Which is why the VW strat doesnât even use DP.
This is just incorrect, and I still use the VW when I farm in the open world even with plenty of gear from raiding.
It works fine even without the improved voidwalker talents.
And as Iâve said, this is not my experience. I was faster with the VW.
VW can handle threat. Did you read how the VW strat works?
Yeah, it was the meta on private servers. It was changed to succubus/drain tanking because VW is way weaker in Classic.
I donât know what to tell you man, mathematically itâs slower, regardless of your anecdotal experience. I trust in the no life math nerds who have done all these calculations far more than I trust anyone else on the subject. Especially since I tested both myself and found them in line with the findings.
maybe if you have literally zero +shadow damage on your gear, but even talented with any spell damage, voidwalker canât hold threat vs a full row of dots and wanding, if its out youâre using it for sacrifice or to hold onto something youâre not actively doing damage to. VW threat is actually trash and it makes me sad lol
if you on a pvp server, SL/nightfall be the caster tank no one will 1v1âŚ
warlock self healing is nice, fearing ppl dead with dots is fun
This doesnât make your statement any less incorrect.
Like I said, I still use the VW to grind in SM/Ruin spec. Even without the improved VW talents, it holds threat against 3 dots without a problem. It also did so back when I was using it to level.
Then the model being used is incorrect.
I have around 350 shadow spell damage. The Voidwalker still holds threat against my dots.
It even worked last night when I had half an hour of flask left. I was at nearly 500 spell damage.
Both of you really need to go back and read how this spec is supposed to work. The entire point is to hold something with dots while you drain tank a second mob⌠or a second and third mob. The VW can also pick up aggro on an unintentional add, which is handy when things are respawning around you.
My drain life regularly ticks for almost 160. I have no reason to ever wand anything.
no, it literally does not. youâre either lying or just flat out havenât tried lol
i have 491 shadow damage unbuffed, vw does not hold threat against agony, corruption and siphon life unless I use its 2 minute cd
You can often find me grinding for Demonic Runes (and felcloth and runecloth) in Jadefire Run. Come watch if you donât believe me.
Oh, and hereâs the spec I was using last night: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/warlock/0500253502201005--50500051220001
Letâs assume youâre right, and by some miracle of god your dots DONT pull aggro, which i absolutely donât think is possible.
Succubus would still be faster, and you should be pulling 3-4 mobs at a time drain tanking. You will literally be limited by spawn timers more than your kill speed, and killing things in larger groups with little downtime between makes them respawn in groups and at a faster pace.
you CAN level with VW, warlocks are fast levelers. But itâs just not optimal.
fighting mobs significantly lower level than you, your voidwalker gets the same benefit a melee player would. Fewer glancing blows, higher critical hit rate, higher damage vs their armor value etc., itâs not in any way an accurate representation of voidwalkerâs capabilities while leveling and attacking mobs of equal or greater level.
Thatâs actually the point, you want to fight/do quests with greens. Faster kill speed, less damage taken.
All that does is allow you and the VW to tank more damage though, absolutely doesnât make aggro more manageable.
3 is fine. 4 is doable if everything is green, but youâll still run out of mana and green mana eventually if you consistantly pull too many. That goes for either strat.
With the succubus, if you go one mob at a time, there is zero downtime ever. It has a nice flow to it. Two mobs (while leveling), and you may eventually have to drink if you spend all your time in combat. 3-4 mobs and you start having to take regular breaks since you outpace the succubusâ mana regen (due to having to fear and recast drain life more often). It works, though.
With the VW, the optimal number of mobs is about 2. Three is fine, but you eventually have to stop and drink. 4+ mobs and you have to repeatedly fear, which reduces your drain life time, once again running you out of both blue and green mana.
Of course this all depends on the relative level of the mobs your fighting.
I mean, I get similar results farming runecloth in Silithus. I just canât endlessly pull mobs because of increased damage and pushback from the crazy attack speed on the melee ones.
Regardless, you should be fighting green mobs while leveling. Itâs faster with ANY of these strats.
The aggro is easier to manage with the VW, and the VW doesnât take anywhere near as much damage as you do.
And considering nightfall, you wouldnt really be shadowbolting all that much more than affliction.
Not if youâre doing it properly. Youâll want to use DC on CD and such to give some breathing room, and always DP when pet has mana.
