Warlock: Is shadow bolt really that useless?

[rk47]

I've hit 20 and went the Affliction path (DoT)
So far a friend of mine told me there's 3 style of PVE for locks: Imps, Succubus or Voidtanking
I used Void most of the time and the chain usually goes like this:
1.Pet attack
2.Curse of Agony
3.Corruption
4.Inflame
5.Drain Life Drain Life till dead or
6.Soul drain when mana is low (recover 15% Mana)

I can't find any window to use Shadowbolt or Searing Flame (traditional mage nuke). Although I realize the dmg is higher than life drain, I get annoyed when all that casting gets resisted. I'd rather use Drain repeatedly. Is there anything inefficient with this ? Or am I just being too over-concerned with un-used spells?

[Damn Dirty Ape]

My main's a warlock currently at 60, so I know a li'l bit about this.  Your attack chain is almost identical to my default:  Curse of Agony for the pull, send in the demon (a succubus pre-talent upgrade/fel post), Corruption, Immolate, and then either Drain Soul or wand.  The only time I use Shadow Bolt is when I need damage right away.  Otherwise, I just cast it every so often as a goof, much like with Soul Fire. 

[Mazakiel]

I've been levelling an affliction 'lock, and I rarely touched shadowbolt at all until I got the nightfall talent.  Now that I've got that, I use shadowbolt rather often.  It's not a bread and butter ability, that's where a destruction build comes in, but it's a nice addition to the output the DoTs and wand/drain give.  It's a definite change of pace from when I levelled a destruction build, not as fast per kill, but with so little down time now that all the talents are coming together, everything altogether seems quicker. 

[ClydeJr]

In an affliction build, shadowbolts are pretty useless unless you get a nightfall proc. With grinding my 60 lock, I'll usually toss unstable affliction, CoA, and corruption, and then just drain tank. When nightfall procs, I'll fire off a shadowbolt.

[rk47]

Sounds like a plan, I guess I'll grab Nightfall on next level up. (24 atm)

[raydeen]

I sic the Void on the mob (or use Agony for a quick pull then send Void), cast Shadowbolt to get a good jump on damage, then stack dots and wand or health funnel/drain life until it's over. The only times I'll recast Shadowbolt is if it's resisted or I need to finish off a mob and re-direct the Void to another mob The only disadvantage to Shadowbolt that I've seen is when I crit with it and piss the mob off beyond any of the torment the Void is putting on it, and it comes looking to eat my face for a few seconds. I'll try to stand there and take it until the Void can pester the mob enough to get it's attention again. Then life drain, etc., blah, blah, blah.

[Lantyssa]

I'm Demonology, but pretty much the same for me.  I use a wand over shadowbolt unless the mob is resistant to it and find it does as much or more damage.  If I had a higher crit chance I might alter that, but so far I have seen no reason to do so.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

My warlock has been a Demonology major before and after the talent upgrade.  When I picked up Destruction as a minor and started getting the crit chance bonus, high up-front damage caused by Shadowbolt became a liability as even a voidwalker couldn't hold aggro reliably.  With the respec and the gain of Felguard and its taunt, I haven't had a problem with any amount of damage pulling a MOB off my minion.  Not even the loverly Hellfire quest items and their spell crit bonuses push damage beyond a Felguard's control.

[Shavnir]

People use the voidwalker?

Color me suprised.

I use the imp.  I'm currently 43 something in Affliction and 14 in demonology (extra stamina, extra blood pact, more int for the imp, daemonic aegis and the cooldown to make summoning easier because hey, its a pain in the ass waiting 10 seconds after you rez)

My general grinding goes something like this :

Unstable Affliction mob1
Corruption mob1
Curse of Agony mob1
Siphon Life mob1
Corruption mob2
Curse of Agony mob2
Siphon Life mob2
Corruption mob3
Howl of Terror
Curse of Agony mob3
Siphon Life mob3

Then I'll look at the hp of the 3 mobs...chances are mob1 is dead, mob2 is probably struggling, so a few wand hits or just time and it'll die, and mob three probably will eat either a normal fear or a searing pain or something.

