Warlock Leveling build/guide 1-30Follow

Greetings. For anyone interested in playing a purely "DoT" class here is a quick guide for it.

BASICS
The basic strategy of this build is, when possible, dot up a target and proceed to the next one while your dots finish the job - a fire-and-forget kind of. The pet is purely for aditional damage, you should not need to manage it - just put it on defensive and forget about it.

This build is aimed at maximising leveling efficiency (0 downtime, infinite mana, free healing). It is, however, also great in almost everything you are able to do with your mage.

Strategy: Just dot all mobs as you wish, you have virtually limitless amount of mana and no downtime whatsoever. You will be tanking the dieing mobs but you also regain health easily. Just remember - with this build you can transfer health into mana, mana into power (by casting spells durr) and power into health. Yep, its that awesome.

LEVEL 1-10 http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zwvR.b.cI.b
Plague Bolt - useless, take it off your action bars.
Summon: Skeletal Horror - no need to keybind this. No need to manage it. Put it on Defensive and forget about it. It's basicly another "DoT".
Life Leech - Your best DoT. Heals you for abit. You can even tank stuff if you have enought targets with this up for a constant healing stream.
Void Bolt - cast mostly when you realy want something dead faster. It provides higher pure dps than your dots but its less efficient since you cant move or start dotting other mobs. And its boring :P
Dark Touch - a DoT, use it.
Dark Armor - Your armor, its fairly useless so make sure you dont cast it of someone else placed a better one on you.
Sacrifice Life: Mana - Cast it to transfer some health into mana. Very important and useful spell to master.
Reconstruct - Same as above. Channel this to transfer some power into health. This is a very powerful spell - even tho you are interrupted if you get hit you can, however, recast it right away.
Vile Spores - useless, take it off your action bars.
Withering Vine - the only reason to put only two points into chloro - another dot with abit of healing.
Radiant Spores - usually you can skip casting this while soloing the usual quests. In group or hard targets its quite useful for some overall healing. It gets better later when you get more dots.

Casting sequence: Vine>Leech>Spores>Touch>Necrosis.
You can skip Spores on trash mobs.
Once these 4 are on the target you can forget about it and move to the next. It will die to the DoTs.
You cast Vine and Leech first because they have a casting time, ergo you will minimize casting interrupts.

LEVEL 11-20 http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zwvR.L.se0hom.b
Neddra's Strength - typical single-target buff. You will get the group version later.
Revivify - useless, take it off your action bars.
Fear - It fears things.
Wither - a 1.5sec powerful slow. Fairly useless for questing since you simply tank all the mobs that attack you but otherwise good.
Devouring Shadows - the coolest instant targetted ground AoE. Its similar to other classes.
Sacrifice Life: Damage - takes some health to increase your damage. Good for burst with voidbolt spam.
Mortality - You shall love it. Uninterruptable (by normal dmg) powerfull aoe that heals you for 100% of dmg done. Yep, it's that good.
Neddra's Grasp - another DoT. With a flavour. Sow it into your casting rotation.

LEVEL 21-30 http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zwvR.xzM.se0homaLz.b
Reclaim Power - useless, take it off your action bars.
Consumption - Dispells a buff on the enemy giving you 5% mana. Use it every time to minimise "mana sacs" (can i coin this term? :) )
Radiate Death - Situational, not very useful overall.
Shadow Life - Very useful, especially when you end up pulling too many.
Warlock Armor - an upgrated armor, now fairly useful. Plays very well with this playstyle.

By now you should have: Vine>Leech>Spores>Touch>Necrosis>Grasp.
Cast that on a target and move to the next. After chainpulling 3-5 mobs like that finish with a couple of bolts and aoeloot them all :)

FAQ:
-Why did you not take X Y Z - because i found its fairy useless and the soul points are better spent elsewhere
-But i like using X Y Z - by all means do it. Im just pointing out the most efficient (not to be confused with "effective")
-Is it good in pvp? - its one of the strongest 1v1. In pvp focus only on spamming Life Leech on as many targets as possible - you should be able to tank the enemy team for abit with Shadow Life and Mortality... With abit of healing from a cleric ofc :) Putting all 6 dots on a target coupled with your void bolts you should be able to kill anyone even with healing... most of the times...
-Why not Pyromancer? This is better than pyromancer in every way. It kills your quest mobs faster and you end up with full health and mana all the time. /caek
-But seriously, no Draining Bolt? - needs buffing, right now its fairly wasteful. I mean its neat but not worth the soul point. You already have too many spells to manage.
-Neddra's Torture? - same as above - its neat, but spend that talent elsewhere.
-Dark Fury? - Do you realy need a 3rd Take?
-Summoning my skeleton is boo boo - wait for the Opportunity proc for an instant cast.
-Why not more than 2 points in Chloro - Warlock is DPS - so you maximise your dps. Bloom is not as useful since you can already heal yourself for free using other spells.

Edited, Feb 12th 2011 9:53pm by frag971

Edited, Feb 12th 2011 10:40pm by frag971

Very nice writeup.

There was nothing like this when I was leveling my Necro/Lock (32/34/0), wish I would of had this. I have not tried vines in my rotation, and only use it if someone is coming at me while engaged with several other mobs, thereby giving me a few extra sec. to down a mob.

With this build you get all the dots in the world and have some fun as well. You also get Neddra's Essence and Lich Form. Using Life leach and Essence Link will give you all the life you can use up. This is a damage build, not a burst damage build. You can add Pyro for a few burst damage spells.

I hope this info helps.

He don't know what else to say because he stole this guide off someone lol simple as.