How GOOD Is WARLOCK In HARDCORE Classic WoW? | Tips & Tricks | Classic WoW

the Warlock was my pick for Classics release back in 2019 and overall the class I put the most time into I even ended up leveling a second one to see what questing was like on The Horde and I don't regret it one bit with a mix of unique utility damage over time spells and a demon to help leveling the Warlock is a class that offers a surprising amount of supportive tools given their reputation of mainly being a damage dealer as always there's going to be plenty to cover here so let's make a start on the Warlock in hardcore classic wow but before we go on a quick word from today's sponsor Wizard101 Wizard101 is a nostalgic free-to-play MMORPG set in the universe of the Spiral build a deck and take on strategic turn-based combat in both PVE and PVP encounters through various spell cards you summon beasts and effects to buff yourself as well as debuffing and damaging enemies Master seven different schools of magic each with their own benefits such fire or ice all the way to storm and myth 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generates the rat see when you're on a hunter just as a comparison if you over aggro your pets and you instantly stop attacking apart from your damage take from serpent sting your damage output goes to zero your pet to use this Focus will then nearly always get aggro back with her next cast of growl and then eventually on the hunter you also get feigned death to make resetting easy mode on a warlock you know what you have running on a mob if you're fighting it damage over time effects if you over aggro your pet is probably not going to be able to catch up because you're still doing a whole bunch of damage without actively having to attack your target curse of Agony even ramps up in damage over its duration your voidwalker assuming that's what's tanking will also use mana and eventually they will run out of Mana or their spell-based taunt gets resisted which seeing as torment is a shadow spell and some mobs have high Shadow resistance it will feel as though it's getting resisted a lot more than a hunter's pet growl would also torment Baseline is straight up worse than growl it just generates a less threat and you have to spec into improved void Walker to make it better also hunter pets as a tank do way more damage how better resistance is attack faster move faster and yeah so on and so forth but then again you don't have to just use the void Walker part of the Warlock experience is using the correct demon for the job and we'll be talking more about that during talents later warlocks also have their class fantasy of trading something for power one of the ways you can overdo this for sure is via life tap and since warlock spells are quite costly you're going to be using this ability a lot sometimes too often in the face of danger when instead you should be wanding and preserving your health a little more we'll be taking a look at some of the stats for the success rate of warlocks in the hardcore challenge later but as the newer player this class is trickier than you would expect it to be so how does the Warlock perform when questing solo well the Warlock motto is if you can fear it you can kill it and there are no exceptions this class makes taking on High level mobs or Elites just to look plain unfair and it's all thanks to warlock's most iconic ability and CC fear a one and a half second cast spell that will send an enemy running in a random Direction Orwell who really knows how long beer could last for one second or it could last for 30. risk and reward at the end of the day is what warlock is all about some enemies have high Shadow resist and will break out of fear nearly instantly and of course the more damage the enemy is taking during the fear the greater chance it has to break and that's even before you worry about whether random theopathing will lead a mob into chain pulling others instead of going somewhere where you wanted it to Elite quests in general though feel very accessible to warlocks and are really part of the fun in playing a class which has such a reputation for being great solo as for regular questing by yourself warlocks have to also be among the best once again fear is an invaluable tool that allows you to dot up one mob Veer it away and then have it gradually rot down whilst you focus your attention on another it's a playstyle Nova class can do and it feels very satisfying to pull off whilst leveling or you can just play it safe and do one mob at once which is probably a better idea when you're doing hardcore to be fair getting the most out of your damage over time effects will also be a huge benefit to you and something that you should actively improve upon as you level a damage over time effect running its full duration is very Mana efficient and of course it being classic and they're being next to no bonus spell damage whilst you're leveling you have a pretty good idea of what to damage over time effect is actually going to be dealing in real time and you should definitely use that to your advantage so that's solo but what about when you group up how do warlocks do there I'd say they're solid and bring some good utility to a group as a whole first of all you can can summon other players as of level 20 but in classic you have to be in the same instance to summon someone so if you're in the stock age the person you are trying to summon must also be inside the stockades but if you're just outside the instance portal in Stormwind you can summon a player from anywhere else in the open world even from done NASA's in kalimdorf oh and of course one sharding classic equals one summon and you need two other people to perform each summon all the same Classics world is really big and it can save you so much time playing a warlock even though you already know everyone's gonna be expecting you to run