This post will be down and dirty as I have been swamped with everything from real life to gearing up my new orc warlock.  Orc FTW!!!!

The Leulier Spreadsheet is currently not ready for prime time.  So I do not recommend trusting it's values of anything.

With that being said, I have compiled a spreadsheet (within this ZIP file) with all the available loot in the game for your use.  There are 2 columns that compute how many "points" or how much DPS each item will put out.  One column includes the hit rating, the other column does not.  The spreadsheet is pretty much self explanatory.  The values at the bottom of the spreadsheet can be used to modify how many points are given to each attribute.

To make it on the list the gear must be:
- Blue or better
- Item level 187 or better
- Have 0 resilience (PVP gear will be added later)
- Have 0 mp5 (mp5 gear will be added later)
- Not be mage or priest only gear (I will add them later for those class's benefit)

With all the re-tooling of caster gear, even mages and priests can use this spreadsheet.  There is all kinds of sorting you can do, and I even have some VBA code with buttons in mine.  The one uploaded here has no VBA code so that people will not have any macro security questions.

When I have the time, I'll update this spreadsheet to include pvp, mp5, and other classes token gear.  More to come later!

GET THE FILE HERE!

While the 2-piece bonus for warlock Tier 6 gear (aka Malefic Raiment set) is relatively useless, the 4-piece bonus is extremely good.  To find out how much, let's go back to our Leulier spreadsheet.  If you have the T6 4-piece bonus, then cell B5 on the "Advanced infos" tab will say "TRUE".  Write down your current DPS value, then change this cell to say "FALSE".  Now write down your new DPS.  The difference between these two numbers is the DPS increase because you have the 4-piece bonus.  For me, this turns out to be 129.33 DPS.  Be sure to not save you changes when doing this test, or you will lose the formula that is in cell B5.

So the question becomes which 4 pieces of T6 gear is the best combination.  We need to compare each T6 piece to the highest DPS item for that slot.   Therefore, we want to minimize the DPS loss by wearing 4 pieces of T6 instead of 4 higher DPS pieces; if we can't minimize the DPS loss to less than the 4-piece bonus, then we should not wear the 4-piece bonus. 

So what are the 4 pieces that will minimize the DPS loss caused by not wearing better gear?  To answer this, we will compare every T6 piece with the highest DPS piece for the slot.  I will be using the following DPS values from my Leulier spreadsheet; I will also disregard any DPS from + spell hit because you can always get enough spell hit from other items and/or gems.

+1 stamina = +0 DPS
+1 intellect = +0.20 DPS
+1 spirit = +0.11 DPS
+1 spell damage = +1.10 DPS
+1 spell hit = +1.78 DPS
+1 spell crit = +0.84 DPS
+1 spell haste = +1.11 DPS
+1 MP5 = +0.30 DPS

Chest:

[Robe of the Malefic] - 116 DPS
[Fel Conquerer Raiments] - 193 DPS  (+77 DPS)
[Sunfire Robe] - 218 DPS (+102 DPS)

Gloves:

[Gloves of the Malefic] - 88 DPS
[Sunfire Handwraps] - 126 DPS (+38 DPS)
[Gloves of Tyri's Power] - 128 DPS (+40 DPS)

Helm:

For the helm comparison, we will ignore the meta gem since they both have one.

[Hood of the Malefic] - 127 DPS
[Dark Conjuror's Collar] - 176 DPS (+49 DPS)

Legs:

[Leggings of the Malefic] - 130 DPS
[Leggings of Calamity] - 202 DPS (+72 DPS)

Shoulder:

[Mantle of the Malefic] - 92 DPS
[Amice of the Convoker] - 152 DPS (+60 DPS)

Boots, Belt, & Bracers:

Each of these T6 pieces drop from Sunwell Plateau.  Even without the spell hit rating, each of these pieces are the best in slot pieces; there are no better pieces than these.

[Boots of the Malefic]
[Belt of the Malefic]
[Bracers of the Malefic]

Conclusion:

It is obvious that the T6 boots, belt, & bracers are certain choices to wear.  So now we just have to determine the best choice for the fourth piece.  Let's list the DPS loss for each of the T6 pieces we are considering for this spot:

T6 gloves: -40 DPS
T6 helm: -49 DPS
T6 shoulder: -60 DPS
T6 legs: -72 DPS
T6 chest: -77 DPS (or -102 DPS if you are a tailor)

A quick glance at the DPS losses above will show that only the gloves and helm are close to being the best choice.  The chest, legs, and shoulder pieces can be replaced with better gear for a larger DPS increases than the gloves and helm can be.  It should also be noted that both [Dark Conjuror's Collar] and [Gloves of Tyri's Power] are drops from Kil'jaeden, so it will likely be a very long time before those drops are even available to you.  However, the 2nd best hand item, the [Sunfire Handwraps] are easily crafted at this level.

Theoretically, the best four pieces of T6 gear would be the T6 boots, belt, bracers, and the gloves.  However, given that the best helm in the game is a drop off the last boss in the game, your best choice will likely be the T6 boots, belt, bracers, and helm with the [Sunfire Handwraps].   These 4 pieces have a loss of -49 DPS, but the 4-piece T6 bonus gives +129 DPS.  The net bonus for me is +80 DPS.  Assuming you are also a destruction warlock, your results are likely to be similar.

Every since the release of World of Warcraft, you can select only 2 primary professions in addition to having all three secondary professions of fishing, cooking, and first aid. So what 2 professions would be best for your DPS?

Let look at the list of available professions. In all of the calculations below, I will use my personal spec and gear as the basis. This is tuned for high-end raiding destruction warlocks (destruction warlocks are proably 90% of the raiding warlocks out there). The following values will be used in the evaluation because they are my current Leulier spreadsheet DPS values:

All spell hit ratings will be ignored becuase it should be easy enough to reach the spell hit cap through other gear and/or gems.

Skinning, Herbalism, and Mining:

These three gathering professions do not give any added benefit to your DPS. While it can be said that having a profession like herbalism will give you easier access to herbs for your alchemy, the same can be said for using gold to buy them off the Auction House. The only item in the game that requires Herbalism is [Fel Blossom], which is pretty useless since it shares a cooldown times with a [Master Healthstone].

Mining and Skinning are equally useless, and have nothing that is profession specific for them. Along with Herbalism, everything these three professions gather can be obtained from your alts, friends, or the Auction House. It is true that some raids needs a miner in certain instances, but let someone else who is not DPS focused like you are have that job.

Alchemy

A warlock can benefit from the Alchemy profession by wearing a [Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone] in a trinket slot. This is a relatively new trinket as it was added in Patch 2.4.0, and it requires being exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive.

To evaluate the DPS of this trinket, we will have to assume we are chaining [Super Mana Potions] and determine how much of a benefit the 40% potion boost would be. We will also have to consider any DPS loss (if any) from not wearing a better trinket in that slot.

An average Super Mana Potion will restore 2400 mana and can be taken every 2 minutes. To convert this to overall MP5, we can do the math to determine that using Super Mana Potions gives an equivalent 100 mp5. However, with this trinket, the 100 MP5 becomes 140 MP5, so the benefit this trinket gives is +63 spell damage and +40 MP5. Now let's turn to our Leulier spreadsheet that tells us our DPS values for each point in these area. Using my Leulier values above, I receive a DPS boost of 81 DPS.

Now let's compare this to several other trinkets you might have put in the slot.

[Shifting Naaru Sliver]: 119 DPS
[Hex Shrunken Head]: 97 DPS
[The Skull of Gul'dan]: 93 DPS
[Darkmoon Card: Crusade]: 87 DPS
[Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone]: 81 DPS
[Sextant of Unstable Currents]: 78 DPS
[Icon of the Silver Crescent]: 76 DPS

As you can see, the alchemy trinket would not be the fifth best trinket in the game. So while this trinket might be easily obtainable and also uber for a lock just starting out, eventually for end-game raiding you will want to replace it. Getting the maximum DPS out of this trinket also requires you to be chaining Super Mana Potions which constricts your potion options.

Blacksmithing

There is no gear or consumable that can be used by a warlock.

