Warlock Leveling Guide

The Warlock is a strong, independent caster with their own personal demon tank and the ability to leech life from their enemies in order to heal themselves. The class has three different specializations that focus on dealing damage, offering your choice of ranged DPS flavor: damage-over-time, AoE, or burst. They also offer unique utility for group and solo play alike.

This guide will help you choose a build, equipment, professions, rotation, and where to go as a Warlock to get from 1 to 90 as efficiently as possible. It won’t be long before you’re putting a Soulstone on the healer and trying to get people to click for summons!

Strengths

• The Warlock’s demon pets provide lots of utility and survivability. You can even use them to hold off mobs while you use your gathering skills or pick up quest items.
• No one chain pulls like the Warlock, with their ability to regenerate health and mana in combat and their capacity for more DoTs.
• Unending Breath, Glyph of Nightmares, Burning Rush, and Demonic Circle give you some extra freedom to navigate the open world.
• Keeping a Soulstone on yourself can save you having to run back if the worst happens, and can even allow you to do skips that other classes can’t.

Weaknesses

• As a pure DPS class, you won’t have the option to tank or heal for faster dungeon queues or a change of pace.
• As useful as pets are, they add a layer of complexity and micromanagement to the class. Utilizing them well can be challenging.
• Many of your abilities require tapping into your health pool, which can be dangerous.

Talent Builds

Warlocks are pure ranged damage dealers with three talent trees that offer different approaches to that role. Demonology offers the smoothest leveling and solo experience with its overall tankiness, allowing you to pull larger groups and whittle them down with AoE damage. Affliction is particularly strong in the higher levels, but its DoT-based damage requires ramp time which can feel a bit slow in the open world. Destruction offers the most straightforward rotation with strong burst damage.

Talents

Because of the changes to talent trees in this expansion, all of your class’s specializations share the same set of talent options. Our recommendations are the same regardless of spec.

• Level 15: Soul Leech
  This is a great passive increase to your survivability. Harvest Life requires you to cast Drain Life and sacrifice some of your damage in order to be useful. Dark Regeneration is not as useful outside of a group.
• Level 30: Shadowfury
  An AoE stun is going to be the most useful of these three crowd control options for leveling. Demonic Breath can help you kite, but hopefully mobs will be focused on your demon and you won’t need to do that. Mortal Coil only works on one enemy, only lasts for 3 seconds, and like any other fear effect it can accidentally pull extra mobs when you least want to do so.
• Level 45: Soul Link
  This is a strong survivability boost to your character while also providing both you and your demon with a steady stream of healing. It’s also a passive effect that you don’t have to think about. You will not wind up getting as much use out of Sacrificial Pact and Dark Bargain in solo content.
• Level 60: Burning Rush
  With this talent you can sprint for as long as your health can support it. You just have to be careful not to push it too far, especially if you’re also pulling mobs. Blood Horror can be a solid defensive ability, but it causes mobs to run in fear, which can lead to accidental pulls. Unbound Will is better for PvP.
• Level 75: Grimoire of Supremacy
  This is a good boost to your damage as well as making your demon a lot more useful. Grimoire of Service is much more situational and Grimoire of Sacrifice is better in group content when you can afford to give up your demon for its duration.

Glyphs

Glyphs have been trimmed down a bit for Mists of Pandaria and have a more subtle impact than they did in Cataclysm, with Prime Glyphs completely gone away. The glyphs below are our recommendations for leveling, but your mileage may vary based on your own preferences and playstyle (and what cosmetic effects you may want). Our recommendations are the same for all 3 builds with the exception of one Minor Glyph for Demonology.

Major

• Level 25: Glyph of Soul Consumption
  You’ll get a lot of use out of this when killing mobs in the open world.
• Level 50: Glyph of Demon Training
  This is a nice little survivability boost to your Voidwalker (or your Felguard, for Demonology).
• Level 75: Glyph of Fear
  You won’t have to worry about pulling extra mobs when you need to use Fear.

Minor

• Level 25: Glyph of Nightmares
  This glyph gives water walking to your class mount, which will help you get around the open world a lot more easily. If you already have a water walking mount, you can grab Unending Breath early or go for something else.
• Level 50: Glyph of Unending Breath
  Any time you have to quest or farm in an underwater area, the increased swim speed from this glyph will make it a lot less painful.
• Level 75:
  • Demonology: Glyph of Falling Meteor
    Your Demonic Leap ability becomes a way to safely land from any height with this glyph, which can be especially useful when navigating zones where you can’t fly.
  • Affliction & Destruction: Glyph of Eye of Kilrogg
    With this, your Eye of Kilrogg can fly in flying-enabled zones, even if you yourself can’t fly there yet. It can also place Demonic Circles for you, allowing you to cross gaps that would otherwise require going a long way around.

Stat Priority

Always try to stack your main stat above all.

Equipment

Warlocks are fairly limited in terms of what gear they can use. They can only wear Cloth armor. As far as weapons, you’ll be able to equip Wands, Daggers, Staves, and One-Handed Swords. Warlocks can’t Dual Wield and they can’t equip Shields. A Staff will usually provide you with the easiest stats while leveling, but you can also use a One-Handed weapon with a Held in Off-hand item. Note that Wands now use your Main Hand slot since the Ranged equipment slot has been removed from the game with this expansion. Weapon upgrades will often be the biggest damage increase while leveling. If you’re using an Heirloom weapon, it will upgrade automatically each time you level.

Heirlooms

Heirlooms can considerably speed up the leveling process by granting you increased experience gains and making your character a lot stronger. They’re also a lot more convenient than having to replace your gear every few levels. To get heirloom equipment for your Warlock, you’ll have to buy it on another character who has enough of an appropriate currency.

