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Blood Pact: Cataclysm-era leveling guide for warlocks
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Send questions, comments, or requests to tyler@wowinsider.com or via Twitter to @murmursofadruid. Of all the things that I am, for all of the multitude of alts that I have, one things that I've never been all that good at is writing leveling guides. I have a hard enough time as it is following said guides; writing out my chaotic leveling process is a chore and a half. That all being said, the one thing I do have enormous amounts of experience in leveling. I've nearly reached the full limit on the amount of characters that I'm allowed to have. Allow me, then, to impart some of what I know about bringing your fledgling warlock up to speed into the endgame. After all, while the journey might be half the fun, the destination is all so glorious. We do need someone to stomp on those pesky mages. The first order of business is to know your spec going into the game. While all warlocks focus on damage (so we don't have quite the same complications as hybrid classes), which spec you choose to go with is still important. Affliction has long been touted as the prime warlock leveling spec, and that is still somewhat true. Affliction offers the best multi-target, fast-paced farming that can't be matched by any of the others. The downside to this is that mob farming has fallen the way of the dinosaurs in WoW leveling; instead, questing and running dungeons is far more efficient, and affliction doesn't have its strength there.
Blood Pact: The future of destruction
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. For the past two weeks, we've been taking a look at the future of warlock design -- a bit of clairvoyance on my part, with Blizzard's asking for player feedback of a similar nature this past week. First we looked at affliction's concerns, and then we talked about demonology. This week, we'll round out the series by discussing what might come of destruction, the current wayward child of warlocks. It's easy to talk about the problems that destruction faces now, as they're things that we see inside of the game, yet damage balance is a very fickle mistress. Numbers can be tuned at the drop of a hat; whether they are or not is an entirely different matter. Dealing in numbers and figures really is a simple matter. This week's focus won't exclusively be on the damage disparity that destruction currently suffers from, but rather the mechanical difficulties and identity crisis that holds it back. Damage is meaningless when Blizzard could easily hotfix in a random buff or nerf without a moment's notice; again, it's more so a matter of if or when.
Blood Pact: The future of demonology balance
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Last week, we talked about the future development of affliction warlocks, discussing how the spec is impacted by non-damage-related factors such as encounter design and utility. Both of these game features play a significant role in the viability of any spec. More so than ensuring that specs are balanced in terms of raw, dummy DPS, Blizzard also has to ensure that specs are compatible with a raid's design as a whole. This week, we'll talk some about demonology and what needs to be done to keep it viable, yet also interesting and fun to play. It was noted last week that I wasn't able to get much into PVP balance, which is fair, as I didn't make many comparisons at all. PVP balance is an entirely different beast from anything else in the game. PVP balance rests just as much on which specs are popular as it does on the viability of a spec itself. If assassination rogues have a high representation and affliction has a slightly better counter to them, then affliction would end up being a better PVP choice, regardless of how the other two specs fare. I'll attempt to put more PVP perspective into the feature, but know that it's far more difficult to balance for all the variable situations you might come across.
Blood Pact: How to trounce through Firelands as a warlock
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Being relatively newish to writing Blood Pact, I'm not sure if I've yet said this. On the off chance that I have, well, then it at least bears repeating: I am a raider. What I do, what I care about, is going into the most relevant content and kicking butt. Not only am I a raider, but I raid as a DPSer. Though my main might be a hybrid-capable for healing or tanking, I have absolutely no interest in either of those concepts. There's a reason that the first four alts that I pushed to level 85 were the pure classes. That being said, even I know that damage cannot be -- is not -- everything. The tired phrase that dead DPS is zero DPS certainly holds true. More so than that, very encounters are even about raw damage potential, anyway. Although Firelands is a lot less gimmick-based than tier 11 raids were, nearly every boss encounter is going to require some non-DPS related task that has a much higher chance of wiping the raid than anything else. Are you prepared to deal with every situation? Let's find out.
