WoW Warlocks
What an amazingly diverse, complicated and powerful class this is. The playstyle changes almost every 4 levels on this class.
When you get a new shadow bolt, the class can be played quite successfully as a blast em to hell nuker. When you get a new DoT you apply the damage methodically.
New DoTs are especially interesting with corruption and improved corruption. Improved Corruption makes it an insta cast spell improving its resourcefullness dramatically.
When you get your voidwalker, you send him in to take the brunt of the hits. This is definitely a safer route of play but takes more time to finish of monsters.
Most recently, I attained the Drain Life spell. This spell mixes up everything yet again. With this spell, I am finding it more favorable to have the Imp pet slinging its powerful fireballs as I take hits and curse and drain life from the monster. This play style takes skill and is more dangerous with extra monsters attacking you. However, it is very powerful as you can take down even conned monsters as fast as a mage and twice as fast as with a Voidwalker tanking for you. My Imp at this point has some really powerful buffs for me as well to help soften the blows or make them sting the attacker a little bit.
The thing thats the most interesting about this class is that all of these varying spells are staggered, creating gameplay style changes every few levels. The old standby playstyle still works but new spell upgrades means more options open up.
I havent even begun to uncover all the hidden abilities. I havent even scratched the surface of the uses of soul shards. I havent even mentioned the Rain of Fire spell that seems a weaker version of the mage's massive damage AoE Blizzard spell that I absolutely adore.
What a fantastically creative and complex character class this is. If you like a challenge that will reward you for thinking on your toes, this is a class for you. I saw others in the guild playing this class. I saw the high level warlocks running around town with witches hats and wickedly elegant robes. I got a bad case of class envy and after 16 levels of warlock, Im not regretting it one bit.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Hellfire is more powerful and you will enjoy more. RoF isn''t to bad.
The game that is, not the movie.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
I don't always run Windows, but when I do, I use MSE. (Stay uninfected, my friends) - *Legion*, TMILUITW
My warlock is 35 now, and it''s definitely my favorite class. Although it isn''t because the playstyle changes from level to level, I really don''t find that it does. The most efficient soloing against equal and higher level mobs is to use the Voidwalker. Since the void is taking all the hits, you can use life tap to replenish your mana and drain life to replenish your life, resulting in extremely low downtime. Against lower level mobs or casters I''ll use either the Imp or Succubus depending on whether I want (and can use) the Succubus''s mez.
However at level 40 Dark Pact becomes available, then drain tanking and using the Succubus should become more efficient than letting the Void tank.
In a group setting there''s more variety. We have a bit of cc, we can manage our own mana and hit points, we can do decent DPS, excellent DPS if you''re willing to sacrifice mana efficiency, debuffs to help other''s damage, healthstones and soulstones, couple of AoEs, great stamina buff from the Imp... all kinds of tools in the toolbox in a group setting.
There are some issues with the class however, even excluding talent/spell bugs. The Demonology talent line is almost entirely useless, with the exception of Improved Imp and Demonic Embrace being quite good, and Improved Voidwalker being somewhat decent if you use the big blueberry most of the time. The Fellhunter is not a very useful pet. Enslave Demon is a useless spell, except as a toy. Nothing you enslave is better than a pet you can summon, and you don''t have to worry about when your summoned pet will turn on you. Nothing severe though, and it''s a super fun class overall.
Maybe the power curve tapers off as you get higher than level 16. Its just that I am completely enamored with the combination of the fire shield, my instacast corruption, curse of weakness, drain life and my imp''s fireball. By the time I cast 3 drain life spells, its dead. Which, since I can still be interrupted, means the spell only last 3 seconds instead of 5. Which means Im killing even leveled monsters in 10 seconds. Sure Im at half health but with demon shield my hp regen is super. I may or may not cast life tap a couple of times and start a new fight at half to 3/4 health. Sounds dangerous but when you open with life tap its not bad at all.
I guess different strokes is what makes this class great!
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Ya know, I admire anyone that can get that class going. I''ve tried and tried...and I''ve yet to get one over about lvl 5. I just can''t get the hang of it. And on the Alliance side...how on earth are you supposed to get your first pet? The horde side was a breeze...the Alliance side...I must have been doing something wrong, cause I couldn''t figure out how to get that done...but if I''m remembering correctly, the quest had you go through tons and tons of mobs much, much higher than you...all of them grouped to get to a camp where there were even more mobs so you could get a chest in a tent, or something? I dunno, I gave up after the 12th death and went back to my rogue.
