**THIS GUIDE IS NOT UP TO DATE FOR PATCH 3.3 AND WILL NOT BE UPDATED**
This guide will be under construction constantly to keep up with the most recent changes and is up to date for 3.2. Most of my information is coming from personal raid experience, Warlock’s Den & Elitist Jerks threads.
This post is intended to inform players about the raiding aspect of deep Destruction specced Warlocks. This will not focus on any form of 0-41-30 or 0-40-31 type hybrid specs.
As of 3.2, Destruction hasn’t changed much at all so there will not be a new 3.2 Destruction Guide. If any significant changes are made in the future, I will update this guide instead.
Specs
Here is a variation of 0-13-58 using 1 filler point in Destructive Reach for 10% more range and 5% threat reduction but you can opt to max it by dropping 1 point from Backlash. This variation also takes Improved Soul Leech, not only to buff your raid with Replenishment but for the 2% mana return as well. If you aren’t convinced that it’s worth 2 points (and already have Replenishment going in your raid somehow), the 2 points can be spent elsewhere. The downfall of this spec is having to gear for 3% hit without taking 3 points in Affliction for Suppression.
You will need 2 filler points to reach the tier 3 Demonology talents for 3/3 Demonic Aegis so you can either go 2/2 Improved Healthstone to provide more utility for your raid or 2/3 Demonic Embrace for 7% more stamina (Life Tap fodder).
This variation of 3-13-55 takes Suppression for 3% hit, uses the 2 (Demonology) filler points in Improved Healthstone (but can also be used for 2/3 Demonic Embrace) but can only afford to put 1 point in to Backlash, 1 in to Destructive Reach and 1 in to Improved Soul Leech. 1/2 Improved Soul Leech isn’t a bad thing. You still restore 1% mana with a 50% chance to proc Replenishment and it’s a much better choice than taking points out of anything that will lower your DPS.
Glyphs
Minor glyphs are a bit of a sore subject for any Warlock but the 3 obvious choices would be Drain Soul, Souls & Enslave Demon. All 3 are quite situational and mildly useless (Drain Soul is debatable) but with the only other options being Kilrogg, Unending Breath and Curse of Exhaustion, you can see why these three are the better choices.
Your 3 major glyph choices will depend on your level of gear.
A fresh 80 will most likely get more out of Immolate, Conflagrate and Imp or Incinerate. My personal opinion is to take Imp over Incinerate at this point. Incinerate becomes a much better glyph when you obtain more haste and spellpower but for just heading in to raiding you’ll get more use out of the Imp glyph, IMO.
If you have 4 pieces of T7 for the set bonus (Life Tap increases your spirit by 300 for 10 seconds), Glyph of Life Tap should replace your previous glyph of Imp/Incinerate. This will work together with your set bonus every time you Life Tap, increasing your spirit by 300 and increasing your spellpower by 20% of your spirit for 40 seconds. The average spirit count for a Warlock new to raiding is around 280-300ish and while this glyph may look great on paper you’ll only be receiving around 50-ish spellpower per use until you reach a higher level of gear.
Once you are at the Naxx-25 to Ulduar/Colloseum level of raiding, the 3 major glyphs that will provide you with the highest possible DPS are Incinerate, Conflagrate and Life Tap.
Why Glyph of Life Tap over Glyph of Immolate?
Immolate used to be the preferred glyph in 3.1 over Life Tap. Patch 3.2 increased the duration of the Life Tap glyph buff from 20 to 40 seconds making this glyph edge out Immolate by a small margin but still provides higher DPS. The Life Tap glyph used to be dropped by ISL specced Warlocks who have grown out of their 4T7 in to their T8 sets. ISL provided enough mana back to us that we didn’t have to Life Tap more than once every 45-50 seconds, losing a lot up uptime on the buff, but with the recent duration increase to 40 seconds it is MUCH easier to keep the buff up 100% of the time. (Thanks to Sean for pointing this out in the comments)
Why Glyph of Conflagrate over Immolate?
