I would like some ideas on playing Warlock vs Mage. I messed around briefly with both. I am wondering how they do when faced with 2 mobs, which is a situation I encounter a lot. I try to find isolated mobs when possible, but there are just too many times when that is hard to do. I know that Mage has no healing, but it does have Polymorph. I suppose a mage can sheep one mob, kill the other one, and then leave (not enough mana to kill both I figure). I suppose a Warlock could try to take on both mobs with the Voidwalker, but is the Voidwalker really that robust. I am mostly talking about low level. I think there is a health funnel, but warlocks don’t get that until later.
(This is for Classic play)
If you can fear it, you can kill it.
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You can’t go wrong with either one but as a Warlock you will always kill a mage if you are any good and they are dumb enough to fight you.
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Warlock: go affliction, pet tank one, fear juggle two, drain tank a fourth
If you do it right you can kill four and still come out with decent health and mana. Best is killing two and coming out with pretty much full health and mana.
You almost never use health funnel, most pets regen quickly outside combat and you rarely need it in-combat.
Use your Imp until you get your Succubus and kill things so fast that you don’t have to worry about much. Then follow the drain tanking build with a succubus and it’s smooth sailing. Always have a good wand on you.
I’m kind of a scrub, three at a time is my comfortable limit.
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Is using Fear really advisable? I really don’t want a feared mob bringing back his friends. I would like to hear a little more about Imp vs Voidwalker for Warlock. What are the situations where you would use one vs the other? I am probably leaning towards Warlock at this point.
Killing 3+ pve mobs at a time, mage does it better usually.
Pvp, lock
I guess I should mention that I am talking really low level like in the 10-20 range. Like in Westfall where there is the People’s militia quest where I have to killed a bunch of mobs that are frequently grouped together, and my toon is like level 13 or 14 and the mobs are 14 or 15. I mean, if I have too much trouble before level 20+ I probably reconsider my choice of class.
Thanks for all of the comments!
I’m sorry, but you can’t “easily” 4v1 and come out with decent health and mana, certainly not as a norm. Fear costs a fair amount of mana and you can’t fear more than 1 mob at a time. If you try to put dots on 4 mobs and (somehow) fear juggle 2 of those, you’re going to find yourself oom very quickly. Combine that with the fact that you’re face-tanking one and that takes away your ability to life tap because you’ll definitely die.
Use succy, load up a target with dots and fear it. Load up another one and wand it down while your dots and pet kill the first. As the first one is dying you can send your pet on a third and throw your instant cast dots on it.
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As a mage, I feel disappointed if I only have 2 mobs to kill at a time…
5+ is ideal if they are melee.
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Personally, I don’t like getting whacked as a caster so I prefer warlock. Pushback is frustrating. However, both classes can handle multiple mobs, they just have different ways of going about it.
[quote]You almost never use health funnel, most pets regen quickly outside combat and you rarely need it in-combat.
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Pet hp regen is better than players but not to the point of ignoring Consume Shadow/Health Funnel. In the case of the VW, it only regens at ~135 hp every 3 secs at level 60. Constantly pulling will leave it oom and low on hp.
Fear is fine, depending on the mob and the location. If you can pull them into a clear area then that’s best. If they aren’t social creatures (ones that aggro others of their kind) then fear is great.
The void walker barely holds threat so I almost always use the succubus or felhunter. Let them get the first few hits then start on the mob, you’ll pull it at about 2/3 health and then you can power it down.
Mage is certainly easier to level if you go frost because stuff will never hit you and you have free food and water. You can blizzard everything and take down a half dozen at a time. A warlock needs to drain tank a mob or two at a time to not need food or water.
Yeah, the VW is usually not worth the trouble. Use a succubus or felhunter and just bandage them. It’ll save your own health and you’ll go faster. Health funnel really isn’t worth it unless you absolutely need to keep your pet up while it’s taking damage.
You mentioned having your pet tanking one so I assumed you meant VW. Succubus/Felhunter is not made to tank a mob beyond a few hits (exception with Felhunter tanking green level caster mobs). I don’t see how you can consistently do a 4 mobs pull like that. If you have to, better just dots all of them and howl AoE fear given space is available. No sugar coating because I am playing one. The strong point with warlock leveling (via Dark Pact + Succubus) is infinite uptime with very good kill speed. Mages got us beat in kill speed though if it’s melee mobs with their AoE grinding.
Making water might be super annoying.
They can both tank just fine as long as the mobs aren’t a ton higher than them. The felhunter, particularly, is good at it because of Tainted Blood. They can’t tank forever but if you lightly dot the mob you won’t pull off your pet and can get back to it in time after killing the other mobs to finish it before your pet dies.
I usually don’t do more than 2 or 3 mobs at a time since I want to end up with nearly full health and mana after a pull. Killing 4 means I’ll be lower on those than I’d like at the end.
I also don’t do Dark Pact because I never found it to be very effective, I already have so much invested in Lifetap and other health/mana talents that Dark Pact is a waste of them. You have to use global cool downs multiple times to get the same mana from a single Lifetap and Lifetap benefits from your spell damage so it only gets better. I’d rather spend that point elsewhere and let my pets use their mana for more damage.
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As a mage if you want to kill 2 mobs and they aren’t sheepable, it’s pretty simple. You just DPS down one of them while the other is stuck in frost nova. Then kill the other one.
My personal best as a Warlock is 6 mobs three levels higher, and a 55 group elite at level 50 (Shadra spider). Mages can’t really do that well as frost nova doesn’t last long enough.
Haven’t really found anything challenging at 60 outside dungeons. Unless Borelgore counts.
Mage loses unless you go super try hard mode with bandages and try to wear out the other guys mana bar. Otherwise you just lose… and if the warlock isn’t brain dead he would just life tap and bandage himself when you go to bandage so there really is no way of winning unless the gear is unequal which isn’t fair to begin with
Lmao oh whoops this is a comparison thread… ok well if you’re wondering about that mages lose