Warlock

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Warlocks were once arcanists - or shamans in the case of the orcs - who, in pursuit of ever-greater sources of power, abandoned their studies of the Arcane or Nature and delved into darker, fel-based magic (Shadow). Warlocks still retain their skills in the manipulation of the chaotic element of Fire, although their focus is on delivering excruciating pain and drawing out the suffering of their victims. No longer do they aim to use the effective application of Arcane energies to efficiently dispose of their targets from a safe distance, instead warlocks revel in their victim's pain while their fel minions engage their target.

Background

A warlock from Warcraft I.

Warlocks are masters of the dark arts, devoted to furthering their understanding and use of Shadow and Fire based magics, along with the summoning of demons from within the Twisting Nether. They first appeared on Azeroth during the First War, when Gul'dan, the first of their kind among the invading orc clans of Draenor, led the Horde across the dimensional gulf through the Dark Portal while in servitude to the Burning Legion.^[1][2] Warlocks are used as damage dealers, but can store the target´s soul to resurrect or heal himself by draining enemy's life. The warlock can summon an Imp without a Soul Shard. However, other demons require a soul shard or other reagents to be summoned.

History

Warlock - From the Old English wærloga; "oath-breaker" or "deceiver".

The eredar of the Burning Legion are credited as the original warlocks and wielders of dark magics, corrupted from the powerful and magically attuned eredar of Argus.

In most societies, the warlocks now live on the fringe of civilization, tolerated but not trusted. Human warlocks meet in secret in the basement of a bar in Stormwind. Thrall has expressed discomfort with the warlocks but understands the necessities in using them so he has allowed them the Cleft of Shadow. Conventional spell casters often see the warlock's magic as a vain attempt at increasing their own power.

Although many that consort with demons fall to darkness, the warlocks of the Horde and the Alliance advocate bending demonic forces to one's will without succumbing to complete corruption. These spell casters can summon demons to serve them, and they can also cast many painful spells that slowly eat at the life of their enemies. Warlocks are usually physically weak compared to other classes, but they compensate for this deficiency with their potent array of spells and their demonic minions. Compared to other spell casters, warlocks are among the strongest and often depend on the sacrifice of their own blood to fuel their magical powers.

On the world of Azeroth, there are many races who presently wield the dark power of the Nether. Playable ones include: Humans, Gnomes, Orcs, Forsaken, and Blood Elves. Each has its own history in the dark demon arts.

Notable

• Archimonde
• Gul'dan
• Kael'thas Sunstrider
• Kil'jaeden
• Medivh
• Ner'zhul^{[citation needed]}
• Cho'gall
• Nekros Skullcrusher

Overview

Warlock.[1]

Warlocks are unique among the DPS caster classes because of their ability to convert health into mana. They can be + Damage or + Damage & Crit players. Warlocks have the most powerful assortment of Damage over Time spells when used in conjunction, and also the most variety in debuffs and summonable minions. Just like a mage, a warlock’s Crowd control abilities appropriately used can stave off certain doom for the warlock and their allies, and the warlock’s sustained Burst damage when suitably specced and geared can rival those of a mage. However, the warlock’s Area of Effect spells are not as varied as those of their mage brethren, although when used appropriately they have powerful applications in group play.

Warlocks are well versed in the "shock and horror" tactics of warfare, and their manipulation of Shadow energies can send their opponents reeling in Fear. At low levels, warlocks rely primarily on minions and Damage over Time (DoT) spells to deal damage while fearing their enemies to prevent retribution.

Endgame warlocks either choose to maximize the effects of their DoTs and Curses through the Affliction tree, increase the utility of their summoned minions and stones through the Demonology tree, or lay waste the opposition with Burst damage and Direct damage spells in the Destruction tree. In previous versions of WoW, the 8-debuff and 16-debuff limits prevented warlocks from maximizing their damage output through Affliction spells, and warlocks were relegated to chain-casting their Direct damage spells to maintain DPS in PvE raids. This has changed and there is now no reachable debuff limit, and Affliction DPS is now competitive in a raid environment.

The warlock can learn to summon magical mounts. Other classes, except Paladins, Death Knights, and Druids (Flight Form), must purchase their own mounts with gold or via Honor and Battleground tokens obtained through PvP.

