|
Post by duccky on Dec 3, 2013 19:38:05 GMT -5
Heroic progression is slow, and after a depressing lvl 89 death on my hunter i'm back ready to kick this challenges ass! Thought i'd share some great tricks for all the warlocks out there!
First things first lets look at limitations of the warlock from the very start, you get 3 damaging spells Shadow bolt, drain life, and curruption that's it. This isn't shadow bolt should be your primary cast, however if your health funneling your pet its better to use drain life. What is optimal for this is 3 health funnel ticks 2 drain life ticks. rinse repeat.
Next we are looking at your void walker, As a whole its pretty squishy. It gets beat up a lot but the major benefits is that his taunt is on an incredibly short CD.
When health funnel isn't enough you can resummon a void walker mid fight. There is 0 downside to this tactic, its only a 5 second cast and DOES NOT drop threat. even your new void walker you spawn will have the same threat it did before it was resummoned
Interupting mobs. A downside to always using a voidwalker is you don't have a kick ready when a mob is casting at you. However you can counter this with a fear. 9/10 fear is a faster cast then your enemies. This can be very dangerous so use it accordingly. Also at higher levels you can start using a howl of terror as a kick
What it takes to break a fear 2 drain life ticks 2 voidwalker melees 1 shadowbolt 5 corruption ticks
When fighting 1 on 1 against a boss/quest mob There are 2 tactics.
1.health funnel void walker, if health funnel isnt enough fear the mob so that health funnel can catch back up. drain life is your filler in this situation
2. Re summoning void walker in this situation you will shadow bolt spam until your void walker is at 30% health resummon him and repeat the process. if the mob is hitting really hard resummon the void walker at higher health %. This tactic takes longer but is the only way to combat a mob that is immune to fear.
Will make more posts on this thread about Infernal vs Doomguard when to use them, and when to enslave demon. (includes math behind enslave demon)
|
|
|
Post by duccky on Dec 8, 2013 4:06:57 GMT -5
Back again bringing you more info about doomguard and infernal
The infernal This will spawn an infernal at the targeted location and deal fairly high amount of damage, this damage to my knowledge does not scale off spellpower, do not know for sure. but at lvl 66 its hitting for over 800 to all mobs when i spawn it. All mobs hit by this initial blast will be stunned for 2 seconds. I've used this in 2 different ways One is when im sick of farming mobs 1 at a time ill gather 3 or 4 up and infernal ontop of them, with dots and enfeeble on them all. The second way i've used infernal is as a way to GTFO out of a bad situation This is the moment when i need the stun to get distance on the mobs either to resummon a voidwalker or to just escape. In conjunction with the stun i made it prolly 20 yrds before the mobs caught up with me and immediately i did a howl of terror and got far enough for them to path back\
Doomguard is fairly basic! use it on a strong npc and it pew pews for 700-900 per cast. can also let it be 2nd on threat so if your voidwalker dies no big deal your doomguard can now tank
Last we are looking at enslave demon, There isnt a whole lot of benifit i saw out of this, but i did use it for maybe an hour. I've been told pitlords are the only major benifit to enslave. However i did not have access to a pit lord meaning i had to find something else, and i picked a terror guard they are like a suped up void walker and are more tanky then your normal one. However they put out a little less damage and every few minutes your enslave will run out and you have to re-enslave. It gets incredibly frustrating having to watch that timer because if enslave falls in the middle of a big group of mobs your 100% going to die. In my opinion enslaves small reward is not worth the large risk
|
|
tanee
Iron Veterans
Posts: 396
|
Post by tanee on Dec 8, 2013 19:09:41 GMT -5
I appreciate your work on this guide. I'll soon be dabbling in a lock, which I've never played before. So I'm learning a lot from you. Keep it up please
|
|
|
Post by iarnaig on Dec 8, 2013 19:59:30 GMT -5
You have a few tactics there which I never tried, I just kept it very simple most the time. Didn't actually know you could resummon a voidwalker midfight to refresh its health; I always thought it'd just reappear at the same health it already was; ie you had to let it die first. Perhaps that's changed recently! Extremely useful if it does work anyway! My own tactics from 85-90 (a ton of spells changed with MoP so my 1-85 experience isn't relevant now) were: curse of weakness, corruption, shadowbolt spam, health funnel voidwalker when his health drops below about 60%, drain life when my health drops below about 60%! Make sure voidwalker has his abilities on autocast, particularly the shadow shield, which is very very good - big chunk of dmg, and reduces his incoming damage. Use disarm at all