Warlocks are really a series of 'mini builds', objective talents you really want, and avoiding the wasteful ones.
Newbies warlocks tend to pick non-functioning, or less useful talents. You basically don't know what's used for what and why, so end up making bad choices. Some talents are more useful than others, for oter reasons. I'll go over some of the talents, when and why to choose them.
Affliction tree commentary:
Your mini-tree objectives here are
1) Instant corruption 5 pts
2) Improved life tap 7 pts
3) Nightfall 17 pts
4) Curse of Exuastion / Siphon 26 pt
Keep these goals and costs in mind when building secondary trees.
Affliction Tier 1:
Suppression: This is an end game PvE talent. When leveling, don't choose this. In benefit gives you extended fear times before your dots / damage breaks fear, and enables you to tackle enemies higher than your level and ones with high resistences. In terms of leveling, you'll be battling enemies near your level, and generally don't resist much against your spells. 63e enemies in MC or UBRS / End game however do resist, so its worth considering for PvE.
vs
Instant Corruption: Absolute must early on. Enables you to cast your dot on the run, and greatly adds to your damage at early levels.
At end game, its a PvP talent. Not useful in 5 man or raid PvE content, except for occasional nightfall (instant shadowbolt proc talent). In pvp, extremely useful 1v1 and group when combined with nightfall.
Result: Instant Corruption (IC) all the way until end game, where IC turns into a mainly PvP talent, and then suppression can shine, but only if you're regularly raiding end game PvE content.
Extremely good talent from 1-60. Useless for 60+ PvE content. Great for PvP.
Affliction Tier 2:
Improved Life Tap: You'll be using life tap all the time by end game. 100 mana per tap x literally dozens of taps is a lot of mana. Always worth taking imo, but a few people have gone without.
Extremely useful, but you can live without.
Improved Life drain: The spell to use in between shadowbolt casts. You'll use it all the time, why not improve it, and the efficiency of dots --> lite tap --> life drain cycle.
Again, you have room to work with for personal preference between life drain and improved life tap. 20% more mana is generally better than 4% more damage in life drain, but its up to you. Later on, you'll decide what to use your 'swing' talent points in for personal preference.
The rest, Curse of Weakness / Agony / Drain soul simply either don't work or work extremely marginally. Do not invest in these.
Affliction Tier 3:
Fel concentration: The best affliction talent around. Allows you to life drain better, gather soul shards easier, and generally solo your way through everything. If you have 10 pts into affliction, this is the next 5 to get.
Absolute must get.
Amp Curse:
Useful, but not nearly as useful as fel concentration. Good for solo amped curse of agony, mainly invested in as a pre-req for Curse of Exhaustion.
Swing talent. Not needed if you don't grab Curse of Exhaustion.
Affliction Tier 4:
Nighfall: Whole point of getting 17 points into Affliction is Nightfall. Absolute must get if you're this far into the tree. Also, if you do get night fall, you must get instant corruption for NF to be useful. NF is also improved by Fel concentration.
Grim Reach: Moderate usefulness. Great for extending fear and life drain ranges, but really just gravy. You can live without it. This is a swing/personal preference talent.
Improved Drain mana-- Pure PvP talent, the only channeled spell that may crit. Worth getting if you do end up PvP'ing a lot, but generally no benefit PvE.
Affliction Tier 5:
Improved Curse of Exhaustion/ CoEx & Siphon life: Requires 26 pt investment into affliction to get these. They both improve PvP talents greatly, but CoEx requires full investment to be useful. Siphon helps your PvE life greatly if you're already this far invested.
CoEx is an absolute god in WSG. It the only snare which is both spammable with no cooldown and no diminising returns. It is also the technically weakest snare in the game in movement terms and duration terms (12 seconds only), but given you can spam it at range, it can be very powerful in PvP, especially WSG.
Tier 6:
Shadow Mastery: I'm hearing reports it now adds to damage after equipment, so its value has increased, but is still greatly valueable regardless. If you're down this far, max as much as you can unless you value another talent more.
Dark Pact: Godly talent. Infinite mana is just godly. Its better than ruin in all PvE content, as Ruin's damage is streaky and an aggro nightmare. Defintely the best leveling talent possible.
Go for affliction to level with. You won't regret it.
