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What is drain tanking? Why should I drain tank?

Drain tanking is a method of using damage over time spells (DoTs or Because it is efficient:
dots), combined with life-leeching spells such as Drain Life and Drain tanking allows warlocks to exchange their life and mana back
Siphon Life, to kill mobs while maintaining life and mana resources to and forth, which makes Drain Life a mana-free spell that does
minimize downtime. A Warlock who properly maintains their health damage. Siphon Life is in a similar situation. Additionally, Dark Pact
and mana pools should be able to completely avoid having to eat or makes the spec very comfortable with mana.
drink for an indefinite amount of time. Because you don’t have to manage threat:
Drain tanking does not rely on pet threat generation, which is much
For leveling purposes, drain tanking is an alternative to the well- lower in Classic than private server players are used to. The
known Voidwalker tanking gameplay. Voidwalker deals much less damage in Classic, and thus he is much
easier to pull threat from than people expect, particularly when the
Torment rank is out-of-date.
Because you don’t have to manage shards:
You do not rely on Improved Drain Soul for sustain, which means you
do not have to use a Drain Soul macro or addon that deletes shards
for you. As an added bonus, you never have to transition from
wanding to drain soul (a very clunky and frustrating process) at the
end of the fight, which makes long grinding sessions much more
comfortable.
Because it is fun:
Drain tanking is a much more active playstyle than the Voidwalker
tanking playstyle (arguable, for Voidwalker users that are juggling
multiple mobs). Managing and converting life and mana is actually
Principle quite fun (in my opinion) using this spec.
Warlocks are masters of leeching, stealing, and exchanging resources.
They drain life, mana, and souls. They exchange health for mana, Your life and mana
steal their own demon’s mana, feed their own life to their demon,
and even sacrifice their demons’ health to protect their own.
Your life and mana
This is the essence of the drain tanking warlock. Through a large
variety of health-restoring abilities, the warlock has an endless pool
of life to convert into mana that is then spent on killing enemies.
Your life and mana Your Life
Your enemies will die “slow” and painful deaths, while you absorb
Kinda… Don’t do this
their life to sustain yourself. Doing this, you will recover the
resources spent killing – making yourself more than prepared to kill
the next enemy, and the next, and the next… Your Mana Your Demon’s Life

Combined with external life recovery methods such as bandages and

cannibalize, the drain tank warlock never has to eat or drink – even There’s also Demonic
Sacrifice (VW and FH),
without stacking spirit! #JustWarlockThings Your Demon’s Mana
but the chart is getting
cluttered…

Talents
The core talents are Improved Corruption, Improved Lifetap, Suppression,
Fel Concentration, Grim Reach, Siphon Life, Shadow Mastery, and Dark
Pact.

Talents such as Improved Drain Life, Amplify Curse, Improved

Healthstone, and Demonic Embrace compliment the build very well,
increasing efficiency and survivability. They are not required, but you’d be
gimping yourself to not take them.

Optional choices that add utility or a little extra dps are Improved Curse of
Agony, Nightfall, Curse of Exhaustion (with or without Improved Curse of
Exhaustion), Improved Drain Soul, Improved Imp, Fel Domination +
Master Summoner, Bane, and Shadowburn. These talents can be chosen
at your personal preference
These are optional choices. You can take any combination of them
that you like, though I suggest focusing on Affliction only until Dark
Talent Explanations: Pact.

