Warlock advice: Leveling

Dot up 4 mobs while running, howl of terror, loot.

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I multi-DoT with or without VW. I also use SL if there’s two or more mobs (usually), though sometimes if there’s just two it doesn’t really have time to ramp up.

As I said in my initial response… SL is trash unless the mobs live long enough.

Almost none, and DP is useful to top off without using up health. I still tend to Tap as it gives me so much more mana and otherwise I’d overcap with drain life.

The mobs are DoT’d with or without the VW. Having a Succubus doesn’t mean I can’t DoT another target.

I literally said that. Can you finish my sentence?

How is it unsustainable when I have been doing it for 15 levels or more? I’m level 45, and I have zero issue double tanking two mobs. And I kill them faster than if I relied on a VW.

I drink very rarely. I actually have a problem where I have too much water and I’ve already hit the next tier. I either DP spam while moving, Tap once or twice, Tap and bandage, or just move on to the next set of mobs.

Seduce is really useful if you pull too many or if the mobs are particularly hard hitting, or heal. I have zero issue taking on 3 mobs with the Succubus, seduce or no.

Do you bother getting SM as the, “Imp VW” build? 'Cause if you don’t, you really aren’t leveling better like you think you are.

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Running fear on a second mob will mean you’ll have to stop sometimes.

Facetanking the second mob while draining the first means you’ll have to stop often.

Same goes with VW, except you’re talking about a third mob instead of a second.

SL doesn’t ramp. It does the same damage every tick.

This is an exaggeration to the point of being incorrect.

This is true, but isn’t really relevant to what I was saying. That’s just how you play with Succ+pact.

Not having a VW means it becomes unsustainable one mob earlier.

Not really.

Unsustainable as in you have to eat and drink. If you single-target, you should never have to stop. This is one of the advantages of succ+pact.

It’s nice that you’re level 45. I’m level 60, and went back and forth between succ and imp vw.

If you’re not going to touch the extra mob, the VW can pick it up and go back to the mob with the dots. In that case, you don’t actually lose the extra damage.

If you “have zero issue taking on 3 mobs”, that means you’re pulling at least 4 before you need seduce. Where on the map are you having this issue? I can only think of like 1 or 2 packs.

Honestly, though. Seduce isn’t useful during leveling except maybe as an “oh [poop]” button.

Yup. Starting at level 43 I believe.

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Lots of passionate warlock players in the community, I’m surprised at the amount of discussion and information here. Everyone playing a little different, each style worthy of play.

Thanks for the discussion guys, keep it coming!

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:wink: 10ch

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I gotta thank a lot of y’all for this post. You guys have helped a ton, learned a lot.

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That’s pretty much the beauty of playing a warlock. Not only do they have multiple viable builds to level as, to raid as or pvp. Probably one of the most versatile classes in the game.

Voidwalker works for some, succubus is better for some. Just like some people take dark pact and others don’t. Try what you want as you level to see if it suits your playstyle. Just because someone leveled a different way doesn’t mean it’s “bad information, just a different perspective/playstyle

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Welcome to the fold Psychotica!

I always level as affliction when starting a new lock because it has no downtime. Drain tanking is so much fun too! You can have moments where you are in the red and still able to pull mobs.

Face tanking is fun but you must also learn to kite mobs to squeeze some time for dots to work. When I pull I like to have my pet grab agro (no more than 1-2 seconds) and then I run away and get out of range. By the time the mob gets to me its usually around 50-60%

Some quests send you to areas with lots of mobs in rooms (troll ruins in stv) you can cast Curse of Agony and then run out of line of sight to make the mobs come to you faster. Enemy spellcasters wont attempt to cast until they are back in los.

Buy greens with +shadow damage it doesn’t matter if they have primary stats. You want raw damage. You want about 5 pieces of this stuff to turn you into a mobile death lazer. Buy shadow weave pieces around 40 if you can’t make them already. They are super good.

Grab improved drain soul its like getting a free mana pot after killing a mob with ds. I usually grab a Trolls blood elixir while grinding for that sick health regen.

For pets I am split between the blueberry and the succubus. Voidy can serve as a good off tank for most of your leveling, but the succubus at 46 starts to hit hard and becomes a super mana efficient dot. I seldom use the Felhunter or imp while leveling, pup is more for pvp and the imp is group utility.