Sample affliction tree with PvE leveling in mind:
5/5 IC
2/2 iLT
3/5 iLD
5/5 FC
2/2 NF
1/1 AC
2/2 GR
1/1 SL
1/1 CoEx 3/4 iCoEx
5/5 SM
1/1 DP
Total points used: 31
If you enjoy PvP more (particularly WSG), swap 1 point from SM into fully improving CoEx.
End game PvE may require you to swap points from improved life drain, instant corruption, grim reach and or CoEx to Suppression. I'd recommend 3 points from life drain to suppression.
Consider Maxing Shadow Mastery when end-game with this build.
Destruction tree commentary:
The three mini tree objectives:
1) Shadowburn 11 pts
2) Improved Lash of Pain or Improved Firebolt 13 vs 12 pts
2) Ruin 21 pts
3) Conflagorate ~32 pts (full destruction build
Full destruction tree is different than other builds. You do not use shadowbolt as your nuke, so improved Shadow bolt is unwise. You take cataclysm instead. Immolate will be your best nuke, but mana costly. Pending the next patch, conflagorate will be instant, so even more useful to destruction locks.
Fully Improved Immolate and Emberstorm make for destruction warlocks. Searing pain is a worthy investment too.
Mainly, you go into destruction for shadowburn, or ruin when taking it as a secondary talent. At that point, you use iSB-->Bane-->Shadowburn, and possbly extra pet or crit damage depending on your tastes. Crit is better for end-game pve, but one point into improved firebolt or 2 points into lash of pain greatly add to your dps when you can use your pets.
Firebolt: The second point does not work. Don't invest 2 points into this. One point with the Improved Imp talent will bring your Imp's Burst dps to about 99 dps. However, this conflicts with a dark pact build, as imps will not be
Improved Lash of Pain: Best coupled with a demonology build. Coupled with improved succubus, leads to 98 dps from the pet at end game.
Destructive Reach/Intensity: is a personal preference / swing talent. Useful, but not that useful or necessary.
Aftermath/Intensity: Extremely low on the usefulness scale.
Sample Destruction build:
5/5 Cataclysm
5/5 Bane
1/1 Shadowburn
1/2 Improved Firebolt
5/5 Devastation
4/5 Searing pain
1/1 Ruin
5/5 Immolate
5/5 Emberstorm
1/1 Conflagorate
Total points used: 32.
Intensity / Grim Reach / Pyroclasm / Aftermath are all optional talents. None really needed.
Intensity: Most AoE situations are group where personal interruption doesn't matter, or can be survived with a VW sacrifice beforehand. Intensity does make it easier, but is entirely optional. Only grab it if you have points to spare (which you don't)
Grim Reach: Most fights are also within the 30 yd range. None require you to max range, and All deadly pvp situations will have people fighting inside your 30 yrd range. It does nicely aid Hellfire AoE range
Pyroclasm: Doesn't proc as often as stated. Its less actually than 2% chance to proc per wave, and most of the time you won't get the full 15 waves in. Also, the first wave is purely graphical and does not do actual damage to others or yourself while still taking mana.
Aftermath: Just a very weak talent. Not dependable whereas faster immolates will save your bum.
The rest of your investments improve all your important spells: Searing pain, Immolate, conflag.
Your last objectives are to gain
Instant Corruption, and Improved life tap. Possibly up to night fall, combine IC/iLT and DE/iHS/iImp... or fully improve 17 points into demonology
Fel domination / Master summoning and have two VW sacrifice shields available every 15 minutes.
Both are powerful combinations.
Demonology: Full of swing talents. Only marginally useful (no regrets avoiding) talents are Improved Enslave Demon, Firestone, fel intelliect/stam. Others gain and lose importance as you level.
Mini objectives (potential must haves)
DE/imp/HS Tier 1 Dem talents
Fel Domination Master summoner: 17 pts
Dem Sacrifice: 21 pts
Master Demonology: 30 pts
Soul link: 31 pts
Demonology Tier 1
Improved Imp: Fantastic all around talent choice. Best if you're grouped with main tank in PvE, otherwise stam bonus is not necessary. Coupled with improved firebolt (1/2), can achive astounding burst dps with imp.
