Fundamentals of Warlock Raiding

One of my main inspirations for doing this blog was to share my experiences and tips of raiding as a Warlock. Before I go into specifics about talent builds, gear, or boss strategies, I want to go over the basic fundamentals about Warlock raiding.

Role in Raid

Warlocks simultaneously serve three general roles in raiding. Those roles are DPS, Debuffing, and Utility. Every Lock of any spec serves all three of these roles. The difference in specs varies the degree or effectiveness of serving a specific role, but all Locks still contribute to each role in some way.

• DPSer - DPS should be obvious. Warlocks are a DPS class and along with Mages, Hunters, and Rogues will provide the most damage done during a raid, especially during boss encounters. Warlocks can do extremely high DPS at every tier level. They have great AOE capability, high damage nuking ability, and DoT's which increase DPS duration. Locks make great DPS on fights which require a lot of movement or have adds. They are also extremely effective on longer encounters. All things being equal, Locks should not typically be the top DPS class in a raid, but they are always up there and on some fights will be top of DPS.
• Debuffer - Warlocks provide a number of debuffs that can help the raid. Curses are the obvious debuff; these can lower the armor or resistance of a mob, which in turn allows raiders to do higher DPS on them. But there are also various talents that provide additional debuffs. Improved Shadow Bolt increases raid-wide shadow damage. Shadow Embrace lowers amount of melee damage taken raid-wide. The Felguard increases melee damage. These debuffs can greatly increase the ability of the entire raid and should not be underestimated.
• Utility - Utility is the measure of satisfaction gained from a service. Warlocks provide several services that increase the satisfaction of a raid. Healthstones, soulstones, summoning, and imp buff are all services that Locks can provide that greatly increase raid utility. None of these things are absolutely needed by a raid, but they make life a lot easier for everyone. As such they have come to be expected contributions from any Warlock.

Certain talent builds provide more for a specific role than others, but all Locks contribute equally to all three roles. In general Affliction will increase debuffing ability, Demonology will increase utility, and Destruction will increase DPS. But above all, remember that as a Warlock you should be contributing to every role in the best way you are capable of.

Talent Builds

Warlocks are blessed with three amazing talent trees. There is something to like about every tree and each one is viable in a raid setting. Let me repeat that - EVERY Warlock tree is raid viable. A lot of people think that Demonology is not a good primary tree for raiding, but they are mistaken. So many people have assumed Demo to be bad for raiding, because that's what everyone else says. But they are wrong and Demo can be just as good of a raid build as Affliction or Destruction.

Some talent builds focus more on raid utility or debuffing ability while others focus on maximizing DPS potential. Some builds are less gear dependent than others. Some are more effective at different stages of raid progression. Your goal is to learn which build is best for your gear/progression level/role in raid. Through the course of you raiding career you will probably have to switch builds several times to remain most effective.

• Affliction focuses on increasing the ability of your DoTs and increasing debuffing ability. In general Affliction based builds will perform better in earlier raid progression - IE at Gruuls and Magtheridon and early T5 levels. Affliction scales worse with gear so once you get to a certain gear level, another build will outperform it. However because of the debuffing, at least one Affliction Lock is still considered necessary at every level.
• Demonology focuses on increasing raid utility as well as the effectiveness of your demons. A Demo spec will be less gear dependent than other builds. Your demon, typically the Felguard, will be central to your raiding ability. Your demon needs to get buffed and needs to stay alive for you to be effective. This makes this kind of build more difficult, especially on bosses with a lot of AOE and is probably the main reason so many people think it is an unattractive raid spec. But the DPS potential of these builds can be huge and at late T5 and early T6 levels, this is probably the highest DPS spec.
• Destruction focuses on high burst DPS potential. Destro performs less well at early raid levels because of the high reliance on shadow bolt and high mana consumption. Once you are spell hit capped and have good gear (somewhere mid T5 level) and this build starts to deliver some impressive DPS potential. Destro Locks rely on Shadow Bolt for 90% of their damage. Since Shadow Bolt scales best with gear, Destruction scales best with gear as a build. This is the top DPS spec at late T6 levels.

