Warlock Leveling Guide 70 to 80 for WotLK Classic

The Warlock is one of the most efficient in leveling speed and effectiveness in WotLK and has been since the beginning of World of Warcraft. This is due to the class having great damage-per-second potential, alongside a selection of class-specific pets that can also deal decent damage, draw threat, or offer a more supportive role.

Certain Warlock abilities and play-styles offer a very high sustainability and mobility that can allow the Warlock to effortlessly kite mobs and single target enemies whilst dealing consistent and efficient damage output.

In end-game content, Warlocks also have a solid reputation in the game, routinely having at least one spec in the top of the damage-per-second meters in each tier for PvE content, as well as performing adequately in PvP scenarios. Warlocks also have a range of raid group-essential abilities such as hearthstones and summoning stones to make them an in-demand class for both dungeon and raid content.

This WotLK Warlock leveling guide will outline many tips and play-style choices for new players. This will be a guide for WotLK, and will not be relevant to other classes, and nor will it be relevant to any other iteration of the game besides the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

Top 5 Tips for Leveling a Warlock 70 to 80

1 - Choose the right Talent build for Leveling

When leveling your warlock from 70 to 80 in WotLK Classic, it's important to choose the right talent build that will optimize your leveling experience. The Affliction talent build is often recommended for leveling, as it provides strong damage over time spells and increased survivability. However, the Destruction talent build can also be effective for leveling, as it focuses on burst damage and can quickly take down enemies. Consider your playstyle and preferences when choosing your talent build, and don't be afraid to experiment and adjust as you level up.

2 - Focus on Questing and completing Dungeons

Questing and completing dungeons are the most efficient ways to level your warlock from 70 to 80 in WotLK Classic. Quests provide valuable experience points and rewards, while dungeons offer a chance to earn powerful gear upgrades. Prioritize quests that are close to your current level and offer good experience rewards. Additionally, try to group up with other players to tackle dungeons, as they provide a significant amount of experience and loot. Remember to communicate with your group and coordinate your abilities to maximize efficiency.

3 - Utilize your pet effectively for added damage and survivability

As a warlock, your pet is a valuable asset that can greatly enhance your damage output and survivability while leveling. Make sure to choose the right pet for the situation, whether it's a tanky voidwalker for survivability or a high-damage felhunter for burst damage. Use your pet's abilities strategically, such as using the voidwalker's Sacrifice ability to absorb damage or the felhunter's Devour Magic ability to dispel harmful effects. Keep your pet's health and mana topped up by using the appropriate spells and abilities, such as Health Funnel and Soulstone. By utilizing your pet effectively, you can make the leveling process faster and easier.

4 - Take advantage of Warlock-specific Abilities and Spells

Warlocks have a variety of unique abilities and spells that can greatly aid in leveling. One such ability is the Soulstone, which allows you to resurrect yourself after death. This can be a lifesaver when facing tough enemies or dangerous situations. Additionally, warlocks have access to powerful damage-over-time spells like Corruption and Immolate, which can quickly whittle down enemy health. Don't forget to utilize your demonic minions as well, such as the Imp's Firebolt or the Succubus's Seduction. These abilities can provide additional damage and crowd control options. By taking advantage of these warlock-specific abilities and spells, you can level your character more efficiently and effectively.

5 - Use consumables and buffs to enhance your Leveling speed

Consumables and buffs can greatly enhance your leveling speed as a warlock in WotLK Classic. Stock up on potions, elixirs, and food that can boost your stats and provide healing or mana regeneration. These items can help you survive tough battles and keep your resources topped up. Additionally, don't forget to use buffs from other players or NPCs that can increase your damage, spell power, or critical strike chance. These temporary enhancements can make a significant difference in your leveling speed. Keep an eye out for vendors or players selling these items, and always be prepared with a supply of consumables and buffs before heading into challenging areas or dungeons.

Best Warlock Leveling Spec

Unlike other classes in the game, Warlocks are a pure-DPS class, able only to perform the damage role in each of their three specs. These three talent trees that Warlocks are able to allocate talents into are Affliction, Demonology and Destruction. Each spec carries with it a very different play-style, giving the class a lot of versatility in how it can be played. Players can attune their talent choices and spec decisions to create a build that suits their aspirations and needs with regards to gameplay and play-style.

Affliction is the recommended spec for beginner players to build into, as for solo leveling, which most new players to the game will normally focus on, this spec is the best out of the other Warlock specializations. Affliction warlocks have great damage, sustainability, and utility which makes them a great spec to select for solo leveling and can also be a great choice for endgame PvP should you want to go down that route once you are level 80. 

