In this article, we list your Destruction Warlock (WoW MoP 5.3) core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation). We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that playing a Destruction Warlock will face you with.

The other articles of our Destruction Warlock guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by two prominent Warlock theorycrafters: Gahddo, who maintains the Warlock profiles and rotations in Simulation Craft, and Evrelia, who raids in ScrubBusters and frequently streams on Twitch.

1. Single Target Rotation↑top

Your single-target rotation is based on the following priority list.

1. Cast Shadowburn if the target is below 20% health and if
   • you have more than 3.5 Burning Embers or
   • Dark Soul: Instability is up or
   • you have a large Intellect trinket proc or
   • you are out of mana or
   • the target is about to die.
2. Apply Immolate and keep it up.
3. Cast Conflagrate if you have two charges.
4. Keep Rain of Fire up on your target.
   • Only cast Rain of Fire if it will hit a target for the full 8 seconds.
5. Cast Chaos Bolt when you do not have 3 or more charges of Backdraft (explanations) and if
   • you have more than 3.5 Burning Embers or
   • Dark Soul: Instability is up or
   • Skull Banner (from a Warrior) is up or
   • you have a large Intellect or Crit trinket proc.
6. Cast Conflagrate if you have one charge.
7. Cast Incinerate to build up Burning Embers.

The idea is to keep a relatively high amount of Burning Embers, so that you can always cast Chaos Bolt and Shadowburn when they will be dealing more damage (trinket proc, Dark Soul, etc.).

Note that using Shadowburn will considerably increase your mana regeneration, but it will not affect your game play in any way.

Remember to apply and maintain Curse of the Elements if no one else in your raid/party can provide the same debuff.

2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top

When fighting multiple enemies, you will always want to keep Rain of Fire up.

When fighting 2 or 3 enemies, stick to your single-target rotation on one of them. Keep Immolate applied on them and use Havoc on Chaos Bolt (if no target is below 20% health) or Shadowburn (if there is a target below 20% health). Also, be careful not to cast Chaos Bolt when you have 3 or more charges of Backdraft.

When fighting more than 4 enemies, use Fire and Brimstone to apply Immolate, and cast Conflagrate and Incinerate (in that order of priority). When you do not have enough Burning Embers, refresh Immolate manually, as a filler. When a target is under 20% health, you can start using Havoc+ Shadowburn on it.

Shadowburn usage is extremely important, so we advise you to read our more in-depth section.

Also, it may be useful to use a stopcasting macro for Shadowburn.

3. Demon↑top

For both single target and AoE DPS, your best choice is generally to use a Felhunter or an Observer (if you chose Grimoire of Supremacy as your Tier 5 talent).

On fights where you have to constantly switch target, then the Imp or the Fel Imp (if you chose Grimoire of Supremacy as your Tier 5 talent) will be better, because it can cast from range and does not have to keep running after each new target you select.

4. Cooldowns↑top

Dark Soul: Instability is your main DPS cooldown. It increases your critical strike chance by 30% for. Use it on cooldown and try to max out your Burning Embers before using it, so that you can cast Chaos Bolt as many times while your critical strike chance is increased.

Summon Doomguard and Summon Infernal share a cooldown. As such, you will have to decide which of the two you will use. These two abilities are on a 10-minute cooldown, so you will realistically only use them once per fight. Summon Doomguard is better when fighting 3 enemies or less, while Summon Infernal is better when fighting 4 enemies or more.

If you choose Grimoire of Supremacy, as a Tier 5 talent, then Summon Doomguard becomes Summon Terrorguard and Summon Infernal becomes Summon Abyssal.

In addition, you have a number of defensive and offensive cooldowns, the majority of which depends on your choice of talents. We detail all these cooldowns in a subsequent section.

5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Destruction Warlock↑top

Overall, playing a Destruction Warlock is not difficult, and following the priorities listed above will yield excellent results. Despite this, there are a few concepts that we feel require a bit of additional explanation for you to fully understand your class.

