By now you are no longer a newbie. I mean that this particular toon is not a noob anymore. You have a decent arsenal of spells and abilities now, you have enough talent points to get something significant out of your build, and the gear is getting better and more beneficial. The next 20 levels should be about really learning the play style of the class. There are many important skills and techniques to learn and master at this time that will help you in the future.
Talent Points
Continuing along with the Affliction tree, you will get the ability to Drain Tank far more effectively, as well as improving one of your DoTs. You will also be able to gain the potential to cast instant Shadow Bolts! Here is what you should be getting at each level:
20 - Fel Concentration (1/5)
21 - Fel Concentration (2/5)
22 - Fel Concentration (3/5)
23 - Fel Concentration (4/5)
24 - Fel Concentration (5/5)
25 - Improved Curse of Agony (1/2)
26 - Improved Curse of Agony (2/2)
27 - Nightfall (1/2)
28 - Nightfall (2/2)
29 - Amplify Curse or Soul Siphon (2/2)
Again you could slightly order this around differently, but this is the order I find most effective based on what you will use more and get the most benefit out the earliest. Soul Siphon is something that is very good to have eventually, but since it gets it's greatest benefit when coupled with other Locks casting affliction spells, it can wait till later. But still it will increase the effectiveness of your Drain Life a bit right now and some people might rather have that.
Abilities
At level 20 you get a whole bunch of stuff, but the most important is the Succubus pet. She will greatly increase your overall DPS eventually, however you do not want to use her just yet. She cannot hold aggro whatsoever and her DPS is at it's absolute lowest right now, so it's better to just keep using the VW for the time being.
Ritual of Summoning will allow you to summon other players to you with the help of 2 other players. Can be useful when grouping.
At level 24 you will get Drain Mana. This sounds like it would be useful but except in rare cases, it is actually quite useless. A Life Tap + Drain Life is far superior to this since it also does damage to the mob.
You also get Drain Soul 2. DO NOT USE THIS! There is absolutely no reason to use anything greater than Drain Soul 1. The only reason you ever want to use Drain Soul is at the last second before a mob dies in order to get a soul shard. Drain Soul 1 does this perfectly and at low mana cost. I mean really, don't even bother training this or any other higher levels of Drain Soul; it just isn't worth it.
Curse of Tongues at lvl 26 is a sometimes useful spell against casters. If you PVP a lot, this might be pretty useful to you. For grouping or raiding later on, there are a few things it is very useful on. For solo leveling, it is very useless.
Level 28 brings you Banish, which is a form of crowd control against Elementals and Demons. You may not find much use for it while leveling, but it is a very valuable ability, so you should at least play around with it so you are familiar with it when you need it. The great thing about Banish is that once it is on a mob, unlike sheep, it cannot be broken by anything or anyone.
You also get Create Firestone which is pretty useless since it takes up your wand slot and Affliction Warlocks are doing 90% shadow damage. Don't bother with this.
Tactics
Same tactics apply, but as you gain in level, the more powerful Drain Tanking becomes and the more you should go ahead and use it. Eventually you also want to replace the VW with the Succubus.
By lvl 24, with full 5/5 in Fel Concentration, you can Drain Tank very effectively. DoT up the mob, Life Tap, and then Drain Tank till dead. You may need to Life Tap again. But you should end the fight with full life and mana or pretty darn close to it. Very likely you will eventually pull aggro from the VW from your DoTs, in which case the now nearly uninterruptable Drain Life will allow you to tank the mob and outlast it while your DoTs keep ticking.
With Nightfall you also get a small chance to proc an instant Shadow Bolt from Corruption or Drain Life. So even while Drain Tanking, you might also be able to cast an SBolt! It's pretty random and you shouldn't depend on it proccing every fight, but it is pretty awesome when it does. So this makes Drain Life more powerful since it increases your chance of a Nightfall.
Sometime between 26 and 30 you should switch to using the Succubus. The VW can no longer keep up with you. If you are going to be tanking anyway, via Drain Tank, you ought to have a pet that does some DPS. This is your Succubus.
