f13.net

Anyone have a guest key they haven't used?  I have managed to get an install of them game, and I'd like to try it out.

Alkiera

If you have not gotten one yet then please toss me a PM.

Done, and thanks.

Alkiera

Sent one to you.  May God have mercy on your soul.

Apparently mercy means today is patch day, so I can't get in until 2pm EST, or something.  Weee.

Alkiera

Server came up at 1pm, so I was able to play for several hours.  Made an undead warlock... he's pretty insanely tough in PvE, compared to what I remember from beta as a mage.  Between having a pet, and some useful debuff/control spells like fear, and the Armor/regen spell Demon Skin, warlocks are terrors.  After 7 hours /played I got my Voidwalker, and I swear it's like an IWin button for most mobs.  He's insanely taunty, I can pull with my fire DoT, send him in, and then nuke immediately, and never get hit.  Heck, I was grouped with an undead warrior for a couple quests, and finally ended up letting the pet tank, it seemed to be tougher than he was.(he admittedly had a 2h sword, and no shield)

I made a priest later that night during insomnia, and didn't have nearly as much fun with it.  Got to 5 or so, and was non-plussed.  The warlock was pretty fun from the outset.

Alkiera

Amusing.. all I hear from locks are how weak they are.  I suppose it helps to have been a weaker lowbie class before (mage).  I nearly quit after I got my hunter to 60 because all the other classes felt so very very weak compared to what my hunter was able to do (and that was prior to their improvement patch.)  I always put it down to the lock players were expecting the class to play itself rather than them having to learn how to play it and so they generally sucked.   Good to hear some feedback that says I wasn't completly wrong in that assumption.

As an undead warlock, you have so many ways to recover hp after combat... I don't think I've ever eaten any food, it's too slow.  I'll just eat my last kill if I have that much time.  I also have used bandages from time to time, and have potions and healthstone for in combat.  And that's on TOP of the now 5hp/sec regen spell gives.

I've not looked too much at specs for talents, tho what I have heard is that demonology and destruction were both pretty good.  My 2 whole points so far have gone into demonology... Improved imp and the one that trades spirit for stamina at a decent ratio.

I met a guy thru PnP rp sessions who plays WoW as a warlock, who convinced me to try one out.  He claims to be able to solo elite bosses and the like.  That doesn't sound weak.  I believe he's primarily demonology spec'd.

Anyway, I've had fun so far with that guy.  The troll priest was just very, very blah.  The area seemed nice, but the class abilities were pretty sucky.  How long do you have to live with that really low-damage Smite?

Also, I've discovered this issue where if I try to change the gamma setting, my computer locks up.  I finally just changed to launch in maximized window mode, which looks like full screen but lets me control the gamma with the Windows' display control panel.

Alkiera

I thought mages are supposed to be quite powerful.  No?

I'm happy to see that my hunter is far better than she was when I left (1.5).  The class got a huge rework, it seems. I respecced to beastmaster/marksmanship.

I have a 25 shadow priest that i played a little yesterday.  She's fun, in a group, not sure how fun she'd be solo.

Spent most of my time figuring out what UI mods to use and how to use them and setting up quickbars and so on again.  Things have changed a lot in 6 months.

Best part is, I'm playing with people I used to mud with long ago.  Seems a lot of people I knew have all come together on this one server, so I'm playing with my goony friends again.  Fun!

I'd say locks are one of the most powerful classes in the game (THE most powerful class prolly goes to Hunters, but they are sure to get nerfed many times in the future, the Hunter buff was overpowering).

The coolest thing about warlocks are the number of "uber" builds that exist for them (as opposed to say, priest, which has 1 solo build, 1 group build).  You can go Shadow Mastery/Ruin for heavy Nukes, Nightfall/Soul Link for survivability, Master Demonologist/Ruin for a good combo of the above builds.  Then there are the esoteric builds like Shadow Mastery/Demonic Sacrifice, which is a "no pet" build but can do some heavy damage (sac a succy, get 15% more shadow damage, added to the 10% more shadow damage you already have from SM.  When nightfall procs you'll be in heaven).  A Imp Life Tap, Soul Link, Shadowburn build is another great build.

Right now my 29 lock is hanging out in WSG with Nightfall and 3 points in DE (don't worry about the spirit hit, take all +int +sta gear and go with DE if you are going up the demo tree.  Life Tap (and especially improved Life Tap) will make Spirit useless, add Demonic Armor and Drain Life and you're all set, regen hit points instead of mana, then convert hit points to mana).  The fact that a casting class can easily be built around +sta instead of worrying about +spi for mana regen means that class is uber.

Assuming you want to pvp (and you do, trust me!), if you want staying power go 7/31/13 or 20/31/0 for your build.  Use SL for the added hps (like 43% more hps) and either resists (from the Felhunter) or damage (from the Succy) from Master Demonologist.  If you want Nuking power go 30/0/21 and have some major damage potential (with Shadow Mastery, Shadow Burn and Ruin, you'll just eat people alive).  Though that build is more "gear" dependent since you need +dam gear to be "uber". If you decide you HATE having to deal with pets, you can go 30/21/0 and sac your pet, though I'm not sure I'd want to do it, it's supposedly very viable.