The Shadow Compendium - Warlock Playstyles

Slow Posting Days… Back right before TBC release, I compiled the Shadow Compendium with the help of the Allakhazam Warlock forum, and it is time to spread this a bit further

Raiding specs and playstyles are beyond the scope of the Shadow Compendium and thus also beyond the scope of Altitis.

Note that all posters referred to herein are named by their Allakhazam handle. This wouldn’t have been possible without their valuable input.

Hunterlock
Minimum Level: (2) 10
Mandatory Talents: none
Boosting Talents: 5/5 Master Demonologist, 1/1 Soul Link, 1/1 Felguard
Description:
The most basic of all tactics, you play as a hunter would, behind your pet tanking for you. This playstyle of course really starts to work out once you get your voidwalker. Not only one of the best techniques to take on several monsters or survive multiple adds, it is also the earliest and best school in controlling your personal aggro generation. If you spec for felguard, the playstyle will get a second youth, as instead of working with a defensive (voidwalker) or anticaster (felhunter) pet, you are now able to up your pace thanks to your new offensive tank.

Fear / DoT
Minimum Level: 8
Mandatory Talents: none
Boosting Talents: imp. corruption, imp. CoA, Soul Siphon, Unstable Affliction, Shadow Mastery, Demonic Sacrifice (sacced succubus), Master Demonologist and more
Description:
A staple of any warlock’s bag o’tricks, Fear / DoT is one of the earliest tactics available to get down tough (but isolated) monsters. As the name implies: Cast fear, load with DoTs, recast fear when it breaks, collect loot. This is simple but efficient. There are several points in your career when you will resort to this playstyle - it is ideally suited for beating tough elites which would normally eat through your pet and then make a cloth sandwich out of you. Particuliarly notable fight where this technique works wonders: Kroshius (part of the Infernal Quest).

Drain Hunting
Minimum Level: 14
Mandatory Talents: Improved Corruption, Soul Siphon, Improved Life Tap, Fel Concentration, Empowered Corruption
Boosting Talents: Siphon Life, end-game build of SM/ruin or full Affliction, improved VoidWalker and fel stamina for demonologists
Description:
The idea of this techinque is to destroy mobs while losing as little life and mana as possible. A good Drainhunter has little or no downtime. The main thrust of drainhunting is to let your Voidwalker engage the mobs while you dot them, lifetap, and drain them. In general, the cast sequence is (send in the VW), DoT, DoT, DoT, Lifetap, Drain Life - wand if necessary. If you are farming shards, finishing with Drain Soul is a good idea. Since you want to keep aggro on your Voidwalker, give the VW enough time with the mobs to taunt them twice before your first cast. This technique allows you to have your demon engage several monsters at once. DoTs + Drain bring down mobs very fast. Throw the dots with the LEAST damage first (Curse of Agony, Corruption) before tossing an immolate, so you don’t draw aggro from your VW. If you encounter a runner, Curse of Recklessness thrown after Drain life will keep them on the Voidwalker. After a battle against multiple mobs, let your Voidy Consume Shadows to regain health. Also, if you are at full life but not on mana, Life Tap after a battle (this is probably good advise for all techniques, not just Drainhunting).
Enhanced and rewritten by Ohmikegod

Drain Tanking
Minimum level: 23-24
Mandatory Talents: 5/5 Fel Concentration
Boosting Talents: 2/2 Soul Siphon, 1/5 Shadow Embrace, 2/2 Nightfall, 1/1 Siphon Life
Description:
This is the reverse to Hunterlocking: aside from the opening moves, the warlock is tanking instead of the pet. The technique is again deceptively simple: send your pet, cast your dots, life tap, drain life. If you have Nightfall, cast your instant shadowbolts at the end of a drain life. The point though, is that instead of using the voidwalker and casting with finesse, you will strive to get the monster turn on you once you’re done casting your DoTs and life tap. To speed up damage output you will use a succubus or, situationally, a felhunter as your primary pet. In general, to maximize exp / hour, you will mainyl concentrate on monsters 2-3 levels below yours (whereas drain hunting would allow you to fight higher stuff) and avoid getting more than 1 add. In the later levels, though, this is enough to take on yellow elites without breaking too much of a sweat.

Shadow Mage / Firemancer
Minimum Level: 26
Mandatory Talents: 2/2 Intensity
Boosting Talents: Ruin, Shadow Mastery, Demonic Sacrifice, Master Demonologist, Destruction tree in general
Description:
This playstyle is leading back to the origin of Warlocks, that of mages who delved too deeply into the shadow arts. You are a nuking warlock, and depending on your optional talents, you will work with shadow or with fire. If you have Demonic Sacrifice, a sacrified Succubus or a sacrified imp will boost either magic, while a sacrified felhunter will let you nuke longer. Your focus on direct and burst damage is great for raiding and PvP.

