I play a warlock from time to time. Actually, i play three warlocks from time to time. I used to have it so that each of the three would have different specs. Akeelah on Ravenholdt is affliction and goes apeshit with the affliction spells. Rivendale, another Ravenholdt resident, is spec'd for demonology and tops meters 75% of the time running through outlands. he should be 65 or 66 right now and enjoys the aoe goodness of metamorphesis+rain of fire. he doesnt enjoy the soulfire procs as things die so fast by the time he is done casting the spell, the boss is already dead. El Segundo, (the second, as in, my second character) is actually Elsegundo from Shadowmoon and rocked Destro, until one day i logged on him and found out that his talents were reset. I promptly made him demonology that day since i cant friggin remember how to spec as destro.
In any case, when im instancing, playing around on my locks, i find myself doing a lot of tapping. Life Tap is one of those spells unique to warlocks, where we take some HP and turn it into MP. sounds reasonable. sounds awesome actually. mana regen? who needs that when you can have lifetap! its an awesome idea actually. i get all the benefit of having a full mana bar, able to dps and get things done without having to slow down for a drink or to wand things down. When im questing outside of instances, i also use lifetap. this is mainly because i know for sure i will be getting life back through corruption and sometimes drain life. why only sometimes? because corruption's life draining ability is good enough for me. after every fight, i can, if i choose to, bandage or eat. its pretty simple. and foods/bandages often give me health quickly as compared to drinking for mana recovery.
but you say, mobs are attacking me, why would i lifetap? because i have fear. i have howl of terror. and in dire straights, i have deathcoil (which is 200% cooler than the death knight's death coil, btw). what do all these spells offer me? one, fleeing mobs grab more mobs so i can drain more life, gain more exp, and run around to collect loot. second, they offer me a little bit of breathing room to regain mana, lifetap and apply my dots. i often go around and pick up at least four mobs for this to be anywhere effective. demonologist, i suggest you activate soul link. affliction locks have a bunch of talents that make draining life super easy. destro locks? sorry, you guys are drinking. play like a mage, drink like a mage. thats your punishment.
So when should you lifetap?
Lifetap between spells. yes. please. i hate healing warlocks who dont lifetap between spells. i dont mind the lifetap, really i dont. the less you have to drink, the faster we get through our instance. but the problem lies in this, i've finished drinking and ready for the next pull. then the lock decides to lifetap. like wtf? it also happens at the end of the fight, when im low on mana and im drinking. they lifetap and wait. they dont sit to eat. nothing. im drinking so you drink. please. its only polite.
For affliction locks, there's a lull when it comes to casting. when? when you're waiting for haunt to fall off, or when you're waiting to refresh unstable affliction. sure i might fill in that wait with a shadowbolt since you do want to keep your improved shadowbolt debuff up, but lifetap dammit. dont wait. just do it. i tap right before i get my haunt back. really? yea. it works awesome.
For demonology locks, you're working a different set of spells. try to get it in there somewhere. you dont get a nice health return like from Haunt. but you do get some health back. demo locks are a little more reliant on the healer to heal us tho, so remember when a good time to tap would be. during the fight. this is when the healer is able to toss you a renew, or a rejuvenate, or a riptide before they go back to healing the tank. it flows for them.
what i find in instances is that warlocks dont lifetap as often as i'd like them to. not only that, when they do lifetap, they do it at the most inconvenient times.
1. tap during combat, in between spells and upon anticipation of a big heal from Haunt. if you do this right, you wont have any mana or health problems. any gaps in health will be covered by the healer.
2. tapping after a battle will annoy your healer (ie. me) because i would have already evaluated everyone's health and, after topping everyone off, would have started to drink. if you lifetap now, chances are i wont heal you until the next pull. why? because i dont know if i have "extra" healing to spare. actually, whats more the case is that i dont have time. i have to first shield/hot/buff the tank first, then i can go to the lock and heal you. and by then, you're in need to life tap again because you're now low on mana. that's just how it goes. its kinda like a domino effect here.
3. same as #2, dont lifetap right before a pull. it annoys me as now im thinking, crap, this guy might die. and you might just die. please dont do that. tap when its safe. tap when you know you're getting health back from your spells first and foremost.
4. dont take it personally when you dont get heals. eat a health stone. cast corruption on everyone. drain life. if it stifles your dps, know that this is because you're bad at managing mana/tapping. its your fault and only your fault.
5. run with the mentality that you dont need the healer to heal you all the time. again, you have health stealing spells at yoru disposal. use them. when you're sitting there at 100% health, those spells are wasted. why? because they're not healing you. you cant have more than 100% health. so tap once, get it refilled, tap again. easy isnt it?
im just rambling now. life tap is your friend. it helps you dps longer. please use it. but use it wisely. weave it into your rotaions. dont drop to 0% mana and tap all at once. that's annoying. especially if im healing you. it shows you dont know how to manage your mana. its a game within a game. if you dont find it fun then maybe you should have been a mage, or a hunter. anyway, that's really all i have to say.
oh and to the druid who said that his mana pool is not my mana pool, a big middle finger to you. then dont heal me. i can heal myself. no im not writing this blog entry just because of one experience with a bad healer who doesnt know that healing me = less healing overall. but im writing this because some people still dont know how to life tap, or dont know when to life tap. last straw was when i was in an instance with two locks, both of which likes to tap at the end of a fight. grrrrrr.
anyhow, heal the lock. lock does more damage (instead of just standing there with zero mana or wanding). things die faster. when things die faster, i dont have to heal the tank as much. i dont have to heal the melee's collateral damage as much. i can start to regen out-of-combat mana earlier. i will drink less. i will finish the instance faster. i, as a healer, would love to heal locks who lifetap. i dont know why others dont. its stupid.
Showing posts with label warlock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label warlock. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
How I Play a Demonology vs. Affliction Warlock
A lot of people has stated that affliction leveling is best with a warlock. i am not sure why, as i do not think people play as i play. Sure, my corruption ticks for a little more, but my pet sucks balls compared to demonology. destruction is as boring as... well, mage leveling without evocation.
So what is the difference between affliction and demonogy exactly?
Besides the different spells they both have?
- Demonologists have stronger pets, has some procs, and a transformation once ever few minutes.
- Afflictionists have stronger Corruption, two more DoTs, possibly another curse (of exhaustion), and more efficient lifetaps, howl of terror, and darkpact (you know, those things you might need if your pet isnt cutting it, or if you're not using the pet at all, which makes complete sense).
This is how i play my Demonology Warlock while questing.
1. Use felguard (or voidwalker before lv.50). send him in. wait a second for him to get some aggro.
2. Add the following spells: Immolate, Corruption, Curse of my choice, Shadowbolt if mob has lots of health, drain soul if mob has less than 25% health.
3. Shadowbolt if Nightfall procs; Incinerate if Molton Core procs.
4. Check cooldowns for spellstones. tap when necessary.
thats it. easy huh?
This is how i play my Affliction Warlock while questing.
Single Target:
1. Use Felhound/felhunter. Imp before that. Voidwalker if mob hits hard.
2. Add the following spells: Haunt, Corruption, Curse of my choice, Unstable Affliction. Refresh when theyre down.
3. Fear
4. Lifetap twice before Haunt finishes.
5. Shadowbolt if Nightfall procs
6. Drain soul when mob is below 25% health.
Multiple Targets:
1. Use imp, leave on passive.
2. First mob: Haunt, corruption, curse of agony.
3. Second mob: corruption, curse
4. Third mob: corruption, curse.
5. Fourth mob: corruption, curse
6. HOWL OF TERROR
7. Fear mob #4
8. Lifetap/darkpact
9. target mob 1, refresh dots (drain soul til dead)
10. target mob 2, haunt. refresh dots (drain soul til dead)
11. target mob 3, refresh dots (drain sould til dead)
12. mob 4 should be coming out of fear now. refresh dot and drain soul til dead.
note: lifetap and dark pact takes your life and gives you mana. imp is your mana battery. your spells, haunt and corruption gives you life back. this allows you to lifetap endlessly. drain soul will return 15% of your mana. so its okay to not lifetap in steps 9 through 12.