I don’t know if anybody mentioned this but you can go 4/5 on improved corruption because it lowers the cast time to the gcd, making it virtually instant just unable to cast while moving.

Don’t be afraid to solo elites, if they can be feared you can solo kill it. That includes all the elites in STV. Sometimes its best to clear the area around before so you dont draw adds and other times its best to pull them to other areas.

I hope you enjoy the warlock class! You may never roll another class again, I’m on my sixth warlock lol

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You don’t want to do this. Being able to cast corruption while moving is incredibly important to the drain tanking lifestyle. You cast all 3 dots on the first mob while running to the next one, if you aren’t doing that then your leveling speed slows down immensely. 5/5 imp corruption is absolutely mandatory for affliction leveling.

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It is true that there are many builds for locks, many VIABLE builds, but specifically for leveling, if you want the smoothest possible ride there really shouldn’t even be a discussion.

There are only two factors that matter: Sustainability and Kill Speed

With Drain tanking you have infinite sustainability, so all you’re looking for is maximizing your kill speed.

VW is not good for leveling because of this. While you can still pull 3-4 mobs with a VW and kill them, the side by side time invested per kill makes it undesirable.

VW just doesn’t offer anything. You can tank more mobs than a VW when you simply facetank, not to mention if you kite at all. VW does some damage, but it’s the lowest of all pets, and sacing him means you lose time summoning, the mana, and the little DPS he was providing. His taunt, even if he could keep it, barley helps you because you can already infinitely sustain your health.

With a Succubus, you kill mobs faster (literally the most important part) and you can seduce players and mobs if you need breathing room for whatever reason (like killing a quest mob when a player tried to gank you to take the kill for themselves), but you still have your pet after it breaks while not waste the time or mana to resummon.

While you CAN use VW, just like you can use imp (which can actually be a good option as well), you’re ultimately gimping yourself.

Back in the day people used VW religiously, but we were ignorant and bad while stacking main stats.

As soon as you can, i recommend buying or making the shadoweave set when you are able to equip each piece (dreamweave can be upgrades from them as well, but more expensive). It’s HUGE for leveling, and some of the pieces can last you to 60 just fine.

Ultimately though, you can level how you want, locks are the second fastest quest leveling class behind hunters. And ultimately the difference would probably just be 1-3 extra /played days which may or may not matter to you. Drain Tanking with a succubus is simply the most meta way to do it.

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Absolutely. Back in the day I actually did exactly this, VW all the way. But now I have the chance to do it right, which so far is much more fun lol. Succubus is the way for me.

This has been the most helpful and fun thread I’ve ever been a part of.

I used succubus from 24 onwards. Now that im 60, the only reason i summon a voidwalker is to DS it for 3% hp recovery every 4 seconds for solo farming lol.

If you want to level the way i did…
Immolate is your optional spell, only use it when the target is a boss mon or for some reason that you arent killing the target before agony/corruption ends.
So you curse of agony(COA), corruption, (cor) and then wand the target to death.
The next pull coa, cor and drain life while the mob is walking over to you to recover hp from last pull, then wand it to death.
When you get fel concentration and get the drain life upgrade in your 30s you can use drain life regularly to keep yourself above 90% hp and then life tap between mobs once of you arent high mana.
Only ever use drain life straight after dots becauae you want your mp5 to kick in by using your wand to finish off the mob.
Succubus the whole time, ez pezy.
If you pull 2 mobs you can immolate (and dot) the mob that you arent wanding and your pet isnt attacking so that its super low and able to he easily wanded down when you change to it.
Later on your will siphon life every pull too! Applied first before coa

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This seems to be the popular choice! I love hooker girl lol.

Shes nasty :sunglasses:
Shes also great later on if you want to use the pet mana drain talent from affliction because you can turn off all her abilities and she still whoops butt with super high damage.

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I switched to the drain tanking a couple days ago and it’s the best leveling spec imo. I rarely have to drink and ttk is pretty quick. Only change I made is I only went 20 in affliction to get the drain life talents then went the rest in demo. In the end I will be playing a soul link/drain build.

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That’s a solid idea. I can’t wait to be able to really drain tank. Soon as we get through with Halloween and redecorating the house it’s game on! …after work of course.