Blood Pact: How to spend your initial valor points as a warlock
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. With new raids come new items that we can toss away our hard-earned money on. Only in this case, that money is valor points. The sad part about this raiding tier is that Blizzard reduced the valor point cap in order to force a stricter limit on how players gear up in this new raiding tier. The devs don't want players getting the new gear too quickly, and so they limit us by creating a stop-gap in our ability to get the non-dropped items. In reality, this isn't all that much of a bother. If Blizzard wants to create these types of gearing gateways, then so be it. The one issue that I do take with it is that this really places that much more importance on luck as a factor of early gearing. Tier gear cannot be gained via drops, except for the pieces which drop from Baradin Hold. Further, it isn't token pieces that drop but the specific items themselves -- oh, yes, and there's PVP gear to contend with on the loot table. Getting the drops from inside Baradin Hold saves you 3,850 valor points, which is four weeks' worth of dungeons. That's a big deal. Regardless, let's talk about the things you should be spending your hard-earned points on.
Blood Pact: Goodies for warlocks in patch 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Today, class, we will begin coverage of the upcoming 4.2 patch. This patch contains the Firelands raid. It also has a new daily quest hub, both of which offer new rewards for you to work toward. There is also the introduction of the game's second caster legendary, Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest. Before we can begin, let me take attendance to ensure everyone is present. Bueller ... Bueller ... Bueller ... Bueller. Right. Now that we got that out of the way, perhaps it's time that we can take a look at just a few of the things that you'll find in the next patch, which should be coming out the day after this post goes up. Even though this patch will involve quite a bit of saving cute, fluffy animals, we can still participate just like every one else. After you've finished running the new dailies, though, you may want to go bathe yourself in the blood of virgins or something to get the sweetness off.
Blood Pact: On armor spells and warlock survivability
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. I believe that somewhere along the line, I promised that I would write more this week about how terrible mages are -- which, you know, that's entirely possible, but I say lots of things. Trusting that what I said was accurate or true, well, that seems like a pretty big lead of faith; I personally wouldn't take it. Besides which, I feel that Archmage Pants does quite a good enough job of that for me. Why should I bother? It's like kicking a wounded puppy. Although I'm not entirely against that, either. No, no, there will be no puppy kicking today -- well, perhaps minimal puppy kicking. Instead, we're going on an adventure -- a literary adventure! I know, get excited, because those are the best kinds. This week is all about keeping yourself alive. If you recall, a while back I wrote on the art of surviving as a warlock. This time, I'd like to take a look into exactly how this works, what's paying off, and what's better left off being passed down to mages.
Blood Pact: Leveling a warlock from 1 to 60
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. More so than anything else, I am an altaholic. I am addicted to alt-ahol. It's a terrible disease, I know, and I make sure that I go to my support group in the basement of a local comic book shop every Saturday night, but those meetings usually end up in a StarCraft LAN party, so I'm thinking that I might skip it this time around. In all honesty, though, I really do have an alt problem. I've got three different severs that have reached their character limit -- and yes, a vast majority of those toons are actually 85, or at least in the 80s. It's a tough gig, but it's what happens when you quit your job to work exclusively on WoW. Suffice to say, leveling is a concept I know pretty darn well. Taking a break from my newest project -- reaching the Classy guild achievement in a guild with only my alts -- I figured I might share a few of the things that I have learned in my time. Sit back, relax, and enjoy.
Blood Pact: Patch 4.1 analysis for warlocks
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. While the patch may have been out for almost a week now, I get the fortunate/unfortunate position of writing on Mondays. It's awesome, really; I love Mondays, and I love having Blood Pact on Mondays. It's like a bright ray of sunshine on an otherwise dreary day -- assuming your sunshine is also dark, bloody, demonic, and encourages slavery. Sadly, Blizzard doesn't seem to like Mondays; in fact, I'm quite sure that it has started a campaign to have Monday officially removed, but everyone else just calls me crazy. The patch may have been out for a while, but that doesn't mean it still isn't worth mentioning, yeah? After all, there were quite a few major changes for warlocks, and most importantly, those around us. Day late, dollar short, all that jazz -- nothing can stop a rampaging demonic lord, and that's kind of what we are.
