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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Torment rank is out-of-date.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 an active playstyle that can go as fast or slow as you
like, with flexibility to adapt to nearly any situation that might arise.
Managing your life and mana resources along with that of your pet’s is
Principle an acquired skill that many will find quite engaging.
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, Improved Drain Life, Amplify Curse, Grim Reach, Siphon Life,
Shadow Mastery, and Dark Pact.

The Demonology talents such as Demonic Embrace, Improved Healthstone,

and Fel Domination + Master Summoner will improve your character’s
survivability. Additionally, Improved Imp will increase your usefulness in 5-
man groups.

Talent Explanations:
Core
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 3/5: 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.
IMPROVED DRAIN LIFE: Increases the life drained by Drain Life.
This increases the point-for-point efficiency of Drain Life by 10%
(same as Shadow Mastery).
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.
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.
The Destruction talents Bane and Shadowburn will dramatically increase your
offensive capabilities, which will increase your kill speed.
Utility options
Defensive options
Offensive options
Utility
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).
SUPPRESSION 5/5: It is a reality that you will have to face
some higher-level mobs and occasionally players. This talent
will greatly increase your ability to handle these situations,
allowing you to land critical fears and maintain high damage
and life drains.
Take the non-core talents as you see fit, in the order
you see fit. My only suggestion (strong suggestion!) is
that you rush to Dark Pact before anything else. As for
my personal choices, I take 5/5 Suppression,
Shadowburn, and Demonic Embrace.
Defensive
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.
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.
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.
Offensive
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.
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
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
Drain Soul.

Optional
Leveling Priority: A
The leveling priority will depend on a couple of factors:
1. Do you mind respeccing once while leveling? Respec when you get Succubus
2. Do you want to use the Imp or Voidwalker in the early levels? (lv 24 for me)
Personally, I level with the Imp instead of the Voidwalker, using the Voidwalker 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 the Succubus. I do this so that B
during level 1-24 I am able to very quickly kill 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 Level to 60
wanding. Once 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.

If you want to use the Voidwalker you can use B right away, or you can go down to
Improved Voidwalker instead (recommended).If you want to use the Imp but do not want
to respec, then simply use the order in B right away with no changes. C
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 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 Dark Pact, and View this build here
then grab Utility/Defensive/Destruction talents.

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), 78g
and the ones that I believe you
don’t need at all until level 60. 60g
70g
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 (lvl 38+) 1. If the enemy is easy to kill, like a mob lower level than you, you will want to use lower-duration dots. If the
mob is very easy to kill, you might consider using fewer dots overall. If the enemy is hard to kill, you will
DoTs Drain/Wand until dead want to add more dots. If the enemy is very hard to kill, you should use all of your dots keep the mob
Feared – particularly if it is Elite or just hits hard. Pay attention to the value you are getting from each dot,
Pick one or two
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
have much more mana than life, cast Drain Life -- if you have much more life than mana (if you risk
Life Tap overhealing your life), shoot your wand. Never waste Drain Life hp recovery, and never wand when you
This is essentially how most of your fights will go. You start have full mana. Also, if the mob is low hp, it is best to not spend any more mana and wand. Second, the
with a few dots, then Drain Life or wand until the mob dies. dps of Drain Life vs. wand is important. See the Stats and Stat Priority section.

3. Newer ranks of spells will do more damage, and usually increase their mana efficiency as well. Consider
Take care to use Life Tap as appropriate to not overheal. making new ranks of spells part of your regular rotation.

The exact rotation you do will depend on some factors: No matter what “opener” you use, you will always use Corruption. It is a high-dps, high-dpm (damage per mana)
1. The difficulty of enemy you face 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
2. The life/mana you have 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 going “out of your way” for, typically from dungeons
Blackfathom Deeps or dungeon quests. The Green lines represent the
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 (lv 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. Keep Curse of Recklessness ready to use if the feared mob runs too
enough mana to benefit from Undead corpses. far!
the full amount drained. Handling Ranged Mobs: Occasionally you will fight archer or caster type mobs, who
Additionally, use this when Use Orb of Dar’Orahil , the won’t run to you when pulled. It is important to drag these away from their pack, to
you have a mob on you and Warlock-only quest item, as an reduce risk of over-pulling. Simply dot with CoA and either hide behind something
you need more mana to Drain extra source of recovery during (line-of-sight or LoS them) or run a distance away and return when the mob
Life, Fear, or anything else. leveling. It has a long cooldown relocates away from his pack. Curse of Tongues and Felhunter spell-lock will help a
(30min), but it is very good lot with mobs that heal themselves.
Use a Healthstone when you between mobs or during Fears. Handling Mechanical and Fast-hitting Mobs: These mobs will make Drain Life either
are in danger of dying or just Death Coil is not mana-neutral mostly-useless or entirely useless. In these situations you will have to rely on
missing a lot of health and on its own, but it can prevent heavier dot stacks (all of your dots) as well as using your wand. If you find that your
don’t want to stop to you from taking damage, and dps it too low to kill them before they do significant damage to you (these mobs
bandage. It is a good idea to even interrupt spells that could hurt), it may be best to pull out your Voidwalker to kill these mobs so that you can
use these frequently, damage you or heal a mob. If complete your quest – just remember to watch your aggro!
especially once you have you use this correctly, this can
specced into Improved increase your sustainability. Be Use a DPS meter! Set up a meter similar to the
Healthstone – just be sure careful about using this if you one shown on the right to constantly evaluate
that you always have one suspect PVP encounters. the effectiveness of your dots, pets and
available! wand/drains. This is an invaluable tool for any
Demon Armor should always class while leveling and will help you adjust your
be up, and make sure you rotation priority as you gain new spell ranks and
always have the most current fight different mobs.
rank! Not only will this reduce
incoming damage, but you will Life Tap / Dark Pact frequently: At some point you will be generating an
regenerate health as well. absurd amount of health with Drain Life. It is very important that you do not
Remember: this health let this healing go to waste, and add Life Tap to your rotation. Additionally,
regeneration converts to you should never let the Succubus sit at full mana. Dark Pact her mana to
mana regeneration! you in between mobs!

