The Destruction Warlock - How to top the damage meters with just 1 spell

The destruction warlock… nothing is more deadly to more end-game bosses than then king of the personal DPS meters.  A well geared destruction warlock will be able to top the damage meter no matter what the fight is like.  It is almost unfortunate that the very best DPS spec there is, is also the absolute easiest to play.  When I say easy, I mean an untrained monkey with a mental disability could play a destruction warlock well.  Here is your cast sequence: Curse of choice, Shadow Bolt times infinity.  There are no DOTs to manage other than your curse of choice.

As I have said previously, the highest Warlock DPS spec there is in a Felguard Demonolgy spec.  However, there are many fights out there that are simply not pet friendly, and in those fights the demonology spec simply underperforms.  This is also what makes most end-game raiding warlocks choose destruction.  The DPS done is almost as high as what is possible with a Felguard spec, but the destruction spec can be used on any fight, anytime.  There are several high end guilds out there where ALL warlocks raid as a destruction spec only.

Everything revolves around increasing the damage done by the Shadow Bolt.  All of the talent choices, are solely focused on that spell.  The base spec for the destruction warlock that I will detail is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZcxczIbzZEx0xr0zGhi.  This spec uses all 61 points, so there are no optional points left over.  The only real “choice” in this spec is moving up to 2 points from Improved Imp to Improved Healthstone, depending of what size Healthstone you are expected to bring.  As I have done previously for the Affliction Warlock and the Felguard Demonology Warlock, I will explain the talent choices for the destruction warlock.

 

Demonology Tier 1

Improved Healthstone: Take 0, 1, or 2 points here as assigned by your class leader.  You can easily handle any size without hurting your DPS.

 

Improved Imp:  The base spec above has 3 points here as a way to get you lower into the demonology tree because of a lack of good talents on the Tier 2 and 4 levels.  An Improved Imp is just nice on a fight where your raid leader might require all warlocks to use Imp to raise their party’s health.  However, if you need Improved Healthstone, take those points out of this talent.

 

Demonic Embrace:  Taking 5 points increases your stamina significantly.  While this does not directly add to your DPS, it does add to your survivability.

 

Demonology Tier 2

Improved Health Funnel:  Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

 

Improved Voidwalker: Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

 

Fel Intellect: All 3 points should be spent here.  This talent increases your mana pool.  This effect is active even if you do not have a pet.

 

Demonology Tier 3

Improved Succubus: Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

 

Fel Stamina: All 3 points should be spent here.  This talent increases your maximum health.  This effect is active even if you do not have a pet.

 

Fel Domination: Take this talent.  If you die during a boss fight for some reason, this talent will allow you to re-summon a Succubus for sacrificing very quickly.  Assuming you also take the 2 points in Master Summoner, then you can call a new pet in 0.5 seconds with this ability.  Keep in mind there is a lengthy cooldown on this ability, so you will only have it available once in a boss fight.

 

Demonic Aegis: All 3 points should be spent here.  This talent increases your Fel Armor’s effectiveness by 30%.  This means that your Fel Armor gives 130 spell damage (instead of just 100) and increases the amount of incoming heals.

 

Demonology Tier 4

Master Summoner: Spend 2 points here to reduce your summoning time by 4 seconds.  You only care in reducing the summoning time in combat, but hopefully you won’t need it at all.  However, you still need to spend points in mediocre talents such as this to get you lower in the tree.

 

Unholy Power: Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

 

Demonology Tier 5

Improved Enslave Demon: There is no reason to enslave a demon in a raid, so skip.

 

Demonic Sacrifice: This is the sole reason for spending so many points in the Demonology tree.  Your 21st talent point is spent here.  This allows you to sacrifice your Succubus pet which gives you a 15% increase in shadow damage for 30 minutes.

 

Master Conjuror:  Worthless.  No one ever uses a Firestone in or out of a raid.

 

Destruction Tier 1

Improved Shadow Bolt: The full 5 points should be spent here.  This is a mob debuff that effects all shadow users and hence directly increases your DPS and the DPS of all other warlocks and shadow priests.

 

Cataclysm: In other specs, you would skip this talent, but in this spec it is a good idea to spend all 5 points here as a way to get deeper into the destruction tree.

 

Destruction Tier 2

Bane: Spending the full 5 points in this talent will make your 3-second cast Shadow Bolt into a 2.5-second cast Shadow Bolt, directly increasing your DPS.  Obvious choice since it directly increases your DPS.

 

Aftermath: No one cares about dazing your target in PVE.

 

Destruction Tier 3

Improved Firebolt:  Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

 

Improved Lash of Pain: Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

 

Devastation:  This directly increases your DPS from Shadow Bolts.  Therefore, the full 5 points should be spent here.

 

Shadowburn: It is not practical to use this a lot in a boss fight because you do not have an endless supply of Soul Shards, therefore skip.

 

Destruction Tier 4

Intensity:  Spend 2 points here to reduce your spell push-back chance.  There are several boss fights where push-back is a real issue.

 

Destructive Reach: The reason for putting 2 points here really is for the threat reduction, which you will definitely need.  Increasing your range has a side-effect of having a mismatch on the range of your Curse.  You’ll just have to work is so that you get in range when it comes time for you to cast your Curse again.