Being a warlock demands certain things: being able to engage multiple targets simultaneously while keeping tabs on your minion, to make split-second strategic decisions on cast rotations depending on the situation, careful shard management and even more careful aggro management. Being a warlock also rewards many things: they are PvP powerhouses due to naturally high stamina values, the ability to apply debilitating Crowd control abilities, and in PvE their damage output in multiple target situations can rival those of other DPS classes who focus fire on a single target.

Their ability to drain and use souls as Soul Shards is also appealing to many.

Races and starting stats

Main article: warlock races

Race		Strength	Agility	Stamina	Intellect	Spirit	Armor	Health	Mana
	Blood elf	17	22	19	26	21	49	42	200
	Gnome	15	23	20	26	22	51	43	200
	Human	20	20	21	22	22	45	53	140
	Orc	23	17	23	19	25	39	73	109
	Undead	19	18	22	20	27	41	63	110
	Goblin	??	??	??	??	??	??	??	??
	Worgen	23	22	21	18	21	??	??	??

Weapons and armor

Warlocks can wear cloth armor only, and can initially use daggers and unarmed combat in battle. They can also use wands for ranged combat, and equip off-hands to enhance various skills. They can train at a weapon master for 10 to gain the ability to use one-handed swords (Undercity, Silvermoon, Stormwind City) and Staves (Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Stormwind City, Darnassus). More information regarding warlock-specific armor can be found at warlock Sets.

Attributes

Stamina is one of the key warlock attributes, especially for warlocks specializing in Demonology. The main reason for this is that warlocks can use Life Tap to convert their health to mana, thus allowing stamina to mostly fill the role for intellect as well. Many warlocks also depend on large health pools as their main source of defense. As a primarily spell caster, the warlock also has great use for all the standard caster attributes, such as intellect and spell power, but no use for strength or agility. Spirit is of moderate value due to Fel Armor, which returns 30% of the warlock's spirit as spell power.

The value of other attributes — spell crit, spell power, spell hit, resilience and haste — depends to some degree on the warlock's talent spec and play style. Spell crit is more useful for direct damage spells, especially with Ruin. Affliction warlocks, who rely more on DoTs, will benefit more from spell power than from spell crit, at least until training Pandemic. The Demonology talent Demonic Knowledge gives the warlock bonus spell damage based on their minion's stamina and intellect, which are bolstered by the warlock's own stamina and intellect.

In a raid scenario, spell hit rating takes precedence over all other stats, and it is advisable to reach the spell hit rating cap (17% as of 3.0.2), taking Suppression into account for Affliction warlocks. After that point, spell hit rating is useless; spell-hit-crippling debuffs are too few and far between to be considered.

In PvP for warlocks, the focus is somewhat different as survivability takes precedence. warlocks often choose to sacrifice DPS in order to obtain higher survivability in high end arena, regardless of talent choice.

Below are some examples of the relative attribute values for a warlock (in descending order).

• Raiding: Spell hit (until capped) > Spell power > Haste rating > Spell crit
• PvP: Resilience (until 700+) > Stamina (until 20k+ hp) > Spell power > Spell crit

Personal play style and raid makeup will cause this prioritization to vary from player to player - for example, Demonology warlocks with very high crit ratings can out DPS similarly built warlocks who have focused on haste or spell power, while bringing more Demonic Pact coverage to the raid.

See also Resilience, Spell Damage and Stamina for more information.

Soul Shards

A large number of the warlock's skills and spells rely on a Soul Shard reagent. They are obtained by using the Drain Soul spell. To create a soul shard, the warlock must be channelling this spell as the target dies. Only targets that would give experience (or honor in the case of a PvP target) to the warlock will yield a Soul Shard. It also works on the Training Dummy in Ironforge. Soul shards will receive a revamp in Cataclysm (see #Cataclysm changes)

Shadowburn (talent) also creates a soul shard if the enemy dies within five seconds of casting it if the target rewards experience, reputation or honor, but since it also costs a shard to cast, the net effect is zero shards (or less if the cast is mistimed or spell is resisted).

