Filed under: Warlock

WoW Insider is looking for a warlock columnist

by Alex Ziebart Feb 7th 2012 at 1:00PM

WoW Insider's warlock columnist position has, over the years, developed a ... reputation. It's our Defense Against the Dark Arts. We've never managed to keep an instructor around for more than a year, and their reigns are often much shorter. Tragedy and misfortune tend to follow those who take up the warlock's quill. Unsurprisingly, we're in need of another brave soul to take up the position -- hopefully, someone who can overcome the adversity the position presents.

We're looking for someone truly passionate about World of Warcraft and the warlock class. Every other week, you will be dazzling our readers with your knowledge of the ins and outs of the class, covering everything from leveling guides to raid tactics, PvP strats, patch changes, and recommended addons for all specs and playstyles. We expect you to have a head for research and possess the ability to translate that research into well-written articles that are accessible to both casual and hardcore players alike.

Applicants often ask if they'll be allowed to contribute beyond their assigned class column. Yes, absolutely. As long as your column is meeting its deadline on a regular basis, you will be able to do more around the site.

If this sounds like the chance you've been waiting for, you'll find all the information you need to apply on our applications page. Be sure to submit everything that page requests. Being able to follow simple instructions is the most important part of the job. You have until end of day on Feb. 21 to submit your application.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

6 ways to increase your warlock's DPS

by Tyler Caraway Jan 23rd 2012 at 7:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid.

As a warlock, I can name no fewer than six methods that the amateur demonologist can use in order to up his worth to a raid. Oh, while I could easily write out an entire Homer-esque adventure exclusively on what fledgling casters can do for their damage, brevity is oft the soul of wit -- so I will merely keep to the upped ante of six, to demonstrate that warlocks shall not have themselves outdone by trite magelings. After all, a mage really is useful for nothing more than a light snack and easy travel.

1. Know your spec. Unlike those wretched creatures that shall not be named, warlocks are blessed with multiple viable specs that they can use for raiding. I know that this is a topic I have blathered on about time and time again, but for a pure DPS class, it's rather important. Unlike my counterpart balance druid, there is no rigidity in spec choice. A balance druid will always be a balance druid, regardless of how strong their spec is in relation to feral or other DPS classes in the game. Warlocks and other pures are given that luxury.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: How Mists of Pandaria will fix warlock PvP

by Tyler Caraway Jan 16th 2012 at 4:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid.

Greetings, warlocks. I know that I have generally focused heavily on PvE instead of PvP, but this is more so due to the fact that PvP is a difficult subject to generalize. Strategies are specific to the composition that you run and what you're up against, and they are exceptionally difficult to define in rote patterns. That's the draw that PvP has over PvE -- it's always changing, always different, always unpredictable, at least in the good cases. Yet there is one thing I can say about PvP: Affliction is the spec of choice.

Then again, when are the few times where that hasn't been true? There might be small pockets here and there when demonology or destruction has some meager viability in the PvP world, but they've normally been rather short-lived. Affliction has generally been our default PvP spec, much as mages have relied on frost. No more! I know people are tied of hearing it, but Mists of Pandaria will fix it.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Dark Intent update and T13 gearing

by Tyler Caraway Dec 19th 2011 at 5:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid.

Greeting again, darklings. It's that time of the week once more for us to talk about all that drives our purpose: bringing horrible pain to our enemies. There are multiple cogs in our wheel of destruction, but this week I want to focus in on two of those. To start, there's the small matter of the ever-constant debate on weaponry and trinkets, something that comes up with every new tier. Second, there's the issue of Dark Intent. While it's been relatively established on the priority of the buff, there are a few kinks to work out, as always. The prior settlements that were made were based upon data that was relevant back in tier 11. Although there isn't too much that has changed since this, Blizzard's adjustments and gearing does merit bringing up the issue once more.

There can be little doubt that shadow priests are the best recipients for Dark Intent. A significantly large portion of their damage come from DoTs; furthermore, Mind Flay has a unique interaction with the ability as well that results in an even higher return. As shadow priests gain gear, more of their damage does actually shift toward Mind Blast, plus their tier 13 increases more of their non-DoT based damage. Again, none of this changes that they are still the best target for Dark Intent, but it does slightly reduce the disparity between shadow priests and non-shadow priests when getting it.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Cataclysm-era leveling guide for warlocks

by Tyler Caraway Dec 13th 2011 at 4:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid.

Of all the things that I am, for all of the multitude of alts that I have, one things that I've never been all that good at is writing leveling guides. I have a hard enough time as it is following said guides; writing out my chaotic leveling process is a chore and a half. That all being said, the one thing I do have enormous amounts of experience in leveling. I've nearly reached the full limit on the amount of characters that I'm allowed to have. Allow me, then, to impart some of what I know about bringing your fledgling warlock up to speed into the endgame. After all, while the journey might be half the fun, the destination is all so glorious. We do need someone to stomp on those pesky mages.

