"I'll take 5 of those, 3 of those, 2 of those...." "Sorry son, but do you have enough to spend on all those?"

I have this great little killing machine - some people would call it a warlock. He is in his teens so he is starting to look at talents. My Googlefoo and LurkerLoungefoo must be really failing me. I am having a hard time finding suggestions for good builds. I do find some builds, but I find that any builds that do get posted are immediately countered with something to the effect of "That sux0rs! <talent tree here> is worthless unless you go to <uber talent here>." I've even found builds (only looked at ones posted recently) that sound great, only to find that you can't actually build them because they are missing pre-reqs or require too many points. When I try to go through and create the Lochlock™ build, I run out of points way before I've picked up all the things that seem must have to me.

Lissa - Drasca - Zippyy - ? - what builds have you gone with since the talent changes? I would also like to see builds (current or planned) that any others have. I want to concentrate on having pets do the hands on work for me, but I don't know if that really requires much investment in the demonology tree. Are any of the 31 point talents worthwhile? Dark Pact seems good for the go go go factor, but it seems it could be replaced with drinking. Soul Link sounds good for survivability, but, if I was going that far, I would want to go through Master Demonologist and I don't know that I would want to place 15 points in the pre-reqs for that.

Any help in deciding which nummies I should buy would be greatly appreciated. The shop owner would like it too because my nose and hand prints keep messing up his display case glass.

I've had good results from a 31 Affliction/ 20 Demonology build on Pavis. Dark Pact is very nice, and robust pets do help. I feel I got very good mileage out of Improved Voidwalker early on. Currently Pavis' solo style uses a Succubus and drain tanking, which takes some getting used to but has very little downtime.

The downside of my build is that the massive crits just won't happen without some investment in Destruction. Thus his DPS is not terribly high for a warlock, and this may hurt him in the end game.

The canonical blast-em build is 30 Affliction (for Shadow Mastery) and 21 Destruction (for Ruin). With the recent changes, this may be rivalled by a Demonology/Ruin build. I don't have much affection for Master Demonologist because I feel it forces my choice of pets whereas Affliction is not pet-specific and I can use the pet with the best abilities for the situation.

I think you are looking at an outdated talent calculator (like thottbots). Check Blizzard's calculator and you will see they reduced the prereqs for MD to just Unholy Power.

This is the "canonical blast-em" Shadow Mastery/Ruin build Bun-Bun is talking of:

Affliction - 30 points

5 - Improved Corruption
2 - Improved Lifetap
5 - Improved Drain Life
5 - Fel Concentration
1 - Amplify Curse
2 - Nightfall
2 - Grim Reach
1 - Siphon Life
1 - Curse of Exhaustion
1 - Improved Curse of Exhaustion
5 - Shadow Mastery

Destruction - 21 points

5 - Improved Shadowbolt
5 - Bane
1 - Shadowburn
5 - Devastation
2 - Destructive Reach
2 - Intensity
1 - Ruin


and this is the slightly modified Ruin/Affliction build I prefer:



In my build, I've dumped Shadow Mastery and Curse of Exhaustion/Improved Curse of Exhaustion for Demonic Embrace, which is a must-have talent IMO, and Improved Lash of Pain.

Yeah, I was looking at Thottbot's calculator. Knowing that it was wrong only makes matters worse. It gives me more options to consider. I wonder if this is why warlocks, at least good warlocks, seem to be hard to find? There are just so many ways to go. The only respec I have ever done was due to a misclick when I had a point to assign. I think this character will see at least one respec, if not several. Of course, I could always go the variant route and not assign any talent points. Hmm, wonder if that would work.

As I am a bit lazy today, I will link to a thread at the Amazon Basin, where I posted my build, which I consider a fairly effective and allround build, with good adaptability.

That being said, I would recommend a drain tanking spec for leveling up, which is mainly affliction, as it is really effective.

With the free respec, I dusted off my old 58 warlock and went for the new demonology talents. As I'm all alone most of the time on my realm, I needed a way to grind my way to 60. I was happy with Master Demonologist with the voidwalker, and went crazy with damage not caring if I got aggro because I could soul link. It was fun and I felt pretty solid for a cloth wearer, but there is down time waiting for the voidy to get mana back. With this setup, I carelessly picked a fight with a named elite dragon in Winterspring while not full on mana or life (he looked like the other non-elites in the area) and with no soul or healthstone. It got pretty hairy and I went through two voidwalkers, but I still won the fight. I didn't like the down time of this tactic, though the solo power was nice.

My current tactics (hit 59) now include demonic sacrificing of the voidwalker (not to be confused with sacrifice, a voidwalker spell) to get the health regeneration. Then I go sans pet and tank myself, using the extra life for healing and for mana. There is no downtime unless I take on multiple mobs.

My setup is 31 Demonology, 20 Affliction. Soul link and Nightfall/Grim reach being the top talents in each tree, but I probably would have been better served with 30/21 to get siphon life with the soloing I do with demonic sacrifice. In groups, I plan on using the succubus for added damage and crowd control. My gear is +shadow damage or +stam, and not of high quality. Mostly AH greens.

Edit: I miss Ruin..

First off, I'll start with a couple "mini-builds" where I show common routes to achieve some of the basic warlock talents/functions which can then be incorporated into larger builds.