Core Complimentary Optional

IMPROVED CORRUPTION: Arguably the only mandatory talent for
all warlocks, regardless of spec. Allows casting Corruption while
moving, giving you more space to Drain Life.
IMPROVED LIFE TAP: Increases your life-to-mana conversion
efficiency, making 1 life = 1.2 mana. This is a must-have, since
drain tanking is all about creating life from mana, which is then
worth even more mana due to this talent!
SUPPRESSION: Nearly every spell in the drain-tanking rotation is
Affliction, so this talent is straight-up +6% hit. You only need 3/5
points in this, because this will hit-cap you against all mobs yellow
to you (+2 level). If you are drain tanking, you should avoid
fighting orange monsters as much as possible. These will deal lots
of damage to you and make you very inefficient.
FEL CONCENTRATION: Resist 70% of spell pushback when
channeling drain spells. This talent makes the build work. You
simply cannot drain tank efficiently without 5/5 Fel Concentration.
For the reason, I suggest rushing straight to this talent and not
drain tanking until you have it.
GRIM REACH: Extends the distance of your affliction spells by
20%. At first, you might not think this talent does much for drain
tanking, since the mobs are in your face most of the time.
However, it enables safer pulling, and gives you more distance to
apply dots and drain before you begin taking damage.
Additionally, you can drain feared targets from far away. This is a
must-have.
SIPHON LIFE: The DoT form of Drain Life. If the full duration
elapses, this spell is mana-neutral – meaning that it returns just as
much life (or more) than the mana it costs. However, you usually
will not see the full duration of Siphon Life because you want to
kill mobs much faster than that. Nevertheless, this is a great
addition to the drain tanking gameplay, particularly in double
pulls. See analysis here: http://shorl.com/vystigraruhista
SHADOW MASTERY: Increases the damage done, and the life
drained by, all of your shadow spells. This, in turn, makes your
entire kit more efficient. What more is there to say?
DARK PACT: Drains mana from your pet, returning it to you. This
will make your grinding much more comfortable, since it gives you
mana without draining your life.
IMPROVED DRAIN LIFE: Increases the life drained by Drain Life. This talent
can be considered semi-”Core”. This increases the point-for-point efficiency
of Drain Life by 10% (same as Shadow Mastery), but only affects this one
spell and costs 5 points. You definitely want this!
AMPLIFY CURSE: For one point, you get a really nice boost to Curse of
Agony every 3 minutes. For those times when you have a particularly tanky
mob or pull more than one mob, this helps a lot in increasing killspeed and
efficiency, since CoA will be able to tick the whole duration. This also helps
a lot in pvp if you pick up Curse of Exhaustion.
IMPROVED HEALTHSTONE: Increases the health returned by your
healthstones by 30%. Since healthstones are already mana-neutral, this
actually makes healthstones a net gain in resources. This only takes two
points, and will both save your life and increase your overall sustainability.
DEMONIC EMBRACE: Increases your stamina, which is nice, at the cost of a
small amount of spirit. This will make you more tanky. Your whole build is
based on tanking. Also remember: each point of life you get is worth even
more mana, due to Improved Life Tap. If you’re undead, this also increases
the effectiveness of your Cannibalize racial.
IMPROVED CURSE OF AGONY: Increases Curse of Agony damage,
but by a measly 6%. You typically don’t want a fight to last the full
duration of CoA anyway, making this talent pretty lackluster. Grab
this only if you don’t really like the other options.
NIGHTFALL: Gives you an instant-cast shadowbolt on some
Corruption and Drain Life ticks. This will proc constantly as a drain
tank build. However, Shadow Bolt is very mana-inefficient, making
this talent not so great for sustainability. The primary reason to
take Nightfall is for the occasional PvP fight. You may also find it
useful to “execute” enemies who flee.
CURSE OF EXHAUSTION: Slows enemies down. Doesn’t help with
questing or grinding very much (except for maybe the occasional
elite quest), and requires several talent points to be useful in pvp.
If you have Amplify Curse, this becomes much stronger.
IMPROVED DRAIN SOUL: Doubles your normal mana regeneration
when not casting spells, and allows normal mana regeneration to
continue while casting. This talent will act as a reasonable bonus to
mana sustainability in the later levels, but early on will not be much
better than regular regeneration while wanding. There are also
other issues/considerations with taking this talent. See the FAQ in
this document and additional analysis here:
http://shorl.com/trenaprosturafru
IMPROVED IMP: Increases the damage of firebolt and fire shield,
and also increases the stamina bonus of blood pact. Before you
get the succubus, this talent is very very good. After you get the
succubus, this is only useful for doing dungeons (to buff your
party).
FEL DOMINATION + MASTER SUMMONER: Will give you a
nearly-instant, nearly mana-free pet every 15minutes. It will also
give you a cheaper, faster demon summon in between
cooldowns. This is typically used to summon a Voidwalker for
sacrifice in dire situations, which is very good… except that you
won’t be able to get these until you’re nearly 60 anyway. So this
won’t help you level for the most part.
BANE: Decreases the cast time of Shadow Bolt and, more
importantly, Immolate. Since Immolate is a part of your rotation,
and typically cast at the beginning, this will speed up the
application of the rest of your dots and, as a result, increase your
grinding speed. This will also make a large difference in dungeon
groups. Take Improved Shadow Bolt on the way to this.
SHADOWBURN: An instant burst of shadow damage that costs a

