As you may or may not know Warlock is the master class of vanilla, therefore it needs a proper guide for people to know how it is the best be played. This guide is by no means complete, and I am by no means an expert. But with everyone’s input it could become a proper guide. I hope I serve as an inspiration for people that are somewhat experts at other classes to make a guide for that class since I don’t see a guide for every class yet. It’s not hard, just throw some vanilla guides together in a word document for inspiration and give it your own touch. And if you are a mage you can just copy paste half of this guide. Be sure to notify me if I made any mistakes or if I forgot items that are worth mentioning.
Choosing a race
Info
Warlocks can choose to be Undead, Orc, Human or Gnome. Warlocks tend to be less popular on alliance side because 45% of the horde is Undead which has Will of The Forsaken to break Fear and a passive +10 shadow resistance. Gnomes have an edge because 5% more intellect means more mana and more spell crit. Roughly 40% of alliance warlocks are gnomes, 60% are humans.
If you are going horde, before you click undead, question yourself why you want to be another horde warlock that chooses undead? The racials don’t really matter. Orc might even be better because they have 5% extra pet damage. Consider that orcs look good in dresses. Consider that the shoulder items look better on Orcs than they do on undeads. Roughly 75% of horde warlocks are undeads, 25% are Orcs.
Your place in a raid
Warlocks are usually on top of the DPS meters together with those puny mages, which are a gay squishy version of warlocks that serve as a drink dispenser. As a warlock your main duties are:
Stats
Generally, when picking up a new item, try to focus prioritize these stats:
spelldamage -> spell hit -> spell crit -> stamina -> intellect
Spell damage is the most important, if you find any item with spell damage on it while leveling you will probably be wearing it until you reach lvl 60. It increases the dmg of all your spells which makes you kill things faster.
At lvl 60 stacking a good amount of hit chance is very important. Level 63 bosses have a tendency to resist 17% of your spells, there's 1% that will always be there so your aim (or the "cap") is to get to 16% hit. But consider you will often be killing trash mobs that have a lower lvl so I believe balancing your gear at 10% hit is good enough. But opinions vary strongly on this topic. For PVP the hit cap is said to be 5% including the 1% hard resist. Mages have a talent to improve the hit chance of their Frost spells. Because Warlocks are superior they have no talents to increase the hit chance of their Shadowbolts. In no way should you prioritize any stat over hit unless you believe the sacrifice is worth it.
Increasing your Spell crit can boost your dmg a lot, especially if you have a talent point in Ruin (which inceases crit bonus dmg by 100%) since you are going to shoot shadowbolts a lot. If your solo playstyle is more about DoTs you might want to focus less on this stat since DoTs can't crit.
Warlocks are Stamina whores. Life tap scales with spell damage so when your gear becomes you can convert the same amount of HP to a lot of mana. But don't forget that after life tap you trigger your global cooldown and you can’t cast any spell for 1.5 seconds. For certain encounters and for PVP having some more stamina can be very useful. And with the right gear you can stack a lot of stamina. I enjoy being a warlock because it can achieve insanely high health. It is interesting to pick up items (often from the tier sets) that are best in slot when it comes to stamina. I like to use those items in my AOE outfit. Because when you are Hellfiring bugs in AQ40 it is better to be packing 2k extra hp than maximizing your spell dmg if you don’t want to get splattered on every pull. Trust me it is always better to stay alive. While we are on AQ40, be sure to keep an eye out on items with shadow resistance because that can come in handy for tanking the twin emperors in AQ40. For example Felheart Shoulders and Slippers (T1) both have 7 shadow resistance.
Intellect obviously gives you mana but for every 60.6 intellect you get 1% spell crit. This is quite a large ratio and I may often be more interesting to invest in spelldmg in order to get more mana out of your life tap.
BiS Preraid Gear
BiS preraid gear are the best items you can get from 5-10 man instances, quests and crafted items.
If ZG is available, the bloodvine garb is a no-brainer for a warlock. Even though it's only blue gear, you can rest assured that you'll be using this for a very long time, especially if you're a tailor and get the benefit from the set bonus (+2% crit). In total bloodvine gives you 35 intellect, 4 hit and 83 spell damage. So even without the set bonus it is a must-have. When equipped with Bloodvine you can equip some pure shadow damage items (like Ebony Flame Gloves / Band of Dark Dominion from BWL) instead of taking worse items with hit chance. Basically, there is simply no other 3 piece setup that will give you 4 hit, 2 crit and 83 bonus damage. Be advised that there is no stamina on the Bloodvine set so it might be interesting to compensate for this with other gear.
