Leveling to 80 Affliction or Demonology are generally considered the trees to use for leveling, due to the extra downtime spent eating and drinking required by Destruction warlocks. Demonology contains many talents to increase survivability, but has few talents to increase damage until level 40, meaning that leveling will likely be slower than an affliction warlock.
An Affliction warlock applies DoTs to the target and then uses Drain Life to deal extra damage while gaining health. This health can then be converted to mana via Life Tap. Improved Drain Soul gives additional mana back when killing a target while draining its soul. With practice an affliction warlock can grind through many mobs without having to stop to eat or drink. At level 40 Dark Pact becomes available, allowing you to use a (talented) Felhunter or Imp on passive and use their impressive mana regeneration to supplement or replace life tapping, even further reducing downtime.
Full Demonology builds only start to show comparable benefits around level 40 when Demonic Knowledge and Demonic Empowerment become available. At level 50 the warlock can respec to receive their Felguard, at which point a Demonology warlock will get a considerable boost to their damage.
Destruction builds will kill enemies quickly at the expense of having to eat and drink a lot between fights. This may be of more value to you if you plan to do a lot of Instances. Some players like to spend 11 points in Destruction to obtain Shadowburn while spending most of their points in their other tree (usually Demonology, as Affliction has several other sources of damage, making this less useful).
A more comprehensive guide to leveling, including talent selection, can be found under Leveling a warlock.
Affliction BuildsThe DoTs Curse of Agony and Corruption are some of the most mana-effective spells available for the Warlock. That is, the amount of damage per mana is higher compared to Direct Damage spells like Shadow Bolt. The Affliction talent tree can improve on these even more.
There are problems using DoTs in parties and raids. There is a risk that the mob is killed before the completion of a DoT. This is especially bad for Curse of Agony, that causes more of its damage near the end of its duration (and is often omitted or Curse of Elements used instead for this reason). If this happens, then mana and time will be wasted.
Generic Affliction (56/0/15)Purpose PvE
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Icxrd0rAoiVRhstZE00VAn easily adaptable build to any Affliction Warlock's preferred playstyle. Eradication can be gotten easily by trading it for Malediction, and your Improved Curse/Exhaustion can be taken with the points from Improved Felhunter. Your damage with this build (or variants of it) will be quite good, but your spell rotation can be pretty frantic at times. There's not much time for Shadow Bolt spamming, so I put those 15 points into Destro for Bane, Imp. SB, and Ruin to make the Bolting worth your while.
SL-SL with Nether Protection (32/11/28)Purpose PvP
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Izxrrzrukq0oZbxczZVfoqrhzh A flexible PvP build that combines strong DoTs with Dark Pact for mana and Soul Link and Nether Protection for survivability. With the Felhunter Master Demonologist buff nerfed, Nether Protection (now applying to all schools) provides protection from casters. Once the enemy is dotted and feared, watch Molten Core proc and finish with a few Searing Pain crits.
Heavy Affliction with SL (57/14/0)Purpose PvP
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IfxMrurukiVMcstbxczcThis build has all the atributes of SL/SL and a lot more damage. This build is specced to put as many affliction effects on the target as possible to give your drain life the maximum possible health gain.
Shadow Spec (31/0/40)Purpose Raid
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IbxdrzMNkVZZEbbqrMzhMAThis build is my new version of a "shadow" lock. It's in affliction so you can put DoT's on the enemy and make them vunerable to shadow damage and spamming shadowbolt. It's also a good levelling spec, while having Curse of Exhaustion.
Demonology BuildsThe Demonology talent tree and the use of summoned demons are what mainly distinguishes a Warlock from a Mage.
With patch 3.0.2, Demonology became a far more viable building for PvE and PvP. Though, it will still not top the damage meters in a group of even geared players, you most likely will not be the bottom anymore. With the new talents added we are also able buff fellow casting allies the same way a Hunter buffs Melee based allies. In 2v2 Demonology is far more viable as well. With the addition of Metamorphasis and the spells that come with it, you are a force to be reckoned with.
Metamorphosis/Ruin Raid (0/55/16)Purpose Raiding
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbxIzsg0q0sguAoA0hVThis build is based off the damage boost from the Metamorphosis and the typical Shadowbolt spam of a raid lock, the crit bonus from Ruin, and a Felguard or a Succubus for the increased damage from Master Demonologist. You can also opt to have Glyph of Corruption of a Nightfall proc, depending on what you prefer.