Conflagrate consuming Immolate causes you to disrupt your rotation by putting Immolate back up on the target every 10 seconds rather than every 15 seconds, resulting in a loss of DPS.
Spell Rotation
CoE -or- CoD -> Immolate -> Chaos Bolt -> Conflagrate -> Incinerate X times
The amount of Incinerates that you can weave in your rotation depends largely on the amount of haste you have. Immolate lasts for 15 seconds while Conflagrate has a 10 second cooldown, so you can use it twice in your opening rotation and then blow it every cooldown afterwards. Taking Fire and Brimstone in to account (+25% chance to crit with Conflagrate if Immolate has 5 or fewer seconds remaining), try to use Conflagrate close to the 5 second mark if you’re in the middle of a rotation where it is off cooldown. Using it at the 6 or 7 second mark means less of a crit chance but freeing up that GCD for something else could always be better.
Which Curse to choose?
If you do not have anyone else to provide the +13% spell damage debuff, Curse of Elements is your #1 choice. If you do, they don’t stack so Curse of Doom will provide you with the highest possible DPS.
Why not Curse of Agony?
For starters, with Molten Core moving from Destruction to deep in the Demonology tree, you no longer need its ticking damage to proc it. Curse of Agony provides less DPS than Curse of Doom and requires you to use a global cooldown twice as often. Curse of Doom is a RONCO (“set it and forget it!”) spell and gives you much more bang for your buck. Don’t even consider glyphing CoA because you’ll be gimping your damage elsewhere.
Gear/Stats
Hit Rating is your #1 priority, hands down. You need to aim for 17% (446 hit rating) but that includes talents or buffs given by other players.
Suppression – +3%
Misery (Shadow Priest) – 3%
Improved Faerie Fire (Moonkin) – 3%
Heroic Presence (Draenei Racial Aura) – 1%
Misery & Improved Faerie Fire do not stack with each other. The Heroic Presence is not raid-wide so you will only get the benefit if you are in the same party.
If your raid constantly brings these classes, feel free to gear for as much hit as you need to reach 17% and then concentrate on other stats.
In order of importance – Hit Rating, Spellpower, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Intellect
Gems
Meta – Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (requires at least two blue gems)
Use 2 Purified Twilight Opal to make it work.
Epic Gems Note
3.2 introduced epic quality gems and it is highly recommended to use these over the blue quality gems that were previously available. While the gems are new, the prefix remains the same. For instance, Runed Scarlet Ruby is now Runed Cardinal Ruby. Runed = Spellpower. If you want to upgrade to the epic version of your gems, look for the prefix and use those instead.
Are you a Jewelcrafter?
Jewelcrafters can use up to 3 Dragon’s Eye gems in their equipped gear and having 3 Runed Dragons Eye is pretty sweet. Keep in mind that with 3.2 these gems are no longer prismatic so you still will need to use 2 Purified Twilight Opal to make your Meta Gem work.
Need to gem for hit still?
Veiled Monarch Topaz (spellpower/hit) if you just need a little, Rigid Dawnstone (hit) if you need a lot.
Hit capped?
Runed Scarlet Ruby. Thats it. Pack ‘em in! Use 2 Purified Twilight Opal to make your meta work but no more unless the socket bonus is +spellpower and will not give you less of it.
Enchants/Threads/Etc.
Head – Arcanum of Burning Mysteries (Revered Kirin Tor)
Shoulder – Master’s Inscription of the Storm (Inscribers only), Greater Inscription of the Storm (exalted Sons of Hodir), Lesser Inscription of the Storm (honored Sons of Hodir)
Chest – +10 stats, +8 stats, +15 spirit
Wrist – +30 spellpower, +23 spellpower
Hands – +28 spellpower
Belt – Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs – Brilliant Spellthread (or Tailoring-only equivalent), Shining Spellthread
Feet – Icewalker (hit/crit)
Rings – +19 spellpower (Enchanter-only)
Cape – Lightweave Embroider (Tailor-only), +23 haste
Weapon – +63 spellpower, +50 spellpower, +81 spellpower (to staff weapons only)
Consumables
Flask – Flask of the Frost Wyrm
Weapon – Firestone. While Haste is a preferred stat over crit, the +1% damage to direct damage spell boost outweights the Haste given by the Spellstone.
