From EU forums, by DrShoe. Unfortunately this isn’t a sticky there, but should be.
DrShoeÕs guide of Warlock Talents:
Hi, this is a post to summarise most common warlock builds, and a brief explanation of each one:
[A] = must have
[B] = in my opinion preferable
[C] = down to personal preference
PvE builds:
MD/ruin for end game lvl60 pve, see build later
Dark-pact / Master summoner:
Affliction
[A] Improved Corruption Rank 5
[C] Improved Drain Soul Rank 2
[B] Improved Life Tap Rank 2
[B] Improved Drain Life Rank 5
[A] Fel Concentration Rank 5
[C] Amplify Curse Rank 1
[B] Grim Reach Rank 2
[A] Nightfall Rank 2
[A] Siphon Life Rank 1
[A] Shadow Mastery Rank 5
[A] Dark Pact Rank 1
Affliction Total: 31
Demonology
[B] Improved Imp Rank 3
[B] Demonic Embrace Rank 5
[B] Fel Intellect Rank 5
[A] Fel Domination Rank 1
[C] Fel Stamina Rank 4
[A] Master Summoner Rank 2
Demonology Total: 20
In my opinion, this is the best pve build by far. I used this all the way to lvl60. The key is to use your succubus after around lv25 and drain tank. With the help of shadow mastery, improved drain life and fel concentration, you max out the dps of life drain and you rarely get an interrupt.
The key to this build is you never need to drink, since a combination of imp drain life, and imp life tap actually gives you more HP and mana after a fight, which makes up for your CoA, corruption and immolate. This also lets you take on up to 3 mobs with relative ease, since your succubus can tank 1-2 while you take out the first one.
After you get dark pact, mana is even easier to come by, especially with fel intellect.
The down side to this is maybe that a darkpact/destruction build may be better at pvp, and when you get jumped, but when I lvled up, the honour system wasnÕt even implemented.
PvP builds:
SM/ruin:
Affliction
[B] Suppression Rank 3
[A] Improved Corruption Rank 5
[B] Improved Life Tap Rank 2
[B] Fel Concentration Rank 5
[B] Amplify Curse Rank 1
[B] Grim Reach Rank 2
[A] Nightfall Rank 2
[A] Siphon Life Rank 1
[B] Curse of Exhaustion Rank 1
[B] Improved Curse of Exhaustion Rank 3
[A] Shadow Mastery Rank 5
Affliction Total: 30
Destruction
[B] Improved Shadow Bolt Rank 5
[A] Bane Rank 5
[B] Improved Firebolt Rank 2
[A] Devastation Rank 5
[A] Shadowburn Rank 1
[B] Destructive Reach Rank 2
[A] Ruin Rank 1
Destruction Total: 21
The Òbest warlock build everÓ, according to these forums, thanks to Mosh. This build maximises the shadow dmg of a warlock. 3k crits are easy with this build. In conjunction with seduce spam, this is powerful indeed.
It contains CoEx and siphon life, which many people like, I think the new improvements in demon and destro trees make this build less good than it use to be, but never the less, I enjoyed this build very much.
MD/ruin:
Demonology
[C] Improved Healthstone Rank 2
[B] Improved Imp Rank 3
[B] Demonic Embrace Rank 5
[C] Fel Intellect Rank 5
[B] Improved Succubus Rank 1
[A] Fel Domination Rank 1
[A] Master Summoner Rank 2
[A] Unholy Power Rank 5
[B] Demonic Sacrifice Rank 1
[A] Master Demonologist Rank 5
Demonology Total: 30
Destruction
[B] Improved Shadow Bolt Rank 5
[A] Bane Rank 5
[B] Improved Firebolt Rank 2
[A] Devastation Rank 5
[A] Shadowburn Rank 1
[B] Destructive Reach Rank 2
[A] Ruin Rank 1
Destruction Total: 21
The replacement of SM/ruin. It does even more dmg (succubus +10% applies after items, SM applies before), and is more versatile (instant summoning, felhunter mass resistance, demonic sacrifice for long boss fights or AV), with more stamina (demonic embrace).
