Talents to AvoidFollow

wow, just wow. lol.

Somewhat recently I rolled an alt human lock (mainly for perception and diplomacy), and I must say it is truly an amazingly fun class to play, however can be at times somewhat difficult when deciding talents.

So before going on I'd like to say thanks to Sinstralis for the very usefull info on the warlock talents and pointing out the useless ones.

Now so far I've already respec'd once on my lock, originally mainly affliction and partially demon spec'd, it just didn't do much for me. Sure i'd get off all my curses (with full ranks in suppression) in battlegrounds, but the locks I cursed would just fire off dmg dealing spells and finish me off before i could do anything more.

So I respec as a destructolock.

Goodness, the second it happens everything seems to be better, solo grinding and questing is by far easier, and in pvp it's nice being able to deal some decent damage a little bit faster. (thx to talents like bane). Now I was planning on adding in some affliction to compliment the destruction spec, so that's not a problem especially with your link for your ideal 20pt affliction talent tree.

Again before continueing I have a question... now we know which talents to put ranks in, but what i'm wondering is when? Should I start off with pure destruction speeding down the latter to conflag as soon as possible, or evenly spread the talents between the destruction and affliction trees as i fill up my pre-determined talents? Furthermore should I try to reach the lower placed tiers quickly or max out the talents in the beginning tiers before continueing into the lower placed ones? This information would be greatly appreciated and valued.

One last thing, (unless I randomly think of something more to say), you place aftermath in a talent to avoid, being a daze effect which isn't all that great when compared to something like the mage talent which stuns the target when ranks are added. Now before reading what you had posted I had thought it was a fairly decent talent, though after using a talent calculator see that those points are better placed elsewhere. In it's defense though, as a 29 warlock in battlegrounds it has been quite a useful proc, especially when attempting to prevent the horde flag carrier from reaching his base, and then eventually getting him to drop the flag.

It's just my opinion, but I find movement a very good thing in BG, and anything that hinders an opponant's ability to move a very good thing indeed.

i'm gettin somewhat confused between mosse and cap. frmo wat i can see, moose thinks its a waste of time cos u get interupted. cap thinks its a waste of time cos its based on spirit and thats not something locks should concentrate on (unless you go by what the exrtemely old WoW game manual from the actual WoW game you buy says) and why are u trying to prove him wrong with a "formula" when u both mean the same thing. and why are you trying to insult him by saying he is 12, has bad spelling and is a noob?
1. No-one cares about spellin on a forum
2. He is prob older than 12 and even if he is it wouldn't matter.
3. You don't know how long he's been on the game.

For all you know, he is a 33 year old man who lives in his basement and lives off social seccurity : D

In conclusion, do not attack him with stuff you know nothing about, and do not use him making a CLEAR explanation, which shows statisticcs pretty much saying the same as you (IMP drain soul is crap.), as an excuse to be a ****

This thread has been very useful. I've played with a lock for a while, and I gotta get my 2 bits in =]

Spirit is a complete waste of crap for basically anyone except a priest (who needs all the mana regen they can get.) Fel concentration is pretty nice for lvling and imp drain soul absolutely compliments it. I don't know how many times I've lost shard because I drew aggro and got hit too many times and ended the channeling too early (usually only by a tick early so i cant recast in time) and if you DO get the mana increase, which is often enough to enjoy, then it's happy lvling to you (just be sure to monitor your shards as they take over your inventory :D)

A practical approach to it just says that they aren't worth it however. I'm a PvPer at heart, so grim reach, suppression, and imp curse of exhaustion are all in my book, and i dont see drain tanking working so well in WSG (gouge blind kick shield-slam pummel.. the list goes on) and while your siphon life would work still, your drain life becomes a wasted effort. A word to the wise.. if you think you're going to go get siphon life so you can throw it on anything that moves in BG.. gluck when you're instantly OOM. It's not that worth it (but I gotta say its great getting health from 4 different sources.) Demo is great for survivability, but you get so gimpy on the damage. Just roll destro or cookicutter SM/ruin for some real action (in the higher levels). Demo = surviving long enough for reinforcements.

By the way, to whomever mentioned destro was great for lvling.. I'd love to see how much time you spent lvling vs how much time spent drinking ;D (shadowburn ftw though)


In response to whomever asked about whether they should fill their pre-planned talents across the trees or go one at a time.. I'd say go up your main tree first, or at least your highest most important talent, because everyone else is going to have top-tier talents while you dont for some time, and you'll be bustin out the gold for respecs. Plan for what will be available to you ASAP, while still considering your eventual goals.

There. Got my 2 bits in =]
Oh, and try and avoid n00b and l4m3r comments. We were ALL noobs, and a lot of us still are, but we all have something to contribute. I mean, everyone hates to be the n00b that gets attacked, and we've all been there at least once! :)

Improved Drain Life take damage gear and/or Shadow Mastery into account? I currently have SM/Ruin with Amp Curse, CoEx and imp CoEx. Neither of those abilities are even on my spell bar. I do not PvP..ever. If I threw the 5 points into imp Drain Life at least they'd be used =/ Also have the 3pc felheart bonus that increases Life Drained...hmm might actually be worth it.

What say you my friends?

Edited, Jul 11th 2006 at 5:30pm EDT by deathsmistress

without felheart and around +200 dmg gear, i speced affliction with improved drain life and drain 115 a second. with CoS, its 120-130. with felheart i can see this skill shining. remember, even though it doesnt do as much dmg as shadow bolt, it DOESNT break fear and heals u for as much dmg as ur doing. its very usefull against mages who tend to nuke u b4 u can get a fear off. my advice, stick to shadow bolt and use drain life only when u have to. i think it kicks *** but doest match the raw dps of shadow bolt. ive tried draintanking+fear in pvp, enemies tend to hit u for way too much dmg to drain tank. plus they have spell interuption =(. i would consider using this skill if it had better range. enemies tend to run out of its 24 yard range faster than sb's 36 yard range (varies on build).

