Warlock

Classes
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Helena Demonfire, a human warlock.

Warlocks are former arcanists, or in the case of the orcs, former shamans, who, in pursuit of ever-greater sources of power, have cast off their studies of the arcane or nature magics to delve deeper into the darker, fel-based magic of shadow.

Warlocks are renowned for their damage over time (DoT) spells and sinister Shadow magic, as well for summoning demonic minions and their ability to wreak havoc with destructive Fire spells. Warlocks can specialize in any of these areas: Affliction warlocks are the masters of damage over time, draining their targets' health with an array of powerful debuffs; Demonology warlocks summon improved Demons to do their bidding, drawing power from their minions and even transforming into Demons themselves; while Destruction warlocks call down a rain of fire upon their enemies, specializing in potent burst damage and Fire spells. According to the WoW Census, warlocks are the least represented class.

Background

Warlocks are masters of the dark arts, devoted to furthering their understanding and use of shadow and Fire based magics, along with the summoning of demons from within the Twisting Nether. They first appeared on Azeroth during the First War, when Gul'dan, the first of their kind among the invading orc clans of Draenor, led the Horde across the dimensional gulf through the Dark Portal while in servitude to the Burning Legion.

Warlocks are used as damage dealers, but can store the target's soul to resurrect or heal himself by draining enemy's life. The warlock can summon an Imp, Felhunter, Voidwalker, Succubus, or Felguard (only for Demonology warlocks) to aid them. In addition to their standard minions, warlocks can also summon an Infernal or Doomguard to fight alongside them. These two minions share a 10 minute cooldown and do not replace your current pet.

History

An orcish warlock, and his voidwalker.

The eredar of the Burning Legion are credited as the original warlocks and wielders of dark magics, corrupted from the powerful and magically attuned eredar of Argus.

In most societies, the warlocks now live on the fringe of civilization, tolerated but not trusted. Human warlocks meet in secret in the basement of a bar in Stormwind. Thrall has expressed discomfort with the warlocks but understands the necessities in using them so he has allowed them the Cleft of Shadow. Conventional spell casters often see the warlock's magic as a vain attempt at increasing their own power.

Although many that consort with demons fall to darkness, the warlocks of the Horde and the Alliance advocate bending demonic or other dark powerful forces to one's will without succumbing to complete corruption. These spell casters can summon demons to serve them, and they can also cast many painful spells that slowly eat at the life of their enemies. Warlocks are usually physically weak compared to other classes, but they compensate for this deficiency with their potent array of spells and their demonic minions. Compared to other spell casters, warlocks are among the strongest and often depend on the sacrifice of their own blood to fuel their magical powers.

On the world of Azeroth, there are many races who presently wield the dark power of the Nether. The playable races a warlock can choose from are the humans, dwarves, gnomes, worgen, orcs, trolls, undead, blood elves and goblins. Each has its own history in the dark demon arts.

Notable warlocks

• Archimonde
• Cho'gall
• Gul'dan
• Kil'jaeden
• Medivh
• Nekros Skullcrusher
• Meryl Felstorm
• Council of Six Daggers

Overview

An elven warlock and his sayaad.

Warlocks are unique among the DPS caster classes because of their ability to convert health into mana. Warlocks have the most powerful assortment of damage over time (DoT) spells when used in conjunction, and also the most variety in debuffs and summonable minions. Just like a mage, a warlock’s crowd control abilities appropriately used can stave off certain doom for the warlock and their allies, and the warlock’s sustained area of effect damage when suitably specced and geared can rival those of a mage. However, the warlock’s burst damage spells are not as powerful as those of their mage brethren, although when used appropriately they have powerful applications in group play.

Warlocks are well versed in the "shock and horror" tactics of warfare, and their manipulation of shadow energies can send their opponents reeling in [Fear]. At low levels, warlocks rely primarily on minions and damage over time spells to deal damage while fearing their enemies to prevent retribution.