The new tactic is really the same as the old one, except you will be pulling aggro faster, actually pretty much right away. So really you shouldn't worry about it and just do as much damage as you can right away. Start out with a SBolt, while sending in your pet simultaneously (or Immolate if you need more DoTs for a tougher mob), then while running away drop Curse of Agony and Corruption and do a quick Life Tap. By now the mob has probably caught up to you and is about to hit you. Now you start Drain Tanking. Keep casting Drain Life, with the occasional Life Tap to keep your mana and health even, till the mob has died. It should be dying pretty quickly because you have your DoTs ticking away and the Succubus attacking as well.
Once you get the hang of it, you will find that you are able to keep your HP and mana full most of the time while still DPSing down a mob pretty fast. Alternatively you could let the Succubus tank it at first while you DoT the mob, then Sbolt and Drain Life, but the Succy does not take a beating well, so it's really better to just take the damage yourself from the start.
The other tactic, if you have the room for it, is to keep the mob feared. The succubus will follow the mob around and do quite a bit of damage along with your DoTs and you can toss a few SBolts in there. But again, Fear is unpredictable and could aggro many more mobs, so probably not worth using in most cases.
Gear
To be added later
Friday, January 25, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Leveling 10-20
Upon reaching level 10, you get a quest for your Voidwalker demon and start to earn talent points each level. The Voidwalker should be your pet of choice for a good many levels as it serves as a relatively decent tank for you while you nuke. Talent points can be used to give you new spells or abilities or to make current ones better. These next ten levels should be about setting up your talent build and building a good understanding on how the class plays.
Talent Points
All three talent trees available for the Warlock are very nice. Affliction focuses on your Damage Over Time spells and debuffing abilities, making them better. Demonology focuses on making your demons more powerful and giving you some extra survivability abilities. Destruction greatly strengthens your nuking ability. They all have their pros and cons and usefulnesses. Destruction makes your Shadowbolts more powerful and mobs die faster, but you consume far more mana and will need more downtime to replenish. Demonology has a lot of relatively useless talents that you must get in order to reach the really good talents. Affliction has less burst DPS potential, but it is more mana efficient and requires little to no downtime.
Any of these you could level successfully as, but Destruction is clearly the less desirable of them due to its mana consumption. Save this for End Game. Demonology and Affliction are both good leveling builds, but early Affliction talents are clearly better. Thus I propose that the best way to level is to start out Affliction and then when you have enough talent points to get the good stuff, respec to Demonology.
The first 10 points should be used as such:
Tactics
Your ideal fighting tactic now should be something like this: Send Voidwalker in. Curse of Agony -> (Immolate) -> Corruption -> Shadow Bolt -> Life Tap -> Shadow Bolt. If mobs die fast, you don't need Immolate; if they last longer though, use Immolate. CoA should always be used first because it lasts longer and does more damage at the end, therefore you want it to tick all the way through. Keep Shadow Bolting and Life Taping till mob is almost dead, then quickly Drain Soul right before it is about to die to get some mana back as well as a Soul Stone.
Now you will find that your VW is not that great of a tank as you would like. At first it will do a fine job as you are just laying your DoTs on the mob and not doing any burst damage. But as soon as you start Shadow Bolt nuking, you will pull aggro. There are several different ways to deal with this. One is to just deal with it and keep nuking, hoping the mob dies soon, or fear it to give you time for another Sbolt or two. Another thing you could do is just wait a bit between DoTing and nuking so that your VW can build more threat. The third method is to Drain Tank.
Drain Tanking is another one of those unique Warlock things. Since Locks value stamina so much and generally have higher health than other casters and have the ability to Drain Life, they can take a greater beating and outlast mobs. Basically you DoT up the mob, Life Tap, and then Drain Life till it's dead, Life Tapping any time your HP is full or a lot higher than your mana. Drain Life does not do as much damage as a Shadow Bolt would, but if a mob is on you and preventing you from casting that SBolt and damaging you anyway, Drain Life comes out on top in that situation. Drain Tanking gets a lot better in your 20's as you get some other talents, but you shouldn't be needing it as much right now anyway as your VW will be tanking the mob most of the time. But it is a good tactic to use when you are in trouble, or just to get used to it for later on.