I neglected to include any specific builds or further discussion at this point. There will be future, more in-depth, posts on each tree and the typical raid builds later. For now it is enough to go over the general fundamentals.

Gearing Considerations

Gearing a Warlock is fairly straight-forward. There are different considerations to be made depending on what build you are using, but basics are similar across all builds. More importantly, all beginning Locks share the same gearing goals.

Raid bosses are a higher level and have different damage formulas and resistance levels. As such, the main goal of gearing a raiding Lock (or any raider for that matter) is to maximize your potential against raid bosses. Trash mobs are rather insignificant, but boss encounters are where guilds need to put in most of their effort and where the better your gear is the more likely you will succeed.

• Cap Spell Hit - This is the first, and most important, stat to reach for a Warlock of any spec. You need 202 spell hit to be "capped", meaning that is the most you can get and anything beyond that is a waste. The lower your spell hit, the more likely you are to resist, which lowers the effectiveness of every point of damage you have. Thus this is the best bang for your buck till you get capped. Affliction Locks can put points into Suppression till they get enough spell hit.
• Spell Damage/Shadow Damage - This is probably the next most important stat. Affliction locks will want to focus on damage while other builds will want some crit or haste too, but damage still is more important.
• Spell Haste - Less desirable for Affliction Locks, but very useful for Demo/Destro Locks who spam Shadow Bolts. The more haste you have, the faster your casting time, which means you can get off a Shadow Bolt faster and start casting that next one earlier or move if needed in mobile fights.
• Spell Crit - Less desirable for Affliction Locks, but useful for Demo/Destro. DoTs do not crit, hence why Affliction doesn't benefit as much from this. Destro Locks who are spamming Shadow Bolts and have Ruin will see the most benefit from this. More crit also increases Improved Shadow Bolt uptime, which in turn increases the overall shadow damage done raid-wide. Still, crit is probably the least valuable stat for Locks, even Destro Locks, because of how crit is required for an increase of 1%. Destro Locks should have a decent amount of crit, but you don't want to stack either as that is less efficient towards DPS than haste or damage.
• Stamina - Unlike PVP or solo leveling, a raiding Lock does not want lots of stamina. Stamina is still more desirable than Intellect and you will naturally have higher stamina than other casters, but you do not want to go out of your way to get more stamina. The general rule of thumb is to have enough stamina to survive anything during a raid encounter and no more. It is better to have more spell damage than crit. You have tanks, they are taking the hits, if you are doing your job right and don't pull aggro, you should not be taking that much damage, if any. So it is less important to have stamina in a raid.

Early raiders will find that Shadoweave Tailoring will be a great investment because of the Frozen Shadoweave set. As you get better gear the set will be less desirable, but it still has it's uses even into T6 content. This makes for a good high DPS trash mob set.

Most Warlocks will want to have two sets of gear - one that is spell hit capped for boss fights, and another that has only 5% spell hit and maximizes DPS for trash or AOE fights. There isn't much need for resistance gear early on. T6 raiders will need to invest in a shadow resist set but that is about it.

Gem and enchant to reach spell hit cap and then to maximize damage. Great Dawnstone gems are a great way to reach the hit cap early. Veiled Noble Topaz will be the best bank for your buck gem, while Runed Living Ruby will maximize damage after you are hit capped. Other gems, including spell crit or stamina, are not considered worthwhile except to meet metagem requirements. In that case you should have as few of them as needed.

