Welcome to the Wondrous World of Warlocks!
If you’ve come here looking to throw wimpy frozen bolts of pew-pew magic at your foe, bombard your enemy with holy magic as you sit in a bubble and “LOL,” or QQ like all Paladins/Rogues/DKs/Warriors do, you have come to the wrong place!
This page is dedicated to all those who wish to curse their enemies to the pits of hell, watch them burn in a fiery apocalypse, and drain their soul while reveling in the misery of the weak. That’s right; this page is all about the Warlock!
Warlocks are ranged damage dealers that hurl fire and shadow magic at their enemies and slowly drain the life of their target with their numerous damage over time (DoT) spells. Oh and did I mention the nasty demons we get to control as well? That’s right, the Warlock has a PhD in pain and suffering.
First off let’s look at our stats and their priorities:
Hit Rating
This is our number one stat just as any of those other wimpy, whiny DPS classes. Why do you ask? Well if you can’t hit your enemy, you can’t kill them and where is the fun in that? As of now (lvl 80) our hit cap is 17% or 446 rating. Achieving this rating will ensure that you never miss your target with your delicious bolts of pain! At level 85 this rating rises but still stays at 17% or 1742 rating.
Intellect
This is our number two stat. As we already know Warlocks are much smarter than any other class but that doesn’t mean we don’t need more intellect! Intellect directly increases our mana pool, spell power, and crit rating. You cannot have too much Intellect! This becomes our number one stat after we have reached the hit cap and it won’t be hard to find because we will find it on all of our gear.
Now it starts to get a little tricky… In no specific order…(See Talent Spec pages for stat priorities of the stats below)
Haste
Faster! Faster! Kill them faster! As much as we like to enjoy watching our enemy die an ever so slow and agonizing death, we need haste. Why? Because haste makes us cast faster and our DoTs tick faster. Plus, if you stack enough haste you can get another tick added to the duration of your DoT. You know what that means!! MORE PAIN! The haste thresholds for extra DoT ticks are as follow: 157, 781, 1,406, and 2,030.
Crit
Critical strikes do double the damage of a normal attack. Crit Rating increases the chance your spells have to be a critical strike, even your DoTs. That’s double the pain in one shot!
Mastery
This is a new stat in Cataclysm and the benefit of it varies for each talent spec within each class. Since we are a pure DPS class each of the benefits will boost the damage our spells in a certain way.
Affliction: Mastery increases all periodic
shadow damage done. Watch your DoTs eat their soul away!
Demonology: Mastery increases all damage done by your minions (at all times) and yourself when in Metamorphosis. Being torn apart by a demonic being, sweet!
Destruction: Mastery increases all
fire damage done. Burn them alive!
Spirit
This is a stat that we no longer need, since the buff from Fel Armor no longer increases Spell Power by 30% of our Spirit also there is no more buff from Glyph of Life Tap. This will appear naturally on our gear at times, but note that this is more for healers than for us. Healers aren’t cool enough to be able to convert their own health into mana like us.
Stat conversions for level 85
- Hit - 102.45 hit rating gives 1% to hit with spells
- Haste - 128.05 haste rating gives 1% spell haste
- Crit - 179.28 crit rating gives 1% to crit
- Mastery - 179.28 mastery provides a 1.5% increase
Gemming for Locky-Locks!
As a general rule of thumb if the socket bonus is less than 20 of any DPS stat, then it would be better to ignore the bonus and gem Brilliant Inferno Ruby.
Talent Specs
Addons
SpellPriority
Links
The Warlock's Den - A great site for warlocks by warlocks.
Elitist Jerks - Well they are leet...and jerks. Tons of indepth stat discusion
FelFire - A new Warlock blog that I believe has promise.