Gear
I didn't comment on gear before because, well it wasn't important at that early of a level. It still isn't terribly important now either, though you do want to at least focus on needed attributes. As a Warlock, you want Stamina and lots of it. There used to not be too any items with +spell damage early on, but there is more now, so that should also be desired. And since you are a mana user, you also need Intellect, though not as much since you can just Life Tap. Therefore you should prioritize Stamina > Spell Damage > Intellect. I prioritize Stamina over Spell Damage for now since as you are soloing you are likely to not get healed and want the extra HP to take a beating (useful for drain tanking) and need it for Life Tap anyway. "Of the Eagle" gear is very good to get. Spirit is very useless for a Warlock since they do not consume as much mana as other casters and can Life Tap it back.
There really isn't any specific gear to note at this level since you will be replacing it so quickly. Just look for Stamina and Spell Damage gear, with a bit of Intellect on the side.
Abilities
There isn't many noteworthy abilities during these levels, mostly just newer ranks of the one's you already have. At lvl 10 you do get Create Healthstone, which is useful. You should always have a Healthstone on you just in case you need it. Drain Life at lvl 14 is valuable, of course. Create Soulstone at 18 might be handy if you ever feel you are in a tough spot and want to be able to resurrect. Curse of Recklessness, Health Funnel, and Searing Pain are all insignificant at this level.
Additional Notes
Since summoning the VW, Healthstones and Soulstones require Soul Shards, you better get used to acquiring them via Drain Soul. Not only that, but you should accumulate Shards so that you already have one ready to be used when you need one. It will depend on your bag space, but you should always have at least 5 when soloing, 10+ if you group a lot. (Your group will want some Healthstones too!)
Get in the habit of using Life Tap only when you have used enough mana to get the benefit of the full Life Tap or when your HP is full. Alternatively you could alternate between Life Tap and Drain Life and, in effect, keep your HP and Mana nearly full at all times.
I was thinking about adding a Demonology (or Destruction) section for those of you who want to go that way right away, but I will save that for an alternative leveling guide later on. Again these early Affliction talents are way better than anything Demo or Destro offers early on, so it's much better to just start out Affliction. The only thing of note for solo leveling early on for Demonology is Improved Voidwalker, but it's not as effective as you might think it would be. If you really like the Tank-and-Spank playstyle, you can get by respeccing at lvl 17 so that you get the benefits of the awesome Affliction talents till you can get Imp VW in full.
EDIT:
I completely forgot about wands. An alternative strategy is to DoT up the mob while your VW is tanking and then just wanding it down while your mana regens. This is perfectly acceptable and actually is probably the desired strategy for right now. Drain Tanking isn't too strong yet (and you can get a wand before you even get Drain Life) so you might want to hold off on that for now.
Talent Points
All three talent trees available for the Warlock are very nice. Affliction focuses on your Damage Over Time spells and debuffing abilities, making them better. Demonology focuses on making your demons more powerful and giving you some extra survivability abilities. Destruction greatly strengthens your nuking ability. They all have their pros and cons and usefulnesses. Destruction makes your Shadowbolts more powerful and mobs die faster, but you consume far more mana and will need more downtime to replenish. Demonology has a lot of relatively useless talents that you must get in order to reach the really good talents. Affliction has less burst DPS potential, but it is more mana efficient and requires little to no downtime.
Any of these you could level successfully as, but Destruction is clearly the less desirable of them due to its mana consumption. Save this for End Game. Demonology and Affliction are both good leveling builds, but early Affliction talents are clearly better. Thus I propose that the best way to level is to start out Affliction and then when you have enough talent points to get the good stuff, respec to Demonology.
The first 10 points should be used as such:
- Improved Corruption (1/5)
- Improved Corruption (2/5)
- Improved Corruption (3/5)
- Improved Corruption (4/5)
- Improved Corruption (5/5)
- Improved Life Tap (1/2)
- Improved Life Tap (2/2)
- Improved Drain Soul (1/2)
- Improved Drain Soul (2/2)
- Soul Siphon (1/2)
Tactics
Your ideal fighting tactic now should be something like this: Send Voidwalker in. Curse of Agony -> (Immolate) -> Corruption -> Shadow Bolt -> Life Tap -> Shadow Bolt. If mobs die fast, you don't need Immolate; if they last longer though, use Immolate. CoA should always be used first because it lasts longer and does more damage at the end, therefore you want it to tick all the way through. Keep Shadow Bolting and Life Taping till mob is almost dead, then quickly Drain Soul right before it is about to die to get some mana back as well as a Soul Stone.
