Mount Guide:Mechanostriders

Race: Gnome
Available to: Gnome (no reputation requirement)
Dwarf (requires exalted reputation with Gnomeregan Exiles)
Purchase Location: Steelgrill's Depot, Dun Morogh
Riding Skill Cost: 90g (Apprentice) / 600g (Journeyman)


40 Mounts
Requirements: Level 40, Apprentice Riding Skill (75)
Speed Increase: 60% speed increase
Cost: 10g

60 Mounts
Requirements: Level 60, Journeyman Riding Skill (150)
Speed Increase: 100% speed increase
Cost: 100g

Mount Guide: Horses

Race: Human
Available to: Human (no reputation requirement)
Dwarf, Night Elf, Gnome, Draenei (requires exalted reputation with Stormwind)
Purchase Location: Eastvale Logging Camp, Elwynn Forest
Menethil Harbor, Wetlands
Southshore, Hillsbrad Foothills
Riding Skill Cost: 90g (Apprentice) / 600g (Journeyman)

40 Mounts
Requirements: Level 40, Apprentice Riding Skill (75)
Speed Increase: 60% speed increase
Cost: 10g

60 Mounts
Requirements: Level 60, Journeyman Riding Skill (150)
Speed Increase: 100% speed increase
Cost: 100g

Mount Guide: Elekks

Race: Draenei
Available to: Draenei (no reputation requirement)
Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, Gnome (requires exalted reputation with Exodar)
Purchase Location: The Exodar
Riding Skill Cost: 90g (Apprentice) / 600g (Journeyman)

40 Mounts
Requirements: Level 40, Apprentice Riding Skill (75)
Speed Increase: 60% speed increase
Cost: 10g

60 Mounts
Requirements: Level 60, Journeyman Riding Skill (150)
Speed Increase: 100% speed increase
Cost: 100g

Bank Guide

very Hero needs a place to hide his or her treasures! Visit a bank in World of Warcraft to store items for later use. You can store quest items, weapons, armor, trade-skill components, products for later sale, and more! The six major cities each have a full-service bank for your use, and additional banks can be found at a few special locations around the world. Most minor towns and outposts don't have banks.

Finding Banks
It might be challenging to find the banks, but ask people to help you find them. Banks usually have a sign posted just outside for easy identification. This sign depicts a stack of coins. Inside the banks are bankers, who have the tag under their names.

Tips

Store Quest Items in the bank when you move to a new region. You can go back to the bank and pick them up when you return to the previous region.

Put trade skill components you have collected in the bank to save them for your friends.

Need More Space?
You can also buy extra storage space at each bank, which provides you with slots for storing additional bags of items. The larger the bag that you put in each bag slot, the more space you'll have! For example, you might start with a 6-slot bag in one of your bag slots, but later on you might find a 10-slot bag to put there, which would essentially give you four more bank slots. The price for additional bag slots goes up with each new slot, and the final slots are more expensive! Read more about banks and bags here.

Banking Highlights:
Your bank storage space is protected so that only you have access to it. This space cannot be shared with other players. Each character on your account has its own unique bank space, which cannot be shared with your other characters.
You do not store money at the bank; instead, you carry it along with you everywhere you go. Money has no weight and does not take up any inventory slots, so no matter how much you're carrying, it will never have a negative effect on your character.

Horde players can use any Horde bank, and Alliance players can use any Alliance bank, but these factions cannot use each others banks.
Thanks to an advanced network of secure automated teleportation modules (ATMs) the items deposited in your bank space at any bank will automatically be available for withdrawal from any of the other banks that you have access to. While the bank transfer screen is up, your items cannot be accidentally dropped on the ground. Expect nothing but smooth and speedy service with a smile (or snarl, for Horde players) at the National Banks of Azeroth.

Socketed Items Guide

A socketed item is like any other item in World of Warcraft, except that it can be upgraded by attaching magical gemstones into the item itself. This imbues the item with additional powers similar to an enchantment. The number of sockets and the types of gems used within the item allow for a wide variety of customizations based upon how you wish to improve your character.

How do I place a gem into a socketed item?
If an item has sockets, shift-right-click on it to bring up the item's socketing window. Here, you can simply drag and drop gems from your inventory to the sockets. Once you are satisfied with your selections, click the "Socket Gems" button at the bottom of the window. Be aware that socketing is permanent - the gems are permanently affixed to your socketed item and there is no way to undo your decision.

