The Warlock Simple Questions/Answers Thread!

[Deleted]

Hi guys, so recently I noticed this forum has started to get more and more popular, and I think it would be worth it to create a thread where any simple or quick questions can be asked, regardless of which spec/aspect of the game they are about.

We get a lot of repeat threads being created and there are a lot of people who are not aware of the search feature or simply do not have time to trawl through pages of content.

In order to cut down on such occurences, I hope that this little thread can grow into a general 'help me' thread for anything and everything.

This is not to detract from the fantastic "Fix my dps thread" stickied at the top, but to serve as a catch all for any questions people may have, without the need to always create a new topic. Any question, no matter how trivial, can be asked here.

(Note: If this does become a thing I'll edit this wall of text out, but bare with me for now!).

Types of questions I think would go well here:

Is my gemming/reforging ok?
Which haste breakpoint should I go for?
Which off-piece should I aim for? Is 4 set worth it?
Which item should I use out of X and Y?
Which spec should I play at my ilvl?

For now I'll ask and answer some common questions to get us started.

Which Pet does more dps/which one should I use?

See this thread, created by Jessicka, to better understand pet choice.

Which is the best dps race?

For Horde you want to be a Troll, the berserking racial is fantastic due to the way our dots snapshot haste.

For Alliance non of the races have much impact on dps. For the most part you should choose between Human and Worgen. Humans gain hit when using swords and the Every Man for Himself racial is great for breaking out of CC's, allowing you to get back to dpsing faster than others. Worgen's gain passive crit which is good for destruction, and their Dark Flight racial works similar to EMFH in that it can save your life, and lessens the time not dpsing.

Note that dps gains aren't massive, and ultimately you won't be missing out on too much by playing a weaker race, but these are generally accepted as the best races for each faction.

Should I go for 2/4 set?

Destruction - 2 set is very underwhelming but can provide a slight boost on AOE encounters. 4 set is amazing and will often be worth dropping from e.g. Heroic offpiece to normal tier piece to pick up. You should definitely make acquiring 4 piece a priority if you plan on playing Destro.

Demonology - 2 set for Demonology is fantastic, and the 4 set whilst not being stellar, helps fury and molten core proc generation a bit, so is definitely worth shooting for.

Affliction - Acquiring 2 set should be your main priority for affliction, it is a must have. The dps gain it provides on single target is very high. With regard to 4 set however, if you can find three Warforged haste/mastery off pieces it is probably worth dropping the tier bonus, but it's ok, and you'll need it if you plan to play any offspecs anyway.

TL/DR - If you only play affliction then shoot for 2 set + haste/mastery offpieces, warforged preferred.
- Otherwise, aim for that 4 set ASAP.

Brief note on stat priorities and notable haste Breakpoints

For more detailed and in-depth discussions/explanations, see the sticked guided for the respective specs at the top of the page.

Secondly, breakpoints are only worth hitting if you are close to them, do not go out of your way to gem/reforge into them if you will cost yourself too much mastery, as they are not as crucial to your dps as you may believe.

For Affliction and Demonology, Mastery and Haste are probably your best stats, with Haste pulling slightly ahead in pure single target situations.

For Destruction all stats are very close on single target and you can't go wrong really, but Mastery should generally be prioritized above all due to the nature of the encounters in SoO.

Considering that many players like to play multiple specs, I would advise that people aim to grab 4 set plus all the gear with Mastery on it as a priority, as it is the most universal stat in that regard, with Haste following in second.

With that in mind, some notable haste breakpoints you could aim for are:

Affliction - 9778, and in higher ilvl, 13737.
Destruction - 10124 or 10437 with Legendary Meta Gem (LMG).
Demonology - 8097, or for a more haste focused build, 14873.

For those wishing to run multiple specs without reforging constantly, the 10124/10437 breakpoints for Destruction are very close to the 9778 breakpoint for Affliction, and work well between both specs. For Demonology I prefer Mastery > Haste anyway, and so this breakpoint also works well for those with a Demonology off-spec.

In general, my personal advice is to run Mastery > Haste for all specs, as you can always reforge into a bit more Crit for destruction if you so desire, but will only serve to hinder yourself in this regard for other specs if all your gear has Crit on it.

[xskarma]

Excellent thread! Let's hope people will use it to ask (and answer!) the simple questions of Warlock life.

[Shauni]

Please, mention that afliction's 2Set is a must have.