No regrets getting Improved Imp in PvE terms. Not worth it if going Master Demonology for a damage focused build.
Demonic Embrace: No regrets getting this. Spirit is near useless to locks.
Improved Healthstone: Primarily PvP and Main tank talent, now that it works for groups. Up to 240 more hp for everyone in a pinch. Very nice.
All very good choices. Improved imp with impved firebolt turns your imp into a chain-gun. For fuller demonology, I suggest full DE and iHS.
Demonology Tier 2
Improved Voidwalker: Your voidwalker can hold aggro against end-game bosses with this talent (I've done it against Strat Baron, there's videos of VW against MC giants). That's how powerful your VW's aggro abilities are when improved.
Improved Health Funnel: Extremely useful when VW tanking when leveling. Loses shine when pets and VW stops being used to tank, and you turn into a damage machine.
Comment for Dem builds
Typically your first 10 points will go into Improved Health stone, Demonic Embrace, then your choice of Improved Imp or Voidwalker.
Demonology Tier 3 & 4
Improved Succubus:
Makes charming CC life a lot easier, and adds signifigiant dps from Succubus when coupled with fully improved Lash of Pain 2/2.
Fel Domination / Master summoning: Must haves in the demonology tree. Life with pets is much easier with halved mana and cast times. Even better when its near instant and minimum mana costs.
Unholy Power: Required for Master demonology. Fun talent. Best with an Orc. Grab it after Fel domination.
Demonology Tier 5
Improved Enslave Demon:
Only good when you're specifically going to summon doomguards against onyxia and MC bosses. Otherwise, don't bother unless you're low level and plan to respec at 60.
Imprved Firestone:
Make sure to get thrash blade from Maradaun if you plan to use this. Its a 'fun' talent. Very fun to melee with though.
Dem Sacrifice:
Absolute must get at 21 points if you've gone this far. Actual bonus varies, but very fun versatile talent.
Demonology Tier 6 & 7
Master Demonology:
Again, adds to your versalitility. MC spell damage that wipe others will feel like a gentle breeze with this talent, or lowers aggro generation or adds to your damage. All very good aspects.
PvE talent though. Not supreme in PvP, but does let you make mages into your personal playthings.
Soul link: Absolutely godly in solo and small 1-5 player engagements pvp and pve. You can tank and survive what no other casters can. Absolutely nothing can 1-2 shot you while this talent is up.
Combined with Intensity, you are one the ultimate stationary aoe'r. Hellfire self-damage is split between your and your pet, thus enabling you to hellfire for a very long time, and any damage you do take when stealing aggro is split too, thus you survive when mages won't.
Not without consequences, its mana costly and negates shielding buffs, so must be cancelled once your pet dies.
Fully Demonologists are demons in themselves: You can get up to 10-20k damage absorbtion using fully improved demonology talents and lock abilities. That's fairly insane. 2 VW shields va Fel Domination = 5200 damage absorbed, plus damage halved by soul link, and extra 1440 health from healthstone and health ganed from life drain.
Or... choose felhunter and avoid magic damage all together, fully halve or 2/3 damage from resistences alone. Even more is reversed from soul link. Magic damage is a breeze to you.
Improved Spellstone is not worth mentioning. Its reallya Tier 1 value talent having no place at the end of the Demonology tree. There are better places to spend this. Its actually less useful than improved healthstone. If it gave magical resistence or immunity for 30 seconds in addition to absorbtion, that would be interesting.
So, while you're low level, I recommend goingn the affliction tree I mentioned up through level 40. Then grab shadowburn or fel domination. I've gone through almost all builds, and Dark Pact/Shadowburn and Soul link / Nightfall were my two favorites. I currently use a hybrid of both, Soul link / Shadowburn / iLoP
Don't bother with crit / ruin until you're level 60. Go with the affliction build I recommended up through 40. That'll keep you busy for a few weeks, and give you maximum versatility. Curse of Exhaustion is worth 4-10% less damage in life drain / Shadowbolt, considering you have no escape/chase down options in PvE/PvP without it. (CoR is exception in PvE chase down, but you'll still want CoEx).
There's no arguement the build I suggest is a focused leveling build, that'll give you the option to escape and toy around in WSG early on. You'll also enjoy fear coupled with CoEx, as its far more controlled that way. Try it my way, you'll have no regrets.
