Destruction Warlock Guide - Talents, Rotations, Races & More

Level 30 Talents (5,0,16)

1. Start off by putting 5 points into Improved Corruption. This will make it an instant cast ability, it's just too strong to not take this on your leveling journey even as Destruction.
2. Next put 5 points into Bane to reduce the Cooldown of your Shadow Bolt.
3. 3 Points into Cataclysm and 2 Points into Grim Reach are going to let you cast Shadow Bolts without running out mana so fast as well as being able to start form further away to hopefully take down enemies before they even reach you.
4. Max out Improved Shadow Bolt next so enemies are taking even more Shadow Damage from you when you hit them with a Critical Strike.
5. Finally put your last point into Shadowburn, an instant cast Shadow skill that does great damage at the cost of a Soul Shard. Use this an an execute style ability to it always will return the Soul Shard to you after the kill.

Level 60 Talents (10/11/30)

Here's a look at what we think the level 60 Destruction Warlock Talent Tree will look like. As mentioned above, this guide will be updated as we go through the beta and during launch to include any other Endgame Destruction Warlock Talent Trees such as Fire Warlock, along with all the other information you need to excel in the endgame and Raids as a Warlock.

Playable Races

Alliance - Human & Gnome

Horde - Orc, Troll & Undead

Recommended Races

Gnome is quite possibly the best race in the game and the one you want to pick as Alliance. Eureka! reduces the cost of your next 3 abilities and gives them 10% increased damage. Expansive Mind gives you 5% more maximum mana. Escape Artist grants you immunity to Roots and Snares.

Troll is great since you’ll be fighting a lot of beasts in the early game and they have 5% increased damage to beasts. Their Berserking buff grants you 10% casting speed for 10 seconds and they also have Rapid Regeneration which allows you to restore 50% of your health every 3 minutes. This is especially great on warlock since you can use Life Tap to get all your Mana back between encounters, then use Rapid Regeneration to get all your health back without having to stop for a water break.

Orc is the other competitive horde race choice. Blood Fury boosts your Spell Power by 10% for 15 seconds. Shatter Curse grants immunity to Curses, Banes and reduces Magical Damage taken. Hardiness decreases stuns by 20%

For every race's complete ability list, see our racial abilities guide.

The primary Skills you’ll use are Shadow Bolt, Corruption, Bane of Agony, Fear & Life Tap. There's a lot of ways you can handle encounters as a Warlock, I'll go over 3 common strategies here so you can play around with it.

1. The simplest way you can play is simply spamming Shadow Bolts until a enemy is dead. Have your pet attacking them with you and just brute force them down. This is the lazy 1 button way to do it but doesn't really take advantage of taking the Instant Cast Corruption in this build.
2. The next way to handle enemies is to cast Shadow Bolt at an enemy and follow it with putting Corruption & Bane of Agony on them. As they're getting close, use Fear to send them off and let the Damage over Time kill them. The advantage of this is you can prep an enemy for death while you pull another one by spamming Shadow Bolts at them. This allows you to be killing 2 enemies at a time, as you just keep one enemy with DoT's on them feared and another one you're preparing for the same demise.
3. The third way that's common to solo farm on a Warlock is to use your Imp along with yourself to form a type of "triangle formation" with the enemy. Have your Imp engage first with Fire Bolt so the mob goes to attack them. Then time the cast of your Shadow Bolt to hit the same enemy right as it gets to your Imp. This will pull threat off your imp and have the mob then go running to you (who's standing away form your Imp to start with). This time spent running towards you both is usually enough time to take them down with you and the Imp both taking zero or very little damage.

With all that being said it's really pretty simple at the end of the day.

Cast Shadow Bolt then put your Corruption and Curse of Agony on mobs, always have your pet attacking with you and watch everything melt away. Use Drain Soul when and enemy is about to die if you need a Soul Shard and use Life Tap between packs to get your Mana back

Check our WoW Forever tier list to see how Destruction stacks up against Affliction and Demonology.

Visit your Class Trainer often to get your new skills, levels 4, 6, 8, 10 & 20 are essential so you can learn Corruption, Life Tap, Bane of Agony, Drain Soul, Health Stone & Ritual of Summoning respectively. Don't forget you have a Pet Trainer as well and can learn the Voidwalker through a class quest at level 10 and the Succubus at level 20!

Remember your Health as a Warlock can be seen as another Mana bar. Use Life Tap between encounters to convert your Health to Mana and eat/bandage to get your health back, this is usually faster and cheaper than drinking water the whole way.

Use your Soul Siphon skills to generate Soul Shards. Soul Shards are essential so you can create Healthstones and cast Shadow Burn once you obtain it.

Ritual of Summoning is one of the most unique class abilities in the game. With 2 party members around to click the portal you can summon an ally to your location anywhere in Azeroth. You can even make some money doing this if you have some friends help you summon people to a far away location, or to help groups get their friends to their location when they don't have a Warlock. Make sure to stock up on those Soul Shards, you wont regret it!

A Warlocks Favorite Stats are Intellect and Stamina (remember health is mana!), Spirit is also decent but not as important for this class as some other casters. Intellect increases your maximum mana pool and increases your Spell Critical Strike Chance. Stamina increases your health and Spirit helps your Health and Mana regenerate faster when out of Combat. Prioritize Intellect and Stamina on items but don't be disappointed when a good item has Spirit on it

In group play you'll be pulling more than 1 mob at a time so leaning Corruption and Bane of Agony allows you to get damage over time up on all of the enemies before you start casting Shadow Bolts at them.

This playstyle fits the Affliction build a bit better since you talent into those skills more heavily, but it's still the best way to do dps in groups or dungeons as Destruction spec. At a minimum you should put up Corruption on every mob in a pack before you start spamming Shadow Bolts.

Bane of Agony can be a bit more mana intensive so you might want to just reserve that for bosses where you know you'll for sure get the full value out of it.

For all casters the #1 tip for leveling is to obtain wands early and upgrade them often. Tailors can make Lesser and Greater Magic wands that deal incredible DPS for their level range. Either get the Tailoring Profession and make your own or head over to the auction house to buy one!

Like melee classes Food and First Aid are you best friend on this class. Make sure to train First Aid early and keep your bandages relevant to your level. You'll be stopping to eat and bandage often since you'll be using Life Tap to restore you mana very often. This is a Warlocks biggest advantage over other casters.

Always keep your Soul Shards stocked up, nothing is worse than wishing you had one and realizing you have to go create one.

Play around with the pets and find the one that fits your playstyle best. The imp is great for just extra raw damage until you get the Succubus who does even more. The Voidwalker is your own personal tank that can just take all the beatings for you (as long as you don't pull threat off him all the time).

Remember to right click your pets abilities that you want them to auto cast by default. Imps Fire Bolt, Voidwalker Torment and Succubus Lash of Pain are essential to have on auto cast whenever they're engaging in combat.

Auto Shoot Wand Macro

#showtooltip Shoot

/cast !Shoot

Pet attack and pet follow are the key basic macros while leveling up your warlock. I like to bind them individually to my mouse wheel. You can also combine pet attack with your Shadow Bolt to be able to push one button and get all hands on deck right away.

Pet Attack

/petattack

Pet Passive

/petpassive

Shadow Bolt / Pet Attack

#showtooltip Shadow Bolt

/petattack

/cast Shadow Bolt