Season of Discovery Destruction Warlock DPS Talents and Runes

The level cap right now in Season of Discovery is level 50, meaning we're still missing ten talent points, but atleast this gives us some more options. While there are many options for talents if you plan to DPS as a Destruction Warlock, this build pulled ahead of the other options. For this build most of your points will be in the Destruction tree besides nine points that will go into the Demonology tree

Take Improved Imp to buff his damage by 30%, as well as give your party 30% more Stamina from Blood Pact. The Imp does a ridiculous amount of damage and is further buffed by Incinerate, so adding points to make him stronger will be worth it. Put 2 points into either Demonic Embrace for some extra Stamina or Improved Healthstone for bigger Healthstones, that's up to you. The last four points go into Fel Intellect just to give your Imp some more mana.

As for the Destruction tree, start by putting five points into either Cataclysm or Improved Shadow Bolt. Cataclysm will give you some Mana back, while Improved Shadow Bolt is only helpful on AoE when you Shadow Bolt Volley, which you will be doing in AoE scenarios. Which one you choose is once again up to you, however Improved Shadow Bolt is recommended as Shadow Bolt Volley actually does great damage in AoE. Your next five points will go into Bane as this will reduce the cast time of your main DoT Immolate. Aftermath is only a chance at dazing and not worth it. After that put two points into Improved Firebolt to reduce the cast time of your Imps Firebolt. Then put five points into Devastation to increase your chance to crit by 5%.

The next point unlocks Shadowburn, which is used largely as either a finisher or for whenever you need to move during the encounter. The next two points go into Destructive Reach to simply increase the range of all your Destruction spells by 20%. After that get Ruin which is a staple talent for Destruction Warlocks. This increases the damage of critical strikes by 100%. Place five points into Improved Immolate to buff the initial damage of your Immolate by 25%, then put five points into Emberstorm, which will buff all your Fire damage by 10% and works well with this build, as all of your spells are Fire damage.

Finally, put your last point into Conflagrate. We get a new Rune called Backdraft, which gives us 30% Spellcasting Haste for 10 seconds after we Conflagrate, making it vital to the build.

• Head — Backdraft
• Bracers — Immolation Aura
• Gloves — Chaos Bolt
• Pants — Incinerate
• Chest — Demonic Tactics
• Belt — Grimoire of Synergy
• Boot — Demonic Knowledge

While there are many options of Runes this phase, the ones above do the most damage and sim by far the highest if you plan to DPS as a Destruction Warlock. Incinerate is your bread and butter filler for Destruction and 100% mandatory. You'll be using this more than any other spell in your arsenal. This does great damage while also buffing your Fire damage by 25%.

For your chest Rune Demonic Tactics is the go to pick. This simply gives you 10% crit. With the recent Lake of Fire change, that rune is dead and no longer to be used. Soul Siphon is a terrible rune and Master Channeler is for Affliction Warlocks.

Chaos Bolt is the only option for Rune choice here. This is the hardest hitting spell in the game and should be kept on cooldown as much as possible, as long as you have your Fire buffs up.

Demonic Knowledge is another mandatory Rune for Destruction as this simply increases your spell damage by 10% of your current demons total Stamina and Intellect. For example, if your pet has 50 Stamina and 50 Intellect, that equates to a total of 100, therefore you would gain 10 spell damage. This is also buffed by Blessing of Kings. The other options in this Rune slot are really weak and won't really ever be used. Shadow Flame is an AoE ability and Dance of the Wicked is a tanking Rune.

All of the belt Runes are good options to use, but Grimoire of Synergy comes out ahead. This gives both you and your demon a 5% chance to buff the other by 25% damage whenever they deal damage. This was recently buffed and is now the best option. Shadow and Flame is a nice Rune that falls shortly behind Grimoire of Synergy and makes it so whenever you crit with your Shadow spells, you will get a 10% buff to your Shadow damage for 10 seconds. It also can buff your Fire if you crit with Fire, but you won't be using too many Fire spells.

Immolation Aura is a new Rune introduced in Phase 3. This emits fire around you and does AoE damage to all enemies around you and last until cancelled. This also reduces all magical damage you take by 10%. The other runes in this slot do not make any sense to use since Unstable Affliction is for Affliction and you do not want to use Summon Felguard since you will be using your Imp.

Backdraft is another new Rune introduced in Phase 3. This gives you 30% Spellcasting Haste after you Conflagrate for 10 seconds. Conflagrate is on a 10 second cooldown, which results in 30% Spellcasting Haste at 100% uptime.

More Engravings are likely to come out as we reach higher level caps, so make sure to checkout our general Runes guide to get a better understanding of what all tools you have available to your Warlock.