Priest complaints about warlocks?Follow

There was this post in the warlock forum. A warlock got kicked from a group for using Life Tap due to the Priest's complaint. I think that perhaps a few priests should also post in that thread, since I said that the priest should have been the one booted, not the warlock.

I totally agree. I was Healing an instance when the lock was life taping through the entire instance all the time (even when he still have 50%+ mana). There was a time when I couldn't tell if he had gotten aggro and was taking damage or just life taping. Eventually he died because i was getting close to OOM when he started taking damage and I thought he was just life taping. He then blames me when he died and try's to get me kicked. I am just glad that the leader knew what was happening and just kicked him. lol

I think Life Tap is great but try to use it when you need it and also know that you wont pull aggro from anyone.

Ok not quite sure where that angry rant came from but the point here isn't that priests don't like warlocks. I don't hate warlocks at all, they do great damage and are a great addition to any raid. My point is you have to learn how to play your class in a group/raid setting and more often then not life tap does not fit into that setting. Especially when you are doing it mid-fight and demanding a healer's attention.

In 5-mans I really don't care if they life-tap and I usually tell them to go ahead (I'll throw renews on them). In raids, our lock usually calls out in vent "life-tapping" just so we don't worry about his health as if he was taking damage. Most locks life-tap and then get back their own health with the life-drain. It is that sustainable mana regeneration method that makes them great in raids, imho. I like that the lock can be in the tanks' group for the bloodpack and not need the VT mana return as much as mages et al.

The thing is, if you just talk to the locks to let them know what to expect and so that you know their style ... this probably would not be an issue.

Edited, Aug 23rd 2007 4:24:01pm by Velluna

Life tap is fine for a warlock to do in groups. Just don't be stupid about it. I put on a renew if I see a warlock lifetapping.

I don't carry mana potions, and I don't ask for water. For a 'lock, that's utter stupidity, and a waste of bag slots. I carry Health potions, and I carry bandages. For warlocks, health = mana. It's the same reason that 'locks don't roll need on mana restoration gear. THEY DON'T NEED IT! It's only the shortsighted who see a warlock's strengths as "lack of preparation". Perhaps you should try learning a few things about warlocks before you start spouting off your uninformed mouth.

Ok, once again not quite sure why all locks are throwing temper tantrums tonight but whatever, on with the argument.



You don't carry mana pots? Instead you carry health pots. So with LifeTap at a 1:1 trade-off ratio you prefer to cast spells so that you are down to 50% mana, then life-tap to 50% health, and then drink a health potion when you could've simplified the whole process by just drinking a mana pot in the first place? Forgive me for not finding any logic here.

Basically what you are saying here is you refuse to maximize your DPS because in the end it will cost you a meager amount of gold in order to acquire mana pots. That is the exact attitude that gets locks kicked out of guilds, which was my original argument.

And about the bag slots, what in the world does that have to do with playing your class well or justifying not taking mana pots? If you can't find enough room in your bags pace for 10-15 mana pots (thats 3 empty slots) then well, you seriously need to throw some things out.



I'm sorry but any mana user who doesn't bring mana pots on a raid is unprepared whether they be a lock, mage, priest, pally, hunter, shammy I don't care.

Now as far as my uniformed mouth, I have a lot of raid experience working with warlocks and I happen to know quite a bit about them. I looked up your guild on wowjutsu.com only to find out that your guild has no BC raid experience so we are clearly arguing from two very different standards here. I'm sorry but there is a vast difference between being a level 70 and being an experienced, skilled, and informed player. You may not agree with my opinions but it isn't often that my statements are "uninformed".

Edited, Aug 24th 2007 4:50:49am by MookusOU

Edited, Aug 24th 2007 4:53:50am by MookusOU

Being a warlock, I always carry both health and mana pots (and drinks and food). If I get hit so I am low on health (below 50%) AND low on mana I don't want to life tap to be able to go on dishing out damage. Mana pot, and Drain Life does the trick. Then maybe a Life Tap.