Leveling Priority: Soul Shard but returns the shard if the target dies shortly after.
This is a great tool for finishing fleeing mobs and defending
against the occasional world PvP encounter, but be careful not to
lose shards when using this – remember, shards cost mana due to
The leveling priority will depend on a couple of factors: Drain Soul.
1. Do you mind respeccing once while leveling?
2. Do you want to use the Imp or Voidwalker in the early levels?
Optional
Personally, I level with the Imp instead of the Voidwalker, using the Voidwalker A
only for particularly difficult quests. Thus, I like to grab Improved Imp early on
(see A), and respec (B) once I am able to get 5/5 Fel Concentration and switch to Respec when you get Succubus
the Succubus. I do this so that during level 1-24 I am able to very quickly kill (lv 24 for me)
targets using dots, wand, and a buffed Imp. At level 24 I will have my Succubus,
so I drop Improved Imp and invest into full Affliction. Keep in mind that Drain
Life is still a bit weaker than wands until level 30, where it equals wanding. Once
B
you get to level 38, Drain Life is much better than wands – that’s when you’ll
want to be draining a lot more than wanding.
Level to 60
If you want to use the Imp but do not want to respec, then simply use the order
in B right away.

Regardless of what you do from level 1-24, from level 25 to 60 you should use C
(which is just a continuation of B, no need for another respec). Note the optional C
talent choices. These are up to you, as they are entirely personal preference.

The most important aspects of the talent order is that you rush straight to 5/5
Fel Concentration, then Dark Pact, and then grab Demonology talents.
View this build at: http://shorl.com/sifosihefabro

Spells and Rotations

Primary Spells
DRAIN LIFE: Channel to deal shadow damage to the target and
return the damage done as life to the caster. At a certain point (at
Rank 3 or 4), this spell becomes a major source of DPS and mana-
regeneration through life-mana conversion. This fills the time while
dots tick away. Make sure to avoid interrupting the channel!
CORRUPTION: Deal shadow damage over 18 sec. Your primary dot.
This will go on every kill from the time you get it until level 60. When
your dots fall off, this is the only one you refresh, due to its shorter
duration. This is a very mana-efficient source of damage.
SHOOT: While dots tick, you will either Shoot wand or Drain Life.
Wands are a source of damage that costs no mana, which Is
obviously efficient. Before you get 5/5 Fel Concentration (and
before Drain Life out-dpses your wand), this is your primary ability.
Once you start drain tanking, you will alternate between Shoot and
Drain Life, depending on your wand, Drain Life rank, available
resources, and mob health.
LIFE TAP: Convert your life into mana. With Improved Life Tap, each
point of health is converted to 1.2 points of mana. This is the
quickest way to get lots of mana, but you don’t want to do this while
mobs are hitting you! Note that this spell is amazing for making sure
that the life you are leeching is not wasted.
DARK PACT: Transfer your demon’s mana to you. Use this when
your demon’s mana is near full, or you need mana, particularly
when Life Tap is not a good idea. This returns “free” mana, but it
returns mana much slower than Life Tap.
Secondary Spells
IMMOLATE: A destruction-school dot with a direct-damage component. This
does not make the “primary” rotation because it is not affliction or shadow,
and thus does not benefit from Suppression or Shadow Mastery, making it
relatively inefficient. However, it serves as a significant source of extra
damage, especially after new ranks.
SIPHON LIFE: Deals shadow damage that is returned to the warlock as life
over 30 sec. A mana-neutral spell, if it runs most of its full duration. Typically
you want to be killing mobs as fast as possible, which affects the efficiency of
this spell. It is best used on high-hp targets, secondary targets that are
feared, or enemy players. Note that Rank 1 is almost never worth it but ranks
3 and 4 are quite mana efficient based on reasonable kill times of 15-21
seconds, as long as Siphon is applied very early in the rotation. See analysis
here: http://shorl.com/vystigraruhista
CURSE OF AGONY: A shadow damage DoT over 24 sec, dealing weak damage
at first but getting strong towards the end of the duration. The damage can
be amplified by 50% using Amplify Curse every 3 minutes. This DoT is very
mana-efficient (and thus usually worth using), but suffers from the same
duration issue as Siphon Life. If you put this into your rotation, be sure to
cast it first so that it has time to ramp up.
FEAR: Causes the target to run around while your dots tick on it. Using Fear,
it is possible fight and kill multiple (weaker) mobs simultaneously. You can
load one target up with dots, fear them, then drain tank another mob. You
can also use this to protect your health from damage – as long as you
prevent as much damage as the mana cost of Fear, this spell is mana-neutral
or better. Just be careful to not pull additional monsters.
Occasional
FIRST AID: After killing many mobs, transferring life and mana back
and forth, you may find yourself low on both life and mana. This is
where your bandages come in. Stock up, as they are the drain-tank
warlock’s best friend! This replaces your food and water, for the
most part.
DEATH COIL: Instant cast shadow damage that returns life and
horrifies the target. This spell is not mana-neutral, costing more
mana than the life gained. However, the horrify effect might allow
you to escape some damage, which would make it so. This has
occasional use for particularly difficult enemies, but if you’re on a
PVP server I recommend keeping this available.
SHADOW BOLT: Deals direct shadow damage. This is not part of
your primary or secondary toolkit, because it is highly mana-
inefficient and has a long cast time. Nightfall procs allow you to cast
it instantly, but does not address the efficiency issue. Use this
mostly in pvp situations or to execute fleeing mobs before they call
for help.
CANNIBALIZE: Undead racial ability, allows you to consume
humanoid and undead corpses to return life. This is extremely useful
for any warlock, but particularly for drain tanking warlocks. This can
supplement your First Aid if you find yourself needing hp while
affected by Recently Bandaged, and it can also be useful to conserve
your bandages and save your cloth (which you can turn in for xp).
This ability gets better as you gain more health!
HEALTH STONE: A conjured item that is used like a potion, but has a
separate cooldown from potions and costs a Soul Shard to create.
Health stones are mana neutral without speccing into Improved
Healthstone, and are a net gain in resources with the talent. These
will save your life and increase your sustain.

