WoW Filter: What I Learned as a Warlock
Jan. 14th, 2007 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doronjosamaMostly posted as a loose guide of things I learned about the warlock class in World of Warcraft, posted mainly for the benefit of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darklilith69.
Once upon a time, Blizzard made warlocks a playable class. However, when they first created the class, it was painfully obvious they had not yet decided what they were good for. It was a class they obviously rushed, since they were the weakest of the weak, unable to kill things in PvE (Player vs. Environment) without massive amounts of assistance, unable to defeat any other class in PvP. It was so bad that members of my own faction sometimes ten and fifteen levels below me would spam me with duel challenges, because they knew they would be able to win, even if I used every trick I had in the book. This is when they weren't whispering me to mock me for playing "the broken class".
That all changed...
Now, warlocks are a fairly balanced class, though we went through a period of extreme over-powered-ness in the PvP department. This means there are a lot of warlocks out there who have only concentrated on the PvP aspects of the class, and not on the PvE aspects. But warlocks don't just exist to set people on fire and strike absolute fear into the hearts of other players (even though we have three different Fear based attacks...). Warlocks can also be useful the higher level you get, to the point in some endgame dungeons, we can be as essential to raids as priests, druids, shamans, paladins, the "support" classes. There are some dungeons where we are indispensible. (I haven't gone to all of them yet, but have heard from a couple of other warlocks in my guild about how great it is to be needed for a specific instance or two...)
Support class? You betcha. Being a warlock means more than just spamming Shadowbolt while the Voidwalker beats the tar out of stuff. Warlocks are sneaky, with slow damage over time spells (DoTs). It's perfectly justified for a warlock to hang back in the back in groups, putting DoTs on things, and calmly waiting for things to die. We also have an array of incredibly useful Curses that are designed to help multiple classes do their thing. Some spells, curses and pet tricks that I have found the most useful are detailed below:
--Curse of Tongues: causes the target to speak Demonic, thus slowing their casting time. Works *great* on enemy mages, priests, paladins, shamans, druids and various other caster-type mobs. Doesn't work so well on enemy warlock mobs, since we already can speak Demonic to communicate with our pets... I use Curse of Tongues all the time. It's a rare mob that is immune to it, usually only stuff in the really high-end dungeons. (Zul'Gurub, and then it only seemed the bosses were immune.) This comes in really handy in places like Shadowfang Keep, Wailing Caverns or Scarlet Monastery.
--Curse of Recklessness: causes the target to become reckless, increasing their attack power, but decreasing their armor considerably. Works fantastic on mobs the warrior (main tank) is trying to smack down to bits. Doesn't work so good on mobs you are fighting yourself when solo grinding, since they will sometimes ignore your pet to come after you. ^_^; Useful in pretty much all the lower end instance dungeons, but not so awesome in the big endgame dungeons, where the bosses hit really hard (and you don't want them to hit the main tank harder).
--Curse of Elements: causes the target to be weaker against frost and fire spells. Excellent when you are paired up with a mage or shaman! Cast Curse of Elements on the mob, stick the pet on him, and watch the mage's crit attacks skyrocket. Even though this can be very useful, I don't use it very much, as I just don't get to play with mages that much... It is essential in Molten Core.
--Curse of Agony: causes damage over time. Hands down, the MOST useful of the Curses whether you are out grinding solo or helping in a group. It works extremely well for pulling mobs, and I often use it as an opener. (Curse of Agony, then stick the pet on them to intercept midway, then burn them down with Corruption, Immolate and Shadowbolt, sometimes finishing with the wand.) I love Curse of Agony.
--Curse of Weakness and Curse of Exhaustion don't really seem particularly useful to me. Though Curse of Exhaustion is good when you need to run away from something and slow it down.
I have gone with a full Affliction talent tree spec on my main warlock, and I *love* it for solo play. If you go to the end of the tree, you get an awesome spell called Unstable Affliction that does an awesome amount of damage over time. You also get a spell called Nightfall in that spec, which randomly procs from using the Corruption, Drain Life and Siphon Life spells, and gives you an instant-cast Shadowbolt every so often. (It's so essential to my playing now that I'm trained to hit the Shadowbolt button whenever I hear the Nightfall noise go off- which means I do it even when other warlocks have Nightfall up... heh.) You also get the Siphon Life spell, which you can slap onto a mob at the beginning of the fight to drain their health to you while you kill them to bits with your other spells and pet. Siphon Life has saved my bacon many a time!
