Playing a Warlock is indeed very demanding due to its versatility and numerous spell abilities. To maximize your gameplay and knowing what to do in certain situation, I've compiled a list of Tips posted in the WOW EU Forums for easier reading and understanding.* Your healthstone spell only allow you to carry 1 healthstone with the same rank, however this doesnt prevent you from using a lower rank healthstone spell, and this leaves you with 2 healthstones, the max ranked healthstone and the lower ranked healthstone: There will still be a CD, but still good to have > if 2 different locks have different talent points in imp healthstone you can hold both stones even if there the same lv.
* When using Fear as CC in Pve, CoR Rank 1 will break it if the Feared mob is running towards adds. Rank 1 is used to not give the mob too much AP, but it will still break the fear effect.
* Applying Curse of Shadows straight after applying UA and Corruption still gives the first ticks of the two dots its +%damage effect. Allows your DPS to start a fraction sooner than if you applied CoS first.
* Always buff yourself and your PvP mates with Unending Breath and Detect Invisibility - because a fair few of the dispells available in the game targets random buffs. Having a mage spellsteal unending breath is a *lot* nicer than having him spellsteal sac void bubble.
* When pvping, always have some distance between you and your pet (use ctrl+3 to make it stand stil, while you move away) It will make it harder for other players to attack your pet, and make sure AoE effects doesn't hit it. (getting your pet feared can easily be the difference between winning and loosing.) Also if you're using the felguard, it will allow it to intercept anyone who gets into melee.
* Many locks use wands while they can instead use spellstone witch gives extra ~1% crit and a full debuff remover on a 3 min cooldown(saves your ass many times vs DOTers)
* Using CoD + Banish r2 then r1 and wait 10 secs = Kaboom without getting hurt on Elementals and Demon mobs
* If you ever see an unstealthed rogue send pet to attack and dot then it unstealths them most of em panic and vanish
* In battlegrounds, Create single healthstones and give them to loads of ppl from different servers. If they wont use it untill the game is over you will get back all ur healthstone so you can have many of the same size in youre inventory
* Use felhunter to remove fear/sheep and dots from yourself.
* To remove the DR timer use Death Coil and the DR timer is now reset so u can do Fear(10sec), Fear(5sec), Death Coil, Fear(10sec) etc. quite nice in PVP
* Use Drain Life against warriors with MS or Rogues with similar poison, the MS/Poison does NOT affect the healing of drain life = easier to survive.
* To prevent healers from drinking in arena, keep the pet on him, he wont come Out Of Combat, though u will be able to.
* When rebuffing in 5 mans, place a Soulwell and grab a healthstone, life tap to max. mana, use the healthstone and take another one. Will help you rebuff faster.
* In PvP/Arena when you're affliction, do not trinket out of the kidney shot from a rogue but out of his cheap shot and quickly press Howl of Terror (instant). The rogue'll expect that you wait till kidney shot and will Cloak of nubs then.
* Rogues and warriors can be easily kited around with CoExhaustion pvp trinket breaks hamstring, save it for after your death coil and the intercep.
* In PvP, apply SoC and then quickly add UA. Sometimes dispellers will see SoC and try to dispell it but if you're on time you can make the dispeller dispell UA.
* Use your felhunter to dispell UA on an ally. Your felhunter won't take any dmg!
* Use SoC on pets if you can. It will explode the owner with it. (Works on hunter snake traps too)
* When boosting, use a firestone! It can be quite usefull in places like the stockades.
* Since the global cooldown is always 1,5seconds, you can save talent points by spending only 2pts in Improved Corruption, making it 1,2 second cast.
* Lifetap then hellfire to die without durability loss.
* An intercept when there is less than 1 seconds remaining on cheapshot allows for a fully uninterupted fear cast.
* I'm affliction so I CoE kite almost exclusively . Get them away from u (ihot to give yourself 2 yards before they trinket or deathcoil) then Hit your trinket + Free Action Potion (trinket removes the poison/hamstring, pot makes u immune for 30 seconds)
* vs BM Hunters SoC the pet, Howl of Terror the snakes when affliction because BM you can't fear anyway (when he's big and red), death coil away and hope your DoTs tick away faster than he does with your health. Backlash/nightfall procs come in handy. If you're affliction siphon life/corruption the pet for nightfall + health. Seduce might work and give you some time to fear the pet if not BM, voidwalker sacrifise works nice too.
* - On hunter pets: CoW and siphon.