The first order of business is to know your spec going into the game. While all warlocks focus on damage (so we don't have quite the same complications as hybrid classes), which spec you choose to go with is still important. Affliction has long been touted as the prime warlock leveling spec, and that is still somewhat true. Affliction offers the best multi-target, fast-paced farming that can't be matched by any of the others. The downside to this is that mob farming has fallen the way of the dinosaurs in WoW leveling; instead, questing and running dungeons is far more efficient, and affliction doesn't have its strength there.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Initial impressions of 4.3 raiding as a warlock

by Tyler Caraway Dec 5th 2011 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Dungeon gearing for warlocks in patch 4.3

by Tyler Caraway Nov 29th 2011 at 6:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid.

If I did not know any better, warlocks, I would think that the world was conspiring against me. Last week I had promised that I would be doing a gear list from the newest 5-mans to be released with patch 4.3, but I was deterred by not having access to Wowhead's marvelous PTR site. This week, it's Blizzard itself attempting to knock this train off the tracks by releasing the ability list and talent calculators for Mists of Pandaria. While the talents are important in their own right, nothing from said ability list was really all that shocking; indeed, a majority of it I had predicted rather well in last week's issue.

Therefore, despite all attempts to get me to focus otherwise, I will actually be keeping up my promise and providing you with a cleanly laid-out gearing list for the next patch (which should be coming out tomorrow, truth be told). To prevent you from wasting your days farming for an item that you might replace, valor point items will also be listed given that you can earn the currency through 5-man content. Let's be on with the show!

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: The cost of talent consolidation in Pandaria

by Tyler Caraway Nov 21st 2011 at 7:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests for something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid.

Greetings, warlocks. It's that time of the week once again when we talk about all those dark arts and such that we do so love to practice. My original intention this week was to talk about many of the sweet items that you can pull out of the new dungeons coming out in 4.3. All of them are on the same ilevel as what you can get from regular Firelands, making them ideal for non-raiders or players who haven't gotten every drop that they've been looking for -- and in some cases, a few items are even better that what you could find from raiding. Alas, at the time of this writing, Wowhead's PTR servers aren't working for me and seem to be down -- a shame, but there's always next week!

In lieu of that, I'll take this opportunity to discuss a different matter that's be on my mind of late dealing with the changes coming in 5.0. Talents are undergoing a major overhaul, and we know that many of the current talents are going to be baked into the base class. While this works well for other classes, it's a bit awkward when it comes to warlocks. Join me as I show you and toss in a bit of speculation for affliction.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Looking at the developer's Q&A

by Tyler Caraway Nov 13th 2011 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact, Mists of Pandaria

Class Balance Q&A: Warlock

by Alex Ziebart Nov 9th 2011 at 5:18PM

Zumzum asked:

Hello, the warlock community has been excited/intrigued/concerned by the announcement of the three resources for warlocks in MoP. Could we have more details about them, especially on the Infernal Embers of Destruction ?

Xelnath answered:

Hey Zumzum, while the new Warlock resources are still in-development, here's the current iteration:

When you incinerate an immolated target, your character builds up Infernal Embers. Infernal Embers increase the power of your next single Conflagrate or Soul Fire by 10% each. That ability uses all of the embers you have.

There may also be additional abilities which generate or consume Infernal Embers, but we're still experimenting.

Here's a little bonus: as you generate more and more embers, your character slowly ignites, until you're basically a walking torch. Infernal Embers currently have no cap, but we'll likely add one before Mists ships.

Rhonyzul asked:

I'm very excited about the upcoming revisions to Warlock specs in Mists of Pandaria. Looking at the new talent tree, I noticed that Demonology warlocks will be casting a spell called Malefic Grasp. Will this be Demo's new filler spell in the rotation and how does it play differently from Shadow Bolt and Incinerate? Last, does the name of the spell imply that it will be a spell which is cast at melee range?

Xelnath answered:

Demonology Warlocks...? I don't recall any demonology warlocks running around with Malefic Grasp...

Okay, okay, since you asked - Malefic Grasp replaces Shadow Bolt for Affliction. It is a channelled nuke which increases the damage of your DoTs on the target by increasing their tick rate by 100%.

BAldana asked:

Are there any plans to do something about Demonology Warlocks and Pet Swapping for 4.3?

Xelnath answered:

Hey Baldana,

Yes, we plan to eliminate Pet Twisting for Demonology. Step 1 - replace Soul Shards. Step 2 - fix Demon Soul.

One popular idea has been to give each spec a different version of Demon Soul. However, we haven't finalized that idea. We'd love to see some discussion about this on the Warlock forums.

