5.4 Destruction Tips and Quirks

[Owewa 3]

Fire and Brimstone:Immolate is the terminology for using Immolate while Fire and Brimstone is active. I felt it to be more clear and easy to understand than saying "apply Fire and Brimstone and then use Immolate" each time. If more feel like you do, I could re-clarify the guide.

The guide is more a reference than a tutorial now that everyone knows everything, so edits aren't necessary.

However, if I had seen

Your typical AoE priority will be the following:

1) cast Rain of Fire

2) cast Fire and Brimstone, cast Immolate

3) cast Fire and Brimstone, cast Conflagrate

4) cast Fire and Brimstone, cast Incinerate

I would have understood it immediately.

Anyway:

When is the damage from a Chaos Bolt established: when the cast starts, when it ends, or when it hits? The answer to this has changed over time, I'm not sure what it is now.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Owewa

[Zagam 1,983]

Chaos Bolt damage is calculated at the end of the cast, just as its leaving your character. Crit chance, spell power, Haste, and all that jazz are snapshotted right as soon as the spell cast is completed.

[Rrasis 13]

not sure if this has been discussed but the amount of embers your chaos bolt takes is determined at the beginning, so you can start your cast at .1 seconds left of Dark soul and it will only cost the .8 I can normally fit 7+ chaos bolts in per Dark Soul

[Moozedude 49]

So, here's a random question that I haven't seen answered in any of the destro threads: What's the magic haste breakpoint for the 1-sec incinerate? Everyone says they don't want under one second, because then you're waiting for the gcd. But nobody's dropped the actual number in our laps. I can find breakpoints for RoF and Immolate. And would it be better to figure lusted, or reach much higher and go all the time?

[JvChequer 43]

The "haste cap" for Incinerate with 1sec cast in Bloodlust/LMG/Blackdraft would be good.

[Zagam 1,983]

Give me a couple of minutes and I'll calculate it.

[Zagam 1,983]

Alright, let's do this. Mind you, this formula can be used to find all your breakpoints.

Cast time = (Base Cast Time) / (1 + Haste %)

Incinerate is a base 2.0 sec cast. Therefore, the total Haste needed to bring it to 1.0 second could be calculated this way:

1.0 = (2.0) / (1 + x) -> x = 1, or 100% Haste. However, there are many factors that go into this calculation. For this, I will calculate it assuming 5% Haste in the raid.

WITH BACKDRAFT

Base Cast Time = 2.0 / (1x1.05) = 2/1.05 = 1.904762 sec. Backdraft reduces cast time by 30%, not to be confused by giving you 30% Haste. This cast time of 1.907462 is now reduced by 30%. 1.907462 x 0.70 = 1.3352234 sec. Therefore;

1.0 = (1.3352234) / (1 + x) -> x = 0.3352234 or 33.52234%.

33.52234% = 14,247 Haste Rating

WITH BACKDRAFT + BLOODLUST/TEMPUS REPIT

Base Cast Time = 2.0 / (1x1.05x1.30) = 1.4652015 sec. Backdraft reduces cast time by 30%. Therefore, 1.4652015 x 0.7 = 1.025641 sec.

1.0 = (1.025641) / (1 + x ) -> 0.025641 or 2.5641%

2.5641% = 1,090 Haste Rating

WITH BACKDRAFT + BLOODLUST + TEMPUS REPIT + BERSERKING

Base Cast Time = 2.0 / (1x1.05x1.3x1.3x1.2) = 0.939231 sec. Backdraft reduces cast time by 30%. Therefore, 0.939232 x 0.7 = 0.65746 sec

0 Haste Rating

WITHOUT BACKDRAFT

1.0 = (1.904702) / (1 + x ) -> x = 0.904702 or 90.4702%

90.4702% = 38,450 Rating

WITHOUT BACKDRAFT + BLOODLUST

1.0 = 1.4652015 / (1 + x ) -> x = 0.4652015 or 46.52015%

46.52015% = 19,772 Rating

If my math isn't retardedly wrong, it would appear that it's theoretically possible to get to 1.0 sec Incinerate casts with Backdraft. It would require almost a full Haste reforge to get to 14,247 Rating. However, with this rating, you'd be severely under 1.0 sec cast with Bloodlust or Tempus Repit. Calculating in the Tempus Repit/Bloodlust time, it looks like requiring a paltry 1,090 Rating gets you there. Since it's likely impossible to get under that value, you should be seeing 1.0 or less cast time Incinerates under Bloodlust at any item level given you have the raid Haste buff.

Also to note, without Backdraft, even with Bloodlust, you'll need an unobtainable amount of Haste to reach the 1.0 sec cast time. However, in the next tier, this may be possible, although the high mana cost of Incinerate without Backdraft may not allow such casting behavior.