This isn't to say the other Talent trees are lame. It's just that now that the Demonology tree has the Felguard pet at the end of it, nearly every warlock on the planet has specced Demonology. (And who wouldn't want their own personal demon tank with a giant sword and a tiny head?) Destruction is still a very viable spec if you really, really like setting people on fire (one of my other locks is Destruction specced and she has a fun spell called Conflagrate, which does like 600-700 points of damage in a giant fiery burst...). But for so many people, the warlock is about the pets. So what can these pets do in which situations?
Imp: The imp is your cheapest pet value. You can summon him for free (no soul shards to manage) and he does massive, massive damage very, very fast. He also has a great buff that works for the whole party if you are in a group, called Blood Pact which provides a stamina boost to everyone. He really, really can't take much damage though, and is easily squished by mobs. He also draws an amazing amount of aggro, since his attacks are all fire based. This can be bad in group dungeon situations, since he can steal aggro from the tank. But he often is requested in groups where you have a good tank, since everyone benefits from the Blood Pact buff.
Voidwalker (cost to summon: one soul shard): aka The Blueberry, aka the Big Blue Fart, aka The Pufferfish. Warlocks LOVE their voidwalkers. This is because voidwalkers will become your constant companion after level 10, and he can tank just about anything. He will go out there and hit mobs and keep them off your squishy cloth-wearing flesh. He can and will pound on things until they are dead and is capable of killing stuff completely on his own if you give him enough time. (They're big and tough, but they are slow.) Voidwalkers have abilities that cause mobs to focus their aggro on him, so they aren't so awesome if you are playing with a warrior (makes it hard for the warrior to get Rage generated if the VW is holding all the aggro). But for soloing? They are a godsend. They also say fun things now when you send them after baddies like "As you command!" and "I must feed!" These guys are so useful, at level 50 you can do a warlock-only quest to either get a staff that looks like Death's scythe or a trinket that will let you summon your voidwalker without a soul shard every 30 minutes. I went for the trinket; that thing is awesome. Voidwalkers also get an ability called Sacrifice later, where if you get overpowered, you can sacrifice him and you get an amazing shield that blocks all damage for a short while, so you can run away.
Succubus (cost to summon: one soul shard): Ah yes, the annoying, constant-butt-slapping succubus. She's really skanky. No, I mean REALLY skanky. She says fun things like "Don't touch what you can't afford". She constantly slaps her own butt and moans. It can be really annoying to have her out. But, she is basically your own personal rogue/crowd control monkey. She can eventually stealth and do some sneaky badass damage with her Lash of Pain. She also has a Seduce spell that can hold a mob off of you for crowd control. Sadly, she's weak as heck and can take almost no damage. She looks like a cool dominatrix and annoying teenage boys standing around in capitol cities will ask you to get her out so they can look at her. I hardly ever use her, but she does have her uses, especially in PvP and in situations where you need a lot of crowd control and don't have a mage to sheep the mobs. I think you get her around level 20...
Felhunter (cost to summon: one soul shard): The felpuppy is like a big happy ugly-as-hell dog who eats magic. He is the bane of mages, priests and paladins everywhere in PvP situations, because as fast as they can throw self-buffs on themselves, the felhunter can eat them off of them (with an excellent crunching sound as well). He also can crunch up caster mobs pretty nicely, eating magical effects right off of them. He also has an ability called Tainted Blood, where if he is struck in melee combat, his blood will poison the mob that struck him. He doesn't really steal aggro from tanks, so he is great for using when you are out running around with a warrior. He's less tough than the voidwalker, but he is pretty darn useful. He also gives an ability to everyone in the party called Paranoia, which makes it easier to notice invisible mobs. I think you get him somewhere in the 30's, though I may be remembering wrong.
Infernal (cost to summon: an Infernal Stone reagent which you can buy): You get a quest in the 50's to learn how to summon an Infernal. These are giant guys made of green glowing rocks, who can smash the heck out of everything. However, you only have control over them for about 5 minutes, and once that time is up, they will turn on you and kill you unless you have help around. Once you lose control of them, they will also kill anyone else who happens to be standing around, so I generally don't summon them very often. It's dangerous! Because they are so unstable, I have yet to find any practical uses for these guys, though I have heard they are great in PvP.