Drain Tanking
For drain tanking, the goal is to get the talents that increase the damage of drain life, pick up its talent that reduces the chance for it to be interrupted (Fel Concentration) and pick up Nightfall and Improved Life Tap to increase your mana regained by tapping and your damage with the Nightfall proc. My person route through this tree is as follows:

Affliction Talents - 20 points
Improved Corruption rank 5/5
Improved Life Tap rank 2/2
Improved Life Drain rank 5/5
Fel Concentration rank 5/5
Amplify Curse rank 1/1
Nightfall rank 2/2


Ruin
The Ruin talent of the Destruction tree is extremely powerful and adds considerable (streaky) DPS to an end-game warlock who might use Curse of Shadows with Shadow Bolt. There's one change that I see, often, to this build: Some people like to replace Destructive Reach with Improved Lash of Pain. This probably helps your Succubus hold aggro when soloing as well as deal a bit more damage. However, I like the extra range so I usually go with that talent. My choices:

Destruction Talents - 21 points
Improved Shadow Bolt rank 5/5
Bane rank 5/5
Improved Lash of Pain rank 2/2
Devastation rank 5/5
Shadowburn rank 1/1
Intensity rank 2/2
Destructive Reach rank 2/2
Ruin rank 1/1


My Prospective Build
This is the build that I'm currently planning to use. It's a combination of the above two builds but it leaves out Shadow Mastery in order to pick up Demonic Embrace, Improved Lash of Pain, Grim Reach and Siphon Life, which are all very good talents.

One thing to note about this sort of a build: It's tempting to pick up Pyroclasm since it sounds so good on paper. However, it currently is bugged and though I've had the talent for quite a while, I've NEVER seen it proc. So skip it until they fix it. If they do, I'd probably give up Improved Lash of Pain for it.

Affliction Talents - 23 points
Improved Corruption rank 5/5
Improved Life Tap rank 2/2
Improved Life Drain rank 5/5
Fel Concentration rank 5/5
Amplify Curse rank 1/1
Grim Reach rank 2/2
Nightfall rank 2/2
Siphon Life rank 1/1

Demonology Talents - 5 points
Demonic Embrace rank 5/5

Destruction Talents - 23 points
Improved Shadow Bolt rank 5/5
Bane rank 5/5
Improved Lash of Pain rank 2/2
Devastation rank 5/5
Shadowburn rank 1/1
Intensity rank 2/2
Destructive Reach rank 2/2
Ruin rank 1/1


An Alternative End-Game Build
This build is built somewhat as the opposite of the Shadow Mastery/Ruin build. It uses the Demonology Talents to try buff up your pets while being able to use them to increase your damage output/reduce aggro, as needed. The big bonus over the SM/Ruin build is that this one has Demonic Embrace so you should be more effective as an AoE'er, when you use that. However, the downsides are that you don't have improved life tap, you don't have an instant corruption, and you cannot drain tank. Despite this, the damage is good and the Demonology talents are not to be scoffed at.

Affliction Talents - 0 points

Demonology Talents - 30 points
Improved Healthstone rank 2/2
Improved Imp rank 3/3
Demonic Embrace rank 5/5
Improved Voidwalker rank 3/3
Improved Succubus rank 3/3
Fel Domination rank 1/1
Master Summoner rank 2/2
Unholy Power rank 5/5
Demonic Sacrifice rank 1/1
Master Demonologist rank 5/5

Destruction Talents - 21 points
Improved Shadow Bolt rank 5/5
Bane rank 5/5
Improved Lash of Pain rank 2/2
Devastation rank 5/5
Shadowburn rank 1/1
Intensity rank 2/2
Ruin rank 1/1


A Future Build
Blizzard has announced that, with the next content patch, Conflagrate, the top tier talent of the Destruction Tree, will be instant cast. This could make it a very effective damage-dealer and something that might be more useful than it is now. Thus, a build I was pondering to test this out was the following build which would use Curse of Elements with Immolate, and Conflagrate to try and deal out big damage. It can also make for an AoE terror considering the extra damage that the AoE's will get from the destruction talents.

The big drawback to this build is that it uses fire damage while lots of the mobs currently in the end-game, including the Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, have fire resistance or immunity. Thus, it might not cut it as an end-game raiding build. However, if more diverse mobs are introduces, it might be a good build to look into and it might actually fair pretty well in the early end-game instances like Scholomance, Stratholme, and Blackrock Spire.

Affliction Talents - 7 points
Improved Corruption rank 5/5
Improved Life Tap rank 2/2

Demonology Talents - 12 points
Improved Healthstone rank 1/2
Improved Imp rank 3/3
Demonic Embrace rank 5/5
Improved Voidwalker rank 3/3

Destruction Talents - 32 points
Cataclysm rank 5/5
Bane rank 5/5
Devastation rank 5/5
Shadowburn rank 1/1
Intensity rank 2/2
Destructive Reach rank 2/2
Improved Immolate rank 5/5
Ruin rank 1/1
Emberstorm rank 5/5
Conflagrate rank 1/1

After the patch I tried out demonology, down to Soul Link. I enjoyed it and it was extremely versatile, but not really my style of play. Prior to the patch I was mostly affliction with some demonology.

After playing around with demonology for a while, I finally decided to try out the cookie cutter SM/Ruin build and I am absolutely loving it.

My tactics while soloing go like this:
1. send in succubus and let her land one hit and one lash of pain.
2. Curse of Agony, Corruption, Siphon Life, Shadow bolt, Immolate. The SB and immolate will hit at the same time if you are at max range, and will pull aggro off the succubus.
3. Turn and run! Stop a few times to throw some wand shots and life tap once or twice. When they get low, which happens pretty quickly with 4 dots and a succubus whipping them, turn around and shadowburn ftw.
4. Look back on your victory and be happy that you have ended the fight with 85% life and mana, or higher.
5. Rinse (optional), and repeat.

You should probably listen to Dragoon though, he wrote a lot!