So, I''m always impressed when I see warlocks, because I never could get a handle on that class.
Seth wrote:
I love the class. I was playing a lvl 16 rogue, and started a warlock as my alt, and i haven''t played the rogue hardly at all since. It offers a lot of things from other classes that i liked, such as pets, ranged damage, and DoT. I''m up to lvl 23 with Cait, and i don''t see playing anything else for the medium term.
This just in from Eli 7.4's playground: Apparently, girls go to college to get more knowledge, but boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. -Bill Harris
Twitter | Xbox Live
My GWJ character is a lvl 10 warlock on the alliance side, and yes it was a hassle to get my first ""pet"".
Quintin_Stone wrote:
lunabean wrote:http://steamcommunity.com/id/cartoonin99
Well.. took some time off work and spent about 6 hours over the past 2 days playing. Got my warlock up to lvl 10 just now..... but DAMN this game is HUGE! I thought EQ was tough when I played that cuz of not having a map, but this game is so damn huge the maps dont really help at all
PAR
LinkedIN profile
------------
For all who live in such times, it is not for them to decide. All we get to decide is what to do with the time given to us
Par, that''s what I thought too when I first started playing.
I remember the first time I went to Stormwind I said to myself wow this place is big, how am I ever going to find anything?! Now it''s like second nature when I go there.
The quest to get the voidwalker pet for humans is tough. If you want to solo it at level 10 your only chance is to blast the quest sorceress till she dies and either run, or die and come back and loot the corpse later.
Otherwise you need to be in a group of three to handle the other two with the sorceress.
My preference is to get to level 12 and solo it. Make sure you have a healing potion or healthstone or both. You can blast her dead and send one of the other 2 packing with fear. Kill him as fast as you can then deal with the other when fear wears off.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Thanks Fang.... I didnt die all through levels 1 -10 but trying to do this voidwalker quest solo I''ve died 5 times.... I definately need some help. I am almost to lvl 11 so maybe Ill just make it to 12 first.
Thanks!
PAR
LinkedIN profile
------------
For all who live in such times, it is not for them to decide. All we get to decide is what to do with the time given to us
Make sure you have fire bolt rank 2 for your imp. He can do a LOT of damage. Also remember that you will most likely need a healing potion and a health stone even at level 12. The key at level 12 is that one of the 3 is green to you and the other 2 are lower level so you may resist some of the casters nukes.
Look for Gweren if you are online or just ask the guild for some assistance and me or someone will make themselves available to help you with your pet quest.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Thanks bud
Graulm here 
PAR
LinkedIN profile
------------
For all who live in such times, it is not for them to decide. All we get to decide is what to do with the time given to us
I think I will play my level 10 warlock once my rogue has seen all of the alliance content and once the GWJ guild has downtime inbetween battleground matches.
I really enjoyed what I have seen so far with the warlock class.
PSN ID: Haul_N_Oats
Heya gang,
I am ressurecting this thread from the beginning of the month rather than start a new once since there is a lot of good info here.
I have a 26 Warlock right now. I solo quite often and use the succubus primarily, for the DPS and the coolness factor. When grouping I use the Imp and I have lvl 3 Improved Imp. Love that Blood Pact boosting the whole team with +200 HP!
My plan is to become a drain tanker and allow my Imp or Succubus to pound away at my enemies.
A few questions about skills:
-Curse of Exhaustion: worth the talent investment?
-Firestones: anyone use them?
Also, what weapons are you folks using? So far I am a staff gnome, any better choices out there?
My warlock is 42 now, haven''t had much time the last couple weeks because of work, but I''m really very very happy with Dark Pact. What a great talent. It really makes drain tanking w/ Succubus as downtime (zero) efficient for solo leveling as with the Voidwalker, but it''s more fun. If this is what you plan on doing, you will only be able to use the Imp in passive mode because you need his mana. For this reason, I use the Succubus as my pet when solo drain tanking, and turn off all auto casts on her except Seduce. Prior to picking up Dark Pact at 40 I found it much more efficient when fighting even cons or above to have the Void tank for me (I also had Improved Voidwalker to help him hold aggro) but YMMV.