5.1. Burning Embers

Burning Embers will play a major role in your play style, as you need them to cast Chaos Bolt or Shadowburn. Most of your damaging abilities generate Burning Embers.

You have 4 Burning Embers. A Burning Ember is a container with 10 graduations. When the container is full, the Burning Ember can be used and you will be able to start filling the next Burning Ember (provided that they are not all full).

Out of combat, you will always end up with exactly 1 full Burning Ember. The other 2 (or 3 with Glyph of Burning Embers) Burning Embers will slowly decay if they are filled. The first Burning Ember will slowly regenerate if it is not full.

During combat, Burning Embers are generated through the use of your core abilities.

• Incinerate is your main Burning Ember-generating ability. It has a 2-second cast and each strike fills 10% of a Burning Ember (so, 1 graduation). Critical hits fill 20%.
• Conflagrate is your second source of Burning Ember. Each strike fills 10% of a Burning Ember and critical strikes fill 20%.
• Immolate is a 15-second DoT that deals Fire damage. Each time Immolate critically hits (from the initial damage or from a subsequent tick), you have a small chance of regenerating 10% of a Burning Ember.
• Rain of Fire has an 8-second duration and deals AoE damage. Each hit has a 25% chance to regenerate 10% of a Burning Ember. Thanks to Aftermath, the ticks of the DoT left by Rain of Fire also have a chance to regenerate Burning Embers. On immolated targets Rain of Fire deals 50% more damage.

Burning Embers will mostly be consumed with the following two abilities.

• Chaos Bolt consumes 1 Burning Ember, has a rather long cast, and deals a large amount of damage. This ability will always critically strike and its damage is increased by your critical strike chance.
• Shadowburn consumes a Burning Ember, is instant-cast, and deals a large amount of damage, but it can only be used on targets below 20% health. It also restores 15% of your mana after 5 seconds.

Note that the Life Tap ability that other Warlock classes have is replaced with Ember Tap, which heals you at the cost of 1 Burning Ember.

5.2. Refreshing Your DoTs

As a Destruction Warlock, a small part of your DPS comes from a DoT: Immolate. Even though, DoTs are much less important to Destruction Warlocks than they are to Affliction or Demonology Warlocks, you should still know how to refresh them optimally.

5.2.1. Pandemic

Pandemic is your level 90 ability. It causes the remaining duration of your DoTs to be added to the new duration when you refresh them, up to 50% of the base duration.

If a DoT has a base duration of 24 seconds and you refresh it when there are 10 seconds remaining, the new duration will be 34 seconds, thanks to Pandemic.

5.2.2. How do DoTs benefit from statistics?

DoTs benefit from your statistics at the time when the DoT was cast or refreshed. This means that the DoT will take into account your haste, spellpower, etc. at the time when you cast the DoT, and it will not be affected by any change in your stats while the DoT is running.

5.2.3. Pandemic and Statistics: When to Refresh?

The implication of Pandemic and the fact that DoTs benefit from your statistics as they were when you applied them is that whenever a DoT has less than 50% of its normal duration remaining, you should refresh it, if you have better statistics than when you cast it (trinket proc, Dark Soul, potion, encounter-specific buff, etc.). Otherwise, refresh the DoT when it is about to expire.

This is especially important during Dark Soul: Instability because refreshing Immolate with +30% critical strike chance will cause each of the ticks to have a higher chance to be a critical strike, greatly increasing your Burning Embers generation rate.

5.3. Demons

By default, you can summon one of four demons to help you fight your foes.

• The Felhunter does the most DPS and is the demon of choice for raiding (unless you take Grimoire of Sacrifice as a Tier 5 talent). It will automatically cast the following abilities: Devour Magic and Shadow Bite. It can also cast Spell Lock if you instruct it to.
• The Imp may have its uses for raiding, though it does not do as much damage as the Felhunter. It will automatically cast the following abilities: Firebolt and Singe Magic. It can also cast Flee or Cauterize Master if you instruct it to.
• The Succubus may have its uses for raiding, though it does not do as much damage as the Felhunter. It will automatically cast the following abilities: Lash of Pain, Seduction, and Lesser Invisibility. It can also cast Whiplash if you instruct it to.
• The Voidwalker will be your demon of choice while leveling up. It will automatically cast the following abilities: Shadow Bulwark, Suffering, and Torment. It can also cast Disarm if you instruct it to.

