Destruction Warlock DPS Guide — The War Within Pre-Patch

Destruction Warlock is a very flexible specialization that can find ways to excel in a variety of environments. Destruction can deal a lot of bursts to a single target and also efficiently cleave and AoE several targets at once.

Destruction is almost always a viable candidate for progression fights, as it has the least ramp-up time of any Warlock specialization. It can pressure priority targets easily and also has strong cleave through Havoc. Like all Warlock specializations, Destruction brings Demonic Gateway, a powerful raid cooldown that can transport your entire group 40 yards instantly.

Strengths

• High single-target and two-target damage
• Low ramp-up time
• Good burst on-demand
• Efficient cleave
• Flexible gameplay
• Amazing AoE potential

Weaknesses

• Single 3 minutes cooldown
• Low AoE burst
• Low mobility can significantly penalise damage output

We have a dedicated leveling guide to help you get your Destruction Warlock to max level, complete with many tips and suggestions.

While playing with the default UI for the leveling is entirely possible, transitioning to a max level rotation with a substantially different UI layout can feel overwhelming and ultimately disorient or frustrate the player. Instead, we recommend implementing layout changes gradually in order to allow you to acclimate to a more effective and personal UI. The Addon page below offers some recommended options.

Destruction Warlock is a fairly straightforward spec, leaning towards hard-hitting direct damage spells, strong and long-lasting cooldowns, and a relative amount of pet management. At its core, the gameplay is about generating and spending the Warlock's iconic resource: Soul Shards.

The basics are simple: maintain Immolate on the target(s), spend your shards on Chaos Bolts or Rain of Fire; cast Conflagrate on cooldown and Incinerate in the downtime.

If you are a newcomer to the spec but would like to learn the basics, start browsing the Spell Summary and head over to the page linked below.

For those more familiar with Warlocks, we invite you to check out the Talents and Rotation pages to have access to more detailed and in-depth information.

Due to the increased number of variables and additional systems, picking gear has become a much less intuitive and immediate process. Nevertheless, you can find guidelines on how to best equip your Destruction Warlock on our dedicated gearing page, including the current Best in Slot equipment for the current tier.

Equipping gear is not enough, as you also need to choose the right consumables and gear augments to maximize your character potential. The pages below can guide you through those choices and help you better understand the implications each stat has on your Warlock.

Being geared and well-equipped is only half of the journey, as the end game activities require each a different approach to the spec. In order to find out more information regarding how to better tackle these challenges, check out the pages below.

Understanding your errors and refining your performance is a constant exercise, which can be frustrating or confounding at times. Below are listed some pages that offer tools and can point to and help correct those mistakes.

Prepatch of a new expansion is usually a time when 2 different systems/ideas overlap for a brief period, resulting in often quirky interactions with various degrees of power creep associated. In general any spec is going to be, at the very least, a viable option in the content available, but it is by no means representative of how the spec will perform in The War Within, due to the lack of Hero Talents.