Demonology Warlock Guide - Talents, Rotations, Races & More

Before combat, make sure your Demon is summon and you have Soul Link on if you're using that talent. Make sure you have Demon Armor on and that you have a Create Healthstone in your bag just in case you need a heal. Create Soulstone should be on a healer, so if they die they can resurrect in combat, or if everyone dies in the raid they can resurrect instantly and start reviving the team.

Keep your Curse on the main target. Bane of Agony, Corruption and Immolate on the target.Searing Pain every 10 seconds to keep your target Branded with Demonic Brand and make sure your Summon Succubus / Summon Incubus is attacked the Branded target. Cast Shadow Bolt or use your wand if you have a good one as a filler.

1. Send your demon in. if you're in the outside world, let it into the target first so it can establish threat. We suggest usingSummon Succubus / Summon Incubus once you unlock them at Level 20, unless you prefer the tankiness of Summon Voidwalker.
2. Apply Curse of the Elements or Curse of Recklessness on dungeon bosses or high HP elites, depending on your group. Curse of the Elements will buff your group's magic damage and Curse of Recklessness will buff your group's physical damage.
3. Cast Searing Pain on your main target to apply Demonic Brand. Make sure your Summon Succubus / Summon Incubus is attacking that target. You will have to refresh the Brand every 10 seconds.
4. Cast Bane of Agony on any enemies that will survive long enough for it to deal decent damage. This is the longest duration DoT and has to ramp up to deal damage, so the earlier this is up, the better. It also causes the least amount of threat, so if you're in the open world this gives your Demon more time to gather threat.
5. Cast Immolate
6. Cast Corruption on any elites or high Health targets. This has a cast time unless you have five points into Improved Corruption.
7. Cast Shadow Bolt or shoot your wand as a filler. Shadow Bolt does more damage at the cost of Mana and more threat. At this level it's recommended to do the quest in Blackfathom Depths quest to get the overpowered Gravestone Scepter Wand. If you have it, then rely on that more than Shadow Bolt
8. Use Drain Life and/or use a Create Healthstone when you need Health.
9. Cast Drain Soul when you need Soul Shards.

• Curse of Recklessness A curse that debuffs the enemy, making them take more melee damage. This is also used to stop a target from being feared. If you Fear something and it starts running into another group of enemies, you can put Curse of Recklessness on it and it will run back to you. You can also immediately cast Curse of the Elements to put the enemy back into a feared state and redirect it away from the group of enemies. This is known as "Fear Juggling" or "Babysitting Fears".
• Curse of the Elements A curse that debuffs the enemy, making them take more spell damage.
• Fear: Causes the enemy to run around in fear, unable to attack. All damage has a chance to break the fear.
• Howl of Terror: This is a melee range AoE fear. When in trouble, run to melee range and use this.
• Create Soulstone This is a buff that can be put on yourself or any other player from the same faction. When the buffed player dies, they will have the option to resurrect immediately. This works in combat.
• Create Healthstone: Stones that you can make for yourself and others. It will heal when you use it.
• Underwater Breathing Allows you or whoever you put it on breathe underwater.

Demons are a HUGE part of Warlock gameplay in general. You’ll unlock them through Warlock quests as you level, and each one has a pretty clear use depending on whether you want more damage, more survivability or some helpful utility. Demonology doesn’t really build around Demon talents, but your pet is still extremely important and makes leveling, soloing elites, and bad pulls a lot easier.

Best Demon for Demonology Warlock

Either Summon Succubus and Summon Incubus will be your best options for demons, since they do much more damage than the other ones, besides Summon Felhunter, which is barely behind and can be great choice if you need the extra utility.

Summon Voidwalker is your defensive option. It’s REALLY good while leveling or anytime you’re fighting something dangerous because it can hold threat while you stand back and cast.

Summon Imp is currently the weakest Demon for damage once your other options are unlocked, so there usually isn’t much reason to use it outside of the early levels or when you specifically want its utility.

Warlock Demon Abilities

Imp

Summon Imp is your first Demon and is mostly there to help you through the early levels until you unlock Summon Voidwalker.

It attacks from range with Firebolt and gives you and your party some extra Stamina through Blood Pact. The damage isn’t anything crazy, but early on it’s obviously WAY better than having no Demon at all.