suitable opportunities; against any mob with a weapon it's fantastic, even better if you know a nasty ability is coming and prevent it (don't waste disarm on whirlwind though; pets don't really take any aoe dmg so save it for single target attacks). Voidwalker does about 50% of my dps, often more on fights where I have to heal him as aside from dots I can't cast much else. Fel flame is another damage ability you get later on, I think it was altered in a patch since I reached 90, but assuming it didn't change too much, it's less dmg than shadowbolt, but instant, so if you want to quickly finish off the last few % of a mob's health, it's handy for that (also handy for zapping really low health adds). Bit pointless otherwise, unless the patch changes made it a lot better! I don't believe I even put howl of terror on my actionbars, thinking I had no intention of aoeing anything; likewise I never used infernal, thinking it was mainly for aoe situations. That said, I can now see the uses to both, so will try them whenever I'm playing high lvl warlock again! I also very rarely used fear, due to not wanting to risk aggroing anything else; it was basically something for emergencies only. I tended to save my doomguard for emergencies too; also used him anytime I took on anything with higher than average health. Some numbers for anyone looking to higher lvls: at lvl 89 I was averaging 1.2k dps; up to a massive 1.7k when I popped my doomguard. Twilight Highlands mobs have 80-100k health, so fights took about a minute each (supported by how often I had to refresh curse and corruption ). I'd finish most fights on about 2/3 health, 1/3 mana and with my voidwalker on 1/2-2/3 health; bandages and food are very worthwhile things to carry if you don't want to spend half your time standing around waiting on regen! I figured given those stats, that it was wisest not to attempt Pandaria mobs; I did try on a non-iron warlock, and killed a few, but it was very tough going and an add would be the end of me for sure; as it was, each kill took 2-3 voidwalkers (voidwalker dies; fear mob, summon new one - if you're not channelling health funnel its health goes down so fast that the summoing before it dies thing wouldn't really work anyway). So prepare to spend a lot of time in Cataclysm content if you're aiming for 90
|
|
|
Post by iarnaig on Dec 8, 2013 20:14:18 GMT -5
A lot of what I've written above is also relevant at low levels; I'm using basically the same tactics on my second iron warlock who's now 25. Main difference is my voidwalker doesn't have shadow shield yet, so he's squishier and does barely any damage. Meaning I have a choice on hardhitting mobs: nuke with shadowbolt and hope the mob dies before big blue does, or health funnel and be aware that the voidwalker's health will only just stay static while the mob's health is going down very slowly (and mine is going down too!). Thankfully shadow shield appears to be lvl 28 and should help with that! Other than that, it's pretty much: reach your teens and you've got the toolkit that takes you all the way to 90. Warlock abilities are nearly all locked behind specs now, only a few very situational ones remain outside, Btw forgot to say on previous post: don't be scared to life tap. Your voidwalker will hold rock solid aggro, so as long as you don't go mad (I tend to see 75% of my healthpool as a rough limit at which I won't lifetap if I'm lower), it's safe enough and lets you cast that extra shadowbolt you need. Lower levels, it's not relevant, but when fights start lasting a minute or more, you'll be wanting more mana
|
|
|
Post by alonaa on Dec 9, 2013 7:24:51 GMT -5
Some great tips guys, thanks The recall voidwalker is a handy one to know. I'll try that out next time. Out of my 4 ironmen the warlock is by far the easiest so far but funnily enough I've had the most near deaths with her. Probably due to overconfidence & the relief of getting away from my rogue for a while lol.
|
|
|
Post by duccky on Dec 9, 2013 18:48:00 GMT -5
Just last night i was being careless during a quest in outlands, i had to kill something like 12 worgs and i didnt want to go slow, so i pulled 8 of them at once, started with curruption/exhaust on all of them spawned my infernal stunning them all immediatly after howl of terror and began to single target nuke the lowest health ones, when they all got back to me i got smacked around pretty hard forcing me to health stone and unending resolve, by the time my second howl was up only 3 were left i feared them and cleared the rest. i lived this situation with 14% health left and a dead voidwalker
|
|
|
Post by iarnaig on Dec 9, 2013 20:42:36 GMT -5
Yikes! I've never dared pull more than 3 mobs at a time, and that's usually when it's unavoiable (and I'm high enough lvl that they're fairly trivial); eight at a time... crazy! I'll definitely remember infernal's stun then, but still, you're a lot braver than me
|
|
|
Post by keven20 on Dec 20, 2013 14:40:17 GMT -5
ok I have a question I am allowed to use the void walker for the ironman challenge?
