How to play a Warlock

[Sethketa]

So I've been playing WoW for awhile now and I've experienced most of the classes of WoW, with just recently having picked up a Rogue and figuring out how to play it. Unfortunately I'm finding it difficult to get a firm connection with my new Warlock. I don't want to outright give up playing on my Warlock, so I'm looking for a guide that explains how to play a warlock, with a heavy PvP focus, such as what priorities spells have in PvP, and maybe a good keybind setup for the class.

[Waffleman]

From what I can tell, your best spell is complaining about Cloak of Shadows on the forums.

I kid.

I have no clue how to play warlock, I just felt like making a joke.
Best of luck finding some help.

[dwbrown7680]

The internet is your friend here, there should be some sort of post over in the Warlock forum and another great place to go is www.arenajunkies.com as most of the class pages there have a beginner's guide to help you get through the early stages.

[skitzin]

So I've been playing WoW for awhile now and I've experienced most of the classes of WoW, with just recently having picked up a Rogue and figuring out how to play it. Unfortunately I'm finding it difficult to get a firm connection with my new Warlock. I don't want to outright give up playing on my Warlock, so I'm looking for a guide that explains how to play a warlock, with a heavy PvP focus, such as what priorities spells have in PvP, and maybe a good keybind setup for the class.

My first piece of advice would be to read the stickies on this forum to help give you an idea of what your doing with a lock in general and a background all 3 specs.
For PvP currently arenajunkies.com offers decent advice for PvP of all classes and just recently has added several guides developed by long time PvPers to help people such as yourself.

Here is a link to one for warlocks written by Bluetorch (who is a S1,2,4,6 & 7 glad himself): http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=230504
Other then that I find a fair bit of it will be practice, practice and more practice, the more pvp you do as a lock the better you will get and it will let you see the mechanics in action.

Hope this helps and if in doubt feel free to ask

[Gravebound]

Warlocks are all about what Skitzin said - practice. Do read up on those guides he linked you and you will be fine.

Remember, warlocks are easy to play, but one of the hardest classes to truly master. Practice is your friend.

edit:

Just remember one thing , bind EVERYTHING on your cast bar cuz you need all of them , I say ALL , I mean ALL of your spellbook
And expet to get nerf at every patch , every xpac and every hot fix ,
they invent hot fix just to instant nerf lock

This is true. No class has so many spells as a Warlock (In a single stance, and non-spec related).
Get to know your spell. Get to love them.

[Phuongvi]

Just remember one thing , bind EVERYTHING on your cast bar cuz you need all of them , I say ALL , I mean ALL of your spellbook
And expet to get nerf at every patch , every xpac and every hot fix ,
they invent hot fix just to instant nerf lock

[Sirjeize]

Remember, warlocks are easy to play, but one of the hardest classes to truly master. Practice is your friend.

I approve of this statement

edit: Failed at quoting

[Keilith]

PVP as a lock is how you want to go about it. You will push high damage as destro, great self heals and multi targetting as an aff, I prefer demon for its survivability.

I one thing I cant stress enough is bind your pet attacks to keys. Take them off auto, One my fav things to do is fear someone, hand of gul'dan them and pop fel storm on my fel guard.

Always keep your dots ticking and keep your cookiee. You WILL use it. Also when you die dont forget to recast your shield. One of my biggest mistakes for the longest time.

[Deleted]

Wall of text inc.
First of all, Warlocks are really, really Resi dependant as there are moments during the fight when there's nothing else to do, but tank until you either get a fear off or teleport CD wears off. Second of all, bind everything you can use in combat. You don't have to bind stupid stuff like Water Breathing or Create Summoning Stone or whatever, but obvious skills like curses, bolts, banes, soulburn, banish, pet attack, pet follow, pet abilites etc.
Oh, and get used to Fear's DR. Don't spam it mindlessly.

As Affliction your priority is to spread your DoTs on as many targets as possible and control the opposing team with fears, spell lock and curses. Affli's single target damage is horrible, but once he spreads his stuff, the pressure and self healing is just incredible. Soul Swap glyph is a must have.
Keep Haunt on CD and UA on your targets all the time. Haunt grants a great damage and self healing buff and UA protects your DoTs from getting dispelled and in the same time ticks for nice damage.