Endgame warlocks either choose to maximize the effects of their shadow-based DoTs, curses, and fears through the affliction tree, increase the power of their summoned minions while using a mixture of shadow and fire-based damage through the demonology tree, or lay waste the opposition with burst damage and fire-based direct damage spells in the destruction tree.

The warlock can learn to summon magical mounts. Other classes, except paladins, death knights, and druids ( [Flight Form]), must purchase their own mounts with gold or via Honor obtained through PvP.

Being a warlock demands certain things: being able to engage multiple targets simultaneously while keeping tabs on your minion, to make split-second strategic decisions on cast rotations depending on the situation, and careful soul-shard and cooldown management. Being a warlock also rewards many things: they are PvP powerhouses due to their powerful crowd-control and sustained damage abilities, and in PvE their damage output is among the highest in both single and multiple target situations.

Their ability to drain and use souls as Soul Shards is also appealing to many.

Weapons and armor

Main article: Warlock sets

Warlocks can wear cloth armor only, and can use staves, daggers, one-handed swords and unarmed combat in battle. They can also use wands for ranged combat, and equip off-hands.

Attributes

Hunrik Blackiron, a dwarf warlock

As a caster class, the warlock's primary attributes are intellect and spell power. Warlocks have no use for strength, spirit or agility.

The value of secondary attributes (spell hit, spell crit, haste, Mastery, and resilience) depends on the warlock's talent spec and play style. Generally speaking, warlocks benefit more from haste than spell crit due to their DoT abilities. The demonology mastery, [Master Demonologist] provides an excellent DPS increase, making mastery a very useful stat.

In a raid scenario, spell hit rating takes precedence over all other secondary stats, and it is advisable to get as close as possible to the hit cap (17%, or 1742 rating as of Patch 4.0.3). After that point, hit rating is useless; spell hit reduction debuffs are too few and far between to be considered.

In PvP, the focus is somewhat different as survivability takes precedence. Hence, warlocks often choose to sacrifice DPS in order to obtain more resilience, although its usefulness will eventually level-off (after 3000 resilience rating as of Patch 4.1). Note that since PvP almost exclusively involves attacking other players of the same level, the spell hit cap is only 4% (410 rating as of 4.0.3).

Below are some examples of the relative attribute values for a warlock (in descending order).

• Affliction and Destruction: Spell hit (until capped) > Haste > Spell crit > Mastery
• Demonology: Spell hit (until capped) > Mastery > Haste > Spell crit
• PvP: Resilience > Spell hit (until capped) > Haste > Spell crit = Mastery

Soul Shards

The Soul Shard system acts as a secondary resource system for warlocks available at level 10. Soul Shards are consumed via [Soulburn] and empower an array of warlock spells (only one is usable per Soul Shard consumed):

• Summon Demon = summon the demon instantly.
• [Drain Life] = Cast time reduced by 50%.
• [Demonic Circle: Teleport] = Increases movement speed by 50% for 8 seconds after teleporting.
• [Soul Fire] = Instant cast.
•  [Healthstone] = Increases total health by 20% for 8 seconds.
• [Searing Pain] = Increases the crit chance of Searing Pain by 100%, and subsequent Searing Pain spells by 50% for 6 seconds.

Affliction warlocks may also learn [Soulburn: Seed of Corruption]

• [Seed of Corruption] = Successful detonation will afflict [Corruption] on all enemy targets and refund the Soul Shard.

Warlocks can have a maximum of 3 Soul Shards, and there is a 45-second cooldown between each [Soulburn]. [Soul Harvest] is a newly introduced spell to compensate. Usable only outside of combat, it returns 45% of the warlock's HP as well as refreshing all their Soul Shards. When in combat, [Drain Soul] will return all Soul Shards if used to kill a target, as will [Shadowburn] if the target dies within 5 seconds of using it.