Also when I have spare time and my imp has mana I dark pact it away.  If I'm grinding on humanoids or undead so I can canabalize I can easily grind for somewhere around 10-15 minutes without needing more than canabalize to keep me topped off.

[Xanthippe]

I haven't started my warlock yet on Outlands.

Advice for spec?  Currently I'm affliction.  Will that continue to work, or do I need a more buff pet?  I don't think I've seen any affliction specced warlocks out there, but I haven't really been paying attention.

I did switch from marksman to beastmaster on my hunter at level 63.  My pet just couldn't tank the mobs. 

[Shavnir]

Really the only 41 pt talent for Warlocks I haven't seen in outlands is Shadowfury.

Pretty much it seems a 50 / 50 split between affliction and demonology.  I prefer affliction but the felguard has a lot of power.

Still though, I haven't been able to use my voidwalker for 50 levels now.  I don't get how some people are able to use it.

[Sogrinaugh]

To the initial question:  I would say shadowbolt constitues a secondary nuke for destro later on.  Since someone who is deep destro will have emberstorm rather then shadow mastery, making incinerate a much better nuke overall.  However if backlash proc's, and their is no immolate on the target (say, cause you just conflag'd), it makes more sense to chuck a shadow bolt.  Also in the Cptn Obvious area, against fire immune mobs you'd use shadowbolt...

I had been thinking about a 6/34/21 build for lvl 70, and this would be one of the rare builds that would use shadowbolt as its primary nuke.  Because its not deep enough in destro to have emberstorm, bane pushes shadowbolt ahead of incinerate as your best nuke.

For leveling in outlands, i can't say enough good things about deep affliction.  I leveled 60-65 as 44~ afflict (rest demo).  Its efficiency is mind-boggling.  If you find some people to do an instance run with, you may notice the mage n healer sit down to drink after a couple pulls, whereas you are very near 100% life/mana after every pull.  In Magic:  The Gathering several of a warlocks abilities would be refered to as "engines", something that converts once recource into another.  These abilities are fine with 0 spelldamage gear.  But as you do quests in the outlands and start getting godly gear from regular quests, you will feel yourself become more and more broken.  The ability to generate more health via siphon life and drain life, then you spend, means that in conjuction with life tap and dark pact you almost NEVER eat/drink, you should most always be near 90%ish life/mana.

On top of that insane efficiency for solo grinding and grouping, affliction is no slouch in pvp either.  unstable affliction means preists and paladins can fuck off, especially if you have a felhunter out (which i most always do).  Hammer of Justice?  Devour Magic.  Heal?  Spelllock.  Fury warriors will stick fuck you righteously, but imo who cares everyone has to have some weakness.  Instant Howl helps vs rogues.

I at 65 i decided to try destro, just because i wanted to see how shadowfury worked and if it as truely worth going that deep into the tree.  7/3/47 atm, not to impressed.  It has the capability for greater burst but at 70 everyone will have so much hp those lucky crits wont matter so much anyway.  PvE it doesn't even touch affliction's efficiency or durability (encounters with AoE spam, like the lobster-thingy in slave pens, i exegerate not when i say you need zero healing).  Another annoying thing about destro is its soulshard useage is rather high.  I'll be respecing affliction as soon as i log in today.

[lamaros]

Shadowbolt is WWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY more damage than any wanding.

[rk47]

To the initial question:  I would say shadowbolt constitues a secondary nuke for destro later on.  Since someone who is deep destro will have emberstorm rather then shadow mastery, making incinerate a much better nuke overall.  However if backlash proc's, and their is no immolate on the target (say, cause you just conflag'd), it makes more sense to chuck a shadow bolt.  Also in the Cptn Obvious area, against fire immune mobs you'd use shadowbolt...

I had been thinking about a 6/34/21 build for lvl 70, and this would be one of the rare builds that would use shadowbolt as its primary nuke.  Because its not deep enough in destro to have emberstorm, bane pushes shadowbolt ahead of incinerate as your best nuke.

