Warlock Guide for TBC Anniversary

TBC Classic Anniversary Warlock Guide Quick Summary:

• Warlock Pros & Cons
• How to play a Warlock in TBC Anniversary
• Best race, Stat priority for this class
• Best Warlock builds
• Leveling, BiS gear, rotations, and more!

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Warlock Changes in TBC Classic Anniversary

Has TBC Classic Anniversary Warlock changed a lot? No, not really, but if you want a reminder of how this class changed since Vanilla, this block is for you.

Back in the day, Warlock was a pretty good DPS class, but in TBC, it has gotten even better. Yeah, your rotation is still about spamming Shadowbolt, but you do deal way more damage now.

1. New Spell ranks
2. Less filler time
3. Fel Armor - new buff that gives you increased damage and a health regen from dealing damage.
4. Felguard - new tanky pet in the style of Arms Warrior.
5. Improved pet AI across all pet types.
6. Simplified debuffing through Curse of the Elements
7. Stat scaling fixed - spell power, hit, and crit have been itemized properly.

These are just those big changes that come to mind, and all of them have really upgraded this class from being sort of niche DPS into a top-tier, raid must-have, arena-winning monster that we all know and love. Warlocks are so popular, especially starting from TBC, that most tier lists out there are putting this class in S-tier. And we’re no exception. Anyway, let’s continue this Warlock DPS guide TBC Classic Anniversary with and talk about what it really means to be a demon-summoning, curse-weaving Warlock.

Warlock Pros & Cons

Warlock is such a popular class for a reason - the edginess is through the roof, insane DPS, raid utility, pet - what’s not to like? Let’s see.

Pros

• Top-tier DPS class throughout all TBC phases
• Has the best AoE damage spell in the game
• One of the most diverse arsenals of utility spells - heal, revival, increased elemental damage buff, etc.

Cons

• Could be difficult to play for beginners - you have to micro-manage the pet and play with your health, reducing or increasing it.
• Simple and boring rotation, which might be a good thing for beginners, but gets very dull to use.
• On top of various pets, it has to manage the Soul Shards - a special class resource.

It’s a great class, but people will expect a lot from you in the endgame content and PvP. You’ll be practically required to carry, and if anything goes wrong, it’s going to be on you. If that doesn’t scare you at all, Warlock is a great class to try out. Especially if you dig the kind of magic they’re using, the infernal summons and all that.

How to Play Warlock in TBC Classic Anniversary

If you’re unsure how to play warlock in TBC Classic Anniversary or how to be useful in a party, this is what you should know. Your main role and goal is to pump! It means dealing as much DPS as you possibly can. You have your DoTs, debuffs, crits, haste, etc. Stack it up on your targets to be good at your class.

What else can you do for your group? You have your stones that you should be using:

• Master Healthstone - restores life instantly. Don’t just rely on your supports, you have a healing skill yourself!
• Master Soulstone - used to revive fallen teammates midfight or after wipes.

Crowd control abilities like Fear and Banish are also useful. And last but not least - Ritual of Summoning for those party members who are too poor to get to you themselves.

You also need a habit of preparing for combat by buffing up. The Demonic Sacrifice talent gives you various bonuses based on which summon you sacrifice. Usually, you would Summon Succubus and then do the sacrifice for increased Shadow damage by 15%. And don’t forget your armor spells like Fel Armor, Demon Skin, and Demon Armor.

The rest of the playstyle should be easy enough - use your minion pet to attack targets, cast your damage-dealing spells until the target is dead. Keep the assigned curse on the target and spam the Shadow Bolt. That’s about it.

Warlock Best Race in TBC Classic Anniversary

If you want to pick the best race for Warlock in TBC Classic Anniversary, you don’t have a lot of options, especially if you’re on the Alliance side. Still, there are some differences that you should know about.

Alliance Warlock Races:

Race	Why It’s Good for Warlock
Gnome	The strongest Alliance option overall. Expansive Mind increases Intellect by 5%, boosting mana pool, crit chance, and scaling across the entire expansion. Escape Artist is extremely valuable in PvP for breaking roots and slows, helping Warlocks survive melee pressure.
Human	A neutral but flexible choice. The Human Spirit increases Spirit, which slightly improves regeneration through Life Tap. Perception provides stealth detection in PvP, giving you an edge against Rogues and Druids, though Humans lack direct damage bonuses.