Spells to learn
Every class has spells that are
unnecessary, or even useless,
during the leveling process.
Here I will list out the spells I
believe you must have, the
ones that you might consider
learning (depending on spec,
and which may have questing
utility, group play, or PVP uses), 73g
and the ones that I believe you
don’t need at all until level 60. 60g
75g
These lists will be a little
opinionated based on my own TOTAL: 208g
tastes, so feel free to take
whichever spells you find Image Source: /u/seguren
useful.

MUST HAVE: MAYBE LEARN: SKIP:

1. Corruption 1. Howl of Terror (rank 2) 1. Curse of Weakness
2. Life Tap 2. Curse of Tongues 2. Curse of Shadows
3. Curse of Agony 3. Ritual of Summoning 3. Drain Soul (all ranks but 1)
4. Fear 4. Eye of Kilrogg 4. Curse of Recklessness (all ranks but 1)
5. Drain Soul (rank 1) 5. Sense Demons 5. Drain Mana
6. Drain Life 6. Banish (rank 2) 6. Curse of Elements
7. Curse of Recklessness (rank 1) 7. Shadow Ward 7. Create Firestone
8. Death Coil 8. Create Spellstone 8. Detect Lesser, Regular, Greater Invisibility
9. Siphon Life 9. Health Funnel 9. Enslave Demon
10. Dark Pact 10. Searing Pain 10. Hellfire
11. Howl of Terror (rank 1) 11. Shadowburn 11. Rain of Fire
12. Demon Armor 12. Soulfire
13. Create Healthstone
Note: If you are on a pvp server,
14. Create Soulstone
some of these are much more
15. Unending Breath
important. I list them as
16. Banish (rank 1)
“maybe” only because they
17. Immolate
aren’t critical to standard
18. Shadow Bolt
leveling.
Rotations
Learning to drain tank involves learning how to manage your resources, and understanding which parts of your kit increase or decrease your overall efficiency. Additionally,
you want to be sure you are killing as fast as possible. These two goals conflict with each other a bit, so your job is to find a way to balance efficiency with kill speed,
depending on the situation.

The rotation you use will vary a bit, as you level (obtaining new abilities/ranks) and fight a variety of mobs. Some mobs will be tightly clustered humanoids, some will be
fast-hitting cats, sometimes you’ll fight mechanical opponents immune to Drain Life, and occasionally you’ll even have to kill an elite. Always be thinking about if your
rotation can be better suited to the mobs you’re killing. I will try to give the most general rotation, and add some tips to help you deal with more uncommon circumstances.

