World of Warcraft/Warlock

The purpose of this guide is to inform newer players as to the use of the warlock's abilities and allow them as much information as possible before beginning their adventure in the World of Warcraft. While we will cover Talents and what they do this Guide will NOT place any builds above anything the player may come up with on his/her own.

Over time ONLY YOU will know what is right for you. That being said there are also a lot of crap talents you do NOT need to waste points on, we will advise you on these but not totally dismiss them without discussion. All information found in this guide are from extensive testing and both negative and positive input from various warlocks from many servers.

What is a Warlock?

The Warlock is a complex support/damage class, as such it is not the best class to roll if you are a first time gamer, just breaking into MMORPG’s for your first time, or new to just WoW. While a lot of people find the warlock’s abilities astounding, others will complain about how almost every fight has to be micro-managed and highly situational for your spec and gear. Those who have overcome this and delight in challenges will find the warlock to be extremely versatile in a multitude of situations.

You will also notice that play style varies dramatically as you change your talents. From the Destruction users fast paced fire based nuke-spam method to the mad genius of Demonology everyone can find a talent spec right for them. Take time to figure out what works best for you and your gear. Research Gear and Talents in the Warlock forums and Thottbot.com before you decide on anything in the game. Of course read through this guide as well.

For all its strengths and versatility the warlock has one weakness. In order to get 100% from your warlock you will need to burn Soul Shards. Soul Shards are only awarded when you drain the soul of enemies that give experience or honor. This means at level 60 you will need to travel to an area with enemies that are level 48 to 60. This can become a hassle if you spend a lot of time in lower level areas or run friends through lower level instances.

Races

In all honesty the race you pick will not greatly influence how your warlock turns out or performs in PvE/P. The differences are mostly aesthetic, so pick the race you want to look like. Also if you have friends on one faction you will generally want to play on that faction as well.

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Gnomes: Highest starting INT and AGI. They have Increased Intellect, resistance to Arcane Magic, and 15 Skill Bonus to the Engineering profession.

Activatable Skill: Escape Artist (allows you to break a root or snare, 1.5sec cast. 1min cooldown.)

Analysis: Bonus to Intellect that scales, can hide in bushes.

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Human: +5 to swords and maces. Diplomacy is great for raising Reputation. +5% spirit.

Activatable Skill: Perception (increases stealth detection for 20 sec. 3min cooldown.)

Analysis: Bonus to Spirit that effectively negates the downside to the Demonic Embrace Talent.

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Orc: +5% pet damage and +25% resistances to stuns. +5 to axe.

Activatable Skill: Blood Fury (+25% dmg to base melee for 45sec. Afterwards -25% dmg to base melee for 45 sec. 3min cooldown.)

Analysis: +5 pet damage works well when stacking with Soul Link.

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Undead: Highest starting STA and SPI, +10 resistances to shadow magic, and two activatable skills.

Activatable Skills: Cannibalize (7% of total health every 2sec, 10sec channel. 2min cooldown.), and Will of the Forsaken (Break or Resist Fear/Charm/Sleep for 5 sec. 2min cooldown.)

Analysis: Cannibalize works well with Lifetap every 2 mins to make grinding very efficient.

Pets

This is a brief overview of the various pets and their function.

Imp

Mini pocket-mages with buffs for your party! Highest mana of your standard four and he talks back! You get the quest for him from the beginning warlock trainer. He doesn't have very much health so you'll want to tank for him and just let him empty his mana pool by hurling countless fire bolts.

Voidwalker

He's a big blue taunting machine. While his DPS is laughable he can make level 10-20 a breeze with the right amount of aggro management on your part. He has a nifty self-heal spell but it can only be used out of combat as well as a shield for yourself if you choose to sacrifice him. A Soul Shard is needed to summon him.

Succubus

Much like your Imp she is very fragile but her DPS is outstanding. She can charm humanoids and later gains invisibility out of combat. She uses Soothing Kiss to drop Aggro off herself so you will need to tank for her using high damage spells to finish the job quickly. A Soul Shard is needed to summon her.

Felhunter

These guys are the middle ground between the VW's tanking ability and the Succ's DPS. They lower a target’s Attack Power with Tainted Blood which can stack up to 5 times for a total of 200 damage with the highest rank. They can also silence casters and remove debuffs. A Soul Shard is needed to summon him.

