Email: cryptoset1@hotmail.com
I. Overview
II. Soul Shards
III. Minions
IV. Stones
V. Curses
VI. Damage Over Time spells (DoTs)
VII. Direct Damage spells (DD)
VIII. Area of Effect spells (AoE)
IX. Other Abilties
X. Equiptment
XI. Playing you Class
XII. Professions
XIII. Talents (I. Affliction - II. Demonology - III. Destruction)
XIV. +Damage and How it Works.
I. Overview (Return to Top)
The Warlock is a more involved class to play. Warlocks have minions, many different spell combos, and a reagent component (Soul Shard) requirement for some of their spells. This means that it will take a bit more learning than some of the more straightforward classes. The Warlock has a lot of very cool and fun abilities including Eye of Kilrogg, Fear, minions and more. The Warlock is a very fun and versatile class to play once you figure things out.
Strengths
• Can use minions for fun and to attract enemy aggression.
• Can create Soulstone which allow self or resser resurrection.
• Can create healing potions in the form of Healthstones.
• Can summon other players using Ritual of Summoning.
• Can breathe underwater using Unending Breath.
• Can summon a Felsteed or Dreadsteed demon horse as a mount.
• Can use Eye of Killrogg to scout.
• Can take control of a Demon for a short amount of time.
• Can heal themselves using Life Drain, Siphon Life, and Death Coil.
• Can solo very well, by using a minion to act as a group of two characters complementing each others' skills.
Weaknesses
• Can only wear cloth armor.
• Very fragile and easily killed in certain situations.
• Soul Shards take up inventory space.
Challenges
• Mastering Soul Shard collection and usage.
• Managing Monster Hate between you and your minion.
• Controlling both your minion's and your own skills to ensure high efficiency.
II. Soul Shards (Return to Top)
The Warlock requires Soul Shards for certain spells and minions. You receive a Soul Shard by using "Drain Soul" on a monster as it is dying. A catch is that you cannot get Soul Shards from monsters that don't give experience. So you can't go into a newbie region and kill easy monsters for Soul Shards. Each and every Soul Shard takes up one slot in your bags, which means you don't want to carry a whole lot of them. However, you do always want to have some in your bags so you can summon your minions. When using Drain Soul you cannot do anything else such as move, attack, or cast another spell, or be interrupted. If you do not stand still, the Drain Soul will not work. You will need to learn how to do this properly, which can be challenging.
Soul Shards do not stack. This is for balance reasons and so you won't hoard huge numbers of them.
If you find yourself without Soul Shards you will have to get them without the use of most minions, which can sometimes be a challenge. Imps can be summoned without the use of a Soul Shard so you can use them to get your Soul Shard along with DoTs, and then switch to a more powerful minion.
III. Warlock Minions (Return to Top)
Minions require knowledge and skill to control. Learn which minion to use based on the situation. Read up on hate management. The channeling spell Health Funnel is useful with minions as it gives health to it every second as long as the caster channels. Use this ability by having your minion attack and then channeling health into the minion. Then, if you need health, cast Drain Life, use a potion, or have someone who can heal you. This is a leash spell so it cancels if the target runs out of range or if the spell is interrupted.
Imp - The Imp you get from start and it is actually a good minion to use if you're in a party because of his reasonable damage output and the very nice Stamina buff his blood pact gives or solo for the same reasons. He blasts the enemy with a ranged attack called Firebolt. This is the only minion you don't need a Soul Shard to summon and don’t have to worry about aggroing mobs with because of Phase Shift an ability the Imp receives.
Voidwalker - At level 10, the quest to get the Voidwalker becomes available from the Warlock trainers. The VW is an ideal soloing minion as he is the tank a caster needs so badly. The VW has massive hit points and can use the Torment skill to attract monsters' anger, but its damage output is very low. Requires Soul Shard to summon.
Succubus - At level 20, your Succubus quest is available. This minion inflicts a high amount of damage on your foes, but is rather fragile. The Succubus has an amazing damage output, especially when attacking monsters with Lash of Pain. It is also good at crowd control with Soothing Kiss and Seduce to mesmerize a humanoid for a short while. In groups and for dueling this sometimes is a good choice. Personally, I don't use it solo as the Imp has turned out to be the most effective unless I am dueling certain classes. Requires Soul Shard to summon.
Felhunter - At level 30, you can begin the quest series which will reward you with the ability to summon a Felhunter. This minion is the best against enemy casters. Requires Soul Shard to summon.
Infernal - Summons a meteor from the twisting nether, causing 200 Shadow damage and stunning all enemy targets in area for 2 sec. An infernal rises from the crater, under the command of the caster. Once control is lost, the Infernal must be Enslaved to maintain control. Requires a reagent. Usable outdoors only. The quest for the Infernal can be found in Felwood. The summoned Infernal will now be enslaved for 5 minutes before turning on its summoner.
Ritual of Doom - Begins a ritual that sacrifices a random participant to summon a doomguard. The doomguard must be immediately enslaved or it will attack the ritual participants. Requires the caster and 4 additional people to complete the ritual. In order to participate, all players must right-click the portal and not move until the ritual is complete. Requires a Demonic Figurine as a reagent. The Ritual of Doom quest can be found in the Tainted Scar.
Felsteed - Summons a Felsteed, which serves as a mount for the caster. Speed is increased by 60%. This mount is the result of a level 40 quest which is very short and simple. This mount is commonly known as a Nitemare by players. No shard required.
Dreadsteed – Summons a Dreadsteed, which serves as a mount for the caster. Speed is increased by 100%. This is also given was a quest reward at level 60. It is somewhat expensive and a pretty difficult quest but is by far the best looking mount in the game! No shard required.
IV. Stones (Return to Top)
The Warlocks can create special stones that they can use themselves or give to other players. Notable is that these Stones vanish when you log out, which means you can only use them in the same game session that they were made (comparable to conjured Water from Mages).
Healthstone (requires Soul Shard) - Creates a Healthstone, which is essentially a health potion. There are different ranks of these, from Minor Healthstone that gives 100 Health, up to Major, which gives a whopping 1200 Health. I don't find myself going through the effort of getting a Soul Shard and crafting a Healthstone with it worth the price at lower to medium levels - perhaps high levels.
Soulstone (requires Soul Shard) - Creates a Soulstone. The Soulstone can be used to store one target's soul. If the target dies while his soul is stored, he will be able to resurrect with X health and mana. Conjured items disappear if logged out for more than 15 minutes. This is best to be placed on yourself if soloing or on a Paladin or Priest if you are with a group or raid so you are able to recover from disaster.
Firestone (requires Soul Shard) - Creates a Firestone which can be equipped in the off hand. When equipped, enchants the main hand weapon with fire, granting each attack a chance to deal additional fire damage (Damage depending on rank of spell).
Spellstone (requires Soul Shard) - Creates a Spellstone. The Spellstone removes all magic effects from the caster and will also absorb up to X magic damage for the next minute.