Now you will find that your VW is not that great of a tank as you would like. At first it will do a fine job as you are just laying your DoTs on the mob and not doing any burst damage. But as soon as you start Shadow Bolt nuking, you will pull aggro. There are several different ways to deal with this. One is to just deal with it and keep nuking, hoping the mob dies soon, or fear it to give you time for another Sbolt or two. Another thing you could do is just wait a bit between DoTing and nuking so that your VW can build more threat. The third method is to Drain Tank.
Drain Tanking is another one of those unique Warlock things. Since Locks value stamina so much and generally have higher health than other casters and have the ability to Drain Life, they can take a greater beating and outlast mobs. Basically you DoT up the mob, Life Tap, and then Drain Life till it's dead, Life Tapping any time your HP is full or a lot higher than your mana. Drain Life does not do as much damage as a Shadow Bolt would, but if a mob is on you and preventing you from casting that SBolt and damaging you anyway, Drain Life comes out on top in that situation. Drain Tanking gets a lot better in your 20's as you get some other talents, but you shouldn't be needing it as much right now anyway as your VW will be tanking the mob most of the time. But it is a good tactic to use when you are in trouble, or just to get used to it for later on.
Gear
I didn't comment on gear before because, well it wasn't important at that early of a level. It still isn't terribly important now either, though you do want to at least focus on needed attributes. As a Warlock, you want Stamina and lots of it. There used to not be too any items with +spell damage early on, but there is more now, so that should also be desired. And since you are a mana user, you also need Intellect, though not as much since you can just Life Tap. Therefore you should prioritize Stamina > Spell Damage > Intellect. I prioritize Stamina over Spell Damage for now since as you are soloing you are likely to not get healed and want the extra HP to take a beating (useful for drain tanking) and need it for Life Tap anyway. "Of the Eagle" gear is very good to get. Spirit is very useless for a Warlock since they do not consume as much mana as other casters and can Life Tap it back.
There really isn't any specific gear to note at this level since you will be replacing it so quickly. Just look for Stamina and Spell Damage gear, with a bit of Intellect on the side.
Abilities
There isn't many noteworthy abilities during these levels, mostly just newer ranks of the one's you already have. At lvl 10 you do get Create Healthstone, which is useful. You should always have a Healthstone on you just in case you need it. Drain Life at lvl 14 is valuable, of course. Create Soulstone at 18 might be handy if you ever feel you are in a tough spot and want to be able to resurrect. Curse of Recklessness, Health Funnel, and Searing Pain are all insignificant at this level.
Additional Notes
Since summoning the VW, Healthstones and Soulstones require Soul Shards, you better get used to acquiring them via Drain Soul. Not only that, but you should accumulate Shards so that you already have one ready to be used when you need one. It will depend on your bag space, but you should always have at least 5 when soloing, 10+ if you group a lot. (Your group will want some Healthstones too!)
Get in the habit of using Life Tap only when you have used enough mana to get the benefit of the full Life Tap or when your HP is full. Alternatively you could alternate between Life Tap and Drain Life and, in effect, keep your HP and Mana nearly full at all times.
I was thinking about adding a Demonology (or Destruction) section for those of you who want to go that way right away, but I will save that for an alternative leveling guide later on. Again these early Affliction talents are way better than anything Demo or Destro offers early on, so it's much better to just start out Affliction. The only thing of note for solo leveling early on for Demonology is Improved Voidwalker, but it's not as effective as you might think it would be. If you really like the Tank-and-Spank playstyle, you can get by respeccing at lvl 17 so that you get the benefits of the awesome Affliction talents till you can get Imp VW in full.
EDIT:
I completely forgot about wands. An alternative strategy is to DoT up the mob while your VW is tanking and then just wanding it down while your mana regens. This is perfectly acceptable and actually is probably the desired strategy for right now. Drain Tanking isn't too strong yet (and you can get a wand before you even get Drain Life) so you might want to hold off on that for now.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Leveling Guide: 1-10
The first 10 levels of any new toon should be trivial. You only have a handful of beginning skills, there are no talents yet, and the mobs are super easy. Really there is very little difference between each class at these early levels besides being caster or melee. However, we do have to start somewhere and lvl 1 is as good a place as any. Besides, the better you understand your class early on, the more you will know later and the better off you will be. You will learn to like the class and be more likely to stick with it.
