How To Improve As Destruction Warlock — Shadowlands 9.2.5
On this page, you will find out how you can improve at playing Destruction Warlock in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2.5. We list the common mistakes that you should try to avoid and the small details that can greatly improve your performance.
Not Using Rain of Fire Too Liberally
Rain of Fire is a large Soul Shard investment and shifts your
damage profile, from focused burst to distributed AoE. The AoE from Rain of
Fire is quite significant, provided that targets will stay within the reticle
for most of its duration. Remember that at 5+ targets you should use
Rain of Fire rather than a Havoc-empowered
Chaos Bolt.
Dark Soul Usage
After the opener, your Dark Soul: Instability is unlikely to align
with any of your other main cooldowns until the 6-minute mark. Dark Soul should
be used roughly on cooldown, although you should delay it for a short time if
you will be able to cleave during the duration.
Not Refreshing Immolate for Internal Combustion
When playing with Internal Combustion, many players fail to
properly manage their
Immolate. You should always keep track of
your Immolate, as dumping multiple
Chaos Bolts will quickly eat
up the duration. Try to refresh
Immolate when there are 5 seconds or
less remaining.
Havoc Preparation
Properly anticipating cleave and putting Havoc to the best
possible use can add a lot of damage to your parse. Be sure to lead into
Havoc with Soul Shards at the ready. Unless you need to refresh
Immolate on the main target, you should apply Immolate before
Havoc on the second target. Get right into dumping
Chaos Bolts,
using
Conflagrate charges for quick Soul Shard regeneration.
Cataclysm Usage
Cataclysm applies
Immolate, and should be used
to apply or refresh that debuff whenever possible. It is common for many
players to refresh Immolate out of habit, only to cast Cataclysm moments
later and refresh again. While this is not a huge optimization, it definitely
pays to remember. Remember Cataclysm cast on cooldown offers almost 50%
Immolate uptime.
Changelog
- 31 May 2022: Page reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.5.
- 28 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
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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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