What is the most viable spec for someone on launch will any people follow imp spec? I like to level with void walker but I’ve heard threat is a problem with that pet?
I’m currently trying to test it on the stress test. What is your opinion on drain tanking with succubus later on after level 30?
I’ll be playing on a PVP server if this helps. Would appreciate any info on what they will be doing.
21/30/0 with Void - Starting with the 21 in Affliction for Siphon Life. It get’s absurd when you can near endlessly chain pull mobs.
On beta I find the pserver build where you vw tank and rush down demo for improved vw to be really slow and weak… The vw on pservers was doing the same dps as a succubus and as such really good at holding threat and decent at doing damage… Don’t bother with that build come live.
I’ll be going succubus /drain tank build again, and talent wise rushing straight down the affliction tree for dark pact.
Succubus actually can hold aggro temporarily via some damage from lash of pain initially and had decently high output (20-30% of my dps) without mana concerns (imp ooms himself frequently).
Drains themselves don’t get super great until mid 30s when you can attack enough + shadow, talents, and a new spell rank to make it better output than a wand.
After dark pact you can probably start weaving in actual nukes
I leveled 3 locks in vanilla at release.
pets: while other pets are viable, void walker was up 90% of the time because TAUNT was so useful and it survived the longest and keeping you safe the most. if you are relying on your pet for DPS you are playing warlock incredibly wrong.
talents: I spent all my first points in affliction because the first few rows are so good for survivability, reducing downtime and later in the aff tree you get siphon and become a drain tank as mentioned above.
Literally nothing wrong with the threat of the VW if you arent trying to do nothing but throw shadowbolts. Imp spec is subpar and takes longer.
Get Siphon Life, then whatever.
Target #1 - Siphon Life, (Improved) Corruption, Curse of Agony, Pet Attack
Target #2 - Siphon Life, (Improved) Corruption, Curse of Agony, Pet Attack When Target #1 is dead
Target #3 - Siphon Life, (Improved) Corruption, Curse of Agony, Pet Attack When Target #2 is dead
Target #4 - Siphon Life, (Improved) Corruption, Curse of Agony, Pet Attack When Target #3 is dead
Reapply 1 DOT as needed. Drain Soul as needed. Healthstone as needed. Loot corpses. Life Tap as needed. Repeat until 60.
I may be completely wrong here, but I had success with affliction spec (some points into demo), put pet on mob, dot up mob, target next mob and repeat. Throw in a shadowbolt or a drain life or soul or whatever here and there to finish them off. By the time my dots pulled any aggro onto me the thing was already almost dead.
There’s plenty wrong with the VW as a pet… You have to heavily throttle your damage to get him to hold aggro… And throttling your damage results in slower kill speed and downtime for the VW itself it needing mana or health.
Also no one should be shadow bolting, and you don’t have to bolt to rip aggro off the vw… Two dots and a wand are more than sufficient to rip threat away, even with the imp vw talent of you agent throttling yourself.
Legitimately, the Succubus will end up being a superior choice for speed once she gets going… She does substantially more output than the vw and her big initial spike on threat/damage from lash of pain let’s you get dots rolling and a wand or two before you pull threat off of her. She ends up “tanking” a few hits, then the mob running to you means it does no output, then you yourself take a hit or two and all move on. It’s much more output (via both the pet and you not throttling yourself), and less downtime. If also add that vs caster mobs (which are mostly humanoid) you can use her seduction ability as an interrupt to stop healing, something the vw can’t do.
Err wand, yep, I totally forgot about that, but yes I would dot and then wand, or drain if I needed. Things died fast enough that pulling threat didn’t seem to be an issue. For me anyway. But what do I know
Alright time for a warlock to weigh in.
Affliction. Get SL. Then Demo.
You might ask why? You never stop. Ever.
Put your pet on one mob with agony on it. That’s it. While he’s doing that throw all your dots on a 2nd and fear it. Then throw all your dots on a 3rd and drain tank. Your void will mosey on over as he finishes.
Repeat until 60.
On a private server maybe, Succ does not generate the same thing you wish to believe, it was tested on beta countless times. No one is debating the succ’s ability to CC.
You also dont have to throttle a single thing with the VW except immolate after its threat overtakes your dots and don’t shadowbolt.
Sounds like you’re just not good with threat. If you can’t kill mobs within 3 levels of you outside of elites in under 15s with the voidwalker then you are a bad warlock and you should be ashamed. VW is superior until level 40.
if you rip aggro off the vw and cant kill a single mob within a 3 level spread of yoru current level then you are just hot garbage.
This simply isn’t true. In the 2nd stress test I was pulling aggro with just Corruption, Agony, and wanding.
I watched a TON of warlock videos from the Beta. And even with 3/3 Imp Voidwalker they were pulling threat. Without ever casting shadowbolt. Voidwalker has huge threat issues.
My suggestion would be take a damage pet and just blow things up. Imp with 30% firebolt increased damage does a surprising amount of damage. Ping pong mobs between the two of you and you’re a machine.
corruption, agony, wand. Mobs dead within 10-15s and you never gain aggro. Again, you just don’t know how threat works in conjunction with the playstyle.
Literally did it yesterday, no issues. L2P issue.
LOL. I’m sure if you repeat that nonsense enough times it’ll be true.
Or you can use a pet that does vastly more damage than the Voidwalker and kill things even faster.
I’m literally soloing RFC @ 15 on the stress test right now with the void. It’s really not too bad. I’d prefer if a threat meter worked atm, but it’s not unmanageable.
The way I used to play warlocks was
Your Shadowbolt draw too much aggro.
I did the math in TBC, the 1st wand you can craft w/ Enchanting puts out higher DPS that your Shadowbolt, uses less mana and doesn’t have much aggro.
Not very effective in PvP.
Bro I was in beta… I don’t care what you did on the 1-15 stress test… By 25 the Voidwalker is useless.
Edit… I take that back, I used vw once after that to get the Fel hunter (specifically suiciding it into the murloc camp then Saccing) … And then went immediately back to the Succubus vs using either vw or fh
Lol you honestly think you were the only one to play the beta?
Actually L2P. The VW loses usefulness at 40 not 25.
You gain a notable difference in down time with Succ below 40.
Between the two of us? Yeah… I pretty clearly was…
because you seemingly have no concept of how little threat output and damage the vw has in real circumstances…
but w/e buddy, you do you, feel free to throttle your damage and have a slower killing speed, while also adding in pet downtime for health/mana when you could just use a succubus and do more damage and have little-no downtime pre darkpact and absolutely none post darkpact.