Have fun. good luck. and be prepared to die a few times getting all this right.
So what is the difference between affliction and demonogy exactly?
Besides the different spells they both have?
- Demonologists have stronger pets, has some procs, and a transformation once ever few minutes.
- Afflictionists have stronger Corruption, two more DoTs, possibly another curse (of exhaustion), and more efficient lifetaps, howl of terror, and darkpact (you know, those things you might need if your pet isnt cutting it, or if you're not using the pet at all, which makes complete sense).
This is how i play my Demonology Warlock while questing.
1. Use felguard (or voidwalker before lv.50). send him in. wait a second for him to get some aggro.
2. Add the following spells: Immolate, Corruption, Curse of my choice, Shadowbolt if mob has lots of health, drain soul if mob has less than 25% health.
3. Shadowbolt if Nightfall procs; Incinerate if Molton Core procs.
4. Check cooldowns for spellstones. tap when necessary.
thats it. easy huh?
This is how i play my Affliction Warlock while questing.
Single Target:
1. Use Felhound/felhunter. Imp before that. Voidwalker if mob hits hard.
2. Add the following spells: Haunt, Corruption, Curse of my choice, Unstable Affliction. Refresh when theyre down.
3. Fear
4. Lifetap twice before Haunt finishes.
5. Shadowbolt if Nightfall procs
6. Drain soul when mob is below 25% health.
Multiple Targets:
1. Use imp, leave on passive.
2. First mob: Haunt, corruption, curse of agony.
3. Second mob: corruption, curse
4. Third mob: corruption, curse.
5. Fourth mob: corruption, curse
6. HOWL OF TERROR
7. Fear mob #4
8. Lifetap/darkpact
9. target mob 1, refresh dots (drain soul til dead)
10. target mob 2, haunt. refresh dots (drain soul til dead)
11. target mob 3, refresh dots (drain sould til dead)
12. mob 4 should be coming out of fear now. refresh dot and drain soul til dead.
note: lifetap and dark pact takes your life and gives you mana. imp is your mana battery. your spells, haunt and corruption gives you life back. this allows you to lifetap endlessly. drain soul will return 15% of your mana. so its okay to not lifetap in steps 9 through 12.
Have fun. good luck. and be prepared to die a few times getting all this right.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
General Warlocking - Soul Shards
This post is actually aimed to my girlfriend who just started her third warlock. yes folks, that conversation will come true one day. she will have five warlocks and five priests. all with the same face but with different hair (no one tell her hunters, rogues, paladins and mages all have different gear sets at the end, she might wanna make those classes too!).
So with general warlocking, i just want to post a few things every once in a while about warlocks that may help the general public (and my gf, ofc) understand and play the warlock class a bit better.
Soul shards are the "reagent" for many of the warlock's spells and abilities. They are required when summoning demons (except for the Imp). they are required for making Health Stones (use if you need health, like a health potion). they are required for making summoning portals, soul stones, spell stones and even for several high damage spells.
How to make soul stones:
Begin by attacking a mob around your level. Mobs with their names in gray will not yield soul shards.
Lay on the hurting until you see the mob's health go to 25%. Then use Drain Soul. You must keep the spell channeled. when the mob dies, you gain a soul stone, maybe two.
Yep, thats it.
Amateur Tip #1: Buy a Soul Bag. There are various bags that are used specifically for soul shards and cannot be used to place anything else in it. it will reduce the amount of stuff you can stuff in your bags, but it will keep your shards organized in one bag.
Amateur Tip #2: There are addons that will limit how many shards you keep by automatically trashing shards for you. Tell the addon you want to keep only 20 shards and the addon will automatically trash the 21st shard you pick up... all the time.
Another thing to understand about Drain Soul is that it benefits you the most when you're using it on someone under 25% health. it will hit for 4 times more damage. say a tick of drain soul hits the mob for 5 damage each time. but under 25%, each drain soul tick hits for 20 damage.
This is good because your other nuke spell is Shadow Bolt and should be used when the mob has health greater than 25%. the idea here is that at 25%, your shadowbolt might take too long to cast and the mob might be dead by then, thereby wasting a good 2 or 3 seconds casting (ie. doing no damage). Instead, casting drain soul at 25% will ensure you do a little damage during the 3 seconds before the mob dies.
This is pretty much accepted practice among many warlocks. cast shadowbolt if the mob has a lot of health. cast drain soul or drain life when the mob is at 25% health or lower. now drain soul and drain life have different properties i will not get into yet. but if you're low on health, drain life might help a little (just a little).
As a warlock in low levels, there are only several spells to worry about. all three talent specs (affliction, demonology and destruction) all play very similarly at lower levels as much of their spells and specializations have not been fully developed.
The battle should usually go like so:
1. Cast an instant cast spell to "pull" the mob to you. (Corruption, Curse of Agony)
2. The instant cast spell will cause your pet (set on "Defensive" mode) to intercept the mob.
3. Once the pet, usually a void walker, intercepts the mob, you're free to cast immolate. You dont want to cast immolate too quickly, as you want your voidwalker to give the mob a few hits, thereby establishing aggro.
4. Cast shadowbolt.
5. Refresh Corruption, Curse of Agony and Immolate when they drop, but always be casting Shadowbolt in between refreshes.
6. At 25% health (make sure there's at least one DoT on the mob) cast Drain Soul til its dead.
Thats basically it for battling monsters. And you get a soul shard to boot!
Uses for Soul Shards
1. Summon Minions.
This goes without an explanation. But i should mention that sometimes, especially when grouping with others, using an Imp is preferred, or a felhound, or a succubus. in most cases, i use a felhound as affliction, a felguard as demonology, and an imp as destro. again, it all depends on the situation. for the demonology warlocks who do not have the felguard yet, you can use any pet really. while questing, use a voidwalker to help keep the damage off of you.
2. Creating Spellstones.
You're basically converting a soul shard into an item that you can use. these Spellstones have 3 charges and are used to add more damage to your spells. you must apply the charge to your weapon (staff, sword, dagger) for this to take effect. your spellstone stays with you forever, or until you use it three times. each time you use it, you get a slight buff to your spell damage for an hour.
3. Creating Health Stones.
Once you transform a soulshard into a Healthstone, it will forever be a healthstone. these stones are best used during battle when you need some extra health. right click on the healthstone and you should see some health return to you. this can even be used to replenish your health after a lifetap. say you're out of mana for a fight and need to tap but your health is uncomfortably low now. you can use a health potion and a healthstone to bring yourself back to comfortable levels once again. another use for healthstones is when you're in a group and everyone is taking damage. use it so your healer wont have to stress so much and focus on others. you can also make healthstones and give them out to your party members for them to use. remember, one healthstone requires one soulshard. so if you have a party, you're gonna use 5 soulshards at least.
3. Creating Soul Stones.
Soul stones are used to bring yourself back to life. basically. You make a soulstone from a soulshard, then target the person you want to "soulstone" and click on the soulstone. they will receive a magical ability to come back to life if they should ever die. now, you can use it on yourself if you want, so while questing, its a good idea to soulstone yourself. in groups, you should always soulstone someone who has the ability to resurrect the group after a wipe. paladins, priests, shamans and druids all have resurrecting powers.