Voidwalker

Summon Voidwalker unlocks at Level 10 and quickly becomes one of the best Demons for leveling.

Torment handles single target threat, while Suffering can grab threat from multiple enemies at once. It also has Sacrifice for a large absorb shield and Consume Shadows to heal itself back up while you’re out of combat.

Summon Voidwalker currently generates a TON of threat, which is exactly what you want while leveling Demonology. Send it in first, let it get control of the enemies, then start blasting from range without everything immediately running at you.

Succubus and Incubus

Summon Succubus and Summon Incubus unlock after Voidwalker and deal more damage than out other options. There’s no actual gameplay difference between them. Summon Succubus is female and the Summon Incubus is male, but they use the same abilities.

Lash of Pain is extra damage, while Seduction gives you some really useful crowd control by charming an enemy. Seduction is especially nice when a pull gets messy and you just need one enemy completely out of the fight for a bit.

Felhunter

Summon Felhunter unlocks at Level 30 and actually does very solid damage as well. It’s a little behind the Summon Succubus and Summon Incubus, but you get a LOT more utility in return.

Spell Lock gives you an interrupt, while Devour Magic can either remove a Magic effect from an enemy or dispel one from you. It also has Paranoia to help detect stealthed enemies.

If you’re fighting a caster heavy dungeon, doing PvP, or just know you’re going to need an interrupt, Summon Felhunter can easily be the better choice even if it loses a little damage.

Demon Ability Control

Remember that you can right click your Demon’s abilities to turn automatic casting on or off. Most abilities are fine left on automatic, but there are definitely some that are better when you control them yourself.

Torment is a fantastic example. I usually keep it off automatic so I can choose exactly which enemy I want the Summon Voidwalker to taunt instead of letting it fire off whenever it wants, which in turns wastes his Mana or he'll blow a taunt on a target that doesn't need it.

Gear is VERY different in WoW Forever, especially at lower levels. Spell Power is already showing up on gear much earlier than it did in Classic, so you can start stacking a decent amount while leveling and you should. The priority below is what I’d use right now when comparing upgrades, but this can absolutely move around as we get access to higher level gear and eventually Level 60.

I’m only including stats that actually matter with the gear we currently have access to. As more stats start appearing later in the game, I’ll update this section.

1. Spell Power: This is your best overall damage stat. It increases the damage of basically everything you’re casting, so you’re always happy to see more of it.
2. Hit Chance: Missing feels AWFUL, especially when it’s one of your important spells. Suppression gives you 5% Hit Chance if you need want more.
3. Intellect: This is your main primary stat and should naturally be on most of the gear you’re interested in. More Intellect means a larger Mana pool and a little it of crit, which is always useful for Warlock.
4. Critical Strike Chance: Crit is much better for Demonology because your DoTs and Drain spells can Crit now. While you don't Drain much, you do still use DoT's constantly. That makes Crit a stat we’re actually excited to see instead of something we mostly ignore.
5. Spirit: Life Tap scales with Spirit in WoW Forever, so it directly helps your Mana regen every time you Tap. It’s MUCH more useful for Warlock than it was in Classic.
6. Stamina: More Stamina means more Health, which is obviously useful when you’re constantly spending Health through Life Tap. It’ll already be on a lot of your gear though, so you usually don’t need to specifically hunt for it.
7. Haste: There really isn’t much Haste available yet, but once more gets put in the game, it’ll be useful for your hard casted spells like Searing Pain and Immolate. Because of that, I wouldn’t go out of my way to chase it.

Spell Power is one of the most important stats for Warlock, but not every spell benefits from it equally. Some abilities receive a percentage of your Spell Power on the initial hit, while others benefit from it on every single tick.

Warlock Spell Coefficients

You and you demons have their own abilities that can benefit from scaling as well, although exactly how much of your Spell Power they inherit still needs further testing.

Warlock Spell Coefficients

For damage over time abilities, these numbers assume the entire duration completes. Immolate includes both its initial hit and periodic damage.

Demon Ability Coefficients

What Does This Mean for Demonology?

One of the biggest things to understand about Demonology is that your personal damage and your demon's damage don't necessarily scale the same way.

For example, Lash of Pain has a recorded 42.9% coefficient, while Firebolt has 16.4%. However, that doesn't automatically mean the Succubus scales better than the Imp. We still need to account for pet stat inheritance, attack frequency, talents, and other modifiers. Spell Power is still valuable for your own abilities, especially Corruption and Bane of Agony when enemies survive long enough for the full DoT duration.

