Warlock Leveling Talent Builds

Level Grinding

1. Affliction Grinding to 60 Build (41/0/10)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AVMrVRfkqtboZxx

This is the best grinding build up to level 60. Put all 41 of your first points in Affliction, then decide what to do from there. Make sure you get Dark Pact as soon as possible; this talent is what makes drain tanking truly effective. Finally, make sure you have a significant amount of +dmg gear before you put any points into Empowered Corruption. The last ten points after getting Unstable Affliction are debatable; some would prefer to put them in Suppression and/or Demonic Embrace. Getting Bane like in the build shown will greatly improve single target DPS in instances, and at 61 you can get Shadowburn, which is nifty. Suppression will help you take on higher level mobs better and will improve the overall DPS of your DoT’s. Demonic Embrace will give you a good amount of health.

During the grind, Affliction is chosen over Demonology and Destruction for many reasons. First of all, there are the strengths of Affliction. Affliction uses instant casts and channeled spells that are given protection with Fel Concentration. This reduces the amount of time wasted attempting to cast on an enemy beating on you and also makes it so you are not reliant on pet mana/agro to grind. The DoT’s are very mana efficient, and with +dmg gear, Drain Life is extremely powerful. On top of this, you have Life Tap and Dark Pact to keep your health/mana pools consistently high; you shouldn’t have any downtime. Also, Affliction does well against multiple opponents.

Destruction isn’t taken because it has a lot of downtime and does not deal with multiple mobs as well as Affliction does. It kills single targets faster and is probably better for instancing, but soloing is a pain. Demonology isn’t taken at the early levels because it lacks DPS talents lower in the tree. Demonology’s powerful DPS talents aren’t found until you are deep inside the tree, and even then they are not worth getting until you have some points left over for Affliction.

After 60, you can work your way downDestruction from the shown tree to become a UA/Destructive Reach build, or you can place points into Demonology for more health and Demonic Aegis. It really doesn’t matter, though I prefer UA/Destruction Reach builds because they are extremely versatile and do well for both grinding and instancing.

2. Felguard Grinding Build (20/41/0)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IVMbZ0gczIizceszxx0z

A Felguard pure-grinding build. I would not recommend this build until the mid-60’s (or 60 at the very least), because the investment of points in Demonology causes you to miss vital talents like Improved Corruption or Bane until higher levels. The Felguard build is an alternative to a heavy Affliction build for grinding. Both are very effective, and neither have significant downtimes in normal grinding. Affliction is more efficient at dealing with multiple mobs, but Demonology grinds down single targets better - this makes it very good for easy zones like Nagrand.

There are many variations of this build, and it completely depends on what you plan to do during your grind. The build shown has most of the vital talents in Demonology. Some would debate the use of 3/3 in Mana Feed, but I believe that it helps to have that third point to maximize grinding efficiency. A Felguard who can’t spam Cleave as much as possible is a lower DPS Felguard. Demonic Tactics could be valuable, as crit Felguard Cleaves with Demonic Frenzy stacks can deal nice damage.

The build shown has a balance of DoTing and nuking power. The strength, in my opinion, of Demonology for grinding is that you are capable of choosing between an efficient or a quick kill. An efficient kill would send the Felguard to the mob, DoT with CoA/Corruption, and then Life Tap -> Drain Life until the mob is dead. A burst kill would send the Felguard to the mob, maybe throw up DoT’s, and nuke the mob down. Thanks to the Felguard’s tanking ability, you can alternate between these methods of killing.

The main hassle of the Felguard is the rate at which is health drops at higher levels and his mana-sucking abilities. These flaws can be mitigated by Health Funneling during combat with your target DoT’ed and by takiing points in Mana Feed and using Life Tap -> Drain Life instead of a wand.

One final note - I take Improved Drain Soul in this build. Casting a Shadow Bolt and using Drain Soul on the mob as the bolt is traveling towards the target is a very effective way to improve killing speed, as you’ll usually get more than the mana you spent back from Improved Drain Soul. I consider it important for grinding with the Felguard.