Use Dive’s drain tanking guide. Google it, youll find it. If you are going to Raid at 60, you will probably not use this build. This is for 5mans/leveling. Unfortunately the debuff limit keeps warlocks from using their dots/DPS curses in raids. Unless you are that one lucky warlock with the highest crit and are allowed to cast Corruption for the NF procs.

Switch to affliction drain tanking. Most important thing is to keep your wand upgraded at all times. Your wand is your best friend until Drain Life out DPS’ it around level 38.

Rotation is always: Immolate, Corruption, CoAgony, Siphon, wand/drain life. Shadow Bolt is very mana inefficient and isnt used much with this build. If you are grinding green mobs, you dont need CoA. The mobs will die faster than CoA DPS will take to ramp up. Use your wand when grinding greens.

You can fear toggle multi mobs but make sure you have Curse of Recklessness rank 1 on your bar so you can cast that on a mob you have feared who is running too far away. You dont need to buy rank 2 of that (or most other spells - save your money). CoReck will cancel your fear and the mob will come back to you. Cast CoA on that same mob to reset fear mechanics and continue to DPS. You can juggle feared mobs by doing this. This can be mana extensive. You are usually using CoReck in dungeons and the wild to keep feared mobs from running into other mobs and aggroing them.

At 20, IMMEDIATELY get your Succubus. This is the pet you will be using for drain tanking. Your Void Walker is a terrible pet. Its DPS sucks and it takes more damage than the Succubus. Dont use it except for major single target elites/quest mobs. Even then, you can just drain tank with the Succubus and youll be fine.

Keep the Succubus abilities up to date. Dont have her auto use the abilities except for Lash. Everything else should be off.

Use pet and spell macros. Find them online and USE THEM.

Your Healthstones/Health Potions are on different timers. Keep First Aid up to date. Keep food/water up to date (you will use these).

Dont get into the habit of using healthstones/health pots/bandages as a “Oh shiz” button, these things are part of your rotation and should be used all the time to maximize your DPS output (Health = Mana = DPS). You should be constantly Life Tap -> Drain Life/Heathstone/HealthPot/Bandaging. Post level 38 the efficiency will be much better between mana lost/health gained but you shouldnt have to sit to drink/eat much even before that level.

You will fly through single target/2-3 targets and level very fast.

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Unfortunately the debuff limit keeps warlocks from using their dots/DPS curses in raids. Unless you are that one lucky warlock with the highest crit and are allowed to cast Corruption for the NF procs.

The wording on this is odd. Locks are always slotted for their curse, and you ideally want 3 locks for raid. We don’t use DPS curses because they do less raid DPS than CoE/CoE/CoS. It’s also not hard to slot 3 corruptions in raid for SM/Ruin locks, your guild may choose not to depending on your comp. For instance you might have 4+ arms warriors, in which case removing a corruption slot for MS could be worthwhile. Your other dots don’t matter because simply spamming shadow bolt is actually a higher DPS rotation.

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I’m so grateful to this thread. So many things to consider.

Little Meridot got 20 and her succubus last night. I’m not trading in the blueberry yet because I actually don’t have trouble with pulling off of him (I must be doing something wrong), and I have a rhythm with constantly managing 3 mobs at a time.

I’m still just burning through each level (went from 18-21 yesterday), and the succubus doesn’t have seduce until level 26. I’ll check her out then.

For PvP, I find that locks my level are still running around with imps. I throw an agony and corruption as I run by, and they die in like 3 ticks. I killed an 18 lock when I was 18–he started the aggression, even, and got off the first fear.

I think the VW is just fine, and I think people are over-valuing the DPS bump given by the succubus. But, like I said, I haven’t given her a shot, yet. When I get to 26, I’ll keep her out and see how we go. I’d love to have that charm for PvP.

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Hi at low levels you’ll want to open with this rotation Immolate>Corruption>COA & then wand until death/drain soul right before for shard. Download a threat meter & make sure your voidwalker has at least 200+ threat before you do so as i’ve found it increases the amount of time the mob will focus on void before attacking you.
You’ll want to keep this rotation until about level 35+ when you can start drain tanking utilizing your Succubus & drain life over voidwalker & wand.

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