Warlock tank specialization

November 3rd 2023 - November 3rd 2023 - This was made before the reveal of the warlock tank spec for WoW Classic. I have edited nothing about the contents of this article. I am leaving this up to show my thought process and how I would approach the same goal.


This is a full rambling write-up of my thoughts and design choices for a new warlock tank specialization. If you want to just see the example talents and spells, please check the project titled "Warlock Tank Talents and Spells"



When trying to design a WoW subclass that used Passim I tried to think of what niches have not been filled yet, and what we have seen in the past that I could call back on.

WoW does not currently have any tanks that have a great deal of ranged capability, so that seems like an interesting space to try to design in. In the first expansions, Warlocks were used as tanks in multiple raids, and Passim fits pretty easily into the powers possible through fel magic. It also, in my mind, would fit warlocks the most because there is a sense of body horror that comes with opening portals on your own body, and warlocks seem like they would be the most okay with that.

The issue is, how do we make them tanky enough, when they are a cloth user? If we look at the other non-plate wearers, Vengeance Demon Hunters get a large boost to armor and stamina, a mastery that increases their armor in proportion to their agility, as well as a 10% flat reduction to all damage taken. Druids get an even larger armor buff, and their mastery directly increases health. Monks do not get as large of a buff to armor or stamina, but their stagger ability allows them to spread out their incoming damage, and their mastery gives a stacking buff that gives them bad luck protection on dodges. All 3 subclasses also give attack power equal to their mastery, to help them with threat. Warlocks get a large amount of stamina boost through their talents, so that isn’t a concern to me. Their Soul Leech ability gives a small regenerating shield as long as they’re doing damage, which also protects them from spell pushback. If we increase their armor by 400%, it gets them into the same range as Death Knights, which seems like a nice area to land in for a round number.

This is also a great way to introduce the passim-like mechanic of fel portals. We can make it similar to a Death Knight’s Bone armor in that it has stacks, reduces damage taken, and deals some damage when the charge is consumed. Instead of flat damage, though, I would make it a percentage of the unmitigated damage that would have been dealt. This percentage could be where Mastery comes in.Something like “increase the damage prevented and reflected from Fel portals by X%. Increase spell power by X%”

They need to be able to move and keep threat, so at least some of their spells need to be castable while moving. We can combine their need for armor with this into a passive ability for the subclass and bring back the iconic ability name Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning: “ increase your armor by 400%. You can cast Shadow Bolt and Hellfire while moving.”

As the tooltip hints, one of the first talents in the tree would be Hellfire, so that the warlock has a reliable form of AoE. It would operate as it did before its removal, costing 1 soul shard per second of channeling. I would also have the self-damage ignore Soul Leech’s absorb, so that they can keep that buffer to prevent spell pushback..

The first talent for the subclass would need to be their taunt, which is kind of boring, but very necessary. After that, we can give them Hellfire, and introduce the fel portal mechanic.

I want the fel portal generator to be the warlock’s main use of soul shards, so I would make the spell a 2 second cast that consumes 3 soul shards to give 3 stacks of Fel Portal. Since they are a spell casting class, their in-combat procs should also be tied to this spell, either through DoT ticks, or Shadow Bolt crits. The Proc would make the spell instant cast and consume no Soul Shards.

Further down the tree, we could give the warlocks a little breathing room with their portals, by letting them automatically generate one when they don’t have any. I picture something to the effect of “If you do not have any fel portals, gain one. This can only trigger every 12/6 seconds”

On the Hellfire side of the tree, I would give a split talent choice to either allow Hellfire to be channeled for a longer duration, or generate fel portals as you channel.


Drain Soul is an interesting spell for this subclass, because, while it does provide a good amount of healing, it does not produce any soul shards, which means it can’t help with the upkeep of fel portals. To help make sure that it is still usable in situations where it is needed, I would give it a talent to prevent spell pushback, and so that void elves don’t have a useless talent, I would also increase the healing by 50%, or to be a little spicy, increase all healing they receive while channeling the spell, but that could lead to degenerate gameplay very quickly.