This guide provides information on how to level as an Affliction Warlock in World of Warcraft — The War Within (Season 1), specifically in WotLK Classic. It emphasizes the importance of using Agony for mob tagging and gathering, followed by a Seed of Corruption cast to apply Wither. Affliction Warlocks should avoid overcaping on Soul Shards.
The guide also covers spells and procs for understanding as an Affliction Warlock in World of Warcraft — The War Within (Season 1). It recommends leveling as affliction due to its high sustain and lowest downtime. Once you have these critical talents, move to the Demonology tree.
The guide also discusses optimizing rotation of Affliction Warlocks in single-target and multiple-target situations, as well as advanced sections on cooldowns and procs to maximize DPS. It also covers mastering Affliction Warlocks in raids and dungeons, modern WoW, and PvE content.
The guide also covers the leveling build for Affliction Warlocks from Level 1 to 60 in WoW Classic. It covers classic Affliction abilities such as Drain Life, Curse of Agony, Curse of the Elements, and Howl of Terror.
The guide also explains how to use all Warlock abilities in combat, both in Dungeons and Raid scenarios, to reach the peak. It also helps choose a Race and presents an optimal leveling Talent build.
In conclusion, this guide provides valuable information for players looking to level as an Affliction Warlock in World of Warcraft — The War Within (Season 1) and other PvE content.
📹 5 Warlock Tips for Classic Wow
I had a blast playing warlock again in its vanilla form and wanted to share things I learned playing the Classic Wow beta. The point …
Is Affliction Warlock good for leveling?
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What is the best potion for affliction warlock?
The most efficacious consumables for affliction warlocks include combat potion, heated potion, unwavering focus, health potion, Algari healing potion-weapon buff, Algari mana oil-augment rune, and crystalized augment rune.
What is the best rotation for Affliction Warlock?
The sequence entails the pre-casting of Haunt 2. In the five seconds preceding the pull, the following spells should be cast: Vile Taint, Unstable Affliction, Agony, Corruption, Wither, Drain Soul, Shadow Bolt, Phantom Singularity, and Soul Rot.
Which Warlock is best for DPS?
Affliction Warlocks have a higher spike damage potential, achieving +2. 4M more DPS than Destruction Warlocks. SimulationCraft data from World of Warcraft The War Within patch 11. 0. 2 shows that Destruction Warlocks average 0. 1 more DPS than Affliction Warlocks (+ 1K DPS). When upgrading gear for both specs by +44 ilvl, Affliction Warlocks’ DPS improved the most, increasing by 0. 44 more than Destruction Warlocks. In total, Affliction Warlocks’ DPS increased by 67. 86 and Destruction Warlocks by 67. 42.
What pet should I use as an affliction warlock?
In Dungeons and Mythic+, it is recommended to use or sacrifice the Felhunter as an interrupt, especially in higher levels of Mythic+. This is especially important in situations where certain spells can cause wipes for the group. In Raid environments, the Imp is recommended if the encounter requires Singe Magic or there are frequent target swaps. This information will be updated as more common questions arise over the expansion. The Felhunter is crucial in these environments, especially in higher levels of Mythic+, where certain spells can cause wipes.
What race is best for affliction warlock?
The best races for Affliction warlocks are Orcs or Mag’har for Horde players and Mechagnome or Dark Iron Dwarf for Alliance players. Orc and Mechagnome are the highest simming races, but both Dwarfs have a strong racial to remove poison, disease, curse, magic, and bleed effects on a 2min CD. Culminating Blasphemite is a unique diamond with a primary stat and +0. 15 critical effect per unique Algari gem color.
What is the strongest Warlock class?
The individual sustained 4. 7 million damage, yet lacked the requisite god roll class item to augment their damage.
What is the best spell for a warlock level 1?
Warlocks in Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition are a unique magic-heavy class with unique mechanics. They use Pact Magic instead of spellcasting like wizards or druids, and have few spell slots but refresh every short rest. Warlocks have several standout spells that can turn the tide of combat, but they must use them in the right way. Warlocks can carry their weight in the party and use them in fights to make the difference between victory and defeat.
As long as they get enough short rests, warlocks are one of the best spellcasters in the game. They have a varied spell list full of surprises for their enemies, and their use of these spells can make the difference between victory and defeat.
