Usa Forum - Warlock with no Life Tap?!

steve.kaye

9/10/2012 8:51:00 AM

I finished getting my DK to level 85 and then I played my Paladin for
a while. I got him set up and had a bit of a play because he's the
one that I plan to take to MoP first.

Then I logged in to my Warlock and chose her Affliction spec and went
to Va'shir. Affliction isn't bad - things died quite quickly and
questing was easy. I found it a little dull though so I decided to go
try Destruction as it was my second spec and I could try it without a
trip to the trainer.

I hit my first problem quite quickly..... setting up my action bars I
couldn't find Life Tap. I looked all over the place for it but it
wasn't there. I checked my affliction spell book and it was there and
didn't say anything about it being affliction only. I checked google
and finally found someone saying that destruction warlocks don't need
life tap because they have crazy mana regen. I checked and that's
right - at level 80 she have 10.5k mp5 and at level 82 she has 15.5k
mp5. Apparently our new resource is Burning Embers (replaces soul
shards) and we raise it by casting Incinerate on an Immolated target
and use them by casting Chaos Bolt.

Wow.... that's a bit of a shift for a new spec. It's almost like
respeccing my Warrior to be Arms and getting an energy bar instead!

It is quite fun though. We need to manage two sort of resources, the
second being a stackable buff (that I forget the name of) which
increases Incinerate cast speed and you get three stacks of when
casting Conflagrate.

Also, Chaos Bolt hurts.... in one shot almost all normal mobs that I
cast it on in Va'shir and Hyjal. It hits most normal mobs for more
than 3/4 of a bar so far in Deepholm. I think that the difference is
that I was geared better relative to the first two zones so if I'd
gone in with normal quested Wrath gear it wouldn't have been
one-shotting things.

Another change in playstyle is the level 75 talent. According to
posts that I read on the internet, the best choice for a Destruction
warlock is to use Grimoire of Sacrifice which means that you run
without a pet to get a 25% damage buff (plus one of the pet's
abilities - I sacrifice a Felhunter to get Spell Lock)

No Life Tap though..... that just doesn't seem right even though you
don't need it :)

steve.kaye
--
Jelan, 85 Priest Mingan, 85 Shaman Jaille, 82 Warlock
Kibbs, 85 Paladin Clokk, 85 Druid Belugar, 76 Warrior
Miho, 85 Rogue Jengu, 85 Death Knight Yopp, 73 Hunter
[ Ravenholdt-EU (Horde) ] Aloola, 70 Mage

8 Answers

Catriona R

9/10/2012 10:50:00 AM

On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:50:58 +0100, Steve Kaye
<nospam@giddy-kippers.co.uk> wrote:

>I hit my first problem quite quickly..... setting up my action bars I
>couldn't find Life Tap. I looked all over the place for it but it
>wasn't there. I checked my affliction spell book and it was there and
>didn't say anything about it being affliction only. I checked google
>and finally found someone saying that destruction warlocks don't need
>life tap because they have crazy mana regen. I checked and that's
>right - at level 80 she have 10.5k mp5 and at level 82 she has 15.5k
>mp5. Apparently our new resource is Burning Embers (replaces soul
>shards) and we raise it by casting Incinerate on an Immolated target
>and use them by casting Chaos Bolt.

I was thinking you must have some bug oir other since even my ironman
warlock with *no* talent spec has life tap! Then I logged on my lowbie
destruction warlock and sure enough, where Life tap was on my
actionbars is now a passive called Chaotic energy which gives a really
high mana regen, so it does indeed change for destro warlocks. That'll
take some getting used to!

>Wow.... that's a bit of a shift for a new spec. It's almost like
>respeccing my Warrior to be Arms and getting an energy bar instead!
>
>It is quite fun though. We need to manage two sort of resources, the
>second being a stackable buff (that I forget the name of) which
>increases Incinerate cast speed and you get three stacks of when
>casting Conflagrate.

Yeah I'm liking the new warlock resources, haven't looked at
Affliction and Destruction yet but Demonology is pretty fun, generate
demonic fury by casting regular spells, go demonform and use the fury
you generated to power more spells :-)

>Also, Chaos Bolt hurts.... in one shot almost all normal mobs that I
>cast it on in Va'shir and Hyjal. It hits most normal mobs for more
>than 3/4 of a bar so far in Deepholm. I think that the difference is
>that I was geared better relative to the first two zones so if I'd
>gone in with normal quested Wrath gear it wouldn't have been
>one-shotting things.
>
>Another change in playstyle is the level 75 talent. According to
>posts that I read on the internet, the best choice for a Destruction
>warlock is to use Grimoire of Sacrifice which means that you run
>without a pet to get a 25% damage buff (plus one of the pet's
>abilities - I sacrifice a Felhunter to get Spell Lock)

That's a blast from the past, I remember a long time back sacrificing
pets was a common playstyle, never much liked it myself but it's good
to have the option back for those who do like it.

>No Life Tap though..... that just doesn't seem right even though you
>don't need it :)

Hehe I agree. Although I'm jealous, my mana disappears very fast on my
demo lock, based on target dummy testing, I ended up glyphing life tap
to not take away my health (but now it negates my selfhealing talents
as it'll absorb heals instead, oh well), since I had to use it quite a
lot!

ScottM

9/10/2012 11:59:00 AM

My lock is my main main... my first toon. Struggled so dang much
learning the ropes of Warcraft. Got him through WotLK heroics topping
the damage meters on nothing but Seed Spam, and crushing BGs as
afflic. Haven't touched him in month, but I might go back since
they're abso-friggin-lutely crushing in dungeons atm.

By leaps and bounds....

