Destruction Basics Guide (For 5.3)

Destruction is the preferred spec if you are new to playing a warlock. It is the best DPS spec at low gear levels until about ilevel 525.

Recommended Talents and Glyphs 

They have changed the Talents and Glyphs to make them more situational. There isn't a single best option that is the best for every fight. Here, I will share my thoughts on which are the more useful talents. 

Tier 1: Soul Leech 
Soul Leech is amazing especially for Destruction. It returns 10% of damage dealt from certain key spells as a shield that absorbs damage. Use this for all fights. 

Tier 2: Mortal Coil or ShadowFury 
Mortal Coil should be the default option. Having a 15% Health Heal on 45 s cooldown is amazing. However, for certain fights, it might be necessary to spec into Shadowfury for add control. An example is if you need to stun the Loa Spirit on Council of Elders.

Tier 3: Sacrificial Pact
This is a 200K shield every minute. Amazing! You can have this up every time on Jinrokh's Lightning storm or Megara's Rampage.

Tier 4: Unbound Will 
Purges all magic and all CC from you. This works perfectly to neutralize many raid bosses abilities. Examples: Pinning Arrows from Spirit Kings, Amber Prison from Heart of Fear, Quicksand from Council of Elders.

Tier 5: Pick any. 

They are all pretty close right now. Pick one that you like and roll with it. I personally use Supremacy because I like the Pet abilities that I can use: Disarm, Cauterize Master, Mass Dispel, Interrupts, etc. Grimoire of Sacrifice is better at higher gear levels > 530.

Tier 6: Kil'jaeden's Cunning. 
This talent allows you to DPS while moving. Best ability in the game in my opinion.


Recommended Major Glyphs: 
Glyph of Healthstone: Healthstone restores 40% life over 10 s
Glyph of Siphon Life: Corruption heals 20% of damage done.
Third One: Up to you. If you cannot decide, use Glyph of Soul Stone.

Minor Glyphs: Entirely up to you. 



DPS Rotation/Priority List 

Single Target 

1.) Keep these up on boss 100% of time: 
Debuff: Curse Of Elements (extra 5% damage)
Dot: Immolate 

2.) Big Damage Spell: Chaos Bolt
Cast Chaos Bolts only when you have buffs on you. Don't cast an unbuffed Chaos Bolt ever. If you are a beginner, use Chaos Bolts only during Dark Soul or you reach 4 embers (capped).

Havoc allows you copy Chaos Bolt over to a secondary target for free. Literally doubles your damage. 

3.) Haste Buff - Conflagrate
Use Conflagrate as often as possible. It buffs Incinerate and/or Chaos Bolt cast speed. 

4.) Filler Spells - Incinerate and Rain of Fire
Use these spells to regenerate embers for you to cast Chaos Bolts. 
If you have a lot of mana, use Rain of Fire (very mana intensive) 
If you are low on mana, use incinerate. 

5.) Execute Phase - Shadow Burn
Replace Chaos Bolt with ShadowBurn.

6.) Special Cooldowns: 
Use your Summon Doomguard (10 min Cooldown) at the start of every fight. 
Use your Dark Soul Cooldown at the start of the fight and as often as possible throughout the entire fight.

AOE Rotation 

• Keep Rain of Fire up all the time
• Cast Fire and Brimstone --> Cast Immolate 
• Cast Fire and Brimstone --> Cast Conflagrate 
• Cast Fire and Brimstone --> Cast Incinerate 
• Use Shadowburns and Havoc if target health is < 20%

Gemming and Reforging


This is not of high importance. Playing around with your secondary stats only affects a very small portion of your dps. If you are pulling a lot lesser than what you are supposed to, its probably not due to secondary stats.  

Some quick advice. All three secondary stats are very close to each other for Destruction. However, you might want to prioritise Haste/Mastery if you have an affliction off spec like me.


Advanced Tips: 

• Never use the Conflagrate Buff on Chaos Bolt. This is mainly for better mana efficiency.
• ShadowBurn can be copied three times on an additional with Havoc. For example, I cast Shadow Burn three times and deal 300K per cast. If I use Havoc before casting Shadow Burn, it copies the spell three times for free. You get 1,800,000 damage in total, which is a huge amount. This can increase your dps by a few thousand. 
• You might want to delay your Dark Soul for a short while to wait for the boss to drop below 20% health, so that you can use Dark Soul together with Shadowburn (more value for money)

Affliction Basics Guide (For 5.3)

Introduction

Affliction is the preferred spec if you have good gear (ilevel > 525). 

If you have slightly lower ilevel, but have a Legendary Meta Gem or have a ToT Raid Trinket, Affliction might be better for you too. You need to use Simcraft to simulate to confirm this for yourself.



Before I begin, I would like to point out this excellent guide at Icy Veins which is significantly more detailed than the one that I have here: 

Recommended Talents and Glyphs 

They have changed the Talents and Glyphs to make them more situational. There isn't a single best option that is the best for every fight. Here, I will share my thoughts on which are the more useful talents. 

Tier 1: Soul Leech 
Soul Leech is amazing especially for Destruction. It returns 10% of damage dealt from certain key spells as a shield that absorbs damage. Use this for all fights. 

Tier 2: Mortal Coil or ShadowFury 
Mortal Coil should be the default option. Having a 15% Health Heal on 45 s cooldown is amazing. However, for certain fights, it might be necessary to spec into Shadowfury for add control. An example is if you need to stun the Loa Spirit on Council of Elders.

