Destruction Warlock raid bosses guide

Covenant: Kyrian

Legendary: Wilfreds

Notes: Try to apply Havoc on targets that will live as long as possible. Also, don’t forget to apply Tithe through it; thus, you will get 5 shards and crit buff from the mob dying with Havoc and getting your Tithe refreshed due to your main target not dying with it. Also, as this boss room is quite large, don’t forget to preplan your movement with circle and gateway.

Covenant: Night Fae

Legendary: Madness

Notes: Pretty straightforward single target fight with heave movement every now and then. Thus the most important thing in this fight would be to preplan your movement with circle and gateway. Other than that, this encounter does not have anything special that you have to do; just use your CDs on cooldown from the start.

Covenant: Night Fae

Legendary: Wilfreds

Notes: Place your circle that way so you can dodge rings or get to the portal faster. Most of the time, you want to use your golem on cooldown, but you can hold the one before lust, so make sure to have it during that. Also, try keeping soul rot for intermissions unless you are going to lose a cast of it.

Covenant: Kyrian

Legendary: Madness

Notes: You can place your circle in the middle of the room, dodge every other ring, or put it on the side and try dodging double rings. Dodging double would be a good play but not really necessary because warlock is one of the tankiest specs in the game thus, you can just take some of them in the face. Don’t forget to save some shards for barrier and an add spawning to nuke it as fast as possible. You also want to save Tithe for an add spawn so you can always apply it on the add through Havoc.

Covenant: Night Fae

Legendary: Wilfreds

Notes: There is not much to say about this fight. You want to make sure that you have 3.5+ shards for every Havoc use and damage for the ritualists spawn. You may want to preplace circle in a good position to deny the hand grip. Also, remember the last phase will have 4 targets, so with an Inferno picked, you want to spend your shards on Rain of Fire instead of Chaos Bolt and use Havoc to get more shards.

Covenant: Night Fae

Legendary: Wilfreds

Notes: Don't forget to think about where you want to place your circle and gateway since this boss also has a huge room. Don't forget to save shards for the synthesis phase as well.

Covenant: Night Fae

Legendary: Madness

Notes: This fight has almost no random mechanics and is all about preplanning your movement spell abilities during the intermissions. They should never be randomly used and must be hard assigned and be the same every pull. Thus you need to think about or look at other people's kill videos and remember how they use soulshape, circle, and gateway.

Covenant: Night Fae

Legendary: Madness

Notes: You would want to play the Korayn soulbind with First Strike instead of covenant conduit during this fight. Make sure that you have CDs for the intermission phases. Also, stack up shards for Monstrous Souls when they begin casting Necrotic Detonation. And be careful with using circle during blasphemy to not collapse with anyone else.

Covenant: Night Fae

Legendary: Madness

Notes: This is a constant two-target encounter, which means Havoc usage is the most crucial thing there. Make sure that you can always stand and cast during the entire Havoc duration. Start with at least 3.5+ shards and cast as many chaosbolts as possible. You also want to make sure that you have Havoc ready for every darkness phase.

Covenant: Kyrian

Legendary: Madness

Notes: You want to pre-place your circle on the side on top of the circle spawn to be able to enter singularity before the bang cast ends.

Don’t forget to hit the matter inside the singularity and be careful not to overkill the orbs with Havoc. During the singularity after bang, don’t forget that you can use Havoc for more shard generation instead of spending shards in it.

Covenant: Night Fae

Legendary: Madness

Notes: You want to place your circle before the pull where your spot for the chains will be and then use it once you get gripped by the chains to the boss for the first time. You also want to place your gateway before the pull because you want to use it for the next grip. Use circle to get back to your spot after the rune knock, and keep nf blink in case you need to move quickly to the holes far away.

During phase 2, try always to have cataclysm ready for mc to break people out faster and discuss with your raid leader what mc you should stun with shadowfury, which should be every other one.

In phase 3, you want to have your felhunter ready so that you can help with interrupts on the adds after torment. Also, always save cataclysm for torment adds and most likely a Golem as well.

Multi-stunning them with golem and set procs would help a lot. Don’t forget to look where you need to place gates during phase 3 to dodge the defile and where you need to place your circle.

Phase 3 is very hectic and fast, and you won’t be able to react to anything on the spot. You have to plan your movement ahead. Most of the time, you want to use pact or resolve for torment casts in all phases since it will be your primary source of damage taken.

In the secret phase, the most crucial thing will be not to die with the debuff that will be assigned to warlocks due to them being the tankiest ranged class in the game. Be extra careful with your defenses in this phase and try to survive as much as possible.

Legendary: Madness

These are some of the good anima powers that I would suggest using: Any stat amplifiers, Erratic Howler, Potent Acid Gland, Disembodied Mystic Hands.

Maintain Curse of Weakness on the boss. Place your Demonic Circle and Demonic Gateway somewhere randomly just to reduce movement during Hungering Mist. 

Use Golem on pull and on cd later on or whenever is more suitable for you depending on kill timer.

Legendary: Madness

Use Demonic Circle to dodge Annihilating Glare. Try to use Cataclysm and Soul Rot (if NF) to cleave down the two targets.

In terms of CD usage, the fight is very simple and you want to use every single cooldown on pull and then use them as often as possible after that.

Legendary: Madness

Maintain Curse of Weakness on the bosses. Don’t forget to use Demonic Circle / Demonic Gateway to reduce movement during the fight. Try timing your Cataclysm and Soul Rot (if NF) to at least hit 3 targets (2 of the bosses + 1 add during the 1st phase and all 3 bosses + there may be an add during the 2nd phase as well).

