f13.net

It has so happened that i've been given access to a WoW account for the purposes of "playing" as it were. Since none in my group of friends is playing one i decided to roll a Warlock, with the hopeful aim of someday casting 'more dots!' as it were. However, being a total newb to WoW i'd like some advice as to what the hell i'm supposed to do, apart from whoring the /dance emote. I am on a pvp+ server (Frostmourne) and have access to friends with resources.

Umm...kill stuff, get phat l00t and level up?

But seriously are you having a specific problem? Generally speaking you wander around looking for NPCs with giant gold exclamation points over their heads, do whatever the quest says, go back to the quest giver to get your reward, and then rinse and repeat until you get out of the newbie area.

Given that the title of your thread is contains "ugh" and you put the word "playing" in quotes?   Give the account to someone else and find something you'll enjoy, this isn't the game for you.

No no, there is no specific problem, i just need some advice on playing a Warlock, that's all.

Not much decision making at the beginning. Cast your DoTs and then use Shadow Bolt and/or beat on the mob with your weapon or shoot with a wand. When you get to level 4 find your Warlock trainer to do your Imp summoning quest.

I haven't played a warlock past 20, so my experience is limited.

The low levels are more or less the same for everyone:  spam whatever damage abilities you have while trying to not get swamped by too many mobs and die.  Try to collect a little cash, and enough cheap bags to fill your slots.  Spend time figuring out your interface, dragging your abilities to the hot bars and getting used to them.  Do quests, they will herd you from place to place and give you nice cash, xp, and faction.

After level 10 or so, I think you're supposed to use your pet to complement you.  The imp does DPS, so you'll be tanking (dunno when you get that Fear spell, but it can be used to reduce the amount of time spent tanking), the Voidwalker is a tank (so you can sit back and apply your dots), and then you get crowd control and anti-caster pets.

If you're gonna group, /assist and avoiding aggro are the main concerns, plus remembering to put your soulstone (once you get the spell) on a rezzer.

Have your friends buy you a soulstone pouch. The one that holds 20 is cheap.

Your first 5 talent points should go into improved corruption.

Your gear should add STA and INT. If in doubt go STA since you can always life tap some mana.

Do not go to the warsong battle ground until you're at least level 18 or the rogue twinks will spank you in seconds.

A wand does decent damage for no mana.

Sacrifice your voidwalker if you need to bravely run away.

Ok awesome. I've been told that i should stack up on Stamina gear so i will be doing that asap. Could someone explain what the importance of Soulstones is? Also, i know by hearsay that Affliction Warlocks are ubar, but what about the other two skill trees? Is Destruction any good?

It's relatively simple to level as a 'lock post 2.0, they really buffed soloability.. there are many tried-and-true strategies, pick your poison.  :p

Basic pre-60 strategies:
- fear kiting: You apply a ton of damage-over-time spells to an enemy and just keep them feared. You can use nuke spells [shadowbolt, immolate, searing pain, soulfire] to hit them, but they might break fear early, so it's safer to stick to DOTs.
- coex kiting: Same, against unfeareable enemies, only you use Curse of Exhaustion [affliction talent] to keep them snared and unable to reach you. Only works on melee, obviously.
- drain tanking: Instead of preventing damage by fearing the enemy or having your pet tank it, you spam Drain Life on it to counteract the damage it's doing to you. Requires 5/5 Fel Concentration [affliction talent].


Killing stuff:
- Before level 10: shadow bolt [at max range], immolate, curse of agony, corruption while you have the imp attack, wand until mob dies, repeat.
- Before level 20 (this can actually work all the way until 60): Send in the voidwalker with the single target taunt [Torment] on autocast and everything else turned off. Apply DOTs: curse of agony, corruption, immolate [use immolate last since it causes a good amount of aggro, so you'll want to give the voidwalker some time]. Wand, refresh dots as needed, after the fight use health funnel or the voidwalker's consume shadows ability to restore its health. You can also kill more than 1 mob at a time this way (just switch the pet's target midway), but your voidwalker will probably run out of mana. This method is slow, has a significant amount of downtime, but it's very safe.
- Before level 40 (this can also work all the way until 60 if you want fast grinding with some downtime): Same as above, but send in the succubus instead with Lash of Pain on autocast and everything else disabled. You will draw aggro at the end, so just start casting fear when the mob is running towards you and follow up with a nuke or drain [they should be fairly low at this point].
- After level 40 if you're affliction (recommended): Either do the same as above with the succubus (with lash of pain off auto-cast as well) and spam drain life when you draw aggro, OR use an imp on passive mode and just use immolate and instant DOTs + drain life. After the battle is over, use Dark Pact 2-3 times to refill your mana and continue.
- Farming multiple mobs quickly (requires decent gear and at least 37-ish points in affliction): Run around a group of mobs [up to 4-5], apply your instant dots in the following order: curse of agony, siphon life, corruption. When they all cluster up around you, use Howl of Terror. Drain Life on the one that has the most health. Dark Pact to recover mana.
- Solo killing elites: start off with a shadowbolt, follow up with immolate while the shadowbolt is in the air; then apply Curse of Doom [at 60] or Curse of Agony [pre-60], your other dots, and fear kite.

