Destruction specialization has literally almost no AOE. Without cataclysm we can’t compete at all in Mythic+.
Can Blizzard please do something about it? Reducing shard cost on Rain of Fire would help a lot. Three shards is really hard to generate.
Do at least something please!
This is exactly what I came here to talk about!
Destruction AOE is so pathetically weak, that by the end of a Mythic+ dungeon, even a warrior tank will show as having done more damage throughout the course of the dungeon on particular damage meters. While nobody can even come close to the damage per second output of the Destruction Warlock on a boss fight.
Rain of fire does nothing. Tanks always move out of it, especially if there is Sanguine. It’s affect does not seem to stack either.
Cataclysm takes far too long to cast. Tanks always move out of it, and trying to cast it is a waste of 2 seconds.
Incinerate does so little damage that there is no point in using Fire and Brimstone.
Casting Havoc on a target in a pack of mobs gives too little affect.
It is possible to do some AOE, if you enter the combat with full Soul Shards, Havoc the biggest HP mob, cast Cataclysm, Rain of Fire and drop Infernal, then keep spamming Shadowburn and Conflagrate to generate enough Soul Shards to cast Rain of Fire again by the time it ends. But you are lucky to generate enough Soul Shards. For this you also need to use Soul Conduit and hope for some procs. If you are lucky you could also try to pin the mobs down with Shadowfury but it doesn’t exactly last long enough to make any difference.
What could be done about it?
Havoc needs it’s affect duration time to be extended, and I mean doubled. It also needs its cooldown to be reduced.
Rain of Fire should cost Mana. We have this Mana pool which never gets used unless we have to use Drain Life. We should not have to burn off our Soul Shards and exchange Chaos Bolt (the only spell we have that does any damage at all) for an AOE spell, which needs it’s damage topped up by Chaos Bolts to even appear like we did some damage.
Incinerate damage should be greatly increased. This would then give us a chance to actually do some damage in PvP, other than the damage of Chaos Bolt, which quite frankly just tickles Plate specs anyway. With an increase to the damage of Incinerate, then Fire and Brimstone might actually be a worthy option over Cataclysm.
Cataclysm casting time should be reduced to either instant cast, or 0.5 second cast. I think even 1 second would be too long if you have a Warrior tank who doesn’t like to stand in a Destruction Warlock’s AOE, because he wants to spam Details damage meter results, and show that by the end of an instance even he does more overall damage than the Warlock.
Shadowfury casting time should be reduced or removed. Shadowfury affect duration should be greatly increased. It helps Rain of Fire damage a little, to pin the mobs in place with Shadowfury… but again this takes too long to cast and by the time it actually hits, the tank has already moved the mobs away from the area in most cases of usage. Shadowfury should also have it’s time reduced to instant cast or 0.5 seconds at the very most.
++++
Before people start to claim that “Destruction is overpowered in PvP”, or that “you must be doing something wrong if you cannot do more damage than a tank”… I must add…
Destruction Warlock is very broken for PvP. The times that you saw them win, they had the chance to smash you in the face with several critical Chaos Bolts. Chaos Bolts are the only spell that actually does some damage. With the new animation on them, and the extended casting time, we are waving a big pink fluffy flag and telling you that we are casting this spell. If you got hit by it, you are failing or on cooldowns. Destruction Warlock is primary target for all Mele classes who most often jump us in packs. We cannot PvP without a dedicated healer and tank to support our lives, or without the top pvp traits already equipped (Azerite armour).
Details damage meter is inaccurate! It also does not show “Damage Per Second Output”, it shows “Average Damage over Combat Time”. So whoever pulls first will show as having the highest damage on the meter. It is as simple as that, because that is how averages work. If you have someone pulling before the tank, they will show as highest damage. If everyone waits for the tank, he will show as higher than he actually is.
Recount however, shows “Real-Time Damage Per Second Output”.
People can’t seem to understand that Details does not show DPS Output, it shows AOT. If you don’t believe me, install Recount, and have Recount + Details running, then go and hit a training dummy for 5 minutes. You will see that after a period of time, details shows a 5k difference in supposed “DPS” readings, because it is not showing DPS Output. If in combat, the Warlock gets Mind Controlled, has to Combat Res a healer, or dies, or if the mobile tanking unit who can’t stand still goes out of range or line of sight too much, then Details will say that the Warlock did less than 10k “DPS” (AOT) while Recount will show that the Warlock was actually doing over 20k DPS.