|
|
|
Post by iarnaig on Dec 20, 2013 15:31:25 GMT -5
You certainly are; it's our most essential tool Any class ability which doesn't come from talents or spec is fine, so voidwalker, healthstones, underwater breathing, no problem
|
|
|
Post by iarnaig on Apr 20, 2015 20:58:27 GMT -5
Time for a WoD update, since I'm back at low lvls and discovering how truly awful to play warlocks are now. Basically, everything useful which we had is gone: no more healing our voidwalker (who also seems squishier than he used to, though maybe the lack of healing just makes it feel that way), no drain life to top our own health up and no life tap to get some mana back after summoning multiple voidwalkers during a long fight. Ouch. I only have a handful of abilities at all, so at least it makes spell choice very easy: Put Corruption up, spam Shadowbolt, and watch your voidwalker's health in case you need to summon a replacement. Thank goodness they didn't nerf getting a full health vw on summon, since on tough fights I go through 2-3 of them... Single melee mobs are fine at my level (low 30s), casters rip the vw to shreds though, I can't rely on him surviving vs a single goblin 5 lvls below me... Adds are not good, if they're melee I can sometimes get away with not needing to summon a replacement, but if I get a pull of melee+caster I try to get the caster's attention myself then nuke down the melee mob fast so my vw can survive the encounter; I can generally take a few more spells than my vw can, though I have to watch my own health carefully in that situation! Carrying lots of bandages is much recommended: not for me, but for my voidwalker, since replacing him after every other pull is both slow and eats my mana So I guess warlock is now brought down to the level of most other classes for ironman; in the past at low lvls it was relatively easy (ironman is never easy, but you know what I mean!), but now I have to be as paranoid about adds as the rest of you
|
|
Xaya
Community Moderators
Posts: 1,663
|
Post by Xaya on Apr 22, 2015 15:27:44 GMT -5
here is a little account of my first real lock attempt after WoD (first died at 13 due to a bug in the battle for Gilneas) you basically have only 2 spell : shadow bolt and corruption. And your demon. The void is a lot squishier than a hunter's pet, even a ferocity one. You often have to summon a new void mid fight, sometimes more than once. Summon a void too many time and you get oom. Like Iarnaig said multi mobs fights are hard I managed to starte 1k needles and got to 46. The quest defend the drill was done but got down to about 25% after using a healthstone, had to summon a new void and the second one also got down to 25% before I could finish the quest. Went to Eastern Plaguelands to get to 48 before trying the grimtotems quests. I was killed in Corrin's crossing, the place is packed with mobs that cut thru your void like butter. The summoner summon zombies, and can summon a second one before you kill the summoner, and the sombies stay een after the summoner's death. There are many stationary mobs close to one another, with patrols just to bug you, and I aggroed a pat while fighting another mob. Healthstone was on CD, tried to flee but the pats have range attacks. COUld have tired fear but would most likely aggro more mobs...
Xayaforsi lvl 100 pandaren hunter (alive) Wyrmrest Accord Xayalock lvl 47 worgen warlock (dead) Wyrmrest Accord
|
|
|
Post by iarnaig on Apr 22, 2015 16:04:52 GMT -5
RIP, I'm not too surprised based on what I've seen on warlock though, it's way harder than it used to be. When I last did these lvls I had so many useful skills, now it is indeed just two dmg spells, and a very very squishy pet. I'm beginning to make a point of avoiding casters till I'm way over lvl for a quest (even more so than usual), I can see myself ending up grinding exp on melee mobs at some lvl ranges just to lvl up before trying a quest with too many caster mobs, I think named boss-type casters would be likely fatal without a huge lvl gap. EPL is nasty at the best of times, I've always found in ironman that it's tougher than Felwood, which is supposed to be a lvl range higher than it, warning taken about Corin's Corssing, I can indeed see it hitting all our weaknesses Hope you try another lock, I'll be glad to have someone to swap tips with
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2015 16:58:23 GMT -5
Mentioned to the guys in game today , that all the lvl 100's so far started there irons pre WOD, none so far 1 - 100 [post WOD).
By the sounds of it i can see why , to be honest as a hunter its arcane / steady shot spam no finisher so when the shit hits the fan you may have focus issues.
Having said that just hit 71 and have found it ok not much diff to pre WOD
|
|
|
Post by iarnaig on Apr 22, 2015 17:10:46 GMT -5
Yep, been thinking that myself, only hunters seem to be managing the 1 to high lvl thing at all (Jernmand has done 1-96 in WoD, I think?), other classes have more trouble levelling than before. Looking at the website I see a couple of rogues above 60, everything else that high with a WoD flag is a hunter, plus a 58 monk. Be interesting to see how much of that is it being harder, and how much is the regular ironmen already having high lvl characters to lvl and not starting new ones yet.
|
|