User:Mordaine

Note: Please do not post talent specs for me to "review" or "critique." If you have a question about a build, ask about the specific talents you are choosing between. You are better off creating a new topic if you really need help for your overall build.

The goal of this guide is to provide an in-depth analysis of each talent in the Warlock trees. In the "Popular Builds" section, I will discuss in detail the idea of the each build and their strengths/weaknesses. This is a community effort. If at any time I appear to be "biased" or "incorrect," I am eager to listen to constructive criticism. I will not respond to flames.

I will try to be as objective as possible in describing the talents and their uses.

Be sure also to visit Shadowbolt's guide for further analysis on raiding builds. Sert's talent guide is also nice as a quick reference to talent builds.

- Warlock Talent Guide (2/7/07) -

Talent guide contents A. Affliction Tree [dx-a] B. Demonology Tree [dx-b] C. Destruction Tree [dx-c] D. Popular Builds (Under construction) [dx-d]

Use Ctrl+F (the "Find") function on your browser to jump to a specific part of the guide.

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A. Affliction Tree [dx-a] The Affliction tree improves the strength of your DoT and drain spells. It is widely considered to be the best grinding spec thanks to the near complete lack of downtime and the ability to take on multiple mobs at the same time.

Tier 1

Suppression rank 5/5 Reduces the chance for enemies to resist your Affliction spells by 10%.

This will cause your DoT's (excluding Immolate), Drain's, Fear's, and Curse's to be resisted less often. You will suffer fewer level-based resists as you invest in this talent. This will help save on mana lost from resists and time used to cast the spells.

Suppression has a noticeable effect on Fear and Death Coil, which makes this a rather useful, underestimated talent. CC is one of our main strengths in group PvP, and Suppression will make you that much better at it. Suppression is a good talent dump for when you need to move further down into the Affliction tree. Note that it is believed that 3 points is enough to obtain the maximum benefit of this talent for PvP (assuming both you and your opponent are of equal levels).

As of BC, Suppression is more important than ever, as each individual DoT tick has about 10x higher chance to have a partial resist. ________

Improved Corruption rank 5/5 Reduces the casting time of your Corruption spell by 2.0 sec.

One of the best Warlock talents. Corruption is near worthless with a casting time, but with this talent, it becomes the bread and butter of Affliction builds and a nice instant option for Demonology and Destruction builds. This talent is included in most talent builds, though some that reach far into Destruction and Demonology will skip it (example: 0/21/40 raiding build).

Note that Corruption's spell damage coefficient has been reduced to 93%.

Tier 2

Improved Curse of Weakness rank 2/2 Increases effect of Curse of Weakness by 20%

Curse of Weakness is WEAKER than it was prior to 2.01. It no longer stacks with Demoralizing Shout, and the attack power reduction is laughable compared to the benefits you'd gain from other curses. Skip. ________

Improved Drain Soul rank 2/2 Returns 15% of your mana if your target is killed by you while you drain its soul. In addition, your Affliction spells generate 10% less threat.

This talent was vastly improved in 2.01 and is now pretty good talent for PvE. Note that YOU must land the killing blow to the target in order for the mana return to proc. This means if someone in your group, someone outside, or even your pet lands the killing blow, you will not have mana returned. In other words, it'll probably only proc often enough to matter in solo PvE grinding. When it does proc though, it greatly helps to reduce downtime and improve the flow of your grinding.

Fortunately, the threat reduction on this talent makes it decent even for groups and raids. Grab this talent for the level grind and for raiding. Skip for strict PvP builds. ________

Improved Life Tap rank 2/2 Increases mana awarded from your Life Tap spell by 20%

Since Warlocks tend to have very small mana pools and low mana regeneration, Life Tap is our primary means of staying effective in battle... and it does a hell of a good job of doing it. Though the effect looks simple, the overall effect on your character is huge. It effectively makes your health worth that much more mana in a long fight. Improved Life Tap makes it so that you need to waste FEWER global cooldowns on Life Tap, improving your DPS. It also makes the healer mana:Warlock damage ratio that much better. Get this talent if you plan to have more than 5 points in Affliction. ________

Soul Siphon 2/2 Increases the amount drained by your Drain Life and Drain Mana spells by an additional 5% for each Affliction effect on the target, to a maximum of 60%.

This talent, introduced in 2.01 is a vast improvement over the old Improved Drain Life. Not only does the effect scale with gear now, but it is potentially SIX times stronger than the old talent for THREE less talent points! Thanks to this talent and the improved range added in 2.01, Drain Life is now an incredible spell. People have been testing the spell to see if it can be treated as the "Affliction nuke." The DPS is still significantly lower than Shadow Bolt, but it is also far more mana efficient (in fact, you'll be gaining a lot of "mana" in the form of Life Tap HP).

People have been testing the new Drain Life's strength in PvP. The channeled nature of Drain Life and the visual graphic it has makes it Counterspell bait, and as an Affliction Warlock, you don't want your Shadow school to be silenced. The improved range makes Drain Life very good in certain situations, but be very careful who you cast it around and where.

This talent is incredibly powerful for Affliction builds and still probably pretty good for Demonology builds. Be sure to grab this talent if you plan to spec Affliction, and consider it if you are speccing Demonology. Destruction Warlocks generally don't need it.

Improved Curse of Agony rank 2/2 Increases damage done by your Curse of Agony by 10%.

2.01 improved this talent in a few ways. It requires one less talent point to max out, and the maximum bonus is 10%, instead of 6%. But, most importantly, this talent now scales with gear. CoA is an important spell to Affliction Warlocks, especially with the new DoT +dmg coefficients. Since it only improves one spell, over 24 seconds, this talent isn't crucial. It is a good talent dump if you have any extra points, however. ________

Fel Concentration rank 5/5 Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling the Drain Life, Drain Mana, or Drain Soul spell.

Another essential talent in the Affliction tree, this talent makes Drain Life a better option in PvP and is also a requirement for "drain tanking." There are a few situations in PvP where you can Drain Life with Fel Concentration for use when you need to deal uninterruptable damage. In my experience, these situations don't come up very often, but the option is good to have. Also, Drain Life procs Nightfall, which will make it an even better option when you get it. A very good talent for the grind, a decent talent otherwise.