Note that on this list there are a lot of items that are not available at server launch because there is no dungeon 2 set and no ZG, for those items alternatives are listed.
Head: Spellweaver's Turban (UBRS, General Drakkisath)
Neck: Diana's Pearl Necklace (Strat living, Cannon Master Willey)
alternative: Dark Advisor's Pendant (Scholo, Vectus)
Shoulders: Burial Shawl (Scholo, Minibosses)
alternative: Felcloth Shoulders (Tailoring)
Cloak: Amplifying Cloak (DM West, Magister Kalendris)
alternative: Frostwolf Advisor's Cloak / Stormpike Sage's Cloak (Alterac Valley Reputation reward)
alternative: Deep Woodlands Cloak (Horde quest in the hinterlands)
alternative: Spritecaster Cape (BRD, Houndmaster Grebmar)
Chest: Bloodvine Vest (Tailoring) Not available before ZG launch
alternative: Robe of the Void (BoP Tailoring)
alternative: Robe of Winter Night (Tailoring)
alternative: The Postmaster's Tunic (Strat Living, Postmaster Malown)
Bracers: Sublime Wristguards (DM North, Guard Slip’kik and Guard Mol’dar)
Gloves: Felcloth Gloves (Tailoring)
alternative: The Shadow's Grasp (DM West, Revanchion)
Belt: Ban'thok Sash (BRD, Ok'thor the Breaker in BRD arena)
Pants: Bloodvine Leggings (Tailoring) Not available before ZG launch
alternative: Skyshroud Leggings (LBRS, Highlord Omokk)
Boots: Bloodvine Boots (Tailoring) Not available before ZG launch
alternative: Maleki's Footwraps (Strat Baron, Maleki the Pallid)
Ring 1: Don Mauricio's Band of Domination (Scholo, Darkmaster Gandling)
Ring 2: Maiden's Circle (BOE)
Trinket 1: Briarwood Reed (UBRS, Jed Runewatcher (rare boss))
Trinket 2: Eye of the Beast (Quest)
alternative: Royal Seal of Eldre'Thalas (Reward from Dire Maul BOE book)
alternative: Draconic Infused Emblem (UBRS, General Drakkisath)
2H Weapon: Soul Harvester (Warlock quest, Sunken Temple)
alternative: Rod of the Ogre Magi (DM North Tribute Run)
Main hand: Sageblade (Blacksmithing)
Off hand: Tome of the Lost (UBRS, General Drakkisath)
Wand: Skul's Ghastly Touch (Strat Living, Skul)
alternative: Ritssyn's Wand of Bad Mojo (Strat Baron, Baron Rivendare)
With these items (without any of the alternatives and equipping the 2H) you get:
spelldamage: 307 for shadow and 236 for fire spells
spell hit: 8%
spell crit: 3% (+2% bloodvine set bonus if 300 tailoring)
stamina: 54
intellect: 96 (~1.5% crit)
BiS Preraid gear upgrades after AQ40 release
It could take a while until the war effort is completed for AQ40, therefore it is better to list the upgrades available after the release here. First in the list are the bracers from farming Silithus badges, these are best in slot until Naxxramas. When the dungeon 2 quest chain is available there will be a nice upgrade availabe for your gloves and bosses summoned during the quest chain have very good loot. On completion of the final step of the quest chain, you gain the ability to summon Jarien and Sothos and Lord Valthalak again every time you run the instance.
Bracers: Rockfury Bracers (Collect Cenarion Badges in Silithus)
Gloves: Deathmist Wraps (Dungeon 2 set)
Ring: Rune Band of Wizardry (UBRS, Lord Valthalak (Dungeon 2 set Quest chain))
2H Weapon: Lord Valthalak's Staff of Command (UBRS, Lord Valthalak (Dungeon 2 set Quest chain))
Off hand: Scepter of Interminable Focus (Strat living, Jarien and Sothos (Dungeon 2 set Quest chain))
With these upgrades your stats are now (with using 2H):
spelldamage: 306 for shadow and 292 for fire spells
spell hit: 11%
spell crit: 3% (+2% bloodvine set bonus if 300 tailoring)
stamina: 64
intellect: 102 (~1.7% crit)
Enchants
Head – ZG idol > libram of focus (+8 spelldmg)
Shoulders – 30 spell power (exalted ZG) > Resistance enchants from argent dawn
Cloak – Subtlety (reduce threat by 2%)
Chest – +4 to each stats, 100 mana or 100 hp depends on your taste
Bracers – Pure PVE players will choose +7 intellect but 9 stamina is also nice
Gloves - +20 shadow damage
Legs – ZG enchant > libram of focus (+8 spelldmg)
Boots – +7 Stamina / minor movement speed enchant
Weapon – 30 spell damage > 22 intellect
Talents
SM/Ruin 30/0/21 PVE
Link
The most obvious spec is SM/Ruin, this spec is best for PVE damage and also decent for farming and PVP. There's a lot of versions of this spec, and in the end you'll have to roll with the one you prefer yourself.