V. Curses (Return to Top)
The Warlock has several types of curses and it is up to the player to decide what is best for the particular enemy. Curses can only be cast on the enemy, and you can only have one curse active at a time. The last curse you cast will override the previous curse on the monster. All curses are instant cast so you typically always cast one before or after your initial slow cast DOT like Corruption or Immolate.
Curse of Weakness - Damage caused by the target is reduced. This can be useful from time to time when the situation requires it, but I consider this the least used Curse. When soloing at low levels this is probably the Curse of choice, but as your level gets higher it gets less useful and your other Curse options become better.
Curse of Recklessness - Increases the damage of the target but greatly reduces their armor. This is a good group-based spell that is especially good to cast on monsters that are trying to run away. If the group got a good tank that won't mind the extra damage output of the monster, then this can be the best Curse.
Curse of the Elements - Increase Fire and Frost damage. This ability is good to use when playing with other casters who use those types of spells. Personally, I use a lot combined with Immolate and a Wand that does Fire damage plus the Imp minion who also does Fire damage. This is also very beneficial on raids to increase Mage DPS.
Curse of Agony - Curses the target with agony. Causes large damage over time and has been powered up a bit since last push which now should be a valid option.
Curse of Tongues - Suitable against enemy casters as it is slowing down their casting time by X% by forcing them to speak in demonic. X=50% @ Rank 1, 60% @ Rank 2
Curse of Shadow - Increase Shadow and Arcane damage. This is most warlocks staple curse to increase their DPS and prevent their spells from being resisted.
VI. Damage over Time spells (DoTs) (Return to Top)
DoTs are damage-over-time spells. Because they do damage over time, you want to cast them at the start of a battle and have them deal damage throughout the battle. If you're killing a monster very quickly, then DoTs aren't the best to use as they may not be able to deliver their full damage output before the monster is already dead.
Corruption - Inflicts a disease on a target that causes X damage over Y seconds. Corruption will stack with Shadow Word: Pain.
Immolate - Burns the enemy for X Fire damage and then an additional Y Fire damage over 15 seconds.
Curse of Agony - It's a curse that is a DoT.
VII. Direct Damage spells (DD) (Return to Top)
Shadow Bolt - Sends a shadowy bolt at the enemy. This is your direct damage (DD) spell, and you'll want to use it when you're not casting something else. It is useful for killing fleeing monsters, finishing monsters off, and so on. At higher ranks, this gets rather powerful even if I personally think the casting time of it is too long.
Searing Pain – Inflict searing pain on the enemy target, causing 204 to 240 Fire damage. Causes a high amount of threat. This is a 1.5s cast time spell and is very effective with Curse of Elements.
Immolate – Burns the enemy for X Fire damage and then an additional Y Fire damage over 15 seconds. I listed this under DD also because it is a very viable and high damage DD spell if you have the mana to spare. With a cast time of 1.5s when you have 5/5 bane it can be very effective because of its higher default cast time.
Conflagrate - Ignites a target that is already afflicted by Immolate, dealing X to Y Fire damage and consuming the Immolate spell. An extremely effective and high damage spell to be used for mid fight damage or as a finishing spell. This spell is instant cast.
Soulfire – Burn the enemy's soul, causing X to Y Fire damage.
Shadowburn – Instantly blasts the target for X to Y Shadow damage. If the target dies from Shadowburn, and yields experience or honor, the caster gains a Soul Shard.
Death Coil - Sends a shadowbolt at the target for X to Y Shadow Damage and fears the target for 3 seconds. The spell is Instant Cast and has a 2 minute cooldown. This spell is very good as a escape tactic and for getting a opening vs melee in PvP.
VIII. Area of Effect spells (AoE) (Return to Top)
Rain of Fire - Rather mana costly and hate generating spell. Be careful not to use this too much and probably only when in a big party so you don't end up with all enemies on you except the one the party tank fights. As it isn't used that often, it gets some coolness factor and there are times it will fit.
Hellfire - Ignites the area surrounding the caster, causing huge fire damage in waves to both the caster and all nearby enemies. This is a good spell to use when surrounded, but its effects will stay. You can kill yourself if you're not careful. You may have to use a potion, or cast "Life Drain", to keep yourself alive. Best is if you have a friend healing or protecting you. This AoE is the highest damage AoE in the game at the moment.
IX. Other Abilities (Return to Top)
Eye of Kilrogg - This summons an eye that you can control. This eye can move away from your character and can be used for scouting purposes as it was used in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. The Eye cannot fly up in the air but is similar to running very fast on the ground. It can travel up stairs and other players cannot see the Eye unless they are grouped with you or have high stealth detection. The Eye can cause agro problems in instances and raids depending on the boss or mob, so be careful how and where you use it for PvE. This is a channeling spell so it will be canceled if someone interrupts the Warlock's casting.
Unending Breath - Breathe under water for 10 minutes. You can cast this on other players too, and on certain quests it is almost a necessity to be able to have your whole party fighting under water.
Enslave Demon - Enslave a target demon for a limited amount of time. You can use this ability to take control over a Demon and use it to attack other monsters. This is very cool and useful even if you may only do this with demons up to a few levels (4) above the level at which you got the current rank of this spell.
Ritual of Summoning - Begins a ritual that summons a targeted group member. Requires 3 people to perform (2 + The Warlock Summoning). To use this ability, first target a person (usually the party icon) you want to summon. Next, cast the spell. You will then need two people (random people or friends) to right-click on the portal one time and then do nothing once their characters show the summoning animation. Once all three players are summoning (all have summoning animation), it will take a few more seconds. Then the player summoned will appear and the portal will disappear. If it doesn't work, try it again. Players cannot be summoned into an instance from the outside.
Drain Life - Transfers health from target to caster while channeling. This ability is used during battle both to damage the monster and to regain life. Drain Life is good to use against high-level monsters that typically resist your other attacks. Although Drain Life can be resisted, you should keep trying until your cast succeeds (doesn't resist). Once you land the spell, it will start draining life; it does damage the monster even if you don't actually need the life.
Life Tap - Converts health into mana. If you need mana, what you do is Life Tap, and then steals life from the enemy monster.
Drain Mana - Transfers X mana to the caster (Warlock) every second while channeling. This is a "leash" ability similar to the Dark Ranger's abilities in Warcraft III. Once the monster gets out of range, the leash breaks, and the spell is deactivated. Also, if the monster interrupts your casting, the interruption breaks the leash. Use this ability on enemy casters to drain their mana and replenish your own.
Shadow Ward - Absorbs shadow damage. This ability is good to use when you know the monster is using shadow damage.
Demon Skin - Increases health regeneration and armor. You should never be without the Demon Skin buff.
Demon Armor - Increases armor, shadow resistance, and health regeneration. This ability replaces Demon Skin. It should always be active.
Detect Lesser Invisibility/Invisibility - Makes you able to see NPCs or players that are invisible.
Sense Demons - Use to locate Demons on the minimap.
Fear - Send the monster running away. This is a good crowd control ability or escape spell. Be careful using this ability though, monsters could wake up other monsters by calling for help as they run away. You typically don't want to use this in dungeons.