What is the most popular race for warlock?
The tiefling race is a popular choice among D and D players due to their customization options, including their horn and tail size. They are great warlocks due to their devil ancestry and portrayal as outcasts. In gameplay, tieflings offer +2 Charisma, darkvision, and resistance to fire damage, which protects them from enemy fire. They can use Hellish Rebuke to punish enemies for attacking, and cast the Darkness spell for ambushing enemies from darkness. Variant tieflings have wings, making them ideal for staying out of reach of melee-oriented creatures while using turbocharged Eldritch Blast rolls and other spells.
Are warlock pet names random?
In modern World of Warcraft, you can rename your Warlock pet for 50 gold at your demon trainer NPC. This service generates a new name and can be used multiple times, but you cannot give your demon a custom name. This option is free and has no cooldown. In Classic Era and Classic Progression, you can change your pet’s name from a generic name to one you choose, but you cannot change it again after the initial change.
What is the best warlock spec in vanilla?
The Affliction spec is optimal for early Classic WoW, with Shadow Mastery/Ruin (30/0/21) providing the optimal performance. This character class is particularly adept at solo content, excels at cleaving damage, is capable of fighting with forced movement, and is a formidable competitor in PvP.
📹 Warlock Leveling Guide! How To Level Like a BEAST In Classic WoW!!
Yo! Soldiers of Classic! Here we go with another leveling guide friends! This time covering the warlock! Locks are a tier 1 leveling …
I did a respec at level 36 to try and follow this and my survivability went out the window. I followed the order suggested in the article and would really recommend putting points in demo first. I would pump up demonic embrace and improved voidwalker first and then go back into affliction. This way your vw wont lose threat as often with all the dots you are putting on your targets. Aside from that, love the build so far.
If you are trying to figure our how he put the keybinds for his Attack/Follow commands for his pet it goes as follows: On the KeyBindings Menu: For Pet Attack go to Targeting and set the tab for Pet Attack to the Mouse Wheel Up. For Pet Follow: There is NO tab that actually says, “Pet Follow”. Go to the first Action Tab and look for Pet Action Button 2. Setting this tab to Mouse Wheel Down will command your pet to Follow. This rose my blood pressure a bit trying to figure this out.
I’d also say in a PvP server, you are going to find more benefit in utilizing life drain over your wand, especially at higher levels. Utilizing drain life is pretty much the same speed as using the wand, but keeps you at full life and mana, you also save time having to not bandage. The build highlighted is definitely focused on some one off beneficial scenarios, but for overall more speed, doing 5/5 supp and 5/5 improved DL over Drain Soul and fel intellect 5/5 is gonna give you more results. If you are leveling your warlock to 60 as a second character, it’s also worth investing in the Shadoweave set from Shadow tailoring which will also stack on your Drain Life, making it far superior to wanting as well. Otherwise this is a very helpful guide about some of the great nuances of the warlock.
I highly recommend not going straight for shadow master because you will sacrifice way too much survivaibility and as you mentioned locks dont have much defense/escape early on especially if not orc. You should start by picking up improved corruption, suppression amplify curse and improved life tap (8-11 points depending on preference). then switching over to demo picking up improved HP, health stone, void sac, fel dom, and master summoner (17 points). After master summoner you go back to affliction tree picking up the rest of your important talents and getting shadow mastery. The reason for this is that getting shadow mastery early and talents like improved CoA don’t scale as well be cause you have low level abilities. Getting all the survival talents and having master summoner at level 37 is huge in your defense and lasts all the way to 60. if you do it the other way and get SM first then you get your best defense skill at level 56 and use it for only 4 levels before respeccing. Also when you delay the SM talent you will end up getting it right around the time you start collecting spell damage gear (lvl 51-56) and it scale with your high ranking spells
I was on the fence of trying to figure out which one I wanted to level as my main in classic. Back in the vanilla days, I was a DPS warrior. So obviously as that was my first love? I wanted to play it again. I main a Warlock in current retail. So I was having problems figuring out which one I wanted to play. This article helped me decide that gonna main a lock in classic. Great article! 🙂
at 7:45 you mention as a warlock if your pet gets last hit while draining soul you WILL NOT get a soul shard. and this is not true. for Drain Soul the target just needs to die while you are conencted with the spell drain soul and you WILL be rewarded a soulshard every single time. BUT if you have the talent “Improved drain soul” in the Affliction spec, you DO require to have the last hit via DoT, or direct dmg. but if your pet DOES get the last hit you WILL get a soulshard but you WILL NOT get the “Improved Drain Soul” Talent proc. For the talent you need the last hit. but great vid. i genuinely learned a lot 😀 ty keep it up (This macro is still usefull for getting this talent to proc, but IF you DONT use this talent its not neccesarry for getting shards) btw you should put atleast 1 point in the talent because its worth it if you go by it anyway just for the ending “50% mana regen during casting at all times” it isnt connected to the buff it just enables mana regen if im correct.