It goes without saying that the default setting for all your pets should be Defensive. If you use Passive, they won't attack anything unless you tell them to. If you use Aggressive, they will go ballistic on every hostile thing they can see, usually resulting in total death for everyone involved. Defensive is great because if something hits you, the pets will go after them on their own, but they won't go nuts and just start randomly trying to kill multiple things six levels higher than they are.
Support!
Warlocks can also support through the use of various magical stones they can create using soul shards. Here are the most useful ones:
--Soulstone (starts at Lesser and eventually goes to Greater): You will be any priest, shaman, paladin or druid's best friend forever if you are in a group with them and they are the only healer/rezzer and you put a soulstone on them. What this does is store the friendly target's soul for 30 minutes. If they die in that 30 minutes, they can select the "Use Soulstone" option and they will immediately rez with a set amount of health and mana (and thus be able to rez the rest of the party after a wipe, unless they are a druid, in which case, they can rez one other person every thirty minutes...). Always soulstone the priest first. If there is no priest, soulstone the paladin/shaman (though shammies have a self-rez they can use every 30 minutes), then the druid. You can only have one soulstone active at a time and if it gets used, the rest of the 30-minute cooldown will apply before you can put another one on the healer/rezzer. If you're just out soloing, you can soulstone yourself so you don't have to waste time running back to your corpse. Sadly, soulstones do not have a visible timer on them at all to know when they expire (which they do if they aren't used). What I do to keep track of them, is put the soulstone on the priest, then cast Demon Armor on myself immediately afterwards- they both have a 30 minute cooldown, so I know when my Demon Armor fades, it's time to slap another soulstone on the priest. ^_^
--Healthstone (starts at Lesser and goes to Greater): These are a warrior's best friend. And a hunter's, and a rogue's, and heck, even a warlock's. Basically, it is a stone you carry in your bag, and if you need extra health back in a fight, you click it and it gives you a big burst of health. It is not on the same cooldown as bandages or potions, so it's great for those long fights where you need extra health, but you already took a potion. You can only carry one in your bag at a time, so you have to make one, trade it to who needs it, make another one, trade it, etc. Always make your own last. A good warlock will make the biggest grade of Healthstone they can to give to the main tank, since they don't disappear unless you log out for 15 minutes or use them. But you can also carry multiple Healthstones of different grades (Lesser, Minor, plain old Healthstone, Greater) at the same time, so you can have one of each type to use in succession once their cooldown expires for it. They're great.
--Spellstones, Firestones, etc: I haven't played with these much yet, but they can be equipped in the off-hand and used to increase spell or fire power if you use them. (I have a really good off-hand item, so I haven't used them much...)
More Support!
--Taxi Service- er, I mean Summoning! Sort of related to the stone-based items, in that you need soul shards to Summon. Summoning is great when you are in a group and you have 2 people with you, and you need to summon the other two people in the group to where you are. You basically make a portal that you and the other two people click on, and then you can teleport the fourth person to where you are. The down side is that you always need 2 other people to help you click the portal, and you will get random whispers from people on the other side of the planet who want you to summon them to where you are when you are completely alone. If you agree to do it (and go through the hassle of finding two other people to help you summon), ALWAYS MAKE THEM TIP OR PAY FOR THE SERVICE. It's annoying and they should learn to use the flight paths or their feet like everyone else has to. Also, some dumb people in raids/groups will tell you to go to the instance and then summon everyone else there- but they don't understand that you need the other two people to make it work. (In my guild, we set up summoning teams, where two people are sent out with me to help summon other people there. But we're really organized about such things!)
--Banish: a spell that allows you to crowd control a demon or elemental target. This makes them immune to damage for the duration of the Banish, but they also can't hit you or your friends during this time and just sit there uselessly. Extremely useful in Arathi Highlands!
--Enslave Demon: You're out in the Blasted Lands (or insert place crawling with demons here). You're out of soul shards and the imp just isn't cutting it. What to do? Why enslave a demon of course! For a limited amount of time, you can enslave a demon and have them do your bidding as a controllable pet. Make them kill their buddies, make them fight for you. The effectiveness of the spell decreases each subsequent time you use it on the same demon, so it can be difficult to manage the same demon over and over again once he breaks the spell. But it can come in handy sometimes.
--Drain Mana: Such a fun spell! I love it when a caster mob has taken me down to half mana, but they still have a lot. I keep the pet on them, and Drain Mana until I am full up again, then start pounding on them with spells again. Drain Mana is also essential in a lot of instance dungeons that have caster bosses- if you keep their mana drained, they can't get their magical attacks off on the tank or the rest of the party. Drain Mana is awesome.
