Warlock Leveling Guide Overview, Talents, Rotation, Wand Progression, Tips & Tricks! A World of Warcraft 1.12 Guide by Kargoz Last Updated: 10.17.2018 Watch the Accompanying Video: youtube.com/watch?v=zyLGKxlSsns&t Introduction Greetings prospective Warlocks, my name is Kargoz and I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for a long time. Starting my journey in 2004, I’ve since leveled multiple classes to 60 on various Vanilla realms, including Nostalrius, Anathema, Zeth’kur, Lightbringer, and most recently on Northdale. I’ve learned through the years that leveling is probably my favorite aspect of the game, particularly speed leveling as I find it sort of therapeutic. The awesome thing about Classic is that leveling is a huge part of the overall experience! In order to make this guide as accurate as possible I contacted multiple reputable Warlocks including Goth, Azu, Markymark, Snack, Xn, Zephan and more. I can’t express how thankful I am to these players as they were so kind and their masterful understanding of the class proved invaluable. I am thrilled to present for your viewing pleasure this Comprehensive Warlock Leveling Guide for World of Warcraft 1.12 ! Warlock Leveling Pros ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Tier 1 Leveling Speed High Damage High Sustain High Utility Self-Reliant Multi-Target Excellence Low Gear Dependance Strong Open World PvP Free level 40 Mount Cons ● ● ● Low Mobility Reduced Inventory Space (Soul Shards) Pet Training Cost (Grimoires) Class Overview Warlocks are strong, self reliant, tier 1 levelers with nearly every leveling amenity imaginable. High sustain, high survivability, high damage, gear independence, multi target proficiency, world pvp strength, group utility through multiple crowd control options, summons, soulstones, healthstones, and not to mention a free mount at 40 allowing them to invest gold earlier without penalty. The only significant drawback from a leveling perspective is their low mobility possessing neither movement boosting abilities or talents. However, this lack of speed is made up for by Warlocks’ unparalleled ability to sustain combat against multiple enemies at once with virtually 0 downtime. This is achieved in part through their tanky voidwalker and imp drain soul, by mainly because warlocks are the only class in the game that are able to utilize health and mana as interchangeable resources through life tap and drain life. Their ability to turn a couple global cooldowns into hyper efficient damage over time spells that will have impact for 20+ seconds allows them to utilize natural mana regeneration per the 5 second rule earlier than almost every other class. My favorite aspect of Warlock leveling, and this is a sentiment echoed by every Warlock I spoke with is that class is highly flexible and lends itself to your playstyle. There is no cookie cutter build you have to follow and there are many viable ways to level a Warlock efficiently. With that said, take everything in this guide with a grain of salt and let’s begin! General Leveling Tips - Ideally you should kill mobs of the same level, as they grant 100% of their base XP reward values. If a mob is 1 level higher you will gain only a portion of its base XP reward value. This effect also works in reverse and even more dramatically. If you are killing a mob that is even 1 level below, you will gain 10-20% less xp (see slides 10-11). - Front Load Spells / Abilities to get natural mana regeneration per the 5 second rule ticking again ASAP, then finish mobs with white damage. - Push the limits of your combat efficiency. If you are at full Health or Mana you are likely misplaying. Chain pull more aggressively, take more calculated risks, expend more resources per kill, do whatever it takes to keep things regenerating and on cooldown. - Be adaptive with your damage rotation cycle - this is true for all