss fights (which i was consistently placing 1st or slightly behind) while still being high on meters for AoE. Is it the best? No. But did it marginalize my numbers vastly? Yes. While still having AMAZING focus damage.
The idea is to utilize fire and brimstone as a shard gainer to funnel more chaos bolts which just again buff your incenerate damage to rinse and repeat. The secret to this is you just have to get Immolate on every target ASAP. It immediately gives you absolutely insane shard generation and casting speed because Flashpoint will stack to max right away.
You have to just start BLASTING chaos bolt and mixing in your conflags to keep that 1 3/4 shard tipping into 2 to get back to back chaos bolts. This will inherently proc Mayhem (which is preferred to not waste a GCD and not be locked out every other pull) and as that procs your conflags will continue to pump your shard deficit up. Once you get an avatar proc at the midpoint where flashpoint falls off it will sustain your output.
A typical rotation for me would look like:
- @ 3 shards w/ 4 - 5 targets
- Immolate all targets
- Cast 2 Incenerates
- Cast 2 Chaos Bolts
- Cast 1 Conflag
- Cast 2 - 3 Incenerates
- Start Chaos bolting and mixing in Conflags to keep the good times rolling
I did find myself always starting clear pulls at the top then falling off rather quickly. Which was fine because I was utilizing things such as Shadowfury and keeping my Chaos Bolts locked on priority targets. So I was contributing focus damage and making sure mechanics were being handled.
I’m happy with that spot and having the spurts of being on top of the AoE charts depending on others cool downs. I found myself VERY consistent with my AoE with this build and I was still clearing top meters on bosses depending. Mayhem is really such a great talent in mythics and encounters where adds randomly pop up. Those I almost always won out on.
The biggest thing about Destro in general is that it is like Black Mage from FFXIV. You have to have prior knowledge/experience of the encounter and plan your movement out ahead of time. If you are not utilizing Demonic Circle and recasting it during small positional shifts and when you can conflag to make up the .6 lost time, you are not playing the spec optimally.
Sorry we don’t get to Zug-Zug and Run N’ Gun. We require a little forethought to contend. It’s the appeal of the class.
Oh and we bring curses, health stones, get out of jail Gate Card, some of the strongest defensives in game, and though Battle Rez’s are pretty wide now, we still do have that too. Not to mention the ever convenient lock closet. Someone got lost? Summon. Someone dropped and you get someone new? Summon. People are lazy and didn’t run back/had to bio. Summon.
I’ll be testing further in raid this week. But so far I am very happy with these results.
Again, my ST build is simming higher than the “Meta” build posted. Please run the build for yourself:
- Load your character in game
- Change Talents
- Log Out
- Use raidbots-> Quick Sim → Look at talents to confirm it updated
- Run it
- Repeat 1 to 5 w/ the meta build, mine wins every time (And it performs better because of the mentioned cast times in comparison to Forever Soul Fire Waste of Time + Lock in Place and get no Soul Shards Demon Fire)