What can you put into a socketed item?
There are three primary colors of gems that can be placed into a socketed item: red, blue, and yellow. In addition, there are "secondary colored" gems - orange, purple, and green - that match two colors. Players can place any color gem into a socket; however, matching all of an item's sockets with their corresponding colored gems can award additional bonuses. These dormant bonuses appear in grey text below the sockets. There is also a special type of gem called a meta gem, which fits specifically into a meta gem socket.

Can I put a different gem into a socket that already has a gem in it?
Yes. However, any gems that were already socketed will be destroyed in the process - think of it as "overwriting" the old gem with the new one.

Do I have to fill all the sockets in an item at once?
No. You can fill one socket at a time until you find the right gems for other slots, or fill them all at once.

How do I gain a socket bonus?
As stated above, socketed items have dormant bonuses which appear in grey text below the sockets. This bonus will become active when certain criteria are met - usually when all an item's sockets are filled with gems that match the colors of the sockets. If an item has a red socket and two blue sockets, placing a red and two blue gems into the corresponding colored sockets will activate the socket bonus. The socket bonus stacks on top of the stat bonuses the three gems would normally provide.

Note: If a gem matches the socket it is being placed into, the socket will begin to sparkle.



Do I have to use only gems of a certain color in a socket?
No. You can place a red gem in a yellow socket, or a blue gem in a red socket. The only downside to not matching the colors with the sockets and the gems is not receiving the item's socket bonus.

Again, it's important to note that you can put any color gem in any socket (except meta gems / meta sockets). Thus, you may decide you would rather take the benefits from individual gems that don't match instead of going for the socket bonus. In that case it would be better to ignore the suggested gems and pick the ones you want to use instead. In this way, you can tailor an item to your needs. You can take an item that you might not otherwise use and make it suit your needs by picking your own gems.

What are meta sockets and meta gems?
Meta sockets and gems are rare and provide powerful bonuses. Meta sockets will only accept meta gems, and meta gems can only be used in meta sockets. Meta gems can have their own special requirements unique to each meta gem. If these particular requirements are not met, the gem will not work and remain greyed out.


Meta gems have their own requirements before they will activate. If a gem requires a specific number of other gems, it counts this based on all other gems currently socketed in equipped items on the character. Secondary colored gems will count towards both colors they are eligible for.

Can I put a different gem into a meta socket that is already filled?
Yes, but like all gems, doing so will destroy the one already present in the socket.

Can I use meta gems in a normal socket?
No. Meta gems can only be used in a meta socket.

Future Updates

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Warlock Builds Guide

Affliction

The DoTs Curse of Agony and Corruption are some of the most mana-effective spells available for the Warlock. That is, the amount of damage per mana is higher compared to Direct Damage spells like Shadow Bolt. The Affliction talent tree can improve on these even more.

There are problems using DoTs in parties and raids. There is a risk that the mob is killed before the completion of a DoT. This is especially bad for Curse of Agony, that causes more of its damage near the end of its duration. If this happens, then mana and time will be wasted.

Level 70 Builds
Unstable Affliction/Shadowburn 45/5/11


This build goes to the end of the affliction tree to get another DoT (Unstable Affliction) which does a large amount of instant damage if dispelled and silences the dispeller. It also has 11 points in Destruction to get Shadowburn and 5 points in Demonology for Demonic Embrace.

Notes:

* 2 points in Suppression gives a 99% chance of hitting an equal level character, which is the most possible. Points from Shadow Embrace or Empowered Corruption may be moved here if combating higher level mobs/players.
* 1 point in Shadow Embrace improves Soul Siphon bonus draining.
* Improved Howl of Terror, Contagion, and Unstable Affliction at the end of the tree make this build much more suitable for PvP.
* Shadowburn and a faster Shadow Bolt give the build an extra punch.

Contagion/Demonic Sacrifice (SM/DS with Contagion) 40/21/0



This build mainly leaves out Unstable Affliction to get Demonic Sacrifice. It combines heavy DoT damage with the main benefits from the Demonology tree, including DS, which offers a lot of flexibility. In general, sacrificing the Succubus for extra damage or the Voidwalker for extra health regeneration is preferred.

The greatest downside of this build is the loss of the minion and consequently one of the most versatile spells--Dark Pact. Furthermore, Unstable Affliction cannot be reached.