Once people begin to understand how averages work, and stop thinking the Warlock did less Damage Output than the tank…
And once they make the other spells for the Destruction Warlock actually do some damage so that we don’t rely on Chaos Bolt for 90% of our damage… then Destruction Warlocks might actually get invited to do Mythic+ Dungeons, and not have to gain all of our armours from Raids Only.
the easiest solution would be to have cataclysm and rain of fire instead of just 1 area follow the target around
@Deminyonz, I had thought of that too, hehe.
But such a thing would be a change of mechanic instead of a tweak to the current numbers. So that would probably be something that devs might consider for the next expansion. A big fire storm cloud following someone around xD
How to Destruction AoE.
You dont.
The fix would be to revert the class to before legion.
Well I tested at the training dummies in Boralus, with item level 400 as a baseline example.
3 Dummies. (average size of a pack of mobs in a dungeon).
Using Inferno does not seem to proc to generate enough Soul Shard Fragments to keep 100% uptime. No chance of overlap on the Rain of Fire, even when casting all other spells (except chaos bolt) on their cooldown refresh. Inferno should have 20% chance to regenerate 3 Full Soul Shards! Completely useless talent. Average DPS Output including spell rotation = 12k.
Using Fire and Brimstone again does not generate enough Soul Shard Fragments to overlap the Rain of Fire spell. Average DPS Output, including spell rotation = 15k.
Using Cataclysm gives a slightly higher Average DPS Output, including spell rotation = 16k.
That is on 3 standard dummies, without having to move around, and without a tank moving the mobs out of the area of effect.
So what this tells you is that the Developers do not play Destruction Warlock at all. If they did, it would be top AOE and have an untouchable output, I am sure.
Note: I am quoting the Average DPS Output. If you are in a dungeon and someone is using the Details damage meter, their Average Over Time reading will show you as only doing half as much. (6k to 8k, or 9k buffed at the very most). Completely unacceptable for any group.
Oh god where to start…
The dmg effect of it does stack, and you will generate enough soulshards to cast 3 to even 4 rain of fires at the same time.
Cataclysm cast time issent to long, most tanks will keep mobs stationary for 2 seconds at least. Now seeing as the highest key you have done was a +6 shrine this might factor into the strange movment of mobs as well as the lack of knowledge of where to cast cataclysm.
yes fire and brimstone are really undertuned especially in comparison to cataclysm and the extra soulshard generation and dmg from the immolate debuff that cataclysm applies.
There is so much wrong with this. Ignoring the completly wrong cast order of first casting havoc than your cd that will not duplicate you shouldnt be using shadowburn. its only real utilitly is the extra soulshard generation, not the dmg aspect of it. Especially when compared to the hast buff granted by reverse entropy, shadowburn is undertuned/only usefull if you are good at sniping targts with it.
This would break the class especially with the trait rolling havoc. If played correctly you can already get out around 6-8 (with bl) stacks of the buff amounting to somewhere around 3-5k intellect buff, doubling this would break the class increadibly. Your havoc window is fine the way it is.
This would again be pointless. Although i agree with you on a point that i will touch on later.
This i agree with for every warlock spec, shadowfury should be instant similar to the dh aoe stun.
can say anything about pvp, hate doing it so meh 
The issue with destruction in mythic+ is that it is very cd reliant especially around infernal and the cataclysm/channel demonfire combo. Destro and affliction struggle a lot in low mythic+ because they lack burst aoe that a lot of other classes have. For destro if the targets die before you can get cataclysm+channel demonfire and live through you havoc window, you dps will suffer. Affliction has the same issue that the mobs will die long before your dots will start dealing dmg. Destro has the added issue in my opinion that they are locked into very long static cast times, which can result in a large dps loss during times when you have to move a lot or have to stop/interrupt casting spells.
What i can recommend is playing demonology who have a large amount of up front burst with the bombers and with explosive potential and implosion decent sustained aoe. So if your intrested in climbing them dmg meters in your +6´s try demonology.
You have less than 9% haste… Haste is really important for destruction, in general.
You’d get a much higher return on shards from the other 2 talents with more haste, I’m sure.
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