Choosing Your Race
Likely you have other friends or toons that are already Alliance or Horde and will want to join that side. If you are new or don't care either way, then that will be your first choice. It's largely a personal preference as to which side you want to go to, but for what it's worth, I prefer Horde.
Warlocks can be Gnome or Human on Alliance or Orc, Undead, or Blood Elf on Horde. There are slight pros/cons to each race that make them better/worse suited to the Warlock that may sway your decision.
If you want every little extra advantage you can get though, Gnome is definitely the better choice for Alliance. It's less clear on Horde, but Orc is probably the best choice due to Blood Fury. It's like an extra damage trinket. Depending on tradeskills, you may prefer a class that provides a buff to that particular tradeskill though.
Playing
You should make sure to keep Demon Skin buff at all times. At first you're best tactic is just to spam shadowbolt. When you get your Imp, have it spam Firebolt along with you. Mobs will go down very fast. You may or may not want to use Immolate. It's a nuke with a DoT. But mobs should be going down so fast that you may just rather keep doing SBolt. At lvl 4 you will get corruption, which is a useful DoT that you should open with before SBolt.
At lvl 4 you get your first curse, Curse of Weakness(CoW). At 8 you get Curse of Agony(CoA). CoW is nearly worthless. CoA is an instant DoT that does more damage at the end of its timer. CoA should always be used over CoW. However if a mob goes down very quickly, it might not be worth casting the curse at all, since it does less damage the quicker the mob goes down.
You will also get Life Tap at lvl 6. You should get used to LT as you will be using it a lot. Lifetapping converts some of your health into valuable mana. You will find that you will be using up mana a lot faster than health, therefore by Life Tapping occasionally, you even out your HP and MP, which allows you to keep casting longer before needing to stop and eat/drink. This will become even more powerful later on when you get Drain Life
At 8 you will get Fear. With Fear you can keep mobs at a distance, which will allow you to nuke without getting your face beat in. Mobs move unpredictably when Feared, so you do not want to use it haphazardly. Learn to drag a mob away from other mobs before Fearing.
By this time you will be out of the newbie starting area and taking on slightly more difficult mobs and quests. The basic tactic is to open with Corruption, start moving away from the mob, toss CoA on mob while still moving back. Fear and start nuking with SBolt, reapply Corruption/CoA as needed. Mobs at this level should die before you need to reapply your DoTs.
As I said before, everything is simple right now, but you should get used to your 3 DoTs (Immolate, Corruption, and CoA) and learn when to use them. Immolate you don't need to use as much unless it's a tougher mob that will be up for a longer time. CoA's damage is backloaded, so you want to make sure you do not recast it till it is complete. Corruption is your main DoT and should be up 100% of the time.
That's it for now. Next time we will start more meatier stuff like placing talent points.
Choosing Your Race
Likely you have other friends or toons that are already Alliance or Horde and will want to join that side. If you are new or don't care either way, then that will be your first choice. It's largely a personal preference as to which side you want to go to, but for what it's worth, I prefer Horde.
Warlocks can be Gnome or Human on Alliance or Orc, Undead, or Blood Elf on Horde. There are slight pros/cons to each race that make them better/worse suited to the Warlock that may sway your decision.
- Gnome - Have larger mana pool from Expansive Mind
- Human - Higher spirit, which isn't very useful for Locks
- Orc - Increase in spell damage through Blood Fury
- Undead - Regenerates HP faster with Cannibalize, which is particularly useful after a Life Tap
- Blood Elf - Extra mana regen from Mana Tap/Arcane Torrent
If you want every little extra advantage you can get though, Gnome is definitely the better choice for Alliance. It's less clear on Horde, but Orc is probably the best choice due to Blood Fury. It's like an extra damage trinket. Depending on tradeskills, you may prefer a class that provides a buff to that particular tradeskill though.
Playing
You should make sure to keep Demon Skin buff at all times. At first you're best tactic is just to spam shadowbolt. When you get your Imp, have it spam Firebolt along with you. Mobs will go down very fast. You may or may not want to use Immolate. It's a nuke with a DoT. But mobs should be going down so fast that you may just rather keep doing SBolt. At lvl 4 you will get corruption, which is a useful DoT that you should open with before SBolt.
