Posts with tag destruction-blood-pact

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests for something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid.

I like to think that I've been a solid supporter of the warlocks in their struggles against the devil mages. I know that I do have some split loyalties with the druids, but let's be fair in saying that a druid is wicked awesome in comparison to a mage. With that in mind, know that it brings me no joy to say that I'm worried. We talked about the new talents coming in the next expansion last week, and while I love what talents warlocks had and I think the new system has some great potential, there's one facet about it that concerns me.

Destruction and fire are very closely linked in playstyle. Both are heavy nuking specs that also utilize DOT effects to boost their damage. They both make use of an otherwise unwieldy long spell, albeit in different methods, but one cannot deny that the two specs are fairly similar. One of the key differences right now to set destruction apart from fire is Conflagration and Backdraft -- destruction has a form of focus on speed that fire doesn't. With traditional specs going out the window, one has to worry about how Blizzard intends to distinguish destruction from fire.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you.

For the past two weeks, we've been taking a look at the future of warlock design -- a bit of clairvoyance on my part, with Blizzard's asking for player feedback of a similar nature this past week. First we looked at affliction's concerns, and then we talked about demonology. This week, we'll round out the series by discussing what might come of destruction, the current wayward child of warlocks.

It's easy to talk about the problems that destruction faces now, as they're things that we see inside of the game, yet damage balance is a very fickle mistress. Numbers can be tuned at the drop of a hat; whether they are or not is an entirely different matter. Dealing in numbers and figures really is a simple matter. This week's focus won't exclusively be on the damage disparity that destruction currently suffers from, but rather the mechanical difficulties and identity crisis that holds it back. Damage is meaningless when Blizzard could easily hotfix in a random buff or nerf without a moment's notice; again, it's more so a matter of if or when.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you.

With new raids come new items that we can toss away our hard-earned money on. Only in this case, that money is valor points. The sad part about this raiding tier is that Blizzard reduced the valor point cap in order to force a stricter limit on how players gear up in this new raiding tier. The devs don't want players getting the new gear too quickly, and so they limit us by creating a stop-gap in our ability to get the non-dropped items.

In reality, this isn't all that much of a bother. If Blizzard wants to create these types of gearing gateways, then so be it. The one issue that I do take with it is that this really places that much more importance on luck as a factor of early gearing. Tier gear cannot be gained via drops, except for the pieces which drop from Baradin Hold. Further, it isn't token pieces that drop but the specific items themselves -- oh, yes, and there's PVP gear to contend with on the loot table. Getting the drops from inside Baradin Hold saves you 3,850 valor points, which is four weeks' worth of dungeons. That's a big deal.

Regardless, let's talk about the things you should be spending your hard-earned points on.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you.

I believe that somewhere along the line, I promised that I would write more this week about how terrible mages are -- which, you know, that's entirely possible, but I say lots of things. Trusting that what I said was accurate or true, well, that seems like a pretty big lead of faith; I personally wouldn't take it. Besides which, I feel that Archmage Pants does quite a good enough job of that for me. Why should I bother? It's like kicking a wounded puppy. Although I'm not entirely against that, either.

No, no, there will be no puppy kicking today -- well, perhaps minimal puppy kicking. Instead, we're going on an adventure -- a literary adventure! I know, get excited, because those are the best kinds. This week is all about keeping yourself alive. If you recall, a while back I wrote on the art of surviving as a warlock. This time, I'd like to take a look into exactly how this works, what's paying off, and what's better left off being passed down to mages.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you.

Getting some higher-grade medication than what I've been previously taking has seriously paid off, which is a huge benefit. I may still be a little hazy, but at the very least I have focus enough to give destruction its due. Frankly, not doing so just wouldn't be justice. As much as I am a fan of affliction, destruction holds a bit of a soft spot in my heart. Something about doing what a mage thinks he can do only better must be part of it.

While affliction has certainly been a viable choice this raiding tier -- all of our specs have, actually -- destruction has really taken the popular stance. In a general sense, it has the overall highest DPS potential of all the specs, which explains why many people play as destruction. Also, it's fun! Affliction may have multiple DoT juggling and all that business, but nothing is more exciting than watching enemies just explode in bursts of fel flames. There's just something enticing about controlling the uncontrollable blaze.

For all the good it has, nothing is perfect. Even destruction has its flaws, so let's get to work at breaking them down. In case you missed the last two weeks in the series, this is where you can find our posts on affliction and demonology.