Destruction has had it way better then Affliction for years. I feel Destruction well be buffed until they top warlock speculation. Just like Fire Mage will get buffs, can’t have Arcane on top no no no no!
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We had 3 locks in our guild raid this weekend. Our gear is not that much different. Our play experience or ability is similar. I play destro. Movement fights are absolutely awful. My DPS is half of the other two specs in most fights. It’s not 6% less but half of my demo and affliction guild mates.
Destro’s theme and instant procs are fun but the damage just isn’t near good enough to offset the cast times with movement based fights. Single target tank and spanks are also about 30% behind the other two specs.
Blizzard has to do better and in a hurry.
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Would you group happen to have logs from the raid?
Destruction is trash. Spent three hours in the raid tonight in various groups. Everytime a dps check came up, the destro lock was getting cut. Affliction was doing about 250k more dps. They need to buff us. We’re trash.
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Good news is you can go Destro on the first and last boss of raid viably.
Hopefully some more buffs come, id rather play destro all the time.
It’s fun but it gets progressively worse at 80 and gearing.
And yes I’m that unsmart destro main.
Aff was the best lock spec in Castle Nathria, so that part is wrong.
Aff performed better than Destruction in Shadowlands and Dragonflight in raid aggregate data by a good margin.
Demo has been the progression raid spec as well for SoD, Sepulcher, Vault of the Incarnates, Aberrus, and Amirdrassil. While it’s nice to see Aff take the forefront again, Demo is not far behind Aff right now and Destro is significantly worse and has been the bottom lock spec (in raid) for 2+ years.
I like data, so I enjoy maintaining some spreadsheet data sets of aggregate M+ and raid performance metrics, some aimed at end of tier data and some during progression (although due to balance passes this one is way more volatile). Sure, there’s a lot of caveats but here’s the aggregate end of tier performance of each DPS spec from my dataset in Mythic raid for the combination of Legion, BfA, Shadowland, and Dragonflight. Lower score is better. I take the positions each spec is in and average it. 1 as best and 26 as worst. Fated/Awakened data not included as those are meme seasons.
| Shadow | 8.70 |
|---|---|
| Affliction | 9.68 |
| Demonology | 9.68 |
| Arms | 10.18 |
| Fury | 10.38 |
| Outlaw | 10.40 |
| Fire | 10.60 |
| Havoc | 11.08 |
| Frost | 11.17 |
| Retribution | 11.45 |
| Assassination | 11.68 |
| Subtlety | 12.13 |
| Unholy | 12.25 |
| Destruction | 12.38 |
| Elemental | 13.17 |
| Balance | 13.53 |
| Windwalker | 13.98 |
| Augmentation | 14.00 |
| Feral | 14.77 |
| Arcane | 14.80 |
| Enhancement | 14.80 |
| Marksmanship | 15.02 |
| Frost | 15.40 |
| Devastation | 15.67 |
| Survival | 15.97 |
| Beast Mastery | 19.50 |
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It’s always interesting to see data deep dives like this, thank you. I remember seeing one floating around that one guy had maintained since either wrath or TBC. I remember Affliction apparently had by far the most time it was a top 3 spec in the game, as there were a couple whole expansions it didn’t drop below A tier.
I know it’s been discussed elsewhere in depth but Destro has those outdated mechanics which really hold it back compared to other casters and even the other lock specs. Chaos Bolt being such a lengthy cast time, Havoc’s 2 target design meaning Destro can’t have good single target. The rework in TWW beta did a lot of good for Destro for sure, but it still has some real struggle points.
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100% agree. In PvP with max honor gear my chaos bolts should be hitting 4-6 million. The state of destro is an absolute joke.
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Isn’t there like a Dev who has a hard-on for affliction?
Grim sac is pretty much, “Allows you to cast an interupt without having to rely on your felhunter being on the target.”
I’m a new warlock main this expansion, playing Destro because I like the visuals but man are there are some serious big misses when it comes to design of the spec. Here’s a few of the issues and solutions.
- Avatar of Destruction Overfiend needs to exist for X number of casts (like Demonology Doomguard) not a duration, having a capstone not do anything because a target moved out of range or LoS feels terrible.
- Avatar of Destruction should return to conjuring an Infernal when consumed by Rain of Fire. Additionally it would be cool if Shadowburn also interacted with this talent, perhaps conjuring a Flame Rift or some other type of demon for additional visual flair.
- Havoc feels so bad being on the GCD, wasn’t there some design talk awhile ago where it an ability doesn’t actually do anything by itself it should be off the GCD?
- Dimensional Ripper the proc chance on this is so ridiculously low I swear it doesn’t even work. Should be reworked to something like Your direct damage dealing abilities reduce the cooldown of Dimensional Rift by X sec and critical strikes of these abilities double this effect.
- Dimensional Rift this ability is currently very underwhelming also the rifts stop attacking if the target you use it on dies. There’s a few things that could spruce up this ability.
- Bring back Flame Rift
or - Apply the evoker styled empowered cast, each level of empowered conjuring a different rift.
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Destro and demo, they need the “buff”
not that 3% all, it is not enough.
The difference between the specs is just way too much.
The funny thing is if you join a random group they think you are not pushing enough. Because almighty warriors and elemental jiglers are pumping so hard… For the first time in my life I got kicked out because of low dps. Yes, it is low because of weird warlock policies and stupid fps drops…
I have to get back to affliction, thank you soo much.
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I wish our class could get a normal interrupt like every other class has without having to specifically have the Felhunter out (Affliction/Destruction) or to utilize the Felguards 30 second cooldown ability.
Would make doing these Delves, and Zekvir better as we’d actually be able t interrupt the death abiliites instead of having to tank thru them and using every single ability we have to mitigate it.
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It’s honesty kinda depressing, I pushed hard in early weeks and managed to get to high ilvl. At first I did few raids and dungeons with what I I’m guessing wete relatively undergeared ppl, so I thought all the complaints were overblown… Now that I’m getting into HC raids and M+ I see just how bad it is to be playing Destro. It’s like I have a permanent damage debuff compared to everyone else around my ilvl. I’ve never been as embarassed about my DPS as I have at the end of some dungeons this week.
Also, yeah, we need a better interrupt. The dog has such a long cooldown and is so inconsistent that it ends up getting me killed, especially in Zekvir which is supposed to be difficult but soloable. I literally don’t have the interrupts to solo him.
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Destro is in a very competitive spot currently. Could very well be user error as Destro is top 10 for raid an M+ currently.
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Solo shuffle is insanely frustrating. The 2 melee dps inevitably focus the lock, and if I try to hard cast literally anything it gets kicked/silenced/etc. Maybe it will get better with precog.
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Are you guys sure the damage isn’t good or is it really that you are moving too much and not casting enough. Positioning, timing and casting as much as possible is the key to playing Destro
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I have done pretty good with Destro in raid so far, and I’m a brand new warlock.
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This aged poorly coming of the race to world first heels lol
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