Starting a warlock
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| Class races: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
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| Abilities: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
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| Talents: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
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| Starting a: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| PvE: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| PvP: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
| Useful macros: | Dk | Dr | Hu | Ma | Pa | Pr | Ro | Sh | Wl | Wr |
So, you're thinking of playing a Warlock? This page is intended to give a short overview of what to do over the first 10 levels or so, just to get you started on the right path. If you're looking for more of an overview of the class's abilities, see the main Warlock page. For more advanced topics, see the Warlock Tactics.
For even more info on Warlocks, see Category:Warlocks.
For an in-depth guide on leveling a Warlock, see Leveling a Warlock.
For a more general overview on starting out playing WoW, see the Newbie Guide
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Race selection
If you're a power-player, you'll want to consider the various Racial Traits when choosing what race to play. You might also consider the racial Attributes, but after the first 20 levels or so these become largely irrelevant, as the items you've gained will outstrip any racial bonuses.
- Alliance
- Gnomes
- A good overall choice for any caster, gnomes offer a good collection of racials for Alliance warlocks. Expansive Mind directly increases your mana pool, and Escape Artists is quite useful, especially in PvP. Arcane Resistance is a minor benefit, but still useful, and Engineering Specialist gives gnome characters a leg up on what is to some considered the best PvP profession in the game.
- Humans
- Humans have some decent racials for warlocks, but most are minor, even for racial traits. Diplomacy, while generally useful for faction gains, does not directly improve your effectiveness, and Sword and Mace specialization offers little to a pure caster. The Human Spirit improves the effectiveness of Fel Armor and Demonic Embrace, but the benefit is small. Perception grants a greater chance of detecting rogues and Druids on the prowl in Cat Form. Every Man for Himself is a useful ability in PvP, as well as some PvE encounters, and is often considered to be the best of the human racial abilities.
- Horde
- Undead
- Undead are a good choice for a warlock. Cannibalize synergizes with Life Tap very well, particularly if talents points are spent on Improved Life Tap, and it reduces downtime against humanoid and undead opponents. Will of the Forsaken/Undead is considered one of the best racials in the game for PvP, and it is helpful against other warlocks and Priests. Shadow Resistance, while an overall minor boost, is still useful, and enhances the class' ability to resist Shadow spells and effects. Underwater Breathing is the only racial ability that is of no particular use to Forsaken warlocks, who can cast Unending Breath on themselves whenever they need to stay underwater for prolonged periods of time.
- Orc
- Orc racials are very powerful for any warlock, and have a bit better synergy with the Demonology tree. Blood Fury provides a good amount of additional spell damage for 15 seconds, and it has only a two minute cooldown. Hardiness is another very good racial, reducing the duration of stun effects by 15%. Since Rogues, Warriors, Paladins, and other classes have stun effects, this can be quite useful in PvP. Command is more of a minor racial, comparable to the Shadow or Arcane Resistance racials of the Forsaken and Gnomes, though it is more useful for Demonology spec warlocks, who rely on pet damage more than other warlocks. Since warlocks can not use axes, Axe Specialization does nothing for warlocks.
- Blood Elf
- Blood Elves are another good choice. Arcane Torrent gives extra mana and is useful against casters in PvP. The 2% bonus to spell avoidance is also helpful, and if you want to take up enchanting blood elves get a bonus to that too.
For more casual gamers, there's really no major difference between the races - choose the race that you want to play, whether for its looks, its voice, or because its simply good fun!
Early leveling
- Main article: Leveling a warlock
The easiest way to progress through the early levels is to simply do any and all quests you can find. Not only will you breeze through the first 5 to 10 levels, but you'll get useful gear and precious money. Money is particularly important so you can purchase spells for yourself and for your pets.
You will spend levels 1 to 5 in your starting town. Make sure you get all the spells you can from your trainer. Between level 5 and 6 you'll find yourself heading off to your second town and a new trainer who can teach you various things. At the second town, repeat the process - do each and every quest you can find. It's important to keep up with your spells and your gear. Now is also an appropriate time to start training in your chosen professions.
