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Warlock - skidude - 06-28-2005 As far as im concerned any build that doesn't include dark pact is inferior, it equates to nearly infinate mana as i've said before, the affliction tree is pretty flexible with maybe a few points spent differently, perhaps getting 4 in shadow mastery instead of the 2 in improved mana drain but i like that talent for 1on1 pvp. Also the destruction tree the talent that gives you a 70% chance to channel threw hellfire and rain of fire is a must for PVE as those skills are very hard to use in pve without the interuption talent, and even tho i do play on a pvp server, pve is still a big part of the game. Affliction Talents (31 points) # Improved Corruption - 5/5 points Reduces the casting time of your Corruption spell by 2 seconds. # Improved Life Tap - 2/2 points Increases the amount of Mana awarded by your Life Tap spell by 20%. # Improved Drain Life - 3/5 points Increases the Health drained by your Drain Life spell by 6%. # Amplify Curse - 1/1 point Increases the effect of your next Curse of Weakness or Curse of Agony by 50%, or your next Curse of Exhaustion by 20%. # Fel Concentration - 5/5 points Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channelling the Drain Life, Drain Mana, or Drain Soul spell. # Nightfall - 2/2 points Gives your Corruption and Drain Life spells a 3% chance to cause you to enter a Shadow Trance state after damaging the opponent. The Shadow Trance state reduces the casting time of your next Shadow Bolt spell by 100%. # Grim Reach - 2/2 points Increases the range of your Affliction spells by 20%. # Improved Drain Mana - 2/2 points Causes ? of the Mana drained by your Drain Mana spell to damage the opponent. # Siphon Life - 1/1 point Transfers 13 health from the target to the caster every 3 seconds. Lasts 30 seconds. # Curse of Exhaustion - 1/1 point Reduces the target's speed to 90% of normal for 12 seconds. Only one Curse per Warlock can be active on any one target. # Improved Curse of Exhaustion - 4/4 points Increases the speed reduction of your Curse of Exhaustion by 20%. # Shadow Mastery - 2/5 points Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells by 4%. # Dark Pact - 1/1 point Drains 150 of your pet's Mana, returning 100% to you. Demonology Talents (0 points) # None Destruction Talents (20 points) # Improved Shadow Bolt - 5/5 points Your Shadow Bolt critical strikes increase the next 4 sources of Shadow damage dealt to the target by 20%. # Bane - 5/5 points Reduces the casting time of your Shadow Bolt and Immolate spells by 0.5 seconds. # Devastation - 5/5 points Increases the critical strike chance of your Destruction spells by 5%. # Shadowburn - 1/1 point Instantly blasts the target with 87 to 99 Shadow damage. Requires 1 Soul Shard. If the target dies from Shadowburn, and yields experience, the caster gains a Soul Shard. # Intensity - 2/2 points Gives you a 70% chance to resist interruptiong caused by damage while channeling the Rain of Fire or Hellfire spell. # Destructive Reach - 2/2 points Increases the range of your Destruction spells by 20%. Warlock - skidude - 06-28-2005 Intro Sections -------------- Intro 1: Version and future additions Intro 2: About the Author Main Sections ------------- Section 1: What is a Warlock? Section 2: UI Modifications Section 3: Race Choices Section 4: Stats and Equipment Section 5: A quick word on Soul Shards Section 6: Talents Section 7: Spells Section 8: Pets Section 9: Templates Intro 1: Version and future additions ===================================== This is the first pass at writing this guide. This section will be used for future updates. Version 1.0 - 2/2005 -The first version of this guide Intro 2: About the author ========================= I am currently playing a Gnome Warlock on the Stormreaver server. My character name is Ryanoth, so if you feel like giving a shout in game feel free. I felt like writing this since there really aren't any class guides out there for WoW yet and I felt I could be of some assistance to aspiring Warlocks. If this guide is useful to you I'd love to hear about it. Intro 3: Glossary of Terms ========================== I realize not everyone has played MMORPGs and a ****** may be reading this guide. So for reference, I will give you a few of the terms I may use in this guide and you may hear when playing the game. MMORPG - Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game ******/Noob - A new player that is not experienced DoT - Damage over Time spells WoW - World of Warcraft mob - A monster (comes from the old MUD days before graphical MMORPGs existed) PVP - Player Vs Player combat PVE - Player Vs Environment (Sometimes called PVM or Player Vs Monster) nuke - A direct damage spell nerf - When the developer changes something to make it less effective rezz - Short for resurrection DPS - Damage per Second DD - Direct Damage spells Ok, now that 99% of you scrolled by all that to get to the guide,lets go. ************************************************** ************************************************** Section 1: What is a warlock? ============================= Warlocks are one of the 2 pet classes in WoW. They have the ability to summon demons to assist them in combat. There are currently 4 "regular" pets in game and several special pets that act differently. I will address all of the pets in their own section. Warlocks are a good damage class that also has quite a bit of utility. They are difficult to play in comparison to other classes, but they are very powerful in the right hands. A good chunk of the power of the warlock comes from Damage Over Time spells, or DoTs for short. Because of the combination of abilities they possess, warlocks are very mana efficient when compared to the other casters in the game. There are several play styles available to the warlock, from a slow plodding style by letting the pet do the majority of the work, to a faster style of burning down the mobs while taking some of the damage yourself. Usually at lower levels you will begin with the slower style and slowly move into the faster style as you start reaching the higher levels. ************************************************** ************************************************** Section 2: UI modifications - You need one ========================================== Blizzard was very smart when they developed WoW to allow for 3rd party custom interface modifications. If you really want to play a warlock to the end, I would HIGHLY recommend you take advantage of one. The most well known, and my personal choice is Cosmos. It is however, not the only choice out there, CTMod, Gypsy, and a couple more that spring to mind. Really, what you are looking for is the ability to add more toolbars. They all offer some other handy functions, but the extra bars are essential. Also, I have another add-on installed called Shardcount that gives me a little counter to keep track of how many Soul Shards I currently have. This saves the pain of opening all of your packs constantly and counting. Here are some handy links for you to get you going with a UI mod: ************************************************** ************************************************** Section 3: Race choices ======================= First, your race choices depend on which side of the war you are on, Alliance or Horde. There are 2 races per side that can play the Warlock. For Alliance, you can choose from Gnome or Human. For Horde you can choose Undead or Orc. On the Alliance side of things you basically should just pick which one you like the look of. None of the racial traits are really all that great. Escape Artist seems cool on paper, but in practice that 1.5 second casting time and lack of immunity after it is cast make it pretty worthless. The rest of the traits don't really make much of a difference either way, so just go with what you like. On the Horde side of things however, Undead is the clear cut winner. As it stands at this time, Will of the Forsaken is far and away the best racial ability in the game. It makes you immune to Fear and the Succubus Seduce for 20 seconds, is instant, and it can be used after you have been feared. This gives Undead warlocks a great advantage over their Alliance counterparts. I actually expect it may see the nerf bat soon, but for now it is very powerful. That said, I still chose to be a gnome because I didn't want to play a dirty horde. Gnome ----- Escape Artist: Activate to escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect. 1.5 second cast. 30 second cool down. Expansive Mind: +5% Intelligence Arcane Resistance: +10 Arcane Resistance Engineering Specialist: +15 Engineering Skill Human ----- Perception: Activate to increase stealth detection radius. Lasts 20 seconds. 