Races

Main article: Warlock races

The warlock class can be played by the following races:

Race		Strength	Agility	Stamina	Intellect	Spirit	Armor	Health	Mana
	Gnome	15	22	21	26	22	44	53	200
	Human	20	20	21	22	22	40	53	140
	Worgen	23	22	21	18	21	?	?	?
	Dwarf	22	16	24	21	21	33	63	125
	Blood elf	17	22	21	25	20	44	53	185
	Forsaken	19	18	21	20	27	36	53	110
	Goblin	17	22	21	25	20	?	?	?
	Orc	23	17	22	19	24	34	63	109
	Troll	21	22	22	18	23	?	?	?

The only races unable (or unwilling) to be warlocks are the Night Elves, the Tauren and the Draenei.

Warlock Beneficial Racial Abilities

Elithys Firestorm, a blood elven warlock, and her succubus.

Dwarf

• [Stoneform] is a useful defence and debuff-dispelling cooldown which can be useful in PvP and PvE.
• [Frost Resistance] can be useful in reducing damage taken, especially versus frost mages.

Gnome

• [Expansive Mind] is one of the most important mage beneficial racial abilities as it increases mana by 5%. Note that it increases mana pool but not Intellect, spell power or spell critical.
• [Escape Artist] removes snares and speed reduction effects. Usable to PvP and certain PvE encounters. (Note: does not remove stun effects).

Human

• [Every Man for Himself] is another beneficial trait enabling players to remove all incapacitating effects on the character (Slow, stun, fear, immobilize effects)

Worgen

• [Viciousness] is another of the most warlock beneficial racial abilities as it increases spell critical strike by 1%
• [Darkflight] enables the player to move faster. Usable in both PvP and PvE encounters.

Blood elf

• [Arcane Torrent] Provides a similar mana increase too life tap without the loss in health. Due to its limit in AoE range, it has limited use in Boss PvE encounters and is half effective on PvP.

Goblin

• [Rocket Barrage] as small damage ability.
• [Rocket Jump] similar to [Blink] for use in PvE and PvP. Can be used to stay out of the fire.
• [Time is Money] is a slight reduction in casting time.

Orc

• [Blood Fury] gives an increase in spell power whenever activated.
• [Hardiness] a 15% reduction in the total time of stun effects.
• [Command] increases damage dealt by all minions by 5%, especially useful for Demonology warlocks.

Troll

• [Berserking] Provies a buff that increases casting speed which will also provide the warlock with one of it's few cool downs besides trinkets, 3 minutes cooldown but the most important is that unlike [Bloodlust] does not place a 10 minutes debuff thus making it an extremely beneficial racial ability.
• [Regeneration] is useful as an additional health regeneration effect, especially beneficial on long encounters, useful with [Life Tap].
• [Da Voodoo Shuffle] has use in both PvE and PvP.
• [Beast Slaying] increases damage dealt versus Beasts by 5%, which can be helpful for PvE.

Undead

• [Will of the Forsaken] is usable in all cases in PvP and PvE when losing control of character (does not include slow or immobilize effects)
• [Cannibalize] is useful in both PvP and PvE because it allows the warlock to restore their health quickly. Very useful when combined with [Life Tap]

The above list includes only the abilities that interact directly with the warlock abilities, playstyle and needs over specific situations. Other traits are available and are usable as to what a player wishes to do with the character.

Abilities

A warlock and his demons.

Main article: Warlock abilities

A warlock's DoTs are the bread and butter of their arsenal, regardless of talent specialization. The warlock's direct damage spells are either Shadow or Fire based. While a warlock's direct damage alone does not compare to the mage, when coupled with their DoTs and a minion they can achieve strong, steady DPS to rival that of other classes. Some of a warlock's most important spells are channeled. The warlock has available a variety of curses, but only one can be cast upon an enemy at a given time. This creates the need for determining an appropriate Curse in a given situation.

The warlock has several other valuable spells at their disposal, such as utility spells.