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”. Keep this up to date for on a cooldown. Occasionally
Does high dps, but will run the buff. A nice benefit to having the the occasional mechanical/fast- useful to agro a big pack of mobs
Imp out of mana. Definitely keep Imp out. Keep this up-to-date until hitting mobs. as a “distraction” so you can loot
this up-to-date before acquiring the Succubus, or later if you want quest items. Can skip.
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 this
immune to damage while not in you happen to have the VW out for a drain tank Warlock. Skip.
up-to-date until Succubus, or even
combat. Get this and keep it for some reason. Up to you if you
later if you want to do dungeons.
enabled while running past mobs. want to keep this updated.
VERY useful against “swarmer” bugs!

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 (most or all of) her abilities off auto-cast, Felhunter is when you are killing mobs that heal, since he can
she will never run out of mana like the imp would – making her use Spell Lock to interrupt the heals. The only problem with
great for long killing sessions and acting as a mana battery for using Felhunter is that the quest-chain to obtain him is fairly
Dark Pact. As an added bonus, she helps a lot in survive world lengthy and out-of-the-way for most quest routes, so most
pvp encounters thanks to Seduce and her high dps. warlocks wait until level 60 to get the Felhunter.
Lash of Pain: An instant attack on a 12- Lesser Invisibility: Makes the Devour Magic: Dispel a magic Spell Lock: Silence the target.
second cooldown. Use this when the Succubus sneaky, making your effect from the target (friend or Quite useful against caster mobs,
Succubus almost has full mana, to combined aggro radius smaller. especially healers. Also very good
foe, even yourself!). The Felhunter
prevent her from wasting regen and
maximizing her dps. Keep up-to-date.
Learn this for sure, but keep it on comes with this; no point getting in pvp. Worth getting at least one
NOTE: this can be left on auto – set it to manual! It is a waste of mana to do higher ranks while leveling. Keep rank, possibly more if you expect a
manual if you are having mana issues. 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 – All 1. Imp – Everything past level Everything else.
need to buy all ranks of each demon 2. Voidwalker -- Sacrifice 24
ability. For the abilities you skip while 3. Imp – Everything up to level 24 2. Void – Torment
leveling, you only have to purchase 3. Felhunter – Spell Lock +
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.
Stat Descriptions Stat Priority
Increases your maximum HP. You are tanking, you need HP. Additionally, you have Demonic Embrace and Pre level 38 (wand phase) Post level 38 (drain phase)
Stamina Improved Life Tap, which mean that each point of Stamina gives you more convertible mana than each 1. Wand DPS 1. Shadow/Spell Power
point of Intellect. For undead, this increases the value of Cannibalize.
2. Spirit 2. Wand DPS
Increases your mana pool. Does not help as much as you’d think, due to mana recovery methods available
3. Shadow/Spell Power 3. Stamina
Intellect to you. However, having more intellect will mean less overall Life Taps/Dark Pacts in the long run, which
saves you time in Global Cooldown usage. 4. Stamina 4. Spirit
Increases passive regeneration when not casting spells. This will act as a passive form of regen when 5. Intellect 5. Intellect
Spirit wanding or between mobs. Will not do anything while applying dots or draining, however. If you do get
Improved Drain Soul, this stat becomes much better.
Wand Allows you to kill faster while wanding, which means you take less damage that needs to be recovered.
Additionally, the faster you kill, the less dots you need to apply; this saves you mana, and even allows you to
DPS regenerate some since you are not casting. Having a good wand is extremely important.

