Destruction Warlock Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — The War Within (11.2.5)

Destruction Warlock strength is to burst down individual targets before suffering retaliation, and as such, it is best to quickly kill individual enemies and move to the next. Destruction tagging capabilities are generally limited to Conflagrate and Shadowburn until later when Wither is unlocked as Hellcaller.

Shadowburn is the main tool used to quickly kill lesser enemies one after the other, and its reset mechanic should be exploited as much as possible.

Worth mentioning is Destruction AoE being difficult to utilize effectively as spells generate high threat and Rain of Fire requires target to stay in the area.

Curses, crowd controls, and pet off-tanking can substantially reduce the amount of incoming damage, promoting aggressive play, while all the personal defensive cooldowns offer a degree of safety even when overpulling.

For bigger enemies such as Elites or Rares, Destruction suffers the most from Voidwalker's lack of aggro, creating either a very slow attrition battle with Health Funnel or a situation where the player rips aggro after a couple of Chaos Bolts.

When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. If the item levels are equal, you should choose the piece with stats that are most favorable to your specialization. If your current item is an Heirloom, it should not be replaced.

Below, you can see the suggested leveling talent build and the order in which to pick the talents while leveling.

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Starting at Level 1, you only have one main attack ability: Shadow Bolt.

1. Level 2 — the first DoT, Corruption, becomes available, which should be used to tag and soften up multiple enemies whenever spamming a few Shadow Bolts will not kill them quicker.
2. Level 35 — Use Summon Infernal as often as possible.
3. Level 67 — Once unlocked Fiendish Cruelty your critical hits will have a chance for a free Shadowburn castable on any enemies regardless of their health.
4. Level 29 — Use Shadowburn on targets below 20% health to execute them and hopefully the shard refund.
5. Level 27 — Use Cataclysm as often as possible.
6. Level 19 — Use Havoc when there is a second target to duplicate every single-target spell.
7. Level 11 — Cast Chaos Bolt whenever you have at least 2 Shards.
8. Level 15 — Cast Rain of Fire when you have 3 shards and there are at least 3 targets stacked.
9. Level 10 — maintain Immolate on as many targets as possible for high damage and shard generation.
10. Level 13 — Cast Conflagrate when moving and when you do not have more than 4 and a half shards.
11. Level 10 — Incinerate replaces Shadow Bolt with the ability to generate Soul Shard bits.

1. Bane of Havoc replaces Havoc with a ground-targeted AoE variant, enabling it to deal massive damage on any target caught in the area.
2. Fel Fissure is mostly useful for its movement slow while leveling.
3. Gateway Mastery should always be considered to expedite your whereabouts in closed spaces where mounts are not usable.
4. Bonds of Fel can offer further AoE burst when kiting targets around.

Summon Imp is your first available demon. This pet is not particularly useful for leveling, but you have no choice for the early levels.

If you are leveling alone, Summon Voidwalker can be a helpful choice while leveling up, as it takes a lot of the pressure off you. Avoiding casting pushback can also increase leveling speed.

Summon Felhunter can be a good choice if you are leveling in a group or venturing into dungeons. The extra interrupt is helpful for dealing with troublesome caster mobs.