Affliction Warlock Build

Work in progress - going to try and keep it in similiar style to Taco's priest guide

Affliction Warlock Guide

This will outline my build for an undead warlock on the pvp server and uses experience from a high level human warlock on our old alliance pvp server.

Overview

The Affliction effect - low to zero downtime. This is a progression of course, as you need to get ahold of the talents\equipment and spells neccessary to pull it off. The effect is noticeable though; at 15 there is downtime, at 25 there is less, at 35 there is not much at all, at 45 barely any and at 55 you are pretty sure you have heard the term downtime but have no idea what it means. Overall, and almsot right from the beginning an affliction warlock will need less rest than just about any other class.

Races

Looks aside, the races have inherent traits; some of which are more useful than others as a warlock. Planning for the Horde pvp server the races available for warlock are:

Orc

Blood Fury: Activate to increase Strength Hardiness: Increase resistance to stun & knockout effects Command: Pet melee damage increased Axe Specialization: Increase to Axe skill

Undead

Will of the Forsaken: Activate to become immune to fear, sleep, and charm effects Cannibalize: Increase health regeneration while consuming a corpse Underwater Breathing: Underwater breath increased Shadow Resistance: Increase Shadow Resistance

Out of these, Orc has two that are not used\useful at all in increased strength and axe specialty. The pet damage and hardiness are nice, but I really feel that undead has the better racial skill set for a pvp horde warlock. Undead does have one useless one in underwater breathing as warlocks get a spell for it, but increased shadow resistance and ability to ignore some cc effects are really nice. Then the minor bonus of cannibalization for increased health regen around humanoid corpse is just extra bonus.

From an Alliance standpoint, the races for warlock are humans and gnomes.

Humans

Perception: Activate to increase stealth detection radius The Human Spirit: Increase Spirit Diplomacy: Bonus to faction point gain Sword Specialization: Increased Sword skills Mace Specialization: Increased MAce skills

Gnomes

Escape Artist: Activate to break out of a Root or Snare effect Expansive Mind: Increase Intelligence Arcane Resistance: Increase Arcane Resistance Engineering Specialist: Increase skill bonus to Engineering

Out of these it is really no contest, the gnome wins hands down with EVERY racial trait being a useful one. The only human trait really applicable to a warlock at all is the increased sword skill, if you train swords and find one worth equipping. The stealth bonus is redundant as warlocks get both an invisibilty detect spell and a stealth detection bonus from the Felhunter. Spirit is not needed for a warlock so thats wasted and mace is not a warlock weapon. Faction is not used heavily in the game yet but it may be more useful sometime. Meanwhile, gnome is the best alliance race trait wise.

Spells\Abilities

Dark Pact, Improved Lifetap, Improved Drain Life, Fel Concentration, Shadow Mastery, Death Coil, Siphon Life and Demonic Embrace combine to give almost zero downtime. Against equal or higher lvl mobs there will be times where a little rest is needed (yesterday with some adds I had to fight 4 lvl 52-53 mobs in a row which left me needing to med), but it will be way less than other classes. In an instance with impy out as a mana battery and where you will probaly not have aggro you will never stop casting ever and be the envy of all mages and priests. Of course that power doesnt come until lvl 42 or so - but it is nice when its reached.

These abilities can be supplemented with equipment and trade professions to make a completely self sustaining character.

AoE Spells

While the talents seem to pull the warlock into focusing on single target damage, due to the mana recovery power of affliction a warlock can be very adept at using AoE as well; due to the fact that they will have more mana to cast it more often. What will be different between an affliction warlock and a destruction warlock is that an affliction warlock will need more support as they will nto have the stunning or uninterruptable aoe abilities. That means the warrior had better have aggro locked down and the priest had better be aware of our hits and casting the shield to prevent hellfire from killing ourselves.

With the proper support though, we can cast aoe after aoe and shoot our DPS through the roof. I had experience being the sole damage dealer doing the higher lvl instance Temple. Two warriors managed aggro, a priest and a druid healed and shielded me and I killed everything with hellfire and rain of fire. This was only possible because I had the mana due to alternating darkpacts and lifetaps with Hellfire casts to repeatadly cast Hellfire over and over. In the one encounter, Hakkari or something like that, it was 10 straight minutes of fighting and all the warriors did was drag the swarms of mobs over to where I was casting Hellfire. Requires a disciplined party but its arguably more powerful than destruction, and possibly a mage as a mage will run out of mana for their AoE.

While not beneficial to soloing or your average PvP encounter, its a nice bonus to go into instances and be able to switch the playstyle to AoE for variety.

Pets

Imp

Not used as much when going affliction. Improved Imp can do a lot of damage but one of the points of full affliction is using dark pact, and the Imp will burn through its own mana casting bolts leaving little for you to take. Where the Imp is used thoguh is in partying. Place him on passive and with the new phase shift ability you have a protected mana battery. The stamina buff and fire shield are great party buffs.

