Warlock.
Your Arena of Champions guide.

Your Warlock game plan

Warlock separates persistent spell pressure from a more pet-dependent plan. Affliction layers periodic effects and can punish dispels; Demonology adds a controllable demon whose talent-selected identity changes its utility. The common toolkit offers fear, draining, a Healthstone and Life Tap, but those buttons ask for different risks. Our advice is to build an exchange that remains useful while the enemy moves, then spend control to protect the casts that matter. A large collection of active damage effects is not automatically good pressure if it also destroys the control your partner needs.

Choose your Warlock specialization

Affliction

DamageA tier

Affliction can make a pair’s pressure persist while offering a different resource-oriented problem for a healer. This profile values that continuity and shared control, rather than claiming a particular damage-over-time setup wins every long match.

Unstable Affliction

A specialization damage-over-time application.

Curse of Agony

Continuing pressure on the selected target.

Drain Mana

A resource-pressure option against a suitable opponent.

Watch the tradeoff: Several applications and a drain ask for time and attention. Continuing damage can also conflict with a partner’s damage-breakable control plan.

Try this: Keep the kill target and the intended control target explicit before spreading continuing damage across the opposing pair.

See the placement notes →

Demonology

DamageB tier

Demonology brings a distinctive companion-and-durability plan, but a coordinated pair must account for the selected demon and its contribution. We place it provisionally where that extra management is visible rather than treating pet output as automatic.

Hand of Gul'dan

A named offensive spell within the demon-focused specialization.

Call Dreadstalkers

A temporary companion-pressure tool.

Demonic Empowerment

A support action for the selected demon package.

Watch the tradeoff: An attractive companion option can change available utility. Do not combine every possible demon choice into a fictional always-active loadout.

Try this: Read what the first talent actually selects, then build your partner communication around that demon’s real tools.

See the placement notes →

Affliction: make recovery uncomfortable

Corruption and Immolate supply shared periodic pressure, while Affliction adds Unstable Affliction and Curse of Agony. Unstable Affliction carries a specific dispel backlash that damages and silences the dispeller. We would use that threat to complicate recovery rather than assume the opponent must always leave every effect untouched. Fear and Howl of Terror break after damage crosses their recorded thresholds, so spreading damage onto a control target has a cost. Drain Mana is another pressure option against a resource user, but it occupies a channel that could otherwise be spent casting, moving or preserving your own health.

Demonology: choose the demon for a job

The initial Demonology row changes the main demon: Felguard brings Intercept's stun, Felhunter replaces it with Spell Lock, and Succubus replaces it with breakable Seduction. Those are alternative packages, not three simultaneous pet-control buttons. We would pick according to the stop your team lacks and then practice Pet Attack and Pet Follow around that choice. Call Dreadstalkers adds temporary attackers; Demonic Empowerment requires a pet and strengthens it. Hand of Gul'dan damages the enemy and buffs minions. Keep the demon's survival and target assignment visible rather than treating it as an unattended background damage source.

Pay health only when the exchange allows it

Life Tap exchanges health for Mana. We would use a safe resource window instead of tapping just because the Mana bar is not full, especially when enemy damage is about to arrive. Drain Life returns health through its channel but needs time to function. Death Coil combines damage, a fear effect and self-healing, giving it both offensive and recovery uses. Healthstone is recorded as a physical action and remains an option under silence; that does not make it a universal escape from every control state. Shadowflame's cone adds close-range slowing pressure, so its facing and timing matter when melee opponents arrive.