Warlock instance grouping guide

From WoWWiki

Instance grouping guide
Main Roles
Instance tanking (Tank) Instance healing (Healer) Instance damage dealing† (Damage dealer) † Currently a stub.
Other Roles
Instance leader Instance puller Crowd controller† Instance main assist Instance off tank Instance scout Instance rezzer† † Currently a stub.
Class Roles
Druid Hunter Mage Paladin Priest	Rogue Shaman Warlock Warrior
Other Topics
Marking up mobs Crowd Control Combat Cycle Dying and Wipe prevention Role Assignment How Not To Do Things Additional Tips
Related Topics
Aggro Crowd control Looking For Group	Meeting stone Pickup group Wipe

Back to the Instance grouping guide

This article or section needs to be cleaned up to a higher standard of quality. This may include editing to correct spelling and grammar, rewriting sections to ensure they are clear and concise, and wikifying.

This article or section is a strategy stub. You can help expand it by editing it. Give general, not personal, strategies. You may want to review information from fansites with raiding guides.

Warlocks can be an extremely flexible and useful addition to almost any party. However, because the warlock doesn't fit neatly into any single stereotype, they require a bit of practice to use well.

Contents 1 A Warlock's Responsibilities 2 The Warlock in Instances 2.1 Damage Spells 2.1.1 Affliction 2.1.2 Destruction 2.1.3 Demonology 2.2 Pets 2.3 Aggro/Threat Management 2.4 Crowd Control 2.5 Stones 2.6 Curses 2.7 Summoning 3 Working with a Warlock

A Warlock's Responsibilities

• Soulstones - A soulstone can save a group that has just wiped from a long run back to the instance, and in some cases, can prevent a wipe altogether. Warlocks should keep a soulstone on the party's healer at all times. In groups with multiple warlocks, it is preferable to use only one soulstone at a time.
• Healthstones - Healing items can be the deciding factor between winning a fight and losing it. Healthstones use a separate cooldown timer from potions, making them especially handy.
• Crowd control - Spells like Banish and Enslave Demon are excellent ways for a warlock to help lessen the difficulty of some pulls. The Succubus's Seduce ability is not as effective as Polymorph or Sap, but it can be very helpful in humanoid-heavy circumstances. Some instances, such as The Botanica and Karazhan, have pulls that virtually require a warlock's services. In extremis, a warlock's Fear, Death Coil, or Howl of Terror can give a party time to heal or escape.
  • Using fear spells and abilities can be extremely dangerous, and should only be used in particularly dire circumstances. One strategy involves casting a fear effect spell on the target mob, then using Curse of Recklessness to make sure the target doesn't run too far away. Curse of Recklessness does not remove a fear effect, but instead causes the mob to act normally. Using this technique, a warlock can keep a mob under permanent control. However, it forces the warlock to split their focus, and as suppressing then renewing the fear effect causes the mob to run in a different direction, it can be difficult to maintain.
  • Keep an eye out for Demons and Elementals to Banish. Demons are not always obvious. The most common attribute is an immunity to curses.

The Warlock in Instances

Okay lets be frank; the main job for the warlock in an instance is to do damage, and a well-played warlock can be impressive, giving mages and hunters a very hard time keeping up on on the dps charts. On the other side of the coin, a poorly played warlock is pratically a waste of time to have around. Warlocks are unique in the sense that they have acces to an comprehensive arsenal of nastiness to throw at the enemies as well as severeal different pets. To maximize damage require skillful use of both.

Damage Spells

Affliction

This tree has two primary, instant cast nukes: Curse of Agony and Corruption (warlock ability), and a third, the 1.5 sec cast Unstable Affliction as a talent on level 50 (Immolate makes a suitable stand-in below lvl 50). Most of the affliction warlock's damage revolve around these three spells, and the main goal, especially in low and mid-level instances is to get them on as many mobs as possible, as aggro permits. Be sure to pick the talent Nightfall as well as the Glyph of Corruption to get some instant cast shadow-bolts into the fray as well.

At level 60, affliction warlocks gain the mighty Haunt spell, which greatly increases their single target damage; Haunt deals an initial burst and applies a debuff to the target that increases shadow-damage-over-time. An affliction warlock will always want to open the battle with this spell and quickly follow up with Curse of Agony, Corruption and Unstable affliction. Pick new mob and rinse and repeat as soon as the cooldown of Haunt ticks off.

For highlevel AoE, the affliction Lock will mostly rely on Seed of Corruption wich becomes a true hard-hitter with the talents of the tree. It works somewhat similar to the mage spell Living Bomb but the subttle difference that the "fuse" on SoC is based on damage taken, not time. In highlevel instances, the DPS to a single mob is usually so high that SoC will explode almost instantly, allowing the affliction warlock to spam the spell with very high damage output, compared to a non-talented rain of fire or hellfire. Threat and mana must be watched when using this stategy.