Banish - Banishes the target Demon or Elemental, preventing all action, but making it invulnerable for up to X sec. Only one target can be banished at a time. This spell is a "crowd control" type spell which allows you to put one extra monster that comes to fight out of action. This is useful when fighting multiple monsters or to allow the Warlock to escape.
X. Equipment (Return to Top)
Choose equipment that adds to Intelligence, Spirit and Stamina. Remember that with Life Tap, added mana means added health. Depending on build Stamina and Intellect are your top two statistics. For Affliction and Demonology stamina is more important than Intellect due to the utility in those talent trees. For Destruction builds Intelligence is more important than Stamina but Stamina still shouldn’t be discounted or ignored as it is still a key statistic for the Warlock.
Hate Management (also called Threat Management)
You will have to learn to be skilled at balancing the monster hate between you and the mob (in groups or raids) or your minion (when soloing). You need to learn how to back off when the monster is attacking you so that your minion or tank can taunt the monsters away from you. Stop casting spells, and/or use whatever Taunt abilities your minion might have. Learn which spells really make monsters angry and factor that in before you use them.
XI. Playing the Warlock (Return to Top)
Now that you know the basics of the Warlock, you have to learn how to play the class. At the start of combat, you will likely want to cast your Dots and tell your minion to attack the enemy. Next, you will cast other spells and possibly Life Drain to bring your health back up. Then, if you want a Soul Shard, you will need to start channeling Drain Soul right before the monster dies.
Cast several Dots on the monster, and then cast Fear on it. As the monster runs away, hit it with direct damage spells.
Use Fear if you pull too many monsters at once. Be warned that fleeing monsters may bring back friends with them, so use Fear carefully. Also the higher level of the monster compared to the rank of your Fear will affect the failure rate.
Trainers can give your minions additional skills and abilities.
Use your minion abilities during combat. Most are auto cast.
XII. Professions (Return to Top)
You can pick whichever two professions you like. However, you might find these more tailored to the Warlock:
Skinning and Tailoring - Make cloth armor for the Warlock or other players to wear.
Herbalism and Alchemy - Gather resources and make cool potions for the Warlock to use.
Herbalism and Enchanting - Enchant your equipment and sell enchantments.
Fishing/Cooking/First Aid - For out-of-combat healing of the Warlock. Note that these three are secondary professions and does not count towards the cap on 2 professions.
Engineering and Mining – Gives the Warlock some more reliable crowd control abilities like root and mind control and a good source of income through mining. (Preferred)
XIII. Talents (Return to Top)
Affliction Tree (Return to Top)
The affliction tree mostly provides benefits to debuffs and DoT's. A large misconception about this tree and its specs is that people think that it relies on DoT's. That is NOT true. Due to the nature of DoT's, they will never succeed as a primary form of damage. They are, however, very strong secondary tools to be used in certain situations.
Tier 1
Suppression rank 5/5
Reduces the chance for enemies to resist your Affliction spells by 10%.
This will cause basically all your DoT's (excluding Immolate), Drain's, Fear's, and Curse's to be resisted less often. You will cast them as if you are level 63, which means that you will suffer fewer level-based resists as you invest in this talent. Most DoT's and Curses are instant cast, so they do not get a major benefit from this talent. However, it does have a noticeable effect on Fear and Death Coil, which makes this a rather useful, underestimated talent. CC is one of our main strengths in group PvP, and Suppression will make you that much better at it. A good talent dump for when you need to move further down into the Affliction tree.
Improved Corruption rank 5/5
Reduces the casting time of your Corruption spell by 2.0 sec.
One of the best talents that the Warlock class has to offer. Here's the deal: Corruption is worthless with a casting time, but a good DoT without one. Curse of Agony alone does not deal very much damage, and actually has lower DPS than Corruption as you get more +dmg gear (Corruption DPS > CoA DPS at around +405 dmg). Corruption is less mana efficient, but has higher DPS. This talent is powerful enough that it's included in just about every popular talent build, except the PvE based MD/Ruin and the somewhat rare SL/20 build. Affliction gets a good bonus out of this talent, because Corruption procs Nightfall. Always try to fit 5 points into this talent into any build, unless you're doing MD/Ruin.
Tier 2
Improved Curse of Weakness rank 3/3
Increases effect of Curse of Weakness by 20%
20% of a small number = another small number. Curse of Weakness costs 310 mana and reduces the target's damage by 31. With this talent, that number is increased by 6.1 to get 37.2 reduced damage per hit. This sounds semi-useful, until you realize that the way that this is counted with Damage Reduction through armor makes the number even smaller. When things are hitting for 2000 or even 500, it is clear that this talent is pretty much worthless.
Improved Drain Soul rank 2/2
Gives you a 50% chance to get a 100% increase to your Mana regeneration for 10 sec if the target dies while you drain its soul. In addition your Mana may continue to regenerate while casting at 50% of normal.
Sounds useful, doesn't it? Nah, it sucks. Please refer to the question inspired by this talent above in the FAQ.
Improved Life Tap rank 2/2
Increases mana awarded from your Life Tap spell by 20%
Effectively increases the mana gained from Life Tap from 426 to 511.2. Since Warlocks tend to have very small mana pools and low mana regeneration, Life Tap is our primary means of staying effective in battle... and it does a hell of a good job of doing it. Though the effect looks simple, the overall effect on your character is huge. It effectively makes your health worth that much more mana in a long fight. It makes you regain mana faster through tapping. It lets you get more Shadow Bolts in after a few Life Taps. It makes the healer mana:Warlock damage ratio that much better. Get this talent if you plan to have more than 5 points in Affliction.
Improved Drain Life rank 5/5
Increases the Health drained by your Life Drain spell by 10%.
As described earlier in the FAQ, the bonuses that add to the damage of drain spells only affect their base damage. This means that this talent does not scale with damage gear. Anyways, the effect of this talent is that Drain Life will 10% more damage to the target and give you 10% more health. If it scaled with gear, I would consider using it over Suppression. Skip this talent for now.
Tier 3
Improved Curse of Agony rank 3/3
Increases damage done by your Curse of Agony by 6%.
This talent suffers the same problem as Improved Drain Life in the sense that talents that CoA's benefit from talents do not scale with gear. Even if it did scale with gear, 3 talent points to enhance a 24 second DoT by 6% damage is hardly worth it. Skip.
Fel Concentration rank 5/5
Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling the Drain Life, Drain Mana, or Drain Soul spell.
Another essential talent in the Affliction tree, this talent makes Drain Life a better option in PvP and is also a requirement for "drain tanking." There are a few situations in PvP where you can Drain Life with Fel Concentration for use when you need to deal uninterruptable damage. In my experience, these situations don't come up very often, but the option is good to have. Also, Drain Life procs Nightfall, which will make it an even better option when you get it. A very good talent for the grind, a decent talent for end game... since there really isn't any other place you can spend points.
Amplify Curse rank 1
Instant cast, 3 min cooldown: Increases the effect of your next Curse of Weakness or Curse of Agony by 50%, or your next Curse of Exhaustion by 20%.