I prefer Dive’s drain tanking method. Succubus auto attacks are like 27% of my damage. Only downside is it is a little harder to juggle multiple mobs, but the zones are so swamped with players that I rarely have reason to take on 3+ mobs. Also at 40 with dark pact mana is almost never an issue. If the VW was a better tank then it would be different, but as it stands you’re likely to pull threat anyway. Better to run with a pet that does solid dps.
Voidwalker is significantly weaker on Classic than it is on Private Servers, primarily because it does significantly less damage in Classic, meaning the threat it generates is less, thus limiting the amount of damage you can do before you end up just tanking the mob yourself while your pet hits it like a wet noodles. The consensus is starting to shift to just use your Imp until you get the Succubus with her spells disabled and just Drain (Life) Tank as it ends up being way more efficent than using void walker as you end up having a lot less downtime in the long run, and you’re not having to constantly just stand around and do nothing while your pet generates enough threat to actually contribute. Dive (well known Private Server warlock, and one of the folks who does a lot of the theory crafting on the Classic Warlock Discord) made a reddit post during the Classic BETA regarding this, I strongly suggest people check it out, while void walker still works, it is no longer the defacto choice for leveling. If you search “Reddit Dive Drain Tanking Classc” it should be the top result.
So i see you picking spells and i notice you skipped rank 1 Curse of Recklessness… this is a MUST HAVE spell for leveling. recklessness keeps humanoids from running away from you when they get to low HP. super useful for not pulling a shit ton of extra mobs when solo leveling and even in dungeons. I don’t recommend getting multiple levels in it unless you are duo with a physical based dps character. higher ranks of recklessness decrease the targets armor significantly, but also increases their attack power. but that anti-flee is a huge perk on the spell. for sure a must have. Great article man. Cheers!
Great tips and tricks for Locks!! I would recommend Undead for unlimited food/mana with Cannibalize and Stun is easy to take care with your Voidwalker bubble and DOTS melting people like crazy Speaking of threat, I would recommend get 5 points in corruption to get it instant and go straight for the Void upgrade. After go back and finish the affliction tree and add the last points in demon for good mesure. . With a engineer profession for that extra AOE damage output and mob control are just crazy !:P Love your articles, you are upgrading my hype day by day!
FYI VW is actually slower than Imp leveling, plus VW threat management is lower in classic than pservers. Staysafe (& other warlock mains) did some insane research on beta and the damage Imp does, especially with talent improvement, is quite high. VW does have the nice bubble sac which helps when you’re getting ganked, but it’s threat generation does have some trouble too, at least until above L30 or L40 after some Grimoires/pet upgrades to VW threat abilities.
Another DoT + wand guy…. meeh 🙂 It works if you want to take your time and lvl slowly but safely, but if you don’t draw agro from void (even with improved void) then you doing it wrong and slowly. If you leveling fast then the void only good to keep threat until the initial dots and 1-2 extra SB or drain, and then it surely loses agro but no problem, by the time the mob(s) reach you they are almost dead and drainlife or wanding finish them off…
pro tip: ignore the void lord. The tanky pet you think you remember is actually from tbc or wotlk/cata. It sucks in vanilla, can’t even hold aggro on dots or wand. Theoritically it can hold aggro on 1 target with 1 or 2 dots but it will take forever to kill that way, but you could dot up and fear a 2nd target (though bad idea on a pvp server) Instead go hp drain tanking build (still afflic) but use a suc or felhunter or even the imp, all will kill faster than the void lord and since he can’t hold aggro well (even talented) he’s almost useless. Drain tank w/ succubbus everything dies so fast and you stay full hp easily.