Destruction

To be frank, Destuction is not a very efficient instance spec below level 50, and shadow bolt spamming, mixed with Immolate, Corruption and Curse of Agony are just about the only tools of the trade available. You will find yourself runing out of mana constantly.

But for highlevel, Destruction is a challenging, but terribly efficient single-target and downright fun spec to use in instances.

The damage of this tree revolves almost exclusively around Immolate. In addition to dealing a fair amount of fire damage-over-time, many of the destruction warlock's nukes are greatly enhanced when Immolate is active on the target. Open the battle with Curse of the Elements and Immolate. From here enter the main nukes of the Destruction warlock; Incinerate, Chaos Bolt and Conflagrate. There are several diffent rotations to use, depending on the exact spec and choise of glyphs, and the individual warlock should experiment and find what works best for them.

For AoE, the destruction warlock will use Rain of Fire, which deals a fair amount of damage when properly talented in the tree. If circumstances permit, Hellfire can deal, impressive damage, but remember to ask the healer first.

Demonology

Demonolgy is perhaps the most difficult spec to use for instancing and rading, both in terms of building a working spec and putting it to good use.

On the spell-side, the damage of the demonology warlock is centeret around clever use of the talent Decimation. Whenever decimation is procced, Soul Fire goes from being nearly completely useless, to the most efficient spell in the warlock arsenal (With talent Bane, the base cast-time of a Decimation Soulfire is 1.6 seconds). For the last 35% of a boss health, alternating Incinerate/Decimation Soulfire, produce whooping DPS. The downside is that demonology warlocks find it difficult to maintain a high DPS during the 65% boss health where decimation cannot proc. The result is that Decimation works best in fights with multiple mobs where the Soulfire can be used on a new mob to bring it's health down to 35% quickly

The real trick of the raiding demonology warlock, is to make up for the less efficient spell damage, with clever use of the pet.

Pets

• Make sure your minion is on defensive or passive. Passive is preferable, just in case you break a sheep, shackle, trap, etc.

• The Imp is generally the preferred pet in parties and raids. They deal high DPS with fire bolt and fire shield, provide an hp buff with Blood Pact, and are ranged so will avoid damage more easily. Phase Shift can also keep the imp from accidentally pulling an enemy.
• The Voidwalker is useful in a party with lower level or poorly-geared tanks. The Torment ability can keep large numbers of monsters controlled, and the Sacrifice shield can help the warlock avoid Hellfire damage. Otherwise, voidwalkers are not very useful, and another pet should usually be used.
• The Succubus is useful for DPS if another imp is already out, against fire immune or fire resistant enemies, and/or if extra crowd control from its Seduce ability is useful.
• The Felhunter can be useful against dangerous casters in instances, and since patch 3.0 provides the party/raid with an intellect and spirit buff.
• The Felguard is also a useful pet for DPS for a demonology warlock in groups. In addition to its damage, it functions very similarly to a Voidwalker.
• Demonology warlocks have additional considerations when choosing which demon to use. Demonic Sacrifice and Master Summoner give extra bonuses to the warlock that will affect the choice of demon.

Aggro/Threat Management

• In an emergency, Searing Pain can be used to pull monsters away from healers and other casters.
  • When the healer isn't being mercilessly pounded, heals are easier to cast.
  • Warlocks generally have higher Stamina bonuses, meaning they can take more punishment than other casters.
  • When using the Voidwalker, using the Sacrifice ability can give the tank more time to pick up the offending monster, as well as allowing the healer a chance to keep you alive.
  • Any target which is attacking a Mage has normally suffered fairly heinous damage (or else the mage wouldn't have pulled aggro), and pulling the mob off the mage can allow the two of you to finish the job. With stronger elite monsters, the two of you can continuously exchange aggro and watch it run back and forth until dead. Combine with Curse of the Elements for extra fun.
  • In very high level instances, your chances of gaining aggro before the caster dies are reduced, so you may well find it necessary to use Fear, but given the risks involved (see below), it is probably only worth doing so in order to save a priest.
• AoE belongs at the end of the fight, not at the beginning. Leave some time for DOTs to do their dirty work, and for Tanks to build threat. If you are Destruction specced, and have a Paladin in the party, the combination of Intensity and Concentration Aura can make your AoE options much, much more mana efficient.
• At level 66, warlocks gain the Soulshatter ability which reduces threat to all mobs in a 50 yard radius.

Crowd Control

• The following are a warlock's crowd control abilities: Fear, Enslave Demon, Howl of Terror, Seduce(succubus), Banish. Sometimes Death Coil is lumped in here as well, especially in PvP. In PvE, the Voidwalker's AoE taunt Suffering can sometimes be used to engage/distract several mobs if you consider off-tanking to be crowd control.

