Few ?'s for the experienced locks....Follow

So... IM level 48 with my affliction Lock now and loving it. I do great dps, kill anything 4 levels or so above me w/o problems and hardly ever lose life, or mana (thx dark pact).

but i have a few questions that i kinda need answers or advice on...

1. IS the Drain Mana spell really this useless? i drain 99 mana/sec it says right now. And i only have 3300 mana. But.... when i do actually find a caster type to fight... and throw up my Drain Mana ability (after ive thrown on my dots) it very slowly adds absolutley no mana back to my pool (it seems). in fact, i probably barely even break even with the mana it costs to use it, i think. My Drain Life is Awesome-O but this spell just doesnt seem to give me a good % of mana back. Why is this? **and its not b/c of interupt b4 you ask.

2. Why use any other curse besides CoA? CoA for me does on avg 700 Dmg with my bonus's. Even MORE with Amp curse before it (like 1k?) That's A LOT of dmg for me vs a mob. Curse of Shadow/Corruption doesnt even come close to adding an xtra 700 dmg. And Curse of Tongues/Curse of Weakness is hardly worth using. Do you guys use other curses? and why?

3. Curse of Recklessness...... what is this even good for? it seems i wasted money again.... b/c ive never once used it. Why would i want something to hit me (or the tank) harder? a measely AR reduction is hardly worth it when melee type chars have things like armor ignore, etc... and it -700CoAdmg and -FEar. Why do you guys(if)even use this?
- Are some of these spells just filler and useless? you know.... Hellfire... CoR.... Detect Invis? Or am I just not using them right?

4. When does my Felhunter become a viable replacement for my blob? Will it ever do significant dmg? I usually just use passive imp for xtra mana pool or blob if i need crowd control/tank.

5. For all you UNDEAD guys n gals out there.... Does your Will of Forsaken work very well? Not sure why but i can never get it to work right... You can use this while afflicted by the spell/ability right? Any time im ever paralyzed/cant move/feared the 1st thing i do is hit my WoF hotkey.... I see it come up.... and it does nothing really. I still have no control of my character.. I know it doesnt work when you get Sapped and stuff.... but it never seems to help w/ anything. Maybe im just getting Stunned alot, and not charmed,feared,or sleep?


Thanks in advance, and sorry for the complaining
(I really do like locks i swear, LoL)

-Chloroform

Pretty much, yeah.


The various curses are useful in different situations. Tounges is is good in both PVE and PVP for casters, recklessness (rank 1) is good for stopping runners and for controlling feared targets, exaustion is good for kiting/running away in both PVE and PVP, shadows/elements is good for helping other casters, doom (especially when amped)is amazing for anything that lives for more than 1 minute.


It's good for stopping runners in PVE. It's mostly useless when solo as you can hit things from range, but it's good in instances to keep running from pulling more mobs. Just throw out a rank 1 CoR when the mob is at low health to keep it from running.

It's also good for controlling feared mobs. If you cast fear, and then cast CoR, the target stops running but the fear is not dispelled. That means when the target gets close to you again you can cast a different curse (to get rid of CoR) and the target will start running again.


Most spells have at least some practical use, but there are some stupid ones as well. I can't even remember the last time I used things like hellfire or soulfire.


Felhunter is mostly useless in PVE but it totally owns in PVP.

Most of th time Drain mana is useless. However, I've found it useful against mobs that heal, like those paladins in Strat. Without mana they are dead meat.


Curse of Shadow and Curse of Elements are mainly for grouping to up the entire group's DPS, not only yours.


I use it to stop runners from going off and bringing back their buddies.


They are (like most spells) conditional.


When you are fighting casters, the felpup is the absolute best choice of minion.

Hmm, a couple of the responses here makes me wonder if "I'm doin it wrong"

I use my felpup quite a lot in PvE. I usually drain tank and while the succy is nice for that I like the additional durability of the felpup if things go wrong. I also like the tainted blood effect to lessen the effect of mobs beating on me.