Newbies warlocks tend to pick non-functioning, or less useful talents. You basically don't know what's used for what and why, so end up making bad choices. Some talents are more useful than others, for oter reasons. I'll go over some of the talents, when and why to choose them.
Affliction tree commentary:
Your mini-tree objectives here are
1) Instant corruption 5 pts
2) Improved life tap 7 pts
3) Nightfall 17 pts
4) Curse of Exuastion / Siphon 26 pt
Keep these goals and costs in mind when building secondary trees.
Affliction Tier 1:
Suppression: This is an end game PvE talent. When leveling, don't choose this. In benefit gives you extended fear times before your dots / damage breaks fear, and enables you to tackle enemies higher than your level and ones with high resistences. In terms of leveling, you'll be battling enemies near your level, and generally don't resist much against your spells. 63e enemies in MC or UBRS / End game however do resist, so its worth considering for PvE.
vs
Instant Corruption: Absolute must early on. Enables you to cast your dot on the run, and greatly adds to your damage at early levels.
At end game, its a PvP talent. Not useful in 5 man or raid PvE content, except for occasional nightfall (instant shadowbolt proc talent). In pvp, extremely useful 1v1 and group when combined with nightfall.
Result: Instant Corruption (IC) all the way until end game, where IC turns into a mainly PvP talent, and then suppression can shine, but only if you're regularly raiding end game PvE content.
Extremely good talent from 1-60. Useless for 60+ PvE content. Great for PvP.
Affliction Tier 2:
Improved Life Tap: You'll be using life tap all the time by end game. 100 mana per tap x literally dozens of taps is a lot of mana. Always worth taking imo, but a few people have gone without.
Extremely useful, but you can live without.
Improved Life drain: The spell to use in between shadowbolt casts. You'll use it all the time, why not improve it, and the efficiency of dots --> lite tap --> life drain cycle.
Again, you have room to work with for personal preference between life drain and improved life tap. 20% more mana is generally better than 4% more damage in life drain, but its up to you. Later on, you'll decide what to use your 'swing' talent points in for personal preference.
The rest, Curse of Weakness / Agony / Drain soul simply either don't work or work extremely marginally. Do not invest in these.
Affliction Tier 3:
Fel concentration: The best affliction talent around. Allows you to life drain better, gather soul shards easier, and generally solo your way through everything. If you have 10 pts into affliction, this is the next 5 to get.
Absolute must get.
Amp Curse:
Useful, but not nearly as useful as fel concentration. Good for solo amped curse of agony, mainly invested in as a pre-req for Curse of Exhaustion.
Swing talent. Not needed if you don't grab Curse of Exhaustion.
Affliction Tier 4:
Nighfall: Whole point of getting 17 points into Affliction is Nightfall. Absolute must get if you're this far into the tree. Also, if you do get night fall, you must get instant corruption for NF to be useful. NF is also improved by Fel concentration.
Grim Reach: Moderate usefulness. Great for extending fear and life drain ranges, but really just gravy. You can live without it. This is a swing/personal preference talent.
Improved Drain mana-- Pure PvP talent, the only channeled spell that may crit. Worth getting if you do end up PvP'ing a lot, but generally no benefit PvE.
Affliction Tier 5:
Improved Curse of Exhaustion/ CoEx & Siphon life: Requires 26 pt investment into affliction to get these. They both improve PvP talents greatly, but CoEx requires full investment to be useful. Siphon helps your PvE life greatly if you're already this far invested.
CoEx is an absolute god in WSG. It the only snare which is both spammable with no cooldown and no diminising returns. It is also the technically weakest snare in the game in movement terms and duration terms (12 seconds only), but given you can spam it at range, it can be very powerful in PvP, especially WSG.
Tier 6:
Shadow Mastery: I'm hearing reports it now adds to damage after equipment, so its value has increased, but is still greatly valueable regardless. If you're down this far, max as much as you can unless you value another talent more.
Dark Pact: Godly talent. Infinite mana is just godly. Its better than ruin in all PvE content, as Ruin's damage is streaky and an aggro nightmare. Defintely the best leveling talent possible.
Go for affliction to level with. You won't regret it.