Food buff – Fish Feast, Firecracker Salmon
**This post will always be under construction for the most up to date changes but still feel free to comment**
Cool, GJ. This spec is definitely an interesting one that I may pick up.
i have two questions how important is it to get gem bonus?
and i understand that spell power is most important after hit then haste. When do you stop wit spellpower and go with haste?? i have a gearscore of over 5200 and want to dps over 5k to 6k all the time i see other locks doing it and dont know why i cant i am destro can anyone help???
Just a small point, but didn’t they remove the hit from totem of wrath when they reworked raid buffs?
@ Merlot – I don’t raid with an Elemental Shaman or even know one (lol) so I’ll have to look in to that a little more I suppose. The last thread I read over at Warlock’s Den mentioned the +hit but if you’re correct I’ll get it fixed right away. Thanks for pointing that out =D
**EDIT** You’re absolutely correct. It only provides 3% crit now so I’ll edit that part out. Thanks for noticing lol.
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=57720
wrt minor glyphs
Glyph of Soul hurts my sensibilities. I am unable to justify cutting down the mana cost.. for something I’m only going to use out of combat.. and going to then be able to tap/heal/eat/drink immediately.
With the new changes to Soul Stone acquisition, Glyph of Soul Stone is fairly useless. I’m procing soul shards constantly and procing two is pretty unnecessary.
I can almost agree on Glyph of Enslave Demon.. except there really aren’t all that many demons available.. so I don’t think I’ve enslaved on in the last three months.
Unending Breath makes you swim faster! Come on, who doesn’t want to swim faster?
Kilrogg is -GREAT- for spying in Wintergrasp. AND with the Glyph he can fly up and help you to spot incoming opposition.
What’s not to love?
Lol Nibs. Minor glyphs are fail all around for us. This post was for raiding though so I just weighed the options accordingly lol.
Glyph of Enslave Demon isn’t bad for Affliction since your highest DPS comes from using your Doomguard as a pet. Doomguard breaking free in the middle of a fight is usually bad but you should be able to snag him up real fast with the glyph (drops the cast to about 1.3 or 1.4 with haste)
“Doomguard breaking free in the middle of a fight is usually bad but you should be able to snag him up real fast with the glyph (drops the cast to about 1.3 or 1.4 with haste)”
This is no longer the case as when the timer for the DG runs out, he up and vanish instead of wrecking havoc in the raid.
Oh, same goes for the Infernal.
Did they change it so he has a 0% chance to break free before the 10 minute timer?
@abi on behalf of kinz – Yes… he’ll stick it out with your for 10 mins and then peace out like a big red pansy. It was so much more exciting and taboo to have a doomguard out before. I mean, someone had to die, then he could break loose and kill more… it was truly living on the edge. Now he’s like the diet coke of evil.
Oh, quick noobish question… which classes overwrite the FH buffs? You said priest and mage over in my neck of the woods… does that mean you need to have both or just one? I’ve started just pulling out the Succy whenever I have either and don’t feel the urge to spell lock anything… I have missed her whippings.
Affliction ‘locks never pay enough attention to their demons…
@Ful
if there are both a mage and a priest the FH’s buff will not show, if you got just a mage then the FH’s buff only give the spirit, if you got just a priest then the FH’s buff only give the int.
^This.
The max rank of Fel Intelligence gives 48 Int and 64 Spirit without Improved Felhunter (which only boost it by 10%, making it 53 Int and 70 Spirit).