And finally, a word of advice for times when you get new gear - save all your old gear. There are times when you get a new piece of gear and it is better than what you currently have at that piece, but later on you get some other new gear and suddenly that original first piece of gear is actually better again. This could be because of spell hit rating on pieces of gear and switching around gear is needed to keep spell hit capped, but not over. You also will find that old gear can be used for a max-DPS trash or AOE set. Or you can use old gear for maximizing stamina or resistance or anything like that for a specific boss encounter. This is not required, but it can be helpful. You will also likely need to replace gems a lot to keep spell hit capped, but not over, while maximizing damage. I know it's a pain and expensive, but do not hesitate to do this because it will keep you at your best and most effective at all times.

Grouping

This is much too complex to even begin to cover here at this time. It depends on the classes, specs, skill level, and roles of all 25 players in the raid, as well as the particular encounter. In addition, some raid leaders might just prefer one grouping style over another. And finally, you may not be the raid leader or have any control or say over any of this, so it may not matter too much to you. But there are some basics in grouping that are important to understand about Warlocks.

• In general, Warlocks can function on their own and without aide from being grouped with any specific class. Affliction Warlocks in particular are no less effective being grouped with just about anyone.
• Affliction Locks should be the one(s) in the tank/melee group for Imp buff. They have to use the imp anyway. Destro and Demo Locks lose a lot of DPS if they are forced to use an imp, so don't make them unless absolutely necessary.
• Destro/Demo will greatly benefit from a shadow priest. These Locks use a lot more mana, thus the mana regen provided by a shadow priest will help them to boost their DPS a lot more, since they will not have to Life Tap as often. Also, Felguard specced Locks will benefit from the group healing stuff. In addition, this ability to do more DPS will allow the Lock to maintain ISB uptime, which in turn increases Shadow Damage DPS. Thus it is a highly reciprocal relationship and it is strongly encouraged to group Destro Locks and Shadow Priests.
  
• Moonkins or Shamans using Wrath of Air totems can boost Lock DPS by being in the same group.

Curse Selection

Warlocks have many different curses at their disposable, some which act as a DoT and others which act as a debuff. Which to use is an important skill for raiding Locks to understand. In general, Curse of Doom is higher DPS than Curse of Agony and should be used in any situation where there is enough time for CoD to go off. However, if there are enough other raiders who can benefit from the debuffs, those should be used over CoD/CoA.

Affliction locks with Malediction (which any true affliction raider should have) should be on CoS/CoE duty. Curse of Shadow is almost always going to be required. Warlocks, Shadow Priests, Arcane Mages, Moonkins all benefit from this, so more than likely you will have enough players where this is better to cast than CoD/CoA. If there are 2 or more fire mages, you should provide CoE.

CoR is more tricky because it also has the side effect of making the mob hit your tanks harder. Thus it is not advisable in every fight. But if you have 5 or more Hunters or melee DPS, you should use CoR provided it is a safe fight. If you are the sole Lock, it's probably safe to assume CoS is the curse you should use. More on curse selection and especially CoR later.

Consumables

Any true dedicated raider should come fully stocked with necessary consumables. For a Warlock the choices are easy - anything that improves DPS. This means Major Wizard Oil, Damage flasks (Flask of Pure Death), and damage foods. You may wish to use spell hit food till you get that capped. You may also wish to have stamina food for select fights. But in general you want anything that increases damage.

Shards

And finally, come with plenty of shards. You should invest in the 28 slot shard bag. But come with more shards than that. It's going to depend on what spec you are, how many other warlocks are in the raid, and what you are raiding to know how many shards to bring, but more is always better than less.

Affliction Locks should, whenever possible, handle soulstones and random summonings. Destro/Demo Locks have to use more shards for their demons and sacrifices so it is helpful whenever they can save some. Every Lock should summon a soul well, however, and often.

Make sure you fill up on shards on trash mobs so you have enough to last boss encounters, especially while learning and maybe wiping a lot.

Conclusion

That's all for now. I will give more in depth analysis of each build in future posts. For the time being this should be enough basic fundamentals to get you started in the right direction. Visit elitistjerks for more information and to keep up with current theorycrafting standards.