Minions and mounts

Warlocks can summon a variety of minions, each exhibiting different skill sets which are useful in different situations. Only one minion at a time can accompany the warlock however.

• [Summon Imp] - A warlock's first minion, and provides additional damage and survivability for the warlock. The demon of choice for a Destruction warlock
• [Summon Voidwalker] - Makes an excellent tank for a soloing warlock
• [Summon Succubus] - A demon specialized in crowd control
• [Eye of Kilrogg] - A demon used for scouting
• [Summon Felhunter] - An anti caster minion. The choice demon for an Affliction warlock
• [Summon Felguard] - (Demonology only). A powerful minion and choice demon for Demonology Warlocks
  • In addition to these normal minions the warlocks can summon two greater demons to defend them for a short time:
    • [Summon Infernal] - A guardian useful in AOE situations
    • [Summon Doomguard] - A guardian useful in single target situations
  • The warlock can also summon Nightmare steeds into their service as mounts:
    • [Summon Felsteed] - A basic mount
    • [Dreadsteed] - A much faster mount

Warlocks may also enslave demons found while adventuring, to act as their minions for a short time.

Healing and conjured items

A succubus minion.

A warlock is by no means a healer, however, they do have some limited abilities to heal themselves and their minions while in combat. In addition, they can also resurrect by giving a player a soulstone prior to their death.

To heal others (or himself), a warlock can create a Healthstone and hand it to another friendly player. These can be improved through talents. Burning Crusade introduced the [Ritual of Souls] which creates a Soul Well from which Healthstones can be extracted by members of the party or raid.

To resurrect a target a warlock may use a Soulstone on a friendly player before they die (15 minutes Buff duration and Cooldown), allowing them to resurrect on death. If a warlock uses a soulstone on another member of their party and the warlock or that member leaves the party, the buff is dismissed.

As of patch 4.1, warlocks can cast a soul stone on a dead target to resurrect them in or out of combat.

Melee

While the warlock can wield and attack with melee weapons, this is generally not recommended as the warlock's melee abilities do little damage in comparison to their array of offensive spells (exception: a warlock under the effects of [Metamorphosis], a demonology talent but as of the Cataclysm expansion, Warlocks under the effects of [Metamorphosis] do not receive any melee abilities while the transformation is active). Generally when an opponent gets within melee range the warlock's best bet is to use disabling spells such as [Death Coil], [Fear], [Howl of Terror] or [Curse of Exhaustion] to get away from the enemy.

If acquiring range is not possible a warlock is by no means helpless. Defensively, a warlock can share his damage with his pet via [Soul Link] and reduce damage received with [Demon Armor], [Shadow Ward], and [Sacrifice]. Unlike a Hunter a warlock's ranged abilities have no minimum range and their powerful offensive spells can still be used to deal damage to opponents that are very close, though the spells will be more difficult to cast due to spell pushback caused by taking damage.

Specializations

Main article: Warlock talents

Affliction

A master of Shadow magic who specializes in fear, drains and damage-over-time spells.

Affliction warlocks are the masters of damage over time spells, plaguing their enemies with an array of Curses, Banes and DoTs, with their primary ability [Unstable Affliction] serving both to deal damage over time and prevent other DoTs from being dispelled. The Affliction tree has many talents to improve the warlock's DoTs, as well as an additional Curse, the [Curse of Exhaustion]. Affliction warlocks also excel at self-healing, drawing strength from their target's suffering with improved drain effects and the 31-point talent ability [Haunt].

Demonology

A warlock who uses both Fire and Shadow magic along with powerful demons.

The Demonology tree enhances warlocks' minions in many ways, improving their damage and survivability, granting them extra effects and potentially making their summoning free and instant. Demonology warlocks are also able to command the Felguard. While early talents improve the warlocks' stamina, armor and mana, the Demonology tree also has plenty of talents focused on dealing damage, improving both Fire and Shadow spells, as well as granting its own unique abilities. Finally, the 31-point Demonology talent ability [Metamorphosis] provides the warlock with both superb survivability and some new demonic powers to call his own.