Note that Drain Life and Drain Mana both have a base range of 30 now. ________

Amplify Curse rank 1 Instant cast, 3 min cooldown: Increases the effect of your next Curse of Doom or Curse of Agony by 50%, or your next Curse of Exhaustion by 20%.

A nifty talent, mainly for use with Curse of Agony and Curse of Exhaustion in PvP. When activated, this ability will make Curse of Exhaustion a much stronger snare, and Curse of Agony a much more damaging DoT. This talent gives you a little boost in DPS that helps with PvE, especially with soloing elites, and also provides a good snare for PvP. A very good investment for 1 talent point.

Amplify Curse now works with Curse of Doom (instead of CoW) as of BC. Amplify Curse is a little buggy with CoD and CoW right now, so beware (or abuse it, whatever).

Tier 4

Grim Reach rank 2/2 Increases the range of your Affliction spells by 20%

Grim Reach is one of the most important talents in the Affliction tree. In my opinion, one of the greatest weaknesses of the SL builds is that they often lack the range talents. Range might not exactly help with DPS, but it lets you cast from further away, which means less time running up to your target and more time that your target must spend running to you.

This talent is extremely important to the PvP playstyle of Affliction, because you will generally be moving about the outskirts of the battlefield, using hit and run tactics to avoid direct encounters. You will need it to compete with the range of other casters, and it will further increase the range advantage you have other Warrior Charge/Intercepts.

Curses, Drain Life and DoTs are increased from 30 yards to 36 yards, and Fear is increased from 20 yards to 24 yards. 20 yards is dangerously close to your opponent, and having that 24 yard Fear is a very, very nice benefit. Grab it if you're going down Affliction. ________

Nightfall rank 2/2 Gives your Corruption and Drain Life spells a 4% chance to cause you to enter a Shadow Trance state after damaging the opponent. The Shadow Trance state reduces the casting time of your next Shadow Bolt spell by 100%.

A popular, but not crucial talent in the Affliction tree. Each tick of Drain Life and Corruption has a 4% chance of giving you an instant cast Shadow Bolt. It's not exactly something that you can rely on, but crit's aren't reliable either. I have it proc every other battle or so.

Stack Corruption on multiple targets for maximum benefit. It's a minor increase in DPS for PvE, but a nice proc for instant, "undispellable" damage for PvP. Corruption is a good PvP talent. For PvE, it provides only a tiny DPS boost (basically 1 second off the next cast time of Shadow Bolt, considering global cooldown), but it is popular nonetheless. ________

Empowered Corruption rank 3/3 Your Corruption spell gains an additional 36% of your bonus damage effects.

I'm not very clear on the math for this talent - I will add information on this later.

This talent makes +dmg gear boost Corruption more, meaning it is a DPS boost to Corruption if you have +dmg gear. Corruption is one of your primary DoT's, so this talent is good for boosting your DPS.

The problem of this talent is that you need +dmg gear in order to gain the benefit, meaning that you will not want to pick this talent up as soon as it is available if you are leveling up your Warlock unless you are grinding with an exceptional amount of low level +dmg gear. Before investing in this talent, make sure you have a decent amount of +dmg gear..

Tier 5

Shadow Embrace rank 5/5 Your Corruption, CoA, SoC, and Siphon Life also cause the Shadow Embrace effect, which reduces physical damage caused by 5%.

There was a blue post that says Shadow Embrace only affects damage done to the caster. Reports have come out with all sorts of data, so I am uncertain whether or not this really affects the entire raid. I will update later.

For now, however, the general consensus is that it is worth putting one point into this talent because it adds an additional Affliction debuff to add to the Soul Siphon talent's benefit. 5% physical damage reduction is pretty insignificant for PvP, and in solo PvE you generally won't need it. This talent may be excellent for raids, depending on whether or not it really just affects the damage done to the caster.

________

Siphon Life rank 1/1 150 Mana, 30 yd range, Instant cast: Transfers x health from the target to the caster every 3 sec. Lasts 30 sec.

After casting Siphon Life, your DoT chain will be that much more effective, and you're regaining a little bit of life from it. Unfortunately, Siphon Life's +dmg coefficient is reduced to half of what a 30 second DoT normally would have, because of the drain effect. It is very mana inefficient if it ends early. Other than that, it's a pretty good spell, and a prerequisite to Shadow Mastery anyways. Siphon Life is a decent talent, but unlike other 21 point talents like Ruin, Mage's PoM, and Druid/Shaman's NS, it won't be competing against 41 point talents for builds.

________

Curse of Exhaustion rank 1/1 108 Mana 30 yd range Instant cast: Reduces the target's speed by 30% for 12 sec. Only one Curse per Warlock can be active on any one target.

This talent was improved greatly from 2.01, as it requires only ONE talent point to "max out" now instead of FIVE. CoEx is either extremely powerful or completely worthless, depending on who you ask. The snare itself is weak, it is extremely spammable. A person running at 99% speed will never catch up to someone running at 100%, and someone running at 100% will eventually catch up to someone running at 99%.

Things like Sprint and snares on you obviously negate this effect, but in group pvp, a Rogue won't always have Sprint as an option and Intercept might have already been used up on a Priest. The Rogue and Warrior will not have many options in getting into your face. It's also good for catching runners and Hunters.

Don't view CoEx as a snare you'd keep up for the entire battle. Think of it as a "temporary snare" to widen the gap between you and your opponent.

I see no reason to skip CoEx now, as it only requires one talent point and has a variety of situational uses.

Tier 6

Shadow Mastery rank 5/5 Increases damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells by 10%.

Not much to say, a very good talent. It improves the damage of your Drains, shadow-based DoT's, and Shadow Bolt by 10%. Note that for all spells it affects Shadow Mastery scales with gear.

Contagion rank 5/5 Increases the damage of Curse of Agony, Corruption, and Seed of Corruption by 5% and reduces the chance your Affliction spells will be dispelled by an additional 30%.

For PvE, unless BC mobs will have a ton of dispels, this talent is basically a poor version of Shadow Mastery that only affects three spells, two of which don't stack with each other. For PvP, however, it's a pretty annoying talent that makes it somewhat more difficult to remove your DoT's. Healers will have to spend an extra GCD and more mana to attempt removing your DoT's, which extends the life and damage of your DoT's and makes life more difficult for healers.

