C.C. King

So, you rolled a warlock and leveled it to 85 and you still don't make the same dps as a mage with the same gear. You can't tank or heal. Whatever do you do in dungeons anyway?

First of all, this is not a post about how much better warlocks are compared to other dps classes. We are not better or worse, just different.

Warlocks might not be known for the best dps around but when it comes to cc (Crowd Control) we are very good. And, yes, I know other classses can freeze, trap and polymorph too but no other class has the same range of cc that a warlocks has. Depending on the setup of the mobs (some luck and a huge amount of skill) we can keep up to 4 mobs busy at the same time. :)

To be able to take down a group of mobs you need to split them up, otherwise the tank will take more damage than any healer would be able to heal. (And, no, the solution is not to exchange one dps for a second healer since then you'd have too little damage to get the mobs down at all.) And here are some tips for all you warlocks out there. :)

The most important thing is to mark your targets. Everyone in the group need to know what targets that are cc'ed. Most cc breaks if the target takes damage so everyone NEED to stay away from those mobs.

But since pets are retards, aoe damage might be hard to get to just the targets you wanted or you happen to tab one time too many and fire at the wrong target. This is where warlocks comes and saves the day. :)

If the target is an Elemental or a Demon you can cast Banish on them. This will phase out the mob and make invulnerable but also completely harmless. And, again, mark your cc'ed targets. You don't want the tank and the other dps'es to waste energy on trying to beat up mobs that don't take any damage.

Another good way to keep a Demon in to use Enslave Demon on it. This is a bit of a gamble since you will turn that Demon into your minion (removing any minion you might have had) and when the spell breaks it will come running for you. The Demon that gest enslaved will get its casting speed slowed by 30% and time between attacks increased by 40%. This is not a bad thing if you use it right, send it to fight another demon of equal strenght and it will die and you don't have to worry about getting an angry demon back. And in the process you keep two mobs busy while you kill the others.

Two mobs punching eachother.

And last but not least, Fear. I have two wishes for 2011: 1) That all warlocks get Glyph of Fear. Infact the three most important things you need to know about Fear is: Get the glyph, get the glyph and get the frickin glyph. 2) And that players who play other classes will get Feared alot in bg's so that they'll learn that Fear no longer means that you run around aimlessly and that there is no risk that you pull other mobs with it.

The best thing about Fear is that the target is able to take a small amount of damage without breaking the cc. I sometimes even cast it on one of the mobs being tanked just to keep the total dps on the tank down a little even if it is just for a second. But the best way to use it is still to pick a mob to keep in Fear until you got the others down. You need to remember to refresh the Fear often. I usually cast a new Fear every 5-15 seconds even though it should last much longer just to be on the safe side.

Ok, so now we have one mob Banished, two mobs fighting somewhere and one standing still shivering in Fear. Taking down the last mob(s) will be a breeze. :)

You can also use cc while questing. My favourite rotation when questing and I'm targeting a single target is to start with a Soul Fire before the mobs is agroed followed by a Fear. With a little luck the Fear will cast just fractions of a second after the Soul Fire hits making the target stand still and not attack. Then an Immolate, Chaos Bolt and Conflagrate. The Fear should hold for the Immolate and any Fire Bolt the Imp has cast but will break when Chaos Bolt and Conflagrate hits. The nice things about Conflagrate, except the huge amount of damage is that the target will get slowed by it. And if you continue with Incinerate and maybe a Shadowfury you should be able to get most mobs down before they even have the chance to reach you. :)

Battle grounds is a fun place to use cc. :) Use Banish to get rid of other players minions. And don't under estimate the joy you get from a Shadowfury + Fear to halt a flag-carrier and watch him get beaten up. Or simply a Fear to stop a healer for a couple of seconds.

The day that Deathwing came.

While waiting for my ride I did some lowlvl quests... this quest line is probably the funniest I have ever seen in this game.. :)

(And now I'm off for christmas-dinner and shenanigans with my brothers. :) Take care.)

How could I have missed this?

From the December 16 hotfix:

"It is no longer possible to waste a Soulstone by attempting to use it on a dead target. The player will receive an Invalid Target error message at the completion of their channel. In a future patch, we intend this functionality to work correctly, allowing a Soulstone to be used to instantly resurrect a dead target."

Please please please let us be able to battle-res. :D

Merry Xmas. :)

Time for a short break...but I'll be back after christmas with a post on warlock crowd control and what you can do to get your group through that dungeon/raid without an wipes. :)

My experimental destro-lock talent tree.

Link: http://wowtal.com/#k=BlH5KtO.a5o.warlock.qCvmBo

This is the talent tree I use for my destruction warlock. And as I said to my class leader, it looks like someone who didn't know what spec to choose has sprinkled the points all over the place. But here are my thoughts behind it.

First of all, this is a destruction build so the destro branch is more or less a standard build, we want Shadowfury and Chaos Bolt but skip some things like Backlash, which is pretty useless now when we have Fel Flame. We skip Nether Ward/Protection and place those points in Demonic Embrace instead. +7% stamina vs. 7223 spell damage absorbed kind of balance eachother out.

