Destruction Warlock DPS Mythic+ Tips — Shadowlands 9.0.2
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Destruction Warlock in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.0.2.
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.
Destruction Warlocks offer some of the highest, uncapped AoE damage across
every spec in the game, but in order to do so, they need to specialise, sacrificing
some of the single- and 2-target damage potential. Having access to one of the
most powerful cooldown in the game, and a Legendary that reduces its cooldown
make the spec extremely satisfying to play during these burst windows at the
expense of a certain feel of drought outside of those. 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.
If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our Shadowlands Mythic+ Season 1 page below.
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 not suited when kiting is involved, if notn supported by additional crowd control AoE abilities, meaning Destruction Warlocks are usually better off cleaving with
Chaos Bolts in those situations.
- Destruction toolkit is exceptional at bursting targets and funnel priority
damage due to the insane shard generation multiple
Immolate can provide, so keep that in mind during weeks where it is more important to focus key targets over even AoE.
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
Level | Choices | ||
---|---|---|---|
15 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
25 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
30 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
35 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
40 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
45 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
50 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Talent Explanations
Most of our explanations are geared towards keystones that challenge the current item level of your group. If you are doing keystones that are well below the current power level of the group, you should default to our build recommended above, as you will likely be able to do pulls much larger than intended, which skews the talent choices towards AoE and burst focused choices rather than builds that support sustained damage.
Tier 1/Level 15
Flashover is the best talent due to its flexibility, being a potent
option for single target and cleave.
Eradication does offer slightly
higher single-target damage, however it falls behind in all other categories.
Tier 2/Level 25
Internal Combustion offers slightly better single-target damage, but
for anything else
Reverse Entropy is numerically better.
Shadowburn can be considered as the 50% additional Critical Strike
chance on targets below 20% health is quite potent.
Tier 3/Level 30
Dark Pact is a great choice for challenging keystones, as the
cooldown is often necessary to survive lethal boss abilities or the more
difficult trash pulls.
Burning Rush is the best choice for any situation where you
feel
Dark Pact is unnecessary.
Tier 4/Level 35
Cataclysm should be the default choice when single target damage is the focus.
Fire and Brimstone should be considered if you really need damage on trash
packs, but keep in mind your single target damage will suffer by not taking
Cataclysm.
Inferno coupled with
Soul Conduit offer the highest AoE damage.
Tier 5/Level 40
Darkfury can be used to provide more frequent access to AoE stuns.
Mortal Coil is the default choice, offering both burst heal on demand
and another form of Crowd Control.
Howl of Terror offers an AoE fear, which can be useful to handle
difficult pulls, and is best paired with some form of slow.
Tier 6/Level 45
Rain of Chaos is the best choice in general, turning
Summon Infernal into an insane cooldown both in single-target and AoE
situations.
Roaring Blaze is a passive option tailored towards single and 2
targets scenarios, making it a more situational choice over
Rain of Chaos.
Grimoire of Sacrifice is simply overshadowed in any possible
situation by the other 2 options.
Tier 7/Level 50
Channel Demonfire offers good cleave and AoE, however it suffers
greatly during high movement affix weeks.
Dark Soul: Instability provides great damage for bosses and has huge
potential paired with
Rain of Chaos. If you know the dungeon
layout, you can also use this to rip through difficult packs when
necessary.
Soul Conduit allow for indiscriminate
Rain of Fire spam when
coupled with
Inferno.
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 performer than than single-target spell damage procs, unless overtuned.
You can also get a quick overview of good Mythic+ Trinkets on our Gearing page, specifically the Simulation chart for multi-target scenarios.
Legendary Powers for Mythic+
Depending on your role within the group, party composition, affixes, and
key level one Legendary Power might be more appealing than another. The stand
out option for Destruction is Wilfred's Sigil of Superior Summoning which
increases the frequency of
Summon Infernal casts noticeably during a
dungeon run and is especially strong in conjunction with
Inferno and
Soul Conduit for the highest cooldown reduction potential..
For more details about Legendary Powers, please visit our dedicated Legendary Powers guide.
Covenants and Soulbinds for Mythic+
All four covenants and their varied Soulbinds all have different advantages for Mythic+ and it is very hard to recommend a "best" one, as it depends yet again on party composition, affixes, and level of the key.
A quick breakdown on each covenant ability strength:
- Kyrian
Scouring Tithe can offer additional shards every 40 seconds by sniping a dying target. When combined with
Havoc, both reset and shard generation effects can be achieved.
- Necrolord
Decimating Bolt offers increased single-target potential, often helpful when handling high health targets, especially when coupled with the Emeni soulbind.
Fleshcraft is a decent shield option.
- Night Fae
Soul Rot give better cleave damage and burst on-demand with the added bonus of additional sustain through AoE
Drain Life, if the situation demands it.
- Venthyr
Impending Catastrophe allows for AoE smart curse application in 1 GCD and some mediocre damage over time. Nadja soulbind offers mass confusion on
Door of Shadows arrival, for additional crowd control potential.
For more in-depth recommendations on Covenants and Soulbinds, please visit our dedicated guide.
Changelog
- 07 Dec. 2020: Page updated for Shadowlands season 1.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands 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.
- An Excellent Class and Spec Pick Flowchart Meme (Or Is it?)
- There Are Worse Fates than Being Carried by a Kyrian...
- Players Manipulate Turn Speed Variable while Mind Controlling Others
- Patch 9.0.2 Hotfixes: January 15th
- How to Get Raid, PvP and Any Legendary Memories Without Doing the Related Activity
- How to Loot Faster in World of Warcraft
- How to Fool Bots With Toys
- Patch 9.1 Will Be Released in Spring 2021