Important: Pet coefficients describe the underlying pet spell records, not confirmed scaling from your character's Spell Power. Abilities such as Apocalypse and other scripted effects also require further testing.

These numbers are from specific beta spell records, and coefficients can differ between spell ranks.

Alliance: Human or Gnome

Horde: Orc or Undead

Warlock have five playable races in WoW Forever. Human and Gnome remain available on the Alliance while Orc and Undead return on the Horde alongside the newly added Troll Warlock. Every race also received major racial changes, including several new active abilities that can directly affect Warlock gameplay. The racial decision is much closer than it's ever been in Classic.

It's too early to tell which race will end up being the most powerful based on our current Beta testing. The Gnome racial Expansive Mind now grants 5% Mana instead of Intellect and Gnomes also bring the new Eureka! racial, making the two races much closer than before. The racial changes give Humans 2% Spell Crit Chance while using a sword, but you must keep a sword equipped for the racial to provide any benefit. Humans also give 5% Spirit, which scales our Life Tap.

Horde is also up in the air, with Undead, Orc, and Troll all bringing very strong racials. Blood Fury remains a very strong choice for damage, and the new racial Shatter Curse brings some Curse and magic protection. Undead get the very powerful racial Touch of the Grave, giving your spells and attacks a 10% chance to drain Health from the target, up to 5% of your maximum Health. Troll brings the infamous Berserking, which is very strong for hard casting, although as of right now DoTs, Drains, and channeled spells aren't affected by the additional cast speed.

Available Race Options for Warlocks

Gnome: Gnomes still have their life saving Escape Artist, which removes all movement impairing effects and now also grants immunity to them for 3 seconds. The biggest addition is Eureka!, a new two minute cooldown that causes your next three damaging abilities to cost 10% less Mana and deal 10% increased damage. Expansive Mind has also been redesigned to increase your maximum Mana by 5% rather than Intellect. Engineering Specialization continues to improve the reliability of all Engineering Devices.

Human: Human receives some substantial racial changes in WoW Forever. The new Will to Survive racial instantly removes all Stun effects on a two minute cooldown.Perception retains its familiar ability to dramatically increase stealth detection for 20 seconds. Sword Specialization is particularly interesting for Warlock, granting 2% Spell Crit Chance while using a sword. The Human Spirit continues to increase Spirit by 5%. Human is considerably more competitive for Warlock than it was in the original Classic, especially if the Best in Slot weapon is a sword.

Undead: Undead retains much of its familiar PvP identity, although several racials have changed. Will of the Forsaken still removes Charm, Fear, and Sleep effects, but no longer provides immunity afterward. Cannibalize now regenerates 7% of total Health and 7% of total Mana every 2 seconds for 10 seconds while consuming a nearby Humanoid or Undead corpse. Underwater Breathing allows you to remain underwater 300% longer, while the new Touch of the Grave gives spells and attacks a 10% chance to drain Health from the target, up to 5% of your maximum Health.

Troll: Troll is an entirely new Warlock race in WoW Forever. Berserking increases spellcasting speed by 10% for 10 seconds, making it a decently strong cooldown for Demonology, but not as strong as it'd be for Destruction. Rapid Regeneration is a channeled racial that restores 50% of maximum Health over 6 seconds, although moving, taking another action, or taking any damage cancels it. Trolls also gain Beast Slaying, increasing damage against Beasts by 5%, and Regeneration which allowing 10% of normal Health regeneration to continue during combat.

Orc: Blood Fury increases your Spell Power by 10% for 15 seconds, finally giving Warlock a massive buff from the racial. Shatter Curse is also a powerful new defensive, removing all Curses and Banes, granting immunity to them, and reducing all Magical damage taken by 15% for 8 seconds. Axe Specialization grants 1% Crit Chance with all spells and abilities while wielding an axe. The problem is that Warlock can't use axes of any kind. Hardiness now reduces the duration of Stun effects by 20% instead of providing the massive Stun resist chance seen in the original Classic, which is a significant reduction to its PvP strength.

For every race's complete ability list, see our racial abilities guide.

Tailoring and Enchanting are probably the easiest professions to recommend for a Warlock while leveling. You’ll naturally pick up plenty of cloth, and Tailoring lets you turn that into useful gear, bags, and some really strong crafted pieces.