--Life Tap: I thought this was the most useless spell EVER when I started playing. How wrong I was! It converts some of your life points into mana points. It's really useful if you are running out of mana in a big boss fight and have plenty of life left (which you should have, since warlocks are supposed to sit in the back and do damage from afar...). But it also works really well in conjunction with the two spells listed below also- the life-stealing spells can heal you right after Life Tap has sucked some life out of you.
--Drain Life (and Siphon Life): Warlocks are considered expendable in groups (something many warlocks don't like to believe...). We aren't needed to heal, we aren't needed to tank, and we aren't a super-high DPS class like rogues or mages. Yet, we often are the only ones standing at the end of almost full wipes. Why? We can steal life from mobs. Siphon Life (which you sadly only get from the Affliction talent spec) can be slapped on multiple mobs at once (I tab through everything in front of me and pile it onto all the mobs) and it drains their life and gives it back to you. Slap it on five mobs at once, and you start seeing appreciable health points coming back to you. Drain Life works the same way as Drain Mana, with a shiny glowing beam that Hoovers the health right out of mobs and into you. (Downside: if you get hit, it gets interrupted.) You can use these tricks to keep yourself alive in a fight, and often they take the burden off the healers to worry about you constantly. (Freeing them up to heal the aggro-attracting mages and the melee classes, like the rogues and warriors.) And if you die, no big, you're a warlock, it's what you're there for. As long as you put your DoTs and curses on things, soulstoned the priest, and did your best to use your own abilities to stay alive, you've done your job.
Armor and Weapons:
Always look for stuff with +Intellect and +Stamina. Those are your best friends. +Spirit is a bonus for mana restoration, but Int and Stam are the best ever. Gear with bonuses to shadow and fire damage are also totally awesome.
Misc. Tips:
--Never use Fear, Howl of Terror or Death Coil in instances or places where mobs are packed in very close. Why is this bad? Sure, you will get the extra mobs on you to run away in terror, but when they come back, they will bring back friends. Lots of friends. It's BAD. All the fear-based spells are really good when you need crowd control out in the less densely packed areas or in PvP.
--Remember you wear cloth and are super squishy. XD
--Shadow spells used to draw minimal aggro a few patches ago, but they now draw a ton. Fire spells also draw aggro (Immolate, Rain of Fire, Conflagrate, Searing Pain, Hellfire). Most Curses and Corruption/Affliction based spells draw much less aggro.
--Hellfire is NOT a good area of effect (AoE) spell, unless you have a priest or dedicated healer to heal you while you do it. This is because Hellfire does equal damage to the mobs AND to you. So, Hellfire away if you want to die really, really fast! :D I think I have used it twice or three times, and died every time. (Priest shields don't do much against Hellfire, sadly, haven't experimented with using the voidwalker's Sacrifice ability and Hellfire together.)
--Spend the money to get a Soul Pouch for your soul shards. You're going to lose a bag's worth of space to them anyway, so you might as well have the bag made just for them. I always try to keep a minimum of 10-15 soul shards on me at any given time, though I am really happy when I have a full 20-24. They are essential not just for summoning pets, but for making soulstones, healthstones and summoning people. (There are also a few spells that require them, like Shadow Burn, but I don't really use that spell much, since I am paranoid about wasting soul shards.)
Racial Abilities and You:
--Orcs get a Pet Mastery racial ability, which makes their pets (either hunter pets or warlock pets) more obedient. It's pretty nice.
--Humans get a racial ability called Perception, which boosts the performance of Paranoia a bit against invisible mobs. Humans also get a plus to using swords (if I remember right), which helps when you find one of those cool +Int/+Stam swords. (Train swords- you can use daggers, swords and staves as a warlock, but you have to train in the second two.)
--Gnomes get a +5 to Intellect stats, which makes them ideally suited for caster roles.
--Undead get.... uh... Will of the Forsaken, I guess, which can nullify Fear spells. Which is great for PvP, but not so much for PvE. (My undead warlock is very, very tiny...)
--Blood Elves will have Arcane Torrent (an AoE silence) and I think some kind of mana stealing doohickey... I need to read up on them some more.
Anyway, there's my warlock tips. Hopefully, they make sense and will be helpful to those who want to play warlocks.
