Warlock Leveling – Talents and Tips – (1-80)

This guide follows the format of both Irwezsh’s Guide and Trollvink’s Guide, as requested by Jame himself. Also, this is a wiki page so that expert locks out there can add whatever they know about the topic, and maybe change some talent build stuff..

For Patch 3.0+, focused on WARLOCK gameplay!

Table of content:

1. Foreword
2. What’s the best leveling spec?
3. Talents
4. Abilities and Rotations
5. Tips
6. Stats
7. Gear
8. Glyphs
9. Addons

1. Foreword

This is a guide which will tell which talents are the best to choose while leveling, also what rotation you should do, what gear boosts you should be focusing on and some general tips.

2. What’s the best leveling spec?

The best leveling spec for the warlock is Affliction. This is because of it’s the most mana efficient tree there is, and focuses on your DoTs. Demonology would be a close second, but you’d be sitting and drinking after every fight.

3. The spec:

10 – 14:
Improved Corruption – 5/5

15 – 16:
Improved Life Tap – 2/2

17 – 18:
Soul Siphon – 2/2

19 – 20:
Improved Drain Soul – 2/2

21 – 23:
Fel Concentration – 3/3

24:
Improved Curse of Agony – 1/2

25 – 27:
Suppression – 3/3

28 – 29:
Nightfall – 2/2

30:
Siphon Life – 1/1

31:
Improved Curse of Agony – 2/2

32 – 34:
Empowered Corruption – 3/3

35 – 39:
Shadow Mastery – 5/5

40:
Dark Pact – 1/1

41 – 45:
Contagion – 5/5

46 – 47:
Improved Howl of Terror – 2/2

48 – 49:
Malediction – 2/3

At level 50, Respec to Demonology, using the following build.

Demonic Embrace – 5/5

Improved Health Funnel – 2/2

Demonic Brutality – 3/3

Fel Vitality – 3/3

Soul Link – 1/1

Fel Domination – 1/1

Demonic Aegis – 3/3

Unholy Power – 5/5

Master Summoner – 2/2

Master Demonologist – 5/5

Demonic Empowerment – 1/1

Demonic Resilience – 3/3

Demonic Knowledge – 3/3

Demonic Tactics – 1/1

Fel Synergy – 2/2

Summon Felguard – 1/1

At this point, your Felguard becomes your new pet through level 80!

Adding rest of Demonology build in a couple hours, for now look at this.

4. Abilities and Rotations

Always take the weapon with the best dps

1 – 9:

– Keep Demon Skin up.
– Get your Imp no later than level 4.
– Until you get Immolate and Corruption, spam Shadow Bolt.

Rotation: Immolate, Send in Imp while casting Corruption, Shadow Bolt or Wand to death. At level 8, Start rotation with Curse of Agony.

10 – 19:

– Use your Voidwalker.
– Use Drain Soul when you need Soul Shards.
– Wait 3 seconds after your Voidwalker begins attacking a mob to start the rotation.
–Life Tap when needed.
– Drain Life when needed.
Rotation: Send in Voidwalker. Curse of Agony, Corruption, Immolate, Life Tap(optional)Drain Life(if needed), Drain Soul.

20 – 29:

– Replace Demon Skin with Demon Armor.
– Use Succubus.
– Life Tap and Drain Life when needed.

Rotation: Immolate, Send in Succubus, Corruption, Siphon Life, Curse of Agony, Drain Soul.

30 – 39

– Get your free mount!
– Continue using Succubus
– Drain Life, Life Tap when needed.
– If you feel Imp has more DPS, go ahead and use him.

Rotation: Same as above.

40 – 49

– Use either Felhunter or Imp, your own preference.
– Everything else, same as above.
– Use Shadow Bolt if Nightfall procs.
– For Imps, have them attack right away.
– For Felhunters, send them in after Immolate.

Rotation: Immolate, Corruption, Siphon Life, Curse of Agony, Shadow Bolt(if Nightfall procs), Drain Soul, Dark Pact.

50 – 80

– At 62, switch to Fel Armor.
– From 50+, I’m not sure about a DEFINITE rotation, but you basically want to put all your dots on the mobs you are facing.
– I use a Felhunter through these last 30 (27 actually) levels.

My rotation these last few levels(definitely not the best): Immolate, Unstable Affliction, Siphon Life, Curse of Agony, Corruption, Drain Life, Drain Soul.

You should probably by now understand what DoTs are and that they are your main damage dealing abilities. So any rotation you feel good with is fine.

NOTE – This build is for leveling, not raids/dungeons, consider respeccing!

Anyhow, the Affliction DPS rotation for 80 instances is: Haunt, Curse of Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, Siphon Life, Shadow Bolt.

5. Tips

Instances
– Give a Soul Stone to one of the healers.
– I could rant on with a ton of stuff, but I’m just going to say, read this.

Solo
– Just heal yourself with Drain Life when you need to heal.
– Bandages help as well.
– Like mentioned in the rotations, keep up Demon Skin/ Demon Armor/ Fel Armor
– Life Tap when low on mana.

Professions
– The best options are Skinning/Mining, they make lots of money, especially since WOTLK arrived.

6. Stats

In the following order: Spell Hit(Until capped) > Spell Power > Spell Haste > Spell Crit > Stamina > Intellect.

7. Gear

Here I will eventually put some gear down you can get while leveling. But for now I don’t have the time. 😉

8. Glyphs

Major Glyphs(Thanks kirby for these.

Glyph of Siphon Life
Glyph of Immolate
Glyph of Corruption

With Glyph of Corruption, when Shadow Trance procs, cast a Shadow Bolt

9. Addons

DoTimer – A handy mod for managing your DoTs and rotation.(thanks to kirby for this aswell)

Sorry I left a couple sections unfinished, some family things going on. I’ll finish them when I have the time. Oh and yes, I realize I only have 1 color. It is 1 AM where I am, I’m half asleep, I just thought I’d publish it so everyone could see it in the morning.

Thanks to Trollvink and Irwezsh for the guide format, and thanks to Jame for WoW-Pro, of course!