The max rank of AI is 60 Int & the max rank of Divine Spirit is 80 Spirit.
Doomguard is up for 15 minutes – on a 30 minute cooldown. I use him quite often.
Yep, 15 minutes. Just used him in Naxx last night. Thanks for pointing that out.
Ah right, longer than ten. He’s still a pansy when he runs away.
Thanks Kinz and Abi, that’s what I was thinking it was too. That talent is *kinda* not worth it… We almost always have a mage AND a priest… but for those times when we don’t… I’ll pull out the normal pup and be just fine.
[...] a look at Demonology, Destruction and various combination builds within at [...]
why would u be using spellstone, scrub, firestone ftw, the 1% dmg to destro far outweighs the haste given
@ Slavrix – Yep, the Firestone is a superior option but I actually meant to include both of them. I think the Firestone link got lost somewhere in the copy/paste transition.. but constructive criticism is great. No need for name-calling lol, we’re not 4 anymore.
Great guide! I have recommended this post to my guildies (well, I think there’s a whole one other Destro lock).
@ Saresa – Thanks for stopping by and passing the link along =D
Hello.
thank you for taking the time for making this link 
this is a great build for a destro lock i reached 4,9k dps last night on KT so i was quite happy of topping top 3 on dmg meter i will recommend this website/link to all the lock’s in my guild
@ Basse – Glad you found it helpful and thanks for passing the link along =)
Loving this spec so far
One thing I don’t understand is how you squeeze in one extra conflagrate per cycle. If you use another at the 5s mark and your Immolate runs out, do you start over again with Immo -> CB and then a few Incinerates while waiting for it to get off cd?
Oh, sorry I should have clarified. Thats with your starting rotation, not overall. Afterwards you’ll be using it every cooldown but if Immolate has 6 or 7 seconds left, wait until it hits the 5 second mark for the extra crit chance.. but otherwise just blow it every cooldown.
Hello, I was just wondering about how much crit rating should I use for destro. I currently play affliction and I am 3 piece ulduar atm and i have 593 haste but only about 13% crit. I did some regearing and was able to get to 20% crit with firestone and backlash talent (25% destro then) but i went down to about 430haste rating.
@ Zaelis – I don’t think there is a magic number for crit because you get a decent amount from raid-buffs and gear already. A Firestone should be fine as long as you take 3/3 Backlash. 25% is a good number IMO and should be OK to start working on enough haste to get your Incinerates/Chaos Bolt/Conflag rotation as smooth as possible.
Why did you put corruption in the spell rotation?
Why didn’t* you put corruption in the spell rotation?
Corruption was only used before because Molten Core was a Destruction talent and it was used to fish for procs. Since Molten Core was moved to Demonology, Corruption has no use to a deep Destruction Warlock.
It has it’s moments of use during mobile portions of boss encounters but as long as you’re standing there nuking there is no reason to use Corruption at all.
Some examples would be..
Changing polarity sides during Thaddius.
Running behind an Ice Block during Sapphiron.
In a vortex during Malygos.
To use during Flame Jets during Ignis the Furnacemaster.
..etc.
Well wouldnt it still increase your dps? And since its an instant cast its not like its taking up time.
It takes up a global cooldown which alters the rotation such that it’s less efficient. You get more bang for you buck by using that GCD to cast Immolate which makes Conflagrate immediately available as well as getting the important Immolate-active requirement of the bonus damage for Incinerate in place. Without the crit bonuses from deep affliction, Corruption is just behind the curve on damage-per-cast-time.
It may be an instant cast, although there is a global cooldown of 1 second (if backlash isn’t up). This will decrease your dps. As 1 second of another cast like Incenerate or Chaos Bolt will do far more dmg.
It takes up a global cooldown that could be used to start casting something else (like someone had already mentioned). Destruction boosts your fire damage for the most part.
Corruption still uses a global cooldown. That time is better spent starting the cast of another spell. Since corr isnt buffed in this build its not worth using.
