Post by Lochart on Jan 25, 2008 10:49:12 GMT -5
What? Lochart messing around in the warlock section!? As I may have mentioned, on another server I have a 70 warlock who's cleared Kara and Gruul's, so I thought I would share another chapter of my wisdom with those who care to know .
Talents, as always are both a good place to start, and a matter of a lot of opinion.
On thing to bear in mind about my views on WoW in general is that I am a "hardcore PvE'er": I spec my toons to boost group potential, deal with computer controlled mobs, and do things in a predictable way time and again. I neither know much about, nor have any real interest in PVP generally, so I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for that.
This post will cover all things from the affliction tree in detail. Other specs will be covered in other posts to avoid confusion and ease the layout of information.
Affliction is all about making your dots better, giving you MORE dots, and reducing down time. For that reason, it is both an ideal grinding spec as well as hugely viable in end game. Here's an in depth look both at my spec of choice and every talent in the affliction tree.
Affliction (42 points)
Imp. Corruption 5/5
Imp. Drain Soul 2/2
Imp. Life Tap 2/2
Soul Siphon 2/2
Imp. Curse of Agony 2/2
Fel Concentration 5/5
Amplify Curse 1/1
Grim Reach 2/2
Nightfall 2/2
Empowered Corruption 3/3
Shadow Embrace 1/5
Siphon Life 1/1
Shadow Mastery 5/5
Contagion 5/5
Dark Pact 1/1
Imp. Howl of Terror 2/2
Unstable Affliction 1/1
Demonology (19 points)
Imp. Healthstone 2/2
Imp. Imp 3/3
Demonic Embrace 5/5
Fel Intellect 3/3
Fel Stamina 3/3
Demonic Aegis 3/3
AFFLICTION TREE
Suppression I don't think resisting spells happens often enough to worry about reducing the chances of it happening for 5 talent points. Furthermore, since most of your spells will be instant cast, if one gets resisted, you can recast almost instantly. True you lose mana in the recast, but as you will see, affliction warlocks are expert mana manipulators. I would skip this.
Imp. Corruption This talent makes your Corruption an instant cast spell. A must have for the affliction warlock. And it gets you to the tier 2 talents.
Imp. Curse of Weakness This is one for pvp. There are so many other more useful curses than Weakness that improving it with talent points strikes me as a waste. Save your points.
Imp. Drain Soul Great for soloing: you actually gain mana casting Drain Soul if you land the killing blow. Even in groups it's highly useful though, for the threat reduction.
Imp. Life Tap The warlock's greatest tool: turning life into mana. The more mana you can get, the more spells you can cast, the more damage you can do.
Soul Siphon Awesome for instancing: toss up all your dots, Life Tap to regen mana and lose some health, and blast away with soul siphon to get it all back. Rinse and repeat. If you're in a raid with another warlock or a shadow priest, this becomes even more powerful.
Imp. Curse of Agony An example of a far more useful curse than Weakness. Making THIS curse more effective is highly recommended as another instant cast dot for the warlock's arsenal.
Fel Concentration Another one extremely useful for soloing, and in case you pull aggro while casting.
Amplify Curse Useful in longer fights. Like trinkets, you have to remember to USE it, but since you'll be using Curse of Agony so often, probably worth picking up. A 50% damage increase for 1 point is the highest ratio of any talent tree of any class in the game. But if you're hurting for points, not essential.
Grim Reach More range is better, particularly in boss fights with aoe abilities.
Nightfall 4% may not seem like a lot, but when you're in a boss fight lasting several minutes, and each tic has a chance to set it off, it happens frequently. Furthermore, it actually gives you ANOTHER instance cast spell (Shadowbolt) which you should opt for immediately.
Empowered Corruption Another way to improve your already improved Corruption spell? No brainer!
Shadow Embrace An interesting talent. I put 1 point in it because I needed to get farther down the tree, and hey, everyone likes damage reduction. Not essential if you're hurting for talents though.
Siphon Life Absolute MUST. Another instant cast dot that restores health to you. Invaluable for soloing and instancing. Take this talent or reroll.
Curse of Exhaustion A pvp talent straight up. Skip it for PvE.
Shadow Mastery Hmmm. Increases the effectiveness of Corruption, Curse of Agony, Drain Soul, Drain Life, Siphon Life, Shadowbolt, and Unstable Affliction by 10%? Yeah, I'll take it.
Contagion More damage for the essential affliction spells. And a pre-req for Unstable Affliction. Get this.
Dark Pact The other absolutely ESSENTIAL talent for affliction. Take it or affliction is a waste of your time.
Imp. Howl of Terror Another talent to make another spell instant cast. Also conveniently a warlock's panic button.
Malediction The curses this talent benefits are so rarely used as to be almost entirely worthless, especially given all the points you've now put into improving Curse of Agony.