Enchanting

The enchanter's only DPS increase is their ability to enchant their own two rings with Enchant Ring - Spellpower. This results in a total of +24 spell damage for 26.4 DPS. Only enchanters are able to enchant their rings. It must also be noted that you can drop enchanting after you enchant your rings and still keep the enchants! This seems to be almost a loophole of sorts, but it works.

Engineering

The engineering profession gives some very interesting gear choices for warlocks in all level of raiding; generally speaking Engineering provide profession specific head pieses. For end-game raiding, there is the [Schematic: Annihilator Holo-Gogs] that is a rare drop from Sunwell trash. Let's compare this helm to other end-game raiding helms; the DPS values below consider sockets, and the socket bonus, but not the meta gem itself.

Each of the alternatives has a meta gem socket, so they are equal in that respect. The Dark Conjuror's Collar and the Helm of Arcane Purity comes from Kil'jaeden, the very last boss in Sunwell Plateau. Therefore, we will not compar our engineering helm to those two pieces becasue you should really select gear based on what will help you kill the "last boss". So we will compare the engineering helm to the Cowl of the Illidari High Lord; therefore the engineering helm whould be counted as a 16 DPS increase while understandthing that there is a much better helm that drops from Kil'jaeden. There are of course other fun things that come with being an engineer, but they do not increase your DPS in end-game raiding.

Jewelcrafting

Jewelcrafting is another interesting option for end-game raiding. Basically, jewelcrafting will allow you to cut better epic gems that are BOP. Jewelcrafters are also able to craft profession specific neck pieces that are BOP. Again, there is a trash drop in Sunwell Plateau of the [Design: Pendant of Sunfire]. Once again we will compare this neck piece to other end-game raiding pieces.

It is very interesting to note that the #3 DPS neck piece in the game is from the honor PVP rewards. The #2 necklace is a drop from The Eredar Twins in Sunwell Plateau.

There are also two Unique-Equipped BOP gems that a jewelcrafter can cut. These are [Don Julio's Heart] for 15.40 DPS and the [Blood of Amber] for 10.08 DPS. The blood of Amber is less DPS than other epic gems, so we will disregard that gem. This leaves [Don Julio's Heart] to be compared to a [Runed Crimson Spinel] at 13.20 DPS.

Therefore, the DPS increase for the jewelcrafting profession is (103-82) + (15.40-13.20), which is 23.20 DPS.

Leatherworking

Leatherworking has taken on a life of its own for end-game raiding guilds; all because of this little consumable called [Drums of Battle]. It's not a trinket, so it doesn't take the place of any gear. It does use a global cooldown, but since your trinket does not, you can put it in a macro to use it at the same time as a trinket to combine their effects. This little item of uberness gives 80 haste (spell, melee, and ranged haste) not only to you, but your entire party for 30 seconds. For the purposes of any on-use item or trinket, we convert this to overall use by diving the buff over its cooldown. So this is equal to a 20 spell haste bonus for you. Using our Leulier spreadsheet, this provides a 22.2 DPS increase just for you. This would probably be fine if it stopped there, but it doesn't. Since it effects everyone in your party, the effect must be multiplied for your party members; let's assume:

You, warlock of uberness: 100% of your DPS
Another warlock, almost as good: 95% of your DPS
Shadow Priest: 58% of your DPS
Elemental Shaman: 80% of your DPS
Mage: 83% of your DPS

Tailoring

Almost every raiding warlock started out as a Shadoweave Tailor when TBC expansion was released because of the three Frozen Shadoweave pieces, for good reason too. Those pieces gave a huge head start when everyone started out raiding Karazahan. However, as they progressed, people eventually replaced all three of those pieces with better gear around the T5 level. There is one item left in the end-game that may breathe new life back into Tailoring. It is the [Pattern: Sunfire Robe] that drops off of trash in Sunwell Plateau. Let's compare this to other end-game chest pieces.

It should be noted that the #2 and #3 items are extremely similar, and it is surprising even that they drop from the same boss in Sunwell, M'uru/Entropius. Given the different socket colors, for us at least the DPS for either item becomes indistinguishable.

So overall the tailoring profession will give you a 24 DPS increase over other Sunwell loot.

Conclusions

Sorting the results of the above, we find that:

Since the benefits of the Leatherworking profession go beyond just you and the raid DPS increase is significant. Therefore, the first choice profession for warlocks must be declared as Leatherworking.

The second choice profession is Enchanting; however, as we discussed previously you can enchant your rings and drop the profession to pickup another. So the strategy here is to level enchanting and get your final two PVE rings of choice, enchant the rings, then drop the profession for something else. For me, my final two rings are the [Ring of Omnipotence] which drops from Mu'ru/Entropius and the [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] from Black Temple trash. For me these, two ring give me the highest DPS excluding the spell hit rating given from other rings (I plan to reach the spell hit cap from other items).

So after you enchant your final two rings, then you can pickup Jewelcrafting or Tailoring becasue the DPS increase for either items is practicially the same. I would recommend not droping enchanting for tailoring or jewelcrafting until after you receive one of the patterns. If you don't wait, then you basically have a profession that does absolutely nothing for you while you wait on a CHANCE at receiving a very, very rare trash drop from an instance you probably do not have on farm status.

I would not recommend the engineering profession since it is the lowest DPS increase of the exisitng sunwell profession drops.

Summary

In summary, what I recommend for end-game raiding warlocks to do:

1. Pickup Leatherworking and level it to 350. You can use [Drums of Battle], even though you can't craft them.
2. Pickup Enchanting and level it to 360. You can enchant all your rings as you get better rings. You can also enchant your two PVP rings and keep the enchant effect in arenas.
3. Wait until you can optain one of the trash profession patterns from either tailoring or jewelcrafting. You do not need the profession to simply receive the pattern/design. When you receive either item, drop enchanting and level up your new tailoring or jewelcrafting profession.
4.a. If you receive [Design: Pendant of Sunfire], then drop enchanting and pickup Jewelcrafting and level it to 365 for the neck and gem.
4.b. If you receive [Pattern: Sunfire Robe], then drop enchanting and pickup Tailoring and level it to 365 and craft your robe.

It might seem a lot of work to drop enchanting to level jewelcrafting or tailoring, and you would be correct. To each his own, and your mileage may vary. Feel free to leave any questions or comments!

Every piece of gear that a warlock would be interested in, has various values in the following attributes:

In the old days, I would assign a point value to every point in the above attributes; for example every point in spell hit could be worth 2.5 points in my system. Every piece of gear could be evaluated this way, and I developed a very large Excel spreadsheet listing every rare and epic piece of gear there was and has excel do all the math for me.

Today, there is even a better way. Let me introduce you to the Warlock DPS spreadsheet, aka the Leulier spreadsheet. Leulier has done the very thing that I always wished I had the time to do. He has developed a spreadsheet that can evaluate how much DPS you do can theoretically do considering all the raid buff, boss debuffs, and gear you currently have. In addition to this, he also provides a spreadsheet that lists every piece of epic gear in the game to help you quickly evaluate how much of a DPS increase a certain piece of gear would be.

I will not say that his spreadsheet is 100% accurate because there are too many variables in any particular boss fight. However, I will vouch for its ability to definitively and objectively compare individual pieces of gear. Every raiding warlock should be using an objective, mathematical system such as this to determine what gear aim for.

Here are some tips for using the Leulier spreadsheet:

1. Please realize that the XLS file uses a lot of VBA macros, and you will likely see a warning message about macros when you open the file. If you are concerned about macro viruses, then you should disable macros and examine the VBA code for yourself so that you are satisfied that it is clean. I've repeatedly used these spreadsheets without any problems, but that doesn't mean the site can't be hacked in the future. After opening the file, you should take notice that there are many tabs in the file (technically speaking each tab is a separate spreadsheet inside the file or "workbook").

2. The first tab is the Notes tab, ignore this for now as it has not been updated in a long time. As of this writing, the spreadsheet is version 2.6, but the change log in the Notes tab only goes up to version 1.20.

3. The second tab is the DPS tab. This is where you will setup the talents of your spec and select which spells you use in your spell rotation. For now, skip this and we will come back to it later.

