QUICK START
Affliction is a useful solo starting route. Give the demon time to engage, avoid wasting a full set of damage-over-time spells on a nearly defeated enemy, and keep shards and health supplies ready.
ROLE
Ranged damage · Demons · Control
RESOURCE
Mana · Health · Soul shards
01
Health and mana work together
Life Tap trades health for mana. Decide whether you can afford that health before using it, rather than treating an empty mana bar as permission to tap until nearly defeated.
Keep an eye on your demon too. Its health, target and available abilities affect whether you can safely continue attacking or need to recover.
Read more: Warlock abilities and levelling.
For named training milestones, quest upgrades and your first dungeon checklist, read the Warlock levelling guide.
02
Three talent paths
You create a Warlock first, then develop a talent path as you level. Read the choices below as playstyles: early points and a fully developed build are different stages of the same character.
Affliction
Build around damage over time and drains. Suppression supports reliability, Improved Corruption develops a core spell, and later talents connect sustained damage with recovery.
Demonology
Invest in demons, durability and the relationship between you and your companion. Unholy Power and other pet talents improve the demon’s contribution; pet management remains part of your job.
Destruction
Develop direct spells, critical hits and burst opportunities. Bane improves key cast times; deeper talents support spells such as Conflagrate and stronger critical damage.
Use the planner to read the current talents and check row requirements. Legacy’s Talented bonus adds points separately; leave its rank at zero unless your character has earned the bonus.
＋ Plan your talent points
Read talents and plan a route for your Warlock. Open the full Warlock calculator for more space.
Loading talent trees…
03
Give sustained damage time to work
Engage
Send your demon onto the intended enemy and confirm it has arrived.
Apply
Use the curses or damage-over-time spells that suit the enemy’s remaining lifespan.
Finish
Use direct damage, a drain or a wand according to your health, mana and learned abilities.
Recover
Restore health and the demon’s health before adding more targets. Use Life Tap when the health cost is manageable.
Reapplying a spell too early can spend mana for little extra damage. Read its duration and watch whether the enemy will survive long enough for another application.
Read more: Affliction and other early routes.
Banes and Curses are separate in Forever. A Bane of Agony damage effect can coexist with a useful Curse; do not follow an old rule that makes you choose just one of the two categories.
Spend damage-over-time mana according to the target’s remaining life. Corruption and Bane of Agony are useful when their damage has time to happen; refreshing both on a nearly dead enemy delays the next pull for no useful gain.
Train the demon you use. New Torment ranks and a damage pet’s attack ranks are practical purchases; buying every unused demon ability is not required for an Affliction quest route. The pet’s level requirement is separate from your own trainer visit.
Life Tap transfers recovery work from mana to health. Use food, Drain Life or another planned recovery source and keep an emergency Healthstone ready. Fear needs a clear surrounding area because the fleeing target may bring friends.
04
Prepare the demon as well as yourself
Attributes, in numbers
Warlock stat conversions
Strength is shown for ordinary melee attacks. Attack Power does not convert into wand, spell or pet damage in this example.
Level 30: class baseline, before buffs and talents.
Mana gains use the existing Intellect input. The first 20 effective points contribute 1 mana each; above 20, each point contributes 15. Crossing 20 uses both rates. More mana is a larger pool, not a faster regeneration rate. “pp” means percentage points: +1 pp takes 5% to 6%, before other modifiers.
Ordinary melee Strength example Does not affect wand or spell damage
The AP contribution is added to the weapon's base DPS. It is not total combat DPS. Listed weapon speed is used; haste, misses, crits, armor, procs and special attacks are excluded.
Agility
+0.833 ppWeapon crit contribution at this level
- Baseline melee AP
- +0
- Tooltip armor contribution
- +20
Intellect
+0.355 ppSpell crit contribution at this level
- Mana gained
- +150
Uses existing plus added effective Intellect: the first 20 contribute 1 mana per point; above 20, 15 per point. This is neither Spell Power nor mana regeneration.
“pp” means percentage points: +1 pp takes 5% to 6%, before other modifiers. Crit contributions are not total crit chances.
- Stamina
- The first 20 effective points add 1 health each. Above 20, the client uses your character’s current health-per-point rate; health buffs and talents can change the gain.
- Mana per 5 seconds
- +5 MP5 gives 60 mana over one minute, assuming a constant effective rate and enough missing mana to receive it.
- Spirit
- Mana recovery depends on class rules, talents and when you spend mana. See the regeneration mechanics.