2 minute cool down. The Human Spirit: +5% Spirit Diplomacy: Reputation gains increased by 10% Sword Specialization: +5 Sword Skill Mace Specialization: +5 Mace Skill Undead ------ Will of the Forsaken: Activate to become immune to fear, sleep, and charm effects. Lasts 20 seconds. 1.5 minute cool down. Cannibalize: When activated, increases Health regeneration by 100% for 20 seconds. Only works on humanoid or undead corpses with 5 yards. Any movement or damage taken while Cannibalizing will cancel the effect. Underwater Breathing: +300% Underwater Breathing time. Shadow Resistance: +10 Shadow Resistance Orc --- Blood Fury: Activate to increase Strength by 25%. Lose 5% Health every 3 seconds. Lasts 20 seconds. 2 minute cool down. Hardiness: +25% resistance to stun and knockout effects. Command: Pet melee damage increased by 5%. Axe Specialization: +5 Axe Skill ************************************************** ************************************************** Section 4: Stats and equipment ============================== So what stats should you focus on? In WoW starting stats don't matter much and everyone advances at the same rate. While a gnome may have a little more Intelligence to start and a Human more Stamina, it is such a small difference in the end it hardly matters. It all comes down to where you focus your equipment. Let me be clear on this, STAMINA > ALL. If you don't care about PVP, it isn't quite as critical...but if you plan on doing PVP at all you should be focusing on Stamina as much as possible. Stamina directly translates into 10 health per point of stam. A warlock is in a unique position of not needing a large mana pool in comparison to the other casters. There are several ways for a warlock to regain mana, but one of the most common spells you will be using is Life Tap. This turns some of your health into mana, so in effect it makes your health pool an extension of your mana pool. Because of this ability, having a large health pool will enable you to take a lot more punishment while still having the option to convert it over to mana as needed. As a bonus, spells like Drain Life and Siphon Life can refill your health. The only other stat to worry about is Intelligence, which is your mana pool. A good mix of stamina items and "of the eagle" items which give both stamina and intelligence should be what you are looking for. ************************************************** ************************************************** Section 5: A quick word on Soul Shards ====================================== Soul Shards are needed to cast many of your most powerful spells. They are received when a mob dies with Drain Soul being channeled at the same time. The mob must give experience, so you cannot just go to any nearby creature to stock up. They take up 1 inventory spot each and do not stack. They can be a real pain when you start getting to higher levels and are PVPing or helping out friends and are not near any high level mobs when you need some more. All of your summons except the Imp and all of your stone spells require these to work. Also, several other useful spells, like Enslave Demon, Soul Fire, and Shadowburn need these as well. I am not sure what Blizzard's intent was with these. They were originally sold as a trade-off for the warlock’s power, but we don't really seem to be more powerful then other classes that don't have the headache to deal with. ************************************************* ************************************************* Section 6: Talents ================== Talents are what make each character unique. You will receive your first talent point at level 10 and get 1 per level until you reach 60. Each class has 3 trees to spend points in and you must work your way down each one. In this section I will give a broad overview of the talents in general along with my rating of each, if you are just looking for builds see the talent templates section. My current build is mainly Affliction because I find it useful for both PVP and PVE and it fits into my view of what a warlock should be. Demonology is more for end-game and Destruction is too much like a mage to me. If I wanted to be a nuker, I would have rolled a mage. That said, there are useful skills in all of the trees and my build dabbles in all 3 a bit. Keep in mind I play on a PVP server, so that goes into my evaluations. Affliction Tree: ================ The Affliction tree mainly focuses on cursing and damage over time. It also has several talents that are very handy in reducing your downtime. Affliction is a great all-around tree and it does well in both PVP and PVE and is what I recommend using while leveling to 60. Gems of the tree include Improved Corruption, Nightfall, Shadow Mastery and Dark Pact. Tier 1: No prereqs ------------------ Suppression: (5 points max) --------------------------- Description: Reduces the chance an enemy will resist your affliction spells. It is 2% per point spent. Overall not a great talent, as in PVP resists are rare and there are better places to spend your points. Rating: ** Improved Corruption: (5 points max) ----------------------------------- Description: Reduces the casting time of corruption by .4 seconds per point. At 5/5 it becomes an instant spell. This is a must have talent. Instant spells are king in PVP and even in PVE it is handy to cast while on the move. Rating: ***** Tier 2: Requires 5 points in affliction --------------------------------------- Improved Curse of Weakness: (3 points max) ------------------------------------------ Description: Makes your Curse of Weakness more effective. CoW is rarely used except for specialized situations. Not really recommended. Rating: * Improved Drain Soul: (2 points max) ----------------------------------- Description: This adds an interesting element to your Drain Soul that will temporarily give you double mana regen if you kill with Drain Soul. This is a nice downtime reducer but warlocks don't have a lot of downtime anyways. As a note, this is supposedly buggy and will rarely ever fire in a group situation. Rating: ** Improved Life Tap: (2 points max) --------------------------------- Description: This talent makes your lifetap give you more mana per use, up to 20%. This isn't a bad talent to have since you will be using Life Tap often. Not necessary, but it is useful. Rating: *** Improved Drain Life: (5 points max) ----------------------------------- Description: Increases your Life Drain spell by up to 10%. While 10% isn't really that great, if you plan on playing the faster style as you gain levels you will be using Drain Life constantly. Extra DPS and healing is nice to have and it adds up over a longer fight with several Drain Life casts. Rating: *** Tier 3: Requires 10 points in affliction ---------------------------------------- Improved Curse of Agony: (3 points max) --------------------------------------- Description: Increases damage done by CoA. The increase is so small this talent as it stands today is pretty worthless. Don't waste your points. Rating: * Fel Concentration: (5 points max) --------------------------------- Description: Gives you a chance to avoid interruption from taking damage while casting any of your drains. Maxes out at 70%. If you plan on making Draining a part of your game, which I recommend you do at higher levels this becomes a must have talent. Also, this is either a all or nothing talent. Do not put just a couple points in here, max it or don’t touch it. Rating: **** Amplify Curse: (1 point max) ---------------------------- Description: Makes your Curse of Agony hit 50% harder or your Curse of Exhaustion slow 20% more with a 3 minute cool down. Really the only way to make Curse of Exhaustion good is to use Amplify Curse before casting it. It's a prereq anyways, so