Introduction
“I command you: Go forth!”
Warlock is a ranged intelligence hero who is typically played in public matchmaking as a support hero, but when picked competitively tends to take on a core role (usually mid). Depending on the enemy line-up he is viable in either role.
He is mostly picked for his devastating teamfight ultimate and the ability to ensure that damage done to enemies is transferred to their allies.
Warlock's complete character profile can be found here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Incredibly strong teamfight ultimate
- Powerful damage transference ability
- Good initiator and/or counter-initiator
- Can become a virtually unstoppable teamfight force
- Fairly strong pusher
- Has a strong heal
Cons
- No stun outside of his ultimate
- A pretty passive/defensive lane supporter
- Needs a quick level 6 (much like a support Tidehunter)
- Quite squishy
- Pretty mana hungry
Item Build
In public matchmaking Warlock is almost always played as a lane support hero, although occasionally he will lane mid. There’s not much difference in the item builds, with the exception that a mid laning Warlock should get a Bottle in order to maintain rune control, will have accelerated farm, and generally won’t purchase supportive items like Wards or Courier.
The image on the right and descriptions below are geared towards a support Warlock, since this is the most common role played in public matchmaking.
Starting Items
As a support hero it’s your job to ensure that the Courier and/or Observer Wards are bought at the start of the game. Usually these duties will be split between yourself and another hero on your team, but you can’t always guarantee this in public games. If no one else ponies up the gold for one then you should bite the bullet and buy both for your team.
Good starting items are therefore:
Courier and/or Observer Wards, a Set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, 3x Iron Branches.
Early Game
Ensure that the Courier is upgraded into a Flying Courier when it comes off cooldown at the 3 minute mark. Also ensure that Observer Wards are always purchased when they’re off cooldown.
Get your Boots of Speed up and running as quickly as possible, then upgrade any Iron Branches you have into a Magic Wand, and any Bracer components into an optional Bracer.
Core
Keep ensuring Observer Wards are bought whenever they’re off cooldown, and in the meantime work towards your Arcane Boots. These really are the upgraded boots of choice for such a mana hungry hero as Warlock, who has no in-built mana regeneration ability like Lich. All of your abilities have fairly high mana costs, so you’ll be burning through a lot of mana even before you purchase a Mekanism, which is your next core item.
Mekanism is your priority core pick-up. If there are no more viable Mekanism carriers on your team that will get it up much faster than you (such as a mid Viper, or a jungle Chen), then Mekanism should be your go-to core item. Be sure to check with your team to see if anyone else intends to build one before you get started on it though.
Luxury Items
Aghanim’s Scepter – The typical (and best case scenario) luxury item progression for Warlock is Aghanim’s Scepter into Refresher Orb. An expensive combo, but if you get both and your team is on roughly level terms with the enemy team then you are unlikely to lose the game from this point forwards. Aghanims gives you some good stats - +10 all stats, 200 health, and 150 mana –but the main reason you’re purchasing it is for the second Golem it grants your ultimate, Chaotic Offering.
Refresh Orb – What’s better than a 600 unit AoE ultimate stun that summons forth two powerful Golems? Two 600 unit AoE ultimate stuns that summons four powerful Golems, as well as two opportunities to land Fatal Bonds. Refresher Orb is a beast of an item on Warlock, much as it is on Tidehunter, for example.
At a stage in the game where BKB’s will be up on the enemy cores and will thus reduce the potential impact of Chaotic Offering, Refresher Orb allows you to regain the initiative by having potentially two Chaotic Offerings at your disposal, and the chance to land Fatal Bonds on enemy heroes twice.
Necronomicon – Great if you’re part of a pushing line-up or your team is struggling to break the base. Also a great item for teamfights (combined with your ultimate and slow they should be able to do a lot of work) and for countering any invis enemy heroes.
Drums of Endurance – Drums of Endurance are a great supportive option because they give your team bonus attack speed and move speed auras, whilst at the same time giving you plenty of stats and being easy to build into (since the components are so cheap you can buy them up whenever you have the spare unreliable gold, meaning you won’t lose much gold when you die). You may already have a Bracer from the early game as well, making Drums a natural extension to your inventory.
