Warlock Leveling Guide

[Valks 2,373]

This thread is for comments about our 1-120 Warlock Leveling Guide.

[Cheres 0]

No other specs?

[Valks 2,373]

On 8/22/2018 at 7:09 PM, Cheres said:

No other specs?

I believe Affli was added first because it was by far the most efficient one for leveling to 120, due to the ease of multi-dotting. We'll most likely add the others at some point as well, but the priority was on Affli.

[Guest ArmyVet0409]

Curse of Fragility is only usable against other players. It's no good for rares or elites.

[Guest seabound]

Still nothing for other specs?

[Valks 2,373]

On 3/5/2019 at 6:35 PM, Guest seabound said:

Still nothing for other specs?

Ah, that's likely due to the swap of writers we had with Motoko taking over from Furty (this guide is still Furty's). I'll ask Motoko for an update, but I can't give an ETA at the moment, sorry!

[Bigoburrito 0]

Highly recommend an update to the leveling guide for Locks. I understand people are busy with stuff outside of this but I'm just adding my 2 cents.

Affliction is clearly an easy choice and others may enjoy it more so than myself. However, I feel it's just too slow and boring.

I changed to Destro at 111-114 and I enjoyed it. I also just recently switched to Demo 114-115 and I tell you, it's by far the most enjoyable spec. It's also renewed my enjoyment of the lock class that had been sitting at 114 for some time now. Demo ST is fast and allows for you to end the fight with 5 shards easily which then allows you to run into a very large group and mow them down quickly. My build is 3, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2 for anyone looking for a change from the slow repetitive afflock.

[Valks 2,373]

On 3/28/2019 at 12:13 PM, Bigoburrito said:

Highly recommend an update to the leveling guide for Locks. I understand people are busy with stuff outside of this but I'm just adding my 2 cents.

Affliction is clearly an easy choice and others may enjoy it more so than myself. However, I feel it's just too slow and boring.

I changed to Destro at 111-114 and I enjoyed it. I also just recently switched to Demo 114-115 and I tell you, it's by far the most enjoyable spec. It's also renewed my enjoyment of the lock class that had been sitting at 114 for some time now. Demo ST is fast and allows for you to end the fight with 5 shards easily which then allows you to run into a very large group and mow them down quickly. My build is 3, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2 for anyone looking for a change from the slow repetitive afflock.

I'm not sure what update you mean?

The guide is there to tell you what is best to level as, rather than what is most fun. Affliction Lock is extremely fast at levelling, assuming that you are constantly chain pulling and almost never out of combat (other than to regen when necessary). 

[Guest Guest]

There are no recommendations for Affliction war mode PVP talents.

[Valks 2,373]

13 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

There are no recommendations for Affliction war mode PVP talents.

What about this section?

[Guest this is still true]

On 10/20/2018 at 9:24 PM, Guest ArmyVet0409 said:

Curse of Fragility is only usable against other players. It's no good for rares or elites.

 

[Guest Denalo vehgan]

On 6/15/2019 at 6:57 AM, Guest this is still true said:

 

Is this still true?

[Valks 2,373]

6 hours ago, Guest Denalo vehgan said:

Is this still true?

Will ask Motoko to take a look.

[Guest Leegendary]

Just flicking through the destruction guide, I noticed 2 spells are included that are actually from the demonology tree so I've linked here for help:

5.2.3 destruction abilities 

" Implosion is unlocked at Level 46, and is the second AoE spell for Destruction outside talents.

At Level 52, you unlock the passive  Soul Link, which transfers 20% of the damage you take to your active pet."

I don't know if there are any other inaccuracies, my 'lock is only 52 so can't compare

[Guest Photon]

Am I missing something?

I was really surprised to see Deathbolt recommended for low-level Affliction Warlocks; because on-paper, and without any of the higher level boosts, that talent looks extremely underwhelming.

A mere 20% of remaining damage of DoTs is hardly worth raising an eyebrow. At level 19 I get total damage from DoTs as follows:

• Unstable Affliction 115 (according to tooltip)
• Corruption 102
• Agony 56 or 

So 20% in the impossible case of all 3 DoTs having all of their total damage remaining would yield 54.6 damage (36.4 dps). Yet Shadow Bolt does 71 damage (37.4 dps).

Yet when I tested this on a target dummy I found that Dealthbolt performed as follows:

• 0 damage without any DoTs (obvious, but important to confirm for a base-line).
• 2.8k damage immediately after Unstable Affliction (for a whopping minimum of 2400% of remaining DoT damage).
• 2.6k after Corruption (i.e more than 2500%)
• 298 damage after Agony (more than 500%)
• As an aside waiting until Agony has built up 6 stacks yields 840 damage from Deathbolt; even though there is less than half the time remaining.

Basically, I cannot see why Deathbolt is doing so much damage? The tooltip makes the talent look pretty much useless; which is far from reality.

[Guest Photon]

Addendum to my previous comment.

It seems that Deathbolt damage on training dummys is bugged. The massive damage I'm seeing there is not replicating on regular NPCs. The outdoors damage is more in line with what I'd expect based on the tooltip.

In Loch Modan I'd usually get around 20 damage with good timing. I had a peak of 46 when Deathbolt proc'd a critical hit. And given that Shadow Bolt is sitting at a guaranteed 71 damage for a mere 0.4s longer cast than Deathbolt's GCD, Shadow Bolt is a clear winner on dps - without having to worry about refreshing DoTs just before Deathbolt comes off CD.

That makes Deathbolt talent useless at lower levels, and Nightfall clearly better, because at least it will be used.

Now I realise that as you gain levels, the viability of Deathbolt improves, but it's not clear when exactly it actually becomes viable:

• Level 30 talent is a choice between 4th DoT or improving an existing DoTs (but not really enough to justify Deathbolt yet).
• Level 52 Agony gains ranks (and therefore improves damage).
• At level 58 Darkglare can significantly boost Deathbolt; but it's only available 1 in 6 times (assuming efficient casting of Deathbolt).
• Level 78 Mastery is a nice boost to all DoTs

Why does the guide recommend a talent that is so weak at low levels?
It would be useful if the guide could indicate at what point (somewhere between 52 and 78) that talents should be re-selected to use Deathbolt.

[Guest Calathan]

Implosion and Soul Link are still showing as aquired skills under the Destruction Section.

[Valks 2,373]

9 hours ago, Guest Calathan said:

Implosion and Soul Link are still showing as aquired skills under the Destruction Section.

This should be fixed very soon, just waiting for it to go live ?

[ArmyVet0409 0]

On 7/4/2019 at 9:00 PM, Guest Denalo vehgan said:

Is this still true?

as of 8/19/2020 yes this is still true.

[KnightLevi 0]

I've found that changing the level 15 talent over to Nightfall from Deathbolt is much more efficient and you'll see massive improvements in the time to kill and DPS. I've been dungeon spamming and at level 56 I switched and my DPS jumped up by 60.