Levelling build: I recommend affliction. It's really the best tree for killing stuff solo. Demonology is good, but requires good gear to make use of while having more downtime than affliction, and Destruction burns through mana like crazy.

First 5 points should go into Improved Corruption ASAP - this'll get you another instant DOT other than Curse of Agony. After that, work your way up the affliction tree. Get 2 points of Soul Siphon (VERY good for drain tanking), 2 points for Improved Drain Soul (skippable, but I like it -- returns a good amount of mana when soloing, and aggro reduction is good for instances) and 1 point in Suppression (if you don't like Improved Drain Soul, put 3 in there instead). After that, max out Fel Concentration, get Grim Reach, Nightfall and Amplify Curse; skip Empowered Corruption until you're 60 with at least +200-ish spell damage gear. Get Siphon Life, Curse of Exhaustion and 1 point in Shadow Embrace (more isn't worth it... I can elaborate if need be). Put two points in Improved Curse of Agony, 5 points into Shadow Mastery and grab Dark Pact.

You should be lv40 at this point... you can spend the next 20 points pretty much however you wish, though I recommend Contagion 5/5, Improved Howl of Terror 2/2 and Unstable Affliction, along with Demonic Embrace 5/5 and either Improved Imp or Improved Healthstone, maybe Empowered Corruption; or go up 11 points in Destruction if you like to pvp with 5/5 Improved Shadowbolt, 5/5 Bane and Shadowburn.


NB: this build is optimal only for PVE [esp if you're Alliance and have to deal with undead rogues while leveling]. If you plan on pvping a lot, Demonology is a better choice post-40. I can whip up a soul link build for you if ya' want.


-- Z.

The target of a Soulstone gets a self-rez hence the comment about giving it to a rezzer. Soul Shards are used to power some of your other spells.

I play a Warlock on the same server. Name is Ycef. Send me a message when you see me online and I'll be happy to give you some advice.

Lowbie advice:

- As mentioned, first 5 talent points into Imp. Corruption.  After that there's a couple different routes people take (if you're still playing that is).
- Buy the highest DPS wand you can afford/wield ASAP and try to keep it updated as you level.  Most always at low levels these are player crafted wands, IE - Lesser Magic Wand, et al.
- For straight PvE leveling (especially lower levels) you'll be using the Voidwalker pet almost exclusively.  Standard pet class dynamic applies.  Send in pet to keep mob off you while you lay on your DOT's, then wand things down.  Wand DPS is one of the most efficient forms of damage for casters.  Manaless damage = good.
- Get down with using Lifetap (think old school EQ Necro Dark Pact).  Because HP = mana for Warlocks when you're looking at gear upgrades look for STA, then INT, then maybe SPI as a distant third for stat importance.  After level 40 or so +damage and +shadow damage become more important.
- Do quests.  Quests that involve "Killing X of Y" are the best as you are in effect getting an exp reward for grinding mobs.  Some of the quest rewards are actually decent for a non-twink character, and the quests usually transition you into whatever area you need to be in level wise.

If you play a little more and have any other questions fire away.

5 Points in Imp Corruption? WHY??

Unless you are getting aggro more than two points (some might even say more than one) is pretty pointless. Why? Because there's a GCD and if you dont have aggro you probably don't need to move while casting.

Get 5/5 Imp. Corruption when you want to drain tank or your pet cannot hold aggro any longer/if using the Succubus, Imp or Felhunter.

Get Suppression.

I'd probably go like this:

1 Imp Cor.
2,3,4 Suppression
5 Imp Cor.
6,7 Improved Drain Soul.
8,9 Imp Life Tap.

Some decent advice in this thread. But then, some which isn't so great either. :)

As for soulstones? I'm going to assume you mean Soul shards.

These are the things you get when you are using drain soul on a mob when it dies (with Imp. Drain Soul you will also often get 15% of your mana back while soloing, too). These shards are used for a number of things, but at a low level they are used mostly for two things:

1: Summoning Pets. All pets bar the Imp require one soul shard to be summoned. The shard is consumed in the process.
2: Healthstones. All healthstones require one soul shard to be conjured. The shard is consumed int he process.

At later levels the shards are required for other things:

Shadowburn (Destruction talent spell), Soul Fire, Ritual of Summoning, Soul Shatter (TBC), Spellstone, etc.