if you want Curse of Exhaustion you might as well pick this up. Rating: *** Tier 4: Requires 15 points in affliction ---------------------------------------- Grim Reach (2 points max) ------------------------- Description: Increases the range of your affliction spells by up to 20%. Very nice to have and a good place to put 2 points as you go down the tree. Rating: **** Nightfall (2 points max) ------------------------ Description: This talent gives you instant shadowbolts. Incredibly useful in PVP and good for pumping extra damage into a mob in PVE. With 2 points here, it has a 2% chance to fire from EVERY tick of corruption and Drain Life. 2% may not sound like a lot, but it will fire almost every fight. In mass PVP, just lay a corruption on every enemy you see and you become a shadowbolt machine gunner. Rating: ***** Improved Drain Mana (2 points max) ---------------------------------- Description: Drain mana is pretty worthless as it is right now, and this talent isn't enough to save it. I wouldn't put points here unless you really are set on using drain mana. Rating: ** Tier 5: Requires 20 points in affliction ---------------------------------------- Siphon Life (1 point max) ------------------------- Description: This is a DoT that gives you health for each point of damage. The problem is, it's a really crappy amount of damage done and health returned. It can be good in a fight with a lot of enemies to lay it on a lot of them to give you a decent healing boost, but usually you have better places to spend the mana. This is a prereq for Shadow Mastery however, so if you are going all the way in Affliction, you will need this anyways. Rating: *** Curse of Exhaustion (1 point max) --------------------------------- Description: This is our snare that we cast to slow an enemy, and it sucks. The snare is very weak and lasts a short time. By itself this spell is worthless. If you want it to be effective you need to invest in Improved CoE and start with an Amplify Curse. Without casting Amplify it can be enough to catch a runner in PVP. I still recommend taking this for PVP if you are affliction, it will save your life against an Undead that has Will of the Forsaken to give you enough space until you can Seduce or Fear them. Rating: ** Improved Curse of Exhaustion (4 points max) ------------------------------------------- Description: This talent takes Curse of Exhaustion from worthless to semi-useful. If you have CoE you need to spend the points here to make it worthwhile. Good to have on a PVP server, especially on the Alliance side to have something to deal with undead. Rating: ** Tier 6: Requires 25 points in affliction ---------------------------------------- Shadow Mastery (5 points max) ----------------------------- Description: This talent increases your shadow damage by up to 10%. More damage is always good! Rating: ***** Tier 7: Requires 30 points in affliction ---------------------------------------- Dark pact (1 point max) ----------------------- Description: This skill is incredibly handy. It allows you to drain mana from your pet. The best way to use this is in conjunction with the succubus. Turn all of her abilities on manual so she will not waste any mana. Her abilities are all pretty unimpressive except for Seduce, which you should manually control anyways. This gives you a nice mana battery the can still attack without wasting mana. In raids, sometimes you may wish to use an Imp on passive as your battery, but in normal PVE and PVP the Succubus will serve you better. If you are on a PVP server, having the succubus out at all times is the way to go, as seduce will save your life from those pesky rogues that jump you. Rating: ***** Demonology Tree: ================ Ah Demonology, the red-headed stepchild tree. This tree was written off as a total waste for a long time, since the best ability was broken. Now that Soul Link is fixed Demonology is actually a viable build. However, the tree still has issues. It has a couple highlights, with Soul Link being the major one, but a lot of sub-par talents. You basically have to sacrifice a ton of points to get one or two standout abilities if you want to take this route. However, it just may be worth it in a PVP environment. Soul Link makes you incredibly hard to kill and being able to pull out a pet instantly can turn a fight in your favor. It is a very interesting tree and it may be worth speccing into this at level 60. Not as good for leveling as Affliction. Tier 1: No prereqs ------------------ Improved Healthstone (2 points max) ----------------------------------- Description: Makes your healthstones heal more. BUT, it only works for you. If you hand out a healthstone to a group member they will only get the base amount. Not a great talent. Rating: ** Improved Imp (3 points max) --------------------------- Description: This improves all your Imps spells by up to 30%. This is actually really nice if you plan on running with an Imp. I prefer succubus for seduce personally, and if you plan on taking Soul Link in this tree an Imp is the last thing you want to use. But if you are Affliction or Destruction based and use an Imp this may be a decent place to throw any leftover points. Rating: *** Demonic Embrace (5 points max) ------------------------------ Description: Extra stamina is always a good thing! This can give you up to a 15% boost in stamina, and that is AFTER all of your equipment is figured in. Very nice talent to have, even if you are not demonology spec. Stamina is by far the most important attribute for warlocks and the small hit in spirit you take from this is not even noticeable. Rating: ***** Tier 2: Requires 5 points in demonology --------------------------------------- Improved Health Funnel (2 points max) ------------------------------------- Description: Makes Health Funnel more effective. Waste of points, as Health Funnel already heals incredibly fast. Rating: * Improved Voidwalker (3 points max) ---------------------------------- Description: Makes your voidwalkers taunts and consume shadows more effective. Well, this depends if you are going to use a VW or not. That decision depends on several factors. Are you on a PVP or PVE server? How are you specced? If you are on a PVP server I would say generally the answer is no. However, if you are full demonology you can always sacrifice the Voidwalker, and then instant cast a succubus when you get jumped. I still probably wouldn't take this since VW tends to not be as effective at high levels. Rating: ** Fel Intellect (5 points max) ---------------------------- Description: Gives your pets up to 15% more mana. Not very impressive overall, but it's the best talent in this tier plus it is a prereq for Fel Stamina. So, best of the crap it is Rating: ** Tier 3: Requires 10 points in Demonology ---------------------------------------- Improved Succubus (3 points max) -------------------------------- Description: Yet another so-so talent. Soothing Kiss is worthless, Lash of Pain is weak for the mana it costs, and seduce lasts 15 seconds already unless it breaks early by which time you will be breaking it with damage in a PVP situation. Rating: ** Fel Domination (1 point max) ---------------------------- Description: Activate this to make your next pet take 5.5 seconds less time to cast. When combined with master summoner you can pop a pet up in half a second. A nasty surprise in PVP when you shield yourself with a VW sacrifice then immediately pop up a succubus for the mezz. One of the highlights of this tree. Rating: ***** Fel Stamina (5 points max) -------------------------- Description: Increases the health of your pets by up to 15% Not bad if you are going for Soul Link. This is a prereq for Unholy Power anyways, so you might want to pick it up. Rating: *** Tier 4: Requires 15 points in Demonology ---------------------------------------- Master Summoner (2 points max) ------------------------------ Description: Reduces the casting time of your pets by up to 4 seconds. Not the best by itself, but can be great when combined with Fel Domination. Rating: **** Master Conjurer (2 points max) ------------------------------ Description: Reduces casting time and mana cost of your stone spells. See, this is why demonology gets a bad rep. This talent sucks. You