WoW: ForeverCGN planner & guide
Warlock class art

Class guide

Warlock

Curses, damage over time and demon pets. Trolls are the new Warlock race.

Blizzard Confirmed Beta BuildCGN checked October 7, 2026

Races that can play Warlock

Horde

  • Orc
  • Troll New combination
  • Undead

Alliance

  • Gnome
  • Human

Skyborne: neither Windshaper nor High Order Skyborne can play this class.

CGN does not rank races for this class yet. Every race has two active and two passive racials in Forever, and Blizzard reworked most of them.

Full race and class table →

Blizzard Confirmed Blizzard, Sep 22, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Sep 22, 2026 ↗

What changed from Classic

Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom become Banes (one Bane per Warlock on a target), pets scale with their master's stats, Firestone and Spellstone become stackable weapon imbues, and Life Tap scales with Spirit. Affliction gains Wrack, Demonology gains Demonic Pact, and Destruction gains Incinerate and Bane of Havoc. Blizzard says Warlocks now do damage that competes with any other caster but are still physically weak.

Baseline changes

  • Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom are now Banes, and a Warlock can have only one Bane on a target. Anything that worked with Curses also works with Banes. Curse of the Elements covers all magic damage and Curse of Shadows is removed.
  • Firestone (more Fire damage and crit) and Spellstone (more Shadow damage and spell haste) are weapon imbues that stack with temporary enchantments such as Wizard Oil.
  • Life Tap scales with Spirit and its tooltip states the Mana correctly. Drain Soul has a rising chance each tick to grant a Soul Shard until it is guaranteed. Pets scale from their summoner's stats.

By talent tree

Affliction

  • Wrack (new, 31 points): a Shadow drain-style spell that hits every second and makes your other Shadow damage-over-time effects hurt 10% more for 6 seconds. Blizzard intends it as the spell you cast between DoT refreshes and Nightfall procs. Curse of Exhaustion is the 16-point talent with a 30% slow.
  • New talents: Malediction, Improved Drains, Pandemic (up to 100% more crit damage bonus on your DoTs), Malevolence and Soul Siphon (more drain damage for each other Affliction spell on the target, up to 36%). Improved Drain Soul is now Soul Harvest, and Nightfall also triggers from Drain Soul and Wrack.
  • Six talents were removed: Improved Curse of Weakness, Improved Drain Life, Improved Drain Mana, Improved Curse of Exhaustion, Grim Reach and Dark Pact.

Demonology

  • Demonic Pact (new, 31 points, needs Soul Link): your Demonic Sacrifice effect is no longer cancelled when you summon a different pet (resummoning the sacrificed pet still cancels it). That lets a Warlock use Demonic Sacrifice and Master Demonologist together. Both were redesigned, and Demonic Sacrifice now lasts 2 hours.
  • Decimation (new, row 4) cuts Soul Fire's cooldown by up to 90%, and Shadow Bolt or Searing Pain on a target under 35% health makes Soul Fire cast faster and cost no Soul Shards for 10 seconds. Demonic Brand (new) makes Searing Pain brand the target so your pet's next 2 attacks add Fire or Shadow damage. Demonic Knowledge, Improved Felhunter and three row 2 talents are new too.
  • Fel Domination is the 16-point talent and Soul Link the 21-point talent (now row 5). Six talents were removed: Improved Healthstone, Fel Intellect, Fel Stamina, Improved Subjugate Demon, Improved Firestone and Improved Spellstone.

Destruction

  • Incinerate (new, 31 points, needs Bane of Havoc): a 2.5-second, 30-yard Fire cast that does 25% more to a target with Immolate. Bane of Havoc (new, 21 points): for 5 minutes, 15% of the damage you do to other targets is also dealt to the afflicted one; one target at a time. Shadow and Flame (new, row 6): Conflagrate raises your Shadow damage and Shadowburn your Fire damage for 20 seconds.
  • Conflagrate moved up to row 4 as the 16-point talent, Ruin moved up to row 3 as a 5-point talent, and Destructive Reach moved to row 1 and covers all damaging spells, so every Warlock spec can take it. Molten Skin and Fire and Brimstone are new.
  • Improved Shadow Bolt no longer has charges and affects only your own Shadow damage. Bane now covers Incinerate, Aftermath is redesigned, and Intensity needs 3 points. Five talents were removed: Improved Firebolt, Improved Lash of Pain, Devastation, Improved Immolate and Emberstorm.

Blizzard Confirmed Blizzard, Oct 7, 2026 ↗ (summarized in CGN's words; the Blizzard article has the full list)

Blizzard says class abilities and talents may keep changing during the beta. Where a later beta build changed something, the beta section below has it.

How talents work: Talents start at level 10 and keep Classic's rows. One-point milestone talents sit at 11, 21 and 31 points spent, and a new 16-point milestone was added. Some talents are unchanged from patch 1.12, some are changed, and some class buffs that used to be talents (Blessing of Kings, Improved Mark of the Wild, Divine Spirit) are now baseline. To respec, including Legacy talents, visit a class trainer in a major city. Dual Specialization arrives at level 40.