I don''t have Curse of Exhaustion, because I don''t see any use for it other than PvP, and I''m on a PvE server. I put my points into Suppression instead. I will probably respec to pick it up at 60 though.
Firestones... well, there is one way for a firestone to be somewhat useful as opposed to just a toy. If you pick up a fast dagger such that you can hit with the dagger while the wand is cooling down. This only works if something else is tanking though, because if you''re tanking, you''re draining and maybe getting off a hit or two in between drains. Plus wanding gives me carpal tunnel
If you''re drain tanking, it''s probably better to stick with a staff so that the one or two hits you get in are big, unless you have just an awesome sword.
Edit: I''d also like to take back what I said about the Fellhunter above. His resists go up every level, mine has 96 in each category now, and he destroys casters because of this. There still aren''t that many places where there are primarily caster mobs to use him against, and he requires more micro management than the other pets, but he''s actually quite useful.
I am still playing with Imp, VW and Succubus to decide which I like best for right now. I have 3x Improved Imp just for the (many) times I am grouped. I do plan on getting Dark Pact, so maybe I will change to the Succubus. The problem is, it takes a lot more talent investment to improve her, vice the Imp.
Breaking one of my own rules here but here is my projected build for my warlock:
Cataclysm Rank 5
Bane Rank 5
Improved Firebolt Rank 2
Shadowburn Rank 1
Destruction Total: 13
Affliction Mastery
Suppression Rank 5
Improved Corruption Rank 5
Improved Life Tap Rank 2
Improved Drain Life Rank 5
Fel Concentration Rank 5
Amplify Curse Rank 1
Grim Reach Rank 2
Nightfall Rank 2
Siphon Life Rank 1
Curse of Exhaustion Rank 1
Shadow Mastery Rank 5
Dark Pact Rank 1
Affliction Total: 35
Demonology Mastery
Improved Imp Rank 3
Demonology Total: 3
Total
Total Points Spent: 51
Level Required: 60
This makes a powerful pet Imp and nice Drain Tanking. The problem is Dark Pact is not going to be that helpful with the Imp out. This does work nicely for PvP since I don't need soulstones for the Imp. I don't do much PvP right now, but those Battlegrounds look wicked awesome.
Thanks for the info on the firestones, I think I'll just skip em and stick with staves and wands.
Why exactly will dark pact not be helpful with the imp? He is a mana battery.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
I don't always run Windows, but when I do, I use MSE. (Stay uninfected, my friends) - *Legion*, TMILUITW
So I don''t have to preface every sentence, this whole post is IMO
As far as pet-improving talents go, Improved Imp and Improved Firebolt are the only ones worth having at endgame. And they are well worth it. At level 60, the Super Imp can do 114 DPS before he runs out of mana and drops to 38. The unimproved Imp does 44 DPS. And you buy that massive increase for only 5 Talent points!
If I were going heavy Destruction, I would definitely use the Imp as my solo pet instead of the Succubus, unless I was worried about humanoid adds. Once you improve him, his damage is just so much better than hers. But since I''m going with Affliction/Dark Pact, you have to compare their damage potential in mana battery mode, and obviously she comes out way ahead there.
As someone who used the Voidwalker almost exclusively while leveling to 40, I found Improved Voidwalker extremely helpful. It''s only 3 points to max, and his ability to hold aggro is quite noticably improved, especially as you get close to needing a new rank in Torment. But of course there''s no reason whatsoever to have this talent at 60.
If you''re going to take Curse of Exhaustion, I believe you really need to max it for it to be worthwhile. Maxed CoEx + Amplify Curse = can catch a mounted target on foot.
For the reasons listed above, I completely agree that the Imp should be an awesome Battlegrounds pet. You can always keep him in passive mode for mana battery use until you need his burst DPS and he''ll still be providing Stamina and Fire Shield for your whole group. For 1v1 I''d rather have the Succubus and Seduce available.