This talent isn't incredibly powerful, but it isn't useless neither. It is a prerequisite for Unstable Affliction, so max it out if you are building an Affliction build.

________ Dark Pact rank 1/1 20 yd range, Instant: Transfers a lot of mana from your pet to you.

This talent is incredible for restoring mana without having to spend life via Life Tap. The ranks themselves have improved greatly in mana generation, and on top of this, Dark Pact now scales with gear! All of your pets besides the Voidwalker pretty high spirit and regnerate mana quickly. With enough damage gear, you may be Dark Pacting over half of your pet's mana per cast.

This talent is great because it gives you more lasting power both in PvE and PvP by making you less reliant on heals. It is almost like adding your pet's mana pool and regeneration to your own, except you should be careful not to use up all of your pet's mana if you need it to use its abilities.

Tier 8

Improved Howl of Terror rank 2/2 Reduces the cast time of Howl of Terror by 1.5 seconds.

Note that Howl of Terror's cast time has been reduced to 1.5 seconds, but the duration has also been cut to 8 seconds max.

This is an incredible talent. If having no instant, "defenses" is one of the major weaknesses of the Warlock class, this talent works to nearly remove it. Now you have TWO instant defenses, one in Death Coil, one in iHoT. This makes it difficult for certain classes to approach you in PvP. The applications of an instant AoE Fear are endless.

iHoT still has problems though. It counts against your diminishing returns on Fear and Seduce and suffers the same counters as them. iHoT will be one of the defining characteristics of the Affliction tree, and you should definately get it if you're so far down the tree already. It is considered by some to be the "true" Affliction 41 point talent.

________

Malediction rank 3/3 Increases the damage bonus effect of CoS and CoEl by an additional 3%.

A pretty underwhelming talent, considering its location on the tree. Warlocks can spec this to optimize raid DPS. I don't see a reason to pick up this talent for PvP, since you will most likely be using CoA anyways.

Tier 9

Unstable Affliction rank 1/1 30 yard range, 1.5s cast time: Causes 1050 damage over 15 seconds. If Unstable Affliction is dispelled, it will deal 1550 damage to the dispeller and silence them for 5 seconds.

A very good 41 talent, both for PvP and PvE. One major weakness of Affliction prior to 2.01 was that it was vulnerable to dispels. Unstable Affliction punishes healers for abusing this weakness. The damage is significant, but the real damage is done in the silence. 5 seconds of silence can spell death to the healer's allies. Where Contagion simply provides a mechanic that makes it somewhat harder to dispel your DoT's, Unstable Affliction forces the healers to make a decision: risk taking 1.5k damage and be silenced for 5 seconds, or let your ally take several thousand DoT damage because you didn't dispel him?

You probably will not be utilizing the anti-dispel portion of UA much in PvE, but it does count as an additional DoT to Affliction's line-up. UA provides more raid damage than Ruin in battles that last more than a few seconds, and will also count as an Affliction effect for Soul Siphon.

The effectiveness in Unstable Affliction is not purely in its anti-dispel property. UA does deal slightly less damage than Corruption and has a cast time, but it is still an additional DoT to Affliction's DPS. It gives you the option of spending that 1.5s cast time for further DPS and dispel protection for your DoT's. Though UA won't completely stop healers from dispelling your crap, it is a very powerful addition to the Affliction tree.

Note that for those deciding between 41/0/20 and 40/0/21, UA beats out Ruin in long PvE battles unless you have around a 40% crit rate. For PvP, it's more of a matter of playstyle; UA if you DoT a lot, Ruin if you primarily nuke with DoT's as backup.

B. Demonology Tree [dx-b] The Demonology tree involves bonuses involving your pet, your stats, and your conjured stones. The focus of Demonology has changed somewhat from "survivability" to "enhanced pet and Warlock damage" as Soul Link was nerfed and many damage talents were added to the tree. Demonology trades the damage options of Affliction and Destruction for enhanced stats and a stronger pet.

Tier 1

Improved Healthstone rank 2/2 Increases the amount of Health restored by your Healthstone by 20%.

With two points, Improved Healthstone will increase the amount of health restored by your final rank healthstone from about 2100 to about 2500. Not a huge change, but I know that 400 health has saved my life many times. Also, when another Warlock in your raid has 0/2 and/or 1/2 Improved Healthstone, people will be able to carry multiple final rank healthstones... one from each Warlock with a different number of points invested in this talent. Improved Healthstone is a decent talent if you're going to go further in the Demonology tree. ________

Improved Imp rank 3/3 Increases the effect of your Imp's Firebolt, Fire Shield, and Blood Pact spells by 30%.

Improved Imp is a decent, but not crucial talent. Blood Pact is a party favorite and Improved Imp will increase Blood Pact's stamina bonus by 30%. Really, the health benefit isn't huge, but considering it increases everyone's health in your party, it's still decent for improving Blood Pact.

Improved Imp also significantly increases Fire Bolt damage, if you plan on using the Imp for attacking. If you like to use Imp to attack with Improved Fire Bolt, this is a pretty good talent. 30% increased damage on Firebolt is pretty big. Unfortunately, the coefficient on Fire Bolt and the Improved Fire Bolt talent were both nerfed heavily, making the Imp nowhere near as powerful for DPS as he was when BC first came out.

Improved Imp is considered to be a good, but not crucial PvE talent. People who want the Imp for its DPS should definately pick this talent up. People looking just to improve Blood Pact should probably only put points into it if they have extras. ________

Demonic Embrace rank 5/5 Increases your total Stamina by 15% but reduces your total Spirit by 5%.

Demonic Embrace is a very powerful talent, taking out points in one of our least important stats and greatly increasing one of the most important stats. More health is always good. Like Improved Corruption, this talent should be included in every build unless you're reaching far into Affliction/Destruction for certain talents.

With stamina values on items increasing in BC, Demonic Embrace becomes even more important. For those looking to make their pets stronger, this talent also helps a little bit in increasing their health (and your benefit from Demonic Knowledge).

Tier 2

Improved Health Funnel 2/2 Increases the amount of Health transfered by your Health Funnel spell by 20% and reduces the health cost by 20%.

With the addition of the Felguard and the buff to the Voidwalker that makes his taunt abilities scale, this talent may actually be worth using for PvE grinding, and perhaps even raiding with the Felguard. Don't bother with it for PvP.