4. The third tab is the Gear_Buffs tab. This is where we will start. You need to select every piece of gear you currently have from the various drop down boxes. The selections are coded to understand if an item has sockets, so be sure to indicate when gems you have in each socket, along with what enchant you currently have. Also towards the bottom of this spreadsheet, there are checkboxes you can select for your consumable and raid buffs. Under self buffs, be sure to check the Fel Armor box and select the type of flask, oil, and food you use. Under raid buffs, you should be able to check all the boxes except Judgement of Wisdom. Under Party Buffs, you should really leave those unchecked as you should not rely on being in a group with a shadow priest and/or a shaman; also change Vampiric Tough DPS to 0 unless you are certain you usually have a shadow priest in your group. If you are a leather worker be sure to enter 1 for Drums of Battle.

5. Now go to the DPS tab and enter all of the particulars of your talent build into the boxes at the top of the spreadsheet. There is also a template loader for some common specs that will fill in the talents with pre-set values. Be sure to check every talent to ensure it is correct. Leave the "Debufs", "Improved SB" and "Other options" at their default values for now; you can modify them later once you get more familiar with the spreadsheet. Under "Main options" be sure to select your filler spell; the filler spell is the spell the spreadsheet will assume you are using at all times when your other spells are not available for use. This is most likely your Shadow Bolt. Select CoS or CoE as your "Casted Curse", and select the type of pet you will either use or sacrifice.

6. In the spells table on the DPS tab, there is a column titled "used/option" next to all the spells we tend to use. Put a "1" in any box next to the spell name that you use. If you use a damaging pet such as a Felguard, then also put a "1" next to the pet; however, if you sacrifice your pet or if you pet does not fight (like an Imp), make sure it is set to "0" here. Leave "Life tap" set to "oom_time"; this will measure your DPS such that you run out of mana after a theoretical 10 minute boss fight (the length of time is set by the "OOM time" box under the "Custom LT/DP freq" seciton).

Now, finally you have your spreadsheet all set up with your gear, your talents, and the spells you use. The final answer you have been trying to get to will be calculated automatically for you next to the cell that says DPS (cell H33 on the DPS tab). You should take some time to try out "what if" scenarios. If you add or remove Immolate from your spell rotation, would that increase or decrease your DPS? Try the same with spells like Corruption; then what if you put 1 point in Improved Corruption, would that increase your DPS? It's this type of easy evaluation that makes Leulier's spreadsheet so valuable.

Below the spell section on the DPS tab you will notice a section called "The Next Stat". Taking into account all of your gear, talents, and spell usage, the spreadsheet has assigned a DPS value to every +1 point in the various attributes that is given to the gear we want. These values are the "final answer" that we need to know in order to properly evaluate potential gear upgrades.

Speaking of gear upgrades, now let's look at the Items tab. The Items tab lists every piece off epic gear available by slot. You first should press the button labeled "Sort Items"; this will sort all of the items by the DPS given by that item (including spell hit). A very nice touch to the spreadsheet is that the DPS difference (from the item in the list compared to your current item you selected in the Gear_Buffs tab) is color coded red or green and lists the actual DPS increase or decrease for you.

In some future post, I plan to go into more detail on some advanced options and features of the Leulier spreadsheet. For now I encourage you to use this. Start to investigate the details, the mathematics, and experiment with the options. There are other ways of achieving the same results as this spreadsheet, but this version by far is the best all-in-one spreadsheet I have ever seen. Leulier has truly made the spreadsheet I wish I had taken the time to make.

So after reading this, you have homework! Download the spreadsheet and enter in your gear and your talents. What is your DPS? Are there any spells that you should be adding to your rotation? Would a different spec give you better DPS? Check out the meta gems Ember Skyfire Diamond and Chaotic Skyfire Diamond; which of these would be better for you?

Feel free to leave any comments or questions! You can also visit the Elitist Jerk's thread on this spreadsheet to see more discussions on this.

As I have said previously, the highest Warlock DPS spec there is in a Felguard Demonolgy spec.  However, there are many fights out there that are simply not pet friendly, and in those fights the demonology spec simply underperforms.  This is also what makes most end-game raiding warlocks choose destruction.  The DPS done is almost as high as what is possible with a Felguard spec, but the destruction spec can be used on any fight, anytime.  There are several high end guilds out there where ALL warlocks raid as a destruction spec only.

Everything revolves around increasing the damage done by the Shadow Bolt.  All of the talent choices, are solely focused on that spell.  The base spec for the destruction warlock that I will detail is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZcxczIbzZEx0xr0zGhi.  This spec uses all 61 points, so there are no optional points left over.  The only real “choice” in this spec is moving up to 2 points from Improved Imp to Improved Healthstone, depending of what size Healthstone you are expected to bring.  As I have done previously for the Affliction Warlock and the Felguard Demonology Warlock, I will explain the talent choices for the destruction warlock.

Demonology Tier 1

Improved Healthstone: Take 0, 1, or 2 points here as assigned by your class leader.  You can easily handle any size without hurting your DPS.

Improved Imp:  The base spec above has 3 points here as a way to get you lower into the demonology tree because of a lack of good talents on the Tier 2 and 4 levels.  An Improved Imp is just nice on a fight where your raid leader might require all warlocks to use Imp to raise their party’s health.  However, if you need Improved Healthstone, take those points out of this talent.

Demonic Embrace:  Taking 5 points increases your stamina significantly.  While this does not directly add to your DPS, it does add to your survivability.

Demonology Tier 2

Improved Health Funnel:  Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

Improved Voidwalker: Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

Fel Intellect: All 3 points should be spent here.  This talent increases your mana pool.  This effect is active even if you do not have a pet.

Demonology Tier 3

Improved Succubus: Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

Fel Stamina: All 3 points should be spent here.  This talent increases your maximum health.  This effect is active even if you do not have a pet.

Fel Domination: Take this talent.  If you die during a boss fight for some reason, this talent will allow you to re-summon a Succubus for sacrificing very quickly.  Assuming you also take the 2 points in Master Summoner, then you can call a new pet in 0.5 seconds with this ability.  Keep in mind there is a lengthy cooldown on this ability, so you will only have it available once in a boss fight.

Demonic Aegis: All 3 points should be spent here.  This talent increases your Fel Armor’s effectiveness by 30%.  This means that your Fel Armor gives 130 spell damage (instead of just 100) and increases the amount of incoming heals.

Demonology Tier 4

Master Summoner: Spend 2 points here to reduce your summoning time by 4 seconds.  You only care in reducing the summoning time in combat, but hopefully you won’t need it at all.  However, you still need to spend points in mediocre talents such as this to get you lower in the tree.

Unholy Power: Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

Demonology Tier 5

Improved Enslave Demon: There is no reason to enslave a demon in a raid, so skip.

Demonic Sacrifice: This is the sole reason for spending so many points in the Demonology tree.  Your 21st talent point is spent here.  This allows you to sacrifice your Succubus pet which gives you a 15% increase in shadow damage for 30 minutes.

Master Conjuror:  Worthless.  No one ever uses a Firestone in or out of a raid.

Destruction Tier 1

Improved Shadow Bolt: The full 5 points should be spent here.  This is a mob debuff that effects all shadow users and hence directly increases your DPS and the DPS of all other warlocks and shadow priests.

Cataclysm: In other specs, you would skip this talent, but in this spec it is a good idea to spend all 5 points here as a way to get deeper into the destruction tree.

Destruction Tier 2

Bane: Spending the full 5 points in this talent will make your 3-second cast Shadow Bolt into a 2.5-second cast Shadow Bolt, directly increasing your DPS.  Obvious choice since it directly increases your DPS.

Aftermath: No one cares about dazing your target in PVE.

Destruction Tier 3

Improved Firebolt:  Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

Improved Lash of Pain: Skip this talent; you will not be using any pet.

Devastation:  This directly increases your DPS from Shadow Bolts.  Therefore, the full 5 points should be spent here.

Shadowburn: It is not practical to use this a lot in a boss fight because you do not have an endless supply of Soul Shards, therefore skip.