The reason you don't take 5/5 in Suppression is simply because you don't need more than 16% hit. So if your gear has 10% hit you only need 3/5 in Suppression to reach hit cap for affliction spells. Be aware that this talent doesn’t improve hit chance for destruction spells like Shadowbolt.
Some of you might not agree with some of the point allocations but you can juggle them around for your own preference. I like having improved drain mana for Moam in AQ20 and some ZG bosses. Amplified curse and improved Curse of Agony is nice for PVP and farming. Most talents in the affliction tree hardly matter.
However there is a problem with this spec when it comes to 40 man raids because the number of debuff slots is limited to 16. Therefore only a few warlocks can be SM/ruin and put corruption on mobs in order to get nightfall procs. These warlocks are usually on imp duty.
Demonic Sacrifice/Ruin 7/21/23 PVE
Link
DS/ruin is the other viable PvE spec, especially for 40 man raiding. Sacrificing your Succubus gives you a buff that increases shadow damage by 15%. With this spec you are going to get the biggest shadowbolt crits! Because you need to sacrifice your pet you can't have your imp out for the tanks, this is the responsibility of the SM/Ruin warlocks. If you are going to AOE you can also sacrifice your imp for 15% fire damage. With the 15% extra stamina and pyroclasm (chance to stun mobs with aoe) in this spec your are more likely to survive an AOE pull.
Full Destruction 7/5/39 PVP
Link
As in all PVP specs it is very nice to spend talent points on Demonic Embrace for that juicy 15% stamina. This full destruction spec is good for 1 vs 1 scenarios where you seduce and fear while nuking hard, it is also the legendary Drakedog build.
Soul Link/Shadowburn 5/31/15 PVP
Link
Farm up a lot of shards and spam Shadowburn! Soul Link gives you that needed survivability in battlegrounds.
Nightfall/Soul Link 20/31/0 PVP
Link
While this spec lacks any real burst damage you have great survivability and relatively simple gameplay by using DoTs and Drain Life. This spec can be painful when facing Priests and Mages as you will rarely have your DoTs stay on your targets for their full duration. Learn to bait with Rank 1 Corruption to annoy healers.
MD/Ruin aka the never-aggro-lock 0/30/21 PVE
Link
Some people believe that any semi-serious raiding guild should have at least 1 of these. Because from a threat point of view max damage output is not necessarily optimal. Also, when thinking in terms of raid composition, having a warlock with Improved Blood Pact for your main tank group is a big deal. Basically it's always worth sacrificing a small amount of dps to increase your main tanks HP.
Rotation
Press 1111111111111111111111111
Raid
Since there's only 16 debuff slots, you might be allowed to cast corruption and be assigned a debuffing curse like Curse of Shadows, Curse of Elements or Curse of Recklessness depending on your raid leader’s preferences. Curse of agony or doom is usually forbidden.
Use a dot timer to see if your dot(s) has run out and reapply, else you are wasting mana. I like the addon DoTimer but there are certainly others available.
5-mans
Roll with Curse of Agony or Curse of Doom if the fight lasts longer than one minute. Unless there's a mage/lock or spriest that outgears you ridiculously, then use curse of shadow/elements accordingly.
As you've noticed improved Life Tap is chosen in every PVE spec. Even though you want to restrain from having to use lifetap too much in order to avoid the global cooldown and to reduce strain on the healers you will use it a lot.
Hints on the use of Life Tap
Consumables
First of all as a warlock it is very important to have enough soul shards prior to raids in order to be able to summon people. A Soul Shard bag is only worth it if you can craft the 28 slot one from molten core. Else you are better of using a 16 slot traveler’s backpack.
When it comes to buffs you don’t need to get scrolls because they don’t stack on Kronos. The Elixir of Greater Intellect doesn't stack with arcane brilliance.
Rumsey Rum Black Label
Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops (25 stamina food) Not available at launch
alternative: Monster Omelet, Spiced Chili Crab, Tender Wolf Steak, Spider Sausage, Heavy Kodo Stew (12 stamina food)
Elixir of Shadow Power
Flask of Supreme Power
Brilliant Wizard Oil Not available at launch
alternative: Wizard Oil
Heavy Runecloth Bandage
Demonic Rune
Major Healing Potion
Major Mana Potion
optional: Blasted Lands buffs, darkmoon faire buffs and buff from delivering ony/nef head
Greater Fire Protection Potion for MC, Ony and BWL
Greater Nature Protection Potion for AQ40
Upgrades in Molten Core
Depending on the availability of ZG it is possible that MC can give you a couple of PVE upgrades.