For leveling in outlands, i can't say enough good things about deep affliction.  I leveled 60-65 as 44~ afflict (rest demo).  Its efficiency is mind-boggling.  If you find some people to do an instance run with, you may notice the mage n healer sit down to drink after a couple pulls, whereas you are very near 100% life/mana after every pull.  In Magic:  The Gathering several of a warlocks abilities would be refered to as "engines", something that converts once recource into another.  These abilities are fine with 0 spelldamage gear.  But as you do quests in the outlands and start getting godly gear from regular quests, you will feel yourself become more and more broken.  The ability to generate more health via siphon life and drain life, then you spend, means that in conjuction with life tap and dark pact you almost NEVER eat/drink, you should most always be near 90%ish life/mana.

On top of that insane efficiency for solo grinding and grouping, affliction is no slouch in pvp either.  unstable affliction means preists and paladins can fuck off, especially if you have a felhunter out (which i most always do).  Hammer of Justice?  Devour Magic.  Heal?  Spelllock.  Fury warriors will stick fuck you righteously, but imo who cares everyone has to have some weakness.  Instant Howl helps vs rogues.

I at 65 i decided to try destro, just because i wanted to see how shadowfury worked and if it as truely worth going that deep into the tree.  7/3/47 atm, not to impressed.  It has the capability for greater burst but at 70 everyone will have so much hp those lucky crits wont matter so much anyway.  PvE it doesn't even touch affliction's efficiency or durability (encounters with AoE spam, like the lobster-thingy in slave pens, i exegerate not when i say you need zero healing).  Another annoying thing about destro is its soulshard useage is rather high.  I'll be respecing affliction as soon as i log in today.

This is exactly why I love my lock more than my level 30 mage. I remember the constant drinkin ugh, even though it's free it's damn tedious, at least I can Life Tap during combat.. I love Affliction because of that just 'no-downtime' quality and getting more mana and damage from my already efficient DoTs.

[Shavnir]

I honestly find myself dark pacting about 2-3x as often as I life tap, exception being if I don't have my imp out (one group wanted me to seduce stuff...when that fell through it went back to fear kiting as CC and various hunter traps.

Btw when you get to the first boss in the Mana Tombs a warlock can tank him quite effectively  Done it twice so far and its bloody beautiful :D

Regarding shadowbolt vs. incinerate, shadowbolt gets better +dmg due to bane still working under the old rules, and improved shadowbolt is insane for damage scaling once you have enough warlocks.  However if you have improved scorch and not shadow weaving it starts to even out.

[Zetor]

When you hit 70, the combo of multiple Seeds of Corruption + Shadowfury is reason enough to respec destro. I tried it out briefly for grinding at 67ish, didn't like it.. yeah, you can 2-shot mobs if you're lucky, but if you have just 1-2 adds, you'll run out of mana and die. And there are plenty of mobs with pets and friends, so killing them one by one isn't really feasible; not to mention you have to drink a lot.

Grinding as affliction is easy and the method mentioned above works well -- I was able to chain-kill about 10-12 mobs without the need to stop. Just be sure to bust your damage trinkets early when DOTting; I have +800ish shadow damage with my TOEP active. Also, greens 'of Shadow Wrath' and Netherweave gear are better for grinding than 75% of the armor you'll find in instances and as quest rewards. ymmv!

Edit: I would not recommend affliction for alliance pvp though. Undead rogues post 66 are basically unkillable unless you're either destro and burst them down within the duration of shadowfury / deathcoil (no other CC will land on them, ever) or demo and have the felguard intercept them mid-stunlock (which of course won't happen if the felguard is by your side)


-- Z.

[Lantyssa]

Shadowbolt is WWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY more damage than any wanding.

I don't have 5 points put into the talent to decrease the casting time.  My wands do just as much damage, are resisted less, and don't cost me mana to use.  I've tested it many times at many levels.  Way more damage is not true for my build.

[Shavnir]

Shadowbolt is WWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY more damage than any wanding.