Demonology on the other hand offers players with the strongest Warlock pet of the other three specs – the Felguard – but consequently it is also the most gear-dependant spec, and as a result not a recommended spec for new players at least not to level as. Demonology Warlocks are particularly efficient at dungeon-crawling due to having massive AoE and burst damage potential once the Demonology tree has been followed down to the Metamorphosis ability. Which lends itself great for dungeon leveling and endgame content.

Destruction is the weakest of the three specs with regards to the leveling, with a primary focus on this play-style of single-target damage, which even then, oftentimes underperforms the Affliction Warlock’s damage output. Destruction Warlocks can be a fairly fun spec to play however, so for beginner players it is still recommended to build towards an Affliction Warlock on your first build. This spec can be explored later on by resetting your talents from one of the vendors allowing this service in the main cities.

As outlined, the fastest two specs for Warlocks to level as are Affliction – if you wish to focus mostly on questing – and Demonology – if you wish to focus on dungeons.

Dungeons or Quests?

Warlocks have always been great levelers that provide an easy and safe questing experience mostly in part due to their pets and sustainability abilities. As such, questing as a Warlock can be a great focus for leveling in Wrath of the Lich King, and can be done in a highly efficient manner even as a solo player. As opposed to other classes that tend to find solo questing a much slower experience.

Dungeon leveling in Wrath of the Lich King is a highly effective way to accumulate the experience needed to level effectively, and Warlocks can benefit from a dungeon-focused leveling experience as with all types of dungeon leveling, it is largely dependent on having a good dungeon group. Which is easier for experienced players as they mostly have friends or guilds to help them with, but as a new solo player, finding a reliable and consistent party to dungeon crawl with can be a challenge in its own.

It is recommended that new players rely on quests for the majority of their experience gain as a Warlock. And do the occasional dungeon relevant to their level whilst acquiring the dungeon-specific quests, and completing them at least once for above-average quest rewards and experience.

Tips for Leveling a Warlock

The following are some general tips that can be following to benefit your Warlock leveling experience and are class-specific to Warlocks. These tips can be loosely followed; however, each one can enhance your leveling experience, especially as a new player. These tips are as follows: 

• Due to having no healing spec as a Warlock, it is advised that players of the class acquire the First Aid profession early on in the game as it provides bonus healing and sustainability to the class kit. Warlocks also eventually acquire the Healthstone ability, which can alleviate some of the healing that would otherwise be bestowed upon First Aid. During the leveling experience First Aid is a great use of one of the profession slots and can make leveling much smoother.
• Make sure to always refresh Damage over Time (DoTs) abilities when they are close to running out. Most Warlock playstyles revolve around applying DoTs at the beginning of a fight, and then dealing damage from other sources whilst the DoT abilities ‘tick’ for damage. As a new player, you should try to time your casts and recasts of abilities so that you reapply your Damage over Time’s right as they are about to end. There are also third-party addons that you can install that will provide added help for this, such as highlighting a DoT ability on your action bar once it has run out of its effect.
• Drain Tanking can be a great way to level. Drain Tanking revolves around having a high-damage pet accompany you, such as a Succubus, whilst applying all of your DoTs to the target and then proceeding to attack with your wand’s basic attack or utilizing the Drain Life ability if you have acquired the ability (post level 30/38). This is a great playstyle for single-target DPS and can be useful for solo levelers as it allows a single Warlock to take on powerful foes such as rare spawns, elites, or above-average HP quest mobs.
• Utilize your wand’s basic attack. Warlocks rely a lot on their wands basic attack in between applying DoTs when they begin to expire, and so you should have the wand basic attack ability bound somewhere on your action bar, so that you can begin blasting targets with your wand to minimize downtime.
• As outlined above, remember that Affliction Warlocks lend itself best for solo quest-reliant leveling, whilst Demonology Warlocks provides a better dungeon-reliant leveling experience.

Warlock Professions

The best profession for Warlocks to acquire are easily Engineering and Tailoring. One such example of this is the access that the profession provides to Lightweave Embroidery which gives the chance to proc the Lightweave passive ability that gives the character an increase of +295 spell power.

Engineering on the other hand can also be beneficial for Warlocks, for example by provision of the HyperSpeed Accelerators that the profession includes which has an on-use cooldown with a +340 haste rating bonus.

Needless to say, the Warlock is a cloth-wearing class, and so Tailoring also plays itself well to the classes gear acquisition, as at max-level and even during the leveling process players can craft themselves cloth gear to fill in any low-tiered pieces that require replacement. At max level, both crafting professions also can provide a reliable source of gold income for Warlocks.

Other useful professions for the Warlock class include Jewelcrafting, Alchemy, Enchanting and Inscription.