You also have two demons that you can use as DPS cooldowns: a Doomguard ( Summon Doomguard) for single-target damage or an Infernal ( Summon Infernal) for AoE damage.

Finally, you have the Command Demon ability, which, if put on your action bar, will change with the demon you are using. For the Voidwalker, the Felhunter, and the Succubus, this ability will cast their manual ability. For the Imp, it will cast Cauterize Master.

5.3.1. Grimoire of Supremacy

Grimoire of Supremacy is a Tier 5 talent that improves your demons and gives them better abilities.

• The Felhunter becomes an Observer. Devour Magic is replaced with Clone Magic, Shadow Bite with Tongue Lash, and Spell Lock with Optical Blast.
• The Imp becomes a Fel Imp. Firebolt is replaced with Felbolt and Singe Magic is replaced with Sear Magic.
• The Succubus becomes a Shivarra. Lash of Pain is replaced with Bladedance, Seduction with Mesmerize, and Whiplash with Fellash.
• The Voidwalker becomes a Voidlord. Shadow Bulwark is replaced with Threatening Presence.

The Observer remains the demon with the highest DPS.

Your demon DPS cooldowns are replaced with more powerful versions: a Terrorguard ( Summon Terrorguard) for single-target damage or an Abyssal ( Summon Abyssal) for AoE damage.

Finally, you have the Command Demon ability, which, if put on your action bar, will change with the demon you are using. For the Observer, the Shivarra, and the Voidlord, this ability will cast their manual ability. For the Fel Imp, it will cast Cauterize Master (as it does for the Imp).

5.4. Shadowburn

Shadowburn is the soul and essence of the Destruction specialisation. On single-target fights with only a single boss to hit, Destruction Warlocks are average at best. On fights where you can cycle through many adds, including some that are below 20% health, Destruction Warlocks are probably the best specialisation in the game.

The key is to use Havoc with Shadowburn as often as possible. Havoc allows you to cast Shadowburn 3 times before its effect runs out (against only once for Chaos Bolt). So you should always focus on targets lower than 20% health so that you can use Havoc and Shadowburn. Often, you will not have enough Burning Embers to cast Shadowburn more than once or twice while Havoc is up. Even so, you should always try and use Havoc for Shadowburn and not Chaos Bolt, because one cast of Shadowburn during Havoc is worth more than a cast of Chaos Bolt during Havoc. It is acceptable to postpone using Havoc for a few seconds if an add is about to drop below 20% health.

Also, if a target dies less than 5 seconds after you attacked it with Shadowburn, you regain 2 Burning Embers, so this is another reason why proper usage of Shadowburn is crucial. Ideally, you should try and damage every add that is about to die with Shadowburn. In turn, this will give you Burning Embers that you can use to keep spamming Shadowburn.

5.5. Backdraft, Incinerate, and Chaos Bolt

Backdraft causes your Conflagrate spell to lower the mana cost and cast time of your 3 next Incinerates or of your next Chaos Bolt by 30%.

Even though it sounds appealing to reduce the mana cost and cast time of Chaos Bolt by 30%, it is a lot more efficient to use the effect on the next 3 Incinerates. So you should not use Chaos Bolt if you have 3 charges of Backdraft.

That said, there are situations when you can use Chaos Bolt even if you have 3 charges of Backdraft, namely:

• when you have a near-unlimited supply of Burning Embers, such as fights with many targets that do not need to be directly AoE-ed and that you can use to generate Burning Embers;
• when you need to do burst damage on a target quickly.

