The Warlock Guide

Warlocks are a very powerful class, with the ability to place numerous curses upon opponents crippling the opponents efficiency and ability to strike back. Many times a warlock can end a fight with full life as they have the ability to drain the life and mana of their opponents.

1) Useful Warlock links

“Please be aware that Blizzard does not offer support for any customizeduser interface modifications. Before speaking to a Game Master in-game, pleasebe sure to uninstall any User Interface modifications.” (from the Policiessection of the main website, I include this so you know you can’t page a GM overa bug with a mod).
http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?sectid=21 -Warlock Mods & Addons

To use an addon, open My Computer, then open the C: drive, then open ProgramFiles, then World of Warcraft, then Interface, and finally the Addon folder.Download the addon and drag and drop it into this folder.

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/viewclass.php?id=8 -Player Videos

Warlock Quest Links:
http://thotbott.com/?qu=1470 or http://thotbott.com/?qu=1599 -Imp quest
http://thotbott.com/?qu=1478 or http://thotbott.com/?qu=1685 -Voidwalker quest
http://thotbott.com/?qu=1507 or http://thotbott.com/?qu=1717 -Succubus quest
http://thotbott.com/?qu=1801 or http://thotbott.com/?qu=1798 -Felhunter quest
http://thotbott.com/?qu=4738 -Enchanted Gold Bloodrobe
http://thotbott.com/?qu=4967 -Orahil staff or orb
http://thotbott.com/?qu=4490 -Felsteed
http://thotbott.com/?qu=8422 -Soul Harvestor, Abyssal Shard, or Robes of Servitude
http://thotbott.com/?qu=7603 -Infernal quest
http://thotbott.com/?qu=7583 -Doomguard quest
http://thotbott.com/?n=618465 -Set of Dreadsteed quests

More Warlock Resources:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?… -Forum thread for Warlock FAQ
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?… -Forum thread for Warlock Macros
http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/spelllist.html?class=Warlock -Warlock Spell List

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2) Class Role

“Warlocks were mages that delved too deeplyinto the roots of demonic power. Consumed by a lust for dark knowledge, they’vetapped into chaotic magic from beyond the world. The Burning Legion now feedsthem its powers, allowing them to channel destructive energies and call uponthe powerful emissaries of their demon masters.” (Quoted from Blizzard)

As Warlocks we will play differently in different situations, not to mentionthe great variety of play styles that the different talent builds will give us(explained in Talent Guide). There are, however, a few common themes that peoplelook for when choosing a warlock for their group.

In PvE you’ll find yourself striving for efficiency in combat. Careful use ofDrain Life and Lifetap can ensure that you are always at or near full healthand mana at the end of each fight, which reduces your downtime to zero. Whilethe Voidwalker is generally the best pet for this, some talent builds will allowyou to use other pets and drain tank for high efficiency.

In PvE group combat, you’re going to be focused on utility and damage. Warlocksare loved in instances for their soulstones, which can revive the priest (andtherefore the entire party) after a complete wipe and for our ability to banishthe elementals found in the Molten Core. On top of that our imp, succubus, andfelhunter step up to the plate as great assets to the group with the imp providinghis health buff to everyone in our party, the succubus with her ability to seducehumanoids, and the felhunter with devour magic to remove negative magical effectsand spell lock to interrupt enemy casters. On top of all that utility, warlockscan be formidable damage dealers with ranged nukes in the 1000-2500 range.

It is in PvP that our variety starts to play its biggest part. Our talent buildswill make us range from ferocious damage dealers to highly defensive tanks. Itis in PvP that claims are never made as to the playstyle you expect in a warlock.

