Warlock Leveling Guide: The Affliction Spec
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.
Announcement: Zygor’s Leveling Guide 2.0
This came like a shot out of the blue — one of my favorite leveling guide authors has just announced version 2.0 of Zygor’s leveling guide!
(read my Zygor leveling guide review to see what to expect when launch comes)
If you aren’t familiar with Zygor’s leveling guides, you should be, because they’re one of the worst kept secrets in World of Warcraft. Everyone has heard of Zygor, and thousands of people use his guides every day to level faster.
Along with Dugi’s excellent “full bodied” leveling guides, Zygor’s “leveling only” guides are one of my very top picks if you’re in the market for a leveling guide.
So I’m pretty happy to hear the news 
While we haven’t got any “real” news of whats going to be Zygor’s 2.0 leveling guide yet, John Cook tells me that his guide has had a complete overhaul, with newer, faster leveling routes with a better interface (I thought the old one was >the best<, interface around…).
Check back soon when I have more information for you on the new guide – you can be sure I’ll post a review up the minute I get my hands on the full copy of the guide.
Dugi
Dugi from www.ultimatewowguide.com is the topic of my first leveling guide author bio, hopefully the first of many!
Dave "Dugi" Farrel
I’m doing Dugi’s bio first because his guide is one of my favorites — I use his gold and profession info daily, not to mention his excellent slim line in-game leveling guide.
Dave “Dugi” Farrel
Dugi has been playing WoW since it was released, and has since clocked up thousands of hours of game time. Dugi is actually a New Zealander, and got into leveling guides when friends of his asked him for guidance on where to level the fastest.
Fast forward 4 years and Dugi’s leveling guide advice to friends has now become a fully fledged in-game guide and series of ebooks.
Dugi is one of the few guide owners I know that can boast not only knowledge about leveling, but also gold making and PvP. In fact, Dugi has the awesome “Warlord” title for his PvP abilities, something he is constantly quizzed on by new players.
Dugi’s Guide
Dave has put a lot of work into his leveling guides over the years, constantly updating and revising it to ensure players have the best guide at their fingertips.
Only recently though, Dugi made a major revision to the way his guide worked, making it a lot simpler to use, and making it take up much less screen real estate. All you see now is the arrow that points you where to go, and a slim line window that tells you what to do when you get there.
Dugi has had a bit of help along the way – as you can imagine WoW is a huge game world, and he’s often enlisted the help of his wife, sister, and a core group of pro WoW gamers who provide both hands on support as well as a sounding board for Dugi’s ideas.
Dugi Hates…
While Dave is a really upbeat guy, we have a shared hate in the constant “warring” over leveling times. One guide will say, “we level you to 80 in 7 days”, and then the next day, another owner comes along as says, “Yo! Our guide will level you to 80 in 6 days!”, and so it continues.
We “hate” the whole “who is fastest routine” because not all gamers are equal… but mainly because these times author’s are putting out are actually /played time at super optimized speeds.
Just a friendly warning from us both: when you see 7 days, it means /played time, not, log in for a few hours a day and by the weekend you’ll be 80!
Dugi Loves…
Step by step programs…!
As you’ll see at www.ultimatewowguide.com, Dave’s guides follow a set formula he created which he (and many fans) beleive is the optimal way to get around in WoW.
Just briefly, the formula says, level first, get gold second, and then dominate PvP (if that’s your thing…!).
I totally support Dugi’s idea here, as even for things like professions, gathering herbs, ore, or even skinning can slow you down a lot if you’re just trying to level fast. The same is true with gold.
The game will supply you with everything you need until level 70 or 80, and then you’re going to start needing high quality gear and professions to help you in the tough spots.
Following Dugi’s system here will save you tons of time, even if you don’t want a leveling guide.
What’s next for Dugi?
Dave has actually already done the “whats next” in a way. What I mean is, Dugi thought, “what do players do next after they reach level 80? Whats next?
That question basically led him to create a Dailies guide for players in Northrend…
This guide is great if you’ve reached 80, and if all you want to do is get better gear, reputation, or mounts, you can do 25 dailies in under 2 hours.
Dave “Dugi” Farrel is a 28 year old website designer from New Zealand who also creates some of WoW’s most loved guides.
Find out more about Dugi’s leveling guides at www.UltimateWoWGuide.com/Warcraft, or his Dailies guide at www.UltimateWoWGuide.com/Dailies
How To Use a WoW Leveling Guide
Make Your World of Warcraft Leveling Guide Work For You!
While I love leveling guides, and wouldn’t give mine up for the world, I often forget how people new to guides can react to them.
New players, who are starting a level 1 to 10 character LOVE them. There’s no question there.
But more experienced, or higher level players? Reactions can be mixed to say the least.
The most common problem these players have is syncing up a new guide to their current position in the game. They’ll look at the guide, then look at their current position in the world and just decide its all too hard.