Sample affliction tree with PvE leveling in mind:
5/5 IC
2/2 iLT
3/5 iLD
5/5 FC
2/2 NF
1/1 AC
2/2 GR
1/1 SL
1/1 CoEx 3/4 iCoEx
5/5 SM
1/1 DP
Total points used: 31
If you enjoy PvP more (particularly WSG), swap 1 point from SM into fully improving CoEx.
End game PvE may require you to swap points from improved life drain, instant corruption, grim reach and or CoEx to Suppression. I'd recommend 3 points from life drain to suppression.
Consider Maxing Shadow Mastery when end-game with this build.
Destruction tree commentary:
The three mini tree objectives:
1) Shadowburn 11 pts
2) Improved Lash of Pain or Improved Firebolt 13 vs 12 pts
2) Ruin 21 pts
3) Conflagorate ~32 pts (full destruction build
Full destruction tree is different than other builds. You do not use shadowbolt as your nuke, so improved Shadow bolt is unwise. You take cataclysm instead. Immolate will be your best nuke, but mana costly. Pending the next patch, conflagorate will be instant, so even more useful to destruction locks.
Fully Improved Immolate and Emberstorm make for destruction warlocks. Searing pain is a worthy investment too.
Mainly, you go into destruction for shadowburn, or ruin when taking it as a secondary talent. At that point, you use iSB-->Bane-->Shadowburn, and possbly extra pet or crit damage depending on your tastes. Crit is better for end-game pve, but one point into improved firebolt or 2 points into lash of pain greatly add to your dps when you can use your pets.
Firebolt: The second point does not work. Don't invest 2 points into this. One point with the Improved Imp talent will bring your Imp's Burst dps to about 99 dps. However, this conflicts with a dark pact build, as imps will not be
Improved Lash of Pain: Best coupled with a demonology build. Coupled with improved succubus, leads to 98 dps from the pet at end game.
Destructive Reach/Intensity: is a personal preference / swing talent. Useful, but not that useful or necessary.
Aftermath/Intensity: Extremely low on the usefulness scale.
Sample Destruction build:
5/5 Cataclysm
5/5 Bane
1/1 Shadowburn
1/2 Improved Firebolt
5/5 Devastation
4/5 Searing pain
1/1 Ruin
5/5 Immolate
5/5 Emberstorm
1/1 Conflagorate
Total points used: 32.
Intensity / Grim Reach / Pyroclasm / Aftermath are all optional talents. None really needed.
Intensity: Most AoE situations are group where personal interruption doesn't matter, or can be survived with a VW sacrifice beforehand. Intensity does make it easier, but is entirely optional. Only grab it if you have points to spare (which you don't)
Grim Reach: Most fights are also within the 30 yd range. None require you to max range, and All deadly pvp situations will have people fighting inside your 30 yrd range. It does nicely aid Hellfire AoE range
Pyroclasm: Doesn't proc as often as stated. Its less actually than 2% chance to proc per wave, and most of the time you won't get the full 15 waves in. Also, the first wave is purely graphical and does not do actual damage to others or yourself while still taking mana.
Aftermath: Just a very weak talent. Not dependable whereas faster immolates will save your bum.
The rest of your investments improve all your important spells: Searing pain, Immolate, conflag.
Your last objectives are to gain
Instant Corruption, and Improved life tap. Possibly up to night fall, combine IC/iLT and DE/iHS/iImp... or fully improve 17 points into demonology
Fel domination / Master summoning and have two VW sacrifice shields available every 15 minutes.
Both are powerful combinations.
Demonology: Full of swing talents. Only marginally useful (no regrets avoiding) talents are Improved Enslave Demon, Firestone, fel intelliect/stam. Others gain and lose importance as you level.
Mini objectives (potential must haves)
DE/imp/HS Tier 1 Dem talents
Fel Domination Master summoner: 17 pts
Dem Sacrifice: 21 pts
Master Demonology: 30 pts
Soul link: 31 pts
Demonology Tier 1
Improved Imp: Fantastic all around talent choice. Best if you're grouped with main tank in PvE, otherwise stam bonus is not necessary. Coupled with improved firebolt (1/2), can achive astounding burst dps with imp.
No regrets getting Improved Imp in PvE terms. Not worth it if going Master Demonology for a damage focused build.
