WoW Classic Warlock Guide: Weapon Skills, Abilities, Trainers, & Gear

Warlocks are WoW Classic’s masters of darkness, dealing fire and shadow damage with their spells and inflicting their enemies with debilitating curses. Their demon minions offer valuable utility and survivability, drawing the attention of mobs while the Warlock deals damage from afar. In raids, Warlocks are often welcome for their solid damage output, particularly in newer versions of WoW Classic where the debuff cap has been removed, allowing the class to utilize all of its DoTs. Warlocks are also required to fill a unique “caster tank” role in the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj raid.

Warlocks are in high demand for their Ritual of Summoning, which allows them to summon other players to just about any location. They can also provide a group with Healthstones, which provide an extra healing option that doesn’t share a cooldown with potions, and Soulstones, allowing another character (usually a healer) to resurrect immediately if they die. They also have the advantage of being able to earn special summoned mounts at a steep discount compared to other classes.

Roles and Specializations

The three talent trees for Warlocks are Affliction, Demonology, and Destruction.

• Affliction
  • Focuses on enhancing the Warlock’s damage-over-time abilities.
  • In old versions of Vanilla WoW where there was a limit to the number of debuffs that could be on any given mob, this tree was often avoided. In newer versions of WoW Classic where the debuff cap is removed, it is considered the strongest DPS build for Warlocks.
• Demonology
  • Offers buffs to the Warlock’s survivability as well as the damage and utility of their demon pets.
  • This tree is the strongest for PvP and solo play, but does not offer as much damage as the others for raids.
• Destruction
  • Enhances the Warlock’s direct damage spells.
  • Most raid builds go fairly deep into this tree for the Ruin talent, but avoid the capstone ability.

View the complete Warlock talent tree in our Warlock Talent Calculator.

Class Feature: Demons

Much of a Warlock’s utility comes from their choice of demon pet.

• The Imp offers a group-wide Stamina buff with its Blood Pact.
• The Voidwalker is a tank, albeit an underwhelming one that doesn’t hold threat very well. It offers the Warlock with a powerful survivability cooldown in the form of Sacrifice.
• The Succubus is often used in PvE for its large mana pool, which combines well with Dark Pact. They are often preferred for PvP due to their Seduction ability.
• The Felhunter gives the Warlock a silence ability with Spell Lock as well as a magic purge/dispel ability with Devour Magic, making it a strong choice for PvP.
• The Infernal can only be summoned through the Inferno spell, and must be maintained with the Subjugate Demon spell.
• The Doomguard must be summoned through a Ritual of Doom, which requires a full party and kills one of the participants. It must be maintained with the Subjugate Demon spell.
• Other demons found throughout the world can be controlled temporarily with the Subjugate Demon spell.

Class Feature: Soul Shards

Warlocks have several abilities that consume Soul Shards, special items that are acquired by killing enemies with Drain Soul. The enemies have to be of a level that grants experience, so farming these shards isn’t entirely trivial. The average Warlock will go through many of these shards in a typical raid, as they are used for summoning other players with Ritual of Summoning, placing a Soulstone on a player, or summoning Healthstones to use or hand out to other players.

Warlocks can use special high capacity soul bags for storing their Soul Shards, but this means sacrificing at least one bag slot. Either way, their inventory space is generally greatly reduced compared to other classes, much like Hunters who must use Quivers to carry their ammo. The tradeoff is that the abilities that use these shards are unique to Warlocks and often put them in high demand. Many Warlocks offer up their summoning services as a way of making extra gold.

Resources

Warlocks use Mana as their main ability resource.

Races

Warlocks have a couple of Race options for each faction.

Racial Abilities

Starting Stats

Alliance

Stat	Gnome	Human
Stamina	20	21
Strength	15	20
Agility	23	20
Intellect	26	22
Spirit	22	23

Horde

Stat	Orc	Undead
Stamina	23	22
Strength	23	19
Agility	17	18
Intellect	19	20
Spirit	25	27

Weapon Skills and Armor Proficiencies

Warlocks can only equip Cloth armor and can never learn any other armor proficiencies.

Below is a table of weapon types that Warlocks can use and where the initial skill can be trained. Warlocks have very few options for weapons compared to other classes.

Weapon Type	Where to Learn
Daggers	Default Default
One-Handed Swords	Woo Ping in Stormwind Archibald in Undercity
Staves	Ilyenia Moonfire in Darnassus Woo Ping in Stormwind Hanashi in Orgrimmar Sayoc in Orgrimmar Ansekhwa in Thunder Bluff
Wands	Default Default

Notable Abilities

Warlocks have a lot of useful abilities that will make them a welcome addition to any group.