A nifty talent, mainly for use with Curse of Agony and Curse of Exhaustion in PvP. When activated, this ability will make Curse of Exhaustion a much stronger snare, and Curse of Agony a much more damaging DoT. This talent gives you a little boost in DPS that helps with PvE, especially with soloing elites, and also provides a good snare for PvP. A very good investment for 1 talent point.
Tier 4
Grim Reach rank 2/2
Increases the range of your Affliction spells by 20%
Range talents are good for any caster class. Grim Reach is one of the greatest benefits of the Affliction tree, and is a part of what makes builds like SM/Ruin powerful. In my opinion, one of the biggest weaknesses of the SL builds is that they often lack the range talents. Range might not exactly help with DPS, but it lets you cast from further away, which means less time running up to your target and more time that your target must spend running to you. Curses and DoTs are increased from 30 yards to 36 yards, and Drain Life and Fear are increased from 20 yards to 24 yards. 20 yards is dangerously close to your opponent, and having that 24 yard Fear is a very, very nice benefit IMO. One of the better talents available to Warlocks.
Nightfall rank 2/2
Gives your Corruption and Drain Life spells a 4% chance to cause you to enter a Shadow Trance state after damaging the opponent. The Shadow Trance state reduces the casting time of your next Shadow Bolt spell by 100%.
Definately one of the main benefits of the Affliction tree. It's funny, because every time a patch is released, this forum is filled with "NF broken?!!!" threads as a result of people being paranoid of stealth nerfs. Right now, it seems to be proccing off Rain of Fire, which is very strange...
Anyway, each tick of Drain Life and Corruption has a 4% chance of giving you an instant cast Shadow Bolt. It's not exactly something that you can rely on, but crit's aren't reliable either. I have it proc every other battle or so. Stack Corruption on multiple targets, and you'll be proccing rather often. It's a decent increase in DPS for PvE, and in PvP, I consider it almost to be an "auto-win" kind of proc, depending on how much damage your gear has. One of the better talents in Affliction.
Improved Drain Mana rank 2/2
Causes 30% of the Mana drained by your Drain Mana spell to damage the opponent.
Almost everybody in the Warlock community says this talent is worthless. Then there's the people who post and say that this talent is extremely powerful and a huge part of their game. I have no idea how 30% of 136 damage is going to be a big part of anyone's game, especially since Drain Mana receives no effect from +dmg gear. Drain Mana isn't exactly the best spell to use in PvP. It's channeled, drains at a pretty slow rate, and costs a lot of mana. The classes you might think it's good against (Priest, Paladin) can dispel it. Weaksauce.
Tier 5
Siphon Life rank 1/1
150 Mana, 30 yd range, Instant cast: Transfers x health from the target to the caster every 3 sec. Lasts 30 sec.
Mosh, a well-respected Warlock from the Euro forums believes that this talent will be considered a "must-have" in the future. I disagree, but I still think that this is another one of the main benefits of the Affliction tree, especially now that Siphon Life is instant cast.
Your DoT chain is now that much more effective, and you're regaining a little bit of life from it! Unfortunately, Siphon Life only receives 50% benefit from +dmg gear, and it is very mana inefficient if it ends early. Other than that, it's a very powerful spell, and a prerequisite to Shadow Mastery anyways. A very good talent, but not good enough to base a build with 21 Aff to get it (unlike Ruin and POM and NS and stuff :P).
Curse of Exhaustion rank 1/1
108 Mana 30 yd range Instant cast: Reduces the target's speed to 90% of normal for 12 sec. Only one Curse per Warlock can be active on any one target.
This talent is either extremely powerful or completely worthless, depending on who you ask. It'll take 3 or 4 points in Improved Curse of Exhaustion before this curse becomes worthless, but keep in mind that a person running at 90% speed will never catch up to someone running at 100%, and someone running at 100% will eventually catch up to someone running at 90%. Things like Sprint and snares on you obviously negate this effect, but in group pvp, a Rogue won't always have Sprint as an option and Intercept might have already been used on a Priest. The Rogue and Warrior will not have many options in getting into your face. AND it's good for catching runners and Hunters.
The problem with CoEx is that you're spending 4 or 5 points on a snare that is rather situational. CoEx is pretty crap against most classes in 1v1 combat. It's not always the best curse to use in group combat. But, it's a snare, with up to 36 yard range, low mana cost, no cooldown, and does not suffer from diminishing returns. The bottom line is this: you are spending 4/5 talent points for a snare option. It is up to you to decide whether or not it's worth it. I personally think one of the main strengths of the SM/Ruin build lies on this talent.
Tier 6
Shadow Mastery rank 5/5
Increases damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells by 10%.
A very good talent. Not much to say here. Note that SM/Ruin is not BASED on SM and Ruin, but actually the strength of the build is all of the options and benefits it gains from the talents before them. SM and Ruin just happen to be very good investments.
Tier 7
Dark Pact rank 1/1
20 yd range, Instant: Transfers 250 mana from your pet to you.
Note that I changed the talent text. I did this because a lot of people get confused from reading the tooltip. This talent is one of the best talents in the game from level 40 to level 60. Then it really just becomes a much slower Life Tap that doesn't cost healer mana or bandages. The mana regeneration on this talent is pretty slow, meaning your DPS relying on it will be rather low. Other than that, there isn't much to say about this talent except that it pretty much eliminates downtime, making it very effective for the grind. Get it and respec at 60.
Demonology Tree (Return to Top)
The Demonology tree involves bonuses involving your pet, your stats, and your conjured stones. It was once considered one of the worst talent trees in the game, until people realized the strength of Soul Link. It was still considered a "a 1 trick pony" at the time, and I remember writing several posts stating that "13 of the talent points you spend getting to Soul Link are a waste." Then Blizzard implemented Master Demonologist and changed Demonic Sacrifice. These changes, along with the instant cast change on Conflagrate, effectively made all three Warlock trees unique from each other and very powerful.
A common misconception of Soul Link builds is that they lack damage. This is false. Soul Link builds have comparable DPS with other builds, but trade BURST ability with survivability. In my opinion, the weakness of Soul Link builds is the lack of range talents and the general lack of options such as CoEx.
Tier 1
Improved Healthstone rank 2/2
Increases the amount of Health restored by your Healthstone by 20%.
With two points, Improved Healthstone will increase the amount of health restored by your final rank healthstone from 1200 to 1440. Not a huge change, but I know that 240 health has saved my life many times. Also, when another Warlock in your raid has 0/2 and/or 1/2 Improved Healthstone, people will be able to carry multiple final rank healthstones... one from each Warlock with a different number of points invested in this talent. Nifty.
Unfortunately, these stones cost a shard and a lot of mana to cast. This makes them annoying to use in AB/WSG. I find Healthstones useful in world pvp and in AV, but if you don't plan to do PvE at all and you're done with AV, you probably won't be using Healthstones very often. Also, it's only 240 health when you use a Healthstone, so really it's not all that powerful. A decent talent if you're going to go further in the Demonology tree.
Improved Imp rank 3/3
Increases the effect of your Imp's Firebolt, Fire Shield, and Blood Pact spells by 30%.