classes. Think on your feet as your rotation will vary at different stages of the game based on a number of variables such as what ranks of spells / abilities do you have, mob lvl, mob abilities, armor / resistance, total hit points etc. Leveling Speed Equation - Leveling Speed can be broken down into three pieces: Travel Time, In Combat Time, and Out of Combat Time (Regen). The sum of these three pieces equates to your leveling speed. - Travel Time refers to the time you spend moving from objective to objective out in the open world. In Combat Time is the amount of time you spend fighting. Out of Combat Time refers to the amount of mandatory time you spend recovering eating, drinking, healing, bandaging, etc. - Travel Time is what you will be doing the most of, thus talents or abilities that increase movement speed will likely have the highest impact on leveling speed. - The more important concept is this: Shaving off seconds of downtime between pulls is equally valuable to shaving off seconds of In Combat Time. When you think about it this way, Damage Mitigation and Regenerative talents / abilities / stats have almost offensive properties and should potentially be valued equally to stats that increase damage. % XP Gain Per Mob Level Values Found by Navak % XP Gain Per Mob Level Values Found by Navak Warlock Specific Tips Lifetap does not prevent natural mana regeneration per the 5 second rule since you are using health as the resource to fund it not mana. This means you don’t need to front load lifetaps into your rotation cycle like many guides suggest. Immolate is your least damage to mana efficient spell until siphon life. If you are having mana issues you can always remove this from your rotation and rely heavier on your wand, although if this is the case you are likely mismanaging your hp / mana. Consider leveling First Aid so you can bandage both yourself and your pet. Health funnel is kinda trash. At stages of the game your wand will potentially do more damage than your abilities. Sometimes it is appropriate to prioritize wand damage over dots, especially because you don’t have to wait for a GCD to finish when using instants before starting to wand. Macros Simple Drain Macro (Use Pre lvl 20) Standalone Pet Send Macro In order for Drain Soul effect to proc you need to land the killing blow on mob. /script if GetUnitName("target")==nil then TargetNearestEnemy() end /script CastPetAction(2); /script PetAttack(target) /cast Drain Soul(Rank 1) /script CastPetAction(2) Pet Attack + Cast Spell Pet Recall Macro (Put Pet Follow on Slot 2) /script PetAttack(target) /cast (*Put Spell Here*) /script CastPetAction(2) 20+ Drain Macro Level 20+ Drain Soul Macro Copy Paste this Macro: This is the macro you will use when you start having mana issues in place of the simpler macro. This will delete the soul shard out of the bottom right corner of your left most bag which should be your soul shard bag. If the bag isn’t full nothing will be deleted. /cast Drain Soul(Rank 1) /run local a=GetBagName(4); if a=="Core Felcloth Bag" or a=="Felcloth Bag" or a=="Soul Pouch" or a=="Box of Souls" or a=="Small Soul Pouch" then PickupContainerItem(4,GetContainerNumS lots(4)) DeleteCursorItem() else end Pet Ability Macros Place your Voidwalker’s Skills on the action bar slots that reflect these Pet Action Macros Torment (Taunt) Macro: /script CastPetAction(4) Sacrifice (Shield) Macro: /script CastPetAction(5) Consume Shadows (Pet Heal) /script CastPetAction(6) Suffering (AOE Taunt) /script CastPetAction(7) Life 1-10 Strongest levelers in the game 1-10. Once you get your Imp, start Triangle Trapping your mobs: - Send your Imp to engage a target. - Strafe left or right forming a Triangle Formation between the target, your Imp, and yourself. - Let the imp build threat with firebolts then rip threat away from your imp with shadowbolt. The travel time between your imp and you