You will probably not use these that often (with the expection of perhaps Ritual of Summoning and Spellstone) until a pretty high level.

As someone said it's best to get your hands on a shard bag (the 20 slot one is cheap and easy to get) so that you can carry these about without cutting too much in to your other bag space. You will want to carry a few at all times as it's very annoying to get another shard a low levels without a VW to tank; and you need one to summon it.

All that said:

Warlocks aren't that hard a class to play at low levels, in fact they're pretty darn boring. Get used to soloing with your VW, learning the aggro threshold (how much damage you can do before you get aggro - this jumps up and down depending what rank of pet spells you have) and just get to know the class.

*Pets have spells too, remember to train theirs fromt he Pet trainer when you level as well as training your own!*

There are many bad warlocks out there, and relying too much on what others say and not learning and understandinthe class yourself will not help you; play around with your spells and curses and pets and find out their uses, weaknesses and strengths for yourself.

I always think it's better to get answers to specific questions and try to work the rest out for yourself, so like I said, message me if you see me online and have some queries and I'll be happy to help.

5 points in improved corruption turns it into an instant so you can cast it while moving.

For PvP and for curse-of-exhaustion soloing, that's pretty handy.

He's also on a pvp server. You need all the instant casts you can get.

When I levelled my 'lock back in 2004-2005, drain tanking was a LOT faster than using a voidwalker over long periods of mob killing, and it's even better now with Soul Siphon (I can't stress enough how awesomesauce this talent is). Yes, it's more dangerous and you'll take some damage (only to refill it with drain life), but you'll either have a dps pet doing significant damage (succubus) or an endless mana battery (imp, post-40) at your disposal. Unless they significantly buffed the voidwalker's mana regeneration since then, that is... and you can start drain tanking as early as level 24.

Another minor note - there are several very rare mob types that are immune to 'drain' spells. They're typically golems, constructs and mechanical critters. They are rare, but be careful when leveling in Westfall (if you're alliance) - those harvest reapers are immune to drains AND the voidwalker's Torment ability, meaning you WILL rip aggro as soon as your first dots tick.

This is quite true (it's easy to spot the FOTM warlocks too, just look at their names; Feardotz, Deathcoill, Urpwnednoob, etc :P) -- but there are many things that are not apparent at first glance and sometimes even when experimenting with them for a while. Pre-2.0 for example, the affliction tree was a minefield of horrible talents. Firestones are still mostly useless except for joke pvp videos. Spirit is pointless for a warlock (but 'ok' if it's a filler stat on some piece of gear with +sta or +damage). Etc etc.


-- Z.

Yeah. Because you can get CoEx at level.. 30... oh wait the guy is probably only level 5 or so. Lets get insta corruption now though, because in 25 levels he'll be able to make some use of it.. (though you'll probably want siphon life instead)

Not to mention you are better off fear kiting that CoEx kiting about 99 times in 100.

Oh you said PvP?

1: Never spec for PvP while you're leveling. It's just stupid.
2: There's not much PvP going on anyway, mostly alts being leveled up (I'm on the same server).
3: Most world PvP is ganking, or at the level cap. Insta Corruption wont save you from ganking and we're not talking about a level 60 spec.


Drain Tanking is something you respec to, you don't build up to it with points. You level by another method till you have enough levels gained then you swap to it.

Really no point trying to give advice that requires you being level 40+ (Dark Pact) to a guy who just started playing the game, just confuses the issue with things that are currently meaningless.

Ehh.. I'm probably in the minority, but I dislike the idea of having to respec later just to make a particular build more effective (another parallel would be getting wand specialization as a priest after spirit tap, and respeccing at 40 into shadowform, etc.), so I generally build my character up to a level 60 spec from level 10 onwards, to get more familiar with it; this is also why I never took Improved Lifetap while levelling, since I was holding out for Dark Pact. The only thing that works until level 24 is the voidwalker tankage anyway (and I did mention that it's a completely viable method to level all the way to 60 in my original post, just not one I particularly enjoy).

Re pvp: The last alt I levelled on my server (Crushridge) was my priest 5 months ago; and I had a lot more "legitimate" pvp encounters with same-leveled enemies than ganks, so it does happen. But yeah, YMMV, depends on your server, etc. :P And affliction is very much NOT a pvp talent tree until 60, neither did I say that "speccing for pvp" is a smart thing to do. You certainly CAN level up as demonology (at 40+) which makes you pretty strong in 1v1 encounters, but it's probably inefficient. Hell, I'm sure you can level up 1->60 as destruction, it'll just take (a lot) longer.

But yeah, you're probably right, drain tanking doesn't really take off until 40+ish. Still doesn't hurt to get used to it before that, though.


Edited to add some actual useful information: Get the DoTimer mod. You can get by without anything else, but it's very helpful to see how long your various DOTs last and how often you have to refresh them.


