Filed under: Warlock

We've said before that there's a WoW class for every type of player and if you find yourself a bit drawn to the darker side of WoW, perhaps warlock is the one for you. Warlocks have a unique playstyle in the game: they're a bit like mages, in that they're cloth-wearing casters, and a bit like hunters, in that they rely on pets. And yet they don't play very much like either class, relying on DoT (damage over time) spells and channeled spells to do damage and restore their own health and mana.

So is it time to go over to the dark side and level a warlock? Let's look at what the class has to offer.

Just what is a warlock?
As mages are master of the arcane, warlocks are masters of the dark arts, focusing on shadow and fire spells. They summon demonic minions, place curses on their enemies, and drain health from their opponents, and can even send the most fearsome of warriors running in terror. Their abilities are powered not only by their mana pool, but will sometimes cost health, which warlocks can drain from their foes as they die. They do their damage at range, using curses, banes, DoTs, drains, AoEs, and direct damage spells. Warlocks also offer a good amount of utility to a group with conjured Healthstones (which restore health on use) and Soulstones (which can bring a dead player to life) as well as their curses (which cause a variety of negative effects on a monster).

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill wants to coin WoL'lock, but isn't sure if she should.

Last week, I started off with some basics of World of Logs (WoL) regarding warlocks. I started to write a column to go spec by spec, but later I realized that might become a game of find and replace with the different buffs or DoTs important to each spec. So instead, this week is another general World of Logs lesson with a little more specific caster DPS focus with warlock flavor. We'll just build up to the nitty gritty spells next week.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill wonders how many logs would a warlock log if a warlock could log logs?

Occasionally I get a request to look through someone's raid log on World of Logs for warlock improvement. Sometimes it's for a guild applicant and sometimes it's for another tweeter. A thing I've thought about doing for a long time is a World of Logs 101 on warlocks -- both for warlock players and for non-warlock raid leaders.

I'm starting with the bare basics: how to tell warlocks apart on a World of Logs parse and exploring the DPS rankings. (It's actually not that difficult anymore!)

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill may play affliction in-game, but really she's a destro 'lock IRL.

I'm starting to dislike hit rating again. Previously, with reforging, it was totally possible to sit there with 14.96%, 14.97%, 14.98%, 14.99%, or the occasional rare times I nearly hit fifteen-even, just off by a mere handful of rating points. Now, with the huge amounts of stats on our gear, I feel like we're approaching Wrath-era hit rating juggling, where a new piece means you're way under hit cap or way over hit cap.

This is not a fun stat balancing. Hit is coming back around to the pre-reforge era where it it's actually irritating to balance, not just annoying.

But I don't want to talk about spell hit this time. I want to talk about the very-coolness of haste.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill celebrates one year at WoW Insider with a fel fire victory.

I promise, I won't put unfortunate spoilers in the header this time.

One of my favorite Blood Pacts to write was a narrative based around our spells and the hints of a fascinating possible subplot just for warlocks. Instead of writing a traditional, straightforward guide for the final boss in the quest for green fire -- Ackthal's already written a great one -- I want to celebrate my personal victory with the quest and another special occasion with this story post.

See, this is my 53rd Blood Pact. I believe a certain moonkin now owes me a crown for the longest reign as WoW Insider's Defense Against With the Dark Arts professor.

For the sake of space, I've obviously shortened the story down from my actual experience with the final fight. But many of the elements are there, from spell details to actual NPC roleplay (none of the NPCs' dialogue is mine). Jump behind the cut to catch the story.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill scraps another attempt at Kanrethad to discuss being a pet class instead.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous pet bugs in encounter design like jumping down into Nefarian's pit in Blackwing Descent so your pet then did nothing but stand in the middle, or to take up Doomguards against a despawning abyssal phase 3 in Throne of the Four Winds -- and by opposing end them: to die, to sacrifice.

To sacrifice, perchance to DPS; Aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death, what meter-topping dreams of 5.0 may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil (no, not that one!), must give our developers pause.

My terrible warlock Shakespeare adaptation aside, we've had the ponderings about how tied to pets warlocks should or shouldn't be. As I continue to throw myself at Kanrethad's own demonic stampede, I've had some thoughts about the subject.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill muses about tanking, healing, and why she really does play a DPS.

I have a confession: I was once a tank. Technically I could have been half a tank, because I think I healed just as often, but once upon a time I rolled a druid with the intent of getting a melee DPS perspective.

One night in Wrath of the Lich King, my first guild had some trouble with kiting the adds on Gluth. So we upped the tank count to 3: the paladin tank moved to the back for holy tag with the undead while the former-bear warrior walked me through my feral spellbook as I sat in bear form on that pipe. I think it was the extra Mauls that hooked me. I became a bear tank with a branch-waving offspec.

