Destruction Warlock is a much better spec than advertised! /u/minimaxir World of Warcraft

Since I apparently play caster DPS well (coming from decent parses on Elemental Shaman and Balance Druid) I figured I should try another caster and level my old unplayed Warlock from MoP Remix from 70 to 80. I leveled Demo then and it was okay (not much impact), Affliction has even lower impact, so I figured I would try playing Destruction, especially as is the most “meta” of the 3 specs.

Whenever I heard people talk about Destruction Warlock over the years it’s always been “people only play Destro because they can’t handle Fire Mage” and “Destro is a spec where you are a turret that spams only one button” so I wasn’t eager to try it. Leveling with it however was super easy, and after gearing a bit and playing a few raids/dungeons it (and Warlocks in general) are actually is much better in every aspect than I thought:

• Chaos Bolt is a slow cast but there are a number of procs to speed it up and playing around them is a skill cap (I am still trying to make sure I don’t waste Demonic Arts using Shadowburn).
• Movement using instant casts with Destro Warlock is more delibrate since Conflagration/Shadowburn have no RNG and are both high impact and have 2 charges so can pool, so not too much lost there.
• There is still gameplay depth in cycling all abilities, namely maintaining Eradication and Roaring Blaze debuffs. They’re also less punishing since you can spellqueue a Chaos Bolt cast into them to still get their benefit for the CB cast.
• Shadowburn is fun and forgiving as an Execute spell, both with having 2 charges and a 5 second window to benefit from the refund, and super fun when solo. It reminds me of Shadow Priest Shadow Word: Death when it was a finisher instead of being retooled into a rotational spell.
• I knew Havoc made Destro kings of two-target cleave but didn’t know that it actually worked by duplicating the spell and all its benefits, which makes it more interesting gameplaywise.
• Burning Rush feels like better mobility than Ele Shaman Ghost Wolf or Balance Druid Cat Form because not only is it faster, it can be toggled while casting and doesn’t incur a GCD. Of course remembering to toggle it off is an issue but that is fixed with a WA.
• Portal is a lot better than I thought, or the Warlocks I grouped with use it poorly/rarely. I didn’t realize you could create a macro to essentually use it as a 40yd targeted Blink every 90s, and that’s enough to handle most emergency movement.
• I didn’t realize just how tanky Warlocks are, especially since they have large passive Soul Leech absorbs, large Death Pack absorbs, and Soulburn Demonic Healthstones can restore a massive chunk of health every minute.

The only thing keeping me from potentially maining Destruction is the queue times for DPS which is generally why I play healer/tanks regardless lol.

Since I apparently play caster DPS well (coming from decent parses on Elemental Shaman and Balance Druid) I figured I should try another caster and level my old unplayed Warlock from MoP Remix from 70 to 80. I leveled Demo then and it was okay (not much impact), Affliction has even lower impact, so I figured I would try playing Destruction, especially as is the most “meta” of the 3 specs.

Whenever I heard people talk about Destruction Warlock over the years it’s always been “people only play Destro because they can’t handle Fire Mage” and “Destro is a spec where you are a turret that spams only one button” so I wasn’t eager to try it. Leveling with it however was super easy, and after gearing a bit and playing a few raids/dungeons it (and Warlocks in general) are actually is much better in every aspect than I thought:

• Chaos Bolt is a slow cast but there are a number of procs to speed it up and playing around them is a skill cap (I am still trying to make sure I don’t waste Demonic Arts using Shadowburn).
• Movement using instant casts with Destro Warlock is more delibrate since Conflagration/Shadowburn have no RNG and are both high impact and have 2 charges so can pool, so not too much lost there.
• There is still gameplay depth in cycling all abilities, namely maintaining Eradication and Roaring Blaze debuffs. They’re also less punishing since you can spellqueue a Chaos Bolt cast into them to still get their benefit for the CB cast.
• Shadowburn is fun and forgiving as an Execute spell, both with having 2 charges and a 5 second window to benefit from the refund, and super fun when solo. It reminds me of Shadow Priest Shadow Word: Death when it was a finisher instead of being retooled into a rotational spell.
• I knew Havoc made Destro kings of two-target cleave but didn’t know that it actually worked by duplicating the spell and all its benefits, which makes it more interesting gameplaywise.
• Burning Rush feels like better mobility than Ele Shaman Ghost Wolf or Balance Druid Cat Form because not only is it faster, it can be toggled while casting and doesn’t incur a GCD. Of course remembering to toggle it off is an issue but that is fixed with a WA.
• Portal is a lot better than I thought, or the Warlocks I grouped with use it poorly/rarely. I didn’t realize you could create a macro to essentually use it as a 40yd targeted Blink every 90s, and that’s enough to handle most emergency movement.
• I didn’t realize just how tanky Warlocks are, especially since they have large passive Soul Leech absorbs, large Death Pack absorbs, and Soulburn Demonic Healthstones can restore a massive chunk of health every minute.

The only thing keeping me from potentially maining Destruction is the queue times for DPS which is generally why I play healer/tanks regardless lol.