Enchanting fits perfectly with it because you can disenchant gear you don’t need and turn it into useful materials instead of just vendoring everything. You can also craft Lesser Magic Wand and Greater Magic Wand, which are both really strong while leveling. Just don’t expect to keep both professions completely maxed without spending some extra Gold. Warlocks already spend a lot on spells and Demon Grimoires, and I personally had to stop and farm extra Silver a few times just to keep everything moving.

First Aid is also VERY worth picking up since it doesn’t use one of your two primary profession slots. Bandages give you another way to recover Health quickly without spending Mana, which is especially nice for Warlock because of how often you’re using Life Tap. WoW Forever also lets First Aid craft healing potions now, which makes it even more useful while leveling.

WoW Forever gives Alchemy a bunch of REALLY strong new potions and elixirs that can boost your Spell Power, defenses, stats, and overall sustain. You don’t need to actually have Alchemy yourself to use any of them either which is so nice. This means you can just buy whatever you need from the Auction House.

• • Lesser Arcane Elixir: Gives you 15 Spell Power for 30 minutes.
• • Elixir of Lesser Spirit: Gives you 6 Spirit for 30 minutes, which is especially nice for Warlocks because Life Tap scales with Spirit.
• • Elixir of Defense: Gives you 250 Armor for 60 minutes.
• • Elixir of Lesser Fortitude: Increases your Health by 120 for 60 minutes.
• • Lesser Mageblood Elixir: Restores 6 Mana every 5 seconds for 30 minutes.
• • Lesser Trollsblood Elixir: Restores 6 Health every 5 seconds for 60 minutes.
• • Elixir of Fire Power: Gives you 10 Fire damage for 30 minutes.
• • Elixir of Wisdom: Gives you 6 Intellect for 60 minutes.
• • Lesser Spellblasting Potion: Increases your Spell Power by 11 for 30 seconds.

• Stay on top of your spell ranks. All Classes pick up new ranks the entire time you're leveling, always at every even level, so make a habit of checking your trainer at Levels 2, 4, 6, 8, and so on. After you train, double check your spellbook and bars to make sure you’re actually using the newest rank.
• Always keep your armor buff up. Start with Demon Skin, then replace it with Demon Armor once you learn it at Level 20. They don’t stack, so Demon Armor simply takes over from that point forward.
• Stop casting when the enemy is already dead. One of the biggest things to learn with Warlock is when your DoTs have already done enough. If Corruption and Bane of Agony are clearly going to finish the target, don’t throw away more Mana just because you can. Good Health and Mana management is what keeps Warlock moving nonstop.
• Keep a good wand equipped. Wands are REALLY strong through the early game and stay useful well into your 30s. They’re perfect for finishing low Health enemies without spending another chunk of Mana, so keep an eye out for upgrades as you level.
• Don’t get greedy with Life Tap. Use it when you have plenty of Health to work with. Getting a full Mana bar doesn’t help much if you start the next pull at 10% Health and immediately get smacked.
• Never run around without Soul Shards. Once you learn Drain Soul at Level 10, start using it regularly to keep your supply stocked. You’ll need Soul Shards for summoning your Demons, making Create Healthstone and Create Soulstone, and using Ritual of Summoning. You don’t need a bag completely full of them, but having none is absolutely miserable.
• Ritual of Summoning is insanely useful. As long as you have two party members nearby to click the portal, you can summon another player directly to your location. This is obviously great for getting friends or group members across Azeroth, and you can even make some Gold offering summons to popular locations. Just make sure you brought enough Soul Shards first.
• Keep food and water in your bags. Warlock has great sustain through its Drain Life and Life Tap, but sometimes sitting down for 20 seconds is simply faster than trying to force another pull while nearly empty. Most towns have vendors selling both, and a friendly Mage can usually help you out too.
• Do your Warlock class quests. These are some of the most important quests you’ll get while leveling because they unlock your Demons and several other major Warlock rewards. You start with Summon Imp, unlock Summon Voidwalker at Level 10, Summon Succubus at Level 20, and Summon Felhunter at Level 30. The later quests eventually unlock Inferno at Level 50 and Ritual of Doom at Level 60. You’ll also pick up Soul Pouches and some very strong Warlock specific gear along the way.