4. Spells and Abilities.
As the warlock levels, he will be able to learn more spells. some of these spells will require soul shards to use. they are usually "nuke" spells which you spend a few seconds casting and it ends up doing A LOT of damage when you finally cast it. each talent tree should have their own specialty spell that do use shards. Another ability that uses shards is Soul Shatter. This consumes a soulshard and reduces your threat. Use this when you pull too much aggro. More on aggro another day!
So there you have it! the importance of having soulshards, having a soulbag, and always using drainsoul at the end of a fight.
Fianally....
For soul shard management tools, look for Shardmax, Shardtracker or Necrosis LDC.
Shardmax and shardtracker will only manage your shards, while Necrosis LDC will do much more for the warlock than just manage soul shards. You may want to try Necrosis first to see if the features there dont totally confuse the hell out of you. Then, use shardmax or shardtracker or any other shard management addons out there. you can also use macros to destroy your soulshards, but that requires a little more attention.
So with general warlocking, i just want to post a few things every once in a while about warlocks that may help the general public (and my gf, ofc) understand and play the warlock class a bit better.
Soul shards are the "reagent" for many of the warlock's spells and abilities. They are required when summoning demons (except for the Imp). they are required for making Health Stones (use if you need health, like a health potion). they are required for making summoning portals, soul stones, spell stones and even for several high damage spells.
How to make soul stones:
Begin by attacking a mob around your level. Mobs with their names in gray will not yield soul shards.
Lay on the hurting until you see the mob's health go to 25%. Then use Drain Soul. You must keep the spell channeled. when the mob dies, you gain a soul stone, maybe two.
Yep, thats it.
Amateur Tip #1: Buy a Soul Bag. There are various bags that are used specifically for soul shards and cannot be used to place anything else in it. it will reduce the amount of stuff you can stuff in your bags, but it will keep your shards organized in one bag.
Amateur Tip #2: There are addons that will limit how many shards you keep by automatically trashing shards for you. Tell the addon you want to keep only 20 shards and the addon will automatically trash the 21st shard you pick up... all the time.
Another thing to understand about Drain Soul is that it benefits you the most when you're using it on someone under 25% health. it will hit for 4 times more damage. say a tick of drain soul hits the mob for 5 damage each time. but under 25%, each drain soul tick hits for 20 damage.
This is good because your other nuke spell is Shadow Bolt and should be used when the mob has health greater than 25%. the idea here is that at 25%, your shadowbolt might take too long to cast and the mob might be dead by then, thereby wasting a good 2 or 3 seconds casting (ie. doing no damage). Instead, casting drain soul at 25% will ensure you do a little damage during the 3 seconds before the mob dies.
This is pretty much accepted practice among many warlocks. cast shadowbolt if the mob has a lot of health. cast drain soul or drain life when the mob is at 25% health or lower. now drain soul and drain life have different properties i will not get into yet. but if you're low on health, drain life might help a little (just a little).
As a warlock in low levels, there are only several spells to worry about. all three talent specs (affliction, demonology and destruction) all play very similarly at lower levels as much of their spells and specializations have not been fully developed.
The battle should usually go like so:
1. Cast an instant cast spell to "pull" the mob to you. (Corruption, Curse of Agony)
2. The instant cast spell will cause your pet (set on "Defensive" mode) to intercept the mob.
3. Once the pet, usually a void walker, intercepts the mob, you're free to cast immolate. You dont want to cast immolate too quickly, as you want your voidwalker to give the mob a few hits, thereby establishing aggro.
4. Cast shadowbolt.
5. Refresh Corruption, Curse of Agony and Immolate when they drop, but always be casting Shadowbolt in between refreshes.
6. At 25% health (make sure there's at least one DoT on the mob) cast Drain Soul til its dead.
Thats basically it for battling monsters. And you get a soul shard to boot!
Uses for Soul Shards
1. Summon Minions.
This goes without an explanation. But i should mention that sometimes, especially when grouping with others, using an Imp is preferred, or a felhound, or a succubus. in most cases, i use a felhound as affliction, a felguard as demonology, and an imp as destro. again, it all depends on the situation. for the demonology warlocks who do not have the felguard yet, you can use any pet really. while questing, use a voidwalker to help keep the damage off of you.
2. Creating Spellstones.
You're basically converting a soul shard into an item that you can use. these Spellstones have 3 charges and are used to add more damage to your spells. you must apply the charge to your weapon (staff, sword, dagger) for this to take effect. your spellstone stays with you forever, or until you use it three times. each time you use it, you get a slight buff to your spell damage for an hour.
3. Creating Health Stones.
Once you transform a soulshard into a Healthstone, it will forever be a healthstone. these stones are best used during battle when you need some extra health. right click on the healthstone and you should see some health return to you. this can even be used to replenish your health after a lifetap. say you're out of mana for a fight and need to tap but your health is uncomfortably low now. you can use a health potion and a healthstone to bring yourself back to comfortable levels once again. another use for healthstones is when you're in a group and everyone is taking damage. use it so your healer wont have to stress so much and focus on others. you can also make healthstones and give them out to your party members for them to use. remember, one healthstone requires one soulshard. so if you have a party, you're gonna use 5 soulshards at least.
3. Creating Soul Stones.
Soul stones are used to bring yourself back to life. basically. You make a soulstone from a soulshard, then target the person you want to "soulstone" and click on the soulstone. they will receive a magical ability to come back to life if they should ever die. now, you can use it on yourself if you want, so while questing, its a good idea to soulstone yourself. in groups, you should always soulstone someone who has the ability to resurrect the group after a wipe. paladins, priests, shamans and druids all have resurrecting powers.
4. Spells and Abilities.
As the warlock levels, he will be able to learn more spells. some of these spells will require soul shards to use. they are usually "nuke" spells which you spend a few seconds casting and it ends up doing A LOT of damage when you finally cast it. each talent tree should have their own specialty spell that do use shards. Another ability that uses shards is Soul Shatter. This consumes a soulshard and reduces your threat. Use this when you pull too much aggro. More on aggro another day!
So there you have it! the importance of having soulshards, having a soulbag, and always using drainsoul at the end of a fight.
Fianally....
For soul shard management tools, look for Shardmax, Shardtracker or Necrosis LDC.
Shardmax and shardtracker will only manage your shards, while Necrosis LDC will do much more for the warlock than just manage soul shards. You may want to try Necrosis first to see if the features there dont totally confuse the hell out of you. Then, use shardmax or shardtracker or any other shard management addons out there. you can also use macros to destroy your soulshards, but that requires a little more attention.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
On Magery and Warlockery
Im running around casting fireballs and frostbolts lately. Trying to kill anything and everything around azuremyst isle. why? because my dam spaceship had to crash land and the debris caused radiation poisoning to evertyhing there. funny how there's so many things that can happen during a crash. so ravagers are on the loose and furbolds and moonkin have gone insane. how did we get all of these animals to coexist on this island before? no one knows. its strange how one group didnt just wipe out a weaker group. in any case, my mage of only 10 has been killing various animals and humanoid beings on this small island over the past two days. yea i dont play often, so its only level 10, yea?? i know im slow.
So what are my plans with this booger? well his name is cryogin (something related to ice, but will probably level him to 20 and never level him again after that) so he'll be putting some talent points in frost, i guess. it doesnt really matter tho. what matters is he got hsi +10% experience boosting shoulderpads from devynity just the other day and is breathing a good sigh of relief. too bad devynity cant afford (or actually, can afford but doesnt want to) the robes which will grant him another 10%. otherwise, he'd be estatic.