Unstable Affliction A shadow damage dot, that unfortunately is not instant cast. Still well worth it to get.
If you want to remain pure affliction, too bad. You'll have more talent points than there are talents in the affliction tree. With that in mind, you might as well get far enough IN to another tree to make it worth your while. I chose Demonology because it has a lot of passive and group bonuses, but you could go Destruction as well. I'll cover what I consider the best "splash" of each tree. For an in depth look at each tree, see the corresponding build.
DEMONOLOGY
Imp. Healthstone Help the group, and yourself; it amounts to an extra health potion.
Imp. Imp The point is to get Imp. Blood Pact, which helps everyone, and gives you more health to use for Life Tap.
Demonic Embrace The warlock is unique among casters in the spirit doesn't matter because he can drain his own life to get mana back. As such, a 15% increase in stamina is invaluable.
Fel Intellect More mana for you, and for your pets, which you can then steal using Dark Pact. Minimizes down time and keeps you going strong.
Fel Stamina Hey! More stamina for you (and your pet on the off chance you need to OT something with the pet in a group)
Demonic Aegis Improving your Fel Amor to give you more +shadow damage is excellent, as that means more dot dps, and more life drained.
So that's the Demonology splash. If you don't like that, try this.
DESTRUCTION
Imp. Shadow Bolt When you crit with the bolt, your other shadow damage does 20% more, which is virtually every dot you have. More dps = good.
Cataclysm Less mana to cast destruction spells means less down time while fighting. It's all about sustainability.
SKIP Bane and Aftermath Dazing targets is of minimal use in PvE, particularly in groups, and due to Nightfall in the Affliction tree, most of your shadowbolt casts should be instant already. As for Soulfire, your spec is designed to increase shadow damage, and with a 6 second fire spell casting time, Soulfire should almost never be used.
Devastation Crit chances are good, especially in combination with your Imp. Shadow Bolt above. And it gets you farther down the tree.
Shadowburn Instant cast shadow spell! Good supplement to your growing arsenal.
Destructive Reach Now your destruction and affliction spells have max range, so you can truly just stand in one spot far from danger and dish out all sorts of punishment.
Intensity Rain of Fire, Hellfire, and Shadowbolt are the primary ones affected by this. But noninterrupt mechanics are always good to have, solo or in groups.
It is important to note that to do the full extent of the Destruction splash, you need to take a point out of Affliction (the obvious one being the single point you might have in Shadow Embrace). For the Demonology splash, you can fill all the listed talents in only 19 points, and leave the extra wherever you like.
Talents, as always are both a good place to start, and a matter of a lot of opinion.
On thing to bear in mind about my views on WoW in general is that I am a "hardcore PvE'er": I spec my toons to boost group potential, deal with computer controlled mobs, and do things in a predictable way time and again. I neither know much about, nor have any real interest in PVP generally, so I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for that.
This post will cover all things from the affliction tree in detail. Other specs will be covered in other posts to avoid confusion and ease the layout of information.
Affliction is all about making your dots better, giving you MORE dots, and reducing down time. For that reason, it is both an ideal grinding spec as well as hugely viable in end game. Here's an in depth look both at my spec of choice and every talent in the affliction tree.
Affliction (42 points)
Imp. Corruption 5/5
Imp. Drain Soul 2/2
Imp. Life Tap 2/2
Soul Siphon 2/2
Imp. Curse of Agony 2/2
Fel Concentration 5/5
Amplify Curse 1/1
Grim Reach 2/2
Nightfall 2/2
Empowered Corruption 3/3
Shadow Embrace 1/5
Siphon Life 1/1
Shadow Mastery 5/5
Contagion 5/5
Dark Pact 1/1
Imp. Howl of Terror 2/2
Unstable Affliction 1/1
Demonology (19 points)
Imp. Healthstone 2/2
Imp. Imp 3/3
Demonic Embrace 5/5
Fel Intellect 3/3
Fel Stamina 3/3
Demonic Aegis 3/3
AFFLICTION TREE
Suppression I don't think resisting spells happens often enough to worry about reducing the chances of it happening for 5 talent points. Furthermore, since most of your spells will be instant cast, if one gets resisted, you can recast almost instantly. True you lose mana in the recast, but as you will see, affliction warlocks are expert mana manipulators. I would skip this.
Imp. Corruption This talent makes your Corruption an instant cast spell. A must have for the affliction warlock. And it gets you to the tier 2 talents.
Imp. Curse of Weakness This is one for pvp. There are so many other more useful curses than Weakness that improving it with talent points strikes me as a waste. Save your points.
Imp. Drain Soul Great for soloing: you actually gain mana casting Drain Soul if you land the killing blow. Even in groups it's highly useful though, for the threat reduction.