Makes Firebolt hurt around 120 instead of 90, and Blood Pact give around 54(?) sta instead of 42. Most of the time in an instance, you're going to have your Imp out... especially if you don't have Demonic Sacrifice or Master Demonologist. 54 looks like a much bigger number than 42, but in the end, it's only 120 more health... more if you have Demonic Embrace. It's a decent talent for group PvE, but not really necessary.
For PvP, if you like to use Imp to attack with Improved Fire Bolt, this is a pretty good talent. 30% increased damage on Firebolt is pretty big. Improved Imp is good if you have nowhere else to place points, but overall it's just a decent talent. I prefer Suppression unless I want my Imp to be a major part of my DPS. The problem with this is that his damage hasn't changed at all since retail... unless you use Pimgib's Collar or The Black Book.
Demonic Embrace rank 5/5
Increases your total Stamina by 15% but reduces your total Spirit by 5%.
Back in the day, this was considered a "must have" talent. It's still included in most builds, with the exception of SM/Ruin and NF/Conflag. One of the main reasons people were so reluctant to spec SM/Ruin was because of the loss of this talent.
Demonic Embrace is a very powerful talent, taking out points in one of our least important stats and greatly increasing one of the most important stats. A lot of classes would kill for a talent like this. More health is always good - I personally get around 400-500 health from this talent, and I'm wearing a lot of +dmg gear. Like Improved Corruption, this talent should be included in every build unless you're reaching far into Affliction/Destruction for certain talents.
Tier 2
Improved Health Funnel 2/2
Increases the amount of Health transfered by your Health Funnel spell by 20%.
Health Funnel is a decent spell when you're using the VW. Most of the time you use VW, you're either grinding solo, offtanking in an instance, or using him to tank mobs that you need to Banish in MC. I don't like grinding with VW solo. Situations where you need VW as an offtank are rare. If you're Banishing, you have 30 seconds to Health Funnel the VW anyways. Health Funnel is a situational spell. You probably won't use it enough to give it two talent points... and it does its job well enough without talents anyways.
Improved Voidwalker rank 3/3
Increases the effectiveness of your Voidwalker's Torment, Consume Shadows, Sacrifice and Suffering spells by 30%.
For soloing, it makes the VW hold agro better and heal itself more efficiently through Consume Shadows. That being said, it's probably better to drain tank anyways.
The benefit to Sacrifice was added in a recent patch and makes this a much better talent than it was before. Some Soul Link specced Warlocks prefer to use the VW for dealing with Warriors and Rogues, and the buff to Sacrifice makes it go from about a 1900 damage shield to about 2400 (I think?). In my experience, it's much better to use the Felhunter than the VW with a Soul Link build. Either way, the value of this talent lies in how much you use the VW.
Fel Intellect rank 5/5
Increases the maximum Mana of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, and Felhunter by 15%.
The benefit of this talent in PvE will hardly be noticeable, in my experience. In PvP, it gives your Imp and Succubus a tiny bit of extra mana to Firebolt/Seduce with. Felhunter has too long of a cooldown on his abilities to really be affected by this talent. This is my talent dump of choice when speccing MD/Ruin, because any buff to Seduce is better than something I'll never use. Soul Link Warlocks are better off investing in Fel Stamina.
Tier 3
Improved Succubus
Increases the effect of your Succubus' Lash of Pain and Soothing Kiss spells by 30%, and increases the duration of your Succubus' Seduction and Lesser Invisibility spells by 30%.
One of the least discussed and most underrated talents that the Warlock has. MD/Ruin in PvP is a very Seduce dependent build, and longer Seduces will definately help in gaining distance from your opponent and keeping him in control. Again, one of the strengths of the Warlock class is it's CC ability, and this makes it that much better. Stronger Lash of Pain is a decent bonus as well, though it won't exactly make her a Rogue. Improved Succubus is one of the main benefits of the Demonology tree, IMO.
Fel Domination rank 1/1
Instant cast 15 min cooldown: Your next Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, or Felhunter Summon spell has its casting time reduced by 5 sec and its Mana cost reduced by 50%.
This talent, combined with Master Summoner, allows you to have a 0.5 cast time on your next pet, along with a basically free mana cost. Way back in the days where Daeo flamed all the Warlocks on this forum, his posted his builds which always included Fel Dom/Master Summoner, despite people's strong opinion that Demonology past rank 1 was worthless. In those days, BG's did not exist, and PvP was all about solo world pvp. I personally considered this talent to be a must have at the time.
Think about it. The the weakness of Warlocks pre-Death Coil is that you must have the right pet at at the right time, and if you were ever caught petless, you were doomed. This talent takes away that weakness every 15 minutes. This is godly in world PvP and decent in emergency situations. It has a huge cooldown, though, and won't see much use in BG's. If you're going down the Demonology tree, get it. Otherwise, it's not really a necessity these days.
Fel Stamina rank 5/5
Increases the maximum Health of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, and Felhunter by 15%.
If you're specced SL, get this talent. Otherwise, your pets will either be ignored or 1 or 2 hitted anyway, so this talent can be skipped. It's very good for an SL build though.
Tier 4
Master Summoner rank 2/2
Reduces the casting time of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, and Felhunter Summoning spells by 4 sec and the Mana cost by 40%.
Max this talent if you get Fel Domination. If you don't, FD will be worthless. Other than that, this talent is convenient, but will probably not turn the tide of very many battles. It does make resummoning a pet a little easier, but there aren't many situations where you'll need to do that and you have Fel Dom for doing that anyways.
Unholy Power rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your Voidwalker, Succubus, and Felhunter's melee attacks by 20%
More damage is always good. Note that this talent does not affect the Imp's damage. This talent is also a prerequisite for Master Demonologist, one of the best talents available to the Warlock class. This is a good talent just for that reason. You're not really going to want to get it without going further down the Demonology tree.
Tier 5
Improved Enslave Demon rank 5/5
Reduces the Attack Speed and Casting Speed penalty of your Enslave Demon spell by 10% and reduces the resist chance by 10%.
The only times I ever use Enslave Demon are when it's needed as a CC in instances like Maraudon, Dire Maul, and the nightmare area in Zul'Gurub. In those situations, I couldn't care less how fast my enslaved demon is attacking, and I'm not spending 5 points to have one rarely used CC spell get resisted less often.
Oh, and Infernal/Doom Guard are considered to be more than novelty items by most of the Warlock community.
Demonic Sacrifice rank 1/1
100 yd range Instant: When activated, sacrifices your summoned demon to grant you an effect that lasts 30 min. The effect is canceled if any Demon is summoned.
Imp: Increases your Fire damage by 15%.
Voidwalker: Restores 3% of total Health every 4 sec.
Succubus: Increases your Shadow damage by 15%.
Felhunter: Restores 2% of total Mana every 4 sec.
The tooltip for this talent is huge. Anyways, this is one of the best talents available to the Demonology tree. Yes, it renders you petless and thus makes it worthless for small scale PvP. No, that doesn't make this talent crappy. This gives you some very powerful options. This talent gives you very, very powerful options for those situations where your pet is near worthless, like in AV and MC. High health regeneration? Mana regeneration for long battles? A whopping +15% shadow damage? Good stuff.