So in regards to the post the other day about cross faction trading, my mage will be housed in booty bay and will have ports to Darnassus, the Exodar, Ironforge and Stormwind, just to be able to sell their pets. i guess devynity can start working on looking for horde only pets and recipes (while cryogin, with the ability to portal to places, can work on alliance only pets and recipes) and will begin their project as soon as cryogin reaches level 20. again, level 20 is a neccessity because this is when mages learn their teleport skill, where they can beam to different cities pending cooldowns and reagents. if i set my hearth in booty bay, im all set. all pets are within my reach as well. i will have to work a little harder for the argent tournament pets, and even the rare pets from the faction starting zones may be a great investment.
i have a small list of horde-only items, including pets and some recipes. i know these items will only be sold to the enthusiasts who need to have EVERY recipe, or EVERY pet in the game. there are more pet collectors, i believe. so im sure i'll be making some gold with the pets that i will sell x-faction. i do hope some of the recipes will be in demand tho. it would suck if they're on the AH and no one really cares for them. being on a small server population, i might be faced with that. one other item that may sell for a bit are the belf bandit masks and maybe the belf starting weapons. I know there's a very colorful two-handed sword suitable for roleplay. maybe.
but those are my plans kinda. they're not very solidified at the moment, as in i dont know what i want to really sell or what will sell well and i dont know how often i will be doing this either. but at least i have it set up and ready to go whenever i need it to.
now for my mage, cryogin, he's been doing pretty well with quests. most things die right before they reach him, or upon reaching him, they die from a fireblast. upon reaching level 10, i received a spell called frost nova, which basically locks everyone in place for a few seconds. this gives the mage some room to gain a little distance before continuing the attacks. i assume this to mean that mobs level 10 and on will require a bit more effort. playing from level 1 to level 6, i saw just how easy it was for me to actually kill things. it was a breeze. it was actually very simple. nothing like a warlock. playing a mage is cake. in the beginning levels its cake and pie and you can eat it too. but warlocks take a bit of effort. especially for a first-time player, all the spells can become a little too much to understand all at once. even though we do get new spells after a few levels, the levels fly by so fast it really requires a lot more experimenting and playing around with even outside of leveling.
here's what i see on my mage:
frost armor and arcane intellect - makes me better somehow. great.
fireball and fireblast - fire spells, one i have to cast and another is instant, which i have learned to use at the end of a fight.
frostbolt - ice spell that does a little less damage but slows my attacker down and is faster to cast. i understand the balance they are putting into these spells.
frost nova - this is a utility spell that locks people in place. it does little damage and only allows you to get some distance. nice!
conjour food and water - nice!
here's what is ee on my warlock:
shadowbolt - direct damage shadow spell.
immolate - direct damage fire spell with a dot.
corruption - instant cast dot.
curse of agony - instant cast dot.
curse of weakness - instant cast debuff.
drain soul - makes soul shards and fills up my bags.
demon skin - makes me better, somehow.
summon imp and voidwalker - pets. then they have their own pet bars. and learning to control them is another problem in and of itself.
fear - makes things run around randomly for a bit.
And here is what happens, usually, within a fight for both classes, at around level 10.
Mage:
1. Cast frostbolt (because he knows it slows the mobs down)
2. Cast fireball until the mob reaches the player.
3. Cast fireblast to finish off mob (right when mob hits mage)
4. If mob is alive still, cast frost nova. then run a little bit away and cast a finishing fireball/frostbolt
Thats it. all done. mage goes on to next mob.
Warlock:
1. Cast Immolate (sends pet in upon successful cast because no one knows how to put /petattack on a macro yet)
2. Cast Corruption
3. Cast Curse of Agony
4. Cast Immolate again because we always have to be casting something, even though immolate hasnt finished with its DoT portion of the spell.
5. Helplessly sees his pet grab the attention of two other people (aka adds, we call them adds because they are added to the fight after the fight begins).
6. Cast fear on one of the adds.
7. Cast Immolate, corruption, curse of agony on the second mob.
8. Switch back to the first mob and refresh corruption and curse of agony. (it doesnt help when both of these spells have different durations)
9. First mob dies, although wasted a bunch of mana just to recast a spell to take off 10% of its remaining health.
10. Feared mob attracts the attention of a fourth mob.
11. Second mob nearly dead (repeat corruption and curse of agony on this one).
12. Fear fourth mob.
13. Third mob becomes "unfeared" and runs at you.
14. Cast immolate, corruption, curse of agony on third mob. pet attacks third mob.
15. Youre OOM, or Out Of Mana because you keep casting corruption over and over and over again in your panicked state, not realizing that THATS NOT HOW THE SPELL WORKS!!!
16. Stands there for 10 seconds hoping your void doesnt die and remembers you have a wand, oh and life tap!
17. Lifetaps, then casts more spells on third mob just to finish it off.
18. Fourth mob comes out of "fear" and runs back at you.
19. You stick voidwalker on it. cannot lifetap because you're down to about 20% health and 5% mana.
20. Cast a corruption
21. Use your wand.
22. Hope your void survives long enough since you're out of mana and health and pretty much at wit's end.
see the difference?
and they say warlocks are just "dark" mages. my ass.
So what are my plans with this booger? well his name is cryogin (something related to ice, but will probably level him to 20 and never level him again after that) so he'll be putting some talent points in frost, i guess. it doesnt really matter tho. what matters is he got hsi +10% experience boosting shoulderpads from devynity just the other day and is breathing a good sigh of relief. too bad devynity cant afford (or actually, can afford but doesnt want to) the robes which will grant him another 10%. otherwise, he'd be estatic.
So in regards to the post the other day about cross faction trading, my mage will be housed in booty bay and will have ports to Darnassus, the Exodar, Ironforge and Stormwind, just to be able to sell their pets. i guess devynity can start working on looking for horde only pets and recipes (while cryogin, with the ability to portal to places, can work on alliance only pets and recipes) and will begin their project as soon as cryogin reaches level 20. again, level 20 is a neccessity because this is when mages learn their teleport skill, where they can beam to different cities pending cooldowns and reagents. if i set my hearth in booty bay, im all set. all pets are within my reach as well. i will have to work a little harder for the argent tournament pets, and even the rare pets from the faction starting zones may be a great investment.
i have a small list of horde-only items, including pets and some recipes. i know these items will only be sold to the enthusiasts who need to have EVERY recipe, or EVERY pet in the game. there are more pet collectors, i believe. so im sure i'll be making some gold with the pets that i will sell x-faction. i do hope some of the recipes will be in demand tho. it would suck if they're on the AH and no one really cares for them. being on a small server population, i might be faced with that. one other item that may sell for a bit are the belf bandit masks and maybe the belf starting weapons. I know there's a very colorful two-handed sword suitable for roleplay. maybe.
but those are my plans kinda. they're not very solidified at the moment, as in i dont know what i want to really sell or what will sell well and i dont know how often i will be doing this either. but at least i have it set up and ready to go whenever i need it to.
now for my mage, cryogin, he's been doing pretty well with quests. most things die right before they reach him, or upon reaching him, they die from a fireblast. upon reaching level 10, i received a spell called frost nova, which basically locks everyone in place for a few seconds. this gives the mage some room to gain a little distance before continuing the attacks. i assume this to mean that mobs level 10 and on will require a bit more effort. playing from level 1 to level 6, i saw just how easy it was for me to actually kill things. it was a breeze. it was actually very simple. nothing like a warlock. playing a mage is cake. in the beginning levels its cake and pie and you can eat it too. but warlocks take a bit of effort. especially for a first-time player, all the spells can become a little too much to understand all at once. even though we do get new spells after a few levels, the levels fly by so fast it really requires a lot more experimenting and playing around with even outside of leveling.
here's what i see on my mage:
frost armor and arcane intellect - makes me better somehow. great.
fireball and fireblast - fire spells, one i have to cast and another is instant, which i have learned to use at the end of a fight.
frostbolt - ice spell that does a little less damage but slows my attacker down and is faster to cast. i understand the balance they are putting into these spells.
frost nova - this is a utility spell that locks people in place. it does little damage and only allows you to get some distance. nice!
conjour food and water - nice!
here's what is ee on my warlock:
shadowbolt - direct damage shadow spell.
immolate - direct damage fire spell with a dot.
corruption - instant cast dot.
curse of agony - instant cast dot.
curse of weakness - instant cast debuff.
drain soul - makes soul shards and fills up my bags.
demon skin - makes me better, somehow.
summon imp and voidwalker - pets. then they have their own pet bars. and learning to control them is another problem in and of itself.
fear - makes things run around randomly for a bit.
