| Discussion Threads Every now and then you get a really good, informative thread. Or, there are topics that are questioned every week. In here you will find posts made on this forum that members find useful - moved here for easy finding. |
 |
August 28, 2008, 01:02 AM
|
#1 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Risotto 80 Gnome Warlock Perenolde US PvE Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/20/51 |
Common destro PvP misconceptions
Common Destro misconceptions Disclaimer: The point of this post is to share with you my experience playing a destruction warlock. I hope to clear up some of the misconceptions and maybe offer you an alternative view of destroy PvP. I don’t have a good arena ranking. I play with RL friends and currently don’t have the comp I need to make it higher, yet.Background: I have always planned to arena with my RL friend, who is a BM hunter. Pre-BC, I was always 7/31/13. I just felt that SL/SL doesn’t really work well with BM, so that is why I went for Destruction. Common Misconceptions: 1) Resilience killed destruction. This is only true to an extent. Max resilience is 492.5 for crit chance reduction of 12.5%, and 25% damage reduction. If you are just starting out as a warlock and only have about 20% (with devastation) to crit, then your effective crit chance is a pitiful 9% or so. Also, instead of doing 200% damage with ruin, you are only doing 150% damage after the crit damage reduction. So for those starting to go destruction, you will really feel gimped if you don't have the gear. However, this changes quickly when you start getting gear. I have 31% spell crit now, so my effective crit rate is about 20%. Also, by using the Metagem, Chaotic Skyfire diamond, you do an extra 9% damage with your crits, which means the crit damage reduction of 25% is now lowered to only 16%. So you will be doing 168% damage with a crit. At my gear level, my immolated incinerate crits for 3.5k. Even with max resilience, I am still doing 2.3kish damage. The burst damage is pretty insane. Against weaker targets, destruction is actually ridiculously overpowered…. So in short, if you have decent gear, resilience is fairly balanced. Without it, destruction is pretty gimped. 2) Destruction locks are squishy Compare to SL/SL locks, destruction locks are much more squishy. Typically, destruction locks have 12k health where as SL/SL locks will have 14k health + 20% more from Soul Link, or 17kish health. I just want to mention that in a 1v1 situation, this gap is balanced by the fact that destruction has much higher offensive output. I feel that destruction is perfectly viable in 2v2, or even 3v3 situations if your healer is decent. 5v5 is where destruction fails completely when you get trained. But then again, with melee scaling, SL/SL is no longer that tough to kill either. Shadowfury adds a nice escape option every 20 secs. Compare to SL/SL, this is more of an active escape option (You can imagine my joy now that they will be upgrading the stun to 3 sec and castable while on the run…) So in short, destruction is squishy, but not as much as people think if you have decent gear. I feel that it can work pretty well in 2v2, 3v3, but NOT 5v5. 3) Destruction requires you to stand still Most people have watched the Drakedog movies. Whilst they are entertaining in a way, the age of seduce nuke is long gone. Most people, when first speced destruction will use a succubus, seduce someone, and do soul fire combos for the big crits. When that fails, they declare destruction dead. I have seen a lot of comments about destruction being only viable if you can hide behind a tree and nuke from there in BGs. The truth is, YES, if you can find a hiding spot, you can wreak a lot of havoc. I do this regularly hiding in nice places and just taking people out. When doing real fights, I almost never stop to cast anything. When fighting melees, destruction locks must be in constant motion to “try” to evade attacks. Use shadowfury to get an immolate on. Backlash, shadowburn, conflagrate are all instants which you can do on the move. By using shadowfury, deathcoil, fear, netherweave nets, seduce, you can create a lot of opportunities to do 2.2sec incinerates. You only ever standstill when you have an opportunity. As for pillar humps and LOS issues, that is where shadowfury and fear comes in. So in short, destruction requires you to stand still more than SL/SL, but it is by no means a totally static fighting style. People write off destruction because... 1) They don’t have the gear for it. Destruction REQUIRES you to have decent gear. Quest blues will not do the trick. You need gear to give you the crit rate, damage bonus and resilience. The talents really don’t help you in this regard, unlike demonology. Most people just spec a few days in destruction at the start, and never really attain the gear necessary to make it work. 2) Destruction as 0/21/40 A lot of raiding locks tried destro with their raid specs. By not having shadowfury, you are giving up one of the most versatile and potent skill in the entire game. Shadowfury allows you to get your fear off without being kicked/pummeld/counterspell. Shadowfury is integral to a destro PvP build 3) It takes more skills to play Just joking. No, I am not saying destruction takes more skills. At least not much more. At the end of the day, we are all spamming a few buttons. But the nature of the build means you have to time things and combos with a bit more precision. An additional 100ms to my usual 300ms ping can really screw me up. But one thing is for certain, it is a very very different playstyle from SL/SL, so you really need to work on it to make the transition. 