Generic Rotation 1. If the enemy is easy to kill, like a mob lower level than you, you will want to take the “With Immolate”
route. If the mob is very easy to kill, you might even consider dropping Curse of Agony from the rotation. If
DoTs Drain/Wand until dead the enemy is hard to kill, you might want to take the “With Siphon Life” route. If the enemy is very hard to
kill, you may even want to add immolate on top (cast it first), and you may even want to keep the mob
With Feared – particularly if it is Elite or just hits hard. Pay attention to the value you are getting from each dot,
Immolate as you level. Use your judgement. There is no absolute rotation.

2. The decision of whether to cast Drain Life or wand can be summed up by two considerations: first, if you
With have much more mana than life, cast Drain Life -- if you have much more life than mana (if you risk
Siphon Life overhealing your life), shoot your wand. Never waste Drain Life hp recovery, and never wand when you
have full mana. Also, if the mob is low hp, it is best to not spend any more mana and wand. Second, the
dps of Drain Life vs. wand is important. See the Stats and Stat Priority section.
This is essentially how most of your fights will go. You start
with a few dots, then Drain Life or wand until the mob dies. 3. Newer ranks of spells will do more damage, and usually increase their mana efficiency as well. Consider
making new ranks of spells part of your regular rotation.
The exact rotation you do will depend on some factors:
1. The difficulty of enemy you face No matter what “opener” you use, you will always use Corruption. It is a high-dps, high-dpm (damage per mana)
2. The life/mana you have spell with a duration that allows it to deal most or all of its damage for every mob. If you are fighting a mob and
all of your dots fall off, you should usually only refresh Corruption.
3. The wand you have vs the rank of Drain
Life you have
For a visual example of some rotations, watch Goetia drain tank in the Classic beta:
4. The spells which have the “newest” ranks https://youtu.be/yzg2rt6bpN4

Wands versus Drain Life On the left is a plot of Wand DPS vs Drain Life DPS
90 by level. The Gray dots represent wands obtainable
by most people such as quest rewards, and Bind on
80 Equip wands. The Blue dots are wands that require
70 Alterac Valley
going “out of your way” for, typically from dungeons
or dungeon quests. The Green lines represent the
Blackfathom Deeps
60 DPS of Drain Life at any given level (and I have
added the level-appropriate talents to each rank).
50 The “Halfway Point” in leveling time of 1-60 takes

40 DPS place around level 44 according to Joana’s famous

speedrun, and is marked on the chart.

30 You’ll notice that early on, wanding is extremely

valuable while Drain Life just isn’t worth it at all.
20 However, Drain Life begins to pass wanding around
World BoE
Halfway Point (lvl 44) level 38 (Rank 4), and definitely at level 46 (Rank 5)
10 – of course depending on which wands you have
MIN LVL obtained.
10 20 30 40 50 60
Check out the wand list: Note: The wands’ minimum level obtained correspond to their minimum quest levels. It is actually unlikely you will obtain these wands at the
http://shorl.com/daprelotimapu plotted level. This makes the whole chart slightly biased towards wands, when in reality Drain Life will actually be slightly better than shown here.

Recovery Other Rotation Tips

Use Life Tap when you need lots of Bandage when you’re low on Handling Elite Mobs: Remember the warlock motto: “If you can Fear it, you can kill
mana quickly, but not when you life, between mobs or while a it”. Mobs do not have Diminishing Returns on crowd control effects. You can have a
have mobs hitting you! Use this mob is Feared. This is a regular mob feared for hours straight, if you wanted. Combined with dots, you can kill any
when you have lots of life (don’t
part of your rotation/sustain as mob that can be feared. Keep dots up, and chain fear. Simple as that!
stay full health or you can waste
healing!), but not much mana. Or, a Drain Tank warlock. Handling Multiple Mobs: It is possible to “fear juggle” mobs similar to warlocks who
use this when you plan to bandage use the Voidwalker method. This is particularly true for mobs that are lower level
right after. Use Cannibalize the same way than you. Simply use all of your dots on one target, then Fear him, then pull and
you would use First Aid. You drain tank another mob while your dots tick away on the Feared target. Be careful
Use Dark Pact when your can use this while affected by not to pull more mobs! Remember that you can use the Succubus Seduction spell as
Demon has full (or near-full) “Recently Bandaged”, but it well as Howl of Terror or Death Coil if you pull too many, allowing you to run away
mana, and you are missing only works on Humanoid or from the fight.
enough mana to benefit from Undead corpses. Handling Ranged Mobs: Occasionally you will fight archer or caster type mobs, who
the full amount drained. won’t run to you when pulled. It is important to drag these away from their pack, to
Additionally, use this when Use Orb of Dar’Orahil , the reduce risk of over-pulling. Simply dot with CoA and either hide behind something
you have a mob on you and Warlock-only quest item, as an (line-of-sight or LoS them) or run a distance away and return when the mob
you need more mana to Drain extra source of recovery during relocates away from his pack. Curse of Tongues and Felhunter spell-lock will help a
Life, Fear, or anything else. leveling. It has a long cooldown lot with mobs that heal themselves.
(30min), but it is very good
Use a Healthstone when you between mobs or during Fears. Use a DPS meter! Set up a meter similar to the
are in danger of dying or just one shown on the right to constantly evaluate
Death Coil is not mana-neutral the effectiveness of your dots, pets and
missing a lot of health and on its own, but it can prevent
don’t want to stop to wand/drains. This is an invaluable tool for any
you from taking damage, and class while leveling and will help you adjust your
bandage. It is a good idea to even interrupt spells that could
use these frequently, rotation priority as you gain new spell ranks and
damage you or heal a mob. If fight different mobs.
especially once you have you use this correctly, this can
specced into Improved increase your sustainability. Be
Healthstone – just be sure careful about using this if you
that you always have one suspect PVP encounters.
available!
Demon Armor should always
be up, and make sure you
always have the most current
rank! Not only will this reduce
incoming damage, but you will
regenerate health as well.
Remember: this health
regeneration converts to
mana regeneration!

