Warlock soloing builds

[Aurorawind]

Hey all,

Would our experienced warlocks be willing to give me some advice? My warlock is currently 60 and demonology, and I'm playing another hunter essentially so I wanted to try the affliction tree.

The focus is soloing, with occasional 5-man grouping. I have no plans for raiding or PVP (surprise) with my warlock. May I please have some feedback on this build I'm considering?

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IEMrVMctVt0o0gf0hM

Thanks for your time.

[Vand]

I probably have a more recent memory of leveling a non-uber warlock than many in Fulcrum, so I'll give my two cents. I naturally took a felguard build as soon as I hit 50, since it seemed like almost every warlock I saw out soloing had one. It was a fun, enjoyable build that made it really easy to solo elites. However, after talking with some more experienced warlock friends, I tried switching to an affliction build around level 60 and was surprised to find that my solo grinding went faster than it had gone using my felguard. You just cannot beat affliction for lack of downtime.

The talent build you linked is a lvl 70 build, so I am not sure what talents you intend to take now as opposed to as you level to 70. I do have a few comments, though, from the perspective of somebody who is primarily interested in solo leveling.

Suppression is really a raider's talent, despite the fact that it is a first-level talent. As long as you are sticking with "yellow" mobs, which I highly recommend, you will not have any more than a 6% chance for your spells to miss. You cannot ever reduce the chance to miss to below 1%. So at most, you want just two or maybe three points in suppression. I did just fine with no points in it, but that's up to you.

You definitely want improved CoA. Granted, many mobs will die too quickly to make CoA worthwhile, but it will be a staple in 5-mans or when you are soloing more than one mob.

Amplify curse is another gem in the affliction tree. You just cannot beat a trinketed, amplified CoD on a dungeon boss.

Nightfall is also very useful. You will be amazed at how often it procs, giving you ever-so-sexy instant shadow bolts. Even if you intend for drain life to be your primary nuke, tossing in instant SBs, especially in 5-mans, will substantially increase your DPS.

An affliction lock with dark pact is all about using your imp as a mana battery. That is what gives the build so little downtime. As such, you will not be using health funnel, and therefore have no need for improved health funnel. Likewise, no need for improved VW. While fel stamina is nice for the 3% health it give you, it is probably not worth the points. Likewise, since your imp will just stay phase-shifted and won't be DPSing, there is no need for unholy power.

I can tell from your build that you intend to use your VW as a tank. Trust me that you do not need to do that. All you need to do it DOT up a mob from range and then drain life until it's dead. You will end most fights near full health. In fact, you will still find yourself wanting to throw in a life tap so that your life bar is not full when you start draining. Your imp will just be standing there, mana recharging from the last fight. At the end of the fight, you'll be near full health, and one tap of dark pact from your imp will return you to nearly full mana.

[Raptace]

Rora, Vand basically is going along my way of thinking too, this is what I'd recommend, basically you have to get away from the mentality "my pet tanks, and I do the dmg" it doesn't work like that really, VW's are not like your cat... at all. You will find that they can not hold your aggro, especially against numerous mobs. I will link you a couple of specs that I would rather you try out.
Now personaly I like the ability to not just dot, but throw shadowbolts, and have them do a good amount of dmg. I also love shadowburn, you'll learn its a wonderful talent and as such, here we go...
Both of these specs, just use your imp for a mana battery basically via dark pact, and he gives you some extra health.
This is my personal farming spec, I have a lot of crit, so this spec works really well for me...
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IVMriRfzVtbZZxx0tr0z

this gives you dark pact, so you can get mana from your pet, plus gives you a 2.5second shadowbolt vs. 3 seconds, you'll learn thats awesome. You also get a 36yrd range on all your spells vs. a 30yrd range, its nice. And I love instant howl of terror, it allows you to dot up 4 mobs, fear them all away, then you just life drain tank them all to death. This spec allows me to take on 6 lvl 71 mobs, and walk away with pretty good health actually.
Now here is a variant to that same spec, but instead of ruin, gives you unstable affliction, basically, another dot but you won't get the same boom when you crit on your shadowbolts...
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IVMriRfzVtboZxx0tr

Now here is something that a friend of mine used to do, basically the idea is you bring out your Void Walker, sacrifice him, so you have a steady health regen, and then you just let your dots do the dmg, not using shadow bolts basically at all, except when Nightfall procs, which will happen often if your life drain tanking things. Life drain tank it to death, but because you have siphon life up on every target, plus the health regen from your VW. You are extremely hard to kill... also because your using the demo tree, you have better cookies, and have more stamina.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IVMriRfzVtbZbxszIbz

Sorry this was so long winded, I can explain it better anytime you want on vent Rora, I hope this helps. I'm not a believer in shadow embrace or suppression for just farming and questing.

[benseac]

I've played affliciton most of my time as a warlock and really like the tree. It's a great soloing tree, I think.

