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- Dark Pact = Life Tap not being needed
Dark Pact = Life Tap not being needed Follow
6 posts
I've been Aff for a while now, and love DP. In fact, it seems like there's no need at all for Life Tap as long as I am that far into the Aff tree. I primarily use my Imp, on passive, and if Fear is not usable, just drain life, faster than the mobs can hurt me. Then, DP DP. Yet, lots of builds recommended by folks with more experience than I have include both DP and the 2 LT talents. I mostly solo. My guess is that harder instances use up mana lots faster and DP just is not enough to stay chock a block in mana. But, we are gonna have to wait for healers/mages to drink water anyway, it would seem. By then, my Imp would be recharged for more DP DP.
didn't read what you wrote, just the title.
No. darkpact is not a complete replacement for lifetap, or at least not in boss fights in instances, specifically raid instances. depending on talent choices and gear choice, a complete emptying of your imp's mana will give between 40 and 70% of your total mana back, so still leaving plenty to be life-tapped if needed. DP will cover most of your needs but there will still be times when you need to lifetap, though i can think of a few group scenarios which could lead longer gaps between needing to DP, so possibily making it cover all your needs.. (Spriest/+resto shammy + BoW/+ JoW)
No. darkpact is not a complete replacement for lifetap, or at least not in boss fights in instances, specifically raid instances. depending on talent choices and gear choice, a complete emptying of your imp's mana will give between 40 and 70% of your total mana back, so still leaving plenty to be life-tapped if needed. DP will cover most of your needs but there will still be times when you need to lifetap, though i can think of a few group scenarios which could lead longer gaps between needing to DP, so possibily making it cover all your needs.. (Spriest/+resto shammy + BoW/+ JoW)
Like Jenova said, while dark pact may be all you need for leveling/questing/farming, in raids it'll never give you back enough mana to completely replace life tap. At endgame you're likely to have 3-4 times more mana than your imp, and if you're in a state of constant casting (i.e. fighting a raid boss), dark pact alone usually isn't enough.
Edited, May 30th 2008 8:40pm by Karlina
Edited, May 30th 2008 8:40pm by Karlina
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35 posts
in addition to the previous 2, i find that when using a VW, his mana regen is too slow for you to drk pact successfully. agreed when using an imp on passive in an instance, you can use it because imps mana regen is huge, but VW (which i assume as an affliction lock is your go to guy) doesnt regen fast enough and with mana he wont be able to gen enough threat.
Quote:
in addition to the previous 2, i find that when using a VW, his mana regen is too slow for you to drk pact successfully. agreed when using an imp on passive in an instance, you can use it because imps mana regen is huge, but VW (which i assume as an affliction lock is your go to guy) doesnt regen fast enough and with mana he wont be able to gen enough threat.
If you're using dark pact quite a bit, you should be drain tanking, not drain hunting, so you'd use your imp, not your voidwalker.
If you use a voidwalker, it is more like: DoT, DoT, DoT, life tap, drain life, read Sunday paper. You let the dots tick away and you would not ever use dark pact because doing so would mean your voidwalker couldn't tank, and without being able to tank, his only use is to bubble you (at the cost of a shard)... in which case you're still drain-tanking... just by necessity instead of design.
Dark Pact's usefulness depends strongly on your "flow", meaning the way the frequencies of your Imp's mana regen and your Dark Pact casting work together.
In situations against instance trash and solo'ing, certainly you ought not to ever need to LifeTap since you'll only need to DP sparingly and thus your Imp has time to regenerate its mana. It also works wonders for drain tanking, and even PvP sometimes.
And you can say to anyone paying attention: "And you think locks are OP? Infinite mana FTW, lol!"
=D
But in larger trash pulls, drain hunting or bosses that are on or near your level, there's no way; your Imp will just become a slight extension of your mana bar. You will be forced to LifeTap or watch your dps plummet.
Ultimately, to maximize your potential, you need to balance use of LifeTap and Dark Pact (it'll also help healers, as they'll be less likely to waste mana on you "keeping you alive").
In situations against instance trash and solo'ing, certainly you ought not to ever need to LifeTap since you'll only need to DP sparingly and thus your Imp has time to regenerate its mana. It also works wonders for drain tanking, and even PvP sometimes.
And you can say to anyone paying attention: "And you think locks are OP? Infinite mana FTW, lol!"
=D
But in larger trash pulls, drain hunting or bosses that are on or near your level, there's no way; your Imp will just become a slight extension of your mana bar. You will be forced to LifeTap or watch your dps plummet.
Ultimately, to maximize your potential, you need to balance use of LifeTap and Dark Pact (it'll also help healers, as they'll be less likely to waste mana on you "keeping you alive").
ktangent wrote:
If you're using dark pact quite a bit, you should be drain tanking, not drain hunting, so you'd use your imp, not your voidwalker.
This.
From my experience with both styles, it does seem that drain hunting is a bit faster xp/hour. It's easier to chain pull through a zone for grinding. With that said however, drain tanking is a bit more fun to me and as a style translates directly to Battleground. The speed that you can drain-hunt through a zone is in large part due to Life Tap.
I use both methods as affliction spec: Drain hunting for grinding or drop quests ("Find me 300 of these feathers from those Owl-Beasts over there"), and drain tanking for taking out elites or, obviously, hitting the Battlegrounds where Life-Tapping is more dangerous.
Using either method I still use Life Tap though. Life Tap is really there for efficiency. You can move more quickly with it than without it (see Elitist Jerks for the theorycraft). That's not to say that you "need" it to be successful. Just helps kill stuff faster and it's just too useful a talent (Improved Life Tap) to bypass in any warlock build, IMO.
Happy hunting.... err... or tanking!
if you want the fastest leveling method. go afliction with voidy's taunt on manual (to save mana). basically just send him at a mob, taunt once, dot up the mob, send him to next, taunt once rince and repeat. by the time he looses hate the mob is nearing death, voidy hasn't taken to much damage and has loads of mana to self heal. also make sure to get a drain-soul rank.1 into every mob before it dies for both loads of shards for using on HSs (means less reccing) and for the imp. drain soul proc.
mix in a voidy aoe taunt for when needed and you can literally chain pull mobs all day without reccing due to sharing the damage with your voidy at roughly the ratio of 60-70% damage taken by him, 30-40% by you. also with good use of range alot of the time each mob is in combat is spent moving from voidy to you
mix in a voidy aoe taunt for when needed and you can literally chain pull mobs all day without reccing due to sharing the damage with your voidy at roughly the ratio of 60-70% damage taken by him, 30-40% by you. also with good use of range alot of the time each mob is in combat is spent moving from voidy to you
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