Horde Warlock Races:

Race	Why It’s Good for Warlock
Orc	The best Horde race for PvE and one of the strongest overall. Command increases pet damage by 5%, which is especially strong for Demonology builds and solo play. Hardiness adds stun resistance, making Orc extremely durable in PvP as well.
Undead	The strongest PvP-focused option. Will of the Forsaken breaks Fear, Charm, and Sleep effects, which is incredibly valuable against Priests and other Warlocks in arenas. Cannibalize also adds strong sustain during leveling and world content.
Blood Elf	A flexible but more situational pick. Arcane Torrent provides a small AoE silence and mana return, giving Warlocks an extra interrupt tool in PvP and dungeons. Useful utility, but generally weaker than Orc for PvE or Undead for PvP.

So, the best choices for TBC Classic Anniversary Warlock PvE are the Gnome for Alliance and the Orc for the Horde. If you want to min/max this class in PvP, then go with the Undead that gives you that CC break racial - it’s going to come in handy.

Warlock Stat Priority

Warlock stats and their priority in TBC Classic Anniversary follow standard Burning Crusade mechanics. Anniversary systems change gearing speed and flexibility, but stat scaling, hit caps, and spell interactions remain unchanged. Your exact priority can shift slightly between Affliction, Demonology, and Destruction, though the overall hierarchy stays consistent.

Below is the general PvE DPS stat priority for Warlocks at level 70, followed by a breakdown of what each stat actually does and why it matters.

Warlock DPS Stat Priority

1. Spell Hit Rating up to hit cap
2. Spell Haste
3. Spell Power
4. Spell Critical Strike Rating
5. Intellect
6. Stamina

Spell Hit Rating

Spell Hit determines how often your spells land successfully. So, obviously, this is number one in Warlock stat priority. This is your most important stat until you reach the cap. Against boss-level enemies (level 73), Warlocks need a total of 16 percent hit chance, though talents and group buffs reduce the amount of rating required.

• 202 Hit Rating reaches the cap against bosses
• 164 Hit Rating with Totem of Wrath
• 152 Hit Rating with both Totem of Wrath and Draenei Inspiring Presence

Affliction gains additional hit for DoTs through Suppression, but still needs hit for Shadow Bolt and other filler spells. Once you reach the hit cap, any extra hit rating loses all value, which makes gear swapping common depending on raid composition.

Spell Haste

Spell Haste reduces cast times and the global cooldown, increasing overall damage throughput. Destruction and Demonology benefit heavily from haste because of frequent Shadow Bolt casting. Affliction scales less with haste since DoTs do not tick faster, though haste still improves filler casts.

Spell Power

Spell Power directly increases the damage of all offensive spells and remains one of the most consistent scaling stats throughout the expansion. Most spells scale based on their base cast time, with longer casts receiving higher benefit. Abilities that drain health or deal AoE damage usually have reduced coefficients.

Spell Critical Strike Rating

Spell Critical Strike increases your chance to deal bonus damage with spells. Critical hits normally deal 150 percent damage, but talents like Ruin increase this to 200 percent. Destruction benefits the most from crit, while Affliction values it less early because DoTs cannot critically strike.

Intellect

Intellect increases your total mana pool and slightly raises your spell crit chance. For Warlocks, it mainly delays how often you need to Life Tap rather than directly increasing damage. Demonology builds gain a small amount of extra spell damage from Intellect through pet-based talents, though this scaling is minor.

Stamina

Stamina increases your health pool and slightly improves demon survivability. While not a direct DPS stat, it helps maintain uptime during mechanics and is valuable for PvP or progression content where survivability matters more.

 

Best Warlock Builds TBC Classic Anniversary

All three Warlock specs share the same role - ranged DPS, which makes this class the best at it. That said, some builds are the go-to, and others are just less popular.

Shadow-Focused Destruction Warlock Build

This is the best warlock build everyone uses. It all starts with the Improved Shadow Bolt at rank 5. Sometimes you see a variation of this build where you go for Cataclysm rank 5 instead of Improved Immolate and Conflagrate. But the build that you see in the screenshot is for the rotation that mixes up the Incinerate and Shadow Bolt. Shadowfury gives you cleave damage, which you can go for by deranking something else. This will help you keep your pet out longer, although the total DPS could be lower than this standard, go-to build.

Demonology Build for Magtheridon

Some encounters require you to move a lot, and it could be harder to cast your typical rotation when you need to dodge stuff. This build is for encounters like this. It makes your pet do the damage while you move around. You’ll need at least one point in Improved Corruption, and then you can choose between Shadowburn, Destructive Reach, or Intensify.