This is the way I was leaning after playing around with the calculator more. The only change I might make is to take two points (undecided as to where) and move them into Improved Healthstone. I was torn deciding between having pets do a better job of tanking and doing large chunks of damage myself through the possibility of huge crits. I guess my love of Lochnar, my mage, pushed me in this direction rather than super pets. I still think this will be the character that is most demanding of a respec. The other classes, once I decided a direction, seemed to more readily lay themselves out. The exception might be the hunter. My horde hunter is in his mid 20's and my alliance one is mid teens so I haven't played with their builds a lot. I suspect that pets will be an issue in the decisions for both of them as well.

If anyone else cares to add to the discussion, I am still open to other builds since I will only be a short way into this one. It is a long way to 60, especially when I am trying to get all my alts leveled to about the same level range as they all move up.

[edit] This is what I am going to try.

The early life cycle of the Warlock will mainly be split in the Affliction with some cross over into Demonolgy and Destruction. Until you get in to the high 40s, most Warlocks stick with mostly Affliction with a slight pull from Demonolgy and Destruction. It is when you hit end game that things change dramatically to some degree depending on your taste of play (I'm Shadow Mastery/Ruin and will probably never change unless Blizzard does more changes to the talent trees and buffs up Demology and/or Destruction that benefits my play style).

For the early talents, levels 10 through 14 is typically the Improved Corruption build where, by level 14, you get instant cast corruption, very handy allowing you to cast on the run two of your DoTs, Corruption and Curse of Agony.

From levels 15 to 19, there are two possibilities, getting Demonic Embrace (+15% Stamina at the expense of -5% Spirit which is a good choice due to the Warlock's Life Tap making Spirit basically a useless stat) or going with Improved Drain Life (reason to get this is to immediately get Fel Concentration at 20 - 24).

Depending on which you chose will take you to the branch from 20 to 24, where someone that went Demonic Embrace might look closely at getting Improved Void Walker so that the VW tanks better or if they went Drain Life then going with Fel Concentration so that as they hit 24, there is only a 30% chance per hit that you lose ticks of damage (this is called Drain Tanking when you use Drain Life with the Fel Concentration talent as you can take a good amount of damage while killing the mob).

For the most part though, by the time you're in your Low 40s, most Warlocks end up pretty heavy in Affliction, typically going all the way down to Dark Pact. Typical talents grabbed in that time period are:

Improved Corruption (5/5)
Improved Lifetap (2/2)
Improved Drain Life (5/5)
Fel Concentration (5/5)
Nightfall (2/2)
Grim Reach (2/2)
Life Siphon (1/1)
Shadow Mastery (5/5)
Dark Pact (1/1)
and 3+ points placed into other talents in Affliction of choice (either Amp Curse, Curse of Exhaution, Improved Curse of Exhaution, or the resist reduction talent [can't remember it's name right now])

Other talents choosen between Demonlogy and Destruction might be:
Demonic Embrace (5/5)
One Improved Demon (3/3) (Typically Imp or VW)
Improved Shadowbolt (5/5)
Bane (5/5)


Once you hit the high 40s and start moving closer to 60, you will begin to get your raid feel for the game and will very likely spend money on a talent respec or two before hitting 60. At that point, you start to look at your raid build and here it varies between Warlocks as there are certain builds that help your play style as a Warlock. I, like a number of Warlocks, prefer the SM/Ruin build (Affliction Build skipping the Drain Tanking talents, Improved Drain Life and Fel Concentration, to get other talents that help more in raid situations with Destruction up to Ruin). Other builds that mirror this on the Demonology side is the MC/Ruin build and sacrificing your Succubus to improve shadow damage. There are still others that tri-build putting about 8 points into Demonology for Improved Imp and Demonic Embrace and then building out in Destruction and Affliction to taste as well.

In the end though, what build you go with at the end game will be what suits you best.

I think going down the destruction tree without getting shadowburn is a mistake. It is an instant nuke, and 'locks don't have many of those, and it's likely much more useful than Improved Lash of Pain or even Destructive Reach. When I first looked at your build idea, I wondered how you could get both Imp Lash of Pain AND destructive reach for only 22 points, and thought the calc was broken, but then I noticed the lack of shadowburn. I think it's a great 11 point investment, and some builds go 11 points in destruction just for this talent. Your build is quite similar to one I had for awhile, and think it's a good build, but I think you will come to regret not getting shadowburn.

At this point, not having shadowburn was a given for one reason - it requires a soul shard (unless I am mistaken). I have a hard enough time remembering to gather shards for the VW and health and soul stones. If a skill requires a regent, I find that I always hesitate to use it. I have even died many times because I was too stingy to use a potion, thinking that I would be able to pull off the kill before they got me. As I said, I am sure this critter will get a respec along the way, but I don't think it will be to get shadowburn. (watch me post in a month or so raving about how great shadowburn is )

I levelled pretty much the whole way with a Demonology focused build and was very satisifed with it. The theory being that instead of using a high damage pet and pulling aggro off it to drain tank, I'd let the improved VW hold their attention and nuke/wand away. In practice it's not always that simple (especially against multiples) but it's still a very effective solo build.

I'm Demon Mastery/Ruin right now - Demon Mastery is a great, great talent. Not that it was an easy choice - there is a LOT of good stuff in the other trees.

Oh, and get shadowburn. Farm shards on trash, burn them on bosses. How many other classes can store power for the hard fights?

The great thing about Shadowburn (now that it's fixed) is that while it consumes a shard, it returns a new shard if it's the killing blow on a mob. So usually you use it as a finisher, and it feeds itself by getting another shard back.

What I find myself doing is carrying a few extra shards (say 3) in case of emergency. If I really need a lot of DPS and I know it's going to be a close fight, I'll use those extra shards early on for more frontloaded damage. It's only a 15-sec cooldown, so you can really crank them out if you need a burst of DPS.