And here is what happens, usually, within a fight for both classes, at around level 10.
Mage:
1. Cast frostbolt (because he knows it slows the mobs down)
2. Cast fireball until the mob reaches the player.
3. Cast fireblast to finish off mob (right when mob hits mage)
4. If mob is alive still, cast frost nova. then run a little bit away and cast a finishing fireball/frostbolt
Thats it. all done. mage goes on to next mob.
Warlock:
1. Cast Immolate (sends pet in upon successful cast because no one knows how to put /petattack on a macro yet)
2. Cast Corruption
3. Cast Curse of Agony
4. Cast Immolate again because we always have to be casting something, even though immolate hasnt finished with its DoT portion of the spell.
5. Helplessly sees his pet grab the attention of two other people (aka adds, we call them adds because they are added to the fight after the fight begins).
6. Cast fear on one of the adds.
7. Cast Immolate, corruption, curse of agony on the second mob.
8. Switch back to the first mob and refresh corruption and curse of agony. (it doesnt help when both of these spells have different durations)
9. First mob dies, although wasted a bunch of mana just to recast a spell to take off 10% of its remaining health.
10. Feared mob attracts the attention of a fourth mob.
11. Second mob nearly dead (repeat corruption and curse of agony on this one).
12. Fear fourth mob.
13. Third mob becomes "unfeared" and runs at you.
14. Cast immolate, corruption, curse of agony on third mob. pet attacks third mob.
15. Youre OOM, or Out Of Mana because you keep casting corruption over and over and over again in your panicked state, not realizing that THATS NOT HOW THE SPELL WORKS!!!
16. Stands there for 10 seconds hoping your void doesnt die and remembers you have a wand, oh and life tap!
17. Lifetaps, then casts more spells on third mob just to finish it off.
18. Fourth mob comes out of "fear" and runs back at you.
19. You stick voidwalker on it. cannot lifetap because you're down to about 20% health and 5% mana.
20. Cast a corruption
21. Use your wand.
22. Hope your void survives long enough since you're out of mana and health and pretty much at wit's end.
see the difference?
and they say warlocks are just "dark" mages. my ass.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Warlocks are SOOOOOoooooOOOo000oooo Complicated
My girlfriend decided to make a warlock, as some of you might know. Well she has two now... and a priest. and more to come im sure. she'll make the max of 10 characters for the realm, all with the same face, just different hair and clothing, maybe skin color and earrings. what can i say? she's that kinda girl. it will be fun to come home and ask...
"so baby, which warlock are you playing today?"
"oh warlock #5. her name is Jazelle, because every 5th filippino girl you see will have a name ending in '...zelle'. so might as well, right?"
"why not rochelle, or janelle, or rockelle, or azraelle, or calelle, or razelle, or danielle, or gazelle?"
"first, a gazelle is an antelope like animal and is not one of my characters. second, im on Jazelle because she's got this cool hat we got the other night, and because she has 30 or more pets for me to rotate through."
"okay.... "
where was i headed?? oh right. complicated.
so... because warlocks can be so complicated im going to try to make it really simple and make a beginners guide to warlocking. everything a warlock needs to know. everything a new wow player will need to know. or something like that.
first off, lets start by saying this, that the warlock has a bagillion spells and abilities, all of which are useful sometimes, but never are always useful all the time. and just to help avoid some of the confusion, the game, or blizzard, has decided to limit some of the things we do. that's fine. keeps things simple right? well not entirely.
Combat Pets.
These pets (starting with the Imp) can be sommoned to help you battle against helpless, monsters in azeroth. more likely than not, they're just out there grazing or looking for food, or caring for the cub. that's innocent enough, but their presence means you're able to annihilate them. and with the help of your pet, you're better able to do so.
You will start off at level 2 or 4 with an imp. you learn this spell from the trainers. easy enough. summon him and he'll do several things. just having him there will increase your stamina by a little. not a whole lot, but enough. during battles, he will put a "fire shield" on you. i dont know what this really does. but its helpful. he will aslo throw fireballs at the enemy. all good right?
at level 10, you'll get a quest to summon your next demon. and about every 10 or so levels thereafter, you'll be able to summon another pet.
the important thing to know about pets is that you can only have one out at a time. and each pet has a different purpose. Imps help with fireballs and adding a little bit of health to your small health pool. and a few other things. your next pet is a big bubble thing that can take a lot of damage. so most people have this pet run in and "tank" the enemy while you stand behind and cast spells. makes it kinda easy.
so that's the intro on pets. simple enough?
Spells
Warlocks start off with two spells but quickly go on to become a billion spells real soon. Now add some action bars on your screen and now you have room for most of them.
There are several types of spells. So let me break them down for you.
Direct Damage:
A direct damage spell is a spell that, basically does direct damage. they usually have a casting time, however some can be cast immediately by chance. i'll talk more about the "chance" later. but the major thing to remember a direct damage spell usually has a cast time (you'll stand there for 2 seconds casting it) and when it goes off and hits your target, it will cause the damage immediately.
Damage over Time:
Damage over time spells are usually cast instantly so there is no casting time involved. when you do put the spell on the target, a timer will begin to tick. for example, you have "Corruption" as your first Damage over Time (DoT) spell which will do 40 damage over 12 seconds. each tick of damage will happen every three seconds. if you divide, that's four ticks over 12 seconds if each tick happens three seconds apart. since there are four ticks, and all ticks has to total 40 damage, each tick will do 10 damage. its math, and its scary. but bear with me.
so when you cast corruption on the enemy, 3 seconds later, your corruption spell will do 10 damage. at 6 seconds, it will do 10 more damage. at 9 seconds, it will do 10 more damage, and at 12 seconds, it will do 10 more damage to total 40 damage. you only need to cast corruption once ever 12 seconds. there will be spells and abilities that will make corruption go on forever as long as you're casting something else. you'll get this later.
anyway, that's the gist if your damage over time spell.
Curses:
The warlock class has another type of spell up its sleeve. these are called curses. Now curses do different things depending on what type of curse you use. You begin with one called Curse of Weakness. This one, if cast on an enemy, will cause him to weaken. they will still attack you, but will attack you for less damage. You will get another curse called Curse of Agony. This one deals damage much like Corruption. Another curse is Curse of Tongues, which causes warlocks and mages to take longer to cast their spells. This is useful if your enemy is using spells to attack you instead of running up to you with a sword. you'll find some enemies that like to cast spells in the future. There are several other curses you can cast on the enemy, and they will do certain things. so you'll have to decide which is best to use and why... because... you can only use one curse on any enemy at a time. Thats all.
Channelled Spells:
As the name describes, these spells go off while you're Channelling or concentrating, or casting, or whatevers. casting these spells will mean that you will be in a channelling state for the entirety of the spell. Examples of this is Drain Life, or Drain Soul. Drain Life is a spell that you channel. throughout the channelling, you will be sucking the enemy's health and adding it to yours.
