Warlock

Warlock

Warlocks deal damage from afar with the help of demonic pets, shadow, fire, and fel magic. While Warlocks will never truly tank or heal in a group, these resilient casters are versatile in their specializations of damage dealing, adapting easily to single and multiple targets. Warlocks do not run from terrifying fights; instead, they make their enemies run away in fear. With self-healing and more health than other cloth-wearers, Warlocks can withstand incoming hits without needing to rely on tank-like defense.

Affliction Warlocks corrupt enemies’ souls with shadow damage over time spells. Destruction Warlocks swing to the side of fire damage with burst and direct damage. Demonologists sit in between with a combination of shadow, fire, damage over time, direct damage, and mastery of pet damage. When not using their pets and talents to crowd control enemies, Warlocks assist groups in summoning, supplying self-heals such as healthstones, and teleporting party members yards away through gateways.

Class Abilities and Resources

Demonic Pets and Guardians

Every Warlock specialization has use for a pet, whether it’s more damage done or a specific use. Many talents and glyphs can modify the relationship between master and minion. The level 75 talents directly affect what minion type or lack thereof is beside the Warlock. At level 100, one talent can make the temporary guardians (the Infernal and the Doomguard) into permanently controlled pets. Some talents allow the Warlock to help heal the pet with a part of damage done; others steal health from the pet for the Warlock to survive.

Because the demonic pet is important to a Warlock, summoning a minion takes a longer cast than usual spells. Affliction Warlocks can instantly resummon a pet with Soulburn: Summon [Pet] and Destruction Warlocks can instantly revive their last pet with Flames of Xoroth. Demonologists gain additional types of pets, like the Felguard and Wild Imps.

Resilient Health

Some Warlock spells like Life Tap or Unbound Will are unique because they cost a percent of health rather than mana. So despite belonging to the lowest armor class, Warlocks have more health and self-healing than most DPS. Although Drain Life is no longer competitive as a main combat spell, Warlocks excel at leeching health off damage they deal with the talent Soul Leech or using their minions to provide an absorb shield like the talent Sacrificial Pact. Armed with abilities like Healthstones or Ember Tap, Warlocks can withstand large amounts of damage in combat.

Combat Movement

Warlocks can be incredibly mobile casters in a pinch. Demonic Circle is a personal movement trick to a preplanned spot, which can help the Warlock avoid walls of damage easily. Demonic Gateway helps transport a whole party between two points. Kil’jaeden’s Cunning is a talent that lets the Warlock cast on the move, which can include some powerful cast time spells like Chaos Bolt.

Secondary Resources

Each Warlock specialization has a different secondary resource, alongside health and mana. A set of stylized graphics sits on the player frame just below the blue mana bar to represent each unique resource, and there is also a visual indication on the character model as power with the resource shrinks or grows. Every Warlock has an exclusive toolkit of combat spells based on its unique secondary resource.

Affliction Warlocks empower their spells with Soul Shards, increasing their utility or damage done.

Demonology Warlocks build up Demonic Fury to willingly transform into a winged, purple demon. Once transformed, the Demonologist spends his or her Demonic Fury on more powerful damaging spells.

Destruction Warlocks generate Burning Embers bit by bit with their fire spells and spend full embers to deal powerful damage.

Non-Specialization Abilities

Talents

Affliction

Affliction Warlocks are masters of shadow damage over time over time (DoT). Their entire spellbook is shadow-based and consists of DoTs, spells that enhance their DoT damage, or channeled spells that act like DoTs. Since most of their damage done is applied and then left to tick away on a target, Affliction Warlocks are great with managing two or more targets and movement-heavy encounters.

Secondary Resource

Affliction Warlocks use Soul Shards, which are represented on the player frame by bright purple shard shapes. Visually, the shards a Warlock has are floating above his or her shoulders. Cosmetic glyphs can affect the appearance of Soul Shards on the character.

An Affliction Warlock can have zero to four Soul Shards at a time, but typically starts combat with four.