Destruction Tier 4

Intensity:  Spend 2 points here to reduce your spell push-back chance.  There are several boss fights where push-back is a real issue.

Destructive Reach: The reason for putting 2 points here really is for the threat reduction, which you will definitely need.  Increasing your range has a side-effect of having a mismatch on the range of your Curse.  You’ll just have to work is so that you get in range when it comes time for you to cast your Curse again.

Improved Searing Pain: You won’t be using this on boss fights, skip.

Destruction Tier 5

Pyroclasm:  Skip this talent, worthless.

Improved Immolate: Skip this talent.  You won’t be casting Immolate because the DPSC is still less than the average Shadow Bolt.

Ruin: Obviously a must-have talent for the destruction warlock. This doubles the damage bonus from a spell critical strikes.

Destruction Tier 6

Nether Protection:  Spend all 3 points here.  This does not directly add to your DPS, but you still need to spend points on this to get you to Tier 7.  This talent will certainly decrease the damage you take.  Interestingly enough, this talent has proved to be pure gold in the Sunwell Plateau instance, and I wonder if that was on purpose.

Emberstorm:  Unfortunately there is no place else to spend talent points that would increase your DPS.  So spend 2 points here to get you to Tier 7.  There are enough times that you might want to toss a 1.5 second cast DOT up before you have to move or go attack something else.  Spending point here gives a higher DPSC than spending the points in Improved Immolate.

Destruction Tier 7

Backlash:  Spend all 3 points here to give you 3% more spell crit with your Shadow Bolt.

Soul Leech: You will only be able to spend 2 of the 3 points here because you need the next 5 points fors Shadow and Flame.  This is a great talent to help heal yourself.  There are several boss fights in which you will be taking constant damage over time.

Destruction Tier 8

Shadow and Flame:  Spend the full 5 points here to increase the damage done by your Shadow Bolt.

Destruction Tier 9

Shadowfury:  Spending 21 points in the Demonology tree won’t allow you you take this talent.  But since this talent is strictly a PVP focused talent, we’re just fine with that.

Destruction Warlock FAQ

Q: What spells do you use? 

A:  My untrained monkey with a mental disability says he uses 2 spells: Curse of whatever and Shadow Bolt.  Oftentimes he gets put in a group with a shadow priest and therefore rarely even has to use Life Tap.  Not to mention the elementlal shaman he gets to further increase his DPS.  I hate that monkey…

Q: What not put 1 point in Shadowburn instead of Emberstorm?

A: Sure I’d have no problem with that.  Neither talent will give any noticeable increase in DPS for boss fights, so it’s just personally preference and how do you want to use your shards.

Q: How many Soul Shards do I need to bring to a raid?

A: There is no question that this spec uses a LOT of Soul Shards.  You need to make a 28-slot soul bag such as the Ebon Shadowbag or the retro Core Felcloth Bag.  You will need plenty of shards to Summon people, Summon Soulwells, and summon multiple Succubus (Succubusi?) to sacrifice.  You will also want to continue to keep getting shards from trash.  Even some adds in certain boss fights will give shards, but not all.

 Q: What about a fire spec destruction warlock?

A: In Patch 2.4.0 they reduced the cast time of Incinerate with the Emberstorm talent.  This certainly did make a fire build more feasible, but it is still out DPSed by a pure Shadow Bolt spec, so their buff was not enough for PVE raiding.  Also, that spec does not gain additional benefits of multiple warlocks keeping up Shadow Vulnerability from the Improved Shadow Bolt talent.  Most people think this change was more PVP driven, and I believe them.  So don’t bother investigating fire destruction specs for PVE raiding unless you just want to educate yourself further.

Q: Is there any special gear that I need to get?

A: Not really, any normal “warlock gear” will be fine.  However, since shadow damage is the only damage type you will be doing (unlike demonology and affliction specs which also use Immolate), you will usually find that any gear that has only plus shadow damage will be more beneficial than gear that has damage to all spell types (for equal item levels).

Q: How should I gem: hit, crit, haste, or damage?

A: The most important stat is still hit, so gem for hit up to 201 points.  I recommend never gemming for crit, the crit values on the gems are simply too low when compare to the other gem type benefits.  Haste and spell damage gems are both very good gems.  I would recommend evaluating the socket bonuses when deciding which is best.  In some cases, a yellow pure haste is best.  And in other cases an orange haste/damage in a red socket would be best.  There really isn’t a “bad” answer unless you use crit gems or unless you missed a nice socket bonus that would have pushed your DPS higher.

Q: What about my meta gem, what is the best option?

A: There are only 2 real choices these days, either a Chaotic Skyfire Diamond or an Ember Skyfire Diamond.  The ESD has a very easy gem requirement. The CSD has very good synergy with our Ruin talent and increased spell critical strike talents, but the gem requirements of at least 2 blue gems represents a DPS loss over other gem selections.  So some math will be needed to determine which is better.  In the end, both will be close.  A few high DPS pieces even have a blue socket bonus to offset the lower DPS of the blue gem, such as the Cowl of the Illidari High Lord.  Most destruction warlocks choose the CSD because they can’t get over the OMG MORE CRIT properties.

If you have any Destruction Warlock questions, feel free to leave a comment below and I will have my untrained monkey with a mental disability answer them as best he can. 

Raiding as a demonology warlock is, by far, my personal favorite spec.  Nothing is more fun to me than killing bosses with my Felguard.  The various abilities provided by the demonology talent tree and the various pet available have made this type of spec vary versatile for many different types of fights. 
- In a threat sensitive fight such as Void Walker or Gurtog Bloodboil? No problem! Just pull out an Imp and have 20% additional threat reduction.
- In a magic resistance fight?  No problem! Pull out the Felhunter for +70 resist and leave on more DPS gear
- Need a magic damage tank with major threat power?  No problem!  Use your Soul Link to divert some of your damage to your Felguard or Felhunter and spam Searing Pain.

Best of all, the demonology spec is the highest DPS spec there is (with all other factors being equal), even higher than a pure destruction spec.  However, not every fight is well suited to using a Felguard.  Some fights, as will be discussed later, are impractical for using your Felguard.

The demonology spec doesn’t have as many DOTs to manage as an affliction spec, but it is just as challenging in terms of managing your pets position and health.  Unlike the hunters, we do not have a HOT we can cast on our pet.  On AOE fights, this spec can be very dependant on having a shadow priest in your group to help heal your pet.  If you pet is taking magic damage, then having a [Void Star Talisman] helps immensely.  The healers in your raid will likely not be looking at pet’s health; often times the only heals your Felguard will receive is from a shaman’s Chain Heal cast on some other melee.  With practice and experience, you will learn which fights you need to take extra precautions and/or ask for extra heals and/or beg for a shadow priest.  For now, don’t let the healing issue deter you from trying this spec.

The base spec for the demonology warlock that I will detail is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IzZMxczIizzxstxx0x.  This spec has 4 points left over; I will recommend talents for these extra points further below.  As I did previously for affliction warlocks, I will detail the selection of talents.

Demonology Tier 1

Improved Healthstone: Take 0, 1, or 2 points here as assigned by your class leader.  You can easily handle any size without hurting your DPS.

Improved Imp:  The base spec above has 2 points here as a way to get you lower into the demonology tree because of a lack of good talents on the Tier 2 level.  An Improved Imp is just nice on those fights where it is impractical to keep a Felguard alive.  However, if you need Improved Healthstone, take those points out of this talent.

Demonic Embrace:  Taking 5 points increases your stamina significantly.  While this does not directly add to your DPS, it does add to your survivability of both you and your pet.

Demonology Tier 2

Improved Health Funnel:  Skip this talent.  Using a channeled heal on your pet is too much of a DPS-loss for you in a raid.  You need to rely on other means of healing your pet.

Improved Voidwalker: Skip this talent.  You will never use a Voidwalker in a raid.

Fel Intellect: All 3 points should be spent here.  This talent increases your mana pool for both you and your pet.  This effect is active even if you do not have a pet.

Demonology Tier 3

Improved Succubus: Skip this talent.  You will never use a Succubus in a raid.

