Despite the obvious opening I am about to leave, I'll state it this way.

Speak to me about how to be a successful Warlock, and treat me if I were a drooling, key-banging, noob; straight off the street who's never even seen World of Warcraft before.

Oh, and let me know what to do in PvP.

[[Despite the above. I am none of those things in WoW, But I have never played as Warlock, have no opinion on them, and have up until now. Played on a PvE server., so I am looking for genuine advice.]]

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"People sometimes say that ideas cannot be stamped out by force. The Albigensian Crusade proves them wrong. Ideas can be stamped out by the elimination of everyone who holds the ideas." - Quote :"Middle Ages" by Morris Bishop.

Ive been playing since the game came out and I still dont have that much of a clue at playing a warlock other then DoT the shit out of things, and lifetap is your friend.

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"Creating Havoc and Pie Since 2001!"
My Website: http://www.anthonyhays.com
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PvP strats vary by spec, I've found out...
Since I've switched to affliction, I've been jumped 3 times while questing. Once in Tanaris, once in Felwood, once in Ungoro.
In Tanaris, I was mounted and a rogue stunned me as I was riding out of Gadgetzan. I tried to dismount, but I couldn't for some reason, assuming it was because of the stun. So I just sat there and let him kill me because I was close to the GY.
In Ungoro, I saw the rogue stealth, so I clicked Perception and saw him sneak up on me, so I sacced my void, then started dotting, before I could get Curse of Exhaustion on him and start fearing him, I was feared. I looked and saw another hordie standing up on a hill and sure enough, it was another lock, so they teamed up on me and killed me, but the rogue was about 3/4 dead just from the dots.
In Felwood, I was in Iron Tree Woods when a lvl 57 undead mage walked right up to me. I'm level 52, so I'm assuming he figured I didn't stand a chance, so his opening attack was a swing of his staff! I hit howl of terror, Curse of Exhaustion, then started dotting him. I accidentally hit Curse of Agony, and it replaced the snare, so he shielded and started running. I chased him for a good ways, keeping corruption on him, but he finally turned and morphed me. That's the only reason he got away. He stayed out of range from any of my destruction spells, so the only things I could land were corruption and CoA. At that point I wasn't sure if I should use the CoA damage and not have him snared, or catch up to him with CoEx. I think I chose wrong because, like I said, he got away. Either way, I'm pretty sure he's rethinking his Warlock strategy.

I'd read forums for spec help and pvp strats. I'm trying to develop one the hard way, because I've found there isn't anything set in stone, because situations are so vastly different, you can't follow some cookie-cutter pattern of "Ok, what am I supposed to do next?"

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Pretty much the maximum reqs for playing a lock once you get over 300 resilience and 12k hp.

I've played a rogue since beta, but was somewhat forced into the lock for a while as well.

If you plan to pvp, affliction or demo/drain spec works nicely. Destruction heavy specs are raid friendly. I did a LOT of pvp destro specced and I mopped the damn floor with people, but with resilience being introduced, a mega crit heavy spec doesnt work so well anymore.