Warlocks in the world of Warcraft mainly deal in curses and summoning of Daemons. Warlocks use a different attack style from the other classes; they don’t go for the quick kills, but efficient ones. While warlocks have several different types of demons to summon, the mainly used class is the Warrior type, because it is an extremely good tank, and can take the damage while the warlock deals it out. Other daemons warlocks can summon are rouges and fire support (mini warlocks!). All the daemons warlocks can summon work differently, so choosing the right daemon for the right job is a must, Mostly when warlocks are going solo, they will use a tank based daemon, or a rouge based daemon with fear spells (for maximum damage).
Warlocks are often seen as a Hybrid of the Mage and the Hunter, as their skill sets sit somewhere in-between the two classes. Warlocks can summon Daemons, which is like the hunter pets, and they can cast spells, like the Mage can. However Warlocks can only summon predefined pets in WoW, unlike the hunter, who can tame almost any common animal in the game.
As your leveling in the world of Warcraft, you’ll find that your warlock doesn’t do a lot of damage upfront, you’ll find that the damage is dealt over time with a lot of their spells (commonly referred to as DoT’s – damage over time). Generally these spells will do damage like 50 damage over 10 seconds, or something similar. To get the most out of DoT’s without getting killed in the process, you usually have a Tank based daemon in front of you taking the damage from the mob you are killing, or you case fear spells on the mob so it runs away from you. You’ll also find while you’re waiting for the dot’s to finish off, it’s usually a good idea to case some debuffs (which make the mob weaker and easier to kill) and using the Shadowblot spell which is direct damage, to make the kills faster.
While leveling with a group of people, you’ll find the warlock will need to use different tactics to ensure usefulness, as a group kills your standard mobs a lot more quickly, the dot’s aren’t as effective. Usually an offensive pet (a rouge or caster pet) is a good idea, with Direct damage spells like shadowbolt. When you starting to kill elite mobs, is where a warlock really starts helping the group, with the debuffs and dot’s you can really hold your own in a group – and be a major damage dealer, and a party saver (tank pets are good when a group is in trouble – they allow you a little time to recover when your group is about to get killed). Some of the spells that really help with groups are the Curse of Tongues, which stop enemy casters from casting spells, and the Curse of Elements, which will enhance the damage from mage spells on mob’s.
While your playing your warlock, you’ll notice that you’ll need to stay some distance away from what you are killing, this is a blessing, as if something goes wrong, you can get a head start when running away, nobody likes getting killed!. Been a ranged class helps make Warlocks very versatile as well, meaning you can fit into almost any group combination, and still provide value and useful skills to the group.
A warlock can be leveled up to 70 with a group, or solo, both ways are usually quite quick, as if you can’t get a group you can go solo and still keep up a good XP rate, if you have abnormal playing hours, or can’t play regularly a warlock is a very good choice indeed.
