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		Warlock starting guide and tips Greetings, fellow practitioners of the dark arts! I decided to put together this guide because I've read plenty of other good information, but it's spread all over the place. The starting Warlock might have trouble tracking it all down through threads on bulletin boards and web pages. Besides, much of the best stuff is written from the perspective of someone who's played to a very high level, and their priorities will differ from that of a beginning and mid-level 'lock. Also, there are different types of Warlock, depending on your play style and where you spend your talent points. I am an affliction 'lock, with a minor in Demonology. I'll comment on the destruction line of talents, but please take what I say on the subject with a pinch of salt - it's not my speciality. Shortstop
Soul Shards Just a few words first of all about Soul Shards - these are gained from killing a foe with "Drain Soul" (a Level10 spell). As well as being used for summoning pets (except the Imp, which doesn't need one) they are needed to cast many spells. Unfortunately they don't stack in the inventory, so while you'd like to carry lots, you'll need to balance this against having enough space left to haul away your loot. The basic usage of "Drain Soul" is: set your pet on a target, cast some DoT's (Damage over Time spells) and wait or blast it until it only has about 25% hit points remaining. Then cast "Drain Soul" on it - a purple effect will connect you to the target and a "Channelling" bar will appear on your screen. Don't move while you are channelling or the spell will end. Drain Soul will do damage to the target, and if the target dies before the channelling ends, you'll get a Soul Shard appear in your backpack. Being hit while Channelling can interrupt the spell leaving you with no Soul Shard, so this is best done while the pet is doing the tanking work or if the target turns and runs because it's low on hit points. I like to have at least six shards on me at any one time, more if I can spare the space and know I will be making Healthstones for my group. Note that some mob's aren't alive and so don't have a Soul (Harvest Watchers and similar mechanicals for example) so you can't get Soul Shards off them. Curses, curses on you I say! Casting curse spells on things is one of our most important abilities, but there's a few thing you have to bear in mind. These things should influence your spell casting choices, and sometimes your casting order. First and foremost, remember that a mob can only have one Curse spell cast on it per Warlock. If you cast a second Curse spell it will overwrite the first. Of course, if you have two Warlocks in the party you can both lay a different spell on the target, but other than that you need to make sure the spell you cast is the best one for the job. Note that the "one only" rule applies only to Curses. Corruption, Immoliate and Shadow Bolt aren't curses, so you can hit the target with those without dispelling the Curse you've placed on it. As many times as you like. My mental process when I target a mob goes as follows: Is it a spell caster? If yes, and you have reached the dizzy heights of level 26 and above, then you should probably hit it with Curse of Tongues (CoT). This increases the amount of time it takes the mob to cast it's spells. This works well because generally it's the casters spells which make 'em dangerous if left unchecked, so anything you do to reduce their spell output significantly reduces the threat a caster represents. If you get CoT on it, sic your pet against it and have a fast casting Wand to do some interruption you can sometimes stop it from casting spells completely. Do this not only for offensive spellcasters (like Mages, in PvP) but also for Healers. Stopping the latter from getting off a healing spell is just as valuable as preventing a Mage from hitting you with some kind of direct damage spell. If No, or if you haven't got CoT yet, then move onto question 2. Which is: Is the fight likely to last as long as 30 seconds? If you are in a group and everyone is piling in against the one target, the answer is likely to be no, unless the mob is a big bad boss. Otherwise you'll just have to get a feel for how long it takes to kill each type of mob from experience. The reason you should be asking this question is down to the way your other primary choice Curse spells work. The early choice of Curses is limited to Curse of Agony (CoA) and Curse of Weakness (CoW). The first does a steadily increasing trickle of damage over 30 seconds, with most of it's damage hitting towards the end. The second reduces the physical damage done by the mob with every blow. If the fight only lasts about 20 seconds you won't have done very much damage with CoA, so perhaps CoW would have been a better choice. If the mob in question gets a lot of attacks out (some types of Gnoll in the mid 20's range seem to attack at machinegun speeds) then CoW is also going to give you a better overall benefit. On the other hand, if CoA does run it's course, you've added a good amount of damage to the target, one which will help shorten the fight. If it's dead quick, then it's total damage output over the whole fight will have been lower too, won't it? The choice has to be down to the timing issue as well as personal preference. CoW doesn't reduce the damage by a huge amount, and it's always tempting to want to do more damage to the target rather than reduce the damage output of the target. Ideally you'd like to do both, but given that you can't unless you are teamed up with another Warlock, your choice will have to be situational. Later choices include Curse of Recklessness (CoR) at level 14 and Curse of the Elements (CoE) at level 28. CoR stops the target from running away, as most intelligent foes are prone to do when they get down to about 25% of their hit points. This is invaluable for preventing it from running back to it's friends and drawing them into the fight. CoR does give the mob an attack boost, but it also reduces it's armour value. I find the best way to go is to put another curse on the target until it's nearly dead, then overwrite that one with CoR towards the end of the fight to stop it running. Curse of Elements is a situational spell - it does nothing by itself, but weakens the targets