Trinket: Talisman of Ephemeral Power (Baron Geddon, Golemagg, Magmadar and Garr) If you can get your hands on this item, do so. Try to time the use of this item with a cast of CoD, Corruption and Immolate and spam SB's after that. (if you cast corruption first, you can cast it at the end of the empowering again before it runs out)
Felheart Raiment (Most bosses drop parts) Don't pick this up for pve purposes, the stats are nice for a pvp setup since you'd want stamina, but due to the absence of spell hit on most pieces it's nothing more but a pvp set. (note: pick up the shoulders and slippers for twin emporer tanking if you plan on progressing through AQ40 at some point)
Legs: Nemesis Leggings (Ragnaros) It saddens me to see so many players rolling with these while Bloodvine are an obvious better choice. So, unless you have just 3 pieces T2 and really badly want the setbonus, don't use these.
Belt: Sash of Whispered Secrets (Majordomo Chest) This is a hard one, although ban'thok is a pretty good belt, you might want a change of scenery/gear and this belt isn't a horrible choice, I advise trying to get the T2 belt from Vaelastrasz if your guild is running BWL instead.
Neck: Choker of the Fire Lord (Ragnaros) This item is good, try to get this. As much as I love hit, you can't overgimp yourself damagewise and changing out 1 hit for 26 spell damage is not bad, at all. (don't disenchant your pearl necklace, though)
Main Hand: Azuresong Mageblade (Golemagg) beware: this is a much liked and wanted item in MC/BWL guilds.
Honorable mentions:
Chest: Robe of Volatile Power
Staff: Staff of dominance
Main Hand: Sorcerous dagger
Upgrades from World Bosses
Lord Kazzak and Azuregos are available at launch.
Lord Kazzak drops Fel Infused Leggings which are pretty decent.
Azuregos Drops Fang of the Mystics and Snowblind Shoes which are more suitable for mages in a PVE setting.
The Dragons of Nightmare are not released on launch, but they haven't got any valuable PVE loot for a warlock.
Upgrades in Zul’Gurub
So, considering you've gathered some or all of the preraid BiS items you are likely to be invited to a pug or a guild that runs 20-man instances. Since the war effort is far away at the time of writing AQ20 is not considered in this guide.
You are sure to be coming back to this place as a warlock because the cloak and the wand from hakkar are very good. Sadly the RNG gods really hated me and I never got them in retail (and I raided naxx). One time hakkar dropped 2 cloaks but I got the 3rd highest roll…
Pure upgrades:
Cloak: Cloak of the Hakkari Worshippers (all high priests)
Cloak: Cloak of Consumption (Hakkar)
Hands: Bloodtinged Gloves (Jin'do the Hexxer)
Off Hand: Jin'do's Bag of Whammies (Jin'do the Hexxer)
Ring: Zanzil's Seal (Bloodlord Mandokir)
Wand: Touch of Chaos (Hakkar)
Main Hand: Bloodcaller (Hakkar)
Staff: Jindo's Judgement (Jin'do the Hexxer)
Note: this item is a good upgrade from Valthalak's staff of command, but has a ton of wasted stat points in mana/tick. However, the 2% spell hit makes up for a lot and therefore it should be in this pure upgrade list.
Notable mentions:
Ring: Band of Servitude (all high priests)
Belt: Bloodtinged kilt (Bloodlord Mandokir)
Head: The Hexxer's Cover (Jin'do the Hexxer)
Belt: Belt of Untapped Power (all high priests)
Feet: Betrayer's Boots (High Priest Thekal)
Trinket: Zandalarian Hero Charm (Heart of Hakkar quest)
ZG class set
Demoniac's Threads (Various bosses drop quest items which you need to deliver with a rep requirement)
Note: most pieces from this set are very good for pvp and if you need pve survivability you could roll with any 2-piece combo. (shoulders/neck is a pretty solid combo if you are exalted with the zandalar tribe)
Resistance gear
See this thread. (this post is at character limit)
Questions?
If multiple warlocks drain soul from the same target do they all get a soul shard or does only one person get it?
