Playing warlock for a 15+ years now, mostly desto. And as far as i can see - destro core wasnt changed since MoP.
And if its not nessesacry a bad thing, the fact that there is no any depth in it - is.
I spend hours testing on dummy and siming trying to understand may be i missing something, is there any logic in ussing backdraft on different spells, when should u cast shadowburn (conflagration of chaos, demonic ritual, combinned) vs chaosbolt.
And sadly for overall dps - theres not much difference. Basiclaly you should just never cap on shards and dont waste procs.
There was short period, when destruction was fun, during madness haste buff in s1-2 of dragonflight. But its gone.
What we have now - pretty flat spec with 10 years old basic rotation and few procs to spend.
So i have few ideas to make things better:
1.Shadowburn.
Atm conflagration of chaos is two separate buffs for conflag and shadowburn. What makes tracking it basicaly unimportant.
Instead, why dont they make it combined, so each of your conflags could proc strong damage mod for next shadowburn making it high prio over chaosbolt above 30% of target.
And it should be castable like mages fireblast, so it not break the rotation.
You still have smth to press while moving (no buff) but will have clear understanding when its optimal to use (with buff)
Instead of what we got now, stupid lvl of random dmg to force player press it each time you can.
2.Backdraft.
Backdraft should matter more. Should make you prio soulfire/inferno bolt/incinerate over chaosbolt each time u can (as it basicaly always crits). Baseline chaosbolt became a joke anyway.
Cast speed for it is usefull in very specific situations, like a fast dmg switch or shards capping. U are still limited by shards count for overall dps.
It could be interesting to have short cd spell empowerment for different situations, but now its irrelevant, u spend it on whatever, result is pretty much the same.
3 Chaosbolt.
Doesnt feel spacial. Stupid dirty animation. Low damage. Close to RoF in damage/value even in single target. The way to make it important is not by adding dmg buff, but make it part of another spec mechanic.
4.Soulfire.
Useless. To low dmg, to random proc rate. Should matter more/do more dmg.
While its can be fun to catch decimation procs - random cast/shard doesnt give you anything, exept another proc to react (5th in diabolist)
They should remove random proc and add cd reduction by each chaosbolt cast and dmg amplifier when u cast it(Like mages SKB, double duration via havoc, as our havoc cleave isnt the best now )
That will give us more damage control and another midrange cd burst
5.Madness of azakir.
This was mad fun. Each time u pull the boss u was hyped to maintain buff as much as u can.
Instead of removing it - they could make it a bit less punishing, like fade out over time/stacks.
6.Infernal.
Feels unimportant in single target at all. Destro, always know for big numbers, now is one of the lowest burst specs - its pathetic.
Make it add 1% dmg debuff each infernal melee hit or each spell u cast. At least as option. So u will have ramping damage and challenge to get max stacks each time you cast it.
- Mobility.
While destruction always was hardcast spec - u cant fix it by adding another overbuffed instant spell, like shadowburn or god damn rifts
Problem with mobility should be solved by mobility spells. To make player think how and when to use it to predict movement. Any sort KJ cunning/ice floes or blink/displacment can do it
No way blizz could give mages altetime, shimmer, floes - making its mobility coolest to play and have no idea for warlock exept stupid shadowburn spam.
8.Rotation.
We have no secondary spec mechanics.
Thats why rotation feels primitive and limited.
Shadowburn spam without any logic feels out of place and breaks fluidity of the rotation
Short dps cycle is boring and empty, as backdraft is w/e, eradication and blaze are sustained automatically via high shards regen.
Long dps cycle is unrewarding coz of uninteresting infernal state.
Hero talents have weak interaction with baseline rotation and either passive and boring (hellcaller) or adds broken mech like demonic ritual, what is hard to control and broke baseline destro priorities.
Procs and shard regen as diabolist just adds 5 (!) different procs to watch and react. Its doesnt make rotation more interesting
Conclusion:
No way you can fix spec by lazy adding damage numbers. We neen secondary spec mechanics.
Demonic ritual cant be such even if you consider it a good thing. It should be part of baseline destro. Like shatter for frostmages or heating up for fire
Dunno why someone desided that half-passive cycling of 3 different procs is great idea. But cosmetic “sold” it i guess.
Madness of Azakir (sort of) could be such secondary mech. In any form, is it haste or damage buff.
Procs/buffs depending shards spending could be part of it. Is it “buffed” shadowburn casts or casting few chaosbolts in the row for increasing dmg.
CDR of soulfire with extra damage buff by it - could be such secondary mech (7-8 sec, but make it matter)
There should be something more, than “dont cap on shards”.
Destruction left 10 years in a past and dont looks its going anywhere.