Health Funnel scales with +healing as of BC. ________

Improved Voidwalker rank 3/3 Increases the effectiveness of your Voidwalker's Torment, Consume Shadows, Sacrifice and Suffering spells by 30%.

It improves the VW's ability to hold agro, regenerate itself, and boosts its Sacrifice ability. Most people will prefer to use the Felguard to tank instead once the talent is available, which reduces the worth of this talent. This talent may be useful for grinding before level 50, but Affliction is generally a better build for grinding. Pick this talent up if you insist on grinding with the VW and don't have access to the Felguard; otherwise skip.

Side note: If you insist on grinding with a Destruction build, and you have the points to go down this far into Demonology, this is actually a pretty good talent. _________

Fel Intellect rank 3/3 Increases the maximum Mana of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, and Felhunter by 15% and your maximum mana by 3%.

The primary reason for picking up this talent is because it will help increase the spell damage you get from Demonic Knowledge, further down the tree. For other purposes, it isn't that great. The Succubus and Felhunter generally don't go through mana that fast. The Imp's mana drains quickly, but this talent will only provide a couple extra Fire Bolts before he has to regenerate mana. The mana boost to you is laughable, but it's there nonetheless.

Pick up Fel Intellect if you're going to get Demonic Knowledge. Otherwise, your points are better spent elsewhere.

Tier 3

Improved Succubus rank 3/3 Increases the effect of your Succubus' Lash of Pain and Soothing Kiss spells by 30%, and increases the duration of your Succubus' Seduction and Lesser Invisibility spells by 30%.

Patch 2.01 globally nerfed all CC's in PvP to have a 12 second max duration. Seduce, enhanced by this talent, would last 18 seconds, which was already longer than the previous cap on CC duration. The primary use of this talent was that it helped prolong the duration of the 2nd and 3rd Seduce. As of 2.01, I'm not sure if this still works. For PvE, the longer Seduce duration is helpful, but not necessary. Also, a lot of mobs in Heroic instances are immune to Seduce.

The Succubus' DPS has increased with the patch, but that doesn't make it worth spending 3 points to improve Lash of Pain. Most Seduce nuking builds don't go this far down the Demonology tree, and this talent is rendered mostly worthless once you get the Felguard. Most builds will skip this talent. ________

Fel Domination rank 1/1 Instant cast 15 min cooldown: Your next Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, or Felhunter Summon spell has its casting time reduced by 5 sec and its Mana cost reduced by 50%.

This talent, combined with Master Summoner, allows you to have a 0.5 cast time on your next pet, along with a basically free mana cost. Way back in the days where Daeo flamed all the Warlocks on this forum, his posted his builds which always included Fel Dom/Master Summoner, despite people's strong opinion that Demonology past rank 1 was worthless. In those days, BG's did not exist, and PvP was all about solo world pvp. I personally considered this talent to be a must have at the time.

The weakness of Warlocks pre-Death Coil was that you must have had the right pet at at the right time, and if you were ever caught petless, you were doomed. This talent takes away that weakness every 15 minutes. This is godly in world PvP and decent in emergency situations. It has a huge cooldown, though, and won't see much use in BG's. If you're going down the Demonology tree, get it. Otherwise, it's not really a necessity these days. ________

Fel Stamina rank 3/3 Increases the maximum Health of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, and Felhunter by 15% and your maximum health by 3%.

This is now a vital talent for most Demonology builds. The Felguard isn't as tough as he looks, and needs this health boost for PvE and for PvP. As with Fel Intellect, 2.01 made this talent also increase your maximum health by 3% and it also decreased the number of points needed to max this talent to 3. 3% maximum health gives you 150 more health with a 5k health pool - not much, but it's there. This talent also helps improve your benefit from Demonic Knowledge, making it very important for 0/40/21 Warlocks.

Grab this talent if you plan to use Felguard and/or Demonic Knowledge. ________

Demonic Aegis 3/3 Increases the effectiveness of your Demon Armor and Fel Armor spells by 30%.

Demonic Aegis will increase the amount of armor, health regeneration, and Shadow resistance from Demon Armor and the +dmg and the healing bonus for Fel Armor. This is a nice talent for enhancing Fel Armor - more benefits from healing and more damage is always welcome. However, you should note that the damage increase you gain from this talent will NOT scale with gear, so you're effectively spending 3 points for +30 damage when you have Fel Armor up. The healing portion does scale, however, with the heals you receive.

I consider Demonic Aegis to be a "good buffer talent." Chances are, it won't make or break your game, but since Demonology has so many crap low level talents, it's likely that you are going to pick it up on the way down the tree.

Master Summoner rank 2/2 Reduces the casting time of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, and Felhunter Summoning spells by 4 sec and the Mana cost by 40%.

Max this talent if you get Fel Domination. If you don't, FD will be worthless. Other than that, this talent is primarily something of convenience. There might be the rare battle where you need to Fear+resummon pet, but in such a situation you're likely screwed anyway. ________

Unholy Power rank 5/5 Increases the damage done by your Voidwalker, Succubus, and Felhunter's melee attacks by 20%

More damage to your melee pets. Note that this talent does not affect the Imp's damage. Unholy Power is a prerequisite for Master Demonologist, one of the best talents available to the Warlock class, which means you're going to probably pick it up just for that reason.

This talent is good for Felguard builds who rely on the Felguard to provide significant DPS. Unfortunately, the Felguard is probably the ONLY pet who really benefits from this talent, though that isn't an issue to Warlocks investing lots of points in Demonology. Warlocks moving deep into Demonology for anything past Master Demonologist should get this talent. Otherwise, skip.

Tier 5

Improved Enslave Demon rank 2/2 Reduces the Attack Speed and Casting Speed penalty of your Enslave Demon spell by 10% and reduces the resist chance by 10%.

2.01 lowered the number of talent points required by this talent to 2/2, from 5/5. I wouldn't spend one talent point in this tree, let alone two... even if it were a first tier talent.

The only times I ever use Enslave Demon are when it's needed as a CC in instances like Maraudon, Dire Maul, and the nightmare area in Zul'Gurub. In those situations, I couldn't care less how fast my enslaved demon is attacking, and I'm not spending 5 points to have one rarely used CC spell get resisted less often. Note, however, that there are a lot of new demons to enslave in the Outlands, many of them very powerful.