Choosing a race
Info
Warlocks can choose to be Undead, Orc, Human or Gnome. Warlocks tend to be less popular on alliance side because 45% of the horde is Undead which has Will of The Forsaken to break Fear and a passive +10 shadow resistance. Gnomes have an edge because 5% more intellect means more mana and more spell crit. Roughly 40% of alliance warlocks are gnomes, 60% are humans.
If you are going horde, before you click undead, question yourself why you want to be another horde warlock that chooses undead? The racials don’t really matter. Orc might even be better because they have 5% extra pet damage. Consider that orcs look good in dresses. Consider that the shoulder items look better on Orcs than they do on undeads. Roughly 75% of horde warlocks are undeads, 25% are Orcs.
Your place in a raid
Warlocks are usually on top of the DPS meters together with those puny mages, which are a gay squishy version of warlocks that serve as a drink dispenser. As a warlock your main duties are:
- Being a DPS whore
- Summoning Taxi without getting paid
- Curse duty on mobs (Elements/Shadows/Recklessness),
- Healthstone vendor
- Soulstones (everyone will nerdrage if the entire raid has to run back because you forgot)
- Tank buffers with imp (42 stamina and up to 56 with talents)
- Best AOE class when it comes to sustained damage. You can choose for Rain of Fire but also for the most heroic spell ingame: Hellfire. If wipe is imminent, this is usually the bravest way to go. Other pussy classes choose feign death, vanish or divine intervention. But warlocks, dark as we are, embrace death.
Stats
Generally, when picking up a new item, try to focus prioritize these stats:
spelldamage -> spell hit -> spell crit -> stamina -> intellect
Spell damage is the most important, if you find any item with spell damage on it while leveling you will probably be wearing it until you reach lvl 60. It increases the dmg of all your spells which makes you kill things faster.
At lvl 60 stacking a good amount of hit chance is very important. Level 63 bosses have a tendency to resist 17% of your spells, there's 1% that will always be there so your aim (or the "cap") is to get to 16% hit. But consider you will often be killing trash mobs that have a lower lvl so I believe balancing your gear at 10% hit is good enough. But opinions vary strongly on this topic. For PVP the hit cap is said to be 5% including the 1% hard resist. Mages have a talent to improve the hit chance of their Frost spells. Because Warlocks are superior they have no talents to increase the hit chance of their Shadowbolts. In no way should you prioritize any stat over hit unless you believe the sacrifice is worth it.
Increasing your Spell crit can boost your dmg a lot, especially if you have a talent point in Ruin (which inceases crit bonus dmg by 100%) since you are going to shoot shadowbolts a lot. If your solo playstyle is more about DoTs you might want to focus less on this stat since DoTs can't crit.
Warlocks are Stamina whores. Life tap scales with spell damage so when your gear becomes you can convert the same amount of HP to a lot of mana. But don't forget that after life tap you trigger your global cooldown and you can’t cast any spell for 1.5 seconds. For certain encounters and for PVP having some more stamina can be very useful. And with the right gear you can stack a lot of stamina. I enjoy being a warlock because it can achieve insanely high health. It is interesting to pick up items (often from the tier sets) that are best in slot when it comes to stamina. I like to use those items in my AOE outfit. Because when you are Hellfiring bugs in AQ40 it is better to be packing 2k extra hp than maximizing your spell dmg if you don’t want to get splattered on every pull. Trust me it is always better to stay alive. While we are on AQ40, be sure to keep an eye out on items with shadow resistance because that can come in handy for tanking the twin emperors in AQ40. For example Felheart Shoulders and Slippers (T1) both have 7 shadow resistance.
Intellect obviously gives you mana but for every 60.6 intellect you get 1% spell crit. This is quite a large ratio and I may often be more interesting to invest in spelldmg in order to get more mana out of your life tap.
BiS Preraid Gear
BiS preraid gear are the best items you can get from 5-10 man instances, quests and crafted items.
If ZG is available, the bloodvine garb is a no-brainer for a warlock. Even though it's only blue gear, you can rest assured that you'll be using this for a very long time, especially if you're a tailor and get the benefit from the set bonus (+2% crit). In total bloodvine gives you 35 intellect, 4 hit and 83 spell damage. So even without the set bonus it is a must-have. When equipped with Bloodvine you can equip some pure shadow damage items (like Ebony Flame Gloves / Band of Dark Dominion from BWL) instead of taking worse items with hit chance. Basically, there is simply no other 3 piece setup that will give you 4 hit, 2 crit and 83 bonus damage. Be advised that there is no stamina on the Bloodvine set so it might be interesting to compensate for this with other gear.
Note that on this list there are a lot of items that are not available at server launch because there is no dungeon 2 set and no ZG, for those items alternatives are listed.