Voidwalker

Up until the Felhunter went in this was my most used pet. One of the boons of the VW is the ability to grab aggro from adds which gives time to apply DOT's. An affliction specced warlock can tank through fights using drain life but to do that you want the dot's already applied so you can spend time regaining life. VW gives the time to do that better than any other pet, especially when there are 2 or more total mobs.

Succubus

Succubus now has very good damage and seduce is great pvp, she can be tough to have out when lvling on mobs though as she is much more frail, and cant handle adds. Downtime goes up slightly as you have to pull aggro off her quicker which means you take more damage and reduces life gaining and mana replenishing - EVEN though mobs will die faster, due to her damage output! Still though - if I know a lot of enemy is around where I am lvling, I will use her to have seduce available for pvp.

Felhunter

Havent gotten to test this one extensively yet. It will not tank as well as teh VW and it will not do as much damage as the Succubus. But it might be the best overal if it does combine enough of both worlds, giving the ability to take enough hits to give you time to cast dot's, then help with supplemental damage AND still give useful pvp abilities in spell lock and devour.

Equipment

Stats

Equipment wise, using the Afflction set of talents I find that Stamina is my best stat, followed by Intelligence, and after that nothing else really matters. Spirit is not neccessary at all for a warlock due to how the mana recovery spells and talents work.

The overall point is using your hits in combination with the pets mana to supplement your mana pool. The increased damage and hits return of drain life combined with death coil and life siphon then helps to replenish life, while simultaneously increasing overall damage done to the enemy. Therefore the number one stat for mana recovery is not spirit, but stamina. More hits will mean more hits available to convert to mana - it ALSO means being more durable which will mean the ability to last longer to cast more drain lifes. A mage cant kill you as quickly if you have 4000 hits + at lvl 60 (at 53 unbuffed I had 3200 hits\3300 mana), which will give the warlock enough time to dish out damage and replenish life, and thirdly giving you enough time to last for a possible nightfall kicking in.

All my equipment then will be focused around stamina. The talent Demonic Embrace increases stamina on a % basis, so the higher your base Sta the more effect the talent will have - so its a great combination. Each Sta point will give 10 hits, while each Int point will give 15 mana. Intelligence is the next useful stat, with having a larger mana pool will mean less life reducing lifetaps are needed in the first place. Still though, due to the mana recovery you can have the benefit of 3 regens occuring at once (hits\mana and pets mana) so its always useful to have a lot of hits for lifetaps. Say life is at 95% and mana is at 40%, you will reduce downtime by life tapping and getting both to 60% rather than staying near 100% life and waiting on mana regeneration. Toss in few dark pacts and you go to 60\80% and 70% on the pets mana bar and are then ready for the next fight. Intelligence, while being important is not worth sacrificing Stamina for, the perfect class of items though are random cloth with "of the Eagle" bonus, which is +Sta and +Int.

That is equipment combining with talents and spells to reduce downtime by the unique mana recovery skills a warlock has. The other effect of the talents though is killing speed. The affliction + destruction talents give a few things to help that. Improved Corruption is a must have, gives a 2nd instant DoT. At lvl 53 in an absolute worst case scenario I could land curse of agony and corruption for 1200+ damage in 30 seconds. Nightfall, gives the chance to proc a buff to cast an instant shadow bolt, which is more likely to occur if your corruption is instant and cast more often. Then there is shadowburn, which was iffy in its first implementation but is now a must have spell. At 53 rank 4 or 5 of it is an instant 490 damage. What these give then is something the warlock lacked in pvp, which is big fast damage. A viable strategy when jumped is to cast CoA, Corruption, and kite until nightfall procs, then turn and Shadow Bolt, Death Coil, ShadowBurn for 1400-1500 damage or so. Even if nightfall doesnt proc shadowburn is always available so its a real important skill to have. Especially if getting the jump on someone which then gives this oppurtunity:

Succubus Seduces -> Amplify Curse +Soulfire + Death Coil +Shadowburn + Corruption + CoA which is about 1700 front loaded damage and 1550 in instant DoT's

Weapons

Warlock can learn sword and staff in addition to starting with dagger and wand. Wands are great supplemental damage and should be picked up as they do not take anything away they jsut add so there is no reason not to grab one and put it in the ranged slot. They can be a quick way to kill totems too. As for deciding on which other weapon to use, myself I will train both sword and staff so that I can pick the best one that has the highest combination of stamina\int that I can find. In closed beta I was using a sword with +7 sta and an orb that was randomly dropped that had +16 sta, this combination was the best I could find for 20 or so levels until I found a staff with enough stats to warrant a replacement.

