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Warlock

Overview

Warlocks rely primarily on pets and Damage over Time (DoT) spells to deal out pain to their enemies. They hold the power to lay various Curses on their enemies which have varying weakening or damaging effects, as well as debuff the enemy with a number of other spells.

As Warlocks advance in level, they gain some powerful Area of Effect (AoE) spells which deal out damage to all enemies within a range, sometimes including the Warlock who casts the spell. This becomes especially valuable when the Warlock's group becomes surrounded.

Another noteworthy aspect of the Warlock is the ability to conjure a magical steed when desired. All other clases, in order to gain the ability to travel by mount, must spend a significant amount of gold (as much as 99g) in order to purchase a mount.

Races

The following races can play a Warlock:

• Alliance Template:Alliance Quest
  • Gnomes
  • Humans
• Horde Template:Horde Quest
  • Orcs
  • Undead

Weapons & 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 special Orbs in their off-hand to enhance various skills. They can train at a weapon master for 10 silver to gain the ability to use Swords and Staves.

Soul Shards

A large number of the Warlock's skills and spells rely on the reagent known as Soul Shards. Soul Shards are obtained by using the [Drain Soul] spell as an enemy is dying. Soul Shards will go into your inventory (and do not stack) for future use in spells. Be sure to always have a steady supply of Soul Shards at your disposal! A good recommendation to follow is to try to replace any Soul Shards you use immediately afterwards.

It is important to note that you can only obtain a Soul Shard from an experience-giving enemy. Any enemy more than 20% levels below you (e.g.: you are level 60, the enemy must be at least level 48) will not give experience, even if they are considered 'elite'. This means you may find yourself in an area, such as an instance, full of powerful elite enemies, none of whom will surrender a soul shard for you. Always come prepared!

Abilities

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

Pets

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

• Imp (Level Obtained: 5)

The Imp's main role is a support pet, designed to do additional damage alongside the caster. The Imp is very fragile and will die very quickly if attacked. The Imp requires no Soul Shard to summon, and is often used to farm new Soul Shards when you run out and cannot summon a different pet. Other Imp spells include Phase Shift (allowing the Imp to shift out of phase and not be attacked by enemies), Blood Pact, which enhances the stamina of everyone in your party, and Fire Shield, in which he will autocast on all friendlies that get hit with meelee. This shield does not add armor, but returns damage similar to the Thorns ability for the Druid Class. With the Improved Imp and Improved Firebolt talents, the imp is by far the most damaging pet in the warlock's arsenal (with the notable exceptions of the Infernal and Doomguard). Additionally, as a Warlock earns talent points, the speed and power of an Imp's fire bolt can be increased to the point where it is quite relentless.

• Voidwalker (Level Obtained: 10, Undead, Orc, Gnome, Human)

This demon deals little damage, but has very good armor and good hit points. The Voidwalker's main ability, [Torment] is a taunt that causes enemies to lose focus of the warlock and instead attack the Voidwalker. There is also a PBAE version of Torment called Suffering. This makes for an excellent soloing pet, and is also great for farming additional Soul Shards. Additional Voidwalker spells include Sacrifice, which kills your Voidwalker but creates a 30-second invulnerability shield for the warlock, and Consume Shadows which is a self heal that requires the Voidwalker to remain out of combat and immobile for 10 seconds. One excellent way to use a Voidwalker in solo play is to select a target an a distance, send the Voidwalker out to make contact and agrivate the enemy, then recal the Voidwalker, thus Pulling the one mob desired within spell casting range.

• Succubus (Level Obtained: 20, Undead, Orc, Alliance)

The Succubus is replete with spells that deal damage and mesmerize the enemy in different ways. Her first spell, Lash of Pain, is a direct-damage, low-mana cast that deals instant bonus damage to her attack. Other spells include "Soothing Kiss", which causes an enemy to attack something else other than its current target, and "Seduction", which mesmerizes a target. The Succubus also has a self-only Lesser Invisibility spell.