Infernal

Summonable once per hour. Drops in with an AoE stun attack. He has an Immolation Aura which does constant damage to anyone within the radius. They cost a shard plus an Infernal Stone (50 silver from reagent vendor) to summon. It does Melee damage only and will break free of your control after 5 minutes.

Doomguard

The most difficult pet to summon, use, and control. He will appear randomly if Curse of Doom kills a MoB, or can be summoned with the Ritual of Doom costing a shard, Demonic Figurine (1 gold from reagent vendor), and the life of a random player in your party. He must be enslaved to use. They have a Warstomp which Stuns and Rain of Fire similar to yours.

Enslaved Demons

Once you learn Enslave Demon you can control, for a limited amount of time, almost any Demon you come across. Enslaving a Demon costs 1 Shard each time you use the spell even if it is resisted.

Controlling Demons

Demons have three movement settings as well as three behavior settings. Attack, Follow and Stay are the movement settings and are self explanatory. Aggressive, Defensive, and Passive are its behavior settings and further explained below.

Agressive

When you place a pet on Aggressive it will attack anything near it making it a poor choice for an area where more than 1 enemy at a time becomes a problem. But great for decimating large areas of very low level mobs for friends or farming. Be careful however that if you are not in a group and your demon does 100% of the damage you will not be able to loot the Mob.

Defensive

With the Defensive behavior your pet will only attack whatever attacks you first. While this can be ok sometimes it may go after a mob that has had a control, such as sheep or sleep, put on it after it attacks you.

Passive

Passive behavior means your demon will only move and attack when you tell it to. While this is the best choice it can compound the number of buttons you’ll have to hit during a battle and is recommended for the advanced user.

Play around with the different movements and behaviors.

Spells

In this section we will cover every spell you will ever have, how you use them will come to you over time. They are in no particular order at this time.

Shadowbolt – Cast time. Direct damage and also your most basic spell. Damage is dependent on the rank of the spell used.

Corruption – Cast time/Instant. DoT, its damage is dependent on the rank of the spell you use. It has an initial cast time of 2 seconds and can be made instant with 5 points in the Improved Corruption talent of the Affliction tree.

Soul Drain - Channeled Spell. This is how you will gain soul shards in both PvE and PvP. It also does damage to the target while it is being channeled. Damage depends on the rank of the spell used. It's best to use it as the target is about to die, some say 10% but you will get a feel for it as you progress through the game.

Drain Life - Channeled Spell. Does damage to the target and then gives that damage to you as health. Damage done is dependent on the rank of the spell used.

Drain Mana - Channeled Spell. Drains mana directly from the target and gives it to you. While it doesn't do damage initially you can add damage to it by investing some points into Improved Drain Mana under the affliction tree.

Fear - Cast time. Causes the target to run around in fear. This may lead to pulling of close by MoBs so be careful with it.

Howl of Terror - Cast time. Like fear only it fears up to 5 targets at once.

Deathcoil - Instant Cast. Direct Damage spell that also has a 3 second fear effect that is unbreakable. It gives you 100% of the damage you cause to the target back as health.

Demon Skin/Armor - Self-Only buff. Adds armor and health regeneration depending on the rank of the spell used. Demon Armor also adds Shadow resistance depending on the rank of the spell.

Shadow Ward – Instant Cast. Absorbs X amount of shadow based damage. Lasts until it has absorbed the max amount of damage or 30 seconds.

Detect Invisibility – Instant Cast Buff. Used to see Invisible enemies. This will NOT detect stealth such as rogues or druids have.

Unending Breath - Allows you to breath underwater, can be cast on anyone of any level.

Banish - Banishes one demon at a time rendering it unable to move or attack. It also makes it immune to any damage or effects.

Ritual of Doom - Requires a Demonic Figurine (1 gold from reagent vendor) and the life of one party member to use.

Eye of Kilrogg - Summons a small eye you can use to scout areas ahead. It is stealth to most enemies and very fragile so be careful how far you drop!

Rain of Fire - Channeled AoE spell that causes damage based on the rank of the spell used.

Hellfire - Channeled Spell. Causes damage to all enemies around the warlock and the warlock himself.