Fel Stamina: All 3 points should be spent here.  This talent increases the hit points for both you and your pet.  This effect is active even if you do not have a pet.

Fel Domination: Take this talent; if your pet dies in combat, you can use this spell to summon a new pet quickly.  Assuming you also take the 2 points in Master Summoner, then you can call a new pet in 0.5 seconds with this ability.  Keep in mind there is a lengthy cooldown on this ability, so you will only have it available once in a boss fight.

Demonic Aegis: All 3 points should be spent here.  This talent increases your Fel Armor’s effectiveness by 30%.  This means that your Fel Armor gives 130 spell damage (instead of just 100) and increases the amount of incoming heals.

Demonology Tier 4

Master Summoner: Spend 2 points here to reduce your summoning time by 4 seconds.  You only care in reducing the summoning time in combat, but hopefully you pet isn’t dieing that often.  However, you still need to spend points in mediocre talents such as this to get you lower in the tree.

Unholy Power: Definitely spend all 5 points here to increase the DPS of your pet (who’s DPS is significant all on his own).  This is also a prerequisite for the Master Demonologist talent.

Demonology Tier 5

Improved Enslave Demon: There is no reason to enslave a demon in a raid, so skip.

Demonic Sacrifice: As a demonology warlock, you will very rarely want to sacrifice your pet.  However, this is a prerequisite for the Soul Link talent, so definitely get this.

Master Conjuror:  Worthless.  No one ever uses a Firestone in or out of a raid.

Demonology Tier 6

Mana Feed: It is very important to have 1 point, and only 1 point, in this talent to give you pet a way to gain mana.  Otherwise he will run out after 5 minutes or so.  More than 1 point is a waste as you will be Life Tapping more than enough to always keep your pet with mana.  If you have a shadow priest in your group, you won’t really need this talent, but you should not rely on always having a shadow priest in your group.

Master Demonologist: This talent is a cornerstone of your spec; put the full 5 points here. This is also what makes your spec so versatile.  The Felguard will be your most common pet; you may use the Imp for threat sensitive fights, and you can use the Felhunter on magic resist fights.  You will rarely, if ever, want to use the Voidwalker or Succubus in a raid.

Demonology Tier 7

Demonic Resilience: The net effect of this talent is lowering the damage done to your pet by 5/10/15%. Spending a few points here is very valuable to keeping your pet alive, I recommend 2 of your extra points be spent here.

Soul Link: Another cornerstone of your spec.  This gives you 5% more damage across the board for only 1 point.  Plus 20% of your damage is taken by the pet instead.  Definitely take this talent.

Demonic Knowledge:  Three points in this talent increases your spell damage by 12% of your pet’s stamina plus intellect values.  For me, with full raid buff, this is worth about 160 spell damage, so it is very significant to spend all 3 points here.

Demonology Tier 8

Demonic Tactics: Spend all 5 points here to increase your spell crit chance by 5%. 

Demonology Tier 9

Summon Felguard: This is what it’s all about.  The Felguard is the highest DPS pet you have, and can put out 400+ DPS all on his own.

The base spec includes 1 point in Improved Corruption in order to lower its cast time to 1.6 seconds (0.1 seconds more than the global cooldown).  Some people disagree on the usefulness of 1 point in Improved Corruption.  But without the Ruin talent (which is not possible in this build), every math I do says that a 1.6 second cast time Corruption is more DPSC than the average Shadow Bolt.

The base spec also includes 15 points in the Destruction tree.  I won’t discuss each talent there in detail, but you can read my previous post on The Affliction Warlock if you would like to see the specifics for the first 3 Destruction Tiers (it’s just the usual Improved Shadow Bolt x5, Bane x5, and Devastation x5).

The base spec now has 4 points left over.  I recommend putting the other 2 points in Intensity to increase your pushback resistance of your Immolate and Shadow Bolt spells.  I also recommend 2 points in Demonic Resilience to reduce the damage taken by your pet.

Don’t spend those points in Improved Healthstone. If you need that, then move 1-2 points there from Improved Imp. 

Demonology Warlock FAQ

Q: What spec do you raid with as a demonology warlock?

A: I am assigned 0/2 Healthstones and I don’t seem to need additional threat reduction from Destructive Reach, so I use http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IzZMxczIizzgstxx0xb.

Q: What spells do you use? 

A:  I use my assigned Curse, Corruption, Immolate, and then spam Shadow Bolt at all other times.  However, if it is a fight with a lot of pushback, then I won’t use Corruption.

Q: Why do you not have any points in Destructive Reach?

A: The range increase is not useful because then your curse would be out of range.  So the only reason to put points here is for threat reduction.  By using a Felguard, a signifigant portion of your DPS will be cause by your pet and not by you.  Your pet’s threat level is separate from your threat.  Therefore, you really should not have any threat issues that you can’t take care of with Soulshatter.  Your milage may vary, and in the end if you feel you need more threat reduction, then it’s okay to spend one of your extra talent points here.

Q: How should I use my Felguard on boss fights?

A: Make sure that your Felguard’s Anguish ability is off.  In fact, it should always be off.  Otherwise your pet will taunt and be killed instantly.  Always have your Felguard on passive; you want to control when it attacks.  Positioning your Felguard is much easier now thanks to Patch 2.3.0 where all pets now automatically attack from the side or behind the target.  Because of this change, you pet is not likely to ever get cleaved or take damage from frontal cone attacks.  This means you can usually just have your pet Intercept in after the tank gains a little threat and let him auto-attack and cleave away.

Q: The mages are complaining that the Felguard is breaking their sheep when fighting trash.

A:  It is best to just turn off your pet’s Cleave ability in those situations.  The Cleave damage will break any crowd-control method except a Banish.

Q:  Is the Felguard spec really more DPS than a destruction spec?

A:  People’s opinions to this will vary, but I am convinced that it is.  When comparing the two, it is only a valid comparrison if both warlocks are equal in terms of gear AND abilities (including Blood Lust or a shadow priest in the group).  So don’t compare someone like Chaosbane who gets a shadow priest and 2 Blood Lusts to a Felguard Warlock who doesn’t. 

Q: What fights are not good for Felguard Warlocks?

A:  Unfortunaetly, there are some fights where you will not be able to keep your Felguard alive if it were on the boss.  These fights usually are very heavy in AOE damage.  Off the top of my head, I can think of High Warlord Naj’entus and the Illidari Council in Black Temple and also Archimode in Hyjal Summit as two fights where it is next to impossible to use your Felguard effectively.  In these fights, it is best to just call an Imp to raise your party’s stamina.

Q: What fights can I use my demonology spec as a warlock tank?

A: There are several fights that are tuned such that a demonology warlock is needed to get and keep agro on a target while taking magical massive damage.  Warlocks are very suited to this because of our double-threat Searing Pain spell, and out Soul Link to move 20% of our damage to our pet.  In Serpentshrine Cavern, you will be asked to tank the demon form of Leotheras the Blind while wearing fire resist gear.  In The Eye, you will be asked to tank Capernian in fire resist gear during the Thaladred fight.  In The Black Temple, you will be asked to tank the demon form of Illidan Stormrage in shadow resist gear.  In each of these fights, you will need either your Felguard or a Felhunter, depending on how much additional magic resist you need.

Q: What kind of buffs should I have put on my Felguard?

A: Your Felguard will receive all of the party-buffs that are cast on you.  If your party wipes, you need to re-summon your Felguard ASAP to avoid asking for pet buffs directly.  Paladin buffs are treated differently if you have a Felguard out versus any other pet.  Felguards will receive paladin buffs based on being in the “warrior” class.  All of your other pets will receive paladin buffs based on being the “warlock” class.  This way, your Felguard will receive a Greater Blessing of Might.  You can also use Kibler’s Bits and a Scroll of Agility V to buff your Felguard’s DPS.

Q: Is there any way to keep the buffs on my pet if he dies?

A: If you or your pet dies, then your pet will lose ALL buffs.  If your pet is about to die, you can dismiss him and upon re-summoning, your pet will be at full health, retain all buffs he previously had, and will be free of any debuff.  It is best to have a macro setup on your toolbar to do this quickly.  The macro is:
 /script PetDismiss()
 /cast Summon Felguard

Q: How do I cancel Soul Link?