Basically, it goes like this:
-Sacrifice Imp for Hellfire AoE.
-Sacrifice VW for long battles and for large scale PvP. Health = mana for Warlocks, but you'll lose DPS using Life Tap a lot. Use it if you lack a healer.
-Sacrifice Succubus if you want damage. You'll have overall better damage using MD with Imp, but you might not have that talent, and you might be fighting a boss where agro isn't a real problem. You can also sacrifice her if you have a death wish.
-Sacrifice Fel Hunter for long battles. I rarely use this one.
I disagree with the argument that this talent might render the talents before it worthless, because it isn't a matter of basing your playstyle around this talent, it's a matter of having the options for the situations where you don't need a pet.
Improved Firestone rank 2/2
Increases the bonus Fire damage from Firestones and the Firestone effect by 30%.
Makes the firestone hurt about 150, instead of 110. Also makes it give a 27.3 fire damage bonus instead of 21!
Yeah, Firestone sucks. Skip this talent.
Tier 6
Master Demonologist rank 5/5
Grants both the Warlock and the summoned demon an effect as long as that demon is active. Imp - Reduces threat caused by 20%. Voidwalker - Reduces physical damage taken by 10%. Succubus - Increases all damage caused by 10%. Felhunter - Increases all resistances by 1 per level.
Like the Demonic Sacrifice talent, this talent provides you extra options based on what pet you have out at the time. MD-Imp lets you rule the MC damage meters without worrying about agro. MD-VW makes Soul link Warlocks that much more durable. MD-Succubus lets you act you have Shadow Mastery/Emberstorm when you're using Succubus and is one of the main reasons the MD/Ruin build was popular in the past for PvP. MD-Felhunter makes you even more overpowered against Mages, especially if you're SL build.
Overall, one of the best talents in the Demonology tree, but it's pretty far down the tree so there aren't a lot of builds based on it. MD/Ruin is considered the best PvE spec for Warlocks, because of MD-Imp and Demonic Sacrifice. This talent is also very, very good for SL Warlocks, because of the huge resistance bonus given from MD-Felhunter.
Tier 7
Soul Link rank 1/1
270 Mana 100 yd range Instant cast: When active, 30% of all damage taken by the caster is taken by your demon instead. In addition, both the demon and the master will inflict 3% more damage. Lasts as long as the demon is active.
This is an extremely powerful talent. The amount of change your character will go through between having 30 points in Demonology and having 31 points in Demonology is astronomical. 30% of the damage you take is done to your pet instead. This makes it near impossible for casters to kill you when you have Felhunter out, and makes it very difficult for melees to kill you.
What makes Soul Link so powerful is that it's a very defensive ability on a class whose base skills are very offensive. This, combined with stuff like Spell Lock and Seduce makes you an armored tank. While it definately won't make your playstyle as defensive as a Paladin or Restoration Druid's, but considering the offensive capabilities of a Warlock, that's not really a problem.
There are a few downfalls to Soul Link. First of all, you're 31 points in Demonology. You lack some of the yummy stuff from Affliction and Destuction, like Ruin. You CAN get some good stuff like Nightfall, Shadowburn, and a range talent, but you're missing out on stuff from the other tree. That hurts. Also, SL is not exactly going to save you from a Rogue and a Warrior; it is much more powerful in 1v1 pvp than anything else. That being said, SL is still a very powerful talent.
Soul Link is currently bugged and cannot be dispelled, even from the pet.
Improved Spellstone rank 2/2
Increases amount of damage absorbed by your Spellstone by 30%
Spellstones own in world pvp, and are decent in AV. They're decent for solo pve. They suck in all other situations, and I don't think a few hundred extra damage absorbed by an item you'll never use is worth having over 30 points in Demonology for. Pretty bad.
Burst damage. A lot of very, very important talents for Warlocks lie in this tree. The first half of the tree contains a lot of "must-haves" while the second half contains the more specialized talents. One single change to the tree (Conflag instant cast) suddenly made the tree become the most popular tree for PvP.
Tier 1
Improved Shadow Bolt rank 5/5
Your Shadow Bolt critical strikes increase the next 4 sources of Shadow damage dealt to the target by 20%. Effect lasts a maximum of 12 sec.
Every time you crit with Shadow Bolt, the next four hits of shadow damage will deal 20% more damage. As of patch 1.9.4, DoTs are NOT eating up the "charges" on Improved Shadow Bolt. This means the next 4 Shadow Bolts/Mind Blasts/whatever will deal 20% extra damage after you crit. This can be good for burst damage, since critting on top of that 20% bonus will make your crit hurt that much more. No, this talent will not stack with itself... the debuff will just be reapplied. The debuff can also be resisted, and actually is resisted rather often in my experience.
Improved Shadow Bolt will be a slight boost in DPS for PvE, and a nice burst damage option for PvP if you open with a Shadow Bolt crit. It's nice to have your Shadowburn and your next Shadow Bolt in the seduce chain be 20% stronger... but's obviously not something you can count on. I personally like this talent much better than Cataclysm, even though they both kind of suck.
Cataclysm rank 5/5
Reduces the Mana cost of your Destruction spells by 5%.
After like, 20 Shadow Bolts, this talent will let you cast one more. This talent is terrible, but if you never use the Shadow Bolt spell, it's better than wasting points on a talent you won't use. But here's the problem: a Warlock of any build should be using Shadow Bolt. Cataclysm only reduces the mana cost on Destruction spells, meaning it won't affect DoTs, debuffs, or summons. This, combined with the very low amount of mana cost reduction, makes this talent worthless to me.
Psy and other Warlocks have made arguments that this talent is actually better than Improved Shadow Bolt in destruction heavy builds. Cataclysm will help with your constant casting of Shadow Bolt, Shadowburn, Searing Pain, Immolate, and Conflagrate. I'm personally not convinced, because I'd still rather have a small chance to have a 20% stronger Shadowburn than save a little bit of mana over time. The decision between the two T1 Destruction talents is up to you, but almost all Warlocks prefer to have Improved Shadow Bolt.
Tier 2
Bane rank 5/5
Reduces the casting time of your Hellfire, Shadow Bolt and Immolate spells by 0.5 sec and your Soul Fire spell by 2 sec.
Wow, I'm surprised they still haven't taken Hellfire off the tooltip. This talent doesn't affect Hellfire at all. It will also NOT reduce the amount of +dmg Shadow Bolt gets from gear, meaning that it will still recieve 85% bonus from +dmg gear.
Decreased casting time on Shadow Bolt by 0.5 seconds out of 3 may sound insignificant, but actually Bane is probably the most important talent for Warlocks in increasing your DPS in raid PvE. 0.5 seconds is a very short time, but that's still 1/6th the casting time of a regular Shadow Bolt. I'm not sure on the math for the actual increase of dps from this talent, but I think it's about 17.6% increased DPS over time. Plus, you always want faster casting time in PvP. Bane is one of the best talents available to Warlocks and is incuded in most Warlock builds except for SM/DS and NF/SL. There's nothing in T1/T2 destruction that even compares to this talent, and you'll need the points for Shadowburn anyway. Try to include Bane into your build.
