Warlock leveling build.

[magnetite]

I have a level 26 undead warlock that I work on sometimes. Named Dotmaster (lol). Just wondering what the best leveling build is and where I should put my talents? Some say destruction, because you like to burn things up. Others say demonology or affliction. Could you link a talent calculator shown with which talents go where to give me an idea on where to put them?

I have no problems playing the class at the moment, so stuff like chain fearing mobs is pretty easy. Took down a couple 25 elites (seperate of course), and three non elite mobs that aggroed my pet.

[capnpop]

ok, depends on what you want to do...

personally, i'd go with affliction/demon build


at least at your level get the instant-cast corruption and maybe improved life tap

then look at demonology to improve your voidwalker

demonic embrace, imp HS, imp VW and build from there


another way to go would be a aff/dest way to go, more lifetapping, but still viable

5/5 Imp Corr
2/2 Life tap
3/5 Imp Drain life
5/5 Fel Concentration
2/2 Grim Reach
2/2 Nightfall

From there either go to demonology (less dmg but longer going)
5/5 Demonic Embrace
2/2 Imp HS
3/3 Imp VW
5/5 Fel Stam
1/1 Fel Dom
5/5 Unholy Power
2/2 Master Summoner
Kinda whatever with the rest

OR Destruction
5/5 Imp SB
5/5 Bane
5/5 Dev
1/1 Shadowburn
ect...

[capnpop]

after talking with some other locks i've decided to kinda break it down

lvl 10-14: First talents
Improved Corruption 5/5

Note: you should be using your VW to tank for you the entire time while leveling, the key is to make sure that your VW stays going and you don't do too much dmg to take the aggro from your VW.  If you do it's (in my experience) really really hard to get it back to the VW (usually I end up nuking whatever i'm taking down with everything i've got)

The next talents are to keep you going...depending on if you think you need more health or more mana first....

More health:
Demonic Embrace 5/5

More Mana:
Imp Life Tap 2/2

after you get one, get the other too

this should bring you to lvl 21 after these talents

you have 20% more mana per tap, Corruption casting instantly, and 15% more stamina at the cost of -5% spirit

Lvl 22+
I'll break this into the 2 main grinding specs: Aff/Demon (30/21/0) and Aff/Demon (20/31/0)

30/21/0:
These (imo) are just filler points to get you to the 3rd tier of the Aff tree:
3/5 in either supression or Imp Drain Life (supression if you are going to dungeons, Drain life if you are just grinding)
5/5  Fel Concentration

Here the tree breaks again depending on preferance the 2 options are as follows:
Capn's Way:
2/2 Nightfall
2/2 Grim reach
(1 more in either drain life or supression)
1/1 Siphon life
(4 more to drain life and/or supression)
5/5 Shadow Mastery

The other way:
2/2 Nightfall
2/2 Grim Reach
1/1 Amp Curse
1/1 Siphon Life
1/1 Curse of Ex
3/4 Imp Curse of Ex
5/5 Shadow Mastery


Under Demonology:
2/2 Imp HS
3/3 Imp Imp  OR 3/3 Imp VW (for grinding i'd advise the VW, he'll hold aggro better)
5/5 Fel Stam
5/5 Unholy Power
1/1 Demonic Sac OR 1/1 Fel Domination (good for tough spots, Sac VW for shield, resummon in 5 secs, continue attacking...)


Aff/Demon (20/31/0)
Demonology
2/2 Imp HS
3/3 Imp Imp OR 3/3 Imp VW (once again, we aren't using bloodpact and an Imp to Grind, i'd go with VW)
1/1 Fel Dom
5/5 Fel Stam
2/2 Master Summoner
5/5 Unoly Power
1/1 Demonic Sac
(1 point wherever you want, fel intellect doesn't look bad to keep VW doing his aggro catching spell...)
5/5 Master Demonologist
1/1 Soul Link

Affliction:
3 into either Imp Drain life or Supression
5/5 Fel Concentration
2/2 Nightfall
2/2 Grim Reach
1 (wherever)

This spec also has one very good modification.  The best part of it is the fact that a warlock can take HUGE amounts of damage while soul linked, but if our pet is tanking for us, why do we need soul link?

so instead we do: aff/Demon (21/30/0)

Demonology
2/2 Imp HS
3/3 Imp Imp OR 3/3 Imp VW (once again, we aren't using bloodpact and an Imp to Grind, i'd go with VW)
1/1 Fel Dom
5/5 Fel Stam
2/2 Master Summoner
5/5 Unoly Power
1/1 Demonic Sac
(1 point wherever you want, fel intellect doesn't look bad to keep VW doing his aggro catching spell...)
5/5 Master Demonologist

Affliction:
3 into either Imp Drain life or Supression
5/5 Fel Concentration
2/2 Nightfall
2/2 Grim Reach
1 (wherever)
1/1 Siphon Life

This gives us a 3rd DoT to throw on that actually HEALS us

Now, these builds are only SUGGESTIONS, I was 30/0/21 until yesterday when I decided to experiment a bit (now 7/31/13) and it depends on the role you want to play in the game.  I can have my VW offtank now (4.7k armor) but I lost tons of dmg as a result.