Also, I am surprised how quickly I was able to write this up. I am a complete nerd. -_-;
darklilith69.Once upon a time, Blizzard made warlocks a playable class. However, when they first created the class, it was painfully obvious they had not yet decided what they were good for. It was a class they obviously rushed, since they were the weakest of the weak, unable to kill things in PvE (Player vs. Environment) without massive amounts of assistance, unable to defeat any other class in PvP. It was so bad that members of my own faction sometimes ten and fifteen levels below me would spam me with duel challenges, because they knew they would be able to win, even if I used every trick I had in the book. This is when they weren't whispering me to mock me for playing "the broken class".
That all changed...
Now, warlocks are a fairly balanced class, though we went through a period of extreme over-powered-ness in the PvP department. This means there are a lot of warlocks out there who have only concentrated on the PvP aspects of the class, and not on the PvE aspects. But warlocks don't just exist to set people on fire and strike absolute fear into the hearts of other players (even though we have three different Fear based attacks...). Warlocks can also be useful the higher level you get, to the point in some endgame dungeons, we can be as essential to raids as priests, druids, shamans, paladins, the "support" classes. There are some dungeons where we are indispensible. (I haven't gone to all of them yet, but have heard from a couple of other warlocks in my guild about how great it is to be needed for a specific instance or two...)
Support class? You betcha. Being a warlock means more than just spamming Shadowbolt while the Voidwalker beats the tar out of stuff. Warlocks are sneaky, with slow damage over time spells (DoTs). It's perfectly justified for a warlock to hang back in the back in groups, putting DoTs on things, and calmly waiting for things to die. We also have an array of incredibly useful Curses that are designed to help multiple classes do their thing. Some spells, curses and pet tricks that I have found the most useful are detailed below:
--Curse of Tongues: causes the target to speak Demonic, thus slowing their casting time. Works *great* on enemy mages, priests, paladins, shamans, druids and various other caster-type mobs. Doesn't work so well on enemy warlock mobs, since we already can speak Demonic to communicate with our pets... I use Curse of Tongues all the time. It's a rare mob that is immune to it, usually only stuff in the really high-end dungeons. (Zul'Gurub, and then it only seemed the bosses were immune.) This comes in really handy in places like Shadowfang Keep, Wailing Caverns or Scarlet Monastery.
--Curse of Recklessness: causes the target to become reckless, increasing their attack power, but decreasing their armor considerably. Works fantastic on mobs the warrior (main tank) is trying to smack down to bits. Doesn't work so good on mobs you are fighting yourself when solo grinding, since they will sometimes ignore your pet to come after you. ^_^; Useful in pretty much all the lower end instance dungeons, but not so awesome in the big endgame dungeons, where the bosses hit really hard (and you don't want them to hit the main tank harder).
--Curse of Elements: causes the target to be weaker against frost and fire spells. Excellent when you are paired up with a mage or shaman! Cast Curse of Elements on the mob, stick the pet on him, and watch the mage's crit attacks skyrocket. Even though this can be very useful, I don't use it very much, as I just don't get to play with mages that much... It is essential in Molten Core.
--Curse of Agony: causes damage over time. Hands down, the MOST useful of the Curses whether you are out grinding solo or helping in a group. It works extremely well for pulling mobs, and I often use it as an opener. (Curse of Agony, then stick the pet on them to intercept midway, then burn them down with Corruption, Immolate and Shadowbolt, sometimes finishing with the wand.) I love Curse of Agony.
--Curse of Weakness and Curse of Exhaustion don't really seem particularly useful to me. Though Curse of Exhaustion is good when you need to run away from something and slow it down.
I have gone with a full Affliction talent tree spec on my main warlock, and I *love* it for solo play. If you go to the end of the tree, you get an awesome spell called Unstable Affliction that does an awesome amount of damage over time. You also get a spell called Nightfall in that spec, which randomly procs from using the Corruption, Drain Life and Siphon Life spells, and gives you an instant-cast Shadowbolt every so often. (It's so essential to my playing now that I'm trained to hit the Shadowbolt button whenever I hear the Nightfall noise go off- which means I do it even when other warlocks have Nightfall up... heh.) You also get the Siphon Life spell, which you can slap onto a mob at the beginning of the fight to drain their health to you while you kill them to bits with your other spells and pet. Siphon Life has saved my bacon many a time!