At lvl 4 you get your first curse, Curse of Weakness(CoW). At 8 you get Curse of Agony(CoA). CoW is nearly worthless. CoA is an instant DoT that does more damage at the end of its timer. CoA should always be used over CoW. However if a mob goes down very quickly, it might not be worth casting the curse at all, since it does less damage the quicker the mob goes down.
You will also get Life Tap at lvl 6. You should get used to LT as you will be using it a lot. Lifetapping converts some of your health into valuable mana. You will find that you will be using up mana a lot faster than health, therefore by Life Tapping occasionally, you even out your HP and MP, which allows you to keep casting longer before needing to stop and eat/drink. This will become even more powerful later on when you get Drain Life
At 8 you will get Fear. With Fear you can keep mobs at a distance, which will allow you to nuke without getting your face beat in. Mobs move unpredictably when Feared, so you do not want to use it haphazardly. Learn to drag a mob away from other mobs before Fearing.
By this time you will be out of the newbie starting area and taking on slightly more difficult mobs and quests. The basic tactic is to open with Corruption, start moving away from the mob, toss CoA on mob while still moving back. Fear and start nuking with SBolt, reapply Corruption/CoA as needed. Mobs at this level should die before you need to reapply your DoTs.
As I said before, everything is simple right now, but you should get used to your 3 DoTs (Immolate, Corruption, and CoA) and learn when to use them. Immolate you don't need to use as much unless it's a tougher mob that will be up for a longer time. CoA's damage is backloaded, so you want to make sure you do not recast it till it is complete. Corruption is your main DoT and should be up 100% of the time.
That's it for now. Next time we will start more meatier stuff like placing talent points.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
So You Want To Start A Warlock
You've seen the cool spells and abilities that Warlocks have. You've heard they are overpowered (debatable). You're jealous of the wicked mounts. So you are considering starting a brand new spanking Warlock. Congratulations, you will not regret it. For those of you who are still unsure, read on.
Warlocks are a very unique class. They are very versatile and powerful. They can excel in a variety of different roles. They offer many useful tools in groups and raids. They are effective solo as well as within a group. And they are just plain cool. Let me list the reasons why Warlocks are the best.
Some of these really impressive things that Locks can do require some skill to pull off. Warlocks have a large number of spells and skills that they need to juggle to maximize their potential. You have to concentrate and be aware at all times to efficiently use your DoTs and mana. Locks have to understand what debuff to use in which situation. Fearing is unpredictable and requires practice to consistently pull off reliably. Warlocks need to know the strengths and weaknesses of each demon so that they use the correct one for the correct job.
Playing a Warlock is more work than many think it is. But if you learn to master the class, you will find that it can be extremely powerful. And a whole lot of fun.
Warlocks are a very unique class. They are very versatile and powerful. They can excel in a variety of different roles. They offer many useful tools in groups and raids. They are effective solo as well as within a group. And they are just plain cool. Let me list the reasons why Warlocks are the best.
- Soloability - The Warlock is arguably the most powerful class in solo PVE play. I would say a Beast Mastery Hunter is easier to solo, but the Warlock is more powerful due to its versatility. You will find that fighting mobs is easy and quick paced as a Lock. By focusing on mobs a few levels lower than you are you can completely dominate them with absolutely no down time. With the power of your DoTs (Damage Over Time) and demon pets, you can easily fight multiple mobs at the same time for even faster XP. Warlocks can kite fairly well to exceptionally well depending on the mob. They also have good survivability and can take a beating and outlast mobs. In short, Locks have a wealth of unique abilities and talents that make them especially powerful in solo play
- Demon Pets - Warlocks can summon a variety of unique demons to do their bidding. The Imp provides added range DPS and a party buff. The Voidwalker will become your personal tank during your early career as a Warlock. The Succubus provides a significant boost in DPS and can also crowd control. The Felhunter is the anti-caster option. And finally, the Felguard is the king of pets and can reasonably DPS and tank for you. And that's only the beginning. There are a variety of talents that improve your pet or offer more benefits to yourself through your pet.
