Starting at level 10, you gain a talent point on each levelup. At level 60, you will have 51 talent points in total. If you played Diablo2, talents are somewhat similar to a skill tree. There are many more talents than you will ever have talent points available, so there are choices to be made. And these choices are not easy. Let me start with saying you CAN reset your talents. Visiting a trainer gives you the option of resetting all your talents in one go, but at a cost.
First time resetting talents: 1 gold
Second time: 5 gold
Third time: 10 gold
Fourth and beyond: +5 gold each time so 15, 20, 25, etc
Max cost: 50 gold
The cost to reset talents decays over time, at a rate of 5 gold per month. It will not decay below 10 gold.
Before resetting your talents, read up on them. You will find detailed information on talents and talent builds in this chapter.
Now, what to get? It’s very hard to decide on a build you will be happy with, I keep looking at my talents thinking ‘What if I did this… or that? Would I kill faster? Hmm.. Argggg!’ Yes, talents are a source of wonder and joy.. and of misery and torment. Don’t place them lightly, as you will find yourself to be resetting them more often.

Talent Listing With Pro’s And Con’s
Before I show you some of the possible paths to take, I’ll break down all talents and their effects. Talents are rated from 1 to 5 stars, which shows the degree in which I would value them.
‘Tier’ refers to the position (horizontally) in the talent trees. The first tier is the top one, the last one at the bottom.
Affliction
Tier 1Tier 1Tier 1Tier 1Tier 1Tier 1
Suppression – 5 ranks.
Lowers the chance of enemies to resist your affliction spells by 2% per rank, up to 10%.
This effect is most noticeable when fighting monsters above your level. The effect functionality is identical to the +Spell Hit statistic, but this only counts for affliction spells.
Improved Corruption – 5 ranks.
Reduces the cast time of your Corruption spell by 0.4 seconds per rank, up to -2 seconds, which makes the spell instant cast. You can then cast it while moving, which makes this talent very valuable.
Tier 2Tier 2Tier 2Tier 2Tier 2
Improved Curse of Weakness - 3 ranks.
Increases the effect of your Curse of Weakness spell by 6 – 20%.
A 20% improvement of this one curse doesn’t warrant the use of 3 talent points, especially considering that it doesn’t see too much use in the later levels.
The attack power reduction of fully talented Curse of Weakness is identical to that of improved Demoralizing Shout.
Improved Drain Soul – 2 ranks.
Returns 7 - 15% of your maximum mana if the target is killed while you drain its soul. In addition, your Affliction spells generate 5 -10% less threat.
The threat reduction alone make this an excellent two point talent. The mana gain from kills is awesome for a soloing lock. You can get most of the mana you spent on killing a mob back with this, which makes constant uninterrupted killing much more easy to achieve.
Improved Life Tap – 2 ranks.
Increases the amount of mana awarded by your Life Tap spell by 10 - 20%.
It may not seem like all that much, but if you lifetap frequently (which all locks should), this talent is a very worthwhile investment.

Soul Siphon - 2 ranks.
Increases the amount drained by your Drain Life and Drain Mana spells by an additional 2 - 5% for each affliction effect on the target, up to a maximum of 24 - 60% additional effect.
This talent lets you sustain your own health where it is necessary, the amount drained can become quite large in raids with multiple locks present. Drain Life will not approach the amount of damage Shadowbolt or Incinerate put out, even with this talent. But it will become possible to do respectable damage with it while getting your life back to full.
Tier 3Tier 3Tier 3Tier 3Tier 3Tier 3
Improved Curse of Agony – 2 ranks.
Increases the damage done by your Curse of Agony by 5 - 10%.
A 10% damage improvement for a single curse, at a cost of 2 points is quite poor. Especially considering that using a different curse than CoA is frequently preferable, which leaves this talent unused most of the time.
Fel Concentration – 5 ranks.
Gives you a 14 - 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling the Drain Life, Mana or Soul spells.
This one really is a musthave if you venture into the affliction tree. Not only does it make it much easier to drain soul shards, it also improves your survivability when you get aggro, as you can use drain life while taking damage (aka draintanking). This talent may not seem too great on paper, but I assure you, it is. Coupled with a paladins Concentration Aura, your affliction spells become completely uninterruptable by damage.
Amplify Curse – 1 rank.
Increases the effect of your next Curse of Doom or Curse of Agony by 50%, or Curse of Exhaustion by 20%.
This talent is a nice little one pointer. Amplify comes in handy on certain raid boss fights where you can get Curse of Doom to go off for masive damage when timed right. It gives a nice little boost to your damage when you need it.
Tier 4Tier 4Tier 4Tier 4Tier 4
Grim Reach – 2 ranks.
Extends the range of Affliction spells by 10 - 20%.
This talent will let you stand a little further away from the target when casting, which can be helpful when dealing with AE’ing opponents in raid settings. It will also buy you a little extra ‘in spell range’ time in PvP to cast an extra dot or curse on someone and to more easily be in range of someone with longer range spells.
The downside is that it works just for affliction spells, thus Shadow Bolt, Incinerate and Searing Pain are not included. One would need to take Destructive reach in the destruction tree to have an across the board increase in spell range.
Nightfall – 2 ranks.