Use Golem on pull and on cd later on or whenever is more suitable for you depending on kill timer.

Legendary: Madness

Maintain Curse of Weakness on the boss. Try to cleave the orbs with Cataclysm and pre-dot the orbs before Suffering. When the orbs lose their damage reduction buff you should already be finishing your Chaos Bolt cast with havoc on so it’s used as soon as you can hit the orbs.

You want to be careful not to use it too early because any damage reduction snaps the damage when your cast is over and not when the animation hits the target.

Also use Demonic Circle to dodge Malevolence knock backs.

You want to use Golem on pull and then you want to keep it for lust since the fight is very short and usually around the 4 minute mark.

Legendary: Madness

Maintain Curse of Weakness on the boss. Place your Demonic Gateway to help the raid-team deal with Warmonger Shackles. You also want to use Demonic Circle to make it easier to deal with Torment.

Adds will spawn every minute if there is no Torment “dance”. The “dance” adds up to one more minute before the next adds spawn. So keep that in mind while using Cataclysm and Soul Rot, make sure you don't miss them on adds.

Legendary: Madness

Maintain Curse of Weakness on the boss, but also keep in mind that you always need to re-apply it after the intermission.

Use Demonic Circle to dodge Spiked Balls and Spiked if needed.

Check when you are using your second golem and if it’s sooner than 3 minutes then don’t forget to use it before pull (roughly 8 seconds usually). Don’t use Cataclysm on pull and ALWAYS have it for Spiked Balls, use havoc on the closest ball to the one you are killing. If the Spiked Balls die within a few seconds then pre-use Soul Rot on the boss to gain the Niya/Dreamweaver buff if you are using one of them. If the Spiked Balls die slowly, roughly 5+ seconds, then keep it for the balls.

Legendary: Madness

Maintain Curse of Weakness on the boss. Pre-place Demonic Circle and Demonic Gateway for easier movement. Use your defensive cooldowns such as Dark Pact and Unending Resolve during purging protocol.

This boss is a 5 minute patchwerk fight. There is not much to say about the burst cooldowns however, If you want to look into it you can look at the rotation on raidbots quick sim.

Legendary: Madness

Maintain Curse of Weakness on the boss but also remember to use Curse of Weakness on the adds during the intermission as well. During P1, P2 and P3 you also want to help out slowing the tank adds down with Curse of Exhaustion and don’t forget to use Soul Rot on adds if possible.

Another important thing is to learn the timings so you can maximize Soul Rot and Cataclysm damage on add. Also don’t miss the havoc windows on tank add spawn.

Use Golem on pull and keep one for each phase for boss damage.

Legendary: Wilfreds

Maintain Curse of Tongues on Soul Reavers during the intermission. You want to use your felhunter to help out the raid with kicks which are very important in this fight during both phases.

The fight isn’t very damage dependent so your burst cooldowns should be used depending on where your raid team needs your damage the most. Most efficiently it would be to use them on pull and then pretty much as much as possible.

Legendary: Madness

Use Curse of Weakness on Sylvanas in P3. Use Demonic Gateway to dodge Veil of Darkness during P1 and P2, and you may also use them to help your team deal with Wailing Arrow during P3 on the last platform.

You also want to use Dark Pact if affected by Wailing Arrow or if you are targeted by Veil of Darkness during phase 3 or any other dangerous situation such as having 2+ bleed stacks during P1, etc. In phase 3 you can also utilize Demonic Circle to deal with pushback after the Merciless soak.

During phase 1 you want to learn the Wailing Arrow and Sentinels timings to get more damage from Cataclysm.

Your Golem timings may vary depending on where your raid needs your damage. One way to use them is to use your Golem on pull during the first intermission to damage Wailing Arrow. Then you want to use it on the second wave during phase 2, and once again on the second platform right after the veil and the last use is during lust.

Legendary: Madness

Simple ST fight with medium amount of movements. Don’t forget to pre place your circle and pre plan your globals and movements ahead so you don’t lose much during running around.

Legendary: Madness

Maybe the strongest fight in the raid for destruction, min maxing your damage/pooling for when you have havoc will boost your damage a lot on this fight.

Legendary: Madness

Depending on what your raid needs you may switch from ST Madness build to default AoE RoF build with wilfred. Both builds can be good for different reasons. Most likely AoE won’t be an issue so you can stay ST to pump shield phases harder.

Legendary: Madness

Single target boss just like Shriekwing, very straightforward. Make use of Demonic Circle to aid you during the fight.

Legendary: Madness

Single target boss, Low to medium movement.

Legendary: Madness

There are a few adds that need to be burst down. Try saving 5 shards for your Havoc windows to do as much damage as you can during those times. Other than that just pump ST damage rotation.

Legendary: Wilfreds

This is a council boss where you need to kill them 1 by 1 so it's only worth using the other boss for shard regeneration.

Legendary: Madness

Single target boss with medium movement. Due to damage amp on sludgefist this is the weakest fight in the raid for destro warlocks.

Legendary: Wilfreds

This boss has a lot of add waves spawning so our Infernals and Rain of Fire will be doing a lot of damage on this encounter. It's really important to use Havoc well for shard regeneration to get more Rain of Fires out, which will lead to more Infernals spawning.

Burning Rush is also really good with the winds and Demonic Portal in case you’re about to fall off so place it in the middle of the room.

Legendary: Madness

Another pretty weak fight for destro. Play full single target and try to do as much damage in the last phase is your ultimate goal on this fight.