Even with all the talents that buff its healing, and my hp below 30% (For Death’s embrace buff), it was barely outhealing one regular NPC damage.
Is it even worth casting anymore?
2 Likes
It hasn’t been worth casting for a while now. It has been tuned horribly low for multiple years so the talents that affect it are dead as well. Most of our self healing has shifted into Demonic Healthstones.
You’re not wrong. Drain life healing is weaker than it’s ever been in wow history and it needs a buff.
The mortal coil 50% heal reduction in pvp should also be removed given how bad warlock self heals currently are.
7 Likes
Fel synergy also needs a buff - for a talent this deep, the leech heal being provided to the warlock is way too mediocre.
The heal is equivalent to about 0.45% leech. I tested the heal and basically we’re getting like 1%hp after15-20seconds of continuous casting even when spamming high damage chaos bolts and it takes up to 30 minutes for soul leech to heal the equivalent of a full health bar.
I wish it would instead either give a decent percentage to leech secondary stat like 2-5% or give a passive heal xHP5 like we had in vanilla with demon armor or heal 2%HP5 in TBC via fel armor.
6 Likes
its not even worth using in pvp combat. As you drain life, the damage youre taking in that moment far exceeds the heal youre receiving. Soul Burn drain life does nothing either.
In addition to that if you use soulburn for drainlife itll be on a cd and cant be used for a healthstone leaving you vulnerable to a hard switch with no way to survive.
The worst part is when we teleport and have to maintain a line of sight with the enemy our drain is susceptible to kicks so it really should be stronger to compensate for that drawback
6 Likes
Its completely worthless.
Remove it from your bars.
2 Likes
Keep it and use it remove a warrior’s spell reflect.
Throwing trash spells on spell reflect is the best usage for them.
1 Like
It could be both, but yeah it’s horrendously weak at the moment 
…
Simple answer?
No.
… However, the more detailed answer!?
No.
Honestly you’re better off just discarding it off your spellbars altogether, it’s vehemently trash at the moment until Blizzard fix it. 
You’re best off just utilising the other defences in the meantime, like:
- Dark Pact
- Unending Resolve
- Demonic Healthstone
– and other tactics.
Sure you could still use drain life to get some mild healing done, but it’s not really noticeable in contrast to damage received and can ultimately prove more problematic than beneficial in majority situations.
And inexplicably being a 2-point talent too. Point for point, it is one of the most ridiculously underpowered talents for its position in the tree. Even buffing it to heal for 100% of Soul Leech still wouldn’t feel too strong.
They nerfed drain life because it was really OP in pvp back in the day. They really nerfed any mechanics in the game that drained hitpoints and give it to the attacker. Blood death knights used to be able to kill entire groups in pvp.
Is it still worth using it with Essence Drain for the damage reduction?
I don’t think so. Our survivability is very good so far, and aff feels pretty tanky. The problem with Essence Drain is that it requires a full Drain Life channel to get the maximum effect (plus it needs to actually heal you) , so it’s basically a dead channel and wasted dps/utility that could be spent doing something more productive.
Lastly, Instant Shadowbolt does substantial damage now, so you don’t want to sacrifice mobility by standing still to cast drain life.
1 Like
I was wondering why coil felt so weak in healing now. I think during BFA drain life was pretty good to cast. It did great damage in pvp as your last cast to keep you alive.
2 Likes
I was thinking the same thing. Even after it’s buffed by soul rot and drains from 4-5 enemies. It’s nothing.
Right now warlock is a glass cannon
Man then I’m doing something terribly wrong. In dungeons my hp is never at full. Always struggling to keep above 50%. And honestly i never had issues with mechanics to say “ Oh i stand in something that’s why I’m dying”.
1 Like
the more i play i think it’s more than just drain life…
Aside from cooldowns, our survival capabilities like soul leech, pet aggro, drain life, siphon life, are all severely lacking. Honestly i feel like at times i’m playing a mage by how much damage i take. (again cooldowns excluded)
I’m starting to wonder now if these are just intended to keep us in line with other classes when it comes to delves or dungeons. Otherwise there’s no reason they should all be this weak since being a tad sturdier has always been a feature of warlocks.
3 Likes
I find it funny that in the Soulburn Drain Life tooltip it says that the shield cannot exceed 30% of health, as if in ANY scenario it would reach that healing, even in PvE lol
It’s possible that Drain Life was a nerf to Aff Warlocks and the rest of us are collateral damage.
Honestly makes me want to get rid of soul rot and not care about the last point of hero talents that requires soul rot.
Nah it was just as useless in Dragonflight, even for Aff. I’m too lazy to research further, but according to wowhead the base spell basically hasn’t changed for 4 expansions now.
The issue now is that all the supporting talents that made it actually good were deleted or nerfed.
Inevitable Demise - deleted.
Grim Feast - deleted.
Soul Rot - 30 → 60 sec cd.
Soul Swap - now a pvp talent when aff was already starved.
Drain Life is surely the most useless heal in the game now, by far.
1 Like
It’s actually funny someone considered the spell to be possibly bugged. It’s just that bad, yes.