- DoTs - Warlocks have very powerful Damage Over Time spells. This allows the Warlock to fight multiple mobs simultaneously with great success. Though it does add some complexity to the play style, DoTs provide a significant and versatile source of damage for Locks.
- Mana Efficient - Due to their unique style of play (pets and DoT spells) Warlocks do not require a lot of mana to be effective damage dealers. Add to that the fact that Locks can Lifetap or Dark Pact (with talents) to quickly replenish their mana and you have a caster class that does not need to stop and drink often, if ever. This is great for both soloing and group/raiding. While Mages are running out of mana, Locks are still going.
- Fear - The single greatest or most hated spell in the game, depending on from which perspective you are viewing it from. Fear is a powerful ability that, when used properly, can make a Warlock almost invincible. It is also hated by those who get feared! In PVE play, Fear can make a tough elite mob fight trivial. Basically, if you can fear it, you can solo it. Bonus - Locks also have an AOE fear and Deathcoil, which is also fear-like.
- Debuffs - Warlocks have a number of debuffs that make them valuable in Raiding. Debuffs such as Curse of Shadows increases the DPS of Arcane Mages, Shadow Priests, Mookin Druids, other Warlocks, and even Hunters to an extent. This can add up to a huge increase in overall Raid DPS.
- Health/Soul Stones - Heathstones are like a second heath potion that operates on a separate cooldown, making them very useful. Soulstones can be used to save a group/raid from wiping. These are unique abilities that only a Warlock can provide.
- Dreadsteed - Yes, Warlocks have the coolest ground mounts! Your initial mount at lvl 40 is free, while the epic mount requires a lengthy and sometimes expensive quest. If you do it right, you will save money. Even if you don't though, it's still wicked looking!
- 3 Unique Talent Trees - Warlocks have 3 very great talent trees that offer the ability for very different and unique talent builds. While some builds might be slightly better for this or that, none are actually bad. There are only a very few useless talents, so there is likely to be something for everyone out there.
- Summoning - An oftentimes valuable group/raid ability that, again, is unique to Warlocks.
- Seed of Corruption - The best and most baddass AOE in the game. By itself, SoC does not do that much damage, but when Seeds explode, they detonate other Seeds in their radius, which detonate others and so on. A few Warlocks spam seeding can cause extremely MASSIVE AOE damage potential. Not as good for solo as the AOE that Mages have, but awesome when Raiding.
- Self-sufficiency - Add all the above together and you have a class that can succeed in almost any situation without the need from outside help. Warlocks are desired in groups/raids, not only because they provide valuable debuffs and utility and good damage, but also because they do not need much healing or help from grouping with certain classes for buffs. Mages, Shadowpriests and Hunters need to be grouped properly to maximize their potential, but Warlocks do just fine on their own in sub-optimal groups.
Some of these really impressive things that Locks can do require some skill to pull off. Warlocks have a large number of spells and skills that they need to juggle to maximize their potential. You have to concentrate and be aware at all times to efficiently use your DoTs and mana. Locks have to understand what debuff to use in which situation. Fearing is unpredictable and requires practice to consistently pull off reliably. Warlocks need to know the strengths and weaknesses of each demon so that they use the correct one for the correct job.
Playing a Warlock is more work than many think it is. But if you learn to master the class, you will find that it can be extremely powerful. And a whole lot of fun.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Getting Started
I never know how to start these things out. This is the first post, what should it be about? I need to make an good first impression! Do I just jump into some raid boss strategies? I can't decide! So I've decided to just briefly introduce myself and lay out a basic plan for how I will post tips and tactics in the following weeks and beyond.
Please take a look along the right side of the page for my Mission Statement and a brief profile. To add to that, I joined a progression-oriented raiding guild at the start of September. This guild had just started raiding past Karazhan and now, 4 months later, we are sitting at one Kael'thas kill away from clearing all of T5 and heading into T6. So I would say this makes me fairly experienced with End Game. By the time I get to T5 Strategies, I'll probably be half-way through T6 content. I really expect this to be a fully comprehensive blog about Warlocks in The Burning Crusade.
