Warlock guide for WoW Forever

The warlock is the cloth caster with a demon pet, periodic damage and an economy of its own: Life Tap turns health into mana and Drain Life takes it back from the enemy, so stamina is worth more than for any other caster. With a Voidwalker tanking, it levels as comfortably as a hunter; in exchange, in dungeons it is pure damage and control (Fear, Banish) with no healer or tank role.

Affliction (damage)

The DoT and drain tree: Corruption, Bane of Agony and Drain Life work while you walk away. It scales with spell power and hit, and it punishes misses because a missed DoT is a whole cycle lost. It is the leveling tree.

Demonology (damage)

The demon tree: Fel Vitality raises the pet's health and mana, and Demonic Embrace your stamina by 15%, which makes stamina your second stat. It is the safest of the three and the one that handles a Voidwalker or Succubus tank best.

Destruction (damage)

Shadow Bolt and Conflagrate: Ruin doubles crit damage, so spell crit is worth a lot. It is the dungeon and raid damage tree with gear, and the one that burns the most mana while leveling.

On October 7 Blizzard published its class deep dive for the rogue and the warlock. These are the changes you will notice most as a warlock, in our own words. Blizzard warned that abilities and talents could keep changing during the beta.

• Banes and curses: your damaging curses become banes, Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom. You can only keep one bane on each target, apart from your utility curses, and whatever affected curses now affects banes too. Curse of the Elements now covers all magic damage and Curse of Shadow is gone.
• Stones, mana and pets: the Firestone (Fire damage and crit) and the Spellstone (Shadow damage only, no longer Fire, and spell haste) imbue your weapon and stack with temporary enchantments such as Wizard Oil. Life Tap scales with Spirit, the chance that Drain Soul grants you a Soul Shard when it deals damage (not on a kill) grows with every tick that does not, but it is now much lower, and pets scale with your stats, although they now gain only 2 Health per point of your Stamina (was 7.5).
• Affliction: crit finally matters, with Pandemic (up to 100% more critical damage bonus for your DoTs and drains) and Malevolence (up to 5% crit with Shadow spells). The 31-point milestone is Wrack, a Shadow drain that also raises the damage of your other Shadow DoTs by 10% for 6 seconds: it is your main spell when you are not refreshing DoTs or spending the instant Shadow Bolts from Nightfall, which Drain Soul and Wrack now trigger too. Soul Siphon boosts Drain Life, Drain Soul and Wrack; Improved Drains now increases the Mana that Drain Mana drains, but no longer increases Wrack's damage. Wrack's spell damage coefficient has also doubled and its base damage per second at level 60 goes from 36 to 86, and Amplify Curse now also affects Curse of Exhaustion and Bane of Agony.
• Demonology: Demonic Sacrifice is the 11-point milestone and lasts 2 hours, and both it and Master Demonologist change what each demon grants. Soul Link drops to the 21-point milestone and the 31-point one, Demonic Pact, stops a new demon summon from cancelling the sacrifice: for the first time you can combine Demonic Sacrifice and Master Demonologist.
• You and your demon: Demonic Knowledge raises your spell damage and your demon's based on your level, and Demonic Brand makes your Searing Pain generate less threat and your pet's next attacks deal Fire or Shadow damage (with high threat on tanking pets such as the Voidwalker). Decimation cuts the cooldown of Soul Fire by up to 90% and, if you cast Shadow Bolt or Searing Pain on an enemy below 35% health, your Soul Fire casts faster and costs no Soul Shards for 10 seconds.
• Destruction: Ruin moves up to row 3 as a 5-point talent, within reach of Demonology and hybrid builds, and Conflagrate is the 16-point milestone. The new milestones are Bane of Havoc (21 points: for 5 minutes, the afflicted target also takes 15% of the damage you deal to others) and Incinerate (31 points: Fire damage, 25% higher if the target has Immolate). Shadow and Flame rewards alternating: Conflagrate raises your Shadow damage and Shadowburn your Fire damage for 20 seconds, now by 4/8/12/16/20% (was 2/4/6/8/10%).

For Blizzard, the warlock is still frail and dependent on its demons, but it now deals damage that can compete with any caster's. Talents open at level 10, with one-point milestones at 11, 16, 21 and 31 points; they are changed, Legacy talents included, at your class trainer in a capital city, and dual specialization arrives at level 40. Read our summary of the deep dive or Blizzard's official article.