Shadow / Improves the damage done by, and the life drained by, all of your dots and drains. This makes all
Spell of your spells kill faster and cost less mana per damage/life returned. This stat is a win-win-win.
Go for it when you can, but don’t neglect too much stamina for it.
Power

FAQ Additional Tips & Info

Doesn’t Drain Life cost too much mana?
As the entire rest of this guide discusses, no. Drain Life returns equal to or more
life than the mana that is spent on it. Warlock life = Warlock mana, so Drain Life
costs ≤0 mana (assuming no pushback). For each push-back you lose one tick of
Drain Life, making it less efficient (but still either free or very cheap).
Should I start drain tanking when I have 5/5 Fel Concentration (lvl ~24)?
No. This is the level that you can drain tank, but your wand will be far superior until
level 30 or 38.
If I’m not drain tanking in the early levels, should I still use the Succubus?
Yes! The Succubus is a very good levelling pet – arguably the best. She deals a large
amount of damage, especially in the early levels. She can also take a few hits for
you before you pull aggro, allowing you to split the incoming damage.
Since you use the Succubus, shouldn’t you get Improved Succubus?
Probably not. It isn’t worth the 3 points since it only increases the Lash of Pain
damage, which is a small portion of her overall dps.
Isn’t using the Voidwalker necessary to defend yourself in world pvp situations?
No. The Succubus is also a very useful demon in world PvP situations. 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 rogues (and other
classes) just as much, if not more, than the Voidwalker shield would.
Shouldn’t I get (some other talent instead of the core talents) to help in world
PVP?
No matter what class you play, you should never spec strictly for world PVP while
leveling. You kill literally thousands of mobs. Thus, if you spend even 1 extra
second per kill due to your suboptimal spec, you would have to prevent over an
hour worth of corpse runs to make it worth it. Never spec strictly for pvp while
leveling unless you have optional talent points. Additionally, Affliction is already a
great spec for world PvP, with many optional talents to increase your effectiveness
in PvP.
Since the Global Cooldown is 1.5 seconds, should I go 2/5 or 5/5 Corruption?
You want instant Corruption, hands down. Especially for drain tanking, you simply
must be able to cast Corruption while moving. You should not be past level 17
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
reduce the damage you take during the fight – it is mandatory for drain tanking.
Should I take Improved Drain Soul?
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;
this is particularly true when wanding – it definitely interrupts your grinding “flow”.
Second, you have to manage Soul Shards using a macro or add-on; this not
normally a problem but is a minor annoyance at best and tragic at worst, since
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
significant amount. See this analysis:
http://shorl.com/trenaprosturafru
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-
tanking playstyle, but consider that you must not lower your kill speed if possible,
and try to avoid taking significant damage while channeling (as opposed to DPSing).
Try to minimize the time spent draining soul rather than life.
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
to the new warlock learning to drain tank, but more experienced warlocks will see
some benefit from it.
Have another question? Find me in the Classic Warlock Discord!
https://discord.gg/8mrt6DE
• The first thing you should do when logging into your newly-created
character is to train Immolate immediately at level 1. Vendor your
food and water, or kill one mob for a gray to vendor. Get 10 copper
and train immolate right away. Immolate drastically increases your
efficiency and allows for multi-pulling.
• Acquire your Imp ASAP. The imp increases your dps by a large
margin and has a separate mana pool. You need him.
• During levels 10-24 (the imp/void phase), you will not have your full
range of dots (or Drain Life). It is important to open up with
Immolate during the imp phase so that your imp does not pull aggro.
• After you obtain Dark Pact, KEEP MOST/ALL SUCCUBUS ABILITIES
ON MANUAL CAST. These abilities affect the Succubus mana regen!
Use Lash of Pain* when you’re in combat and she is near full mana.
Use Lesser Invisibility when you are running across the map or
through mob packs, to reduce your aggro radius. Use Seduction
when you pull too many mobs or a player jumps you. Use Soothing
Kiss when you absolutely need to get the mob to stop hitting the
Succubus. *Lash of Pain is sometimes okay to keep on auto-cast, but
set it back to manual when you’re having mana issues.
• Allow the Succubus to take some hits. The Succubus wears leather-
equivalent armor and regenerates health somewhat quickly outside
of combat, so she is more than capable of taking a few hits per mob
while you finish applying dots. This allows you to distribute the
incoming damage and save you some resources. Ideally, by the time
you pull aggro from Succubus, all of your dots should be up and you
should have started wanding or draining.
• If there is room, try to always pull mobs away from their packs so
that you minimize chance of over-pulling.
• Regarding professions: if you want to level quickly, only take First
Aid. Even Skinning can add several hours to your 1-60 time. Mining
and Herbalism get out-leveled and cause far too much back-tracking.
The rest are not even worth considering.
• Spend your money on bags! You have plenty of extra money, since
you skip lots of spells/grimoires and don’t need to buy a mount at
level 40.
• Plan your leveling route to take you near Ratchet when you hit level
40, so that you can learn Summon Felsteed as soon as possible. Your
mount is free, there is no excuse to not have it immediately.
• It is most time-efficient to skip dungeons while leveling. Completing
quests and grinding will always give you better xp/hour. If you enjoy
doing dungeons, that is absolutely fine; but my recommendation is
to try to limit yourself to dungeons that you have multiple quests for,
and don’t spend too much time looking for a group.
• Join the Classic Warlock Discord :D! Over 15,000 members at the
time of this version (early-September 2019), we have a lot of
warlocks of all levels of knowledge from beginner to expert in all
aspects of Classic WoW from Leveling to PVE to PVP. Feel free to stop
by and tell us your warlock experience or ask questions. There are
more guides available there as well.