tldr:
At current tuning (which yes, yes, we all know, it’s literally first week of beta, calm down) it’s literally Not Necessary to cast Chaos Bolt to max out DPS.
The obvious solution is to buff CB over the equivalent values of (Rain of Fire + Incinerate). Kalamazi does the napkin math in the video.
So essentially, Warlocks have a currently-superior Fire Warlock build.
Is this good or bad? Is this a valid spicy choice or cursed design fail?
Thoughts? Opinions?
I am a filthy casual and the last time I was a Cool Kid was Cata but IMHO as a 10 year warlock (if that has any value) I think this is bad.
On the first Shivarra hand, under no circumstance should our damage be such that Chaos Bolt is not necessary. On the other Shivarra hand I think it’s good more of our damage is no longer tied to Chaos Bolt and Infernal CD, which is what everyone basically agreed needed to happen, from Elites to Casuals. On my Shivarra’s third hand, a CB buff will lead to many a nerd REE-ing into the Maw. On my Shivarra’s fourth hand, maybe there’s an indirect solution that isn’t “nerf x, buff y”?
6 Likes
I kinda like it. Having 2 different solid playstyles in just 1 spec, it’s awesome. Not having to be dependent on the same ability we have been using for years (with that horrible animation) feels nice. I like the “choice”.
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Doing the same amount of damage with two schools beats doing it with a chaos lockout. Doesn’t it make more sense to use the spellpower scaling for the maths?
If the No-Ice-Lance Frost Mage is anything to go by, having a No-Chaos-Bolt Destro is certainly a design fail in Blizzards eyes. I like the idea of having a pure Fire build. Perhaps they can rework Soul Fire to be a pure Fire damage Shard spender that replaces Chaos Bolt, so we’re not being bad little Warlocks and using RoF on single target (because apparently Blizzard hates that too). I feel like Supremacy/Sacrifice would need some love to be competitive with RB if they went down that route though.
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As soon as blizzard gets a hold of Rain of Fire being used as single target, I think they’ll address it.
I also like the idea of having two play styles in one spec. A lot of other classes have this choice, destro never had (at least since MoP, which is when I switched mains).
Maybe soul fire could be a “replaces chaos bolt” talent so it doesn’t feel like we’re playing it wrong. Idk.
I wonder if changing the conflag buff to only increase single target fire damage would make the build bad. I hope not. And I hope we can keep this fire only build.
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I kind of like the idea of having an aoe spec for mythics. On fort weeks this talent combo will probably be amazing
I always felt weird when everyone else is doing aoe, and I’m over there as destro just cleaving bolts onto 2 targets because my aoe is absolute trash
I also think rain of fire is such a staple destro ability that it should see more use
Having this build pull ahead for single target is kinda weird tho. Maybe it’ll be fun but idk. I do think Blizzard will change it tho. They don’t like aoe being part of single target unless you’re the Teacher’s pet Demon Hunter class
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I honestly kinda like this style of play better than normal destro. The constantly building power on power is cool conceptually, add in the old on fire graphical effects and it is closer to how I feel destro should feel on a sheet of paper.
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I don’t see how this video is proving fire warlock is superior. You’d have to use different talents and legendaries for starters to compare fire vs chaos. You’d also want to test both over many minutes.
What this does show though is chaos bolt isn’t needed much in a fire build. In movement or havoc situations it could be worth using chaos bolt still.
err ir proves it with math showing it is theoretically more damage. And how does 3 second chaosbolts get picked for more movement?
That aside, I am excited for an all fire build. Soulfire looks somewhat absurd to use, constant cleave/aoe with RoF, and it looks like it will flow better than chaosbolts. CB is in a weird place these days as far as the damage that it should do.
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just put chaosbolt on a cd like it was in WOTLK.
9 Likes
they should remove the shard cost of ROF, bring back Fire and Brimestone like we had in mop.
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Many people complained about Incinerate being just a filler spell. If you played destro back in TBC and WOTLK, incinerate did good damage. soulfire animation looks 100% better than the current version on live.
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It doesn’t prove a fire build is better than another build. Just that WITHIN the fire build it’s better to use RoF/Incinerate over chaos bolt. The reason chaos bolt could be better for movement situations is because the RoF won’t get it’s full effect since the target is moved out of the AOE circle.
So we’re going back to MoP without chaos bolts now? I’m with Horizons on this one with the design fail.
I’m not opposed to going back to a Wrath style Destro and moving away from this Builder/Spender style honestly, but it’s going to take more work than just slapping a cooldown and a damage buff on Chaos Bolt and calling it a day, and I would say it’s too late in the Beta cycle for major class changes/reworks.
2 Likes
Definitely more needs to be changed or reverted. But to say its too late in the beta cycle for major class reworks/changes doesnt mean you should give feedback. They can do major changes mid expansion. Legion destro is proof of this. in 7.1.5 they added the soul shard fragment mechanic.
I wonder if it would make any sense for CB to take 2-5 shards scaling exponentially? Though i suppose that would also make other parts of gameplay broken
Having multiple builds to choose from within a single spec is actually an amazing thing.
I think the easiest solution to this problem would be to make Soulfire replace Chaos Bolt when talented for full fire synergy.
Either that or buff the hell out of Chaos Bolt which helps the Reign of Chaos build. But I think Blizz might be a teensy bit scared of buffing Chaos Bolt anytime soon.
so if they did this
how would you control how many shards you spent on CB cast?
It’s a dump, you can fire it off early for less dmg, or later for the most. It’s why I said it would get in the way, because there wouldn’t be any chaining, just one big bolt
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