In Demonology I want to have Demonic Embrace and Dark Arts. Both are very nice and I'd be glad to spend  more points on them but I need to save some points left for the Affliction branch. You want Demonic Embrace for the stamina and points in Dark Arts will turn your Imp from a sluggish little hang-around to a fierce fireballing demon. We skip Mana Feed and put the points in Improved Life Tap instead. Would the Imp run out on mana, since it won't get any from our Life Tap, we can always get a new one with Soul Burn + Summon Imp.

Six points left and we get to the Affliction branch. We spend some points to get Doom and Gloom and a little Improved Corruption. Since we where a bit cheap in the Demonology branch and didn't get the full +10% stamina we spend some points on Improved Life Tap so that we won't tap ourselves to death during fights.

And then, the pièce de résistance; Jinx.

"Jinx Rank 1

Your Curse of the Elements also effects up to 15 nearby enemy targets within 20 yards of the cursed target. Also, your Curse of Weakness reduces the targets energy, rage, focus or runic power generation by 5% while active."

All mobs standing near the mob with Curse of the Elements will get Jinxed. (But will not be aggroed.) This will give them a debuff that increase damage taken from magic by 8%. CotE on a target and you and the other casters will AoE those mobs down quicker than ever before. :)

I'm sure this is not "The Destro-build" cause we've made a few sacrifices on our own dps and survivability. But I think it is valuable to look further than just your own personal dps and see what you can do for the group. With the realease of Cataclysm I get the feeling that warlocks have turned from being, more or less, braindead, aggro-hogging, healer-leeching dps'es to have a more central role. We can Fear, Banish and Enslave Demons (all at the same time), hand out Healthstones and Soulstones, summon people and give a nice boost with Dark Intent. So giving all casters a +8% on their damage seem, to me, something that fits even a destruction warlock quite well. :)

EDIT: I do miss Mana Feed a little. But as long as I remember to cast one of my Improved Life Tap everything is ok. (And remember not to stand in any fire.)

Fear, Banish and Polymorph.

Last night I went with some people from the guild to do a dungeon. And I must say that it was the most fun I've had in a dungeon for ages. :) Dark Intent on the healer, we tagged the mobs, the mage Polymorphed one mob, I Feared another and Banished an Elemental. Then we took down the remaining mobs and after that the CC'ed mobs, one by one. With my crappy gear I didn't do a lot of damage, but it was extremely fun to fight and keep an eye on the CC'ed mob at the same time.

I hope that it will stay this way. I hope that dungeons and raids, even after people has geared up, still will be team work and not just a tank-n-spank-run.

(Oh, and if you haven't got Glyph of Fear yet, get it, now.)

Gear?

The correct reply to "I need new wrists, new hands and new pants." is NOT "Or a girlfriend."

Get to the Choppa!

I know... It is too big. It was too expensive. And the prices will drop soon. And who need a land mount now?

I just always wanted one. :) And with the insane amount of gold I managed to collect during the questing from 80 to 85 I could get one without feeling too bad. :) (And "insane" is relative, I never had more than 5-6k gold before.)

Lvl85: The big "meh".

The last and final spell that you learn as a warlock is Demon Soul.


"Demon Soul

15% of base mana	100 yd range

Instant cast	2 min cooldown

Requires Metamorphosis
You and your summoned demon fuse souls, granting the Warlock a temporary power depending on the demon currently enslaved.

Imp - Critical Strike damage on cast time Destruction spells increased by 60% for 30 sec.  Each spell cast benefitting from this effect reduces the bonus by 20% until the bonus expires after 3 casts.

Voidwalker - All threat generated by you transferred to your Voidwalker for 15 sec.

Succubus - Shadow Bolt damage increased by 10% for 20 sec.

Felhunter - Periodic shadow damage increased by 20% for 20 sec.

Felguard - Spell haste increased by 15% and fire and shadow damage done increased by 10% for 20 sec."

As a destruction warlock with an Imp I can't say much else than, "meh". Extra damage for three of your spells every 2 minutes, just slightly more than the damage of one extra spell. (If I've done the math right.) Pretty useless.


For warlocks with a succubus, felhunter or felguard it is a little bit better. That extra damage could be nice to have if you need to take down a boss quick.


The only really nice use for this would be if you have a voidwalker or have a Soul Burn left to get an instant summon. I haven't tried it myself yet but I imagine it could be used if you happen to aggro a mob and manage to keep your head cool enough to do a Soul Burn, Summon Voidwalker and then spam Searing Pain until the mob decides to go after your minion instead. And maybe use Health Funnel to keep it alive until a real tank can help you. It sounds a bit complicated and it will probably be a big failure but I will try it sometime. :) Nice to have an extra CC if you can't use Fear or Shadowfury.

LEVEL 85!

Lvl83: The level where warlocks will fall in love with resto druids.

At level 83 warlocks get a new spell Dark Intent.

"You link yourself with the targeted friendly target, increasing both of your haste by 3%.

When you or the linked target gains a critical periodic damage or healing effect, the other gains an increased 3% increased periodic damage and healing lasting for 7 sec. Stacks up to 3 times. Dark Intent lasts for 30 min." 