The Following are potential evolutions of the old SM/Ruin specs
Dark Pact/Ruin (SM/Ruin with DP) 40/0/21

This first one continues on the Affliction Tree.

Dark Pact/Emberstorm (Natural Evolution of SM/Ruin) 31/0/30

This second one picks up DP for the infinite mana Affliction locks know and love, but moves to Emberstorm as well. Here you will get +10% to both Shadow and Fire spells, which means that the Immolate/Incinerate spam can be changed out for the Corruption/Shadow Bolt spam.


Level 60 Builds

Note: The following builds are designed for level 60 characters and do not take into account talents introduced in 2.0.1.

DP / Shadowburn (35/5/11)



This build dabbles in all three talent trees. It's geared toward low end initial damage, with high yield after a few seconds (giving you the ability to open up with DOTs immediately with any decent tank in the group). 5 points are spent in the Demonology tree for group support purposes(Improved Healthstone, and Improved Imp), and 11 points in Destruction to obtain Shadowburn. This build works great for PvP, PvE, Grinding, and Farming. The sustained "rolling" damage, and shortened cast time of shadow bolt (and the frequent instant cast ability granted by the shadow trance, which is triggered often due to the extreme use of Improved Corruption, and Drain Life) make for a high damage output over the course of any group fight. Coupled with the ability to "Drain Tank" if you should pull aggro from a mob. The aim of this spec is to lay up to 4 DOTs on ALL targets, and move back to drain the life of the MT's target, releasing an instant cast Shadow Bolt every time your Nightfall procs (all targets are now being damaged by you, while also healing you) and finish them all with your Shadowburn. Due to the incredibly high, seemingly uncontrollable constant damage output of this spec, its very difficult to survive in an instance at maximum damage output without a Paladin's Blessing of Salvation and a VERY able bodied Tank. Also, the high level of mana consumed by this build may cause the need to actually use Dark Pact in combat, in conjunction with Life Tap and actually drink between fights (when fighting multiple opponents). Without a doubt, the most fun 51 point build for a Warlock. Everyone will tell you that you are crazy, until they see what you can do. (This is a seemingly, previously unreleased build which has remained my absolute favorite since the day i hit 60, and could create it)

Dark Pact (31/--/--)


This build is perhaps one of the best known builds to grind (killing monsters in rapid succession to get exp) with. It utilizes Improved Corruption, Siphon Life, and Drain Life (along with Fel Concentration) to "Drain Tank" (using Drain Life and Fel Concentration together to be able to take hits, deal damage, and heal at the same time) to kill. Many say that Siphon Life is not worth using unless the full duration is used up, but it can also be used to deal damage as fast as possible. With all the abilities to gain life, Improved Life Tap becomes a crucial component to this build because the warlock can Life Tap to convert HP to mana and then drain some more. This build will usually drain more HP than it will lose which is why Life Tap is used. Dark Pact is used in between fights. It is ideal to use an Imp because it has the largest mana pool of all the pets and also have the highest spirit and, therefore, the highest mana regeneration rate. For this reason it is colloquially referred to as the "mana battery." The Imp will remain Phase Shifted to minimize the chances of it getting killed and to conserve mana for Dark Pact.
SM / Ruin (30/0/21)


This talent spec focuses on Affliction/Destruction, utilizing two main talents: Shadow Mastery and Ruin. Shadow Mastery is the second-to-last talent on the Affliction tree, and increases all shadow damage done by 10% (when maxed out). Ruin is near the end of the Destruction tree, and increases the critical strike bonus of Destruction spells by 100% instead of 50%. This allows your damage over time spells and your Shadow Bolts to be as powerful as they can be, which are your main sources of damage in high level instances. This is an average spec for PvP combat, as you can damage your opponents with damage over time and Shadow Bolt. Notice again that this build is oriented on DPS. You have to decide whether you want high damage output of this build or more survivability from a Soul Link build.

SM / Ruin (PvP) (30/0/21)



This spec is similar to the above SM/Ruin spec but is more focused on getting the most out of your DOTs. This is better geared toward PvP play than raiding due to the 16 debuff cap that will normally be filled by the rest of your raid. In this spec, Improved Curse of Agony is favoured over Curse of Exhaustion, to deal the most damage possible (since the CoA may not stay on the target long enough to deal its final deadly damage). Amplify Curse is also sacrificed in favour of filling Suppression with 5 points.