In some start areas, most notably Deathknell in Tirisfal Glades, an imp can be acquired easily on your first level. After the imp is acquired, any quests that involved killing things become a breeze. Have your Demon Skin active; it will help offset the damage you will be sustaining. Pick a mob at maximum range and cast Immolate on it. Set your imp to attack it. Then immediately switch targets and recast immolate. Hopefully the imp has outaggroed your Immolate so you don't lose too much casting time. It is possible to grind down as many as 6-7 mobs in rapid succession this way, although you're more likely to run out of nearby mobs than to run out of life or mana. Damage is rarely an issue, as low level mobs deal one or two damage and your Demon Armor regenerates 3 health every 5 seconds. By the time you have entered another suitably crowded zone, both you and your imp should be reasonably prepared for another killing spree. Around level three, you may need to supplement your Immolate with a single Shadow Bolt. Unfortunately, this doubles the mana cost of killing mobs, since it now costs 25 mana for an Immolate and 25 for a Shadow Bolt. At level four, Instead of casting Shadow Bolt, cast Corruption. This costs an extra 10 mana over Shadow Bolt, but does more damage and is a 'fire-and-forget' spell. This method of killing mobs will suffice until well after you leave Deathknell.
Notable early quests
The following lists are not intended to be comprehensive, but cover a selection of the best quests in the starting areas from levels 1 to 10.
Humans
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Brotherhood of Thieves - nice early weapon reward
On soloing and grouping
Soloing
The best way to solo is to send in voidwalker pet (often abbreviated as VW) and give it a couple of seconds to build aggro then DoT (damage over time, these include Immolate, Corruption (spell), and Curse of Agony). Wait for mob to die then repeat. If you get aggro simply cast shadow bolt until it dies.
If you don't have a voidwalker simply DoT and shadow bolt.
Pets
Each pet has its own special benefits to you, your party, and those around you. Some may be good for PvP, while some may be useful for PvE (Player Versus Environment, i.e. World Creatures). For each pet given, each quest to obtain the creature will be given.
Imp
Warlock soloing is all about pet management and spell management. Your first pet, the Imp, is great at dealing additional damage, but be prepared to take some hits in the early levels. An effective early tactic for soloing is to set your imp to attack while you cast your first Curse on the target. At this point, you can cast Fear on the enemy, and start blasting away with Shadow Bolt while it runs around. Be wary - Fearing the enemy may cause them to come back with friends. You should have almost no trouble at all soloing for your first ten levels. Always protect yourself by fearing additional enemies if the situation arises, and run! Don't worry if your Imp dies - you can resummon it at the cost of mana, and no Soul Shard.
You can also start casting a Shadow Bolt immediately after telling your Imp to attack (ctrl-1, usually) and then let off a Curse to get the most damage in before the mob gets within melee range. When the mob gets within melee range you can hit it with Immolate, Corruption or another Shadow Bolt.
Always make sure you have Demon Skin self-buff active before you go into combat, and it is also a good idea to obtain armor kits at the earliest opportunity and to upgrade them as you level.
Imp quest
You should only start this quest if you are level two or above, with your experience bar halfway completed. To obtain the quest, speak with the Warlock trainer in the Coldridge Valley hold, named Anvilmar. He will be in the back room, past the forge and hunter trainers. Upon entrance of the room, look up and you will see a set of stairs. Go up the stairs and there find you will be two Gnomes. One will be labeled < Demon Trainer >, whilst one is labeled < Warlock Trainer >. You'll be seeing a lot of these, so take note of them. At level two, Sten Stoutarm will have a quest for you called 'Tainted Memorandum'. The quest will need you to find Alamar Grimm, the < Warlock Trainer >. He will in turn give you a second quest named Beginnings. With your newfound quest, exit Anvilmar and proceed forward from the entrance. If you continue heading South, you will find a small camp with three men. Two of them have quests that are irrelevant to ours, but you might want to pick up the Troll killing one, because that's what we'll be doing. You're objectives for the Imp quest are as follows:
Bring 3 Feather Charms to Alamar Grimm in Anvilmar.