shouldn't be wasting time and mana in combat casting stones, so why would you need to even have this? I can maybe see summoning another healthstone during a fight, but healthstones are on a timer, so doesn't seem practical. Rating: * Tier 5: Requires 20 points in Demonology ----------------------------------------- Improved Enslave Demon (5 points max) ------------------------------------- Description: Makes your enslaved demons attack and cast a bit faster. Not bad to have, especially end-game if you plan on running around with a doomguard or infernal. Rating: *** Demonic Sacrifice (1 point max) ------------------------------- Description: Sacrifice your demon to give you a buff that lasts 30 mins. The buff is canceled if you summon another pet. Imp increases fire damage 15%, Voidwalker increases health by 15%, Succubus increases shadow damage by 15%, and Felhunter increases mana by 20%. I haven't done testing on this talent yet, so am unsure if you enslave a demon if that will dispel the buff. I will update this when I know for sure. I am assuming it does not, so this talent would be handy for when you want to use an infernal or doomguard. Just summon a voidwalker and sac it for 15% more health. It is a prereq for Soul Link anyways, and if you are this deep in Demonology I hope you are going for that. Rating: **** Improved Firestone (2 points max) --------------------------------- Description: Improves your firestone effectiveness. Another crap talent, since firestones are pretty much worthless after you start getting up higher in levels. There are much better bonuses on a good staff then on any sword. Firestones are fun at low levels to play around with and they look neat, but otherwise you sacrifice too much giving up a good staff. I guess you might take this if you want to be different and like running around with a sword that has a little ball of fire twirling around it. I went through that phase until I found a great staff. Rating: * Tier 6: Requires 25 points in Demonology ---------------------------------------- Unholy Power (5 points max) --------------------------- Description: Increases the damage done by your pets by up to 20%. More damage is always good and since it's the only talent in this tier you will probably be taking it. Rating: **** Tier 7: Requires 30 points in Demonology ----------------------------------------- Soul Link (1 point max) ----------------------- Description: The crown jewel of Demonology. You took a bunch of junk just to get here, now was it worth it? It basically lets you split any damage you or your pet take between each other. This can be nasty in PVP when they suddenly have to do 8000 damage to take you down instead of 4000. Demonology certainly has some nice bonuses end-game in PVP. Have a VW out, use Soul Link to take all of the damage they are dishing, then sacrifice him for the shield...bandage back to full health and instant summon a Succubus to seduce them. I will be doing some experiments with this soon and will update the guide with first hand observations. Rating: ***** Improved Spellstone (2 points max) ---------------------------------- Description: Makes your spellstones more effective. Wow, really crappy for a Tier 7 talent. Spellstones basically absorb 1 shot from a mage, and they strip all your beneficial buffs when used. In addition, you must have them held in the off-hand to use them and there is a timer when you equip them so you cannot swap mid-battle. Not ever worth giving up a staff for such a situational stone when we fare well against mages anyways. Rating: * Destruction Tree ================ This tree deals in all out nuking ability. The main highlights deal with criting more often and harder. I don't deny that destruction builds are viable, I personally just don't like playing more of a mage role. If I wanted to sit back and nuke I would have played a mage. That said, there is some good stuff in here and many non-destruction warlocks, myself included, will at least go in enough to get shadowburn. As a note, the first two tiers basically suck, I think it is to punish us people that just want shadowburn. Tier 1: No prereqs ------------------ Improved Shadow Bolt (5 max) ---------------------------- Description: Tier 1 gives you a choice between 2 crappy talents. Imp Shadow Bolt makes it so that if you land a crit with a shadowbolt the target becomes more vulnerable to shadow damage for the next 4 hits. Due to the sporadic nature of crits and the fact that most destruction locks that focus on crits will not bother with shadow bolt, but instead use searing pain this isn't worth it. Rating: * Cataclysm (5 points max) ------------------------ Description: 5 points gives you 5% reduction in mana cost for destruction spells. Crappy talent, but not any crappier then Imp Shadow Bolt. I would probably take this just since it is always helping, even though it is a tiny bit. Rating: * Tier 2: Requires 5 points in Destruction ---------------------------------------- Bane (5 points max) ------------------- Description: Reduces casting time of Shadow Bolt and Immolate by .1 seconds per point. Wow, .1?! No way! Sucky, like all the first 2 tiers of destruction, but probably the best bet in this tier since you will be casting Immolate all the time. Rating: * Aftermath (5 points max) ------------------------ Description: Chance to daze for 5 seconds with any destruction spell by up to 10%. Hmm, well that looks nice on paper at first. But in practice it isn't so good. It's a daze, not a stun. All daze does is slow their movement speed for a few seconds. Might be ok at catching a runner, if you happen to get lucky and proc this before he gets out of range. Otherwise, pretty worthless. Rating: * Tier 3: Requires 10 points in Destruction ----------------------------------------- Improved Firebolt (2 points max) ------------------------------- Description: Reduces the casting time on the Imps firebolt by up to 1 second. First, only useful if you are using Imp. Second, still not useful. Your Imp burns all his mana out in like 30 seconds anyways. This just means it takes him 20 seconds until he is staring at the mob doing nothing. Rating: * Improved Lash of Pain (2 points max) ------------------------------------ Description: Reduces cooldown on Lash of Pain. While not as useless as the Imp Firebolt talent, still not a good place to put your points. LoP doesn't do great damage to mana spent anyways. Rating: ** Devastation (5 points max) -------------------------- Description: Well, by now you must think destruction sucks. Look at all the 1 star talents before this. Well no my friends, here is a great talent. This increases your chance to crit with your destruction spells by up to 5%. If you are going heavy destruction, max this out. Crits hurt bad. Rating: ***** Shadowburn (1 point max) ------------------------ Description: Another great talent, and one warlocks from Demonology or Affliction may think about getting. This gives you another spell that is an instant and does good damage. The only drawback is it eats a Soul Shard. It supposedly returns one to you if it makes the kill, but it seems very buggy at this time and doesn't work as advertised. This spell is extremely handy in PVP. Rating: ***** Tier 4: Requires 15 points in Destruction ----------------------------------------- Intensity (2 points max) ------------------------ Description: Gives you a chance to avoid interruption while channeling Rain of Fire and Hellfire. 1 point is worthless but 2 is ok. I wish Blizzard would consider making this 100% like mages get with some of their abilities, then this would be a 5 star. The problem is with an AoE spell like those, you only cast it at a group. And when the group aggros you even 70% chance to resist is nothing when you are hit by a ton of attacks. One of them will interrupt you. Nice in certain situations, but could have been so much better. Rating: *** Destructive Reach (2 points max) -------------------------------- Description: Increases range of your destruction spells. Always a good thing to have. Rating: **** Improved Searing Pain (5 points max) ------------------------------------ Description: Increases the chance to crit with Searing Pain by up to 10%. When stacked with Devastation that adds up to a decent amount of crits. Rating: **** Tier 5: Require 20 points in Destruction ---------------------------------------- Pyroclasm (2 points max) ------------------------ Description: Gives your Rain of Fire and Hellfire a chance to stun. Not bad, if it works. As it stands now it appears to not work right. May be more useful later after some patches. Rating: *** Improved Immolate (5 points max) -------------------------------- Description: Increases the initial damage of your Immolate spell by up to 25%. Pretty decent since you usually will cast Immolate every fight. 