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, Drain Life takes it back from the enemy and Life Tap makes stamina 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, Curse of Agony and Drain Life work while you walk away. DoTs do not crit, so 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: Demonic Pact and Fel Stamina share stats with the pet and make 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: here everything crits and Ruin doubles crit damage, so spell crit is worth twice what it is for Affliction. It is the dungeon and raid damage tree with gear, and the one that burns the most mana while leveling.

The warlock is, alongside the rogue, the class with the fewest documented changes in the beta: two, and neither touches 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, an interface clarification.

What we do know from other parts of the build: the warlock is one of the five classes where the Cooldown Manager can be tested, though with two caveats among the known issues (the Healthstone cooldown cannot be tracked, and banes and curses stop 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.

Nothing about the warlock's Forever talent trees has been published in this build. If another site lists specific changes, they do not come from Blizzard's notes.

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. With the beta at 20 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 costs 1 silver in the beta.
• 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.
• 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 spell hit up to 16% against bosses, with more weight for Affliction because a missed DoT is a whole cycle. Stamina is the warlock's true second stat because of Life Tap and, for Demonology, Demonic Pact. Spell crit is worth little for Affliction and twice as much for Destruction thanks to Ruin. The wand scores in the ranged slot because at level 20 wanding targets down is real damage. In Forever, spell hit and crit are separate stats from their melee counterparts.

At level 20 the warlock equips three to four Tailoring recipes depending on the tree and four or five dungeon pieces. Shadowfang Keep is the key stop: Necrology Robes, Mindthrust Bracers and, for Demonology and Destruction, the Abomination Skin Leggings from Sever. Wailing Caverns adds the Feyscale Cloak from the Deviate Faerie Dragon and Blackfathom Deeps Ghamoo-ra's Bind. The remaining slots hold pieces with no source recorded yet.

On the way up, Shadowfang Keep and the Scarlet Monastery hold three BiS pieces each (in Shadowfang Keep the leggings are only for Demonology and Destruction); Razorfen Downs and Blackrock Depths two each, and Zul'Farrak one, the Spellshock Leggings. The Staff of the Shade from Razorfen Kraul is BiS only for Affliction and the Hakkari Shroud from the Temple of Atal'Hakkar for Affliction and Demonology. The new beta dungeons have no loot in our database yet. Full list per level and slot on the warlock BiS page.

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 this build is warlock-specific, but the gnomes' Eureka becomes a 10% discount on mana abilities for every class, and Touch of the Grave 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 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.
• Copying "Forever" talent builds. Blizzard has published no warlock talent change in this build.