There are some frustrations you will also inherit as a warlock. First and foremostare Soul Shards. These are reagents used in many of our spells, including almostall of the utility spells that raid/groupmates will ask us to cast (Ritual ofSummoning, Healthstones, Soulstones, ect). The only way to get these shards willbe to farm them off of enemies that grant xp or are honorable kills. This becomesa heavy burden when it takes a lot of time farming the shards since you’ll needmany, and inventory space since they do not stack.
Although this burden has been eased somewhat by Blizzard (see Patch Notes), itis still our chief frustration in the eyes of many. Another frustration is whatsome perceive to be a lack of defensive spells. While some will say that we haveall the defensive spells we need, there are others who say we are the cloth wearingclass that is most open to attacks.

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3) Talent Guide

There are a few main cookie cutter builds, and a few gimmik builds. Warlocksare blessed with tons of viable variation in their talents, so you’ll have tofind the niche that best suits you. All builds will have a few variations wherepeople pick up this or drop that, so these are just samples. That being said…

(After each build description you’ll find a list of Questionable Use talents.These are talent points spent that either are made irrelevant by the purposeof the build, have no significant use, or are thought to be either of these thingsby many people.)

• HeavyAffliction-Dark Pact
This is hailed as the leveling build. Your DoTs will be very effective, you candrain tank for added damage, and your voidwalker will hold agro like a champ.This build also features Dark Pact, which is handy in raid and group situationswhen you can afford to use different demons (especially the Imp) to supplimentyour mana and avoid downtime altogether.
Questionable Use: None

• HeavyDemonology-Soul Link
This is great for survival. If you want to be hard as nails to kill and you likedemons, this is the build for you. For absolute survival, pull a voidwalker outwith soul link on it to mitigate 40% of incoming damage, which you can sack fora 2000 shield (twice). The ability to add to your health through drain tankingis really useful here since your health is so hard for an enemy to take away.
Questionable Use: Fel Stamina, Unholy Power, Demonic Sacrafice

• HeavyDestruction-Conflag
This is easily our most damaging spec. This spec is very much PvP oriented asbeing highly damaging is bad for agro reasons in PvE as well as fire damage notbeing as helpful in end-game instances.
Questionable Use: None

• Nightfall/Conflag
This is a split shadow/fire build. It has no problem putting out damage, andwhen one class of spells is interrupted it can switch to the other. As nightfallis a cornerstone in this build, you’ll want to land Corruption right out of thegate in a fight.
Questionable Use: None

• SM/Ruin
This is a very balanced build. For PvP you’ll do good damage with shadowboltsand your DoTs. For PvE you are doing shadow damage, which is effective in end-gameinstances. Some say that this build is somewhat dependant on +damage gear.
Questionable Use: None

• SM/DS
This build is demonless. This makes it extremely shard efficient, since you’llonly need a new pet every 30 minutes or when you die. Your damage potential isvery high as you can sack a succubus for the biggest percent gains to shadowfrom talents available in any of the builds. The major drawback of this buildis it’s wasted talents. 10 talent points are spent buffing up your pets so thatyou have the points necessary to get Demonic Sacrafice, but you’ll rarely havethe pets out to enjoy their buffs.
Questionable Use: Improved Imp, Improved Voidwalker, Fel Stamina

• MD/Ruin
This build is a sort of variation from the SM/Ruin build. While many do use thevoidwalker sacrafice, this build allows you to sacrafice the succubus and thenhave her rezzed (or rez her yourself if you have jumper cables) and keep the+15% buff from sacking her. Essentially what you trade from SM/Ruin is the addedDoT damage from Affliction and the choice of pet when using the succubus trickin exchange for added survivability (you are a demonology build) and pet utility.
Questionable Use: None

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4) Demon Guide

• Imp

This demon does not require a shard, grants boosted stamina to all groupmates, has moderate damage (awesome damage with improved firebolt), and has awesome regeneration rates (making him ideal for Dark Pact users). His main drawback is his low health. Anything that casts AoEs will toast the little guy, and regardless of him being your first demon his mana cost is still staggering.