Combination Spells:
Some spells are combinations of the above. One is Curse of Agony, while it's a curse, it also deals damage to the enemy.
Another combination spell is Immolate. This one is a mix of Shadowbolt+corruption. Here's what i mean.
Immolate is a casted, Direct Damage spell but also adds a Damage over Time spell to your mob.
There's another spell you will get in the future (maybe) that you cast and it sends an orb to the enemy. the orb will do Damage over Time by sucking the health out of the enemy and putting that health inside the orb. and after a certian amount of time, the orb will fly back to you and give you all of the health it collected.
So those are the different types of spells you will be using as a warlock. Dont forget that there are different spells for each "type" of spell out there. Shadowbolt will not be your only direct damage spell. Corruption will not be your own Damage over time Spell. And you already know you'll have several different types of curses.
Easiest way to separate this is as follows:
Direct Damage: Boom!
Damage over time: Tick tick tick tick tick....
Direct Damage with Dot at the end: Boom! tick tick tick tick...
Dot that ends with a Direct Damage: Tick tick tick tick tick BOOM!
Channelled: tick tick tick tick tick (and you cant do anything else while it ticks).
Easy right?
Spell Use:
It is best to stand as far away from an enemy as possible, but still close enough to cast your spell.
The best thing to use would be a Shadowbolt, since you can cast the spell while the enemy is oblivious to your presence.
Your second spell should either be Immolate or Corruption. After your Shadowbolt hits the enemy, they will run towards you. During the time it takes for them to get to you, you should be casting Immolate. When it does finally reach you, you can cast Corruption (ONCE). Now there's nothing left but to cast another shadowbolt while your immolate and corruption slowly eat away at the enemy.
Depending on the encounter and what kind of enemies you face, it might be better to just cast two shadowbolts if they die after two shadowbolts. or you might just use corruption only and skip out on immolate. its up to you, but if you find that your enemy dies immediately after you cast corruption, then you dont need to cast corruption at all. it will be a waste. again, it will take time for you to learn how to best use your abilities as a warlock.
Next post will be about talent trees. you get talent points to spend starting at level 10. each time you level after that, you'll get 1 talent point and you can spend it anywhere on your talent trees. more about it later!
Also after you get your second pet, your spell choices might be different. i'll talk about this with pet choices later on.
"so baby, which warlock are you playing today?"
"oh warlock #5. her name is Jazelle, because every 5th filippino girl you see will have a name ending in '...zelle'. so might as well, right?"
"why not rochelle, or janelle, or rockelle, or azraelle, or calelle, or razelle, or danielle, or gazelle?"
"first, a gazelle is an antelope like animal and is not one of my characters. second, im on Jazelle because she's got this cool hat we got the other night, and because she has 30 or more pets for me to rotate through."
"okay.... "
where was i headed?? oh right. complicated.
so... because warlocks can be so complicated im going to try to make it really simple and make a beginners guide to warlocking. everything a warlock needs to know. everything a new wow player will need to know. or something like that.
first off, lets start by saying this, that the warlock has a bagillion spells and abilities, all of which are useful sometimes, but never are always useful all the time. and just to help avoid some of the confusion, the game, or blizzard, has decided to limit some of the things we do. that's fine. keeps things simple right? well not entirely.
Combat Pets.
These pets (starting with the Imp) can be sommoned to help you battle against helpless, monsters in azeroth. more likely than not, they're just out there grazing or looking for food, or caring for the cub. that's innocent enough, but their presence means you're able to annihilate them. and with the help of your pet, you're better able to do so.
You will start off at level 2 or 4 with an imp. you learn this spell from the trainers. easy enough. summon him and he'll do several things. just having him there will increase your stamina by a little. not a whole lot, but enough. during battles, he will put a "fire shield" on you. i dont know what this really does. but its helpful. he will aslo throw fireballs at the enemy. all good right?
at level 10, you'll get a quest to summon your next demon. and about every 10 or so levels thereafter, you'll be able to summon another pet.
the important thing to know about pets is that you can only have one out at a time. and each pet has a different purpose. Imps help with fireballs and adding a little bit of health to your small health pool. and a few other things. your next pet is a big bubble thing that can take a lot of damage. so most people have this pet run in and "tank" the enemy while you stand behind and cast spells. makes it kinda easy.
so that's the intro on pets. simple enough?
Spells
Warlocks start off with two spells but quickly go on to become a billion spells real soon. Now add some action bars on your screen and now you have room for most of them.
There are several types of spells. So let me break them down for you.
Direct Damage:
A direct damage spell is a spell that, basically does direct damage. they usually have a casting time, however some can be cast immediately by chance. i'll talk more about the "chance" later. but the major thing to remember a direct damage spell usually has a cast time (you'll stand there for 2 seconds casting it) and when it goes off and hits your target, it will cause the damage immediately.
Damage over Time:
Damage over time spells are usually cast instantly so there is no casting time involved. when you do put the spell on the target, a timer will begin to tick. for example, you have "Corruption" as your first Damage over Time (DoT) spell which will do 40 damage over 12 seconds. each tick of damage will happen every three seconds. if you divide, that's four ticks over 12 seconds if each tick happens three seconds apart. since there are four ticks, and all ticks has to total 40 damage, each tick will do 10 damage. its math, and its scary. but bear with me.
so when you cast corruption on the enemy, 3 seconds later, your corruption spell will do 10 damage. at 6 seconds, it will do 10 more damage. at 9 seconds, it will do 10 more damage, and at 12 seconds, it will do 10 more damage to total 40 damage. you only need to cast corruption once ever 12 seconds. there will be spells and abilities that will make corruption go on forever as long as you're casting something else. you'll get this later.
anyway, that's the gist if your damage over time spell.
Curses:
The warlock class has another type of spell up its sleeve. these are called curses. Now curses do different things depending on what type of curse you use. You begin with one called Curse of Weakness. This one, if cast on an enemy, will cause him to weaken. they will still attack you, but will attack you for less damage. You will get another curse called Curse of Agony. This one deals damage much like Corruption. Another curse is Curse of Tongues, which causes warlocks and mages to take longer to cast their spells. This is useful if your enemy is using spells to attack you instead of running up to you with a sword. you'll find some enemies that like to cast spells in the future. There are several other curses you can cast on the enemy, and they will do certain things. so you'll have to decide which is best to use and why... because... you can only use one curse on any enemy at a time. Thats all.
Channelled Spells:
As the name describes, these spells go off while you're Channelling or concentrating, or casting, or whatevers. casting these spells will mean that you will be in a channelling state for the entirety of the spell. Examples of this is Drain Life, or Drain Soul. Drain Life is a spell that you channel. throughout the channelling, you will be sucking the enemy's health and adding it to yours.
Combination Spells:
Some spells are combinations of the above. One is Curse of Agony, while it's a curse, it also deals damage to the enemy.
Another combination spell is Immolate. This one is a mix of Shadowbolt+corruption. Here's what i mean.
Immolate is a casted, Direct Damage spell but also adds a Damage over Time spell to your mob.
There's another spell you will get in the future (maybe) that you cast and it sends an orb to the enemy. the orb will do Damage over Time by sucking the health out of the enemy and putting that health inside the orb. and after a certian amount of time, the orb will fly back to you and give you all of the health it collected.
So those are the different types of spells you will be using as a warlock. Dont forget that there are different spells for each "type" of spell out there. Shadowbolt will not be your only direct damage spell. Corruption will not be your own Damage over time Spell. And you already know you'll have several different types of curses.
Easiest way to separate this is as follows:
Direct Damage: Boom!
Damage over time: Tick tick tick tick tick....
Direct Damage with Dot at the end: Boom! tick tick tick tick...
