Noob lock tipsFollow

Feral

See that is kinda the trick. One could probably argue that one tree is more efficient than another for leveling in terms of pure exp/hour. Affliction thus far to me seems very low on downtime (all of 7 talent points spent woohoo), but then again I'm used to my mage who was a huge mana hog for most of his life.

The "problem" (which it isn't, really) is that the difference in leveling efficiency isn't going to be so much that it cuts the time to 70 in half or anything so drastic. Thus we could say (simply for argument's sake) that aff is the way to go for leveling; but if you hate the small-yellow-number, trickling-life-away style, 1-70 is going to seem VERY long no matter how short it is.

PS...what's wrong with an orc warlock? Never rolled horde, so I haven't a clue about orc racials.

Edited, Oct 1st 2007 12:43pm by AynLoD

Orc Warlocks have wonderful racials.

Blood Fury
Activate to increase attack power and spell damage/healing by an amount based on level/class for 15 seconds, and decreases healing done to the user by 50% for 25 seconds. The cooldown is 2 minutes.

Hardiness
Increase resistance to stun effects by 15%.

Command
Pet damage increased by 5%.

More damage from your pets, a nice boost to your spell power when you need it, and 15% extra stun resistance to help in fights against Rogues. What's not to love?

Orc is fine.

People, pls don't rate down a noob just because they asked a question you consider "obvious" - they don't. Yes, they could have read the Compendium, but yes, they may not have found the answer they were seeking there!

It's not perfect.

OP, noob warlock tips:

Read Compendium - prepare to "drain hunt" when you get the spells. You get VW pet at lvl 10 (quest).

Until then, "ping pong" w/ your imp. Start fight w/ imp. Use your soft dots, CoA and Cor - then pull target off your imp before he dies w/ immolate and shadowbolt. The target divides his damage between you and imp. Works like a charm, provided you "get" how to keep imp from dying (even then you'll win the fight).

Learn to dot and fear stuff when you get fear. THere are places where this works like a charm, and places where the feared critter just runs around agroing five other monsters - and you die.

At lvl 10 get vw and hunt behind him, letting him taunt. Sic him while casting your soft dots, like coa and cor. After he lands a taunt, you can immolate - then wand.

When you get the spells - you'll want to actually "drain hunt" - sic vw while casting coa and cor. Let him land two taunts (to help him keep agro). Do immo, tap self to up mana to near-full - drain target to heal self to near full. You can hunt fast w/ no downtime or little downtime this way. Again, read compendium for better and more complete info on this.

Imp corruption in aff tree is the most practical early talent. Saves time, lets you cast cor while running - it is instant!

Learn to fight according to terrain.

Don't mindlessly send the VW out every time. If there is a target rich environment, and you sic the Vw on the target - his pals will wander by and "add" to the fight. Unless you are geared and talented enough to handle this, you will have to run or die.

Wait for a target to wander a bit away from the others, then zap him with a light dot, like CoA. Let him get to you - be standing in a "safe" area not rich with monsters. Then sic vw. Let VW get agro (land two taunts) and finish dotting.

Don't forget healthstones. Anytime you die and find a healthstone sitting in your bags unused - bad lock! Stay buffed (the purple shiedl - demon skin or armor). Don't fret over gear at low lvls, but sta and int gear is the best for a low lvl lock. Many people say go +sp dam - imho this is overrated until you get higher. That said, a lock at lvl 29 in bg w/ a FULL set of +sp damage can lay down some serious smack. He's easy to kill - low health pool - but if he sneaks up on you, you're in trouble.

Learn to trust your dots. Learn to pace yourself. Locks can fight multiple targets - dots continue to work - and we can do awesome things. A lot of young locks find it hard because many lock techniques require a bit of patience and/or self-discipline. It's hard for people to wait every fight for hte VW to land his second taunt. But if you master this, you have mastered drain hunting, and it's an excellent way to grind. Drain tanking is better (you can start this, oh, about lvl 20? It requires some okay-ish gear imho - or that you fight low yellows (which is not a bad idea - grind/questing low yellows can be very good exp/hr gain!) - read compendium), but drain hunting is perfectly okay.

