WoW newbie looking for advice

[Lissa]

Some addendum for Triggerhappy

The Warlock is a very different animal than the Necromancer. The Necromancer ran with a horde of minions, the Warlock runs with one. Curses here are different as well, you will have debilitating (Curse of Weakness, Curse of Tongues), Damage boosting (Curse of the Elements, Curse of Shadows, Curse of Recklessness), and damage doing(Curse of Agony, Curse of Doom). Curse of Weakness is never used (it's just a stop gap until you get some of the other curses), Curse of Tongues is only used against casters (mostly in PvP, occasionally in PvE for specific fights), Curse of the Elements/Shadows/Recklessness is used to boost damage through Fire and Frost/Shadow and Arcane/Physical respectively, Curse of Agony is a 24 second DoT that ramps up damage every few ticks, and Curse of Doom is a straight shot of damage after one minute.

One thing to note about Curse of Recklessness, it also make the mob immune to fear which can be very helpful if the mob will run to get help from others, but switching to CoR as the mob is about to run, it will stay or will return if it has started to run. Warlocks that are quite proficient with it's use can literally control where a mob goes by using CoR, another Curse, and Fear.

I'm afraid pets are mostly unreliable as a warlock, though.

Not really, the problem is people don't learn how to use the pets effectively. Ideally, if you learn how the pet is used, it will end up giving you maximum effectiveness.

You can also only have one at a time.

-The imp is the first and most basic minion a warlock gets. It casts fireballs and can go into phase-mode where it cannot be attacked (though in order to attack, it will have to stop phasing). It also provides a very valuable stamina buff.

You'll use this guy until you get a Voidwalker or when you're grouping mostly. The imp itself is pretty fragile, he cannot tank, and will only be a minor speed bump for most mobs. If you need to run however, he can give you a little bit of a lead if you don't have too much aggro over him (he should be able to pull a mob back to himself, more if you're good with multitargetting).

-The voidwalker is the second minion which you get at level 10. It's the tank, the minion that's supposed to take all the hits -- but it's not good at it.

The problem people have with the Voidwalker (nicknamed Blueberry) tanking is when they get near to a new decade level (x0, his new taunt happens every 10 levels, so 20, 30, 40, etc) or when they don't recognize how to cast their DoTs to give the Blueberry enough of a lead. If you're going to go nuts with damage, the Blueberry isn't going to be effective, on the other hand, if you are patient, the Blueberry will hold the mob until it dies, usually running your DoTs like Curse of Agony, wait a second, Corruption, wait a second, Immolate, and Blueberry will hold the mob (unless you're getting close to x0, then you have to space the DoTs a little more).

-The succubus is the third minion, acquired at level 20 (though an annoying questline, I must say). It's provides damage dealing and crowd control in the form of seduce. Unfortunately it has almost no health and no armor and it dies very easily.

This is the DPS/CC pet. Mostly she is used to assist you with DPS and to CC an additional Humanoid mob if you have two. The Ho (as many call her) is usually used in concert with Drain tanking (get to that more in a moment). Typically if you are dealing with a mob or two, she'll be beating on the same mob that you are drain tanking.

-The felhunter is the fourth minion, acquired at level 30. It is your primary pet versus other spell casters, as it can interrupt their spells and dispel their buffs.

This pet is mostly used for PvP (nicknamed Puppy or Doggy). The damage the felhunter produces is not that high and in general PvE play you're better off using either a Blueberry or Ho. In PvP is where they shine however, being able to shut down opposition casters as well as helping with seeing stealthed Rogues and Druids (through Paranoia). In PvP, the good Warlocks are either using a Puppy or using a Felguard (if they are that deep in demonology).

-The infernal and the doomguard are mostly the same: pure damage pets with no true special abilities. You also eventually lose control of them and have to cast Enslave Demons to keep them. I am not sure when you get them, but I believe you get the infernal at level 50 and the doomguard at level 60. I do not think anyone uses these pets anymore.

These two pets are rarely used by most. The Infernal gets used more than the Doomguard because of it's PvP uses. The Doomguard, while being able to put out a large amount of damage, is not worth the trouble it takes to summon one (either using the summoning spell which kills one of your party members or by use of Curse of Doom and hoping CoD kills the mob and it triggers a Doomguard and you then have to enslave it). The quests for both come and 50 and 60 respectively for the summons (Curse of Doom also comes at 60), but you will likely not do the quests until you are a bit higher (the Infernal quest can be soloed when you achieve 53 with difficulty as the mob you must take down is 57, unless they changed that recently).

Now, Draintanking. What this is is the use of Drain Life with certain Talents to make it rarely end up being interrupted. You DoT up the target mob with Corruption, Immolate, and Curse of Agony and then use Drain Life and Life Tap to keep your health and mana up. If done correctly, you should have no downtime or very little at all.

Also, I would look at more than just the Undead for Warlock. Both the Orc and the Blood Elf have some useful racial abilities that can help out immensely, especially if you plan to do any PvP (Orc are more resistant to stun and Blood Elves can silence and drain off some mana). So before you definitely make the plung at going with Undead, take a look at the racials of the other two Horde Warlocks before making your decision (going Blood Elf will require you to get the expansion, but it's worth getting).