Dot that ends with a Direct Damage: Tick tick tick tick tick BOOM!
Channelled: tick tick tick tick tick (and you cant do anything else while it ticks).
Easy right?
Spell Use:
It is best to stand as far away from an enemy as possible, but still close enough to cast your spell.
The best thing to use would be a Shadowbolt, since you can cast the spell while the enemy is oblivious to your presence.
Your second spell should either be Immolate or Corruption. After your Shadowbolt hits the enemy, they will run towards you. During the time it takes for them to get to you, you should be casting Immolate. When it does finally reach you, you can cast Corruption (ONCE). Now there's nothing left but to cast another shadowbolt while your immolate and corruption slowly eat away at the enemy.
Depending on the encounter and what kind of enemies you face, it might be better to just cast two shadowbolts if they die after two shadowbolts. or you might just use corruption only and skip out on immolate. its up to you, but if you find that your enemy dies immediately after you cast corruption, then you dont need to cast corruption at all. it will be a waste. again, it will take time for you to learn how to best use your abilities as a warlock.
Next post will be about talent trees. you get talent points to spend starting at level 10. each time you level after that, you'll get 1 talent point and you can spend it anywhere on your talent trees. more about it later!
Also after you get your second pet, your spell choices might be different. i'll talk about this with pet choices later on.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Skip to my lou... er.. i mean Skip to ToC 5mans
My warlock, who i've stated before, has been leveling through northrend dungeons and have hit 78 just last night. actually, while waiting for an instance q, she decided (yes, she decided all on her own) to fly to the tuskar encampments and do their daily quest. so off she went to borean tundra to collect supplies. bam! revered! awesome. one small step closer to Pengu. oh and she picked up the recipe for an herb bag. nice! i dont know how well these sell, but i'll find out soon enough. then, she flew over to dragonblight to collect 12 pups. ding! level 78. =] i didnt even notice how close she was to 78. and now, my thoughts were, do i get the pvp garb just for kicks? or stick with some of these instance loot items that's really keeping my dps up? well i wont waste gold on silly pvp starter gear if im not going to pvp. but, what these items have is something i might need for the next two levels. Stam. Stamina increases my health. that's 10 health for every stamina. With pvp gear inherently having more Stam than instance loot, i might consider making them. but why stam?
I am thinking of skipping the 78-80 instances and just q-ing for ToC, FoS, PoS, and HoR (regular/normal mode, ofc). i've had many friends jump into ToC at least, at 78, hoping for a nice item level 219 piece to drop. actually, for an epic piece to drop in NORMAL mode instances is unbelievable. it helps those who are truly determined to skip old content get a jump start on gear. actually, its probably one of the best ways to gear up between 78 and 80. In preparation for 80, not only will my devious warlock have several purple drops from these NORMAL instances, she will also have much more emblems of triumph. as a level 78 character, she will be able to collect one EoT for each boss killed. That's three in ToC, two in FoS, three in PoS and 3 in HoR.... over, and over, and over again. Normal instances have no lockout, and so after running the daily random, i can specifically que for these instances and collect more emblems, enough to basically replace several of the purples i may have picked up along the way. In terms of time, i think ToC and Forge to be the fastest, with Pit and Halls the slower of the four. Halls due to the 10 rounds of mobs then a chase scene, and pitt due to that guantlet up the hill and through the tunnel. Ick and Krik's fight is pretty long too, as there's plenty of gimmicks in that fight. Overall, i am guessing i can quickly knock out ToC and Forge with Pitt and Halls reserved for level 79-80.
I did have a problem with this method of gearing up back several months ago when some friends of mine decided to go at 78 into ToC (this was before ICC 5mans) and had asked me to join them to help carry them through. the friend was a druid tank and his wife was a dps something or other. i was asked to come and heal them on my drood. my drood at the time was a level 80 in some really cool conquest gear and maybe one level 245 item and one crafted bracers that was, i think, also 245. or was it 232? i dont know. and then something off Koralon. i knew it was enough to fall asleep through heroics. in any case, i went to help them out, althought i thought that they were nuts because there's no way they can really use any of that gear at their level. Really, instead of going into utgarde pinicle or Oculus, or halls of lightning and culling, where some of the drops can actually make them better at 78 and 79, went to TOC and annoyed the hell out of me. Sure i could have dropped group, but it wasnt like these guys were terribad. they were just very undergeared and played it like they were geared. Especially the tank, who knew now to tank "OK" but not "good" or "great" (he certianly wasnt bad, but not extremely good), played like how he saw others play in heroic ToC while he was on his mage. actually that was me. he was taking after me as i used to tank as a bear while he would nuke from afar.
Anyway, 3 level 78, one of them a tank, a level 80... s.priest who's somewhat geared for this encounter, and me, a level 80 druid overgeared for this instance, all together in normal ToC5. the friend's wife was a dk, now that i think about it. the other 78 was a dk. yea... how awesome is that? three melees, two that offer no buffs to the group and one was tanking. so as we start, i can foresee death coming. but that's annoying is that the dk would mouth off about things. well i let him die a few times. i think he had a change of ways after dying several times on Paletress and Black knight.
in any case, healing the druid was terrible. as much as i like healing as a druid, there was very little i can do besides nourish spam him to life. it was extremely stressing with three champions up and got a lot better when we downed one of them. paletress was annoying as hell, as our dps was so craptastic that paletress' renew negated all of our efforts. quick question, of the five people there, who was able to dispell that renew? no one? maybe the shadow priest? not sure. but for sure, there was ZERO interrupts on champs and ZERO dispells on the walking nightmare thingey. i could have healed the asshat dk, but instead, figured that if he was getting killed it was because paletress thought he needed to repent more. and so i focused on the tank, who was taking constant damage. imagine healing him to full, then seeing his health bar drop to 50%, then healing him again, only to have it drop to 60%, then 30%, then healing got him to 90% only to have it drop to 50%. ugh. i had zero downtime. it wasnt even the fun kinda healing as mentioned last week in FoS. this was the... you're so undergeared if i spam heals on you... one person might live. the rest will die.
did i mention that our dps (2 dks, 1 spriest) was doing crap damage? i mean 1k dps crap damage. why? miss. miss miss miss. leve 78's trying to hit a level 80... will miss.... often. especially since no one geared or gemmed for much hit at that level. lets be honest, we dont really gear for hit at 78. if there's hit, then we take it. if there isnt, then so what? not only that, but hits and spells do not hit for as much. there will be more glancing blows and more obsorbed magic damage. why? the 2 level difference. im sure that if they were doing culling, their dps would skyrocket above 1k, 1.5k maybe even. but miss dk was at 1k dps. and mr asshat dk was at less. maybe 800 iirc. i forgot about the spriest b/c she wasnt really of much note. so apart from the squishy tank, the abismal dps and everyone taking way more damage than they should... i quiteded. totally. we couldnt get past paletress' renew. seriously. i thought to myself, why the hell are these guys here? they cant do the content, so why try? why not run the instance when you're ready? have they been so used to handouts that they think ToC, with a good healer, can be done? sure, yes. it can. but at the cost of someone's sanity. and for what? gear you cant even wear. srsly. so yes, i quit and got on my dk tank. asked the s priest if they can heal and we rocked the instance. why? bc my dk tank added about 2k dps. paletress got some renews up, but they didnt hurt as bad any more. once we defeated the dark night, black knight, whatevers, i dropped group and logged. i did not want to talk to anyone for the rest of the night. it was pretty frustrating.
so why am i talking about this now? because i want to be that 78 who thinks they can handle a level 80 instance. not just any level 80 instance, those are easy, but a normal level 80 instance that makes half of the heroics look easy. srsly, ToC on normal is like heroic HoS or HoL. so why do i want to do it? Because each boss drops an emblem and maybe some gear i cant equip... yet. so am i being hypocritical? maybe. but i look at it from my point of view. one, i dont stand in fire/poison clouds/etc. two, my dps is pretty decent already (2.5k-3k aoe, and 1.4-1.6k boss). so with already decent dps and a tank's spatial intelligence, i think i would be ok going into, at the very least, ToC, and work it like a fat chick does a pole. that made no sense, i know.
