Warlock Class Guide - Equipment Class Guides
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Equipment

Warlocks have a few weapon options available to them. They cannot however just pick up anything and fight with it. They can use:

Cloth Armor Daggers Staves (trained) Swords (trained) Wands

Note that to use staves and swords, you must pay a Weapons Trainer to train you. Check out the Weapons Guide for where to find the best Weapons Trainer for you!

Going with a sword or dagger allows the use of devices such as magic orbs in the other hand, which are great for boosting intellect and spirit. The other choice for a warlock is to go with the tried and true art of using a staff against enemies. Staves are perfect for being a decent close combat weapon and usually having good intellect and spirit bonuses when magically imbued.

Best Warlock Equipment

Stats

As a Warlock, Stamina and Intellect are the only two stats you should be looking for. As a caster, a Warlock should never need to use Strength or Agility so those two are removed from the board. Since the Warlock can regen mana through alternative ways, Spirit is nowhere near as helpful as a larger mana pool and more health.

So it comes down to a question, which is more important, Stamina or Intellect? Well, that depends. More mana is always good (and passive spell critical strike), but with as many ways as a Warlock has to get mana back it’s not that massively important. On the other hand, Stamina is VERY important since the more health you have the more hits you can take in one fight.

So, really, by some simple logic, Stamina wins out. However, the majority of cloth will generally ALWAYS favor Intellect over Stamina, so you’ll rarely have to choose between the two. Remember also that some of your stats transfer to your pet and as such, Stamina (more health) is very beneficial to every pet.

Now with the Burning Crusade, Warlocks need to worry about 2 new things, Intellect is a thing of the past, with the larger manapools and lifetap available, you should be focusing, past level 60 and into level 70, into Stamina and most importantly Spell Damage. (Seen in Effects). As a Warlock, you will always be needing more stamina than most others since it doubles as your mana bar. If you're going into PvP, don't forget to stack up on Resilience as well, since other players will be able to defeat you quickly.

As you advance and get closer to 70, if your focus is endgame PvE, you should merely focus on other effects your equipment gives you, stats become merely secondary past helping you stay alive in several set-damage boss fights. A big exception goes to those with demonology, in which case, stamina will still be a good investment since you will be gaining more from your flat % upgrades from your talents.

Effects

The only two things a Warlock really needs to focus on is either Spell Critical Strike or Spell Damage. Anything about melee is just forget about it. Anything with pure healing is also rather useless, it must have damage.

There is a good debate always on what is more important, critical strike chance or additional damage. It boils down to critical strikes provide one big burst of damage every now and then while additional damage always adds a little bit more damage. To me, it comes down to playstyle. Do you want to focus on relying on those big damage crits by getting your critical strike chance as high as possible or do you just want to get your normal damage as high as possible.

Some builds do much better with critical strike chance over spell damage. For instance, with Searing Pains quick recharge it will do really well with a high critical strike chance build. You’ve really just got to go for what you want the most.

Regardless of your specialization, Spell damage will always be a constant testament to your character's growth, the more your attacks do (even your DoTs are modified by it), the faster you kill, and the better you're seen by other players. Nowadays, Destruction builds are worthwhile but only within PvP environments, so the decision to take Spell Damage over Spell Critical Strike becomes easier to the level 70 player. The amount of damage your DoTs and direct damage spells deal increases substancially with the more spell and shadow damage you keep on stacking.

Nowadays, Spell Haste has been really pushed by Blizzard as a viable option for many DPS Casters (and Healers). As a Warlock, if you are participating in a team that focuses on burst damage to defeat your opponents in an Arena, Spell Haste might be a good choice for you. Typically, this will be a Warlock build that emphasizes Destruction Talents and goes well with a team of 1 or 2 Shamans trying to output the best DPS you can in the smallest amount of time. With this, along with your other possible procs and your using fire-based spells, you can set up a good combo. Only recommended for teams of 3's and 5's, since 2's are about outlasting the opponents and will typically have a healer or some damage mitigation ready, by stunlocking you or taking you out quickly before you can reach your potential DPS.