Oh, and Infernal/Doom Guard are considered to be little more than novelty items by most of the Warlock community. ________

Demonic Sacrifice rank 1/1 100 yd range Instant: When activated, sacrifices your summoned demon to grant you an effect that lasts 30 min. The effect is canceled if any Demon is summoned.

Imp: Increases your Fire damage by 15%.

Voidwalker: Restores 2% of total Health every 4 sec.

Succubus: Increases your Shadow damage by 15%.

Felhunter: Restores 3% of total Mana every 4 sec.

Felguard: Increases your Shadow damage by 10% and restores 2% of total mana every 4 sec

This is one of the best talents available to the Demonology tree. Yes, it renders you petless and thus makes it near worthless for most builds in small scale PvP. No, that doesn't make this talent crappy. This gives you some very powerful options. This talent gives you very, very powerful options for those situations where your pet is near worthless, like in AV and in raid instances. Decent health regeneration? Mana regeneration for long battles? A whopping +15% shadow damage? Good stuff.

Basically, it goes like this: -Sacrifice Imp for Hellfire AoE. -Sacrifice VW for long battles and for large scale PvP. Health = mana for Warlocks, but you'll lose DPS using Life Tap a lot. Use it if you lack a healer. -Sacrifice Succubus if you want damage. You'll have overall better damage using MD with Imp, but you might not have that talent, and you might be fighting a boss where agro isn't a real problem. You can also sacrifice her if you have a death wish. -Sacrifice Fel Hunter for long battles or for general grinding.

This talent's worth has decreased somewhat since the Felguard is meant to be your "all around" pet and since some of the talents further in the tree require that you have your pet out to receive bonuses. However, DS is still a powerful talent, and there will probably still be talent specs in the future built around having this talent.

Note that the Voidwalker regeneration only gives 2% health now and the Felhunter regen gives 3%. Reports have found that the Voidwalker regeneration is affected by Fel Armor. This will help make up for the change once BC comes out, but it's still an unfortunate nerf. ________

Master Conjurer rank 2/2 Increases the bonus Fire damage from Firestones and the Firestone effect by 30% and increases the spell critical rating bonus of your Spellstone by 30%.

This is basically Improved Firestone that also increases the crit rating on your Spellstone by 30%. 2.01 changed these stones to be relics in 2.01, meaning they take up your wand slot now. This makes it possible to use Firestone with a staff now, a pretty good buff over having to use it with a dagger and staff. It's still worthless once you're finished with the level grind, and even for the level grind it's only useful for Warlocks who refuse to grind with Affliction.

Spellstone has become very useful, as it is no longer consumed on cast but instead has a 3 minute cooldown, and only removes harmful magic effects. However, it no longer provides the spell damage shield. 14 critical rating equates to 1% crit at level 60. Increasing 1% by 30% gives you 1.3%. Two points for about a 0.3% chance to crit when you have the stone equipped is hardly worth it. Skip this talent unless you absolutely rely on the Firestone for grinding.

Tier 6

Mana Feed 3/3 When you gain mana from Drain Mana or Life Tap spells, you pet gains 100% of the mana you gain.

Whenever you Life Tap or Drain Mana, your pet also receives mana. Felguard is quite a mana hog and benefits well from this talent. This talent also helps a lot for the Imp and Voidwalker who use a lot of mana. Mana Feed can greatly reduce pet downtime in PvE. Also, just as Life Tap keeps you going in longer battles, Mana Feed will keep your pet going as well. PvE Demonology Warlocks should probably put 2 - 3 points in this talent for the level grind and for long PvE battles. PvP Warlocks won't need as many - 1 or 2 points is probably enough. ________

Master Demonologist rank 5/5 Grants both the Warlock and the summoned demon an effect as long as that demon is active. Imp - Reduces threat caused by 20%. Voidwalker - Reduces physical damage taken by 10%. Succubus - Increases all damage caused by 10%. Felhunter - Increases all resistances by 1 per level. Felguard - Increases all damage caused by 5% and increases all resistances by 0.5 per level.

Like the Demonic Sacrifice talent, this talent provides you extra options based on what pet you have out at the time. MD-Imp lets you rule the MC damage meters without worrying about agro. MD-VW makes Soul link Warlocks that much more durable. MD-Succubus lets you act like you have Shadow Mastery/Emberstorm when you're using Succubus. MD-Felhunter makes you even more overpowered against Mages, especially if you're a Soul Link build.

Overall, one of the best talents in the Demonology tree, but it's pretty far down the tree so there aren't a lot of builds based on it. This talent is also very good for SL Warlocks, because of the huge resistance bonus given from MD-Felhunter. The main problem with this talent is that you must have a demon out or it is completely worthless - this means that if your pet despawns from flight, dies during battle, or if you used Demonic Sacrifice, your five points in Master Demonologist are doing nothing for you at that moment.

Tier 7

Demonic Resilience rank 3/3 Reduces the chance you'll be crit by melee and spells by 3% and reduces all damage done to your demon by 15%.

Demonic Resilience has been fixed and is a very good talent for PvE grinding, and also a decent talent for PvP. It reduces the damage your demon takes from Soul Link and immensely reduces the damage it takes while grinding. I'm not too sure on how effective the anti-crit portion of the talent is. In my opinion, a worthy talent of investment. ________

Soul Link rank 1/1 270 Mana 100 yd range Instant cast: When active, 20% of all damage taken by the caster is taken by your demon instead. In addition, both the demon and the master will inflict 5% more damage. Lasts as long as the demon is active.

Note that Soul Link's damage reduction has been further nerfed to 20%. Where Soul Link used to be an extremely powerful talent in the past, it is now more of a "defensive support" spell. There probably won't be talent specs built around having this talent anymore, but it's still good for people going deep into Demonology. 20% damage absorption and 5% damage increase for one talent point? Good stuff.

Whereas the 20% would have made it a terrible 31 point talent before 2.01, Soul Link is now just a pretty good talent you can pick up on the way to Felguard for one talent point. It will probably never return to being the monster of a talent that it used to be. Demonology's playstyle has changed with the new talents, and this change is one of the reasons why. ________

[b[Demonic Knowledge rank 1/1[/b] Increases your spell damage by an amount equal to 15% of your pet's stamina plus intellect.

