Destruction Warlock PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.1.7)

The Destruction Warlock has two roles 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 and Conflagrates. 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 mainly use your crowd control on. Destruction Warlocks can use their main crowd control, Fear, along with Mortal Coil. You also have Shadowfury. This has a short cast time and will AoE stun anyone in range for a short period.

You should also use Create Soulwell to generate Healthstones for you and your teammates. Additionally, cast Soulburn as the Soul Shard is refreshed, you will keep the Soulburn buff.

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, Shadowburn 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 Shadowburn once to generate charges of Ritual of Ruin, and get the cooldown rolling.
5. Cast Conflagrate once to generate charges of Backdraft, generate Soul Shards, and get the cooldown rolling.
6. Cast Fear to bait interrupts and create Chaos Bolt windows.
   • If you are interrupted on Fear, you can still cast Chaos Bolts.
7. 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.
8. 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.

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 Shadowburn to apply Eradication to your target.
5. Cast Conflagrate to generate Backdraft stacks.
6. Cast Soulfire if you get a Decimation proc.
7. Use Summon Infernal on your kill target.
8. Cast Chaos Bolt.
9. Cast Chaos Bolt.
10. Cast Conflagrate once or twice if you do not have enough Soul Shards.
11. Cast Chaos Bolt.
12. Cast Incinerate if you have Burn to Ashes stacks and have this talent.
13. Use Conflagrate to generate Soul Shards.
14. Cast Chaos Bolt whenever you have 2 Soul Shards and a stack of Backdraft.
15. Cast Shadowburn if it's not on cooldown.
16. Cast Wither if you need to refresh the DoT.
17. 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

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 Shadowburn to apply Eradication to your target.
3. Cast Conflagrate to generate Backdraft stacks.
4. Cast Chaos Bolt when you have 4-5 Soul Shards, and only if you have Backdraft charges.
5. Cast Soulfire if you get a Decimation proc.
6. Cast Incinerate if you have Burn to Ashes stacks and have this talent.

Unending Resolve is your primary defensive ability. You should use it 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.

Dark Pact is a mighty defensive PvP talent on a short cooldown. This should be used whenever the enemy team lands crowd control on your healer, and you are caught in a stun and can not get away. You can use this in any form of CC and while interrupted.

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 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 trying to chase you. This will typically be 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 the target will deal. Below are your curses and the best time to use them.

• Curse of Weakness increases the time between the enemy's attacks. You should use this on a melee DPS to prevent incoming Physical damage.
• Curse of Tongues increases the cast time of all spells the enemy casts. You should use this 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 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.