Warlock Woes...

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Y2K

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Sooo my shiny new Warlock has dinged 70 on TH. I've decided I was tired of PvE for awhile which led me to playing AV & every other kind of PvP for 5 months... :o

I decided its high time I get my Lock in Gear. I've got some S1 & half a S2 set along with weapons. My Belt, Boots, Wrist, Cape & Necklace are all level 70 Stamina & Intellect Greenies. I dont have any Trinkets yet apart from the PvP Talisman of the Horde & Riding crop.

I'd like to Raid, well get started, but was told my gear sucks & that I needed to gear up.

Firstly can ppl recommend a few Lock Raid/PvE builds for me please? I'd also like to know what gear to get & where to get it from please?

I cant use the official forum, so please dont tell me to ask there. I've also checked a few threads here but havent found anything conclusive...

I'd really appreciate the help!

Thanks!
 
Dusk said:
PUG kara , that should get you started on some entry raid gear.
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Awesome thank you! In terms of Builds do you have any ideas, please? I've been reading a few sites etc. and ppl recommend I go Destro rather than Aff... :confused:
 
for kara go affliction, your spelldmg and hit wont be nearly enough to do a destro build.
As for gear pugging kara might help, but there are GREAT craftables out there.
I would recommend tailoring the shadoweave set and getting someone to make you belt of blasting + spellstrike set.
Get icon of the silver crescent with badges and the rest of the gear should come with kara drops.
 
Nickd said:
for kara go affliction, your spelldmg and hit wont be nearly enough to do a destro build.
As for gear pugging kara might help, but there are GREAT craftables out there.
I would recommend tailoring the shadoweave set and getting someone to make you belt of blasting + spellstrike set.
Get icon of the silver crescent with badges and the rest of the gear should come with kara drops.
Click to expand...

Fantastic, thank you so much for the tips! I almost have the ShadowWeave set! I cant wait to play again now! :D
 
The 1st thing is if you want to focus on PVE, grind heroics and Karazhan until you can purchase most of the Isle Badge loot. Spell hit is very important for raiding and PVP gear does not supplement this.

As for specs, some people might tell you demonology is a viable raid spec, however they are sadly mistaken and it is infact the lowest dps raid build. So forget about speccing deep in to demonology and achieving omfg no u didn’t DPS.
The basic bread and butter raiding build is affliction
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info...010000000000000000000000505000510200000000000

Key talents being Unstable afflictioin and destructive reach. You will notice there are two points short which I recommend you use on suppression depending on how much hit you have.
General questions about this build is ,’why improved soul drain and destructive reach ‘ they reduce threat. ‘why only one point in shadow embrace’ it counts as a debuff for soul siphon
Anyway basic concept is keep all four shadow dots up and shadow bolt between. Ill let you decided what dot cycle to use, as many people have their own assumption. Also, have your imp out and dark pact it ,so you'll never go oom and drain life only when your low on HP



Finally once and only once you have these stats
Shadow damage 1200+
Spell Crit 20+
Spell hit 202

Respect to
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info...002150030133200100000000555000512210013030250

Probally the most boring build in the game, but no class can achieve crits like this build does.
All you do is sacrifice your succubus , keep CoE up and spam shadow bolt. Some people say keep immo up but they too are sadly misinformed;p
This build makes warlocks currently the best raid dps in the game. Some hunters might rightly disagree but nothing out dps’s a DS SnF warlock with four set T6 bonus and 250+ haste standing still for 10minutes spamming bolt. I can vouch for this ;p. Again don’t bother with this build unless you have the aforementioned stats

Also remember wrath is around the corner , so alot of effort and pain staking grinding isnt worth it, unless your having fun
So GL and HF <3 :p
 
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Here is a nice beginner kara build: (pure raid pve, no grinding or farming talents) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IEMzqMfzVtcocxZxx0z

As you get more spell hit you can start moving points out of suppression into some other talents maybe imp. CoA or imp. Drain life for easier farming.

For gear the best thing to do is go shadowcloth tailoring and get your FSW Set. Then your Spellstrike set. This will be expensive but will last you ages. (still using my spellstrike pants in BT)

If you have the pvp spellblade that should do as a 1-hander until you get something better.
 
Unfortunatly you are getting into the raiding scene a bit late, established raid groups will be medling with post T5 content. So people will require atleast badge gear loot from you to join for raids.
Sugest you start off by gaining experience in heroic dungeons, and collecting badges. There is still a few kara raid groups out there, so maybe join up with them.

Question though, what did you do in your pvp for 5 months? I presume you did not do any arenas etc.

Alternatively wait in patience for wotlk later this year, and then get into the raid scene.
 
Starting raiding now is a bit like rocking up to the party after all the girls have gone home.

Maybe you can luck out and get in a BT/Sunwell farming guild that's willing to bring along and gear up stragglers. But I doubt it. And you'll miss out on all the cool t5 fights in the process.