Any heirloom gear is better than nothing. If you happen to have some lying around after leveling another character, feel free to use them rather than buying new ones (as long as the stats are good for you). But these are the best pieces if you’re looking to purchase some Heirlooms specifically for leveling your Warlock:

• Head: Tattered Dreadmist Mask
• Shoulder: Tattered Dreadmist Mantle
• Back: Ancient Bloodmoon Cloak
• Chest: Tattered Dreadmist Robe
• Legs: Tattered Dreadmist Leggings
• Finger: Dread Pirate Ring
• Trinket: Discerning Eye of the Beast x2
• Weapons: Dignified Headmaster’s Charge

Professions

You can approach professions while leveling in one of two ways: you can either start working on the skills you want to use at level 90 or you can pick up some professions to help you along the way. It’s more efficient in the long run to level your endgame professions at the same time that you level your character, but most professions will significantly slow down the leveling process if you do this. So if you just want to make it to level 90 as quickly as possible, it might make sense to grab something else for the time being.

As far as professions that specifically make leveling easier, gathering skills are the best choice. Herbalism and Mining have been changed in Mists of Pandaria to allow you to gather materials from any node in the game with a level 1 skill. These two professions, along with Archaeology, also give you character experience as you gain skill. On top of that, all three gathering professions – Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning – each offer useful passive bonuses that can help you in your journey, even if you don’t bother to level them at all.

Crafting professions require a lot more work (or a lot of gold to buy the materials on the Auction House). Many professions will allow you to craft items that you can use while leveling, with Tailoring and Engineering being particularly useful. Many players who pick up Tailoring opt to take Enchanting as their other profession due to their synergy (you can enchant the gear you make, and disenchant extra items that you don’t need). It’s not really worth investing in these skills just for leveling, though. If you pick up a crafting profession, it should either be in preparation for endgame or as a means of supporting your other characters.

Rotation

Now that you’re all set up, here are what buttons you should push and in what order!

Starting out you’ll have your Imp, whom you should keep summoned at all times. You’ll be spamming Shadow Bolt for the first few levels, and then maintaining Corruption on your targets once you learn it. Switch to the Voidwalker demon as soon as you get it and start to weave in the rest of your build’s rotation after level 10.

For all 3 builds, remember that if you’re fighting more than one enemy, you want to keep your DoTs up on as many of them as possible.

Affliction

• Use Agony to apply and maintain its debuff (level 36+).
• Use Corruption to apply and maintain its debuff.
• Use Unstable Affliction to apply and maintain its debuff.
• Use Drain Soul if the target is below 20% health (level 19+).
• Use Malefic Grasp otherwise (level 42+).
  • Use Shadow Bolt until you get Malefic Grasp.

Demonology

• Always have your Felguard summoned and attacking (level 42+).
• Use Corrupton to apply its debuff.
  • You should not usually need to re-apply it after level 25 thanks to Touch of Chaos.
• Use Command Demon on cooldown if fighting more than 1 enemy (level 56+).
• Use Metamorphosis if it is available.
• Use Immolation Aura if in Metamorphosis and fighting at least 3 enemies (level 62+).
• Use Doom if you are in Metamorphosis and the target will live for a while.
• Use Hand of Gul’dan when you have two charges available or if Shadowflame is about to fall off (level 19+). (Not usable in Metamorphosis.)
• Use Soul Fire if you have Molten Core procs (level 69+).
• Use Touch of Chaos if you are in Metamorphosis (level 25+).
• Use Shadow Bolt otherwise.

Destruction

• Use Immolate to apply and maintain its debuff.
• Use Shadowburn if your target is below 20% health and you either have at least 3 Burning Embers or you are in need of mana (level 47+).
• Use Conflagrate if you have two charges available.
• Use Chaos Bolt if you have at least 3 Burning Embers (level 42+).
• Use Conflagrate if you have a charge available.
• Use Incinerate otherwise.

Where To Level

Getting Started

Like all classes except for Death Knights, you’ll begin in the starting zone for your character’s race. Completing your starting zone should get you through the first dozen or so levels. After that, you can head to your faction’s capital city to train professions, use the Auction House, and decide where to go next. A good place to start is the Hero’s Call Board in the center of The Trade District in Stormwind City or the Warchief’s Command Board in front of Grommash Hold at The Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar. This board will always have a couple of quests directing you to a zone in your level range.

Leveling Beyond Your Starting Zone

Level 20 is when you’ll be able to get your first mount. As a Warlock, you’ll automatically learn the level 20 and 40 riding skills, and you’ll receive special class mounts for each. After that, you should train new riding skills as soon as they become available to help you get around more quickly. Don’t forget to also train your professions, upgrade your gear, and pick up glyphs when you have new slots available. At level 30, you can learn Dual Specialization from your class trainer, which will allow you to have an alternate build that you can swap to when you feel the need.

For the first 58 levels, you’ll be questing or dungeon grinding in Classic zones and instances on the continents of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. When you get into the higher levels, you should head to the next expansion’s zones as soon as you’re able to: Outland at level 58, Northrend at 68, Cataclysm at 78, and Pandaria at 85. There’s a big jump in loot and experience for each expansion that makes it well worth abandoning whatever you were doing before and moving on.

If you’re not worried about taking the fastest, most direct path to level 90, feel free to break up your leveling process by trying out different activities. There are plenty of things to do in World of Warcraft that grant experience besides questing and killing mobs. You can get a little bit of experience from gathering with Archaeology, Herbalism, or Mining. You can run dungeons with other players, or compete against them in PvP battlegrounds. The new pet battle system also gives experience.