resistance to elemental based damage. Some of our spells are element based (Immoliate, Searing Pain), but this also covers most of the spells a Mage casts. If you are grouped with a Mage, hitting the target with CoE at the beginning will increase the damage the Mage does with his spells. This is usually a good thing, though it can mean the Mage does so much damage the tank can't keep aggro and the mob runs over to attack the Mage. This often results in a dead Mage and/or an annoyed healer, who has been forced to split his concentration between the Tank and the Mage, so use with care. CoE also helps with the damage from some types of wand. Since the potential benefit completely depends on what wand you have and how you like to fight, I'll leave you to experiment and find out what works best for you. At level 38 you will get Curse of Idiocy (CoI?). This spell progressively makes the target... dumber. This reduction in Intellect and Spirit slowly cripples the targets spell casting ability, and is another option for use against enemy spell casters. Other spell lines Curse spells are only one part of our armoury. Direct Damage: Shadowbolt, Searing Pain. Shadowbolt is our direct damage spell, and very nice it is too. It uses a lot of mana per cast though, and it's not the fastest spell off the blocks. I usually save it for finishing off a target which is already on the ropes, after cursing and DoTing it and then spamming it with my Wand. Since the wand costs me no mana to use I save a sigificant amount of downtime. Actually, when I solo my downtime is almost always just to wait for my Pet to recover, as my mana stays around 75% full most of the time because of the use of the wand. Searing Pain does less damage but only takes half as long to cast. Spamming Searing Pain can take down an opponent fast. It does upset the target a great deal though, which tends to mean the tank/pet will lose aggro. Save it for when the target is already on the way out, or for PvP when your opponent will probably be ignoring your Pet and trying to kill you anyway. Both of these spells are good. Area effect: Rain of Fire, Hellfire. Rain of Fire allows you to drop fire damage over quite a large area. You'd want to do this only if there are lots of targets to hit - and of course it's not powerful enough to kill them all, so a lot of them will probably run over and attack you for doing so. Your tank probably won't thank you for this, and neither will your healer. If you are solo and you for some reason want to drag the mobs off your pet, this is one way to do it, but other than that... not a lot of use. Looks funky though, so it's a fun way to impress the local kiddies... Hellfire is another thing entirely. Hellfire does a lot of damage to everything in the area. Including yourself. It will kill you in seconds. You can kill a lot of things with this spell, if you live long enough. Now, if you have a healer to keep you upright, (or the targets in the area are already battered and close to death) this is a perfectly feasable tactic. I have several wildly successful uses of this spell under my belt, which give me a warm, snuggly feeling for this spell. Not as warm as you will get while using it though. Dot: Immoliate, Corruption. With the proper selection of talents, Corruption can be made instant cast, which is very handy. In general, everything I fight gets a Curse, Corruption and Immoliate on it, often before it's even got close enough to hit me or my pet back. Corruption eats away at the target gradually, while Immoliate does most of it's damage up front, followed by an ongoing trickle. Both are good. Both should be used on the target as frequently as needed. Just chuck the lot. When they wear off, if it's still alive, chuck 'em on again. Protection: Demon Skin, Demon Armour. These spells give you a boost to your armour, and also increase your health regeneration, meaning you'll get your hit points back a bit faster when you're wounded. Have whichever one is the most powerful for your level on at all times. Odd stuff: Unending breath, Detect Lesser Invisibility, Sense Demon, Banish, Enslave Demon. Unending breath means you can stay underwater for about 5 minutes. This is actually a bigger bonus than you'd think. Since most people will be fighting on the shore, there are things in the sea and lakes that you can fight without anyone else getting in the way. Also, if you are a miner you'll find that there are ore nodes underwater that most people never find. Chests too. You can get to them easily. Detect Lesser Invisibility helps spot things with Invisibility Effects on them. This doesn't happen often, but will become increasingly common later on in the game. Unfortunately, Rogue Stealth doesn't seem to count. Sense Demon... lets you spot Demons in the area by marking them on your mini map. Enslave Demon would let you make one your pet. Except that you probably won't be able to make the spell stick against any Demons you meet until you get a lot higher level than that covered by this guide. Banish would allow you to send one away for a while, and during it's duration the creature (it also works on Elementals) can't attack or be attacked. Its a kind of crowd control, or a way to get it off your back while you run, but only for Demons and Elementals. Which you probably won't meet often until you are past the mid levels, with luck. Getting more Mana: Life Tap, Drain Mana. Life tap lets you convert your own health into mana. Since I use a wand so much and save my mana, I hardly ever have to use this. But if you like to spam things with your Shadowbolt you'd want to have Life Tap to hand for when you run low (which will be very soon if you cast more than a couple of Shadowbolts in a single fight). Drain Mana sucks mana from an enemy caster and gives it to you. Obviously it only works if the target has mana, which means against spellcasters only. While it's nice to think that you could drain enough mana to stop them from being able to cast, it doesn't really take enough off the target fast enough to be a valid tactic. Drain Mana is handy for topping up your mana bar though, if your pet and other spells have already got it on the ropes. Making things run away: Fear. Fear makes the target run away. Fear Kiting involves slapping a Curse and a couple of DoT's on the target, then making it run away so it can't hit you while it slowly erodes