This isn't to say the other Talent trees are lame. It's just that now that the Demonology tree has the Felguard pet at the end of it, nearly every warlock on the planet has specced Demonology. (And who wouldn't want their own personal demon tank with a giant sword and a tiny head?) Destruction is still a very viable spec if you really, really like setting people on fire (one of my other locks is Destruction specced and she has a fun spell called Conflagrate, which does like 600-700 points of damage in a giant fiery burst...). But for so many people, the warlock is about the pets. So what can these pets do in which situations?
Imp: The imp is your cheapest pet value. You can summon him for free (no soul shards to manage) and he does massive, massive damage very, very fast. He also has a great buff that works for the whole party if you are in a group, called Blood Pact which provides a stamina boost to everyone. He really, really can't take much damage though, and is easily squished by mobs. He also draws an amazing amount of aggro, since his attacks are all fire based. This can be bad in group dungeon situations, since he can steal aggro from the tank. But he often is requested in groups where you have a good tank, since everyone benefits from the Blood Pact buff.
Voidwalker (cost to summon: one soul shard): aka The Blueberry, aka the Big Blue Fart, aka The Pufferfish. Warlocks LOVE their voidwalkers. This is because voidwalkers will become your constant companion after level 10, and he can tank just about anything. He will go out there and hit mobs and keep them off your squishy cloth-wearing flesh. He can and will pound on things until they are dead and is capable of killing stuff completely on his own if you give him enough time. (They're big and tough, but they are slow.) Voidwalkers have abilities that cause mobs to focus their aggro on him, so they aren't so awesome if you are playing with a warrior (makes it hard for the warrior to get Rage generated if the VW is holding all the aggro). But for soloing? They are a godsend. They also say fun things now when you send them after baddies like "As you command!" and "I must feed!" These guys are so useful, at level 50 you can do a warlock-only quest to either get a staff that looks like Death's scythe or a trinket that will let you summon your voidwalker without a soul shard every 30 minutes. I went for the trinket; that thing is awesome. Voidwalkers also get an ability called Sacrifice later, where if you get overpowered, you can sacrifice him and you get an amazing shield that blocks all damage for a short while, so you can run away.
Succubus (cost to summon: one soul shard): Ah yes, the annoying, constant-butt-slapping succubus. She's really skanky. No, I mean REALLY skanky. She says fun things like "Don't touch what you can't afford". She constantly slaps her own butt and moans. It can be really annoying to have her out. But, she is basically your own personal rogue/crowd control monkey. She can eventually stealth and do some sneaky badass damage with her Lash of Pain. She also has a Seduce spell that can hold a mob off of you for crowd control. Sadly, she's weak as heck and can take almost no damage. She looks like a cool dominatrix and annoying teenage boys standing around in capitol cities will ask you to get her out so they can look at her. I hardly ever use her, but she does have her uses, especially in PvP and in situations where you need a lot of crowd control and don't have a mage to sheep the mobs. I think you get her around level 20...
Felhunter (cost to summon: one soul shard): The felpuppy is like a big happy ugly-as-hell dog who eats magic. He is the bane of mages, priests and paladins everywhere in PvP situations, because as fast as they can throw self-buffs on themselves, the felhunter can eat them off of them (with an excellent crunching sound as well). He also can crunch up caster mobs pretty nicely, eating magical effects right off of them. He also has an ability called Tainted Blood, where if he is struck in melee combat, his blood will poison the mob that struck him. He doesn't really steal aggro from tanks, so he is great for using when you are out running around with a warrior. He's less tough than the voidwalker, but he is pretty darn useful. He also gives an ability to everyone in the party called Paranoia, which makes it easier to notice invisible mobs. I think you get him somewhere in the 30's, though I may be remembering wrong.
Infernal (cost to summon: an Infernal Stone reagent which you can buy): You get a quest in the 50's to learn how to summon an Infernal. These are giant guys made of green glowing rocks, who can smash the heck out of everything. However, you only have control over them for about 5 minutes, and once that time is up, they will turn on you and kill you unless you have help around. Once you lose control of them, they will also kill anyone else who happens to be standing around, so I generally don't summon them very often. It's dangerous! Because they are so unstable, I have yet to find any practical uses for these guys, though I have heard they are great in PvP.
