Destruction Warlock PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / Patch 9.0.2)

The Destruction Warlock has two roles when in an Arena: set up kills with large Chaos Bolts and survive. Destruction Warlocks are powerful because they have strong single target damage and the ability to crowd control enemy teams. Most of your damage and kills will come from your Chaos Bolts. You will survive by using Fears and Mortal Coils on enemies. You can also use your Demonic Gateway to create distance.

Have a plan for who you will be mainly using your crowd control on. Destruction Warlocks are able to use their main crowd control, Fear, along with Mortal Coil. You also have Shadowfury. This has a somewhat short cast time and will AoE stun anyone that is in range for a small period of time.

You should also use Create Soulwell to generate Healthstones for you and your teammates.

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns.

If the enemy healer uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. In the opener, Destruction Warlocks should focus on using Immolate, Incinerate, and Conflagrate to generate Soul Shards.

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 Immolate on all enemies to generate Soul Shards. If the enemy team starts behind a pillar, you can use Cataclysm to put your Immolate on all of them.
4. Cast Incinerate to generate Soul Shards.
   • If you are interrupted on Incinerate, you can still cast Chaos Bolts.
5. 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.
6. Once you have at least 4-5 Soul Shards and the enemy healer is in crowd control, you will be able to use your burst rotation.

1. Ideally, you will have 4+ Soul Shards before using your burst rotation.
2. Use Summon Infernal if the enemy team is stacked or you need an interrupt.
3. Use Dark Soul: Instability.
4. Use Havoc on the enemy you are not targeting.
5. Use Mortal Coil on the enemy you are focusing.
6. Use Conflagrate. This will give you 2 stacks of Backdraft.
7. Cast Chaos Bolt.
8. Cast Chaos Bolt.
9. Use Soul Rot if you are Night Fae to deal spread damage.
10. Cast Cataclysm on the enemy team if they are running away.
11. Cast Immolate if they are not running away.
12. Use Conflagrate to generate Soul Shards.
13. Cast Chaos Bolt.
14. Cast Immolate if you need to refresh the DoT.
15. Cast Incinerate as a filler.

If you get interrupted when casting Incinerate, you should immediately start casting Chaos Bolt or Cataclysm.

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

1. Maintain Immolate on all enemies.
2. Cast Chaos Bolt when you have 4-5 Soul Shards.
3. Apply Havoc and follow it up with a Mortal Coil to prevent enemy players from interrupting your damage and to heal yourself.
4. Use Rain of Fire if multiple targets are running away and you are about to cap on Soul Shards.
5. Cast Cataclysm if multiple targets are stacked and you need to generate Soul Shards.
6. Use Soul Rot if you are Night Fae to deal spread damage.
7. Use Conflagrate to generate Soul Shards and generate stacks of Backdraft.
8. Cast Incinerate to generate Soul Shards.

Unending Resolve is your primary defensive ability and should be used if your healer has no defensive cooldowns and you are at high health. You will not be interrupted while this is active so you can use this time to cast Fear to stay alive or Chaos Bolt for damage.

Demon Armor is an absolutely mandatory PvP talent. This talent is what makes Destruction Warlocks so tanky and should be used against every single team.

Healthstone should be used when you are at very low health and your healer does not have defensive cooldowns to keep you alive.

Demonic Circle, should be placed away from the enemy team, but close to your healer. Make sure you coordinate when you will be using this so your team can position themselves accordingly. You will want to use this when the enemy team is using their offensive cooldowns and you need to create distance between you and them. Use the same concept when you need to take Demonic Gateway.

Summon Infernal should be used to stun enemies that are trying to chase you. This will typically best used when enemies are using their burst cooldowns and you are close to dying.

Curses allow you to weaken a target based on which curse you use on them. Effectively using a curse on an enemy could prevent a lot of damage that the target will deal. Below are the curses that you have and the best time to use them.

• Curse of Weakness increases the time between the enemy's attacks. This should be used on a melee DPS to prevent incoming Physical damage.
• Curse of Tongues increases the cast time of all spells the enemy casts. This should be used on a caster DPS to prevent or slow down incoming spell damage.
• Curse of Exhaustion reduces the target's movement speed. This is a very flexible Curse and can be used to slow down melee DPS or slow down enemy healers to make them easier to crowd control.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.