And that's just what you must do. You'll see a few trees and several creatures that are like the selectable race, Trolls. The ones you are looking for are Troll Novices. They wear different regalia than the others, donning robes and staves rather than axes. Enter the cave. Kill the first Troll you see, and turn right. Another Troll bars the way. Kill him, and step forward. You have entered a large cavern with three directions in it. Left, middle, and right. Mark the left for future notice, used in a later quest, and take the right path. You will see a small pool with a river in it, which leads up the room. There are usually 5-6 Trolls in the room, two or three being our target Novices. Take out the first troll you see and loot it. If it was the correct one, you should gain a Feather Charm. If not, keep killing Trolls until the room is cleared. Move to the other side of the river and you will see another passage with two exits. Move up until the passage is cleared of Trolls, and look to your right. If there are no Novices in there, turn around to the river and pool room. Wait until re-spawns, and continue killing until you have all three charms. Return to Alamar Grimm for your new Imp! You can purchase spells for your Imp at the < Demon Trainer > next to him.
You can get this from the trainer outside the building. The trainer will ask for some books. You can find these over by the Defias. Go across the river and north of the vineyard. There should be a little tent. Clear out the mobs from around it. In the outside the tent in the front left corner should be a small pile of books. Right click, turn in and enjoy your new pet.
Note: This is probably the most challenging Warlock Imp quest to solo. All the others require killing mobs for several quest items (3-6) while the Human quest only requires you to retrieve one item that is not carried by a mob. However, the item is located at a camp guarded by three level 3-4 Defias. The biggest problem is that all three of these mobs aggro together, meaning that you must fight all three at once and it is impossible to sneak in and retrieve the book without aggroing them. If there is nobody around to help or the mobs have not already been cleared, this is extremely difficult for a low level (and minion-less) Warlock to accomplish. All the other quests simply require fighting a various number of mobs one at a time and can be fairly easily done at level 2. Human Warlocks should be at LEAST level 4 before attempting this, (and even then it is very challenging) especially if this is your first WoW character.
You'll start off the game in the crypt. Go up the stairs and join the world of the Forsaken. At the top of the stairs there is a quest giver who tells you to report to the town below. Go past the gates and into the dilapidated Church on your left. Inside you'll find Venya Marthand and her imp. Speak with her, and she will give you the quest Piercing the Veil. Your objective is to collect three rattlecage skulls. Go outside and take a left out the gates past the guards. At the bottom of the hill, the road takes a right turn, but if you go straight you should see the Rattlecage Skeletons mulling about. Defeat a few of them and you'll collect your skulls (as well as possibly level). Once you've claimed your objective, return to Venya Marthand in the Church and she'll reward you with the ability to summon your imp. You may speak to the Demon Trainer nearby until you leave Deathknell to train your imp.
Voidwalker
At level 10 you can get a quest from a Warlock trainer that allows you to summon a Voidwalker if you have a Soul Shard.
Human (Gnomes will be directed to Stormwind to learn from the warlock trainer there.)
You can get these from your trainer. It requires you to kill a person in the pumpkin patch in east Elwynn Forest. You will most likely need a little help on this one. Take the road east of Goldshire. The pumpkin patch is about 3/4 of the way to the small river and a little bit south. In the southern house are 3 humans around level 10. Pull them out and kill them. Its rather simple but you probably will need some help to kill them all. Loot and turn in or you can do it the way i did it: slay everything in the way and when you reach Surena go all out on her if you die simply respawn near the corpse and "loot-'n-run"
One very effective way to use a Voidwalker when confronted with a grouping of mobs is to stand at a safe distance, select your desired mob, and send your Voidwalker out to make contact with it. If you then immediately recall your Voidwalker, the mob will follow. Allow your Voidwalker to bring your enemy within range of your Corruption or Shadow Bolt spells, then put him back on the offensive, keeping the enemy occupied while you drain it's life away from a safe distance.
One by one, you lure your enemies away and vanquish them. As you become more confident, you can also have your Voidwalker tag 2 or more enemies before recalling him and the enemies to within range of your destructive power.