As has been said, don't expect the pet to tank long. When I'm out farming stuff, I'll throw my VW on a mob and start DOTting up my target. The VW won't hold agro long due to the damage being done but by then the mob's pretty well done for so I'll just drain life for a spell. What I like about the tree is that it's easy to farm multiple mobs. With three instant cast DOTs, it's pretty easy to get stuff done, even with no tank there to help out. You'll get some health back with siphon life and you can always drain tank one of the mobs.

As has been said, get shadowburn. It's a groovy instant cast DD spell that really does come in handy. Remember not to use it too early in the fight unless you have a goodly amount of shards.

[Aurorawind]

Thanks guys, and please keep the advice coming. And like Vand and Raptace pointed out, I'm still thinking like a hunter and so I'm trying to see if that's right or if there is a "correct" way of doing things.


So I'm considering Raptace's first build, but I don't have much in the way of crit at all. Thinking of the last one I believe is what I want to try to start with. So at level 60 I'd be...

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IVMriRfzVtbZbxc0o

I may do the first build after 70 when I get some more +crit for it. But thinking that I'm facing equal or lesser level mobs, the affliction/demon build would be good to ramp up to. Then when I'm 70 and have the voidwalker sacrifice I'll be facing the content I'll need it at while soloing.

Opinions? And thanks again all.

[Nortibiry]

I'm a little rusty so this might not be current, but you're definitely on the right track in that you need to think like a warlock and not a hunter. For what it's worth here is how most of my fights went when I was playing my lock more:

Send in fel hunter / succubus (whatever I had out, sometimes that spell interrupt is nice). I find the voidwalker can't hold aggro either so why not go with something that can put out some dps... it's like another Dot :) Let it get the first hit or two and start stacking DoTs, and if I do things correctly my first shadowbolt will pull aggro off my pet. While the mob stumbles towards me it gets pummelled by pet damage and dots, and if it actually starts to hit me I just drain life. Lifetap back up to full mana, and repeat -- you will probably never have to drink or eat if you juggle lifetap and drain life pull to pull.

I guess the key difference in pet management is that you want to pull aggro off your pet, you just want to control when and deal with it. Fear kiting also works quite well but I prefer more control and mostly saved it for elites (if you can fear something, you can kill it. Eventually). I've read that warlock pets are closer to warrior stances (they open up different abilities) than hunter pets and am inclined to agree.

[Raptace]

Well Nort kinda wrote in a typical fight, well, when I'm my farming spec, here is a typical fight like...
Elemental Plateau, against the fire mobs up there.
I never stop running till I've dotted up as many targets as I can with:
Curse of Agony
Siphon Life
Corruption
once I have like 4 of them right on top of me, I throw a instant howl of terror
life tap once or twice
then just life drain tank each one till they are dead.
maybe throw a deathcoil at something if it breaks fear right away, which happens sometimes.
Hit dark pact twice to get back to full mana
rinse and repeat.

[Zhek]

60 lvling build http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IE0riMbkVtboZxx
70 soloing/5man build http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IE0riRfkVtbo0xZxx0z

Trust me on this one. Change the number of points in supression at 70 bassed on how much +hit you have, and if you really want you could easily move one point into exaustion if you want that good old hunter feeling in terms of kiting, but it will leave alot to be desired in comparison with rora.

[Mithwen]

For leveling affliction, I like Zhek's suggestions above. I can't imagine having problems with survivability to the point where you'd need to load points into demonology at all. He doesn't include shadowburn (at 60) and I agree with this as well. I never found I needed it much out soloing ... it's a nice treat for raiding and pvp imo. Keeps you alert by offering a different button from the shadowbolt spam.

I leveled Pika 60-70 as demonology and I liked it a lot. Was fantastic for quests where I didn't know exactly how to do them and had mobs spawning on top of me cause it was the first few weeks after expansion. I've actually brought her back to demonology at 70 as I think it provides a nice amount of flexibility in a character that's become an alt. You can make a build that's not bad for pretty much anything without having to respec. The last time I took her into Kara she was making pretty decent numbers despite the fact that I've tragically neglected her.

Of course, you can put your points ANYWHERE and you're still going to make it to 70 without much difficulty. In fact, you could make it a challenge and instead come up with the worst build possible and level naked. I bet you'd still make it with a minimum of misery.

Pika.

[Jackal]

Since I have a warlock myself too, i'm curious if Affliction is the spec to go for Karazhan until I've maxxed my spell hit rating to 202 and switch to destruction. I need to know what my Crit Chance has to be also to be effective as Destruction. Thank you.

[phewl]

you want at least 16% hit, 20% crit, 1000 spell dmg before you consider destruction.

[Fallakin]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Iy0riRfzVtboZxx0tM

Thats the build I used on Emily, though it was more of a raiding oriented Affliction build. (<3 Destructive Reach and Grim Reach)