Guest asked:

Any additional information about how Soul Shards will work for Affliction? How is the new resource going to change up the rotation?

Xelnath answered:

Four major changes.

1. Soul Shards are passively regenerated out of combat. (1 per 45 sec atm)
2. Soul Shards are generated by Drain Soul, even if you don't kill the target.
3. Soulburn has a 15 second cooldown, but each ability can only be soulburned once a minute.
4. We're adding new Soulburn: X abilities. An example - Soulburn: Curse - your Curses apply to all targets within Y yards of the target.

Kitch asked:

Looking over the new talents for MoP, it still looks like there will be required talents, or talents that obviously designed for a certain spec. Demo warlocks would obviously pick the talent that gives them the upgraded pets, or bear druids would pick the talents that give damage reduction. Is there any plan to go back over these talents and make them truly optional?

Xelnath answered:

Hey Kitch,

You know that's a great point and we're still working on our talent trees. In the case of the Warlock Grimoire of Supremacy and Grimoire of Service - both of those talents benefit from your demon boosting mastery.

... However, Demonic Fury (currently) also increases the damage you do outside of Metamorphosis and this value increases with your mastery. Which means Sacrifice can be strong too...

Disclaimer: This can and will change as needed between now and Mists.

PenguinFTW asked:

What are your thoughts on the state of Demonology's pets? Our Felguard does sub-par single target damage and is only used for its Demon Soul and AoE, leading to a very clunky pet swapping mechanic. Is there any chance that our Felguard could stand out like it should, or are we going to have to wait until 5.0 to maybe use our spec's signature ability.

Xelnath answered:

While I can't speak for everyone on the class team, I am really upset I haven't seen my succubus in like two years - I promised her the heart of a gnome and fresh hunter tears.

We really want to make it viable for each spec to use a pet that isn't tied to their spec. For that reason, the intent is to decouple the pet from the spec and instead increase your pet choice based on its utility.

However, I realize I haven't hit your personal question - the Felguard. I love Jhootom as much as anyone else, but it became quickly clear that if we made the Felguard defacto better than every other pet for Demonology - you simply wouldn't use an Imp, Succubus or Voidwalker.

So our intent is to make the single-target DPS close, but the Felguard remains the best AoE pet. Oh - and Grimoire of Supremacy allows you to upgrade your Felguard into a Wrathguard. (It was just missing from the tooltip in Blizzcon)

Daniel Cutler asked:

A while back you guys mentioned the ability for Warlocks to change the gender of their pets. Is this still being talked about? I didn't hear anything about it at Blizzcon and I'm still very interested in customizing my pets.

Xelnath answered:

We haven't forgotten about this - however, when it comes down to getting a cool, new race for Mists or getting a Femguard model - we need to make the right choices for the whole game.

Horrorcosmic asked:

Will there be some changes to the Warlocks Affliction spec in 4.3? I've only seen changes for Demo and Destro

Xelnath answered:

We feel internally that Affliction is one of the best feeling specs in the game. While not planning any major changes, internally, we've implemented a system that allows you to refresh Corruption, UA or Bane of Agony up to 6 seconds before the DoT falls off without clipping any ticks.

Jacob Johnson asked:

Is it possible to get some new Warlock demon designs? Like a random imp model when you first summon it and if you want a different look you pay like you do with the names. Is this possible? I mean it can't be too hard, you have different color variations on most of the models...

Xelnath answered:

You know, while that sounds easy, the underlying system that supports the Warlock pet system is slightly different than the Hunter pet system. I would love to have a bright green Felguard - however, if we were to add such a thing, I'd rather it be something you earned as a player, rather than just adjusting a slider on your character screen.

Char asked:

Speaking of Warlocks, I really miss the Imp Cannon build from back in the day. Will the little guy be given some more love in either Demo or Destro spec?

Xelnath:

I'm going to be collecting feedback on Warlock pets from the forums this week. Let me know what you loved or hated about them on the class forums.

Khevyn asked:

One of the first Warlock talents mentions Shadowbolt, Incinerate and Malefic Grasp. Are those going to be the 3 main nukes of the various Warlock specs? If so, what are sub-10 Warlocks going to use? '

Xelnath answered:

All Warlocks get Shadow Bolt at level 1. Then Shadow Bolt will transform around level 40 based on your spec.

Affliction: Malefic Grasp
Demonology: (in Meta) Demonic Slash
Destruction: Incinerate

Ankafa asked:

I just saw that you guys will improve the range of resurrection spells across the board in 4.3, but no Soulstone love for now. Any plans to do it? If not, why? I think that SS has the lowest range of all res skills (saying by experince, cant find range on tooltip), which makes me run around a lil' bit to res someone in midfight.

Celestalon answered:

Soulstone will indeed get a 40yd range in 4.3.