So, what does that have to do with resto druids? Well, they have a nice HoT uptime and hopefully enough crits to keep the buff up for you. :) And your Immolate and Corruption will make your healer do more healing. With that extra haste, increased damage/healing plus that the healer don't have to waste precious mana on you since you can get much of you health back with drain life from mobs, warlocks/resto druids will be a really powerful combination.


If you battle res me I'll soul stone you. :)


/flirt

Lvl81 and Fel Flame

Yay! I reached lvl81! ... And, yea, I know a lot of people are 85 now. :P

But the best thing about a new lvl is not the talent point that I'd randomly placed in ...some place... don't remember where but I think I need to come up with a good excuse to the class leader later.

Anyway, what lvl81 brought was Fel Flame. (Cue dramatic music.)

Good: Green fire. (Cool)
Bad:  Doesn't do alot of dmg.
Awesome: Instant refresh of Immolate. (And UA, but I'm not an aff.lock)

Still not excited? :) ..Let me rephrase: Instant....refresh of Immolate. Instant.

In PvE it will be great since you don't need to waste time on refreshing Immolate which is important to keep up for Conflagrate and Incinerate.

This will also be great in PvP, no need for standing still in BG's. You don't have to stand still while trying to refresh that Immolate, waiting for Conflagrate to come off cooldown and hoping that a rouge won't sap you in the meantime. It is also very nice as a "finishing blow". I don't know how many times I've managed to get someone down under 2k hp in a bg and then see him/her get back to full hp while I'm trying to cast the next spell. Not any more. >:) You can run...but I'll run after you, spamming Fel Flame until my Conflagrate or Soul Burn/Soul Fire is ready... See you at the graveyard, horde.

/laugh

Playing Cata... can't post..

Yes, I got Cata. Yes, I am playing. No...I don't have time to tell you how awesome it is. :)

Cataclysm is here!

Stormwind was filled with hundreds of people, many riding on their mammoths. Countdown started, 5..4..3..2..1..Cataclysm!!!

Then the chaos started. Think you can sum up the night and peoples comments about the first few hours of Cataclysm like this:

omg...can't log on!! Battle.net crashed! Need to restart WoW.. AAAHG, now it started to download patches. rebooting, brb. Still can't log in!!! F...K!

I was hoping that Deathwing would swoop down from the sky and attack everyone. Or something like that. :)

Apparently he choose a different route and struck us where it hurt the most.

(And I still haven't decided what class I'll play on my worgen.)

Gearscore-fright.

I thought that I was a rather skilled warlock. Not super-skilled but atleast knew what I was doing. Ok, I could be better at PvP and use my instant-casts more and not just stand still. But in PvE I was confident that I had everything under control. Gems, talents, spell-rotation...everything. I had checked my theoretical output with Simulationcraft and I was a bit lower on dps than I could be but I figured that theory and real life was two different things. I was a good, warlock. Or so I thought.

Until last night.

The guild gathered to do an Ulduar achievment-run. Lots of new (to me) guildies and the warlock class-leader was there. First boss (after the tanks) I start my usual rotation, doting and aoeing for all I'm worth. The class-leader out dps'es me with over 2k. Nothing wrong with that. She is a good player and...then my cursor goes over her char when she is running by and her name tag and gs shows for a moment in the bottom right corner.

And the gs is blue.

Blue! Not red. I point at her again. 2.3k gs. 2.3! She has less than half of my gs and still I'm having trouble keeping up. I check again. Yupp, 2.3, scanned 1 hour ago. I reset recount. Try as best I can to do everything right. Still no luck. I go over the fight on recount to see if I'm missing anything. But, no, we use the same spells and basically the same rotation. Am I missing something else? I try to keep a close look on my cooldowns of Conflagerate and Chaos Bolt. Better but still far from good.

So I ask what I'm doing wrong and say I'm sorry for not being able to keep the dps up. "You are doing fine.", she says. "But you are doing so much more damage than me.", I reply. "Yea, but you have different gear. :)". Different gear...what did I miss? Ok, I'm slightly over the hit cap and could have used that on other stats. But it should not matter that much. Do I need more haste? More intellect? I inspect her gear. And everything she has is much much better than mine. Everything.

Then the gearscore addon decides it is time to update. 6k, it says after I close the inspect window. 6k not 2.3k. That made more sense. I wasn't getting my ass kicked by someone with half of my gs. I was still getting kicked by someone but at least she had better gear than me. :)

Moral of the story. Question everything. :) Addons may have old information stored. Your rotation might not be optimal, try new variations from time to time to test things out.

...And I hope she laughed with me and not at me... :D

What to do when Cataclysm starts.

Since everyone else are going to roll goblins or worgen, here are some thing you can do when Cataclysm is released:

1. Roll a human, bring some Fei Fei Doggy Treats to Gilneas. Instant awesomeness.
2. Ask worgen hunters if they can Feign Death. /cheer /pet

(Good doggie at 1:28)
3. Ask goblins what they are going to be an orc or a troll when they grow up.
4. See a worgen with a Perky Pug. "Is it yours?"

Lock Star