World of Warcraft Classic: Season of Discovery brings to the table a bunch of interesting changes, including anew Runecarving system, a new 10-man raid in the form of the reworked Blackfathom Deeps, and even some new class/role combinations. Season of Discovery spices things up by giving players the opportunity to play as aMage healeror a Warlock tank.
While it’s still a bit too early to say how they will fare in the long run, it already looks like Warlocks are going to be some of thebest tanks in Season of Discoverybased on what we’ve seen so far. Thanks to the Metamorphosis Rune, Warlocks can now transform into powerful demons capable of withstanding a ton of punishment. While in this form, a Warlock tank gains access to new spells, including both single-target and AoE taunts.
This guide presents a full overview of Warlock tanks, but feel free to click the links below to jump straight to the sections that interest you the most.
RacesRunesRotationStat PriorityProfessionsTalentsBiS GearConsumables
Best Races For Warlock Tanks In Season Of Discovery
Out of the two Alliance races that can become Warlocks in World of Warcraft Classic, Gnome is the slightly better option if you’re looking to play a tank in Season of Discovery. Neither of the two races has particularly good abilities for tanking, however, Expansive Mind will give you a bit more mana to work with while Escape Artist can come in handy for dispelling certain movement impairing effects. Arcane Resistance is the only defensive Racial here, but its usefulness is situational at best.
Human Warlock tanks have even less impressive Racials to work with. Despite turning into a melee-focused class during Metamorphosis, you won’t see much benefit from Sword Specialization, if any. Meanwhile, Diplomacy is useful for speeding up the process of acquiring reputation rewards, but there are only a couple of items you’ll need from those while playing as a Warlock tank. The Humans’ remaining two Racials won’t come into play at all for this particular role.
Horde Warlocks also have two options at their disposal, with Orcs being the slightly better choice for tanking. This is largely thanks to Hardiness, a Racial passive that increases an Orc’s ability to reduce stun effects by 25%. Command won’t have a direct impact on your ability to tank, however, it will allow you to passively deal a bit more damage via your pet. Axe Specialization can be ignored while Blood Fury can often be detrimental and should almost never be used. The extra melee damage boost you get from it isn’t worth the debuff, which reduces incoming healing effects by a whopping 50% for 25 seconds.
Undead isn’t a bad race to pick either. The main benefit here comes from access to Will of the Forsaken, an active Racial that dispels Charm, Fear, and Sleep effects. The ability can also be used to provide immunity to these effects, however, using it preemptively can be tricky since it only lasts 5 seconds. The extra Shadow Resistance is also nice to have while Cannibalize can occasionally come in handy after an encounter. Underwater Breathing would be useful in Blackfathom Deeps if not for the fact that Warlocks get access to an active spell that’s arguably even better starting at level 16.
Table of Contents
Best Runes For Warlock Tanks In Season Of Discovery
Runes will dictate how you approach tanking as a Warlock in Season of Discovery. You have three Rune slots to work with and only one Rune that’s absolutely mandatory for tanking. Namely, Metamorphosis. You have a couple of solidWarlock Runesat your disposal to fill each of the two remaining slots. If you want to be a more aggressive and proactive tank, you’ll want to go with Lake of Fire and Incinerate. Meanwhile, Master Channeler and Demonic Grace are your go-to Runes for playing a more defensive-minded tank.
All Builds
Metamorphosis (Hands slot):Transform into a Demon, increasing Armor by 500%, reducing the chance you will be critically hit by 6%, increasing your threat by 50%, increasing mana gained from Life Tap by 100%, transforming the functionality of some of your abilities, and granting some new abilities:
Aggressive Route
Defensive Route
Metamorphosis is your bread and butter while playing as a Warlock tank in Season of Discovery. This is where most of your tanking capabilities will come from, both in terms of survivability and threat generation.
Taking the aggressive route means you’ll be able to inflict more damage, and thus generate threat faster, but it also makes you more vulnerable to interrupts, which will temporarily lock you out of the Fire school of magic.
The defensive route, on the other hand, will reduce the damage you take while increasing your self-healing capabilities. However, the caveat to this is that you’ll find it a bit more difficult to generate and maintain threat.
Rotation For Warlock Tanks In Season Of Discovery
There are two ways of going about your rotation as a Warlock tank in Season of Discovery depending on which Runes you’re using. Metamorphosis should always be active while you’re tanking and is not even worth mentioning as part of the rotation. Spell priority will vary depending on whether you’re taking the aggressive route or the defensive one. Let’s take a look at both approaches.