There is just one caveat - I don't PVP. I played on a PVP server for about a year and hated it. I never really got into the Battlegrounds. Never really found them to be that fun. As such I never bothered with newer BG's or the Arenas. I am all about PVE and Raiding. So this blog will deal with everything PVE - soloing, leveling up, 5-man grouping, raiding, etc; but it will not concern itself much with the PVP side of things as I have little experience on that side. Things may change in the future, never know, but for now that is how it will be.
Let me get some bragging out of the way first :) I consider myself a very knowledged and skilled Warlock. I have leveled numerous Warlocks and have played and experimented with all the talent trees. I have successfully completed many group or harder quests solo where many others need the help of a group. I am regularly one of the top damage dealers in raids. I almost never die or screw up strats in raids. I have a pretty good understanding of current theorycraft. If I had to estimate my ranking amongst Warlocks, I would have to say I'm in the top 5% easily. OK, now that you realize how awesome I am, let's move on!
Actually, my point here is that these tips and tactics I will be presenting are the ones that this particular very-good-warlock lives and dies (rarely) by. They can be trusted. I am not some smuck spouting nonsense or repeating cliche. I have personally experienced this stuff and in my opinion these are the best or easiest ways to do something. A lot will be personal opinion or preference and not everyone will agree, and it's fine if you don't, but there is no denying that it will be good stuff.
In closing, I just want to lay out what to expect in upcoming posts. While my guild is stuck learning Kael'thas and not experiencing a whole lot of new stuff in the near future, I will focus on leveling up a brand new Warlock from the decision to pick a Lock, what build to go with, which talents to put points into and when, soloing strategies, etc, all the way up to lvl 70. At that point I will offer details into how to prepare for End Game, getting through Karazhan, and then into the full raiding stuff. There will probably be deviations along the way, such as for tradeskills or interface/mod related discussions. I also will likely have a few opinion posts here and there for variety. But overall the posts will be a guide from 1-70 and beyond.
I hope we have fun along the way!
Please take a look along the right side of the page for my Mission Statement and a brief profile. To add to that, I joined a progression-oriented raiding guild at the start of September. This guild had just started raiding past Karazhan and now, 4 months later, we are sitting at one Kael'thas kill away from clearing all of T5 and heading into T6. So I would say this makes me fairly experienced with End Game. By the time I get to T5 Strategies, I'll probably be half-way through T6 content. I really expect this to be a fully comprehensive blog about Warlocks in The Burning Crusade.
There is just one caveat - I don't PVP. I played on a PVP server for about a year and hated it. I never really got into the Battlegrounds. Never really found them to be that fun. As such I never bothered with newer BG's or the Arenas. I am all about PVE and Raiding. So this blog will deal with everything PVE - soloing, leveling up, 5-man grouping, raiding, etc; but it will not concern itself much with the PVP side of things as I have little experience on that side. Things may change in the future, never know, but for now that is how it will be.
Let me get some bragging out of the way first :) I consider myself a very knowledged and skilled Warlock. I have leveled numerous Warlocks and have played and experimented with all the talent trees. I have successfully completed many group or harder quests solo where many others need the help of a group. I am regularly one of the top damage dealers in raids. I almost never die or screw up strats in raids. I have a pretty good understanding of current theorycraft. If I had to estimate my ranking amongst Warlocks, I would have to say I'm in the top 5% easily. OK, now that you realize how awesome I am, let's move on!
Actually, my point here is that these tips and tactics I will be presenting are the ones that this particular very-good-warlock lives and dies (rarely) by. They can be trusted. I am not some smuck spouting nonsense or repeating cliche. I have personally experienced this stuff and in my opinion these are the best or easiest ways to do something. A lot will be personal opinion or preference and not everyone will agree, and it's fine if you don't, but there is no denying that it will be good stuff.
In closing, I just want to lay out what to expect in upcoming posts. While my guild is stuck learning Kael'thas and not experiencing a whole lot of new stuff in the near future, I will focus on leveling up a brand new Warlock from the decision to pick a Lock, what build to go with, which talents to put points into and when, soloing strategies, etc, all the way up to lvl 70. At that point I will offer details into how to prepare for End Game, getting through Karazhan, and then into the full raiding stuff. There will probably be deviations along the way, such as for tradeskills or interface/mod related discussions. I also will likely have a few opinion posts here and there for variety. But overall the posts will be a guide from 1-70 and beyond.
I hope we have fun along the way!
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