- Spell Power
- Applied by each spell and rank's coefficient. It has no universal damage or healing conversion. Inspect the spell-rank data.
How crit changes as you level +10 attribute examples
| Level | Agility → weapon crit | Intellect → spell crit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | +1.5 pp | +1.5 pp |
| 10 | +1.304 pp | +1.065 pp |
| 20 | +1.034 pp | +0.541 pp |
| 30 | +0.833 pp | +0.355 pp |
| 60Future/reference | +0.5 pp | +0.165 pp |
“pp” means percentage points: +1 pp turns 5% into 6%, before other modifiers. These are contributions, not total crit chances.
Assumptions & sources Build 1.60.1.70205
Interactive figures use class baseline: race, buffs, talents, form overrides and server-side changes are not applied. The client data describes configured conversions; it is not a combat-log measurement or a gear ranking.
- Attack Power: added Strength × the class's AP-per-Strength field. Agility's melee and ranged AP fields are kept separate.
- Crit: added attribute × its exact class-and-level coefficient × 100. No interpolation or Classic fallback is used.
- Ordinary swing contribution: added AP ÷ 14 × listed weapon speed. The divisor and +2 armor per Agility come from the matching client tooltip code.
- Configured mana contribution at effective Intellect I: min(I, 20) + 15 × max(I − 20, 0). An increase across the breakpoint is the difference between the old and new totals.
- Stamina's first-20 breakpoint is present in the matching constants file. The exact above-20 Forever rate has not been verified; the UI obtains it from the game's runtime API.
Class conversion data · Level conversion data · Matching client tooltip source · Intellect and Stamina constants · Read the stat mechanics
Game data and icons © Blizzard Entertainment. Public client exports: wago.tools; client UI mirror: Gethe. Values rounded for display.
Compare caster equipment for useful damage, mana and survivability. A larger health pool can support your resource trade, but it does not remove the need to recover safely.
Check your demon training, shard supply and bag space before leaving town. Put your demon’s attack and recall on keys that are distinct from your own damage spells.
RFC · quest
Hidden Enemies offers Staff of Orgrimmar; The Power to Destroy offers Ghastly Trousers. Collect the relevant quests before spending time farming random cloth drops.
Hall of Thanes · caster
Fang of Magmatus and Golemheart Stave are spell-power comparisons. A staff replaces both weapon slots; compare a dagger and off-hand together.
Hall of Thanes · quest
Old Ironforge Incursion offers Deepblaze. Important Heirlooms offers Dwarven Tome for an off-hand setup.
05
Utility before extra damage
Prepare Healthstones and the shards required by your learned utility. Ask whether a Soulstone or a summon is needed before the group starts moving.
Use Fear carefully: a fleeing enemy can reach another pack. Coordinate pet threat tools with the tank, and recover your own health when tapping during a safe pause so the healer can prepare for the next pull.
Read more: Warlock group utility and shard preparation.
06
Ability and build milestones
Level 6
Life Tap. Turns health into mana. Pair it with safe recovery; stop tapping when the next enemy can kill you.
Level 10
Summon Voidwalker. A class-quest demon unlock. Keep the pet’s relevant ability training current, but test its threat before relying on it to tank every pull.
Level 10
Drain Soul. Generates Soul Shards. Use it near the end of an appropriate kill and retain bag space for the shards you actually need.
Level 10
Create Healthstone. Prepare one before combat. It is more useful on a reachable key than left in a crowded bag.
Level 18
Create Soulstone. Adds group recovery. Keep its duration and cooldown in mind rather than waiting until after a wipe to prepare it.
Level 20
Ritual of Summoning. A group convenience that requires helpers and a Soul Shard. Organise who is summoning before setting off.
Level 30
Siphon Life. An Affliction talent at its earliest normal unlock. Add it where the target will live long enough for the effect to repay its cost.
These are toolkit changes, not measured percentage-DPS claims. Talent unlocks assume enough points in the required tree; Legacy bonuses and off-tree points can change when a build reaches them.
07
Sources and beta updates
Written for WoW Forever beta. Ability values and talent choices can change with updates; check your current in-game tooltips when a detail differs.
Method — Warlock routes, demons and utility · Mobalytics — Warlock levelling · Icy Veins — Ragefire Chasm rewards · Wowhead — Hall of Thanes quests and rewards · TalentsForever — licensed beta spell and talent records · Wowhead — level-20 Warlock equipment
Community tips are linked beside the relevant advice. They describe player experience; they are not measured class rankings.