A.J. Ferolie asked:

For the warlocks new minions, would their jobs be the same as their lower form jobs? Lke Felgaurd being for groups of bad guys, void walker for Tanking, Imps for magic blastic, and succubus for single targets and seduction? Also, I hope the Shivan's are awsome. Can you give us some of their abilties?

Xelnath answered:

Yes.

Actually... we were talking about Shivan abilities yesterday. We don't know what she'll have yet. What would you like to see? Let us know on the forums.

Grind asked:

How Kij'jeaden cunning will work? I stand still and cast spell at normal rate, then move so casting speed slows down and if I'll cease moving will casting speed increase to normal again?

Celestalon answered:

If a spell would have been interrupted by movement, the spell casting speed slows down (to half speed) for the remainder of the cast, regardless of whether you stop immediately after.

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Filed under: Warlock

Blood Pact: Distinguishing destruction from fire

by Tyler Caraway Nov 7th 2011 at 7:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests for something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid.

I like to think that I've been a solid supporter of the warlocks in their struggles against the devil mages. I know that I do have some split loyalties with the druids, but let's be fair in saying that a druid is wicked awesome in comparison to a mage. With that in mind, know that it brings me no joy to say that I'm worried. We talked about the new talents coming in the next expansion last week, and while I love what talents warlocks had and I think the new system has some great potential, there's one facet about it that concerns me.

Destruction and fire are very closely linked in playstyle. Both are heavy nuking specs that also utilize DOT effects to boost their damage. They both make use of an otherwise unwieldy long spell, albeit in different methods, but one cannot deny that the two specs are fairly similar. One of the key differences right now to set destruction apart from fire is Conflagration and Backdraft -- destruction has a form of focus on speed that fire doesn't. With traditional specs going out the window, one has to worry about how Blizzard intends to distinguish destruction from fire.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Looking at new warlock talents

by Tyler Caraway Oct 31st 2011 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact, Mists of Pandaria

Blood Pact: A warlock history

by Tyler Caraway Oct 24th 2011 at 7:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you.

BlizzCon has since come and passed, and I am quite sure that epic adventures were had by all who attended. Despite the event's being done and gone, I am in the unfortunate position of needing to write this nearly a week in advance, which can be killer when there's so much juicy news floating around there now. At the moment, I'm probably hovering somewhere over the midwest, or I've finally gotten home and have crashed into my long-missed bed. But don't worry -- not even death would prevent my ego from finding a way to get my self-important words to your screen.

If you happen to also follow my Shifting Perspectives column and read this past week's, then you would have gotten a nice brush of moonkin history. While I'm not generally the type to mix my colors with whites (at least, not after that bout of horrible pink underwear), I thought that the topic was rather appropriate, given the circumstances. I've spent much of the these past few weeks talking about the future of warlocks; it's only right that we now return to those things that have gotten us to where we are today.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: The new destruction in patch 4.3

by Tyler Caraway Oct 17th 2011 at 10:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you.

This is a good week to be a warlock, my friends (although I would find myself hard pressed to find a week when it isn't). While there are all the usual means for celebration, today is a particularly special one; today is the day when we move one step closer to the ultimate dream. Yes, partially the dream of Blizzard's finally waking up to its mistake and deleting the mage class, though that one still needs a bit more work -- but I'm talking about a different dream here, the dream where warlocks are free to choose whichever spec they prefer in PVE without feelings of holding back their raid.

The latest PTR build has held a number of delicious buffs for destruction, buffs that have been long past due. Will they be enough? Will warlocks be a pure class with three -- count them, three -- viable raiding specs? That's a matter still up for debate; what's worth mentioning is that Blizzard is making an effort. This week, of course, will be dedicated to that effort: what's changed, how those changes impact the spec, and what this means for destruction come 4.3. Hold on to your demons, lovelies -- things are about to get hot. Get it? Destruction ... fire ... hot. It's a funny.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Blood Pact: Encounter design, demonology, and tier 13

by Tyler Caraway Oct 10th 2011 at 3:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you.

Patches are always trying times, more so for pure classes than any other. Hybrids benefit by generally only having a single DPS spec that Blizzard focuses on balancing; pures have to worry about which of their three specs is going to remain viable and scale well into the next raiding tier. While some of that is dependent upon the raw damage a spec is capable of putting out, many times the situation is far more complicated than that. Tier bonuses, encounter design, and gearing all play a vital role in determining which spec reigns supreme and which falls by the wayside.

We've talked before about all of these topics, but it's time to focus that on how the game is shaping up for the next raid. While most of the encounter design is still slightly unknown to players, there are things that we do know and concerns that we have to be wary of. This week, we'll take a look at what might be in store for demonology, the part that tier 13 plays in that, and how the bosses themselves will be the deciding factor.

Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact

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