Warlock talent analysis Affliction . Look and Feel . Affliction Warlocks are the masters of slow kills , and agonizing drains . With spells like Siphon Life and Drain Life , they can slowly but steadily bring down an enemy , while feeding on its suffering and death . And utilizing abilities such as Fears and Drains properly allows them to take on several enemies at once , or handle single enemies extremely efficiently . And with extremely high mobility and a seemingly endless bag of tricks , they can be some of the most fun farmers in the game , and easily the most efficient . Second Opinion : Affliction warlocks suffer from extremely poor scaling in upper end PvE when you begin to encounter gear upgrades with a lot of Haste and Crit rating on them because your DoTs ( around 60 % of your damage output ) don ' t scale to any significant degree with Haste , and doesn ' t scale at all with Crit . While WotLK will bring " some " Crit scaling to Corruption and Unstable Affliction it will be minimal at best while Haste rating on gear is almost unavoidable from the moment you enter Northrend . Analysis . Some of the Affliction talents are better than others . The following is intended to be a consensus of opinion on the various talents in this tree . Demonology . Look and Feel . A Demonology Warlock will ( obviously ) function much better with his Demon minion , produce more effective Healthstone for himself and his party members , and have ( in some ways ) greater combat survivability due to his damage reduction and higher stamina . An experienced player can make a Demonology Warlock " very " dangerous in PvP situations . They have one of the highest damage tolerances of any class when soul linked . Unlike warriors , ALL damage , including magic , is cut by 20 % , as well as an additional 10 % physical if you have your Voidwalker out . This doesn ' t limit a Warlock ' s offensive ability in the same way that defensive stance limits a Warrior in the same situations . Fel Domination and Master Summoner allow for very quick summoning of Demons , especially if large quantities of Soul Shards are on hand via a Soul Bag . Demonology Warlocks will summon and sacrifice their demons quite rapidly , making it difficult for opposing players or boss mobs to focus their attention on any one threat . In group environments , Master Demonologist provides tailored utility , and supports a variety of roles . Instances and PvE situations will be easier . Analysis . Some of the Demonology talents are better than others . The following is intended to be a consensus of opinion on the various talents in this tree . Destruction . Look and Feel . The two words you must remember when thinking of Destruction Warlocks are : " Burst " and " Damage " . That ' s what Destruction Warlocks are good at . Actually , it ' s really " all " they ' re good at . Where an Affliction Warlock couldn ' t kill a Rat quickly if he needed to , high level Destruction Warlocks can take out non - elite enemies three level s above them in very short order . Because most of a destruction warlock ' s damage lies within huge crits , gearing a destruction lock is very different from affliction or demonology and thus playing one feels more like a mage , yet they retain the basic feel of a lock with fears and the ability to heal themselves . Second Opinion : A succubus can hold aggro as well as a voidwalker . If you are playing a dest warlock , it doesnt matter . Both of them will never hold enough aggro for you to land your shadowbolts . Learn to use your non dest spells when grinding . Like . . . COA , Corr and maybe immolate . Quick note : Succ with 2 / 2 lash of pain can hold aggro pretty well if you used only the 3 DOT spells you have . And those 3 spells is enough to kill most mobs your level ( with a bit of wanding , kiting ) Second Opinion : He is correct to a certain extent , but at level 70 , with DS / SnF build , you can just spam your shadowbolt the entire fight in PVE raids without casting another spell and easily top the Damage meters in raids for spell casters . Althought a mage can burst really well , warlocks can position themselves with seduce before they open their barrage of spells in pvp . ( In arenas , that ' s a different story ) Analysis . Some of the destruction talents are better than others . The following is intended to be a consensus of opinion on the various talents in this tree . Second Opinion : Contrary to common belief and sentiments that this skill is absolutely crappy ( you can read the blizzard forums ) , it is actually very decent snare when it does proc . Highly useful in PVP when it procs . Since as a dest lock , you basically have no forms of defense other than fear , death coil , Seduce ( if you have your succ out ) , or VW shield ( no much reason why you would be using him anyway ) . Though unrealiable , doing a Seduce - > COE - > Soulfire - > Shadowbolt - > Immolate - > Conflag greatly increases the chance of it proccing . Second Opinion : Useless skill unless you have some way to reliably recover mana for your pet . It shoots firebolts too fast for its mana to recover and unlike succ , imp cant attack if it doesnt have any mana . If the imp is for blood pact duty , it is even worse since it is usually placed with the tanks and basically in phase shift mode it which it is doing 0 damage . Second Opinion : I used to use this alot , and I liked it because it actually can hold some aggro which I kill the mob . The decent damage output is also good for pvp after you have done your 3 x seduce ritual . Just watch out for your pet ' s mana as it makes their mana run out fast . Second Opinion : This talent together with aftermath is one those talents in which others constantly rate them 1 star out of 5 stars . Although 26 % stun over the entire duration of your hellfire and rain of fire is really low . But , 26 % chance to stun on your soulfire is not . If you are deep into destruction . You would usually open your pvp with a COE + Soulfire on a seduced target . The 1 / 4 chance to stun is basically an instant win most of the cases if it does procs .