- On felguards / felhunters: CoS before banishing.
- Vs warriors: Dot them in combat, trinket the intercept, coex kite. Should they actually get an hamstring in anyway with your trinket on CD, deathcoil + amp coex works. Another trick is to cast immolate and hope they pummel it, then proceed to drain tank.
- Vs rogues: Trinket KS, iHoT, wait for cloak, then deathcoil > fear, coex.
- Vs undeads: iHoT > wotf > deathcoil > fear.
- Vs mages: Dont cast a shadow spell until he's spell locked or feared. Devour frost nova asap if they're frost.
- Shadowfury > HoT is a very nice escape combo as well.
- Vs shamans: Use your pet to kill totems. Grounding totem is always first priority, then tremor totem.
- If you got felguard, be sure to learn to use intercept at the right places. Abuse stay and follow.
- Also, on 5 man instance thrash as affl, don't bother casting all dots. Just use UA, corr, CoS and then shadowbolt.
* If you meet a player with kick, bash, silence ect, cast fear, then stop casting it asap. 80% of the time the enemy will waste his silence and not lock your shadow school. Wait a few sec and recast fear safely.
* When playing desto and you meet a Aff-lock wait until you have netherprot buff and hit your spellstone. Wola: No dmg taken from UA if it gets dispelled.
* Summon the Infernal as often you can. It sux big time, but generally ppl panic just by seing it.
* Make a macro also so you can dispell your 2v2 teammate with felpuppy.
* Make 2 HS'es to each of you in arena, some fights might last long.
* The New Darkmoon Trinket Lunacy, which give 51 stamina and random buff when killing enemy, it gives the buff when you sacrifice one of your demons. So if you in to arena you will get the buff lasting same time as the void walker sacrifce, very nice
* Manually casting imp fire shield on yourself and the team before summoning a useful demon adds yet another debuff to the layer. It can also be useful against a snake trap.
* Spamming Rank 1 Magic on a paladin is a great way to get him to go OOM.
* Summoning stun doesn't last the full cast time of another pet. So when doing void sac + new pet trick, you can safely start casting your new pet and sacrifice that void 0.5 sec before the new pet gets summoned.
* Priest's shadowfiend does shadow damage. So CoS the target it's hitting. On the contrary, ask for a shield for anyone from your team that is getting hit by shadowfiend and remember to use your shadow ward.
* Shadow reflector + spellstone is an evil combination.. If the reflector doesn't fail. But since atleast I use the reflector for the resistances vs 4 shadow dps teams, I can always give this a try. When you get UA, use reflector and if it doesn't fail, use spellstone. This will reflect the UA dispelling silence and damage to the orginal warlock caster. Of course, changing gear after the arena has started is no longer possible in the next patch.
* Dont bother banishing frostmages' water elementals, they want you to try that. Instead use Curse of tongues, a corruption and a siphon life, which kills it off quite fast while seriously reducing its effect.
* In arena always carry your spellstone, with one click you can remove all the debuffs of a shadowpriest, and most of the warlock ones.
* Never use your deahtcoil as an opener, lots of locks tend to do that because they want to open with a can of whoopa$$, but dc is too much of a trump card you gotta leave up your sleave and use it to really turn the battle around. (combined with drain life it's imba)
* Use fear, lol this might sound stupid but I know alot of warlocks have stopped bothering after all the nerfs, even if it doesn't last long, it's still 3 interupts on enemy casters you can pull of with some luck (dangerous with mages ofc)
* If you get attackt buy a mage, and you have your felhunter up and the basterd is so smart that he sheeps you and cast Detekt magi on you dont forget that your pet will only despell that deteckt magic and not the sheep in that case pray to good that you got a trinket ore wait to he is casting lets sey a pyroblast wait to the end of the spell to **spell lock** to to then he all redy waisted 4 sec on his sheep and then get silineced for 4 more sec that suld give you time to dont take that mutch dmg and still be abel to turn the fight.
* Use a macro to destroy totems with /petattack.
* Mages don't decurse. Bad mages don't even decurse themselves.
* When engaging another Warlock the one who trinkets/deathcoils/spellocks last normally wins - be prepared with shadow ward. Never lock his fire school.
* Don't attack a warrior or send your pet after him if you intend to kill the healer in the bushes first - it's just free rage.
* If you have decent gear, the guards at alterac flags can be killed with 2 seeds (put a coa on the seedet nonelite target(s) too). Just kite them a little bit away after your second seed cast then proceed to fear/dot kite the elite.