My current build at 42 is:
Suppression Rank 4
Improved Corruption Rank 5
Improved Life Tap Rank 2
Improved Drain Life Rank 5
Fel Concentration Rank 5
Amplify Curse Rank 1
Nightfall Rank 2
Siphon Life Rank 1
Shadow Mastery Rank 5
Dark Pact Rank 1
Affliction Total: 31
Demonic Embrace Rank 2
Demonology Total: 2
I plan on maxing Demonic Embrace, then picking up Imroved Imp, then rest of points into Destruction. I''ll definitely be respeccing again at 60; I only see Demonic Embrace as useful for solo drain tank leveling or if you''re on a PvP server. If I find that I''m doing more PvP and Battlegrounds, I will probably sacrifice Dark Pact and Demonology altogether to get Ruin. If I''m raiding more, then I''ll stick with Dark Pact.
Because he uses his mana to do damage and if you turn off Lash of Pain, the Succubus doesn''t. If you want to use the Imp as a mana battery you have to put him in passive mode, not much good for soloing.
But doesnt the Imp regain mana very quickly? Sure its not as beneficial as being able to drain the Sucubus during the fight. However, after the fight it would be a great downtime saver. From my limited perspective, I see it only costing a few more seconds which would make it not preferable but a viable choice if you like the Imp buffs.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
I''m not going to say it isn''t a viable choice, this is WoW, all choices are viable
But if your goal is to minimize downtime, competing with the Imp for his mana is not the way to do it.
The Succubus with Lash of Pain disabled does not use her mana during the fight, unless there''s an add. In other words, you''re not competing for her mana. Furthermore, since she''s not casting, she regains her mana while you''re fighting. When the fight is over, you can pact yourself back to full,and she''ll be back up to full herself after the end of the next fight.
If you use the Imp, he needs his mana to fight, so he''s using it during combat and not regaining it then. So the only time he has to regain it is in between fights. That means downtime. Plus if you immediately pact away all the mana he regains, he doesn''t have anything for the next fight. If the Imp doesn''t have enough mana to last the fight, and he goes into that slow casting mode while waiting for enough mana for the next firebolt, his DPS drops below the Succubus.
The Imp does indeed make a great mana battery and buffbot in passive mode when you''re in a group that has no need for the Succubus to seduce adds. But this strategy is all about getting rid of downtime while soloing even to +3 con mobs. It isn''t the highest DPS strategy or the kill a single mob the fastest stategy or anything but it is definitively the best way to have zero downtime in between fights.
Would you find yourself completely draining the Imp to replenish your own mana? I figured it would amount to only topping off.
Does your mana drain during fighting get that intense? I find my mana only getting serious drain if I use shadow bolt.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Depends what you''re fighting and if you get ambushed.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
I don't always run Windows, but when I do, I use MSE. (Stay uninfected, my friends) - *Legion*, TMILUITW
I usually solo mobs that are 2-3 levels higher than me. These usually take around 50% of my mana, depending on how much Life Drain gets interrupted, whether or not I use Siphon Life, and how many Nightfall procs for Shadowbolt I get. Life Drain isn''t very efficient for damage per mana, even with full Shadow Mastery and Improved Drain Life, and that''s where most of the damage is coming from in this playstyle.
Out of curiosity, how much DOES your life drain drain/cost at your lvl? Sure, I could go do the math myself, but you''re handy.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
I don't always run Windows, but when I do, I use MSE. (Stay uninfected, my friends) - *Legion*, TMILUITW
41 DPS base, 49 DPS actual because of talents, for 185 mana.
Whats the ratio of mana/hp? 1.1 or something? Would be nice if they made it 1.5...
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
I don't always run Windows, but when I do, I use MSE. (Stay uninfected, my friends) - *Legion*, TMILUITW
Assuming you get zero interruptions and it lasts for the full 5 seconds, at my level and with my talents I do 245 damage and heal myself for 245 at a cost of 185 mana = 1.32 DPM. But when tanking, even with Fel Concentration, you''re going to get interrupted. So the ratio is rarely that good in practice.
I just got 29 last night. Second talent point went into Nightfall. I gotta say WOW. With corruption on one target and drain life going I know I am going to get one instant Shadow Bolt every fight. With 2 corruptions I am almost always in the shadow cast state and I choose not to use it cause it drains too much mana and/or I don''t want the aggro.
I am a killing machine. I teamed with a lvl 26 priest last night and we were doing lvl 30+ missions easy, only had to stop for mana a few times.
Yeah. In a large fight nightfall makes you a friggin machine gun.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
I don't always run Windows, but when I do, I use MSE. (Stay uninfected, my friends) - *Legion*, TMILUITW