This a great site for new Locs like my self. I didnt know what direction to take my loc. I love this spec and your rotation I will be putting my shammy on the back burner just to play with and gear up my loc.
Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!
I’ve continued my blog elsewhere but it’s still Warlock focused and should provide some good information, especially for new Warlocks.
my reason to stick with CoA is that if you use CoD then there is a posiblilty that a doomgaurd would be summoned..and haveing to tame and/or kill it along with the other mobs in the raid would get annoying after a while
I don’t think this constitutes as a “main reason” since the chance of this happening is quite slim. In fact, in the years I’ve raided as a Warlock this has never happened once. I raid as Meta/Ruin and Chaos Bolt so Doom is my primary curse and I’ve never procced a Doomguard. Even if it happens, it shouldn’t be too hard to banish it.
I wouldn’t lower my DPS for the slim chance of proccing a Doomguard, but that’s just me.
Thanks for the info I have been asked by my guild to change to destro spec after playing affliction since lvl60 and really happy with this new spec.
I only recently achieve 80 and I was just wondering how much this spec relies on gear.
Given that the only stat that is approaching acceptibility is Hit Rating (436) I am interested in some extra help with what I should concentrate next.
Once you are hit capped, just pack as much spellpower as possible, taking any crit or haste as you go along. It’s also a good idea to take more hit gear if it is an upgrade so you can bank it. This way if a crit/haste piece drops down the line you can equip that and replace the hit somewhere else. Backup gear is always a good idea.
Just use your Firestone and pick up haste/crit pieces. I don’t think one far outweighs the other but I’ve always been a bigger fan of haste. Constant faster DPS > luck based crits, IMO, but everyone is different.
Finally , a decent guide with all up2date information we need , especially the enchants part , love it ” Bookmarked ‘
Glad I could help =)
[...] The new version of the guide can be found here. [...]
With the buff to the Glyph of Life Tap (40 sec duration now up from 20), I believe the consensus over at elitist jerks and elsewhere is that the best destruction major glyphs for 3.2 are life tap, conflagrate and then either immolate or incinerate. Has this been your experience?
I can definitely see where the glyph of life tap would be more appealing now, especially with an ISL build where you wouldn’t be life tapping anymore than every 40 seconds anyway.
I don’t see it being better than the immolate glyph since it’s a huge part of our damage and equates to conflags damage as well.
I could possibly see replacing the Incinerate glyph with Life Tap but not until I see some solid theorycrafting. If that’s true, I have no problem swapping it out of course but for now I’m still using Immolate, Conflag & Incinerate with my ISL spec.
*EDIT* I checked out the EJ threads, etc., and it seems that replacing the Immolate glyph with the Life Tap glyph if you have the BIS gear will provide more DPS but by a very slim margine. 15 to be exact. Having to for Life Tap in situations where I just don’t need it for 15 more DPS isn’t going to make me, personally, swap my glyphs, but you’re correct. +15 dps is +15 dps.
Guide updated today, 8/13/09, with your credit of course. Thanks for pointing this out =).
this guide is very good! i’m nearly copying it exactly for all my raiding from now on. would you consider doing a pvp one?
Thanks and unfortunately no. I don’t PVP at all for the most part so I wouldn’t be able to give any accurate information.. and if I DID PVP I’d probably PVP as Demo anyway. I would suggest checking the forums at http://www.wowmb.net or elitistjerks.com to see about any PVP info. =)
cool, thanks for for your quick response
This is basically the Demo PvP spec I use:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Saurfang&n=Briza&group=2
The rotation is to DC, Meta, Charge, IA, Shadowflame, teleport, nuke/drain life/drain soul.
Of course, bringing out the right pet for the right situation helps a lot. For group fights like WG, use voidy for Sacrifice. For single fights with melee, use succy; with caster dps, use felguard; with healers (especially pallys), use felhunter. Oh, and always have voidy out first, bubble, then summon appropriate pet. With Master Summoner and Fel Domination, this is seemingly effortless.