4) Everyone said so Yes, because everyone said so, then it must be true. Of course, arena stats also would point to the same conclusion that destruction sucks. This is true to an extent because SL/SL is less gear dependent and arena favors healing/instants/LOS. I just don’t think it is as bad as everyone claims it to be. With the addition of the Demonic Circle, the availability of Soul Link, and the upgrade to shadowfury, I am still pretty excited about Wrath of the Lich King. Hopefully, this post will make those bored with SL/SL to maybe give destro PvP a try. I think a 2k rating with the right comps is certainly possible with destro. Higher, probably not. Cheers! Edit: Just want to add a very small spec section for people interested. Specs 7/7/47: "Classic" destro build. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft This build has all the major goodies for destro. Improved Searing Pain is usually preferred over Soul Leech. I have used this for a long time and this is a very balance build. Great for starters because instant corruption helps when your don't have the best gear. Variants: 5/7/49, 5/5/51, 7/5/49. They are all slightly different and i have tried them all, they are just minor differences. 0/6/55: "Heavy" destro build. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Now you have weaned yourself off instant corruption and immerse totally into destro. Non of the final destro talents are game breaking, but they do work well with the core destro talents. Affliction Variants: 19/0/42: NF/Shadowfury Build. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft A very fun build with the lowest possible survivability. The amount of near instants from backlash/conflag/shadowburn/shadowfury/deathcoil and extended affliction range makes this a highly enjoyable build. Slightly lower damage on the fire damage, but still near top damage output. Low survivability due to lack of Demonic Embrace. Recommended for BG fun, not recommended for Arenas. 23/3/35: SL/BL. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Give up Shadowfury for siphon life, curse of exhaustion, shadow embrace and a bit of stamina. The downside is lower damage across the board. The upside is good instant abilities, and survivability. Great utility, but a bit underpowered due to a lack of Emberstorm and SnF. Recommended for BG fun, not recommended for Arenas. Demo Variant 0/17/44. Instant Summon Destro. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Strongest damage for destruction PvP with full emberstorm, SNF, and Demonic Aegis. Especially attractive after Fel armor becomes undispellable. Lacks instant corruption.
__________________
What if what they really want is for us to herd our demons back into the void like we're doing? Because if we re-roll DKs, General, we do that, and everything that we have bled and fought and died for is over, and they've won. They've already won! Last edited by Redmage; August 28, 2008 at 02:19 AM.. |
|
|
|
The Following 14 Users Say Thank You to Redmage For This Useful Post:
|
Abraxaz, Akasha, Angsaar, Derch, HCLars, Liver, Lopennie, Marsyx, MorbidMike, serenekaos, Sinnistra, Sita, snackereen, Snibbels |
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
|
August 28, 2008, 01:27 AM
|
#2 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Sturmstaffel 70 Gnome Warlock Thunderlord US PvP Guild: Sparkys Raiders Profile: WoW Rankings Talent Spec: 24/0/37 |
Re: Common destro PvP misconceptions
I've been noticing this too a bit, so I decided to take the plunge. While I didn't have a guide or anything, I decided to keep the siphon life part and move soul link points to the destro tree. (spec is posted on the side) I've never been happier. I'm currently doing bgs at the moment and I can tab+target 10 people or so and put siphon life on them, then just continue to nuke/drain tank/dot more (and not die because I'm being healed for 2k + every 3 sec =P) and it seems to be very effective in 1v1 battles. I've also noticed backlash helps against rogues and warriors (people I have the most trouble with, go figure  )I don't have the gear to go destro, yet I've been topping damage in the bgs and rarely dieing. (except to stun lock rogues) There is a problem with the destro pvp spec though: You have to think. Much like a survival hunter you are forced to come up with unorthodox methods to solve a problem. You can't just dot and drain tank them (well you can if they are low life, but the problem is getting them there) as an sl/sl lock can. But with a nightfall/backlash build you will almost certainly get a few instant bolts (which crit quite frequently with the gear) and can do some serious damage on the run.
