Destruction Warlock Leveling Guide From 1 to 80 for WotLK Classic

You can use the slider below to move between levels and change the information displayed on this page accordingly.

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

Below is an overall build that works for both questing in the open world and doing dungeons. It focuses on applying Immolate to as many targets as you can, then blowing up an enemy with Conflagrate, Incinerate and Chaos Bolt.

Where Affliction relies on DoT's and self heals, and Demonology focuses on thier Demons, Destruction is about obliterating their target with strong fire spells like Incinerate, Conflagrate and Chaos Bolt, while keeping up Immolate on your targets. Your fire spells do a ton of damage thanks to the many talents buffing them, like Emberstorm, Fire and Brimstone, Shadow and Flame, Aftermath and Improved Immolate.

Destruction doesn't benefit much from pulling a lot of mobs like the other two specs. Rather, it's better to just kill one target at a time. You want to apply Immolate to your target followed by Conflagrate, Chaos Bolt and Incinerate until your target dies. Corruption is not worth being used often while leveling. Destruction Warlock focuses on talents buffing our fire spells, so you're better off using them instead. Shadowfury can come in handy as it's now instant cast. Use this to help stun enemies when they get close to you.

Warlocks have one of the best AoE spells in the game with Seed of Corruption. Destruction also gets an AoE spell called Shadowfury, which is an instant cast spell that does great damage and also stuns everything it hits. The ideal AoE rotation is to Immolate enemies to gather them up to you, followed up with Shadowfury, then cast a couple Seed of Corruption.

If you are in a dungeon, apply Immolate while the tank gathers the mobs and allow them to generate threat. Spam Seed of Corruption while tossing in a Shadowfury to help stun the mobs.

As Destruction, your Demon of choice is the Imp. Destruction has many talents that buff the Imps fire damage as well as talents like Empowered Imp, Improved Imp, Demonic Power, and Glyph of Imp.

Warlocks have a ton of spells and Demon Grimoires to buy. It can become daunting to think about which ones are worth buying. To keep it simple, you want to buy all ranks of spells that you find yourself using out in the open world. You can skip a bunch of spells if you want to save gold and make it less confusing. Some spells that you can skip training until level 80 are listed below in order of which they become available on your trainer.

• Curse of Weakness
• Searing Pain
• Ritual of Summoning
• Rain of Fire
• Eye of Kilrogg
• Rain of Fire
• Curse of Tongues
• Detect Invisibility
• Banish
• Soul Fire
• Subjugate Demon
• Curse of the Elements
• Create Spellstone
• Curse of Doom
• Ritual of Souls

Setting up a user interface and macros early on you will greatly improve the quality of your leveling experience. Check out the Warlock Macros and Addons guides in the links below for the full list.

Once you achieve Level 80, we suggest checking out our Destruction Warlock Guide, which goes more in detail of how to play your Level 80 Warlock.