• Voidwalker
This guy is a tank. He has the highest stamina and armor of all the pets, a strong taunt, and can be sacked for a damage shield (which is dispellable). At higher levels he may have problems holding agro from us, but a few points in Improved Voidwalker will remedy that. He also serves a PvP role for Demonology warlocks as his sacrafice buff (3% of total health every 4 seconds) is phenomenol, and he adds a lot to damage mitigation with soul link and his demonology buff.

• Succubus
This pet has a dual use. Very reasonable damage is used sometimes in drain tanking for PvE purposes and her seduce ability is golden in PvP (she can charm any humanoid for a small duration).

• Felhunter
This is our anti-caster pet. He has spell lock (interrupt and silence), devour magic (dispell), and high resistances to all schools of magic. This pet is often used as a wingman in Warsong Gultch as his devour magic spell can remove almost all snare effects on the flag runner (the hunter ice block trap, a mage’s cone of cold, the druid root, a priest’s mind control, ect).

• Infernal and Doomguard
These pets are acquired through special quests (see Useful Warlock Links) and are not worth the effort at this time. The Infernal cannot be used in instances, and the doomguard requires the sacrafice of one of the people who help to summon him. On top of this, these pets will not remain under your control and will periodically break free to attack you and your party. If you do insist on using these pets, keep in mind that Curse of Shadows will decrease their resistance to Enslave Demon.

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5) Leveling Guide

1-10 starting zone (elwynn forest, Dun Morgh, Dorutar, Tirisfal Glades)

11-20 secondary zones (Loch Modan, Lakeshire westfall, wetlands, The Barrens,Silverpine Forest) Instances: Deadmines, Wailing Caverns

21-30 expanding zones (Darkshire, Southshore, Stonetalon Mountains, ThousandNeedles, Ashenvale)Instances: Gnomeregan, Stockades, Shadowfang Keep

31-40 (Stranglethorn Vale, Arathi Highlands, Badlands, Alterac Mountians) Instances:Scarlet Monastary

41-50 (Blasted Lands, Searing Gorge, Hinterlands, Felwood)Instances: Sunken Temple,Zul’Ferrak

51-60 (Burning Stepps, Western Plaguelands, Eastern Plaguelands, Winterspring,Silithus, Felwood) Instances: Blackrock Depths, Lower Blackrock Spire, UpperBlackrock Spire, Scholomance, Stratholm

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6) Equipment

As a warlock, your main stat will be Stamina. Second to that you’ll want intellect.A distant third is spirit, and all other stats are basicallyuseless.

Another major factor you’llwant in gear is bonuses to spell damage. This is huge for us as with a good gearloadout and a talent spec focused on damage, we can really put the hurt on ourenemies.

At later levels, the Dreadmist (http://thotbott.com/?set=183)and Felheart(http://thotbott.com/?set=203)sets will be your main goals, and later on as you get into Blackwatch Lair andOnyxia Nemesis (http://thotbott.com/?set=212)will become available.

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7) Damage Gear vs. Critical Hit Chance

Many people ask about this, so I’ll include it in the guide. The short answeris that damage gear is almost always better than critical hit chance, regardlessof your talent specialization.

Since gear isn’t changed in between shots in combat, you are looking for overallbenefits. As such you’ll want to look at the added damage per shadowbolt fromeach of these types of bonuses. The easiest way to show this is to do an example.We’ll compare 30 shadow damage to 2% critical hitchance.

Assuming you have Ruin, then a critical hit will give you 200% of the base damage.Since 2% crit chance is making this happen 2% more often, then your average bonusper shadowbolt is 2% of the ADDED damage which is 1% of the total (2 is 1% of200).

Damage gear gives you roughly 85% of the number to each shadowbolt (see DamageGear in the FAQ). So each shadowbolt will get 25 extra damage.

For these two bonuses to be equal, then 25 would have to be 1% of the total criticalhit damage or 2500. So whenever your critical hits from shadowbolts are under2500, the +25 gives you a better bonus. This is without even considering thatyour DoTs will benefit from the added damage, but not from added critical hitchance.