Force Staff – Force Staff gives you less all-round stat gain than Drums, but it gives you much more mobility and more direct team utility (Drums’ auras are largely a passive, somewhat unnoticeable buff). It’s an amazing escape tool for someone who is naturally very squishy and can be used on allies and enemies, making it a great play-making item for clutch saves or to Force an enemy into bad positioning.
Heaven’s Halberd – A fantastic anti-carry item, thanks to the ability to disarm an enemy core for 3.0-4.5 seconds, Halberd will also give you a much-welcome chunk of health an evasion, making you a lot less fragile.
Ghost Scepter – The go-to luxury pick-up if you find the enemy team is able to bring you down quickly with physical damage (typically in the form of right-clicks). Most often this will be the enemy carry taking you out of the fight quickly with a few auto-attacks. Ghost Scepter will buy you a clutch 4 seconds of physical immunity, which gives you time to create distance between yourself and the enemy carry or at the very least buys your team 4 seconds of distraction time.
Rod of Atos - Good health and intelligence gain (+350 and +25 respectively), and a pseudo-disable/powerful slow. All things Warlock can make great use of. A solid, if unpopular pick-up.
Situational Items
Boots of Travel - Great for the late game, when you need to free up a slot which would otherwise be taken up by a TP Scroll. With this, you combine your Boots and TP Scroll slot into one, allowing you to put a slot to better use if you’re about to become 6 slotted.
Pipe of Insight - A very expensive item for a support, and not an ideal pick-up if you bought the team’s Mekanism (having both on one hero is very risky, especially a squishy one like Disruptor), but always a good item to have if the enemy team has any magic damage (which they almost certainly will). Quick rule of thumb: go for it if you didn’t buy the Mekanism earlier.
Vladmir’s Offering – Yes, you’re ranged, so you won’t get the lifesteal bonus from Vlad’s, but you’re not buying it for yourself, you’re buying it for your team. Vladmir’s Offering is great to pick up on a support even if your team doesn’t consist of any melee heroes because of the bonus damage and armour it provides. If your team does have a melee core and no one else has purchased one then it’s an excellent utility item to purchase.
Skill Build
Fatal Bonds is an active ability that binds the chosen target and 3/4/5/6 nearby units within a 700 unit radius. It is skilled and maxed second. The bond causes 25% of the damage dealt to each one of them to be felt by all of those bonded for 25 seconds. This is a great set-up ability and teamfight skill, as it effectively multiplies damage dealt to one hero to all of the others that you manage to catch with Fatal Bounds.
The downside of Fatal Bonds is twofold: 1) it can target enemy creeps and neutral creeps, as well as heroes, and so can it be hard to ensure it lands of enemy heroes if they’re near a creep wave. 2) Warlock's cast time is quite noticeable, and so although you ideally want to use Fatal Bonds before using Chaotic Offering, oftentimes you’ll have to use it afterwards instead, lest you give the initiation away and the enemy heroes re-position themselves.
Shadow Word is a heal or damage over time ability. It is skilled and maxed first. When used on allies it heals them for 15/25/35/45 per second over 11 seconds, and when used on enemies it deals damage to the same amount over 11 seconds. It thus deals a total of 165/275/385/495 heal/damage.
Shadow Word allows Warlock to be a decent lane support. Both as a heal and as a nuke it is potent, and by having both options available to you it becomes a very versatile early game ability. If playing defensively you can ensure the health of your teammates is kept topped up without their eating quickly through consumables, whilst if you’re on the aggressive you can use it to force the enemy laner to eat their his/her own consumables and potentially zone them out of the lane.
Upheaval is an area of effect slow. It is skilled and maxed first. Upheaval channels a strong slow ability which slows any units in the 700 unit radius by 7/14/21/28% per second, up to a maximum of 84% slow. The ability lasts for up to 16 seconds (it can be cancelled prematurely by Warlock), and will continue to slow affected enemies for 3 seconds after they’ve left its AoE.
Chaotic Offering is Warlock’s ultimate and it is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). A very powerful teamfight ability, it stuns any units in a 600 unit radius for 1 second and causes a Golem to spawn. The Golem deals 75/100/125 damage, has a 40% chance to deal a bonus 80/115/150 magic damage, and also deals 30/40/50 magic damage per second within a 300 unit radius (all of which stacks with other Golems).