If you are following these builds for grinding just know that how you spend the talent and in what tree is up to you...some of the points are just fillers, some are very nice.

[capnpop]

Up now: how to grind

you vs 1:

sick VW on mob
Corruption
CoA or Siphon Life (depending on lvl and spec)
when corruption wears off hit with Immolation and Corr again
Life tap
Drain life
Win!

you vs 2:
Sick VW on mob1
Corr mob1
CoA/Siphon life mob1
Corr mob2
Fear mob2
ShadowBolt Mob2
continue fear/SB on mob2 while ensuring that mob1 always has corruption on it
when mob2 dies:
life tap
drain life from mob1
(be sure to watch VW's heath so you don't get hit by 2 suddenly)

you vs 3:
I don't know how to do this at lower levels, i only did it now at lvl 60 with Curse of Doom
Sick VW on mob1
Corr mob1
Siphon Life mob1
Corr mob2
Curse of Doom mob2
Fear mob2
Corr mob3
ShadowBolt mob3
continue SB on mob3 until either dead or mob2 comes back and keep corruption and Siphon life on mob1
re-fear mob2 as needed
mob3 will die first (you nuked him...)
mob1 will be next (usually drain life or drain soul)
mob2 will run around until Curse of doom kills it
if doomguard pops, fear it and run...

if you are confused i'll show you exactly what i mean in felwood

Note: the only reason i put corrupton on mob2 is to ensure that i get it...i had a hordie attack a mob while i had it feared with Curse of Doom on it.  Because I had never actually HIT it, the hoard guy/gal got aggro and loot from it...since then i slap on Doom and some dmg...

note^2: when doing 3 mobs i usually have my Death Coil ready and shadow burn..that way i can burn down anything really quickly if i find it necessary...

[magnetite]

I know how to fear two mobs at once, but three can be tricky, because I may aggro another mob. For example had this harpy quest yesterday where I had to kill a 26 elite. I got him down to 29% health the first time, before he ran into a patrol which was circling around the area. Second time, I did a little more clearing and got him down.

Talked to some friends in my warlock/shaman's guild and they said to go destruction, and some sites say go 30 in affliction and 21 in destruction. Any thoughts on why those may or may not work?

[capnpop]

i was (and prolly will be) 30/0/21 (commonly referred to the SM/Ruin build)

I love this build for a couple reasons:

1) There is nothing that currently has tons of shadow resistance.  The high level instances that we are looking at (BRD, LBRS, UBRS, MC, Onixia, ect) are all places where fire damage is extremely impractical due to the mobs having VERY high resists (that and the fire dmg we have is either cooldown (soul fire, conflag) or DoT (immolation) or too high threat (Searing Pain)).  The reason that my guild almost forced me to change specs was due to the fact that this build has the potential for EXTREMELY HIGH burst damage (even after the pali buff that gives -threat).  This is why some warlocks have gone to a combo build that gives them the Imp Imp, and -threat from the Imp with a couple other pieces of Affliction and destruction (*/30/*).

The reason we can get such good burst dmg (and i've actually done this) is from those infernal nightfall procs (Nightfall: 4% chance for instant-cast shadow bolt.  Can be procced by either corruption or drain life).  If there is a shadow priest along and the mob has +15% shadow dmg + 10% shadow dmg from the warlock curse + ~250 spell dmg on a 3 second spell... oh, and the +10% from shadow mastery...


Rank 9 shadow bolt 455-507 dmg
250 * .857 (3 second cast time) = about 214
669 - 721 dmg

((669 *1.15) *1.1) * 1.1 = 930.9
((721 *1.15) *1.1) * 1.1 = 1003.3

so 931 - 1003 dmg

Crit will be:
1862 - 2006 dmg

and a crit = +20% shadow for the next 4 shadow hits or 12 secs...