Immolate - Causes Direct damage and leaves a DoT effect. Damage is dependent on the rank of the spell used.

Searing Pain - Causes direct damage to the target dependent on the rank of the spell. Also generates a HIGH amount of threat vs the target.

Soul Fire - Costs 1 Soul Shard. Longest cast time and biggest damage of any spell.

Curses

Only one curse can be active on any one target per warlock. All curses are instant cast.

Weakness - Reduces the damage caused by the enemy depending on the rank of the spell. Most useful against enemies that do small amounts of damage very rapidly.

Agony - Damage over Time spell. Damage is dependent on the rank of the spell and does more damage near the end of the curse than the beginning.

Recklessness - Reduces the targets armor while improving its attack power. Also prevents MoB's from running away when they are about to die.

Tongues - Slows the targets casting time 50-60%. They will also only be able to speak in Demonic.

Elements – Adds 10% damage to Fire and Ice based spells.

Shadows – Adds 10% damage to Shadow and Arcane based spells.

Doom - Does no damage until 60 seconds have passed then hits for 3200 damage and has a random chance to summon a doomguard.

Stones

Stones all require a soul shard to create. They will disappear from your inventory after being logged out for more than 15 Minutes.

Health Stone - Instantly restores X amount of health to the user. They can be given out to other players, but only one stone per person per rank of the stone and they also have a cooldown similar to health potions. This means you can have one of each Health stone (minor, lesser, greater... etc) but each shares the cooldown time of the other. They can be improved with the Improved Health Stone talent at the top of the Demonology tree.

Soul Stone - Allows the person its cast on to resurrect upon death. To use the Soul stone simply conjure one, select the player, and right click the stone in your inventory. The soul stone must be used while that person is still alive. The effects last for 30 minutes. The stone is also on a 30 minute cooldown.

Fire Stone - Conjures a stone to be used in the off-hand slot which adds a fire proc to your melee damage as well as + fire damage to your fire spells.

Spell Stone - Conjures a stone to be used in the off-hand slot which adds 1% chance to get a critical strike. It can be used to remove ALL magical effects (including beneficial ones) and absorb 400 damage. If used the stone is consumed. The stone has a 30 second cooldown when equipped before it can be used.

Talent Spells

These are spells you gain from adding points in the various talent trees. Some have higher ranks which you can buy from your trainer in any major city.

Amplify Curse - Instant Cast. This ups the effects of Curse of Weakness, Agony, and Exhaustion when used beforehand.

Siphon Life - Instant cast Damage over Time spell that gives the damage caused to the target back to the warlock. Higher ranks can be trained depending on your level.

Curse of Exhaustion - Slows the targets movement speed. This can be improved with the Improved CoEx talent and Amplify Curse spell.

Dark Pact - Taps Mana from your pet and gives it to you. Higher ranks can be trained depending on your level.

Fel Domination - Reduces the casting time of demon summons by 5.5 second and mana cost by 50%.

Demonic Sacrifice - Sacrifices your demon for a buff that lasts 30 minutes. Imp adds 15% Fire Damage, VW restores 3% health every 4 seconds, Succubus adds 15% Shadow Damage, and Felhunter restores 2% of total mana every 4 seconds.

Soul Link - Passes 30% of total damage received to your active pet and adds 3% damage to both you and your pet. It must be activated and lasts as long as you and your pet are alive. Only dispellable on the demon.

Shadowburn - Costs 1 Soul Shard to use and is an instant cast Direct Damage spell. If Shadowburn kills an enemy, within 4 seconds, that gives honor or experience it produces 1 Soul Shard. Higher ranks can be trained depending on your level.

Conflagrate - Instant Cast. Requires Immolate to be on the target. Consumes the Immolate's DoT effect and causes direct damage dependent on the rank of the spell. Higher ranks can be trained depending on your level.

Talent Trees

In this section we will cover each talent as it appears in each tree. We will offer as much advice on each talent without trying to force any on you. No one build is better than any other you may come across each has its own strengths and weaknesses. We will however try to point out any mistakes first timers might make and save you some re-spec costs. You can also toy around with the talents here [Link Missing] but we all know that’s nothing compared to how it works in-game.

