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Hello and welcome to my Mists of Pandaria Destruction Warlock Skill Breakdown.
In this video I'm going to try to explain the changes and rotation differences between
the current Destruction skillset and the one implemented in the Mists beta.
In the background will be my Warlock going through the rotation described later in the
video. I haven't spent too much time in front of the target dummies, so, like the last video,
the rotation is sloppy could use some work.
Up on the screen are the tooltips of your major spells, taken directly from the beta
client. These will be up for only a few more seconds, so feel free to pause the video to
read them.
We'll start out with the new resource mechanics that you have as a Destuction Warlock.
The first is Chaotic Energy. This increases your mana regen by 625%, and is affected by
haste.
This basically changes your mana bar into an energy bar, as your spells take a large
chunk of mana to cast, but going from no mana to max takes less than ten seconds.
This changes our playstyle a bit, as you no longer have to cast Life Tap to regain mana.
The next is called Burning Embers. This gives us a new resource of the same name that is
generated by casting Incinerate or having your Immolate crit.
An important bit to remember is that each cast or crit does NOT generate a Burning Ember-
it only generates about 1/8th of a full Ember, so it takes a few casts or crits to get one.
Burning Embers are spent by casting Chaos Bolt or casting a new spell, Ember Tap, which
I'll be detailing in a minute.
Now on to our standard spells and passive effects.
Backdraft is still the same effect is has been for the last two expansions: every cast
of Conflagrate gives you three charges that reduce the cast time of Incinerate by 30%.
Chaos Bolt, however, has changed quite a bit from it's original form. It no longer has
a cooldown, but now costs Burning Embers to cast and takes about twice as long to cast.
To make up for this drawback, Chaos bolt now always crits, and the damage is increased
by your crit chance.
There's also a passive effect you learn at level 86 that consumes 3 Backdraft charges
to give it the 30% haste buff.
This effect seems bugged in the beta, as I haven't hit 86 or gone to a trainer to learn
the spell, but it still consumed 3 charges and seemed to cast faster.
Dark Soul, the new Demon Soul, is your standard 2 minute DPS cooldown. It's losing its per
demon effect to give a flat 30% crit chance.
Shadowburn has also slightly changed as well, given that Destro locks no longer have access
to Soul Shards. It is now only castable when the target is under 20%, and returns 15% mana
after 5 seconds no matter if the target dies or not.
If your target DOES die within 5 seconds and yield experience or honor, you instantly generate
an entire Burning Ember.
Immolate is your only DoT and hasn't changed other than it has a chance to generate Burning
Embers on a critical strike.
Incinerate also hasn't changed much, but it no longer gets a damage bonus if the target
is Immolated. This spell also generates Embers, and the effect doubles on a crit.
After years of begging, Conflagrate no longer requires Immolate to be on a target to cast.
Also, the glyph is pretty much mandatory, as it gives your Conflagrate spell two charges.
This does NOT mean that you get twice the charges in the same amount of time, merely
that it stores one and starts on the second's cooldown if you mess up.
Fel Flame is the same as it is now- an instant cast DoT refresh that deals damage.
Havoc, however, has changed into a small AoE DPS cooldown. It has a 1 and a half minute
CD, and basically causes the next 3 direct damage spells cast on another enemy to be
duplicated on the target you cast Havoc on.
Finally, Ember Tap replaces Life Tap, as you no longer need the mana regen because of your
Chaotic Energy passive.
This spell spends a Burning Ember to heal yourself for a percentage of your max health.
Now for the rotation I've come up with.
The same disclaimers from my last video still apply- I haven't mathcrafted this out, I've
merely stood in front of a target dummy until I find a rotation that feels good and seems
to deal good damage.
Start with firing off a Curse of the Elements, followed by a quick double cast of Conflagrate.
Put up Immolate, and then spam Incinerate until you have TWO Burning Embers.
Remember to cast Conflagrate on CD, and keep refreshing Immolate either by hard casting
the spell or casting two Fel Flames.
I've found that while using Fel Flame to refresh gives you more damage, you also use a lot
more mana, and will eventually have to switch back to hard casting Immolate for a few rotations.
Now once you've generated two Burning Embers, cast Chaos Bolt once, then go back to spamming
Incinerate.
Once the boss hits 20% health, throw in Shadowburns on cooldown as well.
Now, a few of you may be wondering why I kept that extra Burning Ember sitting unused.
The reason is that Ember Tap is a great emergency button for when the healer drops the ball.
The DPS loss from that extra ember isn't noticable over the course of the fight, and remember-
a Dead DPS does no DPS.
Overall, the Destro rotation is definitely simpler than Affliction, but brings the large
crits and direct damage that people have come to expect.
The animation for storing up your burning embers is amazing, and honestly, who doesn't
like the idea of throwing fire at someone so hard that you catch yourself ablaze?
Please thumbs up if you liked this video, and subscribe to be notified when I release
more content. My name is VorpalStick, and this has been my Destruction Warlock skill
breakdown.