I've had specs with it, and without it, but I keep going back to it. You can sure live without it, but it's a nice skill to have. Especially PvP.

Kv

Warlocks are really a series of 'mini builds', objective talents you really want, and avoiding the wasteful ones.

Newbies warlocks tend to pick non-functioning, or less useful talents. You basically don't know what's used for what and why, so end up making bad choices. Some talents are more useful than others, for oter reasons. I'll go over some of the talents, when and why to choose them.

Affliction tree commentary:

Your mini-tree objectives here are
1) Instant corruption 5 pts
2) Improved life tap 7 pts
3) Nightfall 17 pts
4) Curse of Exuastion / Siphon 26 pt

Keep these goals and costs in mind when building secondary trees.

Affliction Tier 1:

Suppression: This is an end game PvE talent. When leveling, don't choose this. In benefit gives you extended fear times before your dots / damage breaks fear, and enables you to tackle enemies higher than your level and ones with high resistences. In terms of leveling, you'll be battling enemies near your level, and generally don't resist much against your spells. 63e enemies in MC or UBRS / End game however do resist, so its worth considering for PvE.

vs

Instant Corruption: Absolute must early on. Enables you to cast your dot on the run, and greatly adds to your damage at early levels.

At end game, its a PvP talent. Not useful in 5 man or raid PvE content, except for occasional nightfall (instant shadowbolt proc talent). In pvp, extremely useful 1v1 and group when combined with nightfall.

Result: Instant Corruption (IC) all the way until end game, where IC turns into a mainly PvP talent, and then suppression can shine, but only if you're regularly raiding end game PvE content.

Extremely good talent from 1-60. Useless for 60+ PvE content. Great for PvP.

Affliction Tier 2:
Improved Life Tap: You'll be using life tap all the time by end game. 100 mana per tap x literally dozens of taps is a lot of mana. Always worth taking imo, but a few people have gone without.

Extremely useful, but you can live without.

Improved Life drain: The spell to use in between shadowbolt casts. You'll use it all the time, why not improve it, and the efficiency of dots --> lite tap --> life drain cycle.

Again, you have room to work with for personal preference between life drain and improved life tap. 20% more mana is generally better than 4% more damage in life drain, but its up to you. Later on, you'll decide what to use your 'swing' talent points in for personal preference.

The rest, Curse of Weakness / Agony / Drain soul simply either don't work or work extremely marginally. Do not invest in these.

Affliction Tier 3:
Fel concentration: The best affliction talent around. Allows you to life drain better, gather soul shards easier, and generally solo your way through everything. If you have 10 pts into affliction, this is the next 5 to get.

Absolute must get.

Amp Curse:
Useful, but not nearly as useful as fel concentration. Good for solo amped curse of agony, mainly invested in as a pre-req for Curse of Exhaustion.

Swing talent. Not needed if you don't grab Curse of Exhaustion.

Affliction Tier 4:

Nighfall: Whole point of getting 17 points into Affliction is Nightfall. Absolute must get if you're this far into the tree. Also, if you do get night fall, you must get instant corruption for NF to be useful. NF is also improved by Fel concentration.

Grim Reach: Moderate usefulness. Great for extending fear and life drain ranges, but really just gravy. You can live without it. This is a swing/personal preference talent.

Improved Drain mana-- Pure PvP talent, the only channeled spell that may crit. Worth getting if you do end up PvP'ing a lot, but generally no benefit PvE.


Affliction Tier 5:

Improved Curse of Exhaustion/ CoEx & Siphon life: Requires 26 pt investment into affliction to get these. They both improve PvP talents greatly, but CoEx requires full investment to be useful. Siphon helps your PvE life greatly if you're already this far invested.

CoEx is an absolute god in WSG. It the only snare which is both spammable with no cooldown and no diminising returns. It is also the technically weakest snare in the game in movement terms and duration terms (12 seconds only), but given you can spam it at range, it can be very powerful in PvP, especially WSG.

Tier 6:

Shadow Mastery: I'm hearing reports it now adds to damage after equipment, so its value has increased, but is still greatly valueable regardless. If you're down this far, max as much as you can unless you value another talent more.

Dark Pact: Godly talent. Infinite mana is just godly. Its better than ruin in all PvE content, as Ruin's damage is streaky and an aggro nightmare. Defintely the best leveling talent possible.

Go for affliction to level with. You won't regret it.

Sample affliction tree with PvE leveling in mind:

5/5 IC
2/2 iLT
3/5 iLD
5/5 FC
2/2 NF
1/1 AC
2/2 GR
1/1 SL
1/1 CoEx 3/4 iCoEx
5/5 SM
1/1 DP

Total points used: 31

If you enjoy PvP more (particularly WSG), swap 1 point from SM into fully improving CoEx.

End game PvE may require you to swap points from improved life drain, instant corruption, grim reach and or CoEx to Suppression. I'd recommend 3 points from life drain to suppression.

Consider Maxing Shadow Mastery when end-game with this build.

Destruction tree commentary:

The three mini tree objectives:

1) Shadowburn 11 pts
2) Improved Lash of Pain or Improved Firebolt 13 vs 12 pts
2) Ruin 21 pts
3) Conflagorate ~32 pts (full destruction build

Full destruction tree is different than other builds. You do not use shadowbolt as your nuke, so improved Shadow bolt is unwise. You take cataclysm instead. Immolate will be your best nuke, but mana costly. Pending the next patch, conflagorate will be instant, so even more useful to destruction locks.

Fully Improved Immolate and Emberstorm make for destruction warlocks. Searing pain is a worthy investment too.

Mainly, you go into destruction for shadowburn, or ruin when taking it as a secondary talent. At that point, you use iSB-->Bane-->Shadowburn, and possbly extra pet or crit damage depending on your tastes. Crit is better for end-game pve, but one point into improved firebolt or 2 points into lash of pain greatly add to your dps when you can use your pets.