My advice is to copy your character onto the test realm when it becomes available to test out different builds without increasing your re-spec costs. A lot of talents seem like filler for the better stuff at 21 and 31 but can also prove useful.

Affliction

Darkness, decay, and consumption... all the things that make Warlocks so loveable.

Suppression - Reduces the chance that enemies will resist your Affliction spells. Honestly not much gets resisted if you find that you are getting resisted a lot you may want to improve this but usually that’s not the case.

Improved Corruption - Improve this all the way and the Corruption spell becomes instant cast! This is a great time saver and I don’t know of many warlocks who give this up willingly.

Improved Curse of Weakness - Improves the effects of your CoW. This can be used after Amplify curse which reduces total damage taken. The damage it reduces isn't all that great but better than nothing. Honestly don’t get this unless you uh.. no don’t get this at all!

Improved Drain Soul - Adds a buff that increase your mana regen by 100% if the spell kills the target. Can be ok for solo but rarely kills things in groups, you decide really, Improved CoA is a lot better as filler at this level.

Improved Curse of Agony - Increases the amount of damage CoA does. It's good if you use CoA a lot, and never hurts as filler.

Improved Lifetap - Increases the amount of Mana you gain from lifetap. This is a great talent to have since you gain more mana per lifetap, and you do use a lot of lifetap later on.

Fel Concentration - Reduces the chance of Life, Mana, and Soul Drain being interrupted by damage. This is a nice talent to have if you decide to Drain Tank or want to go all the way to Shadow Mastery.

Amplify Curse - Amplifies the next CoA, CoW, or CoEx you cast. This is good for amplifying Curse of Exhaustion, also a pre-requisite for the talent.

Grim Reach - Extends the range of you affliction spells by up to 20%. Great for staying away from Mobs with AoE attacks.

Nightfall - When Corruption or Life Drain or even both are active on the target you have a 2-4% chance of nightfall proccing. When you gain the Nightfall buff your next Shadowbolt becomes instant cast. Every time this puppy proc's it's like opening a Christmas present of pain on your enemies.

Improved Drain Mana - Adds damage to your Drain Mana spell. Great if you use Drain Mana a lot during battles so you don’t stop doing damage.

Siphon Life - Casts a DoT spell which returns health to you while it’s active. Think of it as the easy Drain Life.

Curse of Exhaustion - Slows the targets movement to 90%. Not much by itself.

Improved Curse of Exhaustion - Improves the speed reduction of CoEx by as much as 20%. 60% Speed is still pretty fast. If the target is on a regular mount they now move at walking speed.

Shadow Mastery - Improves your shadow damage by up to 10%. Seriously who wouldn't want this; it’s a great 30 point talent and part 1 of 2 for the SM/Ruin build lots of raiding warlocks swear by.

Dark Pact - Taps mana from your pet and gives it to you. Least favored of the 31 point talents but very useful in situations where you can't drink water such as during long boss fights. Puts your Imp's mana to use while raiding.

Demonology

We can rebuild him, we have the technology. He will be stronger and faster, able to summon imps at the speed of light for his raid!

Improved Healthstone – Increases the amount of HP restored from using your Healthstones.

Improved Imp – Buffs the Imp’s Blood Pact, Fire Shield, and Fire Bolt. This with the improved Healthstone will make you everyone’s favorite lock in the raid.

Demonic Embrace – Adds a 15% STA bonus while causing a 5% SPI decrease. Since your primary way of gaining mana during a battle or even afterwards is lifetap and not SPI this is a good way to get some extra HP.

Improved Health Funnel – Gives more health to your pet when using the health funnel spell.

Improved Voidwalker – Increases the VW’s abilities to aggro.

Fel Intellect – Increases the amount of INT each pet has. This is really only good for those who have gone Dark Pact in affliction since it allows you more mana to tap from.

Improved Succubus – Increases the Succubus' Lash of Pain and ...

Fel Stamina - Increases the amount of STA each pet has. This is good for people who will go all the way to Soul Link affording them a large cushion.

Fel Domination – Decreases the next summons cast time by 5.5 and 50% mana. 30min cool down. This is very useful and with Master Summoner your Fel Dominated summons will be almost instant.

Master Summoner – Decreases all summons by 4sec and 40% mana.

Improved Spellstone – Unfinished, please add more info here.

