Destruction Warlock Midnight Playstyle and Rotation Guide

Hellcaller Rotation:

1. Maintain Wither, try to re-apply it during the pandemic window. Never let it fall off.
2. Cast Summon Infernal
3. Cast Malevolence, cast as many Soul Shard spenders during Malevolence as possible
4. Cast Shadowburn with Fiendish Cruelty or to avoid overcapping Soul Shards in execute
5. Cast Chaos Bolt to avoid overcapping Soul Shards
6. Cast Soulfire, preferably with Backdraft
7. Cast Conflagrate to avoid sitting on 2 charges
8. Cast Incinerate

In AoE as Hellcaller you cast Rain Of Fire as your preferred spender when you would otherwise overcap on Soul Shards.

Diabolist Rotation:

1. Cast Chaos Bolt to spend Demonic Art procs and to restart your Diabolic Ritual
2. Maintain Immolate, try to re-apply it during the pandemic window
3. Cast Summon Infernal
4. Cast Shadowburn with Fiendish Cruelty or to avoid overcapping Soul Shards in execute
5. Cast Chaos Bolt to avoid overcapping Soul Shards
6. Cast Soulfire, preferably with Backdraft
7. Cast Conflagrate to avoid sitting on 2 charges
8. Cast Incinerate

In AoE as Diabolist you should not consider casting Rain Of Fire until 8+ targets. Even then it may be more efficient to keep Chaos Bolting for priority damage.

Openers

You can replace the first step in the openers below with casting 2x Incinerate into Wither or Immolate, for situations where you do not have Soulfire talented.

Hellcaller Opener:

1. Pre-cast Soulfire at 4 seconds on the pull timer
2. Cast Summon Infernal
3. Cast Conflagrate
4. Cast Malevolence + Trinket + Potion + Racial (if relevant)
5. Resume the Hellcaller Rotation

Diabolist Opener:

1. Pre-cast Soulfire at 4 seconds on the pull timer
2. Cast Summon Infernal + Trinket + Potion + Racial (if relevant)
3. Cast Conflagrate
4. Resume the Diabolist Rotation

General Playstyle

Destruction is a simple builder/spender spec that does not have high burst. This means that above all else we prioritize having uptime, we want to always be casting and never overcap resources.

Pooling

Pooling refers to the act of saving as many resources as possible for a specific moment, in Destruction's case it is very rare that it is worth overcapping Soul Shards or Conflagrate charges to optimize pooling, but we often play close to the cap to expend resources at the ideal times.

Planning Ahead

Since the largest damage loss as Destruction comes from losing uptime, it is important to plan ahead, especially when it comes to movement. You should always be thinking about where you can place a convenient Demonic Circle. Sometimes it is also worth to hold Conflagrate charges if you have predicted that movement is incoming, as not many of your abilities can be cast on the move.

Most important of all is the Destruction niche of 2-3 target cleave via Havoc and Mayhem. If you know that important adds are about to spawn, then it will be a significant damage increase to pool Soul Shards and delay your cooldowns until that point.

Cooldowns

Summon Infernal is our main offensive cooldown and a 2 minute cooldown baseline, although we almost always take Inferno to bring it down to 1 and a half minute. Summon Infernal lasts for 30 seconds and is not a very bursty offensive. Most of the damage comes from increased Soul Shard generation as Hellcaller, or Crashing Chaos empowered Chaos Bolt as Diabolist.

Soulfire - A mini cooldown that helps us efficiently maintain Immolate or Wither. It does a large portion of upfront damage, and improves our Soul Shard generation when talented into Avatar Of Destruction.

Malevolence - A Hellcaller specific cooldown that grants haste and empowers our active Withers. Since Malevolence is a 1 minute cooldown, it does not naturally align with Summon Infernal. It simply is not worth losing cooldown uses of either to align Summon Infernal and Malevolence, but if it is your last cast of either you can align them for extra burst.

Defensives

First of all, let us go over why Warlocks are generally considered tanky. Warlocks have very high health pools, due to increased stamina talents like Demonic Embrace. Additionally we always have a bit of Soul Leech to absorb damage taken. Together with Soul Link, which causes our Pet to take 10% of damage dealt to us instead, Warlocks have very strong defensive layers without pressing any buttons.

Demonic Healthstone - We always talent into Pact Of Gluttony, which supercharges our Healthstones into Demonic Healthstone that can be used multiple times per fight on a 1 minute cooldown. When combined with Soulburn this is an incredibly powerful self-heal that also increases your maximum hp. Frequently using Demonic Healthstone in smart ways is the most important part of your defensive toolkit as a Warlock.

Dark Pact - This is our most frequently available strong defensive. It sacrifices a percentage of our CURRENT health to generate a large absorb shield. Therefore you should always aim to use Dark Pact before large damage events.

Unending Resolve - Despite its long cooldown Unending Resolve is not much stronger than Dark Pact or Healthstone, but due to it being a damage reduction it is better suited for periods of high sustained damage intake. It also makes us immune to interrupt, silence and pushback effects, which can be very useful at times.

Mortal Coil - I like to press Mortail Coil during heavy raid damage, especially on early parts of progression. It helps your healers out, but in the end Mortal Coil is not a defensive to be relied upon, instead use it freely whenever you are in trouble.

Drain Life - Just like Mortal Coil, Drain Life is not a defensive that you can rely on alone. But since it has no cooldown, and can be combined with Soulburn to grant an additional absorb shield, it is nice on demand self-healing. Do not be afraid to simply spam Drain Life to stay alive in early progression or if you have healers dead during a raid encounter.