Unless you have the raid buffs for mana regen, you should spend one point on Mana Feed so that your pet can cleave without running out of mana all the time.

Warlock Leveling Guide TBC Classic Anniversary

If you picked this class, you’re in luck, because you get to experience one of the easiest paths to max level.

Something that you should make a habit of right away is fighting more than one mob at the same time. This could be difficult if you’ve played any other class before, but if you’re only dealing with one monster at a time, you’re just wasting your time.

Your pet demon is so good, you can use it to distract monsters while you replenish your mana or go collect quest items. All in all, your pet is a huge time-saver. But, do make sure to control your pet and don’t keep them in defence mode for too long. Make a macro for attacking and following so that your demon is not aggroing the packs of monsters you don’t want to fight. You can use this macro:

You should turn off the autocast from Lash of Pain and add it to the macro.

Gear-wise, one thing that comes to mind is the tier-1 set called Felheart Rainment and specifically the 3-item bonus that gives you increased Drain Life and Drain Mana, which is pretty useful for leveling post 60. Obviously, which slots to fill with this set is up to you, but you might want to keep your items that give the spell power and other priority stats.

 

 

Warlock Best in Slot Gear in TBC Classic Anniversary

Phase 1 includes Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, and Magtheridon - and those would be the sources for the Warlock best in slot gear most of the time. Some items actually come from professions like tailoring. Here’s the full list:

Slot	Affliction BiS	Demonology BiS	Destruction BiS	Source
Head	Voidheart Crown	Voidheart Crown	Voidheart Crown	Prince Malchezaar (Karazhan)
Neck	Brooch of Unquenchable Fury	Brooch of Unquenchable Fury	Brooch of Unquenchable Fury	Moroes (Karazhan)
Shoulders	Voidheart Mantle	Voidheart Mantle	Voidheart Mantle	High King Maulgar (Gruul’s Lair)
Back	Ruby Drape of the Mysticant	Ruby Drape of the Mysticant	Ruby Drape of the Mysticant	Prince Malchezaar (Karazhan)
Chest	Voidheart Robe	Voidheart Robe	Voidheart Robe (Spellfire Robe for Fire)	Magtheridon / Tailoring
Wrists	Bracers of Havok	Bracers of Havok	Bracers of Havok	Tailoring
Hands	Voidheart Gloves	Voidheart Gloves	Voidheart Gloves (Spellfire Gloves for Fire)	The Curator (Karazhan) / Tailoring
Waist	Girdle of Ruination	Girdle of Ruination	Girdle of Ruination (Spellfire Belt for Fire)	Tailoring
Legs	Spellstrike Pants	Spellstrike Pants	Spellstrike Pants	Tailoring
Boots	Frozen Shadoweave Boots	Frozen Shadoweave Boots	Frozen Shadoweave Boots (Boots of Foretelling for Fire)	Tailoring / Maiden of Virtue (Karazhan)
Ring	Band of Crimson Fury	Band of Crimson Fury	Band of Crimson Fury	Magtheridon Quest
Ring	Ring of Recurrence	Ring of Recurrence	Ring of Recurrence	Chess Event (Karazhan)
Trinket	Quagmirran’s Eye	Quagmirran’s Eye	Quagmirran’s Eye	Quagmirran (The Slave Pens)
Trinket	Icon of the Silver Crescent	Icon of the Silver Crescent	Icon of the Silver Crescent	G’eras (Badges of Justice)
Weapon	Talon of the Tempest	Nathrezim Mindblade	Talon of the Tempest	Doomwalker (World Boss) / Prince Malchezaar (Karazhan)
Off-Hand	Khadgar’s Knapsack	Khadgar’s Knapsack	Khadgar’s Knapsack (Flametongue Seal for Fire)	G’eras (Badges of Justice)
Wand	Tirisfal Wand of Ascendancy	Tirisfal Wand of Ascendancy	Tirisfal Wand of Ascendancy	Shade of Aran (Karazhan)

Most of these items come from Karazhan, but if you’re having trouble getting the stuff you need, there are some alternatives you can aim for that are easier to obtain.

Best Warlock Rotation

WoW Warlock rotations TBC Classic Anniversary are all pretty simple. Since we’ve covered Destruction and Demonology best Warlock TBC Classic Anniversary builds earlier, here you’ll see their rotations. There’s also a slightly different approach to the rotation when you’re leveling. Another spell rotation logic applies to AoE combat in raids or dungeons.