Soul Shards are used to summon all minions except for the Imp and enslaved demons, cast many high level spells (such as Soul Fire), and create Healthstones, Soulstones, Firestones, and Spellstones. Additionally, they are required for the Ritual of Summoning spell that allows a warlock to summon party members to the warlock's location, and Ritual of Souls which allows the warlock to summon a Soul Well that has 25 Healthstone charges or lasts for three minutes, which ever comes first.

Abilities

A warlock and his demons.

Find detailed information about the warlock's various abilities on the warlock abilities page.

Minions

Warlocks can summon a variety of minions, each exhibiting different skill sets which are useful in different situations.

The Imp is a warlock's first minion, and provides additional damage and survivability for the warlock. At higher levels, the Imp can also provide mana. At level 10, warlocks learn to summon a Voidwalker, which makes an excellent tank for a soloing warlock. Later minions include the Succubus (a rogue-like demon with an important CC ability), the Felhunter (an anti-caster demon), the Infernal, the Doomguard (the most powerful minion), and the Felguard (with Demonology talents).

In addition, warlocks can enslave demons found while adventuring, to act as their minions for a short time.

For more information, see the Minion page, and the pages for each type of minion.

Mounts

An undead warlock mounted on a Dreadsteed.

• Felsteed (Level Obtained: 20, from trainers)

The Felsteed is the 'free mount' that warlocks receive at level 20 (changed from 40 in 2.4.3 and from 30 in 3.2). Other than paladins, all other classes must pay 10 for a mount and 35 (changed from 90 in 2.4.3) for training to ride it (these prices can be lowered by being Honored with the mount's city (and pre 2.0 by obtaining the Sergeant rank)). You also gain riding skill 75.

• Dreadsteed (Level Obtained: 40, from trainers)

As of patch 3.2, warlocks may learn this epic mount at level 40 from the trainers. There is no need to complete the quest line.

Damage over Time spells

A warlock's DoTs are the bread and butter of their arsenal, regardless of talent specialization.

• Corruption - Shadow damage.
• Immolate - Fire damage which also includes direct damage.
• Unstable Affliction - Affliction Talent which deals shadow damage, and if the spell is dispelled by someone, that someone takes shadow-based direct damage and becomes silenced.
• Curse of Agony - Shadow damage.
• Seed of Corruption - Shadow damage.
• Shadowflame - Instant cast spell that deals shadow damage and then fire damage over time.
• Haunt - Affliction Talent which deals shadow damage and heals the caster for 100% of the damage done after the effect wears off, the target dies, or Haunt is dispelled.
• Shadow Embrace - Affliction With this talent, if the target is effected by Haunt or hit by a Shadow Bolt, the Shadow Embrace effect is applied to the target, which at rank 5, increases all periodic shadow damage dealt by you to the target by 5% and also decreases all periodic healing done to the target by 15% for 12 seconds.

Direct Damage spells

Undead warlock

The warlock's direct damage spells are either Shadow or Fire based. While a warlock's direct damage alone does not compare to the Mage, when coupled with their DoTs and a minion they can achieve strong, steady DPS to rival that of other classes.

• Shadow Bolt - Shadow damage.
• Immolate - Deals an initial amount of fire-based direct damage, and also has damage over time.
• Searing Pain - Fire spell producing a higher amount of threat.
• Shadowburn - Instant cast, Shadow damage, Destruction talent that costs a Soul Shard, but may return it, and has a cooldown.
• Soul Fire - 6 second(long) cast Fire spell requiring a Soul Shard, and has a cooldown. As of 3.0.2, it no longer has a cooldown.
• Death Coil - Shadow spell that also heals the warlock equal to the amount of damage dealt, and causes the target to flee in horror for 3 seconds.
• Conflagrate - Instant cast, Fire damage, Destruction talent usable only if the target is debuffed with Immolate.
• Incinerate - Fire spell with damage that increases if the target is debuffed with Immolate.
• Shadowfury - Instant cast (as of 3.0.2), Shadow damage, ground targeted area of effect, Destruction talent which stuns for two seconds.
• Chaos Bolt - Fire spell that ignores absorption barriers such as a mage's Mana Shield.

Channeled

Some of a warlock's most important spells are channeled, and they can be protected from interruption by damage, using the Fel Concentration and Intensity talents.