Utility

• Create Healthstone (Minor)
• Create Healthstone (Lesser)
• Create Soulstone (Minor)
• Detect Invisibility
• Eye of Kilrogg
• Ritual of Summoning
• Sense Demons

Movement

• Summon Felsteed
• Summon Dreadsteed

Dispels

• None

Crowd Control

• Banish
• Curse of Exhaustion
• Death Coil
• Fear
• Howl of Terror
• Subjugate Demon

Threat

• Searing Pain

Buffs

• Unending Breath

Debuffs

• Curse of Recklessness
• Curse of Shadow
• Curse of the Elements
• Curse of Tongues
• Curse of Weakness

Warlock Trainer Locations

Warlock class trainers can be found in starting zones and major cities.

Trainer	Faction	Location	Coordinates
Alamar Grimm*	Alliance	Dun Morogh – Coldridge Valley	28.6, 66.2
Gimrizz Shadowcog	Alliance	Dun Morogh – Kharanos	47.2, 53.6
Nartok*	Horde	Durotar – Valley of Trials	40.6, 68.4
Dhugru Gorelust	Horde	Durotar – Razor Hill	54.2, 41.2
Drusilla La Salle*	Alliance	Elwynn Forest – Northshire	49.8, 42.6
Maximillian Crowe	Alliance	Elwynn Forest – Goldshire	44.4, 66.0
Alexander Calder	Alliance	Ironforge – Forlorn Cavern	50.8, 6.4
Briarthorn	Alliance	Ironforge – Forlorn Cavern	50.2, 7.4
Thistleheart	Alliance	Ironforge – Forlorn Cavern	50.8, 6.6
Grol’dar	Horde	Orgrimmar – Cleft of Shadow	48.0, 46.8
Mirket	Horde	Orgrimmar – Cleft of Shadow	48.6, 47.0
Zevrost	Horde	Orgrimmar – Cleft of Shadow	48.4, 45.6
Demisette Cloyce	Alliance	Stormwind – Mage Quarter	25.6, 78.0
Sandahl	Alliance	Stormwind – Mage Quarter	25.8, 79.0
Ursula Deline	Alliance	Stormwind – Mage Quarter	26.2, 77.4
Kartosh	Horde	Swamp of Sorrows – Stonard	48.6, 55.6
Maximillion*	Horde	Tirisfal Glades – Deathknell	30.8, 66.2
Rupert Boch	Horde	Tirisfal Glades – Brill	61.6, 52.4
Kaal Soulreaper	Horde	Undercity – Magic Quarter	86.0, 15.6
Luther Pickman	Horde	Undercity – Magic Quarter	86.2, 15.2
Richard Kerwin	Horde	Undercity – Magic Quarter	88.6, 16.0

Warlock Demon Trainer Locations

Trainer	Faction	Location	Coordinates
Wren Darkspring*	Alliance	Dun Morogh – Coldridge Valley	28.8, 66.2
Dannie Fizzwizzle	Alliance	Dun Morogh – Kharanos	47.2, 53.6
Hraug*	Horde	Durotar – Valley of Trials	40.6, 68.4
Kitha	Horde	Durotar – Razor Hill	54.6, 41.6
Dane Winslow*	Alliance	Elwynn Forest – Northshire	50.0, 42.6
Cylina Darkheart	Alliance	Elwynn Forest – Goldshire	44.4, 66.0
Jubahi Corpseseeker	Alliance	Ironforge – Forlorn Cavern	53.2, 7.6
Kurgul	Horde	Orgrimmar – Cleft of Shadow	47.6, 47.6
Spackle Thornberry	Alliance	Stormwind – Mage Quarter	25.8, 77.6
Kayla Smithe*	Horde	Tirisfal Glades – Deathknell	30.8, 66.4
Gina Lang	Horde	Tirisfal Glades – Brill	61.6, 52.6
Martha Strain	Horde	Undercity – Magic Quarter	85.8, 15.8

Gear Sets

Here are all of the equipment sets for Warlocks in Classic WoW, including dungeon sets, raid tier sets, and PvP sets.

• Dreadmist Raiment (Dungeon Set 1 or Tier 0)
• Deathmist Raiment (Dungeon Set 2 or Tier 0.5)
• Felheart Raiment (Tier 1 – Molten Core)
• Demoniac’s Threads (Tier 1.5 – Zul’Gurub)
• Nemesis Raiment (Tier 2 – Blackwing Lair)
• Implements of Unspoken Names (Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj)
• Doomcaller’s Attire (Tier 2.5 – Temple of Ahn’Qiraj)
• Plagueheart Raiment (Tier 3 – Naxxramas)
• The Highlander’s Intent/ The Defiler’s Intent (Arathi Basin)
• Lieutenant Commander’s Threads/ Champion’s Threads (Rare PvP)
• Field Marshal’s Threads/ Warlord’s Threads (Epic PvP)

Notable Items

• Neltharion’s Tear: A highly prized trinket from Nefarian in Blackwing Lair that helps with the Warlock’s Hit cap woes.
• Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian: A legendary weapon from the Naxxramas raid that can be used by Druids. (Atiesh Guide)

Skill Books

Below are all of the skill books that are available for Warlocks in WoW Classic. These books teach new abilities or ability ranks that cannot be learned from trainers. The books are not Soulbound and can therefore be traded or purchased from the Auction House.