should be more than enough to kill the mob without taking any damage. Dots are situationally useful in this bracket but I don’t usually bother applying them as Shadowbolt is more efficient at dealing on damage damage and threat. Talent Progression 5 Imp Corruption -> 2 Imp Drain Soul -> 3 Suppresion -> Life Tap -> 3 Imp. Agony -> 2 Nightfall -> 2 Grim Reach > 1 Amplify Curse -> 1 Curse of Exhaustion -> 1 Siphon Life -> 3 Imp Drain Life -> 5 Shadow Mastery Proceed into Demo: 5 Demonic Embrace -> 3 Imp. Voidwalker -> 2 Fel Intellect -> 1 Fel Domination -> 3 Fel Intellect -> 1 Fel Stamina -> 5 Unholy Power -> 1 Demonic Sacrifice Talent Points for Discussion - Grim Reach 20% imp. 6 yard range to affliction spells (Corruption, CoA, Fear, Drain soul) versus more points in imp. Drain Life. - Imp Curse of Exhaustion vs Agony? - Fel Stamina vs Fel Intellect? -How many points are necessary in suppression? 2, 3, 5? -Imp Corruption ASAP? Or only 2 points? Life 10-20 Get your Voidwalker ASAP so you can start Fear Juggling. If you have instant cast Corruption engage mobs with the following rotation if you are multi target sustained grinding: - Send Voidwalker in while casting Immolate -> CoA -> Corruption -> Wand -> Drain Soul (Rank 1) right before death - With NO instant corruption: Send Voidwalker while casting Corruption -> CoA -> Wand -> Drain Soul right before death - Send Voidwalker at Target 1 and dot it, Fear Target 2 then apply dots, send voidwalker at Target 3 and dot it. Rinse and repeat, there should be no downtime if you manage resources well. Life tap if you have excess health, Drain Soul when a mob is about to die. More on Life 10-20 ● Get Grimoire of Sacrifice for your Voidwalker at level 16. ● Get Grimoire of Consume Shadows for your Voidwalker and level 18 ● Your survivability is through Healthstones and Soul Stones, keep these on you 100% ● Skip Training Curse of Recklessness, Searing Pain, Rain of Fire ● Don’t train anything past Drain Soul (Rank 1). Life 20-30 ● Skip Training Eye of Kilrogg, Sense Demons, Detect Lesser Invisibility, Banish, Firestone, Enslave Demon. ● Buy Grimoire of Suffering (AOE Taunt) for your Voidwalker at level 24. ● From level 25 onwards your priority of dots change. You now have nightfall online so apply Corruption before CoA for increased proc chances. ● If you have heavy mana issues where things are feeling inefficient you can remove Immolate from your rotation as it’s your least efficient mana to damage spell. Life 30-40 - Starting at level 37 start attempting to have a Shadoweave Set crafted for you (Gloves, Mask, Pants, Robe, Shoulders). This is an amazing foundation for gear going into raids. - Get Free level 40 mount! - Starting at 31 when you get Siphon Life you can start using it to get more damage on juggled fear mobs. But warning it is not very mana efficient and causes healing aggro! - On secondary / tertiary feared mobs siphon is higher priority than immolate since it has no cast time. Life 40+ - Skip Training Curse of Shadow, Soul Fire - Use Howl of Terror (AOE fear) to your advantage to push your combat efficiency further. - Use Death Coil on CD on juggled mobs. Once you get it at 42 Imp. Lifetap has 0 downside. The HP you gain from DC is more than the cost of tap. - Mobs start to become tankier and more resilient to your dots. Consider using Siphon more if it will be more efficient. - Do level 50 Class Quest “An Imp’s Request” for amazing trinket. Stat Priority Stamina -> Intellect -> Spirit -> Agi -> Strength Strength = Improves attack power with melee weapons Agility = Increases attack power with ranged weapons. Improves chance to score critical hit with all weapons, Increases Armor and Chance to dodge. Intellect = Increases Mana Points by 15 per 1 point and chance to score a critical strike with spells. Improves rate weapon skills level. Stamina = Increases HP by 10 per 1 point. Spirit = Increases out of combat HP and Mana regeneration Alliance Wand Progression Lesser Magic Wand - 11.3 DPS - Requires lvl 5 Crafted Green from Enchanting Spark of the People’s Militia - 12.8 DPS - Quest Reward “The People’s Militia” Westfall Greater Magic Wand - 17.5 DPS - Requires lvl 13 Crafted Green from Enchanting Dusk Wand - 17.6 DPS - Wand Vendor sells this white wand in all capital cities Spellcrafter Wand - 20.3 DPS - Quest Reward “Retrieval for Mauren” in Stonetalon Mountains Cookie’s Stirring Rod - 22.3 DPS - Drops off Cookie in Deadmines 35% Consecrated Wand - 24.2 DPS - Quest Reward “Worgen in the Woods” Duskwood Excavation Rod - 24.2 DPS - Quest Reward “Ormer’s Revenge” Wetlands Gravestone Sceptre - 29.0 DPS - Quest Reward “Blackfathom Villainy” Blackfathom Deeps Rod of Sorrow - 31.8 DPS - Quest Reward “Wanted Otto and Falconcrest” Arathi Highlands Burning Sliver - 32.7 DPS - Quest Reward “Crushridge Warmongers” Alterac Mountains Blackbone Wand - 35.3 DPS - Wand Vendor sells this white wand in all capital cities Cairnstone Silver - 41.4 DPS - Quest Reward “The Morrow Stone” Feralas Red = Highly Recommended Alliance Wand Progression Noxious Shooter - 50.0 DPS - Drops from Noxxion in Maraudon at 20% Smokey’s Fireshooter - 53.2 DPS - Quest Reward “When Smokey Sings, I get Violent” EPL Rod of Corrosion - 55.0 DPS - Drops from Shade of Eranikus in Sunken Temple 32% Mana Channeling Wand - 60.9 DPS - Drops from Cho’Rush the Observer in Dire Maul 25% Red = Highly Recommended Horde Wand Progression Lesser Magic Wand - 11.3 DPS - Requires lvl 5 Crafted Green from Enchanting Smoldering Wand - 13.4 DPS - Wand Vendor sells this white wand in all capital cities Greater Magic Wand - 17.5 DPS - Requires lvl 13 Crafted Green from Enchanting Dusk Wand - 17.6 DPS - Wand Vendor sells this white wand in all capital cities Excavation Rod - 24.2 DPS - Quest Reward “Ormer’s Revenge” Wetlands Gravestone Sceptre - 29.0 DPS - Quest Reward “Blackfathom Villainy” Blackfathom Deeps Gnomish Zapper - 32.7 DPS - Quest Reward “Sunken Treasure” Arathi Highlands Dancing Flame - 32.9 DPS - Quest Reward “Final Passage” Thousand Needles Blackbone Wand - 35.3 DPS - Wand Vendor sells this white wand in all capital cities Cairnstone Silver - 41.4 DPS - Quest Reward “The Morrow Stone” Feralas Noxious Shooter - 50.0 DPS - Drops from Noxxion in Maraudon at 20% Smokey’s Fireshooter - 53.2 DPS - Quest Reward “When Smokey Sings, I get Violent” EPL Rod of Corrosion - 55.0 DPS - Drops from Shade of Eranikus in Sunken Temple 32% Mana Channeling Wand - 60.9 DPS - Drops from Cho’Rush the Observer in Dire Maul 25% Red = Highly Recommended Class Quests ● Do level 2 Imp Quest ● Do level 10 Voidwalker Quest ● Skip level 30 Felhunter Quest ● Do level 35 Orb of Orahill Quest. Gives you amazing off hand! ● Do level 31 “In Search of Menara Voidrender Quest” only if you can get help. The robe is amazing but the quest is very difficult similar to Whirlwind axe quest for warriors. ● Do level 50 Class Quest “An Imp’s Request” for amazing trinket. First Aid Horde Alliance First Aid 1-150: First Aid 1-150: Expert First Aid 150-225: Expert First Aid 150-225: First Aid 225-300: First Aid 225-300: Trainable in Starting Areas Progressed in Major Cities Buy Book: Expert First Aid - Under Wraps Brackenwall Village, Dustwallow Marsh Location: Coords (36 , 30) Seek out the Trauma Surgeon Complete Quest “Horde Trauma” Hammerfall, Arathi Highlands Location: Coords (73 , 34) Trainable in Starting Areas Progressed in Major Cities Buy Book: Expert First Aid - Under Wraps Stormgarde Keep, Arathi Highlands Location: Coords (26 , 58) Seek out the Trauma Surgeon Complete Quest “Triage” Theramore, Dustwallow Marsh Location: Coords (65 , 48) Closing Thoughts Thank you so much for your time - I hope this guide was of some help! If you have further questions you can contact me in our community discord: discord.gg/r9cVrzJ