5 points here is a prereq if you want conflagrate. Rating: **** Ruin (1 point max) ------------------ Description: Increases your crit damage by 100%. Think of a Soul Fire crit with this, OUCH! Probably the best talent in the tree. Rating: ***** Tier 6: Requires 25 points in Destruction ----------------------------------------- Emberstorm (5 points max) ---------------------- Increases damage of your fire spells by up to 10%. A lot of stacking talents like this is the tree. More damage is good. Rating: **** Tier 7: Requires 30 points in Destruction ----------------------------------------- Conflagrate (1 point max) ------------------------- Description: This is a DD spell that requires Immolate be cast on the target already. It does decent damage and consumes the Immolate spell. When using this you should time it to hit at the end of the Immolate so you get the most damage out of both. A nice spell, but don't know if it's worthy of being this deep in the tree. I may respec into this to do some testing later when I have the gold to burn. Rating: **** ************************************************** ************************************************** Section 7: Spells ================= Well, I could list all of the spells here and how much each does per rank, but frankly that is a ton of work for something that is easily available online. If you want to see a complete list of all stats and costs go to www.thottbot.com can click on warlock. Rather then just list tons of stats, I will give you my opinion on how each of the spells plays and the situations they will be useful. I will also give each a rating of 1-5 stars. Immolate -------- Level Received: 1 Description: This spell does Direct Damage to the target and continues to deal DoT for the next 15 seconds. It is going to be one of your primary spells as you level. Mainly used as the last DoT cast before you start using other direct damage or drains. Not quite as good as the other DoTs due to the longer casting time, but still will be used almost every fight. Rating: **** Shadow Bolt ----------- Level Received: 1 Description: Your basic nuke. Not really great unless combined with the Nightfall talent. The slow cast time makes it a bad idea in PVP. You will be using this at low levels when doing PVE since you have few other options. Rating: ** (**** with Nightfall) Demon Skin/Armor ---------------- Level Received: 1 Description: This is a self-only buff that gives you extra armor and speeds up your health regen. It is not overly powerful, but there is no reason not to have it up at all times. Rating: **** Corruption ---------- Level Received: 4 Description: This is your bread and butter DoT. It does good damage, and becomes instant cast with 5 points into the Improved Corruption talent. It also is one of the skills that makes Nightfall activate. Rating: ***** Curse of Weakness ----------------- Level Received: 4 Description: This makes it so that whatever it is cast on does not hit as hard. It quickly falls off to not being very useful, since you can only have one curse on an enemy at a time and there are better options. The amount of damage it stops doesn't really scale well at all as you level up. Rating: ** Life Tap -------- Level Received: 6 Description: This spell instantly changes health into mana. It is a one to one ratio unless you take the improved Life Tap talent. It is instant cast and is very nice in conjunction with Drain Life. Instead of being a caster that stands around with full life but no mana in a fight, you can be a caster with half life and half mana and be doing some good. You can also combine this with first aid for a quick recharge as well. This is a great utility spell that any good warlock will learn to love. Rating: ***** Fear ---- Level Received: 8 Description: This is our main crowd control spell, and is very useful in PVP. It was nerfed recently so it breaks far easier then it used to. It also has diminishing returns, so when you have used Fear on a target the next cast will last half as long. It basically makes the target run around like a crazed chicken. During PVE, you need to be very careful with this spell. If the Feared mob runs near a buddy of his, it will aggro you. Can suddenly make you have to turn and run if the Feared mob runs through a camp of his friends. This would have been a 5 star spell without the recent changes and Will of the Forsaken, which makes it useless on Undead. Still incredibly handy for getting that extra mob off you or making an enemy in PVP unable to do anything for awhile. Rating: **** Curse of Agony -------------- Level Received: 8 Description: This is the other main DoT spell you will be using and is the heaviest hitting. It slowly ramps up it's damage over the 30 seconds it lasts, so it is hurting most at the end of the duration. When soloing, you will be using this spell most of the time. It is a curse, so the 1 curse rule means in groups you may have other curses you might want to use. Rating: ***** Create Healthstone ------------------ Level Received: 10 Description: This spell turns a Soul Shard into a Healthstone. A Healthstone is very similar to a potion, in that you just right-click it to instantly heal. The Healthstone is consumed on use and you may only have one in your inventory at a time. You can however, trade them to other people. It is on a separate timer from the potion one, so you can use both this and a potion in the same fight. Very useful and you should always have one in your inventory and on a hotbar for emergencies. Rating: **** Drain Soul ---------- Level Received: 10 Description: This is a drain spell that does DoT to the target. If the target dies while the drain is on, it gives you a Soul Shard. The spell itself isn't great for damage, but it is the only reliable way to get Soul Shards, so you will need to use this often. There is a talent that allows you to gain faster regen after you make a kill with this spell, but it is not worth the cost unless you might want it in a PVE only environment. Rating: *** (required however) Health Funnel ------------- Level Received: 12 Description: This spell takes some of your life and uses it to heal your pet. Useful at times to save a pet when it is getting pounded on and is about to go down. It is useful on occasion to cut some downtime as well, but pets regen very quickly so it is not a necessity. Rating: *** Curse of Recklessness --------------------- Level Received: 14 Description: This spell reduces the armor of the target by a decent amount and increases their attack power by a little. If that were all it did, it would rarely be cast but it has one other side effect. Cursed creatures will not flee. In an instance, this can be a life saver as the runners will not get back to their camps and bring a bunch of their friends to the party. Very useful in certain situations. Rating: **** Drain Life ---------- Level Received: 14 Description: This spell is a channeled DoT drain spell that gives you health. The damage is not overwhelming, but the healing effect more then makes up for it. Casting Life Tap then draining back the health is like getting a free spell. At higher levels, you may also begin to Drain tank, which is where a mob is beating on you but you are constantly draining health to stay relatively even. To utilize that technique you need the Fel Concentration talent, which greatly reduces you being interrupted while channeling the spell. Rating: ***** Unending Breath --------------- Level Received: 16 Description: Lets you breath underwater for 10 mins. Is kind of fun and useful on occasion, but not a big deal. A fun trick is to use Seduce to hold an enemy player underwater with you while they drown and you happily breathe just