away and you smack it with Shadowbolts from a distance. In an open area and with a little careful timing you can have two or three (my record for kiting is four) targets on the go all at once. The first level of Fear only lasts for 10 seconds, but the mob then has to get back to you, making the total breathing space about 20 seconds. Later levels last a little longer still. Fear is also useful for giving yourself a head start if you need to run. On the down side, the target might run into something else and aggro it before it returns, so you might find it coming back with backup. Generally this is painful, especially if you are showing off by juggling three mobs at once. Fear Kiting also works well in PvP - especially if you have your Sucky up. Watching her chasing your opponent around cracking the whip on his bum can seriously lighten your day. Heal your pet: Health Funnel. This takes health from you and gives it to your pet. Very useful to extend the life of your pet in a tough fight, but a bit counterproductive if you yourself are being beaten on severely at the time. A critical spell to practice with, but use with care. Heal yourself: Drain Life. This spell sucks health off the target and gives it to you, and is the basis of the Drain Tanking tactic. The mob which is beating on you will probably outdamage this spell so you will take an overall loss, but with your Imp or Sucky cracking away at it as well you'll probably be able to last long enough to take it down. Drain Life is also a useful "finishing off" spell if the mob already has your full range of DoT's and Curses on it and your pet is tanking. You could kill it with shadowbolts, but if you've taken a bit of damage, why not heal that up while you finish off the target? Create Soul Shards: Drain Soul. This spell works pretty much like Drain Life, but instead of returning health to you, if the target dies while you are channeling you get a Soul Shard. See the section at the top of this guide for why this is a good thing and why you'll want to keep a few of these around. Because the mob actually has to die while you are channelling it's best to leave this spell until the mob is down to about 25% hit points so you can be sure it'll die in the process. You can only get a Soul Shard off a mob that also gives you experience. So it's no good trying to get one by casting it on the Rabbits and other critters that scamper around the Warcraft world. You'll need to fight something which could potentially hurt you. Reconnaisance: Eye of Kilrogg. This spell creates a floating sphere which becomes your point of view. You can move it just as you would your character, and it's useful for sending into buildings and around corners to see what might be lying in wait. The eye can be attacked and it has very few hit points, though if you are careful it probably won't be noticed. Unfortunately you can't cast spells through it. The eye lasts for as long as the channeling continues, and when it ends you return to your usual point of view. Cast it from a safe point - while it's on you are vulnerable to being attacked and won't even know you're being hit unless you notice your channelling bar dropping a bit rapidly. Oh, it's also good for taking group screenshots that include yourself... Summoning people to you: Ritual of Summoning. This spell allows you to teleport a party member to you from anywhere in the world (almost). Now, it's a bit of a fiddly process, and it uses up Soul Shards. Worse, you need two other people, they have to know what they are doing and be able to follow instruction. Because very few people who play World of Warcraft seem to meet these criteria, this spell almost never goes right first time and everyone gets very frustrated. The summoning ritual goes like this: get together a pair of people who are willing to help you summon. Add the person who you need to summon to the group. Click on that persons portrait. Tell everyone in the group to stay still, and that they must not move during the ritual or it will fail. Cast the spell to create the portal. Tell the two helpers to right click on the portal. Curse the idiot who moves and breaks the spell, costing you a Soul Shard and forcing you to start again. Repeat. Eventually, you should get the target to appear through the portal, if everyone hasn't got in a huff and stomped off in the meantime. Some Warlocks charge for summoning, particularly for bringing people to difficult to reach locations. The going rate varies from server to server, and most Warlocks crank the price up if the person asking is rude, or expects you to do the hunting around for the two helpers. Some Warlocks charge in order to put people off asking - it's a right pain to be treated as a Taxi service. I usually ask for 1g for myself, and 1g for each person I have to find to help. I find I get a variety of responses to this, from outrage to happy, repeat customers. Of course, I don't charge for friends, people who ask politely when I'm not busy doing something else, fellow party members or other Warlocks who know exactly how much of a pain summoning is and so appreciate your effort in helping them. You cannot summon someone into or out of an instance. You can summon someone to you once they are within the same instance as you are, which is handy if you are already deep inside and someone died and couldn't be resurrected for some reason. They can run back to the instance entry point and then you can pull them the rest of the way back to the group safely with a summon. If you can get your two helpers to actually stand still for 30 seconds, anyway. Stones. Warlocks get a range of spells to create magical stones from Soul Shards. In general you can only have one of each type at any one time, and they fade away if you log out for more than 15 minutes. In some cases you can give them away to people, which isn't a viable trade opportunity but can be very helpful in a group. Healthstones speak for themselves. You open your backpack, click on one and it heals you. Now, healing potions (found in loot or bought from a merchant) will do the same. But there is a cooldown period after using one, during which you can't use another potion, so in a prolonged fight where you are taking a lot of damage you might find yourself still in trouble. Healthstones are on a different cooldown timer to the potions, so you can use one of these