SM / DS (30/21/0)


This talent uses only Affliction and Demonology. It's two key talents are Shadow Mastery and Demonic Sacrifice. Shadow Mastery is the second-to-last talent on the affliction tree and it increases shadow damage by 10% when five points are put into it. Demonic Sacrifice is 21 points into the Demonology tree and allows you to sacrifice your pet for a powerful buff. This talent build is not very strong in PvP. However, it is generally accepted to be second to none when it comes to farming efficiency. It also can be very powerful in raids if your fellow raiders do not mind you sacrificing your pet. The strategy for farming with this build is to sacrifice your Voidwalker for health regen and then apply DoTs to several targets. For PvP this build is not very effective as it lacks the necessary burst damage. Either sacrifice your voidwalker or succubus for either health regeneration or higher spell damage and then proceed to unload all your damaging DoTs onto the target and try to keep him feared. This same strategy is used for farming high level elites. This build's strength is farming and while it is decent in instances it is fairly bad in PvP.
Demonology
Level 70 Builds

The Demonology talent tree and the use of summoned demons are what mainly distinguishes a Warlock from a Mage.

Demonic Tactics / Ruin (MD/Ruin with DT) (0/40/21)


The ideas behind this talent specification is:

* The Demonology talents gives a lot of +dmg, especially with a summoned pet. It is not unknown to use an Imp on passive which will lessen threat, but a Succubus will add additional 10% damage instead (matching Shadow Mastery in the Affliction tree), as well as acting like a DoT.
* Demonic sacrifice can be used for cases where there is no use of a pet (especially some boss fights and fights with AoE problems).
* Soul Link is as always nice to have in PvP, but also because of the additional 5% +dmg.
* The main damage in this build is based on only doing CoA (in case the mob lives long enough), and then spamming Shadow Bolts. This will take good advantage of the improvements in the Destruction tree.
* While +crit is of less interest for affliction builds, this build will benefit highly from it.
* An alternative build is to spend 5 points on improving the Succubus (Improved Succubus and Improved Lash of Pain) instead of 5% increased crit chance (Demonic Tactics). While this will lessen the Shadowbolts a little, it will allow for a more deadly Succubus with improved seduction. Can be quite useful in many instances.

Felguards "R" US (--/41+/--)

Talent Calculator Build

Some points of interest with this basic talent specification:

* It may be a good idea to set 2 talent points on Improved Health Funnel instead of Improved Healthstone. Especially for solo grinding where you will Health Funnel a lot, but only use the Healthstone sometimes.

Voidwalker/Felguard Perpetual Mana Machine (20/41/0)

Phase One: Voidwalker Final Build: Felguard

These builds are for demonology/affliction based PvE leveling and soloing. The combination of a buffed pet and Improved Drain Soul greatly reduces the chance to pull aggro from your minion. Drain Life becomes viable for damage and health/mana regen at lvl 30, and using your minion as a strong tank leaves plenty of life left to tap. Lay down DoTs, Drain Life or Shadow Bolt spam (mana efficiency vs. DPS) till mob is almost dead, then Drain Soul (rank 1) at last second for 15% mana regen. Life Tap between fights. This maintains mana with high survivability and good DPS. As a bonus, you will have plenty of souls and enough mana for the occasional shadow bolt spam.

A re-spec is recommended while leveling because Voidwalker and Felguard benefit from a few different talents. Since the demonology tree is very defense-heavy until the upper tiers (soul link, demonic knowledge, master demonologist), affliction talents are used before the Felguard becomes available.

Start with Improved Corruption and Improved Drain Soul. Second, fill demonology down to Improved Voidwalker. Finally, increase your DPS with the affliction tree until you reach level 50-55, when you can re-spec to the Felguard based build. This will noticeably increase your DPS, while building up your mana/life regen on the road to 70.

Level 60 Builds
Nightfall / Soul Link (20/31/0)



Soul Link builds perhaps have the best survivability of all the warlock builds. With the build's ability to split 20% of the damage taken to the pet (via Soul Link) and the ability to use Drain Life with a 70% chance of not getting interrupted (through Fel Concentration), the damage taken is very minimal. However, this build requires a rather large amount of +damage/+shadow damage before it becomes efficient (around +300). The pet of choice is usually the Felhunter; the ability to counter (Spell Lock), dispel magic (Devour), deal damage, and have the second most hp and armor next to the Voidwalker makes it an ideal pet to use. On top of those properties, Master Demonologist allows the warlock to receive +60 resistance to all schools of magic at level 60. Above this, Nightfall allows Shadow Bolts to be shot at instant speed.

