warlock
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Breakfast Topic: What do I level next?
Throughout vanilla WoW I'd managed to create a small selection of alts that I managed to level all the way to 60. Since the expansion, I've been focusing on gearing out my main character, the irrepressibly cute gnome warlock pictured here. But what's next? I have a druid, warrior, and a hunter that I've leveled up to 60, and a Draenei mage that I've leveled up to 20 just to see the new starting area. I'm tempted to level the mage up as a tailor so I can crank out more shadoweave cloth for the warlock's nefarious purposes, but leveling my druid alchemist up could also be a nice moneymaker. I enjoy playing all the classes I have, or I wouldn't have leveled them up as high as I have, so that's not an issue.Any thoughts on what I should level next? Are there any leveling catches that I haven't heard, things that make a hunter, druid, or warrior easier to level than the others?
Pushing the limits of a class trinity
Relmstein is at it again, this time with a look at class trinity in MMORPGs. This is old, old RPG strategy stuff-- basically almost every RPG out there is based around three different class roles: that of tank, DPS or healing. Tanks (like Warriors and Fighters) take damage, DPS classes (like Mage and Rogue) dish the damage out, and healing classes (obviously) keep the party alive long enough to win the battle. For a while now, game developers have tried to vary up this class trinity, so that you don't just have the same options in every game. In WoW, hybrid classes like Paladin and Shaman can play more than one role, and classes like Hunters and Warlocks have extra abilities (crowd control and buffing/debuffing) that help them be something more than what the class trinity lays out for them. Or there are classes like Druids, who can play all three roles at various times.But the problem here is that while there are some extra abilities floating around, there aren't any new class types to speak of. The reason for this in WoW is because the developers want to give every class the option to go all the way to 70 solo, which means classes that could be total crowd control classes, like Hunters, are forced back into one of the class trinity roles (in this case, DPS). So far, we haven't seen a really pure crowd control class-- at least not like we've seen pure tanking, pure healing, or pure DPS classes.So let's put our minds to it. What kinds of classes could we make that would do something fundamentally different from tanking, healing, or damage?
Of warlocks and their fiery little friends...
Back at the beginning of February, Blizzard removed the spell damage coefficient from the warlock's imp pet's damage abilities, causing, obviously, a decrease in its damage. Why'd they do it? Because their calculations were bugged, resulting in the imp gaining too much damage. The solution to remove all damage bonuses seemed like something of an overkill, but today they've come back and fixed it to their satisfaction, re-implementing spell damage coefficients, though at a lower level than before.In addition to this, Tseric has reports back on the long bugged talent Improved Firebolt, which reduced the casting time of the imp's firebolt ability by a half second per point. But due to the fact that the game isn't capable of understanding casting times lower than 1.5 seconds (Tseric is not specific, but I assume this is a pet-based limitation, since player spells do not have this problem), the second point of the talent (which would reduce cast time to a single second) wasn't granting the full benefit. I am having some difficulty typing this with a straight face, but in order to fix this, they have changed the talent from reducing cast time by .5 seconds per point to reducing cast time by .25 seconds per point.
And the award for world's worst WoW player goes to...
Now I don't mean to make fun-- maybe this poor guy just hasn't had a lot of experience operating a keyboard or playing videogames. Maybe he just hasn't quite yet or just isn't able to pick up the skills to play this game.But when Lynyrd, a 64 Orc Hunter on Drak'thul, puts up a PvP whine post on the forums about how he was killed and camped by a 34 warlock, you just have to wonder what's happening there. A few replies in, there's a mention of more players joining in to the fight (apparently Lynyrd was helping a few lowbie friends when they decided to gang up on some Alliance), but when all the dust has cleared, it really looks like a 64 hunter somehow got taken down by a 38 lock and a 37 priest. Lynyrd makes another appearance later in the thread (after a few more illegible posts by the interested parties, I'm ready to call shenanigans on all of this, but it's still funny), and posts his spec, which is very... umm.... "broad," I guess. Most hunters tend to specialize in one tree, but Lynyrd has chosen to go for the least of all worlds-- he's got the very uncommon 15/20/20 hunter spec.Again, I can't really believe this is what it seems like-- as players point out, any 64 hunter who knows where the autoshot button is should be able to drop a 38 lock without thinking twice. But a read through the thread itself is definitely chuckleworthy.