So in any case, hopefully i will be able to q for this instance in the LFD tool. if not, this whole post can be summed up as follows: it annoys me that level 78 undergeared people want to run a hard instance for gear they cant even use yet. so in the event that i am able to q for normal ToC, i will do just that and place my butt in the q. hopefully i can do decent damage and stay out of fires enough to not be a liability to all of the other 80's out there who are looking for those nice and easy purples. superior purples, i might add. superior to all the other heroic purple drops that existed before ToC appeared.
Edit: so i cant use the LFD tool to join normal ToC. i can, perhaps, look around for a Pug.... that works too. will try it out in a day or two. =/
I am thinking of skipping the 78-80 instances and just q-ing for ToC, FoS, PoS, and HoR (regular/normal mode, ofc). i've had many friends jump into ToC at least, at 78, hoping for a nice item level 219 piece to drop. actually, for an epic piece to drop in NORMAL mode instances is unbelievable. it helps those who are truly determined to skip old content get a jump start on gear. actually, its probably one of the best ways to gear up between 78 and 80. In preparation for 80, not only will my devious warlock have several purple drops from these NORMAL instances, she will also have much more emblems of triumph. as a level 78 character, she will be able to collect one EoT for each boss killed. That's three in ToC, two in FoS, three in PoS and 3 in HoR.... over, and over, and over again. Normal instances have no lockout, and so after running the daily random, i can specifically que for these instances and collect more emblems, enough to basically replace several of the purples i may have picked up along the way. In terms of time, i think ToC and Forge to be the fastest, with Pit and Halls the slower of the four. Halls due to the 10 rounds of mobs then a chase scene, and pitt due to that guantlet up the hill and through the tunnel. Ick and Krik's fight is pretty long too, as there's plenty of gimmicks in that fight. Overall, i am guessing i can quickly knock out ToC and Forge with Pitt and Halls reserved for level 79-80.
I did have a problem with this method of gearing up back several months ago when some friends of mine decided to go at 78 into ToC (this was before ICC 5mans) and had asked me to join them to help carry them through. the friend was a druid tank and his wife was a dps something or other. i was asked to come and heal them on my drood. my drood at the time was a level 80 in some really cool conquest gear and maybe one level 245 item and one crafted bracers that was, i think, also 245. or was it 232? i dont know. and then something off Koralon. i knew it was enough to fall asleep through heroics. in any case, i went to help them out, althought i thought that they were nuts because there's no way they can really use any of that gear at their level. Really, instead of going into utgarde pinicle or Oculus, or halls of lightning and culling, where some of the drops can actually make them better at 78 and 79, went to TOC and annoyed the hell out of me. Sure i could have dropped group, but it wasnt like these guys were terribad. they were just very undergeared and played it like they were geared. Especially the tank, who knew now to tank "OK" but not "good" or "great" (he certianly wasnt bad, but not extremely good), played like how he saw others play in heroic ToC while he was on his mage. actually that was me. he was taking after me as i used to tank as a bear while he would nuke from afar.
Anyway, 3 level 78, one of them a tank, a level 80... s.priest who's somewhat geared for this encounter, and me, a level 80 druid overgeared for this instance, all together in normal ToC5. the friend's wife was a dk, now that i think about it. the other 78 was a dk. yea... how awesome is that? three melees, two that offer no buffs to the group and one was tanking. so as we start, i can foresee death coming. but that's annoying is that the dk would mouth off about things. well i let him die a few times. i think he had a change of ways after dying several times on Paletress and Black knight.
in any case, healing the druid was terrible. as much as i like healing as a druid, there was very little i can do besides nourish spam him to life. it was extremely stressing with three champions up and got a lot better when we downed one of them. paletress was annoying as hell, as our dps was so craptastic that paletress' renew negated all of our efforts. quick question, of the five people there, who was able to dispell that renew? no one? maybe the shadow priest? not sure. but for sure, there was ZERO interrupts on champs and ZERO dispells on the walking nightmare thingey. i could have healed the asshat dk, but instead, figured that if he was getting killed it was because paletress thought he needed to repent more. and so i focused on the tank, who was taking constant damage. imagine healing him to full, then seeing his health bar drop to 50%, then healing him again, only to have it drop to 60%, then 30%, then healing got him to 90% only to have it drop to 50%. ugh. i had zero downtime. it wasnt even the fun kinda healing as mentioned last week in FoS. this was the... you're so undergeared if i spam heals on you... one person might live. the rest will die.
did i mention that our dps (2 dks, 1 spriest) was doing crap damage? i mean 1k dps crap damage. why? miss. miss miss miss. leve 78's trying to hit a level 80... will miss.... often. especially since no one geared or gemmed for much hit at that level. lets be honest, we dont really gear for hit at 78. if there's hit, then we take it. if there isnt, then so what? not only that, but hits and spells do not hit for as much. there will be more glancing blows and more obsorbed magic damage. why? the 2 level difference. im sure that if they were doing culling, their dps would skyrocket above 1k, 1.5k maybe even. but miss dk was at 1k dps. and mr asshat dk was at less. maybe 800 iirc. i forgot about the spriest b/c she wasnt really of much note. so apart from the squishy tank, the abismal dps and everyone taking way more damage than they should... i quiteded. totally. we couldnt get past paletress' renew. seriously. i thought to myself, why the hell are these guys here? they cant do the content, so why try? why not run the instance when you're ready? have they been so used to handouts that they think ToC, with a good healer, can be done? sure, yes. it can. but at the cost of someone's sanity. and for what? gear you cant even wear. srsly. so yes, i quit and got on my dk tank. asked the s priest if they can heal and we rocked the instance. why? bc my dk tank added about 2k dps. paletress got some renews up, but they didnt hurt as bad any more. once we defeated the dark night, black knight, whatevers, i dropped group and logged. i did not want to talk to anyone for the rest of the night. it was pretty frustrating.
so why am i talking about this now? because i want to be that 78 who thinks they can handle a level 80 instance. not just any level 80 instance, those are easy, but a normal level 80 instance that makes half of the heroics look easy. srsly, ToC on normal is like heroic HoS or HoL. so why do i want to do it? Because each boss drops an emblem and maybe some gear i cant equip... yet. so am i being hypocritical? maybe. but i look at it from my point of view. one, i dont stand in fire/poison clouds/etc. two, my dps is pretty decent already (2.5k-3k aoe, and 1.4-1.6k boss). so with already decent dps and a tank's spatial intelligence, i think i would be ok going into, at the very least, ToC, and work it like a fat chick does a pole. that made no sense, i know.
So in any case, hopefully i will be able to q for this instance in the LFD tool. if not, this whole post can be summed up as follows: it annoys me that level 78 undergeared people want to run a hard instance for gear they cant even use yet. so in the event that i am able to q for normal ToC, i will do just that and place my butt in the q. hopefully i can do decent damage and stay out of fires enough to not be a liability to all of the other 80's out there who are looking for those nice and easy purples. superior purples, i might add. superior to all the other heroic purple drops that existed before ToC appeared.
Edit: so i cant use the LFD tool to join normal ToC. i can, perhaps, look around for a Pug.... that works too. will try it out in a day or two. =/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)