Demonic Knowledge is an incredible talent that will provide you with around +130 spell damage, depending on what pet you have out. It also increases your damage slightly as you pick up more +sta and +int gear. The only problem with this talent is that it relies on you having a pet out, just like Master Demonologist. Demonic Knowledge will not be of any help once your pet dies or if you use Demonic Sacrifice. Despite that slight weakness, there is no reason to skip this talent if you are this far in Demonology.

Tier 8

Demonic Tactics rank 5/5 Increases the done by you and your summoned demon by 5%

5% more damage for 5 talent points is weaker, point by point, than talents like Shadow Mastery and Emberstorm, but remember that this talent affects ALL of your damage and it also improves your pet's damage. More damage is good, and it's not like Demonology has a lot of great talents worth skipping this over anyways. Grab it.

Note that this talent will be changed to increase crit rate for you and your pet in the next patch. Felguard himself wasn't nerfed by this (in fact, he gains more "burst agro" and "burst damage"), but depending on your approach to DPS, you lost from 0-5% of your damage since DoTs and drains don't crit. The change is good news to 0/40/21 Warlocks, but bad news for most other builds.

Tier 9

Summon Felguard rank 1/1 Summons a Felguard under the command of the Warlock.

The Felguard comes with Cleave, Avoidance, Demonic Frenzy, and Intercept. Cleave and Intercept are similar to the Warrior skills. Avoidance gives the Felguard a 50% chance to "avoid" AoE damage and effects. Demonic Frenzy increases the Felguard's attack speed by 5% after each hit.

The Felguard is a versatile DPS pet, built for use in both PvE and PvP. While its DPS may not be much higher than that of the Succubus, the Felguard has the tools to get inside and to survive. The weaknesses of the Succubus pet for DPS lie in her fragility and lack of speed. Felguard has Intercept, which allows it to immediately DPS on its opponent, and it has Avoidance to withstand random Whirlwinds and Mage AoE.

Intercept alone makes the Felguard an incredibly powerful pet. Whereas the weakness of Seduce was the fact that it shares many counters and shares diminishing returns with Fear, Intercept is an actual 3 second stun. It brings your Felguard to your opponent's face for pressure and cannot break early from damage. The downside of this, of course, is that Intercept can't be chained like Fear and Seduce because of its significant cooldown. Intercept counters some anti-Fear abilities with durations, like WotF and Cloak of Shadows. Rogue uses CloS? Intercept him - there goes 3 out of his 5 seconds of "spell immunity."

There have been mixed reports concerning the Felguard's use in PvE. The Felguard's DPS is good enough to be significant for raids, but keep in mind that the Warlock's own damage suffers slightly, and that the Felguard will need heals. The more time spent using Health Funnel, the less DPS you are doing. He is supposedly a decent grinding pet, but the downside to this is that his mana regeneration is quite low and he relies on Mana Feed to keep going.

Oh, and watch out for Banishes. Warlocks overall are the bane of Felguards, since DoTs will bring a Felguard down fast and banish will weaken your Demonology Warlock considerably. C. Destruction Tree [dx-c] Destruction is still a popular talent tree, despite the buffs to Affliction and Demonology. 2.01 brought more damage and a little bit more survivability to Destruction.

Tier 1

Improved Shadow Bolt rank 5/5 Your Shadow Bolt critical strikes increase the next 4 sources of Shadow damage dealt to the target by 20%. Effect lasts a maximum of 12 sec.

Every time you crit with Shadow Bolt, the next four hits of shadow damage will deal 20% more damage. As of patch 1.9.4, DoTs are NOT eating up the "charges" on Improved Shadow Bolt. This means the next 4 Shadow Bolts/Mind Blasts/whatever will deal 20% extra damage after you crit. This can be good for burst damage, since critting on top of that 20% bonus will make your crit hurt that much more. No, this talent will not stack with itself... the debuff will just be reapplied. The debuff can also be resisted, and actually is resisted rather often in my experience.

Improved Shadow Bolt will be a boost in DPS for PvE, and a nice burst damage option for PvP if you open with a Shadow Bolt crit. It's nice to have your Shadowburn and your next Shadow Bolt in the seduce chain be 20% stronger... but's obviously not something you can count on. Generally a much better talent than Cataclysm.

For more detailed information concerning the PvE DPS benefits of this talent, check out Shadowbolt's raiding guide. ________

Cataclysm rank 5/5 Reduces the Mana cost of your Destruction spells by 5%.

Now that Warlocks have Incinerate, this talent may be worth investing in. Destruction has mana problems, and this talent will help deal with them. Slightly. Pick up this talent if you don't plan on Shadow Bolting very often.

Tier 2

Bane rank 5/5 Reduces the casting time of your Shadow Bolt and Immolate spells by 0.5 sec and your Soul Fire spell by 2 sec.

Decreased casting time on Shadow Bolt by 0.5 seconds out of 3 may sound insignificant, but actually Bane is probably the most important talent for Warlocks for increasing your DPS in raid PvE. Assuming that you are constantly firing, Bane increases the DPS of your Shadow Bolts by 20%. Plus, you always want faster casting time in PvP. Bane is one of the best talents available to Warlocks and is incuded in most Warlock builds except for SM/DS and NF/SL. There's nothing in T1/T2 destruction that even compares to this talent, and you'll need the points for Shadowburn anyway. Always try to include Bane into your build.

This talent will NOT reduce the amount of +dmg Shadow Bolt gets from gear, meaning that it will still recieve 85% bonus from +dmg gear. _________

Aftermath rank 5/5 Gives your Destruction spells a 10% chance to daze the target for 5 sec.

10% is a rather low chance to proc something. 5 second daze isn't very useful against most classes. I personally found this talent to be worthless because when I spec Destruction, I use Seduce nukes. Daze does not help me at all if I already have my opponent under control with Seduce. Most Warlocks consider Aftermath to be a worthless talent, while others believe it's one of the most underrated talents in the game. I don't really see any place to fit this talent in even the most Destruction heavy builds, because you're spending 5 points for a 10% chance. Like CoEx, the value of this talent is matter of taste and playstyle. Most Warlocks find it to be near worthless.

This talent still sucks as of 2.01.

