Warlock Class Overview

Warlocks in The Burning Crusade go from being a very low support DPS, to being arguably the highest DPS class in the game. Warlock excels at AoEing whenever there are more than 4 mobs at once, making them far ahead of the pack on most add based encounters. In addition to AoE, Warlocks scale exceedingly well throughout the entire expansion, being competitive on single-target fights as well in the later phases of content. Each Warlock spec has a viable use, with one Affliction being desired in caster focused comps, and most raids wanting 2-4 Destruction Warlocks.

• Affliction Spec: Affliction gains both Malediction and Shadow Embrace, making it an extremely powerful support class that still deals great damage both in single-target and AoE encounters.
• Demonology Spec: The most notable change for Demonology is the addition of the Summon Felguard. This new pet makes this spec very viable for council based encounters, where there are several targets alive for most of the encounter to be cleaved down.
• Destruction Spec: Destruction remains mostly the same as Vanilla, with no new major spells in the talent tree; it does, however, gain a lot of additional scaling for Shadow Bolt. With the additional talent points obtained with level 70, you are able to obtain Demonic Sacrifice for an additional boost to your Shadow damage by sacrificing a Succubus.

Warlocks are able to choose from 3 specializations: Affliction, Demonology and Destruction.

Affliction uses Damage over Time abilities (DoTs) to slowly rot their enemies down, rather than using solely direct damage. They also provide great utility, increasing enemies Magic damage taken and reducing their damage dealt.

Demonology mainly increases the damage of the demon pets a Warlock can summon, as well as making sure the Warlock itself has much more survivability.

Destruction is focused around doing as much damage as possible with either Shadow Bolt or Incinerate, having several talents that aim to boost your hard-casted spells.

Warlocks are arguably the best DPS classes throughout all of TBC and likely will be throughout TBC Classic. They fight for the top spot against Hunters and the winner is normally based on the fight. When it comes to AoE, Warlock is the top dog and never has any mana issues.

Fire Destruction is slightly higher damage in the first two phases, assuming that you meet all of the requirements to fully enable its potential, such as having a Fire Mage, Flame Caps, Spellfire set, and so on. Shadow is extremely close behind it, and pulls ahead once Tier 6 content becomes available; if you play as Fire, you will need a secondary set of Shadow damage gear for AoEing.

For PvE, you should always be Tailoring and Enchanting for the biggest boost to your DPS. If you are focusing on PvP, then you should take Engineering and Enchanting.

Warlock is extremely powerful in PvP during TBC, with Soul Link being one of the most powerful builds in the game. This spec deals very high damage, while also being nearly unkillable.

If you are still deciding if the Warlock class is the proper choice for you, feel free to check out the video below from WillE, an avid player and long time content creator for World of Warcraft! This video will give you a solid overview of what Warlock is like to play in The Burning Crusade.

Warlocks are only able to wear Cloth, and are able to wield Daggers, Staves, One-handed Swords, Off Hands and Wands.

All three Warlock specs follow the same stat priority, capping out Spell Hit rating, Spell Power, and Spell Haste/Crit. You can find our recommended best-in-slot gear lists below, alongside the stats priority for each specialization.

Addons and macros are beneficial to Warlocks in The Burning Crusade as they enhance gameplay efficiency by automating complex sequences of actions and providing crucial real-time information, such as cooldown timers and enemy debuffs. This allows players to maximize their damage output and responsiveness in both PvE and PvP scenarios, ensuring all offensive cooldowns are used in conjunction for the highest benefits.