• Rain of Fire - Ground targeted area of effect fire damage
• Hellfire - Point blank area of effect fire damage that also harms the caster.
• Drain Life - Drains the target's health, healing the warlock for an equal amount. Modifiable using Demon Armor.
• Drain Mana - Drain's the target's mana, returning it to the warlock.
• Drain Soul - The primary Soul Shard producing spell. Also deals a small amount of damage, and can be improved to generate mana with the Improved Drain Soul talent. Damage increases 4-fold if the target is under 25% health, however, this has been very hit-and-miss in actual gameplay.

Curses

The warlock has available a variety of curses, but only one can be cast upon an enemy at a given time. This creates the need for determining an appropriate Curse in a given situation. The affliction talent Amplify Curse reduces the global cooldown of all curses by 0.5 seconds.

• Curse of Agony - Deals increasing damage over time to the target.
• Curse of Weakness - Reduces the target's attack power and the target's armor value.
• Curse of Tongues - Increases the target's casting time by a percentage.
• Curse of Exhaustion - An affliction talent that decreases the target's movement speed by a percentage.
• Curse of the Elements - Reduces the target's arcane, fire, frost, nature and shadow resistances and increases the respective damages taken by a percentage.
• Curse of Doom - Deals damage after a delay of one minute and summons a Doomguard if it deals the killing blow. This spell cannot be cast on players.

Conjured items

A warlock in art.^[1]

Another powerful ability of the warlock is to create beneficial items from Soul Shards. As of patch 3.0.2, all conjured items are used from the inventory. Healthstones and Soulstones will disappear 15 minutes after logging off.

• Create Healthstone - Creates a consumable stone that will heal its owner. It is used like a health potion, but is on a separate timer. Healthstones are the only conjured items that can be given to other players, although a player can posses only one Healthstone at a time.
• Create Soulstone - Creates a consumable stone used by the warlock to cast a spell that allows the targeted player to self resurrect if they die while the soulstone is active.
• Create Firestone - Creates a stone which provides a weapon applied buff (like wizard oil) that increases damage dealt by direct spells by 1% and spell critical strike rating. Each stone has 5 charges and does not disappear after logging off.
• Create Spellstone - Creates a stone which provides a weapon applied buff (like wizard oil) that increases damage dealt by periodic spells by 1% and haste rating. Each stone has 5 charges and does not disappear after logging off.

Healing

A warlock is by no means a healer, however, they do have some limited abilities to heal themselves and their minions while in combat. In addition, they can also resurrect by giving a player a soulstone prior to their death.

To heal themselves there are Drain Life, Corruption (with Siphon Life, an Affliction talent), Haunt (another Affliction talent) and Death Coil which, conveniently, also damage the target. The Fel Armor spell also regenerates 2% of total health every 5 seconds, including during combat. Alternatively, Demon Armor increases healing done to the warlock by 20%, from any source (even bandages and potions), but does not stack with Fel Armor. Destruction warlocks can also regain health equal to 20% of damage caused by Shadowbolt, Shadowburn, Soul Fire, Incinerate, Searing Pain, and Conflagrate though the talent Soul Leech.

To heal others (or himself), a warlock can create a Healthstone and hand it to another friendly player. These can be improved through talents. Burning Crusade introduced the Ritual of Souls which creates a Soul Well from which Healthstones can be extracted by members of the party or raid group (10 or 25 depending on Ritual of Souls rank).

To heal their minion they have Health Funnel. This can be improved through the talent system.

To resurrect a target a warlock may use a Soulstone on a friendly player before they die (30 minutes Buff duration and Cooldown), allowing them to resurrect on death. If a warlock uses a soulstone on another member of their party and the warlock (or that member) leave the party, the buff is dismissed.

Other

The warlock has several other valuable spells at their disposal.