to the instance first to summon whilst waiting for your group members to arrive at the instance inevitably you can also begin to farm shards because you can bet everyone wants a hellstone in hardcore and you have to make them individually and hand them out because there's no soul well and they are unique items did you know warlock is one of the least played classes at 60. surely it's just because they're deceptively challenging to level nothing else at play here right don't get me wrong all this warlock stuff is really good utility to have in a group but in classic it is just incredibly inconvenient and time consuming to do but hey it is what it is as part of a group you do have some other useful Buffs at your disposal though more than you would expect detecting visibility is very good in some late game dungeons such as Stratton dead or Diamond West both of these have invisible mobs patrolling all over the place for me the Imp is the go-to pet for dungeons it both gives blood packed which is a nice extra buffer of stamina as well as fire Shield which reflects a bit of damage when players are hit doesn't stack with thorns by the way but it's decent all the same you can also subjugate demons to have the major in combat banish Elementals or demons and dramatically slow the cast speed of enemies with curse of tongues if you needed an interrupter bonus stealth detection or dispels bring out the Fel Hunter you need single Target CC at range you can use the succubus for that this class has so much varied utility it almost feels like a support class that can do respectable damage as well the reasons I've marked the Warlock down in group content is applications for all this utility tend to be very Niche and damage over time effects tend not to be the most efficient in group content where they rarely get the benefits of their full duration oh and also the Healer of the group may not appreciate you using their Mana bar as a bonus manobar for Life tap even though it totally is all the same warlocks in groups can't really go wrong with them which brings us to survivability an area of the game where there is quite a bit to say so uh turns out for a class with a pet which is great at soloing stuff warlocks die a lot in fact based off of data from the devlog add-on warlocks are the least represented class in the game at 60. here's a snapshot from the 7th of June covering just under 81 000 character deaths warlocks have the lowest average level of death at 12 point 4 and are the only class in the game with less than a 60 chance to even make it to level 10 and by some margin they're only at 55.3 percent Warrior which is more than twice as popular as warlock compared to the total number of deaths as a way better chance of not just hitting level 60 but higher level milestones in general every single non-faction specific class in the game has better recorded success stats in the hardcore challenge than warlock basically what I'm trying to say here is if you want to play something easy go pick a warrior if you want an actual challenge level a warlock alright memes aside though for real why are so few people finding success on this class well as the thing about pressing lifetap a bit too much and your voidwalker not exactly being the most reliable tank that we've already gone over on top of that if mobs actually start hitting you on the Warlock you are so squishy Mages can kite forever through the frost spells and have blink priests can shield and heal themselves warlocks have fear maybe drain life sacrifice also being a pet class there's a pretty good chance you've not been leveling your defense I know I go on about defense in these videos but if your defense is 15 levels or more off its cap at any given level you'll be vulnerable to crushing blows from mobs the same level as you meaning they are often going to deal 150 percent of their normal melee damage you do have demon armor to beef up a little bit but you're still just taking so much damage if anything gets to you saying that you do have options for survivability and probably more than you would expect fear or howl of Terror are the obvious ones here as they will force one or more targets to run away somewhere there's two other things to know about fearing enemies though it increases their movement speed by 25 on most mobs this is just about noticeable certain enemies however have completely insane movement speed modifiers by themselves and will do a Usain Bolt impression if you fear them the other thing to know is that you can turn fear on and off without having to break it curse of Reckless makes the target immune to fear so you can fear them have them run away apply curse of wreck they will run back to you and then you can sort to a different curse before they reach you and they will run away again this is called fear juggling curse of recklessness will also stop mobs from running in fear at low Health but there's less risk of them chain pulling water breathing is another good tool you shouldn't forget about and it also gives the Warlock something useful to buff other people back with for a change if using a void Walker and you rip aggro for them and your health bar is not looking so hot don't hesitate to use sacrifice this provides a huge Shield which in most cases will give you more than enough time to either run away or finish the fight re-summoning another voidwalker is not as bad as starting again that's for sure you eventually get death coil at 42 which is another great instant heal and a horror effect Shadow Ward is another good spell plenty of Shadow damage threats in classic don't forget about this and another one not to forget is spellstone you rarely think about this but it's held in your off hand and when used to Will dispel all magic effects on you as well as providing a large Shield against further magical damage it is Niche use but could be the Difference Maker