Imp. Life Tap The warlock's greatest tool: turning life into mana. The more mana you can get, the more spells you can cast, the more damage you can do.
Soul Siphon Awesome for instancing: toss up all your dots, Life Tap to regen mana and lose some health, and blast away with soul siphon to get it all back. Rinse and repeat. If you're in a raid with another warlock or a shadow priest, this becomes even more powerful.
Imp. Curse of Agony An example of a far more useful curse than Weakness. Making THIS curse more effective is highly recommended as another instant cast dot for the warlock's arsenal.
Fel Concentration Another one extremely useful for soloing, and in case you pull aggro while casting.
Amplify Curse Useful in longer fights. Like trinkets, you have to remember to USE it, but since you'll be using Curse of Agony so often, probably worth picking up. A 50% damage increase for 1 point is the highest ratio of any talent tree of any class in the game. But if you're hurting for points, not essential.
Grim Reach More range is better, particularly in boss fights with aoe abilities.
Nightfall 4% may not seem like a lot, but when you're in a boss fight lasting several minutes, and each tic has a chance to set it off, it happens frequently. Furthermore, it actually gives you ANOTHER instance cast spell (Shadowbolt) which you should opt for immediately.
Empowered Corruption Another way to improve your already improved Corruption spell? No brainer!
Shadow Embrace An interesting talent. I put 1 point in it because I needed to get farther down the tree, and hey, everyone likes damage reduction. Not essential if you're hurting for talents though.
Siphon Life Absolute MUST. Another instant cast dot that restores health to you. Invaluable for soloing and instancing. Take this talent or reroll.
Curse of Exhaustion A pvp talent straight up. Skip it for PvE.
Shadow Mastery Hmmm. Increases the effectiveness of Corruption, Curse of Agony, Drain Soul, Drain Life, Siphon Life, Shadowbolt, and Unstable Affliction by 10%? Yeah, I'll take it.
Contagion More damage for the essential affliction spells. And a pre-req for Unstable Affliction. Get this.
Dark Pact The other absolutely ESSENTIAL talent for affliction. Take it or affliction is a waste of your time.
Imp. Howl of Terror Another talent to make another spell instant cast. Also conveniently a warlock's panic button.
Malediction The curses this talent benefits are so rarely used as to be almost entirely worthless, especially given all the points you've now put into improving Curse of Agony.
Unstable Affliction A shadow damage dot, that unfortunately is not instant cast. Still well worth it to get.
If you want to remain pure affliction, too bad. You'll have more talent points than there are talents in the affliction tree. With that in mind, you might as well get far enough IN to another tree to make it worth your while. I chose Demonology because it has a lot of passive and group bonuses, but you could go Destruction as well. I'll cover what I consider the best "splash" of each tree. For an in depth look at each tree, see the corresponding build.
DEMONOLOGY
Imp. Healthstone Help the group, and yourself; it amounts to an extra health potion.
Imp. Imp The point is to get Imp. Blood Pact, which helps everyone, and gives you more health to use for Life Tap.
Demonic Embrace The warlock is unique among casters in the spirit doesn't matter because he can drain his own life to get mana back. As such, a 15% increase in stamina is invaluable.
Fel Intellect More mana for you, and for your pets, which you can then steal using Dark Pact. Minimizes down time and keeps you going strong.
Fel Stamina Hey! More stamina for you (and your pet on the off chance you need to OT something with the pet in a group)
Demonic Aegis Improving your Fel Amor to give you more +shadow damage is excellent, as that means more dot dps, and more life drained.
So that's the Demonology splash. If you don't like that, try this.
DESTRUCTION
Imp. Shadow Bolt When you crit with the bolt, your other shadow damage does 20% more, which is virtually every dot you have. More dps = good.
Cataclysm Less mana to cast destruction spells means less down time while fighting. It's all about sustainability.
SKIP Bane and Aftermath Dazing targets is of minimal use in PvE, particularly in groups, and due to Nightfall in the Affliction tree, most of your shadowbolt casts should be instant already. As for Soulfire, your spec is designed to increase shadow damage, and with a 6 second fire spell casting time, Soulfire should almost never be used.
Devastation Crit chances are good, especially in combination with your Imp. Shadow Bolt above. And it gets you farther down the tree.
Shadowburn Instant cast shadow spell! Good supplement to your growing arsenal.
Destructive Reach Now your destruction and affliction spells have max range, so you can truly just stand in one spot far from danger and dish out all sorts of punishment.
Intensity Rain of Fire, Hellfire, and Shadowbolt are the primary ones affected by this. But noninterrupt mechanics are always good to have, solo or in groups.
It is important to note that to do the full extent of the Destruction splash, you need to take a point out of Affliction (the obvious one being the single point you might have in Shadow Embrace). For the Demonology splash, you can fill all the listed talents in only 19 points, and leave the extra wherever you like.