• Fear — sends an enemy fleeing for a period of time, and is a key ability in preventing the warlock from receiving damage. Unlike a mage’s Polymorph ability, the warlock’s key Crowd control ability does not increase health generation of the target, so they are able to Fear a target while still doing damage. While damage has a chance to break Fear (no longer true in 3.0.2), this is unlike the Mage's polymorph ability where any and all damage will definitely break the polymorph effect. The main drawback is that when a PvE opponent is feared, they will run at increased speed in an unpredictable direction and will aggro other opponents if they run close to them. This makes the use of fear more risky, especially in crowded environments like instances. The bonus damage output provided by [Glyph of Fear] provides additional incentive that may outweigh the risk of using Fear.
• Howl of Terror — sends 5 enemies around you fleeing in terror for a period of time of approximately 8 seconds. A two point talent on the eighth tier of the Affliction tree can make this spell instant.
• Banish — freezes a demon or elemental - preventing them from attacking, though they are also immune to all damage while banished. Can also be used in PvP against enemy demons and Treeform Druids or Treants summoned by Druids or even other warlocks using the ability Metamorphosis from the Demonology talent tree. Rank 2 and Rank 1 Banish can be used in conjunction with Curse of Doom to ensure guaranteed damage output with very little risk to the caster.
• Ritual of Summoning — a ritual requiring 2 other party members which allows you to summon another party member to your location. As of patch 2.4 warlocks can summon party members who are outside the warlock's instance, given he, of course, has 2 other party members helping him. Zul Aman is an exception to this rule. Also warlocks can summon people without flying mounts into the various instances located in netherstorm something that was restricted before Patch 2.4 (As of patch 3.0.8 this spell will create a single summoning portal which can be used to summon an unlimited number of players for 5 minutes, at which point it despawns)
• Eye of Kilrogg — a fragile but speedy eye that allows you to scout out dangerous areas from a safe distance. The eye has a slow fall ability. It is possible to aggro some bosses with an Eye but most mobs will not aggro from it. However, many mobs will kill the eye if it moves through them but does not engage combat. Caution is advised. (Can be improved with the minor glyph, [Glyph of Kilrogg], which increases movement speed by 50% and allows it to fly in applicable areas.)
• Unending Breath — allows a target to breathe underwater for 10 minutes. (Can be improved with the minor glyph, [Glyph of Unending Breath], which causes it to also increase swim speed by 20% for anyone under its effect.)
• Detect Invisibility — allows a target to see invisible units for 10 minutes. To alleviate a common misunderstanding, it should be emphasized that stealth and invisibility are entirely different mechanics. This ability affects only invisible units such as the succubus, mages, and ghosts, not units who are in stealth such as rogues and druids.
• Sense Demons — shows demons on the minimap.

Melee

While the warlock can wield and attack with melee weapons, this is generally not recommended as the warlock's melee abilities do little damage in comparison to their array of offensive spells (exception: a warlock under the effects of Metamorphosis, a Demonology talent). Generally when an opponent gets within melee range the warlock's best bet is to use disabling spells such as Death Coil, Fear, Howl of Terror or Curse of Exhaustion to get away from the enemy.

If acquiring range is not possible a warlock is by no means helpless. Defensively, a warlock can share his damage with his pet via Soul Link, punish melee attackers with Fire Shield, and reduce damage received with Demon Armor. Unlike a Hunter a warlock's ranged abilities have no minimum range and their powerful offensive spells can still be used to deal damage to opponents that are very close, though the spells will be more difficult to cast due to spell pushback caused by taking damage.

Talents

• Affliction - Affliction talents are largely based on increasing the effectiveness of DoTs, Drains, and Curses. Affliction's strengths are its ability to remain mobile in PvP, allow the warlock to heal himself, and is very mana efficient, great for farming. Key talents include Shadow Mastery, Siphon Life, Fel Concentration, Curse of Exhaustion, Improved Corruption, Dark Pact, Unstable Affliction, Everlasting Affliction and Haunt. Its large DPS output as well as its mana efficiency makes it very good for raiding. However it is mainly a boss killing spec, as most of the damage takes time and trash mobs usually do not live long enough for the warlock's DoTs to do their full damage.
• Demonology - Demonology talents are largely based on improving the effectiveness of your minions, conjure spells, and bestowing other passive bonuses. Demonology's strengths are its versatility and survivability. Key talents include Soul Link, Master Demonologist, Demonic Embrace, Demonic Knowledge, Demonic Empowerment, Demonic Pact, Summon Felguard, and Metamorphosis. Many use the Demonology tree to overcome the scarcity of spell damage gear at early levels.
• Destruction - Destruction talents are largely based on increasing the effect of a warlock's Direct Damage spells, making them (and their dps pets) cast faster, crit more often, and ultimately deal more Burst Damage. Destruction's strength is its ability to quickly kill a single foe. Key talents include Improved Shadow Bolt, Conflagrate, Ruin, Shadowburn, Bane, Backlash, Shadow and Flame Empowered Imp, Shadowfury, and Chaos Bolt. Destruction is the only spec with high damage instant cast spells to quickly finish a fight, and the least mana efficient among the trees as well (however, warlocks still make the most mana efficient classes in the game due to their ability to steal health and use it to regain mana). The damage potential of the Destruction Tree rivals a mage when properly specialized, as well the added benefit of pets and greater mana efficiency than most classes due to a Life Tap and various other health regaining skills.