-- Z.

I really appreciate all the advice guys. Will post some small commentary and questions a little later, once i get some ideas for future growth.

Drop totems, cast heals.

Wait, that's what I do.

Hm.

(http://www.infoceptor.com/wow/classes/icons/frost_shock.gif) !

I wish.

It's more like:

(http://i.thottbot.com/en/Interface/Icons/Spell_Nature_ManaRegenTotem.jpg) + (http://i.thottbot.com/en/Interface/Icons/Spell_Nature_EarthBindTotem.jpg) + (http://i.thottbot.com/en/Interface/Icons/Spell_Nature_Windfury.jpg)

(http://i.thottbot.com/en/Interface/Icons/Spell_Nature_HealingWaveGreater.jpg) + (http://i.thottbot.com/en/Interface/Icons/Spell_Nature_HealingWaveGreater.jpg) + (http://i.thottbot.com/en/Interface/Icons/Spell_Nature_HealingWaveGreater.jpg) + (http://i.thottbot.com/en/Interface/Icons/Spell_Nature_RavenForm.jpg) + (http://i.thottbot.com/en/Interface/Icons/Spell_Nature_HealingWaveGreater.jpg)

Repeat 500 times, collect loot.

Off topic - Megrim - awesome avatar :)

Careful with F13.  View their responses to this thread in the context of a guy who cannot stop calling his ex-girlfriend - but cannot stand her either ;)

I wanted to add an addendum here to clarify my advice.  I am a server hopper, and I love making alts.  I have probably 16 (no joke) 30-50ish characters spread across a half a dozen servers of both types and factions - with my old priest main gathering dust until I decide where to transfer him too.  I like to think I have a pretty good handle on starting a brand new naked toon, solo, on a server.


My point is when I say "lowbie" I maybe should use "newbie".  To the uberleveling crowd lowbie means more of the 30-40ish levels.  All the advice I gave was targeted at the >20 game for you since it remains to be seen if you'll even play to that level.  SO that being said:

- Your first 5 talents points spent in Imp. Corruption.  The thought process I have heard behind this is a) if you are planning on going down the Affliction tree anyway to begin drain tanking, why not spend 5 points to turn one of your main damage dealing spells into an insta-cast?  b) it's helpful to have another tool in your low level arsenal if you're are on a PvP server, and c) what else can you spend 5 points on and actually get immediate use out of at level 15 that actually improves your leveling speed?  Improved Imp maybe?

- Using the Voidwalker while leveling.  Overall does the VW suck?  Well, sorta.  But again what pet do you have available to you >20 besides the Imp that will help you level?  The Imp has a role in certain talent specs and in some group situations, but as a level >20 whatever rolling around solo playing for the game for the first time...I'd get out big blue and let him grab the monsters attention so you can do your thang.

- Drain tanking.  Again, I would take peoples (including mine) advice with a grain of salt.  Draintanking is probably the fastest method to level up.  What people don't tell you is that it doesn't become an effective tactic until about level 30 or so due to talents falling into place/spell damage scaling *and* that part of it's effectiveness relies on the quality of gear you have.  Is drain tanking good?  Hell yea it is, but you probably won't really start to notice until level 35.

- Talents for leveling versus talents for your future PvP spec.   Ehhhhhh, that's not so cut an dried.  For me, in my playstyle and my play experience I try and walk the fine line between taking talents that you absolutely have to have to speed up your leveling and talents that are immediately useful in a PvP situation - but that won't gimp me as a grind through  levels.  I won't go into specifics and spark a discussion over talent veracity.  To me it's just another level of the meta-game that happens on a PvP server that adds a little more risk versus reward to your decision making. (Part of what makes it fun)


P.S. - The forums here have some knowledgeable and articulate peeps, but jpark gave you the best advice of the thread.  :roll: 

Demonology can be fun if you're into pet classes.  And very durable, albeit slower than other builds.  I have survived encounters none of my other characters would have any hope to.

Don't be afraid to try out talents you think are interesting because we all have different ideas of fun.

Actual newbs (not twinks) can't afford too many respecs.

One of the first things you'll see upon logging in is NPC's (computer controlled characters) with bright yellow exclamation points (!) above their heads. Every time you see this talk to that person and follow his instructions (they give Quests). When you have completed the Quest assigned, go back to the Questgiver for your reward and further instructions. When you cant find any more quest givers in your immediate area, wander around the world until you find more, although the Questgivers will usually tell you where to go to find more quests.

You can do this for the next 60 levels.

And?  I've never bought a respec.

And, you told him "Don't be afraid to try out talents you think are interesting" like it was free.

I just levelled a 60 warlock (mostly pre-2.0).  Affliction specced.  Still am, but just because I'm lazy and haven't yet decided what to change to, and I'm comfortable with it.  I'll be going for some sort of pvp spec, but first I really want to check out affliction as a pvp spec.