It goes without saying that the default setting for all your pets should be Defensive. If you use Passive, they won't attack anything unless you tell them to. If you use Aggressive, they will go ballistic on every hostile thing they can see, usually resulting in total death for everyone involved. Defensive is great because if something hits you, the pets will go after them on their own, but they won't go nuts and just start randomly trying to kill multiple things six levels higher than they are.
Support!
Warlocks can also support through the use of various magical stones they can create using soul shards. Here are the most useful ones:
--Soulstone (starts at Lesser and eventually goes to Greater): You will be any priest, shaman, paladin or druid's best friend forever if you are in a group with them and they are the only healer/rezzer and you put a soulstone on them. What this does is store the friendly target's soul for 30 minutes. If they die in that 30 minutes, they can select the "Use Soulstone" option and they will immediately rez with a set amount of health and mana (and thus be able to rez the rest of the party after a wipe, unless they are a druid, in which case, they can rez one other person every thirty minutes...). Always soulstone the priest first. If there is no priest, soulstone the paladin/shaman (though shammies have a self-rez they can use every 30 minutes), then the druid. You can only have one soulstone active at a time and if it gets used, the rest of the 30-minute cooldown will apply before you can put another one on the healer/rezzer. If you're just out soloing, you can soulstone yourself so you don't have to waste time running back to your corpse. Sadly, soulstones do not have a visible timer on them at all to know when they expire (which they do if they aren't used). What I do to keep track of them, is put the soulstone on the priest, then cast Demon Armor on myself immediately afterwards- they both have a 30 minute cooldown, so I know when my Demon Armor fades, it's time to slap another soulstone on the priest. ^_^
--Healthstone (starts at Lesser and goes to Greater): These are a warrior's best friend. And a hunter's, and a rogue's, and heck, even a warlock's. Basically, it is a stone you carry in your bag, and if you need extra health back in a fight, you click it and it gives you a big burst of health. It is not on the same cooldown as bandages or potions, so it's great for those long fights where you need extra health, but you already took a potion. You can only carry one in your bag at a time, so you have to make one, trade it to who needs it, make another one, trade it, etc. Always make your own last. A good warlock will make the biggest grade of Healthstone they can to give to the main tank, since they don't disappear unless you log out for 15 minutes or use them. But you can also carry multiple Healthstones of different grades (Lesser, Minor, plain old Healthstone, Greater) at the same time, so you can have one of each type to use in succession once their cooldown expires for it. They're great.
--Spellstones, Firestones, etc: I haven't played with these much yet, but they can be equipped in the off-hand and used to increase spell or fire power if you use them. (I have a really good off-hand item, so I haven't used them much...)
More Support!
--Taxi Service- er, I mean Summoning! Sort of related to the stone-based items, in that you need soul shards to Summon. Summoning is great when you are in a group and you have 2 people with you, and you need to summon the other two people in the group to where you are. You basically make a portal that you and the other two people click on, and then you can teleport the fourth person to where you are. The down side is that you always need 2 other people to help you click the portal, and you will get random whispers from people on the other side of the planet who want you to summon them to where you are when you are completely alone. If you agree to do it (and go through the hassle of finding two other people to help you summon), ALWAYS MAKE THEM TIP OR PAY FOR THE SERVICE. It's annoying and they should learn to use the flight paths or their feet like everyone else has to. Also, some dumb people in raids/groups will tell you to go to the instance and then summon everyone else there- but they don't understand that you need the other two people to make it work. (In my guild, we set up summoning teams, where two people are sent out with me to help summon other people there. But we're really organized about such things!)
--Banish: a spell that allows you to crowd control a demon or elemental target. This makes them immune to damage for the duration of the Banish, but they also can't hit you or your friends during this time and just sit there uselessly. Extremely useful in Arathi Highlands!
--Enslave Demon: You're out in the Blasted Lands (or insert place crawling with demons here). You're out of soul shards and the imp just isn't cutting it. What to do? Why enslave a demon of course! For a limited amount of time, you can enslave a demon and have them do your bidding as a controllable pet. Make them kill their buddies, make them fight for you. The effectiveness of the spell decreases each subsequent time you use it on the same demon, so it can be difficult to manage the same demon over and over again once he breaks the spell. But it can come in handy sometimes.
--Drain Mana: Such a fun spell! I love it when a caster mob has taken me down to half mana, but they still have a lot. I keep the pet on them, and Drain Mana until I am full up again, then start pounding on them with spells again. Drain Mana is also essential in a lot of instance dungeons that have caster bosses- if you keep their mana drained, they can't get their magical attacks off on the tank or the rest of the party. Drain Mana is awesome.
