[PvE][5.4.8] Destruction guide

Destruction PvE guide

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. Stats
III. Gearing

1. Tier set
2. Trinkets

IV. Talents & Glyphs

1. Talents
2. Glyphs

V. Single Target Rotation

1. Chaos Bolt?
2. Shadowburn?
3. Backdraft?

VI. Cleave Rotation

1. Havoc
2. Fire and Brimstone

VII. AoE Rotation
VIII. Closing Remarks
IX. F.A.Q

I. - INTRODUCTION

Destruction is currently simulating as our highest class-spec, well within the top 5% of all dps, on a patchwerk-simulated 6 minute fight. It offers very frontloaded damage, and excels exponentially at AoE efficiency as well as some added bonus for single-target by increasing the number of targets present. The rotation is easy to learn, but takes a little while to master. It is the easiest of the three warlock specs by far.

Destruction has some niche areas of strength, that include but are not limited to execute damage, sustained AoE, Cleave damage and frontloaded burst, due to absence of prevalent dots.

The spec revolves around spending Burning Embers on Chaos Bolts during trinketprocs and cooldowns, to maximise the damage each Chaos Bolt does, as well as properly managing Shadowburn executes and utilising Havoc to cleave damage from dying adds onto a main kill-target. Burning Embers is the resource that fuels all of this, and properly managing this is essential.

II. - STATS

Intellect

This is our main stat, and everything we do scales with it.

Hit / Expertise

While some warlock specs (Affliction) can get away with not being hit capped, Destruction cannot. You need 15% or 5100 hit rating. With the release of MoP, 1 point of Expertise is equal to 1 point of Hit.

Crit

Increases your crit chance by 1% every ~600 rating. Chaos Bolt now crits 100% of the time, and gains a damage increase based on your crit percentage, which means crit is always useful for Chaos Bolt damage. When your fillers crit, they generate double the amount of burning embers.

Mastery

Increases the effect of ember-consuming spells. This essentially makes crit scale better with Chaos Bolt.

Haste

Increases the speed of your mana regeneration as well as reduces the cast time on all abilities, and reduces the time between Rain of Fire ticks.

Destruction focuses around heavy mastery builds, and the choice of secondary stat after mastery is largely down to personal preference. An argument can be made for niche builds with crit just below mastery in value, serving the needs of specific encounters such as Ra-Den (Throne of Thunder) in the past, where a Destruction warlock was unparallelled for the 8 second burst windows that were required.

1. - Intellect
2. Hit / Expertise to cap
3. Mastery
4. Crit or Haste