* Never send your pet on one of the pillars in Blades Edge arena. They are bugged.
* Always try to kill shadow priests and mages during farm status raids when competing for DPS. As soon as one of them has more then 100% threat try to reach 130% - then soulshatter when the mob is near you.
* When you silence paladin, he can use bubble. When you counterspell paladin (it means, you interrupt his spell with spell lock), he cant bubble for duration of the counterspell (4 - 6 sec, depend on talents)
* Last rank of drain soul does decent damage
* If you meet an arena team with a non-shadow priest - do NOT dot up more than one target. Prayer of mending will jump like silly between your enemies and it will become incredibly powerful (instant, costs little and heals like 8k total).
* If you mount you resets your pets cooldown and also gives it full mana..... so in a bg with your felguard after you have won just mount up and down to have the charge ability ready again, or to fill up your imp when you are grinding as affliction.
* Eye of killrog, and move into shade of arans chamber. Lekeep the eye inside the boss for 6-10 seconds, the boss will activate. Arcane missiles reach all the way to the bookcase to enter Illhoof's chambers.
* Don't know how much of a trick it is, but when you are in shattrath and needing shards, fly a little further to the east than you normally would to farm shards, and get them off the basilisks there. The basilisks drop [Chunk o' Basilisk] which can be cooked into spelldamage food
* When fighting a priest --> curse of agony , instant dot (syphon , corruption) , unstable affliction, another dot (syphon or corruption) , enjoy ur dots fully ticking out since maybe 0.5% of priest community has rank1 dispell on their hot bars
* UA/CoT applied simultaneously (you know what i mean) followed by a fear will make most pallys bubble...whuch can tun the fight your way quickly
* If you get siphon life reflected on you it will heal you more than damage you. (If you have fel armour on)
* If you get CoA reflected you can cast a different curse right after to replace it
* I you see a druid stupid enough to go in tree form near you. banish him!
* When grinding with dark pact/imp make sure to use dark pact during the fight as well as after. your imp's mana bar should never be full if yours isn't, else you're just wasting his awesome mana regen.
* Shadow Embrace is a pretty weak talent for PVP. However spending 1 point here adds another debuff to the target. This means your DoT's are more protected from dispells AND you get an additional 4% for your Drain Life (assumeing you've taken Soul Syphon talent).
* Keybind your and pet's spells and DO NOT activate the auto-functions of your pets except some more obvious things like invulnerability of your succy.
* When you are defending farm in AB and you see some rogue or druid unmounting and stealthing, cast Seed of Corruption at the rats! SoD will proc immediately and its AoE will sometimes hit the rogue/druid.
* Rank1 Rain of Fire when you expect some stealther around you (even better when you put some points into pyroclasm).
* Regarding sacrifice void before arena start. Summon your void, when time is short you can start summon the demon you want, and SPAMM click sacrifice, when you summoned demon its about 0,5 sec before it gets up so you can sacrifice exactly at the point before you get your new pet. Whollaa 30 sec shield.
* For affliction lock that's boosting... spam Siphoon life on 20 mobs.. life tap once in a while and boost like a king
* With succy in instances, pull with searing pain, halfway through the cast start seduce, land a CoS at the same time as searing pain hits. The succy will now not take aggro, and the mob will follow you around when out of seduce. This allows for you to run away from it, past your succy, meaning between seduces all the mob does is run.
* If you get sheeped in arena, dont unsheep right away, let your hp fill up. Use fear to force trinkets, count to 15(amongst other things) then CoS and fear...lots of proffit
* In arena send pet to the warrior to let him enter in combat ..so bb charge
* Use shadow ward before entering in arena
* When someone got mind controlled in instance use on them CoR // a bit low armor is nothing compared to fear immunity somethimes.
* Always use lesser invisibility in arena cause u will be able to see succubus and banish them before seduction
* In world PvP, fear your target's mob. Hopefully it will soon be back with his friends; still his aggro list is unchanged.
* If your bags are full when you create healthstone, you lose the shard and don't get a healthstone.
* When questing with a mage buddy duel them and let them steal Fel Armour for the damage bonus.
* If you have improved drain soul use rank 1 just before the killing blow lands, I'm spending 55 mana and getting 1400+ back.
* At the beggining of an AV, SS yourself and start the ritual of doom, chances are people will click it, and you get a doomguard.