fine. Rating: ** Searing Pain ------------ Level Received: 18 Description: It's basically half of a shadowbolt. It does about half the damage, for half the mana, for half the casting time. It also causes more threat, so is a good way to get a mob to come attack you instead of something else. If you go down the destruction tree it becomes far more useful with the extra crits, but since I prefer the affliction build, it isn't really worth it to me. On occasion you may run into a mob that is immune to shadow damage, so this is a decent alternative. Rating: *** Create Soulstone ---------------- Level Received: 18 Description: This spell turns a soul shard into a soulstone. You right click on the stone to cast a 30-minute buff on yourself or another player. This is basically a free resurrection with more mana and health then you would get from a regular rezz. In an instance it is wipe insurance. Always have the soulstone cast on the rezzer of the party. There is a 30-minute cooldown on using this spell, so you can only have one player with this effect at a time. When you are not grouped, always have this on yourself. Rating: ***** Ritual of Summoning ------------------- Level Received: 20 Description: This spell is used to summon another party member to your location. You must have 2 other party members present to complete this spell. When cast, it summons a portal that 2 other people must right click on for it to work. Pretty handy for gathering those stragglers to an instance, but not as handy as it could be do to needing the other 2 people. Rating: *** Rain of Fire ------------ Level Received: 20 Description: This is an AoE spell that calls down fire to burn all of the enemies. It is fairly difficult to use in most situations due to all the aggro that will come your way when you cast it. Having 10 things beating on you will make you go down fast. In certain situations it can be handy, especially when fighting in conjunction with a mage doing AoE spells as well. Rating: *** Eye of Kilrogg -------------- Level Received: 22 Description: This spell is fun. It summons a green glowing eye that you can control. It moves your point of view to the eye and you can use it to scout ahead and see what is around the corner. It is also fun for freaking out low levels that don't know what it is and run away from it. The eye has decent stealth abilities, so you can work your way through a bunch of mobs to scout the area. Very handy when looking for a boss or quest area but don't want to fight down a bunch of hallways to figure out which one is the correct path. Really more of a toy since it doesn't come into play very often at all. To stop using the eye at any time, just right click on the buff icon. Rating: ** (***** for fun/cool factor) Drain Mana ---------- Level Received: 24 Description: Pretty much what the name says, it drains a targets mana and gives it to you. I first got the spell and thought, now this will kick ***. Well, sorry to say that is not the case. It's really pretty useless due to the tiny amount of mana drained. You get 5 seconds of mana draining and it doesn't even pay for casting this spell until the 3rd second. It also is interruptible, since it is a channeled spell. It is mildly useful when fighting a mob that is almost out of mana and you want to insure it doesn’t heal itself, but that is a rare circumstance. Very disappointing and I hope they adjust it to be more useful in PVP. Rating: ** Sense Demons ------------ Level Received: 24 Description: This lets you track demons on your radar. There are so few demon areas this spell is basically worthless. Plus it interferes with any tradeskill tracking you are doing. Rating: * Shadowburn ---------- Level Received: *** Rank 1 is gotten through talents, so it depends on your build Description: This is an instant DD spell. It eats a soul shard and is supposed to return a shard to you if it delivers the killing blow, but it appears to be a bit buggy and doesn't always give you back the shard. Anything instant in PVP is good and this hits pretty hard. The shard cost can add up fast so you have to make sure you keep an eye on your supply. Rating: **** Detect Invisibility ------------------- Level Received: 26 Description: Since hardly anything is invis and this doesn't detect stealth, it is worthless. Rating: * Curse of Tongues ---------------- Level Received: 26 Description: This curse slows casting time by 50% or more depending on the rank. This is very nice on caster mobs or enemy mages. Note, that it doesn't slow instant spells. I highly recommend using this on mage type mobs since this will cut their DPS way down. Rating: *** Banish ------ Level Received: 28 Description: Banishes demons and elementals temporarily. It makes them unable to do anything but you are unable to interact with them as well. Incredibly useful, if somewhat limited in the situations it comes into play. Note, you can banish enemy warlock pets as well. Rating: **** Create Firestone ---------------- Level Received: 28 Description: Turns a Soul Shard into a firestone. This is an item you can hold in your off-hand that gives your weapon a fire damage proc. It looks neat and adds a bit of damage, but in the end staves are too valuable to give up. I had fun for a while playing with a sword and firestone purely for cool factor reasons, but then I started finding staves with too good of bonuses to pass up. A toy spell that is neat, but overall not very useful. Rating: ** Hellfire -------- Level Received: 30 Description: This is an AoE spell that uses the caster as the center. It does tons of damage in a small area but also does the same damage to the caster. Can be handy in situations where you are facing a ton of weak mobs and have a healer to help you out. One tactic is have the mage freeze them all and you run in the middle and let loose with this spell. It can be interrupted but there are destruction talents to help with that if you want to go that route. Very specialized and dangerous. Rating: *** Enslave Demon ------------- Level Received: 30 Description: Enslaves a demon to be your pet. This uses a Soul Shard and has a max 5-minute duration. When you cast it, it will unsummon whatever pet you have out. This spell is what you use in the end-game to control your Infernal and Doomguard. An enslaved demon is constantly making resist checks and may break your control early. It is usually at a bad time, like when you are in the middle of a fight. This is where banish can be very useful, since you can basically put him away and deal with him after you have finished the current fight. The main problem is there aren't a whole lot of demons worth dealing with the headache to control. The Doomguard is an exception and is very powerful, but I have no first hand testing as of yet. Once I get my Doomguard and Infernal I will update the guide with experiences at the endgame. Pre-60, it is more of a toy. As a note, Curse of Shadows makes this spell stick better and should always be used when enslaving. Rating: **** Shadow Ward ----------- Level Received: 32 Description: Absorbs a certain amount of shadow damage. Very limited unless facing an enemy warlock or shadow priest. Even then, basically gives you one shadow bolt worth of absorption. Not usually worth it. Rating: ** Curse of Elements ----------------- Level Received: 32 Description: Reduces Fire and Frost resists on the target. Nice in a group with mages to make their spells hit harder, or nice to cast and follow up with a soul fire for a big hit. Rating: *** Create Spellstone ----------------- Level Received: 36 Description: Turns a Soul Shard into a Spell Stone. This is held in the off-hand. When you right click it wipes out all magical effects on the caster and absorbs a small amount of magic damage. Not worth bothering with since you are giving up staves and it wipes out your beneficial buffs when used. The amount of damage absorbed is about 1 spell, so not a huge life-saver. Rating: ** Siphon Life ----------- Level Received: ***This is a talent spell, so depends on your build Description: A DoT spell that gives the damage it does back to the caster. The problem with this spell is the tiny amount of damage and healing it does. In normal circumstances, it usually is not worth casting. In group PVP battles, you can