Your rotation here will be pretty much identical, but you won’t have access to Incinerate and you can’t rely on the debuff from Lake of Fire either. Instead, you’ll want to focus on dealing damage with Searing Pain and using your DoTs and Curses just like before. However, this time around you’ll also want to incorporate Demonic Grace and Drain Life, which becomes instantly castable and more powerful. Demonic Grace makes you harder to hit while also significantly increasing your Critical Strike chance with all attacks. Everything else remains the same.
Stat Priority For Warlock Tanks In Season Of Discovery
Spell Hit Chance
Importance:Spells can sometimes miss their mark in World of Warcraft Classic, and that’s something you’ll want to avoid at all costs as a tank. In order to maintain aggro, it’s important to ensure that your spells will always land, hence why this is such an important stat.
Notes:Spell Hit Chance in Season of Discovery is capped at 16%. Once you manage to reach that level, all your spells are guaranteed to hit, even against targets up to three levels higher. You can use the Suppression talent, consumables like the Blackfathom Mana Oil (only works inside the raid), and various items to increase your Spell Hit Chance.
Importance:Stamina is a primary stat that increases your total health pool, as well as the health of your pets. Needless to say, you’ll want as much health as possible while playing as a tank, so don’t shy away from gear that provides Stamina.
Notes:Gear aside, you can get a bunch of Stamina by maxing out the Demonic Embrace talent. You’ll lose some Spirit in the process, but the tradeoff is well worth it since Spirit is not an important stat for a Warlock Tank. You can get even more Stamina from gear and consumables like the Elixir of Fortitude.
Spell Power
Importance:Spell Power is another important stat that increases the damage of your spells. Your damage has a direct impact on your ability to generate threat while you’re playing as a tank.
Notes:The Minor Wizard Oil is a quick and convenient way of enhancing your Spell Power in Phase 1 of Season of Discovery. Certain items and Runes will help out as well.
Spell Critical Chance
Importance:This stat increases your chance to land a Critical Strike whenever you cast a spell. Critical Strikes deal significantly more damage and will allow you to generate threat faster, similar to Spell Power.
Notes:Your spells have a certain chance to turn into Critical Strikes by default, but you may increase that percentage by boosting your Intellect. Every 60 points of Intellect will increase your Spell Critical Chance by 1%.
Importance:Armor does exactly what you would expect. This stat mitigates the amount of physical damage you receive from mobs and other players.
Notes:Cloth wearers don’t typically need to pay too much attention to armor, but Warlock tanks are an exception. You’ll need quite a bit of Armor as a tank and, as it happens, you’ll gain plenty of it from Metamorphosis. Gear and certain consumables like the Elixir of Defense will provide you with even more.
Dodge Chance
Importance:Just because you’re a tank, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll need to soak up every single hit. Increasing your Dodge Chance will occasionally allow you to avoid taking damage, making your healer’s life easier in the process.
Notes:Demonic Grace provides you with a reliable way of increasing your Dodge Chance by a whopping 30%. You can increase the chance even more by increasing your Agility stat. You get an extra 1% chance to dodge attacks for every 20 points of Agility.
Best Professions For Warlock Tanks In Season Of Discovery
There are several professions that provide useful items, consumables, and buffs for Warlock tanks in Season of Discovery. you may purchase many of these from the auction house or other players, but it’s a lot cheaper to make them yourself. Here are some of the main benefits you can get from these professions:
Enchanting
Engineering
Best Talent Specializations For Warlock Tanks In Season Of Discovery
World of Warcraft Classic: Season of Discovery Phase 1 caps players at levels 25, leaving you little room to experiment with builds. You only get 16 points to work with and you’ll need to divide them between the Affliction and Demonology trees. Destruction doesn’t help with tanking, at least not at this stage. There are a couple of talents you may play around with but, for the most part, the Phase 1 Warlock tank build is pretty straightforward.
BiS Gear For Warlock Tanks
We are currently working on BiS lists for all classes and specializations in Phase 1 of Season of Discovery. Stay tuned as we will provide a link here when we have it complete.
Best Raid Consumables For Warlock Tanks In Season Of Discovery
The reworked version of Blackfathom Deeps is the only raid available to players during Phase 1 of Season of Discovery. The raid unlocks at level 25 and while you won’t have access to high-end consumables by then, you’re able to still buff up to a certain extent. verify to use the consumables listed below to increase your chances of surviving the encounter.