Gatling Imp
Minimum Level: 24
Mandatory Talents: 2/2 Improved Firebolt, 3/3 Improved Imp
Boosting Talents: Fel Intellect, Demonic Tactics, Demonic Resilience
Description:
This technique transforms your imp into a fast shooting fire monster. While Firebolts in themselves don’t do an enormous damage, 1 bolt per second adds up to another DoT, which at later levels you can further boost with Curse of Elements. Another DoT, that is, until your wandering gatling gun is mana dry. Best used from a long distance, you’ll also want to distance yourself from your imp so that a couple of searing pains can turn the mob to you (and avoid having your gatling gun transformed into a sandwich).

Seduce nuker
Minimum Level: 40-48
Mandatory Talents: 1/1 Conflagarate
Boosting Talents: 1/1 Soul Fire, 1/1 Shadowburn
Description:
Rare but interesting in PvE, and absolutely a deadly play style in PvP. In PvP, Seduce your opponent, Curse of Elements, Soul Fire, Death Coil, Immolate, Conflagarate, and finish off with Shadowburn.
Note: slightly less effective in PvP if you’re alliance due to undead opponents
Contributed by CanadianPimp

DoT grinder
Mininum Level: 50
Mandatory Talents: 2/2 Improved Howl of Terror, 5/5 Improved Corruption, 1/1 Unstable Affliction
Boosting Talents: 5/5 Contagion, 2/2 Nightfall, 2/2 Improved Curse of Agony, 3/3 Empowered Corruption
Description:
Haven’t tried this personally but I would assume you could grind efficiently like this and take on many mobs at the same time. Having your imp out is probably best because you will need the DPS and the stamina boost.
Start by DoTing one mob with Unstable Affliction. Run away from that mob while casting CoA and Corruption. Also have your imp start attacking that mob. When you are running from the first mob, use CoA and Corruption on more mobs that you see. Eventually you should be surrounded and that is when you use your instant howl of terror. Keep reapplying DoTs (you can put UA now on the feared mobs since you aren’t being attacked. Have your imp focus on the mob with the least health left. Nightfall should proc because of all the mobs you have Corruption on, which you use to help on the mob with the lowest health. Its a dangerous, but fast way of grinding. I haven’t tested it out yet (it sounds fun!), but I imagine if you have some nice +dmg gear you can easily take out 4-6 mobs at a time around your level.
Contributed by CanadianPimp
Addition by Azatodeth:
Another possibility for world pve (as you’ll want a lot of space to run across) is getting boots enchanted with minor speed increase.
With this prequisite simply pull and kite a mob with CoA, instant Corruption and Siphon life, Dark pact to get some mana back and then cast all 3 DoT’s on another mob you pass by, and another, and another, and another… then just watch a trail of dead bodies slowly form behind you.
Should be noted it is not a good idea to do this against mobs who run fast or with instant cast CC’s, have to be careful with stuns and dazes too.

Crit Spec
Minimum Level: 60-raiding gear / pvp mix
Mandatory Talents: devestation; ruin; backlash; imp. searing pain; intensity; Shadowburn; imp.Shadow Bolt; Bane; Conflagarate
Boosting Talents: nether protection; shadowfury; shadow and flame
Description:
Ok, this is really an endgame spec because it’s just about impossible to get enough crit gear pre-BWL raiding. Basically you’re aiming for 25% crit rate (anything ontop is a bonus, but this is the minimum to keep imp. SB proc on fully and get a crit to benefit from it in theory). This means 11% crit from gear, the rest being +damage/shadow/hit.

Now this might sound like a purely pvping spec, but it works in raids. Since I respec’d to it I’ve been top in all raids by about 100k damage everytime compared to being around 3rd-4th in general with all previous specs. The spec may also sound a bit dodgy due to the increased threat from crits but due to being mana inefficient it seems to work. From what I’ve found the near constant 20% damage bonus + bonus from criting loads means that I get to push ahead in the dps meter while the extra time spent tapping stops me from pushing ahead of the tanks in the threat meter. Obviously though you do have to be careful as it’s more than possible to suddenly land 3-4 crits in a row / instant and gain threat.
To finish off i’ll have to say that this spec is incredibly fun and requires more skill than you’d think in pvp as it’s all about timing and spell order. A good example is:
Seduce >> SB >> Immolate >> SFury >> Conflag
Due to the travel time of the SB you can get all 4 damage spells to land in ONE second, so if even one crits the end result is a massive burst that’ll kill most players and most mobs. ^^
Contributed by Jenovaomega
Note: If your raiding guild is using a threat meter, keep your eyes glued to it. At level 66, we’ll get SoulShatter, on a 5-minute cooldown, which should help dishing out MASSIVE amounts of damage without getting eaten.

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