I have been wanting to play Warlock just because everyone says how tanky it is and how they always have a decent spec and blah blah blah blah.
Welp… I’m lvl 57 and apparently i’m trash. My blueberry in Aff dies after tanking more than 1 mob. My doomguard also gets torn to pieces by basic rares. My damage is not fantastic. I get the damage part. It’s gear related. But what the hell man! When should i see tankiness come in?
Blueberry does die quite a bit, however with Aff it is a slower leveling time and you will see pets die more early on because it is very much gear dependent. Also the amount of damage you are doing with DoTs may not be enough to keep your pet up. Siphon life and then give it to your pet (funnel) is an option as well.
I switched over to Destro, a lot easier to play currently and decent damage. Looking at your stats, your haste is very low. Haste is an important stat to keep high if you want damage, quicker cast times ect… as well.
Accepting this is the first step to not being trash.
Pets squishiness is based off you… as well as most other things… get 70 get some gear and then focus on how much garbage you hypothetically are.
Pull slightly less if it’s getting thrashed and toss it a health funnel or two… and keep leveling.
So… being this squishy is just part of leveling?
Yep,
I tell folks if they can enjoy a character squish and gimp they will really enjoy it when they have a bit of gear.
Warlocks “Tankiness” comes from gear/talents/plays at 70 for the lock… and the pet inherits a portion of the locks stats so… stronger lock = stronger pet.
Not to mention soulburn health funnel is fantastic.
Thank you. God, I play a shaman and it’s really fun. then i go on lock and i just die all the time. According to people, the squish factor completely changes at 70.
Hard to go through so much grind with nothing but a potential promise at the end of the trip.
The end of the road is worth it… remember to learn all 3 specs or at least 2/3 so you’re always viable in pvp/etc
Being terrible at something is the first step to not being terrible at it.
You got this.
Out of my 6 level 70s that I have, Warlock is the one I keep coming back to and enjoying the most. Like Epicburn said, learn at least 2/3 specs and you will be good. It does feel quite good at level 70.
My warlock is what I do PvP on, and he is currently sitting around 720kish health. Last night in AV I had 4 people attacking me as I was riding by, my health got to about 400k but I just rode right past them lol. It’s really fun once you get some of the later skills and talents with a bit of gear.
People often over-commit to single trash mobs when they are new to leveling. If mobs you are farming are fairly spread out, start your pull with haunt, agony, corruption on one and then UA, agony, corruption on a second. Rapture til the first is dead or nearly dead, then pull a new mob. Alternate haunt and UA so each mob is taking relatively even damage from rapture, rather than 1 mob dying in 1 rapture and the second taking no damage. You can save some incoming damage from the time mobs spend running to you and back and forth to your VW.
If the mobs are more closely grouped, you’ll want to use vile taint and seed (you definitely want sow the seeds in your leveling loadout). Shadowfury can save you some damage. A haunt on a tankier enemy can make the whole group go down faster if you’re also running haunted souls.
If you’re fighting elites, its always good to check if its immune to fear. Anything not immune is soloable, no matter the health, and you’d be suprised how uncommon immunity is.
In general, being prepared with a healthstone, health funnel, fel domination, mortal coil, and darkpact and unending resolve should let you clear things faster and more safely than other classes.
Heal the pet and then resummon with fel domination if needed. Use your health stones. Also, I found that the talents for drain life and leech (accrued vitality, fel synergy, grim feast, etc) are fairly useful for leveling when you are squishier. You end up ditching them at max level with some gear, but for leveling they aren’t bad.
Use your curses and maybe try horrify to fear targets without risk of pulling adds. Locks have a ton of tools at their disposal so try to use them as much as possible.
yeah been doing all that. Just so frustrating how careful i have to be on my lock while on shaman with similar gear and level i pull the whole area and go zippity zap and everything’s dead.
I haven’t played Aff in a long while, but maybe try destro or demo? Destro is nice cause it is good for cleave, Demo is not bad cleave either and it’s bursty. I always play destro for leveling.
level as demonology. the felguard is alot more tanky than the “tank” pet for some reason
Are you new to WoW? Or new to Warlock? I recently have leveled two warlocks. One was a Dwarf to have an alliance character to use for unlocking allied races, the other was a Dark Iron Dwarf that I leveled to unlock the heritage armor. I chose warlock on both because I love warlock and they’re the easiest class in the game to level imo.
The reason I asked if you’re new to WoW, is that there’s a fundamental issue with “quest leveling” nowadays. They have scaled back the experience requirements so much that you end up being super undergeared after just a few levels. So bad that you struggle to actually kill mobs.
If you aren’t new to wow, get and upgrade heirlooms would be my suggestion, but with you being 57, I wouldn’t bother for your Warlock at this point. Since they’re obsolete at 60. Heirlooms really help the leveling since they scale up with your character’s level assuming they’re upgraded.
The quest rewards need to be revamped. I went through most of the outland zones questing and in Hellfire for instance, three quests give you the same helm. Three quests give you the same pants, and there’s NO quest for a bunch of other slots. When you can go up 5 levels in a day with only a couple new items to equip, there’s something wrong.
Questing is the best, until your gear noticeably falls behind, then do dungeons for a while until you’re caught up. Scour the AH for cheap upgrades and use crafting friends to try and get gear from.
Sorry for the long answer…I hope it was helpful. Good luck!
I may be spoiled because I’ve had all my heirlooms since MoP. I highly recommend you get those for leveling. Even the way you are geared now, I don’t feel you should be “that” squishy. Keep your dots up and know you may have to health funnel the voidwalker occasionally.
Edit: Also, talent into syphon life. It will help keep you healthy.
Your ilvl is just super low and casters mostly suck to level. Warlocks get better at max level. Playing a mage would be pretty much the same thing with your gear and level.
Not sure of the issue, I virtually always level (and open world) as affliction, and it’s super easy. Tab dot the entire zone and win.
Thank you so much! Not new to WOW but i have not leveled a new toon in many years. Kind of soing this for the experience.
Everyone who said i got low ilvl is probably right. I outleveled most of my gear by at least 10 levels if not more.
Im going to try the auction house for some beginner greens for level 60. Hopefully they dont cost too much
Tha k you again Everyone
If you talent into permanent corruption, it is a slight DPS loss, but it is one less dot you need to spend a global cooldown on and more time you can drain life or funnel life to your demon.
With full heirlooms, I leveled as affliction. With VW out, I just run through the area tagging every mob I can with Agony. Then after I get 7+ mobs chasing me and/or VW, I hit them with seed to apply Corruption to them all, then 1-2 Ruptures and they’re all usually dead. Health Funnel or resummon, rinse repeat.
I would also take the time to evaluate your talent choices. I’m not sure what you’re using currently, but one trap players that are new to a class fall into, is they just try and copy someone else’s talents. For instance, if you want to do keys, you look at a high end lock’s talents and copy them. First off, their talent choices are dictated by the content they’re doing, also their gear. A perfect example is a capstone destruction talent says “you get more bonus from your mastery”. If you currently have very low mastery, this may not be a great talent for you at this time.
As affliction questing, I talent into anything that improves Agony, Corruption or AoE abilities that I use to cleave down mobs. If you aren’t able to pull a bunch at a time, then the cleave talents won’t be that helpful to you.