[JvChequer 43]

Worth reach at 14,247 Haste Rating then not use Blackdraft to cast Incinerate when LMG or Bloodlust is UP?

U could spend your Incinerate with Chaos Bolt until LMG/BL goes off.

[Zagam 1,983]

That would add a serious amount of micro management to Destruction. The TL;DR of this should be go Mastery heavy. It's too easy to drop your spammer down below 1.0 sec.

[gahhda 95]

That would add a serious amount of micro management to Destruction. The TL;DR of this should be go Mastery heavy. It's too easy to drop your spammer down below 1.0 sec.

Completely irrelephant with a massive number of globals being spent on RoF and tempus repit only having a ~15-16% uptime in full haste stacked gear.

My RoF in my opener lasts like 3 seconds, thats every 3rd global <_<.

[Nobleshield 15]

Quick question about the opening "rotation" after I've experimented a bit more. I can usually only get 1x Chaos Bolt out before Immolate gets to the point where it will fall off before I can cast my second Chaos Bolt; in this case should I cast the 2nd Chaos Bolt and let Immolate drop off for a second, or refresh Immolate and then do the second Chaos Bolt? Does that actually matter? I'm trying to follow the priority but I can't seem to eke past like 53k damage outside of AOE fights. I think I'm not using enough Chaos Bolts, but I only have LFR Light of the Cosmos and LFR Essence of Terror as trinkets, and often I'll be > 3 embers without any procs coming up so I have to toss out a Chaos Bolt to avoid capping.

[obleak 10]

Tossing out a choas bolt to avoid clipping is a dps gain. Sitting at full embers and just casting your rotation (without CB) is a decrease. I'm not sure what you're doing wrong. Do you have logs and a link to your character we could look at? :)

[Nobleshield 15]

Nothing other than LFR which doesn't give a good indication. If my guild does a raid tonight (Jin'rokh and T14 probably) I'll try to get some from that.

It might just be gear

http://us.battle.net...n/Marbas/simple

Edited May 20, 2013 by wayniac

[Cruzan 71]

Quick question about the opening "rotation" after I've experimented a bit more. I can usually only get 1x Chaos Bolt out before Immolate gets to the point where it will fall off before I can cast my second Chaos Bolt; in this case should I cast the 2nd Chaos Bolt and let Immolate drop off for a second, or refresh Immolate and then do the second Chaos Bolt? Does that actually matter? I'm trying to follow the priority but I can't seem to eke past like 53k damage outside of AOE fights. I think I'm not using enough Chaos Bolts, but I only have LFR Light of the Cosmos and LFR Essence of Terror as trinkets, and often I'll be > 3 embers without any procs coming up so I have to toss out a Chaos Bolt to avoid capping.

So are we talking strictly during the opener here? I dug up some of my old gear out of the bank to match your trinkets/meta gem/haste rating to test the opener. With 3400 haste and the same trinkets I could squeak in two CBs before immolate expires. That was without Essence of Terror proccing. It's going to depend on how fast you can string the opener together, but if you cast Immo immediately after that 2nd CB it wont have dropped off for more than a second. It won't even be an issue with Essence proccing. What is the exact opening sequence that you're using?

Edited May 20, 2013 by Cruzan

[Nobleshield 15]

I'm using:

Curse of Elements > Dark Soul > Immolate > Conflagrate x2 > Incinerate x4-6 (most of the time I have to use all 6 to get enough Embers) > Chaos Bolt (Immolate hits around 6 seconds here) > Chaos Bolt (Immolate falls off mid-cast).

It seems from a few tries on a dummy that if I get lucky and get 2x Embers on 4 Incinerates I can push out two Chaos Bolts and Immolate just drops for a second, but if I get unlucky and have to use all 6, Immolate will fall off in the middle of my second Chaos Bolt so it's around 2 seconds or maybe a bit more that it's off. Being new to Warlock I'm not sure if that's a huge thing.

Edited May 21, 2013 by wayniac

[Cruzan 71]

Toss a Rain of Fire in after your first Immolate. Should solve your Ember issues to where you'll only need 4x Incinerates. It is a little RNG based, but more often than not you'll have 2 embers after 4 Incinerates.

Edited May 21, 2013 by Cruzan

[Cruzan 71]

"Permission Denied"

Need to make your logs Public then you'll be good to go!

[Nobleshield 15]

"Permission Denied"

Need to make your logs Public then you'll be good to go!

Derp. Okay will do that ASAP. Been a long time since I used WoL for anything with my own account

EDIT: Should be visible now.

Edited May 21, 2013 by wayniac

[Owewa 3]

Soon, Fire and Brimstone won't be as clunky. In mass AoE situations like Tortos and Primoridus, you'll just leave Fire and Brimstone up allowing you to spam your spells harder. This will be a huge increase as trying to time it perfectly will sometimes cause you to fire out a single Incinerate instead of the FnB version. I REALLY welcome this soon-to-come change.