Important Class Quests

As with all classes in the Wrath of the Lich King Classic, Warlocks are no different in that they have class-specific quests available to acquire from their class trainers that can be found scattered around the world. Lots of these quests reward the class with essential abilities to the playstyle of the class. The following is a list of each of the important class-specific quests for Warlocks that should be completed, especially as a new player to both the class and the game.

Not only do they provide a trivial and interesting outlook to the lore of the class from a story perspective, but as mentioned prior, they reward the player with essential abilities and tools for the classes kit that can be utilized for multiple playstyles of the class. The list of such class-specific quests for Warlocks that should be considered are as follows:

• Pet Quests - all of the Warlock pets are rewarded via the class-specific quests available at your class trainer, unlike the hunter class whereby pets can be trained and acquired via the taming said beast in the open world. Pets are an integral part of the Warlock leveling experience, such as by utilization in Drain Tanking playstyles and builds, the Demonology specialization in general, and Affliction threat management.
• The first pet that is available as a reward from a class quest is the Imp pet, available for Warlocks to pickup from level one, and is an easy quest available in the starter zone of a Warlock. All the first minor ‘hubs’ that players will begin in that feature an innkeeper and vendors will also feature on of the class trainers available for the race that the starter zone belongs too – and this is where players will acquire their initial class quests and also training for abilities and the like. The Imp pet is great early-game pet but will soon be replaced as it is not one of the best Warlock pets in the game. Its damage and utility outperformed by the pets later to come; however this is still an essential pet to pickup as the early levels can be much harder without the added DPS provided by an Imp.
• Voidwalkers are the second pet Warlocks gain access to via the Class Quest, available to pick up at level 10. This quest is also beneficial for players as it will require the player to venture to their first faction-specific major city, which can be a great time to acquire the flight paths to the major city as this will come in handy in the future when they are far but require one of the services available. Voidwalkers are the first tanking pet that Warlocks acquire, and can be a great companion for the leveling experience as it allows Warlocks to keep distance from enemies whilst not having to kite as the Voidwalker pet excels at holding aggro and threat whilst dealing mediocre damage output. The Voidwalker pet can be used for the entire questing experience if players prefer a slower, more reliable speed of leveling especially throughout questing.
• The Succubus pet is a reward from a level 20 Warlock-class quest, which involves a lot of moving around from zone to zone, but eventually rewards the player with the Succubus pet which is again a very useful pet, primarily effective in PvP and against humanoid targets thanks to its ability to interrupt and distract foes. Again, this pet is a good addition to the Warlocks arsenal and should not be skipped over.
• At level thirty, Warlocks will be given access to the Felhunter pet quest chain, and this is arguably the best Warlock companion for Drain Tanking and high damage questing leveling. Felhunter’s are the Warlocks preferred companion during PvE content also, and so this is an essential class-quest that cannot be skipped as it is integral to the Warlocks damage-output.
• Inferno pets are also rewarded from a level 50 Warlock class quest and give the Warlock the ability to summon an Infernal to fight by their side. Unlike other pets however, the Infernal will only fight by the side of a Warlock for 5 minutes before being banished from the world and sent back to the Twisting Nether. The Inferno ability also stuns all targets nearby for 2 seconds as well as dealing a significant amount of AoE damage. This ability can also be used alongside already-summoned pets, and so it is a very useful ability to have in the Warlocks kit.
• Similarly to the Paladin class, Warlocks also acquire a class-specific mount at level 40, named the Felsteed. This mount is the result of a quest chain that gives players the ability Summon Felsteed, and as such can be highly useful for new players as it negates the need to spend gold on a mount that would otherwise be necessary for other classes. Mounts provide a much-needed mobility bonus in larger zones, as following the starter zones, quests and areas of focus tend to be more spread out, and thus players must travel a lot more throughout the zone to complete quests and accumulate experience. Having a mount can cut the travel time down a lot and maintain an efficient leveling experience.
• At level 60, Warlocks can also acquire a second mount named the Dreadsteed via a class-specific quest. And although it is a lengthy quest chain, not only does it provide a fun and trivial insight to the Warlock classes lore and such, but even with the assumed cost of materials needed to complete the quest should you have to purchase them separately (although this is where friends and guild mates can come in handy) it is still a cheaper method of acquiring an end-game ground mount. The Dreadsteed is also a cool, Warlock only mount that can lend itself well to RP scenarios.

End-Game Considerations

Warlocks perform great in either PvE or PvP situations at level 80 in Wrath of the Lich King Classic, and as discussed earlier in this guide, one of the three Warlock specs routinely appear in the top of the damage meters in both aspects of endgame content. As such, newly leveled Warlocks can easily find their place in the game whichever route they decide to follow. It is advised that once you reach max level, you dedicate your time to learning how best to perform your class in whichever discipline you have chosen, and for whichever end-game content focus you decide on.