Aftermath rank 5/5
Gives your Destruction spells a 10% chance to daze the target for 5 sec.
10% is a rather low chance to proc something. 5 second daze isn't very useful against most classes, though it is a death sentence to your opponent in certain situations. I personally found this talent to be worthless because when I spec Destruction, I still use Seduce nukes. Daze does not help me at all if I already have my opponent under control with Seduce. Most Warlocks consider Aftermath to be a worthless talent, while others believe it's one of the most underrated talents in the game. I don't really see any place to fit this talent in even the most Destruction heavy builds, because you're spending 5 points for a 10% chance. Like CoEx, the value of this talent is matter of taste and playstyle. Most Warlocks find it to be near worthless.
Tier 3
Improved Fire Bolt rank 2/2
Reduces the casting time of your Imp's Firebolt spell by 0.5 sec.
Do not place more than one point into this talent. The second point is functioning correctly, but due to the universal 1.5 second cooldown, it does not increase the Imp's standing dps. That being said, Improved Fire Bolt, combined with Improved Imp, makes your Imp have some decent DPS. The Black Book trinket combined with these talents makes your Imp pretty scary. My problem with these talents is that I'd much rather use a Succubus or Felhunter in WSG/AB, and that the Imp's dps has not changed since retail (well, unless you use The Black Book or Pimgib's Collar). Improved Firebolt is a fun talent that gives you a good amount of bang for your 1 talent point... but if you never use the Imp to attack, you can skip it.
Improved Lash of Pain rank 2/2
Reduces the cooldown of your Succubus' Lash of Pain spell by 6 sec.
Effectively halves the cooldown on your Succubus' Lash of Pain. I personally dislike Lash of Pain, because I don't count on my Succubus for DPS, and the mana:damage ratio on that skill is absolutely terrible... and even with the talent, the cooldown on Lash of Pain is still 6 seconds. I'd rather save her mana for Seduce. Other Warlocks, especially ones who invest in Demonology, find this talent to be rather useful. Succubus will never match the DPS of a hunter cat pet, but this talent will make her deal a good amount more damage. The value of this talent, like Improved Firebolt, depends on how much you use the Succubus for attacking.
Devestation rank 5/5
Increases the critical strike chance of your Destruction spells by 5%.
People underestimate this talent, in my opinion. Tier 3 is VERY early for a talent that gives 5% to crit with spells. AND it affects all of our direct damage spells! Most Warlocks don't get very many +crit items, so that makes this talent a significant boost to the amount of crits a Warlock will get. Oh, and it's a prerequisite to Ruin. Get this talent if you're going to go further down into the Destruction tree.
Shadowburn rank 1/1
105 Mana 20 yd range Instant cast 15 sec cooldown Reagents: Soul Shard: Instantly blasts the target for 91 to 104 Shadow damage. If the target dies from Shadowburn, and yields experience or honor, the caster gains a Soul Shard.
The final rank of Shadowburn deals a little less damage than the final rank of Shadow Bolt. This spell is not necessary for PvE, but it is considered a "must have" for PvP. It provides you with a much needed instant direct damage spell. Shadowburn is included in most Warlock builds except for SM/DS and NF/SL. It's good for finishing off an opponent, increasing the damage dealt between Seduces, and adding a little burst to your damage. The only weakness of this spell is that it eats shards like crazy, if you're not careful... oh, and if you're on a crappy server, you'll also suffer some shard lag if you get a shard off of the spell. Shadowburn is an awesome spell that comes very early in the Destruction tree. Try to include this talent in your build.
Tier 4
Intensity rank 2/2
Gives you a 70% chance to resist interruption caused by damage while channeling the Soul Fire, Rain of Fire or Hellfire spell.
A good talent for PvE that helps you eat those random hits without forcing you to constantly recast Hellfire when AoEing. Intensity makes it possible for a Warlock to almost replace a mage in the pre-MC instances for AoE, with preparation. It's also a decent, but not necessary talent for AoEing in PvP in the sense that it lets you shrug off things like Multi-Shot and Arcane Explosion while using your AoE's. Not a necessary talent, but it's a good talent dump if you don't want Improved Fire Bolt or Improved Lash of Pain.
When Intensity is combined with the Paladin Concentration Aura, you have a 0% chance of being interrupted while using Hellfire. That makes this talent a lot better for Alliance Warlocks.
Destructive Reach rank 2/2
Increases the range of your Destruction spells by 20%
Increases the range of all your direct damage spells from 30 to 36 except for Shadowburn, which goes from 20 to 24. Since Destruction spells tend to have casting times while many Affliction spells have instant casting times, this talent is even more important than Grim Reach. I've already described the benefits of having more range as a caster. Get this talent if you're going down the Destruction tree.
Improved Searing Pain rank 5/5
Increases the critical strike chance of your Searing Pain spell by 10%.
The only talent build I would ever include this talent in is a 7/5/39 build or a variant of it. Searing Pain isn't very good in PvE and in my opinion is inferior to Shadow bolt in most situations in PvP. I personally don't think Searing Pain will ever make a good replacement to Shadow Bolt, as long as Bane exists. Even with a 0/0/51 build, I'd prefer Shadow Bolt over Searing Pain as a main source of DPS in PvP. I do use Searing Pain to finish people off, deal damage in situations where 2.5 seconds are not available, and to sneak more damage between seduces, but that's it.
A lot of Warlocks do prefer Searing Pain over Shadow Bolt, however. An extra 10% to crit isn't going to make this spell crit every time you cast it, but with Devestation, you will be critting rather often with it. Combined with Ruin, you can get pretty surprising amounts of DPS with Searing Pain. Improved Searing Pain, like a lot of the talents in Destruction, is either a great talent or a crappy one, depending on your playstyle.
Tier 5
Pyroclasm rank 2/2
Gives your Soul Fire, Rain of Fire and Hellfire spells a 26% chance to stun the target for 3 sec
Please read the section on Pyroclasm in the FAQ above for more information on this talent concerning procs with AoE spells. This talent is pretty worthless IMO with Hellfire and Rain of Fire, but it's great with Soul Fire. Getting this to proc with Soul Fire is almost auto-win because it's an extra Shadow Bolt or two extra Searing Pains between seduces. However, Soul Fire suffers from being a fire spell, costs a soulshard, and has a 4 second cast time with Bane. Get this talent if you plan to use Soul Fire, otherwise skip it.
Improved Immolate rank 5/5
Increases the initial damage of your Immolate spell by 25%.
Significantly increases the damage of your Immolate spell. This talent is a prerequisite to Conflagrate... and that is probably the only reason why you'd spec into it. It makes Immolate a pretty good spell, but the nature of Immolate makes it ineffective as a primary source of DPS. Critting on the initial damage of Immolate will be that much better, though. Only invest in this talent if you're getting Conflagrate.
Ruin rank 1/1
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Destruction spells by 100%.