If you wish to figure out these calculations when you have some damage gear andsome crit gear, simply compare the difference in spell damages to the differencein crit percentages for each loadout. For example, if you’re deciding betweena loadout with 200 shadow damage and 6% chance to crit and a loadout with 300shadow damage and 3% chance to crit you would redo this calculation using 100spell damage vs. 3% to crit (100×0.85 divided by 0.03/2, or 5,667 as the pointwhere these bonuses are equal). If you are not using Ruin, then divide the percentageby 3 instead of two (such that the calculation would be 100×0.85 divided by 0.03/3,or 8500 in our example). For spells other than shadowbolt, use the formula providedin the FAQ to find what percentage of the spell damage will play a role in actualdamages.

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8) Resistances and Percent Chance to Hit with Spells

If your target is the same level as you, a spell has a base chance to hit of96%.
If the target is +1 level compared to you: 95%
+2 levels: 94%
+3 levels: 83% if the target is a mob, 87% if the target is a player.
+4 levels: mob: 72% player: 80%
+5 levels: mob: 61% player: 73%
Etc…
If you wear a +1% spell hit chance item, the above percentages will increaseby 1. +2% gives +2.
Etc…

For binary spells only, there is an additional modifier for the resistance ofthe victim to your particular spell school: fire, frost, shadow, nature, arcane.That modifier is multiplied by your hit chance to get your actual chance to land.This is done with binary spells only, because they never dopartial damage.
Example:
Eyonix the Mage (level 60) fires a frost bolt at Yeti of Doom (level 63). Eyonixis also wearing a total of +6% spell hit gear. Yeti of Doom has frost resistancesuch that he takes 50% from level 60 frost attacks. So, here’s the hit calculation:
0.83 (83% for +3 levels mob) + 0.06 (+6% spell hit) = 0.89
0.89*0.5 (50% damage from frost) = 0.445.
The game will roll a number between 0 and 1, and if it’s less than 0.445, thefrost bolt will hit for full damage. Otherwise, a resist message willappear.
2nd Example:
After the resist, Eyonix decides to fire a fireball at Yeti of Doom. Eyonix stillhas +6% spell hit. Fireball is not a binary spell. Here’s thecalculation:
0.83+0.06= 0.89
The game will roll a number between 0 and 1, and if its less than 0.89, the fireballwill hit. Otherwise, a resist message will appear. After the fireball lands,the game will then apply spell resistance to determine a partial resist, if any.Assuming the yeti also has 50% fire resistance, on average, 50% of the damagewill be resisted. (quoted from Eyonix as per another poster)

Information on resistances amounts themselves: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/resistances.html

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9) Frequently Asked Questions

• Can I be interrupted with a voidwalker shield on?
Yes and no. You can’t be interrupted by damage, because it is all being absorbed,but you can be interrupted by interrupt abilities (like a rogue’skick).

• What is meant when people type 11/31/8, 31/21/0, ect?
This is a way of saying what talent build you are using. It is the number oftalents put into Affliction/Demonology/Destruction, in that order. Frequentlypeople will leave out any zeroes, and for those you just have to guess.

• Why do my fears seem to never last very long?
Diminishing returns were added to the game such that the Succubus Seduce and/oryour fear can only really be used on a player 3 times before it’s completelyineffective. Also damage breaks fear, and whatever you are fighting likely hasDoTs on them.

• What is Drain Tanking?
This is using Drain Life in conjunction with all of your other DoTs to hold agrooff of your pet while it is free to continue to do damage. This is next to impossiblewithout Fel Concentration from the Affliction talent tree.

• How much damage does my +damage give?
The calculation is Casting Time divided by 3.5 times the amount of damage added.So on a 3 second shadowbolt, +90 damage will add 90x(3/3.5) or 77. Instant castspells use a 1.5s casting time for this calculation, and therefore get 42% ofthe damage modifier. These casting times are the base time of the spell, beforetalents or nightfall procs.