Had I levelled up after 2.0, as you are, I might have picked demon spec instead, because it looks interesting to me.

Don't bother with a soul shard bag unless you're going to be doing instances or maybe not until end game raiding, because a soul shard fits in any bag, and inventory management while having 25 open quests can be annoying.  I got one and now it sits in my bank because I can't put anything else in it except soul shards.  (I have a hunter already that has a quiver; I hate being down a bag).  I am probably not going to raid on my warlock, but if I change my mind, I'll get a soul shard bag.  Never have needed one on the way up, but then I soloed almost entirely and usually end up trashing soulshards to make room for regular inventory.

Only other tips I have are to pick up two gathering professions, either mining/skinning or herbs/skinning, and sell the stuff on the AH.  Learn fishing, cooking and first aid, and level those as well.   If you want to learn another profession, like alchemy or enchanting or something, wait until you can afford it (past 40 or maybe 60) and then switch one of your gathering professions to your desired profession. 

Oh man, irony of ironies: just as i was getting into playing my lock and the whole WoW business, a friend and i stopped by at a local net cafe to play some DotA and WoW. Turns out that the pcs we were on had keyloggers running so both him and me had our accounts stolen overnight. He got his back, less his raid-equipped pally and mine is beyond recovery because no-one can remember the email it was created with.

So, it looks as if i may be getting my own account sometime, or something. We are still in shock =/ Apart from that though, i had what looked to be a decent Destruction spec planned out via the talent calculator, which i'll submit for perusal in a bit.

Newbs can affort to respec a few times while leveling.

And if he has friends with level 60s I'm sure they can give him some gold to do so.

These past weeks I've respecced every couple of days, 50g each time. I estimate i've spent about 400g in respecs since 2.01. It's been easy to afford it and I havn't been playing much at all.

Will only get easier in TBC.

Don't not try something because you're afraid of the respec costs. You'll find the money to manage.

I don't do a whole lot of PVP'ing but I have noticed one thing. It's been my experience that if your pet is on aggressive, rogues have a really hard time hiding from you. I've been able to put a hurting on rogues and they can't figure out how I'm seeing them. Don't know if this is a bug or a feature but give it a try. I've only used this in duels so it might be different in real PVP.

Do you have a felhunter? If so, that's why... it has its own stealth detection buff (that is an aura, so you get it too), and if you put it on aggressive, it'll attack as soon as it sees a rogue (which'll be a few split seconds before YOU see the rogue, thanks to latency, etc).

BTW, levelling as destruction might be a bit harsh... it's certainly the best pvp spec at the moment, but you'll probably need to get a hold of a mage friend or two to keep you well supplied with water. :P


-- Z.

I have a Warlock alt, on hold because I think my real alt will be a Draenei Shadow Priest. But, I do have a question:

It seems as though most PvPers think 'lock is fotm. Are they do for a nerf or is it just people by and large sucking?

lock and hunter rule pvp at the mo.

Locks have ruled for a while, and continue to rule in beta for various reasons.   Fear keeps getting nerfed, but never enough that a Lock can't be guaranteed to get a good amount of kills due to fear+pet+dots and their incredibly huge +sta.

Hunters are currently uber because nobody has any resilliance, so they can't resist crits.  With the agi changes, and good talent spec you can hit 40-50% crit-chance on multishot.  Combined with a slow bow that has a small damage variance, and Giantstalker 8-piece (+15% dam to multi)  or the PVP damage bonus (+4% to multi) you put some MAJOR hurt on people.   And that's before you include the armor-ignoring arcane shot and buffed pets.   Things appear to even-out a bit in beta due to resilience, and lack of uber itemization for hunters, (The T4 & T5 pieces aren't that big of an upgrade for +Ap over current items)  but we'll see.

Also, pets get normalized to 2.0 attack speed -- no more 1.0 pets that hit at .5 (serpent's swiftness + perma-frezny). On the other hand, pet scaling will be adjusted more once they're normalized. (I don't use a 1.0 pet, but I hate it when I'm on the recieving end of one).

The new Viper trap is a PvP trap, pure and simple. (I can't fucking wait to drop that one on people). Steady shot will give hunters a replacement for aimed (I have no idea what type of damage it does) in a rotation, so that's actually more damage -- arcane is six seconds cooldown, multi-shot is 9, so we'll be able to fit a steady shot in there in addition to the two or three autoshots we'll get off in a ten-second period.

From what I can tell, once TBC talents and gear shakes out facing Hunters in PvP will either be steady and hard damage -- but not insane burst DPS, unless you totally lack crit gear. TBC stuff has more +stamina too, IIRC. So I think hunters will end up where they're supposed to be -- steady and hard damage, but not as much front-end burst as properly specced mages.