Neil Cerutti

9/10/2012 2:37:00 PM

On 2012-09-10, Steve Kaye <nospam@giddy-kippers.co.uk> wrote:
> I hit my first problem quite quickly..... setting up my action
> bars I couldn't find Life Tap.

Warlocks received a heavy revamp. Cynwise did a really
interesting series on what was wrong with them.

http://cynwise.wordpress.com/warlockery/decline...

> No Life Tap though..... that just doesn't seem right even
> though you don't need it :)

According to what I saw on Cynwise's site, every spec was changed
a lot, though Affliction was changed the least.

--
Neil Cerutti

ToolPackinMama

9/10/2012 4:58:00 PM

On 9/10/2012 6:50 AM, Catriona R wrote:

> Yeah I'm liking the new warlock resources, haven't looked at
> Affliction and Destruction yet but Demonology is pretty fun, generate
> demonic fury by casting regular spells, go demonform and use the fury
> you generated to power more spells :-)

I used to love demonology spec but with the new changes I found myself
hating it. All the flopping back and forth between forms like a beached
fish is wearying for me.

I spec'd Affliction, because the playstyle was more familiar, and very I
quickly got back to normal and found myself loving it.

One of the first dungeons I ran in was a LF PUG, and there were 2
warlocks on the team, a Demo and myself. This was probably a fluke and
doesn't mean much, but the Demo warlock was such a distraction to the
tank that she called for a vote-kick. We continued with a mage
replacement, and the group was so happy then that we requeued together
twice more.

I was really effective and confident with my new Aff lock, right from
the start, whereas the changes to the other two specs seem too drastic
to me.

Naturally anybody who dedicates themselves can learn how to re-play any
spec. Some of us... /sigh, just want to play.

Lewis

9/11/2012 2:16:00 PM

In message <8b8r48drh0orels725lvmn3dnipj0g4ffk@4ax.com>
Steve Kaye <nospam@giddy-kippers.co.uk> wrote:
> Then I logged in to my Warlock and chose her Affliction spec and went
> to Va'shir. Affliction isn't bad - things died quite quickly and
> questing was easy. I found it a little dull though so I decided to go
> try Destruction as it was my second spec and I could try it without a
> trip to the trainer.

Last year when they were talking about class changes they put of a slide
that said: Warlocks? GONE!

Then they explained that no, not really, but they were going to be
completely redesigned. They could have said the same thing about Shaman.

I am wondering if it is even possible to solo as a resto Shaman though.
I can keep myself alive forever, but I can't really kill anything, so
I've been switching back to Enhancement which everyone seems to be
saying is the worse spec in the game right now, replacing the Frost Mage.

I seem to be drawn to the "Worst spec" pretty consistently.

--
Clarke's Law: Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic

Lewis

9/11/2012 2:19:00 PM

In message <k2l66k$l1h$1@dont-email.me>
ToolPackinMama <philnblanc@comcast.net> wrote:
> On 9/10/2012 6:50 AM, Catriona R wrote:

>> Yeah I'm liking the new warlock resources, haven't looked at
>> Affliction and Destruction yet but Demonology is pretty fun, generate
>> demonic fury by casting regular spells, go demonform and use the fury
>> you generated to power more spells :-)

> I used to love demonology spec but with the new changes I found myself
> hating it. All the flopping back and forth between forms like a beached
> fish is wearying for me.

Agree. I *hate* the demonology spec now.

> I spec'd Affliction, because the playstyle was more familiar, and very I
> quickly got back to normal and found myself loving it.

I will try affliction out.

--
I CANNOT ABSOLVE SINS Bart chalkboard Ep. AABF14

steve.kaye

9/11/2012 2:52:00 PM

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 14:16:11 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
<g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

>In message <8b8r48drh0orels725lvmn3dnipj0g4ffk@4ax.com>
> Steve Kaye <nospam@giddy-kippers.co.uk> wrote:
>> Then I logged in to my Warlock and chose her Affliction spec and went
>> to Va'shir. Affliction isn't bad - things died quite quickly and
>> questing was easy. I found it a little dull though so I decided to go
>> try Destruction as it was my second spec and I could try it without a
>> trip to the trainer.
>
>Last year when they were talking about class changes they put of a slide
>that said: Warlocks? GONE!
>
>Then they explained that no, not really, but they were going to be
>completely redesigned. They could have said the same thing about Shaman.
>
>I am wondering if it is even possible to solo as a resto Shaman though.
>I can keep myself alive forever, but I can't really kill anything, so
>I've been switching back to Enhancement which everyone seems to be
>saying is the worse spec in the game right now, replacing the Frost Mage.
>
>I seem to be drawn to the "Worst spec" pretty consistently.

Hmm, that's not good. I've not tried my Shaman yet but he's got Resto
and Enhancement specs too. To be honest though, I'm unlikely to play
him for quite a while now because I have other priorities.

Before MoP, I'll be playing my Warlock and then probably my Mage.

After MoP I'll be playing my Paladin, then my Priest and then a Panda
Monk.

When I get bored of those three, I'd look for another character to
level to 90 and that's more likely to be my Rogue, Druid or DK before
my Shaman.

steve.kaye
--
Jelan, 85 Priest Mingan, 85 Shaman Jaille, 82 Warlock
Kibbs, 85 Paladin Clokk, 85 Druid Belugar, 76 Warrior
Miho, 85 Rogue Jengu, 85 Death Knight Yopp, 73 Hunter
[ Ravenholdt-EU (Horde) ] Aloola, 70 Mage

ald

9/12/2012 9:46:00 AM

alt.games.warcraft

Warlock with no Life Tap?!

steve.kaye

Catriona R

ScottM

Neil Cerutti

ToolPackinMama

Lewis

Lewis

steve.kaye

ald

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