Tier 3

Improved Fire Bolt rank 2/2 Reduces the casting time of your Imp's Firebolt spell by 0.5 sec.

A good talent that, when combined with Improved Imp, greatly improves your Imp's DPS. This is good, because the Imp's DPS in PvE won't count against you for threat. Just make sure he doesn't get hit by AoE.

A patch changed it so that Fire Bolt is no longer affected by universal cooldown, making rank 2 effective for increasing the Imp's DPS. The 2.01 patch brought no changes to this talent, but note that the Imp's Firebolt damage does not scale with your gear. ________

Improved Lash of Pain rank 2/2 Reduces the cooldown of your Succubus' Lash of Pain spell by 6 sec.

Effectively halves the cooldown on your Succubus' Lash of Pain. I personally dislike Lash of Pain, because I don't count on my Succubus for DPS, and the mana:damage ratio on that skill is terrible... and even with the talent, the cooldown on Lash of Pain is still 6 seconds. I'd rather save her mana for Seduce. Other Warlocks, especially ones who invest in Demonology, find this talent to be rather useful. Succubus will never match the DPS of a hunter pet, but this talent will make her deal more damage. The value of this talent, like Improved Firebolt, depends on how much you use the Succubus for attacking.

As of 2.01, the Succubus' DPS now scales with gear. This talent still isn't that great though, as Warlocks seeking to obtain good pet DPS generally go for the Felguard. ________

Devestation rank 5/5 Increases the critical strike chance of your Destruction spells by 5%.

People underestimate this talent, in my opinion. Tier 3 is early for a talent that gives 5% to crit with spells. AND it affects all of our direct damage spells! Most Warlocks don't get very many +crit items, so that makes this talent a significant boost to the amount of crits a Warlock will get. Oh, and it's a prerequisite to Ruin. Get this talent if you're going to go further down into the Destruction tree.

This talent remains unchanged as of 2.01. Note that the bonus from this talent will not appear on your character sheet because the character sheet does not show tree-specific crit bonuses. ________

Shadowburn rank 1/1 105 Mana 20 yd range Instant cast 15 sec cooldown Reagents: Soul Shard: Instantly blasts the target for 91 to 104 Shadow damage. If the target dies from Shadowburn, and yields experience or honor, the caster gains a Soul Shard.

The final rank of Shadowburn deals a little less damage than the final rank of Shadow Bolt. This spell is not necessary for PvE, but it is considered a "must have" for PvP. It provides you with a much needed instant direct damage spell. Shadowburn is included in most Warlock builds except for SM/DS and NF/SL. It's good for finishing off an opponent, increasing the damage dealt between Seduces, and adding a little burst to your damage.

The only weakness of this spell is that it eats shards like crazy, if you're not careful... oh, and if you're on a crappy server, you'll also suffer some shard lag if you get a shard off of the spell. Shadowburn is an awesome spell that comes very early in the Destruction tree. Try to include this talent in your build if you plan on PvPing.

This talent remains unchanged as of 2.01.

Tier 4

Intensity rank 2/2 Gives you a 70% chance to resist interruption caused by damage while channeling or casting any Destruction spell.

2.01 changed this talent to affect ALL Destruction spells. That makes this talent near essential for PvP, and still decent for AoEing and taking random hits in PvE (think Vael). With the PvP gloves, your Searing Pain will be uninterruptable by damage. Also, when Intensity is combined with the Paladin Concentration Aura, you have a 0% chance of being interrupted. That makes this talent a little better for Alliance Warlocks.

While tanking a Rogue or a Warrior while casting Shadow Bolts isn't exactly the best idea in the world, sometimes you just need to finish someone off with an Immolate->Conflag or Searing Pains. It also helps you shrug off random aoe hits like Multi-Shot and AE when you need to land your spells.

This talent is practically a must have for PvP; for PvE, it's a decent talent dump. ________

Destructive Reach rank 2/2 Increases the range of your Destruction spells by 20% Increases the range of all your direct damage spells from 30 to 36 except for Shadowburn, which goes from 20 to 24. Since Destruction spells tend to have casting times while many Affliction spells have instant casting times, this talent is even more important than Grim Reach. I've already described the benefits of having more range as a caster. With damage increasing across the board in 2.01, you want to maintain your distance much as possible - especially since you're working with 2.5s casts. Get this talent if you're going down the Destruction tree.

As of 2.01, this talent also gives you threat reduction. As this talent was already practically a must-have for anybody going down Destruction before, it now is even better for PvE.

Improved Searing Pain rank 3/3 Increases the critical strike chance of your Searing Pain spell by 10%.

Searing Pain isn't very good in PvE, but it's a decent spell in PvP. With all the crit talents in the Destruction tree, your Searing Pains will have a +18% chance to crit overall - rather impressive. Combined with Ruin, you can get pretty surprising amounts of DPS with Searing Pain. Searing Pain is also very mana efficient. With PvP gloves + Intensity, Searing Pain will never be interrupted by damage - very good for grinding and for PvP.

Improved Searing Pain is either very good or completely worthless, depending on your playstyle. With all of the new goodies placed in Destruction, it can be rather difficult to incorporate Improved Searing Pain into your build.

Tier 5

Pyroclasm rank 2/2 Gives your Soul Fire, Rain of Fire and Hellfire spells a 26% chance to stun the target for 3 sec

Pyroclasm with Rain of Fire or Hellfire has a 26% chance to proc over the entire duration, meaning each individual tick only has a tiny chance to proc. This talent sucks for improving anything besides Soul Fire. Getting this to proc with Soul Fire is almost auto-win because it's an extra Shadow Bolt or two extra Searing Pains between seduces. It is very hard to include this talent into most Destruction builds, however. Whether or not Pyroclasm is worth it depends on your playstyle.

This talent is still iffy as of 2.01. _________

Improved Immolate rank 5/5 Increases the initial damage of your Immolate spell by 25%.

Significantly increases the damage of your Immolate spell. This talent is a prerequisite to Conflagrate and that is probably the only reason why you'd spec into it. It makes Immolate a pretty good spell, but the nature of Immolate makes it ineffective as a primary source of DPS. The boost to the initial hit makes it good for improving your burst dps. Critting on the initial damage of Immolate will be that much better, though. Only invest in this talent if you're getting Conflagrate. ________

Ruin rank 1/1 Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Destruction spells by 100%.

