Warlock Vanilla Spec

[Deleted]

It is less powerful than it's SL/SL tbc version, but the durability is insane, especially when geared.

It can hands down outlast any other class/spec as long as they don't out gear you drastically, all those fancy pvp videos you see of mages and rogues mean nothing to you coz they downright tickle with proper pet management + drain tanking, just make sure your pet isn't banished.

Heck you can even outlast tanks due to sustain and can drain a healer dry of their mana , though in most cases no one will want anything to do with you once they see you're soul link spec, and you're slower than a moving turtle with no tools or enough dmg to kill something fast enough or stop it from running away.

In other words you are quite literally the best pvp tank in the game with the worst mobility possible, this is further emphasized with gearing ( more stamina heavy build instead of raw spell damage ).

As for talents/ rotation, you generally never cast Sbolt outside NF proc unless no one is attacking you, it's typically just dots/drain spec, if u get locked on shadow spam searing pain.

When do you recommend going to SL from SM/Ruin?? is it gear dependant? CoEx is so useful in WSG, I'll think I'll miss it

[wholol]

When do you recommend going to SL from SM/Ruin?? is it gear dependant? CoEx is so useful in WSG, I'll think I'll miss it

Depends what you plan on doing, you can swap to a SL build around lvl 45 ( to get instant corruption as well ) , you'd be trading mob kill speed for anti ganks which is a viable alternative if you're experiencing extreme open world pvp during a server launch for example.

The thing about any SL build, whether it be SL/NF or SL/SB is it lacks ruin so you'll never deal as much damage as a DS/ruin build for example but you have DS: Succubus or simply MD succubus + soul granting 13% damage increase , so your damage will not be that bad in pve but will never beat any ruin spec once crit starts to matter.

Since warlocks priorities spell damage over crit initially ( fresh gearing ) unlike mages for example, even a DS/ruin or SM/ruin build will likely not have as much strength as a let's say a bloodvine /T2 geared lock, what this means is you can go SL from the very start whether it be for pvp/pve but bear in mind you will always deal slightly less raw damage than any other lock spec.

There is however a point in time where the power of scaling outshines your defensive capabilities as SL and that is usually in the T2.5/T3 geared phase, where a destro build will be so powerful it could 1-2 shot players, so if anything I'd say SL up until AQ then destro, unless you get R13 gear early but you can spec whatever you want at this point.

[AeneasBK]

Unless your tank was much better geared you wanted to use the MD/Ruin build I thought.

Something like this.

[Thunderball]

SM/Ruin if you're allowed to apply dots, DS/Ruin if you're not. MD/Ruin is only viable as an Imp spec (for Blood Pact) on Horde if your tank is shit.

[Deleted]

or simply MD succubus + soul granting 13% damage increase

I think I am missing something here, where does the 3% come from?

EDIT:

never mind, found the 3% sl

[Kithelle]

I'm looking forward to Warlocking in Classic. I started retail in BC.

Looking forward to spamming Shadow Bolt...have fun? lol

[Dundebuns]

Looking forward to spamming Shadow Bolt...have fun? lol

And being on Curse of Elements duty

[deniter]

Looking forward to spamming Shadow Bolt...have fun? lol

You spam SB only when raiding. Apart from that you barely use SB, except when Nightfall procs (if you have the talent). Warlock has probably the most versatile toolkit of spells and abilities for both PvP and PvE.

[wholol]

Warlock has probably the most versatile toolkit of spells and abilities for PvP.

Fixed that for you.

[Chaelexi]

I'm looking forward to Warlocking in Classic. I started retail in BC.

you played warlock at the top of lock PVP. Warlock(SL/SL) with Druid was the top spec in BC was almost unbeatable.

[Molis]

With 16 debuff slots and 1 or 2 locks there was room for corruption. Fairy Fire, sunders, demo shout, thunderclap, ignite, Curse of ..... x2, scorch, imp shadow bolt. That is the 10 Priority Debuffs anything over and above that is round robin for Damage and corruption deal more damage than almost all other dots available and gives instant shadowbolts.... The only argument you can have for a 11th is Hunters mark if you have 4 or more hunters. That leaves 6 slots for Deep wounds, fireball debuff and that is it. You shopuld not have a shadow priest in raid so no shadow weaving, mindflay, etc, rogues should be using poisons that do not leave debuffs(except in special situations where you want to slow a cast), And maybe...maybe a Judgement of Wisdom/Light..... But once your tanks get strong enough you can start dropping Demo shout and Thunderclap on many fights, giving you even more slots..... Corruption is the best dot in Vanilla.....get you head right. And there is room for 2-3 of them. There is one other but that is dependent on your guild getting a thunderfury.

You are not right about corruption after MC, and I will credit @Foresteye below.

This was the same list of debuffs we used. I raided as a Warlock from MC to Black Temple.

Here is our Alliance debuff list for BWL/AQ40/Naxx - this assumes you've reached the point where you have a lot of T2 and your Mages go fire. Also assumes you have Thunderfury because most guilds will get at least 1.

We used this set of debuffs as a cutting edge server first tier guild.