2nd crit =
1862 * 1.2 = 2234
2006 * 1.2 = 2407

so in the last 4 seconds or so, you would've hit that big, hard-hitting critter..for over 4000 dmg...

it's no wonder they hated me so much....

for soloing, it's all about making your VW do the legwork.  the biggest problem with SM/Ruin is that if you crit with ANYTHING (even immolation) the VW will lose aggro.  The big benefit of it is that if you do your DoTs right (Corr, CoA, Siphon Life) you can let the VW just kill it while you /sleep.  IMO it's a great build for dmg, for grinding it's good too (Siphon Life is a great talent) and it would work for almost anything you need it to...but you'll take downtime from needing to heal up after you hit the mob a little too hard and the VW couldn't hold it.  When it comes to raiding...the key is being careful... if your tank doesn't have enough hate, you can find yourself very very dead very quickly. If you crit, wait a couple seconds before casting again, and sometimes it isn't the best to take advantage of that nightfall proc...

Edit note:  The math may not all be right, don't bother correcting me, i don't care all that much...i'm just providing an illustration of the damage warlocks can deal (never did that much in 4 seconds, took about 2 thanks to nightfall and global cooldown).

[Grendeel]

I cant comment on other builds as ive only used one.  I think with a lock it really doesnt matter what build you use because grinding is extremely easy with a warlock.  When i levelled (which i got to 60 in a month) i used the build  31/0/20 and it worked very well for me.  I suspect demonolgy would be a better tree than destruction to grind with, just for the simple fact the VW is what you should primarily use.

What capnpop has posted sounds very reasonable to me.   You primarily use the VW to tank and you will learn if you use anything other than dots (immolate usually caused the VW to lose aggro for me) they cant hold aggro.  The VW can regain it if u continually run back past the VW but it doesnt happen enough to make this a useful option.  I only attempted this if i knew i would lose going toe to toe with the mob.  Remember that the VW can be sacrificed for an instant temporary shield which should allow u time to flee in most situations.

One thing not mentioned earlier is dark pact, the 31 talent in affliction.   To me this this essential to have if you want to grind lots of experience and level quick.   With it you should be able to do 2-3 more fights before any down time is required for drinking.  Its an instant cast and can be used while on the move, going from mob to mob.  Also when you have your Corruption, drain life, and CoA on the mob, we can use dark pact to drain our pets mana.   This makes you instantly ready for the next mob. As a note, ive come to realize dark pack isnt necessary when you arent grinding. (some nice mage will give you plenty of water to drink and there is sufficent time to drink it.   Thanks Ayrn  ) So once you start raiding, a better build is probably in order here (something im going to do this week i think)

[capnpop]

based on your equipment Gren, i think that either strait up destruction or sm/ruin would rock.  you have enough +dmg (276 with just your rank equips) to do well with any kind of build

[magnetite]

Whenever I used the drain life, it aggroed the mob which my pet was on and he came towards me, so I had to fear it and continue putting dots on him. With my current build (SM/ruin) which is what I'm shooting for, I can down 4 guys 3 levels lower than me, and I even did 6 to 8 guys who were 5 levels lower than me.

Another thing I have in there is siphon life, which drains the health from the guy to me, which is nice. And 2 points in nightfall .

[capnpop]

yeah, drain life is a pain since it's kinda double aggro (you doing dmg and you healing) i usually save it for the end when they have 1.5k hps left or so

[magnetite]

I'm trying to pack a lot of "of stamina gear", and I'm thinking of ditching curse of exhaustion for imp. life tap and grim reach. My brother (wind socket) also suggested the demonology tree, because it doesn't burn as much mana as destruction does.

[capnpop]

i think it's the "of the eagle" stuff that gives +stam and +int, that stuff is good (if it isn't "of the eagle" then "of the *****" that gives you the stam and int)

[Grendeel]

I just found and read a fantastic link from the Wow forums addressing most issues and questions a warlock has.  Its a compliation of all the dedicated warlocks of WoW.  It provides the math and reasoning behind all talent builds,  use of spells, raid instances etc.


http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11381260&sid=1&pageNo=1

I few examples.

Drain Life doesnt increase aggro (it lists the spells that do and dont and the amount of threat that is increased)
Dark Pact is a talent you get to as soon as possible for the best grinding build(i think level 40) and at 60 you switch your talents
The best talent builds for each of the raids you go on.
At +363 spelll damage from gear CoD becomes obslolete...CoA deals more damage in that one minute
It has all mods necessary for a warlock to be effective including a thread metre mod.  In particular, it explains how to keep your threat level below that of the main tank

There is much more info there.  Way to much to absorb in one reading, but if u are a warlock i highly recommend this as a read.