Demons and Grimoires

IMP: This demon has among the best warlock demon dps VOIDWALKER: Probably the least useful demon for drain
(when talented). Provides Fire Shield and Blood Pact as well. tanking. He does low dps, he regenerates mana slowly, and he
For these reasons, the Imp makes a very good demon for drain can’t hold aggro off of you if you are doing a drain tank rotation.
tanking – however, the imp has a fatal flaw: he runs out of This demon is fairly useful until you get your Succubus, however,
mana! He regenerates this mana faster than any other demon, especially on difficult quests with multiple-mob pulls.
which makes him a great mana battery, but at the cost of losing
his dps. With the imp, you have to choose whether you want
his dps or his mana. You can’t have both. Suffering: Torment, but AoE and
Torment: The Voidwalker’s
Firebolt: The Imp’s primary attack. Blood Pact: A party-wide stamina “taunt”. Only get this if you plan on a cooldown. Not very useful for
Does high dps, but will run the buff. A nice benefit to having the to use the VW until succubus. Not drain tanking, except on pulls that
Imp out of mana. Definitely keep Imp out. Keep this up-to-date until useful at all for drain tanking. are too large to handle. Skip.
this up-to-date before acquiring the Succubus, or later if you want
the Succubus. to run dungeons. Sacrifice: Sacrifice the VW for a
Fire Shield: “Thorns” for Warlocks. powerful absorb shield. Useful if Consume Shadows: The VW
Phase Shift: Makes the imp you’re in a desperate situation, if channels to heal himself. Useless
Very useful while tanking. Keep
immune to damage while not in you happen to have the VW out for a drain tank Warlock. Skip.
this up-to-date until Succubus, or
combat. Get this and keep it for some reason. Up to you if you
even later if you want to do
enabled while running past mobs. want to keep this updated.
dungeons.