--Life Tap: I thought this was the most useless spell EVER when I started playing. How wrong I was! It converts some of your life points into mana points. It's really useful if you are running out of mana in a big boss fight and have plenty of life left (which you should have, since warlocks are supposed to sit in the back and do damage from afar...). But it also works really well in conjunction with the two spells listed below also- the life-stealing spells can heal you right after Life Tap has sucked some life out of you.
--Drain Life (and Siphon Life): Warlocks are considered expendable in groups (something many warlocks don't like to believe...). We aren't needed to heal, we aren't needed to tank, and we aren't a super-high DPS class like rogues or mages. Yet, we often are the only ones standing at the end of almost full wipes. Why? We can steal life from mobs. Siphon Life (which you sadly only get from the Affliction talent spec) can be slapped on multiple mobs at once (I tab through everything in front of me and pile it onto all the mobs) and it drains their life and gives it back to you. Slap it on five mobs at once, and you start seeing appreciable health points coming back to you. Drain Life works the same way as Drain Mana, with a shiny glowing beam that Hoovers the health right out of mobs and into you. (Downside: if you get hit, it gets interrupted.) You can use these tricks to keep yourself alive in a fight, and often they take the burden off the healers to worry about you constantly. (Freeing them up to heal the aggro-attracting mages and the melee classes, like the rogues and warriors.) And if you die, no big, you're a warlock, it's what you're there for. As long as you put your DoTs and curses on things, soulstoned the priest, and did your best to use your own abilities to stay alive, you've done your job.
Armor and Weapons:
Always look for stuff with +Intellect and +Stamina. Those are your best friends. +Spirit is a bonus for mana restoration, but Int and Stam are the best ever. Gear with bonuses to shadow and fire damage are also totally awesome.
Misc. Tips:
--Never use Fear, Howl of Terror or Death Coil in instances or places where mobs are packed in very close. Why is this bad? Sure, you will get the extra mobs on you to run away in terror, but when they come back, they will bring back friends. Lots of friends. It's BAD. All the fear-based spells are really good when you need crowd control out in the less densely packed areas or in PvP.
--Remember you wear cloth and are super squishy. XD
--Shadow spells used to draw minimal aggro a few patches ago, but they now draw a ton. Fire spells also draw aggro (Immolate, Rain of Fire, Conflagrate, Searing Pain, Hellfire). Most Curses and Corruption/Affliction based spells draw much less aggro.
--Hellfire is NOT a good area of effect (AoE) spell, unless you have a priest or dedicated healer to heal you while you do it. This is because Hellfire does equal damage to the mobs AND to you. So, Hellfire away if you want to die really, really fast! :D I think I have used it twice or three times, and died every time. (Priest shields don't do much against Hellfire, sadly, haven't experimented with using the voidwalker's Sacrifice ability and Hellfire together.)
--Spend the money to get a Soul Pouch for your soul shards. You're going to lose a bag's worth of space to them anyway, so you might as well have the bag made just for them. I always try to keep a minimum of 10-15 soul shards on me at any given time, though I am really happy when I have a full 20-24. They are essential not just for summoning pets, but for making soulstones, healthstones and summoning people. (There are also a few spells that require them, like Shadow Burn, but I don't really use that spell much, since I am paranoid about wasting soul shards.)
Racial Abilities and You:
--Orcs get a Pet Mastery racial ability, which makes their pets (either hunter pets or warlock pets) more obedient. It's pretty nice.
--Humans get a racial ability called Perception, which boosts the performance of Paranoia a bit against invisible mobs. Humans also get a plus to using swords (if I remember right), which helps when you find one of those cool +Int/+Stam swords. (Train swords- you can use daggers, swords and staves as a warlock, but you have to train in the second two.)
--Gnomes get a +5 to Intellect stats, which makes them ideally suited for caster roles.
--Undead get.... uh... Will of the Forsaken, I guess, which can nullify Fear spells. Which is great for PvP, but not so much for PvE. (My undead warlock is very, very tiny...)
--Blood Elves will have Arcane Torrent (an AoE silence) and I think some kind of mana stealing doohickey... I need to read up on them some more.
Anyway, there's my warlock tips. Hopefully, they make sense and will be helpful to those who want to play warlocks.
Also, I am surprised how quickly I was able to write this up. I am a complete nerd. -_-;