Build 1.60.1.70170, from October 1, is the first with several warlock changes. Hellfire can now crit and Drain Soul is correctly interrupted if you start casting another spell. In Affliction, the Soul Harvesting talent is renamed Soul Harvest and finally grants its 50/100% mana regeneration: in the game client, killing a non-trivial enemy afflicted by your Drain Soul gives you that regeneration for 10 seconds and also lets you regenerate while casting. Pets get Aggressive mode back, under the pet tab of your spellbook, and the Incubus moves to a lower-resolution model. If you play a gnome warlock, Eureka no longer affects any periodic effect, so it does not boost your DoTs.

In the previous build, 1.60.1.70009, the warlock was, alongside the rogue, the class with the fewest documented changes: two, and neither touched a talent. Sacrifice, the Voidwalker ability that absorbed a fixed amount of damage in Classic, now scales with 10% of the warlock's spell healing. It is a small change in numbers but a big one in concept, because it means the warlock's gear improves the pet. And Life Tap updates its tooltip to show it scales only with spirit, which the class deep dive confirmed as a Forever change.

What we knew from other parts of that build: the warlock is one of the classes where the Cooldown Manager can be tested, though with two caveats among its known issues (the Healthstone cooldown could not be tracked, and banes and curses stopped tracking after re-acquiring the target). There is also a gamepad flyout for pet control and spells. And like every caster, it is affected by wands no longer gaining spell power and Wizard Oil returning to its Classic values.

Apart from Soul Harvest, the notes barely mention the warlock's Forever talent trees, although the client does ship them different from Classic's: Fel Stamina no longer exists and Demonic Pact is a new talent. Blizzard detailed them in its October 7 class deep dive, summarised above.

Recommendation: Affliction from 10 to 60 with the Voidwalker. It is the calmest leveling in the game alongside the hunter's: the Voidwalker holds, you apply DoTs, switch targets and Life Tap refills the mana. Demonology is just as safe and slightly slower; Destruction kills faster with gear but burns mana you do not have at low levels.

Recommended talent order, broadly:

• From 10 to 20, the first Affliction talents that improve Corruption and the drains. Soul Harvest, on row 2, makes finishing with Drain Soul grant extra mana regeneration, and since October 1 it finally works. In the early levels the wand is still your finisher, so pick the best one by DPS: it no longer gains spell power.
• The 16-point milestone arrives around 25-26; Forever ships two class presets if you would rather not decide.
• From 30-40, keep going down Affliction or spread into Demonology to reinforce the Voidwalker if you die a lot. A reset cost 1 silver in the beta; at launch, check what it costs at your trainer.
• Destruction from 40 only if you play in a group with a tank.

Pacing:

• No level scaling: the warlock handles orange mobs better than other casters thanks to the Voidwalker, but an orange mob resists DoTs and makes you miss more. Yellow and one pull at a time.
• Life Tap after every fight, never during: stamina is your mana, and in Forever the Voidwalker's Sacrifice scales with your spell healing, so look after that piece too.
• Soulstones and Healthstones before every dungeon; the campsite lets you craft while waiting for the group and take three one-hour buffs.
• Dungeon quests: since October 1 they give half the extra experience they used to give on top of a normal quest. Go in for the loot and the mobs, not just the quests.
• Legacy Points: each character spends them across three trees (Professions, Adventure and Resourcefulness). The only perk shown so far is Well Rested, more rested experience; we will not guess what the rest do.

Spell power (and specific Shadow damage, worth almost the same) ahead of everything in all three trees; then hit, with more weight for Affliction because a missed DoT is a whole cycle. In Classic the spell hit cap against bosses was 16%; Blizzard has not said what it is in Forever now that hit is shared. Stamina is the warlock's true second stat because of Life Tap and, for Demonology, Demonic Embrace. Crit counts for Affliction thanks to Pandemic and Malevolence, and for Destruction thanks to Ruin. The wand scores in the ranged slot because, while leveling, wanding targets down is real damage. In Forever, hit is one stat for spells, melee and ranged, and so is crit (Blizzard's Deep Dive Panel Recap): hit on any piece works for you.

At level 30, the beta's last cap, the warlock dresses almost entirely in Tailoring: five recipes for Affliction and Demonology and six for Destruction. The Scarlet Monastery provides Scorn's Icy Choker, the Bloodmage Mantle and the Necrotic Wand for all three trees, and Affliction and Demonology add the Spidertank Oilrag from Gnomeregan. The staff depends on the tree: Affliction carries the Staff of the Shade from Razorfen Kraul, and Demonology and Destruction the Staff of Soran'ruk, a quest reward. The cloak, the belt, a ring and the trinkets come from the battleground supply officers; our list mixes both factions' versions, so get the one for yours.