• Felhunter (Level Obtained: 30, Horde, Alliance)

The Felhunter is your anti-caster pet. Where the Succubus deals lots of melee damage, the Voidwalker is a great tank, and the Imp deals lots of magic damage, the Felhunter can shut casters down, preventing them from casting spells, and removing beneficial buffs from its target.

• Infernal (Level Obtained: 50, from  [Grimoire of Inferno] or Kroshius' Infernal Core)

While it deals better melee damage than the succubus, has higher HP, fire immunity, and more AC than a voidwalker, it needs to be enslaved (with the Enslave Demon) spell. This spell can break unexpectedly, causing it to turn on its former master. It can be enslaved again, but the duration decreases with each casting. The Infernal deals strictly in melee damage, combined with an immolation effect that hurts all enemies nearby. It also requires an  [Infernal Stone] to summon.

• Doomguard (Level Obtained: 60, from [Curse of Doom] or [Ritual of Doom])

The Doomguard is the most powerful warlock pet. It has the highest HP and AC, as well as having Rain of Fire, Dispel, Cripple and Warstomp. A properly used Doomguard can take out entire camps of enemies at a time before perishing. However, like the Infernal, it requires Enslave Demon to be cast on it to stay within the warlocks control. It can be re-enslaved after but the enslave's duration diminishes after each casting. Curse of Doom has a chance of summoning a Doomguard (60 seconds after casting) for 300 mana. Ritual of Doom will summon a Doomguard 100% of the time at the cost of the life of one player. It requires a  [Demonic Figurine] reagent.

Mounts

• Felsteed (Level Obtained: 40, from Strahad Farsan in Ratchet)

The Felsteed is the 'free mount' that Warlocks recieve at level 40. Other than Paladins, all other classes must pay 100 gold for a mount. This is of great help since Warlocks must purchase spells for their summoned pets as well.

• [Dreadsteed] (Level Obtained: 60, from Altar of Storms in Burning Steppes)

The Dreadsteed is the Warlock Epic level 60 mount. This pet is obtained though a long and expensive quest line. It is NOT free.

Direct Damage Spells

The warlock's direct damage spells are either shadow or fire based. While a warlocks direct damage does not compare to the mage, when coupled with our DoT's and a pet, we can achieve a strong, steady DPS.

• [Shadow Bolt]
• [Searing Pain]
• [Soul Fire]
• [Rain of Fire]
• [Hellfire]
• [Conflagrate] (talent)
• [Shadowburn] (talent)

Curses

The warlock has available 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. Curses include strength-draining, damage-over-time, resistance depletion, and others.

• [Curse of Weakness]
• [Curse of Agony]
• [Curse of Recklessness]
• [Curse of Tongues]
• [Curse of the Elements]
• [Curse of Shadow]
• [Curse of Doom]

Orbs

Another powerful ability of the warlock is to create varying Stones from Soul Shards. Certain stones are wielded in the off-hand, and enhance damage, or remove negative spell effects.

• [Create Healthstone] - Creates a stone that will heal damage. It comes in various strengths and is tradable
• [Create Soulstone] - Creates a stone that allows you to store someone's soul. That person can self ressurect while the buff lasts.
• [Create Firestone] - Creates a non-tradable stone that, when worn in off-hand slot, adds fire damage to your wielded weapon
• [Create Spellstone] - Creates a non-tradable stone that when equipped and used, will absorb damage and remove all magic effects.

Healing

While a Warlock is by no means a healer they do have some limited ability to heal themselves, their pet and others while in combat and even resurrect!

To heal themselves there are [Drain Life], [Siphon Life] and [Death Coil] which, conveniently, also damage the target.

To heal others a Warlock can create a Healthstone and hand it to another member of their party.

To heal their pet they have [Health Funnel].

To resurrect a target Warlock can have a Soulstone prepared for the specific target and use that to rez.

Miscellany

The warlock has other valuable spells at their disposal: [Fear] - sends an enemy fleeing for a period of time; [Ritual of Summoning] - a ritual requiring 2 other party members which allows you to summon another party member to your location; Eye of Kilrogg - a fragile, but speedy eye that allows you to scout out dangerous areas from a safe location.