Firebolt: The second point does not work. Don't invest 2 points into this. One point with the Improved Imp talent will bring your Imp's Burst dps to about 99 dps. However, this conflicts with a dark pact build, as imps will not be

Improved Lash of Pain: Best coupled with a demonology build. Coupled with improved succubus, leads to 98 dps from the pet at end game.

Destructive Reach/Intensity: is a personal preference / swing talent. Useful, but not that useful or necessary.

Aftermath/Intensity: Extremely low on the usefulness scale.

Sample Destruction build:
5/5 Cataclysm
5/5 Bane
1/1 Shadowburn
1/2 Improved Firebolt
5/5 Devastation
4/5 Searing pain
1/1 Ruin
5/5 Immolate
5/5 Emberstorm
1/1 Conflagorate

Total points used: 32.

Intensity / Grim Reach / Pyroclasm / Aftermath are all optional talents. None really needed.

Intensity: Most AoE situations are group where personal interruption doesn't matter, or can be survived with a VW sacrifice beforehand. Intensity does make it easier, but is entirely optional. Only grab it if you have points to spare (which you don't)

Grim Reach: Most fights are also within the 30 yd range. None require you to max range, and All deadly pvp situations will have people fighting inside your 30 yrd range. It does nicely aid Hellfire AoE range

Pyroclasm: Doesn't proc as often as stated. Its less actually than 2% chance to proc per wave, and most of the time you won't get the full 15 waves in. Also, the first wave is purely graphical and does not do actual damage to others or yourself while still taking mana.

Aftermath: Just a very weak talent. Not dependable whereas faster immolates will save your bum.

The rest of your investments improve all your important spells: Searing pain, Immolate, conflag.

Your last objectives are to gain
Instant Corruption, and Improved life tap. Possibly up to night fall, combine IC/iLT and DE/iHS/iImp... or fully improve 17 points into demonology

Fel domination / Master summoning and have two VW sacrifice shields available every 15 minutes.

Both are powerful combinations.

Demonology: Full of swing talents. Only marginally useful (no regrets avoiding) talents are Improved Enslave Demon, Firestone, fel intelliect/stam. Others gain and lose importance as you level.

Mini objectives (potential must haves)
DE/imp/HS Tier 1 Dem talents
Fel Domination Master summoner: 17 pts
Dem Sacrifice: 21 pts
Master Demonology: 30 pts
Soul link: 31 pts


Demonology Tier 1

Improved Imp: Fantastic all around talent choice. Best if you're grouped with main tank in PvE, otherwise stam bonus is not necessary. Coupled with improved firebolt (1/2), can achive astounding burst dps with imp.

No regrets getting Improved Imp in PvE terms. Not worth it if going Master Demonology for a damage focused build.

Demonic Embrace: No regrets getting this. Spirit is near useless to locks.

Improved Healthstone: Primarily PvP and Main tank talent, now that it works for groups. Up to 240 more hp for everyone in a pinch. Very nice.

All very good choices. Improved imp with impved firebolt turns your imp into a chain-gun. For fuller demonology, I suggest full DE and iHS.


Demonology Tier 2
Improved Voidwalker: Your voidwalker can hold aggro against end-game bosses with this talent (I've done it against Strat Baron, there's videos of VW against MC giants). That's how powerful your VW's aggro abilities are when improved.

Improved Health Funnel: Extremely useful when VW tanking when leveling. Loses shine when pets and VW stops being used to tank, and you turn into a damage machine.

Comment for Dem builds
Typically your first 10 points will go into Improved Health stone, Demonic Embrace, then your choice of Improved Imp or Voidwalker.


Demonology Tier 3 & 4

Improved Succubus:
Makes charming CC life a lot easier, and adds signifigiant dps from Succubus when coupled with fully improved Lash of Pain 2/2.

Fel Domination / Master summoning: Must haves in the demonology tree. Life with pets is much easier with halved mana and cast times. Even better when its near instant and minimum mana costs.

Unholy Power: Required for Master demonology. Fun talent. Best with an Orc. Grab it after Fel domination.


Demonology Tier 5

Improved Enslave Demon:
Only good when you're specifically going to summon doomguards against onyxia and MC bosses. Otherwise, don't bother unless you're low level and plan to respec at 60.

Imprved Firestone:
Make sure to get thrash blade from Maradaun if you plan to use this. Its a 'fun' talent. Very fun to melee with though.

Dem Sacrifice:
Absolute must get at 21 points if you've gone this far. Actual bonus varies, but very fun versatile talent.


Demonology Tier 6 & 7
Master Demonology:
Again, adds to your versalitility. MC spell damage that wipe others will feel like a gentle breeze with this talent, or lowers aggro generation or adds to your damage. All very good aspects.

PvE talent though. Not supreme in PvP, but does let you make mages into your personal playthings.

Soul link: Absolutely godly in solo and small 1-5 player engagements pvp and pve. You can tank and survive what no other casters can. Absolutely nothing can 1-2 shot you while this talent is up.

Combined with Intensity, you are one the ultimate stationary aoe'r. Hellfire self-damage is split between your and your pet, thus enabling you to hellfire for a very long time, and any damage you do take when stealing aggro is split too, thus you survive when mages won't.

Not without consequences, its mana costly and negates shielding buffs, so must be cancelled once your pet dies.

Fully Demonologists are demons in themselves: You can get up to 10-20k damage absorbtion using fully improved demonology talents and lock abilities. That's fairly insane. 2 VW shields va Fel Domination = 5200 damage absorbed, plus damage halved by soul link, and extra 1440 health from healthstone and health ganed from life drain.