especially versus Elementals whose melee attack often deals magic damage corresponding to their element oh and of course there's hellstone always have a health stone ready obviously I think all in all warlocks do have quite a few tools to survive it's just the overconfidence of pulling multiple mobs or an over Reliance on your demon to do the heavy lifting often proving fatal so is the Warlock faster level then well yes but only if you are willing to take on the risks that that entails such as juggling Mobs with fear and balancing your health and manner as well as that of your pet or you can just take it slow and let your Void walker build some aggro and then use darts and wand away it will vary on play style and how you go about playing your warlock but there is something about this class that just makes people want to go fast leveling speed wise warlock can be anywhere from moderate to really fast which brings brings us to Talent scenario of the game where I think there are two choices to be made based upon your preference there is a more traditional voidwalker pet tank spec where you start some wanding or something called drain tanking whereas the name suggests the Warlock themselves is the one taking hits let's start off with a void walker build which will be the demonology focus specialization that goes all the way down to Soul link keep in mind you don't get your Void Walker until you've completed a quest at level 10 so up to that point in time you'll be using the much higher damage but way more fragile imp also in classic corruption has a two second Caster bass line so one of the first things we want to do is get it back to instant cast also we pick up three points in suppression early as it will give you a reflection spells which include things such as drain life and fear a much better chance to hit after that over in the demo tree you pick up extra stamina and improved voidwalker so its torn feels a little bit better then fell domination into Master Summoner allow you to gets a second demon out fast if you need it this can be useful in a bad situation where you've sacrificed one void Walker and then need to get out another one master demonologist gives you and your demon a unique effect depending on which one you're using with void Walker it's ten percent less physical damage which is really good after that you pick up demonic sacrifice which you'd only maybe use in dungeons before finally getting Soul link Soul Link in classic redirects 30 of damage taken by the Warlock to your demon and increases the damage of both by three percent this is the defining talent that makes demonology known for being a tanky warlock spec just keep your demon alive or you're going to go back to being incredibly squishy after that it's over into the Affliction tree to pick up some talents to improve the effectiveness of your damage over time effects this is the slower and more patient build even with you specking into improving your Void Walker at times it's the rat generation will feel bad and if you get some crits expect mobs to come running straight for you all the same the thing is about this spec is you do need to be in that slow and steady mindset if your demon dies and you can't summon another fast you could be in big trouble this build should be safer than the alternative but then again warlocks should in theory be one of the easier classes to level and they just aren't personally I like the alternative spec that I'll go over here I will say it has a much harsher learning curve during the early and most dangerous levels but once you get the hang of it it's considerably faster than the demonology build and I think it's just as safe if not safer because you will be leveling your defense so this will be roughly the build we'll be looking at for drain tanking now the whole idea behind drain tanking is that you have an offensive pet which takes some damage during the start of a fight then soon after the Warlock takes threat and mainly deals damage through casting drain life and just face tanking the main demon you'll want for this build is the succubus however you don't get them until Level 20 through a pretty a long Quest chain prior to that it's either going to be using the m or avoid Walker also drain tanking both needs a decent rank of drain life learned as well as some points in the fell concentration Talent or you just lose too much Mana from spell not back I wouldn't use rank 1 of drain life for this build it's just very Mana inefficient for what it does at Rank 2 drain life learned at level 22 you can consider starting to use it to be honest your succubus will be carrying most fights and doing more damage than you at this level though by level 26 you'll have five points in foul concentration and should be drain tanking and by level 30 you get Rank 3 of drain life and the build really starts to scale up from here onwards in the talent tree at this point you go five out of 5 in to improve drain life Nightfall is optional I wouldn't consider it you just don't need the extra damage from the random Shadow bolt and then into siphon life and Shadow Mastery for tons more damage and self-heels finally dark packed at 40 which turned your demon into your own personal Mana battery after that it's pretty standard talents in the demo tree to improve your tankiness the big problem with drain tanking is getting to a level where it starts being effective in the first place but if you get far enough your first Respec is only one gold so it's at least worth a go to see what you think onto abilities then warlocks have an absolute ton of them to cover so what's good and what's not so good as per usual green is a level up where possible yellow is optional or don't fully level and red is a void the spells in green all feel pretty standard to me including Fel Steed remember warlocks get a free Mount at level 40. that's a pretty amazing gold