'Discussions' table schema

title      description    desid    replyto    upvote    downvote   views
browser    used           a1        none        1          1       12
-          bad topic      b2        a1          2          3       14
sql        database       a3        none        4          5       34
-          crome          b4        a3          3          4       12

The above table has two types of content types Main Topics and Comments. Unique content identifier 'desid' used to identify that its a main topic or a comment. 'desid' starts with 'a' for Main Topic and for comment 'desid' starts with 'b'. For comment 'replyto' is the 'desid' of main topic to which this comment is associated.

I like to find out the list of the top main topics that are arranged on the basis of (upvote+downvote+visits+number of comments to it) addition. The following query gives top topics list in order of (upvote+downvote+visits)

select * with highest number of upvote+downvote+views by query "select * from [DB_user1212].[dbo].[discussions] where desid like 'a%' order by (upvote+downvote+visited) desc

For (comments+upvote+downvote+views ) I tried select * from [DB_user1212].[dbo].[discussions] where desid like 'a%' order by ((select count(*) from [DB_user1212].[dbo].[discussions] where replyto = desid )+upvote+downvote+visited) desc but it didn't work because its not possible to send desid from outer query to inner subquery. How to solve this? Please note that I want solution in query language only.