Talent builders can be found at Official Blizzard site, Wowhead, WorldofWar.se, WoW Vault (Limited to lvl 60), Thottbot, Merciless Talent Calculator (Limited to lvl 70). Talent builds are also documented from contributors. See the Warlock talents page for detailed information and talent trees.

Suggested professions

The most popular combination of professions for warlocks is Tailoring and Enchanting. Both professions have consistently provided BoP type functionality (like [Master's Spellthread] and [Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpower]) that benefit spell casters and are otherwise unavailable.

PvP centric warlocks may look to the gathering style professions - specifically Mining for Toughness and Herbalism for the self-heal Lifeblood. Affliction warlocks are the least likely to benefit from the additional crit provided by leveling Skinning for Master of Anatomy, but crit gains in importance for increasing overall DPS both in PvP and while raiding.

The remaining professions do not offer anything particularly warlock-specific, but, depending on server economy, may provide significantly more income.

In-game expectations

Warlocks are taken to raids for their incredible dps and their raid utility. A warlock's abilities can bring a lot of support to parties, and they are usually biggest source of ranged DPS. Seed of Corruption, when properly used, makes a warlock extremely effective AOE DPS without putting the raid at risk. Soul Shards should be put to good use in order to summon late comers, conjure Soulstones for raid recovery, and distribute Healthstones. Warlocks are also well known for their unique CC abilities such as Fear, Banish, and Enslave Demon.

When doing raids, the warlocks normally assign the responsibility of casting curses between each other. Effective use of curses is expected. It's a warlock's responsibility to know what curse to use in a given situation unless the raid leader requests otherwise.

Due to a demonology warlock's great endurance and survivability, warlocks are also great for tanking Leotheras the Blind in Serpentshrine Cavern - repeatedly using Searing Pain makes the boss attack the warlock from a distance, allowing the melee DPS to stay close to the boss and avoid his Chaos Blast ability. Warlocks also play an important part in the Illidan fight as they must "Tank" Illidan during one of his phases.

The Burning Crusade has brought more utility to warlocks than before. The addition of the soul well has made distributing healthstones a much simpler and convenient process. With Patch 2.4, warlocks finally are able to summon through instance barriers. This makes replacing players in a mid-raid scenario significantly more convenient.

Wrath of the Lich King changes

Warlocks deal impressive damage through the careful combination of damage spells, dots, and pets, and their new talents and abilities reflect this role. In many cases abilities have had their damage increased or their mana cost reduced, making them more efficient for the warlock to use. Talents have been consolidated and moved in the tree to give you access to some important talents earlier on. In addition, summoning your dreadsteed or felsteed no longer costs any mana and does not affect your global cooldown so that your mounts work just like everyone else's.

The most significant change to the warlock is the way your pets are handled. All of the demon master trainers have vanished! Instead, all demon abilities and spells are automatically learned as pets gain levels. Gone are the days where you have to spend coin to not only train yourself but your pesky demonic friends as well.

There have been some changes to the demon abilities. For example, they automatically learn avoidance at level 10. Blood pact now works for the entire raid, making it unnecessary to stick a warlock in a particular group. Consume shadows now also greatly increases nearby allies' stealth detection. Some abilities have been removed completely and new ones put in their place, like fel intelligence and shadow bite have replaced paranoia and tainted blood on your felhunter. Overall, your pets have received the same love given to the other classes in the game, making them better, stronger and more fearsome.

