Whether it is put inside the heroic talents and/or a rework etc I think the following should be done for destro.
Havoc: should be a copy of the single target spell and not a nerfed version.
Demonfire: should have a chance to generate SS’s
Immolate: should have an aoe effect. (Bring back some of that old hellfire feel)
Fire and Brimstone: should be up’d to 50% and have a chance to generate SS’s
Infer: should be a 2 minute cool down and not need a talent point for it.
Pets should be able to have splash/aoe damage. Does not have to be much either.
Warlocks should be able to buff their weapons like they did in vanilla!!! without holding a stone of course.
If you want to do a new spell for Destro then it should be something that either rains from the sky of comes up from the ground. Imagine giant demonic hands coming up from the ground and pulverizing enemies.
Warlocks were damage machines of death and destruction and fear when they were in vanilla. Running into the crowd on the bridge before the ally base in AV and using hellfire was awesome.
Many of these suggestions could simply be addressed by DPS tuning. Most people have been having issues with the themes of the hero talents for destruction, not the numbers. While we do have some weaknesses, overall the damage of the spec is decent in most scenarios.
i have played a warlock, minus 1 expansion since march of 2005. Pointing that out to say that i have seen many changes and have tried many versions of destro. The theme for the talents is a HUGE part of the problem. The numbers are ALSO a huge part of the problem. It is embarrassing to be a destro lock because of the Numbers. Destro locks only get invited for 2 reasons now a days. They are friends with someone and/or the group needs the lock utilities. The 0.01% that have found ways to waste 0% of time to maximize dps, im proud for them.
Numbers ARE a huge part of the problem. This is spoken from experience.
I am glad that there are people that disagree with me. That needs to happen to continue the discussion and seek improvement for the class. My play is fine. I DPS fine. I am constantly looking at ways to improve my DPS. However, the numbers are a problem. Destro is constantly being outperformed by other classes. Blowing every cooldown on every pool and in the right order and still being ‘just fine’ for DPS is a concern.
Every time I see someone out performing me, as a destro lock, i analyze their talents and details data and watch them to see how and when they cast.
Our numbers, for Destro lock, ARE a huge part of the problem.
Thank you for replying, You are mostly a DEMO warlock. It is good to see that you have tried DESTRO and AFF. However, based on your raidio history etc. you have chosen DEMO. DEMO DPS is quite nice and performs very well.
I am always DESTRO. That is why I take the DESTRO position very seriously and am very confident in what I am saying.
Your logs are super under performing for your ilvl.
In heroic alone you’re overall is a 42.3. This is underperforming because they are mostly green and blue logs even with short fight timings. which means your making rotational mistakes.
Your play is a bigger problem than destroys tuning.
I actually play all three specs. That’s why most of my raid logs are Destro right?
7 out of 9 fights are done as Destro it an 87.3 overall.
I tend to pug my keys and having tanks drag trash out of RoF is why I mainly play demo in keys.
You would gain a lot more value from working on rotations and cd timings instead of blaming your low numbers on the spec.
i am happy that you are a better player than I am. I just looked at your logs. You are one of the best DESTRO locks I have seen. according to the logs. Your success, in no way, takes away from the position i have taken. I am not a bad warlock. I am one of the better DESTRO locks I have seen. I am not as good as you are. I am okay with that.
Your success is awsome! it is, a very small % of the vast majority of DESTRO lock players real play abilities and experience.
Which means, your success is more of an outlier and not a real read on the class as a whole.
My warlock is the first character I’ve ever made and I have done almost every raid tier with it since launch. I started playing 1 month after launch. Destruction has been my main spec for probably 95%+ of my time as a warlock.
As someone who raids and does M+, warlocks do have some utility that is useful. Not as much as some classes, but we definitely get invited to groups.
Our damage isn’t bad as destruction warlocks. We lack AoE burst on low health pool adds, but we do well in other areas and are still easily viable. Have you looked at the rating of destruction warlocks when it comes to M+ compared to other specs? It’s doing fine. Have you looked at Warcraft Logs to see where destruction warlocks rank across the various difficulties? We are fine outside of a few mythic level fights.