DoTs are calculated differently. They get the full 100% benefit from +damagegear divided between each tick of the dot.

• What is the best race for warlock?
You will play the race that you start out with all the way to 60, choose theone you think looks the coolest or fulfills any RP reasons you might have. Thatbeing said, Undead has Cannibalism (regen 35% of your health over 10 seconds)which does wonders with lifetap (not to mention Will of the Forsaken to breakfear) and would be my choice. For the alliance, the gnome is the way to go. Weneed to stay at range, and their ability to get out of snares/roots is usefulas is their increased intelligence.

If you do want to go with one of the other playable races, you’ll enjoy +5% topet damage and +25% stun resistance (good against rogues) as an Orc or Perception(also good for detecting rogues), +5% bonuses to Spirit, and +10% bonus to factiongain as a human.

Ultimately I chose Undead/Gnome over Orc/Human due to the Orc/Human traits beingdefensive against a single class (Rogues) while Undead/Gnomes bonuses are gearedtowards more classes (anyone who uses fear, sheep, snares, or roots).

• Should I use a staff or a sword?
This depends entirely on the gear you have available. Keep in mind that stavesare two-handed, and will not let you use a spell stone for the added criticalhit bonus.

• What professions should I get?
Alchemy/Herbalism, Tailoring, and Engineering give the best bonuses that areusable by our class. You should, however, choose the one you’ll have the mostfun with. Definately don’t pass up First Aid, as it works wonders with lifetap.

• Is Nightfall useless (4% seems like a small number)?
Definately not. Those who have nightfall praise it as a very useful talent, andhere’s the math to back it up.

The probability of an event happening is equal to 1 minus the probability ofit not happening. In this case we can find out the probability of having nightfallprocess once in the duration of Corruption or Drain Life. There are 6 ticks ina corruption cast, and 5 in a Drain Life (nightfall has a chance to process pertick), so the chance of getting nightfall to process in a single drain life castis 1-(0.96×0.96×0.96×0.96×0.96) or 18.5% and for Corruption it is 21.7%. Thismeans you should expect nightfall to process once in every 4-6 castings of thesespells.

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10) Acknowledgements

This is reserved for people who add to this guide.
• Chiron of Kilrogg (Primary Author and Content Moderator)
• Xanj of Alleria (Site Publisher)
• Dajir of Gurubashi (The MD/Ruin build)
• Coronalight of Shattered Hand (The alliance portion of the leveling guide)
• Aladine of Dragonblight (+damage calculation for instant spells)
• Aenon of Stormreaver (The Nightfall/Conflag build)
• Eyonix of Blizzard (Resistance information)
• Emoroan of Nathrezim (Additional Warlock links)

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11) Known Bugs

Please visit the OfficialWarlock Forum Bug Topic for information on the known bugs affecting Warlocks.

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12) Patch History

Check all past patch notes related to Warlocks here: WarlockPatch History

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13) Abbreviations/Acronyms

-Agro
Derived from Aggression, this is the likelyhood that an enemy will attack you.Generally tanks hold agro.

-AoE
Area of Effect, this refers to spells that attack multiple enemies in a specificarea.

-Conflag
Conflagarate, a talent-spell in the Destruction talent tree.

-DS
Demonic Sacrafice, a talent-spell in the Demonology Talent tree.

-DP
Dark Pact, a talent-spell in the Affliction Talent Tree.

-SB
Shadowbolt.

-SL
Soul Link

-SM
Shadow Mastery, a set of talents in the Affliction talent tree.

-Spec
Specialization, this usually refers to where you have put your talent points.

-Stat
Statistic, this refers to the amount of Stamina, Intellect, Strength, ect youor a piece of equipment has.

-SS
Soul Stone, or less commonly Soul Shard.

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