Blood Pact: Total destruction
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Getting some higher-grade medication than what I've been previously taking has seriously paid off, which is a huge benefit. I may still be a little hazy, but at the very least I have focus enough to give destruction its due. Frankly, not doing so just wouldn't be justice. As much as I am a fan of affliction, destruction holds a bit of a soft spot in my heart. Something about doing what a mage thinks he can do only better must be part of it. While affliction has certainly been a viable choice this raiding tier -- all of our specs have, actually -- destruction has really taken the popular stance. In a general sense, it has the overall highest DPS potential of all the specs, which explains why many people play as destruction. Also, it's fun! Affliction may have multiple DoT juggling and all that business, but nothing is more exciting than watching enemies just explode in bursts of fel flames. There's just something enticing about controlling the uncontrollable blaze. For all the good it has, nothing is perfect. Even destruction has its flaws, so let's get to work at breaking them down. In case you missed the last two weeks in the series, this is where you can find our posts on affliction and demonology.
Blood Pact: The fine art of staying alive, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. The first installment of Blood Pact: The fine art of staying alive, published two weeks ago, was more leveling/PvE-focused. This time around, we'll explore the PvP side of making sure that you come out of the fray still ticking (at least with all your limbs that were intact before still there). Before starting on that, I want to bring up one other thing. I've mentioned it a few times in comments now, and I'm sure that most of you have already figured it out on your own, but I would like to take this time to say that, yes, I am now going to be the new writer for Blood Pact until a horde of screaming demons chases me off into the Nether.
Blood Pact: Warlocks vs. Cho'gall
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket ... For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right ... Blood Pact welcomes you. Here we are, once again, on the final leg of our journey. Dark brothers and sisters, at least we reach the final (non-heroic) challenge of raiding content; Cho'gall! Alas, he isn't all that he is cracked up to be. If you have managed to clear the rest of the Bastion of Twilight -- which you rather have to in order to get this far -- then you shouldn't have many issues with this encounter. As with everything in raiding, certain battles are more difficult in one raid size than they are in others. For Cho'gall, going along with 24 other makes the encounter far easier than doing it with only 9 other people. It's just another one of those things that you have to take it for what it is. I wish you luck in this encounter. Oloth plynn dos!
Blood Pact: Beginning The Bastion of Twilight as a warlock
Every week (when the regular warlock writer hasn't been eaten by a prince of hell or something, that is), WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket, for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right, Blood Pact welcomes you and invites you to take a seat. You might think that the Old Gods and the demons would get along. After all, both really just seem to want to kill everything on the planet. Apparently, you'd be thinking wrong. Strange, I know, but I guess there can be more than one reason to destroy a world, and these two butt heads over who should get to do it. Personally, I'm all for killing both -- well, killing those who refuse to become my slaves, that is. Due to that whole "must destroy the world" shtick, we find now find ourselves face to face with yet another dungeon full of monstrosities to wipe clear. With as many of these cults and beasties as there seem to be, you'd think the races of Azeroth would just stop caring by now. This time, the diabolical threat is Cho'gall, the leader of the Twilight's Hammer, which has come a long way since its original incarnation as a clan of orcs. So far I know, it goes kind of like this: Old Gods want to destroy Azeroth, Deathwing works for the Old Gods, Cho'gall works for Deathwing; ergo, we must kill Cho'gall ... or something like that. It seems a little hokey in my book, but anything with that many eyes around its body cannot be cool and probably needs to die, anyway. So let's get to killin'!
Blood Pact: Warlocks in Blackwing Descent, part 1
Every week (when the regular warlock writer hasn't been eaten by a prince of hell or something, that is), WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology and destruction warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket, for those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right, Blood Pact welcomes you and invites you to take a seat. There will be no silly wand-waving or worthless incantations in my class. The curse of the warlock writers on WoW Insider strikes once more. Your normal master of darkness, Adam, is still lost in the Nether, presumably off hunting some new, rare, malformed demon-spawn. The last fill-in, the dark conjurer Zach, has also become lost to the void. I assure you that both situations are merely a setback. For the moment, that leaves you with me -- a minor power in the demonic struggle, but hopefully with enough tricks hiding up my proverbial sleeves to share a trick or two. Warlocking (or is it warlockery?) is rough stuff. People expect a lot of you! You have to kill things, summon people, provide glowing hell-health fragments, command a vast array of demonic forces. Then there are the fight mechanics to worry about as well. You've gotten the first part of all that down, but each new raid brings new encounters with new mechanics to learn. It's a daunting task, but that's what I'm here to help with. Well, hopefully. It could also be that I'll just wind up getting you killed a horrible, gruesome, if not glorious, death. Either way, I'd say your prospects look good!