as well as a potion, which is very handy. Unfortunately you can only have one healthstone in your pack at any one time, though you can make one, give it to a friend to use and make another for yourself. You can also spend talent points to make each Healthstone you make heal more damage. While this is generally a good thing, I don't usually find that having a Healthstone will actually win me a fight very often, so I spent my ability points somewhere else. Soulstones need special discussion. Many players, even many Warlocks, don't know how to use these properly. Both groups need education, because the Soulstone is extremely useful to a group in a dungeon/instance. Here's why. By casting the soulstone on someone, when they die they get the option to resurrect on the spot rather than going to the graveyard. This buff lasts 30 minutes, and can save you the time and annoyance of running back to reach your corpse and starting over from where you were. But in a group it serves a greater purpose - if you cast it on the party healer and he knows what to do. See, most times you find that fights in an instance either go well, with no deaths, are mildly tough, with perhaps one death, or are a total disaster when the whole party gets wiped out. If you lose one or two people the healer(s) can usually resurrect them and after a brief downtime the party can continue. But if the whole party is wiped out everyone faces having to not only run back from the graveyard, but because you will return to your corpse as soon as you reenter the instance you'll also have to work your way back to where you all died. Sometimes mobs you missed the first time get in the way, or sometimes they respawn. As a result, a complete wipe out is a royal pain in the butt. But if the healer is soulstoned... in the case of a wipeout, he just waits until the mobs have finished and run off, then ressurrects on the spot and begins bringing the rest of the party back. Easy, quick and far less painless. Generally I find you have to explain the use of a Soulstone to most players, even quite high level ones. Depressingly, I've also had to explain their use to other Warlocks. Things like that are what prompted me to write this guide. (But that's not as bad as the 14th level Warlock who asked me why he couldn't summon the Voidwalker. It turned out he hadn't heard of Soul Shards, and had spent the last four levels struggling along wondering why his new spells didn't work and why it was getting so hard to beat things in fights...) Firestones. Held in the off hand (so, no two handed weapons for you) these stones add bonus fire damage to attacks you make with the weapon in your main hand. I suppose that's a good thing - every Warlock should train up with weapons, because you will need to use them sometimes. But by doing quests you will get other items which are held in the off hand which provide better benefits, and as a consequence I don't use Firestones myself. If for some reason you never get anything better for your off hand, try out a Firestone. May as well fill up a slot if it's free and get a little benefit. Personally I favour a nice staff anyway, so I don't have a hand free to hold a Firestone. The care and feeding of pets. We don't actually need to feed our pets, unlike Hunters. I have no idea what most of our pets eat - given that they are Demons, this is probably a good thing. Our pets do require looking after however. Knowing each types strengths and weaknesses, and the situations they are best suited for is essential. In all cases, pet skills and abilities can be trained up, and some of the abilities I discuss below don't come "as standard" with the pet when you first get it. Always buy the grimoires from the dealer and train your pets up as high as they can go for their level. A list of Grimoires for doing this, and the levels you can get them is here. You also have the option of improving your pets with ability points, which I'll discuss in more detail later in this article. One general bonus to having a pet is their ability to distract an opponent you want to get away from. If you are jumped by something too tough to beat, don't attack it. Your pet will attack as soon as you are hit, drawing aggro from you and it will continue to fight the mob while you run. By the time it dies, hopefully you are far enough away that the mob loses interest in you and you can settle down and re-summon your pet. I have lost track of how many times this has saved my bacon when travelling through tough areas. By far the best pet for this tactic is the Voidwalker, but the others will do too. One tip: while you can jump off ramps and platforms things while inside dungeons, your pet probably won't. Instead, he will shoot off and find his own way back to you, via whatever route is shortest. In a dungeon this usually means he will aggro mobs on the way and when he arrives (if he doesn't die en route) will be trailing a load of annoyed creatures which he will deliver straight on top of you. If your group seems disposed to take shortcuts, warn them of this before they start or you'll all get mobbed. Note the "Phase Shift" ability described for the Imp, or Invisibility for the Succubus - with these up the pet shouldn't aggro nearby mobs, so it's probably safe if he or she takes a short detour. It is still possible for the pet to get so far behind that he gets unsummoned however, so keep half an eye on your minimap to see where he is. Imp. Our starting pet, this little green fella gives us a number of benefits. Firebolts. Blood Pact Fire Shield Phase shift The Imp's Firebolts add up to a nice increase in damage output. If you are fighting solo, don't use him to tank because he doesn't have enough hit points and will die very quickly. Pull the target by casting spells at it, and let it attack you. Your Imp will then pile in, but you should try to keep aggro so the Imp won't get killed. See the section on "Drain Tanking" below for some more tips and tactics. Unless you love Drain Tanking the Imp will probably not be your Pet of choice for solo hunting as soon as you get the Voidwalker at Level10. However, he becomes a useful choice later on in group situations and PvP. If you are in a group, someone else should be tanking, and hopefully will be holding the aggro. In that situation you should /assist and set your Imp on the target. His damage output will make a