5.6. More on Cooldowns

In addition to your Dark Soul: Instability, Summon Doomguard, and Summon Infernal, you have other defensive and offensive cooldowns, the majority of which will depend on your choice of talents. We present them in this section, but first, a we need to say more about your Doomguard and your Infernal.

5.6.1. Doomguard and Infernal

For most situations, summoning a Doomguard is your best choice. In case you are faced with a large number of enemies that you wish to use extra burst on, you should use Summon Infernal.

Summon Doomguard/ Summon Infernal will summon a Doomguard/Infernal to fight by your side for 45 seconds. The ability has a 10 minute cooldown, meaning that it will realistically only be usable once per fight. Your Doomguard/Infernal's damage will scale dynamically with your own Spell Power and Critical Strike Rating, so any change in your stats after your Doomguard/Infernal has been summoned will affect him.

Ideally, you need to use your Doomguard/Infernal at the pull or when your raid uses Bloodlust/ Heroism/ Time Warp.

Everything we said in this section is still valid for Summon Terrorguard and Summon Abyssal, if you choose Grimoire of Supremacy as your tier 5 talent.

5.6.2. Defensive Cooldowns

You have a total of 6 defensive cooldowns, 3 of which depend on your choices of talents.

• Soulshatter reduces your threat by 90% for all enemies within 50 yards. It has a 2-minute cooldown.
• Unending Resolve reduces all damage taken by 40% and prevents your spells from being interrupted or silenced for 8 seconds. It has a 3-minute cooldown.
• Dark Regeneration is a Tier 1 talent that restores 30% of your health and that of your pet, and increases healing received by 25% over 12 seconds.
• Sacrificial Pact is a Tier 3 talent that sacrifices 50% of your demon's health (or 50% of your health if you have no demon) to create an absorption shield on you for 200% of the sacrificed health.
• Dark Bargain is a Tier 3 talent that prevents all damage from 8 seconds. When the effect fades, 50% of the damage prevented is dealt over 8 seconds.
• Healthstones can be much more beneficial to Warlocks than they are to other classes, because of Glyph of Healthstone. Do not hesitate to make good use of them!
• Ember Tap consumes a Burning Ember and restores some of your health.

For other Warlock specialisations, this number of defensive cooldowns can be explained by the fact that they need to often use Life Tap to regenerate mana, so having these cooldowns is a means of compensating for requiring more healing from the healers.

In the case of Destruction Warlocks, Life Tap is replaced by Ember Tap, so these cooldowns will simply be used with survival in mind.

5.6.3. Offensive Talent Cooldowns

Grimoire of Service is a Tier 5 talent that enables you to summon an additional demon to fight for you for 20 seconds. This ability should be used on cooldown and preferably when you have a trinket/weapon enchant proc or when you deal increased damage on the boss, as your demon benefits from a number of your stats.

Archimonde's Vengeance is a Tier 6 talent that causes the enemy to suffer 25% of the damage you take for 12 seconds. This cooldown is very straightforward to use. Simply activate it when you are going to receive a large amount of unavoidable damage.

6. Changelog↑top

• 19 May 2013: Evrelia's review and Patch 5.3 update.
  • Added a link to a macro for Shadowburn.
  • Explained that it is sometimes acceptable to use Chaos Bolt with 3 charges of Backdraft.
• 08 Apr. 2013: Added a mention, in the section about refreshing DoTs, that refreshing Immolate during Dark Soul: Instability is extremely beneficial.
• 22 Mar. 2013: Improved single-target and multiple-target rotations. Added a section to highlight the importance of Shadowburn.
• 14 Mar. 2013: Forgot to add Rain of Fire in the single-target rotation in the 5.2 update. It is fixed now.
• 07 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated and improved single-target rotation.
  • Updated and improved the multiple-target rotation.
  • Improved advice for using Doomguard/Infernal.
  • Greatly improved section about refreshing DoTs.
  • Removed mention of Kil'jaeden's Cunning, which no longer has an active component.