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Chapter 5 - Warlock Guide - Spells and Talents

Posted December 21st, 2005 by Messiah

Warlock Class Guide - Spells and Talents

5.0 - Warlock Spell / Ability / Talent Lists

Initially this guide will provide very basic information on each spell, ideally just a few lines. The goal later is to provide more information on each one in a database format or links to other documents.

Burning Crusade Spells and Abilities

Spells

Name
Tree
Gained at Level
Description
Seed of Corruption - Rank 1
Affliction
70

2 second cast, 30 yard range, 88 mana

Imbeds a demon seed in the enemy target, causing 1044 Shadow damage over 18 sec. When the target takes 1044 total damage or dies, the seed will inflict 1110 to 1290 Shadow damage to all enemies within 15 yards of the target.

Fel Armor - Rank 1
Demonology
62

Instant, 725 mana

Surrounds the cast with fel energy, increasing the amount of health generated through spells and effects by 20% and increasing spell damage by up to 50. Only one type of Armor spell can be active on the Warlock at any time. Lasts 30 min.

Fel Armor - Rank 2
Demonology
70

Instant, 725 mana

Surrounds the cast with fel energy, increasing the amount of health generated through spells and effects by 20% and increasing spell damage by up to 100. Only one type of Armor spell can be active on the Warlock at any time. Lasts 30 min.

Ritual of Souls
Demonology
70

3 second cast, 30 yard range, 1532 mana, 5 min cooldown, uses a soul shard

Begins a ritual that creates a Soulwell. Raid members can click the Soulwell to acquire a Master Healthstone. The Soulwell lasts for 5 min or 10 charges. Requires the caster and 2 additional party members to complete the ritual. In order to participate, all players must be out of combat and right-click the soul portal and not move until the ritual is complete.

Soulshatter
Demonology
66

Instant, 193 health, 5 min cooldown, uses a soul shard

Reduces threat by 50% for all enemies nearby.

Incinerate - Rank 1
Destruction
64

2.5 second cast, 30 yard range, 256 mana

Deals 357 to 413 Fire damage to your target and an additional 89 to 104 Fire damage if the target is affected by an Immolate spell.

Incinerate - Rank 2
Destruction
70

2.5 second cast, 30 yard range, 300 mana

Deals 429 to 497 Fire damage to your target and an additional 107 to 125 Fire damage if the target is affected by an Immolate spell.

The new abilities for warlocks add a lot of variety to their already powerful spells - Seed of Corruption allows the warlock to AoE farm monsters and go for quick monster kills when it comes to lots of normal monsters to AoE. Way better than Rain of Fire or Hellfire.

Fel Armor is the best Armor you can have now, Demon Armor and Demon Skin's regeneration and armor isn't worth losing better healing effects and a lot of damage/healing.

Ritual of Souls is invaluable when in instances now, it keeps your shardcount from dipping too low by providing Healthstones for your whole group with just one. Soulshatter is essencial if you want to start raiding, as the aggro drop lets you go all out more often than not now!

Incinerate finally makes fire builds viable, since the added damage with immolation will help your nuking with fire.

5.1 - Spell Lists

Warlock spells come in several types: Affliction, Demonology, and Destruction. Each kind of spell type has different kinds of effecting spells.

  • Affliction is based around using curses that reduce the effectiveness of enemies over a given amount of time.
  • Demonology is based around supplementary abilities like Ritual of Summoning and Soulstone conjurings, along with building resistance and survivability.
  • Destruction is a much more offensive style of magic that offers a very direct “punch” to the enemy with various DoTs (Damage over time) and direct damage spells.

Spells will also be sorted by the school of spell that they belong to, as Warlock spells are broken down to three schools: Affliction, Demonology, and Destruction.

5.1.1 - Warlock Spell List

Due to the size of the tables to display the spells they can be found here.

5.2 - Talents

Talents are written out in much the same way as spells. Talents have ranks though so are listed as name, rank, talent, points required in tree, description.

A very important thing to note about talents is that you can currently unlearn them if you need to. This allows you to build your character one way for early levels and then change mid-way or even late game to a different style. This is a general tip and works for all classes not just priests.

To unlearn all your talents, it will cost you 1 gold the first time, five gold the second time, and five additional gold every time you redo talents after this.This is a very nice bonus, it means you do not have to play your end-build from level 10.

5.2.1 - Warlock Talent List

Due to the size of the tables to display the talents they can be found here.

5.3 - Talent Builds

Talent builds are typically written in terms of three numbers, e.g. 31/8/12. In the case of a Warlock, these correspond to totals in the affliction, demonology, and destruction talent categories.

This PvE build is focused on the mana-efficient and threat-minimizing affliction talents, and is designed for fast battles and quick mana recovery time in between battles. The idea is to build to Dark Pact as quickly as possible, then spend the remaining points in the stronger high-in-the-tree demonology and destruction talents. Players using this build should be adept at using spells like Life Tap to refill their mana during and in between battles.

With this build, you maximize quite effectively all of your Damage over time spells, while signifigantly raising your chance and damage on critical hits. In Molten Core/BWL/ZG, you most frequenty are casting Shadowbolt and this build also highly increases it's effectivness and damage, for it is your main source in end game content.

The massive pro to this build: you get an instant summon for one of your demons. Another great thing is the versatility, being able to switch pets for whenever the situation calls for it. Whether you need a heavy DD or need the extra HP through Demonic embrace. Something else of note is the 20% Reduced Threat while your Imp is out, you won't hit as hard in MC/BWL/Onyxia as SM/Ruin, but you won't have to deal with agro either.

A great PVP build for a warlock, especially even if you get your spells locked by a shield bash or a kick. You have the options to Immolate and Conflagorate if your shadow spells are shut down. Heavy hitting instant cast DD, Immolate, Conflag, Nightfall, and ShadowBurn. While still alowing the caster to life drain while taking a beating and instant cast corruption.This is a great Direct Damage build for any who feel the need to have a huge output.

The key to this build is through the sacrificing of your voidwalker and increasing your HP regeneration, you greatly increase your chance of outlasting your opponents when putting this into combination with DoT's. As well, remember the 25% increase to shadow damage when you sack your Succubus.

This is great for PVP and PVE, having the ability to cast on the go. Mobility and endurance are what is stressed in this build!

5.4 - Talent Calculator

Continue to Chapter 6: Tactics and Gameplay...

 

Have comments or suggestions? Thought of something that has been missed? Found an error? We would love to hear from you! Please post in our Warlock Class guide forum, or email me at ratboy@tentonhammer.com