Regenerating Soul Shards: In combat, Soul Shards have a chance to regenerate as the Corruption damage-over-time spell deals damage. Out of combat, Affliction Warlocks will slowly regenerate their Soul Shards to full.

Spending Soul Shards: Some spells, like Haunt, naturally cost 1 Soul Shard, while casting Soulburn to spend 1 Soul Shard before casting other specific spells can empower their utility.

Specialization Abilities

Name	Level	Icon	Description
Corruption	3		Corrupts the target, causing Shadow damage over 18 sec. Your most recently applied Corruption has a 6.0% chance to generate a Soul Shard each time it deals damage.
Drain Life	10		Drains the life from the target causing Shadow damage and restoring 9% of the caster’s health over 6 sec.
Unstable Affliction	10		Causes Shadow damage over 14 sec. If dispelled, the dispeller suffers instant Shadow damage and is silenced for 4 sec. This damage is always a critical strike.
Health Funnel	11		Sacrifices 12% of your maximum health over 6 sec to restore 36% of your summoned Demon’s maximum health.
Life Tap	16		Restores mana at the cost of 15% of your maximum health.
Soulburn	19		Consumes a Soul Shard, enhancing some of your spells: Summon Demon, Demonic Circle: Teleport, Seed of Corruption, and Soul Swap.
Seed of Corruption	21		Embeds a demon seed in the enemy target, causing Shadow damage over 18 sec. Detonates for Shadow damage to all enemies within 10 yards after the target dies or takes some damage from your spells.
Drain Soul	24		Drains the target’s soul, causing Shadow damage over 4 sec. If the target dies and yields experience or honor, one Soul Shard is energized. When Drain Soul deals damage, it causes all of your other damage over time spells on the target to instantly deal 40% of their normal damage. Replaces Shadow Bolt.
Agony	36		Inflicts increasing agony on the target, causing Shadow damage over 24 sec. Damage starts low and increases over the duration.
Haunt	60		A ghostly soul haunts the target, dealing Shadow damage and increasing damage over time you deal to the target by 30% for 8 sec.
Soul Swap	79		Copies your damage over time effects from the target, preserving their duration. Your next use of Soul Swap within 3 sec will exhale a copy of the effects onto a new target.
Dark Soul: Misery	84		Infuses your soul with the misery of fallen foes, increasing haste by 30% for 20 sec.
Eradication	90		You gain 5% more of the Haste stat from all sources.

Draenor Perks

Every other level while leveling up to 100, you receive a boost to an existing ability called a Draenor Perk. You learn one Draenor Perk randomly from this list each time. Once you get to 100, you will know them all.

Rotations

Single-target rotations are often used on bosses in PvE or when the Warlock wants to focus damage on a single player in PvP. Area of effect or AoE damage is usually provided by 1-2 spells that specialize in hitting many targets at once. Multi-target rotations involve ways to extend single-target-like damage to multiple targets at one time, perhaps by using a small AoE spell or a utility spell to spread single-target spells to other targets.

Single Target:

• Apply and maintain Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction on the target.
• Keep Haunt up on the target as much as possible, to increase your damage.
• Cast Drain Soul when not doing anything else.
• Use Life Tap when you run low on mana.

Multi-target or AoE:

• 2-5 targets: Use Soul Swap to spread DoTs from one target to another if you can spare a shard; if not, manually apply and maintain the three main DoTs on each target.
• 6+ targets: Cast a DoT on a mob and then apply Seed of Corruption. The DoT’s damage will detonate Seed quicker.

Soulburn Tips:

• Cast Soulburn and then Haunt to gain the Haunting Spirits self buff to increase your damage done, if you have the Soulburn: Haunt talent.
• Cast Soulburn and then Soul Swap to instantly apply all the DoTs in a pinch.
• Cast Soulburn and then Seed of Corruption to apply Corruption to every target to prepare for liberal Seed casting.

