How To Improve As Destruction Warlock — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1
On this page, you will find out how you can improve at playing Destruction Warlock in World of Warcraft — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1. We list the common mistakes that you should try to avoid and the small details that can greatly improve your performance.
1. Utilizing Grimoire of Supremacy
When playing with Grimoire of Supremacy, it is very important to
ensure you maximize your Soul Shard expenditure during
Summon Infernal.
Heading into the cooldown with Soul Shards at the ready will make a big difference
in getting the damage boost up and running as early as possible. Grimoire of
Supremacy works particularly well in situations where there are non-priority
targets surrounding the main target.
Fire and Brimstone will provide
a ton of extra fuel for your single target damage, and
Grimoire of Supremacy
can pump you up to extremely powerful levels of single target burst.
2. 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.
3. 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. If you are playing with
Grimoire of Supremacy, you should cast Dark Soul after using
Summon Infernal and a few Soul Shard generators.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Changelog
- 10 Dec. 2018: This page has been reviewed for Patch 8.1 and no changes are necessary.
- 09 Nov. 2018: Updated common mistakes.
- 13 Aug. 2018: Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
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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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