 

Improved Searing Pain: You won’t be using this on boss fights, skip.

 

Destruction Tier 5

Pyroclasm:  Skip this talent, worthless.

 

Improved Immolate: Skip this talent.  You won’t be casting Immolate because the DPSC is still less than the average Shadow Bolt.

 

Ruin: Obviously a must-have talent for the destruction warlock. This doubles the damage bonus from a spell critical strikes.

 

Destruction Tier 6

Nether Protection:  Spend all 3 points here.  This does not directly add to your DPS, but you still need to spend points on this to get you to Tier 7.  This talent will certainly decrease the damage you take.  Interestingly enough, this talent has proved to be pure gold in the Sunwell Plateau instance, and I wonder if that was on purpose.

 

Emberstorm:  Unfortunately there is no place else to spend talent points that would increase your DPS.  So spend 2 points here to get you to Tier 7.  There are enough times that you might want to toss a 1.5 second cast DOT up before you have to move or go attack something else.  Spending point here gives a higher DPSC than spending the points in Improved Immolate.

 

Destruction Tier 7

Backlash:  Spend all 3 points here to give you 3% more spell crit with your Shadow Bolt.

 

Soul Leech: You will only be able to spend 2 of the 3 points here because you need the next 5 points fors Shadow and Flame.  This is a great talent to help heal yourself.  There are several boss fights in which you will be taking constant damage over time.

 

Destruction Tier 8

Shadow and Flame:  Spend the full 5 points here to increase the damage done by your Shadow Bolt.

 

Destruction Tier 9

Shadowfury:  Spending 21 points in the Demonology tree won’t allow you you take this talent.  But since this talent is strictly a PVP focused talent, we’re just fine with that.

 

 

Destruction Warlock FAQ

 

Q: What spells do you use? 

A:  My untrained monkey with a mental disability says he uses 2 spells: Curse of whatever and Shadow Bolt.  Oftentimes he gets put in a group with a shadow priest and therefore rarely even has to use Life Tap.  Not to mention the elementlal shaman he gets to further increase his DPS.  I hate that monkey…

 

Q: What not put 1 point in Shadowburn instead of Emberstorm?

A: Sure I’d have no problem with that.  Neither talent will give any noticeable increase in DPS for boss fights, so it’s just personally preference and how do you want to use your shards.

 

Q: How many Soul Shards do I need to bring to a raid?

A: There is no question that this spec uses a LOT of Soul Shards.  You need to make a 28-slot soul bag such as the Ebon Shadowbag or the retro Core Felcloth Bag.  You will need plenty of shards to Summon people, Summon Soulwells, and summon multiple Succubus (Succubusi?) to sacrifice.  You will also want to continue to keep getting shards from trash.  Even some adds in certain boss fights will give shards, but not all.

 

 Q: What about a fire spec destruction warlock?

A: In Patch 2.4.0 they reduced the cast time of Incinerate with the Emberstorm talent.  This certainly did make a fire build more feasible, but it is still out DPSed by a pure Shadow Bolt spec, so their buff was not enough for PVE raiding.  Also, that spec does not gain additional benefits of multiple warlocks keeping up Shadow Vulnerability from the Improved Shadow Bolt talent.  Most people think this change was more PVP driven, and I believe them.  So don’t bother investigating fire destruction specs for PVE raiding unless you just want to educate yourself further.

 

Q: Is there any special gear that I need to get?

A: Not really, any normal “warlock gear” will be fine.  However, since shadow damage is the only damage type you will be doing (unlike demonology and affliction specs which also use Immolate), you will usually find that any gear that has only plus shadow damage will be more beneficial than gear that has damage to all spell types (for equal item levels).

 

Q: How should I gem: hit, crit, haste, or damage?

A: The most important stat is still hit, so gem for hit up to 201 points.  I recommend never gemming for crit, the crit values on the gems are simply too low when compare to the other gem type benefits.  Haste and spell damage gems are both very good gems.  I would recommend evaluating the socket bonuses when deciding which is best.  In some cases, a yellow pure haste is best.  And in other cases an orange haste/damage in a red socket would be best.  There really isn’t a “bad” answer unless you use crit gems or unless you missed a nice socket bonus that would have pushed your DPS higher.

 

Q: What about my meta gem, what is the best option?

A: There are only 2 real choices these days, either a Chaotic Skyfire Diamond or an Ember Skyfire Diamond.  The ESD has a very easy gem requirement. The CSD has very good synergy with our Ruin talent and increased spell critical strike talents, but the gem requirements of at least 2 blue gems represents a DPS loss over other gem selections.  So some math will be needed to determine which is better.  In the end, both will be close.  A few high DPS pieces even have a blue socket bonus to offset the lower DPS of the blue gem, such as the Cowl of the Illidari High Lord.  Most destruction warlocks choose the CSD because they can’t get over the OMG MORE CRIT properties.

 

 

If you have any Destruction Warlock questions, feel free to leave a comment below and I will have my untrained monkey with a mental disability answer them as best he can.