I'd also suggest going on a badge-farming spree if you feel you must experience endgame raiding now before it's too late. Spending a lot of time and gold crafting sets that are obsoleted by badge gear is a bit pointless. That and crafted stuff is light on stam, making you more and more of a liability to the raid as you progress into content. In that vein, don't discount pvp gear. If you have, for eg, a good set of Season2, I'd look at ways of complementing rather than replacing it.
 
imo it's never too late to start raiding. You probably won't get into a SA raiding guild now but you should be able to find a guild thats just starting to raid kara. Sure 9 out of 10 of them will be noobs but everyones gotta start somewhere.

If you going to skip the craftable gear, get the spellstrike set at least, it's very imba.

Also there seems to be mixed feelings towards stam on locks from person to person.
I feel as a raiding lock you are dps, so stack dps stats over all other stats. You aren't there to take hits, tanks are. You are in the raid for dps and utility (aff lock). Yes it will take a bit of getting used to, watching aggro bars and learning to move out of the fire but thats why I recomend having 3 points in imp. imp when starting to raid :P. The faster you learn these basics the better anyway and the easier it is for you to die the more careful you are. It's like in a racing game, the noob cars are always slow but damn tough and can take a beating, the pro cars are fast as fu*k but disintegrate at the slightest knock :P
 
Well, stam for locks, especially affliction, basically translates to more mana (life tap ftw), which means more dps. That's how I see it anyway.
Your healers will hate you if you lifetap too much, though.
 
yes but as an aff lock you should be using dark pact and not life tap.

-edit: when I first changed over to destro, dark pact was the talent i missed the most. I was too scared to tap at first for fear of incurring the wrath of our healers and tried to tap as little as possible, but I'd always get /w from the healers telling me to tap so i'm not shy anymore. I still try to keep it in check though.

-more edit: If I suddenly stop getting heals after tapping now, I'll know why. I've heard the stories about what goes on in the healing channel ;p
 
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Stamina should not be stacked unless you are a demo lock. As affliction you have Dark Pact and Mana Pots. Refusing to use mana pots because you can lifetap is pure fail. When you reach highend raiding life tap will kill you more often than not when you tap at the wrong time. Alot of raidwide damage going around. Keep the following in mind when raiding as affliction:

1. ALWAYS use Siphon Life (the reason will become obvious
2. Never let your health be at full. Life tap just before you get full. Siphon Life will allow you to get a full health bar in no time. Use Life Tap once only.
3. Never let your imp have full mana. Use Dark Pact once only.
4. Use Amplify Curse often (for curse of doom or curse of elements depending on raid setup). Alot of people forget about this.
5. Use Mana Pots. Remember that every other mana user uses mana pots, and there is zero reason for you not to use as well.
6. If you are going to life tap to low health, let a healer know asap. As a healer I have to make a decision on whether to heal a person or not. If I see a dps's health drop very fast I often do not bother healing since it means they have aggro and going to die in a sec anyway. If I know you are going crazy with life taps then I can start a large heal on you which should finish about the time you have done a few taps.

I cant tell you how many times I have seen locks die when raid wide damage occurs or AoE comes around. That is because they life tap their health too low for healers to catch on time.
 
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knobshine said:
yes but as an aff lock you should be using dark pact and not life tap.

-edit: when I first changed over to destro, dark pact was the talent i missed the most. I was too scared to tap at first for fear of incurring the wrath of our healers and tried to tap as little as possible, but I'd always get /w from the healers telling me to tap so i'm not shy anymore. I still try to keep it in check though.
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Thanks for the tip. I can see where my next talent point is going to go.
I think its always good not to treat the healers like a mana bank, just because its bad manners. Not that its bad to use life tap, just in moderation.

68 BE Warlock 35/8/16
US Whisperwind
 
-more edit: If I suddenly stop getting heals after tapping now, I'll know why. I've heard the stories about what goes on in the healing channel ;p
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lol. Were it that simple. (un)Fortunately, priests and shammies dont really get to choose who they heal - brainheal and circlespam decides for us. It's just the pallies and druids you have to be on good terms with. ;)
 
Um ,no affliction loc would ever need to life tap, hence no loc would need to life tap only once you have siphon up. Minor detail thou.
And never be afraid to life tap , healers love tapping locks ,rather they love locks cause of fel armour. Your sooner to be called a noob for going Oom than life tapping. Unless you spam it to 10% health. Just incorporate it in to your DPS cycle and ull never go oom and if u get HOT’d spam it:rolleyes:

Personally I find droods my best friends, they struggle to land heals on MTs and skillbloom pretty much anything that’s not 100% hp
 
Murdoc said:
As for specs, some people might tell you demonology is a viable raid spec, however they are sadly mistaken and it is infact the lowest dps raid build.
Click to expand...

Since he is only starting to raid now I guess Kara will be first and I disagree on demonology as being inferior to affliction in there. I was running demo for a long time with 1000+ dps a night. If you know how to handle your felguard and not to let it die you should be doing pretty well. Affliction works great on bosses where you have to stand still but normal Kara mobs die before your dots can kick in.
 
Strangely I use fear very seldom because invariably it results in five more mobs descending on my position.

And never in an instance (not raiding yet)

BTW: This is one of the most instructive forum posts I have seen in a long time.
 
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