Warlock Spells: Ritual of Souls
The last in the "Warlock Spells" mini-series, Ritual of Souls is a spell everyone can love. Why? Healthstones! And who doesn't love a nice, refreshing healthstone every now and then? The fact that it's a reduced shard cost for the warlock just makes the warlock happy.This spell is only usable out of combat. The warlock starts the spell and a small altar drops out of the sky. Two people in the party/raid assist, and the altar disappears, to be replaced by a red crystal. One shard is consumed, and up to 10 healthstones can be pulled out of the crystal for the next 5 minutes. The healthstones will be just like getting one from the warlock made one-at-a-time, benefiting from the Improved Healthstone talent. As an added bonus, the red crystal that spawns will dispense healthstones for a full 5 minutes, whether you are in combat or not. So before a long fight, warlocks can drop one of these, give out healthstones, and if someone uses their healthstone during combat they can pick up another one and use it after the 2 minute cool down on healthstones has expired.
Warlock spells: Seed of Corruption
The next spell that warlocks receive is a level 70 spell called Seed of Corruption. This is an incredibly nasty spell, I'm having a lot of fun with it.Basically it's a different version of the warlock spell Corruption, it does a certain amount of damage over time. What's different about this spell is that it has its own, built in finishing move. When the target has sustained 1044 total damage, whether it's from Seed of Corruption, other spells you cast, or spells other players do, the seed "goes off" and inflicts all hostile targets within 15 yards with a one-time shadow damage spell. This spell will kind of chain react with other seeds, so if you cast it on, say, 4 targets, the first one exploding will contribute to the other targets exploding. Finally, I can't throw this and Corruption on the same target. Which is sort of a bummer, really.This spell is incredibly useful in a few different situations. The spell does, at a minimum, about the same damage/mana as Corruption on a single target. When there are multiple close-packed targets, the efficiency really starts to shine. For the downsides, read on.
Blue Notes: LFG changes, Warlock pets to despawn on flight
It's no secret that a lot of people are unhappy with the new LFG system. Personally, I always use it, although I haven't had much luck with it. Usually I'll flag myself as LFG for some group quest and do a solo quest while waiting. After this, if I still don't have a group (as is usually the case), I go ahead and ask about it in General. Anyway, apparently the LFG tool is going to get better, and the old global LFG channel is not making a come-back. From Neth: While you haven't seen changes as of yet, we are working on some improvements that we would like to implement. I just can't tell you any more details about that as of this point in time however. You won't be seeing the old LFG channel reappear. By the way, did you know you can use /lfg and /lfm to call up the respective interface panes? True story, and useful for people like me who like to hide about as much UI as possible.
Forget Warlocks, nerf Imps
Apparently, Warlocks' littlest demon friends have been performing far better than expected. This would be due to receiving way too much of Warlocks' +damage bonus. To remedy the situation, a hotfix has been instated that removes Imps' spell damage coefficient entirely. Drysc: We will be implementing a hotfix this evening that temporarily removes the Warlock Imp's spell damage coefficient as it was performing far in excess of our intention. This will remove any spell damage bonuses from improving the Imp's attacks. We are currently on schedule to be implementing the correct values with the next patch. While we are able to effectively block the spell damage bonus with a hotfix it will require a client side patch to input the intended spell damage bonus the Imp is receiving. Overkill? Certainly. But if they couldn't hotfix it to the right value, I suppose underpowered is better than imba. Thoughts?[Thanks, Tim]
Warlock Spells: Soulshatter
Soulshatter is another new skill that warlocks receive, this one at level 66. As a variation on the usual "Spells cost mana" theme, this spell costs you 8% of your base health. Base health is your health before any bonuses from items, so it's probably between 3 and 4 percent of your hit points. It also costs one Soul Shard. For the warlocks this spell is great because we didn't have a practical way to dump aggro before, and now we can easily reduce our produced threat to stay below the threat of our tank. The 5 minute cooldown means it's only usable once or maybe twice per fight, but that's usually enough to keep you far enough down the aggro list to not be a threat.Sorry, no action shot for this one. Trying to capture an instant-cast spell with the screenshot tool would run me out of shards fast.
Warlock Spells: Incinerate
Warlocks get a few new non-talent related spells in the expansion pack. One of the neatest ones is called Incinerate. Incinerate is acquired at level 64, and it's a fire-based spell in the destruction tree. As you can see from the tooltip, it has a pretty average mana cost (Rank 10 Shadowbolt, learned at level 60, uses 370, this uses 325) and does less damage. Oh, it does less damage unless you've got an Immolate debuff already up on the target, in which case this does damage on par with a shadowbolt, with a lower casting time. For more on this spell, and a picture of the coolest casting graphic in the game, read on.