Demonic Embrace: No regrets getting this. Spirit is near useless to locks.
Improved Healthstone: Primarily PvP and Main tank talent, now that it works for groups. Up to 240 more hp for everyone in a pinch. Very nice.
All very good choices. Improved imp with impved firebolt turns your imp into a chain-gun. For fuller demonology, I suggest full DE and iHS.
Demonology Tier 2
Improved Voidwalker: Your voidwalker can hold aggro against end-game bosses with this talent (I've done it against Strat Baron, there's videos of VW against MC giants). That's how powerful your VW's aggro abilities are when improved.
Improved Health Funnel: Extremely useful when VW tanking when leveling. Loses shine when pets and VW stops being used to tank, and you turn into a damage machine.
Comment for Dem builds
Typically your first 10 points will go into Improved Health stone, Demonic Embrace, then your choice of Improved Imp or Voidwalker.
Demonology Tier 3 & 4
Improved Succubus:
Makes charming CC life a lot easier, and adds signifigiant dps from Succubus when coupled with fully improved Lash of Pain 2/2.
Fel Domination / Master summoning: Must haves in the demonology tree. Life with pets is much easier with halved mana and cast times. Even better when its near instant and minimum mana costs.
Unholy Power: Required for Master demonology. Fun talent. Best with an Orc. Grab it after Fel domination.
Demonology Tier 5
Improved Enslave Demon:
Only good when you're specifically going to summon doomguards against onyxia and MC bosses. Otherwise, don't bother unless you're low level and plan to respec at 60.
Imprved Firestone:
Make sure to get thrash blade from Maradaun if you plan to use this. Its a 'fun' talent. Very fun to melee with though.
Dem Sacrifice:
Absolute must get at 21 points if you've gone this far. Actual bonus varies, but very fun versatile talent.
Demonology Tier 6 & 7
Master Demonology:
Again, adds to your versalitility. MC spell damage that wipe others will feel like a gentle breeze with this talent, or lowers aggro generation or adds to your damage. All very good aspects.
PvE talent though. Not supreme in PvP, but does let you make mages into your personal playthings.
Soul link: Absolutely godly in solo and small 1-5 player engagements pvp and pve. You can tank and survive what no other casters can. Absolutely nothing can 1-2 shot you while this talent is up.
Combined with Intensity, you are one the ultimate stationary aoe'r. Hellfire self-damage is split between your and your pet, thus enabling you to hellfire for a very long time, and any damage you do take when stealing aggro is split too, thus you survive when mages won't.
Not without consequences, its mana costly and negates shielding buffs, so must be cancelled once your pet dies.
Fully Demonologists are demons in themselves: You can get up to 10-20k damage absorbtion using fully improved demonology talents and lock abilities. That's fairly insane. 2 VW shields va Fel Domination = 5200 damage absorbed, plus damage halved by soul link, and extra 1440 health from healthstone and health ganed from life drain.
Or... choose felhunter and avoid magic damage all together, fully halve or 2/3 damage from resistences alone. Even more is reversed from soul link. Magic damage is a breeze to you.
Improved Spellstone is not worth mentioning. Its reallya Tier 1 value talent having no place at the end of the Demonology tree. There are better places to spend this. Its actually less useful than improved healthstone. If it gave magical resistence or immunity for 30 seconds in addition to absorbtion, that would be interesting.
So, while you're low level, I recommend goingn the affliction tree I mentioned up through level 40. Then grab shadowburn or fel domination. I've gone through almost all builds, and Dark Pact/Shadowburn and Soul link / Nightfall were my two favorites. I currently use a hybrid of both, Soul link / Shadowburn / iLoP
Don't bother with crit / ruin until you're level 60. Go with the affliction build I recommended up through 40. That'll keep you busy for a few weeks, and give you maximum versatility. Curse of Exhaustion is worth 4-10% less damage in life drain / Shadowbolt, considering you have no escape/chase down options in PvE/PvP without it. (CoR is exception in PvE chase down, but you'll still want CoEx).
There's no arguement the build I suggest is a focused leveling build, that'll give you the option to escape and toy around in WSG early on. You'll also enjoy fear coupled with CoEx, as its far more controlled that way. Try it my way, you'll have no regrets.