SUCCUBUS: The demon of choice for drain tanking, once you FELHUNTER: A decent pet for drain tanking, having fairly good
are able to summon her. She does very good damage (up to dps without having to spend any mana. He also regens mana a
25% of your overall dps), and doesn’t spend any mana doing so. bit faster than the Succubus. One really good use of the
As long as you leave her abilities off auto-cast, she will never Felhunter is when you are killing mobs that heal, since he can
run out of mana like the imp would – making her great for long use Spell Lock to interrupt the heals. The only problem with
killing sessions and acting as a mana battery for Dark Pact. As using Felhunter is that the quest-chain to obtain him is fairly
an added bonus, she helps a lot in survive world pvp lengthy and out-of-the-way for most quest routes, so most
encounters thanks to Seduce and her high dps. warlocks wait until level 60 to get the Felhunter.
Lash of Pain: An instant attack on Lesser Invisibility: Makes the Devour Magic: Dispel a magic Spell Lock: Silence the target.
a 12-second cooldown. Use this Succubus sneaky, making your effect from the target (friend or Quite useful against caster mobs,
when the Succubus almost has full combined aggro radius smaller. foe, even yourself!). The Felhunter especially healers. Also very good
mana, to prevent her from Learn this for sure, but keep it on comes with this; no point getting in pvp. Worth getting at least one
wasting regen and maximizing her manual! It is a waste of mana to do higher ranks while leveling. Keep rank, possibly more if you expect a
dps. Keep up-to-date. after every fight. manual-cast. lot of pvp.
Seduction: A channeled CC. I Soothing Kiss: Lowers the Tainted Blood: Reduce the attack Paranoia: Allows you to spot
recommend learning this spell for Succubus’ threat. This is power of enemies that hit the stealthed (not invisible) enemies
handling accidental large pulls and occasionally useful to prevent her Felhunter, stacking. Not useful at from further away. Useful for
to help protect you in random pvp from taking damage, since her all for drain tanking. Skip this. quests with stealthed mobs, or
scenarios. damage is front-loaded. enemy rogues. Might be worth
picking up.
Purchasing Grimoires
MUST HAVE: MAYBE BUY: SKIP:
NOTE: Unlike spells, you do not 1. Succ – Lash of Pain 1. Imp – Everything past level Everything else.
need to buy all ranks of each demon 2. Succ – Lesser Invisibility 24
ability. For the abilities you skip while 3. Succ – Seduction 2. Void – Sacrifice
leveling, you only have to purchase 4. Succ – Soothing Kiss 3. Felhunter – Spell Lock
5. Imp – Everything up to level 24 4. Felhunter – Paranoia
the max rank at level 60!

Stats and Stat Priority

While leveling, you will come across gear with a variety of stats. This brief description should
act as a loose rule-of-thumb to decide which pieces are upgrades. Note that this is not
absolute, just a guide. For example, do not pass on a wand with +5 stamina just because it has
+0.5 dps. Use your intuition, and think: which stat is more important to me right now? Use
this section to act as a general guide to your decision-making.

Shadow/Spell Power
Improves the damage done
> Wand DPS
Wand DPS will allow you to
> Spirit
Increases passive
> Stamina
Increases your maximum
> Intellect
Increases your mana pool.
by, and the life drained by, kill faster while wanding, regeneration when not HP. You are a tank, you Does not help as much as
all of your dots and drains. which means you take less casting spells. This will need HP. you’d think, due to mana
This makes all of your damage that needs to be act as a passive form of recovery methods
spells kill faster and cost recovered. Additionally, the regen when wanding or Additionally, you have available to you.
less mana per damage/life faster you kill, the less dots between mobs. Will not Demonic Embrace and
returned. you need to apply; this do anything while Improved Life Tap, which However, having more
saves you mana, and even applying dots or mean that each point of intellect will mean less
This stat is a win-win-win. allows you to regenerate draining, however. If Stamina gives you more overall Life Taps/Dark
Go for it when you can. some since you are not you do get Improved convertible mana than Pacts in the long run,
Don’t neglect too much casting. Drain Soul, this stat each point of Intellect. which saves you time in
stamina for it, though. becomes much better. Global Cooldown usage.
Having a good wand is For undead, this
extremely important. increases the value of
Cannibalize.

