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Warlock Talent Builds (WoW)  

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The Right Spec for you

Affliction

A common one for Affliction (other-wise known as our DoT/Damage-over-Time tree) would be 41/0/20 or 40/0/21. However, Affliction has an amazing amount of flexibility in terms of what talents make up the 41 (the 20 is a bit more set in stone, I will elaborate later). You could go with this which is your general layout in terms of talents.

There are also soloing talents (for example, Shadow Embrace Tier 5 helps improve Drain Life due to Soul Siphon Tier 2, it's recommended to have at least one point in this talent for this) like Fel Concentration Tier 3 allowing you to Drain Tank (Drain Life while they hit on you efficiently). Improved Howl of Terror Tier 8 is also a soloing/PvP talent because you won't ever really need to use it during raiding/instance runs if it is going smoothly (Theoretical here, I've used it many times in group situations because of an impending wipe).

Curse of Exhaustion Tier 5 is a PvP talent as it is useless in solo play (Curse of Recklessness is far more efficient at stopping running NPC enemies). Improved Curse of Weakness Tier 2 is a useless talent altogether, unless you intend on using Curse of Weakness against someone like a Rogue (I have heard other warlocks mentioning it helping) but personally I have never used it since you trained Curse of Agony. Even in raid situations, a warrior with Improved Demoralizing Shout reduces more Attack Power then Curse of Weakness does with the talent.

Malediction is a talent that many 25 (and heavy caster user groups) man raids desire and it gives way for an Affliction Warlock for a raid slot due to his utility. Curse of Shadows/Curse of Elements are one of the reasons Warlocks get their spots (other then top DPS and Healthstones/Summons). The boost in damage is noticeable and very worth your Curse if you have a couple of casters.

As I mentioned earlier, the 40/0/21 build is another not nearly as common build due to the lack of DPS compared to others. The loss in Unstable Affliction for Ruin is from reports I hear far from worth it.

Many little variations include things like Improved Healthstone (Tier 1 Demonology) which can allow you to have multiple Healthstones by having different ranks of this talent (2/2, 1/2, 0/2). Some builds grab Demonic Embrace (Tier 1 Demonology) which gives you far more stamina at the cost of a Warlocks most useless talent, spirit. Suppression Tier 1 is a often over-rated talent as it only affects your DoTs when Shadowbolts compose 45-55% of our damage still.

The 20 points in Destruction are generally agreed upon, seeing as the rest are not nearly useful (Cataclysm saves you minimal mana, far from helpful when you have one of the best classes and specs for regaining mana).

Demonology

This is your demon build, you generally use your felguard and here is a common talent build for it (5/45/11).

As far as I know, this build has much less variation then Affliction (Destruction too). It is good for early (and I've heard it can do well in Tier 5 raiding as well) Tier 4/Karazhan due to the Felguard beating on them and the additional spell damage you gain. You generally won't want to use this for Raiding.

However it is the Warlocks' soloing talent tree. The Felguard can hold threat/aggro easier then your Voidwalker and it deals a fair bit of damage too. Recommended for about level 56+ because of Demonic Frenzy, before it is slower then Affliction.

Destruction

Destruction becomes good when you have the gear to support it. Until then, other builds out-DPS it. 0/21/40 is your most common build with some tweaks here and there but it has all your key talents. A Fire warlock deals less damage then a Shadow warlock at the same gear/skill level. You want 202 Spell Hit, 900-1000 Spell Damage and 20% Spell Crit before you really start out-DPSing Affliction (also recommended get T5 2 piece set).

Shadowfury is a useful talent in PvP, but it does sub-par damage in a raid. Soloing it does fine as well. Cataclysm doesn't save you as much mana as you would think and I would think Emberstorm is better.

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This page last modified 2008-06-08 23:48:30.