Or... choose felhunter and avoid magic damage all together, fully halve or 2/3 damage from resistences alone. Even more is reversed from soul link. Magic damage is a breeze to you.

Improved Spellstone is not worth mentioning. Its reallya Tier 1 value talent having no place at the end of the Demonology tree. There are better places to spend this. Its actually less useful than improved healthstone. If it gave magical resistence or immunity for 30 seconds in addition to absorbtion, that would be interesting.

So, while you're low level, I recommend goingn the affliction tree I mentioned up through level 40. Then grab shadowburn or fel domination. I've gone through almost all builds, and Dark Pact/Shadowburn and Soul link / Nightfall were my two favorites. I currently use a hybrid of both, Soul link / Shadowburn / iLoP

Don't bother with crit / ruin until you're level 60. Go with the affliction build I recommended up through 40. That'll keep you busy for a few weeks, and give you maximum versatility. Curse of Exhaustion is worth 4-10% less damage in life drain / Shadowbolt, considering you have no escape/chase down options in PvE/PvP without it. (CoR is exception in PvE chase down, but you'll still want CoEx).

There's no arguement the build I suggest is a focused leveling build, that'll give you the option to escape and toy around in WSG early on. You'll also enjoy fear coupled with CoEx, as its far more controlled that way. Try it my way, you'll have no regrets.

I agree with listening to Dragoon, he's provided some solid advice. So has Lissa, although his suggested affliction tree doesn't include the all-mighty curse of exhaustion.

Weak equipment (just teasing/showing off). I've got over 350 in +shadow damage now, and am specced for damage.

Standard mobs tend to die like this:

Shadowbolt, shadowbolt, pet attacks, shadowbolt, dead.

If I get a crit, its one less shadowbolt.

Point is, locks can output an insane amount of damage while generally staying behind the aggro curve if the tank is both good and well equipped. Brush off the damage if he is not.

You won't be hestitant because killing blows essentially don't use up said shard reagent.

You'll also consume healthstones a lot more often, since you can generate them in-field. You certainly use mana citrines, don't you? In PvE, it's generally the same way. You'll only be clogging for space once you're 60+ with 3x spares of equipment specializing for stamina, damage, resistences or crit.

MD/Ruin is a PvE/AV build. Eh. I suppose nice for normal servers, but I don't recommend it. Soul link gives much more utility for PvE up until 40 man raids.

A bit OT, but nevertheless a very interesting tipp for Warlocks. I've copied this from the AB Caster forum:

Thanks for such an extensive post and thanks to all the other replies as well. Like I said, this is probably the only character I will end up respeccing. For now, I am having a blast with him. I've solo killed level+1 gold dragon elites and level+2 silver. If I get runners, the usual thought is, "Good, grab another for me so I don't have to go find it myself." I really don't see why more people don't harness the power of the warlock. Come to the dark side!

Actually, no I don't. I use a mana ruby. Really though, I rarely use them. If I do, it means I've gone into Things Go Wrong™ territory.

Har har har. To me, that just means 'its a long battle' territory. Get used to 5 minute battles against +3 elites. That means either up to +3 enemies, sequential or simultaneous, your pick, or one elite mob up to +3 levels on you.

I had quite a blast taking down a badlands 43e dragon when I was 41. Started elite dragonkin slaying in Dustwallow marsh at 37

Revel in the power of fear, fear kiting, and its delicate aggro / range balance. Also, learn first aid, develop it immediately. You're 2x-4x more effective with use of bandages (as you're one of the few classes that can self-bandage mid battle while keeping aggro).

Fear, bandage, life drain, and you're suddenly back to fighting form. Life tap if you need mana.

Gee, I only wish I was around to witness your lock growing up.

You are becoming.

I've wondered that for awhile myself. I still haven't seen any argument that has convinced me that even with the bugs that the warlock isn't the most powerful PvE class in the game.

It is the only class that can tank (yes a voidwalker can tank), self heal, has very high (though streaky) single target DPS, has a very powerful AoE, can CC pretty much anything in the game, provide wipe recovery, provide some wipe prevent (health stones), and stop runners. No other class can do that much and the warlock not only can do all that it can be the best at some of those abilities as well. And in PvE you generally do have the prep time to be able to bring whatever aspect you need to the front.

It's an insanely powerful solo and group class.

Warlocks are the most uber class in PvE and they are not highly equipment dependent either for most of the game.

Definitely not Druids and Shamans beat the heck out of Warlocks in (solo) PvE when it comes to fighting Elite monsters. Also, Warlocks are as gear dependent as any caster class if they want to be powerful.

Druids lose a lot in group PvE, Warlocks don't lose nearly as much. For solo, Warlocks also have ways to heal themselves, even including Fear+Bandage. As a Rogue, where my only in-combat heal options are pots and bandages, I know how strong delaying the enemy even for just 2/3rds of a bandage can be. I don't think you give Warlocks enough credit.

I can't comment on Shamans.

Why do Druids lose a lot in group PvE? Examples? And, Druids are the best (self-)healers after the Priest class and can basically fight forever with alternating Bear/Caster form.

Fighting forever != strength, just ask Paladins. If you can beat a +3 elite mob, would you rather do it in 2 minutes taking some damage, or 5 minutes taking no (net) damage? Yes, my numbers are off, but survivability and DPS are what make solo PvE classes, not just healing. Druids sacrifice DPS for more survivability.

What they lose in Group PvE is due to their hybrid nature. Got healing solo? Great. Groups want healing and rez capability. Got entangling roots? Not many instances where that actually works. Like using Hibernate? Hope you like UBRS. Wanna be DPS? You're good enough for solo, but you fall behind Rogues, Warlocks, Hunters, Mages, and non-tank Warriors in groups. Want to utilize your tank form? I'd like a Druid to do that too, but I never see it.