Your spell rotation is going to be CoE, Shadowbolt, Shadowbolt, (with optional use of corruption and immolate, these help a lot if you have the tier 7, 4 piece set bonus) etc. Pop Demonic Empowerment whenever you can, as well as using Metamorphosis whenever possible (and Corruption if you have Glyph of Corruption) try time time this with +spell damage trinkets if possible. The way Blizzard redesigned the destruction tree you can get all the talents that made shadow locks good in raids early on, except for Devastation. With the spell power bonuses from Demonic Knowledge and Demonic Pact, and damage bonuses from Demonic Empathy, Master Demonologist, and Imp. Shadowbolt, you can hit much harder than a regular pre-WotLK Destro Lock could. And even without all the procs you’ll be able to hit just as hard, with more raid utility since Imp. SB is now a self buff, where as Demonic Pact is not and is a VERY useful raid buff. It may be worth switching two points from demonic embrace to master conjourer to gain maximum dps. Recommended to use Glyph of felguard and shadowbolt
Fel Guard/Emberstorm (0/41/30)Purpose pvp
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbgczsgMV0sxzZVbhqrzuV This build is a basic build for PvE or PvP with survivability and Felguard pet for damage and fire/shadow damage from destruction.
Fel Guard/Emberstorm RAID (0/41/30)Purpose raiding
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZ0xIzsgMq0sxzZAchVM0uV This build is for undergeared players who are beginning heroics and naxx. This build can be used for light pvp and grinding but it shows its real beauty in raiding. Since most gear is haste heavy these days we make up for the low crit by putting talent points in demonic tactics and with haste being so plentiful it should be no problem getting you incinerates down to almost 2 sec. Even a very undergeared player can hit between 1300 and 1500 dps with no problem. The beauty of this build is the cycle is VERY easy. Curse of Agony or Curse of Elements, immolate, corruption then spam incinerate like crazy making sure to pop Demonic empowerment when ever you can. Very effective till you get Tier 7 on and is a very easy learning build.
Destruction BuildsAn interesting thing has happened since 3.0.2 came out. We 'locks are no longer tied to a specific school of magic. While this can be perceived as a boon to our kind due to the endless possibilities, it can also be considered a bit of a hindrance. We've become so much more complex, especially when it comes to the Destruction tree. No longer do I simply sac my Succubus, throw out a CoA and spam SB's until everything around me falls into a pile of steaming flesh. There's more to the Destructo-lock than before. Now that Spell-power is the way of the world, our gear no longer relegates us to being either a "shadow 'lock" or a "fire 'lock".
Fire Destro (5/13/53)Purpose pve/raiding
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=I0xZbxc0cZVchqr0uVsAf0tA heavy destruction build very good for raiding. Cycle is immolate, (corruption), chaos bolt, incinereate, incinerate, conflagerate when under 5 secs left of immolate. Refresh corruption when it expires but it doesn't always fit with the cycle. I personally like to use a felhunter for the buff, and it does some damage when possible to have him in melee.
Destro/SL pvp (0/11/60)Purpose pvp/instances
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZbxczZVf0qrruAsAfot A heavy destro build based on my early experience. Now destruction is damage efficient and has the Soul Link survival ability.
Fire Destro (Raid, no Conflag) (7/13/51)Purpose pve/raiding
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=I0xMZbxc0cZVfuVM0uVcibct A "fire" destruction spec, based on an old spec from here for lv70. Note that the spec does not include Conflagrate, due to the awkwardness of removing the immolate spell. Use an imp in raiding (perhaps moving points from improved life tap and/or improved healthstone into improved imp). Spell order is Chaos Bolt, Corruption, then either Curse of Agony, or perhaps Curse of Elements (less recasts) (check your DPS, still untested), Immolate, spam Incinerate, then just pop Chaos Bolt whenever you can, and reset your DoTs whenever they run out, and keep spamming Incinerate at other times.
Little note, I'm speccing this now I've hit 80 to test it in hcs and raids - fingers crossed!
Fire/Imp Destro (0/19/52)Purpose pve/raiding
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZfxc0sMZVchqr0uVkAcctDestro build that utilizes the warlocks fire abilities. The points in demonology provide a dps and stam buff for you and your imp (and raid) as well as more survivability. Fel Domination/Master Summoner is for when your imp gets nuked. The points in improved healthstone (especially if you raid with other warlocks) can be spent in Soul Leech or Nether Protection.
Havent really perfected a rotation yet but what I've been using is Curse of Elements, Immolate, Incinerate, Chaos Bolt then spam Incinerate until immolate is about to expire and Conflag. Then Immolate, Incinerate, and Chaos Bolt rinse repeat.
If you have another lock that's dedicated to Curse of Elements or Affliction with the improved talent, use Corruption and/or Curse of Agony to proc Molten Core (any dps boost is nice!).
I've found this is best for bosses or mobs w/ 130k+ health.
Fire lock/Major Imp (0/20/51)Purpose raiding
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZcxMzsxZVcGVr0uVoAMct This build is similiar to other Fire/Imp builds but kinda different. This build only uses points in Destruction to boost fire damage and has chaos bolt and empowered imp. In demonology it has improved imp and has 5 points in Unholy power to boost the imp's damage even more. I also recommend getting glyph of imp.
This build is a high dps build and is very viable for bosses. The rotation I think is best is Curse of Elements, Immolate, Chaos bolt, Spam incinerate until immolate is about to run out then conflagrate. Rinse and repeat.
Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:49 pm