Makes your spells deal double damage on a crit instead of 1.5x damage. This talent is responsible for those huge crits that you see Warlocks getting. Many talent pre-2.01 builds were based around getting 21 points into Destruction for Ruin. Ruin is an excellent talent that greatly increases your burst damage. The increase in DPS for PvE isn't that great, but still significant. I don't think there's much else to say about this talent except that it's one of the greatest benefits you'll ever see for just ONE talent point. Ruin is one of the better talents and there is absolutely no reason to skip it if you have a lot of points in Destruction.

I want to stress the fact that Ruin is not the primary reason that many PvE builds had so many points in Destruction. It was the fact that Improved Shadow Bolt, Bane, Devestation, Destructive Reach, and Shadowburn are all important talents, and Ruin is a good, one-point investment only slightly further down the tree. Lacking Ruin will hurt your PvE DPS, but it won't kill it.

Tier 6

Emberstorm rank 5/5 Increases the damage done by your Fire spells by 10%.

Not much to say here, increases your fire spell damage by a significant amount. This talent is useful even for PvE now thanks to Incinerate. It is also an important talent for maximizing your Conflagrate burst potential. Grab it.

________

Nether Protection 3/3 When hit by a Shadow or a Fire spell, you have a 30% chance to become immune to all Shadow and Fire spells for 4 sec

An extremely powerful, but unreliable and situational talent. Nether Protection gives you a chance to become basically immune to almost anything a Shadow Priest, Fire Mage, or Warlock throws at you. Those 4 seconds are VERY much significant - there is no way a Fire Mage can simply switch to Frost in that time period and it's even worse for Shadow Priests. A Priest can waste his global cooldown dispelling it, but it's usually not worth it. Also, Nether Protection has no actual graphic when it procs, so the only indicator these classes have of it going off is seeing "Immune" as they hit you.

While Nether Protection does hose the above three class spec combinations, it is near worthless against every other class and is too situational for general-purpose PvE. Nether Protection is a good talent choice for group PvP, but for PvE there are probably better choices unless you really need help against a fire-based boss.

Tier 7

Backlash rank 3/3 Increases your chance to critically hit with spells by 3% and gives you a 24% chance when hit by physical damage to reduce the casting time of your next Shadow Bolt or Incinerate by 100%. Backlash can only proc once every 8 seconds.

1% chance to crit per talent point is already good. On top of this, Backlash makes it so all physical hits, whether ranged or melee, have a good chance to proc Nightfall for you. Backlash is an incredible talent for PvP, and still good for PvE because of its crit bonus. Hunter's pet on you? Say thanks to him with an instant Shadow Bolt. Backlash gives Destruction "protection" in a way since it punishes your opponents with death for attacking you. It is one of the best talents available to the Warlock class. Get it if you have this many points in Destruction. ________

Conflagrate rank 1/1 165 Mana 30 yd range Instant Cast 10 sec cooldown: Ignites a target that is already afflicted by Immolate, dealing 206 to 261 Fire damage and consuming the Immolate spell.

The final rank of Conflagrate deals 447 ro 557 damage. It went from being one of the worst 31 talent abilities in the game to being one of the most popular Warlock talents. Conflagrate used to have a 1.5 second cast, a much higher mana cost, and a 20 yard range... pretty pathetic. Now that it's instant cast, Conflagrate has become an extremely powerful talent for dealing burst damage.

Seduce -> Shadow Bolt -> Immolate -> Shadowburn -> Conflagrate is a huge amount of damage for just one Seduce. It's also nice to have a second instant direct damage option when you have Immolate up, and it makes Immolate good against Rogues because it will let you use Immolate to break stealth/vanish while also letting you consume Immolate, making the Rogue vulnerable again to Seduce. Conflagrate is one of the best talents available to Warlocks, and it up to you to decide if you want to spend the points getting up to it.b]Tier 6[/b] ________

Soul Leech rank 3/3 Gives your Shadow Bolt, Shadowburn, Soul Fire, Incinerate, Searing Pain, and Conflagrate spells a 30% chance to return 20% of the damage caused by the spell.

It looks really cool, but it's not that great. For PvP it's an unreliable, paltry heal at best. Unless you get lucky and chain Soul Leech procs from a Shadow Bolt->Immolate->Conflagrate combo, chances are the health you gain from the proc isn't going to save your life. For PvE, it's a decent way to keep up your DPS, as the Soul Leech procs will help give you health to Life Tap with. However, this assumes that you are Life Tapping and that healers are not topping your health off. Grab this talent to optimize raid DPS. Skip for PvP.

Tier 8

Shadow and Flame rank 5/5 Your Shadow Bolt and Incinerate spells gain an additional 20% bonus from your spell damage bonuses.

Not much to say, you're going to max this out if you're a Destruction Warlock - and if you're this far down the tree, you're probably a Destruction Warlock. Note that this bonus doesn't help very much if you don't have much +dmg gear. It's a prerequisite for Shadowfury anyway, though for PvE this is probably the better talent.

Tier 9

Shadowfury 710 mana, 30 yard range, 0.5 cast, 20 second cooldown: Unleashes Shadowfury, dealing 612-728 Shadow damage and stunning all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec.

Note that using Shadowfury does not incur a global cooldown, meaning you can cast it and immediately follow up with a Fear, HoT, Immolate, etc. Shadowfury is targeted like a grenade, where you use it and it brings up a green circle which you target and cast the spell.

A very kickass spell in PvP, versatile thanks to its stun and low casting time. It adds even more burst damage to Destruction, and you can use the stun on it either defensively (follow with Fear) or offensively (follow with Immolate). It's almost like having another Death Coil, except it has a cast time and is AoE and doesn't heal. Shadowfury is an extremely powerful PvP spell in the right hands, especially when you consider the other damage options available with Destruction that you can use with it.

It does have its drawbacks though. The cooldown makes it not-so-hot for the purpose of dealing AoE damage, meaning it's not that great of a general purpose AoE for PvE. Also, Shadowfury is unfortunately a Shadow spell, meaning it doesn't benefit from Emberstorm. Shadowfury is a great talent for PvP, but for PvE, there are better options. For one talent point though, it couldn't hurt unless you're going for a 21 point talent in another tree.