Grouping
It's important to consider what you want your role in a party to be. Essentially, you can become a master of pets, and focus your group play on effective pet control. Alternatively, you can become a straight damage-dealer by nuking with your Shadow Bolt and other direct damage spells. In addition, it's important to apply the proper curse for a given situation, and other effective DoT spells. Corruption is very powerful and will help your party take down enemies quickly. As well as Curse of Agony, which provides additional damage over time.
Once you hit level 20 you obtain Ritual of Summoning, which summons another party member. While many instances have Meeting Stones that allow for party summons post patch 2.0.1, a summon will often be requested for raids or hard-to-reach locations. This requires two other party members to help.
Be extremely careful with fear. If you decide it's absolutely necessary keep Curse of Recklessness on hand. This counters fear and will bring the target running back. This is useful in very limited situations. But they are there. These include the following:
- The healer is low on health and is getting pounded on. If your tank isn't getting aggro and you can't kill the enemy in time, go ahead and fear. Try and nuke it while it's feared so you will gain aggro, as a warlock has more stamina and is a less group-breaking loss than a main healer.
- There is no chance to aggro any more enemies. These include event situations in which the mobs are already generated.
- It's the only chance. If death is certain without use of fear, the risk is worth it.
At later levels you'll be required to banish. This is a form of Crowd Control that works on demons and elementals, making them invulnerable but unable to attack.
Soul Shards
Soul Shards are required to summon pets other than the imp, summon other players using Ritual of Summoning, make healthstones and soulstones, and as a reagent in some other warlock spells. You can make these by casting Drain Soul or Shadowburn on dying mobs. If they die within 5 seconds of casting Shadowburn or while Drain Soul is still channeling you'll gain a soul shard. (It's worth noting, however, that Shadowburn also COSTS you a soulshard, so the one you gain will only replace the one you used.) You'll need a good number of these on hand at all times, as with any reagent. They do not stack, and thus will take up a large amount of bag space. It's possible to use a Shard Bag to keep shards; this also displays the number of shards on hand. All warlocks obtain a shard bag at level 20 upon completing The Binding.
Useful professions
The warlock can benefit directly and indirectly from many of the professions available.
Primary professions
- Tailoring is directly useful to the warlock for crafting Cloth armor (the only subset of armor available to warlocks). You can equip yourself with spiffy new duds, or sell it to purchase other things you need, such as weapons and trade goods. Specifically, Frozen Shadoweave armor and the accompanying Shadow's Embrace set bonus is considered to be incredibly high-quality for endgame content. However, to skill up tailoring requires large amounts of cloth, to the extent that many warlocks refuse to take up tailoring. Instead they use the cloth they find for first aid.
- It should be noted that unlike most other crafting primary professions, Tailoring does not require a gathering profession, so you can take Skinning, Herbalism, or Mining and sell the materials to other players.
- Enchanting is another profession which the warlock can personally benefit from. "Green" items (enhanced items) are broken down into essences which you can then use to enchant your own pieces of equipment with various statboosts. Enchanting is also a good source of early access to wands that would normally not drop or become available for purchase until you can reach a city. Enchanting is a good secondary profession for the Tailoring profession. Tailoring provides abundant access to "green" items for disenchanting which in turn provides the components for enchantments for "white" gear produced by Tailoring. When used together in this manner, both skills can be advanced practically simultaneously. If you take the Enchanting / Tailoring combination, it's typically a good idea to craft a white set of bracers, cloak, and robe that you repeatedly enchant with your Enchanting profession. While a +5 bonus to health or a +1 bonus to Agility may not be useful, the gear can be enchanted repeatedly with the same enchantments to help boost your Enchanting skill. Being able to produce your own, low-leveled gear for this specific purpose is quite handy and Tailoring provides this ability so that you don't have to waste precious coin purchasing something to enchant.