big difference to how soon the mob drops. In PvP, you will usually find that your opponent will attack you directly - in that case you may as well have the Imp cranking out damage while you fight. This makes the Imp a reasonable choice in PvP and in some groups. It's also a bonus that he doesn't cost Soul Shards to summon. Blood Pact. This buff (a buff is a spell or effect that gives you benefits) gives you a bonus to your Stamina. This translates into extra hit points. As a nice bonus, this affects anyone else you are grouped with as well, making the Imp a popular addition to groups. In fact, at higher levels the Imp is often the pet of choice amongst people you will group with, mostly for the Blood Pact boost. Fire Shield. Another buff, this one burns anyone who hits you for a small amount of damage. Again, this works on anyone in your party, and while the damage isn't high it all helps. However, this ability isn't enough of a benefit for anyone to get excited about. Phase Shift. Once he's learned it, the Imp will cast it on himself whenever he's not in combat. This makes him invisible and nothing will aggro him if he gets too close. As a result he's safe for those times you are in a cramped space somewhere and don't want to risk pulling nearby mobs. You and your group still get the Blood Pact and Fire Shield buffs while he's Shifted. Unfortunately, Phase Shift disappears as soon as he starts casting Firebolts, and he will always try and keep at range from the target. As a result, the Imp will often aggro nearby mobs by running close to them, so some groups ban Imps unless the Warlock keeps them on "Passive" so they give the Blood Pact and Fire Shield buffs but just stand next to the Warlock and ignore any fights. Voidwalker The Voidwalker, aka "Blueberry" is your personal tank. He has the following abilities: Sacrifice Torment Suffering Consume Shadows The Voidwalker does very little damage, but he has a lot of hit points. His main purpose is to be beaten on by the mob while you cast spells at it. As such he's very useful when you are soloing, and is probably the pet of choice for this in most situations. Sacrifice. By Sacrificing your Voidwalker, you gain a short duration (30sec) damage shield. Using this effectively takes timing and practice, but it's well worth it. Basically, if the Voidwalker is down to a sliver of health and the mobs are still beating on it, and you can't heal your pet using "Health Funnel" for some reason, you may as well sacrifice him and get the damage shield for 30 seconds. This may give you enough time to get away from the mob, but it also has other uses. For example, in PvP you will probably find that most enemies will ignore your pet and attack you. Since the Voidwalker does so little damage, you will probably benefit more from the damage shield, which should give you time to cast a couple more spells. If you put ability points into getting the "Master Summoner" ability, you may even be able to summon a different pet before it wears off - which makes some interesting tactics possible. Torment. This ability "taunts" the target, allowing the Voidwalker to keep aggro. This is it's main function, and Grimoire improvements in it whenever you can are a must or you'll find yourself outdamaging the Voidwalker so much that it won't be able to keep aggro throughout the whole fight. Suffering. This is an area effect taunt, which allows the Voidwalker to pull several mobs off the target. Very useful. It does seem to drain a significant chunk of the Voidwalkers meager mana pool though, and I find he runs out of mana a bit more often than I'd like. So switch this off whenever you don't need it using the control buttons on the pet bar. Consume Shadows. This is the Voidwalkers "self-heal" ability. Won't work in combat, but works fast out of it. The pet stays still during the 10 seconds it runs, so don't run too far ahead. It does require a chunk of mana - the Voidwalkers, though if it doesn't have enough it will be you who says "I don't have enough mana!" instead of the Voidwalker. I guess this is because the Voidwalker can't talk, but it confused me for a few seconds the first time it happened. Because of the way the Voidwalker often runs low on mana, I often find I have to wait a few seconds after the fight before the Voidwalker has enough to heal himself, then wait a few more after he's finished before he's got enough mana back to be able to taunt and be useful in the next fight. As stated earlier, the Voidwalker is the pet of choice for tanking mobs, and has only minor uses in PvP. In a group, he can be useful, depending on the exact composition of your team. Even a Warrior won't mind your pet taking a few hits if it means he doesn't have to, and the "area effect" of Suffering means the Tank can concentrate on one mob at a time. In an emergency, such as when mobs start to bypass the tanks and attack the casters and healers, the Voidwalker is excellent for quickly pulling them off again. As an affliction based Warlock will spend most of their time at the back, you will be in the perfect position to rescue them if you have a Voidwalker up. Just don't set the Blueberry on them if he's already got another group of mobs beating on him, or the other mobs will follow along and you'll be dragging all those mobs away from the tanks and into the middle of your spellcasters. Succubus. The Succubus (aka Sucky) does a lot more damage than the Voidwalker, but doesn't have anything like the hit points. Don't expect her to be as good a tank as the Voidwalker. For Drain Tankers she is great as an extra damage machine however. She also develops some potentially useful crowd control abilities. The Succubus must be gained through a quest - there are different versions for different races of Warlock, and they are nicely detailed here. The Succubus has the following abilities: Soothing kiss Seduction Lash of Pain Lesser Invisibility Soothing kiss. This spell reduces the aggro the Succubus has gathered, meaning it might attack something else. Since the Succubus isn't as tough as a proper tank, this allows you to use it to do extra damage without getting it killed. If you are lucky. Seduction. Crowd control. This one works like the Voidwalkers area taunt, but it mesmerizes mobs in an area for up to 15 seconds. This effect is cancelled if a mob takes damage. Difficult to use effectively without