by Rob Bedder

Created on: August 20, 2010

The Warlock

In the world of Azeroth the warlock plays a unique and vital roll. The warlock is kind of like the evil twin of the mage instead of focusing on the arcane and creation, warlocks focus on the demonic destruction. It is a dark and fiery wrath that the warlock punishes his enemies with. The different talents or disciplines of the warlock allow him to fulfill different needs of a raid group. These disciplines can be changed based upon the different encounters in the end game dungeons.

The affliction warlock is a caster that deals the majority of his damage in DOTS (Damage over Time Spells). These spells allow the caster to cast many instant spells that hit and stick with the target dealing more and more damage as the spell duration ticks on and on. The main pro to this discipline in the warlock talent tree is that it allows him to be a mobile mercenary, jumping in and out of danger, staying alive while he lays waste to everything chasing him. The con to this warlock is the shorter battles don’t allow for his Dot’s to do their full damage.

The demonology warlock is the main soloing specialization that warlocks use for leveling, reason being is it buffs your pet. The pet of a warlock plays many rolls in and of itself it can be a damage dealer, a tank, a controller, or an effect buff stealer. The pet you choose is also very encounter specific. In your early leveling your void walker is mans new best friend, he takes the brunt of all your attackers allowing you to run around nuking and looting while your cloth robes never get even a wrinkle. While in the later levels you may choose to go with the felhunter kind of the new and improved void walker, not only does he keep aggro better but he takes away the main buffs on your target weakening them. Last but not least there is the trusty old imp your friend since level 2. He has one ability he has mastered since you first got him FIREBALL!

The last discipline is the one I actually play today that is the bringer of destruction. Matching dark demonic shadow spells with brutal fire destruction these guys can dish out lots of pain and agony in quick bursts. Our AOE’s (area of effect spells) have been known to level groups and groups of enemies in single casts. Our corrupted casts bring such pain to our foes that they can be turned away in a mere howl of terror and sent running to their deaths as their bodies burn with incineration and the final touch is a chaos bolt charged death.

The warlock is still to this day after all of its nerfs from its creators one of the most horrific damage dealing classes out there. Ready willing and able to bring pain to the most overpowered end game boss blizzard can use its imagination to create.

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