Warlock Leveling Guide From 1 to 80 for WotLK Classic

This page contains all of our leveling guides for Warlocks, with links to each specialization's guide.

While it is important to understand your class and specialization while leveling, it can be massively helpful to have a general understanding of how leveling works in Wrath, as well as any tips that you can use to speed up the process. Our General Leveling guide covers all of this and more and you can read through it below.

Warlocks have three talent trees to choose from, Affliction, Demonology and Destruction. All three specs are very strong for leveling and each play very different than thier counterparts.

Affliction is the strongest of the three when it comes to leveling. With multiple sources of self healing, a plethora of damage-over-time abilities that are all amplified by the Affliction talents, giving you the ability to simply run around and DoT up everything in site, then sit back and watch it rot away. The new re-work on Siphon Life allows you to heal for 40% of all Corruption damage dealt, meaning you will almost never need to take a break to eat. For this, and many other reasons, Affliction is one of, if not the, fastest leveling spec in the game.

Demonology is the pet spec for Warlocks. The talent focus on significantly buffing you and your Demons. Once you get to level 50, you get to use the all powerful Summon Felguard, who will carry you the rest of the way to 80. One of the biggest changes to Demonology Warlocks is the new and infamous Metamorphosis, which turns the player into a Demon, while also giving you all new abilites to go along with it. All in all, Demonology is widely known as one of the most fun, safe and unique specs in the game and is cozy for leveling and, by far, the best spec for Dungeon leveling.

Destruction is the master of fire damage and crit hits. While this spec doesn't have as powerful DoT's as Affliction, or as strong Demons and survivabilty as Demonology, it can make your enemies disappear faster than they can appear. Where Affliction focuses on pulling as many mobs are possible, Destruction focuses on simply nuking one target and then moving onto the next one. You will find yourself having to sit and drink for Mana much more often than the other specs, however don't let that deter you as Destruction is a very fun spec and is even more powerful if dungeon leveling.

Affliction is by far the fastest leveling spec for Warlocks. Not many classes in the entire game can keep up with the speed of Affliction. The ability to run around and DoT everything, while those same DoTs heal you is incomparable and very overpowered.

If you are focuses on largely doing dungeons while leveling, then Demonology is the best spec. Your powerful Summon Felguard and Metamorphosis combined offer an insane amount of damage. Enemies inside dungeons typically die way too fast for Affliction DoT's to get any sort of value, making Demonology the objective choice for dungeon leveling.

There are a number of small tips you should pay attention to when leveling as a Warlock to make the leveling process much smoother. Some will vary on which specialization you are.

• Make sure you pick up your Glyphs. They are extremely helpful no matter the specialization. Affliction has one that makes your Corruption tick faster ( Glyph of Quick Decay) and another that makes you gain even more healing from Siphon Life ( Glyph of Siphon Life) which means you're healing an extreme amount more. Demonology has a Glyph that makes you stay in Metamorphosis longer ( Glyph of Metamorphosis) and another that makes your Summon Felguard attack much faster ( Glyph of Felguard). It's 100% worth spending the gold to pick up a couple Glyphs.
• If Demonology, simply pull everything around you with Corruption, then use your Metamorphosis and Immolation Aura to burst all the enemies down. It's important not to use Metamorphosis and then run around to pull the mobs. This will drastically speed up your leveling.
• If Affliction, simply run around and pull everything with Corruption and Curse of Agony, then Hellfire them all down when they get into Range.
• If you're pulling one enemy at a time, you're playing inefficiently. Make sure to pull as much as you can, but do so safely.
• Always be careful not to pull too many mobs. It's very easy to feel powerful and pull too much.
• Don't forget to go back to your Warlock Trainers to learn your new Spells. This is important, as you can can get extrememly powerful upgrades on your DoT's and utility spells that can save your life.
• Make sure to keep Fel Armor on you full time while leveling. This gives you insane self healing as well as makes you do a bunch more damage.
• Don't forget Howl of Terror. It's an AoE fear on a short cast time, or an instant cast if you're Affliction, and it's super helpful when you DoT everything around you, then Howl them and they'll be dead before they come back to you.
• Try not to ever be at full health. I know that can sound confusing, but as a Warlock you have Life Tap, which will convert your HP to Mana on top of already high self sustain. Just Life Tap when you get high HP and you'll find yourself having more resources in the long run.
• Always keep a few Soul Shards on you, but there is no need to have the maximum of 32. You need Soul Shards to summon your pet and to create Healthstones and Soulstones. Other than that, you don't need to keep a ton of Shards on you. It frees up bag space, allowing you to carry more items to sell and make more money.
• Keep a Soulstone on you at all times! This can easily resurrect you, just in case you mess up and die. While we are very powerful, it is still easy to die by pulling too much. Especially if you are just learning the class.
• Keep a Spellstone on your weapon at all times. This gives you 1% Haste, which makes you cast faster as well as your Corruption tick faster if you have the Glyph of Quick Decay, which you should have.
• First Aid Kit is always helpful, given that Warlocks often lack HP due to the constant use of Life Tap.
• Do not forget to grab new grimoires for your demons.

First Aid Kit should always be taken if you can bare the time to sit and level it up. The extra healing from it can help tremendously. While you can take Engineering and Tailoring for the ultimate leveling speed increase, due to Lightweave Embroidery and the Engineering enchants, such as Nitro Boosts, it is only worth if you have the gold to spend on it.

Consumables are extrememly helpful for leveling as a Warlock. Not only can Health Potions come in clutch and save your life, but Flask of Pure Death until level 75, then pick up some Flask of the Frost Wyrm. These DRASTICALLY boost your spell damage, which is very big for Warlocks since you use so many DoT's that all gain value out of the massive boost in spell power.