Blood Pact: The final stretch
by V'Ming Chew 
Dec 12th 2007 at 9:00AM
Ding, 58! You're officially eligible for Outland content now. Go ahead, step through the Dark Portal. The quality of Outland gear simply outclasses the stuff you will get in the old world, for the same time investment. Yes, Outland mobs will hit harder and fights will last longer, but the increased difficulty shouldn't faze a Warlock, and will certainly be pie if you brought a friend (preferably a healer) along. Be cautious with the pulls, remember your lessons, and you should do just fine in the Outland at level 58.
Completists among us would sneer at this suggestion to skip content. If you're in no hurry to hit 70, then more questing power to you!
The last stage of leveling from 61 to 70 in a nutshell: no new pets, no new mechanics. If you are level 60, you have pretty much learnt all the tricks of the Warlock trade. A 70 lock is essentially a 60 with (much) bigger numbers and some nifty tools to make this stage of the game less laborious.
Fel Armor
For 61 levels you've been buffing yourself with Demon Armor/Skin - a nice but rather 'blah' self-buff. At level 62, the game gives you +50 spell damage with Fel Armor. Yes, spell damage - one of the most important stats for a DPS caster class. Rank 2 of Fel Armor, learnt at level 69, gives you a sweet 100 points of spell damage!
Fel Armor blows Demon Armor out of the water, period. Drop the latter off your bars to free up a button slot. Never ever forget reapplying Fel Armor to yourself every half hour! Demonic Aegis in the demonology tree makes Fel Armor even more outrageous (thanks, Diabla).
Incinerate
One final nuke for warlocks at level 64. This spell is a mana-efficient, faster-casting replacement for shadow bolt while soloing or short fights. It's got a nice, 'crawling' fire animation too!
Interestingly according to these calculations, as a chaser for immolate, this nuke tops shadow bolt in DPS if you don't have any points in the destruction tree. With Bane and Improved Shadow Bolt factored in, shadow bolts still reign for sustained combat.
Unless you spec heavily into the destruction tree (Emberstorm and Shadow & Flame) and have good fire-biased gear, the general consensus is that shadow bolt will remain your staple nuke.
Soulshatter
Soulshatter, learnt at level 66, gives you an aggro dump every five minutes. At the cost of one soul shard, you reduce your all-around threat by 50%. Obviously you're not going to use this ability much while you're soloing, but Soulshatter is essential when it comes to group work and raids. Be careful using this AoE effect around mobs that haven't been aggro'ed, Soulshatter will actually turn them onto you! (Tested this again, soulshatter doesn't aggro mobs - thanks, Atilim.)
Ritual of Souls
It used to be a pain handing out healthstones via the trade window, especially when you're the only Warlock in a big raid. At level 68, you can create an automatic healthstone dispenser at the cost of just one soul shard, with the help of two other teammates. Each soulwell is good for 10 healthstones. Tell your helpers to not fidget during the ritual, or it'll fail and you can only do this again after five minutes. This spell is such a good idea that I'm surprised that mages only got their own food/drink dispenser last patch.
Seed of Corruption
If you like to make things go boom, this is the spell for you at level 70. Seed of Corruption (SoC) is a combo DoT/AoE effect that replaces Corruption. In other words, SoC overwrites corruption and you can't have both on a single target. When the seeded target takes 1044 damage from any source, the seed explodes, causing glorious AoE damage within 15 yards (cue maniacal laughter).
Non-lethal AoE damage from other SoC explosions, however, will not trigger a detonation. In other words, the explosion from target A has to kill target B, before it triggers the detonation in target B. This prevents you from setting off a 'chain' of explosions on a bunch of healthy targets.
Note that a seed's explosion only affects enemies around the seeded target. If target A's seed explodes, only target B and C gets the AoE damage, not target A. Target A will only suffer the DoT component of SoC, if any before detonation. So you'll want to seed as many different targets as possible to maximize the effect of this spell. The AoE damage also passes through walls and floors (This has been fixed last patch). As with any other AoE effect, be wary of attracting lots of unwanted attention from mobs!
Talents
At this point, you should have developed a good picture of what each talent tree offers to make an informed decision. There is no single 'best leveling spec' at this stage, although I am inclined to say that the Affliction gives you the most bang point for point, with little to no 'filler' talents.
I'd even venture to say that Blizzard did a good job with our trees, differentiating them through playstyle, rather than viability. All three trees give you good DPS, and only really differ in forms of delivery. Warlocks truly have a choice, and your choice simply depends on your preferred playing style, if you're not a min-maxer.
A recap of pros and cons of each tree:
If you're curious, this was my build at level 70, which was good for solo farming (there was a lot of farming to do as a fresh 70) and delivering some respectable burst damage on trash mobs in instances. Some warlocks swear by a Felguard demonology build such as this for leveling post-60, due to the pet's excellent DPS. For all intents and purposes, there is no one perfect build for all situations. Picking one talent over another is a value choice, and that entirely depends on your experience and preference. Check out Chris' excellent discussion of a 43/0/18 build.
There you go, a full-fledged cultist of the dark arts! For some, 70 represents the end of a long road (at least until Wrath of the Lich King). For many, this is just the beginning of the 'endgame', whether it's raiding, PvP or both.
Filed under: Warlock, How-tos, Leveling, Guides, Talents, (Warlock) Blood Pact
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fman12 Jul 9th 2009 3:47AM
Also, be sure to get Bartender4 at lvl 60.
Electrocuted Dec 12th 2007 9:25AM
For me, it's all about Fel Armor and then Seed of corruption. I actually just ding'd 60 last night, so this fantastic little article applies nicely.
