Warlocks are SOOOOOoooooOOOo000oooo Complicated

My girlfriend decided to make a warlock, as some of you might know. Well she has two now... and a priest.  and more to come im sure.  she'll make the max of 10 characters for the realm, all with the same face, just different hair and clothing, maybe skin color and earrings.  what can i say? she's that kinda girl.  it will be fun to come home and ask...

"so baby, which warlock are you playing today?" 

"oh warlock #5.  her name is Jazelle, because every 5th filippino girl you see will have a name ending in '...zelle'.  so might as well, right?"

"why not rochelle, or janelle, or rockelle, or azraelle, or calelle, or razelle, or danielle, or gazelle?"

"first, a gazelle is an antelope like animal and is not one of my characters.  second, im on Jazelle because she's got this cool hat we got the other night, and because she has 30 or more pets for me to rotate through."

"okay.... "


where was i headed?? oh right. complicated.
so... because warlocks can be so complicated im going to try to make it really simple and make a beginners guide to warlocking.  everything a warlock needs to know.  everything a new wow player will need to know.  or something like that. 


first off, lets start by saying this, that the warlock has a bagillion spells and abilities, all of which are useful sometimes, but never are always useful all the time. and just to help avoid some of the confusion, the game, or blizzard, has decided to limit some of the things we do. that's fine.  keeps things simple right?  well not entirely.

Combat Pets.
These pets (starting with the Imp) can be sommoned to help you battle against helpless, monsters in azeroth.  more likely than not, they're just out there grazing or looking for food, or caring for the cub.  that's innocent enough, but their presence means you're able to annihilate them.  and with the help of your pet, you're better able to do so. 

You will start off at level 2 or 4 with an imp.  you learn this spell from the trainers.  easy enough.  summon him and he'll do several things.  just having him there will increase your stamina by a little.  not a whole lot, but enough. during battles, he will put a "fire shield" on you.  i dont know what this really does.  but its helpful.  he will aslo throw fireballs at the enemy.  all good right?

at level 10, you'll get a quest to summon your next demon.  and about every 10 or so levels thereafter, you'll be able to summon another pet. 

the important thing to know about pets is that you can only have one out at a time. and each pet has a different purpose.  Imps help with fireballs and adding a little bit of health to your small health pool.  and a few other things.  your next pet is a big bubble thing that can take a lot of damage.  so most people have this pet run in and "tank" the enemy while you stand behind and cast spells.  makes it kinda easy.

so that's the intro on pets.  simple enough?


Spells
Warlocks start off with two spells but quickly go on to become a billion spells real soon.  Now add some action bars on your screen and now you have room for most of them.

There are several types of spells.  So let me break them down for you.

Direct Damage:
A direct damage spell is a spell that, basically does direct damage.  they usually have a casting time, however some can be cast immediately by chance.  i'll talk more about the "chance" later.  but the major thing to remember a direct damage spell usually has a cast time (you'll stand there for 2 seconds casting it) and when it goes off and hits your target, it will cause the damage immediately. 

Damage over Time:
Damage over time spells are usually cast instantly so there is no casting time involved.  when you do put the spell on the target, a timer will begin to tick.  for example, you have "Corruption" as your first Damage over Time (DoT) spell which will do 40 damage over 12 seconds.  each tick of damage will happen every three seconds.  if you divide, that's four ticks over 12 seconds if each tick happens three seconds apart.  since there are four ticks, and all ticks has to total 40 damage, each tick will do 10 damage.  its math, and its scary. but bear with me.

so when you cast corruption on the enemy, 3 seconds later, your corruption spell will do 10 damage.  at 6 seconds, it will do 10 more damage.  at 9 seconds, it will do 10 more damage, and at 12 seconds, it will do 10 more damage to total 40 damage.  you only need to cast corruption once ever 12 seconds. there will be spells and abilities that will make corruption go on forever as long as you're casting something else.  you'll get this later.

anyway, that's the gist if your damage over time spell.

Curses:
The warlock class has another type of spell up its sleeve.  these are called curses.  Now curses do different things depending on what type of curse you use.  You begin with one called Curse of Weakness.  This one, if cast on an enemy, will cause him to weaken.  they will still attack you, but will attack you for less damage.  You will get another curse called Curse of Agony.  This one deals damage much like Corruption. Another curse is Curse of Tongues, which causes warlocks and mages to take longer to cast their spells.  This is useful if your enemy is using spells to attack you instead of running up to you with a sword.  you'll find some enemies that like to cast spells in the future.  There are several other curses you can cast on the enemy, and they will do certain things.  so you'll have to decide which is best to use and why... because... you can only use one curse on any enemy at a time. Thats all.

Channelled Spells:
As the name describes, these spells go off while you're Channelling or concentrating, or casting, or whatevers.  casting these spells will mean that you will be in a channelling state for the entirety of the spell. Examples of this is Drain Life, or Drain Soul.  Drain Life is a spell that you channel.  throughout the channelling, you will be sucking the enemy's health and adding it to yours. 


Combination Spells:
Some spells are combinations of the above.  One is Curse of Agony, while it's a curse, it also deals damage to the enemy. 
Another combination spell is Immolate.  This one is a mix of Shadowbolt+corruption.  Here's what i mean.
Immolate is a casted, Direct Damage spell but also adds a Damage over Time spell to your mob.
There's another spell you will get in the future (maybe) that you cast and it sends an orb to the enemy. the orb will do Damage over Time by sucking the health out of the enemy and putting that health inside the orb.  and after a certian amount of time, the orb will fly back to you and give you all of the health it collected.


So those are the different types of spells you will be using as a warlock.  Dont forget that there are different spells for each "type" of spell out there.  Shadowbolt will not be your only direct damage spell.  Corruption will not be your own Damage over time Spell.  And you already know you'll have several different types of curses. 

Easiest way to separate this is as follows:

Direct Damage:   Boom!
Damage over time: Tick tick tick tick tick....
Direct Damage with Dot at the end:  Boom! tick tick tick tick...
Dot that ends with a Direct Damage: Tick tick tick tick tick BOOM!
Channelled: tick tick tick tick tick (and you cant do anything else while it ticks).

Easy right?


Spell Use:
It is best to stand as far away from an enemy as possible, but still close enough to cast your spell. 
The best thing to use would be a Shadowbolt, since you can cast the spell while the enemy is oblivious to your presence. 
Your second spell should either be Immolate or Corruption.  After your Shadowbolt hits the enemy, they will run towards you. During the time it takes for them to get to you, you should be casting Immolate. When it does finally reach you, you can cast Corruption (ONCE).  Now there's nothing left but to cast another shadowbolt while your immolate and corruption slowly eat away at the enemy. 

Depending on the encounter and what kind of enemies you face, it might be better to just cast two shadowbolts if they die after two shadowbolts.  or you might just use corruption only and skip out on immolate.  its up to you, but if you find that your enemy dies immediately after you cast corruption, then you dont need to cast corruption at all. it will be a waste.  again, it will take time for you to learn how to best use your abilities as a warlock. 

Next post will be about talent trees.  you get talent points to spend starting at level 10.  each time you level after that, you'll get 1 talent point and you can spend it anywhere on your talent trees. more about it later!

Also after you get your second pet, your spell choices might be different. i'll talk about this with pet choices later on.