get decent healing by sticking this on a ton of people but usually you won't have the chance since this is not an instant. Rating: ** Howl of Terror -------------- Level Received: 40 Description: This is an AoE Fear spell that makes up to 5 enemies around the caster run. It is handy in an emergency when you get a bunch of aggro and just need to cast this and run. The main downfall is the casting time makes it hard to get off quickly with multiple things beating on you. Rating: *** Death Coil ---------- Level Received: 42 Description: An instant DD spell that returns the damage done to the caster. Hits pretty hard and is an instant so is very valuable in PVP. The major drawback is the 10 minute cooldown time, so save it for bad pulls or PVP fights where you need an extra punch. Rating: **** Curse of Shadow --------------- Level Received: 44 Description: Lowers the targets shadow resistance. This is mainly used in conjunction with Enslave Demon to get it to stick. It will also up the damage a bit on your shadow spells, but not worth losing the CoA if you are an affliction build. When grouped with another warlock it may be a different situation. Rating: *** Soul Fire --------- Level Received: 48 Description: This sucker packs a punch. Does huge damage but has a six second casting time. It also uses a Soul Shard. Still, the damage done per mana point is 3 to 1, which is great efficiency. Is nice to use every other fight in PVE as long as you let the pet have aggro to start and then take the aggro with this spell. Whenever you do, be sure to finish the fight with a drain soul to get the shard back. In PVP, use your succubus to seduce them. Then cast Curse of Elements and wind up the Soul Fire. You can even follow this up with a death coil and shadowburn to do huge damage in the space of a few seconds. Rating: ***** Conflagrate ----------- Level Received: ***This is a talent spell, so depends on your build Description: This is a DD spell that requires Immolate be cast on the target already. It does decent damage and consumes the Immolate spell. When using this you should time it to hit at the end of the Immolate so you get the most damage out of both. Good if you plan on playing a destruction warlock. Rating: **** Dark Pact --------- Level Received: ***This is a talent spell, so depends on your build Description: This spell drains mana from your pet and gives it back to you. It is instant and can be cast repeatedly to fill yourself. This spell is incredibly useful and almost completely eliminates downtime. The best way to use this is to have a succubus as your pet with all of her abilities turned off autocast. She then becomes a decent melee pet that acts as a nice mana battery. Lash of Pain isn't worth it for the mana it uses, soothing kiss sucks, and seduction should be used manually anyways. Pets also regen mana much faster then you do. Some warlocks also have an Imp on passive as a mana battery, but I like having the seduce available and letting the succy pitch in some DPS with her whip. Rating: ***** Curse of Doom ------------- Level Received: 60 Description: This curse will sit on a target for 1 minute, at which point it will deal 3200 damage in one chunk. If the target dies there is a chance it will spawn a Doomguard. Mainly used for getting a Doomguard to appear. I have no first hand experience with this yet and will update the guide when I do. Rating: Unknown ************************************************** ************************************************** Section 8: Pets =============== So, this is probably the reason you chose warlock in the first place. You wanted to walk around town with your own personal demon. Warlock pets are a bit different from other MMORPG pet classes, in that they each have specific roles to fill. In some other games you just move up the ladder of pets, so what you get at level 20 will always be better then the level 10 pet. Not true in WoW. I will give a brief overview of each pet and the situations you should be using them in. Imp --- The Imp is your first pet and he specializes in dishing out the pain. His main attack is a ranged firebolt that hits pretty hard. He also has a good group stamina buff and can cast Fire Shield, which does a bit of damage to enemies that hit you. He has a unique ability to phase shift, which makes him invulnerable when he is not attacking. He has very few hitpoints so can be taken down quickly so don't expect him to do any tanking for you. He burns through his mana fairly quickly in a fight and then just stands around cursing in demonic. He has fast regen time for his mana pool however, which makes him a good invulnerable mana battery for Dark Pact if you leave him on passive. He is not a bad general pet for PVP and is good in a group situation with his stamina buff. Not usually recommended for soloing, but it is doable if he fits into your play style. He also doesn't cost a shard to summon, so he is your default backup pet. Pros: High DPS, Good Group Stamina Buff Cons: Low health, Small mana pool Voidwalker ---------- This is your tank pet. He can take a ton of punishment but he hits like my grandmother. He has a regular taunt and a AoE taunt to help keep the mobs on him instead of you. He has a sacrifice ability, which destroys the Voidwalker but puts a shield around you that absorbs a certain amount of damage and makes you uninterruptible. Consume Shadows gives him a heal in between fights. This guy will be your bread and butter at the lower levels. He holds aggro pretty well early on and takes a good beating. Sacrifice will save your life when a pull goes wrong. As you start getting up in levels he steadily becomes less effective and no longer will hold aggro as well. You may eventually stop using him entirely, but some warlocks seem to stick by him. He makes a good pet to Soul Link with if you are Demonology specced and need the health boost. If you are not a Demonology Warlock, he is generally a horrible choice for PVP and doesn't really offer anything in a group situation besides a questionable backup tank. Good for soloing when your are not going to drain tank. Pros: High Health, Sacrifice Cons: Under performs at higher levels, Nothing to offer groups Succubus -------- The Succubus is an interesting pet, and is my general pet of choice. She dishes out very good melee DPS and on the upside can do so without spending any of her mana. She has Lash of Pain which actually doesn't do the greatest damage for the amount of mana it costs her. Soothing Kiss is like a reverse taunt, which makes her lose aggro. It's pretty worthless overall as you can easily pull aggro from her whenever you want. She is not a tank by any means but isn't made of paper like the Imp. She can off-tank an add you may get in an emergency. Her best ability is Seduce, which makes a humanoid stand there with little hearts over his head for up to 15 seconds. Using seduce takes the succubus out of the fight as well, since she stands there and smacks her butt. Any damage will break seduce as well, so you can't have DoTs running. This ability is very helpful in instances and is downright deadly in PVP. My combo of choice in PVP is to seduce, then cast Curse of Elements and Soul Fire to start the fight with a huge chunk of damage done. She also makes the best Dark Pact pet since she can still contribute to the fights without mana by swinging her whip. If you are going to use Dark Pact with her, be sure to turn all of her abilities on manual so she doesn't waste her mana. When using this pet to solo, you will be doing the majority of the tanking, so you really need to have Fel Concentration so you can drain as you need to. She also has the ability to turn invisible. The only downside of the invis ability is you cannot set it to auto so you constantly have to reinvis her after every fight. It is only really useful in PVP so the enemy can't see her until she strikes. Great choice for general soloing at higher levels, especially on a PVP server. Pros: Seduce, Good DPS with no mana use Cons: You need to do the tanking Felhunter --------- Our final pet is specialized for anti-caster duties. He is an in between pet. He can take more damage then the Succubus but cannot do as much damage. With his decent health, he is not a bad choice for the