I've considered respec'ing demonology, but as I leveled affliction so it's really what I'm used to. I'd probably spend a lot of time hittng my 1 key hoping for dark pact and getting whatever I'd put there instead of dark pact (most likely the petattack macro I have tucked away so my imp doesn't come out of phase shift to try and be helpful.)
You're also absolutely right about the gear in outlands being phenominal. The first couple of quest parts totally blew my old gear out of the water. New staff... with animation, and about double the value ( I use pawn to help with gear choosing, it seriously was double,) and a stylish fedora to replace the hood I was wearing.
Of course, just after dinging 60... I gazed longingly at the dreadsteed quest, and am working at that.
Tom Dec 12th 2007 9:36AM
Pretty sure that SoC is LOS now, and won't explode through walls anymore. This used to be a BIG issue in Kara and other dungeons.... but from what I remember in patch notes, and personal experience, it's LOS now.
Atilim Dec 12th 2007 9:32AM
About Soulshatter, don't think it will aggro any mobs, it has a range of 40 yards and it will mean that you can't even use it during normal trashsmobs, and I was forced to use it sometimes during trashsmobs.
Also the art about SoC has been fixed with 2.3 I think, it no longer hits mobs that are in another room.
Diabla Dec 12th 2007 9:38AM
SoC no longer goes through walls, floors, ect. It was a detontation Lo Sissue that was correted with the last patch. Also, it should be noted that if a Warlock is demonology (which many locks use for leveling) Fel Armor isn't just +50 spell damage for them. Talented, it is +80 spell damage. +130 at rank 2.
Mort Dec 12th 2007 9:36AM
"Be careful using this AoE effect around mobs that haven't be aggro'ed, Soulshatter will actually turn them onto you!"
Did this change recently? I remember accidently hitting it instead of my flying mount in an area surrounded by yellows and nothing happened. It might do that for hostile mobs. Or Blizz changed it.
"Tell your helpers to not fidget during the ritual, or it'll fail and you can only do this again after five minutes."
Who-huh-wha? I hope this is just a "Tell them so they don't move and you don't have to recast right away to save yourself from a headache." As this very thing happened to me in AV last night and I just had to recast it.
Finnicks Dec 13th 2007 5:40AM
I'm gonna have to agree with Mort here. The cooldown for Ritual of Souls only triggers upon successful completion of the ritual. If someone moves and causes it to fail, the cooldown never starts.
Diabla Dec 12th 2007 9:47AM
I had to do..Ii just logged in and Soul Shattered in the middle of a group of mobs.. nada, nothing. This spell doesn't aggro anything. I'm not sure if it used to, but it didn't now.
sephirah Dec 12th 2007 9:56AM
5 spells described, 3 errors...
Gratz!
Ahoni Dec 12th 2007 9:59AM
I also have to question the Seed of Corruption detonation issue. I use Seed for AoE and could have sworn that if I put seed on mob1 and on mob2, that the explosion from mob1 would trigger explosion on mob2. We were running the gauntlet up to Eagle boss in ZA last night and I was seeding lots of birds and it looked like the explosions did trigger each other. Of course we had two locks, so it was hard to keep track of whose Seed was blowing up.
Do you have any reference for this issue?
Mats Dec 12th 2007 10:33AM
Another locks SoC damage will proc your SoC damage, but your own SoC damage won't proc another SoC that you cast. So if you combo, explosivo!
Stov Dec 12th 2007 12:47PM
Seed of Corruption is such a great spell - Much higher damage potential than the other two AOE spells warlocks get and the fact you can chain cast it across a bunch of enemies makes it the aoe spell of choice for my guild's raiding.
Also, with a decent Paladin tank to hold rock solid aoe aggro, it makes Shattered Halls (heroic or normal) a great laugh and a speedy instance :)
dsimon Dec 12th 2007 12:22PM
What I don't get is the juxtaposition of statements like "60-70 is nothing new, just bigger numbers" but the majority of the article is about the variety of 60+ skills that warlocks get...
FriendlySoviet Dec 12th 2007 12:50PM
I think he meant the Warlock play style, in which case doesn't change all that much.
kellzea Dec 13th 2007 4:12AM
your 70 soloing spec seems quite nice, but to me you seem to be using teh destro tree to add burst damage to an affliction build that simply does not need it.
for lvling and soloing i would say that pre 70 afliction is the best. i enjoyed it emensely, but i find that the points you put in destro are much better spent in demo just to add more weight to your affliction.
i found that i simply never used shadow bolt as afliction (only on teh occasions that i got "a free one" from nightfall)
teh beauty with affliction is that you can dot up a mob and forget it, just move on to teh next one, it will hit you once and then die. if its a bit persistant then drain life. they dont last long. and yes, if done right you dont have ANY downtime at all, i managed a good few levels before i took even one sip of filtered dreniac water. just steal your pets mana, no need to even life tap.
i aim now destro demo, and while i put little stock in pure demo builds i find demo a fantastic souce of bonus dps to any spec. drop improved shadow bolt as again you simply dont need it, immolate, incinerate confligrate, thats it, 3 hits and your target mob of 71 or less will be at best sitting on one hundred health, wand his face off or let your vw kill him as you turn to face your next victim.
once built right your fire spells will be criting one in three, and criting at the high 2000s if your UNLUCKY. 3-4k if your gear is purple. the only time shadow bolt is good is when you get that pesky fire immune mob we all hate. but lets face it, they are quite rare if you know where not to grind.
with the advent of soc, destro locks became quite easily teh best aoe fighters in the game. soc soc shadow fury rain of fire, tbh you rarly even need rain of fire, well placed socs that you detonate with shadowfury will mean the all explode at the same time, and with its quite simply "silly" crit rate you will hit everything for 2k x as many socs are up plus 2k from shadowfury.
ding dong all teh wiches are dead!