Always relying on being able to convert health to mana is a bit short sighted on my opinion. Always relying on a heal is also short sighted. Always relying on having drinks is short sighted, therefore I also carry food so that I can Life Tap and EAT if I don't have bandages/drinks. I also carry drinks because sometimes the healer doesn't have enough with him (5 mans), so I can give mine to someone that doesn't have the options I have as a warlock. One of my services as group support :-)

And, during a fight, regardless of being hit or not, as long as the tank is there, I do not expect to be healed. Not even a renew when I Life Tap.

One more thing, I get a bit annoyed when the healer heals me between fights because I Life Tap/Bandage (which is a lot quicker than drinking), because the healer just drank and is wasting mana on me. I normally tell the healer to forget me inbetween fights.

This is really me, so you know who I am.

Life Drain and Siphon Life (especially Life Drain, horrible dmg/casttime) are wastes of debuff spots if you're running at the cap. Hence, warlocks will NEED heals from healers, and destro locks especially. And while I don't have the experience of some other people, I'm fairly confident that 3 warlocks life tapping for 7k every minute is not going to break a healer's mana pool.

There is a cap for debuffs? :D

Not entirely relevant to the thread, but I was healing SLabs a couple of days ago, people had to leave and we got some more, including a holy paladin. We agreed for him to do most of the healing and me to heal in emergencies and spend the rest of my mana on the small amount of dps I could put out. Anyway, I simply could not get rid of my mana before any of the mobs died, so I told the warlock that she could life tap as much as she wanted, use the most mana-intensive damage spells, and I would heal her, as it would be a more efficient use of my mana to contribute to the damage being dealt.

As it happened, she was affliction, and also didn't even get close to using up all her mana before everything was dead, so we didn't bother with my mana battery plan (btw are all affliction warlocks this efficient?).

Usually, I don't mind it when locks life tap during battle. They can look after themselves, as has been stated, and if I'm not busy and have plenty of mana I will heal them, never a gheal, but a renew or a flash sure. Also them being damaged from life tap contributes to my decision on whether to prayer of healing or not (I don't care what anyone thinks, I am still obsessed with this spell I love it to bits). Ultimately warlocks, like everyone else, should just be aware of what's going on. If I'm wanding (or worse, casting an actual damage spell!) then feel free to yell at me to fill up your mana, but if I'm bouncing heals off the MT constantly, while trying desperately to control my threat, then your mana = your problem.

According to wowwiki:

"Affliction Warlocks are the masters of killing an opponent at a distance while someone else does all the heavy lifting. With spells like Siphon Life and Drain Life, even your opponent helps you out a bit. Affliction warlocks are patient folk with some even taking a load off while their DoTs kill their target who is presently engaged with the Warlock's Voidwalker. Though some fights can take long enough to resolve, the efficiency of this tree allows the Warlock's mana to regenerate while the target dies."

Furthermore,

"Efficiency: While it is possible to finish a fight quickly, you don't have to. You also don't want to, because you're thinking ahead to the next fight, and the one after that. After applying DoTs, an Affliction Warlock will alternate Life Tap and Drain Life instead of using Shadow Bolt to help speed up the impending doom of your target. With Improved Life Tap and Improved Drain Life, you will net positive gains in both health and mana, all while doing around the same damage as a single Shadow Bolt. Doing this takes longer (6-7 seconds for the combo vs 3 seconds for Shadow Bolt), but you will be able to jump right into the next fight with no hesitation."

And lastly, about Affliction Warlock Mana Efficiency, a comparison to Destruction:

"Lack of mana regeneration [for Destruction Warlocks]: While affliction locks can tap their pets for mana and demonology locks are quite mana efficient, destruction locks have no way to regenerate mana other than by drinking, and you will be drinking A LOT. The only way to get around this is to take the improved drain (soul and life/mana) and life tap talents from the affliction tree to be able to regen mana reliably."

I think it's safe to assume that most Affliction Warlocks are indeed that mana efficient, Vyth.