Cataclysm Classic Destruction Warlock Talent Builds

Destruction Warlock has 31 of their talent points in the Destruction tree, then you split the remaining points into Affliction to buff your Corruption and Demonology to buff your main demon. Below you'll find our recommended talent build for all PvE content as a Destruction Warlock.

In this section we'll go over the best build for Destruction Warlock. There is no optional talents, as we choose all the talents that will help you do the most damage as possible as Destruction.

• Shadow and Flame — This talent not only increases the damage of your main spell Incinerate, but also whenever you Incinerate it puts a debuff on the target that makes it take 5% increased Spell Critical Strike chance.

• Improved Immolate — This will increase the damage of your main DoT Immolate by 20%.

• Bane — This reduces the cast time of two of your main spells, Immolate and Chaos Bolt

• Emberstorm — This talent reduces the cast time of your Soul Fire and Incinerate, both of which will be used constantly as Destruction.

• Improved Soul Fire — Is a massive talent that increases all damage you deal by 8% for 20 seconds after you Soul Fire.

• Backdraft — Is a major talent that reduces teh cast time of your next three Incinerates and Chaos Bolt after you cast Conflagrate

• Shadowburn — An execute ability only able to be used when the target has less than 20% health. To be used on cooldown once you get below that threshold.

• Burning Embers — This allows your Soul Fire and your Imps Firebolt to leave a DoT on the target that deals damage equal to 50% fo the Soul Fire and Firebolt damage for 7 seconds.

• Nether Ward — This ability turns your Shadow Ward into Nether Ward and instead of giving you a shadow damage absorb, it now absorbs ALL magical damage. You must have Demon Armor or Fel Armor on for this to work.

• Nether Protection — This is only available after you pick up Nether Ward and makes it so whenever tyou absorb damage through Nether Ward you gain Nether Protection, which reduces all damage you take by that school of magic by 30% for 12 seconds.

• Shadowfury — This spell is great for AoE, doing a moderate amount of damage in a big radius, and also stunning all enemies hit with it for 3 seconds.

• Fire and Brimstone — This increases the damage of y our Incinerate and Chaos Bolt by 15%, so long as they have your Immolate on the target. This talent also increases the critical strike chance of your Conflagrate by 15%.

• Empowered Imp — This is a strong talent that makes it so your Imps Firebolt has a 4% chance to cause your next Soul Fire to be instant cast.

• Bane of Havoc — This is a powerful spell that allows you to Bane a target for 5 minutes and 15% of all damage that you do to any other targets, will also be dealt to the Baned target. You can only have one Bane on the target at all times.

• Chaos Bolt — This is the main and final talent in the Destruction tree. This launches a chaotic fire bolt at the enemy, dealing decent damage. This cannot be resisted and pierces through all absorbtion effects.

• Improved Corruption — This will buff one of your DoT's, Corruption, by 12%. This is helpful as you will be using Corruption full time as Destruction.

• Dark Arts — This is an important talent in the Demonology tree that reduces the cast time of your Imp's Firebolt by 0.75 seconds, making him cast more Firebolts.

• Fel Synergy — This talent will heal your pet for 15% of all spell damage that you deal, making it really easy to keep your demon alive withhout relying on your healers to do so.

• Mana Feed — Another important Demonology talent that gives your Imp mana back whenever you Life Tap. This ensures that your Imp will never run out of mana.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm and they're the strongest glyph options that you can have. Prime glyphs are pretty limited and won't provide many flex options.

• Glyph of Imp — This will make your Imp do 20% more damage.
• Glyph of Immolate — This increases the DoT portion of your Immolate by an additional 10%, making your hardest hitting DoT do even more damage.
• Glyph of Incinerate — This makes your Incinerate do 5% more damage.

• Glyph of Life Tap — This will reduce the global cooldown of your Life Tap by half a second and imporant since you will be Life Taping frequently.
• Glyph of Soul Link — This increases how much damage is shared from you to your demon from Soul Link by 5%, making you take less damage.
• Glyph of Soulstone — This allows you to resurrect with an additional 40% Health whenever you die and your Soulstone resurrects you.

• Glyph of Drain Soul — Whenever you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor you gain 10% of your mana back.
• Glyph of Unending Breath — This increases the swim speed of targets affected by your Unending Breath by 20%. Helpful for any quests in the water.
• Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion — This increases the range of your Curse of Exhaustion by 5 yards. Can be helpful if you ever want to slow down your enemy or in PvP situations.