A: The only way to turn Soul Link off is to have the pet (or you) die and summon a new pet.  Demonic Sacrifice works best, and then just summon a new one.  Dismissing the pet or going out of range is not sufficient to remove Soul Link. Having your pet go out of range from you and summoning a different pet are treated as having dismissed your original pet.

If you have any Demonology questions, feel free to leave a comment below and I will answer as best I can. 

In World of Warcraft, the affliction warlock has long been the bane of all warlock haters.  It has become the most popular raiding spec in The Burning Crusade expansion.  This post will teach you how to be the best affliction warlock possible in a raid environment.  There are many other guides out there, but most are poorly written and tend to be too broad, open-ended, and lacking in a clear answer.  Here, I will be very specific as to why something is the right choice and why something is the wrong choice for PVE raiding.

There are two main reasons why an affliction spec would be your best option:

1. Because your hit rating is not high enough, and you need the benefit of the Suppression talent, and any other spec would be a lower DPS because of the lack of spell hit.

2. Because your raid needs at least 1 warlock with the Shadow Embrace talent.

Being an affliction warlock is by far the hardest spec to play well.  If you can master how to play an affliction warlock, then you will easily master any other warlock spec.  This, in addition to the benefit of the Suppression talent, is why I think all starting warlocks should learn to play as an affliction warlock for a very long time before they venture on to higher DPS specs.

First, let's go over what I will call the "base" affliction warlock spec http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IVMrm0ftVtcoZxx0x.  This spec also has 5 points left over for use in talents that would not directly cause an increase in your DPS.  We will discuss these optional talents later.

First, let's discuss each Affliction tree talents and explain why they are (or are not) in the base spec.

Tier 1

Suppression: This talent acts exactly like + spell hit gear.  For any boss fight, you need +16% spell hit in order to be “hit capped”.  Mathematically, the 16% translates into 201.6 spell hit rating.  Therefore, you should never go above 201 hit rating, otherwise you are wasting that extra hit rating.  If your hit rating is below (say) 175, then you should put points in this area (take the points from Fel Concentration instead of using some of extra points in the above the base spec).  The number of points you should put in Suppression is equal to the following formula:  (201.6 – your spell hit rating) / 25.2.  Take the whole number and drop the remainder.  Another way to look at this is that every point in this talent gives you +25.2 spell hit rating on your affliction spells.  Remember, that this does not affect your Shadow Bolt spell because that is a destruction spell.

Improved Corruption:  Taking 5 points in this talent makes your Corruption an instant cast spell, also enabling to be cast while moving.  For any affliction warlock, the full 5 points is a must.

Tier 2

Improved Curse of Weakness:  Skip this talent, unless you have 4 warlocks in your raid you will be using CoS, CoE and/or CoR.  Even if you were the fourth warlock, I would recommend CoA or CoD over this curse.  For a more detailed discussion, see the FAQ below.

Improved Drain Soul: 2 points here to reduce the threat of your affliction spells.  Some people might consider this unnecessary, and they might be right in certain cases, but what else are you going to spend points in?

Improved Life Tap: An obvious choice to get you further down the tree.  Return more mana for the same health cost, and scales with spell damage gear.

Soul Siphon:  I highly recommend 2 points here.  Firstly becsaue you will need to spend some points on mediocre talents to get further down the tree.  Secondly, because if you are so low on health that you need to Drain Life to live, you might as well make each tick as large as possible.

Tier 3

Improved Curse of Agony: In a raid environment, you will need to be using either CoS, CoE, or CoR.  Believe it or not, you will never use this unless you actually have 4 warlocks in your 25-man riad (pretty rare).  Therefore, don’t spend any points here.

Fel Concentration: Only spend enough points here to get you down to the next tree level.  Admittedly, it is nice to have some points here becasue when you do channel Drain Life, you probably need the health and would want the reduction in puch-back chance.

Amplify Curse: Again, unless you have 4 warlocks in your raid, you won’t be using CoD, CoA, or CoEx.  Therefore, don’t put any points here.

Tier 4

Grim Reach: Nice to have, you could spend some of your extra points here.  Just be sure to spend the same points in this talent as you do in Destructive Reach (destruction talent), so that all of your Shadow Bolts will have the same range as your affliction spells.

Nightfall: Gives you an instant cast Shadow Bolt.  This therefore directly effects your DPS, so spend the 2 points here.

Empowered Corruption: Increase the damage of your Corruption spell, directly affecting your DPS.  Therefore spend the full 3 points here.

Tier 5

Shadow Embrace: Spending 5 points here causes the mob to do 5% less physical damage to the tank.  This is an very decent damage reduction for the cost of one warlock using 5 points.  If you are going to spec affliction, then do it right and get the full 5 points in this talent, unless you will NEVER be the lone affliction warlock in your raid (in which unrealistic case only 1 person should have this and the rest should spend no points here).

Siphon Life: A definite talent choice, 1 point for an instant dot/hot that direct affects your DPS.

Curse of Exhaustion:  There is only 1 boss fight in the entire game where this may be beneficial.  That is the SSC Lady Vashj fight to slow the striders.  Hopefully there will be an elemental shaman using frost shock to slow them down enough.  I am not a fan of basing talent choices based on 1 fight without an elemental shaman; therefore skip.

Tier 6

Shadow Mastery: Directly increases your DPS with shadow spells. Obvious place to spend the full 5 points.

Tier 7

Contagion: Directly increases your Corruption spells damage and therefore your DPS.  Also it’s a required pre-requisite for Unstable Affliction.  Obvious place for the full 6 points.

Dark Pact: As an affliction warlock, you will also be using your Imp.  Since the Imp remains phase-shifted, he will regenerate mana based on being out of combat.  Using Dark Pact return more mana than Life Tap will.  For 1 point, it’s an easy decision.

Tier 8

Improved Howl of Terror: This produces no additional DPS, and there are no boss fights that require anyone to have an instant area fear.  Therefore, there is no reason to spend points in this talent for raid purposes.

Malediction: Again, if you are speccing to be an affliction warlock, then spec correctly by having the full 3 points in this talent.  This will cause the raid’s DPS to increase by 3% for that school of magic.  Unless you have a lack of spell casters, the 3% increase raid damage for those 2 school of magic of CoS or CoE will always be greater than the damage you would have caused if you were using CoA or CoD.

Tier 9

Unstable Affliction: UA has become the definition of the affliction warlock.  But in a raid setting, it’s just another DOT directly increasing your DPS.

The base spec also includes 3 tiers of destruction talents, so let’s cover just those talents quickly:

Destruction Tier 1

Improved Shadow Bolt: The full 5 points should be spent here.  This is a mob debuff that effects all shadow users and hence directly increases your DPS.

Cataclysm: Warlocks have no need to reduce the mana cost of destruction spells by up to a meager 5%.  Dark Pact or Life Tap instead if you need mana.

Destruction Tier 2

Bane: Spending the full 5 points in this talent will make your 3-second cast Shadow Bolt into a 2.5-second cast Shadow Bolt, directly increasing your DPS.  Obvious choice since it directly increases your DPS.

Aftermath: No one cares about dazing your target in PVE.

Destruction Tier 3

Improved Firebolt:  No need for this because it would put your Imp in Combat, lowering its mana regeneration available for Dark Pact and also likely get it killed.

Improved Lash of Pain: You won’t be using your succubus in raids.

Devastation:  This directly increases your DPS from Shadow Bolts.  Therefore, the full 5 points should be spent here.

Shadowburn: It is not practical to use this a lot in boss fights because you do not have an endless supply of Soul Shards, therefore skip.