Head: Spellweaver's Turban (UBRS, General Drakkisath)
Neck: Diana's Pearl Necklace (Strat living, Cannon Master Willey)
alternative: Dark Advisor's Pendant (Scholo, Vectus)
Shoulders: Burial Shawl (Scholo, Minibosses)
alternative: Felcloth Shoulders (Tailoring)
Cloak: Amplifying Cloak (DM West, Magister Kalendris)
alternative: Frostwolf Advisor's Cloak / Stormpike Sage's Cloak (Alterac Valley Reputation reward)
alternative: Deep Woodlands Cloak (Horde quest in the hinterlands)
alternative: Spritecaster Cape (BRD, Houndmaster Grebmar)
Chest: Bloodvine Vest (Tailoring) Not available before ZG launch
alternative: Robe of the Void (BoP Tailoring)
alternative: Robe of Winter Night (Tailoring)
alternative: The Postmaster's Tunic (Strat Living, Postmaster Malown)
Bracers: Sublime Wristguards (DM North, Guard Slip’kik and Guard Mol’dar)
Gloves: Felcloth Gloves (Tailoring)
alternative: The Shadow's Grasp (DM West, Revanchion)
Belt: Ban'thok Sash (BRD, Ok'thor the Breaker in BRD arena)
Pants: Bloodvine Leggings (Tailoring) Not available before ZG launch
alternative: Skyshroud Leggings (LBRS, Highlord Omokk)
Boots: Bloodvine Boots (Tailoring) Not available before ZG launch
alternative: Maleki's Footwraps (Strat Baron, Maleki the Pallid)
Ring 1: Don Mauricio's Band of Domination (Scholo, Darkmaster Gandling)
Ring 2: Maiden's Circle (BOE)
Trinket 1: Briarwood Reed (UBRS, Jed Runewatcher (rare boss))
Trinket 2: Eye of the Beast (Quest)
alternative: Royal Seal of Eldre'Thalas (Reward from Dire Maul BOE book)
alternative: Draconic Infused Emblem (UBRS, General Drakkisath)
2H Weapon: Soul Harvester (Warlock quest, Sunken Temple)
alternative: Rod of the Ogre Magi (DM North Tribute Run)
Main hand: Sageblade (Blacksmithing)
Off hand: Tome of the Lost (UBRS, General Drakkisath)
Wand: Skul's Ghastly Touch (Strat Living, Skul)
alternative: Ritssyn's Wand of Bad Mojo (Strat Baron, Baron Rivendare)
With these items (without any of the alternatives and equipping the 2H) you get:
spelldamage: 307 for shadow and 236 for fire spells
spell hit: 8%
spell crit: 3% (+2% bloodvine set bonus if 300 tailoring)
stamina: 54
intellect: 96 (~1.5% crit)
BiS Preraid gear upgrades after AQ40 release
It could take a while until the war effort is completed for AQ40, therefore it is better to list the upgrades available after the release here. First in the list are the bracers from farming Silithus badges, these are best in slot until Naxxramas. When the dungeon 2 quest chain is available there will be a nice upgrade availabe for your gloves and bosses summoned during the quest chain have very good loot. On completion of the final step of the quest chain, you gain the ability to summon Jarien and Sothos and Lord Valthalak again every time you run the instance.
Bracers: Rockfury Bracers (Collect Cenarion Badges in Silithus)
Gloves: Deathmist Wraps (Dungeon 2 set)
Ring: Rune Band of Wizardry (UBRS, Lord Valthalak (Dungeon 2 set Quest chain))
2H Weapon: Lord Valthalak's Staff of Command (UBRS, Lord Valthalak (Dungeon 2 set Quest chain))
Off hand: Scepter of Interminable Focus (Strat living, Jarien and Sothos (Dungeon 2 set Quest chain))
With these upgrades your stats are now (with using 2H):
spelldamage: 306 for shadow and 292 for fire spells
spell hit: 11%
spell crit: 3% (+2% bloodvine set bonus if 300 tailoring)
stamina: 64
intellect: 102 (~1.7% crit)
Enchants
Head – ZG idol > libram of focus (+8 spelldmg)
Shoulders – 30 spell power (exalted ZG) > Resistance enchants from argent dawn
Cloak – Subtlety (reduce threat by 2%)
Chest – +4 to each stats, 100 mana or 100 hp depends on your taste
Bracers – Pure PVE players will choose +7 intellect but 9 stamina is also nice
Gloves - +20 shadow damage
Legs – ZG enchant > libram of focus (+8 spelldmg)
Boots – +7 Stamina / minor movement speed enchant
Weapon – 30 spell damage > 22 intellect
Talents
SM/Ruin 30/0/21 PVE
Link
The most obvious spec is SM/Ruin, this spec is best for PVE damage and also decent for farming and PVP. There's a lot of versions of this spec, and in the end you'll have to roll with the one you prefer yourself.