Warlock DPS calculator
Ybrith, of Rajaxx (Eu), has put together a lovely piece of theorycrafting apparatus. This warlock DPS calculator takes your stats and talent information, the length of the fights you're interested in, and a few strategy parameters, and comes up with your DPS over the length of the fight, as well as how fast you would be losing life. It seems to be geared towards the end-game, as it's based on level 70 spells and also not suited for calculating things like mana efficiency, which is important in leveling.Still, for a number-head like me this thing is amazing. I've learned that with the default stats (since I have no clue what a warlock's gear is like at 70), my current leveling build (41/20/0) would do 1035 DPS, whereas sample Destro builds I threw together get 1190 (0/21/40) or 1174 (21/0/40) DPS. It's interesting to me that Aff and Destro are so close; I don't think this would have been the case pre-BC.So, Warlocks in the crowd: what do you think? Does this thing look relatively accurate? And how do you stack up?
Launch night poll: how late did you stay up?
True confessions: I was up til about 7 this morning leveling my blood elf warlock (caster noob alert!), after tooling around in the Outlands with my 60 rogue for a while. But, you know, it was totally "work-related"! So fess up -- how late did you stay up? Are you a proud member of the bleary-eyed workforce today? Or did you catch that <cough> nasty bug </cough> that was flying around -- I think it must have spread like wildfire from all the social contact of midnight launches. Please to be inputting your answer to our lunchtime launch night poll: How late did you stay up? Only a couple of hours past my usual bedtime. Gotta be sensible. Way too freaking late, I'm exhausted today! I hate you midnight launch people, I live in a yurt. A yurt next to Best Buy. I'm still waiting to pick up/for my expansion to arrive. Sleep? You mean people slept? n00bs. Free polls from Pollhost.com
WoW Moviewatch: Kitten Punting
This video explains much about warlock culture that had previously been a mystery. And with the upcoming expansion release, I wonder if there are any kittens in Outland or if, like class trainers, we will have to travel all the way back to Azeroth to locate any...
Adventures in Beta: Who will be queen of the DPS team?
Players in the BC beta have hit 70 and are beginning to raid, which means the return of Azeroth's favorite sport: complaining how underpowered your class is in groups! Warriors and rogues started fast out of the gate with some pretty heavy complaints. Warriors state that their rage generation has been nerfed enough that they won't be good DPSers anymore, and since druids and paladins can tank now, why would anyone bring a warrior? Rogues have noticed that they don't do damage as well as equally-geared mages and warlocks at 70, and since a lot of bosses have cleave and AOE attacks, why would anyone bring a rogue? Well, there are enough spare rogues and warriors running around to fill a large pit in Outland, and someone has to take the gear. Mages and warlocks have utility outside damage in raids, but rogues and warriors don't (unless you count suppression rooms, which you shouldn't.) The casters have fired back, claiming that mages were always intended to be top DPS due to ... the character class descriptions in the guidebook, apparently. They also note that casters have limited mana pools, unlike rogues' constantly regening energy and the warrior's rage bar, and that caster DPS is more dependent on group composition than melee DPS (i.e. shadow priest group damage buffs.) People from both sides and from healing classes have argued that because there aren't many great melee weapons and armor yet available at 70, melee classes appear underpowered -- but things will even out as better gear becomes available. Do you think the melee classes have a point? Should melee DPS be higher on average than caster DPS because of the extra healing required by melee? Are rogues and warriors really in trouble? Or are they just whining because they have to work harder to compete on the DPS meters? (Image from The Last Watch, Turalyon-EU server. DPS meters on Patchwerk in Naxxramas.)
WoW Rookie: Soulstone and you
As a priest, pally or possibly a lower level shaman, you are often bestowed with the responsibility of a soulstone, giving you the ability to self-rez. And as we all learned from Uncle Ben in Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. If you have never had the chance to be on the receiving end of a soulstone, it is easy to make a rookie mistake. While it is by no means complex, there are certain do's and don'ts that aren't always obvious. With that in mind, here are some things to remember if you are given a soulstone... If you are new to the soulstone business, odds are your warlock is too. If you have never played a warlock, you might assume that when a soulstone expires some kind of elaborate fireworks display appears in the warlock's UI, informing them that the group is screwed if they wipe if he doesn't conjure another stone. Without a proper mod, this is not the case. Odds are your new level 21 warlock friend doesn't have the fancy mod. So pay attention to your soulstone, and when you see it expire, or a minute or two before it expires, let your warlock know in party chat or in a /whisper. Your lock will usually appreciate it.