So is there something I'm missing about the succubus? Should I be doing something differently?

And back to the original post - what is CoR good for? One word. Murlocs. (I'll usually use a different curse to start off with and throw CoR on just when it's going to run if I need to. But again, given the above, I could totally be doing it wrong.)

I use my imp when draintanking, the fireshield, increased stamina, and the fact that it has the highest mana regen of all pets help alot for Dark Pact. I dunno if that's normal but it works pretty well for me.

I am going to have to disagree with the comments about the felhunter being useless in PVE.
Felhunter is invaluable in boss fights, especially ones that cast Polymorph and Fear, or any other anti-buff. Dont bother using him for fighting, because his attacks are slow (except in PVP). Of course, it is less useful if you are not Demonology speced, because you do not get any resistances off of it.
Typically, my felhunter and voidwalker outlive all my other minions during those boss fights; but now a days, sacrificing a voidwalker for a boss is more health-efficient.
I used a voidwalker for my soloing minion for a really long time, until I finally got a felguard. So, yours is probably the one with which you are stuck, if you are doing PVE more than PVP.

1. Drain Mana's usefulness is really dependent on how you use it. It's not really meant to restore your mana, because just like you said, it doesn't restore that much. It's meant to drain mana; the fact that you get a little back is just a nice bonus. Use it with that in mind.

2. Agony has to run its full course to get that nice damage. Tongues is good for casters, Exhaustion is good for runners and kiting, Curses of Shadow and Elements are good for instances and raids, etc. Each has its potential...except maybe Weakness.

3. Curse of Recklessness, at least for me, is great for the Yo-Yo technique (applying and overwriting Recklessness while a mob is in Fear, making the mob move back and forth over and over. If you do it right, it can make Fear in instances a much more useful tactic, and it's pretty funny to watch). It also stops runners, which can be very helpful.

4. Felhunter is a primarily PvP pet.

5. Some of the Warlock spells are pretty useless, like Hellfire. Detect Invisibility, Eye of ???, Underwater Breathing, etc. all have their utility uses.

I'll agree that the Puppy is only good in PVE against enemies that do nasty Magic Effects. Keep him on Passive and use his Devour Magic (not autocast) when you need to knock off an obnoxious buff.

For any form of Drain Hunting, though, the VW is a much better option (Consume Shadows, 8500hp, 10k armor, decent Taunts.) Main problem with Void is that he has few emergency options (other than, of course, Sacrafice which is very handy.)

Still, I find the killrate with VW to be subpar to the multiple-engaged fear juggling I do with my Imp as a Mana battery. 10-12 kills per minute is nice =)

Did you have Spell Lock on auto-cast?

If you did then it was probably on cooldown so it couldn't. It's got something like a 25 second cooldown.

Thing with the puppy is that if you have Spell Lock on auto cast and you send it at something with a mana bar, the first thing it does is case Spell Lock. So it's on cooldown when you really want it used.

They are mostly covered but here's my two pennys worth

1. Yes it is useless in pve better to life tap and drain life. Limited use in pvp for draining casters.

2. Once you get unstable affliction CoS is nice. My standard when I was affliction was sent in voidy, unstable affliction, curse of shadows, corruption, syphon life, life tap, drain life, next target rinse and repeat.

3. As other's have stated stopping runners. I use it if I think my mob is going to run into a bunch more, can be a life saver.

4. I only use my felhunter for pvp, but as someone mentioned it could be good for bosses that do polymorph and such.

5. Not to sure what the problem is with your WoF is, mine breaks fear just fine.

Someone finally mentioned it in passing, but if you're rolling with a group, the reducded armor from CoR can far outdo the damage of CoA or anything else.
Also, assuming you have a tank (you do have a tank, right?) their armor will be so high they won't even notice the extra damage.

Edited, May 19th 2008 3:23am by Claritizzle