The down side is the lack of CoEx, siphon life, instance corruption, and the ability I missed the most à nighfall. Whether it is worth giving up these affliction talents for the demonology benefits is entirely up to personal preference. Also, demonology build uses more shards than affliction, which is not good in long pvp sessions.
Nightfall/conflagate:
Affliction
[B] Suppression Rank 3
[A] Improved Corruption Rank 5
[B] Improved Life Tap Rank 2
[B] Fel Concentration Rank 5
[B] Grim Reach Rank 2
[A] Nightfall Rank 2
Affliction Total: 19
Destruction
[B] Improved Shadow Bolt Rank 5
[B] Bane Rank 5
[B] Improved Firebolt Rank 2
[A] Devastation Rank 5
[A] Shadowburn Rank 1
[B] Destructive Reach Rank 2
[A] Improved Immolate Rank 5
[A] Ruin Rank 1
[B] Emberstorm Rank 5
[A] Conflagrate Rank 1
Destruction Total: 32
My current build, and IÕm loving it. Consider this after a nightfall proc:
Immolate, conf; (350+600 dmg, 2.3 seconds with pvp set, 2.5 seconds with normal)
Immolate, (350 dmg, 1.3/1.5 seconds)
Shadowbolt (nightfall, 1 second, 500 dmg)
Shadowburn (550 dmg, 1 second)
Total: 6 seconds, 2350 dmg, without counting immolate, corruption dots and fire/shadow vulnerability and crits.
With my stuff (all blues, more or less) I have +180 spell dmg and +80 shadow, this gives around 2700 dmg in 5.6 seconds in the above sequence. Very nice indeed.
Although I have found a few problems, I run out of mana extremely quickly (I have 3900hp, 4300 mana atm), and it has around 400 less health than DM/ruin build, also, it is less good in instances than DM/ruin (no imp imp/hs, and no -20% threat, which I really need because I use my +dmg pvp stuff in MC)
Soullink/nightfall:
Demonology
[C] Improved Healthstone Rank 2
[B] Improved Imp Rank 3
[B] Demonic Embrace Rank 5
[C] Fel Stamina Rank 5
[B] Improved Succubus Rank 1
[A] Fel Domination Rank 1
[A] Master Summoner Rank 2
[A] Unholy Power Rank 5
[B] Demonic Sacrifice Rank 1
[A] Master Demonologist Rank 5
[A] Soul link Rank 1
Demonology Total: 31
Affliction
[B] Suppression Rank 4
[A] Improved Corruption Rank 5
[B] Improved Life Tap Rank 2
[B] Fel Concentration Rank 5
[B] Grim Reach Rank 2
[A] Nightfall Rank 2
Affliction Total: 20
Not a common build at all, although very hard to beat.
With a felhunter and fully buffed, you would get 5500+hp with blues and 6000+hp with epic sets. as well as 90 resistance to all magic. this makes you an extremely hard target to kill compared to a non soulink warlock. some say with this build, it’s possible to dot and drain tank an average rogue.
the main problem with this that once your pet is banished, you are pretty much screwed. And also soullink is dispellable (or at least it use to be).
I have seen some very successful warlocks with this build, it is down to personal preference, and personally, i prefer dmg to survivability.
These are all the common builds I can think of, there are a few others, like:
Full destruction à 37,42, or even 45 points in destruction rest are normally in demonic embrace, imp imp and imp corruption.
Soul link/Shadowburn à similar to SL/nightfall, but destruction tree instead of affliction.
Darkpact/destruction à Pvp version of my Òultimate grinding setupÓ, this build does reasonable dmg and never run out of mana.
Conf / Master summoner – similar to conf/nightfall, but more reliable. its basically the destruction tree of conf/nightfall + demonology down to master, specific talents are down to personal preferance.
Any comments about this post is welcome, I will change it accordingly.