It's just that the changes, right now, leave most people a little fucked facing us. On the other hand, their gear will get steadily better and ours really won't -- other than +stamina and some ability to modify it via gems.

I've just stopped pvping at 60. The balance is just way too fucked for me to have fun. However my 38 mage is lots of fun. :P

I ruled pvp before the patch too, though. So even if we get a (due) nerf then we'll still be fine.

It really is pretty comical, particularly in AB. Lots of groups I'm facing have been predominantly 'locks and Hunters. It's getting so we are all laughing about it.

One and one there's really nothing I can do as an Arc/Fire Mage against a Hunter who's timers are up. I may be able to get them down to 75% or so, if my timers are up and I can keep the pet away from me. So I just avoid 1 on 1. I tried Frost/Arc for a bit after 2.0 hit, but the survivability really only translated to another 3-4 seconds at most. My gear is sorta sucky, so I need all the extra damage Talents can give.

I like Mages in general. It's just that I really feel the rock>paper>scissors thing here. Hunters>Mages>Warriors. I'm sure those Wars are as frustrated when fighting Mages as I am against Hunters. Which is really very stupid. I know I know, always travel in groups and never notice the system, but that's just unrealistic. It's like stuns in PvP. They just universally piss people off.

As a mage, you'll do better against Hunters once pets are normalized. You'll do a lot better if you move into resiliance gear, but that's going to be the standard damage/protection tradeoff.

You'll still be WTFPwned versus most BM specced hunters. I actually feel your pain against the Marks specced hunters (I'm beast specced). It's a bit of a pisser to face 1100 point auto-crits and who fucking knows multi-shot crits, and I'm at least mitigating more of the damage than you. If it makes you feel better, I've still gotten two-shotted by mages in PvP, and I loathe warlocks will all the hate in my soul.

Hunters are just surfing the current lack of resiliance gear. We don't need a nerf, simply because TBC gear progression is going to nerf our asses just fine -- unless steady shot is a lot more powerful than I've been told.

Warlocks, on the other hand -- don't know what the fuck's going to slow their asses down. Maybe every piece of TBC comes with a free 30 points of Shadow protection?

Those 6k hp worth of dots now won't be as painful at 70 when everyone is running around with 10-15k hp.


-- Z.

Also not as painful when you've managed to lose touch with reality and get stuck in a realm of hyperbole.

I expect gear and spell scaling will make 6k dots 10 or 12k dots by 70. Crit resistance simply doesn't exist in the game right now, and as best I can tell from the T4 and T5 hunter gear, hunters crit percentage isn't going to rise much by 70. Their damage will, but the real issue the crits. Everyone should have some resiliance gear.

And the better fucking be a resiliance talent for pets. I'm sick of my pet dying from AoE cleaves. On the other hand, I did find my raid pet (specced heavy FR) can happily tank virtually anything in UBRS as long as the healer's paying attention. Also was really useful in MC -- I didn't use him on Rags, but I had him out the entire rest of the time. Only times he died were when I forgot to turn growl off and he yanked a Molten Destroyer off the tank. (Growl's still bugged, by the way). I had no healing for my pet beyond me, so he went down pretty quick.

As a BM-specced hunter, I was trading places with the two marks-specced hunters -- both of whom outgear me -- the entire raid. It's nice to see BM as raid-viable. Admittedly, I went all-out (including using traps) to see if the spec was viable, and I doubt the other two hunters focused as much except on boss fights.

Holy crap, I thought I'd come into this thread and have some kind of monopoly on giving good Warlock advice.

You'd think 'Locks have been overpowered for the last year and everyone has rolled one... or something.

... was that aimed at me, or what?

My theorycraft-fu is weak (ie. I can't be arsed to spend hours researching this stuff), but the currently known high-end (epic) lv70 damage gear only has about +1000 shadow damage on it if you specifically min-max for +damage. You can get up to +800 right now with Naxx gear.
The DOTs themselves are gaining a boost, but it's not that significant - rank 8 corruption does 900 damage compared to rank 7's (currently trainable) 832; rank 7 agony is 1356 damage compared to rank 6's 1044; rank 9 immolate is 327+615 compared to rank 8 279+510. Even with the new scaling and damage bonuses from talents, you are NOT going to gank people by just putting your 3-4 dots on them and doing /dance, like you can now (I have around +500 shadow damage; if I burn my TOEP and amplify curse, I can pretty much take down everything with dots only. Yeah, it's broken... at level 60.). With a very rough estimate, you'll do about 8k damage with dots tops, if you're affliction specced, loaded up with damage gear, and willing to blow your cooldowns. And that's over 24 seconds, which is plenty of time for getting healed / eating / etc.