[in 5.3] Fire and Brimstone no longer requires a Burning Ember to cast. Instead, the spell causes Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate, and Curse spells to consume a Burning Ember when cast, and the effect remains active as long as the Warlock has at least 1 Burning Ember remaining.

So, the AOE sequence becomes

cast FIre and Brimstone

cast Rain of Fire

cast Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate

refresh Rain of Fire as necessary

Is this correct?

The effect of F&B when several embers remain and RoF is not cast to consume all the embers and terminate F&B?

Edited May 21, 2013 by Owewa

[Zagam 1,983]

FnB won't turn off so long as you have at least 1 Ember. Embers are calculated at execution, so as soon as you send 10 Incinerates out, you're getting back at LEAST 1 Ember. On Heroic Primordius, with FnB Immolate and Rain of Fire running, I had 4 Embers permanently no matter how fast I used them on FnB Incinerate. However, I had to toggle FnB constantly creating a small delay, so that delay won't be there anymore.

Basically sustained AoE will be to cast Rain of Fire, turn on Fire and Brimstone, Immolate, Conflagrate, Conflagrate, Incinerate x 6, go to normal rotation. So long as you have 1 Burning Ember, those spells will become AoE spells.

[Vile 9]

Why didn't they make it a "pure toggle"? I mean it could do the AOE version if it's toggled on and you have at least 1 ember, but not toggle off if you go below 1 ember. Now you'll have to keep an eye on the FnB anyway unless you're swimming in embers?

[Omaric 246]

Why didn't they make it a "pure toggle"? I mean it could do the AOE version if it's toggled on and you have at least 1 ember, but not toggle off if you go below 1 ember. Now you'll have to keep an eye on the FnB anyway unless you're swimming in embers?

On the other hand many people can argue that they forgot their toggle was on and all of the Chaos Bolt/Shadowburn embers have been being dumped into other spells during a single-target phase.

Either way, this way is easier than what we were used to, so yay!

[Zagam 1,983]

As Haste becomes a popular topic, I've decided to add cast times of Destruction spells and what Haste thresholds you'll see in order to avoid going under 1.000 sec casts on spells.

1.000 second cast requirements for each spell are below:

Incinerate

No Haste buffs: unobtainable

+5% Haste: unobtainable

+Bloodlust: 46.5% Haste = 19,763 Haste Rating

+Tempus Repit: 12.75% Haste = 5,419 Haste Rating

+Berserking: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

Incinerate + Backlash

No Haste buffs: 40% Haste = 17,000 Haste Rating

+5% Haste: 33.33% Haste = 14,167 Haste Rating

+Bloodlust: 2.6% Haste = 1,105 Haste Rating

+Tempus Repit: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

+Berserking: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

Immolate

No Haste buffs: 50% Haste = 21,250 Haste Rating

+5% Haste: 42.8% Haste = 18,190 Haste Rating

+Bloodlust: 10% Haste = 4,250 Haste Rating

+Tempus Repit: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

+Berserking: 0% Haste = 0 Haste Rating

Chaos Bolt

No Haste buffs: unobtainable

+5% Haste: unobtainable

+Bloodlust: unobtainable

+Tempus Repit: unobtainable

+Berserking: 40.9% Haste = 17,383 Haste Rating

If you're a Troll, you can deliver a 1.000 sec Chaos Bolt under the RNG gods' blessings. Otherwise, it's noticeable to see that you'll passively hit the Immolate cap as well as the Backdraft Incinerate cap during Bloodlust or Tempus Repit. It's to note that in order to get 1.000 second Incinerate casts during Backlast WITHOUT Bloodlust/Tempus Repit, you need 14,167 Haste Rating. I would define this as the ABSOLUTE hard cap for Haste for Destruction Warlocks.

^^I've added this section to the main page. I'll be adding similar tables to Demonology and Affliction to find their HARD caps as opposed to the soft caps well known by the community. For theorycrafter crazies, I can email you the spreadsheet used to find these values.

[Owewa 3]

[in 5.3] Fire and Brimstone no longer requires a Burning Ember to cast. Instead, the spell causes Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate, and Curse spells to consume a Burning Ember when cast, and the effect remains active as long as the Warlock has at least 1 Burning Ember remaining.

Did this make it into the patch? I don't see any difference.

[some time later...] An auxiliary minipatch downloaded, and now it seems to work as blue described.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Owewa

[Zagam 1,983]

Yes. It. Is. AMAZING. You don't have anything to mess with, it's like a Toggle and you go with it. Beware that cancelling the "Aura" will stop casting. This might be unintended, but you can't turn it off mid-cast of something else.