In pve the melee ability of a weapon is fairly useful and can be a great way to spice up fights instead of settling into a casting routine. However they do not add much to PvP, where you really need to get off your spells - the only time I used a weapon fighting a player was using a wand when they tried to run.

Talents

Affliction - 32 points

5 - Improved Corruption Rank 1: Reduces the casting time of your Corruption spell by 0.4 seconds. Rank 2: 0.8 seconds Rank 3: 1.2 seconds Rank 4: 1.6 seconds Rank 5: 2 seconds

2 - Improved Lifetap Rank 1: Increases the amount of Mana awarded by your Life Tap spell by 10%. Rank 2: 20%

5 - Improved Drain Life Rank 1: Increases the Health drained by your Drain Life spell by 2%. Rank 2: 4% Rank 3: 6% Rank 4: 8% Rank 5: 10%

5 - Fel Concentration Rank 1: Gives you a 14% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channelling the Drain Life, Drain Mana, or Drain Soul spell. Rank 2: 28% Rank 3: 42% Rank 4: 56% Rank 5: 70%

2 - NightFall Rank 1: Gives your Corruption and Drain Life spells a 2% chance to cause you to enter a Shadow Trance state after damaging the opponent. The Shadow Trance state reduces the casting time of your next Shadow Bolt spell by 100%. Rank 2: 3%

Nightfall procs from Corruption and from Drain Life. So yeah you can cast corruption and start casting other spells and all of a sudden nightfall procs and you hit an instant bolt.

On one target it can be iffy - but with a corruption\drain life combo I can get a shadow trance (nightfall proc) every other or every third mob or so. Its great for soloing - as by the time you get it the mob is about 50% or less health on average, hit an instant shadowbolt and a shadowburn and the target is probaly dead.

You can guarntee a shadow trance on adds - have the voidwalker aoe taunt, cast corruption on every mob and shortly you will get one. Its a good strategy on adds actually as if you have 3+ mobs you want to get 1 or 2 dead very quickly, start landing some shadow trances, shadowburns and a death coil and your first target goes down fast and hard.

I almost always try to use the instant bolt when it comes up - it spikes the DPS way up too in the cosmos DPS tracker when it happens.

Recently a graphic effect and sound where added to nightfall, making it much easier to know when a shadow trance was landed. No longer is a third window needed that displays only dot damage.

2 - Grim Reach Rank 1: Increases the range of your Affliction spells by 10%. Rank 2: 20%

1 - Siphon Life Transfers 13 health from the target to the caster every 3 seconds. Lasts 30 seconds.

1 - Amplify Curse Increases the effect of your next Curse of Weakness, Curse of Agony, or Curse of Exhaustion by 50%.

1 - Curse of Exhaustion Reduces the target's speed to 90% of normal for 15 seconds. Only one Curse per Warlock can be active on any one target.

2 - Improved Curse of Exhaustion Rank 1: Increases the speed reduction of your Curse of Exhaustion by 5%. Rank 2: 10% Rank 3: 15% Rank 4: 20%

5 - Shadow Mastery Rank 1: Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells by 2%. Rank 2: 4% Rank 3: 6% Rank 4: 8% Rank 5: 10%

1 - Dark Pact Drains 150 of your pet's Mana, returning 100% to you.

Destruction - 11 points

5 - Improved Shadowbolt Rank 1: Your Shadow Bolt critical strikes increase the next 4 sources of Shadow damage dealt to the target by 4%. Rank 2: 8% Rank 3: 12% Rank 4: 16% Rank 5: 20%

5 - Bane Rank 1: Reduces the casting time of your Shadow Bolt and Immolate spells by 0.1 seconds. Rank 2: 0.2 seconds Rank 3: 0.3 seconds Rank 4: 0.4 seconds Rank 5: 0.5 seconds

1 - Shadow Burn Reagents: Soul Shard Instantly blasts the target with 87 to 90 Shadow damage. Requires 1 Soul Shard. If the target dies from Shadowburn, and yields experience, the caster gains a Soul Shard.

Demonology - 8 points

5 - Demonic Embrace Rank 1: Increases your total Stamina by 3%, but reduces your total Spirit by 1%. Rank 2: 6%, 2% Rank 3: 9%, 3% Rank 4: 12%, 4% Rank 5: 15%, 5%

3 - Improved Imp

Tradeskills

I am going for the fyll pvp orientated setup of mining + engineering and some first aid. Engineering will give some additional cc with nets and also the ability to use some great stamina items in goggles\lenses. The best stamina item in the game at the moment is a green lens from engineering.

First aid is a great ability for a warlock to have - with bandages + healstones and the life\mana recoevery skills a warlock has you will never use food.

Alchemy is also good - potions to restore health are in affect doing double duty as this health can then be used to replenish mana. There are regeneration potions which fit this role well.