For affliction, you can also explain that :
- If you wish to stay pure affli, then haste and mastery should be kept close together (haste > mastery or mastery > haste depends on the fight and your personnal preference) with obtaining 13737 haste a realistic goal
- If you wish to swap between affli and destru then go 9778 haste => mastery for the sake of balancing the two specs

[darkminaz]

if you swap from affli to destru go for the 10124 breakpoint in haste, 400 haste more or less won't change a lot for affli but gives destru one more tick on immo.
for pure affli, yeah go for 14k/14k balance (thats around ilvl 570)

[Deleted]

recently I noticed this forum has started to get more and more popular

Don't worry, Blizzcon is around the corner, so incoming warlock nerfs! In all seriousness, I doubt we'll be as OP next expansion, so warlock might become less popular in the upcoming months, depending on what's announced at Blizzcon and thereafter.

[Deleted]

Shauni/Darkminaz - Noted your points, will update the OP with those as yeah, I think that's a pretty common and useful topic.

I will note however that this isn't going to turn into some sort of 'guide' which contains the answer to every question asked, just a couple of the most common.

It's just somewhere where any and all minor questions can be asked without derailing/clogging up the guides or forcing new threads to be created.

[Deleted]

How are warlocks in PvP now (solo BGs, 1v1, world pvp etc.)?

[Akakishin]

How are warlocks in PvP now (solo BGs, 1v1, world pvp etc.)?

Against melee, life is hard!(I mean it, really!) against casters pretty good imo you can seize them to death. a tip, don't bother with demo, aff and destru are good, spcly destru with executioner(SB) in BGs.

[darkminaz]

1on1 is ok if you make use of your skills, ie setting teleport, gs, stun, aoe fear, single fear, slow what kills you is most of the time the sucker how shows up when you are at 50%^^
solobg, aslong you manage not to be focus from everything amazing, hide behind some ugly humans or teddybears and prepare to run away, kinda the old lolmage style, POWPOW pyro blink :P
world pvp .. pve gear rules .. ilvl 570 ... i got like 800k hp .. just feels like a god somehow, without the bg heal debuff you are pretty amazing.

the biggest "problem" in my eyes is the bgheal debuff for locks, since we have absorbs,selfheal,dmgheal and that all kinda drops to 0 :P

[Shodan30]

10k haste breakpoint for destro? Not any more. Thats outdated info isnt it.

[Werst]

No 10124 haste immolate gains another tick which is functionally "embers" in terms of dpet/embers gain. Keep in mind the 5.4 buff cycle included 30% to immolate making it tick on par with aff's dots. Once mastery is maxed haste vs crit are largely interchangeable for destro. Aff does not do well with any crit that could be haste so for simplicity sake (if you run dest/aff) just run mast > haste > crit in terms of reforges. The extra tick isn't huge for destro but being just past it means slightly longer immolates (which you can 4xT16 refresh) thus giving you more time to nuke in between refreshes. I wouldn't seek out that breakpoint at the expense of mastery but if your haste vs crit puts you in the area its a nice place to end up.

[Shodan30]

Mastery doesnt have a 'max' tho does it?

[theshiningnova]

Destruction - 10124.

imo, go for 10437 instead if ur aiming for a breakpoint. Just 300 more and you'll get 9 ticks of immo when your legendary meta procs or when you have hero.

[Deleted]

Snip

I agree, I just felt like putting it in there because a lot of people mention it, and many newcomers like having a fixed number of something to shoot for.

I personally run mastery > haste > crit for each spec, I guess I'll edit and clear it up a bit.

- - - Updated - - -

Mastery doesnt have a 'max' tho does it?

No. It continues to scale past 100% without any form of diminishing returns.

[Faustas]

any tips for newbie lock? where do I even start? Few days ago I started playing lock again (519ilvl) I love aff so much but I fail so hard with it, with destro I do ok, but I want to play as aff, but cannot go above 75k dps T.T so many buttons to press, rotations, procc to watch and stuff like that...atm I'm casual in my guild, but when I learn how to be lock again, gonna start raiding.

cannot post armory link yet, Faustas on Kazzak EU. if anyone could point me at the right direction I would be really grateful

[Deleted]

any tips for newbie lock? where do I even start? Few days ago I started playing lock again (519ilvl) I love aff so much but I fail so hard with it, with destro I do ok, but I want to play as aff, but cannot go above 75k dps T.T so many buttons to press, rotations, procc to watch and stuff like that...atm I'm casual in my guild, but when I learn how to be lock again, gonna start raiding.

cannot post armory link yet, Faustas on Kazzak EU. if anyone could point me at the right direction I would be really grateful

Hey Faustas, first of all, welcome back!