“I can’t be bothered getting those two flight paths I’ve never been to before,” they’ll say to themselves.
“I have to go to a new continent, then do 5 quest chains and other prerequisite quests before I can even resume at the level I’m supposed to be?” and so on.
Its no wonder I get email from people asking me what gives.
The problem is this:
There are two or three ways, or paths, in WoW that will level you the fastest. If you don’t happen to be on those paths when you begin using a leveling guide, then you need to suck it up and get on that path.
Its simple, but its not easy for people who are promised to level to 80 in a week (that’s /played time everyone!!) who find they have to spend hours of time backtracking.
Ready to click away from this “how to” already?
That’s fine – this quick how to is for people who are willing to put in a few hours now to save themselves DAYS of leveling time down the track.
If you ARE willing to make a sacrifice of leveling speed initially, read on.
How to Overcome The Top Leveling Guide Problem:
Told to start leveling where the guide tells you to, but you can’t accept many of the quests you’re told to accept?
Or even worse, have you find that in order to accept some of these quests you’ll have to go back and accept a bunch of low level quests so that you can sync up to a 5 step quest?
Why is this done?
Guide owners know that multi step quests give the best experience and best item rewards, and therefore will include these long quest chains into their guides.
I personally have started using guides on a bunch of different characters that were advanced in level, and this is the strategy I’ve come up with to help sync with any leveling guide.
First up, download LightHeaded.
Lightheaded is a WoW addon which attaches itself to the right hand side of your quest log, and provides information on each of the quests you’re on right now. But more importantly, lightheaded also allows you to search quest text for quests you’re not on right now…
So, if you start up your leveling guide, and you find that you can’t accept a quest you’re told to do, check lightheaded. Simply type in the name of the quest you’re told to accept in the top search box, and you’ll either get 1 or 2 results (2 results for quests that both Horde and Alliance can do).
Once you find the entry for the quest, you’ll find that lightheaded will display the entire chain of quests. Click the quest you need, look for the start and finish NPC, click their name, and you’ll get a set of coordinates which your waypoint arrow will then direct you to.
So lets say you’re on the Defias line of quests in Westfall, and you start half way through.
Simply type in the name of the quest step you’re told to do into lightheaded, look for the first quest in the line, click it, and then click the name of the person that gives out the first quest.
Your leveling guide’s waypoint arrow will then direct you the rest of the way, and you can follow along in lightheaded until your guide syncs up.
Why not just use lightheaded for leveling then?
Because “LH” can’t tell you what order, or what path of quests is the most efficient. It does a great job of helping you sync up with a guide though if you happen to be unlucky enough to be way off, and its also very handy if you just happen to want to try out a quest that isn’t on the guide’s fast leveling path.
ALTERNATIVELY: Just ditch the quest string. If your guide wants you to do, say, step 8 of 12, I’d generally ditch the quest and look for others which I can accept right away. There’s no great harm in not completing a string, and you probably won’t miss the reward in 5 levels time anyway.
The other major problem I’ve experienced syncing with a new leveling guide is that you may not own the flight paths associated with the quests you need to do, or you’re told to do quests which are over the other side of Azeroth, AND which you don’t have flight paths for.
Again all I can suggest is to use lightheaded to find any quests you don’t have prerequisites for, and just suck it up!
Even if I knew it would take me a DAY of play time, I’d still spend that day getting the flightpaths & quests I needed to sync back up with a guide.
Simply do this and you’ll find that while it might take you many hours to sync up with your guide, the time you save at the end of the day will be well, WELL worth it in the long run.
Don’t just assume its broken. Suck it up and sync up with the guide. You’ll be very, very glad you did.
Did you stop by at this “how to” and aren’t sure which leveling guides are good?
I recommend Dugi’s Ultimate WoW Guide because its great value (you get a Horde & Alliance guide for the same price other authors charge for one faction), and you can get a custom package of gold, PvP and profession information if you’re interested in learning about that.
Visit Ultimate WoW Guide, or read my Ultimate WoW Guide Review.
QuestUp: Team iDemise Leveling Guide Review
Steve from Team iDemise has recently given me a copy of their new guide, “Questup”, which is a really nice in-game leveling guide with a twist.
Team iDemise have been in the WoW leveling guide market for some time, but recently they’ve come up with a new and different way to approach leveling guides.
Most leveling guides are human edited – which means the author will sit down and tediously map out the exact fastest way to get to level 80.
Questup follows a different idea however, which means that you’ll follow the leveling path of other people in WoW.
Now, I don’t profess to know exactly how Questup does this, but the programmer responsible says that basically it gathers the data from the players who are leveling the fastest, and tells you which quests they do, and which ones they abandon.
This means that rather than following a human edited guide, you’re following a guide that uses statistics from hundreds or more likely thousands of other players.