For improved drain soul killing blow proc I wouldn’t use a /follow macro. Better to just get a habit of manually hit follow if the pet is attacking your drain soul target. Reason is if you are doing a multi mob pull. If the pet is attacking a different target it will stop that once you drain soul on the target it wasn’t even attacking in the first place if drain soul also trigger /follow. Guess you can have two keybinds for drain soul to counter this, one normal and one macro but seems a hassle. It’s not hard to just manually /follow or send pet to another target before you are about to drain soul.
Just adding to what others have already said. Based on the beta, Voidwalker is NOT the pet to use for leveling like on private servers. It is unable to generate more threat than you so it will constantly lose aggro. Use Succubus ASAP and spec for Drain Tanking (also Imp potentially has more DPS so it might be the more viable option for speed levelers). This is the current theorized meta for Classic Warlock leveling. You have wonderful content, but the game is not yet out and new things are constantly being discovered that change aspects of every class. As a content creator I think it would be far more valuable to hold off on making guides until the game is out and its meta is formed. Your content is good, you don’t need to be the “first” to get views. Be the most accurate, the community will appreciate you more for it.
I love your article’s, with that said, Life drain is the worst thing you can use for leveling, it’s so slow at killing, Use SB/WAND. Also, Siphon life is a waste of time. Easier to dot dot SB wand wand, Lifetap when you need Mana. Never be at full health, if your at full health, your doing something wrong!
I’m leveling up as destro. Having an insta-damage spell for those god damn rotten bastards tagging important mobs was a pain in the literall ass. Plus it’s a neat “execute” ability with a decend damage, it does wonders if you managed to crit a shadowbolt, the extra shadow damage do applies and gives you a very hard ouchies. And ruin… slurp
Instead of using 2 binds for “pet attack” and “follow” use this macro: /petfollow (@pettarget,exists) /petattack (@pettarget,noexists) END Press it once and it will send your pet to attack your current target. Click it again to make it follow you, or alternatively, send it to a new target that you are currently targeting. Tested it on the stress server, should work come live classic.
This is when pservers make you give the wrong advice. In bliz server, the Voidwalker has crap aggro generation so he can’t tank unless you hold back dealing little dmg. On pservers, voidwalker tanks solid. The warlock has to become the tank in order to have a fast kill rate, no holding back 50% so voidwalker wont lose aggro. The fast way to lvl warlock = spec for drain tanking, use a succubus for dmg. At level 40, you can use her mana to restore your mana and keep going infinitely.
Just started your vid and already am disliking what you are showing. Drain soul is usless while leveling. But even more Void Walker cannot hold aggro like it does on Private as it does 75% less damage. You will die often if you try for the build you showed. Try Dive’s Drain tanking or Staysafe’s builds.
For some reason I died way more often while leveling my lock in Classic than with any other class. Hell, even by Entangling Roots once. :/ Not sure what I did so wrong all the time, had switched between Affliction and Soul Link maybe 4 or 5 times and was never satisfied with the result. At 60 with some gear now it goes smooth. Although I played Lock as an alt from Vanilla up to WotLK I wasn’t total inexperienced yet felt like the total noob. :X
Here is the issue with Orc Vs Undead. Undead has higher base INT which is nice but what really matters is in PVE in Dungeons/Raids many bosses have some kind of fear which can be negated by WOTF which means lots of time an Orc Warlock is feared the Undead Warlock can turn around and do Damage. Stuns are also an issue in Raids but most if played correctly can be avoided and your 25% stun isn’t going to be a huge factor. In PVP I think its no contest though, screw rogues. Plus Horde Warlocks are bigger since Alliance Lacks WOTF.
Sorry, but I’ve mained a warlock since 2004, & Drain Soul doesn’t care at all who or what gets the killing blow. If I’m draining soul when the mob dies, I get a soul shard, period, no exceptions. Further, Improved Drain Soul is completely irrelevant to this issue, as I am always 0/2 in that talent — I don’t use it at all — and what I said before is still true. (And yes, I do have a 60 warlock in Classic, so this isn’t just a misremembered long ago past.) This is just some incorrect warlock mythology. I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s just wrong.