Group Play

In groups, Warlocks provide ranged DPS. Warlocks can create a Soulwell which allows party and raid members to conjure a Healthstone for self-healing in a fight. With the help of other party or raid members, Warlocks can summon other party or raid members to the Warlock’s location. Warlocks have a resurrection ability in Soulstone, which works both in and out of combat. Demonic Gateway provides transport for groupmates over short distances. Warlock pets can provide a number of crowd control or lesser tanking abilities for the group’s needs.

Group Buffs

Warlocks provide the buff Dark Intent, which provides 10% spellpower and 5% multistrike to the group. The Warlock passive Blood Pact increases the stamina of all party and raid members by 10%. This does not stack with other stamina group buffs.

Preparing for High-End Content

Intellect and Spellpower are paramount stats for Warlocks; the best gear sources of the two stats are weapons and trinkets. The passive secondary stat attunement for Affliction Warlocks is Eradication, which increases Haste from all sources by 5%. Haste and Mastery are favored secondary stats. Haste increases the rate of DoT ticks and Mastery increases the overall damage done by the DoTs themselves. Multistrike, Versatility, and Critical Strike can also increase damage done.

Demonology

Demonology is all about the two sides of things: caster and demon form, shadow and fire spells, direct damage and damage over time. This specialization of Warlock gains extra pets with the Felguard and Wild Imps. Demonology Warlocks are good at balancing burst damage with good damage on the run.

Secondary Resource

Demonology Warlocks generate and spend Demonic Fury, which is represented on the player frame as a runic-bordered bar that fills with purple. Visually, players glow progressively purple as they cast and even sprout horns at large amounts of Demonic Fury.

Demonic Fury can be anywhere from 0 to 1000 (0% to 100%); fury grows by spell when the player is in “caster” form and shrinks when the player is in Metamorphosis or demon form.

Generating Demonic Fury: Shadow Bolt, Corruption, Hand of Gul’dan, and when using Soul Fire in caster form. Your pet also generates demonic fury for you when it attacks.

Spending Demonic Fury: Touch of Chaos, Chaos Wave, Doom, Hellfire, Immolation Aura, and when using Soul Fire in demon form.

Specialization Abilities

Draenor Perks

Every other level while leveling up to 100, you receive a boost to an existing ability called a Draenor Perk. You learn one Draenor Perk randomly from this list each time. Once you get to 100, you will know them all.

Rotation

Single-target rotations are often used on bosses in PvE or when the Warlock wants to focus damage on a single player in PvP. Area of effect or AoE damage is usually provided by 1-2 spells that specialize in hitting many targets at once. Multi-target rotations involve ways to extend single-target-like damage to multiple targets at one time, perhaps by using a small AoE spell or a utility spell to spread single-target spells to other targets.

Single Target:

• Apply and maintain on the target: Corruption when you’re in caster form and Doom when you’re in demon form.
• Apply Hand of Gul’dan in caster form when you have charges available.
• Cast Soul Fire if Molten Core is active.
• Cast Shadow Bolt in caster form or Touch of Chaos in demon form if you have nothing else to do.
• If you use the Felguard or Wrathguard pets, remember to cast the Command Demon ability when possible.

Multi-target or AoE:

• Channel Hellfire in caster form. In demon form, Hellfire becomes an instant-cast self-buff Immolation Aura.
• Use Chaos Wave in demon form to provide burst AoE damage.
• Apply Corruption/Doom on multiple targets if needed.

Metamorphosis Tips:

• Try to time using Metamorphosis damage abilities with damage-increasing bonuses or buffs.
• To increase your damage done, save your Molten Core procs for demon form.
• To increase your Demonic Fury generation, save your Molten Core procs for caster form.

Group Play

In groups, Warlocks provide ranged DPS. Warlocks can create a Soulwell which allows party and raid members to conjure a Healthstone for self-healing in a fight. With the help of other party or raid members, Warlocks can summon other party or raid members to the Warlock’s location. Warlocks have a resurrection ability in Soulstone, which works both in and out of combat. Demonic Gateway provides transport for groupmates over short distances. Warlock pets can provide a number of crowd control or lesser tanking abilities for the group’s needs.