High HP IS a lot more prevalent in BC. Since stamina ilevel costs were cut in half, pretty much everything has a truckload of extra sta on it. When I fooled around in beta a few weeks ago, the 4th mob I killed dropped green level 58 legplates "Of Stamina" -- it had a +57 stam modifier. People are reporting 10+k hitpoints at level 70 in greens (again, too lazy to find links). Netherweave bandages heal for 425 damage per second. Level 70 health pots heal for 1500-2500 hp. Etc etc.

To sum up, DOTs are powerful right now (almost brokenly so, I'd say), but they'll decline at level 70, and certainly won't be able to kill anything by themselves. IMO anyway, but then again I'm delusional or something. :P


-- Z.

I've had a 60 warlock for quite some time so my advice on leveling might be outdated.  I specced demonology while "growing up" and found it to be the easiest solo experience by far.  My voidwalker could tank anything and even if it couldn't my sacrifice would finish them off or allow me to run, no problem.  I probably died 3 times ever and gained exp very very quickly.

I respecced to affliction for more grouping at 60 and it works the best.  I tried destruction to see how it felt, but I was gaining waaaay too much agro and dieing quite often due to it.  The best route is overall DPS of DOTs without the spike damage.  I avoid attention quite well with that.

I can still solo for farming with my voidwalker too.  He just isn't quite as affective of a tank is all.  With my added dps though, things rarely survive the run to me after they figure out where all the damage is really coming from.

There's NAXX/Tier12 gear and then there's normal gear out there. As it applies to PvP, most people are going to be in some amount of Raid gear of course. But the average player is not decked out in the uberest of uber because the average player does not play so much to dominant both PvP and Raiding, nor even enough to fulltime raid Naxx, nor enough to have even geared up for Naxx. And yet they still enter BGs and can do ok once they learn.

Gear is additive to the foundation of design, and that is spells, talents and choices. I feel that's where Warlocks and Hunters seem to be shining most, with Gear helping. Theorycraft certainly matters, but it's also very situational. And one of those big situational gates is for many players to be able to even achieve that gear in the first place.

On rare occasions I've been able to win against Hunters when the timers are up. More often than not though if I do win, it's with my own dying blow. There's actually something poetic about that, so I don't mind :) It's all decided in the first 6 seconds tho. Better gear would help, but the only way I can upgrade before BC is through Honor Point purchases since I've got no time to raid. So I takes my hits and like it.

I do wish Mages had more ways to customize their situational effectiveness beyond the strict talent choices they made. I appreciate what they tried to do with the 41-point talents and adjusted trees, and the boosts to Arcane that have compelled so many more to go deep there. I just look at the Hunter and Warlock pets, the Shadow Priests, and the Shaman and see classes with a lot more options and few of the usual tradeoffs that come from making hybrid-like choices. But that's totally from the outside looking in. I haven't played any of those enough to know if they have their own version of the "3 minute Mage" thing.

Darniaq: The thing you're overlooking is that while gear is going to scale, there's a new type of stat -- resliance -- that no one has now, but that's in the TBC gear. It reduces your opponents chance it crit.

The reason Hunters are WTFPWNing you is partially because you're the scissors to their rock -- but a lot of it is hunters in full PvP gear with crit percentages up in the high 40s. Auto-crit + arcane crit + multi-crit means dead mage. From what I've seen of the TBC gear, it's not likely hunters will push their crit chances much higher than they are -- but everyone else will be gaining resliance

That plus improved stamina (which is going to outpace Hunter's damage increases through leveling -- unless, as I said, steady shot is fucking top of hte line) is going to scale hunters back against everyone.

We get some new nice things -- like I said, Viper trap is going to keep me endlessly amused in PvP, and Aspect of the Viper (plus the higher int and improved regen on TBC gear) means I'll be able to keep pumping out damage a lot longer than I can now -- but TBC gear really is going to scale hunters back in PvP.

Unlesss, of course, you chose to load up on +damage gear with no resiliance -- the usual tradeoffs apply.

With the reduction in crit chance as you level I doubt many hunters will be able to keep their current crit chance at 70.

Yea. if I read what he wrote earlier, I think that's what he meant.

@Morat20: I think you explained it pretty well in the earlier thread :) I'm sorta unequipped to have this discussion because I haven't followed stuff very well. But to me (which means I seek clarity), it's still just another stat, available as a tradeoff to all classes, at the same time we get socketed items and gems to fill them with. Theorycrafters everywhere imploding their heads. Fun times ahead.

While I think Mages are fairly one dimensional, I do love playing mine. I do wonder if that's because I don't feel I have a vast array of options. I would rather keep up with my guild and explore BC than take the time I'd need to level up my 'lock. Most of my current ramblings are specifically based on PvP, something I don't think I'll be doing much after BC until I hit 70 again. And by them who knows what the landscape will look like :)

From looking over the Gladiator and T4/5 sets, it isn't just a stat, it's the stat for PvP. For example, here are the Priest DPS sets: Gladiator (http://www.wowhead.com/?itemset=581) and Tier 5 (http://www.wowhead.com/?itemset=666).

