Affliction Warlock Build

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.

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

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.