Destruction

Calls down demonic fire to burn and demolish enemies.

Destruction warlocks focus on demolishing opponents with fast and powerful direct damage spells, with most talents improving these abilities in terms of speed, damage or additional effects. Later talents also bring some survivability and regeneration tools ( [Nether Ward], [Nether Protection], [Soul Leech]) but most of the Destruction warlock's talents are focused on dealing swift and devastating damage to their opponents, with enviable abilities such as [Shadowburn], [Bane of Havoc] and the 31-point talent ability [Chaos Bolt].

Talent builders can be found at Official Blizzard site, Wowhead, WorldofWar.se, Thottbot. Talent builds are also documented from contributors. See the Warlock talents page for detailed information and talent trees.

Professions

A felguard minion.

Engineering: Can create high level Bio-Optic Killshades and a reliable glove tinker. Also provides other useful (although sometimes unreliable) devices helpful for PVP and PVE situations

Jewelcrafting: Can cut high level gems, the most powerful of which are usable only by the jewelcrafter

Blacksmithing: Provides extra sockets, although plate and mail armor is useless for warlocks

Leatherworking: Provides a powerful bracer enchant usable only by the leatherworker, although leather armor is useless for warlocks

Alchemy: A popular profession due to the ability to create flasks and elixirs and use them at an increased bonus for the alchemist

Enchanting: Can provide enchants which improve your gear as well as others. Provides powerful ring enchants usable only by the enchanter

Inscription: Allows you to create glyphs and enchants. Provides powerful shoulder enchants usable only by the scribe

Tailoring: Useful for crafting high level gear for the warlock. Provides powerful cloak enchants usable only by the tailor

Herbalism: [Lifeblood] can be used to increase haste. Herbalism also allows warlocks to gather plants for other professions

Skinning: Gives an increase to crit as well as allowing the warlock to harvest animal hides

Mining: Provides stamina for the warlock that is useful for PvP. Also allows the warlock to gather ore

In-game expectations

Warlocks are taken to raids for their incredible dps and their raid utility. Warlocks are usually one of the highest sources of ranged DPS and also possess an array of utilities such as using [Ritual of Summoning] for late comers, conjuring Soulstones for combat resurrections, and distributing Healthstones. At higher levels, [Dark Intent] provides an excellent raid DPS boost, and warlocks are expected to coordinate targets between one another to maximize raid DPS. Warlocks are also well known for their CC abilities such as [Fear] and [Banish].

In PvP, Warlocks are incredibly useful as a support class for arenas and battlegrounds. DoT abilities such as [Corruption], [Bane of Agony], and [Unstable Affliction] spread between multiple player targets are excellent at generating pressure for opposing teams. [Unstable Affliction] also provides opponents with a hefty penalty for spam-dispelling debuffs. The felhunter also provides excellent anti-caster and anti-healer abilities with [Spell Lock] and [Devour Magic]. Finally, they are infamous for their PvP CC abilities such as [Fear], [Howl of Terror], and [Death Coil]. While burst damage is not as strong, [Demon Soul] can be used to help finish off low-health players.

Wrath of the Lich King

This section concerns content exclusive to Wrath of the Lich King.

Warlocks deal impressive damage through the careful combination of damage spells, dots, and pets, and their new talents and abilities reflect this role. In many cases abilities have had their damage increased or their mana cost reduced, making them more efficient for the warlock to use. Talents have been consolidated and moved in the tree to give you access to some important talents earlier on. Summoning your [Dreadsteed] or [Felsteed] no longer costs any mana and does not affect your global cooldown.

There have been some changes to the demon abilities.