The guide presents this info to you in the game, so rather than alt tabbing to read a level guide outside of the game, you get a window which presents your current objective, and you get a waypoint arrow which tells you exactly where to go and how long it’ll take to get you there.
Its very easy to use, but unfortunately like all leveling guides on the market, it can take a bit of tweaking once you first start, because you might be on quest a, b and c, in Feralas, while the guide says the best and fastest quests are at x, y and z in Tanaris Desert.
So depending on where you are, you might need to spend a bit of time running to a new location… but from the usage I’ve given the guide, you’ll save so much time this initial setup is well worth it. I’ve used this guide for a few levels with a low level Shaman, and the guide looked good and played well. No slow or hard to get to quests were included, and it didn’t send me inefficiently zigzagging all over the zone.
A Summary of Questup’s best points:
- Fastest routes compiled into one fastest route, and delivered to you
- In game arrow points the way to quest givers and quest objectives so you don’t have to hunt for them
- Slim in game guide keeps out of your way but is easy to read and follow
- Any character, any class, any faction, any level can use the guide
- 100% money back guarantee
What about Questup’s negative points?
- Like all in-game guides, initial set up can be tricky
- You’ll level faster than Blizzard intended, so professions can be hard to keep up.
- No options to buy extra gold, pvp or profession info (Dave Farrel’s guide is good for that kind of stuff)
Just after leveling info though? Questup gets my thumbs up!
Check out some screens of me testing the guide with another of my characters, an undead Warlock called Anguine.
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- An example of the Questup guide window and arrow
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- Questup Options Screen – FAQ/How to Use
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- Questup Options Page
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- Turning in a quest
Mage Leveling Guide: The Avid Pyroblast User
Undead Mage
Alright, its time for your mage to take a break from making portals for everyone and focus on leveling.
I’m sure you’ve made all kinds of gold for about ten minutes of work, but I want to help you reach the higher levels so you can do more with your Mage. This means it’s time to put down the Arcane and start building your Fire Talents.
The Avid Pyroblast User
I gotta admit, every time I’ve thrown on the Mage cloths, I’m addicted to using the Pyroblast. It all starts around level 20, but when you train this ability throughout the game you’ll be able to deal up to 1510 fire damage and an additional 452 duration bonus damage. Since you can train this every six levels (plus 73 and 77) it will definitely be used until you reach level 80 and beyond. (more…)
Zygors 1-80 Leveling Guide Video Review
Hey all, check it out… my first ever video for my WoW blog on Zygor’s Leveling Guide.
What do you think of the video? Is there any info that you’d like me to include for my next video review?
If so let me know!! Oh… and watch the video to see a super special offer I’m making to all my readers!
If you’ve already bought a guide after reading my reviews here, please send me a message via my contact page, and I’ll send you this special gift!
Priest Leveling Guide: Get Holy With A Shadow Spec
Class Guide: Priest Leveling Guide
How to Level Up Your Priest Faster with the Proper Talent Tree!
How many times have you been running around a city and you see the chat filled with requests?
You know, things like, “LF 5 Priests for Violet Hold” or “Need Healers for the Underbog- Will Pay.”
It would be nice to hang with everyone else, but unfortunately you are still 15 levels away from getting the chance. For the “Average Joe” it could take days, if not weeks to go from level 60 to 75, but with a little direction I can help you solve this problem. (more…)
The 10 Commandments of Horde Leveling – Part 8 – Map Mods
Thou Shall Use a Map-Mod
Map mods, such as cartographer, are an essential tool to help you navigate around the edge of that leveling funnel I talked about earlier.
Apart from the handy side effect of being able to see where your guild mates are, anywhere on the WoW map, Cartographer tells you exactly where your quests need to be completed, and where you go them from.
Essential for planning your route around the zone’s questing locales. Right?
Yes and no.
You see, while cartographer is an essential add-on, you’ll still find yourself wanting just that little more in the way of guidance. All the world’s top power levelers will tell you certain quests just aren’t worth your time, and this is where you’ll find cartographer falling down.
A great tool, but without a “leveling soul” to go with it.
So grab it, anyway, you’ll find it immensely useful, and you WILL improve your leveling speeds because of it. For instance, how many times have you had to alt tab out of your game to try & look up a quest on the Internet? That time alone will boost your leveling speeds, especially when you think back over 20, 30, or more than 40 levels.
The cartographer map mod – its an excellent time saver – and its free.
Getting back to that “leveling soul” comment, the best in game leveling map mod I’ve found so far is John “Zygor” Cook’s in-game leveling guide. Believe it or not John has managed to find a way to automate his map mod, which makes his guide like a souped up automatic cartographer that’s programmed to know exactly which quests to do first, second and third for the most efficient and fast leveling route possible.
In other words, it does all the hard work for you. Its the ultimate in laziness!
I like it!
You can check out John’s awesome automated in game guides, here.