This will provide with lots of instant Shadow Bolts through Nightfall along with lots of increased HP with Soul Linked pets, near-instant summon of a pet (Fel Domination), along with sacrificed demons for excellent buff opportunities. A strong PvP build that works with PvE end game raids as well.

Soul Link +2 (9/31/11)

Talent Calculator Link

Soul Link, but counters the disadvantage of speccing heavily in Affliction by providing more reliable Burst DPS (2.5 second Shadow Bolts, and instant-cast Shadowburn).

Soul Link Allround (7/31/13)

Not much of a difference to the one mentioned before in terms of numbers... but you wouldn't believe what 2 talent points spent in improved Lash of Pain or improved Firebolt can change. However due to a bug only 1 point in imp. Firebolt is advisable as the 2. one has no effect so put it in +1% Crit or whatever you like. When playing with a succubus or imp these 2 points can significantly increase your overall DPS.

MD / Ruin (0/30/21)



This is a very versatile build that can be used for many purposes. The 2.5 second Shadow Bolts in combination with Ruin will allow you to put out much damage. Pets can be summoned in 6seconds (normal summon 10 seconds). This build includes the talents Demonic Sacrifice and Master Demonologist, which will both allow the Warlock to adapt in many ways. This is a good build for tanking the twin emperors in AQ40. Weaknesses of this build are less powerful DoTs and lack of Improved Life Tap.

Felguard/Drain tank (9/42/0)



This build puts 42 points into Demonology to get Felguard plus 2/3 Mana Feed, coupled with 2/2 Improved Life Tap for quick mana recovery for you and your pocket warrior. Also 2/2 Soul Syphon increases your ability to drain tank.

if you plan on leveling with this build, i would suggest investing in improved corruption before starting on the demonology tree. less casting time means killing things a lot quicker, which means gaining levels a lot quicker.

Destruction
Level 70 Builds
Firelock PvP Build (7/7/47)

This is an extremely high damage PvP spec.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AV0bZbxZxx0tr0tAuAo

This build empowers the Warlock's direct damage abilities (of which most are Fire-based, which gives the spec its name). It provides the Warlock with good burst damage (mainly due to Conflagrate, Shadowburn, and Backlash) and high crits (Ruin). It is very good against other Fire- or Shadow-based classes (especially Fire Mages, Shadow Priests and other Warlocks). Soul Leech allows the Warlock to heal themselves. The build also includes talents from other trees which are often considered necessary, namely Demonic Embrace, Improved Corruption, and Improved Life Tap.

The downside of this build is its relatively high mana consumption.

DS/S&F (0/21/40)

This is a heavy damage raid spec.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=NZbxczIdzZxx0tr0tVuV Talent Calculator Link

This build is similar to the old lvl 60 DS/ruin build except instead of sacrificing the Succubus to buff your shadow bolts, you sac your imps to buff your incinerates. Not only do the 'locks get +15% fire damage with the DS, but also, they get +10% fire damage from Emberstorm, +20% extra spell damage to incinerate (which becomes more effective than SM with just 300 or so spell damage, easy to achieve in TBC), and they get backlash which not only grants +3% additional crit chance and also 25% chance to have your next shadow bolt or incinerate instant cast when physically struck. With the addition of conflagrate, this is a potent raid build in terms of damage output, but be prepared to make use of your new soul shatter ability!

Comment: While this is a good build for DPS in instances and raids, you'll really have a hard time with PvP, and you'll have to bite the bullet solo-farming shards. There's a synergy between you and fire mages in your party as they will be 15% more effective with Curse of Elements, and you'll be 10-15% more effective with their Scorch. You're basically to them like a shadow priest is to an affliction 'lock.

Be nice to your healers with this build. You won't have as good endurance as say (40/21/0), and your lifetaps won't hit for as much, so you're very reliant on those heals.