Skills

Demonic circle

Demonic circle consists of two seperate spells, Demonic circle: Summmon, which creates the demonic circle, and Demonic circle: Teleport, which teleports the caster to his demonic circle. There are two main limitations on this spell, one with each half. Demonic circle: Summon, which has a base cast time of .5 seconds, gives the warlock a 6 minute buff which is required to use Demonic circle: Teleport. This buff is normally removed by timing out, although death, or leaving/entering an instance also removes. Demonic circle teleport, which is an instant cast, is limited by a 40 yd range and a 30 second CD. These limitations mean that a warlock can not make this spell into a makeshift hearth, although effective application can be very useful. One VERY significant use for this spell is in boss fights where the boss casts a nova spell. Demonic Circle can effectively be used to move out of range or LoS of the nova up to the last second, taking into account GCD, and allowing warlocks to continue DPS'ing at a point when all other party members are running away. An important change in 3.0.8 is the removal of all snare effects when casting the teleport.

Soul Shards

One minor glyph, Glyph of Drain Soul, causes the Drain Soul spell to occasionally create two soul shards instead of one. This does not apply to Shadowburn, and does not proc frequently.

Curse of doom

Curse the target with impending doom, causing shadow damage after a minute. If the target yields experience or honor when it dies from this damage, a doomguard is summoned. Cannot be cast on players. The doomguard (that is summoned if your target dies from curse of doom) now has increased health and mana.

Fel Armor

Surrounds the caster with fel energy increasing spell power plus additional spell power equal to a percentage of your Spirit. In addition, you regain a percentage of your maximum Health every few seconds. Only one type of armor spell can be active on the warlock on any time. Fel Armor can no longer be dispelled.

Inferno

Summons a meteor from the Twisting Nether, causing fire damage and stunning all enemy targets in the area for a few seconds. An Infernal rises from the crater, under the command of the caster for a minute. Your infernal has significantly increased Health, Damage, and Armor and has had its cooldown reduced by a large amount. However, its duration has been reduced significantly as well.

Ritual of Souls

Begins a ritual that creates a soulwell. Raid members can click the Soulwell to acquire a Fel Healthstone. The Soulwell lasts for a few minutes or until all charges are taken. Requires the caster and two party members to complete the ritual. IN order to participate, all players must right-click the soul portal and not move until the ritual is complete. The charges on this ability have been greatly increased to make it easier for large raids to grab a Healthstone.

Summon Succubus

Summons a succubus under the command of the warlock. Your succubus has had her Health and armor increased, increasing her overall survivability.

Summon Voidwalker

Summons a voidwalker under the command of the warlock. Your voidwalker has had its Health, Damage and attack power increased.

Talents

Affliction

Frailty

Increases the amount of attack power reduced by your Curse of Weakness and reduces the amount of attack power granted by your Curse of Recklessness. This affliction talent takes the place of Improved Curse of Weakness.

Improved Felhunter

Your Felhunter regains some of its maximum Mana each time it hits with its Shadow Bite ability, and increases the effect of your Felhunter's Fel intelligence. This new affliction talent makes this already formidable pet even more daunting.

Eradication

Your corruption ticks have a chance to increase your spell casting speed for a short time. This effect cannot occur more than once every half minute. This new affliction Talent serves to increase your overall DPS.

Dark Pact

Drains some of your summoned demon's Mana, returning all of it to you. The amount of mana you get has been significantly increased.

Unstable Affliction

Shadow energy slowly destroys the target, causing Shadow damage over time. In addition, if the Unstable Affliction is dispelled it wil cause damage to the dispeller and Silence them for a brief time. The Silence effect has been reduced.

Demonology

Fel Vitality

Increases the stamina and Intellect of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter and Felguard and increases your maximum Health and Mana. This Talent takes the place of both Fel Stamina and Fel Intellect.

Summon Felguard

Summons a Felguard under the command of the warlock. Your Felguard's Health has been moderately increased.

Destruction

Improved Shadow Bolt

Your Shadow Bolt critical strikes increase Shadow damage dealt until some non-periodic damage sources are applied. The critical strike chance has been slightly decreased, but is still quite significant.

Aftermath

Gives your Destruction spells a chance to daze the target for a brief time. This has been reduced from five ranks to two, but gives you a comparable effect.

Shadowfury

Shadowfury is unleashed, causing Shadow damage and stunning all enemies within range for a few seconds. This spell can now be cast while moving and the duration of its Stun component has been increased.