The stun is fantastic for providing teamfight control and initiation/counter-initiation, and allows for your team and the Golem to follow up with quick damage output. The Golem meanwhile deals high amounts of damage providing enemies do not flee, and is also a strong pushing minion.
Gameplay Tips
Always try to get Fatal Bonds off in teamfights. Ideally you want to do so as soon as the fight breaks out (or even beforehand, if you’re initiating with Chaotic Offering), so that the bulk of the damage your team dishes out is applied to multiple enemy heroes.
| Note: Certain instances of damage are not applied by Fatal Bonds in proportion to damage dealt. These exceptions include Axe’s Culling Blade, Ancient Apparition’s Ice Blast shatter, Diffusal Blade’s illusion removal, and any instance of damage above 6000. |
Remember that Fatal Bonds chooses the targets that are closest to the targeted unit/hero – it does not select units randomly in the 700 unit radius. If you select a hero who is, for example, nearby a creep wave, it will affect that hero and the units in the creep wave but not other enemy heroes unless they are closer than the creep wave.
Shadow Word is actually a significant damage over time ability. If you’re lane supporting and facing up against a solo enemy offlaner, use this to whittle down their health and force them to chew through consumables at a rapid rate. So long as you always have sufficient mana for an additional Shadow Word, should you need to heal yourself or your carry, feel free to spam it once you’ve gotten a few levels in it.
During downtime or rotations, use Shadow Word to top up allies’ health if you have the mana to spare – remember its potential as both a heal and a nuke!
Upheaval is widely regarded as one of the worst abilities in the game. This reputation is somewhat unwarranted – Warlock lacks right-click DPS and so it can prove very useful to cast Upheaval in teamfights once you’ve used your other abilities already rather than futilely right clicking enemy heroes. The slow is very potent and makes life hell for melee heroes that lack BKB or don’t want to waste it on breaking out of Upheaval. It is especially good to combine with your Golem, which has fairly low movespeed and attack speed but deals high damage so long as he can attack enemies.
Upheaval is also good for slowing down pushes. It has a 1200 unit cast range, and so can be used in advance of an enemy push, to significantly slow down the creep wave (and allow for easy clearance by teammates and the tower) and put the enemy team off proceeding up hill.
Finally, Upheaval can be used to briefly slow fleeing enemies or to slow up enemy pursuit of a fleeing ally. Sometimes it will be just enough to allow your team to catch up with or outrun an opponent.
| Note: Upheaval’s slow increases by 7/14/21/28% per second up to 84% slow. This increase is based on the duration of the channel and NOT the duration the target is inside the AoE. |
Chaotic Offering should be saved for teammates. It is an extremely powerful way to initiate a teamfight or to counter-initiate following the enemy team getting the jump on yours.
Don’t forget to micro the Golem – it deals considerable damage, but only if it is actually wailing on enemies and not just stood there blankly! Ideally you want to target enemy heroes with it, especially squishy supports which will be force into a head-long retreat, but if the teamfight has already ended use it to push the lane or farm jungle camps, in order to get some extra value out of its use.
Golems are hard countered by Diffusal Blade and purges – it will instantly die – so if the enemy line-up consists of heroes that can easily opt for a Diffusal Blade as one of their core item pick-ups reconsider your Warlock pick.
Try not to let enemy heroes kill off your Golem. Golems have a gold bounty of 100/150/200 (or 50/75/100 with Aghanims), which is a fairly substantial amount of gold. If it’s getting low on life have it run from battle. Often Warlock players will simply send the Golem to push down towers once the initial teamfight has ended; be careful to keep an eye on it and don’t let the enemy team kill it off for the gold bounty.
| Tip: You can use Shadow Word to heal your Golem if it’s dropping low on health. |
Warlock’s standard combo is Fatal Bonds > Chaotic Offering > Shadow Word > Upheaval. The order can be switched around if necessary, but at the very least you need to get off Chaotic Offering and Fatal Bonds before you die in a teamfight.
Last Updated - Patch 6.83.