Each time corruption or drain life damages a target, there is a 4% chance nightfall will activate, letting you cast a shadowbolt instantly.
While a 4% chance does not seem like much, this talent goes off more often then you’d expect. Its not great, but it nice enough not to skip.
Empowered Corruption – 3 ranks.
Your Corruption spell gains an additional 12 – 36% of your bonus spell damage effects.
Seeing that Corruption is one of our most used spells, this talent is an excellent boost.
The talents functions as a boost to the bonus spell damage co雈ficient. Corruption receives a 93.6% bonus from your spell damage effects normally. With the talent maxed, that will become 129.6%.
Tier 5Tier 5Tier 5Tier 5Tier 5Tier 5
Shadow Embrace – 5 ranks.
Your Corruption, Curse of Agony, Siphon Life and Seed of Corruption spells also cause the Shadow Embrace effect, which reduces physical damage caused by 1 – 5%.
This talent is not too helpful for soloing or regular groups, where the small damage reduction will not have any noticable effect. It has a bit of use for PvP, where the 5% could make a (tiny) difference. For raids, the damage reduction can be quite welcome on tough bosses, but its worth noting that the reduction is applied after armor. Your average raid tank will have more than 60% mitigation from armor, which results in Shadow Embrace's effect being reduced by that percentage. The damage reduction will only be 5% * 0.40 = 2%, even less with a druid tank. This, for a total of 5 talent points, is meager indeed.
Most locks that get this talent put in a single point because it counts as an affliction spell towards Soul Siphon.
Siphon Life – 1 rank.
Transfers 15 – 63 health from the target to the caster every 3 sec. Lasts 30 seconds. The damage depends on the rank of the spell. (Upgrade it at a warlock trainer)
Although the damage isn’t astronomical, this talent is very useful. Especially when cast on multiple targets this spell will refill your hp reasonably fast. The manacost is high, but will be returned to you doubly in life. And life is mana to a lock.
This talent also enables you to take on multiple mobs much more easily.

Curse of Exhaustion – 1 rank.
Reduces the targets speed by 30% for 12 sec. Coupled with Amplify Curse, the effect is boosted to 50% This is very valuable in PvP, where slowing someone can mean your victory, or a safe getaway.
Also effective when coupled with fear, leaving the enemy in your spell range longer due to their slower movement.
Tier 6Tier 6Tier 6Tier 6Tier 6Tier 6
Shadow Mastery – 5 ranks.
Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your shadow spells by 2 – 10%.
A 10% bonus is nothing to scoff at, and shadow spells make for a large part of our arsenal.
Tier 7Tier 7Tier 7Tier 7Tier 7
Contagion – 5 ranks.
Increases the damage of Curse of Agony, Corruption and Seed of Corruption by 1 – 5% and reduces the chance your Affliction spells will be dispelled by 6 – 30%
Quite helpful in PvP. Even with Unstable Affliction, having your spells tougher to dispell is helpful as it causes your opponents to spend more time getting rid of those dots. The tiny damage increase is lackluster, but both parts together make this talent worthwhile.
Dark Pact – 1 rank.
Drains 305 – 700 of your pet’s Mana, returning 100% to you. (Mana drained depends on the rank of the spell) the amount drained is further increased by 96% your spell damage, making it on par with Life Tap.
As pets regen mana much faster then you, this talent allows you to keep on going much longer and lets you regain mana during combat easily, without having to eat your own life away with Life Tap. Once you grow accustomed to its use, you will find yourself using it in conjunction with Life Tap. One does not exclude the other, as some seem to believe. Using both spells provides you with excellent mana regeneration while having a pet out.
This talent couples best with an imp (having the highest mana regen of all pets).
Tier 8 Tier 8 Tier 8 Tier 8 Tier 8 Tier 8
Improved Howl of Terror – 2 ranks.
Reduces the casting time of your Howl of Terror spell by 0.8 – 1.5 seconds.
Two points in this make the spell instant. Having an instant cast fear is quite helpful, both in PvP and when playing solo or grouped. This talent allows for some very efficient affliction style farming. Dotting multiple mobs and fearing them off to watch them die is an excellent tactic.

Malediction – 3 ranks.
Increases the damage bonus effect of your Curse of Shadows and Curse of the Elements spells by an additional 1 – 3%.
This is not a bad talent, but I cant get too excited about it either. The difference is most noticeable on raids, provided you actually get to cast your curse of choice.
Tier 9Tier 9Tier 9Tier 9Tier 9Tier 9
Unstable Affliction – 1 ranks.
Shadow Energy slowly destroys the target, causing 660 - 1050 damage over 18 seconds. (depending on rank). If Unstable Affliction is dispelled, it will cause 990 - 1575 (depending on rank again) damage to the dispeller and silence them for 5 seconds.
An extremely nice spell for PvP. Countless dispellers have died because of this spell, as many are simply too eager to dispel dots to notice the UA icon. And when they do notice, it will make them not dispel your dots, which is exactly what this talent is meant to accomplish.