I always love to have PVP related comments that offer advice to other Warlocks because it’s something I don’t provide myself in my blog posts. I don’t PVP at all on my Warlock so comments like these are awesome =).
Right now I have a hit rating of 370 with mostly Naxx25 and a couple Uldar items. I have 4 of the +19 spell power gems socketed. Should I dump them for something with hit as a deep destro lock? (Yes, I came off deep affliction.)
Do whatever you need to do hit 17% spell hit, whether it be new gems, enchants, etc., since it’s your #1 priority. If gemming is your only option, sure, use Rigid gems until you get back to hit cap and replace them back to spellpower (Runed) gems when you pick up other pieces of gear.
A great guid! I just respec from Affliction so I am new to deep destro. I am only lvl 70 and what is the best way to clear trash mobs in instances and just leveling?
I’ve never leveled as Destruction before so to be honest, I’m not sure. At 80, when I do dailies or farm as Destruction I just use Immolate, Chaos Bolt, Conflag and things are usually dead. If not, toss out Incinerates until they are.
For trash, I treat it the same as bosses. Curse of Elements, Immolate, Chaos Bolt, Conflag, Incinerate until it’s dead. If it’s an AoE group I just use Rain of Fire.
I have recently switched from deep affliction to the destro build outlined above (thank you for the guidance =]). The problem I am running into, something I am sure will get better with time, is my ability to accurately cast immolate. I am casting between the 1 sec range but sometimes cast an additional incinerate when I should be recasting immolate. My question is whether or not you recommend any add ons that may offer an alert when it is time to cast immolate again. Or is this just a matter of getting the hang of it? Thanks in advance.
I use ForteXorcist as a DoT timer which helps a lot when managing cooldowns and the duration of Immolate and curses. I highly recommend trying this addon to see if it helps. There is another addon called PowerAuras that allows you to create your own event warnings based on many different factors.
For instance, you could create a warning that pops on your screen if your current target, while in-combat, does not have the Immolate debuff. This is a bit extreme in my opinion but whatever helps you play better, you know? I think using a simple DoT timer like ForteXorcist would be all you need.
You can download both at wow.curse.com of course =)
I’d just like to ask if you know the DPS difference/loss if you replace your Glyph of Life Tap or Incinerate with Glyph of Chaos Bolt for simpler rotations?
Is the loss not that big for the sake of convenience?
It’s a significant loss of DPS. Chaos bolt is used every so often. Incinerate is your primary nuke. Life Tap is a consistant 180-250 spellpower boost. It definitely adds up.
Wow this guide just bumped my DPS up from 3.1k DPS to 3.8k just by switching my rotation from CoA to CoD and I hadn’t even really noticed the +25% crit chance of Conflag when -5 sec on Immo. Thanks!
I am going to observer that I do personally use spellstone. Testing the DPS on a heoric dummy (I am hit capped), I have found that I do 2-300 more DPS then the +1% damage buff… A Destruction Warlock should generally be running at least 500 haste, (of course you can use a potion that grants that 500 haste), however that potion lasts only for one minute. Also, the Spellstone does increase the damage for 4/5 ticks of the Immolate assuming that you are cutting the debuff off, or it is 5/5 of the ticks are increased. For a Destruction Warlock, what you should be gemming is Hit > Spell Power > Haste > Spirit > Critical Strike Chance > Intellect. Mp5 is generally useless to a Warlock. If you have the Glyph of Lifetap (shame on you if you don’t), then you should be Lifetapping regardless of whether you need mana at the time because of the extra SP granted.
Life Tap should be used at least every 40 seconds to keep the buff up, hands down.
I still pull more DPS using the Firestone over the spellstone, but I have over 500 haste as it is.
may i ask how much dps u pull on a fight like koralon (heroic)