• Be extremely careful with fear. If you decide it's absolutely necessary, keep Curse of Recklessness on hand. This will not remove the fear effect, but will cause the mob to act normally. Replacing the Curse of Recklessness with another curse will make them start running again. You can use this to permanently lock down a mob if you have room to work with. Another thing to note is that the suppression and renewal of the fear effect will cause the mob to change the direction they are running.
  • If the priest is low on health and is getting pounded on. If your tank isn't getting aggro and you can't kill in time, go ahead and fear but try and nuke it while it's feared so it will come to you and not priest.
  • If there is no chance to aggro any adds. The more thorough the group is being clearing the instance, the more opportunities you will have to use Fear.
  • If it's your only chance of surviving. If you are 100% going to die if you don't fear, do it. A small chance is better than none.

• Learn to look for Demons and Elementals to banish. You may be very surprised what sometimes constitutes a demon in WoW. Check out Sunken Temple for example. One tell-tale sign is that they tend to be immune to curses.

• Though not as reliable as the mages' Polymorph, your pet Succubus' ability seduction can help occupy a humanoid mob.

• Just about all of a warlock's crowd control abilities are shadow based. On mobs and players with high amounts of shadow resist, Curse of Elements may aid in helping the spell hit and stick for the entire duration of the spell. Curse of Elements can also help mages' Polymorph stick better on mobs and players resistant to almost any magic.

Stones

• Create a Soulstone for the healer. That way, should she die and be the only one capable of rezzing, you can bring her back. The Warlock should pay close attention to the timer, and ensure a new Soulstone is placed as soon as the previous one runs out. It is better to Soulstone a Paladin than a Priest if you have one in your party as they usually live longer then the priests.

• When you have more than one warlock in the party, it's not advisable to have all Soulstones active at the same time. It's enough to have one Soulstone "in action" (cast on a healer) and all others "in reserve". This way, after a wipe and a rez, someone can immediately cast a new Soulstone.

• Create Healthstones for your party members. In instances it is easy to use Drain Soul fairly often, so it shouldn't be a problem to keep everyone around supplied with healthstones all the time. Don't forget to tell everyone to ask for a new one, if they used theirs.

Curses

• Curse of Recklessness is a useful spell in crowded instances, as it will stop the normal 'run and get help' reflex of enemies when they reach low health, instead forcing them to fight to the death. This can go a long way toward wipe prevention. Also, each rank of this curse reduces the targets armor a little more, with increased AP as a minor drawback. When running with a melee heavy group, this is one of the best curses to use due to the armor reduction.
• Whenever you have multiple warlocks, mages, or a shadow priest in your party/raid, Curse of Elements becomes a very useful spell that contributes to damage of every shadow/arcane/fire/frost spellcaster, which is everything except shamans. It is also notable because it does not interfere with crowd control - when cast on frozen or polymorphed target, it does not break freeze/polymorph. If for some reason you find yourself targeting a sheep, consider quickly putting Curse of Elements on it before you move on, as this saves you the trouble of applying a curse later when you do get round to killing the target, and it reduces the chances that the mob will resist a refreshing of the Polymorph. Curse of Elements is also appreciated by Shadow-specced Priests (see Priest talents for more information on the Shadow tree), and any group/raid that has spellcasters.

Summoning

• The meeting stone has largely replaced the need for a warlock to summon party/raid members to the major instances. However, occasionally, summons are used inside instances to bring latecomers to the party, or outside instances if there are a lot of monsters between the meeting stone and instance entrance. NOTE: As of patch 2.4, warlocks can now summon persons outside of instances INTO the instance. This makes the spell invaluable should you lose a party member mid-instance and need a replacement. You no longer need to send a group to the meeting stone if you have a warlock in the group. Zul'Aman is the only exception to this rule.

Working with a Warlock

• You will often see a Warlock's health rapidly dropping in the middle of combat. Don't be alarmed, this does not necessarily mean that they are being attacked and in immediate need of healing. It is quite common for Warlocks to use Life Tap spell to convert health to mana if they run out of mana. It is usually not necessary to heal a Warlock unless he/she draws aggro or his health falls below 50%. On the other hand, during long encounters ( more than 2 minutes without resting ), actively spellcasting Warlocks may run out of both health and mana and will depend on healing for continued DPS.

• If a Warlock is scouting using the Eye of Kilrogg (a little floating green ball), watch their body--they can't see or hear what is happening to them because they're off elsewhere. Don't forget that they use it to help you too. Nothing worse than scouting for the group to come back to see they've left you behind and now you're being attacked. This spell doesn't stop once under attack, and the Warlock doesn't hear anything. In essence, the Warlock is only there physically, similar to Hunters using Eyes of the Beast.