a tight team and practice, but very useful if you can pull it off. Lash of Pain. This is the Succubus' attack. The whip does pretty good damage, and the Blizzard site indicates that this is weapon that can Backstab, getting a chance to do extra damage if she attacks from behind. I haven't noticed this happening, but I may just have missed it in the frenzy of melee. Whatever the truth about the Lash of Pain and it's backstabbing ability, the Succubus is a great damage dealer, but is no tank. If you are Drain Tanking, the Succubus will do wonders for your damage output. In a group, the Succubus is good to add into a melee as long as the tanks can keep aggro. Because she is in close (unlike the Imp) she's less likely to aggro nearby monsters. On the down side, she doesn't give the party any nice buffs. I've had mixed results from her crowd control abilities however - they are of short duration and in the confusion of a melee it's difficult to keep other players from attacking what you've just mezzed. If you are regularly with the same group of people and can train them up, it should be good for keeping extra mobs out of combat while your group kill them one at a time. Lesser Invisibility. With this up the Succubus can't be seen by most mobs, and so won't aggro them. Some things can still see through Lesser Invisibility (well you can for example, as you get a spell for it) so she's still get spotted in some places. Felhunter. The Felhunter (aka Spiky Thing) is also found through a quest, which is nicely detailed here. The Felhunter is a bit of a specialist pet. It has doesn't have a lot of hit points, and it doesn't do a huge amount of damage. However, it's useful against enemy spellcasters, as one of it's abilities allows it to "eat" spells cast on it, healing itself. The Felhunter has the following special abilities: Tainted Blood Spell Lock Devour Magic Paranoia Tainted Blood. The Felwalker "infects" the target with an odd DoT (damage over time). Next time the Felhunter gets hit, the attacker has their attack power reduced. The DoT can infect the target multiple times. Now, no mob can have more than six debuffs on it at one time, so if you are in a group with, say, a Shaman or a Druid, they'll be casting DoT's, you'll be casting DoT's... and the Felwalkers little Tainted Blood one is too wimpy to waste a slot on. If you are solo you may as well let it do it's stuff, but in a group with other casters who can DoT, turn it off. Spell Lock. This ability suppresses the spellcasting ability of a target, and is what makes the Felhunter so useful against spellcasters. Devour Magic. This ability allows the Felhunter to heal itself by eating spells that have been cast on it. This works for DoT's but not for direct damage spells. The amount of healing isn't huge, but it's a boost that could seriously upset a casters day. Paranoia. This ability allows the Felhunter to detect Rogues and other annoyances who are using Stealth to remain hidden. Particularly useful in PvP where Rogues are a pain in the ass, sneaking up on people and backstabbing 'em... grrr! The Felwalker himself isn't the most useful pet for actually fighting a Rogue, but at least you'd know he was coming. The Felhunter is a useful pet once it's special abilities are all up to par, but it's use is going to be very situational. If you are soloing, you'll need to find things which rely particularly on spells and don't want to melee, because that's probably where the Felhunter works best. If you are in a group, likewise... though a pair of Warlocks, one with a Felhunter up and one with a Voidwalker or Succubus can wreak havoc with most spellcasters if they get their timing right. Higher level pets I'm not going to go into the details of Infernals and Doomguards, nor into the possibilities of enslaved Demons. That's for a different guide, which I will write when I get time... Spending your ability points First thing to note - once you've chosen where to put an ability point (you get one at Level10 and another at each level after that) the point is stuck there unless you pay a Warlock trainer cash to "respec". Now, your needs will change as you reach the higher levels, so choose carefully for what you are doing now and expect to be doing in the near future. If you are level 12 you shouldn't be worrying about what you'll want to be doing when you're level 60. The ability points you spend early on will make it possible to actually reach the higher levels, and you'll easily have the money to respec before that point. Respecing quickly starts costing a lot of money - don't do it unless you really need to! Abilities for the Warlock come in three flavours. You won't get enough points to become expert at all of them, and some of the choices are of debatable value. The dedicated Demonologist Some of the ability points you start getting from level10 onwards can a nice difference to the pets, and these are mostly in the Demonology tree. The Tier 1 talent "Improved Imp" adds to the Imps Firebolt damage, Blood Pact and Fire Shield Buffs. There are three levels, with each adding a 10% improvement to these abilities. A maxed out Imp is considerably more effective than the plain vanilla version. Now, given that at lower levels the Imp isn't used as much (unless you PvP a lot) there's a good case for leaving the Improved Imp ability alone until later on. Instead, I initially put my points into Demonic Embrace. Five levels of this gets you to the point where you can start putting points into Tier 2 - and the extra stamina from Demonic Embrace is useful at the low and mid levels when you know you'll sometimes be hit, but you also know the things that hit you are unlikely to kill you with one blow (something you will need to worry about at later levels). Improved Healthstone could also be a reasonable choice at Tier 1 - two points get you a Healthstone which heals for an extra 20% Tier 2 gives you the option "Fel Intellect", which gives your pets a Mana boost. While this is nice, only a few seconds downtime between fights will see your pets mana rocket back up again anyway. It might be an issue if you are in prolonged fights with big groups of mobs, and I've already described how the Voidwalker seems to wear himself out a bit quick, casting wise, so this could be a good choice. Also in it's favour, Fel Intellect is a prerequisite for the Tier 3 "Fel Stamina", which