Unholy Power – Unfinished, please add more info here.

Master Demonologist – Unfinished, please add more info here.

Soul Link – Unfinished, please add more info here.

Destruction

With great power comes great mayhem. Responsibility? No, we're fresh out of that sorry...

Improved Shadowbolt – If you get a critical hit with a shadowbolt it adds a buff to your enemy and adds up to 20% damage to the next 4 sources of shadow damage. Coupled with Ruin this talent will allow you to do devastating amounts of damage. Watch your agro with this.

Cataclysm – Reduces the cast time of your destruction spells. It can reduce the cast time of Soulfire by up to 2seconds.

Bane – Reduces the mana cost of all destruction spells.

Improved Immolate –

Improved Firestone –

Improved Fire Bolt –

Improved Lash of Pain –

ADD TALENTS

Conflagrate –

Builds

People always ask “what is a good build for a starting lock?” Well I’m glad you asked! Your choices are limited at first since you need points to unlock the next highest branch of the talent tree but there are a few talents most warlock cannot do without.

Demonic Embrace is one such talent this trades in 3% spirit (lifetap > spirit) for 15% more stamina. This means if you have 100 stamina (1000 health) you’d have 115 stamina (1150 health). Demonic Embrace is a good starting place for your Demonology Tree.

Improved Corruption is another talent most warlocks can’t live without. This makes the spell instant with 5 points in it. A good strategy for a warlock from 10-20 is to alternate points between Improved Corruption and Demonic Embrace. You wont regret it later.

Improved Lifetap should be the next talent you get in the Affliction Tree. This will aid greatly during instances or times when you need mana but are short on life. This almost doubles the effectiveness of Lifetap.

If you’ve decided on a specialization you should begin to fill in talents in those trees by now you will know what you’re after.

Player vs. Environment

In this chapter I will cover some of the more basic strategies for Solo and Group based PvE. Your play style will vary some.

What you should be doing solo

DoTs: You want to place all the DoTs you have before you start shooting shadowbolts. This allows them the maximum amount of time to do damage. Immolate counts as half direct damage and half dot so it would go on before the shadowbolt spamming too. A good strategy is to cast Immolate first since it has a cast time then start corruption as the enemy charges. Once it’s near you you’ll lay down a curse and start melee. Then it’s time for the Direct Damage…

Direct Damage: Shadowbolts, lots of them, enough to kill something with and more. Shadowburn if you have it and be sure you can kill it in 4 seconds. You can also use Life Drain for health or one of your many other Utility Spells…

Utility Spells: Depending on your pet and level vs. MoB level you will want to activate your healthstone, cast fear when needed, health funnel, lifetap for more mana, or even sacrifice your VW for a shield if you’ve failed in killing your enemy. These are all highly situational and are what makes the warlock not only a complex class but a very fun and versatile class too.

Pet: Depending on which pet you use your tactics will change dramatically. But the one thing they all should be doing is attacking. You can make a macro with your spells that does this automatically, by clicking the attack button on the pet bar, or by hitting Ctrl-1.

What you should be doing when grouped

DoTs: You will probably be assigned a curse such as CoE or CoS and you can do basically what you do solo. Be mindful of your agro and manage your mana efficiently.

Direct Damage: After the curse is laid down begin the shadowbolt spamming. You want to concentrate your fire on the Main Tank’s MoB. If you go after any other MoB you WILL AGGRO AND YOU WILL DIE. Then comes the yelling of ‘noob’ and gnashing of teeth.

Pet: You’ll usually have your Imp out for Blood Pact. He should be sitting very still beside you or parked (Ctrl-3) out of the way of danger. Put him on passive and let him automatically give Fire Shields out.

The only time you will have another pet out is when... You need an off-tank. Voidwalker, tell the priest to check his HP every so often, or you can and use Health Funnel to heal him.

You need Crowd Control. The Succubus is only useful versus humanoids but still decent CC. Once you’re assigned a target to seduce send her in and hit the seduce button. You’ll need to keep an eye on the target she’s seduced as it will break after a set amount of time or if someone does damage to the target.

You need to remove debuffs. The Felhunter is useful for instances where MoB’s silence, polymorph, or otherwise cripple your groups ability to function at 100%.