Destruction Warlock DPS Mythic+ Tips — Dragonflight 10.0.7
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Destruction Warlock in World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.0.7.
Mythic+ Introduction for Destruction Warlock
Mythic+ has become a large part of the World of Warcraft endgame, but the sheer amount of different variables has left many players feeling overwhelmed. The group composition, weekly affixes, the item level of the group, the keystone level, and the experience and comfort level of the group are just several of the factors that will influence how you approach each dungeon. The purpose of this page is to prepare you for the key differences that set Mythic+ apart from the typical World of Warcraft endgame experience, including talents and rotational anomalies that may not be obvious at first glance.
If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our Dragonflight Mythic+ Season 1 page below.
Destruction Warlocks offer some of the highest on demand burst and 2 target
cleave potential across all DPS, while having strong and short enough
cooldowns that can be used frequently on each pull. The spec still retains
all the class baseline toolkit comprised of Healthstones, Soulstones,
skip-enabling Demonic Gateway, AoE crowd control abilities such as
Shadowfury and
Howl of Terror, and uncapped AoE spells.
Destruction Warlock Mythic+ Rotation
While both single- and multi-target rotations do not differ substantially from the standard priority outlined in Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page there are few points worth noting:
- While
Rain of Fire is generally strong in terms of numbers, the nature of the spell makes it unsuitable when kiting is involved if it is not also supported by additional crowd-control AoE abilities. This means Destruction Warlocks are usually better off cleaving with
Chaos Bolts in those situations.
- Destruction's toolkit is exceptional at bursting targets and funneling
priority damage due to the insane shard generation multiple
Immolates can provide, so keep that in mind during weeks where it is more important to focus on key targets over even AoE.
In this build, Rain of Fire is mostly used when there are at least 3
targets and
Havoc is on cooldown; otherwise prioritize the use
of
Havoc and
Chaos Bolt when there are up to 5 targets
close.
Opening Sequence with Cataclysm/Channel Demonfire setup
- Cast
Conflagrate.
- Cast
Cataclysm.
- Cast
Havoc and start dumping as many
Chaos Bolts as possible.
- Cast
Channel Demonfire
If Rain of Fire cannot reliably hit the targets in the area for most
of its duration, consider using shards on
Chaos Bolts instead.
Inferno playstyle
Inferno talent is not tied to cooldowns, so the opener is not
set in stone and does not differ from the multitarget priority
section in the Rotation page.
That said the playstyle of Inferno is somewhat different as it
requires to aggressively spend shards on
Rain of Fire,
maintaining
Immolate on targets to ensure a continuous shard income,
while using liberally
Havoc and
Conflagrate to generate 1
shard per cast.
Destruction Warlock Utility
While damage is the bigger reason to bring an Destruction Warlock, the class itself offer a noticeable amount of crowd control and various supporting abilities:
- Recently reintroduced, the Curses can offer some advantage against
specific dangerous enemies:
Curse of Tongues can reduce the amount of interrupt required by the group, while
Curse of Weakness alleviates the incoming damage on tank from auto attacks. Last but not least,
Curse of Exhaustion can be used to slow targets in situations where kiting is required. While these effects can be noticeable, it is better to use curses on a few key targets, as the time spent to apply these effects is time not spent doing damage.
Healthstones have a 1-minute cooldown and heal for 25% of max health, allowing for an emergency heal for each player.
Soulstones offer a combat resurrection that can be used both reactively and preemptively in the case of a death run.
Demonic Gateway offers the unique ability to skip certain parts of the map, depending on the dungeon in question, avoiding specific pulls.
Shadowfury helps alleviating pressure on the tank during big pulls as it is a 3-second AoE stun.
Fear and
Banish are both spammable crowd control abilities that can be used to interrupt a cast in a pinch or to remove temporarily a target from combat.
Mythic+ Talents for Destruction Warlock
Below are the recommended talents for Mythic+. There is a certain degree of flexibility when progressing down the path, to accommodate for preferences or to meet specific requirements, as discussed further.
To import the build directly in-game click on the export button in the top-right of the calculator
The build above is meant for Fortified weeks.
For Tyrannical weeks this build offers more boss damage overall:
Class talent tree fundamental nodes
Generally all output nodes are hard to give up, but fortunately there are enough point to offer the choice of whichever utility options to pick instead.
Demonic Inspiration;
Wrathful Minion;
Socrethar's Guile;
Sargerei Technique;
Soul Conduit;
Grimoire of Synergy;
Summon Soulkeeper.
Some other utility nodes are also too good to pass up, especially in the context of dungeons:
Fel Domination;
Mortal Coil;
Dark Pact especially on 45s cooldown;
Demonic Gateway to skip areas of the dungeon;
Shadowfury as one of the few AoE stuns.
Destruction Warlock talent tree fundamental nodes
Due to lot of AoE pulls thorough a dungeon run, leaning towards cleave and AoE is generally the safer choice, even in the case of a Tyrannical Week.
Havoc is extremely valuable whenever there are multiple target, as it can be used to generate shards faster or to duplicate your spenders, which is further encouraged with
Cry Havoc;
- For low keys
Cataclysm offers strong AoE burst and multiple
Immolate applications, ensuring a steady flow of Soul Shards;
- In higher keys
Inferno is the better choice for sustained damage output during pulls with more than 3 targets;
Avatar of Destruction offers very frequent mini cooldown windows just by playing the spec.
Summon Infernal should be used freely as the main appeal is the shard generation over 30 seconds period.
Destruction Warlock talent tree options
- During Explosive weeks, consider moving 1 point
from
Fire and Brimstone to
Shadowburn to trivialise that affix for your group;
- Similarly, switching from
Havoc to
Mayhem can enable higher uptime on cleave as the Explosive Orbs will never be the target of the
Mayhem Havoc, resulting in automatic Havoc on mobs;
- The point in
Burn to Ashes can be reallocated to
Power Overwhelming for more damage during
Inferno
Rain of Fire windows, at the expense of lower single target damage;
- For even more AoE damage at the expense of single target, swap
from
Roaring Blaze to
Improved Conflagrate;
- The point in
Fire and Brimstone can also be swapped for
Scalding Flames during Tyrannical weeks.
Stat Priority for Destruction Warlock
- Intellect;
- Haste;
- Mastery ≅ Critical Strike;
- Versatility.
Pet Choice for Destruction Warlock
The Felhunter is typically the best choice, as it grants you an interrupt, which is a huge advantage in Mythic+; consider swapping to Imp if you need additional dispel.
Trinket Considerations for Destruction Warlock in Mythic+
When choosing your trinkets, we recommend simulating yourself on Raidbots using the Patchwerk option for raids and single-target, and Patchwerk with 4-5 targets or Hectic Add Cleave for an educated guess on multi-target performance in Dungeons. Usually, trinkets that proc stats are more versatile and better performers than single-target spell damage procs, unless they are overtuned.
You can also get a quick overview of good Mythic+ Trinkets on our Gearing page, specifically the Simulation chart for multi-target scenarios.
Dragonflight Season 1 Affix: Thundering
Periodically players will receive a buff for a 30% damage increase lasting 15 seconds. Before it expires a player must make contact with someone of the opposite polarity or risk a stun. As Warlocks do not have a stun break it is generally advisable to resolve the mechanic as intended. For a more detailed explanation visit the following link:
Changelog
- 20 Mar. 2023: Talents updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Added an Inferno section, and updated the talent recommendation.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated recommended build.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Warlock Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Motoko, Warlock main since The Burning Crusade, co-admin in the Warlock Discord, and theorycrafter and contributor for LockOneStopShop.
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