I have some questions about warlocks. Duh title ![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")
I remember there being an issue with the voidwalker having terrible TPS compared to the damage warlocks put out. Does this change at all? I tried leveling a warlock on the beta. Got to level 13ish and just with immolate and agony I’d pull threat when they ticked.
Also what spec is good for both pve and pvp?
I’m debating on leveling a warlock or priest as my first toon. My main concerns are being wanted for raid spots, pvp and being able to solo farm stuff for making gold at 60. I know warlocks are good at that and I know spriest is good for that. I think holy gets decent at it with gear but uncertain.
This might be a good thread for discussing warlocks. As long as it pertains to warlock discussion then I don’t mind it getting a little off topic as long as it’s warlock related.
Couple points:
Immolate causes high threat with its initial burst damage. Try sticking to CoA and Corruption and only using Immolate when you’re fighting tougher mobs.
Also, make sure the VW taunt is on auto cast so you don’t have to micro manage that.
Ok cool. I’ll keep the dot thing in mind thank you. Yea i checked the taunt in beta and it had the swirling animation denoting that it was set to auto.
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I remember having to give my voidwalker a few seconds to get aggro before I did any damage if I didn’t want to pull threat. You need to send it in first, wait about 3-5 seconds for it to get aggro and then start doing damage if you don’t want to pull any aggro.
In retail you can start doing damage right away and the voidwalker will go in and grab aggro. It’s pretty rare for it to lose aggro in retail from my experience. Vanilla wasn’t like that.
As far as which spec is good for PvE and PvP both, I personally loved playing affliction for both. I did very well in PvP and also raided as primarily affliction. I would have to look at a talent tree to remember my exact spec, but I was all the way affliction, I had some points in demonology for more stamina, etc., and went into the destruction tree down to ruin:
In PvP, I had a blast and loved the mobility of it. I raided and did PvP both on my warlock back then and I only changed a few points in the affliction tree to maximize my dps for raiding and I was fine.
How can you raid as affliction if you are limited by the debuff slots? I thought that made affliction worthless and was the main reason why warlocks went with a shadowbolt spec.
Affliction is the shadowbolt spec. Or rather one of them.
Destruction was the spec that never had a place in raids.
You either went mostly Afflicition with some destruction or mostly Demo with some destruction but pure destruction pretty much never saw any play except PvP.
unlike later versions Afflicition wasn’t really a dot spec persay, they had better dots, yes, but were primarily built around mastery of shadow magic, especially curses.
Demonology was about exploiting the strength and knowledge of demons in various ways.
And destruction on enhancing your ability to wield flame and shadow as a direct weapon. (However Fire was very vestigal and didn’t start to find it’s niche until Wrath as it was missing every important aspects, so it ultimately just gave you some PVP tools or was a spec that made the other 2 better by association).
Well, you see, people didn’t min/max that hard back then.
You needed 40 people, if one of them was an Affliction Warlock. Great! We got our 40th guy!
For real, though. My hypothetical raid has 12 free debuff slots after Winter’s Chill, Shadow Weaving, Nightfall and Sunder Armor.
The DPS are 4 Fury Warriors, 4 Combat Rogues, 4 Arcane Power Frost Mages, 4 SM/Ruin Warlocks, 3 Marksmanship Hunters, 2 Balance Druids.
The 3 that apply those debuffs are technically DPS, but I term them support. They are Frost Mage, Shadow Priest and Retribution Paladin.
4 Holy Paladins for Flash Heal spamming tanks, 3 Holy Priests for big heals on tanks when the Flash Heals fall behind, 3 Discipline Priests for Shield/Renew raid healing and Power Infusions, 2 Restoration Druids also raid heals.
3 Protection Warriors and 1 Feral (Bear) Druid.
https://classic.wowhead.com/raid-composition#0gcnpHgqnpHgGnpHvhhFHwhjjFwhjjFxddddxyyyy
I wasn’t worthless in raids with my spec. As I said, I did change a few points around in the affliction tree to maximize my dps that our guilds warlock class leader suggested and I was fine.
I was fortunate enough to be in a guild that cared more about skill instead of min/maxing and forcing their players into a set play style. They allowed their members to play what they actually found fun. We had a balance druid, shadow priest, off-tank pally, cat druid, etc., and progressed nicely.
So much has been going around in these forums about useless specs that just isn’t quite true. But I suppose if you are wanting to min/max, I suppose you should just go by what people say are best. You asked a question and I gave my experience from playing a warlock back then in PvE and PvP.
CoA, corruption, plus wand damage might be low enough dmg to avoid breaking the VW threat
Not according to all the streams I’ve been watching. I would say for questing VW is good for the sacrifice shield, and that’s it. Personally, I’ll probably go Imp because it does way more damage.
Use drain tank spec and succubus by level 40. VW will not hold aggro by then.
SM/Ruin or DS/Ruin for raiding. The latter having higher damage but also a glass cannon.
Look up definitive warlock guide on nost forums, it’s a good start.
Don’t bother with immolate, especially while leveling.
Exactly ![:+1:t3:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/+1/3.png?v=6" ":+1:t3:")
There are a few situations where VW is needed for soloing. But for the most part, blood pact and machine gun imp works
I played a hunter to 30 and a warlock to 30 in the current beta and hands down hunter pet >>> warlock pet. This may be because of the hunter pet bug where you can train a pet 2 levels higher than your level…I always kept a pet 2 levels higher than me and the pet could solo stuff my level.
It does not. Even if it did, he wouldn’t pull threat if he let the voidwalker attack first.
Did you make sure your voidwalker got threat first? Torment rank 1 does 45 threat per cast plus the damage it does per swing. so approximately 12-14 damage. That’s about 57 threat. Rank 2 immolate is 19 initial damage plus 8 per sec. CoA will do I think 7 on the first tick. After 3 seconds your total threat on the target becomes 34. The voidwalker only needs to do 38 threat to pull threat away even if you pull first. Turn that around and let the VW pull first and you would need to do ~75 threat to steal the aggro.
Ya, if you use shadowbolt regularly, VW won’t hold up if you don’t use suffering too.
Well warlock pets have other issues/bugs right now so it could be a pet problem with threat.
Check out madseasonshow twitch videos. He is leveling warlock. He didn’t seem to have issue pulling aggro with vw even with immolate so not sure what he’s doing different.
I leveled my lock with drain tank method. Open with SB or just start dotting. Drain life until dead. Use imp as mana battery for dark pact. Maybe not as efficient as VW but I enjoyed it especially being a pvp server.
The difference is simple: He lets his VW pull instead of him with his spells
I remember when I figured this out. I think I was in Westfall on my 2nd day of playing.