* In the second boss in shadow labyrinth, each time he does his "it's time for fun" mass mindcontrol, it resets your "one curse per target" limit. Thus, you can have CoS, Agony, Curse of Doom, etc. on him at the same time.
* Easiest way to farm a whole lot of shards: Go the big lake in zangarmarsh, at the bottom there's a whole bunch of fish which have very low HP and come in packs of 3-4.
* Always stand with your back agains a wall/cliff or something, as they can't run behind you they rly have a hard time nuking. Versus combat rogues stand facing the wall and drain him, as he can't gouge if you do that. Works like a charm in arenas too. No backstab for a dagger rogue means he's pumping less dmg then my drain life regenerates. And I remember dozen of times when they run down from cliffs and stuff trying to get behind me.
* You can drain enemys through walls/obstacles as long as they are in range and in line of sight when you start draining them
* Save your cooldowns (mostly speaking about death coil here) when you're up against melee opponents
* If you're in a tight spot where you might get silenced, you can spell lock your enemy in advance and then cast fear or ua without being counterspelled.
* If you're in one of the tempest keep dungeons and need to get back to Cosmowrench for some reason (such as needing repairs or to summon somebody), lifetap to critical health and use hellfire. You'll die, but take no durability damage thanks to the hellfire. And since you can't ghost run to TK, you'll appear near cosmowrench on full health with no additional gear damage.
* Get raidbuffs on your imp, especially brilliance for a bigger manapool and spirit for faster mana regen.
* Also, pester local paladins for BoW on your imp
* Cast UA and then corruption immediately after. Both will be on the same timer and can be recasted at the same time at the same manner. Saves keeping track of 1 timer.
* If there is a shadowpriest around, go for CoS. Keep shadow priests happy. Learn to love your shadow priests. Hug them occasionally.
* Consider your dots as fast-cast / high damage / long cooldown spells. Never overwrite your own dots before they're finished, but try to keep them up most of the time.
* If you have dots on a mob that just did a aggrowipe (several bosses have this), using soulshatter will *not* get it off you. Save the shard, just run to your tank and hope you survive, and next time don't be so stupid with mistiming.
* At the start of a bossfight where you can have a damage-curse, pop amplify curse (this will start the amp cooldown fast), use a trinket and then first shoot all your other dots and hope for a spellstrike / t4 proc, if you have them, before dropping your amped doom. 200% spelldamage modifier on doom is a lot of fun so get the most out of it.
* Also just keep spamming sbolts around 10-12 seconds before you doom goes off. If an imp SB proc is up when the doom goes off, it gets that bonus as well. +20% on a doom beats a few wasted ticks of dots most of the time. As a bonus, getting sick dooms makes the mages feel impotent!
* If you have a choice for Soulstone targets, pick a paladin. They got plate and bubbles to survive longer so they won't eat your soulstones on trash as often.
* In case some people don't know this (I doubt it), if you are more then 20 foot away from a target you can throw a killing shadowbolt and cast a drain soul while the bolt is still in the air to get a soulshard from the sbolt killing blow. So make sure you keep some distance from targets in groups/raids.
* For the more experienced players: Use the Quartz addon, or a similar one that shows latency on your castbar. Modify your spell hotkeys with /stopcasting, /cast
. Now if you're casting a spell and the bar hits the red "latency" part of the cast you can immediately start a new cast and the previous one will still finish. This will pretty much annihilate your latency allowing almost maximum theoretical dps.
* When your tank tanks multiple targets on pulls, try to figure out how well his aggro is over those targets. With most tanks you can drop 1 or 2 dots on all adds aside from the MT without eventually pulling aggro. Though some people see this as "cheating dps lists", it is simply a good tactic to wither down all adds for increased killspeed. When you get a good feeling for your tank you can decrease time killing trash by a substantial amount.
* If, at the end of a gaming session, you're left with a spare soulstone, cast it on yourself. The next time you login you will be soulstoned.
* With the fearkite-bounce, the fear will stay on the target when you apply CoR to pull it back, so all you have to do is throw another curse to send it fleeing again. If you use CoExhaustion as your other curse you get plenty of time to re-apply fear and dots. You can solo basically anything that can be feared in this manner.
* Get a damage meter addon (KTM / Omen). Not only is this very handy in groups, but when fighting with a minion, u get to see how the aggro relation works between yourself and your pet, who builds up aggro most or fastest or when using a certain spell.
Credit: Snarg of The Edge of Nowhere