I don't have 5 points put into the talent to decrease the casting time.  My wands do just as much damage, are resisted less, and don't cost me mana to use.  I've tested it many times at many levels.  Way more damage is not true for my build.

What level are you and what's your +dmg?

I'm sitting at level 67 with around 600ish +dmg in the shadow school, my wand is 98-100ish dps (I forget) and my shadowbolt (3 sec cast is it?) is 1100 damage.  There's a pretty big difference there.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

I think what the discrepency in opinion here on shadow bolt might be due to is demonology specs experience combat a bit differently than destruction and affliction ones.  I'm used to, during and after laying down three DOTs, my demon beating the hell out of the MOB.  The combo of demon and DOTs makes shadow bolt typically overkill and a waste of mana.  During the casting time of a shadow bolt even with the reduction talent, I can get off three or four wand shots to help finish off the critter.

Now, against elites and significantly higher level regulars, shadow bolt makes sense. 

[Polysorbate80]

People use the voidwalker?

Color me suprised.

I used it a fair amount soloing, the AE taunt is handy on multi-mob pulls.  Of course, my warlock experience is maybe a year outdated, and therefore pretty much useless.

[Dren]

People use the voidwalker?

Color me suprised.

I used it a fair amount soloing, the AE taunt is handy on multi-mob pulls.  Of course, my warlock experience is maybe a year outdated, and therefore pretty much useless.

That's when I use it too and I'm current.  I can take on 3-4 same level mobs while solo this way.

If I'm in a group, I never use VW.  Typically, I use the imp mainly for the stam bonus, but his firepower is a nice added benefit too.

As for SB, I use it on boss fights when I want to dump as much damage on an opponent as possible in a short amount of time.  For everything else, I avoid it unless I get a nightfall proc. 

Yes, if you are affliction, which I am, you want Nightfall.  It procs quite often.  You just have to keep an eye on your buffs to see it happen and then time it right with drain health.

[Zetor]

As affliction, the only thing I use the voidwalker for is killing unfearable, unslowable elite mobs for quests. 95% of the time I have my imp or felhunter out when solo... at 60+ with a lot of shadow damage gear, dark pact, and a passive imp mana battery I can keep effortlessly chain-killing an arbitrarily high [6+] number of mobs.

"The first rule of fel armor: you do NOT talk about fel armor." :p


-- Z.

[rk47]

I just pull out a void right now (lvl 35) so I can easily use sacrifice when a horde try to jump me while i'm on a mob. Get a 700 dmg absorption and non interrupted casting when it's up. Saved me a couple of times and helped me a lot when fighting a some classes 2-3 levels higher than me even.

[lamaros]

I think what the discrepency in opinion here on shadow bolt might be due to is demonology specs experience combat a bit differently than destruction and affliction ones.  I'm used to, during and after laying down three DOTs, my demon beating the hell out of the MOB.  The combo of demon and DOTs makes shadow bolt typically overkill and a waste of mana.  During the casting time of a shadow bolt even with the reduction talent, I can get off three or four wand shots to help finish off the critter.

Now, against elites and significantly higher level regulars, shadow bolt makes sense. 

I'm full demo. If the mobs are dying that fast then your dots are probably overkill. They wont run the full duration and are probably more of a waste of mana then SB. Cast one dot and then SB it dead: it'll be quicker.

Also, unless you have pretty much no +damage it's better to drain life. With lifetap it actually gains you mana, and will do near or more damage than a wand.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

I like my wands, damn it! :-D  The fire without charges or mana reminds me of the one in the original Zelda game.

I'm probably not the best lock lover to give advice anyway on spell efficiency.  My toon wore either a dread mage hat or darkmist wizard hat all the way to 60 just because.  Speaking of which, I'm a bit miffed all the uber 60+ hats are flat-topped.  My character's more of a Potter than a pimp, Blizzard.

[Lantyssa]

What level are you and what's your +dmg?

I'm sitting at level 67 with around 600ish +dmg in the shadow school, my wand is 98-100ish dps (I forget) and my shadowbolt (3 sec cast is it?) is 1100 damage.  There's a pretty big difference there.

