Completly New

[fourddd]

Yea, feel a bit stupid but ive always wanted to play warlock, but never wanted to level one, so with the new SOR bonus i got my hands on a level 80 one, but i honestly have no clue on what spec to play an stuff, so if anyone is willing to be kind enough to say help me with the basics ill be more than gratefull an ill praise you for the rest of your life.

[Tierbook]

just remember you only get the warlock if you have had an inactive account for like 90 days i thinki it is
also just make sure you have a pet out all the time

[Zethras]

This is one of the reasons I think the instant 80 for brand new players is a bad idea, simply because new players have absolutely no idea how to play their new class at or near level cap.

That's the point of levelling , you learn your class slowly as you level up.

But... http://elitistjerks.com/f80/ might be able to point you in the right direction.

[fourddd]

This is one of the reasons I think the instant 80 for brand new players is a bad idea, simply because new players have absolutely no idea how to play their new class at or near level cap.

That's the point of levelling , you learn your class slowly as you level up.

But... http://elitistjerks.com/f80/ might be able to point you in the right direction.

I completley agree i really do, but when i dont have the time an i never plan on using it for anything special i just always wanted one, an it was free if it was something i was ever considering playing properly then i would. it was just the last caster i didnt have.

[Mindcrime]

Although I agree that the free level 80 promotion is a bad idea, I took advantage of it and finally got myself a Tauren Druid so I can own herbalism. Not having a druid past level 25, I can attest that at 80 I have absolutely no idea what im doing (besides HoTing everything in sight, thats all druids do right?) but I only plan on making it my gathering whore

Anyway if you plan on leveling your warlock to 85, my suggestion is to try all 3 specs. All of them are more then viable for leveling and they feel very different. So it will come down to you personally and what style you prefer.

Affliction will be more mobile with an emphasis on dotting everything and using Drain Life frequently. By doing so, with the combination of lifetap, you will never be low on health and or mana, so there will be very little downtime. An example might be, haunt > unstable affliction > corruption > bane of agony on one target, soul swap (make sure its glyphed) to a second target and Drain Life as needed. Sub 25% health switch your filler from Shadowbolt to Drain Soul. Felhunter is you pet of choice.

Demonology is less mobile with an emphasis on using your pet to kill everything while you alt tab and youtube kitten videos. If you really wanted to you could do something that looks like this: Immolate > Corruption > Hand of Gul'dan > Shadow bolt filler until you get a Molten Core proc (talent) and then you just cast Incinerate 3 times to use up the proc. Metamorphosis is your bread and butter of this spec. Make sure you pop this on cooldown... in dungeons, questing in hyjal, standing in your major city of choice, and specially the Auction House. Pet of choice: Felguard! ..Oh and if you wanted you could switch from shadowbolt filler to soulfire sub 20%.

Destruction is the fabled nuke spec. Unfortunately its glory days of blowing things up in a few global cooldown are long past, but it is still very viable and is still more nuke..ier then Affliction and maybe Demonology. If you like fire this is the spec to try first! Destruction is quick casting with an emphasis on harder hitting spells. Its a combination of babysitting a couple dots, maintaining a couple short cooldowns, and keeping as close to 100% uptime on a self buff. Looks something like this: Immolate > Corruption > Conflagrate > Chaos Bolt > Spam Incinerate until Conflag and Chaos Bolt come off cooldown. Due to Improved Soulfire (talent) you want to soulfire every 15 seconds to keep up this buff. You can use soulburn to insta soulfire, but get used to hard casting this in combat! Sub 20% health use Shadowburn on cooldown. Make sure you take full advantage of Nether Ward and Nether prot, both talents are invaluable in PVE and PVP. Pet of Choice: Imp

This is a very rough and simplified breakdown of the basics of each spec. If you decide your warlock is something you wish to further and master these basics, there are some great guides sticked to the top of this forum to go further in depth. Hope this helped a bit and good luck!

[Panni]

@Mindcrime -- thanks for the nutshell guides! I too have used a Scroll for an insta-80 warlock recently. The character I used it on was from my old vanilla-era account, so I /had/ leveled him... but only up to 41 or so. And I think I logged him in once since vanilla. (I couldn't help it, though -- this was the guy who saw the birth of Battlegrounds and all kinds of old-school WoW stuff; he even has one of the old PVP titles! (OK, the lowest-rank one, but still...)

So I've been reading guides and setting up action bars and being all 'I Have No Idea What I'm Doing'. Kinda crazy! I keep telling myself that if I practice long enough I'll get it.