The reason you don't take 5/5 in Suppression is simply because you don't need more than 16% hit. So if your gear has 10% hit you only need 3/5 in Suppression to reach hit cap for affliction spells. Be aware that this talent doesn’t improve hit chance for destruction spells like Shadowbolt.
Some of you might not agree with some of the point allocations but you can juggle them around for your own preference. I like having improved drain mana for Moam in AQ20 and some ZG bosses. Amplified curse and improved Curse of Agony is nice for PVP and farming. Most talents in the affliction tree hardly matter.
However there is a problem with this spec when it comes to 40 man raids because the number of debuff slots is limited to 16. Therefore only a few warlocks can be SM/ruin and put corruption on mobs in order to get nightfall procs. These warlocks are usually on imp duty.
Demonic Sacrifice/Ruin 7/21/23 PVE
Link
DS/ruin is the other viable PvE spec, especially for 40 man raiding. Sacrificing your Succubus gives you a buff that increases shadow damage by 15%. With this spec you are going to get the biggest shadowbolt crits! Because you need to sacrifice your pet you can't have your imp out for the tanks, this is the responsibility of the SM/Ruin warlocks. If you are going to AOE you can also sacrifice your imp for 15% fire damage. With the 15% extra stamina and pyroclasm (chance to stun mobs with aoe) in this spec your are more likely to survive an AOE pull.
Full Destruction 7/5/39 PVP
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As in all PVP specs it is very nice to spend talent points on Demonic Embrace for that juicy 15% stamina. This full destruction spec is good for 1 vs 1 scenarios where you seduce and fear while nuking hard, it is also the legendary Drakedog build.
Soul Link/Shadowburn 5/31/15 PVP
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Farm up a lot of shards and spam Shadowburn! Soul Link gives you that needed survivability in battlegrounds.
Nightfall/Soul Link 20/31/0 PVP
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While this spec lacks any real burst damage you have great survivability and relatively simple gameplay by using DoTs and Drain Life. This spec can be painful when facing Priests and Mages as you will rarely have your DoTs stay on your targets for their full duration. Learn to bait with Rank 1 Corruption to annoy healers.
MD/Ruin aka the never-aggro-lock 0/30/21 PVE
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Some people believe that any semi-serious raiding guild should have at least 1 of these. Because from a threat point of view max damage output is not necessarily optimal. Also, when thinking in terms of raid composition, having a warlock with Improved Blood Pact for your main tank group is a big deal. Basically it's always worth sacrificing a small amount of dps to increase your main tanks HP.
Rotation
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Raid
Since there's only 16 debuff slots, you might be allowed to cast corruption and be assigned a debuffing curse like Curse of Shadows, Curse of Elements or Curse of Recklessness depending on your raid leader’s preferences. Curse of agony or doom is usually forbidden.
Use a dot timer to see if your dot(s) has run out and reapply, else you are wasting mana. I like the addon DoTimer but there are certainly others available.
5-mans
Roll with Curse of Agony or Curse of Doom if the fight lasts longer than one minute. Unless there's a mage/lock or spriest that outgears you ridiculously, then use curse of shadow/elements accordingly.
As you've noticed improved Life Tap is chosen in every PVE spec. Even though you want to restrain from having to use lifetap too much in order to avoid the global cooldown and to reduce strain on the healers you will use it a lot.
Hints on the use of Life Tap
- Do it while moving (when you need to reposition for whatever reason) to keep your mana as high as possible
- Do it when you need mana and your consumables are on cooldown (in a raid setting always bring enough mana potions and demonic runes)
- Do it when you're out of combat. If all the healers are drinking it might be better to Life Tap until you are at about 50% hp and then eat and drink at the same time.
Consumables
First of all as a warlock it is very important to have enough soul shards prior to raids in order to be able to summon people. A Soul Shard bag is only worth it if you can craft the 28 slot one from molten core. Else you are better of using a 16 slot traveler’s backpack.
When it comes to buffs you don’t need to get scrolls because they don’t stack on Kronos. The Elixir of Greater Intellect doesn't stack with arcane brilliance.
