WotLK Warlock leveling guide - Best Affliction talent spec and glyphs for Classic

warlock Guldan in World of Warcraft


warlock Guldan in World of Warcraft
September 26, 2022: Wrath Classic launches today!

Are you looking to get into World of Warcraft's latest Classic expansion, Wrath of the Lich King Classic? Does commanding Demons and Fel sound like the way you want to play? Well, our WotLK Warlock leveling guide should help you quite a bit!

Leveling in World of Warcraft is a pretty lengthy process. Regardless of what class you play, knowing what the best spec, talents and even professions that you roll with can make that process much smoother. Our guide will cover all those details and more as you venture into Northrend.

While you're here, if you're interested in other Wrath of the Lich King Classic content, then check out our DPS Tier list, our Healer Tier list and our Tank tier list. You might also be interested in our dungeon guides, such as our guide for Utgarde Keep.

Best Warlock leveling spec for Wrath Classic

First off, we have to look at the different specs available to Warlocks. We'll break down their pros and cons and detail what's the best spec to level with.

Affliction

  • Pros
    • High single target and multi-target damage
    • High execute damage
  • Cons
    • Long ramp up time
    • No burst damage

Demonology

  • Pros
    • High burst damage and Area of Effect damage
  • Cons
    • Weaker single-target damage
    • Pet choice and management becomes important for group play

Destruction Warlock

  • Pros
    • High single target burst
    • Good add management
  • Cons
    • Weaker sustained single target DPS
    • No increased damage during execute phases

Based on these things, we would recommend Affliction as the go to spec for leveling via quests. If you plan to do dungeon leveling, then Destruction would be best.

Affliction Warlock Leveling tree
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WotLK Affliction Warlock talent tree

Now we'll look at the talent tree for Affliction. From levels 1 -69, you're going to take everything that you see in Affliction tree, except for Nightfall. Here's what you'll take from level 70 on.

  • Level 70 - 71: Nightfall (both ranks)
  • Level 72 - 73: Fel Synergy (both ranks in Demonology Tree)
  • Level 74 - 76: Demonic Embrace (all ranks in Demonology Tree)
  • Level 77 - 78: Improved Healthstone (both ranks in Demonology Tree)
  • Level 79 - 80: Fel Vitality (both ranks in Demonology Tree)

Our remaining Affliction points give us a damage boost to our Shadow Bolt, while the points we take in Demonology give us more defensive and healing layers.

Best Warlock leveling professions for WotLK Classic

For our professions, we'd recommend leveling a couple gathering professions while leveling, and then when you get to level 80, start taking on crafting professions. We'd recommend Mining and Herbalism. Mining gives a passive Stamina boost, and Herbalism gives you a self healing spell.

For crafting, we'd say that Tailoring and Enchanting are the way to go. Tailoring is less important, but enchanting is really useful to make some extra gold, as well as being able to enchant your own gear.

Best Warlock glyphs for WotLK Classic

For Glyphs, we have three major and three minor glyphs to work with, so here are our recommendations.

Majors

  • Glyph of Quick Decay
  • Glyph of Siphon Life
  • Glyph of Curse of Agony

Minors

  • Glyph of Drain Soul
  • Glyph of Unending Breath

The final minor glyph, you can choose, as most of them are smaller buffs. Our majors are meant to boost our damage and give us some more healing from Siphon Life.

And that's all that we have for you! The Warlock is a great class that can dish out a lot of damage. Affiliction ends up being the top spec even in raids, so you definitely can't go wrong with this choice. While you're here, definitely check out our Wrath Classic PVP tier list, as well as some other dungeon guides, for the Nexus, and the Culling of Stratholme.

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