FAQ Additional Tips & Info

Doesn’t Drain Life cost too much mana? • The first thing you should do when logging into your newly-
As the entire rest of this guide discusses, no. Drain Life returns equal to or more created character is to train Immolate immediately at level
life than the mana that is spent on it. Warlock life = Warlock mana, so Drain Life
costs ≤0 mana (assuming no pushback). For one push-back you lose one tick of
1. Vendor your food and water, or kill one mob for a gray to
Drain Life, making it no longer mana-neutral (but still very cheap). vendor. Get 10 copper and train immolate right away.
What about Triangle Trapping with the imp, before you get the Succubus? Immolate drastically increases your efficiency and allows for
Triangle trapping is not going to work very well in Classic. If you are skilled enough multi-pulling.
at it to perfectly bounce aggro such that the Imp never gets hit, go for it. However,
the Imp can only take 2-3 hits before dying – therefore I do not recommend doing • Acquire your Imp ASAP. The imp increases your dps by a
this. large margin and has a separate mana pool. You need him.
Since you use the Imp for a while, is it good to get Improved Firebolt? • During levels 10-24 (the imp phase), you will not have your
Absolutely not. It requires 10 “wasted” points in Destruction to get to. Additionally,
it’s not even that good! It increases the imp’s dps but also causes him to run out of
full range of dots (or Drain Life). It is important to open up
mana faster, which makes the imp useless in subsequent fights. with Immolate during the imp phase so that your imp does
Since you use the Succubus, shouldn’t you get Improved Succubus? not pull aggro.
No. You spend too many wasted points in Demonology to get to it, and it only • If there is room, try to always be moving away from the
increases the damage of Lash of Pain, which is a negligible source of dps.
Isn’t having the Voidwalker better to help defend yourself in world pvp mob while applying dots so that you have maximum range
situations? to wand/drain before you get hit.
Not necessarily. The Succubus is a very useful demon to help you defend yourself. • Regarding professions: if you want to level quickly, only take
Her DPS alone will help you take out most opponents in fair fights. In addition,
Seduce is a very powerful ability for defending yourself; it protects you from
First Aid. Even Skinning can add several hours to your 1-60
rogues (and other classes) just as much, if not more, than the Voidwalker shield time. Mining and Herbalism get out-leveled and cause far too
would. much back-tracking. The rest are not even worth considering.
Shouldn’t I get (some other talent instead of the core talents) to help in world • Spend your money on bags! You have plenty of extra money,
PVP?
No matter what class you play, you should never spec for world PVP while leveling. since you skip lots of spells/grimoires and don’t need to buy
You kill literally thousands of mobs. Thus, if you spend even 1 extra second per kill a mount at level 40.
due to your unoptimal spec, you would have to prevent over an hour worth of • Plan your leveling route to take you near Ratchet when you
corpse runs to make it worth it. Never spec for pvp while leveling unless you have
optional talent points.
hit level 40, so that you can learn Summon Felsteed as soon
Since the Global Cooldown is 1.5 seconds, should I go 2/5 or 5/5 Corruption? as possible. Your mount is free, there is no excuse to not
You want instant Corruption, hands down. Especially for drain tanking, you simply have it immediately.
must be able to cast Corruption while moving. You should not be past level 17 • It is most time-efficient to skip dungeons while leveling.
without 5/5 Improved Corruption. If you do not go for Improved Imp, you should
have 5/5 Improved Corruption at level 14. Casting Corruption while running will Completing quests and grinding will always give you better
reduce the damage you take during the fight – it is mandatory for drain tanking. xp/hour. If you enjoy doing dungeons, that is absolutely fine;
Should I take Improved Drain Soul? but my recommendation is to try to limit yourself to
Maybe. Here are some reasons why I probably won’t, personally. First, casting
Drain Soul at the end of every kill feels incredibly clunky, tedious, and frustrating;
dungeons that you have multiple quests for, and don’t spend
this is particularly true when wanding – it definitely interrupts your grinding “flow”. too much time looking for a group.
Second, you have to manage Soul Shards using a macro or add-on; this not • After you obtain Dark Pact, KEEP ALL SUCCUBUS ABILITIES
normally a problem but is a minor annoyance at best and tragic at worst, since ON MANUAL CAST. These abilities affect the Succubus mana
these can occasionally delete quest items in your inventory if not careful. Finally,
and most importantly, it will not always improve your overall sustainability by a regen! Use Lash of Pain when you’re in combat and she is
significant amount. See this analysis: near full mana. Use Lesser Invisibility when you are running
http://shorl.com/trenaprosturafru across the map or through mob packs, to reduce your aggro
In the early levels, it doesn’t help you any more than standard regeneration. In the
later levels, the mana regeneration is respectable to add on top of the drain-
radius. Use Seduction when you pull too many mobs or a
tanking playstyle, but consider that you must not lower your kill speed if possible, player jumps you. Use Soothing Kiss when you absolutely
and try to avoid taking significant damage while channeling (as opposed to DPSing). need to get the mob to stop hitting the Succubus.
Try to minimize the time spent draining soul rather than life. • Join the Classic Warlock Discord :D! Over 9,000 members at
Tl;dr: It can be a decent source of mana, if played properly. However, it can also
make your efficiency worse if you make mistakes. I do not recommend this talent the time of this version (mid-August 2019), we have a lot of
to the new warlock learning to drain tank, but more experienced warlocks will see warlocks of all levels of knowledge from beginner to expert in
some benefit from it. all aspects of Classic WoW from Leveling to PVE to PVP. Feel
Have another question? Find me in the Classic Warlock Discord!
free to stop by and tell us your warlock experience or ask
https://discord.gg/8mrt6DE questions. There are more guides available there as well.