help a newbie lock?Follow

I have a 21 and was wanting a quick run down of what order i should place my curses/spells on an enemy. I also have the quest for the succubus but havenot attempted it yet.



side note, i always hear that locks are very powerful. at what level do they "come alive" ?

There are some helpful tips in the sticky posts. One of them is about gameplay styles.

A lock is powerful from lvl 1 really, it just depends on the things you are trying to acchieve. General concensus is that around lvl 40ish a lock is getting really powerful, but dont think you are invincible. You can handle your fair share of enemies, but you are still a cloth wearing class.

For lower levels and solo pve, i would do voidwalker attack/agro, (corruption, coa, immolate, shadowbolt/drain_something). For higher levels voidwalker will also do the trick, though i use my imp on passive and attack everything i see with corruption, coa (sometimes cos), siphon and sometimes immolate and then run to next target and do the same thing, etc. Every now and again i will lifetap/darkpact/shadowbolt (nightfall proc) and drain health/drain soul.

Oh and if memory serves me well, the succy quests is very much doable at the lowest level possible, but not needed as much, since you'll be using vw more (i did at least)

(of course things can be done differently, all depending on what you want to do solo/pve/pvp, etc)


Edited, Aug 7th 2007 10:25am by TinyTin

I am sad to see such word in otherwise so nice and helpfull post.

This forum is not what it used to be before "I am the mighty raiding lock all the rest of you are crappy sh***y noobs" Loki and Jenova with their vocabulary full of such words started to post here regulary.

Maybe I am getting too old for this game, but lack of manners and politeness suddenly starts to bother me.


Edited, Aug 8th 2007 5:46am by Sethy

/quote
DoTting, then wanding? That's for noobs. DoT, DoT, Life Tap, Drain Life, and you'll never run out of mana. Stay away from Immolate unless you really want to pull aggro from your minion. Good closers if your Drain doesn't kill: Immolate (if the initial damage will kill), Drain Soul (if you're low on shards), wand (low damage, but usable if the target has low health). Searing Pain is also a good closer, but the damage MUST be enough to kill, or you absolutely will pull aggro.

??

Did you contradict yourself? I guess it's play style preference, but this noob never runs out of mana, nor do I carry pots except for maybe the occational health safety net. Immolate is ALWAYS my third cast, and I've been solo'in orange quests since I hit lvl 30. I don't know if it's because I'm demo spec'd, but old blue always does his part, and I never pull aggro unless the NPC is 5 lvl's higher and I try to throw shadow damage after thier less than a 1/4 health. If your health is full, and your mana is plentiful, why life tap or drain life when you can increase a skill and lvl your wand. Don't get me wrong, I have used both those casts, but then again, I've been know to charge in with my "For stats only" Illus Rob and thump a few mob on the head.

Bottom line, sure locks are powerful, but being thin skinned, you've got to know your limitations vs certain mobs, and strengths vs certain mobs. Wisdom comes from trial an error. Don't be afraid to take a walk from the graveyard if ya learn something from it....quarters not required. Oh yea, I also use fear alot, no matter where I am. If blues got more than two on him, I pull him, and the mob back a bit into a previously cleard space, then run back to where I was, putting myself a safe distance between the encountered mob, and those soon to be, then FEAR the one with the most health...9 out of 10 times he runs away from you, and by the time he gets back, it's no longer 3 on 2, but 2 on 1. It takes some timing and practice, but you'll never fear using FEAR again.


Edited, Aug 8th 2007 9:32am by Airreign

Edited, Aug 8th 2007 9:37am by Airreign

Mike, bad info can just come from lack of knowledge and you can simply state its bad and explain why. I dont see reason to call people noobs, that word is considered an insult.
There is no reason to insult someone for not knowing something even if he is trying to instruct someone else.



Immolate is amazing spell, initial damage AND DoT. Try only farming some air primals some day among 5 others doing the same and you will learn to love it.

The best closer imo is Shadowburn, but then ofc not everyone has it.

Wands are very inefficient DPS-wise. And in fact using wands to save mana is just like ohmikeghod mentioned, poor use of a warlock. (saying it's noob is kinda rude though and there is a gazillion ways to say it more politely and in a more civilized manner - do you realize that maybe, just maybe...Airreign doesn't know any better? Please be considerate before being outright rude.)

This is how I use my VW if I want zero downtime:

#1- Send Vw in and let it get the first hit and a torment in.

#2- I use my cast sequence macro that does the following sequence of spells:

Immolate, Unstable Affliction (if 50 and affliction specced), Curse of Agony, insta Corruption, Siphon Life (if affliction specced), Life Tap, Life Tap, Drain Life, Drain Life.

#3- Mob is dead and I am around 90-95% of my health and mana and am 100% by the time I start this all over again on the next mob.

As an affliction lock you have to watch your aggro - it's easy to steal it from your VW...very easy in fact...and when you do I suggest you use Death Coil or Drain Life non-stop until it dies.

If you find you pull too much aggro - remove a DoT from your cast sequence or wait until your VW is 1-2 seconds away from doing a second torment and you should be fine.