On the way, at level 20, Shadowfang Keep was the key stop (Necrology Robes, Mindthrust Bracers and, for Demonology and Destruction, the Abomination Skin Leggings), along with the Feyscale Cloak from Wailing Caverns and Ghamoo-ra's Bind from Blackfathom Deeps.

On the way up, Shadowfang Keep and the Scarlet Monastery hold three BiS pieces each; Razorfen Downs and Blackrock Depths two each, and Zul'Farrak one, the Spellshock Leggings. The Hakkari Shroud from the Temple of Atal'Hakkar is BiS for Affliction and Demonology. Forever's new dungeons that are already playable (Hall of Thanes, Ruins of Lordaeron and Excavation Site) have no BiS-marked loot for the warlock in our data yet. Full list per level and slot on the warlock BiS page.

What it can wield. In Classic the warlock uses daggers, one-handed swords, staves and wands, and can carry an off-hand item next to a one-handed weapon; no shield, and no ranged weapon other than the wand. Blizzard has not announced any change to this for Forever. As in Classic, every weapon type has its own skill, which rises with use up to 5 points per character level, and that includes the wand: use it rarely and its skill falls behind, so you miss more with it.

What our lists score. The types our warlock lists score are one-handed swords, daggers, staves and wands. All three trees compare a one-hander plus an off-hand item against a staff, and the ranged slot is always a wand, scored by its DPS. The weapon skill points some items carry add nothing to our score.

What changes in Forever. According to Blizzard's Deep Dive Panel Recap, weapon skill works as it always has, but items that grant it give less per piece so they are not always the obvious pick. What matters more to you is something else: caster weapons now grant spell damage and healing, so you will keep upgrading your weapon while leveling, just like a warrior. Wands, on the other hand, no longer gain spell power in the beta, as in Classic: pick yours by its DPS.

Racials. Of the races that can be warlocks, the weapon racial that helps you is the humans', and it changes for real in Forever. Sword Specialization added 5 sword skill in Classic; now it gives 2% critical strike chance with all spells and attacks while you have a one- or two-handed sword equipped. For a human warlock, a one-handed spell power sword is free crit for Shadow Bolt, above all in Destruction, where crit is worth double. The orcs' Axe Specialization does nothing for you, because warlocks do not use axes, and gnomes, undead and trolls have no weapon racial in Forever. The full comparison is in the best race for a warlock.

The new combination is the troll warlock, one of Forever's six; there is no Skyborne warlock. Humans and gnomes for the Alliance, orcs and undead besides the troll for the Horde. No racial changed in the beta is warlock-specific, but two touch it: Eureka, the gnomes' new active racial (on a warlock, your next 3 non-periodic damaging abilities cost 10% less mana and deal 10% more damage; since October 1 it does not affect your DoTs), and Touch of the Grave, the new Undead racial, which no longer breaks crowd control or triggers from non-damage abilities, which matters to a class that lives off Fear. Choose by faction and looks; no race levels better than another with what we know.

Tailoring + Enchanting: three to four of the level-20 BiS pieces, and five or six of the level-30 ones, the beta cap, are Tailoring recipes, neither profession needs gathering and Enchanting disenchants the leftovers. With more than 600 new recipes and a passive bonus per profession in Forever, crafting your own cloth pays off more than in Classic.

If you would rather make gold, Herbalism + Alchemy: the warlock uses few potions and sells them all. Cooking for the small experience bonus of crafted food and First Aid so you do not drain your own life after every fight. Each profession's leveling path is in the profession guides.

• Leveling with the Imp. The Voidwalker is your tank; the Imp is for groups with a tank.
• Life Tapping mid-fight. Tap between fights, with the Voidwalker resting: stamina is your mana, not your shield.
• Hunting wands with spell power. They no longer gain it; compare by DPS.
• Leveling as Destruction for the damage. It burns the mana Affliction recovers on its own. Switch from 40 and with a group.
• Fighting orange mobs. Without level scaling, DoTs resist and miss more. Yellow.
• Forgetting Soulstones and Healthstones. Craft them at the campsite while waiting for the group.
• Tracking curses in the Cooldown Manager. It stops after a target switch; watch them on the mob.