Warlock Talent Guide

This guide provides an overview of the most popular warlock talent builds, how to use them and what they are for. CHECK OUT THIS EXTREMELY in depth warlock guide , it covers everything you'll ever want to know about your warlock.

The Warlock has arguably the most variety in the way they fulfill their one purpose. While a warlock can't really do anything besides spell DPS, they can choose to do it with powerful damage-over-time attacks, with considerable aid from their demon allies, or through overpowering nukes. All of their tactics are deadly and no Warlock, regardless of spec, should be taken lightly. How you choose to deal out death, however, is up to you.

Affliction - 45/5/11

Affliction is the DoT tree of the Warlock, powering up your attacks such as Corruption and Immolate while giving you two new DoTs as you work your way through the tree. While the Improved Curse of Weakness or Agony talents generally don't give enough reward for the points, and Shadow Embrace doesn't have enough impact on your opponents for the five points it asks (better to kill the mob faster), it's worth noting that Malediction probably is worth picking up if you ever plan to raid. Increasing the damage of one or two casters by 3% won't make a big difference, but when you have ten to fifteen casters benefiting in the group, it starts being noticeable. Skipping the Affliction talents noted, you're left with sixteen points; this spec gets you the extra stamina of Demonic Embrace and and an instant cast nuke with Shadowburn, but if you have other plans you wish to pursue with your points, they're open to you.

Demonology - 9/41/11

The Warlock Demonology tree focuses on your pet demons, both empowering them and making them empower the warlock to a greater extent. This warlock build intends for you to already be level 70 with your warlock and not necessarily as a guideline for the way to 70; you would probably want to pick up Improved Imp or Improved Voidwalker while leveling with your warlock, then respec out of it when you could reach Summon Felguard. Master Conjurer and Improved Enslave Demon aren't worth getting for pretty much any situation imaginable. The leftover points after you finish with the Demonology tree are well placed in Improved Corruption and Improved Life Tap, with points in Destruction to gain an instant nuke in Shadowburn.

Destruction - 7/7/47

The Warlock Destruction tree is your nuke tree, arguably most useful for group and raid DPS. Its focus is on your direct damage spells, such as Shadowbolt and Searing Pain, and during the course of the tree you gain a few more, namely Shadowburn, Conflagrate, and Shadowfury. The warlock talents to avoid in Destruction are generally fairly obvious: Cataclysm and Destruction don't have enough of an effect for what they're competing against, Improved Firebolt and Lash of Pain are a bit too situational, there really just isn't room for Searing Pain considering what's near it, and Pyroclasm isn't anywhere near as good as it sounds (the 26% chance to stun for Hellfire and Rain of Fire is through the whole duration, meaning each tick has an abysmally low chance). The non-Destruction points are for the most part in Warlock staples to aid grinding and survivability. Note that if you intend to fight with an Imp DPSing at your side, it's probably worth your while to take two points from Improved Healthstone and three from Soul Leech to max out Improved Imp and Improved Firebolt, which can make your imp a sufficient damage dealer.

Demonic Sacrifice/Destruction - 0/21/40

A pure warlock nuking build. The points in Demonology are largely filler to get to Demonic Sacrifice, which you would use either for larger nukes or for mana restoration so you can nuke longer. This build gets some seriously large numbers, but is rather limited in scope as to what it's able to do. If all you really want to do is nuke and see big numbers, this is probably what you want.

PvP Affliction/Demo - 22/39/0

A warlock PvP build that attempts to keep the opponent at bay until they're eventually worn down. Picking up the important defensive talents of Demonology gives you some staying power, while diving into Affliction for Curse of Exhaustion aids at keeping your foe from doing damage in the first place. An interesting hybrid build that's likely worth your consideration.