Pros:
-Great self healing
-Great damage in 3v3+ fights
-Nice control

Cons:
-Weak single target damage
-Only escape tool is CoeX, and it's getting nerfed in 4.0.6

Demo is a great solo spec as it has some really nice utilities. A stun, a root, good survivability and nice burst damage. Keep Hand of Gul'dan on CD all the time, but be really careful, because if it gets interrupted both Shadow and Fire schools will get locked. Your job is to put Immolate, Corruption and a bane of choice on your target, sending your pet and casting Shadowbolts/Incinerates if you're safe to do so (otherwise just spam felflame).
Use Felguard's felstorm when you're bursting someone down. Axe Toss however has many uses, you can use it to get off Hand of Gul'dan safely, without worrying about interrupts, you can use it as an interrupt, you can use it to stop Rogue's stunlock or prevent someone from running away.
Use Metamorphosis only if your opponent has already wasted some CD's. For example, if you use it instantly against a rogue, he can just vanish and wait until it'll wear off.

Pros:
-Very good single target and aoe damage if left alone
-Superior in 1v1 situations

Cons:
-Weak self healing
-Very vulnerable to Banish and interrupts

Destro is about getting immolate on the target and then hopefully burst him down fast with Conflagrate, Chaos Bolt and Incinerate. Overall, the playstyle is kinda similar to Demo's. Currently Destro is the weakest pvp spec to me. It's Demon Soul is really weak in PvP and it relies too much on Immolate which has no dispell protection whatsoever.

Pros:
-Conflagrate. Great instant nuke.
-Shadowfury. AoE stun on a low CD? Count me in.

Cons:
-A single dispell can stop his burst
-Relies on hard casts which is a pain. These days everyone has an interrupt or two.

Bottom line, just test all 3 specs and play whichever feels the best to you. The only way to get better is to actually do BG's, watch high rated Warlocks duel and duel as much as you can yourself.

[Deleted]

I would like to add that warlocks are so-damn-boring to level until you get towards the end of 0-60 content. The interesting spells come late, unfortunately.

[Deleted]

Next to MMO-champ this is the site to be warlocks.
Its very helpfull, has alot of guides in every aspect as its a forum pure for warlocks.
Hope I helped you out. you can always PM me whenever you have a question.

http://wowmb.net/

The warlocks den.

[Deleted]

This website is purely for warlocks. helped me out alot in the beginning.
It has many guides, and also a forum.

Hope I helped you out..

You can always PM me whenever you got a question.

http://wowmb.net/ <--the warlocks den

Goodluck!

[3xxiled]

my little input:

Remember, warlocks are easy to play, but one of the hardest classes to truly master. Practice is your friend.

Warlocks are not easy to play. If you insist, perhaps this involves PvE or leveling your warlock, otherwise, yes they are one of the hardest classes to master. But let me say, upon mastering your warlock you will never turn back. I have played my warlock for 3yrs alone while never touching another class besides a druid n mage which i abandoned after lvl 70. I have tried and failed to play another class yet always falling back into the awesome mechanics that warlocks posses.

Addtionally, yeah get used to having somewhat 30 binds. The only spell u wnt be using a lot is 'unending breath'

Warlocks Den - WOWMB.net

yep truly the place to be. one of the best warcraft communities you will ever meet plus when I say loads, I mean LOADS of information. guides, tutorials, videos, personal opinions, everything all focused on the warlock itself. You'll also find some of the best warlocks in WoW amongst that forum.

my opinion:
I believe warlocks are perhaps one of blizzards favourite classes as well as the death knight, hence the reason they are buffed severly every patch then nerfed due to the imbalance. They have the best spell mechanics over any class and are always USEFUL in any situation that involves, dmg, cc, & survivability.

All the best n goodluck!!

[Kouki]

So I've been playing WoW for awhile now and I've experienced most of the classes of WoW, with just recently having picked up a Rogue and figuring out how to play it. Unfortunately I'm finding it difficult to get a firm connection with my new Warlock. I don't want to outright give up playing on my Warlock, so I'm looking for a guide that explains how to play a warlock, with a heavy PvP focus, such as what priorities spells have in PvP, and maybe a good keybind setup for the class.

I posted a warlock guide, its simple in terms of what to do.

[Deleted]

Warlocks are not easy to play.

Every class is easy to play, playing it well is something else, and being actually good differs between classes how easiliy you understand your class. Warlock is pretty hard to master, but if you start early and don't touch any other class from the beginning, you'll get used to it fairly easiliy and every time you play anything else you'll think "Why is my actionbar empty, why is it this easy to play, why am I using just 3 skillz and were is my Fear ffs?" :P