• [Blood Pact] now works for the entire raid.
• [Consume Shadows] now also greatly increases nearby allies' [Stealth] detection.
• [Fel Intelligence] / [Shadow Bite] have replaced [Paranoia] / [Tainted Blood].

Cataclysm

This section concerns content exclusive to Cataclysm.

Warlock Tier Sets

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, warlocks receive changes to their class talents and abilities. Outlined below are some of these changes

Spells

• [Fel Flame] - Quick-hitting spell dealing Shadowfire damage.

• [Dark Intent] - Increases the target's chance for a critical effect with periodic damage or healing spells by 3%.

• [Demon Soul] - Fuses the warlock's soul with his or her demon. The specific effects granted by Demon Soul depend on the demon chosen.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

All warlock damage-over-time (DoT) spells will benefit from crit and haste innately. Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoT's duration, but rather to add additional ticks. Bane spells are considered magic instead of curses. This means you will be able to cast one Bane (e.g. Bane of Agony) and one Curse (e.g. Curse of Elements) on a single target.

• [Summon Succubus] - Melee range increased. The succubus [Soothing Kiss] removed, [Whiplash] added.
• [Summon Voidwalker] - [Torment] damage increased and generates AoE threat. [Suffering] is now a single-target taunt.
• [Summon Imp] - [Phase Shift] removed, [Flee] added.
• [Summon Felguard] - Now learned at level 10. Anguish, Cleave, [Demonic Frenzy] removed. Intercept reworked into [Pursuit]. [Axe Toss], [Legion Strike], [Felstorm] added.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Affliction

1. Spell Damage
2. Spell Crit
3. Shadow DoTs: The damage caused by Shadow damage-over-time spells is increased.

Demonology

1. Spell Damage
2. Spell Haste
3. Demon Damage: The damage caused by pets and Metamorphosis is increased.

Destruction

1. Spell Damage
2. Spell Critical Damage
3. Fire Direct Damage: The damage caused by Fire direct damage spells is increased.

Videos

• Cataclysm Talents and Abilities
• Cataclysm DPS Run Down

Macros and addons

Main article: Useful macros for warlocks

• Necrosis LdC is based on Necrosis 1 by infernal. It is described by its author as "a mod to help warlocks managing their stones, shards and summoning of demons". It provides sound notifications for various events, for example when Nightfall or Backlash combat states occur. It also has the ability to send party/raid notifications when casting SoulStone, Ritual of Souls, Ritual of Summoning — and many other messages, which can all be customized. As such, this is a very useful addon and perhaps the most widely used of all the warlock specific addons.
• DoTimer is an addon that times DoTs that you cast on other people. It supports all classes. There are four functions performed by DoTimer: the base DoT timer, a cooldown timer, a communications addon that lets you communicate your timers to others in your party, and a customizable notifications addon that can be set to notify you or others of specific events.
• Natur EnemyCastBar shows all buffs and debuffs on your character making it exceptional for raiding.
• ForteXorcist (also here) shows spell timers, cooldown timers and messages that you can set for yourself or the raid. On top of that, it also offers support for tracking Soulstones, shards and healthstones as well as a summoning assistant. Also, although the addon is primarily targeted at Warlocks, ForteXorcist can also be used with the other classes. In essence, ForteXorcist provides what Necrosis and DoTimer does with a few added extras.

See also

• List of warlocks
• Warlock instance grouping guide
• Warlock quests
• Leveling a warlock
• Warlock patch history
• Spell power coefficient

External links

• EU WoW forums
• US WoW forums
• The Warlocks Den

Warlock Balancing Describes the numerous changes to warlocks along with other classes in immense detail.

WowInsider Blood Pact - Warlock weekly feature at WoW Insider.

WowInsider Warlock guides at WoW Insider.

• Elitist Jerks Warlock Raiding Compendium - An in depth look at warlock raiding and the theory behind it.

Icy Veins Affliction, Demonology, and Destruction Warlock Raiding Guides (Cataclysm)