You also have a bit of âdown timeâ when youâre waiting for mobs to spawn or are moving from one group to another.
You take more damage, but youâre healing yourself. I can effectively tank more mobs than my VW can, and threat doesnât matter at all, because youâre tanking ALL the mobs. If youâre stacking stam and spellpower like you should, you should have zero problem tanking 3-4 greens. All that matters is raw kill speed.
Def just drain tank to cap, you can kill mobs incredibly fast with little downtime.
I get how DP works. Iâm just saying you run your pet out of mana eventually.
Deathcoil while leveling is usually a bad idea, though. I havenât done the calculation for lower levels, but at max level it doesnât actually net you anything until you have around 200 spellpower (and shadow mastery).
Well yea. I donât have any problem tanking 3-4 greens. It just eventually causes you to run out of mana and green mana.
The VW can take one of those mobs, and effectively act as a health battery for you in the same way that the succubus acts as a mana battery.
Thatâs when you lifetap.
Thatâs the point, it doesnât net you anything, but it hits as hard as a shadowbolt and gives you 4-5 seconds of the mob NOT attacking you while youâre damaging it.
You shouldnât. Youâre prob doing it wrong.
I mean, I use DC when I over-pull, but I prefer to have it off cooldown at all times because Iâm on a PvP server.
With 3-4 mobs on you, you tend to run out of green mana pretty quickly.
I held back on saying this about your use of the VW.
Even with green mobs and a bunch of spell power, getting hit by 3-4 mobs will far outpace your drain life. If you pull that many, youâre going to have to stop after basically every pull.
And for leveling you donât have much spell power to boost your drain life, so this probably means death with EITHER strat.
The rule of thumb for me while Iâm grinding mobs is to stay above 50% HP+MP, so I donât stick out as an obvious gank target for solo alliance players.
I also try to never stop and eat. This means if I get low from pulling three-packs I might need to follow up with a single target pull where I use CoS and drain life. During a single-pull I can recover HP/MP almost as fast as if I were eating.
I leveled from like 40+ exclusively pulling 3-4 mobs at a time (usually 3, 4 if it was convenient for spawns/accidentally pulled). I had no down time ever. Never ate, never drank.
If youâre on a pvp server, which I am too. Most likely DC will not help you with a gank, they will attack you from an extremely advantageous advantage and are probably a skull. If youâre the one jumping other people, you also donât need it as youâll destroy them.
Also drain tanking with succubus is the tactic speed runners used. So the FASTEST levelers in classic were drain tanking locks with succubus.
Objectively youâre wrong. You can argue that VW is still a viable spec, but itâs not the most optimal. I donât know how to explain this to you, both in practice and by math others with far more knowledge of the ins and outs of this game have gone over have proved this.
Also why in the world are you farming fel cloth/runecloth? Just do mara runs (herb) or jump runs (mining). Itâs WAY better of a gold farm, and if you need other mats you can just buy it. Itâs also pvp proof.
Iâm not trying to be mean here, but this is an advice thread. You want to give the person the most accurate information possible from an objective standpoint. Frankly the opinion of a badly geared lock really doesnât matter compared to legitimate research by the no lifers/speed runners. Iâm going to follow the opinions and the facts gathered by the actual experts on this topic, regardless of what my limited experience tells me. I havenât tested every possible build, calculated optimal rotations, and playtested them thousands of time. I donât care enough nor do i have the time. But other people have. Iâve followed their expert advice to amazing results. My /played at 60 was like 5 days and some change.
Deathcoil costs 565 mana and does 476 damage so itâs a net loss of health/mana without boosts.
However, Imp Lifetap (20% bonus) converts 476 health to 571 mana so thatâs a net gain. Not only that but If you have shadow mastery, curse of shadow, and shadow vulnerability (from imp shadowbolt) up then youâll get a 40% boost to shadow damage. That means that Deathcoil will do 666 damage, with Imp Lifetap thatâs about 800 mana.
So Deathcoil, used properly, can do 666 damage to an enemy and, effectively, give you 800 mana for a net gain of about 235 mana. Thatâs before any bonus spell power, if there was any then it would give you about 43% bonus of your spell/shadow power.
200 spell power would mean about 120 more damage (once you add in the 40% in buffs/debuffs: 200 * (1.5 / 3.5) * 1.4) and 144 mana after a lifetap.