To maximize DPS, the pattern for this build is:

* Immolate
* CoE
* Incinerate
* Incinerate
* Incinerate
* Conflagrate
* repeat until enemy is at low health
* Incinerate
* Conflagrate
* Shadowburn

Warlock DPS Calculator

Blazing Fury (7/13/41)

This build is similar to the one above but without Demonic Sacrifice. The basic idea is to keep up Curse of Elements, cast an Immolate, two-three Incinerates and blow up the Immolate with Conflagrate. DS is not to be recommended because it requires you to sacrifice your pet, which means that you will loose Blood Pact, which is very essential while grouping. In my opinion instant Corruption and Improved Life Tap are more useful than the talents beyond 13 points in Demonology. This is a very high damage group build which offers a very good alternative to a heavy Affliction spec. This is a very good spec for both PVE and PVP. If you are looking for a change from spamming Shadowbolt this spec might be just for you.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AV0bZfx00cZVx0tr0tVuq - View spec
Nightfall / Shadowfury (NF/Conf with Shadowfury) (18/0/43)
Heavy Destruction (Heavy Destruction 2.0.1) (--/--/41+)
Shadow Conflagrate (7/0/44)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IV0bZZxx0tr0tGuAo [ Talent Calculator 7/0/44 ]

This build is a good balanced PvP and PvE build. It can deal great amount of damage in little time. It also has a variety of talents that help a lot in PvP such as nether protection which will make you defeat shadow priests/other warlocks without it/fire mages 70% of the time with a 30% chance to become immune to most of their spells. The new intensity has a 70% chance to resist interruption in any destruction spell which makes you able to shoot shadowbolts while a warrior/rogue is beating on you. With backlash and devastation you got a total of +8% crit chance with spells. In raiding PvE the DPS is very good. It is comparable with SM/ruin and other older builds because shadow and flame adds a 20% more of spell damage to your shadow bolts which makes up for the loss of 10% damage in shadow with SM or 15% with succubus sacrificed. Improved life tap lets you have better mana efficiency in raids.instant corruption is great for spamming in PvP. Soul leech is more friendly in a PvE environment but still useful sometimes in PvP because it has a good list of spells that have a pretty big chance to heal you(30%). Shadowfury is a great spell to play with in PvP it is an AoE stun doing around 500ish damage with the ability to crit(The only other warlock AoE with this ability is Seed of Corruption). Shadowfury doesn't prove that great in PvE but it isn't bad if you consider it as a shadowburn with no shard cost and a stun.

This build is perfectly balanced between PvP/PvE(raiding)

Level 60 Builds

Note: The following builds are designed for level 60 characters and do not take into account talents introduced in 2.0.1.

Heavy Destruction (--/--/31+)


This build is very similar to being a mage with it's ability to nuke (deal a lot of damage at a short amount of time). Often referred to as a "Firelock" do to the extensive use of fire spells Immolate, Conflagrate, (occasional Soul Fire for PvP) and Searing Pain as main sources of damage. With Ruin, critical hits are 33% more damaging (making every critical hit deal 2 times more damage than normal non-critical hits). With Improved Searing Pain, the critical rate is very high and because Searing Pain has a short casting time, it makes it an ideal spell to use whenever Conflagrate is cooling down. For PvE, The pet of choice is the Imp, with Improved Imp and Improved Firebolt, it can deal 125 every second and it also gives the warlock a stamina buff through Blood Pact. For PvP, the pet of choice is usually a Succubus. The Succubus is used for two main reasons: One, it can use it's Seduce ability to hold people long enough for a Soul Fire to be used, and Two, it is the only way for Warlocks to deal with Fury Warriors reliably. A common PvP strategy for Destruction Heavy Warlocks is to Seduce with a Succubus, then use Shadow Bolt or, if there is time, Soul Fire, then follow up with Immolate, and a Fear. The opponent is the kept feared as much as possible, and Conflagrate used once an Immolate has landed. DoT's are used fairly often, but only as secondary damage.

This build is mainly geared towards PvP because of the threat Searing Pain causes, and unless the tank is very good at holding aggro in a PvE environment, the warlock will be expecting to take some hits, causing the tank some frustration. This build also eats through mana very quickly because of the amount of high-cost spells that are used.

