Destruction Warlock PvP Rotation and Playstyle — Midnight Season 1

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you exit the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns, especially their Gladiator's Medallion.

If any of the enemies use their trinkets in the opener, they are in trouble. In the opener, Destruction Warlocks should focus on maintaining Wither, using Conflagrate charges to generate Soul Shards while dealing damage with Incinerate and fishing for Chaos Bolt opportunities by casting Fear to bait interrupts and find Chaos Bolt windows.

This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.

1. Cast Demonic Gateway from your pillar to another part of the map.
2. Use Demonic Circle and place it behind a pillar.
3. Apply and maintain Wither on all enemies to generate Soul Shards. If enemy targets are stacked, use Cataclysm instead.
4. Cast Conflagrate once to generate charges of Backdraft, generate Soul Shards, and get the cooldown rolling.
5. Cast Fear to bait interrupts and create Chaos Bolt windows.
   • If you are interrupted on Fear, you can still cast Chaos Bolts.
6. Use Conflagrate to deal instant damage and generate Soul Shards.
   • With the passive Backdraft, Conflagrate will also, reduce the cast time of your Chaos Bolts or Incinerate.
7. Once you have at least 4-5 Soul Shards, and the enemy does not have interrupts, you will be able to use your burst rotation.

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.

1. Maintain Wither on all enemies or by using Cataclysm if stacked.
2. Cast Conflagrate to generate Backdraft stacks.
3. Cast Chaos Bolt when you have 4-5 Soul Shards, and only if you have Backdraft charges.
4. Cast Incinerate.

The burst damage sequence is what you should aim for when you have windows to cast and take advantage of an enemy healer being stuck in a CC chain.

1. Ideally, you will have 4+ Soul Shards before using your burst rotation.
2. Cast Wither on your target.
3. Cast Malevolence to empower your Wither and grant you haste.
4. Cast Conflagrate to generate Backdraft stacks.
5. Use Summon Infernal on your kill target.
6. Cast Chaos Bolt.
7. Cast Chaos Bolt.
8. Cast Conflagrate once or twice if you do not have enough Soul Shards.
9. Cast Chaos Bolt.
10. Cast Incinerate
11. Use Conflagrate to generate Soul Shards.
12. Cast Chaos Bolt whenever you have 2 Soul Shards and a stack of Backdraft.
13. Cast Wither if you need to refresh the DoT.
14. Cast Incinerate as a filler.

If you get interrupted when casting Incinerate or Fear, you should immediately start casting the other spell, or Chaos Bolt.

Dark Pact is a relatively short cooldown at 45 seconds if you are talented into Frequent Donor. As a result, since it also has a duration of 20 seconds, this can be used whenever you are attacked by enemies. In general, however, it is good practice to use this when you aren't able to use Demonic Circle or are in a stun.

Unending Resolve is your biggest defensive cooldown, providing 40% damage reduction as well as immunity to interrupts. This should be used when you are unable to create distance from enemies attacking you and your healer is in a CC chain.

Healthstone in combination with Soulburn is an excellent defensive cooldown that will heal you as well as increase your maximum health for a short period. This is excellent to use when you are low and your healer is in a CC chain.

Demonic Circle: Teleport is the primary mobility spell available to Destruction Warlocks. This should be used on cooldown when attacked in order to activate the Abyss Walker talent. In addition, if used with Soulburn, this will give you a short freedom where you cannot be slowed.

Soul Rip is a situational PvP talent that can be taken which is especially good against set up comps or double melee. This should be used any time offensive cooldowns are used by the enemy.

Curse of Exhaustion is useful against enemies as it acts as a 50% snare in PvP. This is helpful to kite, create space, or slow down enemies from chasing you or your teammates.

Curse of Tongues is one of the best spells in PvP. This spell will reduce the enemy's casting speed, but also reduces their haste (global cooldown). As such, this should always be used against any caster. While useful against healers, sometimes there is not enough globals to maintain.

Curse of Weakness is relatively weak against melee classes, and should not be used. However, against Marksmanship Hunters, this curse reduces their attack speed and therefore makes their spells such as Aimed Shot slower. This is a very niche use case, but is very helpful in reducing damage output.