Cataclysm changes

0. [BlizzCon 09] Classes, Items, and Professions | 2009-08-22 02:47| Wryxian

The soul shard system is receiving a massive revamp, and will now become a core feature of the warlock class. Soul shards will no longer act as an inventory item, but rather exist as a resource, and appear below the warlock's health and mana bar. A new spell, Soul Burn, will be the only warlock ability to cost a soul shard, and will empower most of your other spells to behave differently. For instance, when combined with Fear it causes the spell to become instant. Other examples include: guaranteeing your Searing Pain spell three critical hits, increased horror effect and additional healing from Death Coil, and instant summoning from your summon demon spell. Soul shards will regenerate quickly upon leaving combat, and you may also be able to use drain soul as a "soul shard evocation."

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Macros

Main article: Useful macros/Warlock

Addons

Many warlock addons used to revolve around sorting shards. However, as of Patch 1.9, this functionality was integrated into soul shard bags.

• Necrosis LdC is based on Necrosis 1 by infernal. It is described by its author as "a mod to help warlocks managing their stones, shards and summoning of demons". It provides sound notifications for various events, for example when Nightfall or Backlash combat states occur. It also has the ability to send party/raid notifications when casting SoulStone, Ritual of Souls, Ritual of Summoning — and many other messages, which can all be customized. As such, this is a very useful addon and perhaps the most widely used of all the warlock specific addons. This addon works with

• DoTimer is an addon that times DoTs that you cast on other people. It supports all classes, and it is written by Asheyla, 70 undead warlock, <Warcraft Gaming Faction>, Shattered Hand (Horde). There are four functions performed by DoTimer: the base DoT timer, a cooldown timer, a communications addon that lets you communicate your timers to others in your party, and a customizable notifications addon that can be set to notify you or others of specific events. This addon works with

• LyLock provides enhanced actions for summons, Soulstone, Healthstone, Soulstone cooldown, and banish countdown timers. Notifications for events can be customized so individual editable messages are sent to other players by party, raid, or whisper. The Soulstone notification can be sent to other warlocks in your group by whisper. Also tracks total Soul Shard count and provides buttons for Fel/Demon Armor and other spells. LyLock 2.1.0 is a 2.1.0 WoW version of Lylock by another developer that builds on the original. This addon works with .

• FocusFrame is not a warlock-specific addon, but can be extremely helpful for dealing with crowd control. It creates a frame like that of your target except this one shows your Focus instead. This allows you to keep track of crowd control debuffs such as fear or seduction without having to lose sight of your target or you can use it to DPS down two targets at once. Making use of focus casting macros is recommended in order to get the most out of this addon. This addon works with , but its primary features became incorporated with the standard UI in patch 3.0.2.

• RaidSummon will queue group/raid members that request to be summoned (by whispering you a specific keyword) and notify the warlock with an audio signal and a text message. Casting "Ritual of Summoning" will then summon the first player in the queue and — if the ritual succeeded (RaidSummon detects failures) - remove him from the list. Casting again will summon the next player and so on. Additionally, using the "Ritual of Summoning" action while targeting a raid/group-member will perform a normal ritual of summoning on him — preferring the target over already queued raid/group-members. This mod has not been updated for

• Natur EnemyCastBar shows all buffs and debuffs on your character making it exceptional for raiding. This addon works with .

Note

The warlock (prestige class) was replaced with the warlock (core class) in the World of Warcraft RPG.{^{WoWRPGCD 1-2}

See also

• List of warlocks
• Warlock instance grouping guide - Advice for instances.
• Leveling a warlock - Advice on the most efficient way to level a warlock from 1-70.
• Warlock patch history - Changes to the warlock class.
• Spell power coefficient

References

External links

• EU WoW forums
• US WoW forums
• Warlock @ Wikispaces - A warlock-specific wiki.
• The Warlocks Den

Warlock Balancing Describes the numerous changes to warlocks along with other classes in immense detail.

WowInsider Blood Pact - Warlock weekly feature at WoW Insider.

WowInsider Warlock guides at WoW Insider.

• Elitist Jerks Warlock Raiding Compendium - An in depth look at warlock raiding and the theory behind it.
• Warlock Builds - A listing of WOW warlock talent specs.
• Warlock Leveling Guide - A Guide To leveling a Warlock as fast as possible.

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