Is void really the way to go? In my testing and in some people I have been perusal they are going imp. It does more damage and void has aggro issues it seems. I am not sure post 20, but at least until then I didn’t really use the void except for tougher mobs. This was strictly single target wrecking though, if your double or triple pulling I think void would be the better choice. I was considering going Tailor/Enchant just until I get the first two wands then drop both and pick up mine/skinning, better to do that to save money early on or just buy the wands from an enchanter or the AH? No clue what the economy is going to be like on the fresh server. Kind of thinking we are all going to be broke so the wands will be cheap. Saving all the mining so I can PL engineering. Also, is anyone on pvp server going to respec SL at some point or just stay affliction until 60?
Void walker leveling is a private server thing. A lot of things wrong with this article to name them all that comes from the private server scene. I would recommend you do more research before putting out a guide like this. Look up Dives leveling guide and even staysafe has a decent warlock guide for using the imp. Unfortunately, people will be surprised how bad the void walker is during launch.
drain soul is too slow(they die faster with drain life). Just focus on maxing fel concentration, drain life and dark pact and you have nonstop grinding… Also scrap that VW and use succubus instead for fast leveling. VW is “old style”, which only beginners use, because it “feels safer”. Also, don’t waste your mana on fears(even downranked ones), or you’ll end up drinking almost all than time. With good tank built you never have to stop drinking and you kill them much faster with succu. Also let that succu take some damage, it will heal much faster than you do, once combat is over. If it seems to take too much damage, just funnel it while it is already running to next enemy. The trick is to keep sending succu ahead well on time, so it makes 1-2 hits on enemy, before your dots tick. By keeping max distance you can drain them, while they run from succu, to you. This tactic is specially good after levels 38-40+, where you get upgraded drain life and dark pact. Respec to SM/DS in 60, and sacrifice your VW instead of succubus, when you already have good gear. You will have 15% less damage, but you will get crazy amount of health from VW sacrifice and you never have to stop drinking (ticks +100-120 health every 4 sec). With this tactic you can also solo bosses in mara/DME easily. PS. When using succubus, disable soothing kiss, so that it keeps aggro a bit longer, and you can kill them faster, without aggroing too early. Also disable invisibility so that they attack succu earlier. Then also disable lash of pain in level 40, when you get dark pact, so that you get max mana from succubus.
I won’t pretend to know more than you, but never stay on full health. Also, cannibalize is a priceless ability. 35% health every 2 mins means more mana, more casts and therefore more dps. On a final note, improved drain soul is pointless. No self-respecting lock will stack spirit to make it viable. Better to stack stamina both for increased mana pool and those pesky rogues.
This looks like Privat Server Footage to me. Voidwalker and Imp are both ALOT weaker on classic. Most of the time your Voidwalker wont even genereate enough aggro to tank your Wand dmg. And your Imp gets oneshot from everything . Also your Classic Voidwalker wont ever be able to hold aggro when u Shadowbolt.
Something tells me 75% of the player base will be hunter/lock. People hear pet + easy + Classic grind and that’s it. I always wish the game had invested in more classes early on (In 2004, Dark Age of Camelot, for example, had three factions, 24+ classes and something like 27 races). Just logging into WoW to see every third person trailing a cat, boar or blueberry gets old, lol.
Immolate is not worth casting in your normal rotation after level 30 or so. The only time I cast Immolate is when I’m locked out of shadow. And you never cast spells at full health. You should Life Tap far more than he does in this article. All of drain life and siphon life casts are going to waste because he’s at full health and depleting mana.
Dude youre warlocking wrong. 1. No demon armor up. Lost health gain. 2. Full health and low mana. Lost health gain from both demon armor and siphon life. 3. Casting shadowbolt ever. Not mana cost efficient. 4. Improved drain soul. On average youre not going to use more than 2-3 shards per hour while leveling, anything more is just wasted bagspace and you will in the long run be wasting hours destroying shards. And now were on the topic of soulshards, dump the shard bag. That bagslot could be a mooncloth bag with 16 slots. Manage your shards right and they will never take up more than 2-3 bagspace. Every warlock in vanilla knew this. Its like page 1 out of the warlock playbook.
