Leveling 20-30

By now you are no longer a newbie. I mean that this particular toon is not a noob anymore. You have a decent arsenal of spells and abilities now, you have enough talent points to get something significant out of your build, and the gear is getting better and more beneficial. The next 20 levels should be about really learning the play style of the class. There are many important skills and techniques to learn and master at this time that will help you in the future.

Talent Points
Continuing along with the Affliction tree, you will get the ability to Drain Tank far more effectively, as well as improving one of your DoTs. You will also be able to gain the potential to cast instant Shadow Bolts! Here is what you should be getting at each level:


20 - Fel Concentration (1/5)
21 - Fel Concentration (2/5)
22 - Fel Concentration (3/5)
23 - Fel Concentration (4/5)
24 - Fel Concentration (5/5)
25 - Improved Curse of Agony (1/2)
26 - Improved Curse of Agony (2/2)
27 - Nightfall (1/2)
28 - Nightfall (2/2)
29 - Amplify Curse or Soul Siphon (2/2)

Again you could slightly order this around differently, but this is the order I find most effective based on what you will use more and get the most benefit out the earliest. Soul Siphon is something that is very good to have eventually, but since it gets it's greatest benefit when coupled with other Locks casting affliction spells, it can wait till later. But still it will increase the effectiveness of your Drain Life a bit right now and some people might rather have that.

Abilities
At level 20 you get a whole bunch of stuff, but the most important is the Succubus pet. She will greatly increase your overall DPS eventually, however you do not want to use her just yet. She cannot hold aggro whatsoever and her DPS is at it's absolute lowest right now, so it's better to just keep using the VW for the time being.

Ritual of Summoning will allow you to summon other players to you with the help of 2 other players. Can be useful when grouping.

At level 24 you will get Drain Mana. This sounds like it would be useful but except in rare cases, it is actually quite useless. A Life Tap + Drain Life is far superior to this since it also does damage to the mob.

You also get Drain Soul 2. DO NOT USE THIS! There is absolutely no reason to use anything greater than Drain Soul 1. The only reason you ever want to use Drain Soul is at the last second before a mob dies in order to get a soul shard. Drain Soul 1 does this perfectly and at low mana cost. I mean really, don't even bother training this or any other higher levels of Drain Soul; it just isn't worth it.

Curse of Tongues at lvl 26 is a sometimes useful spell against casters. If you PVP a lot, this might be pretty useful to you. For grouping or raiding later on, there are a few things it is very useful on. For solo leveling, it is very useless.

Level 28 brings you Banish, which is a form of crowd control against Elementals and Demons. You may not find much use for it while leveling, but it is a very valuable ability, so you should at least play around with it so you are familiar with it when you need it. The great thing about Banish is that once it is on a mob, unlike sheep, it cannot be broken by anything or anyone.

You also get Create Firestone which is pretty useless since it takes up your wand slot and Affliction Warlocks are doing 90% shadow damage. Don't bother with this.

Tactics
Same tactics apply, but as you gain in level, the more powerful Drain Tanking becomes and the more you should go ahead and use it. Eventually you also want to replace the VW with the Succubus.

By lvl 24, with full 5/5 in Fel Concentration, you can Drain Tank very effectively. DoT up the mob, Life Tap, and then Drain Tank till dead. You may need to Life Tap again. But you should end the fight with full life and mana or pretty darn close to it. Very likely you will eventually pull aggro from the VW from your DoTs, in which case the now nearly uninterruptable Drain Life will allow you to tank the mob and outlast it while your DoTs keep ticking.

With Nightfall you also get a small chance to proc an instant Shadow Bolt from Corruption or Drain Life. So even while Drain Tanking, you might also be able to cast an SBolt! It's pretty random and you shouldn't depend on it proccing every fight, but it is pretty awesome when it does. So this makes Drain Life more powerful since it increases your chance of a Nightfall.

Sometime between 26 and 30 you should switch to using the Succubus. The VW can no longer keep up with you. If you are going to be tanking anyway, via Drain Tank, you ought to have a pet that does some DPS. This is your Succubus.

The new tactic is really the same as the old one, except you will be pulling aggro faster, actually pretty much right away. So really you shouldn't worry about it and just do as much damage as you can right away. Start out with a SBolt, while sending in your pet simultaneously (or Immolate if you need more DoTs for a tougher mob), then while running away drop Curse of Agony and Corruption and do a quick Life Tap. By now the mob has probably caught up to you and is about to hit you. Now you start Drain Tanking. Keep casting Drain Life, with the occasional Life Tap to keep your mana and health even, till the mob has died. It should be dying pretty quickly because you have your DoTs ticking away and the Succubus attacking as well.

Once you get the hang of it, you will find that you are able to keep your HP and mana full most of the time while still DPSing down a mob pretty fast. Alternatively you could let the Succubus tank it at first while you DoT the mob, then Sbolt and Drain Life, but the Succy does not take a beating well, so it's really better to just take the damage yourself from the start.

The other tactic, if you have the room for it, is to keep the mob feared. The succubus will follow the mob around and do quite a bit of damage along with your DoTs and you can toss a few SBolts in there. But again, Fear is unpredictable and could aggro many more mobs, so probably not worth using in most cases.

Gear
To be added later