 

Tiered Gear

Legend:

- DS: Dungeon Set (Rare to Epic Quality)
- Tier: Tiered Set (Epic Quality)

Set Title Drop Locations Related Guides and Notes DS 1 Dreadmist Raiment Found in various original high level instances throughout Azeroth as detailed in our DS 1 Drop Location Chart. WoW Instance Guides DS 2 Deathmist Raiment Obtained by upgrading your DS 1 set through a long serious of quests as outlined here: DS 2 set upgrade quest guide.   Tier 1 Felheart Raiment Drops from the various Bosses in the Molten Core, as shown in this chart: Raid Tier 1 Drop Locations. Molten Core Guide Tier 2 Nemesis Raiment Drops from the various bosses in Blackwing Lair and from Onyxia and Ragnaros as shown in this chart: Raid Tier 2 Drop Locations. Molten Core Guide Blackwing Lair Guide Onyxia Guide Tier 3 Plagueheart Raiment Obtained by collecting various drops in Naxxramas. The items required are found here: Raid Tier 3 Set Information. Naxxramas Guide DS 3 Oblivion Raiment Found in various Outlands Level 70 instances as detailed in our DS 3 Drop Location Chart Outlands Instance Guides DS 3.5 Mana Etched Regalia Found in various Outlands Level 70 and Heroic instances as detailed in our 3.5 Drop Location Chart Alternate DS 3.5 set meant for Mages, Warlocks and Shadowpriests. Outlands Instance Guides Tier 4

Voidheart Raiment

Obtained by gaining tokens from the various bosses in Karazhan, Gruuls Lair and Magtheridon's Lair as shown here: Raid Tier 4 Set Information.

Karazhan Guide Tier 5 Corruptor Raiment

Obtained by gaining tokens from various bosses in Serpentshrine Cavern and The Eye as shown here: Raid Tier 5 Set Information.

  Tier 6 Malefic Raiment

Obtained by gaining tokens from the various bosses in the Battle of Mount Hyjal and Black Temple raids as shown here: Raid Tier 6 Set Information.

  Season 1 Arena / Damage Gladiator's Dreadweave Raiment PvP (Honor Points and Tokens)   Season 1 Arena / Crit Gladiator's Felweave Raiment PvP (Honor Points and Tokens)   Season 2 Arena / Damage Merciless Gladiator's Dreadweave Raiment Arena Points   Season 2 Arena / Crit Merciless Gladiator's Felweave Raiment Arena Points   Season 3 Arena / Damage Vengeful Gladiator's Dreadweave Raiment Arena Points and Rating (Shoulders)   Season 3 Arena / Crit Vengeful Gladiator's Felweave Raiment Arena Points and Rating (Shoulders)  

You can find a list of all the items in the set at Blizzards set item site here: High Level Armor Sets .

Crafted Gear

Upon reaching the higher 60's and level 70, Tailoring is a viable way to upgrade your warlock's power by yourself without needing massive raids to get your gear!

There's 2 available options for both PvP and PvE crafted sets, if you skill your tailoring up, you will be able to access gear that outdoes tier 4 gear and is almost on par with tier 5, depending on your choice, you will be wanting to PvP or PvE with them! let's look at the sets.

Frozen Shadoweave Set (highly recommended! +shadow damage increase far beyond tier 4 reaches. Robe, Shoulders and Boots comprise this set). Shadoweave Tailoring Required. Spellfire Set (PvP set for locks focusing on fire damage, high burst abilities. Comprised of Belt, Gloves and Robes) Spellfire Tailoring Required. Spellstrike Set (PvE choice set, combines with both past sets! adds a chance for a damage proc, and has high spell damage addition, at the cost of stats) Tailoring suggested for set bonuses. Battlecast Set (PvP choice set, adds a lot of stamina and some damage and healing, optimal for surviving!)

Depending on your taste, you will want to combine Frozen Shadoweave (all around better for Warlocks) and either Spellstrike or Battlecast if you're a tailor. This way, you have a head start on gear over the others, and don't need as much from the earlier bosses from Karazhan, Magtheridon's and Gruul's.

Continue to:
Spells, Talents,
and Talent Builds...

 

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 xerin@tentonhammer.com