The only think I would disagree with here is getting Nighfall. Whilst this great at 60 and raiding, whilst levelling its wasted skill points. It simply doesn’t proc enough, or procs when mobs about to die and other pointless random times when u won’t use it, so it’s poor. You ard better putting the points into something else.
Just started perusal the article. The suggested leveling specs seems pretty bad. Going 5/5 corruption right away is pointless. Better go 3/5 and 2/5 suppression. 5/5 corruption you can get later. You will not need it PvE:ing in the low level zones. Comes into play in world PvP later on. Getting imp drain soul at 16 is worthless and not worth the trouble. You are better off relying on the 5 second rule and wand down targets when they are getting low. Imp drain soul is more worth to get later way down the line. Getting 3/5 imp drain life is worthless. If you check the numbers the extra damage and health you gain is abysmally small. I’m going for drain tanking build and will have 0/5 imp drain life even so. Imp curse of agony is also up in the air for leveling, mobs are not going to stay alive for 24 seconds. I guess it could be good for world PvP though.
Did you actually try “slowing down” the article to see talents taken? Ridiculous at .25 speed even, and the top area was so dark couldn’t see the name of the Talent. Also not sure if you clicked them in the order you took them. Usually your articles aren’t this lazy. (Perhaps replaying it with your slowing down advice is warranted).It would be fine if I had the trees memorized, but unfortunately I do not….
So many things wrong with this article. Undead warlock is better for premade PVP ( The only thing that really matters) and most world PVP encounters. Improved drain soul is a noob trap, it’s a bad, clumsy mechanic that actually slows down your leveling speed rather than speed it up. Leveling with a void walker is a private server meme, it’s bad even with 3/3 improved voidwalker. The most optimal way to level a warlock has been known for 14 years…drain tanking with succubus or imp as a mana battery. Imps are super squishly unlike on private servers, you don’t want him to tank at all. It has also been proving killing one mob at a time is more efficient than trying to juggle multiple mobs. At level 30 you will switch from wanding to drain life(unless you have an insane BoE wand). YOU NEVER USE SIPHON LIFE; siphon life needs to tick for 90% of its duration for it to be mana worthy to use, that is never going to be the case.
I wonder how many affliction warlocks leveling up progress you messed up… Guys don’t listen to this guy, hes talent choices and the order are totally messed up… You would never put 5 points into Improved Corruption, cause of GLOBAL COOLDOWN. The second you use a instant spell you can’t use another spell for 1,5 seconds cause of GCD. So max you will put into it while leveling is 1 point. Also you would not put 2 points into improved soul, cause barely any warlock got spirit and why get mana back while you can just mana tap and then life drain… I will tell you guys how to talent an affliction warlock and the order. This is only for when leveling!!! 1 point improved corruption 5 point supression 4 points improved drain life 5 points fel concentration 2 points nightfall 1 point improved drain life 2 points improved curse of agony 1 point siphon life 1 point improved curse of agony 1 point amplify curse 2 point improved tap life 5 point shadow mastery Then time to go demology 5 points demonic embrace 2 points improved healthstone 2 points improved health funnel 1 point improved voidwalker 1 point fel domination 4 point fel stamina 2 point master summoner 2 points improved voidwalker 1 point fel stamina 1 point demonic sacrifice This is only for when leveling!!!
Your imp dies in 3-4 hits, you do NOT want him to take agro. You’d know this if you watched 2 seconds of beta warlock footage… Yet another guide for this game that doesn’t scratch past the surface and only gives the most basic info that anyone could figure out themselves just reading the spell tooltips and talents, i swear if you search for a guide for your class you find 9 articles repeating the same basic info everyone already knows about this 15year old game and 1 that actually talks about the meta… The footage in the background alone is downright misinformation; you’ll never want to use ALL your dots at any given time, you want to use the 2 that have most recently ranked up, you probably shouldn’t even train drain life let alone use it, you should never be at max health, instead you should be life tapping constantly. I just wish that these 9 useless articles would get disliked into oblivion and the 1 good article got put on a pedestal, not out of hate for the creators but just for the sake of information.