Talents

• Demonology - Demonology talents improve the effect of your Stones, as well as the abilities of your pets.
• Affliction - Affliction talents enhance the effects of the warlock's various Curses.
• Destruction - Destruction talents add to the damage done by the warlock's direct damage spells.

Talent builders can be found at Classes of Warcraft, WoW Vault, ThottBot.

See the Warlock Talents page for detailed information and talent trees.

Macros

There are a couple of nifty useful warlock macros, I will try and post a few of them here for you:

• The following script will cast [Curse of Agony] as long as the targets health doesn't go below 20%. Using the script on the target and the health is below 20% it will instead cast the "anti-flee curse", [Curse of Recklessness].

/script if (UnitHealth("target")>20) then CastSpellByName("Curse of Agony(Rank 1)") else CastSpellByName("Curse of Recklessness(Rank 1)") end;

• The following script will cast [Drain Soul], to collect soul shards, if the targets health is below 10%.

/script if (UnitHealth("target")<10) then CastSpellByName("Drain Soul(Rank 1)") end;

• The following script casts [Curse of Tongues] on mobs or PCs with mana, [Curse of Weakness] on anything without mana. When the mob drops under 30% health, the script casts Curse of Recklessness. I also keep the PVP script below so that I don't Curse of Tongues a Hunter in PVP.

/script if (UnitHealth("target")<30) then CastSpellByName("Curse of Recklessness(Rank 1)") else if (UnitMana("target")>0) then CastSpellByName("Curse of Tongues(Rank 1)") else CastSpellByName("Curse of Weakness(Rank 1)") end end;

• The following script is a nice little nifty PVP script, if the target you are attacking is a caster you will cast [Curse of Tongues] and if its a melee you will cast [Curse of Weakness].

/script if (UnitClass("target")=="Warrior" or UnitClass("target")=="Rogue" or UnitClass("target")=="Paladin" or UnitClass("target")=="Hunter") then CastSpellByName("Curse of Weakness(Rank 1)") else CastSpellByName("Curse of Tongues(Rank 1)") end;

• The following script will cast [Shadow Bolt] or [Searing Pain] if the warlock has mana enough to do so, if not it will use the wand.

/script if (UnitMana("player")>150) then if (UnitHealth("target")>50) then CastSpellByName("Shadow Bolt(Rank 1)") else CastSpellByName("Searing Pain(Rank 1)") end else CastSpellByName("Shoot") end;

Note: All spells are taged as "Rank 1" and should be edited for best usage.

Addons

There are several crucial Soul Shard handling addons for Warlocks.

• ShardSort automatically puts all of your shards in one bag. You can get it here. Unzip it to the Interface/Addons/ directory in your World of Warcraft directory. You'll also need to make a few small changes to the Shardsort.toc file. Open it in Notepad, then change the version number to match the current version of WoW (1300). Before you run ShardSort, you need to set the bag it uses. Type /shardbag 4 to place your shards in the far left bag, or /shardbag 0 to put the shards in your backpack.

• SoulCount counts the shards you have, and attaches the number to your minimap. With a slight modification, SoulCount can also automatically run ShardSort any time you get a new shard. Get the mod here. Unzip it to the Interface/Addons/ directory, then open ShardCountDisplay.lua in Notepad. Add a new line after you see UpdateShardCount(); and put ShardSort_Sort(); on that line.

• ShardTracker includes a ShardCounter,a Sorting Feature, Buttons for your Stone Creation Spells and some small other usefull Features. You can get it here.

There are also some other really good addons for Warlocks.

• Servitude is a very good Pet Control Plugin. It has many features for controlling the autocast of your Felhunter, Voidwalker, Succubus or Imp. You can get it here.

See Also

See Starting a Warlock for some advice when starting out.
See the Warlock Category for further information on the Warlock class.

Some good info at the official WoW forums:

• Warlock FAQ

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