Demonology Warlock looking for a Soul Link. He has a group buff that improves stealth detection to let you see those pesky rogues before they put the knife in your back. He can eat buffs or debuffs and will heal himself while doing so. He also has spell lock, which counters the current spell being cast and makes it so they are unable to cast for a few moments. He also lowers attack power on anything that hits him. The main knock against felhunters is they are so specialized. They will eat mages alive and are able to strip all the seals and buffs off of paladins, but are pretty worthless against everything else. For a demonology spec, they are not a bad choice to run with since you can Soul Link them and they have better abilities then the Voidwalker. But for everyone else, unless you know ahead of time you are going to be facing a mage or paladin, you would be better served with a succubus. Pros: Good anti-caster, nice to be able to see rogues easier Cons: Far too specialized Enslaved Pets ------------- In addition to our regular pets Warlocks have the ability to enslave demons. This also includes our Infernal and Doomguard, which when summoned do not want to be your friend. Always, always, always cast Curse of Shadows before using enslave. It will make the enslave stick much better and last closer to the duration. The way enslave works, the enslaved demon will become your pet for up to five minutes. They are constantly making resist checks to try and break free, and they always seem to do it at inappropriate moments. Remember, if you get in a bad situation when a pet turns on you, you have the option to banish it to give you some breathing room. Enslave is also subject to diminishing returns, so every time your recast it the demon will break free in half the time. There have been reports if you banish the demon 3 or so times it will eventually reset it's enslave resist to normal so you can hold it for the full duration again. Enslaved demons get a penalty to attack and casting speeds for balance reasons. Pros: Doomguards and some elite demons make awesome pets Cons: Very dangerous pets can turn on you at a bad moment ************************************************** ************************************************** Section 9: Talent Templates =========================== Here are several different builds with descriptions. I hope these are helpful to you and I will gladly accept any constructive feedback on these. Affliction Build with Dark Pact - No downtime grinding machine ============================================================== Description: This build is great for soloing and leveling to 60. Don't think it is weak in PVP though, it can be very deadly. I would concentrate on completing the Affliction tree, then go for Shadowburn, and finish off with Demonic Embrace. This build leaves 3 points unspent, so do whatever you want with them after you finish the template. Strategy: Once you complete the Affliction talents you are basically going to be drain tanking using the Succubus as your pet. Turn all of her abilities off autocast. I would recommend binding Dark Pact to any easy to hit button, as you will be spamming it a lot. Basic PVE strategy is as follows: Send in Succubus Curse of Agony Corruption Immolate <--- At this point the mob will come at you Cast Drain Life as needed to keep your health near max, you can also throw shadowbolts when Nightfall procs if desired After the fight spam Dark Pact while you move to the next target This will give you very little downtime. Another great tactic is to send is the succy, let her get a few hits then cast Curse of Elements and wind up a Soul Fire. After that the mob will come for you, do the same pattern as normal after that, DoT, DoT, DoT, Drain. However, be sure to finish the fight with Drain Soul to reclaim the Soul Shard you spent. Soul Fire gives you tremendous bang per mana point so it is not a bad idea to mix into your pattern. Affliction Talents (32 points) ------------------------------ Improved Corruption - 5/5 points Improved Drain Life - 5/5 points Amplify Curse - 1/1 point Fel Concentration - 5/5 points Nightfall - 2/2 points Grim Reach - 2/2 points Curse of Exhaustion - 1/1 point Siphon Life - 1/1 point Improved Curse of Exhaustion - 4/4 points Shadow Mastery - 5/5 points Dark Pact - 1/1 point Demonology Talents (5 points) ----------------------------- Demonic Embrace - 5/5 points Destruction Talents (11 points) ------------------------------- Cataclysm - 5/5 points Bane - 5/5 points Shadowburn - 1/1 point Demonology Build with Nightfall - Super tank with instant pet summoning ======================================================================== Description: This build makes you very hard to take down. Very nice for PVP while still holding it's own in PVE. I view this as more for end-game with improved enslave demon to help with the Doomguard and Infernal a bit. For general leveling work you may be better served going Affliction, at least until you get high enough to respec directly into Soul Link. I have Improved Imp on here since he makes a good group pet for raiding with his stamina buff and this talent only makes it better. The build still gets you to Nightfall and to help make up a bit for missing the mana of Dark Pact I included Improved Life Tap. You still have the ability to drain tank with Fel Concentration and Improved Drain Life. Strategy: In PVP Soul Link gives you a huge pool of health to work with. The pets to start off a fight with are either the Voidwalker or Felhunter combined with Soul Link. Voidwalker gives you the most health with the shield to fall back on while the felhunter has decent health and is handy for seeing rogues and anti-caster work. Basically you want to DoT the target and fight as normal with Soul Link making you take half damage. When the DoTs wear off and your pet is getting down in health, depending on how the fight is going it may be a good idea to hit the instant pet summon and whip out a Succubus. You can then hit them with a quick seduce and bandage yourself or hit them with the Curse of Elements/Soul Fire combo for big damage. Just remember, the DoTs have to be expired before you can Seduce. Affliction Talents (18 points) ------------------------------ Improved Corruption - 5/5 points Improved Drain Life - 4/5 points Improved Life Tap - 2/2 points Fel Concentration - 5/5 points Nightfall - 2/2 points Demonology Talents (33 points) ------------------------------ Demonic Embrace - 5/5 points Improved Imp - 3/3 points Fel Intellect - 5/5 points Fel Stamina - 5/5 points Fel Domination - 1/1 point Master Summoner - 2/2 points Demonic Sacrifice - 1/1 point Improved Enslave Demon - 5/5 points Unholy Power - 5/5 points Soul Link - 1/1 point Destruction Talents (0 points) ------------------------------ None Destruction Build - Lots of nukage with AoE ability =================================================== Description: This build is if you want max DPS at the expense of some efficiency. You can burn down targets quickly. I included Imp Life Tap to help somewhat with mana use, but to replenish your life you do not have the option of drain tanking, so care must be taken with aggro. Makes a good PVP build but will have more downtime when leveling. Works well, but personally am not that interested in being a magelock. Even if you want to go destruction endgame, I still recommend you think about leveling using affliction for Dark Pact so you can avoid downtime as much as possible. Strategy: Basically, lay your DoTs as normal and start nuking. Spamming searing pain is not a bad way to go since your will be landing crits with it often. This build is all about trying to take a target down as fast as possible. Affliction Talents (7 points) ----------------------------- Improved Corruption - 5/5 points Improved Life Tap - 2/2 points Demonology Talents (5 points) ----------------------------- Demonic Embrace - 5/5 points Destruction Talents (39 points) ------------------------------- Cataclysm - 5/5 points Bane - 5/5 points Devastation - 5/5 points Shadowburn - 1/1 point Destructive Reach - 2/2 points Improved Searing Pain - 5/5 points Intensity - 2/2 points Ruin - 1/1 point Improved Immolate - 5/5 points Pyroclasm - 2/2 points Emberstorm - 5/5 points Conflagrate - 1/1 point