80 Affliction Warlock Guide

 by manni

General knowledge

Basically the warlock class is cloth wearer, which means you take plenty of damage, and TSG / ATC can oneshot you. Affliction damage aren’t that high once you get your dots up, but the overall damage is huge. There are plenty of comps that you can play but i recommend playing with a rogue/warrior for the 50% healing reduction, and plently of peels you can get. In arena Felhunter is the main pet you should have out all the time, and i will come back to that later. The advantage of having a Warlock in the team is they can drop all the 3 enemy players down at the same time, something that will make the healer use his mana quickly, and will have to heal the whole team at the same time. This will help your other dps partner switching alot between which target to kill, because everyone will be an easier target. Whenever you meet a Warrior / Rogue / Hunter in arena, Demon Armor is a must. This spell will increase all of your healing taken, by 30% + talent. Using this can save your healer from getting spell locked, because of he have to use every cooldown to heal you up.

General binds

• I run with A W D
• Target Enemy1 = Mouse scroll up
• Target Enemy2 = Mouse scroll down
• Target Enemy3 = Middle mouse
• Focus Enemy1 = CTRL + Mouse scroll up
• Focus Enemy2 = CTRL + Mouse scroll down
• Focus Enemy3 = CTRL + Middle mouse

Talents & Glyphs

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Corruption
• Glyph of Shadowflame
• Glyph of Howl of Terror

Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Kilrogg
• Glyph of Souls
• Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion

And here you can see my talents: http://armory.molten-wow.com/calculator/talent/9/?build=035000223122331105350230115100322030113020000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Gear

• 130 Spell penetration

• Hit 2% hit from gear, 3% from talent

• Spell power 3,3k+

• Resilience 1,3k~

• Haste 750

Red Socket = Spell Power

Yellow Socket = Spell Power + Resilience

Blue Socket = Hit + Spell Pen

Macros

In an arena match your job is to make sure your pet take as less damage as possible. If your pet dies, and Fel Domination is already used, you will take huge amount of damage because of no Soul Link. The main reason for having Felhunter up is Devour Magic. If you play a comp where the healer can’t dispel his teammates, the warlock will have to be the team’s dispeller. You’ll be able to devour 1 magically effect every 6 second which can save your team alot of cooldowns.

/cast [Target=Player] Devour Magic

(you can change the player name for anyone on your team)

/cast [target=arena1] Curse of Tongues

(you can change this for arena1/2/3 or focus)

/cast [target=arena1] Fear

(you can change this for arena1/2/3 or focus)

In arenas Shamans will place out Tremor Totem, something you’ll have to kill all the time. I use this Macro for the reason the enemy can see whenever I target the Tremor Totem, the Shaman will be aware of your going to kill, and he just place a new one. By having the mouseover macro, you can fear shortly before your pet is close to the Tremor Totem, and the Shaman wont be able to place it again that fast.

/petattack [@Mouseover,harm,nodead]

Use of cooldowns

Death Coil: should be used whenever your current target is dropping at really low health, he can’t use anything to escape it. This will make your target unable to go defensive, and you will probably get a kill.

Howl of Terror: Really helpful massive fear that will make every target within 10 yards get feared. This can be used to peel the opponent team whenever your group is dropping low, but make sure there is no Fear Ward / Tremor Totem up while using it. At the other side its useable whenever your about to get a kill, but the opponent team is sitting on you, using interrupts and gripping you off the kill target.

Spell lock: Most warlocks use this spell whenever its off cooldown. Spell Lock should be used whenever you need to use it, and not when you can. If your sits in a full Hex, and you are getting nuked down this is the time to use it. An arena match can go from win to loss instantly if your Spell Lock is being used on every single spell the opponent casts so choose wisely!

Warlock is, and will almost everytime be the kill target of melee teams. Thats why you have to stay calm under the whole game, and not get stressed. Getting stressed will make do mistakes, and use your cooldowns just to get some space. Communicate with your healer whenever you can use portal, so he’s aware that he should move to your portal and wait for you.

Good luck!