(First, note the item levels, "comparable" my ass, the Gladiator pieces are already 5-10 iLvls behind T5.) Sure, I would be doing more damage with T5, but the resilience on the Glad set gives a bit under 4% Crit Reduction and 8% Crit Damage Reduction (with set bonuses). Also, T5 has under half the Stam that the Gladiator set has. Now, this is pretty obvious sounding, Survivability on a Priest PvP set, who'd have thought?

But if you take a look at Rogue's current Warlord set (http://www.wowhead.com/?itemset=393), it offers 4% crit (in raw Crit Rating) at 60 while the Gladiator set (http://www.wowhead.com/?itemset=577) offers only ~2.5% of Crit Rating at 70 (the one piece missing isn't going to make up for that). So when Phred says:


he's pretty close to correct. Nothing is going to supply the same amount of Crit it is now (the Hunter T5 set gives a bit over a percent of crit :P) at least for a while. Also, in the Rogue set comparison, you'll see the Agility numbers are pretty equal so you'll probably see a slight reduction in Crit from Agility as well.

Now, the one thing I've ignored thus far is gems and they lean in the favor of Crit and not Resilience. Both Crit Ratings have the same itemization cost as Resilience (so does Defense). (An example of this are the three Epic Dawnstone gems (http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=4;na=Dawnstone;minle=60;maxle=60;cr=81;crs=5;crv=0), they all have +10 to one of those stats and are all Epic item level 60s.) But, it takes ~1.8x the Resillience Rating to cancel out the same Crit Rating and it isn't wise to theorycraft the math for the Crit Damage Reduction with the information I have.

We'll be seeing not only an overall decline in DPS classes' Crit, but Resillience will also provide a nice chunk of Crit Damage Reduction that has not real applicable counter (except for the Feral talent Predatory Instincts (http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=33869) which is acting like the inverse of Resilience's Crit Damage Reduction and a lot of people seem to think is broken).

Hmmm.

But we can't still play the game without caring about the numbers, right ?

Thanks for clarifying caladein. And thanks for showing me that WoWhead has all of the item sets too :)

Ironwood: Yes, you can. It's just that the numbers as dictated by those who know them will drive the impressions many others have of how things work.

It's not possible with any of the talent specs and gear currently in the game for a hunter to get crit percentages in the high 40s as far as I can tell. The highest critical rate you can get is by using all crit+agility mismatched armor and using a deep survival talent build. People will laugh at your ranged attack power, and you'll hardly even be able to pull aggro off a tank that forgets to sunder. Using high attack power armor (the hunter sets essentially) and a marksman build (which is what's carving up the battlefields and silencing all those mages) base crit rates will be around 25% and multis will run at around 40%.

I was thinking multi crit rates. I'm BM specced, in 5/8 of GS gear and have a crit of about 21%. I do fine enough in PvP, but would do a lot better if my pet would rez with me.

Or when he does rez with me, if he'd rez at full health instead of 400hp with four Warlock DoTs ticking on him. I'm considering respeccing Marks and just leaving the pet in the stables until that's fixed.

Rawr!

Ok, having returned to my Warlock antics, this is the build i intend to use as i level up:

(In order from top to bottom...)

Demonic Embrace 5
Improved Shadow Bolt 5
Cataclysm 5
Devastation 5
Shadowburn 1
Intensity 2
Destructive Reach 2
Imp. Searing Pain 3
Imp. Immolate 5
Ruin 1
Emberstorm 5
Backlash 3
Conflagrate 1
Soul Leech 3
Shadow & Flame 5

Well, most people would tell you avoid Cataclysm like the plague, but if you intend to level going Destruction, it's a good choice I guess. You'll want Bane in there somewhere as well, along with Imp Corruption and Imp Life Tap. Another thing to consider is that, well... Improved Shadow Bolt isn't going to proc a whole lot when you're leveling and (if you want to level as Destruction) swap the points from there to Bane.

You wind up with something like this build (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AV0bZ0xZVx0tr0tVz) roughly putting your points from Affliction, then Demonology, and then working your way down Destruction. The one other change I made there is not getting Imp Searing Pain, while it's a decent talent, it's really not worth the points versus some of the other Destruction talents.

Finally, one talent you included that I felt was worth avoiding while leveling: Shadow and Flame. It's an amazing talent if you have decent gear, but while I was leveling to 60, I really didn't have enough +Spell Damage to justify five points into it (versus Backlash/Soul Leech). You'll want it for Shadowfury, but you'll probably want re-examine your build at some point before getting it.