Group Buffs

Warlocks provide the buff Dark Intent, which provides 10% spellpower and 5% multistrike to the group. The Warlock passive Blood Pact increases the stamina of all party and raid members by 10%. This does not stack with other stamina group buffs.

Preparing for High-End Content

Intellect and Spellpower are paramount stats for Warlocks; the best gear sources of the two stats are weapons and trinkets. The passive secondary stat attunement for Demonology Warlocks is Demonic Tactics, which increases Mastery from all sources by 5%. Mastery and Haste are favored secondary stats. Mastery increases all damage done and Haste decreases cast times while increasing the rate of DoT ticks. Critical Strike, Multistrike, and Versatility can also increase damage done.

Destruction

Destruction Warlocks have a fire-based specialization with some key shadow spells retained to fit the Warlock class. There’s only one true DoT in this specialization; the rest of the spellbook includes long casts that hit hard. Destruction Warlocks are great at two targets with the copycat spell Havoc, but they can also handle a large pack of enemies with Fire and Brimstone multiplying their ardent arsenal.

Secondary Resource

Destruction Warlocks use Burning Embers, which are represented on the player frame by four short vertical bars that fill up bottom to top. Visually, the Warlock has a burning aura that increases in intensity as more Burning Embers are accumulated. Cosmetic glyphs can affect the appearance of Burning Embers on the character. A Destruction Warlock can have zero to four full or partial Burning Embers at a time, but typically starts combat with one full Burning Ember.

Destruction alternates between generating Burning Embers in tenths of a bar and spending full embers on powerful abilities.

Generating Burning Embers: Incinerate, Conflagrate, Immolate, and Rain of Fire. These spells generate embers on damage dealt, multiplied by how many targets were hit. Critical strikes generate twice as many embers.

Spending Burning Embers: Chaos Bolt, Shadowburn, Ember Tap, Fire and Brimstone. Abilities that can be affected by Fire and Brimstone spend one full ember on cast and generate embers when they hit.

Specialization Abilities

Draenor Perks

Every other level while leveling up to 100, you receive a boost to an existing ability called a Draenor Perk. You learn one Draenor Perk randomly from this list each time. Once you get to 100, you will know them all.

Rotation

Single-target rotations are often used on bosses in PvE or when the Warlock wants to focus damage on a single player in PvP. Area of effect or AoE damage is usually provided by 1-2 spells that specialize in hitting many targets at once. Multi-target rotations involve ways to extend single-target-like damage to multiple targets at one time, perhaps by using a small AoE spell or a utility spell to spread single-target spells to other targets.

Single Target:

• Apply and maintain Immolate on the target.
• Cast Conflagrate to generate 3 charges of Backdraft.
• Cast Incinerate to consume Backdraft, or as needed to generate Burning Embers.
• Cast Chaos Bolt when you have at least one Burning Ember and the target’s health is above 20%.
• Cast Shadowburn when you have at least one Burning Ember and the target’s health is below 20%.

Multi-target or AoE:

• Cast Rain of Fire to hit targets in a specific area.
• Use Fire and Brimstone if you have at least one Burning Ember with Immolate, Incinerate, or Conflagrate to hit all targets near your primary target with the selected spell.
• Cast Havoc on one target other than your primary target to duplicate 1 Chaos Bolt or 3 combined casts of Incinerate, Immolate, Conflagrate, or Shadowburn.

Burning Ember Tips:

• Generate up to and stay between 3 and 4 Burning Embers in periods of normal casting. When damage bonuses from trinkets or special buffs occur, you can then cast a string of your most powerful spells to get the best damage increase.
• You can cast Rain of Fire in multiple areas simultaneously to build up embers faster.
• Using Fire and Brimstone with 5 or more targets generally nets you embers instead of spending them.