Don't be scared of using insta Howl of Fear (if specced for it) or Fear when a mob is coming for you.

Use Death coil only when low on HP or if a powerful mob is headed your way and you need to buy yourself a couple more seconds of survival to get through the fight.

Warlocks get really big boosts in power every 10 levels - just like any other class. But I would say that at 50, the warlock class really starts to shine.



I don't totally agree with this - I have been using Immolate with my pet from the beginning and trust me when I say I have tried every possible sequence of spells with my lock to make him the most effective and Immolate has been the best opener for me. At 50 - my VW's Torment and first blow generates approximately 300-350 aggro - Immolate generates around 200, by the time I am casting my 3-4 other DoTs 3 more torments have been cast and the VW is holding aggro very well. At around 85-90% of nearing death the mob will be headed my way but won't make it due to all the DoTs and drain life.

Best thing you can do to become the most efficient killer is to juggle with your DoTs and experiement with them in every order - some people might think that casting them in any order is the same - but they are very VERY wrong.

You can use macros in this game and the warlock class benefits greatly from them.

In the menu there is a Macro button - use it to your advantage, here is the macro that I always use:

#showtooltip
/petattack
/castsequence reset=target/combat/dead Immolate,Unstable Affliction,Curse of Agony,Corruption, Siphon Life,Life Tap,Life Tap,Drain Life,Drain Life

I suggest you move around while hitting it the first time since you don't want to send your pet in and cast Immolate at the same time, so...move around hit the button and your VW will go in, let it get the first blow and wait until his torment cooldown hits 3 secodns and start casting the sequence for maximum efficiency.

Thing to consider - respeccing to demonolgy at 50 will make you're life very easy while leveling/questing - at least it does for me. Your pet never loses aggro, you can use stuff like shadowbolt to kill things alot faster and you end up being able to take on multiple same level mobs at a time...EASILY. By multiple I don't mean just 2-3.

Once you get Dark Pact - this thing will be your best friend in instances. Take out an Imp and put it on passive and never use it to attack, by doing so his mana will regen very fast - as though he was out of combat and you can use Dark Pact as much as you want to keep your mana pool topped off.

The succubus quest is a long one - you're gonna walk for at least 20-30 minutes.
You need the hearts of 2 men. One is in Silverpine Forest (all the way south) and one is near the southern end of the bridge when crossing into wetlands from Arathi Highlands.

If this write up did not answer your original question, I will simplify:

Best thing to do is experiment - we don't know how you play and therefore we can't really answer that for you. Try different orders and time your kills to see which one is faster. And warlocks become alive when they can get there 41 point talents, which is 50. But generally become more powerful by a noticeable amount every 10 levels. Oh and one more thing - you shoudl always end fights with nearly full mana and hp as a warlock, always - if your not then you are doing something wrong.

Hope I helped.

I just ended fight with 5 72s on BEM plateu with 20% hp and almost no mana at all :(
But I am doing everything wrong anyway :)

Kidding..... great post.

I've found that there is another time to remove a DoT from your normal cast sequence: It's when the mobs are dying so fast that your drain life does not go to (or near) completion. When grinding experience, rep, shards, or drops, I often use only Siphon and CoA, because use of Corruption would mean that I actually lose health, instead of regain it. The same holds true when duoing - if your partner does enough damage to prevent the Drain from completing, you'll need to adjust by removing some DoTs.




I use different macros ---

#1
/Dismount
/Cast Amplify Curse
/Petattack

#2
/Dismount
/Castsequence reset=target, Siphon Life, Curse of Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, Immolate

#3
/Castsequence reset=target, Life Tap, Drain Life

The reason I have it separated into 3 macros is:

1. I want to dismount if I'm mounted and spot a mob I want to attack
2. I want to have Amplify Curse up as often as possible
3. Sometimes I don't want my pet to attack immediiately, especially when I'm pulling a mob. When I do it that way, I use Macro #1, after the pull with macro #2.
4. Switching targets for my DoTs doesn't change my pet's attack target. This is useful especially in instances when I'm using my VW as an off-tank.
5. Tabbing with Macro #2 puts Siphon Life on multiple target mobs, maximizing the amount of life gained from the spell.
6. I can stop using Macro #2 at any time and switch to macro #3 when I need to drop some DoTs

When I'm in an instance and using my imp, I'll remove /Petattack from Macro #1. The imp is normally set to passive in order to give the party the benefit of Blood Pact.

Edited, Aug 8th 2007 11:00pm by ohmikeghod

Try having your felguard offtanking and pulling aggro from main tank too, so basically having 2 mobs bashing on poor thing with only you healing it - some healers find it an insult if you ask them to sometimes if they can TRY to heal your pet.

Of course you can kill mobs faster than mage with demo, and you can take couple at once without even getting hit, and you can outdps equally geared mage easily if there isnt lot of AoEing going on.
I will not even mention difference in hp, therefore mp too.

If you are not set on going everywhere in big groups with 2-3 healers trotting along, in my opinion demo is the best build.