In our base specabove, there were 5 points left over.  They could really be put anywehre you feel appropriate, but here are some recommended places to put them.
1. Up to 2 points can be spent in Improved Healthstone.  You should coordinate with the other raiding warlocks to reduce the number of warlocks with the same size Healthstone.
2. I would recommend 1 point be spent in Grim Reach and 1 point in Destructive Reach.  This will give all your spells the same 10% increased range amount, and also decrease the threat caused by your Shadow Bolts.
3. I would recommend 1 point be spent in Intensity to give you a 35% chance to resist a Shadow Bolt “push-back” from taking damage.  On a fight where this is a real issue (such as the Black Temple Reliquary of Souls fight), hopefully you will have a Paladin in your group that will be using a Concentration Aura which gives an additional 35% (or an additional 50% if they have the Improved Concentration Aura talent).
4. If you took only 1 point in Improved Healthstone, then I would recommend your last extra point in Demonic Embrace just to increase your stamina a bit.
5. If you took 0 points in Improved Healthstone, then I would recommend spending 1 more point in both Grim Reach and Destructive Reach.  This will allow you to have max casting range (40 yards) for all spells.

Affliction Warlock FAQ

Q: Since you are the coolest Warlock EVAH!!! What spec do you raid with?

A: Because I am hit capped from gear, I don’t have any points in Suppression.  I also have 0/2 points in Improved Healthstone.  Therefore, my affliction spec is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IVMrmMftVtcoZxx0xR.

Q: Looking at your spec, couldn’t I move 2 points in Fel Concentration to Improved Curse of Agony? 

A:  Sure you could if you want, but you will never use CoA over CoS or CoE in a boss fight.  In addition, if you are actually channeling Drain Life in a boss fight, then that means you have already used your Healthstone(s), your potions are on cool down, your bandage is on cool down, and you are about to die if you don’t do something.  That’s not the best time get push-back from any level of damage.

Q: How do I know which curse is the right one to cast?

A: The best answer depends on your raid make-up.  Since you have 3 points in Malediction, you would be best suited to use either CoS or CoE, depending on which type of casters you have more DPS from: shadow & arcane users versus fire & frost users.  A non-affliction warlock should be on CoR duty since there is no talent to boost that curse.  If you want to get technical, you should evaluate your typical raid’s WWS report and do the math to determine what is your raids typical DPS benefit for the schools of magic affected by CoS and CoE, and cast the appropriate curse that would give the raid a higher DPS.  If you have 2 affliction warlocks, then the discussion is moot and you each take 1 curse.  If you have a third warlock of any type, then they can take CoR. 

If there are only 2 warlocks, I am not a fan of using CoR because it has a side-effect of increasing the damage done by the boss.  Conversely, if you have a lot of high damaging melee in your raid, then the benefit to their DPS may outweigh the increased damage done.  You’ll just have to play that one by ear (and experience), but always use CoR if the raid leader calls for it.

Q: Are there any fights where Curse of Recklessness is a bad idea?

A: Absolutely.  You should never use CoR anytime the mob has some ability that can do a substantial amount of damage to your tank (such as a Mortal Strike ability or after a certain number of Gruul’s grows) or if your tank is wearing magic resist gear instead of normal tank gear.  With experience, you will learn when it is okay to put CoR on an otherwise hard hitting mob.

Q: How many points in Improved Healthstone should I get?

A:  You will have to work this out among the other warlocks in your guild.  However, I would recommend requesting you be allowed to have 0 points because you are a properly spec-ed Affliction Warlock.  Your spec requirements do not have a lot of extra points that can be easily moved around.  As opposed to demonology or destruction spec-ed warlocks that need to spend point in the Demonology tree to get to their respective tiersanyway.

Q:  Why isn’t Improved Curse of Weakness worth it?  Having 420 attack power reduction on a boss fight sounds really good?

A:  The problem with this curse is that warriors have (and use) a Demoralizing Shout ability which applies a debuff that reduces the attack power of a mob by 300.  This debuff does not stack with Curse of Weakness, so only the more powerful debuff would be active. So using CoW (untalented gives 350 reduction) at all would only give a 17% increase over what a warrior can do by himself.  Putting 2 points in this talent causes only a 40% increased attack power reduction above what a warrior can do by himself (and that is assuming there is no warrior with the Improved Demoralizing Shout).  It is therefore a marginal benefit, and the other 3 raid curses (CoS, CoE, & CoR) have substantially more benefit.

Q: Which spell should I be casting and in what order?

A:  At any moment in time, you want to be casting whatever spell will give you the biggest DAMAGE PER SECONDS OF CAST TIME (aka DPSC).  For all affliction warlocks, every one of your DOTs will do more damage (when divided by the cast time or global cool down) than a Shadow Bolt (divided by its cast time).  That means the DPSC of your UA, Corruption, SL, and Immolate spells is greater than your DPSC of your average Shadow Bolt.  In addition the DPSC of your Shadow Bolt will always be greater than the DPSC of any other non-DOT spell such as Incinerate or Drain Life.  That means that your highest DPS will come from keeping every DOT up for its full duration and casting Shadow Bolt at all other times.  The Shadow Bolt would be known as your “filler” spell. 

Because the duration of all your DOTs and debuffs vary, there is no single correct cast order.  However, there are some guidelines that will help you decide what order to cast:

1. Always start with your curse of choice: CoS, CoE, or CoR because it causes very little threat and allows the tank more time to gain initial threat.

2. Always use Corruption immediately after Unstable Affliction.  Try to get used to casting these two DOTs as a pair because there durations are exactly 1.5 seconds apart due to UA having a cast time and Corruption not.

3. Never cast Immolate directly after your UA/Corruption combo because the Immolate will  basically be ending at the same as UA does, which leads to what is known as lowered “DOT uptime”.

4. Start to recast UA when there is 1.5 seconds left on your current UA DOT.  Same for Immolate.  This will help to maximize your DOT uptime.  Never reapply a DOT if your previous DOT will not have its full duration of damage.  Use that time to cast another Shadow Bolt or Life Tap/Dark Pact if needed.

The order I prefer to start out with is: CoS, UA, Cor, Siphone Life, Immolate, then multiple Shadow Bolts.  After that I just try must best to maximize my DOT uptime.

Q: What should I do with my Imp?

A: You will likely be placed in the main tank’s group in order to raise his stamina.  You need to keep in mind the main purpose is to raise the tank’s stamina, not yours.  So before the fight starts, position the Imp so that it is always in range or the tank, and you if possible.  Since you have the Dark Pact talent, be sure your Imp gets the full raids buffs by taking him out of phase shift before buffs start.  To do this, right click on his phase shift ability button to take it off of auto-cast.  Then, left click his phase shift ability button to deactivate his phase shift.  Only then can it receive raid buffs.  The most important raid buffs are Arcane Brilliance and Blessing of Wisdom in order to increase its mana pool and mana regeneration, respectively.  The more mana and mana regeneration the Imp has, the more often you can Dark Pact for its full value.  When he is fully buffed, right click on his phase-shift ability button again to turn on auto-cast; he should then automatically phase shift and you are ready for the fight.

Q:  I’m being told I should have 3 points in Improved Imp.  What do I do?

A:  The base amount of stamina increase from Blood Pact is 70.  Having 3 points in this talent increases the stamina gained by 30%.  In my opinion, the cost-to-benefit ratio is too low to justify spending 3 talent points.  Again, a good affliction spec honestly does not have a lot of wiggle room, especially to take 3 points in a completely different tree.  Resist this as much as possible by explaining that 3 points in this talent only gives an additional 21 stamina (and therefore around 250 health after buffs).

Q: Why do a lot of affliction warlocks put only 1 point in Shadow Embrace?

A: Some people put 1 point in Shadow Embrace because in doing so, it adds an affliction debuff to the mob for the purposes of raising their Drain Life values because of their Soul Siphon talent.  I am completely against this idea because you are just wasting a debuff slot on the boss which could be put to better use.  A mob can have a maximum of 40 debuffs on it; this limit is reachable in any boss fight, especially if you have multiple affliction warlocks.  Either put 5 points in it like you should, or have 0 points in it if you always have another warlock with you that has it.

Q. Warlock X raids with an affliction/demonology spec instead of an affliction/destruction spec, why is that?

A. Because Warlock X is an idiot.  He is relying on Drain Life as his “filler spell” and only casting Shadow Bolt when he procs Nightfall.  There is no amount of bonus from the Soul Siphon talent that would make Drain Life have a higher DPSC than his average Shadow Bolt.  The people that try to argue that Drain Life is better than spending 10 points on Improved Shadow Bolt and Bane are all inbred relatives of Warlock X.

