The Art of Warlock

warlock

O.E. wærloga "traitor, liar, enemy," from wær "faith, a compact" (cf. O.H.G. wara "truth," O.N. varar "solemn promise, vow;" see very; cf. also Varangian) + agent noun related to leogan "to lie" (see lie (v.1)). Original primary sense seems to have been "oath-breaker;" given special application to the devil (c.1000), but also used of giants and cannibals. Meaning "one in league with the devil" is recorded from c.1300. Ending in -ck and meaning "male equivalent of witch" (1568) are from Scottish.

I used to be a Roleplayer (RP) in days long past and a lot of times playing games these days that are completely devoid of RP the urge often strikes me to give a little bit more depth to the characters I play.

So I looked up the definition of a warlock, took another look at the options I have in WoW and decided to 'amplify' the RP aspect of my warlock a bit.

Of course as in all things I had to strike a balance between 'evil warlockness' and earning myself a swift /gkick.

So here it is, the compendium of warlockness. The art of being a miserable creature of evil in the wonderful world of warlocks euh... warcraft.


Premise

These people are not your friends. In fact they hate you. They hate the fact that you drain souls, drain life, drain mana, cast fear, dots and do more damage than a mage without even as much as breaking a sweat. They hate the fact that your DPSness can be self-sufficient and they have been crying to nerf you since the advent of time itself.

And yet they force you into their pitiful alliances to exploit our ability to summon, enslave and banish. These people are not your friends, at best they are cumbersome tools present only to serve you... the warlock.


General Behaviour guidelines

1. Every kill is worth it. Be it rat, monster, elite, boss or guild member every kill is good and the gorier the better. A warlock should never pass up the opportunity to inflict a random death upon some unsuspecting stranger. Souls power our dark arts and there is no finer glove than that made out of fluffy bunnies. When in doubt: eat babies.

2. Never quite do exactly what someone wants. Someone needs a healthstone? Rank 1 will do just fine. Someone needs a summon? Only over a lava pit. You are not a vending machine... your powers are far more precious than to waste on some silly party member who thinks he's entitled to some buff. If something needs done then it deserves to be done badly.

3. Talk to yourself or your imp. No one else is really worthy of your time nor will ever understand the infinite wisdom that is the warlock mind. All whispers should be treated like email, read, but only answered when you feel like it. Questions are preferably answered with questions and any whisper that can't be warped into something completely off-topic is most likely not worth answering.

4. Never do nothing. Die running, annoy people with your eye of kilrogg, send your imp packing to the very end of the instance... do something, anything. Lesser being sit and drink, warlocks have better things to do.

5. There is no shame in death. You're a warlock, death is part of life. Seek out death in creative ways. The more you die the more you will come to understand life.

Spells & Talents

There's a wide variety of spells available to the warlock. Each with their unique ability but while most are quite clearly used to smite unsuspecting foes or infect passer-by's with a nifty affliction some have hidden utility.

Healthstone: Max rank healthstones should be reserved for personal use. If other people were meant to have healthstones then they would be able to create them themselves. Rival DPS should always be given a rank 1 healthstone to maximize their deaths and minimize their competition on the damage charts. Other ranks of healthstones should simply be distributed according to your whim. Reward those that serve you well, downgrade or even simply forget the ones that are more interested in their own goals or god-forbid work for the good of the guild.

Soulstones: Generally soulstones should be reserved for yourself. Your soulstone ideally should be on cooldown or on pretend cooldown whenever someone asks for it. When in doubt sell your soulstone to the highest bidder outside your raid group / party.
When forced to apply a soulstone because the RL has determined that it's obviously off cooldown 'accidentally' target the person that requested it rather than the target that was supposed to get the soulstone. Pretend you didn't notice.

Hellfire: When there is even the slightest indication that your group may die (usually indicated by the MT falling on his/her face) run out of range of your healers whilst lifetapping and then commit suicide via hellfire. Due to the nature of the spell a death by hellfire counts as a death by player and does not incur a durability penalty. Should your group happen to win despite your estimation you will still be able to loot the enemy, should your group fail miserably then you just saved yourself a repair bill.

Rain of fire: Whenever your group is fighting enemies that can cast rain of fire you should remember your own rain of fire spell. Cast a rank 1 rain of fire on your healers or DPS to demonstrate the superiority of DoT based combat. Leave no chance un-taken to disturb DPSers that rely on casting time.

Ritual of Summoning: Some uncreative warlocks consider this the bane of their existance. Requests for summons come frequently but will subside following these simple rules: A ritual of summoning portal should always appear over a cliff, a large pool of lava, within aggro range of at least 1 high level elite, at least 1000 yards underwater or some other undesireable / remote location. Always reject a request for a summon and never supply a reason that makes sense ("I am sorry, I can't summon you since you don't have a translocator beacon"). When a warlock is treated as a cab service the trip should always cost the customer it's life.

Eye of Kilrogg: A vastly underestimated warlock tool. Use it to peek up lady's dresses, jump it up and down in front of the maintank to disturb his vision and as an indication that he's not fast enough. And with enough patience and practice it can even be used to pull elites. Of course when pulling monsters pull them 'away' from the party so that when the eye finally does disappear the pulled mob will leesh back to it's original position hopefully just as the unsuspecting main tank pulls the next squad of mobs.

Summon Imp: There is no greater ally in your endevours than your pet imp. Nothing can touch a phased imp and in combination with the eye of kilrogg it is a tool that can wipe even the best of parties. Send your eye past the next room, target a mob and send your imp to attack. The imp, phased as he is, will run past a whole bunch of mobs without aggroing them, finally die to the target it was supposed to attack thus resulting in a chain reaction of mobs heading your way.
The imps fire shield can also be used to endlessly annoy a specific party member. With no cooldown and a very low mana cost it can be recast ad-infinitum on the same target resulting in a large fiery shield appearing above their head time and time again. Ideal timing (for example just before a pull) often results in a party member with severely frayed nerve endings exposed.

Fear: Fear instills fear in even the best of groups. Fear is seen as the universal uncontrollable CC, hated in pvp for it's utility and shunned in instances for it's tendency to send a mob packing into other mobs. What few people other than warlocks know is that fear can indeed be cancelled by a swift curse of recklessness. As a result a warlock should fear hard and fear often creating as much chaos as possible. Most classes are not equipped to deal with feared targets very well, a warlock whose practiced in the arts on the other hand can easily juggle 2 or 3 feared targets in a very controlled manner. Don't let the elitists tell you what to do, fear is the panultimate CC and not using it is a crime.

Howl of Terror: Hit it, hit it often, call it an accident if you will or blame the priest. Howl of terror is ideal in situations where you are under attack, it sends the mobs packing and gives you valuable time to commit a hellfire suicide. Just because the tank died doesn't mean you have to be killed by some stupid monster. Avoid repair bills at all cost, there's no shame in using abilities you have.

Searing pain: A spell with surprising utility. Not only is it fairly well spammable it also leaves no trace in the air of it's origin. Stand in a ditch and spam dots and searing pain all day on unsuspecting passer's by without the to-be-lamented trace of dirt in the air that shadow bolts and other spells leave. Also highly useful in situations where people claim that their threat is far superior to yours... Frustrate the main tank to no end who will forever wonder why in the blazes he can't create enough threat to hold aggro away from you.

Unending breath: Yet another spell with surprising utility. Encourage your party members to swim in the ocean. Hand out unending breath, liberally... but only once. Lesser beings will forget that the buff has a duration or will expect you to rebuff when it runs out. This of course will never happen.


... To be continued.