I have fond memories of alt or PUG raids where I had cooldown-busting health pools and hero-bear resurrections between Gormok's death and the arena entrance of Acidmaw and Dreadscale. But as my guild tore apart in the beginnings of Icecrown Citadel, I've been back to pewpewing from the back as a warlock. My bear is merely an alt.

But my bear has made my warlock a little stronger.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill will tell you how she became the princess warlock of a continent called Pandaria by switching to saur'lock spec.

You know me: I play a warlock spec that starts with a 'D' only over several dozen copies of my cold, dead body. I'm diehard affliction whether the spec is on top or not. But that doesn't mean I don't ever pay attention to the DPS simulations. I just think the vocal playerbase hedges their bets a little too much on what comes out of the BiS heroic simulations.

Fortunately for me, Ghostcrawler also feels players put too much emphasis on SimulationCraft when it comes to spec balance in PvE. Does this mean SimulationCraft is not valuable? No, it just means that players should be more aware of what's going into a particular simulation and how to interpret whatever data comes out.

What I love about these posts is that little glimpse of insight they provide into the thought process that goes into balancing the class mechanics in a game like World of Warcraft. I'll be honest, I'm glad I'm not one of the people involved in that job. To me it seems like an endless headache to try and make sure all classes are different enough to feel unique, but similar enough such that a raid or dungeon group isn't punished for lacking one indispensable class, and I wouldn't have the patience for it. But I certainly admire and respect those who do!

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill maybe decides that commenter-suggested Zul'duar is the better name than Thund'uar for the troll-like Ulduar raid instance, Throne of Thunder.

I mentioned last week that I'd discuss the changes for warlocks while listing out loot in the new raid instance. I may have fibbed a little. I tried to slide in patch change discussion without it reading like I shoved two posts into the space of one, and I miserably failed.

You can read the latest patch notes for yourself, but the PvE DPS gist is that affliction's petless power days are diminished if not over and demonology might be the new top dog. PvP warlocks might be more interested in Blood Fear's metamorphosis from an offensive fear to the Nature's Grasp-like Blood Horror and Soul Leech's change from a trickle heal to a stacking shield.

Regarding of whether you chase Conquest or Valor Points, we warlocks will have a major problem in patch 5.2. I'm not talking about the endless debates of whether fire should be green or whether warlocks should always have a minion at their side.

I'm talking about the removal of the imp ability Blood Pact, due to Dark Intent gaining the 10% Stamina buff to its effect. Future warlocks will wonder what this column is named for!

Various people have been referring to Throne of Thunder as Thund'uar, a name I fully intend to steal and use. It's just a perfect blend of the new raid and its supposed raid model, Ulduar, with the expected troll-like apostrophe thrown in for good measure.

But this week I won't be listing out the Thund'uar loot drops; I'll just drop in with a lighter piece covering gear miscellany and the new faction offerings. Next week, we can discuss how the PTR patch buffs and nerfs fit in with the expected performance of warlocks in Tier 15 while listing out the loot, instead of dropping a lump of lists in your lap.

I've already done some Raiding with Leashes vanilla raid posts. The next logical step would be Burning Crusade soloing, but I've tried and failed to make a glorified loot list more interesting to read, since BC content tends to be more "walk in and win" nowadays than an actual soloing contest.

So, while I wrangle out an adventure in tiers four to six, I will talk about killing dragons solo as a warlock in order to grab dragon mounts.

I'm not talking about dragons that require friends by your side to complete: e.g., Deathwing's two dragon mounts, Ultraxion's mount, completing a dragonstick, or Al'Akir's dragon drop. Al'Akir has actually been soloed before by a warlock, but you'll need friends in order to clear his genie council first. I'm talking dragons you can go beat up by yourself.

Are you sure you don't want green fire? Quite sure? Positively sure? Absolutely, one hundred percent sure?

Don't lie to me like that. You want it. You want to do the end of this questline, because it's so badass. I was spinning circles in my seat and giggling maniacally at how Kanrethad completely wiped the roof of the Black Temple with my body for two hours straight, because it was so much fun to be challenged not merely as a player, but as a whole warlock. You're going to use abilities you've almost never used before in this questline, and you're going to love all of it.

I hope I don't have to say it too much, but spoilers ahead.

I have to admit, the Mists of Pandaria reason for soloing old raids is trying to match my minion's weapons to Matthew Rossi's warrior columns. Unfortunately, the only thing I have is Ashkandi. My new mission is to get Reclaimed Ashkandi for a complete Wrathguard set to properly mock warriors with.

You've probably read how to spec for old raids and you might have your own Ashkandi (or two) from visiting old Blackwing Lair for some pets. Now, let's finish up Raiding with Leashes and other achievements in Naxxramas.