"Summn plz": the joy of being a warlock
Everyone thinks it's so easy to be a warlock these days. Sure, we have dots that will kill you long after we ourselves have died to your teammates. Sure, we can have a pet that is essentially a small warrior attack you while we sip Foster's in the shade. Or we can ... we can ... I'm not exactly sure what the Destruction 41-point talent is because no one uses it. Some kind of AOE? Whatever. Anyway, the point is that life as a warlock has its annoyances. Take this conversation my level 51 lock, repairing her armor in Undercity, had with a level 16 warrior in Thunder Bluff today. Warrior: can you please summon me to undercity? Me (figuring the guy at least said please): Sorry, I don't have a group right now. Warrior: how hard can it be to find a group in UC :P Me (thinking I'm not going to find a group to summon this guy without payment): How much are you going to pay me? Warrior: 0.00 Me: So basically, you want me to use my own soul shard and my own time to find a group so I can summon your lazy behind? Warrior: um ... yeah Me: Hell no. Walk. The average warlock has this conversation many, many times before hitting 60, and an interminable number of times thereafter. In a raid, you have to summon stragglers, dispense healthstones, soulstone important people and make sure you have Curse of Elements up or your mages will eat you alive. Speaking of mages, they also have it rough when it comes to being bugged -- they have to portal people places and create food and water for the whole raid! Warlocks, mages, how do you deal with the annoyance of random tells for "summons" or "wtr plz" when you're chilling in Ironforge?
Burning Crusade skill updates
Well, I'd say "update," really, since the priest racial abilities, now officially confirmed, were already known from beta reports. What is new, however, is some major changes to the Warlock's spellstone. Not sure what a spellstone is? Well, that's understandable -- at present, they're conjered off-hand items that provide a spell crit bonus and can be consumed to absorb magical damage and remove all magical effects from the user. This later was always problematic, as it would remove negative effects, but also wipe high-mana cost buffs like Demon Armor (which costs 1580 mana to cast at level 60). The fact that they were off-hand meant that you couldn't use them with any of the wide array of nice caster staffs -- but they'll now be equipped in the wand slot rather than the off-hand slot. Beyond that, its effect has also been changed -- now it removes all harmful magical effects. And instead of being consumed on use, it has a 3 minute cooldown. I'd say these are pretty solid changes, which will mean my warlock will be seeing a lot more spellstone usage in the future![Note: Linking the European site because the US site seems to be offline this afternoon.]
Nerf FEAR!
We've all been there -- cheerfully minding our own business in a battleground when along comes a warlock to ruin our day. Fear, dot, dot, dot, fear, shadowbolt, fear, shadowbolt... And you've died with nary a chance to defend yourself. You may be tempted to run to the most convenient forum and yell "nerf locks! nerf fear!"Well, people of that persuasion, I point you towards Stylewalker's Nerf Warlocks FAQ, which covers all the bases on why fear isn't always an "iwin" button. Like how it's on diminishing returns (on a shared timer with seduce, even) and breaks on direct damage (and becomes more likely to break on dot damage with more spell damage gear). Does fear alone win fights for warlocks? I doubt it -- I've fought with plenty of horrible players for whom fear wasn't near enough to win a fight.
Burning Crusade Spells & Talents Updated
No, no -- still no hunter abilities. The main body of these changes seems to be extensive revisions to the priest abilities, making them a lot more interesting (and actually tempting me to spec higher than 31 points in any tree -- crazy!). However, there are also some tweaks for paladins, warlocks, and warriors. Check them out on the forums, or read on for the details.
Healers and their extra heals
Hal over in the WoW Ladies lj forum posts a really interesting question: What is a priest's (or other healer's) responsibility on all those "extra heals"? For example, it's when a pet needs healing, or when a warlock lifetaps their way down to almost no health. To those, I'd add healing for warriors and other melee classes after a fight, when everything is dead.Personally, I'm pretty conservative. On one side, I've played a priest and a resto shaman, and I will throw a lifetapped warlock a heal only when I'm at full mana and impatient to start the fight. Otherwise, he should be eating-- I shouldn't have a responsibility to heal him after he's hurt himself. Now, some guildie warlocks I like, and I'll do it anyway. But I don't think there should be a responsibility there. As for pets, I'll heal them in a fight 1) when we need them, and 2) when I've got mana left. If I'm healing the main tank with little to spare, sorry, but your kitty is gonna die. But if your VW is the only thing between me and a melee add, I'll keep him alive. Still, I don't think any pet class should ever count on heals unless the situation has called for it. Pet classes have ways to heal their pets for a reason.On the other side of things, as a warrior, if I'm out of a fight and still hurt, I make it a point to be eating or bandaging before the priest even has a chance to look at me. With mages around and food extremely cheap, there's no reason a priest should have to waste mana in between pulls, even if it's as simple as throwing a HoT on. Carry some bandages (no excuse for not having runecloth), or eat that bread ASAP.Of course, there are lots and lots of exceptions. Most priests I know will heal me anyway out of combat. And as a priest I'll usually throw off a few extra heals before I drink, including a few to the pets. But as for responsibilities, I think there should be as few as possible on both sides. Your thoughts?