Talent trees and milestone talents

Each tree has one-point milestone talents. This table is built from the same beta talent data as the planner (October 1 build, with Blizzard's October 8 talent changes). A level 30 character has 21 talent points (one per level from 10 to 30), so the 31-point talents are out of reach at the beta cap. The Legacy perk Talented can unlock talent points up to five levels earlier.

Warlock milestone talents
Tree11 points16 points (new)21 points31 points
AfflictionAmplify CurseCurse of ExhaustionSiphon LifeWrackOut of reach at level 30
DemonologyDemonic SacrificeFel DominationSoul LinkDemonic PactOut of reach at level 30
DestructionShadowburnConflagrateBane of HavocIncinerateOut of reach at level 30

Open Warlock in the planner

Beta Data Blizzard, Oct 1, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Oct 8, 2026 ↗ (talent data is Icy Veins' calculator data for the October 1 build, with the October 8 talent changes from Blizzard's notes)

Tier placement at level 30

These are Wowhead's October 6 level-30 beta placements, verified on October 7 and shown on CGN's tier lists. Wowhead groups several DPS classes at this level bracket, and CGN expands those class placements across the applicable DPS trees. Level-30 Beta Rankings: not level-60 launch or raid rankings.

Warlock tier placement at level 30
SpecDPSHealerTank
Affliction WarlockSDPS listNot rankedNot ranked
Demonology WarlockSDPS listNot rankedNot ranked
Destruction WarlockSDPS listNot rankedNot ranked

Community Observation Wowhead, Oct 6, 2026 ↗ · Wowhead, Oct 6, 2026 ↗ · Wowhead, Oct 6, 2026 ↗ (Wowhead's terms bar automated reading; see the tier lists page for how CGN handles that)

Level-30 builds

CGN publishes one 21-point level-30 build per role-spec, each decoded from Icy Veins' level-30 guides and validated against the planner data.

Warlock level-30 builds
SpecRoleSummary
Affliction WarlockDPSDoT damage: instant Corruption, Malediction and Pandemic, with Nightfall procs.See the build →
Demonology WarlockDPSA pet build: Unholy Power, Demonic Energies and Fel Vitality, with Soul Link at 30. One of the smoothest specs to level.See the build →
Destruction WarlockDPSAll 21 points in Destruction: faster casts, harder crits, Conflagrate and the new Bane of Havoc cleave.See the build →

A build here is not "best in slot": CGN has not validated a full item pool at the beta cap.

Beta changes so far

October 8 build (Oct 8, 2026)

  • Your current pet is stunned while you summon a new one.
  • Shadow Bolt ranks 1 to 4 were retuned so each new rank is an upgrade and the ranks grow more evenly.
  • Demonology: Demonic Brand's bonus pet damage only causes high threat when it deals Shadow damage.

October 1 build (updated October 2) (Oct 1, 2026)

  • Drain Soul is now interrupted if you begin casting another spell.
  • Hellfire can now critically strike.
  • The Incubus pet model was replaced with a lower-resolution one.
  • Affliction: Soul Harvesting was renamed Soul Harvest and now correctly grants its 50/100% Mana regeneration increase.
  • Pets: Aggressive Mode is back, under the pet tab of the spellbook.

September 24 build (Sep 24, 2026)

  • Life Tap's tooltip shows the Life converted and says only that it scales with Spirit. Voidwalker Sacrifice scales with 10% of the Warlock's spell healing.

Every change, by build → · Known issues →

Beta Build Blizzard, Sep 24, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Oct 1, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Oct 8, 2026 ↗

Open or promised beta issues that mention Warlock

  • The Cooldown Manager is still a work in progress, and how complete it is varies by class. Banes and curses do not track after you drop and re-acquire a target, Healthstone, Arcane Blast, pet cooldowns and item enhancements (Windfury, rogue poisons) cannot be tracked, a Mana gem needs another spell cast to start tracking, and Priest tracks all spells by default.
  • Hunters with the Ferocity talent don't see their pet's higher critical strike chance on the character sheet. Display only.
  • Warlock pets do not show Mana on the character sheet or their scaling from the master. Work in progress.
  • Warlock pets show the wrong Health-from-Stamina scaling on the character sheet. Work in progress.
  • Pet hit chance for Hunters and Warlocks does not show the master's scaling coefficient.
  • Pet Expertise is not shown for Hunters and Warlocks.
  • Pet movement speed on the character sheet does not show the right base values in yards per second.
  • Skyborne Druid Bear and Travel Forms have their updated textures, but Skyborne Cat Form, various Zephras Isle creatures and some mounts, pets and other creatures get theirs in a later build.

What we don't know yet

  • How Warlock compares at level 60: the beta cap is 30 and the 31-point talents cannot be tested yet.
  • Final abilities and talents, which Blizzard says may change during the beta.

Sources on this page

Labels: Blizzard Confirmed Beta Build Beta Data Developer Interview Press Report Community Observation Survey / Concept Only Not Yet Known