1. Thunderfury/Thunderclap
2. Thunderfury/Judgement of X (Yes Thunderfury takes up 2 debuffs)
3. Demo Shout
4. Annihilator (Armor debuff weapon)
5. Nightfall (Spell damage increase weapon)
6. Sunder Armor x5
7. Faerie Fire
8. Curse of Recklessness/Weakness
9. Curse of Elements
10. Curse of Shadow
11. Improved Shadow Bolt
12. Shadow Weaving
13. Shadow Word:Pain
14. Improved Scorch x5
15. Ignite
16. Expose Weakness (Hunter T2 8 piece bonus on proc)

[Chaelexi]

You are not right about corruption after MC, and I will credit @Foresteye below.

This was the same list of debuffs we used. I raided as a Warlock from MC to Black Temple.

Many guilds drop to 2 locks and no Spriest. As replacing them with mages or rogues will equal out to more damage in the end so you gain 3 spell debuff slots......PS I raided with Deus Vox as a warlock all through BWL-Naxx40. As well as many guilds dropped to 2 hunters and then the expose weakness buff was worse than 8 piece T3 but they do get hunters mark so it is a wash then.

This allowed you to have 2 corruptions and a free one for anything else.

[Razzako]

If it's 1.12 talents then either DS/Ruin or SM/Ruin depending on what your raid needs and how many warlocks you have.

For PvP I honestly highly recommend Conflag/Nightfall for a build because having a strong instant cast damaging spell on top of your already quite potent CC and survivability is SUCH a gamechanger. It's what I used to play with back in the day and it's a lot of fun.
For reference on this build, youtube Goth, a warlock that used to play on Nostalrius and whatnot. He's a perfect example of just how well you can get that build to function.

I can confirm Nightfall/Conflag is NUTS in PvP, you can get super lucky with Nightfall and just erase the enemy player without ever stopping to cast, even more likely to happen if there are a lot of pets or enemy players around.

[BicycleMafioso]

I never did pvp much in vanilla as a Warlock after I got rank 14, but at the time, Conflagrate was not a good pvp spell unless you wanted to clear Immolate for a seduction.
It had the same cast time as Immolate but dealt less damage. No matter what the Lacerate fans will tell you, worst 31pointer.
Soul link was also pretty horrid, since it had a 30 sec duration and was purgable, so the three classes you needed it the most against, could either remove it or stunlock you from the start to not use it at all.
Before the talent revamp, SM/Ruin was the only option. And that is probably why the myths live on. After that, Conflag being an instant and Demo having good stuff at the top-end made it (sm/ruin) less ubiquitous for both pvp and starting out in pve. I did dabble in 9/31/11 after the revamp though, for pvp. Having a Death Coil that wasn't a 10min CD and now having a Horrify effect built in was just what we needed though.

You are not right about corruption after MC, and I will credit @Foresteye below.

This was the same list of debuffs we used. I raided as a Warlock from MC to Black Temple.

Yea, well in post #11 he said he was a Warlock in Deus Vox. Which got World Firsts during actual Vanilla.
Your quote features shadow weaving and shadow word pain. No. Even if you would run with a Priest responsible for Shadow Weaving, Pain has much lower priority over Corruption. For instance.

[jackofwind]

You are not right about corruption after MC, and I will credit @Foresteye below.

This was the same list of debuffs we used. I raided as a Warlock from MC to Black Temple.

You would never, ever run SW:P though even if you had someone spamming R1 for Shadow Weaving the debuff slot was never reserved for the SW:P and it was expected to be overwritten immediately.

[BicycleMafioso]

You would never, ever run SW:P though even if you had someone spamming R1 for Shadow Weaving the debuff slot was never reserved for the SW:P and it was expected to be overwritten immediately.

And even if they did have Shadow weaving, five instantly cancelled casts of rank 1 mind flay was the most mana efficient ways of doing it, permitting mob distance, to take less time away from healing.

[jackofwind]

And even if they did have Shadow weaving, five instantly cancelled casts of rank 1 mind flay was the most mana efficient ways of doing it, permitting mob distance, to take less time away from healing.

Very true, it all comes down to whether you could hit the 20 yard requirement.

In any event, SW:P certainly had no place on a debuff list.

[AeneasBK]

Very true, it all comes down to whether you could hit the 20 yard requirement.

In any event, SW:P certainly had no place on a debuff list.

But wouldn't you use both recklessness and weakness rather than one or the other? Are there that many bosses that never melee? I noticed it seemed to be an either/or on the list, am I misunderstanding something?

[jackofwind]

But wouldn't you use both recklessness and weakness rather than one or the other? Are there that many bosses that never melee? I noticed it seemed to be an either/or on the list, am I misunderstanding something?

You would flat out never use Weakness on a boss IMO. Recklessness can really boost your raid damage if you have a ton of melee (ie: what the modern iteration of Vanilla raiding will be) and the downside of increased AP isn't really an issue against geared tanks.

CoW is absolutely a wasted debuff slot on bosses, its damage reduction compared to how hard bosses hit is negligible.

[The Stormbringer]

Which tree is typically considered the best for leveling up as a Warlock? Demonology?