Level 40 with around +20 damage.  (I hear y'all snickering...)

I don't buy from the auction house, I use what I come across.  I rarely do instances.  I'm also obviously not a power gamer.  I haven't died in 20+ levels though, and can survive worse odds than any of my other characters, so it works for me.

[lamaros]

What level are you and what's your +dmg?

I'm sitting at level 67 with around 600ish +dmg in the shadow school, my wand is 98-100ish dps (I forget) and my shadowbolt (3 sec cast is it?) is 1100 damage.  There's a pretty big difference there.

Level 40 with around +20 damage.  (I hear y'all snickering...)

I don't buy from the auction house, I use what I come across.  I rarely do instances.  I'm also obviously not a power gamer.  I haven't died in 20+ levels though, and can survive worse odds than any of my other characters, so it works for me.

Yeah well if you have that little +shadow then SB probably isn't your best bet as affliction, it's all about the DoTs and Draining.

With my +850 though my SB hits for around 1.4k, so it's for sure better than wanding.

[Shavnir]

Trust me, everything changes with +dmg.  At level 40 there's almost shit you can get though.

However the second you step into outlands pick up some netherweave armor.  You can start wearing it at 61 and its loaded to the brim with Spellpower and Stamina, none of that pansy-intellect or spirit :D

Also SPELL CRIT ARRRRGH WHY IS IT ON EVERYTHING.

[Ironwood]

Speaking as the tank to two of my heavy-hitting warlock buddies :  Spell Crit Sucks.

 

[Lantyssa]

I'm not afflication.  As I've said several times, I'm demonology.  I was speaking of wanding/casting from that perspective.

Sounds like I'm friendlier on the Ironwoods of the WoW, too.

[rk47]

As a 37 Warlock how do I beat shamans 1 v 1. This lv 36 troll shaman kept getting the drop on me 4 to nil in STV. I really want to one-up him sometimes but I can't seem to survive his insta shocks and melees. His totems are wreak hell on me. The usual sacrifice trick doesn't work since he can dispel that buff, so I can't really count on uninterrupted fears anymore.

I'm Affliction Speced btw.

[Chenghiz]

If you're having trouble with his totems, make a macro to wand them. Something like:

Code:

/tar Grounding Totem
/tar Tremor Totem
/tar Earthbind Totem
/cast Shoot

Spell/totem names could be off but you get the idea. Quick and relatively painless to spam while you're chain-fearing him or whatever.

[caladein]

Also SPELL CRIT ARRRRGH WHY IS IT ON EVERYTHING.

My Shadow Priest is with you on that.  At least your Dungeon Set 3 (the 'Lock specific one) doesn't have any spell crit. The generic DPS one has quite a bit... :(.

[Litigator]

I did a good portion of my leveling using a destruction build, mostly out of stubbornness and because I liked it, and because it was closest to playing a hunter, which had been my only character before the warlock.

With destruction, the voidwalker was my pet of choice. I would send in the voidwalker, immolate, corruption, conflagrate and immolate again, and that was usually just about enough.

I respecced affliction, and now it's much better grinding. I keep the imp out, phase shifted, to tap and for the stamina buff, and I just agony/corruption/siphon and look for another mob. When I get 3 or 4, I use instant HoT and drain life on the one with the most health. The mobs take longer to kill with this spec, but there is no down time, and I can usually farm multiple mobs at once.

[fatboy]

I am playing a Warlock for the first time.  I just made lvl 15 last night, and have put all five points into Improved Corruption so that it is an instant cast spell.

I use the VW as a tank / hold aggro....which it does most of the time.  A lot of you say you use the imp.  My imp just got Phase Shift and Fire Shield....but it doesn't hold aggro and I take a beating with it.

Am I too low level to use the imp yet, or am I doing somthing wrong?

Oh....and to stay on the original topic....I typically send in the VW to get aggro....then Immolate, Corrupt, Agony and then wand until dead.  I only use shadow bolt against elites or against mobs that are 2 - 3 levels higher than me.....