Tier 3: Sacrificial Pact
This is a 200K shield every minute. Amazing! You can have this up every time on Jinrokh's Lightning storm or Megara's Rampage.

Tier 4: Unbound Will 
Purges all magic and all CC from you. This works perfectly to neutralize many raid bosses abilities. Examples: Pinning Arrows from Spirit Kings, Amber Prison from Heart of Fear, Quicksand from Council of Elders.

Tier 5: Pick any. 

They are all pretty close right now. Pick one that you like and roll with it. I personally use Supremacy because I like the Pet abilities that I can use: Disarm, Cauterize Master, Mass Dispel, Interrupts, etc. Grimoire of Sacrifice is better at higher gear levels > 530.

Tier 6: Kil'jaeden's Cunning. 
This talent allows you to DPS while moving. Best ability in the game in my opinion. 

Recommended Major Glyphs: 
Glyph of Healthstone: Healthstone restores 40% life over 10 s
Glyph of Siphon Life: Corruption heals 20% of damage done.
Third One: Up to you. If you cannot decide, use Glyph of Soul Stone.

Minor Glyphs: Entirely up to you. 

DPS Rotation/Priority List 

Single Target

1.) Keep these up on boss 100% of time: 
Debuff: Curse Of Elements (extra 5% damage) 
Dots in order of priority: 

• Agony (highest priority. Never let this drop off boss)
• Unstable Affliction 
• Corruption 

2.) Damage Increase Buff
Haunt (Lasts for 8 seconds)
Cast this when: 

• you have a lot of buffs on your dots
• you get to dps for 8 seconds without being interrupted. (to Life Tap, or refresh dots, move from boss, etc) 
• You have 4 Soul Shards and nothing better to spend them on. 

3.) Filler Spell
 Malefic Grasp. Cast this when all your dots are up and you have nothing else to cast. 

4.) Execute Phase (< 20% Health)
You will have almost unlimited soul shards during this phase. 
Use Soul Swap (Soul Burn to refresh dots if they are going to expire) 

Use Haunt as often as possible. 
Use Drain Soul as Filler Spell instead of Malefic grasp. 

5.) Special Cooldowns: 
Use your Summon Doomguard (10 min Cooldown) at the start of every fight. 
Use your Dark Soul Cooldown at the start of the fight and as often as possible throughout the entire fight.



AOE

Greater than 5 targets: 
Seed of Corruption (Soul Burn) to put Corruption up on everyone.
Soul Swap (Soul Burn) to explode the Seed 
Then cycle through all the targets and cast Seed of Corruption non-stop. 
When you see corruption about to expire, recast Seed of Corruption (Soul Burn)

About 2 to 4 targets
Soul Swap (Soul Burn) to instant put dots on all the mobs. 
Carry out your single target rotation on one of the mobs. 

Note: Affliction Spec has poor burst AOE. If you need AOE burst damage, use Destruction Spec.


Gemming and Reforging.
This is not of high importance. Playing around with your secondary stats only affects a very small portion of your dps. If you are pulling a lot lesser than what you are supposed to, its probably not due to secondary stats. 
If you want some quick advice, go for either: 

• 6637 haste and rest mastery (for low gear levels < ilevel 500) 
• 9778 haste and rest mastery (for ToT geared)
•  Avoid Crit and reforge out of it. 

Professions and Trinkets

How do you tell which Professions and Trinkets are best for you? 

To get really accurate results. 

1.) Simulate it using Simcraft 
2.) Get the profession/trinket and test it out in a real world setting. Ultimately, real-world data >>> simulated theoretical data


For the average player though, there really isn't a need to use Simcraft. If you are having problems with a raid boss, it is probably not a issue with your professions as long as you have two professions that provide a dps bonus. If you don't have any professions at all, then that might be a problem. 

The rule of thumb is to pick professions and trinkets that:
Have a HIGH bonus over a SHORT period of time (most important!) 
Have procs that are triggered by you (not so important) 

As far as possible, avoid those which give a LOW bonus over a LONG period of time. 

There are many reasons for this choice: 

• We are a dot-based class. We can extend these procs/buff for a longer period of time through our dots. We have Soul Swap (Soul Burn) which allows to reapply all our dots instantly. For example, even though a proc lasts for 4 seconds (Lei Shen Trinket), we can make it last for 40 seconds. 
• A lot of our damage is done through bursts. Destruction's Chaos Bolts are a good example. I can fit Three Chaos Bolts in a 10 second window. I want to have three HIGHLY buffed Chaos Bolts instead of three LOW buffed Chaos Bolts. 
• Some profession procs can be stacked with our cooldowns for massive damage. For example, Haste Buff from Herbalism can be paired up and used together with our Dark Soul cooldown all the time. 

The recommended list of  professions are 
Tailoring: 2000 Intellect over 15 second proc
Engineering: 1920 Intellect for 10 seconds every minute
Herbalism: 2880 Haste for 20 seconds every 2 minutes. 

For Trinkets, we apply a similar reasoning. HIGH bonuses over a short period of TIME. Almost all trinkets are good for warlocks this tier.  Even the valor trinket is very decent. 

The recommended trinkets for the various specs 
Demonology: Unerring Vision of Lei Shen (Absolute MUST!)  and Volatile Talisman of the Shado Pan 
Affliction: Breath of the Hydra and Wushuulay's Final Choice
Destruction: Wushuulay's Final Choice, Pick any 2nd Trinket


For Demonlogy, the 100% Crit proc from Unerring Vision is super important compared to the rest of the other trinkets. For example, even if you have a proc from Breath of the Hydra, you will not refresh it over a 100% Crit Doom.