Ermm... CapitolG, I hate to say that, but you're absolutely correct about the mana regeneration. But only while playing your Priest. For Warlocks it's eve worse than you described, which only emphasises your point ;)

The formula for Warlocks is something like: mana/tick = (Spirit / 5) + 8. Others say the fixed amount may be 15, but I wouldn't know how to exactly confirm either value (not that it mattered anyway). Combine that with a Spirit stat of about 180 (woohoo, with Nemesis and Staff of Shadowflame^^) and you see that this talent is not really worth the points, even if it finally got fixed. Just because the tooltip is similar to Spirit Tap (a truly awesome talent) doesn't mean that it's as effective for an in fact entirely different class.

Edited, Aug 22nd 2006 at 10:59am EDT by skerbl

imp. drain soul is worth it IMO if you do pvp. one of the biggest problems i have pvp is my mana pool, and having to find time to rec. also it doesn't regen at 50% for the first 5 seconds, it goes straight to the 100% bonus (96 mana / tick for me that is) it also isn't to hard getting the killing blow in pvp, SB then rank.1 drain soul ftw ^^

"Improved Firestone
Utter, utter crap. Firestones are a joke item as it is, taking away your ability to use a staff (essential to a lock for +sta) and granting a good but not great bonus to fire damage. Unless youre a full Destro lock with Conflagrate, fire isnt a big component of your damage output, but if you're that far into Destro you dont have enough talents left to get this one. The dps boost is small even if you are some bizarre firelock, and there are plenty of powerful offhand items you could and should be using instead even if you hate staves. Complete rubbish, if youve bought this PLEASE respec."


Hate to say this, but you're wrong.

Firestones, at the least, CAN be equipped together WITH a staff, and I've been doing it since I obtained the ability; Crescent Staff's already nice damage (we're talking about a staff with incredibly useful stat bonuses, here,) coupled with the occasional activation of the Firestone's effect, plus its effect on my Immolate spell (DoT at the start of the fight, for me, is usually Corruption -> Curse of Agony -> Immolate) makes for quite a useful setup, for the time being; I rarely have found any wands worth slotting in alternatively, and yes, I get in and melee with my pets. So sue me.

The Firestone works with staves because it is equipped to the Ranged slot, not the offhand slot.

Allow me to show you a screenshot to prove my point.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i216/DunasRNG/FirestoneStaves.png



Edited, Jan 10th 2007 12:06pm by DunasRNG

You have a valid point. However, this is still linked in the sticky thread "Warlock Guide, FAQ, Read This First!" (http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/class.html?wclass=9;mid=1124389002262539359;num=43;page=1), and I felt that if it was going to be pointed out in such a way, it should not contain such inaccurate information.

SInce you didn't bother to check the date of the OP, let me clue you in. Nov 15th 2005. At that time, Firestones and spellstones used the off-hand slot. Just because you're new, doesn't mean that you know everything. At the time of the original post, what Sinstralis posted was absolutely correct. Firestones were crap, and improving them was utter, utter crap. Things have changed, but that doesn't make Sinstralis wrong - just out-of-date.

Boy, a lot of this is out of date, I hope you haven't taken everything by heart.

For some changes you've got:


Affliction

Improved drain soul:
Now returns 15% of your TOTAL mana, just by being draining it's soul when it dies by you (or your pets) hand. Very good for grinding, and it helps you get good piles of shards you can then use at whim. It also adds a 10% threat reduction to your affliction spell damage, which is nice when raiding, teamed up or just using your pet to tank for you.

Improved curse of Agony:
Is now 5% damage increase per talent point, max 2. If you are going to be using CoA constantly for kiting and dealing all the damage you can it can be worth it.

Shadow Embrace:
A new talent that adds a melee damage debuff to your enemies attacks, you can put 1 point into it, as the extra affliction effect will make your drains more powerful if you got Soul Siphon talent. Not much worth it to put more than that 1 point into it thought.

Malediction:
A talent that improves your spell resistance curses by 1% damage by point, not much. It buffs direct damage and that deep into affliction you won't be using much of that, could be used in a group setting, but then again, would only make a good difference in a raid group and then, the mob has to receive a lot of direct damage to manage to make it useful. You'd have to be very keen on raiding and debuffing to get this.


Demonology

Improved Health Funnel:
Now adds to the life transferred and lowers the life taken from you making it a good talent. Some people favor it, I personally would never take it, there are better and more useful talents out there, if you are a careful warlock you won't be needing this.

Fel Intellect:
Now increases the pet's intellect by up to 15% making his crit chance and his mana go up a notch, and also adds a little 3% to your mana, which is kind of anecdotal but it's there nevertheless. When combined with fel stamina and Demonic Knowledge will up not only your pets life and mana but your spell damage by a noticeable amount.

Master Conjuror:
Replaces improved firestone and improved spellstones. You'd have to be at least Conflagrate spec destro for this talent to be half useful, the spell damage only applies to fire (destruction spells thus) and the extra crit chance is not that big, could still be useful if you rely on crits (destruction once again). Not a very great talent if you ask me, even when destruction specced.

Destruction

Improved Firebolt:
Its supposed to work right now and 2 points will turn the imp into a firebolt gattling gun which may cause some impressive dps.


The other comments were right, and the talents which haven't been mentioned around here are generally all right.

Edited, Jan 29th 2007 8:59am by Azatodeth

Love the imp pvp tactic :P improved firebolt with destruction = aaaww!