Firemancer / Balanced Destruction Build (7/5/39)



This build is mainly meant for PvP with its majority of destruction talents. It can, however, have a great damage output in PvE too, if played skillfully as it utilizes most of the Must-Have talents, including Improved Life Tap for better Mana/Health efficiency, Demonic Embrace for the additional Health, Bane for increased DPS with the Destruction spells, Shadowburn for an additional finishing move and Ruin for higher Critical Strike damage. 5/5 Devastation gives this build a high natural Critical Strike chance with all Destruction spells and Improved Searing Pain makes Searing Pain a viable PvP tool with a very high natural crit chance. Intensity and Pyroclasm gives the Warlock class better AoE abilities.

Nightfall / Conflagrate (19/0/32)



This build is mainly meant for PvP with its majority of destruction talents. It has the highest potential for burst direct damage of any build (Nightfall, Shadowburn, Conflagrate). Sacrifices 15% base STA (Demonic Embrace) for increased Affliction range, Fel Concentration, and Nightfall procs.

Although this build is more focused towards PvP, this build can also be used in raids and can compete in damage with other raid builds. On the downside, the burst damage potential is an aggro magnet and very mana intensive. Some variations include dropping Emberstorm for Aftermath and Pyroclasm.



Nightfall / Conflagrate (16/0/35)

This build is a variation of the NF/Conflag build above, with important differences.


This build is meant to be a powerful and versatile 2.0.1 level 60 re-spec. Its large burst-damage capabilities, as well as its Improved Curse of Agony, make this build an ideal one for Warlocks who wish to:

* do some serious DPS in both PvP and raid environments
* escape the mundane "Shadow Bolt spam" that DPS Warlocks are so familiar with
* keep improved Life-Tap
* increase the effectiveness of their AoE spells
* not bother with juggling demons / need to keep their Imp out during raids

The build puts emphasis on increasing fire damage, as well as maximizing spell crit chance. This build is powerful and involved, and is recommended for experienced Warlocks, or those who desire to mash a bunch buttons during combat! The raiding Warlock must take care not to draw aggro away from the tank with this build, however the 10% threat reduction provided by Destructive Reach noticeably suppresses threat and effectively increases your available DPS in raids.

How to play it: It's always wise to change your strategy based on how long you expect the target will take to die. Generally: Apply Corruption. Apply Immolate. Conflag (start cooldown). Immolate. Spam Shadow Bolt until Conflag cools down. Conflag. etc. use Shadowburn as a finishing move.

If you are feeling lazy, the tried and true Shadow Bolt spam still works very well with this build.

With increasing level, the idea of this build is to either a) maximize the Destruction tree, filling out Backlash first, then Emberstorm, or b) sacrifice a few talent points at the bottom of the Destruction tree in order to grab Empowered Corruption.

Demonic Sacrifice-builds

30/21/0
19/21/11

One thing you should know: These builds are good for leveling, but still flexible enough to work for both PvP or instancing. Demonic Sacrifice grants the abilities to grind solo without even buying water or food (Sacrifice the voidwalker for 3% health regen every 4 seconds. Seeing as you should have 3000 - 4500 HP pre-MC, depending on your gear, this should be piece of cake). Nightfall is great for grinding as it allows you to fire off instant shadowbolts, improvements on drain life (imp. Drain Life / Fel Concentration) is also great. After these mandatory choices, it's up to you whether you want to put 12 points in Destruction for better PvE DPS or crits, or rather just do Shadow Mastery and Siphon Life for better grinding. Both works well out in any case, it's up to you. Of course, you need to have instant corruption and Demonic Embrace for this talent build to work out. Seeing as there's no better places to put the points anyway in the first tier of Demonology and Affliction, it should hardly be a problem anyway. If you choose to use the 12 points in Destruction after getting Nightfall and Amplify Curse in Affliction, you should also get Bane and Improved Shadow Bolt. This is about what you should need to know here.

7/23/21

This is a variation of the above builds, still centered around Demonic Sacrifice, but paired with Ruin instead of Nightfall for unlimited high damage Shadow Bolts and Immolate in soloing and instances.

Leveling to 60

Before level 60, one must consider whether or not a full-Demonology build is viable, since level 50 is the earliest one can obtain a Felguard. With the availability of respeccing, a warlock might consider taking a hybrid destruction/affliction build with access to Shadowburn and instant-cast Corruption, both of which provide more immediate benefits. Full Demonology builds only start to show comparable benefits around level 40. Around level 50, then, the warlock can respec to receive their Felguard.