We aren’t the highest dps by any means, but I would say that we are fine where we are at.
I’m not even that amazing. Mannimarco can give you the best information.
No one is saying you’re a bad warlock.
What I said was based on logs you could make some major improvements. Getting rid of sea star and getting either a genesaur blood or branch or any of the better trinkets.
You will gain so much more in the short and long run by focusing on improving your gear and gameplay.
Destro gameplay is pretty simple. Keep rift on cd.
i have done a lot of research since we started this discourse. I must admit, I have never, to my memory, even looked at warcraft logs. I always went off interactions, armory, dps charts and recently raidio. I have heard of terms like parse before and considering how long I have played and how hard I have tried to be better. I shot my self in the foot by not seeking out the logs sooner.
I have looked at the talent rotation i do etc and have changed my raid talents up. I am under-utilizing the talents available and I am not aggressively going for the best gear like i should.
I do well with proc management and prioritizing what is available. I am hopeful I will be able to improve.
Even though I do feel the DESTRO lock is in a weaker place than it should be. I have identified plenty of ‘ME’ issues.
now I am frustrated. I had a 470, I am 484, beat me fairly convincingly in an AD. Some of it was me prioritizing RoF over CB. However, some of it was absolutely proc range. which is so frustrating. by the proc gods you can pass or fail.
is bad luck transfer to procs?
I only use DBM, Titan Panel and atlas. I do not use any addons to improve rotation etc. never have.
I am at the point where I think I may have to.
After looking at your talent setup and gear, there are a few things that I think help. Trinkets and weapons with special abilities can be a large part of your damage. I use Nymue’s Spindle for single target, but not for M+. I think some of the better M+ trinkets are the suncaller trinket, mirror of fractured tomorrows, and balefire branch.
For example in M+, my heroic track Dreambinder staff special ability is always 1.2-1.5% of my damage and a heroic track Iridal would probably add a similar amount of damage. Those special abilities don’t reduce the stats on those weapons, so it’s free damage that you are missing out on. My heroic track suncaller trinket is always around 5% of my damage. My mirror trinket is about 1% of my damage from the sand clone alone and it gives a huge stat buff on top of that.
As far as talents go, it looks like you still have channel demonfire. That’s up to you, but I’m personally not a fan of it without the S2 tier bonus, especially if you have to move and cancel the channel. But I would recommend dropping the Warlock’s Grand Design capstone and get 2/2 Master Ritualist and Avatar of Destruction for M+. Avatar of Destruction will help with some damage, increase shard generation, and periodically stun enemies.
I think part of it might come down to your damage profile and how often you are using certain abilities. If you have details to break down what % of your damage each ability is granting, we might be able to see if something is under utilized. The damage profile will vary from dungeon to dungeon though and even from tank to tank because of how they can pull differently. Just as an example though, here’s my top contributors from a +18 Waycrest Manor that I just did. Damage Source
The trinkets and the weapon thing can absolutely be huge. The other warlock had balefire branch. I have always had bad roll luck and loot luck. Today, doing keys with my wife, she got and gave to me the Iridal staff and coagulated trinket. Both are upgrades and the staff makes a noticeable difference in my dps.
I did not consider M+ trinkets vs Raid trinkets. Thank you for that insight.
I adjusted my talents to the MS and AoD and buffed immolate and will see how that goes.
based on your damage link, I am under utilizing Immolate, a lot. Which, to me, means I need to get better at cycling through targets and ensuring it does not drop off.
All this discourse has made me realize, as i analyzed that I was not utilizing the dmg buffs i get from spells to the fullest. I fell into a habbit of double tapping my conflagurate and Have had to make a concerned effort to break that habbit.
Yeah, immolate will currently increase your damage two fold. One, the dot damage will increase shard generation if you keep it up on multiple targets. Cataclysm helps a lot with this on big pulls as well. The second is that each immolate tick has a chance to refresh a charge of Dimensional Rift. So having immolate on many targets mean more bonus charges.
well, after several dungeons, i have kept immolate up more and used less incinerate. the damage increase has been noticeable. definitely more work than i remember lol.