Q. Assuming you were hit capped from gear, would moving 1 point from Unstable Affliction to Ruin be more DPS (aka the 40-0-21 spec)?

If you have an Affliction question, feel free to leave it in a comment and I'll give you might l33t ubar expert opinion on the matter. 

So you want to be a warlock?... The very first thing you have to do is decide which race your warlock will be.  You could read the Starting a Warlock page on wowwiki, but that page (as most of wowwiki) was written by idiots who know little about end-game raiding or high-level PVP, and then rarely updated as the game changes. 

On the Horde side, warlocks can choose to be an Orc, an Undead (aka Forsaken), or a Blood Elf.  On the Alliance side, warlocks can chose to be a Human or a Gnome.

All of the races vary in terms of base attributes (stamina, intellect, spirit, etc.) and also in terms of what racial abilities you have. So let’s run down the choices, evaluate their differences, and then choose the “best” warlock race.

Regardless of whether your choice is PVP or PVE, the only attributes that matter for a warlock are Stamina and Intellect. So let’s look at those values first for each of the possible warlock races.

                       
          Level 70 Warlock Attribute Values

                   Stam (Health) Int (Mana)

          Undead     77 (4080)   131 (4300)

          Orc        78 (4090)   130 (4285)

          Blood Elf  74 (4050)   137 (4390)

          Human      76 (4070)   133 (4330)

          Gnome      75 (4060)   137 (4390)

All of the stamina and intellect values above are within a few points of each other.  This shows that regardless of race, all warlocks will have very similar health and mana pools; so these values should not be a factor when deciding the best race.

Different races also speak different languages, but that has no bearing on the actual play experience of the game, so just disregard them.

The only factor left in determining the best race for warlocks are the individual racial abilities.  So let’s give a concise rundown of each race’s racial abilities and then choose our winner.

Undead

Will of the Forsaken – A great racial ability in both PVP and PVE, it is just like having a third trinket to get out of a Fear (most common use) on a 2 minute cooldown.

Cannibalize – Nice to have, but don’t count it towards selecting a winner.  You should always have food & water, Conjured Manna Biscuits, and/or your Everlasting Underspore Frond.  The best part of this ability is to use it on the copse of an enemy player after killing him but before he releases.

Underwater Breathing – Useless since warlocks have a spell that does it better

Shadow Resistance – +10 shadow resistance in nice, but only marginally, don’t count this when choosing a winner.

Orc

Blood Fury – Increases spell damage & healing 143 (at level 70) for 15 seconds, on a 2 minute cooldown.  This is a very nice ability but only in PVE; it’s like having an extra trinket (but a minor one), and it does not share a “use” cooldown with any other trinket or ability.  Prior to the burning crusade expansion, this ability only gave a melee attack power buff.  I would not recommend using this ability in PVP (assuming you have a healer) because of the 50% healing reduction debuff you get is the same thing as a mortal strike debuff for 15 seconds.

Hardiness – Very nice, but only in PVP.  15% is nothing to kid about.  Prior to the burning Crusade Expansion, this was a 25% stun resist.  Hardiness does stack with all other stun resist gear or abilities.

Command – Great, but only if you are a Felguard Demonology spec, which is actually the smallest percentage of level 70 raiding warlocks.

Axe Specialization – Useless for warlocks.

Blood Elf

Mana Tap – Takes away 120 mana (at level 70) from your target, 30 second cooldown.  Useless in PVE and very situational in PVP.

Arcane Torrent – Area silence for 2 seconds with a 2 minute cooldown.  Almost useless in PVE, but awesome in PVP, especially since warlocks do not have any other way to silence.  This ability gives a warlock 4 modes of crowd control that do not share diminishing returns: Fear, Horror (from Death Coil), Charm (from a Succubus), and this Silence).  If you bother spending 60 seconds building up 3 Mana Taps, then this will also transfer 225 mana from your target to you.

Magic Resistance – +5 resist to all magic schools.  Nice, but don’t count when choosing a winner.

Human

Perception – Increases stealth diction by 50 points (+10 levels) for 20 seconds, 3 minute cooldown; useless in PVE and situational in PVP.   In PVP, unless you are a Felguard Demonology spec, you will be using a Felhunter, so you will already have a Paranoia buff giving +30 points (+6 levels) of stealth detection.

The Human Spirit – 10% spirit increase, almost useless for warlocks.  We have no spells or talents that rely on spirit (priests & druids do, and mages use to).  I say almost because if you have a priest speced into 2 points of Improved Divine Spirit, then your spell damage would be raised by 10% of your spirit.  For comparison, my T5/T6 level gear’s spirit would only give me 22 more spell damage in this best-case situation (not very much).

Diplomacy – Useless for endgame PVE and/or PVP.

Sword Specialization – Useless for warlocks.

Mace Specialization – Useless for warlocks.

Gnome

Escape Artist – Useless in PVE, mostly useless in PVP.  If you get snared or rooted in PVP, it’s not the end of the world, it doesn’t stop you from casting.

Expansive Mind – 15% increase in intellect. Not bad at all, but mana is not usually a problem because we can Life Tap.

Arcane Resistance – +10 AR, mostly useless.

Engineering Specialist – Useless in terms of choosing a race.

So your BEST choice of race of course first depends on if you want to play Alliance or Horde.  You do want to be Horde, right?....

For an Alliance Warlock, Gnome is the obvious winner for PVP and PVE.  The Human race just does nothing for end-game raiding and in PVP the Perseption ability is not worth much especially when most PVPer will be using a Felhunter.  The Gnome’s Expansive mind ability is really what makes being a Gnome Warlock the clear winner over a Human Warlock.  But even Expansive Mind isn’t a big deal.  Another way to look at it is that both Human Warlocks and Gnome Warlocks suck donkey balls, but Gnome Warlocks suck less because of the Expansive Mind racial ability.

For Horde Warlocks, the decision becomes much more interesting.  Before the Burning Crusade expansion, there was no Blood Elf race, so the choice was between Undead and Orc.  Back then, the clear winner was Undead because the Orc’s Blood Fury racial ability only affected melee damage, and Fear was a huge PVP issue back then (more of an issue than stuns) making the Undead’s Will of the Forsaken very valuable (there was no diminishing returns, and the Insignia of the Horde didn’t work on Fear effects back then).

Post Burning Crusade, however, the clear winner in the Orc Warlock.   Blood Fury is a great ability in PVE, and Hardiness is great in PVP.  You don’t have the Undead’s Will of the Forsaken, but that loss is lessened by the Insignia of the Horde or the Medallion of the Horde and by diminishing returns (in addition to a Tremor Totem or any class that can remove magic).  You also won’t have the Blood Elf’s Arcane Torrent in PVP, but the Orc’s Blood Fury in PVE needs to be first priority and the Hardiness in PVP is definitely very useful.  

The only exception to this would be a warlock who ONLY intended to do arena PVP and end-game raiding is not even a possibility.  In this very limited situation, the Blood Elf is the choice to be because a well timed Arcane Torrent ability can easily mean the death of your opponents in your arena games.  You will miss the 15% stun resist from being an Orc, but 15% isn’t high enough, in my opinion, to over take an area silence ability.

For those that feel they are in this arena-PVP-only category, I would still recommend choosing Orc instead of a Blood Elf. Because I would bet eventually you will want to do some high-end raiding, in which case the Orc is better suited while still having a good PVP racial ability.

I have to admit that Orcs are the clear winners for the Horde.  Unfortunately for an elitist like me, that means that I might have to re-roll an Orc Warlock after the next expansion.  Looking back and knowing what I know now, I wish I would have re-rolled an Orc Warlock for TBC expansion.  On top of everything else, the Orc model is significantly larger than the Undead or Blood Elf models; this makes the end-game gear’s graphics look much cooler on Orcs than any other race.

So grats to my Orc Warlock colleagues, your day in the sun has arrived…