Coming from someone who mained a warlock in Vanilla and playing another one in Classic, the warlock should not be doing this at all in my opinion. We have a number of tools available to us to gain health back on our own with drain life, health stones, etc.
A good warlock knows how to manage life tap while keeping their health at a reasonable level without expecting the healer to waste all their mana on them. I also mained a healer, resto druid, for some time in Vanilla. Just throw a heal over time on the warlock on occasion, but you should not have to be keeping them up like that at all and they should not be expecting you too when they have some abilities to regain health after life tapping.
1- Ask the healer what they are comfortable with.
2- Pay attention to their mana.
Pretty simple. As a disc priest I will run a renew nearly constant on a lock pulling their own weigh in DPS. The entire point is to quickly get the run over with. A lock constantly drinking isn’t helping that. Locks are VERY inefficient on mana while leveling. A healer will have far less downtime. A resto Druid should honestly have the same outlook for this situation. Rolling a rejuvenate is simple and can speed up the run. I can see where it’s more of a burden on shamans and paladins. Not my fault you’re ugly.
Absolutely. A druid or priest can throw a HOT on the lock which synergizes very well with a lifetap. A shaman won’t have that option so it’s not quite as simple. I believe that a few of the paladin heals downrank nicely and could fit the bill too but I’m not an expert on healing.
No matter what, healing a lifetapping lock is a courtesy from the healer and shouldn’t be automatically expected and depended upon. Either have a conversation with the healer before the instance or manage your own health. Don’t stress the healer who is trying to keep the group alive.
Yes it does. Read the Tooltip for Nightfall.
Just the fact that you didn’t know that sort of makes your whole post suspect tbh.
A good Lock will weave in Taps and Drain in between Shadowbolt spam while in a dungeon no matter their spec. As others have said there’s no reason to go ham with Shadowbolt on trash since that’s not efficient.
As a dot-and-drain (affliction) spec I only wand when I can’t fit a full spell cast in before the target is dead. It’s often better for me to drain life as a fill, in order to proc nightfall and regain health from a lifetap.
Regen from the 5 second rule is definitely something to keep in mind but warlocks really shouldn’t stack spirit to the point that the regen is significant. Load up on bonus spell damage, lifetap for mana, and drain life to get back the health. With the proper talents and rotation you should start and end most fights at about 90% health and mana.
Of course, once you raid this goes out the window since most locks should move to a SM/ruin spec or similar. That kind of build doesn’t make dot-and-drain too successful.
Right, you should only be using Drain Life if you are using a dot-and-drain Affliction spec. For an endgame raiding SM/Ruin spec it doesn’t make as much sense. And, as other’s have said, Drain Life absolutely does proc Nightfall the same as Corruption does.
I feel like it will always depend. If the healer has mana to spare, tapping more to speed up kills is fine. If the healers is struggling on mana, the lock is gonna have to watch himself more.
Hopefully we can all agree that tapping low between pulls (and standing around expecting heals) while the rest of the group is eating/drinking is bad form. You’re just slowing the group down to pass your food/drink costs onto the healer.
If a lock is doing that and demanding a heal yeah bad on them. But at the same time a lock might tap heavily to keep up with pulls. Your class has trained you to rely on food and mana to refill while ours has taught us to life tap and drain back from the next mob.
So that warlock that some assume is waiting for heals might be waiting for the next pull so they can restore their health in the most efficient way possible.
I tell to the healers to not heal me unless someone is attacking me and i also don’t life tap to 10% hp either but some healers want always to keep you up so i tell them im lowering my hp on purpose and they keep healing me anyway…
I’ve played lock for years and have a 56 priest right now, so I always throw the lock a renew or will have them tap down before I drink. It’s just more efficient.
This says nothing about drinking other times. It’s very specific to that case.
The point is that a good warlock doesn’t expect a heal for lifetapping. Don’t heal the lock unless you can do it without undue cost to you or your group. It’s common sense.
I think it’s ridiculous when warlocks use healers as a mana battery. They life tap down to low hp and then just stare at their healer. They do nothing to recover their hp and they’ll die if the tank loses any aggro on the next pull.
Waters cost money and the warlock is making their healer drink even more frequently.
I also think that there are kind of two sides to this issue as well.
There are Warlocks who get mad or have an expectation on the healer. But in my experience it’s more often that when they over use lifetap they’re fully aware that they can die from it and take accountability for themselves. Even when they’re being reckless and tapping themselves into oblivion.
I actually see healers get angry at Warlocks for lifetapping more than lifetapping warlocks get angry for not being healed. So while there’s a lot of locks out there who obviously need to learn to get a little better at their class. There’s a LOT of healers out there who are way too OCD about seeing a character lose health. Just gotta learn to ignore them a little and let them do their own thing. Sink or swim.
On my paladin I will throw heals at warlocks during combat when I can. Varies based on tank damage, and my Mana consumption. Tank>healer>>>>DPS.
If the warlocks taps to 50% health, I don’t need to drink, and we love on to the next pack, I’ll throw a small heal and then top off as combat allows.
If I am drinking and the warlocks taps to 10% and then AFKs until the next pull, he will remain at 10% for a while. If I am drinking, they can too. Most get the point after a few deaths and stop tapping to 10%.
I’ve yet to have one cry or demand heals. I would laugh at them if they did.
That’s only for Demonic Sacrifice and most locks don’t spec into it unless the raid doesn’t need an imp in that group. Many locks go SM/Ruin for a raid spec.