Hehehe good tip.
If I hate something its farming shards.... I keep 28 pouch full always but if it happens I go help some badly geared group, one instance can eat through 40-50 shards like nothing. And I so hate if I cant cast another SB but have to drain instead.

Wands are your friend if you are low level or specced destro. Destro 'locks are the ones that have to have downtime between bouts to drink some mana juice. In most cases, a spell does more damage (and DPS) than any wand. When you get to higher levels, choose a wand for the stats it provides, not the damage.

Don't worry about saving mana. That's what Life Tap is for. Remember that Stamina = health, Intelligence = mana pool, and health = mana. +Spirit gear is useless to a warlock. Leave that for the priests and mages.

FTFY

Unless you're talking about a pre-Evocation macro that swaps into all-spirit gear just for that moment.

It's stupid to burn your mana, risk your health, and waste time with global cooldowns. Wanding prevents you from killing yourself and is, overall, more efficient both in time and survival. Affliction is actually the first thing I think of when it comes to Wanding. Affliction's Shadowbolts aren't that strong... it's just a waste of re-applied DoT's and debuffs for them. Wanding is nearly the same as Bolting, and at the extremely low levels, your wand actually has higher DPS.

When I think Destro, I think BOLT BOLT BOLT OOM BOLT BOLT BOLT OOM. Which is why it's a ****** leveling spec. It lacks efficiency. With Affliction, you start with your Voidwalker tanking. You throw on DoT's and Wand, and you're almost always at top shape in the end. Then, you get Succubus and you can "Drain Tank" while she melees. Then... you get Dark Pact and you still use Succubus, but you take Lash of Pain off autocast and let her melee while you steal her mana. You'll end the fight with near full health and mana, every time, and you'll take mobs down fast.

Why I bring up wands is, you have a tank in groups. Tanks make it to where you can use a Shapeshifted Imp and steal Mana like a hoe. You can Wand for one of three reasons: you are controlling your level of threat, Shadow or Fire is resisted, or using a Wand allows you to use your AoE's more, preferably your incredibly expensive Hellfire, since Dark Pact isn't enough to cover a wholesome spam alone.

Life Drain, even at 40, still barely scrapes up enough Health to justify its use. Life Tap at 40 is 255 Mana with Improved Life Tap, and the inefficiency of Life Drain mixed with having to use Life Tap 3+ times makes it inefficient. Eventually, you get to a point where Life Drain gets at least 2.5x the health of Mana spent, and you won't have to spam Life Tap to get things done.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2007 6:16pm by Ignuus

Edited, Oct 2nd 2007 6:17pm by Ignuus

Are you not using bonus damage gear?
My Drain Life produces no less than 100 health more than the cost of Life Tap. My Drain Life deals almost twice the damage as it does without bonuses. My goal is to out-live my opponent, not see how much mana I can save. It's perfect;y alright to lose your health, if it gives you the edge you need-- no other class can convert their health to mana like we can, and then get it right back to use against them.
Sometimes, I'll even use Life Tap while being directly assaulted, and in those times, I have never died as a direct result of doing so. I have won a lot of fights because my mana seldomly goes below 40%.

Getting a high level to "power you through an instance" is the equivalent of being a parasite. You may get XP, but you'll never get experience. Given the rest of your post, Ignuus, I'm fairly certain that it's the most probable reason that you have no idea on how the warlock class actually operates. If the "high level powering you through dies", it's most likely your fault. So suck it up, noob.

Possibly the BEST post I've read on here (that I didn't ask for :o)).

I currently have three mates trying to level fast and I've ran them through RFC, WC and BFD. But no more, they really don't have a clue how to play their characters (except the rogue - and he won't run instances!).

It's a pain in the *** getting a group for instances. At least on our server. But you have to put the effort in yourself. Getting powered through teaches you nothing and when / if you hit 70 you'll be no better than a level 20 player.

WoW is fun but it also requires work. Which is sometimes a bore, but hey, you get out what you put in.

Oh, and he's right - if the 70 died, it probably WAS your fault.

Well...if a 70 died in SFK...he was probably powered through instances himself...