What do Warlocks lose when they go into groups/instances?

Rawr!

I do it a fair amount of the time, when a warrior isn't handy. I've tanked LBRS to Wyrmthalak, Scarlet-side Stratholme, Scholomance, and BRD to Emperor Thaurissan. It's all about the gear, and with a recently acquired Unyielding Maul, I've gotten to 8.2k armor and 5.5k health.

In cat-gear, I recently placed #2 in a 5-man Baron-side Strat run, at 21.9% of the damage done, behind the mage at 29% and ahead of the warrior and paladin and priest - and that was with going healer for the Baron fight itself.

31 restoration/20 feral, before you ask if I'm a feral-spec druid.

That said, warlocks are darn handy to have around, lots of utility!

This I highly doubt. Can a Druid or Shaman solo Borelgore reliably? Can a Druid or Shaman take Volchan reliably? Can a Druid or Shaman take the named Drake in Burning Steppes reliably? Can a Druid or Shaman take Devilsaurs and/or King Mosh reliably? I've soloed all those with my Warlock and was never in trouble.

During beta I thought the Shadowpriest was the ultimate in soloing after soloing such mobs as King Mukla and Giants in Azshara at lv 60, then I got Tahapenes to Azshara in the low 50s and was soloing giants a couple levels above me.

When it comes to PvE, the Warlock is peerless when it comes to soloing elites. While the Warlock may be slow in killing the mob, they will kill it and walk away. The only Elites a Warlock ever has any trouble with is those that are immune to fear, and that is very few and far between.

So, how do you fight all those Elite monsters/bosses solo with a Warlock? I'm asking because my Warlock has always bitten the dust when fighting Elites.

Fear-kiting and DoT cursing 4tw.

For druids, we can solo anything outdoors that can be rooted and/or hibernated reliably - it's boring, but it's doable.

Well, I don't consider "Fear-kiting/DOT cursing" a valid method to fight an (elite) monster because in practice, you have more mobs around your target. "Fear-kiting/DOT cursing" is only usable in the ideal, rare case where your Warlock and the (elite) monster are alone within a wide radius, and to say that Warlocks are peerless when it comes to soloing elites, or even peerless in PvE in general, is therefore true only for that particular 1 vs. 1 situation. I stand by my opinion that Shamans and Druids are the best solo classes, incl. the fight against elite monsters. The Druid is a tad slower than the Shaman here, but the Shaman with his "burst damage" capability must drink a lot more Mana pots between fights

Borelgore and Volchan are easy if long fights using a Druid (root & nuke). A Stone Guardian with a Devilsaur add isn't hard (Hibernate the DS, root & nuke the Guardian). Not sure about the Burning Steppes drake or King Mosh (I suspect these are immune to both Hiberbate and Entangling Roots but haven't tried them).

Getting back to the talent discussion after the diversion into "Are warlocks the greatest or not?"...

I think my warlock's respec costs are up to about 20 gold now (including the free respec in the last patch). I agree with all the posters that recommend Affliction as the way to go while levelling.

End-game there are different options: Dark Pact builds, Soul Link builds, SM / Ruin, MD / Ruin. Instant Conflagarate will probably lead to more destruction 'locks out there.

I'm currently specced to Master Demonologist / Ruin, and I'm pretty happy with it. You get the nice burst damage from crits, with a fair amount of flexibility via your pets. The talent I'm really missing is Suppresion - since Curse of Shadows seems to get resisted often or wiped off the debuff list rapidly in MC.

I've also found Destructive Reach useful in MC, since there are numerous bosses you want to ping Shadowbolts at from as far away as possible.

Chris

Hunt. Stalk. Pull. Don't ever shoot yourself in the leg.

Facing world enemies, you either clear or find ways to trap enemies to open areas for fear kiting. If you're facing multiple enemies, strike them all with dots, pets and AoE fear. Heck, with the right talents, you can simply AoE Kite them.

Quark & Lissa was mentioning Elite Bosses. Area bosses, not just regular elites. Those can be pet-tanked, or simply annihilated with firepower and sparse fear-bandages.

In PvE instances where instances are linear, fearable enemies are numerous and dangerous, you pull backwards. Showed off fearing in sunken temple in my 50's.

Pre-60 equipment, lock dps is fairly balanced. It isn't mind numbingly slow, nor falls behind too far from gear dependency, but its not blazing fast and pre-buffed damage either.

All things locks can do require a lot of micromanagement multitasking. CoR? Uhh.. Didn't I have a different curse on him. Oh curse gone, swallowed by time limit or other debuffs. Darn. CC? Nothing that's can be pre-buffed, more attention required by me. Gotta watch invisible timers. Doom? More timers. Oh boy, where'd that CC target go? Come here Warp bug!

Half the things locks can do strongly require talent specialization and attention to use. AoE? When we're hit, we're interrupted. Its still comparatively strong aoe, but requires either 17 pts into destruction for uninteruptability, partying with a paladin (not possible for horde), or spending 31 points for soul link and negating a chance to get "Ruin" to absorb damage done to self at a slower rate--or more importantly damage done from grabbing all that aggro.

So. . . Warlocks get pimped from equipment pretty darn well at endgame.



Dots, Fear, Limitations on pets (sometimes), invalidated talents.... who am I kidding? I love instances--even though I lose half my utility spells, and the other half are useless most of the time, there's always at least one utility spell used when needed.

Most of the time though, its just shadowbolt spam.

Fear and DoTs. Against mobs, Fear does not break as often due to damage ticks. This means that you can easily take out a number of mobs and if you're 60, Curse of Doom is a big hit after 60 seconds. Pretty simple method.