Rumsey Rum Black Label
Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops (25 stamina food) Not available at launch
alternative: Monster Omelet, Spiced Chili Crab, Tender Wolf Steak, Spider Sausage, Heavy Kodo Stew (12 stamina food)
Elixir of Shadow Power
Flask of Supreme Power
Brilliant Wizard Oil Not available at launch
alternative: Wizard Oil
Heavy Runecloth Bandage
Demonic Rune
Major Healing Potion
Major Mana Potion
optional: Blasted Lands buffs, darkmoon faire buffs and buff from delivering ony/nef head
Greater Fire Protection Potion for MC, Ony and BWL
Greater Nature Protection Potion for AQ40
Upgrades in Molten Core
Depending on the availability of ZG it is possible that MC can give you a couple of PVE upgrades.
Trinket: Talisman of Ephemeral Power (Baron Geddon, Golemagg, Magmadar and Garr) If you can get your hands on this item, do so. Try to time the use of this item with a cast of CoD, Corruption and Immolate and spam SB's after that. (if you cast corruption first, you can cast it at the end of the empowering again before it runs out)
Felheart Raiment (Most bosses drop parts) Don't pick this up for pve purposes, the stats are nice for a pvp setup since you'd want stamina, but due to the absence of spell hit on most pieces it's nothing more but a pvp set. (note: pick up the shoulders and slippers for twin emporer tanking if you plan on progressing through AQ40 at some point)
Legs: Nemesis Leggings (Ragnaros) It saddens me to see so many players rolling with these while Bloodvine are an obvious better choice. So, unless you have just 3 pieces T2 and really badly want the setbonus, don't use these.
Belt: Sash of Whispered Secrets (Majordomo Chest) This is a hard one, although ban'thok is a pretty good belt, you might want a change of scenery/gear and this belt isn't a horrible choice, I advise trying to get the T2 belt from Vaelastrasz if your guild is running BWL instead.
Neck: Choker of the Fire Lord (Ragnaros) This item is good, try to get this. As much as I love hit, you can't overgimp yourself damagewise and changing out 1 hit for 26 spell damage is not bad, at all. (don't disenchant your pearl necklace, though)
Main Hand: Azuresong Mageblade (Golemagg) beware: this is a much liked and wanted item in MC/BWL guilds.
Honorable mentions:
Chest: Robe of Volatile Power
Staff: Staff of dominance
Main Hand: Sorcerous dagger
Upgrades from World Bosses
Lord Kazzak and Azuregos are available at launch.
Lord Kazzak drops Fel Infused Leggings which are pretty decent.
Azuregos Drops Fang of the Mystics and Snowblind Shoes which are more suitable for mages in a PVE setting.
The Dragons of Nightmare are not released on launch, but they haven't got any valuable PVE loot for a warlock.
Upgrades in Zul’Gurub
So, considering you've gathered some or all of the preraid BiS items you are likely to be invited to a pug or a guild that runs 20-man instances. Since the war effort is far away at the time of writing AQ20 is not considered in this guide.
You are sure to be coming back to this place as a warlock because the cloak and the wand from hakkar are very good. Sadly the RNG gods really hated me and I never got them in retail (and I raided naxx). One time hakkar dropped 2 cloaks but I got the 3rd highest roll…
Pure upgrades:
Cloak: Cloak of the Hakkari Worshippers (all high priests)
Cloak: Cloak of Consumption (Hakkar)
Hands: Bloodtinged Gloves (Jin'do the Hexxer)
Off Hand: Jin'do's Bag of Whammies (Jin'do the Hexxer)
Ring: Zanzil's Seal (Bloodlord Mandokir)
Wand: Touch of Chaos (Hakkar)
Main Hand: Bloodcaller (Hakkar)
Staff: Jindo's Judgement (Jin'do the Hexxer)
Note: this item is a good upgrade from Valthalak's staff of command, but has a ton of wasted stat points in mana/tick. However, the 2% spell hit makes up for a lot and therefore it should be in this pure upgrade list.
Notable mentions:
Ring: Band of Servitude (all high priests)
Belt: Bloodtinged kilt (Bloodlord Mandokir)
Head: The Hexxer's Cover (Jin'do the Hexxer)
Belt: Belt of Untapped Power (all high priests)
Feet: Betrayer's Boots (High Priest Thekal)
Trinket: Zandalarian Hero Charm (Heart of Hakkar quest)
ZG class set
Demoniac's Threads (Various bosses drop quest items which you need to deliver with a rep requirement)
Note: most pieces from this set are very good for pvp and if you need pve survivability you could roll with any 2-piece combo. (shoulders/neck is a pretty solid combo if you are exalted with the zandalar tribe)
Resistance gear
See this thread. (this post is at character limit)
Questions?
If multiple warlocks drain soul from the same target do they all get a soul shard or does only one person get it?
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