Makes your spells deal double damage on a crit instead of 1.5x damage. This talent is responsible for those huge crits that you see Warlocks getting. Many talent builds are based around getting 21 points into Destruction for Ruin. Ruin is an excellent talent that greatly increases your burst damage. The increase in DPS for PvE isn't that great, but still significant. I don't think there's much else to say about this talent except that it's one of the greatest benefits you'll ever see for just ONE talent point. Go for this talent if you're not planning to use Soul link or SM/DS.
Tier 6
Emberstorm rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your Fire spells by 10%.
Not much to say here, increases your Immolate/Searing Pain/Conflagrate damage by a significant amount. None of these spells are spammed in PvE, and only some people spam Searing Pain PvP, so it's not exactly as great as Shadow Mastery. That being said, there it's the best talent dump you have for when you need to get Conflagrate. Skip if you're not getting Conflagrate.
Tier 7
Conflagrate rank 1/1
165 Mana 30 yd range Instant Cast 10 sec cooldown: Ignites a target that is already afflicted by Immolate, dealing 206 to 261 Fire damage and consuming the Immolate spell.
The final rank of Conflagrate deals 447 ro 557 damage. Went from being one of the worst 31 talent abilities in the game to being one of the most popular Warlock talents. Conflagrate used to have a 1.5 second cast, a much higher mana cost, and a 20 yard range... pretty pathetic. Now that it's instant cast, Conflagrate has become an extremely powerful talent for dealing burst damage. Seduce -> Shadow Bolt -> Immolate -> Shadowburn -> Conflagrate is a huge amount of damage for just one Seduce. It's also nice to have a second instant direct damage option when you have Immolate up, and it makes Immolate good against Rogues because it will let you use Immolate to break stealth/vanish while also letting you consume Immolate, making the Rogue vulnerable again to Seduce. Conflagrate is one of the best talents available to Warlocks, and it up to you to decide if you want to spend the points getting up to it
XIV. Spell Damage and How it Works. (Return to Top)
There is some confusion about how these effects work and how effective they are, so I wanted to explain what they do.
When an item has the effect "Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 20", the damage dealt or hit points healed by one of your spells will be increased by a fixed amount up to 20. The actual amount that the spell is increased by is not determined randomly, but by which spell you are casting. You are not receiving a random bonus value between 1 and 20 whenever you cast a spell. Some random items, such as those with the property "of Shadow Wrath", indicate that they provide "+X Shadow Spell Damage". The actual amount of the bonus is again determined by the spell being cast. There are a few items that do provide a random bonus, such as Dreamweave Gloves, but their effect notes the randomness by stating that item's bonus as "up to 1 to 19." Once again, the bonus received could be reduced depending on the spell being cast.
Spells with longer casting times such as Fireball and Greater Heal will receive the full bonus listed every time they cast the spell. Spells with instant or short cast times receive a fraction of the bonus listed. As an example of such a spell, Flash Heal (Rank 7) only receives approximately 43% of the item bonus. Talents or other effects that might change the casting time of the spell will not change the bonus; the amount received is a property of the spell being cast.
Most long duration Damage and Heal over time spells have the bonus divided amongst every tick. So Renew, which lasts 15 seconds and heals an amount every 3 seconds, has 20% of the bonus applied each tick. In a similar fashion, channeled spells also have the item bonus divided amongst every tick of the spell's duration.
Lower level spells receive a greatly reduced benefit from these effects.
These effects all stack. So if a Mage is wearing 3 items that provide up to +20 Fire damage, you will have a combined +60 to Fire damage. This means every high level Fireball cast will inflict an extra 60 damage to the target.
These bonuses are also added to the effect of the spell before the 50% bonus from a critical spell hit is applied.
Note that there is currently a bug in the game that affects heals over time such as Renew and Rejuvenation. The +healing items worn by the caster are only providing the appropriate healing bonus if the caster is also the target of the spell. Direct heals such as Greater Heal work fine, and the +Healing bonuses are being appropriately applied. Damage over time spells are also working properly. We're working to fix this bug, but currently I can not provide any kind of ETA on the fix.
As response to a thread in the Mage forum about Frost Bolt not getting the full bonus:
To get the full damage or heal bonus, a direct damage spell or direct heal spell must have a casting time of at least 3.5 seconds. So spells such as Fireball and Greater Heal gain the full effect from +damage or +heal items. Frostbolt has a 3.0 second casting time and an additional secondary frost effect, so it also has a reduced effect from +damage or +heal items. Each Frostbolt gains 81.4% of the listed damage bonus. Casting time reduction talents such as Improved Frostbolt will not effect the amount of bonus applied. The percentage amount of the bonus decreases as the base casting time of a spell decreases.
Here are some other examples of damage or heal bonus coefficients for direct damage and healspells.
Shadow Bolt (3 second casting time): 0.857
Smite (2.5 second casting time): 0.714
Wrath (2.0 second casting time: 0.571
Flash Heal (1.5 second casting time): 0.429
Scorch (1.5 second casting time): 0.429
Fire Blast (instant casting time): 0.429
Daelo
Game Designer
___________________________________
OK, Since that is out of the way and we have a understanding of how +Damage works lets apply that to all of our spells.
All spells below were calculated using top rank spells and no talents added. All spell damage values of averages of a range if there is one and will be marked with a * next to the spell.
X= Total +damage gear (Keep in mind your ‘+shadow’, ‘+fire’, and ‘+spells and effects’ as ‘+fire’ wouldn’t add to a shadow spell of course but ‘+spells and effects’ would add to everything)
*Shadow Bolt
(481 * .1) + (X * .857) = Total Damage w/ Shadow Mastery 5/5
(481) + (X * .857) = Total Damage
*Searing Pain
(222 * .1) + (X * .429) = Total Damage w/ Emberstorm 5/5
(222) + (X * .429) = Total Damage
Immolate
((258 + 485) * .1) + (X * .571) = Total Damage w/ Emberstorm 5/5
(258 + 485) + (X *571) = Total Damage
*Conflagrate
(412 * .1) + (X * .429) = Total Damage w/ Emberstorm 5/5
(412) + (X * .427) = Total Damage
*Soul Fire
(792 * .1) + (X * 1.0) = Total Damage w/ Emberstorm 5/5
(792) + (X * 1.0) = Total Damage
Siphon Life
(450 * .1) + (X * .429) = Total Damage w/ Shadow Mastery 5/5
(450) + (X * .429) = Total Damage
*Shadowburn
(476 * .1) + (X * .429) = Total Damage w/ Shadow Mastery 5/5
(476) + (X * .429) = Total Damage
Deathcoil
(470 * .1) + (X * .429) = Total Damage w/ Shadow Mastery 5/5
(470) + (X * .429) = Total Damage
Corruption
(666 * .1) + (X * .571) = Total Damage w/ Shadow Mastery 5/5
(666) + (X * .571)
Curse of Doom
(3200 * .1) + (X * 1.0) = Total Damage w/ Shadow Mastery 5/5
(3200) + (X * 1.0) = Total Damage
Curse of Agony
(1035 * .1) + (X * 1.0) = Total Damage w/ Shadow Mastery 5/5
(1035) + (X * 1.0) = Total Damage
Hellfire
X + Total plus damage including talents.
Rain of Fire
X + Total plus damage including talents.