increases pet hit points. But I think a better first choice at this Tier (for the Warlock who likes to stand back and cast) is Improved Voidwalker. This gives the Blueberry a boost to his taunting ability, letting him hold aggro better. You can still do enough damage that the mob will turn on you, but it's a lot harder. When you have the points - get both these abilities. The last at this Tier is Improved Health Funnel. This increases the healing you do to your pet through the Health Funnel spell, which is another great ability that will keep your pet going for those few precious seconds longer and can make or break a fight. It's a tough choice at Tier 2, because they are all good. Personally I went with Improved Voidwalker first, then got Improved Health Funnel, then moved on to Tier 3 and came back for Fel Intellect later. At Tier 3, there is Fel Stamina, but only if you have already got Fel Intellect - this gives a nice boost to pet stamina, The Voidwalker already has a lot of hit points - this ability gives him and the others up to 15% more. This makes the Succubus that bit tougher, so she can survive in the thick of combat a bit longer. Also available at Tier 3 is Improved Succubus - if your style is to tank while Sucky whips away, you will want to take this ability as it improves her Soothing Kiss and Seduction skills, making her better at crowd control. The other choice at Tier 3 is Fel Domination. Now, I was very tempted by this, as it reduces summoning time by a whopping 5.5 seconds and halves the mana cost. But when I thought about it - I almost always summon before I get into combat. The only time I can see needing the summon spell to work faster and cheaper is if my Voidwalker has just been sacrificed for his damage screen and I'm trying to summon another pet before it wears off. While this might be good in PvP occasionally, I think if I'm in that situation most of the time I'd rather be casting spells that do more damage to my opponent. That's just my thought on the matter, and your milage may vary. Besides, it only costs 1 point. At this Tier I went for Improved Succubus and then Fel Stamina (once I had the Fel Intellect prerequisite). At Tier 4, there is Master Summoner (as long as you put a point into Fel Domination). This reduces the casting time of your summoning spells still further, by 2 seconds per level. So, if you max it out you can summon a pet in half a second. This could be interesting in PvP, and I guess three points isn't so much to spend for such an effect, but it depends on how often you think you'll be using the "swap pets in mid combat" trick. The other option at this level is "Master Summoner", which reduces the time to create Healthstones, Soulstones, Spellstones and Firestones. Now, I can't see a lot of need to do this in a hurry. Myself I didn't put any points into this Tier, having already got what I wanted out of the Demonology tree. By the time you reach the point of being able to put points into Tier 5, you are probably high enough level that you need to be looking at the advanced Warlock guide I mean to write soon. The Able Afflictionist After Demonology, you have the simple choice of "Do I want to cast Damage over Time while someone else (or my pet) tanks" or "Do I want to do more direct boom boom damage with my spells?" If DoT's are your thing, the affliction tree is the way to go. Tier 1 gives you the choice of "Suppression" or "Improved Corruption". Now, Suppression is supposed to reduce the targets chance of resisting your spells. In practice, I find that my spells stick almost always on mobs up to two levels higher than I am, and usually stick on mobs three level higher. Apparently, 5 levels of Suppression reduces the targets resistance by about one levels worth. Now, when I solo I usually do so against things one to three levels higher than me. If a spell doesn't stick the first time, it usually does the second time. If I'm casting on something tougher than that I'm probably not going to be able to kill it anyway. Five points is a lot to spend on something that I would hardly ever survive using. So I put no points into Suppression. Improved Corruption however, is a goody. It reduces the casting time of your Corruption spell, making it harder to interrupt. At level 5 it becomes instant cast - which means you can cast it on the run. Now, in any combat, no matter what your build, this has got to be good, especially since the other option at this Tier is only so so. Tier 2 gives you the options of Improving many of the key spells. Curse of Weakness can be improved by up to 20% which is a significant improvement and makes the spell considerably more useful. Improved Drain Soul is less useful - instead of increasing the amount of Mana drained, the spell gains the chance of getting the user up to a 100% increase in mana regeneration for 10 seconds, but only if the target dies while the spell is being cast. Now, this doesn't happen very often, so I'd call this a bit of a waste of ability points. Improved Life Tap increases the amount of hit points provided by the Life Tap spell by up to 20% giving you more mana for the hit points you lose. If you find yourself regularly running low on mana and needing to convert hit points to cast more spells, this is a good talent to choose. Improved Drain Life increases the amount of hit points drained from the target over the course of the spell by up to 10%. Anything that increases the amount of damage you are doing while Drain Tanking is a good thing. Potentially anything at Tier 2 could be good for you except Drain Soul, the choice depending on your play style. Tier 3. At this Tier, you have the option of improving Curse of Agony by up to 6%. That's not actually a great deal more, especially since the spell still does most of it's damage right at the end of its run, which it may or may not reach. Your call on whether the ability points are worth it for such a small increase. Amplify Curse however only costs 1 ability point. For that you get a 50% increase on the effect of the next Curse of Weakness and Curse of Agony you cast, and at later levels a 20% boost on Curse of Exhaustion. Now, it manifests as a seperate "spell" you need to remember to cast before you cast your curse, and it has a cooldown period that means you won't be able to use it as often as you'd like, but for one point it's a great talent, and