saver and really nice to know that you will have a mount waiting for you dreadsteed is on the list too here that is from a big Quest chain at level 60 so don't expect to hit level cap and walk into an epic Mount straight away shadow bolts and drain life will depend on what specialization you're playing if I was drain tanking I wouldn't bother with Shadow Ball all that much to be honest plenty of abilities are optional to max out such as Hellfire or Reign of Fire being more group focused too then there's curses of Shadows curse of elements weakness stray Mana soul fire searing pain a lot of things you could get by without but you can put ranks in them if you want to drain Soul rank 1 is fine for what it does it just gives you Soul shards and howl of Terror rank two fears for 15 seconds instead of 10 but does not fear additional targets of course soulstone is not very useful when you're playing a hardcore character if you die you die no comebacks Firestone is just weird I'm not sure what it's meant to be it does increase your fire damage by a little bit and also adds a fire damage proxy on Main hand so fire melee warlocks that one's for you I guess Inferno both involves doing a very dangerous Quest and summons a highly unpredictable demon ritual of Doom is the exact same but even worse oh and ritual of Doom also sacrifices one of the people taking part in it so probably not a good idea to do this and though you may have been saving gold or not having to buy a mount at 40 what you do have to buy is grimoires to upgrade your Demon's abilities so which ones are a priority depends on your demon of course but here's what I would do roughly speed King the Imp for me is the early game demon and the one you use in dungeons in dungeons I don't actually have its attack because they're just so fragile they die to absolutely any AOE whatsoever and they can be just as useful sitting in phase shift where they are immune to everything also your imp is free Mana for dark packs as well so based on that I would teach them phase shift ranks of fire shield and blood pact if using a voidwalker as your main pet you'll want to be upgrading its abilities a whole bunch priority on upgrading torment and sacrifice as your Void Walker's two best abilities suffering is a two-minute cooldown AOE taunt which can be quite useful but uses a ton of your voidwalker's Mana consume Shadows convert your voidwalker's Mana to health really inefficiently boydwalker's struggle for Mana in general and need it for taunting so this just isn't very good if you want to heal your voidwalker hell funnel bandage or just summon a new one on the succubus always take lesser invisibility it just keeps your pet from accidentally pulling things Lasher pain is okay it doesn't really do much damage for the Mana cost and I'd rather have that Mana for dark pact so I just take early ranks seduction is good pick that one up and soothing case is one you can avoid if your demon really needs a threat reduction something's probably going wrong somewhere on the fell Hunter always take paranoia and at least one rank of devour magic and both ranks of spell lock further ranks of devour magic heal the fell Hunter for more when they consume a magical effect which is nice but not a big deal and spell lock Rank 2 increases the lockout duration from 6 seconds to eight painted blood just kind of doesn't really do anything in PVE your fell Hunter is absolutely not holding threats if you're using it as your main demon so you can skip this one let's finish on some macros and add-ons first of all you need to be able to control your demon well normally in the game Pet attack is shift plus T but you can rebind it in a macro with Slash pet attack also you want something to be able to pull your pet back if it needs be you can either do this with Slash passive or via changing your keybinds directly through the tab labeled action bar under the keybinds menu if you scroll down a bit you'll see the pet action button binds whilst you're there also when buying control 8 that's pet aggressive not something you want to accidentally turn on when playing hardcore you're going to be wondering so of course cast shoots so you accidentally don't toggle your wand on and off and you can put a bunch of your demon abilities on the same macro just to save some bar space and have them all keybinded together as per usual two real go-to weak horizont casters first of all one of them to show debuff timers you want to track your damage over time effects there's many ways to do this this is just one of them and then Shield will track your sacrifice Shield if you sacrifice your voidwalker something's probably gone wrong and you would want to know how much Shield you have left and that for me is the Warlock in hardcore wow definitely a class which is proving to be more of a challenge to level than you would have expected it to be but one that can bring so much utility and has a truly unique way to level through drain tanking let me know your thoughts on the Warlock in hardcore classic whether you've given it to go and if if you found it to be as difficult as it's being made out to be and as always thank you all so much for watching and listening in and I'll see you all in the next one very soon [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: WillE

Views: 77,743

Keywords: classic wow, hardcore wow, wow hardcore, wille, classic hardcore, hardcore clips, hardcore death, hardcore wow guide, paladin, warrior, warlock, mage, priest, rogue, druid, hunter, shaman, toc, icc, dragonflight, wow, warcraft, mmorpg, mmo, best mmo, free mmo 2023, best mmorpg, best free mmorpg, best mmo 2023, mmo 2023, eso, gw2, ff14, osrs, ashes of creation, riot mmo, role playing game, rpg, dungeons and dragons, tabletop, gaming, pc, console, ps5

Id: sG_3MDzOXUM

Length: 22min 38sec (1358 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 20 2023