Group Play

In groups, Warlocks provide ranged DPS. Warlocks can create a Soulwell which allows party and raid members to conjure a Healthstone for self-healing in a fight. With the help of other party or raid members, Warlocks can summon other party or raid members to the Warlock’s location. Warlocks have a resurrection ability in Soulstone, which works both in and out of combat. Demonic Gateway provides transport for groupmates over short distances. Warlock pets can provide a number of crowd control or lesser tanking abilities for the group’s needs.

Group Buffs

Warlocks provide the buff Dark Intent, which provides 10% spellpower and 5% multistrike to the group. The Warlock passive Blood Pact increases the stamina of all party and raid members by 10%. This does not stack with other stamina group buffs.

Preparing for High-End Content

Intellect and Spellpower are paramount stats for Warlocks; the best gear sources of the two stats are weapons and trinkets. The passive secondary stat attunement for Destruction Warlocks is Devastation, which increases Critical Strike from all sources by 5%. Critical Strike and Mastery are favored secondary stats. Critical Strike increases Burning Ember generation and the damage of Chaos Bolt specifically, and Mastery increases damage done. Multistrike, Versatility, and Haste can also increase damage done.

Warlock Pets

A Warlock can have one permanent or controlled pet by his side. All Warlocks have four basic pets (imp, voidwalker, succubus, and felhunter) and Demonology Warlocks obtain one extra basic pet (the Felguard). The level 100 talent Demonic Servitude transforms the Infernal and Doomguard into controllable pets, complete with their own sets of abilities. The level 75 Grimoire talents affect pet abilities and power.

A Warlock can have one or many temporary or uncontrollable pets by his side during combat. All Warlocks can use an untalented Infernal or Doomguard as a DPS cooldown, and Demonology Warlocks will see Wild Imps shooting Firebolts at will. The Grimoire of Service summoned pets also act on their own for their duration.

All pets take greatly reduced damage from AoE effects, but can be crowd controlled or focused down by single-target attacks. All pets use the Fel Energy resource.

Imp

Imps are ranged caster pets that provide healing and defensive dispel utility.

Fel Imp

Fel Imps replace Imps when Grimoire of Supremacy is chosen. A couple of Imp abilities are upgraded for the Fel Imp in the following table.

Voidwalker

The voidwalker is a sturdy tank-like pet that can take big hits and taunt enemies.

Voidlord

Voidlords replace Voidwalkers when Grimoire of Supremacy is chosen. A Voidwalker ability is upgraded for the Voidlord in the following table.

Succubus

Succubi are semi-ranged pets that bring crowd control and knockback utility.

Shivarra

Shivarra replace Succubi when Grimoire of Supremacy is chosen. A few Succubus abilities are upgraded for the Shivarra in the following table.

Felhunter

Felhunters are melee pets that bring interrupt and offensive dispel utility.

Observer

Observers replace Felhunters when Grimoire of Supremacy is chosen. A few Felhunter abilities are upgraded for the Observer in the following table.

Felguard

The Felguard is a Demonology-only melee pet that provides damage and stun utility, as well as generating a lot of threat against a target.

Wrathguard

Wrathguards replace Felguards when Grimoire of Supremacy is chosen. A couple of Felguard abilities are upgraded for the Wrathguard in the following table.

Doomguard

The Doomguard is normally a temporary ranged caster pet that shoots a shadow damage spell at its target. When the level 100 talent Demonic Servitude is selected, Doomguards are controllable and gain extra crowd-controlling abilities.

Terrorguard

Terrorguards replace Doomguards when Grimoire of Supremacy is chosen. One Doomguard ability is upgraded for the Terrorguard in the following table.

Infernal

The Infernal is normally a temporary melee-ish caster pet that stuns and deals AoE damage to a specific area. When the level 100 talent Demonic Servitude is selected, Infernals are controllable and gain extra tank-like abilities.

Abyssal

Abyssals replace Infernals when Grimoire of Supremacy is chosen. One Infernal ability is upgraded for the Abyssal in the following table.

Command Demon

Command Demon is a transformative action button that will let the Warlock activate a specific pet ability from the player action bar. The ability changes depending on the demon summoned and whether Grimoire of Sacrifice is active or not.