Destruction Warlock Rotation

1. Curse
2. Immolate
3. Shadow Bolt + Incinerate (depending on the curse)
4. Keep the DoTs refreshed

This is the most basic of WoW Warlock rotations TBC Classic Anniversary. Do this until the target is no more.

Demonology Warlock Rotation

1. Curse
2. Corruption
3. Immolate
4. Shadow Bolt
5. Keep the DoTs refreshed

Corruption deals shadow damage once, then Immolate deals damage and applies a DoT. Aftwards, you just spam the Shadow Bolt.

Warlock AoE Rotation

1. Sacrifice a Succubus to proc increased shadow damage from Demonic Sacrifice
2. Seed of Corruption

Seed is a DoT that also detonates when enough damage is done. Spamming Shadow Bolt helps too.

Warlock Leveling Rotation

1. Pet Attack
2. Agony
3. Corruption
4. Unstable Affliction (if available)
5. Drain Life

When leveling you will be applying this to multiple targets, so sometimes you would also use Fear to reduce incoming damage when needed.

Best Warlock Professions in TBC Classic Anniversary

As with all casters, one of the best warlock professions in TBC Classic Anniversary has to always be Tailoring. The second one is up to you - you could go with Enchanting or Engineering. I prefer Engineering.

Tailoring

Tailoring is the source of the best-in-slot gear for some of the slots. You could have seen this in the table earlier. More specifically, those items are:

• Voidheart Robe
• Bracers of Havok
• Girdle of Ruination
• Spellstrike Pants

And these are just from Phase 1. There’s also the Shadow’s Embrace set that will be the best in slot for Affliction and Shadow Destruction builds up to the Black Temple.

Engineering

It’s pretty common to name Engineering the best profession in TBC, and not just for this class. The trinkets and other items that are unique to this content are kind of must have for everyone. You’ll need your mote extractor for gold farming, and there’s also the flying mount, which you can craft.

Best Warlock Consumables

The best warlock consumables in TBC Anniversary are not hard to find. Those are the ones that directly boost the class’ damage.

1. Flask of Pure Death – A long-duration flask that grants a large amount of Shadow and Fire spell damage, making it the most consistent all-around DPS option for Warlocks. It persists through death, requires no buff management, and scales perfectly with Shadow Bolt, Incinerate, and DoT damage, which is why it is the safest default consumable in raids.
2. Elixir of Major Shadow Power / Elixir of Major Firepower with Elixir of Draenic Wisdom – This elixir combination is an alternative to flasks that provides higher peak damage when min-maxing. The Shadow or Fire elixir increases direct spell damage depending on your spec, while Draenic Wisdom boosts Intellect and Spirit, improving mana pool and sustain. Warlocks benefit from the larger mana buffer because Life Tap converts health into mana efficiently.
3. Brilliant Wizard Oil – Applied to your weapon, this oil increases spell damage and spell critical strike rating. Warlocks scale extremely well with raw spell power, so this is one of the highest value temporary buffs you can maintain without replacing gear.
4. Destruction Potion – A short burst consumable that increases spell damage and spell crit for a limited time. It is ideal for pre-pull usage or during cooldown windows, especially for Destruction builds where Shadow Bolt or Incinerate spam gains the most from temporary crit and damage spikes.
5. Poached Bluefish, Blackened Basilisk, Crunchy Serpent, or Oronok's Tuber of Spell Power – These foods provide either stamina, spell damage, or crit depending on the choice. Warlocks favor spell damage food like Blackened Basilisk or the Tuber because higher spell power increases both DoT pressure and Life Tap efficiency, while stamina food like Poached Bluefish adds survivability during heavy damage encounters.
6. Dark Rune / Demonic Rune, and Flame Cap – Dark Rune and Demonic Rune restore mana at the cost of health, which synergizes perfectly with Warlock mechanics since health is already a resource through Life Tap and Drain Life. Flame Cap is especially strong for Fire Destruction builds because it adds bonus fire damage procs, directly amplifying Incinerate and Immolate output.
7. Drums of Battle (if Leatherworker) – These drums grant a temporary haste effect to the group. Haste reduces cast times, increasing Shadow Bolt or Incinerate throughput and improving overall DPS uptime. Because Warlocks rely heavily on continuous casting, this group buff provides one of the strongest raid-wide damage increases available from professions.

So, overall, the goal is to increase your damage and casting uptime. Take whatever you need to be able to spam your Shadow Bolt nonstop.

Read our other TBC Classic Anniversary guides:

• Mage Guide
• Hunter Guide
• Best Professions
• Gold Farming Guide

F.A.Q.