- Herbalism and Alchemy are useful for the warlock, and are essentially two Primary Professions that go hand in hand. Herbalism allows the gathering of various herbs, and the Alchemy profession allows the creation of various potions for use. Herbalism and Alchemy make for useful warlock professions because it's always handy to have plenty of health, mana, and stat-boosting potions in your arsenal for fighting. Given that several useful potions require fish, the fishing secondary profession (see below) is a wise choice for alchemists. As a further bonus, herbalism grants the Lifeblood ability, which works well with Life Tap.
- Inscription can be a good profession for a warlock. Not only does it offer a convenient source of glyphs and scrolls of intellect, it also offers some off-hand tomes and at high levels some shoulder enchants.
- Engineering is a fun way to complement a warlock's skillset. The very quick AoE bombs go well with the warlocks otherwise slow spells, and the high Stamina on goggles allow for more health to Life Tap. The gimmick items, most importantly, Goblin Construction Hat and Goblin Dragon Gun, are fantastic to have, as the Hat will absorb the damage normally inflicted upon you by Hellfire. As of the patch 1.12.0 you can no longer have both Demonic Sacrifice and Master Demonologist through the use of Jumper Cables. Goblin Engineering's specialty in explosives is incredibly handy, allowing you time to cast Fear against especially aggressive opponents. Comparatively, Gnomish Engineering far less useful to a Warlock.
- Jewelcrafting can be a good option. At low levels, it offers some useful rings and neckpieces that can be in short supply while leveling. At the higher levels, the warlock can cut gems and make useful BoP trinkets. However, the later levels of jewelcrafting are incredibly expensive with designs having low drop rates and high prices on the AH. An enterprising warlock can sell mining bars for a considerable amount, and it's a good investment once you reach the end, but is a best choice for someone with a high level character to help fund it.
- Two Gathering Professions
- Depending on the economy of your chosen server, you can select two gathering professions and sell everything you collect to other players for hard (virtual) currency. Since Mining and Herbalism require the use of detection abilities to gain the full benefit of the profession, and since you can only have one detection active at a time, Mining/Skinning or Herbalism/Skinning are preferred combinations. Enchanting can also be a gathering profession to a certain extent, when chosen for the ability to harvest enchanting materials (via disenchant) from Bind on Pickup items that no one in the party has a particular use for.
Start your professions early! It's usually not too expensive, and you want to ensure that the gear you create with your skills is applicable to your warlock's level.
Secondary professions
Any or all three of the secondary professions are good for the warlock. With cooking, you can create yourself (or party members) various tasty treats for quick healing and mana regeneration. Fishing is good for getting fish to use in your recipes, or for catching random gear you can sell to vendors. First Aid is good for making bandages for quick healing after battle to recover your HP faster. First Aid works especially well for warlocks due to the spell Life Tap. Bandages can be used in battle, which allows for fast healing that translates into health that can be life tapped; it's as effective as a mana potion in returning mana, but requires cast time for Life Tap. Life Tap can also be used to fill up your mana between fights, and then immediately bandage to restore the life you just converted to mana, reducing your downtime to a minimum.
Also, since cooking offers many more health-restoring foods than mana-restoring foods and drinks, Life Tap can be used to turn stacks of cooked fish and meats into a poor-warlock's drinks.
Long-term goals
Important long-term goals for the warlock include deciding how best to approach the soloing aspect to the game, your desired role in a party, and preparing yourself for late-game content (PvP, dungeons and instances, Battlegrounds, etc.)
Specs
What spec should you go? There are so many choices it can be hard to describe. You can see a high detail list at Warlock Talents. But I'll give you a simple idea right here. Destruction is a PvE build. It has some high DPS and focuses on your direct damage. Affliction is more of a grinding build based on DoTs. Due to Blizzard Nerfing Affliction, Destruction is now the best raiding specc, usually 0/21/40. Demonology is designed to make you last longer and improve your pet. That may sound cheesy but if you put 41 points into Demonology and get a Felguard, it can quickly become the more superior PvP talent tree.
External links
- EU WoW forums
- US WoW forums
- Warlock @ Wikispaces - A warlock-specific wiki
- Blood Pact - weekly warlock feature at WoW Insider
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