Leveling Up With An Affliction Spec
So you want to level a new Warlock… You love their demons, their curses and their crowd control abilities, and they’re just plain cool looking in high level gear.
SO… today I’m going to write you up an affliction spec for warlocks who love their DoTs (damage over time spells), which will level you fast.
First up I’ve read a few guides lately that tell you to swap spec at 60 or 70 and go demonology or destruction.
If you actually enjoy the affliction spec, just don’t do this. Your leveling times will be vaguely… BARELY faster, and you won’t be leveling a spec you enjoy as much.
Just choose affliction and stick with it. Its a super effective spec, and the jury is out on whether the other specs are faster.
What I’ll talk about in this leveling guide and affliction spec article:
So lets kick off with race selection for affliction locks.
Race Selection
Horde locks have what I think are the best warlock races – undead are just the coolest looking race for the class to my mind, but you’ve got flexibility with orcs and blood elves.
Undead: Will of the forsaken for fear/sleep/charm breakers is a great talent, but for affliction locks whose DoTs & pets will do plenty of damage even if you’re running away, its not the greatest racial in the world.
On the other hand you’ve got your corpse eating skill which can really speed up leveling & save you food by letting you regen health quickly.
On the whole I think undead are the best affliction spec choice we have. If you like undead, then choose it, you’re definately not gimping yourself.
Orcs: Neck & neck with undead for a good warlock leveling choice are orcs.
Blood fury, giving you a big spell power boost for 15 seconds, plus command which gives your pets 5% extra damage are a great 1-2 combo for leveling a little quicker.
Command would be a better Demonology warlock choice since the felguard pumps damage, but 5% extra is 5% extra… and a welcome addition to damage over 80 levels of grinding.
Blood Elves: Many people discard blood elves as good warlocks because they forget that their silencing ability also increases your mana at the same time. This is obviously excellent for leveling a new toon, as you don’t have to sit & drink as often to get your mana back up.
Simple, but effective… and a good choice that blood elf lovers should feel happy making without fearing a “gimped” leveling choice.
Professions
Like most classes I’ll make the dual gathering profession suggestion. Rather than going a crafting plus a gathering choice, I suggest you choose mining and skinning.
Mining can be quite useful for grinding your warlock, since the extra health from stamina is really handy for using with lifetap. Definitely go mining.
Skinning is a little more useful for affliction locks thanks to the extra crit chance, but herbalism isn’t so useful since your pet will be taking the lions share of damage as you grind (this is why locks are so great for leveling fast).
You might actually consider as a lock to go mining/enchanting, and use the small buffs to your gear as you level up, or just take mining and forget leveling another trade skill until you ding 70 or 80.
Its always easier leveling up professions when you hit 80, for obvious reasons… having lots of gold being one of the top… so don’t be scared to wait till 80 before you start leveling a profession.
Glyphs
Affliction Warlocks have some awesome glyphs, especially at high level with stuff like Glyph of Haunt… but what should you use for leveling up faster?
I recommend:
Glyph of Siphon Life. 25% extra healing from your siphon life talent.
Glyph of Corruption. 4% chance per damage tick to proc a 100% cast time reduction to shadow bolt.
Glyph of Agony. Lasts another 4 seconds, which is a nice extra damage boost for an ability thats constantly used.
1-80 Affliction Build
The affliction spec is what many people associate warlocks with, and because its such an effective build, you’ll find this spec is one of, if not the fastest leveling specs you can take.
Affliction:
- 3/3 Suppression
- 5/5 Improved Corruption
- 2/2 Improved Drain Soul
- 2/2 Improved Life Tap
- 2/2 Soul Siphon
- 3/3 Fel concentration
- 1/1 Amplify curse
- 2/2 Nightfall : Great to pair up with the glyph of corruption!
- 3/3 Empowered corruption : If you’re an Orc use Blood Fury regularly before casting corruption to maximize this choice.
- 5/5 Shadow embrace
- 1/1 Siphon Life : epic ability that heals you fast and lets you constantly grind down mobs without stopping.
- 5/5 Shadow Mastery
- 3/3 Eradication
- 5/5 Contagion
- 3/3 Malediction
- 3/3 Deaths Embrace
- 1/1 Unstable Affliction – your high level bread and butter, huge damage.
- 1/1 Pandemic – more UA love & a must have.
- 5/5 Everlasting Affliction
- 1/1 Haunt : one of the best spells in WoW imho. If you want to do a little PvP in AV spam this like crazy.
Demonology:
- 2/2 Improved Health Stone
- 3/3 Demonic Embrace (also excellent for doing some AV leveling)
- 2/2 Fel Synergy : another killer leveling talent that rejuvenates your pets health
- 3/3 Fel Vitality
- 1/1 Soul Link : 20% of damage reduced is seriously useful, especially for PvP levelers where players will target you, not your pet.
- 1/1 Fel Domination
- 3/3 Demonic Aegis
As you’ll see, following this affliction spec/demo spec build will mean that you’ll do excellent damage, and most importantly for leveling fast, you’ll barely need to stop to regain mana, and you’ll always have high health thanks to your variety of life and mana regenerating talents.
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dement
6 March 2010 at 9:38 am
why don’t you get 2/2 imp coa?
Krano
12 March 2010 at 11:38 pm
Which pet should i use?