I see that you don't have the legendary meta gem, and that your ilvl is indeed quite low to make Affliction work. You can play it if you really want to, but you will see MUCH better results with Destruction. In the end it's up to you and how serious you are about it all.

First thing - Make sure you have a good UI (user interface) set up. For Affliction the addon "AffDots" (click here) is a must have. It basically tracks the power of your current dots against whatever procs/buffs you have at the time, and lets you know how strong your dots would be if you reapplied them.

Secondly get a cast bar addon such as Quartz or Gnosis. These allow you to see when your Malefic Grasp 'ticks', which means you can safely clip the cast without losing too much dps.

I would also recommend getting the WeakAuras addon, and importing some of the auras from Woz's Warlock Weak Auras thread. If this feels a bit too overwhelming at first then leave it, but I highly recommend you get used to this addon as soon as possible.


With that out of the way, I assume you'll take my advice and stick with destruction. I took the liberty of running your character through Askmrrobot, and managed to tweak your gear a bit. You want to run a Mastery heavy build, with a balanced amount of haste and crit.

Shopping List-

2x Artful Vermilion Onyx (1x Red socket on your gloves, 1x Red socket on your pants)
3x Fractured Sun's Radiance (1x Yellow socket on your head, 2x on your belt - 1x in the Red socket, 1x in the Prismatic socket)
5x Sensei's Wild Jade (1x Blue socket on your weapon, 2x Blue socket on your shoulder, 1x Blue socket on your chest, 1x Blue socket on your hands)

1x Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery (Stick this on your gloves, obviously!)

Reforging -

Wrist - Hit -> Haste
Hands - Crit -> Mastery
Ring 2 - Hit -> Mastery

This should leave you at 9865 Mastery, 4386 Crit, and 3596 Haste. Your hit should be at 15.04%.

If you have any other questions, feel free to add me on JoeG#2515 in game or carry on the discussion here.

[yotam]

Hello
first very good post
my Questions is
Do i Reforging good for Destro spec
i am using the addons you talk about the other post and it good for me
my DPS seem bit low for my 540 for now
it going good at the start of the fight but then i go down to 150-140k when on start i pull over 200k
i am doing some test's on dummy with the Grimoire of Supremacy and GoS to see what will give more DPS
my Toon eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/silvermoon/Ragnarokex/
i am working on the Meta gem and the cape
Thank you For The Help

[Faustas]

Hey Faustas, first of all, welcome back!



If you have any other questions, feel free to add me on JoeG#2515 in game or carry on the discussion here.

Thank you, I will do what you said and also stick to destro till I get better gear. Ofc I'll do some aff pvp, I just love this specc so much, destro feels like mage class to me and I hate mages got every class at 90 except mage - 85 atm. My main is warrior, but I want to return where I started WoW, to the warlock class I'm also new to mmo camp forums, so its really nice to meet good people here, I really appreciate your help. My wife also plays lock, gonna try newbie arena to farm some gear

[Deleted]

Hello
first very good post
my Questions is
Do i Reforging good for Destro spec
i am using the addons you talk about the other post and it good for me
my DPS seem bit low for my 540 for now
it going good at the start of the fight but then i go down to 150-140k when on start i pull over 200k
i am doing some test's on dummy with the Grimoire of Supremacy and GoS to see what will give more DPS
my Toon eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/silvermoon/Ragnarokex/
i am working on the Meta gem and the cape
Thank you For The Help

For the most part your gear looks fine.

From a personal standpoint, I feel like your haste is a bit low, but this is a personal choice and if you prefer low haste/high crit then thats okay.

If you wanted, you could swap over 5 artful vermilion onyx for 5 keen vermilion onyx, along with a sensei's wild jade in your staff.

Reforge your hands/waist/legs from hit -> mastery, and you should maybe do a bit better. You lose a bit of mastery this way but gain 1.5k haste. Should help smooth out the rotation a bit, and perhaps even allow you to squeeze out a chaos bolt in time in situations which force you to move when you have a nice proc up.

Without logs it's hard to say where you're going wrong, but 150k sustained on a target dummy doesn't sounds too bad.

[yotam]

i will do as you and let you know how it come in Raid and on for some tests on Dummy
i will post logs if i see that i am low

Thank you so much