I highly recommend it. Finally, there is Fel Concentration. This reduces the chance that when a mob hits you your spell will be interrupted. So, if you are using Drain Life on something which is hitting you, you have up to 70% chance that you will just take the damage and keep on Draining. This is great for anyone who does Drain Tanking, and very useful for anyone else too, as everyone will get into a situation where they need to cast while being attacked sometime. My choices at this tier were Fel Concentration and Amplify Curse. Tier 4 gives you Grim Reach, an increase in range for your spells. This might let you get one more spell off in certain situations, but probably won't completely change your Warlocking life in any significant way. Another option at this Tier is Nightfall, which gives you a chance to reduce the casting time of your next Shadowbolt by 100%. That is, the next one becomes instant cast. Now, this could be very useful, as Shadowbolt does a lot of damage. This proc (short for "process" - apparently some game programmers term for an effect that kicks in occasionally) could shorten a fight considerably, and it kicks in up to 3% of the time. Remember that the mana cost of Shadowbolt is still paid. Finally at this Tier you have Improved Drain Mana, which causes damage to the target of your Drain Mana spell, as well as delivering the mana to you. If you are fighting casters it would be nice to do a little damage while you are snaffling his mana, but I personally felt Nightfall to be a better choice. By the time you are thinking about Tier 5 and upwards you'll be too high a level for this guide. The Destructolock. The point of this talent tree is to increase your direct damage killing power, which is of course a great thing. Tier 1 gives you Improved Shadowbolt or Cataclysm. There is no contest here - 5 levels of Cataclysm (the most mis-named talent I can think of!) reduces the mana cost of your destruction spells by 5%. This is pretty much unnoticable really, and the only Cataclysm I can see is in wasting five ability points. Five points in Improved Shadowbolt however increases the amount of damage done by any destruction spell by 20%, though only after you score a critical hit. It may not happen very often, but when it does this could be powerful. Note that this effect shows as a "debuff" an effect that sticks to the target for a while. While it's there all sources of shadow damage will be increased by 20% - including those generated by other casters in your group. In the right group this can be devastating. This is the one to choose at this tier folks. Tier 2 offers you Bane or Aftermath. Now, Bane reduces the casting time of your Shadowbolt and Immoliate spells. Not by much, but even a half a second off this time increases the potential damage you could do over the duration of a fight. Aftermath on the other hand just gives up to a 10% chance that the target of your destruction spells will be dazed for 5 seconds. Five seconds of them standing there dazed is pretty worthless compared to what Bane could be giving you, so this is another tier where there is only one sensible choice. Tier 3 gives you more choices. Improved Firebolt affects your Imps firebolt spell, reducing it's casting time by up to 1 second. This increased it's damage output significantly, and as we've said earlier, the Imp is a good choice of pet in many situations. Improved Lash of Pain is a similar effect, but for the Succubus' whip. Again, a sound choice which increases the Pets damage output. Shadowburn gives you effectively a new spell - an instant cast direct damage spell which uses a Soul Shard, but gives you one back if the target dies from the use of the spell. From this point you will be able to improve the spell still further through your friendly neighbourhood Warlock trainer as well. Shadowburn is a good choice and can be very effective. Another good choice though is the final one at this Tier, Devastation. Devastation increases your chance to critical hit with destruction spells by up to 5% and is also the prerequisite for Ruin in Tier 5. Now, as I said at the beginning of the article, what you need in your middle thirties is going to be different from what you need at the levels where Tier 5 becomes reachable, and you will probably want to respec by then. Personally, my choice would be Shadowburn first, and maybe add Devastation later when I have the points. Tier 4 for Destruction gives you the option of Intensity. This reduces the chance of interruption from being hit while you are channeling Rain of Fire or Hellfire. Now, I don't really rate Rain of Fire (except for the funky look of it). But Hellfire is a personal favorite of mine, though you can only really use it in specific circumstances. Those circumstances are normally dire, and if you need it to work, you probably want to ensure it doesn't get interrupted. So if you've reached this Tier, I'd definately consider this ability. Other options at the level are Destructive Reach, which increases the range of your destruction spells. As with the equivalent talent in the affliction tree, I'm not sure this is a huge amount of use, though some higher level mobs have a wider aggro radius. This means you might otherwise have trouble getting close enough to cast before it goes for you. Personally I'd save the ability points and allow for this in my tactics, but it's up to you. The final choice at this level is Improved Searing Pain, which increases the critical hit chance of the spell. Now, I don't use this much myself, but if you do this is a nice boost to have. Beyond this Tier, you will need a more advanced guide to help you. For a great thread on higher level builds for different flavours of play, look here. To sum up, this information is culled from a number of sources, some of which is my own experimentation and experience but much of which was initially learned from other peoples work. Many knowledgable people have written up guides which I've read and learned from, and they deserve the majority of the credit for what little wisdom I have. These folks include Zargon and Malicea, Widgets, Toader, Larsz and Krippy, Fetish, and Mulk, plus extra special thanks to xxxx for a thread on ability choices which formed the basis for my initial build and which still heavily influences it today.
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