So You Want To Start A Warlock

You've seen the cool spells and abilities that Warlocks have. You've heard they are overpowered (debatable). You're jealous of the wicked mounts. So you are considering starting a brand new spanking Warlock. Congratulations, you will not regret it. For those of you who are still unsure, read on.

Warlocks are a very unique class. They are very versatile and powerful. They can excel in a variety of different roles. They offer many useful tools in groups and raids. They are effective solo as well as within a group. And they are just plain cool. Let me list the reasons why Warlocks are the best.

• Soloability - The Warlock is arguably the most powerful class in solo PVE play. I would say a Beast Mastery Hunter is easier to solo, but the Warlock is more powerful due to its versatility. You will find that fighting mobs is easy and quick paced as a Lock. By focusing on mobs a few levels lower than you are you can completely dominate them with absolutely no down time. With the power of your DoTs (Damage Over Time) and demon pets, you can easily fight multiple mobs at the same time for even faster XP. Warlocks can kite fairly well to exceptionally well depending on the mob. They also have good survivability and can take a beating and outlast mobs. In short, Locks have a wealth of unique abilities and talents that make them especially powerful in solo play
• Demon Pets - Warlocks can summon a variety of unique demons to do their bidding. The Imp provides added range DPS and a party buff. The Voidwalker will become your personal tank during your early career as a Warlock. The Succubus provides a significant boost in DPS and can also crowd control. The Felhunter is the anti-caster option. And finally, the Felguard is the king of pets and can reasonably DPS and tank for you. And that's only the beginning. There are a variety of talents that improve your pet or offer more benefits to yourself through your pet.
• DoTs - Warlocks have very powerful Damage Over Time spells. This allows the Warlock to fight multiple mobs simultaneously with great success. Though it does add some complexity to the play style, DoTs provide a significant and versatile source of damage for Locks.
• Mana Efficient - Due to their unique style of play (pets and DoT spells) Warlocks do not require a lot of mana to be effective damage dealers. Add to that the fact that Locks can Lifetap or Dark Pact (with talents) to quickly replenish their mana and you have a caster class that does not need to stop and drink often, if ever. This is great for both soloing and group/raiding. While Mages are running out of mana, Locks are still going.
• Fear - The single greatest or most hated spell in the game, depending on from which perspective you are viewing it from. Fear is a powerful ability that, when used properly, can make a Warlock almost invincible. It is also hated by those who get feared! In PVE play, Fear can make a tough elite mob fight trivial. Basically, if you can fear it, you can solo it. Bonus - Locks also have an AOE fear and Deathcoil, which is also fear-like.
  
• Debuffs - Warlocks have a number of debuffs that make them valuable in Raiding. Debuffs such as Curse of Shadows increases the DPS of Arcane Mages, Shadow Priests, Mookin Druids, other Warlocks, and even Hunters to an extent. This can add up to a huge increase in overall Raid DPS.
• Health/Soul Stones - Heathstones are like a second heath potion that operates on a separate cooldown, making them very useful. Soulstones can be used to save a group/raid from wiping. These are unique abilities that only a Warlock can provide.
• Dreadsteed - Yes, Warlocks have the coolest ground mounts! Your initial mount at lvl 40 is free, while the epic mount requires a lengthy and sometimes expensive quest. If you do it right, you will save money. Even if you don't though, it's still wicked looking!
• 3 Unique Talent Trees - Warlocks have 3 very great talent trees that offer the ability for very different and unique talent builds. While some builds might be slightly better for this or that, none are actually bad. There are only a very few useless talents, so there is likely to be something for everyone out there.
• Summoning - An oftentimes valuable group/raid ability that, again, is unique to Warlocks.
  
• Seed of Corruption - The best and most baddass AOE in the game. By itself, SoC does not do that much damage, but when Seeds explode, they detonate other Seeds in their radius, which detonate others and so on. A few Warlocks spam seeding can cause extremely MASSIVE AOE damage potential. Not as good for solo as the AOE that Mages have, but awesome when Raiding.
• Self-sufficiency - Add all the above together and you have a class that can succeed in almost any situation without the need from outside help. Warlocks are desired in groups/raids, not only because they provide valuable debuffs and utility and good damage, but also because they do not need much healing or help from grouping with certain classes for buffs. Mages, Shadowpriests and Hunters need to be grouped properly to maximize their potential, but Warlocks do just fine on their own in sub-optimal groups.

There are many reasons why Warlocks kick ass. This makes Warlocks a bit more complex to play than other classes, but more fun too, in my opinion. Because of all the coolness and power potential, Warlocks have long been considered overpowered and easy by others. Don't fall for this! It is true that Warlocks can excel at certain things, but to say they are overpowered or easy to play is ignorant. A lot of the OP talk stems from stuff years ago and has be come cliche and just an easy out for people. People are so used to saying Locks are OP that they continue to say it without realizing that this is just not the case anymore (if it ever was which is highly debatable.)

Some of these really impressive things that Locks can do require some skill to pull off. Warlocks have a large number of spells and skills that they need to juggle to maximize their potential. You have to concentrate and be aware at all times to efficiently use your DoTs and mana. Locks have to understand what debuff to use in which situation. Fearing is unpredictable and requires practice to consistently pull off reliably. Warlocks need to know the strengths and weaknesses of each demon so that they use the correct one for the correct job.

Playing a Warlock is more work than many think it is. But if you learn to master the class, you will find that it can be extremely powerful. And a whole lot of fun.