Topic ressurection, ahoy!

I have forsaken my horde roots and I, at the urgings of the gibbering demons that I call my friends, have joined the dark side. A human warlock is me. (Guuuhh... the human male /laugh. It's like the soundtrack of a ganking. I've managed to build up a tolerance, however.)

Warlocks... just make me... soo... indecisive. They just have so many good talents! As of right now--at level 25--I am devoted entirely to the destruction tree. 'Cause, you know, making enemies die real fast is fun.

My original plan was to go for the recent cookie cutter warlock in the Master Demonologist/Ruin build! It has lots of good stuff--nutso crits, damage reduction, damage increase, threat reduction, the ability to crap out a new pet in .5 seconds, etc..

But, upon my discovery of a group of enemies who are highly shadow resistant, I ventured onto the temporary path of Searing Pain spamming. Coupled with my succubus, Syona, tearing up whatever target happens to be in my sights and my trusty immolate, it was very effective. Stuff died fast. Fast enough that I really didn't take all that much damage. And it felt goood. It felt right.

But I've levelled a fire mage to 60. Spamming the Scorch look-alike better damn well feel right!

Right there on the spot I considered a full on destruction build, Drake Dog style. With the rather immense crit chance for Searing Pain, coupled with the (soon to be) instant front load of Conflagrate, it could be quite powerful, and leave me with plenty of room for the early talents in the other trees I'd been trying to scrounge points to afford.

But do I really have what it takes to walk down the path of flames for yet another 60 levels? I'm not sure.

That and the .5 second pet summon is just not something to just shrug off on a whim. As well, the annoying state of fire resistance in many end-game instances makes me reluctant to put myself in that situation once again.

I am not entirely sure what I'm going to do with this character, but I haven't gone on any re-speccing sprees, so it's still easy to switch around. (Can't say it'll stay that way--my mage's re-specs have reached 50g. I tend to switch around a bit.)

As of now, I guess I'll just go about my levelling.

Silly Fire mage.



I repeat, cookie cutter for the loss.



Stick to your mage.


He's a PvP build. Are you on a PvP server at all?


Again, go back to your mage if you want fire. Destruction build isn't worth it until at minimum of level 40, and then you'll just be playing mage without defensive or runaway aoe spells. Look to the leveling build I suggested.


I was raised on affliction/demonology. It was fun. Less damage, but not that much less PvE/Soloing, as shadowburn is fairly unused PvE. Affliction is fear/drain/dot specialists PvE anyways. IsB/Bane only really comes in handy for End game 60+ where its all shadowbolt spam.

If you get to 40 and max out the affliction pts I suggested and want to try demonology to master summoning for leveling purposes... go with:

5 DE
3 iVW
2 iHS
1 FD
3 iSuc
1 iImp
2 MS

i f you want destruction secondary: iSB-->Bane-->Shadowburn before . One point in imp Firebolt, then 3 in improved Imp and 5 in Demonic embrace would round out your character for leveling purposes.

I have pondered on this, and have taken some of The Drasca's advice in this (Why the The? It's 7:30 AM. Leave me alone.) and have, at least temporarily, switched from destruction to affliction. Spent a good bit of the day playing around with it. There I go racking up the re-spec costs. I hope to keep it under 40g, at least before I hit 60. (Would be better than I did with the mage. ><)

Anyway. The instant corruption--I like. The improved Life Tap--I like. The Fel Concentration--I like. The rest (that I, at this point, have access to) I could do with or without. Night Fall is nice. Was lots of fun for maybe the first hour. But it just doesn't proc often enough to be reliable. It's never around when I need it.

I plan to stick it out for a while, though, at least until I hit the level for Siphon Life and Curse of Exhaustion.

With Siphon Life, one of my good friends, who has played a warlock since back when I annoyed him into buying the game a few months ago, said he tried it out and wasn't too impressed. This was a while back--maybe it's different now, I dunno. But he said it costed a lot of mana, and just didn't drain enough life to make all that much of a difference, unless you're slapping it on several targets.

Curse of Exhaustion, though. This is a big thing. I can imagine just how useful an instant snare would be, in a good many situations. Useful as it is, though, it's pretty deep into a tree in which I am only really wanting the early talents. Only time will tell as to just how much I deem it to be necessary.

As it is now, it's a bit too much of a waiting game, in my opinion. Most solo activity is just waiting for the dots to kill the enemy, or waiting for a night fall proc, etc.. It works, but I'm not really getting into it.

But, again, I've still got plenty of time to play around with all this stuff. Still having lots of fun with the warlock, and I don't exactly plan on giving up on it soon. Undoubtedly I will return here to ramble once I have done more testing.

I took the opportunity on the test realm to respec to a 31 / 20 destruction / affliction build.

I'd probably drop the two points in improved Searing Pain, for 2 points in Intensity for PvE, although some of the motivation for testing this build was better PvP viability.

Right now, the raid-instances are heavily weighted against fire damage, but I expect more zones are going to show up where the mobs have high shadow resistance and Shadowlocks will suffer.

Conflagorate is a very nice spell now. Instant cast, good damage, low mana cost. It has a 10 second cooldown and you need to "prime" the mob with Immolate first, but it gives the warlock some impressive burst damage: you could potentially hit a player with Shadowbolt-Deathcoil-Conflagorate-Shadowburn in quick succession.

Pros and cons compared to my current MD / Ruin spec:

Instant corruption again.
Occasional Nightfall procs.
More damage options with high burst damage ability.
Extra range on affliction spells.

Downside:

No buffed pets.
No Demonic Sacrifice or MD buffs
NO Improved Health Stone, Improved Impoved Imp, or Demonic Embrace.
No fast cast pets.

Chris