__________________
You know what they say, grains of sand are small...compared to grains of boulders. -Snot There's an old saying: "Don't change anything... ever." -Monk |
|
|
|
|
August 28, 2008, 01:58 AM
|
#3 (permalink) | |
|
|
Re: Common destro PvP misconceptions
Quote:
Last edited by HCLars; August 28, 2008 at 02:02 AM.. |
|
|
|
|
|
August 28, 2008, 03:17 AM
|
#4 (permalink) | |
|
Character Info
Themorrigan 70 Human Warlock Kil'Jaeden US PvP Guild: The Collective Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/0/0 |
Re: Common destro PvP misconceptions
Quote:
I think the biggest problem for Destruction is finding a comp where Destruction is actually the optimal spec. There's definitely comps where Destruction can work, but in so many comps (all the common ones, and a bunch of others you could come up with) SL/SL or UA will just be flat out better. Last edited by doogless; August 28, 2008 at 03:22 AM.. |
|
|
|
|
|
August 28, 2008, 03:37 AM
|
#5 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Risotto 80 Gnome Warlock Perenolde US PvE Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/20/51 |
Re: Common destro PvP misconceptions
Good Point Doogless For 2v2, I think healer comps are suboptimal as SL/SL are just simply better. Strong CC and good dps I think is the way to go. 1) Rogue 2) Mage are my top choices. Although I would imagine a druid can also be viable, though of course SL/SL would be the optimal spec. On the flip side, I think destro works better than SL/SL when paired with a BM hunter (whatever that means). The comp is actually "optimal", but the comp itself is not viable. LOL
__________________
What if what they really want is for us to herd our demons back into the void like we're doing? Because if we re-roll DKs, General, we do that, and everything that we have bled and fought and died for is over, and they've won. They've already won! |
|
|
|
|
August 28, 2008, 04:13 AM
|
#6 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
Angsaar 80 Undead Warlock Spinebreaker Euro PvP Guild: Fuzzy Tentacles Talent Spec: 0/17/54 |
Re: Common destro PvP misconceptions
Redmage, very, VERY nice post. Finally there is someone speaking out for us!  God, this actually cheered up my morning. I was actually destruction untill recent respec just to go out and screw around with SL/SL. Destruction PvP is propably the most fun time i've had with my warlock. I see that destruction actually might come much more popular in the expansions, since the damage output will become higher and the ridicculous use of mana gets eased a bit via talents. Not to talk about the zero cast Shadowfury  Makes Destro's life bit easier. Imo we should sticky this topic! 
__________________
"Warlocks are mushrooms." Last edited by Angsaar; August 28, 2008 at 04:17 AM.. |
|
|
|
|
August 28, 2008, 04:16 AM
|
#7 (permalink) |
|
Character Info
SavageBT 80 Undead Warlock Khaz'Goroth Oceania PvE Guild: Khazuals Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 53/0/18 |
Re: Common destro PvP misconceptions
Been thinking of grabbing a destro set with resil with a few pieces of s2 and s4 and mixing it with raid gear. Any thoughts on what sort of resil to aim for? Also have you tried this with any serious amount of haste? I agree it is a blast in BGs but most fights tend to last ~6-15 sec, where I try to burn down as many people as possible while being trained by half their team. Ever seen full T6 destro vs full T6 ret? the fight lasts 3 GCDs no matter who wins :P Had better luck 1v1 or with a healer, but it's hard to get around the simple fact that a destro lock is the single most vulnerable thing in the game, without exception (THIS, not it's killing power, is why people hate on it) .... and physical classes know this. Even a fire mage, full holy priest or hunter have more tricks and escapes. That said, it's one of the most rewarding things to play, and WLK destro looks HOT. |
|
|
|
|
August 28, 2008, 04:19 AM
|
#8 (permalink) | |
|
Character Info
Angsaar 80 Undead Warlock Spinebreaker Euro PvP Guild: Fuzzy Tentacles Talent Spec: 0/17/54 |
Re: Common destro PvP misconceptions
Quote:
__________________
"Warlocks are mushrooms." |
|
|
|
|
|
August 28, 2008, 04:36 AM
|
#9 (permalink) |
|
|
Re: Common destro PvP misconceptions
Sorry, until you show me your rating of 2000+, I am not convinced it is viable in 2v2 3v3. The only danger a destroy lock poses is against other locks and priests maybe. Most teams at top have melee, only a druid could keep you alive with there cc
|
|
|
|
|
August 28, 2008, 04:49 AM
|
#10 (permalink) | |||
|
Character Info
Risotto 80 Gnome Warlock Perenolde US PvE Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/20/51 |
Re: Common destro PvP misconceptions
Quote:
Right now, we have Zero escape ability and no Soul Link. This will change with demonic circle and soul link for 11 pts in Wrath of the Lich King. Also, right now, PvP favors CC, healing, outlasting, and really not gib/burst type tactic. Even in my 3v3, I lose more because of me or my partner going OOM than me being killed by physical DPS. *** Information added 107 Minutes and 8 Seconds later... *** Quote:
As i have mentioned in the beginning of the post, my arena rating sucks. I only play with RL friends and not everyone is as obsessed as I am. But one of my friend's rogue is coming along so we will see. But there are some (not many!) locks that have achieved over 2k+ ratings out there. Sure, it is not as easy as SL/SL, but that is not to say that it cannot be done. People like Vaelisious, Heidiheinken have done it. There are some current ones as well. My point is, there could be a lot more if people actually tried it with some effort before writing it off as pointless....... I am not picking on you in particular, but it is statement like Quote:
I urge you to not judge before trying it yourself.
__________________
What if what they really want is for us to herd our demons back into the void like we're doing? Because if we re-roll DKs, General, we do that, and everything that we have bled and fought and died for is over, and they've won. They've already won! |
|||
|
|
|
|
| Bookmarks |
| Tags |
| common, Destro, misconceptions, PvP |
| Thread Tools | |
|
|
